All Episodes
Previous Next
Oct. 31, 2024 - Truth Podcast - Vivek Ramaswamy
01:02:20
Debating Immigration: Economic Boost or National Crisis? | Sohrab Ahmari
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Last week I invited Sarabh Amari, a leading intellectual on the so-called new right, about his own evolution from being more of a classical conservative to being a conservative who frankly favors more about his own evolution from being more of a classical conservative to being a conservative who frankly favors more muscular state intervention
Turns out, though, we only scratched the surface on a few topics and we didn't get to some of the topics that I intended to dive deep in with him on, including, perhaps most importantly, immigration policy, but lurking underneath that a deeper discussion about American national identity.
And so I figured that we would continue that discussion this week, picking up where we left off last week, for diving deep into the future directions of the new right and exploring whether the so-called new right is really even one movement or itself, a collection or umbrella of movements that are united by their rejection of old-school Republican neoconservatism, but may have some deep rifts within their own views for the future of America.
And my own view is that That's exactly where we are right now, is at the bleeding edge of defining what the future of America First actually is.
You'll probably remember last week, we covered a lot of trade policy, a lot of industrial policy-related questions.
And Saurabh, I think, was braver than many, even in the protectionist America First camp, to be able to come out and say that getting rid of the administrative state is not really a desirable or achievable possibility.
As you all well know, that's something I most definitively favor, is getting rid and shutting down the fourth branch of government.
But Saurabh explained to us his view that in a modern, complex, post-industrial revolution economy, it requires some level of management and administrative oversight.
And the real focus of the conservative movement should be shaping that for the betterment of American workers and manufacturers and American interests, rather than abdicating the project altogether, which is a very different view than the one that I favor of getting in there and shutting it down.
Eyes wide open to the risks that that entails nonetheless.
So that was a great discussion, and I expect we're going to dive into some more of that relating to questions of industrial policy and trade policy.
But if you're really interested in that discussion, check out last week's episode.
What we're doing right now is diving deeper into this question of competing visions for the future of America First as it relates to immigration.
And for that, I invited Saurabh back on the podcast, and I want to say thank you, man, for taking two weeks back to back to have this free-flowing discussion.
It's my absolute pleasure.
Thanks for having me back.
I know it's unusual.
Yeah, well, I want to dive into where we last left off, but I would be remiss if I didn't note that I just was at least breezing through.
I didn't have a chance to carefully read it yet, but read most of what is a nearly 10,000-word essay you just wrote, among other topics on your experience using ayahuasca in Mexico and reconciling that or even comparing that or informing that with your Catholic faith.
And given that you put so much into that article, I thought, It might even have some, let's just say, atmospheric relationships to the discussion we're about to have on immigration.
But I thought I'd give you a chance to summarize that conversation that you had with your audience about your experience of going into tribal regions of Mexico and trying ayahuasca and what that entailed.
So maybe you could say a word about what motivated you to write that piece.
Yeah, I mean, the motivation was there's this great explosion right now of questions about psychedelic As an alternative to the conventional psychiatric care, which is failing Americans in many respects.
The conventional mental health system gorges itself on some $225 billion annually.
Rates of misery are only going up because things aren't being solved.
But, you know, so there's this idea that the indigenous peoples of the Americas hit upon these treatments, including ayahuasca, that are a way to overcome trauma and so on.
So I went with kind of curiosity about that.
And I have to say, I don't have an easy answer to say, yes, you know, it's great because I... First of all, as you mentioned, and we discussed last time, I'm a Catholic.
And when I went, I didn't realize there was a whole ceremonial aspect to it.
And I had to really struggle to think, can I even participate in the ceremonial dimension?
Because, you know, does that violate the first commandment?
Thou shalt have no other god before me.
And so I found a kind of a compromise where I would be at the ceremony and I would drink the juice or the potion, but I would not kind of participate in anything that's kind of ritual or sacramental.
And then the trip, as it were, itself was absolutely terrifying, to be honest.
Everything they say is true.
People say it's the five hardest hours of your life, this kind of ego-battering experience.
And I certainly felt that.
And at the end of it, you feel very good because it takes you to purgatory and then brings you out and you're sort of like, wow, I love life.
That said, I wouldn't easily recommend it, even though I've heard that You know, look, there are studies that show that it helps with PTSD, anxiety, depression, and other things like that.
But it's a hard thing.
And then for me, I mean, there's this kind of complexity that I grappled with.
And I'm not even sure I'm fully happy with how I resolved it.
I feel like I participated in like another religion ceremony in a way that is prohibited to Christians.
And I'm something that I'm racked with.
But I try to work it out in 10,000 words and just lay out what my thoughts were.
So that might be the best way to summarize something so long.
Yeah, well, that dimension of it, I can't leave that hanging, because I think that's actually the most interesting part of it, about whether the participation in some type of ritualistic activity like you did would be at all in tension with the first commandment.
Why would that be the case?
Well, because it depends on how you view what happens at an ayahuasca ceremony.
It's a psychedelic medicine that creates this kind of visionary state.
And there are basically maestros, they call them teachers, who also drink it and they look at you and in their visionary state, they sort of see what ails you and they sing these songs that are called Icaros that are supposed to heal you.
And there's a debate.
In this community, and it touches on, if you're a Christian, it touches on, like, whether or not it's kosher.
It's a Jewish term, but whether it's okay.
So to speak.
So to speak, yeah.
One is, you know, are they, is this kind of process merely a kind of indigenous technology, which is the manipulation of plants, energies, and intelligences that modern science has yet to catch up with?
In which case, it's kind of, it's not mystical.
It's really, it's a kind of It's a kind of unusual healing technology.
Or whether or not there's a mystical dimension to this that has to do with manipulation of plant spirits, and it's a whole indigenous American cosmology that would rival the biblical one.
And ultimately, I couldn't resolve it on my own.
There are moral theologians, Catholic moral theologians, who try to think through the use of psychedelics for therapeutic purposes, and that's okay, fine.
A lot of them have come to the conclusion that that might be fine.
Again, it's a little bit of a gray area, but nobody has weighed in on the use of psychedelic medicines in their ceremonial or ritual setting.
Yeah.
And there I felt like, well, I can't resolve this, but what I will do is I ask the maestros, the Indians, to not interact with me in that way.
And they understood your request?
Yes, yeah.
I told them that this would conflict with my deeply held beliefs.
And of course, they don't force you.
But still, after several sessions, at the very end, I thought, okay, well, this actually does...
It is a rival worldview, and that's what was terrifying about it.
And I sort of ran out of the room on the fifth one, and I said, I need to go say my own prayers.
I've come into something that's a rich cosmology.
It deserves our respect and attempt to understand it better and so on.
But I'm not at all clear that that resolution is...
One that is uncomfortable with.
You know what I mean?
Is trying on a different set of clothes you think incompatible?
As long as you sort of keep in your mind from a Catholic worldview that Christ is the Son of God and the path to truth or is the truth.
And if you have that as a fixed North Star in your faith worldview, is it really in conflict to sort of try on a different set of clothes at the same time?
Even just the practice of it without changing your conviction?
Well, look, I mean, there is this concept of natural revelation in Catholic theology.
And believe me, I thought we were going to talk about immigration, but I'm happy to get into this.
I think I would like to, but this is interesting enough.
The idea of natural revelation, at least there's natural reason which all human beings are blessed with, and that should lead you to At least to natural law and at least to the idea that there is a God, right?
That reason alone suffices for that.
But this idea of natural revelation is that somehow the unevangelized peoples of the world have been granted sort of partial access to the truth through their own ritual context.
And so, for example, there are tribes out there in Africa who are completely unevangelized whose central belief or ritual is this idea that a merciful deity comes down to their conditions and allows himself to be murdered by the community.
And this act of murder of an innocent god then becomes the principle of their communal renewal and reconciliation.
Which, of course, if you're an atheist critic of Christianity, you say, well, see, Christianity is just one more of these myths that are of the self-sacrificing deity myth.
But the concept of natural theology, which is something, for example, Pope Benedict engaged with, says, no, no, no, it's no proof against Christianity.
It just shows that the world itself at its deepest layers is cruciform, that it's imbued with this yearning for a God who sacrifices himself and And whose death alone can expiate our sins.
And that way you can sort of respect, you can approach, you can think about what these kind of indigenous practices are like and what they say about us.
But still, active participation in that for an outsider is at the very least is an uncomfortable gray zone.
And I lay out the discomfort in the piece.
Yeah, and can I just ask you a converse question, which is more or less orthogonal to even the discussion we've been having.
Do you think that the participation in Catholic ritual by somebody who does not have full belief in the actual underlying theology, does that present the same conflict to you, or is it more of a personal conflict in the other direction?
No, because I believe Catholicism is true, and so anyone who at least comes to Mass will begin to gain access to – get a taste for the sacramental life, although I should say, as you know, if you're not confirmed and you're not in communion with the Roman Catholic Church – You're not supposed to take, you know, you're supposed to eat the Eucharist for precisely that reason.
You're not in communion yet.
But lots of people do that.
I mean, you know, who come and you still, you hear the preaching, you hear the, you know, those earlier elements.
It used to be, you know, like the division was very clear in the early church.
It was called the Mass of the Catechumens, which was roughly the first half, hearing the Bible and so everyone could come in.
And then the mass for the members of the Catholic Church.
And it was like almost physically there was a sort of division between the two.
The second half was not for the catechumens.
Right.
So yeah, no, I would encourage that.
But it's only because I believe that one religion is the one true faith, to be clear.
And I definitely wanted you to bring it back to talk about immigration, but you're drawing me into such interesting subject matter that just for a couple more minutes, I want to dwell on a question.
You brought up the Eucharist, for example, and that related to a separate conversation I was having in recent days.
I get a lot of questions when I travel to these different events I'm doing across the country.
During my own campaign and even now in this latter phase of it about my own faith.
So I'm Hindu, but many people mistake that for polytheist religion.
I consider myself to actually be an ethical monotheist.
I believe there's one true God and that is the supreme being that is otherwise present in all forms, but there's one true God above.
And anyway, you know, I think one of the questions that I've sort of gotten when challenged on my faith of whether or not, is that a pagan belief set or not?
Actually, it's not pagan.
I think it is ethical monotheism is a...
Is a worldview that I think many of our founders, former presidents, have shared, and I think it's a worldview deeply consistent with that of the founding of this country.
But in the context of those conversations when challenged, one of the questions I got was, well, what are, you know, Hindus doing at temples with deities?
And I've kind of explained, well, it's kind of the equivalent to having a symbol and a crucifix at the front of a temple.
I bring up all of that for the reason that you brought up the Eucharist, and it was one question on my mind that I'd love to actually probe your thoughts on, especially because you are such a thoughtful, You know, thoughtful about your journey to Catholicism here, and you brought up the Eucharist.
What is your perspective on, you know, I guess we'll call it the doctrine or the church teaching of transubstantiation then, like the idea that the Eucharist, which you're not supposed to take until you've been baptized in the church.
But that you are eating literally at that moment.
It's not that you're eating something that's symbolic of the body and blood of Christ, but you actually are in a real sense, in that sense, eating the actual blood and body of Christ as opposed to just a symbol of it.
I thought of that in the context of, and you and I are able to have free conversations, and so I like this, but I thought about it in the context of being challenged in some of the challenging questions I got, which are like, oh, well, what are Hindus doing with deities at the temple and believing that God's in that?
I try to explain, well, that's not really what the belief is anyway, but I could have imagined in a Hindu context if you said that people get nuts and raisins, as you often do, and it was just a Hindu belief then.
The Hindus believe that there was God in those nuts and raisins that would have otherwise been dismissed as a pagan belief.
And yet, in the context of Catholic doctrine, like that is actually a pretty essential element of Catholic doctrine is that the doctrine of transubstantiation says that Catholics believe that and ought to believe that that is the body and blood of Christ.
How do you sort of resolve that framing of it as I just laid out?
Well, the The belief comes from our Lord's teaching, which is most clearly laid out in John chapter 6, where he says, unless you eat my flesh, drink my blood.
You don't have salvation.
And it was shocking at the time.
His hearers at the time were like, what is he talking about?
But the interesting thing is that when he's...
There are moments where he speaks figuratively.
He makes it clear that when he says something, he doesn't...
It's a figure of speech.
But on this one, he...
Doubles down and triples down and makes it clear that he means it literally.
And so it is a matter of faith.
Faith is a gift and...
It's something you exceed to.
It comes to you by a gift of grace.
However, in terms of then trying to explain it in subsequent centuries, the church turned to the concept of transubstantiation and just the difference between forms and substances, what's essential, what's in appearance, et cetera, drawn from Greek philosophy to try to explain it as best, as much as it can be explained in terms of natural reason.
But ultimately, you know, it is a matter of faith.
And, you know, you can, to some extent, you can reason through it as the church has by using the concept of transubstantiation and substances and appearances, this kind of Aristotelian philosophy that the church deployed.
But it can only go so far.
And there is that element of faith, right?
Yeah, it's not reason.
You can't reason your way into a faith-based conviction.
Yes, yes.
But I will say, from my own experience, when I was drawn to the Catholic Church, and this is in my early 30s, about a decade ago, I would go to Mass, and I had what's called a kind of Eucharistic hunger.
I was really...
In a way that I couldn't explain, I wanted to partake of that, and I was sort of jealous of the people who were allowed to go up and receive communion.
So, but that's, again, that's not something I can fully explain.
Yeah, right, right, right.
Right, right.
No, I've enjoyed the conversations I've had as well, being, you know, I think healthily challenged on elements of my own faith, but I Think about applying that standard I think is actually interesting universally in discussions about faith cannot be reasoned into on either side on either side of that.
However, I hope you won't ask me about Hinduism because I'll be completely honest.
It's one of the world religions that is the most sort of it's a lacuna in my reading like I Just some stereotypical things, you know?
Why don't we...
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom or something?
Well, I think, you know, I'd enjoy...
We bookmarked this conversation for immigration, so we better get there.
But maybe we'll save a future discussion about the comparisons and contrasts, perhaps, of Hindu theological structure and Catholic and more broadly Christian theological structure.
I would enjoy that because I think you are...
Deeply thoughtful about your own, the basis for your own faith convictions.
And I also happen to have been educated in Catholic school and really enjoyed and engaged with a lot of Catholic philosophy and, you know, Aquinas on down.
So we'll reserve that for future conversation we're going to have.
Let's get to where we left off last week, however, which is on the question of...
Trade and industrial policy that brought us to the doorstep now of immigration policy.
So what do you think is the right framework for America First policy to approach the question of legal immigration?
And I'll give you one more piece of backdrop from which I asked that question.
We sometimes use the vehemence of our shared opposition to illegal immigration, like all conservatives, and even many other non-conservatives too, are vehemently opposed to illegal immigration on grounds that it's a violation of the rule of law, which of course it is.
But we use the vehemence of our shared opposition to illegal immigration to obfuscate, and if we're being perfectly honest, even Sweep under the rug some deep-seated disagreements that I think we actually do have on the right about what the proper legal immigration policies ought to be.
I have my own views of what the goals of our legal immigration policies ought to be, and I can share those with you, but I first want to hear yours, right?
What do you think constitutes proper America first immigration policy when it comes to reforming our legal immigration system without necessarily delving into our ritual rejections and condemnations of illegal immigration, which we do too often?
Yep.
So I draw my views from the great reactionary sage Ann Coulter, who wrote a few years ago, wrote, quote, legal immigration has costs.
immigrants with relatively low education and skills may compete for jobs and public services with the most vulnerable of Americans, particularly those who are unemployed or underemployed jobs generated by immigrants.
Businesses do not always address this problem concentrated and or rapid entry of legal immigrants into a locality may impose immediate net costs, particularly in education funding, et cetera, et cetera.
So actually that was not Ann Coulter, as you can imagine, because the pros should have given it away.
It was so kind of wonky.
But it was a Democrat.
It was Barbara Jordan, who was a member of Congress from Texas.
She was a protege of Lyndon B. Johnson, the first African-American woman elected to the Texas state legislature since Reconstruction, and the first African-American I'm not shocked.
I'm not shocked.
Or Paul Krugman, actually.
There are immigration restrictionist columns by Paul Krugman, which I've pointed it out to him, you know, because I do this immigration.
Or even like Bernie Sanders, for that matter, who ran for president.
Of course, Bernie Sanders was the last of them.
As recently as 2015, he was saying stuff like this.
As recently as 2020, even maybe a little bit, you know, when he ran, I mean, recently as 2016, that's right, in 2020. Yeah, in 2020, they bullied, they bullied the left, the kind of progressive wing, bullied Sanders into adopting to shut up, yeah, on this issue.
So, so here's my view.
And I think from what we spoke last time, I think we may have agreement on this.
We'll see.
I think that fundamentally, the question we need to ask with immigration policy is, how does it strategically serve the interests of the United States?
In other words, the interests of the country comes before the interests of a class, of any class, especially of immigrants.
And I say that as someone who is an immigrant himself.
100%, by the way.
100%.
We're not reunifying families all the time, yet that is the basis of our immigration policy.
So there's about a million newcomers a year that are legally accepted into this country.
Of those, roughly two-thirds are various forms of family reunification, whereas only about, depending on the categories, you know, let's say 80,000 to 120,000 are employment-based legal migration.
And then you have various other categories of refugee resettlement, humanitarian assistance.
And those are, of course, in part, the United States has to do because it's bound by international law.
But my point is that the share of immigrants that we accept on the basis of what they actually add to our economy, and even those, I will get – I'll maybe argue a little bit to say that we are too loosey-goosey with it.
But assuming even all those people add to the economy is too low.
And so I favor moving towards something like a points-based or skills-based system like they have in many other comparable developed countries, like Canada, like Britain, that judges people based on what skills they bring.
And by the way, even in terms of skills they bring, we have to think, what are the things where we have to do our own workforce, native workforce development, before we turn to bringing in outsiders?
But the basic line here is a strategic immigration policy cannot be a family reunification policy.
I have been, because I do these debates on college campuses all the time, and I'm accused of hypocrisy on this front, and I'll just own up to it.
I came to this country thanks to what's called the family preference visa program, chain migration.
But at the end of the day, I then became an American.
I have, like, You know, Iran is a distant thing to me, and I care about the well-being of this country.
And even though I'm a family reunification migrant, I'll put my cards on the table and say that family reunification is not good for the common good of this country.
Because it brings in too many low-skilled migrants who I can show you study after study over their lifetimes, even if they do work, do not contribute enough in taxes to make up for the social services they use.
So, you know, number of responses.
Yeah, very good.
Number of responses to what you said.
First of all, I find that sort of personal hypocritical allegation to be completely unpersuasive and hollow and uninteresting.
I mean, just because you, you know, a lot of people on the left would say that they need to raise tax rates.
I don't think that that somebody means somebody is a hypocrite because they only paid the amount of taxes that were actually due, right?
There's a separate debate about what the laws should be versus abiding by the laws as they exist.
You see this coming up in certain circles today about early voting.
I think we need single day voting on election day as a national holiday.
Do I think Republicans should vote early in order to win this election, potentially be in a position to change those rules?
Yes, I do.
And I don't think that that's some kind of the allegation of hypocrisy to play by the rules as they exist.
But still have an alternative vision to change them to what they should be, I think is kind of unworthy of further engagement.
So next time somebody tells you that, my advice would be spend the airtime on more productive conversation about what our immigration policy should be.
On the second point, I would say that we are in deep agreement, that the sole objective of US immigration policy should be to ask the question of what advances the interests of America.
But I'd be, if I may just hone that slightly, not only in the interest of America in some vague sense, because then that runs into a circular question of what is America?
Does it include the immigrants who have come here?
Is it inclusive of them or not?
No, no, no.
I would say, what advances the interests of the American citizens who are already here?
That should actually be the sole purpose of immigration policies.
There's a class of people in America called the United States citizens.
You and I are among them, but so are many other people who aren't the kids of immigrants or themselves immigrants.
That class of people who are the citizens of the United States of America, the sole purpose of our immigration policy should ask the question of what advances the interests of those citizens who are already here.
And I think the meat of this actually comes to the separate question of what does skilled immigration actually, what ought skilled immigration look like?
But before we get there, you raise the very practical point that that's not where most illegal immigration is today anyway.
It's more chain migration or family reunification.
And though you and I come down on the same side of this question, which is that that's not really compatible with a merit-based framework for immigration, to just air the argument for the other side of both of us, right?
So I'm not on the other side of you on this, but to air the other side's argument and to maybe hear your response from it.
The most interesting version of the other side, at least, is how can people like you and I call ourselves pro-family in America to believe that the family unit is the foundational bedrock of creating a great country?
To say that somebody's going to come here as a skilled worker because they're going to add value to the U.S., But not also stand by our pro-family value set when it comes to allowing that family unit.
Either you believe the nuclear family and the family unit is the most important backbone for building a great nation, or you don't, but you can't really have it both ways when we're talking in different contexts.
What would be your response to that objection if it were raised to your and my view here?
Okay, so what would limiting – the question is what would limiting family reunification look like?
I think, for example, the Barbara Jordan Commission's – the bit that I read was from a report she did commissioned by the Clinton administration for the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, and she was the chairwoman.
And her stance was, look – Yes, Americans are family people.
There's that component of family values.
So it's about her recommendation, which I think is reasonable, though I think people maybe who are harder to my right on immigration would disagree, is only immediate nuclear family reunification.
We get that, right?
So if a husband...
Or wife comes over.
Or kids.
Or their kids.
We bring them over for jobs purposes, but they say you can't bring your family.
If you agree that they add on the skills side, but further than that, like siblings.
It goes out with many, many layers.
It's called chain migration.
I would limit that.
So I think that's just a reasonable way to...
And just very practically here, because it's a question of when the nuclear family ends, right?
Like when you're five years old, your three-year-old brother is part of your nuclear family.
At what point is your brother not part of your nuclear family on the line you would draw?
Adulthood.
18, yeah.
So if you're an adult, yeah, adult, a sibling doesn't count.
I mean, the nuclear family is, the definition of nuclear family is pretty, it's like, you know, like nowadays we have same-sex marriage, but mom, dad, kids.
Yeah, mom, dad, kids.
Nowadays we would be like dad, dad, kids as well.
I disagree with that, but it's a reality.
Yeah.
That's a separate discussion for another orthogonal to this.
And then just to finish the practical laying out of what nuclear family means, does mom, dad, kids, does that framework go away of mom and dad no longer included when you're 18 as well?
I'm sorry, can you repeat that?
Let's say you're 22. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Just because I think we use...
I'm a big fan of clarity of definitions, right?
We use the word nuclear family.
So let's just say somebody immigrates at the age of 25. I think it counts...
To me, I think it would be chain migration to say that their parents...
Just because that person becomes a naturalized citizen.
Oh, right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Of course.
No elderly parents.
I mean, that's...
Sorry, but that's a classic case of...
People who will come.
And they'll come just when they need social services without having contributed taxes.
That's pretty unfair.
And you went right to the question I was going to go to next is, how would your view on this change if there was a hard ban or prohibition on being a customer of the welfare state in any form in bringing such person?
Does that change the balance of what you believe on this question of chain migration?
It would not, because I care about the labor market effects, which would not fundamentally change that.
What I mean by labor market effect is when you bring unskilled workers to the United States, they typically have lower education and they have less bargaining power in the work.
They're more desperate, etc., etc.
When you bring them in, that puts downward pressure on the wages of native-born workers, U.S. citizens.
Let me tell you what I think is going on in this discussion, if I may, because I think we're going to track this.
One is the macro point, which I think you and I agree with, is we use the vehemence of our opposition to illegal immigration to confound our disagreements on this question of legal immigration.
But I think there's a second layer of that waterfall that's also happening, which we use the effect of this chain migration in the dominant form of legal immigration in this country that you and I are both opposed to.
To use that to confound something else that's going on in this debate that we're not actually willing to usually smoke out, but I'd like to with you if you're willing.
Which is that, yes, okay, there's too much chain migration.
You and I agree on that.
But that confounds a really separate lurking debate too, which is this question about the effect on American workers' wages.
And then you use the word unskilled.
I suspect, and I don't know if this is your view, but I wonder and think it might be, although you can clarify that, but certainly it is a new right view, a NatCon view or an immigration protectionist view to say that even if it was skilled, we need to cap the number of people who are coming from Asian countries or India or whatever to be computer programmers in Silicon Valley.
We got too many of them.
And so I would rather, for the purpose of clarity and arriving at future policy, be able to just talk about that in the open, rather than sort of pinning it on illegal, or then chain migration, or then this question of unskilled.
Because I don't think that's actually really where the meat of the divide really is.
I think if we're talking about those mass numbers of skilled, I think there's a lot of opponents to that too, right?
Well, when you're talking about the pro-immigration side, the non-restrictionist side, unskilled is a pretty big issue.
The numbers are just...
So I don't think...
But then when you get into the nitty-gritty of debates on the right, you know, yes.
I mean, I think people maybe do tend to brush the skilled aspect under the rug of these other things where we clearly agree.
So let's...
Get into it.
I'd rather go to the disagreement area rather than just using vehement agreements, right?
Yeah, where we agree on 90% of this stuff.
Sure, sure.
So, like, we have to think about this, again, strategically and sort of plan and think about whether or not the workers who are marketed as skilled workers are ones which the domestic workforce could not otherwise supply to our employers.
Okay.
And so, for example, that's why I did respectfully disagree vehemently with President Trump when he went on a podcast.
I doubt it will become policy, but he said, anyone who gets at least an associate's degree, a two-year degree, we will staple a green card.
Okay.
We have people with associate's degrees who need work.
They would be considered, in various contexts, skilled workers.
But They're not going to, you know, like our own domestic workforce.
So it has to be like legitimately difficult sort of skills that are, you know, as we try to ramp up our own workforce development, we cannot supply to employers right now.
I get that.
I think that's fine.
And just there's no way around that.
But I will say that there are categories of workers who are barred over as high-skilled workers where it's just displacing domestic workers and it cuts against the principle that you rightly laid out That it should be the well-being of existing U.S. citizens.
So when you have, for example, companies, tech companies who bring in an H-1B workforce, and H-1B, I realize, is not the same as immigration per se, but still, they bring them in to train their own existing domestic workforce To get trained by their existing domestic workforce.
And once the training program is over, they usher the domestic workers out, and this happens.
This has happened.
And why do you think they're doing that?
Because H-1B workers are...
First of all, it can be cheaper, but second of all, H-1B workers are actually...
In the tech sector, might it be because some of them are also more effective at carrying out the job?
Exactly.
I'll get to that one second, but I think the main advantage is, honestly, it's a kind of indentured servitude, because in that case— Oh, it's a horrible program.
It's a horrible program.
I agree with you.
You have no bargaining power because the employer controls your visa.
Oh, I mean, I've spoken about it extensively, Sir Rob.
This H-1B program is horribly administered.
Okay, thank you.
I agree.
I'm no defender of the H-1B program, but I want to go to the first principle.
On the skills point, too, there's something revealing in the facts.
So there are actually four categories of H-1B visas.
The top two are, you know, the top one is literally for genius level.
It's supposed to be, right?
Like really, really skilled, unique skill set, etc.
The second one is also very typically high.
And on there, you would agree unlimited numbers would be good in that first category.
As long as there is a parallel program for workforce development so that we can begin to supply these.
We have to have engineering schools.
We have to fill our engineering schools.
And that means reforming K-12 so that when kids come up, not only can they do freaking basic math, but are able to get into engineering schools.
I kind of want to start at the end of the waterfall because otherwise we end up on other parts of the waterfall.
In some ways, we start at the end of the waterfall.
On that one, though.
On that one, which is where I think the rubber really hits the road.
Are you in favor of, like, let's just take what you call the genius category, on the hierarchy of four categories of H-1B. In there, are you in favor of uncapped numbers?
If there are immigrants who fit that criteria, and I'm a little bit more hawkish than you, actually.
I would add one more criteria, which is love of country and national identity and civic values.
Engagement and ability to speak English.
I would add that to workforce contribution.
When you're talking at that level, they tend to be easy to assimilate, high educated.
But in that category, are you uncapped there?
As long as there is Parallel efforts to do workforce development so that we are able to...
Yeah, I don't see that caveat.
I don't get that caveat because here's why.
You're talking about K-12.
That's not intention within the present bringing in the Elon Musk class of person.
And the idea of saying that you're going to say no to one Elon Musk person because you don't have K-12 development is like comparing apples and oranges.
Okay, so I would go with you and I'll concede that yes, but I would just say that You know, when we say unlimited, actually the number of people who are really fit into that category is pretty small.
And here's the point I was trying to make.
The next two levels of H-1B really aren't that skilled.
All they offer is that they're relatively cheaper because they're used to lower wages in their own home countries or they can't get work in their home countries.
Or...
You know, they're just, like, easier to oppress in a management employment context.
And, like, they are not geniuses, right?
And that's, here's the key fact that's a scandal.
Guess what two categories get used a lot more?
It's not the genius level.
It's not the, you know, it's like the basic ones that are primarily used by tech companies.
So, you know...
Yeah.
And how would you describe those two categories?
They're skilled workers.
They have bachelor's degrees from Chinese universities or Indian universities or whatever.
But our economy does produce people like that.
And sometimes those people who are domestic U.S. workers get displaced in this outrageous way where they train their own replacements.
That's just pure expectation.
I guess for companies in a competitive market, what is their self-interest in going out of their way to go through?
What are some bureaucratic hurdles, some additional legal compliance hurdles to still say, I would rather choose that worker rather than a native-born one?
What accounts for that decision?
You could start with the premise that they're just hostile to the country.
They hate the United States of America and their corporation.
But I just don't think that's what's going on.
I don't think it's true.
It's just a story as old as time.
Capital has a tendency to It always wants to lower labor costs.
That's right.
I agree with you.
That's what it's about.
That's all I'd say.
That doesn't mean that that drive to always lower labor costs is necessarily consistent.
Consistent with American national interest.
In some cases, look, you want to make it possible.
When we talk about American national interest, I want to talk a little bit about what's included in there.
Because clearly, you have pointed to one area where it could arguably not be in the American national interest, which is in the wages that American-born workers are able to command in those same roles, which is an interesting point you've put your finger on.
I do think that it is a little bit of an assertion to therefore conclude that that is the totality of what we determine counts as the American national interest.
Because I do find myself sometimes frustrated listening to the screeds of people on our own side of this talking about this question and saying that we need to make sure that those companies are paying higher wages.
And we aren't replacing somebody with the same person who can do the job $2 more cheaply for at least as good of a quality and work harder for longer hours.
We don't want that to happen, but we're also going to What do you think is the net effect of restricting a company's ability to bring down its marginal cost in an otherwise competitive market?
I think you are somewhat restricted in your ability to just mouth off about inflation while talking about this is a problem at the same time without recognizing there's some tension between those two points of view.
And you're smart enough to level with that.
I think it's—and Jerome Powell does this as much as anyone—is to blame inflation primarily on wage price inflation and ignore the other sort of bottlenecks that have built up in the American economy, where even where we're investing in XYZ industry— Because we've lost,
and this goes back to the earlier debate, because we've lost the industrial capacity, because we've lost the industrial know-how, because, and I hear this from employers all the time, I hear patriotic employers who listen to my message on industrial policy and things like this, and they'll say, hey, I'm with you on this stuff, but you know what problem I have?
I have trouble finding workers who can stay sober from 9 to 5. And it breaks my heart when I hear that, but I know it's true, and they mean it.
But why is that happening?
It's because we've neglected this stuff for so long.
So I just think it's a mistake to just say...
I don't know if that's why it's happening.
I don't know why it's happening.
What is the only driver of inflation is wage price inflation, I think is a mistake.
I don't think it's the only driver.
I don't think it's the only driver.
But sometimes it's treated that way, and it helps the...
It helps the employer class to just focus on that at the expense of all else.
But look...
But I'm asking you, and that's the straw man version of that argument.
But let's just say it was a component, because I think you and I would agree.
Obviously, it's not negligible.
So when you're talking about the American national interest, how does one, even in a framework, when you're thinking about the government, and as you know, I'm a little bit of a skeptic of this, about the fatal conceit of any central plan or being able to...
Weighed all of this, but suppose you want some central planner or at least a central body to be able to weight this of what's in the national interest.
How do you weight the effect on American workers of whom fewer than would be hired by the company, but at least they'd be American born, which is a pro-American national interest, I'll grant that.
How do you weigh that against the incremental effect that that would have on the cost that those same American workers are paying when they go to the store to buy a t-shirt or get a haircut?
If you have a higher wage economy as a whole, and again, this is why my immigration restrictionism is part of a broader package of what I think the political economy as a whole should look like, then you have an economy in which wages can absorb higher prices I think we're good to
And then those workers can pay a little bit more for the haircut.
But so like what I'm trying to tell you, though, is I grant you that some of the measures that I'm talking about will mean, you know, a more expensive country at the consumer level. a more expensive country at the consumer level.
I appreciate the honesty.
Thank you for not denying that.
I would just say that Americans, here's the national interest point, is that Americans' lives as workers and producers...
Are just as important as our lives as consumers.
And for too long, policy as a whole, not just Republicans, not just Democrats, the center elite has emphasized everything at the level of consumption.
You know, well, we're getting cheaper.
This is, you know, not realizing the ramifications of the inability to produce.
I'm not even talking about the fact we don't produce.
Because we've neglected it for so long, we've lost kind of a competent workforce, and then we have to turn to immigration.
So that's what I'm saying.
Let's think about that, and let's think about the costs that are associated with just an emphasis on Americans' consumption patterns and the neglect of our ability to produce.
And immigration is...
Is a key part of this.
Think about it.
You don't want a future in which China or even India have all the engineering schools that actually produce...
Our workers, what paths do they follow?
Finance, entertainment, and soft creative fields, or precarious service jobs.
Those are the options.
And then when we need engineers, turn to Chinese universities.
I agree with you wholeheartedly on we don't want the United States to become the backwater of people who are only PR and communications makers.
We're kind of on the way.
We're at risk of going down the valley.
So I just worry that further pretending like those other engineering minds don't exist elsewhere in the world is actually going to make us less prepared, not more prepared, to be able to actually meet the standards that the rest of the world sets.
And I don't want to be a frog in the well, to use the old expression.
And that's why I said we should attract those genuinely high-skilled people, but be wary Of people whose skills we could either have already in the existing workforce, or we could develop in quick order.
Why bring in immigrants for that?
Other than just to let people...
So that would be the judgment.
So that means from a first principles, like I'm no defender of the current immigration system.
I think it's broken, including the H-1B system and anything else.
But if you're drawing up from a whiteboard, because I think in some ways you got to know what target you're solving for before you debate implementation.
And I think part of what happens in this is I think that we conflate...
Not you and I, but I think the broader debates conflate a discussion about implementation when, in fact, you're using that to joust over alternative goals.
So once you have your goals set, then at least you can work back to your implementation.
So on your view of it, in principle, If you have immigrants who are going to add more value to the United States of America by working harder, being more industrious, being more intelligent or innovative, and love the country more,
know about its civic history, better at speaking English than the modal or even median native-born American in the similar shoe here, a merit-based immigration system would welcome The immigrants who fit the categories that I just checked off.
I think that's not an unfair description.
Again, I would just say...
And I would add, less likely to be a customer of the welfare state as well.
Yeah.
I would just add that that's...
That the numbers needn't be as big as employers would want, right?
Employers will want to shoehorn people who don't necessarily fit that category into the one...
Yeah, forget that's an implementation question.
And without the shoehorning...
Without the shoehorning...
Sure.
You would say that you would...
In fact, for that category, you would go so far as to say, on your view, be apply no cap.
To the number of such immigrants who would come.
And I'll list the criteria for you again, which are, because I think it smokes out a deeper question that I'd love to at least have on the table so we can see with clear eyes.
Love of country, civics test, knowledge of US constitutional principles and value, US law, history, competency in English, proficiency in English, ability to make contributions to the country, high skills, willingness to work hard, and likelihood of ever being a customer of the US welfare state.
I love all of those.
I love all of those, but where you said high-skilled, I would just, if I may, just refine a little bit.
High-skilled in the sense that they possess skills that the domestic workforce currently doesn't have in sufficient numbers given any sector.
Or quality.
Or quality.
I don't know.
It goes into how hard work...
I think Americans are really hardworking people.
The hardest working in the world.
I'm just somebody who's also been a business owner, so I just want to...
I come from the standpoint of who's going to be the best person to do that job, but fills all of the other criteria, including love of country, proficiency in English, unlikely to be a customer of the welfare state, all of that.
We don't have the skills in sufficient numbers given the sector.
And we cannot...
The ramp-up time for domestic workforce development is too long.
And in the meanwhile, the sector would face problems.
And so they're like...
Sure.
Not the sector would face problems.
Take that one off the table.
Take the sector would face problems.
Because what does problems mean versus like...
Success in a business or economic sector is scalar.
It's not a binary of you're doing well or you have a problem.
It's a question of how well you want to be doing and you want to be the outer doing of well.
So it's not like a...
It's not a quantum category.
It's a scalar category.
Not to say that the industry would be in trouble, but we want it to be doing as well as possible in the United States of America, but you have immigrants who fit all of those criteria.
In theory, on your view, you would be uncapped on that number.
Yep.
But now let's go back.
Let's go to the real world, right?
I think the CHIPS Act is partly an achievement.
I think the Biden CHIPS Act is good.
But there's enormous, like, things that...
You know, I disagree on that.
Yeah.
The things that piss you off.
You know, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the TSMC, has brought in builders for the plant manufacturer to Arizona.
Arizona has good unionized builders.
And of course, the unions in Arizona are fighting back against this.
But just like, you know...
One of the things they would tell you...
This may make you upset, Saurabh, but one of the things they would tell you, and I can't attest to this being true, but one of the things they would tell you is the difference in the Taiwanese worker who comes here versus the American worker is like the nature of manufacturing these semiconductors is itself an innovative art of itself.
And TSMC in Taiwan can get to like...
No, I agree.
We don't have the...
We don't have the plant...
Sure.
Okay, so let me revise that.
You're right.
Let me just finish the point because I want you to make sure you understand what I'm about to say, which is a little bit provocative, but I think it's what they would say, so I want to get the view on the table.
It's not just that we've failed to train the American workers on how to know how to build that leading edge sub-10 nanometer, sub-5 nanometer semiconductor, okay?
But that the cultural attributes of the workers from Taiwan were actually better suited in terms of industriousness, willingness to work hard, and the ability to have the innovative capacity than they are able to find amongst the American workforce.
I'm not saying whether that's right or wrong, but what I am saying is that would be a claim that the people who are running into major problems replicating in Arizona what they're able to do in Taiwan would tell you is a rate limiter for what they're able to do.
So I think this goes back to where I said skills and you said skills and quality.
And I'm willing to say, look, we haven't trained our plant fabricators to possess the kind of know-how that's involved in fabricating those kinds of plants, and that's our failing.
In the meanwhile, okay, fine, bring over your 500 Taiwanese workers.
That quality element can sometimes mean it can be a facade for basically saying, well, they're just used to a workforce culture in which the employer wields more bargaining power and the employee has to just kind of go along.
And you call that, oh, what an industrious worker.
What you're really doing is saying, we don't want the Kind of Western-style model of having, trying at least a little bit in the workplace, have relatively equal bargaining power, and the power to coerce doesn't run only in one way, but kind of is mutual or symmetrical.
I get a little bit uneasy with language about quality, which to me sounds like just saying like, well...
Let me pull up a headline.
That goes to China model too, where it's like, well, they sleep at the factory floors.
What great workforce?
I don't like it when Elon says this.
It's like, well, we've made achievements of workers' rights in this country that we should be proud of.
Let's take the Chinese and Asian dimension out.
I'm going to just read you a headline.
I actually just saw this this last week.
I picked up my phone to read you the exact headline.
It was from a European CEO talking about America.
Here's what he says, his exact quote.
Quote, unquote, Americans just work harder than Europeans, says CEO of Norway's $1.6 trillion oil fund, because they have, quote, a higher general level of ambition.
So in his case, he's accounting.
In that case, we're trying on it.
It's a different comparison here.
But he would say the reason that the United States of America and the companies here are just more successful than their European counterparts, apples to apples, in many cases, is because of that cultural attribute of American exceptionalism and the willingness to work hard and self-determination and the cultural willingness to do that here.
Right.
So what you described is something that lies on a spectrum.
And you just said American workers Which I agree.
I think American workers… Compared to Europeans.
Yeah, but if you give them a fair deal and the training and you don't have a society that's just pulled every rug from under them, American workers are just exceptional.
Yeah.
Well, I tend to agree with you.
That's why I'm telling you that.
That's why when I go to Europe, I'm not afraid to give them bitter medicine.
Sorry, but it bothers me when it's like compared to countries that maintain sweatshop conditions and workers haven't made the gains of the past century or so.
But the TSMC... To use that against...
I know this form of argument, the sweatshop argument, and I think this happens up and down the immigration discussion where we use one example to obfuscate an adjacent issue that actually where the action is.
So here on this TSMC point, TSMC is not having those.
I mean, these are not assembly line workers that are being whipped on the back to turn out stuff like that.
No, I know, I know.
These are geniuses in their own right.
These are the people who are creating the innovation of how we're actually fabricating semiconductors with a slightly smaller width, right?
Nanometer difference, which has huge implications for the utility of these chips.
So we can't use the sweatshop condition point on the culture point.
What I'm saying is America relative to Europe and our culture of ingenuity that has made U.S. prosperity greater than that of Europe's over the last 60 years, driving to what I think are some fundamental cultural difference between the United States and Europe.
That, I think, if we're really being honest, is a little bit of what's going on with respect to certain other sectors from Taiwan, China, India, where you have, when I use the word quality, a kind of cultural competition in terms of innovation.
Not somebody who's working in sweatshop conditions.
That's a little bit of...
That's a separate debate.
It's adjacent, but we can't use that to sweep this other difference under the rug because it's literally the ones that the people in TSMC Arizona would tell you is a difference, is the quality of those Taiwanese workers who are able to do it in a way that American born can.
And I'm with you in wanting America to be the country that produces them, but I think we're more likely to get there, not less, if we actually open our eyes to what the best and brightest actually look like, rather than shielding ourselves with tunnel vision like a frog in the well.
I don't want America to become the Great Britain of the next two centuries, of a decaying, elegant empire that's just in decline.
And I think that with those shared goals of advancing the American national interest, it's not that I view some other ideology of like...
Free trade and labor or whatever is an alternative to what is in the American national interest, but I think it is an alternative vision of what actually constitutes the wholer American national interest.
That, especially in this question of immigration, we'll go to the illegals, we'll go to the chain migration, we'll go to the sweatshop conditions.
But sidestep, what I do think is a real rubber hitting the road in the American first right, which is I think part of what's guiding this, part of what's guiding you maybe, I can't speak to you, but part of what's guiding the viewpoint of protectionism in this question is actually kind of a blood and soil view too.
That the idea that you have too many of a certain number that come in has a dilutive effect.
I do think it's lurking underneath the surface and it's worth at least acknowledging it.
Yeah, I completely reject the blood and soil characterization.
I don't know how much you follow my work.
Not characterization, but the argument.
That's what's lurking behind my case because, look, like I said, Maybe not your case.
- Yeah, maybe not your case. - I'm an immigrant born in the United States. - I don't think blood and soil is bad, by the way.
I'm not saying that's bad.
I think it's a view to know that there's too much demographic change too quickly on its own terms, that that is itself a goal to avoid, which if it is, we can debate that, but let's at least get it on the table.
'Cause I do think that that's in the discussion and we would do better to have a clear - Whenever I've debated immigration against the left, I make almost exclusively economic arguments And what I love to do is, like I said, point out how the views that I represent, I think actually President Trump represents, was like the Democratic Party norm as recently as the 1990s or the aughts.
But look, I think we agreed on the definition of how to deal with the kind of skilled question.
At some point, we're run up against the skills and qualities.
I just want to emphasize skills.
You want to do skills and quality?
Okay, whatever.
That's a marginal thing.
I think we reached a good place on that.
Uncapped when it comes to that kind of person.
On this question of...
You know, the pace of demographic change, I think it's an issue that we should be able to honestly talk about.
And in Europe, the inability to honestly talk about it has led to a lot of these kind of bottled up social tensions.
Totally.
And if we aren't able to talk about it honestly, I actually worry that like the next version of American populism...
We'll be, like, really scary, right?
Because it's been bottled up and people are...
And, like, people like you and me will have to, like, form a united front against, like, Nazis, you know, with the left.
And I don't want that situation to come around, right?
But in order to do that, we have to address common concerns.
And I think, again, just to go back to the bigger framing, my main thing is to cut down on family unification, right?
space, which will mean we're on the same page.
And if we do that, then I think it kind of addresses the demographic issue.
At the same time, like, look, there's a lot of immigration and just race discourse on the like the right, which I like people say, oh, it's just the fringes of there's some really, really ugly stuff out there against against Indian.
I don't want to call it ugly.
I don't even want to call it ugly.
Let's just get it on the table so we know what we're solving for because I do think that there's – and the more you bottle it up, the uglier than it then becomes versus a legitimate concern to say – I people don't look the way that I'm used to them looking 40 years ago.
I don't want to say that you're a racist for saying that.
I'd like to get that on the table to say that that is a consideration.
Because what ends up happening.
I think that should be that should I totally agree.
I'm agreeing with you.
I think that should be a more democratic conversation.
You're super intellectually honest, but I think part of what ends up happening is that for a lot of people on the right who have constructive conversations, I do think that they're earnest, but that is part of what – a component of what matters.
But then we end up making these sort of cockamamie second- and third-rate economic arguments that don't really hold up because we're solving for a slightly different thing.
Wait.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
That makes me sound like I'm – Not yours.
The unskilled one is totally a germane economic argument.
I agree with that.
Even if we increase the manufacturing share of the GDP, the manufacturing share of the workforce won't budge.
It might still be the same because of automation.
So we're saying for a lot of Americans, we're going to have a services-based economy, and then we're bringing in unskilled service workers.
Why?
That makes no sense.
And so I think that's a very serious argument and is not a cover for demographic arguments.
We might actually, if you're open to it, we might actually have to have a third one.
Okay, let's do it.
Because we do want to get into this demography and the sort of rise- Because I didn't give you my view, actually.
I've been asking you views.
I have actually, for the purpose, I have not yet aired what my actually view on the whole question is, which actually relates to a heightened emphasis on national identity.
And then what is American national identity, I think, requires being answered before saying if we're going to put a heightened emphasis on national identity, which we're not doing in today's immigration system, what does that actually mean?
And I would love to have that discussion with you.
Okay.
Great.
Yeah.
So, sounds good, man.
This is a lot of fun, and sometime in the coming weeks, at least, I would welcome continuing this, because you make me smarter.
I appreciate that.
And likewise you.
▲
Export Selection