Dr. Aaron Friedberg on China 01:05:29

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Welcome to another episode of Breaking Battlegrounds with your host Sam Stone. My co-host Chuck Warren is out of the studio and out of touch today, so I'm handling the show by myself. Of course, that means I dragged poor Kylie Kipper, the irrepressible Kylie Kipper, onto the mic. Also, Jamie Kleszak, our digital guru, she is cringing in front of a microphone as well.

hopefully not cringing. On the line with us right now, someone I'm very excited to talk to, Dr. Aaron Friedberg. Dr. Friedberg, non-resident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on China and U.S.-China relations, great power competition in U.S. and foreign defense policy. He just put out a book June of this year, Getting China Wrong. Dr. Friedberg, can I call you Aaron? Absolutely. Aaron, thank you so much for joining us on this program.

Let's just jump right into it. What are we getting wrong about China? I think over the last 30 years or so, so really starting at the end of the Cold War, U.S. and frankly other Western policymakers made a bet, which was that economic engagement with China, other forms of engagement too, would ease China down the road towards economic

economic and political liberalization. And that was wrong. And the reason we got it wrong is because we underestimated the resolve and the ruthlessness of the Chinese Communist Party and its determination to hold on to political power at any cost. And I think we're now finally starting to wake up to that. Did we also underestimate China or misunderstand, I guess is a better term, Chinese culture that they would, despite opening up...

So when the Soviet Union started seeing what life in the West was like, Soviet citizens were not willing to concede and simply sit by and say, OK, we're going to live a much lesser lifestyle or a much more controlled authoritarian lifestyle than they are. But that has not really been the case in China, has it?

No. And in fact, one of the reasons why the CCP regime wanted engagement and wanted to get the benefits from trade and investment with the West is because it would stimulate economic growth. And one reason for doing that was to try to keep the population happy and keep them supportive of the CCP. And they succeeded in doing that up until now. What's going on now that's changing that?

Their economic policies have really run out of gas. I mean, there are a number of things. They've known for the better part of a decade that they need to change their economic model, that they can't continue to rely on these massive investments in infrastructure and real estate. They can't keep relying on ever-expanding exports to the rest of the world. That just isn't going to work. And that they need to give more power to consumers. So they need to rely more on

consumption, household consumption or private consumption to drive economic growth. And for a variety of reasons, they haven't done that, haven't been able to do that. And in addition to that, they're now facing serious headwinds from a number of sources. I mean, they've had a potential debt crisis that's been percolating for a while because a lot of what they've done has been paid for with debt and also misuse.

More specifically now, the so-called zero COVID policy that's very much associated with the leader, Xi Jinping, is causing shutdowns, and that's causing a lot of economic dislocation. So their growth now has fallen from whatever it was, six some percent. They were estimating 5% this year, but that's obviously too optimistic. It's maybe 2% or 3%. It may even be less than that. And it's not clear how they're going to get out of this corner that they've gotten themselves into.

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up because their their calculus on covid seems almost designed to subvert all the gains they've been making in their long term goals. How how did they box themselves into this corner politically where they're they're continuing these policies that are clearly damaging their economy?

Well, in the first instance, so the first wave of COVID, they implemented these massive lockdowns, and they did succeed in preventing the virus in its original form from spreading in the ways that it did in the United States or other advanced countries. But they didn't anticipate the mutation and the development of an even more infectious form of the disease, the Omicron variant,

And they didn't succeed in adequately vaccinating their population. The vaccines that they have are not as good as those available in the West. There's a significant portion of their elderly population, which for various reasons rejected the vaccines, are vulnerable. So now they're in this position where they have a population, of course, it's huge, 1.3 billion people, many of whom would be vulnerable if they let the

the current variants just run their course. And there are some estimates, including some by scientific researchers in China, that if they did that, they might have as many as a million, a million and a half fatalities. So they can't really let go. So they've resorted to the shutdowns again. And they're having, as I said, they're having real economic consequences. And part of that vulnerability gap

Kind of stems from their one-child policy that they carried for so long, right? And the fact that they now have an enormous overhang of senior citizens in their population. That's true. And it's going to get more so. Their population is going to age very rapidly and it's going to start to shrink. So yeah, they have a lot of elderly people. I guess some of these people were afraid for various reasons to take

Take the vaccine for whatever reason the regime doesn't seem to push it as hard as you might think that it had. And in any case, the vaccines they have are kind of lousy, certainly compared to the ones that we have. And for political reasons and reasons of sort of national pride, they're not willing to use the vaccines that are available in the West. So they're insisting on using their own, which just don't work very well.

How much does that potential population contraction factor into their economic planning right now? Because when you're talking about like the real estate expansion that they've been undertaking in their country, if you're facing a giant fall off of a cliff in terms of your population, that combination makes you incredibly economically vulnerable, right? Yeah.

Yes. And the leadership is very much aware of this. They may have deferred it and maybe it took a while to really focus on it. But I think they they get it and they know they've got real problems. And one part of that is the way in which their economic model was successful. So back to the 90s and into the early part of the 2000s was because they had this big deficit.

supply of reasonably well-trained labor and low-cost, well-trained labor. So all the factories that were running in Chinese cities, many of them built by foreign companies, had an ample supply of workers who they didn't have to pay very much. Well, as the population ages, that bubble of working-age people begins to contract, and it means that they're starting to lose some of the advantage that they had in being

being a low-cost manufacturing uh... platform so that's part of it uh... and then it also as you as you mentioned uh... this is you're not unique to china but it's probably going to be worse in china countries that are experiencing rapid aging and shrinking of their populations get into a position where uh... the cost of taking care of those older people rise rapidly

and they're not growing as fast as they were before to generate resources to take care of them. So that's also a problem that they're going to have. And so they're facing serious economic headwinds and serious problems, which have to do with a variety of things, not least the aftermath of this disastrous population policy that they started implementing 30 and 40 years ago. I want to get to, there was an article today about China, China's

poaching or hiring folks from a U.S. nuclear lab to work in their defense industry. I want to get to that, but I would like to kind of frame it in terms of how much does this economic difficulty of theirs either increase or decrease the threat of Chinese territorial ambition? Well, before trying to answer that, there's one other thing that I wanted to mention, and it is related to the point about poaching.

poaching technology and scientists. I think the regime's answer to the problem that it faces or what it hopes will be the answer is technological innovation. So they're working very hard to achieve these leaps in technology, which they hope, among other things, will increase the productivity of their workers. So the labor supply may be shrinking,

but the output per person will go up if you have these technological advances. And they're really betting a lot on that. And that's one reason that they've been as aggressive as they have been in trying to acquire technology wherever they can get it and however they can get it. On the question of whether...

slower economic growth is going to make them more or less threatening. I'm agnostic on this. You can tell this story either way, and it sounds plausible. One possibility is that as growth slows down, the population is going to get increasingly unhappy. They're not going to have more and more resources. They're not going to be able to imagine that they're going to have a better and better life, and maybe that'll make them unhappy.

hostile to the regime or resistant to the regime. And under those circumstances, perhaps you could imagine leadership that decides to provoke foreign conflict in order to rally support, use nationalism. And the regime has been using nationalism and they've been using friction, I would say, with other powers, including Japan, including the United States, including Taiwan, to

to gin up nationalist sentiment and keep people on side, keep them supportive of the regime. Thus far, they've been very reluctant to go further than that and actually use force and risk becoming involved in conflict in order to achieve that objective. And I think that may be true for a while. So one story is they get into trouble. They try to defund

deflect attention by pursuing conflict with foreign powers. That's very risky. That also, though, in a sense, mirrors something Russia has done since the Cold War, where they occasionally sort of flex their military muscle at U.S. military assets. And I've never seen that as actually being a threat directed or intended at America so much as messaging to their own people.

I think that's true. And I think their concerns, the Russian regime's concerns about having countries on their border that are successful democracies that are integrated into Western institutions is not because they're afraid there's going to be an invasion launched by NATO from Ukraine if Ukraine was a NATO member, but because they're worried about the example and the possibility of sort of ideological contamination across their borders.

So yeah, they do worry about that. I think there's a difference, or there has been a difference thus far between Russia and China, which is Chinese leadership has had reason to believe that time was on its side and that

things were going their way. And if that's true, if year on year your power is increasing relative to those of your potential opponents, it means that you can sit back and wait and expect that you'll be in an even better position down the line. I think in the Russian case, they've had good reason to think that that wasn't true, that their power was diminishing, and that may have encouraged them to be as reckless as they've been.

Because they also have an enormous population contraction situation coming up or occurring right now. We have just about 40 seconds before we have to go to break. Dr. Freeberg, we're going to have you back for our next segment also. How do folks follow you and keep up with your work?

One way would be to follow me on Twitter, which is just at my name, Aaron Friedberg. Perfect. It's probably the simplest thing. Fantastic. Folks, make sure you follow Aaron Friedberg on Twitter. He obviously is doing some amazing work in regards to U.S. foreign policy in China. Breaking Battlegrounds will be back with more in just a moment. Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Sam Stone. My co-host, Chuck Warren, out of the studio today, but on the line with us.

Dr. Aaron Friedberg of the American Enterprise Institute. You can follow him on Twitter at Aaron Friedberg. We're talking about China. We're talking about upcoming potential economic crisis facing them. But a lot of Americans are facing economic crisis these days. Their stock market is going down, down, down.

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That's invest, the letter Y, R-E-F-Y.com, or call them at 844-204-7756. And make sure they tell them Chuck and Sam sent you. All right, getting back to our interview with Dr. Aaron Friedberg of the American Enterprise Institute. Aaron, how much should the U.S. really be concerned about China right now? What do we need to start thinking about in our approach to dealing with them now?

to put ourselves on a better footing for the next century? I think we do have to worry about it. I believe, I believe for some time that China is the greatest geopolitical threat that we face in the 21st century. Russia is a kind of an immediate threat and a problem, but China is a longer term and more serious threat. There's a lot that we need to do when we're doing some of these things, but probably not enough and not fast enough. One thing is we need to strengthen our our

defenses. We need to invest in the right kinds of military capabilities so that we can continue to deter aggression by China in the Western Pacific. And it's not just us, but we need to work together with our allies and partners to do that. I think we also need to substantially alter the nature of our economic relationship with China. We're not going to decouple from them completely, but we need to

their access to some of our technology. We may need to restrict their access to our market for various reasons. We've allowed ourselves to become intertwined with them in ways that are not healthy for us and could be dangerous, not only to our security, but also to our future welfare. So there's that as well. I think we need to step up to the kind of ideological dimension of this conversation

competition. And we've been a little bit shy to do that for various reasons. But I think this is a struggle between two opposing ways of life and two opposing political systems. Certainly, the Chinese leadership sees it that way. And I think we need to see it that way as well. And so we need to regain some of the reflexes that we had for waging that kind of

political or ideological struggle going back to the Cold War. I guess the last thing I'd say, and in a way this probably should have come first because it's the most important, we need political leadership that can clearly explain what the stakes are, what the risks are, what the challenges are, and how we're going to meet them. And we don't quite have that. I'm glad you say that because with Trump, too,

I felt like he he actually did seem to understand the scope of China as a threat, but he didn't really communicate clearly why that was the case.

I agree with that. And in certain ways, he misstated it and overstated it in certain respects that were not helpful. And he did other things that made it more difficult for us to cope with China related to our allies. But at least, yeah, he identified China as a threat. He was willing to say things that previous administrations had to say. And it kind of broke the mold. And what's interesting is the Biden administration, for the most part, has not gone back to the

policies of the Obama administration or the George W. Bush administration before it. So we've made a turn and there's bipartisan support for a lot of this, but we still need leaders who can explain what's going on and why it is that we need to expand the resources that we're going to have to wage this competition. If your other countries, developing countries around the world, whether East Asia, Mexico,

Africa, Latin America in general, elsewhere. How much should you be looking at China's struggles right now and the ideological conflict between the U.S. and China and saying, hey, this is an opportunity for us to get on board and take a big piece of this business, this low-cost manufacturing that China has built its economy on?

Well, China has been very focused on the developing world for the last several decades. In many respects, we have not been. We paid attention when we were concerned about terrorism, paid attention during the Cold War when we were concerned about communism. Probably not as focused on it in the last decade.

Decade or more and China has been for a variety of reasons. They want to get diplomatic support from from governments in the developing world They're looking for the possibility of building military bases They're also looking for markets for their products, and I think they're also hoping that they can Transform some of these developing economies into

platforms for low-cost manufacturing for Chinese companies so that they can have African workers, for example, doing what Chinese workers were doing 30 years ago. And they've made some headway on that.

The problem for countries in the developing world is that the bargain that's offered to them often is not a good one. And when you look carefully, that becomes clearer. It's a really exploitative system, this Belt and Road system that they're building. They are really exploiting the heck out of a lot of these countries in ways that I think if most people in the West understood, they would be appalled by.

I think if most people in the countries where they're doing this knew about it, knew about the full dimensions of it, they would be appalled too. And that's happened in some places where

at least where people have some semblance of a free press and some semblance of democratic institutions, there's been a reaction against what the Chinese are doing because often it benefits them, it benefits their companies, it doesn't necessarily benefit the local population all that much. And that's a vulnerability. My favorite story, or favorite in a perverted way, I suppose, from that is that they, I forget what country it was, but I was reading, they built someone a new government complex that

And then when they got it and moved in, they found the thing was just riddled with listening devices and surveillance technology. Well, they built a whole headquarters for the African Union, I believe. I think the building was in Kenya. And it took some time to figure out that it was riddled with these devices. Not only was it riddled with bugs, but it also was transmitting information.

And data, all the data that was being generated by the IT systems in that building was being sent back to Beijing. So, yes, you have to count your fingers when you shake hands with them. Wow. OK. Dr. Aaron Friedberg, can we keep you? We have a short segment coming up next. Can we keep you for one more segment on the show here?

Sure thing. Fantastic. I really appreciate that. We are going to look forward to continuing this conversation with Dr. Aaron Freeberg in just a minute. But folks, before we go to break, I want to tell you, if you are not, be sure to go to BreakingBattlegrounds.vote, sign up, download our podcast, subscribe. You always get an extra podcast segment each week, podcast only. Great opportunity to continue the conversation a little bit more free-flowing.

sometimes a little bit more profane. Since we're not on the radio and I don't have Jeremy panicking in the studio when I say things. Folks, Breaking Battlegrounds coming back in just a moment. Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host Sam Stone. My co-host Chuck Warren not on the air with me today, so I'm staring at these lovely ladies across the table here who have been totally silent thus far. I feel like I have to drag words out of them at some point here.

You don't have to drag it out of us. This conversation is just very intelligent.

Foreign policy is not our thing. You guys are far too smart to say stuff like that. All right, let's move. Come on. Come on. That's just making excuses. All right. Getting back to our conversation here, Dr. Aaron Friedberg, non-resident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, focuses on China and U.S.-China relations. Dr. Friedberg, you mentioned, as we were talking in the last segment a little bit, about the investments the U.S. needs to make in military technology as we –

kind of head down this road of a geopolitical conflict with China. How much has China gained on the U.S. in the last decade? It's gained a lot. And it took a while for people in the U.S. and people in the military to really acknowledge the fact that China was closing the gap with us in various ways, not just by kind of imitating and trying to do the same things as what we do, but innovating and developing

some very clever techniques and weapons for countering our advantages. I think people have now started to recognize that. And, you know, it's not a problem that's getting better. It's getting worse because China's been investing huge amounts, not only in buying new weapons, but research and development on new kinds of techniques and technologies. They probably are ahead in

in at least a few areas, but they've got significant problems and we still have major advantages. But this is now a really intense military competition. And China is, as the Defense Department likes to say, a true peer competitor.

How much do we – I mean I think obviously it's really critical we focus on this and focus on making those investments because at the end of the day, something that has stuck in my mind literally since I think 2010 now, IBM at one of their global conferences did a great video montage, Did You Know 2.0, where they pointed out something that I've kind of kept in mind when talking about China ever since, that given China's population –

statistically China has more honor students than the U.S. has kids. That's a huge capital advantage in people, right? Well, yeah, it's a very big population, and like any country,

group of human beings anywhere. It contains a certain percentage of people who are very, very talented. And their academic system has limitations and problems. It may not encourage creativity and independent thought in the ways that our system tries to do, but it does pretty well, and particularly in turning out people in science and engineering fields. So yes, that is a major advantage for them.

What else do Americans need to watch? We've got just about two and a half minutes left with you on the phone here. What do Americans need to watch for in China? If you're watching them, when do you become concerned that these folks may have territorial ambitions?

Well, coming right up next month is the Party Congress, and it's very likely that Xi Jinping is going to take a third term as general secretary, and that'll be unprecedented. He'll be the most powerful leader since Mao.

And one thing to watch is what follows from that, what initiatives, new initiatives are launched once he has that grip on power tightened even more than he does now. And some people have worried that he is going to announce initiatives aimed at Taiwan or say that he intends to try to resolve the Taiwan issue in a certain period of time. That's something to watch for. I'm a little skeptical of that. I don't know that there's going to be major change.

But yeah, I would watch that. You also need to watch how their economy is faring.

As I said before, we don't quite know what the consequences of slower growth will be, but they could be significant. And let's see if they're successful in getting themselves out of this corner that they're in. Again, I'm dubious of that. The real danger from any authoritarian regime is when their people start to become restless, right? I mean, at that point, they become very unpredictable.

It's true, although one thing that this regime has done consistently, or

throughout its history and certainly in the last 30 years, even as it was opening up to the West, was invested in an enormous system for repressing political dissent, for monitoring people, arresting people. They are very well situated to deal with problems. And thus far, they haven't really had any that tested them.

the strength of that system. It's preemptive. They're very good at locating and silencing people who might cause them problems. And unfortunately, it seems like many Western leaders are watching that with envy.

Well, some, I guess. Some, yeah. I apologize. I think we're going to have to leave it there. We're going to break. I'll let that be my statement, not yours. But Dr. Aaron Friedberg, thank you so much for joining us today. We really, really appreciate having you on the program. We'd love to have you back in the future. Folks, follow him at Aaron Friedberg on Twitter. Breaking Battlegrounds back in just a moment.

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I'm your host, Sam Stone. My co-host, Chuck Warren, is out of the studio today. He is dealing with some personal volatility, but if you're dealing with market volatility, if you're concerned about your portfolio and what's happening to it right now, and you want to know where, you know, you want some stability, you want to be able to earn a decent return without the risks of the Biden economy,

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and tell them Chuck and Sam sent you. On the line with us right now, getting to our next interview here, another person I'm excited to talk to, and we appreciate all the folks at The Washington Times who are frankly doing a fantastic job of reporting the actual news coming out of D.C. these days, which not everyone in that universe does.

unfortunately. We have Carrie Pickett, senior congressional reporter for The Washington Times. She's a fill-in radio host on Sirius XM Patriot 125. She can probably teach me a few things about what I'm supposed to be doing because I'm still an absolute amateur at this, folks.

But before that, she produced news for Robin Quivers of The Howard Stern Show on SiriusXM, wrote entertainment news for MTV Radio, and worked as a production assistant at MTV.com. And I actually want to get to a little bit of that later in this. But I want to start – and Kylie had a question about an article you wrote. Yeah, I think I –

I haven't heard about this until I actually was looking into you more, but you wrote a couple articles about American Express, Visa, and MasterCard creating a new merchant category code for purchases from gun stores, which I think is just completely inappropriate. Tell us a little bit more about that and how that's dangerous. Right. Well, here's the thing is that a little background on that.

that you end up getting... Visa said that it would end up joining with MasterCard and American Express about a week and a half ago, that it would adopt the International Organization for Standardization of New Merchant Code for gun store sales. In the past, it had previously categorized gun store sales just as general merchandise.

And I got to tell you, you can just imagine how the pushback on this came from people from all over the country, because, you know, any time you think about.

a gun store purchase, particularly that of a gun itself, you are hoping that that is not going to be tracked in any way, shape, or form. There's always some sort of skepticism on that, that like when they say, oh, it's not going to be tracked, oh yeah, sure. But nevertheless,

When you're talking about your credit card, though, that's something that you're – there is concern that that could be used by law enforcement because they can always access your finances if they deem it necessary, particularly through the Patriot Act. So what is particularly concerning here is that amalgamated bank –

basically ended up getting pressured by a bunch of gun control activists to have this sort of change. And at first, you ended up having Visa push back and say, no, no, no, no, no. You know, legal gun purchases are legal, and we're not the moral arbiters of any of this. We're going to be standing strong. And then they ended up eventually caving,

when the international organization of a standardization came along and said, guess what? You're going to have to do it because this is what all the credit card companies are going to be doing. So they basically made this announcement. Now, here's the thing, though. Very recently...

um you had about two dozen republican state attorney general um making announcement and they said hey guys uh even though you haven't officially put this uh whole plan into a place just yet you're this was this is a quote-unquote proposal you better start thinking hard about perhaps maybe not doing it because we're getting our lawsuits ready

And because think about this. You go into a gun store. Let's say you decide to get maybe a brush to clean out the barrel of your rifle or perhaps to be a gun safe. You didn't decide to get a gun. It's still going to be – it would still pop up as a gun purchase, so to speak, according to this merchant category code that they're creating. Right.

Well, and as we've learned, Carrie, this isn't just about government accessing these things via legal channels, but hackers. I mean, there is no such thing as secure data. Exactly. I was just going to get to that. You see, that's just it. I'm jumping the gun on you. Yeah, exactly. You see, that's just it. Is that, you know, first.

A purchase at a gun store, you can't tell if it's a gun or a brush to clean your gun barrel with, number one. Number two, once you have that— Well, I have to hope I'm not paying the same price for those two, but okay. Yes, exactly. No, but you see, that's just it. Then you're also—if we're talking about tracking firearms here, then—

You know, we've heard about breaches. We've heard about leaks. We've heard about, you know, inadvertent leaks and breaches. And whether malicious or not, it doesn't matter. Right. And therein lies the biggest problem. That's a huge problem. And quite frankly, then there comes with it an element of potential government control, right? It's also very easy for them to at some point, whether on an individual level,

group or societal basis just say, we're not allowing these transactions at all anymore. Right. And at the same time, they're trying to move to a cashless society. That's

The end of the Second Amendment. Oh, welcome to the digital dollar. You know, that is a that's a that's a big issue going on right now and a whole other tangent. But you see, one of the issues that the Second Amendment Foundation President Alan Gottlieb rightfully brings up is that in one instance, some people can say, well, you know what? Myself as a gun owner, I'm just going to be buying in cash and

to hell with all that. But, you know what? A lot of people these days, a lot of gun owners, a lot of gun enthusiasts buy online. Right. They go to places like gunbroker.com or guns.com and buy

And obviously people know the legal process. You go there, you end up buying AF firearm, and then they ship it over to an FFL, and then you go and get the background check over at the gun store or over at the FFL. But the problem is, though, is that PayPal and Venmo and all those places –

They don't allow for any gun purchases on their processors. So then you have to use a MasterCard, Visa, or American Express when you do an online purchase of a firearm. So therein lies a bit of a problem there. A potentially huge problem there, and to compound it,

I am also, in addition to this fantastic radio program we have here, I'm also policy director for Cary Lake for governor running for governor of Arizona and was meeting just this week with some representatives from the banking industry. And this issue came up specifically in and their excuse was, oh, well, we

We wouldn't do anything to limit the sales of anything that's not a weapon of war. Okay. That is probably one of the dumbest statements that I usually hear up on Capitol Hill and on the campaign trail because pretty much any firearm that has ever eventually gotten into civilian hands has been used in war. Right. The very concept of a gun comes from war. Right.

Yeah, I mean, it's like you go to the National Shooting and Sports Foundation and they list

all the firearm that has eventually gotten into civilian hands throughout history that all started off in all these major wars it is such a ridiculous statement and uh... you know it it's one of those things that that

that you had these statements coming from, you know, very often liberal lawmakers where they go, that's a weapon of war. That particular statement really does need to be retired. Well, it's particularly ridiculous because, for instance, they say, oh, you know, they say it's

quote, assault rifles, which we know they don't understand what that term actually means. But two, then they point downwards to semi-automatics. But the fact of the matter is that bolt-action rifles are still used as weapons of war. Yeah, right. I mean, even when they talk about the so reviled AR-15, OK,

That was simply the civilian version of the M16 going back decades upon decades upon decades. The ArmaLite rifle, which is a very basic semi-automatic rifle.

Right. Exactly. Exactly. It's just a civilian version. That's all. And if you break it down, this is one of the things that I think – one of the things I think about the folks who are the gun control advocates is over and over again they show very clearly they have no idea at all what they're talking about. They don't understand weapons. They don't understand how they work. They don't understand the Second Amendment or the basis for it. But at the end of the day –

You know, if you're looking at the function of any semi-automatic weapon, they're basically all the same, right? Yeah.

Well, yes. I mean... Obviously, you have some that are gas powered. Yeah, yeah. I mean, yes, they function similarly. Of course, generally what happens when they talk about the quote-unquote, you know, what is an assault rifle, it is basically, according to the government, it is basically like five cosmetic features,

onto a semi-automatic long rifle. So, for example, it can't have a pistol grip, it can't have a grenade launcher on it. I'm just thinking...

thinking off the top of my head of all the list of five things that a semi-automatic long rifle cannot have. Of course, if you're talking about a Ruger Mini-14, which also shoots 5.56, 2.23 ammo, same thing that an AR-15 shoots, but it looks like something...

that people would traditionally think, oh, that's what you shoot Bambi with. That has a wooden stock, and it doesn't have a pistol grip. Oh, look at that. Isn't that nice? That's what Papa goes out to shoot Bambi with. It looks very, very, shall we say, not as violent. It doesn't look like something that Rambo would go out and shoot the commies with. And therein lies the difference, but it's just as deadly.

So I want to switch topics quickly. We only have about two minutes left here, but you've been covering also the Martha's Vineyard foibles as a border state.

This is just laughable, isn't it? I mean, we deal with more people on an average day in Yuma, which has less resources than Martha's Vineyard, than they did in 50 people. That's literally a drop in the bucket for what states like Arizona, Texas, California are dealing with.

You know, my colleague, Stephen Dynan, who does like 99.9% of our immigration reporting, has done this excellent article over at the WashingtonTimes.com. And there has been some polling out there that shows that voters, especially Republican voters, but voters support voting.

the busing of these illegal immigrants, once they come over the border, obviously, to these inland blue states, basically to really show visually just the hypocrisy.

of these blue state mayors and governors. It's really astounding. I mean, because all of them, including the folks in Martha's Vineyard, put out these statements, we're sanctuary this, and we welcome all immigrants that, and then 50 of them show up on their doorstep, and they can't wait to round them up and ship them off to a National Guard base in another state.

It really is incredible. And even though they'll try and change the subject and they'll say something to the effect of, oh, oh, this was kidnapping. This was kidnapping done by Ron DeSantis. And it's like, wait, hold on a second. You're

You're calling it kidnapping, but then you're saying that he just left them there. Yeah. How was that kidnapping? Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Thank you so much for joining us today, Carrie Pickett. Folks, you can follow her at Carrie Pickett on Twitter. Senior congressional reporter for The Washington Times. Carrie, thank you so much. Good thing. Take care.

Alright, welcome to the podcast-only segment of Breaking Battlegrounds. Your host Sam Stone in studio with me today, the irrepressible Kylie Kipper. You got some words out of me. Like, five. I think that was the most words we've gotten out of you all day right there. Really? It was pretty close. Like, you did ask one question, but... Well, I was actually curious about that. I'm always also curious about China. However, that is just...

She's making an over her head gesture here, folks. This is great radio because, of course, you can't see it. You can, however, follow us on YouTube and get all of this. Jamie, our digital guru, thank you for reminding folks and reminding me, quite frankly, to say, folks, if you're listening to this and you're not a subscriber, click the subscribe button.

If you're listening to this and you like us, send it to a friend and tell them to click the bloody subscribe button. So we can keep going. Yeah. Otherwise, we're not going to be able to stay on air. This is how we show people that they actually care. We show the folks on these radio stations you're hearing us on that people actually care about what we talk about on here, which baffles me. Well, I very much care because all I see every single day on the news is about abortion.

And we are letting Democrats determine what we're talking about. But here on the show, we can determine what we talk about. Yeah, I didn't want to talk about abortion at all, Kylie. Thank you for bringing that up. We're not going to, but I'm specifying we talk about other things. OK, we're going to be talking about fantasy football because we know Kylie's a gambling junkie.

Is fantasy football gambling? Those are two separate in my mind. I did get notified. That depends on what the stakes are this year. What does the loser have to do? Yeah. The loser this year has to host a lemonade stand, but I'm not going to lose, so that won't matter. Okay, wait. All they have to do is host a lemonade stand on the side of the road? That's pretty weak. Yeah, but all the proceeds go to us, the winners, and we split it amongst everyone. Do they have to? It's kind of weak because last year the girls didn't do well. That's totally weak. It is. I agree. It is.

You've got to do something more ridiculous than that. If you're going to do that... Yeah, we've got to up the ante. I know. Well, you have to make it a punishment for the loser. I agree. I was against the lemonade stand. I said, that's too easy. I feel like you should have to do that lemonade stand in a chicken suit with a... I'm going to suggest that. I squawk at fantasy football signs or something. However, this year I stepped it up and I joined three leagues so I could perform three different strategies. Okay.

Okay, now tell us what are these three strategies? One of the strategies is I'm going to focus really hard and look into each player. Who am I going to start? You do all my research that I usually did in my past years that wasn't always successful.

All right. So this is a continuation of the existing Kylie Kipper approach to fantasy football. Yes, that's the first one. So the nerdy, I'm going to go look at each player individually. This is, I think, what most people do. It's kind of what I do. One of the least, I'm not even going to try. Just going to see how it goes. I'll put my person in and we're just going to see how it goes. Is this the which player looks best in football pants approach? Yeah. Yeah.

This is going to be, you know, do they have a story? That, by the way, is like historically one of the best approaches to fantasy football. But when drafting, I was like, you know, I like the people that are in the public eye. Let's put some stories. You know, we got Tom Brady. Okay. You know, we got Travis Kelsey. We got some names. So I'm like, I got the names going here that are going to be performing. So is that team the Newsmakers?

That would be a great name. I may change it. Last week I was 0-3. None of the strategies worked very well. At this point, you've got to try something different. Exactly. Oh my goodness. So I figured with the three strategies, we could have a different approach each week and see how that goes. Last week,

Is not going to. Okay, my entire approach is to load the crap out of my team with running backs at the start of the draft. That is literally all as far as I get into this. So my first draft, I went with the no running back strategy. Really? Yeah. How did that work? Well, there's actually a fact that I read that in the two weeks, the first week of fantasy and the second week, not one running back has gotten over 15 points both times. So they're saying your running back is not actually as important as...

All your other players. I think it's important these days. Folks, I play in one league and it is a PPR league, right? I'm a PPR too. So I look for running backs who catch passes. Yeah. That's where I go with it, right? Do you have any suggestions for me? I mean, I don't know who's on your waiver wire right now.

Not many great options. No, everyone picks over it. You just got to go start looking for all the third down backs that are left there and hope someone gets hurt in front of them. I'm also over these sleepers. The sleepers never perform. They're asleep the whole time. I don't like that strategy. Actually, one of the things I do is look for old players that people are writing off.

Well, take your pick. But anybody who's 33, 34, right, or older, everyone writes them off and assumes they won't do well. They're not going to put up 1,500 yards, but that's often the kind of guy who can get you 60 catches on 800 yards. Well, you know, I might have to start looking at the old folk then. Yeah. I'm not giving away any names. This is competitive. It's not like we're in the same league, though. Help a sister out. I don't know. I'll look at your waiver wire. Okay.

Or my current players. Maybe I'm utilizing my players wrong. Okay, that could be too. I don't know. I don't know either. I guess we're going to have to dig into this, folks. I'll keep you posted. This is important stuff. It's a long season. You brought up abortion. I thought we weren't talking about that, though. No, we weren't, but now I'm going to. Okay. Sam, this one's on you now. Yeah, no, this is. It's true. This is totally your fault. This is absolutely true. Absolutely true. Here's the thing.

Nobody actually wants to hear about it. I know. So why, as Republicans, do we allow Democrats to determine what we talk about? See, this is what I don't understand about the whole debate. And whatever your position on it is, if you're a Republican candidate and you're making this an issue and you are not in the reddest district on the planet, why aren't you talking about jobs, the economy, inflation? Why aren't you talking about our border and crime? Why aren't you talking about homelessness? Talk about your bloody cat. I do anything. Right.

I agree. Like, what are we doing playing into their hands on this garbage? We do it all the time. Yeah, we do. We fall for it. We do. I mean, they fell for the Martha's Vineyard thing. And congratulations to Ron DeSantis. That was good. For finding the one way to make liberal pundits across this country pay attention to the border crisis by shipping them up to the place they all hope to retire to after they've spent their time as Tom Brokaw or Dan Rather.

I mean, listen, as far as I can tell, this is the dream of every pundit in America is exactly that. And Rhonda Santis interfered with their dream because their dream does not include a bunch of migrants standing around. They're pristine beaches. They need to maintain the pristine beaches. It's Martha's Vineyard. They also fought off an offshore wind wind plant.

Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. That was funny, too. Yeah, no, that was a few years ago. There was a big battle over that. That was good. These are the same people who are sitting there telling us, oh, you've got to let all the migrants in. The minute the migrants show up on their doorstep, they're like, oh, no, not here. We didn't mean here. Yeah.

And, you know, then like they're the ones that are lecturing you about clean energy. Yeah. And someone's like, so their private jet. Yeah. So someone's like, so, you know, that place where you spend all the time hanging out on your yacht. We're going to put some wind farm out there and you might have to sail around it. Like, no, run away, run away. What are we to do?

I feel like Democrat politics is more and more a Monty Python sketch. Well, so actually yesterday I came across Citizens for Sanity. And I came across because I was like, these people are losing their mind because they're posting things all over that say, you know,

help Mike get turn into Michaela or whatever. And so what they're doing is they're putting out the policies that Democrats that are so radical and just putting billboards around, putting stuff in newspapers, just being like, this is what they want to do. Right. But they're putting it in the plain text of like what

You'll have to look into it. But look it up. I'm going to look it up. Because at first I was like, these people are losing their mind. They want us to believe this. Then I went to their website, did further research, realized, oh, they're doing the reverse psychology of being like, this is actually insane. Well, see, this is what I love about what's going on in this country. I mean, don't love, obviously. I flippin' hate it. But the fact that if I look across the board, I think people can make an argument.

I'm going to get in trouble for this. But people can make an argument that Republicans have that there's a significant portion of the Republican Party that has what is seen as the broader public as an extreme position on abortion. That's the only place I can point to that you can point that you can look at a Republican platform policy and say this is extreme in any way.

Everything else is like, hey, let's just educate our kids and stop trying to teach them transgenderism in first grade. You know, ABC's one, two, threes. Not not what's between that guy's knees.

Thank goodness we're on the podcast portion. I'm well aware we're on the podcast portion. But, I mean, none of the rest of it is controversial. Like, let's see, low taxes actually work to increase the economic activity. They help people keep more money in their pockets. And, oh, by the way, leftists, they actually put more money in government coffers than less because more economic activity means more taxes. So the entire objective that they're after, which is to have more money to spend on their friends –

would actually be served by following our agenda. Yeah, I agree. That would require long-term thinking, though, and they're not big on that. Well, that would require thinking, and they're not big on that either. It's all emote. It's all emoting and sussing. I learned suss like two weeks ago. You just learned the word suss? Yeah. We're very proud of you. We are.

This is the stuff that rubs off when you're in a campaign with a bunch of children. Yes. They're all like 19. Oh, my gosh. See, I am so proud of the fact – But can we acknowledge 19-year-olds getting involved in the Republican Party? Oh, no. We're thrilled for them. This is fantastic. It's one of my favorite things about the – as folks know, I'm working for Carrie Lake against Katie Hobbs in this Arizona gubernatorial election. One of the things I really love –

about, you know, places where they go and the things they do and that sort of thing. It's Carrie Lake's audiences are massively diverse. There's people of every color. There's young people all over the place. It looks like a Democrat Party rally from the Obama era. It really does. And then you go to a Katie Hobbs thing and it's all white people with white hair. Yep.

Yeah. I mean, some like pink also. Well, there's some of the. Yeah. So basically there's old white liberals and young people with mental problems. Yeah. That's literally all that's left in the Democrat Party. Yeah. Am I wrong? No. It's embarrassing. It is. Like I can't point to any of their policies anymore that actually work for anything. I actually if you go to both of their websites, Katie and Carrie's.

Kerry has actual concrete things, which, you know. I might have had a hand in writing up some of that. Yeah. Like plans, like literal plans. Yeah. But if you go to Katie's, nothing. It's all like. It's all platitudes. Border policy kills me because it's all just like, oh, we're going to shuffle a little bit of money towards Yuma and then the rest of it. We're just going to beg and hope that Joe Biden does something. Clearly he's not going to. If you're an independent, go to both because it's. Yeah.

Now, I'm going to probably do this. People are going to be laughing at me here in just a second. But I have to try to do my best Katie Hobbs impression on this one. Like...

My plan is to, like, you know, protect women and children and trans people and dogs. And, you know, if I get a chance as governor to build a fair and equitable society, we're committed to doing that because equitable societies are equitable societies.

And equitability is the most important thing for all of us. We have no idea what it means, nor will you, because what it actually means is that my friends and I get to make a lot of money off of your government taxes that you're paying that we're not paying because we don't have real jobs.

Did I nail that? You did. Wasn't quite high pitched enough. Yeah. I can't do that high pitch. I know. She's very squeaky. Well, and also, look, when I was younger, I could have gotten up into those registers, but I'm 46 years old now and I growl a lot. It doesn't work. I want to know. Is there going to be a debate or no? Oh, God, no. You think that Valley girl is going to get on stage with Carrie Lake? The wipeout that would happen at that point would be epic.

I know. Carrie would so mop the floor with her on every single thing she said. Every time she opened her mouth, she would get schooled. I know. That's why I want to see it. Yes, we all do. I love that the press here is like they're caught in their own foibles, right? Yeah. Like they have to they have to criticize Katie Hobbs for avoiding a debate because.

But you know damn well there's not one of them that actually wants to see that debate happen. No. But I will say, I was watching Channel 3, I think it was, with my grandma, and they were talking about how

They gave Katie Hobbs the opportunity to make the debate however you want. So they were talking about it, which I appreciate, instead of hiding that. Because Katie Hobbs is given the opportunity to make the debate in any format that she wants to do. Carrie literally offered to let her write the questions. And you still won't do it. And she still won't do it. Yeah, no. Go ahead, Katie. Write the questions and she still won't show up. The cowardice of this woman is her most salient quality.

Speaking of debates, did you see Fetterman called himself Fetterwoman? Yes. That's the best. I have trouble because I start fixating on the alien crawling out of his neck. I don't know. He's got this thing. I know. It looks like it's...

It looks like we need someone to show up with a flame gun and be prepared to kill the alien offspring when it emerges. So anyway, I want to finish with one personal note for this week. My buddy, my friend, my pal, E.J. Montini, E.J. Manweeney of the Arizona Central, Arizona Republic. E.J. decided this week, as so many other Democrats across the country have, that criticizing Trump

Jew-hating Jew George Soros is anti-Semitism. Now, George Soros does not like Jewish people. He may be one of them, but he has made it clear throughout his life he does not like us. I am Jewish. And I pointed out that criticizing somebody who's Jewish is not anti-Semitism. George Soros has funded non-prosecutor criminal coddlers across this country. And it is entirely fair to say that those people have gotten Americans killed.

They have let criminals out. They have refused to prosecute them. They've refused to put them away. And violent criminals have gone on to kill innocent Americans. The very next day. The very next day because of George Soros. This is a Soros murder rave across this country. I don't think there's anything at all. There is. In fact, it's not. Thank you, folks. There's nothing at all anti-Semitic about pointing that out. This man is a cancer on American culture.

And that has nothing to do with his ethnicity or his background or his religion or anything else. It has to do with his actions. But when I point this out, E.J. Montini uses this as an article to say that Carrie Lake is anti-Semitic. No. And I am anti-Semitic by association. Except, again, I'm Jewish. Yeah. And I actually like my own people. Unlike George. Unlike George. No, George has made it very clear that he is not.

He doesn't like Jewish people. He also, at the age of, I think it was 12 or 14, I think 12, his parents sent him to live with a Hungarian government official. They were Jews. They fled the country. They sent him to live with a Hungarian government official to pretend to be that guy's godson so that the Nazis wouldn't end up taking little Georgie. Little Georgie spent the next few years as a runner.

And the family that they put him with assisted the Nazis. Georgie spent the last few years as a runner. He has said on the air that he calls that the time of his life. He was a teenager. Teenagers know the difference between a group of people that are murdering an entire other group of people. And they know that's wrong. Any teenager in the world who doesn't understand that that's wrong has zero moral compass whatsoever. And yet Georgie called that the time of his life.

I'm sorry. Yeah, that's anti-Semitism. That leaves me speechless. That's that's what we're talking about here. And yet somehow E.J. Manweeney thinks that it's you. He thinks that it's me. He thinks that it's Carrie Lake because we're critical of this guy. This is folks. This is embarrassing. If you're in the media and you're you're pushing this dumb narrative, you're

Get up, look at yourself in the mirror and realize you are a piece of dirt, that you are pushing something that is absolutely offensive to any thinking human being who's willing to look at the truth. And the truth of the situation is George Soros is a scumbag. And George Soros is financing people who are refusing to uphold law and order.

Why? What is the benefit to any person in this society from somebody who refuses, who wants to hire criminal prosecutors who refuse to prosecute criminals? Where's the good that's supposed to come of this? There is none. Jamie, any? No. Kylie? That whole thing has left me speechless. I pray people wake up. Like most of the time on this program. That's not hard to do. Couché. This one is like actually speechless.

Okay, well, look, this has been an almost 20-minute podcast segment, which is way longer than we normally do. I hope you folks have enjoyed it. Be sure to tune in again next week to Breaking Battlegrounds. We'll be back on the air. But also, folks, again, send this podcast to your friends and get them to download it.

You know, that's how we show our sponsors and that's how we show these radio stations that we deserve to be on the air and you all out there want to be hearing what we have to say and listening to our guests. And I think we do a really good job on this program of finding – thank you, Kylie. I know I've been beating up on you today, but thank you. This folks – Kylie is the one that goes out and rounds up our guests for us. She's often scrambling at the last minute to try to find someone to get on air and

It's a coordination nightmare, but she does it, and we get great guests every single week. They have interesting stuff to say. This week, Dr. Aaron Friedberg. I thought that was a fantastic discussion about China. And Carrie Pickett from The Washington Times, another fantastic discussion about what's going on with some Second Amendment issues in this country.

We can't do this without your support. And all it takes to support us is for you to click subscribe on your favorite podcast format and make sure you get Breaking Battlegrounds delivered directly to your email box every single week. And with that, any last words?

No, thank you for listening. If you have fantasy football suggestions, send them at break underscore battle on Twitter. Is that right? Is it breaking underscore battle? Yeah, it's breaking underscore battle. And the reason for that is because you can only have so many characters in the name.

I'm glad Kylie remembered that because I did not. Okay, well, follow. Look, just look us up and follow us on Twitter. Go to BreakingBattleGrounds.vote. All the links are there. All the links are there. Absolutely. Tune in. Stay tuned. We're going to have some more fantastic guests for you next week. Battlegrounds over and out.

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