Left Face
Join Adam Gillard and Dick Wilkinson while they talk politics and community engagement in Pikes Peak region.
Left Face
The Gerrymandering War
The battleground for American democracy is shifting from the ballot box to the map room as Texas Governor Greg Abbott's brazen redistricting gambit ignites what could become a nationwide gerrymandering war. What started as a power grab to flip five Democratic seats has triggered an unprecedented response—Democratic lawmakers fleeing the state to prevent a quorum, governors receiving civil arrest warrants, and bomb threats elevating the stakes from political theater to potential danger.
The most fascinating development? Democratic governors are preparing to fight fire with fire. California's Gavin Newsom has essentially declared: "You think you can flip five seats? We'll flip ten." This strategic counterpunch could transform a local power play into a national reckoning with our broken redistricting system. As one host provocatively suggests, "If we all abuse the system, we might fix the system."
Meanwhile, the Trump administration continues dismantling institutional guardrails, firing the chief statistician for simply reporting job numbers that contradicted the president's preferred narrative. This troubling development coincides with the increasingly transactional nature of policy-making, exemplified by Tim Cook's gold-adorned gift to Trump amid promises to bring Apple manufacturing stateside—a move that sounds patriotic until you consider the $2,000 iPhones and regulatory rollbacks it would require.
The conversation weaves through environmental consequences of corporate decisions, the human costs of overseas manufacturing, and the uncomfortable truth that many "Made in America" promises rely on environmental and labor concessions that undermine their purported benefits. Throughout these interconnected issues runs a central question: What happens when both sides decide to play hardball with the same rulebook?
Whether you're concerned about the integrity of our democratic systems, the economic realities behind political promises, or the strategic chess match unfolding between parties, this episode delivers critical insights into the high-stakes power games reshaping American politics. Subscribe now to join our community of politically engaged listeners who refuse to accept surface-level explanations in an increasingly complex political landscape.
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Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Left Face. My name is Adam Gillard. I'm your co-host here along with Dick Wilkinson. How are you doing, dick? Good morning, adam. Doing well Good. We're back here in the studio. This week had a couple weeks off, but this is your Pikes Peak political podcast from a veteran's point of view. We're kind of going to go along with a quick update on some protests here locally. This will make me have to get this posted quickly, but tomorrow, friday, august 8th, from three to five, outside Jeff Crank's office there's a a me too rally protest that you know we're going to have people that are, you know, have experienced sexual assaults out there speaking and kind of really kind of putting it out there on what we're not getting answers for. You know, a lot of folks are still really riled up about the Epstein files rightfully so and they just keep getting buried more and more. But good news is is that after Giselle, max Giselle.
Speaker 1:Yeah whatever her name is. Once she got transferred to that minimum security prison, she said that Donald Trump didn't do anything wrong.
Speaker 2:So we should rest easy. Now, the truth is out there. Yeah, the truth is out there. Now we can comb through the real stuff, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we're going to have another protest out there August 8th 3 to 5, and they'll keep coming, and people are taking these things down from social media too, which is kind of concerning. So whenever you hear about these things, make sure you're spreading the word Um so that's, yeah, repeat the.
Speaker 2:you know, reshare and repeat, because if they send in the original post, you know that's what it sounds like to me. We just had somebody in the office here talking about that and I was getting my little tech hat on. Um, I think, you know it gets posted and then somebody basically just clicks on that posting on whatever Reddit or Facebook and says hate speech, you know, and then that gets them to pull it down and review it. And you know, and, and if it's close to the event, then just a 24 hour review is enough to silence the movement. You know, and it's too easy to just click the button and say this is hate speech, right, or this is inciting, you know, whatever illegal activity you know, yeah, didn't even think about how easy it would be to report things on social media.
Speaker 1:You really need a platform that's a little more protected.
Speaker 2:Most of them will default to suspend the message, the posting and take it down until they've looked into it. Right, and sometimes that's a few minutes, sometimes that's a few hours, you know. But it's very easy to just click it and report it, like there's an intern over at somebody's office and that's their job is to just run these searches every morning and go, oh, that one click, click, click, take them down. That one click, click, click, take them down. That's somebody's job.
Speaker 1:It's funny because people get they're pretty proud about being thrown in Facebook jail now. Yeah, they try to post stuff just to get kicked off and then they post about that when they come back. They brag on the way back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I could see you guys, but you couldn't see me. I can look out the window, but you don't know, I'm in jail.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, we talked about the Epstein topic over the last few weeks and this protest is specifically to. I made a statement a few weeks back of like I don't really care about the original story, I absolutely care about victims. I care about the fact that there was almost certainly a very uh elaborately conducted operation to harm young women. That that's terrible, right? So my statement about not caring about epstein was more about the conspiracy and did he kill himself and was there a cover-up and all this other stuff like that once he got arrested and died. I didn't care about the rest of the story.
Speaker 2:You know the crimes, the sex trafficking ring, the potential that there are people that are currently, you know, ceos, uh, secretaries, cabinet member type, people like you know governor level type people that are implicated in criminal activity. Yeah, that's what this protest is about. Is that the truth, not just about the Epstein situation, but about the fact that there is absolutely a system that supports people doing this heinous stuff? Right, and kind of just looks the other way. I say kind of looks the other way.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Implicitly looks the other way. I think people record it and then they use it to get what they want. They're not so much looking the other way, they're like I can still use it.
Speaker 2:Mexican standoff, you know black male city out there, where they're just like if you shoot first. I'll shoot first, and then we'll both go down.
Speaker 1:That Dimitri Medvedev from Russia. Well, what he said the other day he's like Donald Trump. Shouldn't think that his video archives are only owned by Mossad. Yeah, nice yeah.
Speaker 2:Nice.
Speaker 1:And Medvedev's like the king of Russian propaganda.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's how he made his name.
Speaker 2:He's probably the guy clicking on these things getting them taken off Facebook. No kidding, it's a very busy man.
Speaker 1:There are Russian connections to the Pueblo plant down south. Oh, yeah, you don't know that. Yeah, to the Pueblo plant down south. You don't know that. Yeah, there's a steel factory or something. Oh, yeah, well, no.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a Russian oligarch that owns the Pueblo Steel Factory. The name of the steel factory is his last name and he's a sanctioned Russian oligarch, but he owns the economy of Pueblo Colorado.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so they're not that far away. Where are we going next?
Speaker 2:Okay, so that was the. That's the protest for tomorrow. That's the heads up. Um, unfortunately, by the time we if we get this posted today, maybe then they'll hear it Right. But that's, that's up to you, Adam, how quickly you can turn it around All right.
Speaker 2:Now onto a national story that has local implications for sure. Eventually, right and um, because it it this thing is about to unravel is what it looks like. Right, it seems like a can of worms has been opened and dumped out, and what we're talking about is what's going on in Texas. The story there is gerrymandering, an overt desire by the governor of Texas to call a special session of their state legislature to redistrict the state, which just happened four years ago, right, three years ago, when it really got certified, right. And so he said, yeah, yeah, that's great, and all that that was rigged, it's always been rigged. So we're just going to rig it again, you know, and just re rig it the way that I want to. Right, and this is like the earliest that probably that he could call for, that, I'm guessing. And so there you go, that's it. You know, years or whatever since it's been certified, and so he's like, all right, we're going to do this.
Speaker 2:The governor's intention and it's overt is to flip five seats in Texas, from blue seats to red seats, where they're going to shift the lines around and carve up the little bit of Democratic party footholds that there are in Texas. They're going to go slice those out into more red districts, right? And so they're going to take San Antonio and Austin and Dallas and just fracture them Right and turn that into new districts, right? And then that way you've got a big lump of red with a little tweak of blue instead of a big lump of blue with just a little tweak of red.
Speaker 1:Which is very kind of similar to how Colorado Springs is set up when you get more internal to the city. But just our last redistricting got rid of Teller County. But you know, when you get into into El Paso County it's very red when you get around the city. So if you want to make us more red you would just either add Teller County back in or cut off a little bit of old Colorado City, those western sides.
Speaker 2:Yeah, gerrymandering is easy to do, and for the politician nerds that are out there that study this kind of stuff like it's, they've always got a sort of like oh well, if you want to do this, you just split this up, and if you want to do that, you split this up. They got like fantasy football for gerrymandering, right. And so somebody showed that to Governor Greg Abbott and he was like, yeah, do that. One Right Pushed us into. You know where's the story now? Democratic lawmakers in Texas, which are the minority in the state legislature for sure, vacated the legislature. They left Right, and so the purpose there is kind of like an ultimate filibuster. The special session cannot call a quorum and cannot pass a vote without them being present in the building, right. Even if they refuse to vote and whatever else, like they have to be there and observe the proceedings To get that quorum.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And so they said well, we're just not going to show up and then there will be no quorum. And that was on Monday was the first day where they I think maybe over the weekend there was a session where they didn't show up and then Monday is where the governor said be here by three o'clock when we convene 3 pm in Texas on Monday at the Capitol, or we're going to issue civil arrest warrants for you. You're basically derelict in your duties, right? Apparently there's legal precedent for that, right, as far as actually it's not a criminal charge, it's more of just like a warrant in its purest form of like we're looking for this person and I'm the governor, so go find them. Right, you know like that was it. You know it's just a decree.
Speaker 2:Basically it's a decree, it's a civil decree that says these people are not doing what the governor told them to do and they need to get back to work. Right. A lot of them fled the state specifically so that the highway patrol would not be compelled, or the state marshals, the Texas Rangers, would not be compelled to come and pick them up because absolutely, they're the governor's private police force, right, that's what they're there for, right, and so if they stayed in Texas then they would have gotten arrested, right. So a lot of them left not everybody, but a lot of them did and that's kind of where we're at right now is a standoff Right. But a lot of them did, and that's kind of where we're at right now is a standoff right. And Adam had an interesting detail that I didn't know about A group of them fled to Chicago as a Blue Haven, right. And what's happened since they went to Chicago?
Speaker 1:So the governor there. He's one of the heirs to the Hyatt, so they throw them up in these Hyatts and they got their room and board things taken care of. So they're sitting pretty good in there. So they're not struggling right now. They got their press booth set up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Because one thing that always bugs me is the drama and the circus kind of around these things. Oh sure, but last night a bomb threat was called into the hotel and everybody had to evacuate. Now, once you take away that sense of security, things change for everybody, because I mean we live in a day and age where every bomb threat literally could be it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:So now you know it's no longer a theatrical thing, this is a real threat on their lives.
Speaker 2:It is.
Speaker 1:It's not just a you know, a powerless warrant where you just you know come, get yelled at by the governor and get slapped on the wrist Like people are taking this Choices have consequences.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and what we said in prep for the episode has been very much a ratcheting up tit for tat kind of exchange of like, well you do this, no, I'm going to do this. Well, then you do this. And that's been happening all week.
Speaker 1:Wasn't there a similar situation out in like Idaho or Oregon, where the the legislatures left Texas did this two years ago for basically the same thing.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, um, exact same situation happened, where they disappeared and wouldn't, wouldn't come back until there was some, you know, basically like a strike. You know like we're going to agree to these concessions before we come back, right.
Speaker 1:Well, the things that they're trying to fight, like the gerrymandering, they're already written into law, like when to redistrict and when to do all these things.
Speaker 2:Yes, so here you go. Thanks for bringing that up, because I've got my let's. All I understand the national sentiment is, if there's no way for Democrats to push back in federal Congress or the Senate and the president can just execute his will everywhere, then maybe at different levels of government, that's where the rubber meets the road Right, and so everybody is very I say everybody liberals, left-leaning Democratic folks are like, yeah, they're clapping for the Democrats because they're taking a stand Right, but the? I'm more of a pragmatic person and the call for the special session was legal. The super majority that I assume the Republicans enjoy in Texas is legal. Gerrymandering is an ugly word that sounds weird and nobody understands it, and and it's legal. And so leaving work because you don't like all the legal stuff that's going on around you serves no purpose. If you ask me, this thing will get done whether you're there or not, right, and so he, the governor, is now trying to pursue and he may succeed in basically firing these people, and then you can have a quorum because you, their seats are vacated, right, and it comes down to a majority of seated members, right, and so he could cook the books like that, or the clock.
Speaker 2:This special session can only run legally. It has like a 30-day limit, right. And so they're trying to run out the clock and then it comes around to will the governor call another? He can just call them back to back. He can keep calling them 30 days at a time, right. And so they're saying, if we run out the clock, will the governor call another one. And we're right back to where we were on day 29, right. When day 30 rolls around and we don't show up, does he just start to clock over, right?
Speaker 2:And so, to not play that game, the governor asked the FBI to find these people and arrest them and bring them back. And the FBI, this morning, the director uh, I don't know, and bring them back. And the FBI this morning, the director uh, I don't know deputy director, I think, maybe said yeah, yeah, we're up for it, we're going to go get them and bring them back to Texas. And so that the game you know, remember what side you're on right, the, the, the Democrats are putting up a stink, but authoritarianism and fascism, like, doesn't play with your. You know, tomfoolery and all the stuff that they're doing is legal. So you, unfortunately, as the democratic lawmaker in this situation, look like the little kid that's not getting their way and they're sitting in the corner throwing their toys around. That's all this looks like, and if you end up getting arrested and losing your job over it, I mean people will clap for you in democratic circles for the rest of your life. You'll be a folk hero. Can Johnny Appleseed, you know, but like, will it actually get anything done?
Speaker 1:No, so what? What should the Democrats be doing then? If this because I agree with you, where, like, I think so much of it's for show and like trying to run out the clocks is a stupid gamemanship, like, if they're doing something wrong, like be there and fight them on that. Yeah, you know, don't, don't play these. Run out the clock, yeah.
Speaker 2:And um, and I mean basically that's it, Go there, do your job, take notes and say, hey, there was a super majority, the governor was part of that super majority and we, we did. We did what we were elected to do, which is show up and make quorum Right, and then we all you know, recused ourselves from the vote and they all pushed it through and that was that Right. So I'm saying at each individual state level, maybe because this stuff is legal and you can't get that changed in a one or two election cycles, that's a long term thing to try and fix gerrymandering and really nobody seems to want to do it. It's like the you know, it's the secret that, like you've got brass knuckles in one of your boxing gloves right, like you know, we all do it, but nobody wants to admit it, yeah, and everybody wants to overthrow it when they're not sitting in the seat.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But as soon as they're sitting there in the seat, they're like well we got other things to focus on.
Speaker 2:Here's what I'm actually a fan of blowing things up, which is uh and not, not in the army sense of blowing things up, right, I'm saying what looks like is going to come to pass is that Gavin knew someone. Just as we said. I don't like Gavin. In his grandstanding he sees the chance to jump up on stage and he's like oh, you think you got five seats, we got 10, you know, we will out gerrymander you as long as you've got time. We've got time.
Speaker 2:Your legal gerrymandering is exactly the same as what we have, and so we'll just. We'll just flip the script on you. Man, you got five seats, we'll make more. And then all these other blue governors are starting to pop out of the woodwork and go oh, if we're going to play this game, we all have the exact same power. So if you want to put some weight on the scale, we can put weight right back on the other side of the scale and we'll take away your seats and your little weird corner districts that don't exist in our state, that somehow got gerrymandered out back in the day. We'll un-gerrymander them because we're blue top to bottom in these states, like that's what they think Right. And so they're like hey, we'll, we'll swing a bat, just like you swing a bat, and we'll see which one hurts worse. Yeah, I'm down with that.
Speaker 1:I'm for it.
Speaker 2:I'm for it. And here's why I'm for it One, it'll be ugly. Two, it'll change the makeup of the house. And three, it might end gerrymandering. Right, if we all abuse the system, we might fix the system. Right. The uglier the abuse gets, maybe something would be done about it.
Speaker 2:And then that whole state-level map drawing and the ability to do that in between, no special sessions for that right, like nationally, we all do it one time every 10 years, right. And then there's no such thing as a local change on that. And if, if the populations move and all the blue people move from cincinnati to cleveland and they all switch places, it doesn't matter. That's going to get corrected 10 years from now, right, democracy is a long process and, and you know, if it takes 10 years from now, right, democracy is a long process. And and you know, if it takes 10 years for each one of these little incremental things to change, that's okay. That makes sense. Some of this stuff should move slow. There should be some things that move really fast and some things that move really slow, right. That's why we have the house and the Senate right. So I'm, I'm for it, right, like, let's get it ugly. Let's read let's get the House and Senate set to where it really should be right, and then maybe we kill gerrymandering in the process.
Speaker 1:Possibly. I just like the overall tactics of using successful tactics, like if it works for the other side, use it for your side. It just makes sense. On my drive last week I listened to John Lewis's biography and he talked about how much structure there was in the civil rights movement. It wasn't just like a grassroots thing, people just popping off, just pure passion.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he says there was that, but there was like a legislative branch, there was a law branch that would tell them what they could do and things like that. They were extremely well organized and groups like the Heritage Foundation took their framework and made theirs in the early 70s. So, like everybody, just keeps using successful tactics from the previous folks or whoever they're going against, because you know, the response to the civil rights movement was the Heritage Foundation. Like they used them to set themselves up. They used them to set themselves up and when we see how MAGA took over with using the precinct organizers at the base level, like yes, that's smart, let's do that.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I mean that's where Bernie Sanders was the best at that right.
Speaker 1:That's why he was like. All my donations are under $12.
Speaker 2:So it was because of that, you know. So, uh, cause the grassroots movement worked. Right now, I agree, and you know, here's the thing that, um, I've talked about this on the show before too. This is where, as a, as a party, a person who's operating within a political party, there's often a time where if your team lost or something happened, then everybody feels like, oh well, they were dirty, and so let's fight fire with fire. Let's be dirty too, and sometimes that creeps over into basically unethical Like let's, let's mudsling and say things that, like, I don't know if it's true, right, I have a problem with that, yeah, you know, and there's.
Speaker 2:But the mentality is, well, they did it, they're unethical. So let's us be unethical too, because that's the way you went in politics, right, and I'm like stop this gerrymandering thing, while we'd like to say that it's unethical because it the whole process is up for grabs in a somebody's poor choice a long time ago in an ethical way, right, I don't know how many generations we have to go back for to figure out who figured out how to gerrymander, right, and then how that next, basically next generation of people didn't stop it, right, yeah, yeah, that's where the unethical stuff was happening was in that first, that little early seed of like, ooh, we can rig the system right. But since then it's been codified as legal right.
Speaker 1:It's become the system.
Speaker 2:And so it's not unethical to use the system to your advantage, right, and that's the difference. And so I'm all about using the broken parts of the system to cause, cause, make noise and prove a point, right, that's a way to do some asymmetrical warfare type work as well. Like, you really get an exaggerated response when you use the broken part of the system to do something, right? If there wasn't, if one other state just quietly did a special session, changed a couple of districts, districts around, districts around, and it wasn't this big overt, you know, show, then nothing would have happened, right?
Speaker 2:Like that it would have just slipped on through, right, but it became a big political event, right. And that's where I'm like okay, cool, make it a big political event in your state too, you know.
Speaker 1:Have you seen any numbers on like what uh, you know, colorado or california could bring if they did that seats?
Speaker 2:flipped around. Yeah, I've only seen california trying to do more than five and that number. I haven't really seen how much. And then chicago or illinois is talking about maybe getting on the bandwagon as well and, you know, chopping up some of their population areas to get more blue seats on the table. So you know, I think the goal was basically Texas, you got five right and and we will band together and just totally outdo you. You know we'll bring 10, 15 to the table.
Speaker 1:You know, I don't know how many more States that would be successful for Republicans, cause they're so sparsely populated.
Speaker 2:Oh, texas being like ultra red Right. I mean there's a lot of places down South, but I don't know if those districts aren't already gerrymandered as hard as they can be. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:Yeah, cause like you, look at Georgia like Atlanta is already pretty, you know tight blue Like they're not going to be able to come into Atlanta and carve out some red spots.
Speaker 2:you know, oh, cause the population is so dense there. And, yeah, for every 400 something thousand people you've got a representative. So you've got multiple districts within the city. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's many population areas that are like that around the.
Speaker 1:United States in general, I don't think outside of Texas they have many opportunities to get more seats. To chop things up like that. Yeah, maybe Florida. Who like that? Maybe Florida Like.
Speaker 2:I'm telling, like we said earlier, though, there's somebody with like their Pokemon card deck of gerrymandering districts and they're like oh, tennessee, chattanooga, that's the kick, that's the key you know, and they've got it all worked out so and they get paid to show up with that stuff too. Right, you know they're consultants.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and they know numbers. And to transition to the next topic of numbers, yeah, I understand. Numbers can say what you want.
Speaker 2:Oh, statistics can lie. Statistics can lie, you can make them say whatever you want. Yeah.
Speaker 1:But when you're a career statistician, making it up to the highest levels possible to get fired by the president for saying that the job numbers aren't good or the economy is not good, just for like telling your stats?
Speaker 2:Yeah, just reporting the numbers, just reporting the numbers.
Speaker 1:Like. That's where we're at now. I'm talking about Donald Trump firing the chief statistician because he didn't like the numbers showing that his economy is not booming. Yeah, contrary to his truth, social.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly yeah, the tariffs are working Right. The one thing that I saw the initial knee jerk reaction on the firing was that the June job number report was lower than expected. Like job growth happened, but it was a little bit lower than expected, or maybe like a lot lower than expected, but it's still. Everybody was like like that's not a fireable offense, that can't be the only thing Right. Everybody was like that's not a fireable offense, that can't be the only thing right. And then I saw some more analysis about it and they said, really, what upset Donald Trump even more was that the March, April and May numbers got downgraded from their original report and they said, oh, we overestimated. There weren't actually that many jobs created in that quarter.
Speaker 2:And that coincided with where Trump was basically saying in the first few months oh, this is Biden's economy and all these things are his fault. And like it's going to take us some time to ride the ship. Well, you're starting to get into a timeline where he's feeling a little more responsible for things. And so if you're telling him that since you've been in charge, and even a few months after you've been in charge, this ship is not moving in the direction you want it to. Oh, he's going to fire the captain and throw him overboard, you know, with rocks tied to his feet, Right, and that's what happened. This was a woman, but you know they he threw the captain overboard and now he's like, basically, I've got a favor to give, I've got a job up for grabs.
Speaker 2:Qualifications are secondary. If you've ever had a job, you probably understand labor and statistics right. So come on down and understand labor and statistics right. So come on down. And I've just you know who wants to pitch a couple of coins into the bucket, through a pack somewhere, and now you're cabinet secretary. Like, that door is open for any billionaires out there that want to be a cabinet secretary. There's a seat for sale.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I mean Tim Cook was just in his office giving him a gold bar, so I'm sure it's going to be, and what?
Speaker 2:better way to back your own investment up of saying I'm going to bring $600 billion worth of manufacturing back to the United States, says Tim Cook and Apple. If you install cronies at the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, that can rig the system for you, change laws, change regulations and be like oh, 70-hour work week, yeah.
Speaker 1:In the tech sector.
Speaker 2:we've got the you know president, gave us the the you know waiver and you those people can work as much as you want them to work, right.
Speaker 1:No, no laws. 15 year olds can work for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're going to have a special economic zone wherever that thing is at Right and they're going to put it out in South Dakota and all bets are off, you know yeah.
Speaker 1:So it's crazy how just blatantly things are for sale right now. You know from you know the Tesla for the White House oh, I just bought one of these, yeah.
Speaker 2:Everybody go buy a Tesla yeah.
Speaker 1:It's just disgusting what he's taken the presidency to. You know it's. Yeah, it's disgraceful.
Speaker 2:Well, the Tim Cook thing, you know, Apple's actual investments aside, you had mentioned he went and took him a gold stand or statue or something like that it was a gold base that was holding a piece of glass from the that line of glass, because that's what they're bringing in. They're bringing in manufacturing glass for the iPhones Gotcha.
Speaker 1:And so, yeah, it was just a piece of glass that was holding for him. But yeah, on a gold base yeah than for.
Speaker 2:But yeah, on a gold, yeah, yeah, um, and all the tech folks have been pretty um on board with like just dropping coins in the bucket and getting you know, getting face time with the president, even if it doesn't like 100 track for like their business goals. They're like tell him he's pretty and then you get to do whatever you want. If you ignore him, he's gonna come seek you out and be like hey, all the other cool guys showed up and told me I was cool. Yeah, and last time I checked you have like 10 billion dollars. So where, where have you been?
Speaker 1:yeah, you know right, why haven't you told me I'm pretty?
Speaker 2:and so that was as far as I know. Tim cook was in that boat of like man man he wasn't going to the inauguration and do it like some of the other, like bezos and and yeah, I don't think he went and did most of that stuff Right, I think Apple was sort of just kind of standing on the sidelines Like we have enough money, that like, unless they viciously come after us, they're not going to. Yeah, we're not going to go out of business. You know, we don't have to play nice, we just have to sell phones you know so well, and immediately after he gave that to trump trump tweeted out like an attack on the intel ceo.
Speaker 2:So so again, yeah, where have you been, man, exactly?
Speaker 1:come on down and drop some coins in the bucket and then we're gonna run you a nice headline, right yeah yeah, and you know some of the we talked about some of the long-term uh ramifications from you know having apple, you come back here and build things which you know. Obviously we want manufacturing here, but people don't understand that like it's going to cost more money and it's going to they're going to release them or they're going to get rid of a lot of the EPA rules and stuff like that and like it's going to hurt our environment. People aren't going to be able to afford the product that they're building in the factories. You know that's the economy that they're bringing back to us. It's not being able to afford the stuff that you're building.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's true, and right now the price point on a brand new iPhone is around $800 to $1,000. If you're going to go pay cash for it, I think it easily goes up to close to $2,000. If the entire iPhone was made and assembled in the United States, they would more than double the price of that handset. Now what happens when you do that? You price it out of range for most Americans and you 10 times price it out of range for the rest of the world. You cannot export a $2,000 iPhone.
Speaker 2:You just can't, Nobody wants it Nobody wants that They'll make their own in their own region, whatever Europeia they'll. They already have their own phone factories, right, so they already have it right. So all they have to do is stop placing orders for iphones and that's that's. It is that easy, right, just like? Nah, we don't need any more of those. Yeah, right, um, and we got to remember. Yes, apple makes other equipment, but really the iphone is basically the only thing they make right now. Like, is their big revenue driver? Right? And if, if that, if that thing falters, all of apple is in question, right?
Speaker 2:you know, so, yeah, um, and, and that's totally a possible outcome it could take a while, right, it could take a few years, and, of course, somebody these people are smart They'll figure out the, like you said, the way to get the waivers to, to squish the margin, to get, like, I think, special waivers for extended labor hours or reduced benefit coverage, like they're going to say they're going to go to the you know if they can do it within this presidential cycle. They go to them and say, look, man, you've been to these other countries, you've seen some of these factories. Right, it doesn't look like anything you've ever seen in America, does it? You know we have to build that here and there's a reason why it doesn't exist here. So what are you going to do to make that happen? Right, and, and we got to get some government coverage to to make this work Right. So with when, when cabinet seats are for sale, then you can install the right people to get that stuff done right. And and you got to do it fast.
Speaker 2:I feel like there's this unspoken pressure, for all this financial rigging that's going on is, like you know, there's only three years left, right, like that's not that long to install some of these uh rule changes. And you know, even just building a $200 billion for the factories takes more than three years, right? So they got to get all this stuff postured, positioned, agreed to handshook, grandfathered in over the next two, three years so that when they really execute on all this stuff, the next, you know, the next president doesn't show up and be like who told you you could do that, right, right, and so that instability again. They spend $200 billion to bring something onshore and then the next people show up and they're like we don't care where you make this stuff, and then they just flip the lights back on in China and then that's it.
Speaker 2:You know, I mean, like that yo-yo game can happen and they have enough money to absorb that, right? Yeah, so it's not good. None of that is good for us, not the worker, not the purchaser, not the economy at large, though part of that equals success for an american the environment.
Speaker 1:You know it's going to get tanked and I don't like making other countries environments shit either. Right, that's the flip side.
Speaker 2:Well, we're just employing slave labor in China, where they're dumping mercury on their babies right, and it's like humanity still matters, right. Yeah, yes, yes. So then we all just need $2,000 iPhones, right, is what that means. Or whoa, maybe we don't need iPhones.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because, yeah, I was at Disney with my family last week and they kept trying to tell me that, oh, disney's not that bad, they actually have a good carbon score and stuff like that. I'm like they buy carbon credits, like they buy stuff so that they can ploop more, like millions of dollars on fireworks every day. That's not good for the environment. Like, yeah, they buy a lot of carbon credits and the amount.
Speaker 2:I mean, I'm not even talking about the amount of energy that it takes to run that place. Let's, let's just and this is the waste, just the actual, the carbon footprint of the amount of waste that gets produced. Yeah, how many tons of trash gets made at disneyland every day? Oh, tons, yeah, per day you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 1:yeah, that, uh, it's insane. Had a great time, though, so, yeah, that's cool, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I will, for the record, often state that like the environment's cool and all. It's not in my list of things that I wake up and worry about when it comes to politics on most days, but every now and then I see the amount of waste that something makes and I just think to myself it's more of an efficiency thing, not whether the environment's dirty or not, but it's more of a like. We could Not whether the environment's dirty or not, but it's more of a like man. There was a lot of material and work that went into making that one-time-use thing and it's a hundred-time-use thing. That's the part that bothers me is more the process inefficiency, and my analytical brain starts spinning where I'm like why are we throwing away all these materials?
Speaker 1:So when Qatar had the World Cup back in Two years ago, yeah, they built like nine stadiums around the city. They kept like two of them, but the other two or three, however many, but all the other ones they were built out of like shipping containers and things like that, yeah. So after the World Cup they broke them down, sent them to Africa and rebuilt them over there. Wow, yeah, so they also killed like 15,000 slaves while they were built.
Speaker 2:I was going to say, yeah, that was all made with slave labor. Yeah, horrific conditions and everything.
Speaker 1:But you know that type of thing that you're thinking sustainably, where you know we can use this somewhere else afterwards. Yeah, because there's a lot of those Olympics, world stage things that just fall apart. They do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, if you go to like a city that used to host the Olympics, but it was a long, long time ago, they have all those venues and they stayed in use for like 10 years, 20 years afterwards maybe, but then after 20 years you're like this city was never big enough to have a venue like this, right, and so, and there's three of them, you know- and so it's like what are we doing?
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're all over the place.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're all over the place. That's kind of weird when you experience that Edelweiss Germany was a Winter Olympics location back in like Hitler days or something like that right.
Speaker 1:That's when Jesse Owens went there Well that was the Summer Olympics.
Speaker 2:This was a Winter Olympics location. But it was weird because, like, the main auditorium is there and it it's so unassuming, like you, I didn't know. It looked like it was almost like a high school old building that was like meant for just some local municipality thing. But of course the Olympics in like 1930, that's all you needed was something that's basically a high school stadium, now, right and so at the winter Olympics even, and so you know, uh, it was weird because we were walking around and I like saw the sign on the building and that's how I knew it was an Olympic venue, right, like there wasn't even tourist advertised as that. Really, you know, yeah, you just kind of stumbled, yeah, I was just like, oh hey, look at that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 2:But the, as you'd mentioned, this is the one of the things I'll we'll point this out the slave labor aspect of things. People look at the Middle East and all the elaborate buildings and all of the what looks like opulence and wealth. Right, and especially as Trump went through yeah, as Trump just went through on the you know, golden horse tour, right, you know those all of that stuff is built with labor that is basically kidnapped out of India and Bangladesh and Pakistan and they're men that are human trafficked. Instead of into house cleaning and sex work, they're human trafficked into construction and they get dropped onto the construction site, put into big old camps basically Just like 10,000 dude container camp or tent city out in the desert, and they take desert right and they take your passport and they say you, you'll, when the building's done, you'll get it back. Yeah, you know, you can go back to india in like three years when we're done building this thing, right, and don't ask again.
Speaker 1:You know, and they'll just work you till you die in conditions that are just like scary the high-rise stuff that they do and the cement work that they do, like some of the poor it's just scary.
Speaker 2:Yeah, with no OSHA, with no. You know, they're like climb the ladder and you're 400 feet up in the air.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sandals and yeah, it's crazy, yeah, the things that we do. And again back to the Apple thing. You know it's coming back to our doorstep. You know it's coming back to our doorstep.
Speaker 2:You know, this is what people think is going to make america great again, and it's gonna.
Speaker 2:People are going to have a lot of hard lessons that they're going to be learning. Yeah, I don't know, man, I don't know the, the people who cry the most for like american manufacturing as a, as a silver bullet, right, like I'm not against it, but people that believe it's like the silver bullet, like well then everybody will have jobs and more people have jobs and more people have money and more economy, and blah, blah, blah. That is the people who just flat out don't understand, right, I'm not mad at them. It's the ignorance of made in America sticker makes you feel good when you see it on the outside of the package, but there's no more thought beyond that. Right, and that those that's the base, right, and that's who Trump wants to sell to. Is that that group of people, right? And so he's like, hey, the made in America sticker is great, right, and they're like, yeah, it is. And he's like it doesn't matter if it costs $2,000, don't question it, or if it's child labor whatever, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, don't question it. Yeah, yeah, all right. Well, on, on that note, I think that's it.
Speaker 2:Hey, we like to. Yeah, we do like to do that. We like to wrap things up yeah, sunshine, rainbows, yeah, all right.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks for tuning in this week. This is another episode of Left Face. My name is Adam Giller with Dick Wilkinson. Catch us next week, thanks,
