The Exchanges

Q Appalachia, that's a very poor part of the country, and did not grow up In a privileged, uh, environment at all, and he still remembers those people, and he represents those people, and I think his ability to understand both parts of the country makes him, uh, I'd say a pretty unique political figure. So with that, let me stop, and do you want to react to any of that?

A Uh, well, you know, first of all, thanks all for having me. I've been a big fan of the pod for a while. I think my first appearance, so it's good to be with you. You know, I, the only thing I'll say to that, David, is I, I do think there is a deep connection between, uh, The, the poverty that I saw growing up and the fact that our entire economy is just less innovative than we pretend that it is. And, you know, I know, you know, Peter Thiel and Tyler Cowell and other folks have talked about this, but if you look at the real innovation of the American economy, it's been in the world of software. If you look at where the economy has been most stagnant, it's been in basically the heavily regulated parts of the economy, which is where 90% of the people that I represent in the Senate and 80% of the people that I hope to represent as their vice president actually Make their living, run their business, and go to work every single day. And I think that, you know, when I think about tech, one of the things I'd like us to do is broaden the aperture a little bit and think about innovation, not just in software, but innovation in transportation and logistics and innovation in energy and the whole suite of things, because unless our economy is actually technologically innovative, then the stagnant economy is, is fundamentally like the worst thing. And I think a lot of actually America's pat…

AI assessment note: “I do think there is a deep connection between, uh, The, the poverty”

Q But the point is, like, you know, have you had that discussion about, like, alright folks, let's not wait for Congress and get a plan ready starting day one of all the stuff that can happen through EOs, or how are you thinking about this?

A At a high level, certainly, you know, I'm one of the co-chairs of the transition team. There are a few others of us who are working on it. You have to sort of think about, I mean, look, the way the founders set up our government, whether you like it or not, there are certain things, especially when it comes to budget and appropriations, You just have to go through Congress, right? You fundamentally have to. Now, I do think that Congress is willing to work with us at least, you know, the first couple of years of an administration. You can largely get the budgetary and appropriations things that you need, but there's a lot that you can do through EO. And by the way, in a lot of ways, I think the enlargement of the president at the expense of Congress is a bad thing, but fundamentally, there is a lot that happens in our government purely through executive orders, through EOs. And yes, we're thinking very deliberately about all the things that You could do through EOs on day one or in the early parts of the administration and begin not to make this too partisan, but one of the ways that, that, um, that Biden and Harris opened up the American Southern border was through executive orders, right? It was an executive order that submitted deportations, an executive order that ended the remain in Mexico policy. So you can screw up a lot through EOs. You can also fix a lot through EOs, wh…

AI assessment note: “yes, we're thinking very deliberately about all the things that You could do through EOs”

Q the United States, but all of the other sort of smaller countries when AI gets to scale? How do you think strategically the chessboard ends up being organized? Is there Is there a new form of the United Nations? Is there a new form of NATO, but more productive? Like, how do you think it plays out for the hundred and eighty-eth country in the world when they need things?

A Yeah, it's, it's a very interesting question, and I don't want to, you know, predict the future too much here. It's always a fraught business, especially in politics, but, you know, one of the things that's interesting, a foreign leader came to me relatively recently, this is actually last week, um, small country, but very important country strategically, very good ally of the United States, and basically pitched me On creating a NATO alternative outside of Europe, but where countries that were aligned with the United States built on the same technology stack, there was a shared sort of, you know, shared access to technology, shared access to certain weaponry and so forth. And he was like, we really want to be part of team America, but there isn't even an existing infrastructure that would allow us to be team America. And I had never thought about it in that way. I haven't even talked to the president yet about it, but it's interesting that world leaders are coming and saying, This is how we're thinking about the future, and, and the technology piece of it's a very critical angle, because as you guys probably appreciate, I assume the audience appreciates, is that, you know, sometimes when you build with, with Chinese firms or Chinese technology, it seems like a pretty good deal, right? Larry Summers once had this famous quote that, you know, when, in Africa, when developing cou…

AI assessment note: “pitched me On creating a NATO alternative outside of Europe, but where countries that were aligned”

Q potato, and it doesn't seem to me that it needs to be, but you've spent a lot of time in government now. Why can't Politicians just do what 80% of the country wants, which is allow very talented people into the country, close the border, and make it like a more point-based system like Canada, Australia, and everybody else. Like, why is this so weaponized by both of your parties?

A Well, I think the reason why it's so difficult right now, and I mean, look, generally I agree that, ok, we're gonna let some immigrants in, we want them to be high-talent, high-quality People, you don't want to let a large number of illegal aliens in. Obviously that, you know, that, that is, that's President Trump's view, but I, I think that the reason why it's so broken down right now is because you have twenty-five million illegal aliens in this country, and you like, you can't fix what I would call the minor or sort of less important immigration question until you fix the real problem. And part of that goes back, by the way, to the way in which the system got broken in the first place. So Ronald Reagan, of course, great governor of California, A great president. But Reagan did in 1986 a massive amnesty program, where in some ways he was trying to do exactly what you're talking about. Fix the problem of people who are already here. Make sure that our immigration system is more pro-skill, but also close down the border. And what happened is we got all the amnesty, but we didn't get the closing down of the border. And so, in order to do anything, I think, meaningful on immigration policy, meaning legal immigration policy, you've got to close down the border and establish some basic order. And to go back to first principles here, I think that people who are generally, I mean, lo…

AI assessment note: “you can't fix what I would call the minor or sort of less important immigration question”

Q two incredibly iconic speeches, one on AI and then one of the Munich security conference. Um, and I think it was, uh, in many ways an incredible moment where you just started to establish American priorities again abroad. Can you just go into the strategy of those speeches and where they came from and just the bigger arc of the first six to nine months and what the goals were?

A Yeah, so for the AI summit, the president really wanted me to do this, and of course, you know, happy to go to Paris and give a speech and talk about American priorities, but there was this big moment we thought we had an opportunity to sort of plant our flag and say, America is done with the over-regulating, with the constant worrying about the future. We're going to lean into the future. We're going to embrace the future and try to make sure America dominates in the future, and that's such a radical departure from both The safetyism of the Biden administration, but also, frankly, the safetyism of a lot of our friends in Europe. And I had been, you know, there for about 24 hours. I had met with with Emmanuel Macron, the leader of France, had a good conversation, and a lot of the other people in Europe. And the thing that I kind of picked up is that they're so terrified about the problems with AI. And to be clear, there are problems with AI. But if you're so terrified with the problems with AI, You don't actually embrace the potential, then you're going to get the worst of the problems without any of the benefits of the upside of it.

AI assessment note: “we thought we had an opportunity to sort of plant our flag and say”

Q and the pace at which it's going to happen? Because if you ask anybody in technology, none of us have the answer of how quickly this will happen. We are optimistic, of course, but there could be displacement. If there is displacement, who's responsible? The administration, the technologists who cause it, the free market, nobody, and we'll just let the chips fall where they may. What do you think, JD?

A Well, a couple of thoughts on this. So first of all, I am a little bit more optimistic about automation. And if, if you look at some of the doom narratives about automation, you know, the robots are coming to take all of our jobs. If the robots were coming to take all of our jobs, you would see labor productivity skyrocketing in this country, but you actually see labor productivity flatlining. And what that means actually is that our country is under indexed in technology and not over indexed in technology. Maybe we're over indexed in software, but we're under indexed in the real kind of technology that boosts productivity. So I'm not saying there won't be job displacement, but I always think of the example of the bank teller and in the 19 seventies, when the ATM machine, the automated teller machine was created, there was a whole host of articles about how this would destroy a ton of middle-class jobs in the banking sector. What actually happened is we have more bank tellers now than we did in the 19 seventies. They do slightly different jobs, and they're more productive, and they earn higher wages, but I think that's the story of technology. Productivity is fundamentally good. Now, there is a displacement that I worry about, and I, you know, I was frankly not even aware this was an issue until a couple of weeks ago, and I'm trying to dig into it a little bit, which is where, …

AI assessment note: “I am a little bit more optimistic about automation.”

Q Would you not certify the election? Would you have not certified the election?

A Well, I think, I think that what I would have done, I mean, look, I, I happen to think that there were issues back in 2020, particularly in Pennsylvania, even, you know, some of the courts that refused to throw out Certified ballots did say that there were ballots that were cast in an illegal way. They just refused to actually decertify the election results in Pennsylvania. Do I think that we could have had a much more rational conversation about how to ensure that only legal ballots are cast? Yes. And do I think that Mike Pence could have played a better role? Yes. But I, again, the, the, the two purposes that I take issue one is, one, Pence was not asked to overturn the election. He couldn't have.

AI assessment note: “I think that what I would have done, I mean, look”