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Taxes and fees extra. Fe Full Terms at Mintmobile.com. All right, everybody, welcome back. This is the Brian Killmeat Show. My pleasure to bring in Senator Steve Daines, Finance, Foreign Relations, Energy Committee out of Montana.
And Senator, first off, your decision to not come back. When did you make that decision and why? Yeah, well, it's a great question. It's a question I chatted at length with President Trump about, and Susie Wiles and others. But Brian, I spent 28 years in the private sector before getting in public service.
I was 13 years with Procter Gamble, including six years living in China, launching brands and businesses over there to compete. I was 12 years with a cloud computing startup who took the company public and sold to Oracle. That was a 12-year chapter. This will be 14 years now in public service. I served two years in the House.
It'll be 12 years in the U.S. Senate. I'm kind of a 12 to 14-year chapter guy, Brian. And I think like George Washington and other great leaders in our nation, they We're in the private sector, they went and served publicly and then returned back to the private sector. And that's that's a What I think We need to do as a family.
My heart is full of gratitude. It's been a wonderful 14 years. Brian, I told President Trump. I can't believe how much we've got done, starting with changing the Supreme Court, stopping a $5 trillion tax increase, the work we've done on the international stage. What an honor to work with President Trump, my Republican colleagues.
But we have seven grandchildren. It's the last point, Brian. We went from zero to seven grandkids in the last six years, and Grandpa wants to spend a little more time with them back in Montana. Understood. And plus, it's a heck of a commute.
It's not like you're in Virginia.
So when you're going back and forth, that's a lot of miles. My sweet wife, Cindy, takes me to the airport every Monday morning at 5 a.m. I jump on a Delta flight to get back to Washington, and she doesn't complain about it. We've been married for 39 years, and I want to spend a little more time back in Montana with her as well. She's a trooper, and we're excited about the next chapter.
And as I've said, Brian, I'm not going to retire. I don't believe in that word. I'm going to repurpose. I've got a lot of energy left. We'll find something to do.
Well, I'm sure you will. And the other thing was: do you have an idea of who should replace you? I do. His name's Kirk Almey. Uh, he is President Trump's U.S.
Attorney under Trump 45 and Trump 47. He's a wonderful guy, born and raised in Montana, got a CPA, got a law degree from Harvard with honors. As we say in Montana, he got a great education and he got over it. He's not one of these highbrowed Harvard guys, but he's really smart. He's just, he's a Reagan kind of leader.
He's got a winsome friendliness about him, really smart, passionate about our state and our country. He'll be the next senator from Montana. Kurt Almey's the name. I want you to hear what Ben Sas says about how you should serve COP53. Many senators I know would not be able to breathe without that job.
It would kill them to leave. I don't want what you said to be true, but I fear that that is true. And that is a sign of a much, much deeper problem. We got a lot of people who serve in government who really do think the highest and greatest thing you can ever do is have the title senator or congressman. Bullsh.
The best thing you can do is be called dad or mom, lover, neighbor, friend, governor, senator, house member. It's a great way to serve. It should be your eleventh calling, or maybe sixth, but never top.
So I guess that's what you you're saying, and Ben Sas sadly is dealing with a terminal terminal cancer in order to defy the odds in being alive. Yeah. Ben Sasse and I are close friends. We were elected together back in 2014. That was the night when we picked up nine seats in the U.S.
Senate. We were in the minority. This is Barack Obama's second midterm, picked up nine seats. We had 54 Republican senators. Ben Sasse was on that team.
I was one of them as well. And that team changed the trajectory of America. We changed the Supreme Court when President Trump was elected in 2016. But Ben Sasse. I listened to that 60-minute interview flying in Monday morning.
I, you know, the long commute. I had tears in my eyes by the time that. Interview wrapped up. And Ben's exactly right. He's one of the most principled, level-headed, smart guys I've ever served with.
And he talked about our founding fathers. He talked about George Washington. In fact, in that interview, just as I described, I was kind of parroting Ben Sass as how I think great leaders don't find their identity in their leadership title. It makes you a more secure leader. I was in the Oval Office of President Trump a few weeks ago working on the TSA funding issue when the Democrats, you know, defunded so much of our DHS.
And we had a two-hour meeting in the Oval Office. And President Trump, he's so insightful. And in the middle of this discussion, we talked about the shutdown TSA. We talked about the need to fund ICE. We talked about Venezuela.
We talked about Iran. And then I'm sitting there with three other Senate colleagues. I was also with Mark Wayne Mullen and Tom Holman, right across from the resolute desk in the Oval from the president. And he looked at me. And he said, Steve, we're going to miss you in the U.S.
Senate. You're one of the great ones. I said, Well, thank you, Mr. President. It's very kind words.
And he said, Most. politicians Are insecure and have low self-esteems. I thought it was a remarkable comment by the president. And he's right. And I say that respectfully.
We all struggle sometimes with our identity, but he said, Steve, you're secure. You're retiring. And I found that to be a really insightful comment. And I think the best leaders keep their. Titles held with an open palm, not with a clenched fist.
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So now you have one big trip. You're going to China, right?
So far that China's on schedule still. What do you and the president expect to accomplish? Because we know what we're dealing with there, right? I mean, they're stealing our stuff. They're threatening Taiwan.
I'm not sure they're not unsavory activity in Iran. What are you guys going to talk about? What's the tone going to be like? Yeah. Well, I chatted with Scott Besant last night.
I was at the King Charles State dinner. What an amazing event last night, Brian. One of the greatest things I've ever attended. In fact, I texted President Trump this morning. We went to 11:30 last night, Brian.
And the president's on his feet the entire time talking to everybody. And I just had a heartful of gratitude this morning coming into work. It was such a beautiful event and so many great patriots there in one room. It was not real big, 150 people. And I texted the president this morning, just a heartful of gratitude.
He texted me right back at 7:45 this morning. He's remarkable in terms of stamina. But back to that China visit. Here's a couple of thoughts. I think you have to keep one eye wide open, certainly, with the hawkish view of China, just as you described here in terms of intellectual property theft, what's going on, certainly with Iran, with Taiwan, and so forth.
But the other eye needs to remember that we have got to continue to compete with China on the global stage, particularly as it relates to technology. The United States and China comprises about 40% of the world's economy. Completely isolating decoupling, in my view, is the wrong strategy. Scott Besant says it well. He says, we cannot decouple, but we need to de-risk.
I think that's the right operating principle. As President Trump goes over the week after, I'll be over there next week. Remember that. The trade deficit now has decreased because of President Trump's leadership from $300 billion to $200 billion year over year, looking out last year. But we run a $1.2 trillion revenue surplus with the SP 500.
These are US companies, and it's important that US companies, use an example, Boeing. If Boeing is not continuing to sell aircraft into that China market, we lose the ability for Boeing to get top-line revenues to invest in next-generation aircraft to make sure we beat COMAC, which is the Chinese knockoff of airplanes. And so, this is that delicate balance and wisdom needed. President Trump gets it. Scott Bessingt gets it, Mark Arubio gets it, and we'll be there the week before.
Senator, how close are we to being independent of them for rare earth? I know it's an all-hands-on-deck push. It's not just our own. We're going everywhere: Australia, Indonesia. What do you hear?
Yeah, well, that's part of the de-risk part of the equation we've got to have here in terms of Chinese dependencies. But we're going to become independent two ways. One, certainly, is more made in America rare earths. Number two is friendshoring. We've developed stronger relationships now.
I've been doing a lot of work on Central Asia, the Caucasus, Vietnam. There's these other countries in the world that provide alternative sources of the rare earths. Take Kazakhstan, for example, the leading supplier of uranium in the world. That's not a rare earth, but very important long term for baseload power and electricity. We bring Kazakhstan closer to us.
Of course, they border Russia, former Soviet Republic. The Kazakhstan is now becoming a very good friend of the United States. Thanks to President Trump's diplomatic efforts, we're bringing these former more Soviet and China-friendly countries closer to the United States. That's all part of the global strategy to make sure they now become part of a friendly supply chain versus depending on China.
Well, that certainly would help.
So we'll see what's going to happen. And President's doubling down on the blockade. You think that's the best strategy? You only have 15 seconds left. I do.
This is, it's all about economic power. That's the soft power side of this. He's very smart playing chess right now with the Iranians. Stay tuned to what he does there, but that's starting to cripple the Iranian economy. That's key to getting change that we need in Iran.
Yeah, Senator Steve Daines, you'll be missed, but you're going to run through the tape. I know it. Appreciate it. Thanks, Brian.
