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The fastest 3 hours in radio. You're with Brian Kilmeade. We have to protect American jobs, American businesses, and the American cyber security has to be increased to ensure that we can thwart a lot of these efforts that are going on today when it comes to this type of thing. I know, and China is a problem. And the president does come in with much more leverage now because China's economy is a lot worse than it was in 2016. A guy that knows as much about this region as anyone you'll talk to is Josh Rogan, Washington Post columnist, author of Chaos Under Heaven. Josh, welcome back.
That was Corey Mills, by the way. Your thoughts of the China relations and the China economy and military that Donald Trump will be confronting this time? Right, well, you know, to be honest, you know, if you're sitting in Beijing right now, you've got to be pretty unhappy with the list of nominations that just came out of the Trump administration.
And that's good. I'm happy that they're not happy that Trump has decided to appoint a team of China Hawks so far. Marco Rubio, China Hawk. Mike Waltz, China Hawk. Pete Hegseth, China Hawk. J.D.
Vance, China Hawk. So, you know, we'll have to see who else fills out the administration and to be sure there are forces out there, Wall Street and the business community, some in Congress, some in the bureaucracy who will resist this. But what we're looking at is a return to the first term Trump presidency, which was a competitive, if not confrontational approach to dealing with the biggest threat to our freedom, democracy, our prosperity and our public health, which is the expansion of the Chinese Communist Party. So I think that, you know, this is a reset, a good one. That's not to say that the Biden administration's China policy was all bad.
There were some good things about it, to be sure. And there were some things about the Trump administration first term that weren't great. But the bottom line is that, you know, China's on notice now.
And I think, you know, life's going to be coming at them pretty fast in the next four years. And the way I understand it, I mean, economically, they can keep building their military, I understand, but their economy is still sucking wind. They got a huge unemployment issue with younger people.
Well, here's the thing, Brian, that I think a lot of Americans don't understand is that the Chinese economy is that is not really it doesn't operate like an economy like you and I think of. It's all controlled by the party. The state controls everything. The state owned industries rule. They can do whatever they want so they can turn it up.
They can turn it down. The money is worth something. It's not worth something. It's a shell game. It's the back end of this system, which is sort of not focused on the things that we're focused on, like low unemployment and GDP growth. It's focused on building the China dream, which is Xi Jinping's strategy to overtake us, to make China the most powerful, influential country in the world to our disadvantage. So I think, you know, focusing on the weakness of the Chinese economy is sort of how some people in Washington and Wall Street, frankly, say, like, oh, don't worry, they're not 10 feet tall.
We don't really have to worry about them. Maybe the Chinese economy doing bad is bad for us because it'll pull down our economy. These are the things you hear a lot in Washington. But the truth is that China's military is growing in what generals and admirals have told me is the largest military expansion in history. And they're spending three times as much as they admit and they're harassing all of their neighbors and they're building bases all over the world and their Navy is bigger than ours already. So, you know, yeah, they have some economic troubles, but it's not stopping them from their aggression and expansion, which means to do us harm. Right. They wiped out so much of the incentive element of their economy that was starting to be built in in the 90s. Would you say that's correct?
Yes. I mean, their economic policy, because, you know, we have this myth that, oh, because it's a dictatorship, they can have really smart economic policy that over decades. But the truth is they don't know what they're doing anymore than anyone else. So they have this huge real estate bubble that collapsed. Then they decided to crack down on their own tech industry and their own educational industry, because for them, political control in the party's power is much more important than this industry or that industry having a good year or a bad year.
So, yeah, they've the good thing about the Chinese Communist Party is they make a lot of mistakes and they're not really as smart as they think they are, as people give them credit for. But the fact is that it is the largest country in the world with the largest population in the world that is advancing. And especially in some critical technologies, they're competing or even doing better than us. They're ahead of us in hypersonics. They're ahead of us in battery technology. These are big problems, you know.
And when it comes to things like A.I. and quantum computing and semiconductors, we're fighting tooth and nail to maintain our advantage. But it's just a matter of time before they can direct enough resources at the thing to build their own system. So this is really the most important struggle in our lifetime is it's a systems battle. You can call it a cold war.
You can call it whatever you want. But their goal is to overtake us. And our goal is not not let that happen. But they do need our market and they need their market to start buying their own products. Americans, you write American, by the way, they're still doing a lot of cyber hacking, right?
Oh, man. So this is this is a crazy scandal that I think people are we're just too sort of like distracted by the election to focus on. But the Chinese intelligence services hacked the phones of President Trump, Vice President-elect Vance and, you know, lots and lots of other people. And listen to their phone calls and read their text messages in real time.
And they're still they're still in there. And they cracked the FBI's wiretapping system. And they can wiretap people like they're the FBI, except they don't even need a warrant because they're the Chinese spies.
And they could use that to wiretap basically any American who uses a cell phone. And that's if you just think about what I just said, that's a huge scandal, a huge intelligence failure. I don't think the Biden administration wants to talk about it because it happened on their watch that they're downplaying it. The telecom companies don't want to talk about it. But it's not really about Trump. It's about, you know, them spying on everything. And, you know, this is just sort of like a big thing that eventually we're going to need to deal with, like both as a government and as a society.
You think as in yesterday we could deal with it? Yeah, you would think that. I mean, so. So how is it?
I know you used to be a Pentagon reporter. How's Pete's nomination playing? Because it surprises a lot of people. Oh, I mean, just yesterday, you know, everyone was saying, oh, well, maybe it's Tulsi, maybe it's Chris Miller, maybe it's Robert. So it really came out of left field.
So, I mean, I think, you know, you see what I see. The Democrats are not happy. The Republicans are happy. And, you know, it seems like there's nothing that's going to I mean, he still has to go through the process. And I'm sure there'll be a hearing and, you know, he'll have to defend his record. But it seems like he's going to get confirmed. And I think it's going to be a big culture change at the shift at the top of the Defense Department, for better or worse. I mean, it's unprecedented, really.
We don't really know how it's all going to play out. But, you know, he's a decorated officer, a China hawk. His position on Ukraine is strong. I'm against Russia and China.
So sue me. But and so I like what he has to say about the Ukraine war. And so, yeah, so I think that credential wise, he's got the credentials, but he's a controversial guy and that's kind of his brand. And, you know, that's that that'll have to play out. But I think he's going to get confirmed.
And I think that a lot of people in the Pentagon are going to wake up to a new a new style of leadership. Yeah, they read his book. He does talk about that woke DEI stuff that's got to stop.
And generally, you know, I had to send come saying I'd like to find out about white privilege. General Milley, who I think is a disaster and has been a disaster for this country. You know, Billy doesn't really believe that stuff. He just said it because he wanted he thought that's what the right thing to say was, you know, like, come on, Josh. You know, you know, Billy know that he doesn't believe any of that stuff. You know, he's just trying to say what you're supposed to say.
I don't know. I thought General was supposed to say what they think. But so, Josh, on Ukraine, you write this column and it's right on the money as my biggest worry about J.D. Vance. I appreciate his intellect, ability to defend Trump, and he ends up being a very strong pick.
But you write in your column that J.D. Vance basically said, yeah, I'll let Ukraine fail to be on Joe Biden's baseball card, not understanding as smart as he is that what that would mean for our allies right after Afghanistan. And when the interpret and how that would be interpreted for Russia and what that would mean for China, how it's all connected in Eastern Europe. I mean, that I don't think Trump is going to go along with that. And you say, if you explain to Trump that this will be a stain, you can never shake because if Ukraine falls, it's now on you. They have proven for two and a half years they fight like warriors, like gladiators. They deserve our backing. And this is much more than a Ukraine Russia fight.
I think it's bigger than that. Oh, of course. You know, and basically what I argued in the column is like, listen, you know, the Ukraine war should end.
You know what I mean? There's nobody saying that it shouldn't. And all wars ended in negotiation.
But the details matter. OK, and there's two different camps sort of like vying for Trump's era, President Trump's era on this. One is saying that, OK, like Marco Rubio and Mike Waltz, they both said basically the same thing, which is, yes, let's negotiate an end to the war, but on good terms for Ukraine, not on good terms for Putin. It's really important because if you negotiate on good terms for Putin, he's just going to swallow his gains and keep going. But if you are able to sort of support Ukraine through this process rather than pull the aid, then you can get much better terms.
It'll be much safer for everybody involved, including us. And what the European leaders are telling me is that look at what happened to President Biden in Afghanistan. It seemed like a good idea to pull out of Afghanistan.
It probably was a good idea. But he but what happened was he did it so horrendously that it was a stand on his legacy. He lost 10 points in popularity and it was a humiliation for America on the world stage on his watch. So President Trump has an opportunity to end the war, you know, skillfully, or he has a there's a risk that he could listen to some of his advisors. You really don't care about Ukraine or just think it's all his fault or whatever. And in that case, I think that would be a calamity for President Trump because it would look really bad on the world stage for Russia to just just, you know, turn that whole country into a slave state on his watch. And I'm sure he doesn't want that to happen. I don't think he wants that to happen. And, you know, as much as he's skeptical of the effort, you know, supporting Ukraine through a negotiation rather than abandoning them seems to me to be the much smarter thing to do for Ukraine and for us.
So, Josh, I know it's so hard to get accurate information out of Russia, but when you see that they're losing a thousand to seventeen hundred soldiers a day, when you see that they have their Navy wiped out by another country without a Navy, basically half their Navy's been sunk. When you see how much it's cost and how much isolation is has resulted, do you believe that this is this is something that Vladimir Putin might be looking for an off ramp? Yeah, no, I think he said as much. And I think honestly, he thinks he can deal better with President Trump than he could with President Biden.
He's probably right about that because. So, yeah, there is a deal to be had. And by the way, the Ukrainians also suffering greatly. And, you know, time is not on their side. So it seems like in a crazy way, Trump's election makes the chances for a deal between all of these sides much more possible.
And it's it's a real opportunity. But again, only if we're we're on Ukraine side and not, you know, making concessions for that on there for them to Russia that that are going to come back to bite us. Have you seen this victory, this victory plan that Zelensky has been pushing around, been giving to our allies? I mean, does it does it end with him being part of NATO?
Would it would it be he's in the EU? Do we end up with missile defense on his border to stop any type of further invasion? Yeah, I would say like Zelensky's victory plan is something of a wish list, to be honest, you know, and it's not just directed at us, it's directed at the Europeans, because no matter what happens, it seems like the Europeans are going to have to pick up more of the burden on this thing, you know, especially considering what's coming in the next U.S. Congress.
And so, you know, it's like he's going to of course, he's going to ask for the sun and the moon and the stars in the kitchen sink. You know, that's what he's got to do. He's trying to save his country, you know, so he's not going to get all that stuff and he's not going to get NATO membership.
He could get EU membership. And these are the things that need to be worked out. So I don't blame Zelensky for saying, hey, we need everything. And I just think, you know, as Americans, we should say to him, OK, either we're going to give you what you need or we're not. But what the Biden administration has been doing is giving them just a little bit less than what they need, which all that does is allow them to lose slowly, which is really horrendous.
I just think the last four years has been such a such a bad foreign policy period in our lives. At the same time, we need more defense spending. We need to widen the defense base not to fight a war, but to intimidate people away from war. You know, the whole peace through strength is not a joke. It's not a slogan.
I think it's a philosophy we have to live by. But we can't the speed. We are not producing weapons like we should. We're not producing missile defense for our allies who want to pay for it.
I mean, we could we could have a major push to give missile defense to our allies. They will write the checks for it. We replenish it.
We maintenance it. It could be a for profit thing for Donald Trump. And I think it's just got to be presented that way in reality, not not sold presented.
Yeah, I mean, I agree with you. I think, you know, when you look at China and when you look at Taiwan specifically, you can see the results of our it's our policy, which is that we we talk loud and carry a small stick because we're promising all these things about Taiwan. And yet we can't get them the weapons that they've already purchased.
Our pipelines are dry and we don't have the capacity. And, you know, you look at our our adversaries, Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, and some people say, oh, well, we can split off Russia or we could split off China. I don't believe that at all.
I think they're in a team. That team is against us. You know, the United States, our European friends, our Asian friends, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, et cetera, we got more. We have the high ground.
The good news is we have much bigger combined economy, much better capacity, much better system, a better way of life also for our people with freedom and the ability to determine their own lives. And that's people prefer that. But what we have to live up to what we say, we have to walk the walk, not just talk the talk.
And we're not doing that right now. So it's the Biden people. They're not I don't necessarily think I don't think they're bad people. Brian, I don't think they're they're trying to weaken America. They have this theory of the world, which is if we just do, you know, manage these problems, you know, not too hot, not too cold.
I call it a Goldilocks foreign policy. It's just kind of like right in the mushy middle. Then everything will probably be fine. But everything is not fine. The Middle East is on fire. Europe is on fire. You know, the pot is boiling in the east in East Asia.
So we we have to either like, you know, act or get off the pot here. And, you know, there there will always be some that say, oh, well, let's just put up the pull up the drawbridge, build fortress America, hide behind our walls. They can't get to us.
I don't think that I think that's really dangerous. I think eventually if you let the bad guys advance, they'll come to your door. It's much better to push back over there than over here. But in order to do that, we have to actually do it. And I think we have an opportunity to do it. And I hope the next administration will get up to call you, man.
You have great insight. I know you'll be covering it. Josh Rogan, The Washington Post. Thanks so much, Josh. Always great.
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