From high atop Fox News headquarters in New York City, always seeking solutions, never sowing division. It's Brian Killmead. Yes, welcome to the Brian Kill Meet Show. This is my last day with you. This has been so much fun being able to be with you.
It really has. You guys have been fantastic. It was great working with Allison and Eric and Peak, and also, of course, getting to talk to you as well. Joining us in half an hour, Jim Whaley will be here. He is with Mission Roll Call.
We're going to talk about why the holidays can be really difficult for veterans and difficult for some people, not just veterans, but for veterans, some of them have a really, really hard time at this time of year. Let's kick it off with Liz Peak. She's a Fox News contributor, columnist for FoxNews.com, also a columnist for The Hills. She's very busy. You can catch her on X at LizPeak with 2E's.
Liz, happy new year. Happy New Year to you, Mary. Thank you for having me on. Absolutely. I love having you on.
I love getting to talk to you because you just know I can throw anything at you, and you know exactly what I'm talking about. One of the first things I wanted to start talking about is the Democrat Party. You had Dean Phillips coming out and slamming his party, saying he did an interview with Politico that was published Saturday morning. And he said, This party needs a comprehensive turnaround, and conventional wisdom no longer works. A party that consists of multiple silos on campaign committees and outside groups cannot strategically do its job, and that means leadership.
Right now, we are totally devoid of leadership. We are rudderless. And I find it so interesting coming from the Democrats. I kind of look at them right now as the way the Republican Party was after Trump lost in 2020. Is that a fair comparison?
I don't know. I'm not sure that the Republicans were as misguided on policy. I mean, I was thinking earlier this morning. Yeah, Democrats have a lot of problems right now, but their main problem is that nothing they have embraced over the last I'd say 15 to 20 years has worked out well. I mean, whether it's DEI policies which have been proven to actually worsen racial divides in our country or immigration policies, obviously under Joe Biden, that's what really killed his presidency and candidacy.
Tax policies, spending policies, nothing, and maybe most important, their attack on law enforcement, which now goes back more than a decade. None of these things has worked. And also, finally, sorry, the climate agenda. I mean, look at California, and California has been sort of the joke of conservatives, but it's not a joke to have the country's biggest, most prosperous state really in trouble financially, having rolling blackouts during various periods of the last 10 years, all kinds of things going wrong, including mayhem in terms of criminal activity so bad that finally voters took it into their own hands and passed a resolution which changed some of these ridiculous policies that don't lock up people for shoplifting. I mean, you can extend that to most blue cities.
They just have been on the wrong side of almost every single issue.
So I think. And I don't think Republicans ever got to that point. I think Republicans had all kinds of internal divides. It was a real realignment of backers and sort of interests in terms of Trump and his agenda taking hold in the Republican Party. But I think Democrats look, Democrats have done several things wrong.
One is they left their power elites in power much too long. I mean, you had people like Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Joe Biden, Obama running the party for what? I mean, you go back, it's now more than almost twenty years. And a lot of those people really were past their Expiration date. I mean, you could say the same about Mitch McConnell, to be sure, but Nancy Pelosi's had a chokehold on the Democratic Party for an awful long time.
She needed to go. She should have gone. And by the way, Dean Phillips had some credibility because he's the only guy who wanted to have an actual primary battle against Joe Biden. Remember, he came out when was it, I guess, a year ago, and said Joe Biden should not be running for a second term. I'm willing to challenge him.
And everybody sort of dismissed him. He was right. He was right. And almost the entire party covered for Joe Biden. And made a huge mistake in encouraging him to run again.
So, I would just say this: I think the Democratic Party right now is resting on a bed of unbelievable policy errors and unpopular policies, and also a real bed of fabrications, lies, not only about their opponents, but also about their own situation. I don't think Americans trust Democrats anymore. How can they after they continue to pretend that Joe Biden was just fine? And I think that's a lot to overcome. You know, you talk about Nancy Pelosi.
I admire her. I know she's running again, which I think is absolutely ridiculous. But for right, she's running again. But she needs more ice cream, more fancy ice cream. But to me, Nancy Pelosi, as much as I disagree with her policies, I don't like her.
I don't think she's a good person. She was a really good speaker. She knew how to play. Play the game. She ran circles around Republicans, and Republicans could have learned so much from her.
So I have mad respect for Nancy Pelosi and the job that she did, but she's kind of out of the game right now.
So they don't have that leadership. They kind of need her right now. But the person that I really thought would be the heir apparent was Barack Obama. But man, the Democrats really came out and he was chastising black men for not voting for Kamala Harris, calling them misogynist and chastising them and putting them down. He fizzled out.
Like Barack Obama's capital, political capital to me is gone. And I am shocked at that development.
Well, I think he is an essentially incredibly arrogant person. And I think, yeah, and I think he did a lot to hurt the country. I think all this. race baiting and DEI programs and all that, all that came from Barack Obama. And what's sad to me is he knows better.
He knows that good education is important in lifting up the opportunities of all Americans. And yet, When he was approaching running for his second term in office as president, the teachers' unions came to him. Remember, he had put a real Arnie Duncan was his. Department of Education chief, and he was a real education reformer out of Chicago. Barack Obama agreed to have education reform.
The teachers' union said, Hey, we're not going to back you unless you drop this, and he dropped it like a hot potato.
So he's I think he's a coward. I think also he just kind of bent to the political will instead of having any backbone whatsoever and sort of repulsing the worst instincts of his own party. And I agree with you, over the last year, I think he has burned a lot of his political capital, but here's the thing: he has command of enormous fundraising. Nancy Pelosi had command of enormous fundraising. In the Democratic Party, that's what earns you power.
That's what gave her unbelievable clout in the House because she raised more money than God in terms of funding Democrat candidates. And Barack Obama has the same potential. I would not count him out. He is certainly in a low point in terms of his popularity right now. Don't think he's gone forever.
I don't think he is. Darn it. I mean, because I love his mom jeans. Yeah, I know. You know, I was going to miss his mom jeans.
So, you know, I'm glad to hear, though, in a way, that he's still going to be around because, you know, I can't get enough of the mom jeans. And here's the thing: he's young, you know, relative to a lot of Jerry Nadler and Lancey Pelosi. I mean, he's there for a long time. And so, yeah, I don't think he's going anywhere. Not sure Michelle is ever going to be touted as a possible candidate.
You never know. But that was actually, remember, a pretty hearty rumor over the last year that the only person who could come in and save Democrats is Michelle Obama. You never know. Yeah. Talking about Barack Obama and he may not be gone yet and the sensibilities of the left and how they just totally have missed, they've misread the American people phenomenally.
You know, Dean Phillips goes on to say, he says, it's. It's ironic that the GOP is now representing America's working class. It's astounding. And that was ceded to them by people that have prioritized things like tenure over talent, identity politics over pragmatic problem solving. It's as simple as that.
And that takes leadership. And you see people on the left who are saying, well, we had a chance to put AOC in leadership. And that's the lesson of this election.
So. I I laugh at that. And part of me is kind of super glad that they still don't get it. Because if they had put AOC in leadership, to me, that just ensures Republican control of the White House for at least two more terms after the after Trump. I know.
I think they're really stuck because AOC clearly has a following, but honestly, I think she's a bonehead. And she's made so many foolish utterances. She's anti-business. And here's the thing about being anti-business. You can rail against corporate executives and health insurance companies and so forth.
She's against all businesses, I think. And small business owners are extremely important to the success of this country. Guess what? Large businesses are also important to the success of this country.
So having that as a sort of major plank in your agenda, I think, is preposterous. She is. A darling in social media. She's very photogenic and Has for years, you know, sort of been a thorn in the side of traditional Democrats, if there are any of those left now. But in terms of moving her party forward, she doesn't have the substance, in my view.
And by the way, Hakeem Jeffries is in the same boat. I mean, when I look at, when I watch him, and I do because he's, after all, he's got a pretty important position taking over from Nancy Pelosi, but he's just sort of a political hack. He never gets beyond the headlines, the sound bites. And I would say the same is true of AOC. I mean, they don't, who are the people of substance?
Weirdly, John Fetterman is emerging as a Democrat with some substance, right? And You know, I don't believe, I don't agree with everything that he has to say, of course, but at least he's got a functioning brain. And he's kind of saying, hey, he's the only Democrat, Mary, I think, who has come out and said, could we just actually think about the well-being of our country? And here is a question for you and your listeners. All of this stuff about Joe Biden letting in 8 million, 10 million, whatever the number is, people illegally into the country, which is a complete Travesty and really a crime against the United States, in my view.
What was the point? He has never, not a single Democrat has ever defended that decision or that policy. Why did they do it? Republicans say, well, it's because they think these people will become Democrat voters in time. Maybe that's it.
But have you ever heard Democrats say, well, it was for the good of Blank, blank, blank. I have no idea. And to me, that is such a massive failure. It's not the only thing that Joe Biden was not transparent about, of course. But here is probably the biggest legacy, if you will, of his presidency, this unlimited illegal immigration.
And he's never defended it.
So I think they have so much work to do before anyone really takes these people seriously. And, you know, hopefully it's going to be not just this four years, but another four years as well. Yeah, the whole John Fetterman thing blows my mind. I know. Right?
Because I'm like, wait, I agree with John Fetterman. And I just start to question all my life choices at that point, right? Like, I look at my husband, was I an idiot to marry you? What is happening here?
Well, occasionally he has common sense, you know, and he's saying, look, let's just not immediately erect all these defiant barriers to success. On the part of the Trump administration. I don't agree with everything they're going to do, but let's really work for the betterment of the country. And boy, you just don't hear that enough at all. No, the other thing I love is when they call Hakeem Jeffries dime store Obama.
I'm like, and it's kind of right, right? I know, it is.
Well, he's the trimmed-down Bidenomics version of Obama. You mentioned talking points. It's nothing substance. No, no, not at all. Very quickly, and then we're going to take a quick break.
Well, you know what? Actually, let's break now, and then I will come back to you.
So we're going to take a quick break here, and then we'll come back because I have a lot more to talk about with you. We're speaking with Liz Peake on all the news of the day, and there is just so much to get to. More coming up on the Brian Kilmeat Show. Expanding your knowledge base. It's the Brian Kill Meat Show.
The Fox News Rundown. A contrast of perspectives you won't hear anywhere else. Your daily dose of news twice a day. Featuring insight from top newsmakers, reporters, and Fox News contributors. Listen and subscribe now by going to FoxNewsPodcasts.com.
The more you listen, the more you'll know. It's Brian Kilmead. I'm Mary Walter in for Brian Kilmead. We're speaking with Liz Peake. You can find her on X at Liz Peak.
You can also find her writings at foxnews.com and also The Hill. Liz, let's brief conversation here about this H-1B visa fight in the Republican Party. I hate when they fight publicly, drives me crazy. But they all take to X, especially Elon Musk. Does this hurt the Republicans, this fight about the H-1B visas?
Well Okay, so full disclosure, I come back, I come down on the side of allowing H-1B visa program to exist and probably to expand for this reason. Republicans historically, and I think today, are in favor of legal immigration. This is legal immigration. What we are not in favor of is illegal immigration because it makes our country not a rule of law country, and that's just unacceptable. H-1B visas, I think, have been abused in the past.
I've written about it. I mean, there are some companies that dominate the application process for H-1Bs. They import a lot of workers, and this indeed those people oftentimes get paid less money than American competitors. And so that has to be eliminated. That's not the rationale for inviting high-tech, highly talented people into our country.
What is the rationale is That countries like India and some others have trained gigantic numbers of STEM graduates to be extremely capable in areas like programming, and we just have a shortage of those kinds of workers. That's why the last two or three administrations have really emphasized STEM education because we're just not keeping up. I think there are two things. One, I do think that these workers provide an additional valuable resource. To the United States, some 40% of entrepreneurial startups in the last decade or two have been founded by people like Elon Musk and Vivek Ramasamy, people who did come to this country in the case of Elon as an NSN immigrant and then went on to create and generate for America hundreds of billions of dollars.
So, I mean, these are valuable people, many of them, who've contributed to our society. That has always been Donald Trump's immigration priority. Let's get people into the country who contribute, not just people who want to come across the border and go on welfare. Let's get people who actually found companies, hire workers, et cetera. That is a good ambition.
Secondly, taxpayers are spending a lot of money. On education in our country, public universities and so forth, who educate a lot of tech. entrepreneur types, and then those people go home because they can't get a working visa in our country. That's just stupid. If we're going to educate people, I've forgotten who it is that said we should have a work visa staple to graduation certificate, I think that's true.
Why are we spending all this money And then, Liz, we got to run. I don't mean to cut you off, but we got to go. It's always great to speak with you. Have a wonderful, wonderful new year, and thank you for joining me on the Brian Kilmey Show. If you're interested in it, Brian's Talking About It.
You're with Brian Kilmead. And I'm Mary Walter sitting in for Brian Kilmead, my last day with you. Brian will be coming back 866-4087-669 is my number. And you can also reach out to me at Mary WalterRadio. Let's Switch gears here a little bit, and I want to welcome Jim Whaley.
He's a retired lieutenant, Army Lieutenant Colonel. He's the CEO of a mission of an organization called Mission Roll Call. You can find them at missionrollcall.org. The great website for people who, especially for people who are in the military, but those of you who would like to help out. They've got so much there on the webpage.
We're going to explore that with Jim. Jim, welcome to the Brian Kilmead Show. Happy New Year. Happy New Year to you. Good morning to you.
So, one of the things I know, and I've spoken with you before, is the holidays, this time of year is difficult for a lot of people. I think a lot of people feel like my, you know, my Christmas should be like a Hallmark TV special, and it's not, and they get depressed, or they're not with family because of, you know, politics or COVID or whatever it happens to be. And it's so, it's, it's a very, it's a depressing time of year for quite a few people. They're supposed to feel happy and they don't, and that makes them feel more depressed. But it really is tough on veterans.
Why is that?
Well, no doubt, the holiday season can be really especially isolating for many across our nation, but especially, as you noted, for our nation's heroes who are struggling with mental health challenges. We polled veterans nationwide recently and found that forty three percent of veterans either experience or know of a fellow veteran who experiences a noticeable increase in mental health challenges during the holiday season. There's a lot of conjecture of why that may occur. From what we hear from our members and veterans that we talk to across the country, It's that loss of being part of something bigger than yourself. it is being isolated In many cases, it's because they've slipped through the cracks financially.
But it's also not being with their tribe anymore, a group of people that they loved. worked with and were willing to do dangerous things with. And so it's a challenge for many veterans. Yeah, that lack of structure when they come out. Is that why we have a higher percentage of veterans than non-veterans who wind up homeless?
I think there's a lot of reasons for that. One is, let's think about this: 24% of active duty military. have financial insecurity issues. financial insecurity issues to the point where they don't know where their next meal is going to be. This is not a statistic that Mission Roll Call has found out.
This is on the DOD website.
So if twenty four percent, nearly a quarter of active duty military are struggling to put food on the table, it should not be a big surprise that when they leave the military, they're going to continue to struggle.
So we need as a nation to do better taking care of active duty and veterans to make sure that we're tapping into their talents. their willingness to serve their community. and take advantage of the skills that they've learned in the military and put them to work in our country's major corporations and organizations. Yeah, this is something that just so much of this just really, I think, angers most Americans. Our military should not be food insecure.
We should not be paying these guys so little that they have to get food from a food bank. And a lot of them don't want to do that because they're proud. And I understand that. I don't understand with all of the veterans that we have in Congress how this is still happening. Why haven't there been any bills to increase the pay for our military or provide food for them or something along those lines?
We are giving people all over this country who walk into this country illegally. We're putting them up in hotels in Chicago, in Philadelphia, in New York, in LA. They're living in five-star hotels with maid service. We're providing them with three meals a day that they throw out because that food isn't what they culturally like to eat. We provide them with free medical care, yet, our veterans.
Veterans wind up being homeless. There's something seriously wrong. How is that happening when we have so many vets in Congress? I think the bureaucracy of the Pentagon and the military establishment has caused some of this. I know that Senator Jody Ernst from Iowa pushed for legislation to increase the pay for junior enlisted.
That should have been a no brainer for the generals on the joint staff. Yet they declined doing that. We need to look at the leadership of the military to make sure that they understand that. Their soldiers, their airmen, and naval personnel need to be taken care of. Um so that they're living in a competitive wage, a a livable wage.
This should be important to anyone who's serving the military, but certainly to the leadership of the Department of Defense. Yeah, it it it's so maddening.
Now no offense to you, but that programs and organizations like yours have to exist, right? We shouldn't I would love to see you out of business. Me too, and I told my team that. I mean, you think about it, there's 35,000 veteran support organizations.
Now, the vast majority of those, Mary, are very small organizations. very localized, maybe two or three people working to help veterans in their local community. But still, that's an enormous amount of support that is going to veterans across our country. Think about any other. organization that um But it needs that much help.
Right. It's clear that the Veterans Administration and DOD need to work better, more efficient, And set priorities so that we're not in business anymore. Um That should be the goal of every nonprofit, right? Is to fix the problem and move on. But you see how many veteran support organizations are trying to.
uh take on this problem for the administration that seems uh Not too focused on it, at least not to the level that our members are telling us. And we have members across the country, every walk of life. They're infuriated by it. Yeah, but it's been going on forever. It's it's through administrations, which is why I look at Congress.
This has been going on. You know, forever, right? You and I both know this.
So we didn't just suddenly get here.
So to me, this is really not over who's sitting in the White House. This is really about who's sitting in Congress. And it shouldn't be that way. I want to talk in the time that we have left, just very quickly here, about the transition to civilian life. Again, the structure you say is so different.
Is it different for this generation of soldiers, or is this something that's always been? It's just that maybe past generations just didn't talk about it. They just. Got on with life, you know, like our grandparents and things like that? Or did we just not know about it?
Was there no, it was something you didn't talk about? Yes.
Well, I think there's a couple of contributing factors. One is when you look back at history, there was a larger percentage of the American population that served.
So they knew what the military was all about, and they were in the position to hire people from the military. Today we're in a position where only 1% of the American people have served.
So there's a big disconnect between Um the military and civilian world. And so that transition becomes even more difficult. I will also say that the transition programs That we have in the military really don't help veterans to the point where it's satisfactory to veterans. Anyone that comes out of The CAP program, the transition assistant program, will say it was wanting. I think what we need to make sure is that We have a concerted effort at the national level, maybe the Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, Department of Defense and VA working together to make sure that businesses understand that the talent that veterans bring to an organization Uh Is incredible.
They bring loyalty, they bring a skill set from their time in service. They're going to show up on time. They're going to take pride in their work. And more importantly, they're going to get involved in their communities. They're going to be coaches.
Uh volunteer firemen. Things like that. And that's the type of people that any corporation or organization wants to hire, but I think there's a disconnect. for the HR people and many organizations to understand that. And it would be great to see an effort underway to really remedy that situation and make that bridge.
for veterans to go into the civilian world. Absolutely. So, if you are a vet and you want support, if you want to find out more, check out missionrollcall.org. You can get involved. If you are not a vet and you want to get involved and you want to help, there are so many things that you can do.
You can become a resource. You can have your nonprofit listed with them. You can donate to help with funds to help them. And there's so many wonderful things that you can do here. And it really brings the veteran community together with the civilian community.
And that's the point of all of this. And so you start at this level with Mission Roll Call, and then it grows from there. Jim Whaley, thank you so much for everything that you do. It's always great to speak with you. It's a fantastic organization.
And thank you so much for everything that you do. I hope 2025 is a fantastic year for you guys. And like I said, I hope you're out of business soon. Thank you, Mary. You have a happy new year as well.
Thank you. All right. Your call's coming up: 866-408-7669. I want to go back into the H1 Visa issue and the topic that we were talking about with Liz Peake a little bit earlier.
So, we're going to get to that coming up next on the Brian Kilmead Show. Expanding your knowledge base, it's the Brian Kilmead Show. Radio that makes you think. This is the Brian Kill Me Show. I think both Ramaswamy and Musk got out a little over their skis.
Vivek's weird diatribe about American kids having too many sleepovers really, you know, kind of went over like a ton of bricks. And then Musk was saying, I wish I had twice as many foreign workers. And you had a lot of America first Trump supporters saying, Hey, buddy, you know, read the room. And Where we landed is, and President Trump sees this, is with really legitimate competing interests here. Yes, we absolutely want to attract the best and the brightest of the United States.
We also want to make sure that that kid who graduates with a degree in architecture isn't facing unfair foreign competition that's not only going to undercut him in terms of wages, but an H-1B visa holder, you lose your job, you get deported. That's an awful lot of leverage that you're handing over to owners. Again, legitimate competing interests and a good debate has come out of it. That was David Marcus on Fox and Friends talking about this H one B Visa fight.
So I want to start off by asking you if you think this is a bad like a bad thing that this fight is being had Publicly. I'm all for debate. Debate is great. I don't have a problem with that. The difference between Republicans and Democrats is Democrats do it behind closed doors and Republicans do it out in the open, right?
They have their fights publicly.
So that's where I'm like, really, guys, we're going to do this publicly.
Okay.
So I would prefer that they did this not on X or Truth Social, but that they did it behind closed doors.
Now I did some research because I was kind of hoping this whole thing blew over by the time Monday came around because I was like, ah.
So I didn't spend my weekend delving into it. I was like, yeah, this whole thing's going to blow over because I really was hoping that it would be resolved and that would be the end of it and we'd be good. That clearly did not happen. All right. And.
Be cap. I found this thing, and this is by Robert Sterling. It's on X, Robert M. Sterling, if you want to check it out. And this guy is a numbers guy, and he's got a lot of time because he crunched five years of H-1B data from the USDOL website, 4 million plus records.
And he spent the day crunching the data. And I'm going to get into this. 866-408-7669 is the number. You can reach out to me at Mary Walter Radio NX. Should we be having this fight publicly?
Or are you okay with it? Like, that's fine if you're okay with it. But he comes out at the end of this and he breaks all the numbers down. And one of the problems he has with the H-1B visa, and I think is interesting, is that they are underpaid compared to what Americans would get in the same job.
So, right there is a driver for these companies to want to hire more H-1B visas, primarily the majority of them coming from India. It's a pipeline. Do you remember, gosh, probably about five years ago, five, six years ago, the big story about Disney firing all these workers, and then they were forced to train their replacements? And there were a couple of stories like that. It wasn't just them.
I'm just picking on them, but there were a couple of stories like that that they had to. to train their replacements or else they wouldn't get their their p their pay or some package or whatever when they left. They were going to give them a nice package when you left, but here's the glitch. You got to train the foreign worker that's going to be taking your job.
So these programs are abused. There are caps on the number of visas per year, a statutory limit of 85,000 visas per year. But according to the work that this guy, Robert Sterling, did, and he all the charts in the thread, he has pictures of the charts and everything. You can go check him out on X. All the pictures and the sources are all there.
These are applications that were certified. These were approved for entry into the H-1B lottery. He filled out the applications the government rejected.
So all the numbers are for visa employers actually and realistically attempted to obtain. The program has a limit of 85,000 visas per year, but employers routinely receive approval for more than $800,000 per year, $868,000, or 10 times the limit in 2024. The average salary for H1B is relatively low, a little bit under $120,000 this year. You'd be paying American workers a lot more. I just think that if a company is firing workers They shouldn't be allowed to be hiring H-1B visa.
Applicants. That's just me. And everybody makes it sound like, oh, we don't have any Americans who can do the job. I find that hard to believe. We are churning out the STEM graduates.
And when you look at our DEI hiring, people are like, well, American STEM graduates aren't as good as the other.
Well, here's part of the problem. And I look firsthand at this. My niece is insanely smart. I don't know how that side of the family got where the jeans is clearly their mom's side. These kids are smart, smart, smart.
And her number one school she really wanted to go to has a really good engineering program, but it's a small school. It's a private university with a good engineering program. And she got rejected.
Well, she got weightlifts, weightlisted. And People flat out told her look and she's c she's white. And this was four years ago. She's graduating in this year. But she got into a really good program.
She got into a really good program at another school that's much bigger, so they were taking a lot more kids.
So she's going to do fine, but she's an engineer. Her sister is a math and computer science. Graduate And because she's a woman, she got a job. But there are male graduates in STEM. First of all, it's hard for them to get into school, especially if you're white.
And then when they get out, it's harder for them to get hired again because they're white males.
So until we get rid of a lot of the DEI, unfortunately, I think we have a lot of American kids who don't get into school, and when they get out, they don't get hired. And I just think that's something that we have to look at with this program before we just start hiring more foreigners. That's my take on it. You can disagree. I'm Mary Walter.
You're listening to The Brian Kilmead Show. From the Fox News Radio Studios in Midtown Manhattan, it's the fastest growing radio talk show. Brian. In Killmead. And thank you for joining me here on the Brian Kilmead Show.
I am Mary Walter in for Brian Kilmead and Catch me on... X at Mary Walter Radio. If you really can't Give me a call. Maybe you're driving or something. That's fine.
Well, not that you could text, but maybe you have someone in the car who could do it for you. Mary Walter Radio. Don't forget my podcast is on Tuesdays, but this coming Tuesday, tomorrow night, we will not be doing a podcast because it's New Year's Eve, but it's normally on at 7:15 p.m. Eastern Time, and you can find it on YouTube and get her live. It's a live cast.
You can participate, so there's a lot of comments and questions from you guys. Just look for Mary Walter Radio, and audio is available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. And of course, you can always go to YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, look for Mary Walter Radio, listen or watch older. Older episodes, and sometimes you have a guest, sometimes you don't.
Sometimes it is political, and sometimes it's not. It's a little bit of everything. I don't like being in a box. You know how that is. I don't like being in a box.
8664087669 is my number 8664087669. Let's talk H1B visas. How do you feel about this fight, this conversation, being had in the public sphere with the Republicans?
So part of me loves it because it's transparency. I think a lot of us are looking into the whole H-1B visa thing to say, okay, I got to know more about this.
Some people were like, well, Trump's for it, so so am I. And then maybe others are like, well, maybe not so much.
So I'm sure I want to fill you out on that. And also, if you have looked into it and you have opinions on it, I would love to hear them. Because I kind of, I got to tell you, I looked into it. I'm not such a big fan of it. I'm really not.
And Donald Trump was against it, but now he's for it. And he says, oh, I use H-1B visas, you know, employees. I have H-1B visas, employees. They're great. Which is, they may be great, wonderful.
I'm not saying they're not. But I also think if you're going to be America first, you should probably require them to hire American citizens. If you have Americans applying for the job and they have the qualifications, they're the ones who should get the job. Even though you have to pay them more than a foreigner.
Now Robert M. Sterling on X is he is a numbers guy. This is what he does. He crunches numbers, and boy, does he crunch numbers. My word.
He downloaded five years of H-1B data from the USDOL website, 4 million plus records, and he spent the day crunching data. God bless you. He said, I went into this with an open mind, but now I am extremely skeptical of how the program works. All the charts in his thread, and if you go to Robert M. Sterling on X.
There is a thread reader. You can just click it and it's got the whole thread reader thing comes up, so it's easy to read. All of the charts are there with all of the sources.
Okay, so if you have questions, you can go look there and see everything that he downloaded. And he filtered out applications that the government rejected.
So these are all applications that were certified, other words, approved for entry into the H-1B lottery. All the numbers are for visas employers actually and realistically attempted to obtain. The program has a statutory limit of 85,000 visas a year, but employers routinely receive approval for more than 800,000 applications per year. 2024, 868,000, which is 10 times the limit.
Now part of the problem with the H1B visa, depending on how you're looking at this, is that the salaries for these workers is relatively low. It's slightly under $120,000 this year, which if you're an H-1B recipient, if you're an American getting the job, you're going to get paid more. Yeah. Seventeen percent are paid less than seventy five thousand a year, twenty one percent are seventy five to one hundred, twenty two are a hundred to one hundred and twenty five, and only fifteen percent make one hundred and twenty five to one hundred and fifty thousand. 2.5 percent make 250 plus.
All the most prominent job categories are tech related, the top two categories for software developer roles over 1.1 million over 5 years. Every role with thirty thousand plus H one B applications is for a STEM field with the exception of accountants and auditors, thirty nine thousand. Most of them, though, are also IT related. We don't have enough accounting graduates in this country. 15 companies alone received approval for 20,000-plus applications each.
So he looked at the applications by employer code, with computer systems design being the most popular of all of them, 1.2 million applications over five years. The next two largest are universities and consulting. The computer systems design is the category for the larger for many of the larger employers that they saw.
Some of the companies, Google, IBM, Salesforce, are household names, but the other applicants aren't as familiar. It turns out that the top applicants That apply for these jobs, the majority of them are Indian companies in this country that import H1B tech workers. The most cognizant, infosys, tata consultancy, wiper, and then a whole bunch more that you haven't heard of. These aren't American companies. That are importing international talent to fill critical roles.
They're foreign companies that. according to this guy, this is his opinion. He says they appear to have been founded to place overseas tech workers into US companies as contractors. Over the past five years, eighty thousand plus computer systems analysts have been placed, fifty thousand plus systems engineers and architects Programmers and IT project managers. 'Cause we don't have enough architects, really?
We've got some people who want to talk about this, and I'll give you more numbers. 866-408-7669, because the Center for Center for Immigration Studies has some numbers on this as well. They are not fans of this program. Let's go to North Carolina and John. Welcome.
You're on the Brian Kilmead Show. Hi. Hey there, how you doing? Doing great, go ahead. Yes, so a little insight into what you're talking about.
Back in the day, I won't mention the bank 'cause it's one of the top two. But you get the idea. Um so they had Indian partners. And what they would do is they would hire three at thirty three thousand dollars total, they would leave two of them in country in their uh call center And bring one over here, all for $33,000 a year. This was 15 years ago, so I know it's a little more now.
But it's probably not a whole lot more. But that's right. They made the deal with the Indian government.
So you've got the Indian government saying, hey, we'll We'll supply you with three people. You leave two of them in country, you know, over there fifteen hundred dollars a year is a lot of money. And so that's what the big thank with doing it. They're not the only ones. When it's cheaper to hire these people, of course, there is a driver for this, right?
There's a lure here for American companies. I can hire an H-1B Visa guy for far less than I can hire an American.
So, why would you hire the American? I get it. I don't blame them for that. The U.S. government is incentivizing this, right?
Like, that's what's happening here. Go ahead. No, I was gonna say absolutely. And when you've got the foreign governments working with our government and the companies then you're even going to get a cheaper rate 'cause those people will do whatever it takes to get over here. just to make thirty thousand dollars a year and Yeah, I mean, it's the whole thing's pretty crazy.
And when you got people in cahoots together, course, then it makes it even more tragic, I guess you could say. Yeah, especially when American kids can't get jobs, right? Like, it's a problem. Especially because we're paying them for their student loans because not all of them, but there are some in there who have great degrees in which they should be able to get a job like architect, like accountant, like you've got Ernst Young, which is one of the top big four accounting firms. Ernst Young has the most with 16,000-plus applications.
They have the largest share of employers seeking visas for finance-related jobs, followed by Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, and Citibank. Everything from accountants to computer systems analysts to actuaries. We don't have those. We don't have those Americans who can apply for those jobs. It's very weird to me.
And maybe I'm wrong. Maybe we don't have them. And maybe this is a big need. But when companies are firing workers and having the Americans who are in those jobs who are being fired train the immigrants coming in, there's something wrong. To me, there's something seriously wrong.
John, we got to run. Thank you so much for joining me. Bill, hang on. I will get to you next. If you want to jump in, it's 866-408-7669.
Also, coming up, I'll tell you what the Center for Immigration Studies, their numbers, and what they say about this as well.
So, there's a lot on this, and we need to, as much as I didn't want to have to delve into this, because I thought, oh, we're not going to keep prolonging this fight, infighting in the Republican Party, but apparently we are between Elon Musk and Donald Trump and others. And coming up, I'll tell you what Steve Batten has to say about this because he is not holding his tongue.
So, we'll have that also coming up here on the Brian Kilmead Show. Both sides, all opinions. It's Brian Killmead. Breaking news, unique opinions. Hear it all on the Brian Kill Me Show, the H-1B.
FISA program is a total and complete scam concocted. by the Lords of Easy Money on Wall Street. Uh in the Ola Garks in Silicon Valley. To both initially to just increase profit margins. But there's a darker element to it today, a contempt of America and American citizens, and we're not going to tolerate it.
You need to honor this country, and you need to honor the citizens in this country. The citizens in this country are what provided the platform for you nerds even to exist. That was Steve Bannon railing about the HOMB visa program. He is not a fan, clearly.
So, just very quickly, and then I will get to more of your calls, but I was looking at data. This is from data this year, September. And It is in the Center for Immigration Studies, but it was done by the Washington Examiner. And they found that from 2008 to 2023, the employer cost for employee compensation data shows that inflation-adjusted hourly compensation for wages and benefits combined for STEM workers in the U.S. increased just 2.3% over 15 years.
That's just a 0.15 percentage per year on average. If you look specifically at wages, the numbers show barely any increase at all. Benefits increased 7.4 percent from 2008 to 2023. And their argument is that if stem workers are in such high demand, why hasn't their compensation, why hasn't their value increased? If employers really truly have a shortage and they are in high demand, well, then you would think that supply demand that their price would go up.
In most recent years, compensation has actually fallen. It was seven point one percent lower in twenty three percent than in twenty nineteen before COVID, with wages down seven point six percent, benefits down six point two percent.
So why have they been lowering the compensation that they're offering?
Now, is it because they're bringing in all these people from other countries and paying them less so it drives down Americans' wages? That's one of the arguments. The American Community Survey data indicates that in twenty two, there were five point four million working age people with a science degree that were not working in any STEM job among technology degree holders. It was 1.6 million for among technology degree holders, it was one point six million. For engineering, it was three point seven, and it was eight hundred twenty five thousand in math.
So it looks like America on its face, if you look at the numbers, has enough people trained in STEM. But they either are choosing not to work in their chosen field or they can't get jobs. And we need to know that. Right, that that's a that's a missing piece of this puzzle. Let's go to Oklahoma City.
Bill, welcome. You're on the Brian Kilmeet Show. Hi. Hi, good morning. Good morning.
Hi. Go ahead. So, you know, you've been talking about all the STEM work, everything, and I actually worked. Stem as a defense contractor for many years. But in recent years, right before I retired, I did a lot of traveling in my government contracting job And I drive a diesel vehicle, and then they're pulling into a truck stop to fill up, usually, because the price was better.
You'd be surprised. That the majority of over the road truck country probably on H-1Bs permit you're cutting out there. You're cutting out there.
So you're saying that they're bringing H-1B visa truck drivers in? I wonder if that's a different visa. I don't know that that's an H-1B visa, but I have. Go ahead. They're bringing them in.
to this country When we've probably got people here that could. Drive over the road trucks and They won't do it. for as low a price as these guys will coming from India. And I also saw an article. I saw a piece by a guy who was a driver for 20 plus years, and he's quitting.
He's leaving. He's leaving the profession. He says he enjoys it, but he's leaving because of the number of foreigners who are driving now. And he said it's not the same as it was 20 years ago. The brotherhood is not there.
The idea that you'd let a fellow trucker in in front of you, that type of thing. That type of stuff doesn't exist anymore. And he said, I don't recognize the face of trucking in this country.
So he's leaving.
So to your point, that there are a lot of foreigners driving trucks now. I believe that. I just don't know if they're H-1B visas, because H-1B is supposed to bring in like the smartest of the smartest, the 0.01% of brains around the world. That's what it's supposed to be. And it's supposed to be very, very judiciously used.
I don't think that all these people that are coming in on the H-1B visa, though, are part of that 0.01%. Of the smartest and the best and the brightest that are out there. But you do shine light on something else that is happening, Bill, which is, yeah, a lot of foreigners going into trucking. And that's a whole nother can of worms. Have a wonderful new year.
I appreciate you joining me. 866-408-7669. Let's take a quick one. Donna, North Carolina. Welcome to the Brian Kilmey Show.
I've got about a minute and a half, Don. Hi. Hey. this may not apply to H one B visas, but I don't know if you've tried to hire anybody locally to do construction work or any kind of labor type work and. Um you cannot find Local American citizens that are willing to do the work.
So true. I mean, I recently tried to build a garage. It took me a couple of years to find someone to pour the concrete. I tried to get roofers to do it. It took me four or five Estimates to get somebody to do it.
vinyl siding the same way. And every one of those workers that did the jobs were Mexicans. Um People would call and say they're going to show up. They'd never show up. They'd give you an estimate.
Then they'd never come back to do the work. The only people that are willing to get it done are Mexicans in eastern North Carolina. You know, we do have a problem because we pay people to sit at home. There are too many people who could have jobs but have chosen to just live smaller and just live off a check from the government. That needs to change.
Doge needs to get on that because you're 100% right. I know so many people who share the same story. I was in a store, and thank you so much, Don. Have a great new year. I was shopping before Christmas and walking around the store just trying to find someone who's actually working who would ring up my purchase.
I just want to leave money on the counter and walk out, but apparently you can't do that. That's apparently frowned upon. But yeah, nobody wants to work. We need to look at that. Mary Walter, we got more coming up on the Brian Kilmead show.
The fastest three hours in radio. You're with Brian Kilmead. You know, this is the United States of America, and you can be the richest man in the world. It's not going to protect you from blowback when American citizens feel like. You know, you're not putting them first.
And look, I think Musk has walked some of this back. He now says that he thinks that it should be very expensive to hire an H1B visa applicant. And I think that's absolutely right. And that speaks to really You know, the point that he was making was he says he's talking about like NBA stars. I want the Albert Einsteins.
And that's fine, but that's a very different conversation than accountants and graphic designers and people who are holding jobs that American citizens need. That's David Marcus on Fox and Friends talking about these H-1B visas and the fight that is happening with very publicly on the Republican side, the MAGA people. You've got Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who are very much in favor of even expanding the H-1B visa program. And then Trump kind of stayed out of it, and then he finally spoke about it this weekend. And then.
You've got Steve Bannon, who I think is is Echoes with a lot of people on the right, especially the rank and file, the MAGA people, those who put Trump in office, the voters, who are like, Yeah, you have to hire Americans first. What do you mean you're hiring all these people from out of the country? And then they come here, they bring their families.
So if they have a baby, they're never leaving. Right? They're going to stay because apparently you have to leave the baby behind. You're not allowed to take the baby with you when you go back to your country.
So it's it's almost like this this another route of immigration into this country that you wind up here legally and you wind up staying forever. And that part of it to me is the least of it because they will get jobs and they'll work and they'll contribute and that's great. But I think these jobs should go to Americans first. When you have companies that are firing employees, they shouldn't be hiring H one B Visa people from out of the country. You can't tell me.
And if if the wages for STEM workers have been pretty stagnant, Then don't tell me, oh, they're in such short supply because supply demand, then you should be paying more for them, right? Because there are there are Americans who have STEM degrees who aren't working in STEM.
Now, why is it? Is it because they couldn't get a job working in STEM? I don't know that we need 800,000 of these people coming in. And the cap means nothing. The cap doesn't mean a darn thing because they just apply and they get more and more and more.
and we have the majority of the bulk of the companies that are taking these these Indian workers from the H one B, primarily from India, are Indian companies in the United States that are hiring Indians To work here I don't know.
Something about that says, hmm, I don't know. I've shared with you what I have researched, what I have read, the numbers that I have seen from both sides. And I just have a lot of questions. If you want to jump in 866-408-7669 or go to MaryWalterRadio on X and drop me a note, and I'll try to read it to you on the air. Let's head to Indiana.
In the meantime, South Bend Andrew, welcome. You're on the Brian Kilmead Show. Happy New Year. Happy New Year to you. Thank you.
Go ahead. Where where are you on this?
So this is two things. I think until our country and our corporations in America decides to take cybersecurity seriously and really promote the money to it, we're not going to see a change in any of this. A lot of the companies that I work with do not want to invest in that type of protection. It's why our telecom companies are getting invaded. All of our government infrastructure is getting hacked by overseas threat actors.
Until we start making a serious investment in our cybersecurity technology and looking at those cybersecurity experts as a needed necessity, that pay has to come up. A lot of people getting these STEM degrees, expecting to come out and make six figures out of the gate, aren't getting that money because corporations are looking at their IT departments as expense only line items. They're not looking at that as an investment. And if why not, though? That seems to be so weird to me.
Why would they risk their entire company's reputation or destroy their entire company by not taking cybersecurity seriously? Unfortunately, it's a slap on the wrist approach where you don't care about it until you have to. Until a breach occurs, you're paying out millions upon billions of dollars of penalties and fines, and then they turn around and be retroactive in their approach. Until they get that injury or that self-inflicted wound of, oh my gosh, I have to pay all of these damages out now because I didn't take these base level security protections seriously, that's when they are reactive to the problem. We need to get proactive to solutions to put these things in place and have this guardrail go up because it's the biggest threat to every company in the world right now is your end users looking through their email addresses and getting the text messages and clicking the malicious links and exploiting that vulnerability and leaking all your customer data.
That's the biggest threat to every customer in the world right now, and no one's taking it seriously. It sounds like tech companies are run by 13-year-old boys, right? You know, 13-year-old boys. I grew up with brothers. They just go through a phase where they're just dumb and they don't believe anything, and they gotta find everything out by doing it.
Which is fine. That's fine.
It's a phase you go through, but not when you're running a tech company. You should look at the threat, be able to assess it like an adult and act accordingly instead of waiting until something bad happens and then finding out if it's really going to be as bad as everybody tells you it's going to be. Andrew, thank you for joining me. Have a wonderful new year. Appreciate you, you know, the comments here.
I'm learning so much.
So I really appreciate you for that. Because right now, I'm like against this. Right now, I'm like, this is not so great. Mitt Brennender Sorge on X says, a great discussion on H1B. Structure is needed.
Son with STEM ME from UH University of Hawaii, I don't know. Took four years to get ME job. He w as be as told he was a single white male. Agree with Doge, but needs major improvement.
So I guess her son, uh when he finally got his degree, it was very hard for him to get a job because he's a white male. And I find that, listen, they're not going to tell you to your face, but people around them will tell you to your face. Like my niece, who didn't get into her first school, stupid, smart, crazy grades, brilliant kid, got waitlisted at her number one school for engineering. You figure a woman in STEM, right? But.
Sh it's D E I and she's white.
So people around, you know, said, Hey, look, she's white, she ain't getting in And so she went to a bigger school where she had a greater chance and she's getting a great degree. It's a good school uh and she's gonna do do really well. But the fact that we we restrict Americans based on skin color and all these other characteristics that we decide to apply, we don't get the best and brightest, and that's a problem. Let's go to Virginia's Sam, welcome. You're on the Brian Kill Me Joe.
Hi. Hi, I just want I have so many comments about this actual topic.
So from working in tech for many different companies, one of the requirements is actually to post the job publicly. And I'm telling you, when I was at the tech companies, how we would post the job is print it out, put it in the cafeteria, and that's us posting it publicly.
So no one really saw what the job was. Also, I'd like to play upon Canada. Where do you think they're coming in from? Because I'm telling you the amount of applicants from Canada, it's like a direct pipeline.
So and also, I just want to point out, if you're hiring an accounting firm to do your taxes, It's not Americans doing your taxes. It's the Indian firms doing the taxes.
So I think A lot Has to do with this discussion. And if I see a hiring event, for just women in tech. I don't see women, I see Indian males. going for this job, showing up at the event.
So I think a lot needs to be unpacked with this topic. Yeah, no, there's a lot that I obviously don't know because I'm not in tech, but I have a problem with an event just for women. Why are we doing this? There are so it should be merit. It should be merit over this, over these immutable, stupid, ridiculous characteristics that come first, like skin color and gender and all this other stuff.
It should be the most competent. And I honestly think that if you have a company that can hire, I don't know, the most competent, that would be the best way to do it. But I do think Americans should be first in line for these jobs. I just do. And I think to set other callers' point, I don't want, listen, you know what, Sam?
I don't want somebody from another country having access to my tax return information. They've got my social security number. They've got everything. And we give them to foreigners. I'm shocked at that.
I'm absolutely shocked. That to me would be an absolute no-go. Sam, thank you so much. Appreciate the info. And I know we could go on forever.
Have a great new year. Yeah. Joe 47 says, We were in Ireland and our waiter couldn't wait to tell us how he applied for the lottery to come over and joked how him and his friends all work for one Irish pub in Austin. They don't pay any taxes, they don't pay any medical bills, and some fall on purpose so they get a $50,000 payout. That's different than H-1B.
Those are work visas, and they're usually good for a year or two.
Some of them are seasonal, depending. I know on the boardwalk in New Jersey they get a lot of Irish workers who just work for the summer on the boardwalk and then they go back.
So that's a different visa than the H1B. The H-1B is supposed to be for the brightest and the best and the brains that we just don't have here in this country. 866-408-7669. A lot of people want to get in here. I'll be wrapping it up, taking your calls on this, also your comments at Mary Walter Radio.
We're learning more and more about the H-1BVs, and I'm curious as to where you. Kind of fall in here based on what you know, or if you want to add to the conversation and maybe you have experience with it, love to hear it. It's all coming up on the Brian Kilmead show. Giving you everything you need to know, you're with Brian Kilmead. The talk show that's getting you talking.
You're with Brian Kilmead. I think this is an important, thoughtful debate that's happening. But the context that we need to, I think, keep in mind here is that the American workers have been left behind by this economy. Many factory jobs have been sent overseas, and I think the abuses of the H-1B program have been evident, where you have sort of the sons and daughters of those factory workers who lost their jobs, got white-collar jobs as accountants, and they're training their replacements, the foreign workers who are undercutting their wagers.
So I think the solution here, President Trump has actually articulated is. twenty twenty is to reform that system and get rid of the abuses, make it merit based and make sure that we're not undercutting wages and having Americans replace their or train their foreign replacements. Yeah, wouldn't that be nice? That's so much less humiliating. when you don't have to re train your foreign replacement.
Or or you know, you lose your job. Having to train your replacement is is so humiliating. I don't know why companies do that. That Senator Eric Schmidt out of Missouri, he's a Republican. Where do you stand on this?
You know, Trump is with Muska and Vivek Ramaswamy on this. You've got Steve Bannon and others. I just think that the bulk of MAGA, of the people, the populace, us, looks at this and says, no, if you have an accounting degree and you're an American, you should be first in line in the job before someone from another country coming here on an H-1B visa. What do they have that you don't have? You're an accountant.
You're both accountants. You both have degrees. You can both do the job. The American should get the job. No questions about it, in my humble opinion.
Eight six six four zero eight seven six six nine. Ashley reached out to me on exit Mary Walter Radio and said First hand from friends trying to do construction Contractors will hire one legal Hispanic citizen who grabs handfuls of illegals who get paid for 25% of the wages in cash. It's not Americans being lazy. They low-bid the job and they don't hire Americans. Yeah, see, that's part, you know what?
That's partially on us as Americans. If you don't, if you're going to take the lowest bid, And you know that that comes with people in the country illegally, that's on you then. That's something like my contractor knows that we will not have anyone work on this house. My house is 150 years old almost. We won't have anybody work here who's in the country illegally.
Sorry. And all of his workers are Americans or or like legal Americans. 'Cause I asked one of them, I said, he I thought he was Mexican. He says, I am not Mexican. I am Guatemalan and I am legal.
I was like, oh, okay. I'm sorry, Charlie.
Sorry. His name's Charlie. He speaks English. She also went on to say, NGOs have no cap on H-1B workers, so they bring in as many as they want and then transition them to contractors at American companies. I lost my career and consulting firm in the late 90s to H-1B Visa Mess.
I was one of 15 people that could do what I was doing in tech.
Sorry, Ashley, I cannot like that comment.
So, um I I think that there are people Who absolutely have lost their jobs because of this when they were Americans doing the job? Dustin in Virginia, welcome to the Brian Kilmead Show. Happy New Year. Hi. Hey, happy New Year.
It's good to hear you. I just wanted to have a little counterpoint to you. Sure. Um so Well, first off, with the Canadian trucker protest we had, A majority of those people are actually sheikhs from India, so I just wanted to back up the previous commenters. Topic there.
And it's funny that's because Trudeau said, of course, that they were all Nazis.
Well, it turns out they were all Indians. That's pretty funny. Um these people actually have a really big advantage as far as education.
So like um I went to India when I was like thirteen, my dad's business trip. Page they would have kids leave either Excel. Um deans list, things like that. They'd have their picture, they'd celebrate it. Um and then they come over here and it's easy.
Like I don't know if you've ever seen the I mean like just the print As far as we're going to be right. Super complex. The language is super complex. They come here, it's pretty easy. We answered it, yeah.
Um And not only that, but some of the issues you're having with the wages Uh that comes down to collective bargaining.
So it's like if you don't want people to hire all the foreigners and yada yada. have collective bargaining, have stronger unions. Stronger units create long term jobs. Right. Not these short term Um you know, contract Uber East kind of situation.
you're going to have things like retirement. TSP. Job security. But it is a long term. And that's good for our country because the taxes they're putting into it, they're paying into the 401ks, the stock market.
These are the kind of jobs that will save America.
Well, you know, you're getting into the union thing totally different, total horse of a different color. The problem with all of that, though, it sounds great, but it makes American workers very expensive to hire.
So then they pick up the whole company and they go overseas because it's a heck of a lot cheaper.
So, you know, it's a double-edged sword. You may just shut down the entire company and send it overseas. An internet company could go overseas very easily. And they'll take that there, and they'll have the foreign workers do the job at a far lower rate than American workers who are not unionized.
So, yeah, unions are great, especially if you want to just, you know, you don't want to take care of your own negotiations and you want to trust somebody else to do that. And you want to trust them to manage your pension, which we know nothing bad has ever gone with that, with unions managing pensions. You trust them to do that, okay, if that's what you want to do, but you also run the risk then of the companies going, you know what? Americans are just too, there's too expensive here. This contract's too expensive.
I can go to India. I can go wherever they want to go in the world, Philippines, wherever, and I can make the same product, accomplish the same thing, and it's going to cost me half, easily half.
So there's a lot of moving parts to this. Dustin, thank you. I appreciate you joining me on the Brian Kilmead show. There's a lot of moving parts to this discussion.
So it's not just the H-1B visa, but the. Idea of also education. Several people brought up education.
So did Dylan. He brought up education. We don't, we've dumbed our kids down instead of making them smarter. And that's a problem. You got to want to succeed, and a lot of our kids don't want to succeed because we don't value education as much as we should.
I'm Mary Walter. You're listening to the Brian Kilmead Show. From high atop Fox News headquarters in New York City, always seeking solutions, never sowing division. It's Brian Gilmead. And welcome to the Brian Killmead Show.
I am Mary Walters, sitting in for Brian, my last day with you. If you'd like to join me, 866-40-87669, or you can hit me up on X at Mary Walter Radio, and I'll try to get to your comments on air as we go through the show. But let's start out with Bobby Barack. He's a writer at Outkick. You can find him on X at Barack Bobby.
And then a line after it, an underscore after it. Apparently, there's a lot of Bobby Baracks running around. Bobby, my friend, how are you? Happy New Year. Merry Happy New Year to you.
That's right. I still have to deal with the underscore because someone else has my name officially.
Now of course, I could move over to Blue Sky and be at Bobby Burak, but I'm holding out. I'm not on Blue Sky. I know a lot of people who are. I don't like most people on Blue Sky, so I'm stuck on X with the underscore for now. Oh, that's too bad.
Well, you can't use a different name, I guess. That would be a problem.
So, I guess that's out of the question. And for people who, if you want to check out my podcast, if you go to YouTube, look for Mary Walter Radio, click on the live tab, or go to Apple Podcasts or Spotify, again, look for Mary Walter Radio, you will see several episodes with Bobby Brack.
So, thank you. I appreciate that. He's always a great guest.
So, I have to get you back on. You haven't been on lately. You've been very hard to nail down. It's very popular. I appreciate that.
And for the listeners, we did have a hypothetical episode that if you were to ever join Tinder, what would Mary Walter's Tinder bio be?
So we had some good laughs on that one. Yeah, he was very sweet. My husband was thrilled that he was teaching me how to open up a Tinder account and what we would put my profile as. And my husband walks through. He's like, does he know you're married?
I'm like, yeah, he wants to teach me how to do this.
So we're just going to go ahead and do that. Yeah, so sometimes, sometimes we do politics, and sometimes we don't.
So this was one of those times where we did not. I think it was a combination. I want you to hear this. Talking about Biden's obvious cognitive decline and talking about stories of 2024. This is Jan Crawford on CBS with Major Garrett.
Listen to this. Undercovered, underreported. That would be, to me, Joe Biden's obvious cognitive decline that became undeniable in the televised debate. That's the presidential debate with Biden. Unquestioned.
And, you know, it's starting to emerge now that his advisors kind of managed his limitations, which has been reported in the Wall Street Journal, for four years, and yet he insisted that he could still run for president. We should have much more forcefully questioned whether he was fit for office for another four years, which could have led to a primary. For the Democrats. It could have changed the scope of the entire election. Still, incredibly, we read in the Washington Post that his advisors are saying that he regrets that he dropped out of the race.
You know, that he thinks he could have beaten Trump. And I think that is either delusional or they're gaslighting. Did you hear that there? We should have much more forcefully questioned whether he was fit for office.
So, in other words, we probably should have done our jobs, we should have been journalists. Yeah, I mean, there's so many examples of journalists just dismissing their duty over the past. Four years, particularly during COVID. But, Mary, I think the way they covered Biden or didn't cover Biden's obvious cognitive decline over the past 12 months stands out the most to me. I mean, it was so obvious to the average person, but they never received confirmation because those who covered the White House had no interest in actually putting out the facts and revealing the actual state of the man who we are alleged to believe was the most powerful in the world.
Although I have a hard time believing that was the case when you consider Joe Biden, but it just reflects so poorly on the press. And you hear them speak now, and they seem like an industry that is lost. Confuse in doing some soul searching. they did everything they could to try to cost Donald Trump the presidency, whether it was hide Joe Biden's cognitive decline, lie about Kamala Harris, whitewash her background, compare Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler, and none of it worked. And I think for them now they look in the mirror and they question themselves because they've lost so much influence.
Do you think it changes anything? Are they that aware? Are they getting that aware that they would actually say, Huh, maybe we should change how we do stuff? I don't think so, maybe for short term. But overall, these journalists, quote unquote journalists, they operate as if they are so important and the rest of us are beneath them.
They truly believe that our opinions shouldn't matter and they should tell us who to vote for and who not to.
So I don't see anything changing. I think they are going to cover Donald Trump much like they did during his first term, which was a mixture of hysteria and honestly just flat out lies. Yeah, uh this it's I don't know. I would love. Here's the thing.
Part of me would love to have an actual. journalists back, like actual news that that were fairly w would fairly cover all of this stuff because I think the last eight years would have been far different. Than they are And so that's one thing. But on the other hand, I kind of hope they don't. Because if they keep doing the same thing over and over and over again.
Then you're going to continue to see more people, I think, move to the right.
Okay.
Yeah, absol absolutely. And You look at the reaction Journalists just don't have much power anymore. Most Americans don't believe them when they go on television and lie about Donald Trump. In a lot of ways, it helps them. I go back to that debate early September where everybody thought that Kamala Harris crushed Donald Trump.
You look at some of the real-time polling, I think the way ABC conducted it, which was obviously an ambush. In a lot of ways, it helped President Trump because it validated his stance that these media pundits, these networks, they're rotten.
So if the New York Times and CNN and ABC continue to cover Washington like they have, It only helps conservatives. It only helps Republicans.
So if you're Donald Trump, let them continue to lie. American people, they're in on it now. They know they're lying. Yeah, exactly. They have made themselves irrelevant, and they are watching all of these other media outlets, even like X, which allows free speech.
And Elon Musk keeps saying, You're the journalist now. You're the journalist, which I think that's a little bit of a stretch. But there are other outlets now, like Owl Kick, et cetera, and more and more of the cable news outlets like Fox and others that have always been second fiddle to these ABC, NBC, CBSs, are now getting bigger, more viewership than you see on the traditional big three. I want to bring this up. President Trump.
Posted this. He said, The American people need immediate relief from all of the destructive policies of the last administration. Speaker Mike Johnson is a good, hardworking, religious man. He will do the right thing, and we will continue to win. Mike has my complete and total endorsement.
MAGA. What do you think about that? I've always struggled with Mike Johnson. I actually liked him before he was the Speaker of the House, and then he immediately flip swapped on Ukraine. I thought, well, Is this guy a sponge?
He looked very weak there.
So I think he is a difficult politician to really see from on the outside what does he actually believe, how much does he compromise. But it does seem like President Trump supports him, has his back, and wants him to remain Speaker of the House. And that's going to go a long way. I've said from the beginning, I think given President Trump's dominance within the GOP, that there's not going to be as much infighting as the left hopes. That's why I think almost all, if not every single one of Trump's nominees will be confirmed during the Senate here.
I don't see many GOP senators defying Trump.
So I think Trump coming out and supporting Mike Johnston does wonders for his future as Speaker and as a politician. You know what, though? I have to say, I'm shocked. I'm surprised at this. I didn't really know much about Mike Johnson before this.
I was like, who? Who? Who is this guy? But I think the way he handled that negotiation with the Democrats, he gave away all of his power. I thought it was horrific.
I thought I could have done a better job. The Senate isn't part of this. This is about the House. And he's negotiating with Chuck Schumer. I'm like, how is this happening over the continuing resolution, right?
And he did not give Trump the debt ceiling. And I thought that that was really bad. I thought that was terrible. And apparently, Donald Trump doesn't feel that way. But I think there are some MAGA, some far-right MAGA, who are out for his head.
They don't like him. They're not happy with him at all. You know, so I it's going to be interesting to see what happens. I think we're going to see like the MTGs and the wrestling, Anna Paulina Lunas, etc. Go after him.
And I think it's going to sadly be a very, very public fight. Speaking of public fights, just want to quickly get into the H-1B support, the H-1B visa issue, that fight that's going on. Does it help the Republicans to have that fight, to have their speaker fight in public, or are they better off by going behind closed doors the way Democrats do, the way Nancy Pelosi does it, and having those discussions behind closed doors? I think it's always better to have them behind closed doors because when you do it publicly, Democrats and the left just sit back and say, look at that as the side of dysfunction. We don't have that.
But I don't mind it as much in this case because I like Including the American people, even if it's just them hearing different sides of the arguments, and then it weeds out who we actually want to be profound members of the MAGA movement. And I think having this play out publicly, it gives us front row access to the pros and cons, the good and bad, and who's in the right and who's in the wrong.
So usually I would say, This is bad business. Don't do this publicly. But honestly, Mary, I don't mind it in this case. Interesting. Yeah, because it always feeds into the narrative on the left, and it always gives them this cudgel because the media picks it up and look at the Republicans.
Oh, they're in disarray. As usual, it's chaos again. And they really use it effectively to their credit to really batter Republicans. The H-1B issue, you have Elon Musk, Vube Ramaswamy, and Trump on one side. And Trump had previously been against this program.
Now he claims he uses H-1B workers. You've got Steve Bannon on the other side publicly calling them out, publicly fighting with the F-bomb going back and forth between him and Elon Musk. And I just don't think it's a good look, number one. But it seems to go against the America First policy of MAGA and what Trump always says: America First. How does this sit, do you think, with the voters, with the rank and file, with people like us?
Yes, and that term America First to me is everything. And whenever we're having political debates, that's the one I fall back on is what is best for America. And I think there are voters who support America First policies that are looking at this saying, well, wait a minute, isn't this doesn't this contradict that movement But I think and I thought Will Kane, who filled in for Jesse Waters, made an astute point on Friday that you look at it like a sports team.
Sometimes you have to recruit people on the outside if you believe they can help win games and the VEC and Elon, they claim that through these programs they can increase the quality and efficiency of engineers. And President Trump, while not hiring engineers, seemed to suggest, yeah, he's in the same boat that sometimes you need to bring people in on the outside to improve work quality. I'll be honest, that's hard for me to believe. I think they're very smart Americans, and I think that we probably can find people here that can do those jobs. But these are three very successful billionaires who swear that that's not the case.
So I think you have to be open-minded when it comes to this, when you have. Three savvy billionaires saying, no, while we are America first. this program does benefit us, and it has me at least considering maybe there is something to this that I did not realize maybe two, three weeks ago. Yeah, I've been looking into it. I'm still still not on board yet.
You know, but nobody really cares what I think.
So when the big dogs are fighting it out, what we think doesn't matter. But I do think that what MAGA thinks about this, and I say MAGA, the people who put Donald Trump in office, maybe people who don't have jobs, I was talking about this earlier and on di on different shows, and we've we've been discussing this, and you hear people saying that, you know, hey, Mike can't get a job because he's a white man and he has a STEM degree. But he can't get a job. And also, you know, the allegation is that they pay these people far less than they pay Americans.
So it behooves them. We have a draw. We always talk about the draw at the border that we're going to give you three hots and a cot in a beautiful hotel with room service and maid service. That's a draw. Lower the wages incentivize businesses to pull these people in.
And I think that that's a big problem with it, you know?
So a lot to unpack there. And of course, lastly, and we're running out of time, Bobby, but Jimmy Carter passing away at 100 years old, longest-living American president in history.
So. God bless him. And his legacy has not been written yet. And I think he's probably got about 10 years after a president's death for their legacy to be written.
So we'll see what happens there. We'll get you back. Bobby Barack, writer at Outkick. Find him on exit Barack Bobby underscore. Also, find him on my podcast at Mary Walter Radio on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.
Have a great new year, Bobby. You too, Mary. Talk soon. 866-408-7669. More news.
Your calls coming up on the Brian Kilmead Show. Diving deep into today's top stories, it's Brian Kilmead. Yeah. He's so busy, he'll make your head spin. It's Brian Kilmead.
And I'm Mary Walter in for Brian Kilmead, 86640-87669. Or leave me in, tweet out at me at Mary Walter Radio. There's no S, it's just Mary Walter Radio. I'll get to your comments and leave them on the air. I mean some of 'em.
Yeah. Yeah. Let's go to Florida and say hi to Pete. Pete, you're on the Brian Kilmead Show. Welcome.
Happy New Year, Mary. It's nice to talk to you. Hey, Mary, I'm an engineer, and I'm married to my wife, and she is a nurse. And the point that I wanted to make about the H-1B visas is that the companies typically want these visas to increase the supply of workers, but in doing so, you reduce the cost, and that is the wages of these workers. And what most people don't realize is it takes a lot of time and money to become a skilled worker.
I remember when my wife became a nurse, it was later in life when we were married and she had children, and I used to joke that she fell asleep. 30 seconds table.
Okay, anyway, that's the primary point. I think governments ought to set up the government should favor citizens over foreigners. And by reducing the cost, you reduce the incentive for people to go through the effort to become a skilled worker.
So well said, Pete, and you got it in under the wire. Thank you so much for that. We've got so much more we're not done yet on the Brian Killmead Show. Information you want, truth you demand. This is the Brian Kill Me Show.
I'm Mary Walter sitting in for Brian Kilmay, my last day with you, but we've had a couple of days together last week and then today, so I'm really happy about that. And hopefully, I'll be back soon. But you know, Brian, he's a workholic. Brian never takes off, he's crazy, man. I wanted to talk a little bit, just mention that Jimmy Carter has passed away at the age of 100, America's longest-living president.
Good for him a hundred years old. But I'll tell you, at 100 years, I was like, no, I don't know if I want to live to be 100. Like, people talk about it, I want to live forever. I'm like, I don't know. I don't know if I want it to be a hundred.
But what's interesting is that the flags now, U.S. Code flag code says that flags must be lowered for 30 days following the death of a president, former president. excuse me, a sitting or former President, and that overlaps the January twentieth inauguration of Donald Trump.
So he will be the first President to take office while the flags are at half mast, which is pretty interesting. Excuse me, I am coughing and I don't want to cough in your ear, so I just took a little break there. The closest it ever happened was in 1973 when Richard Nixon ordered flags lowered to honor Lyndon Johnson, who died just days after Nixon's second swearing-in.
So, another first for Donald Trump.
So, I want to go to Joe Biden here. As his cut one, Joe Biden was in St. Croix of course because he's. not doing the joe why are we paying Joe Biden? Anybody know why we're paying Joe Biden?
Why are we paying him? Because as best I can tell he's not working. He hasn't been working since he well, since probably he took office.
So I'm curious as to why we are paying Joe Biden to. To to Be president 'cause it's not. But anyway, he did come out and he did speak about Jimmy Carter. It's it's a very short clip here. He did say more.
But it is painful to listen to and kind of sad.
So, Joe Biden talking about his good friend Jimmy Carter knew Jimmy Carter for decades. Here's Joe Biden. Today's world: some look at Jimmy Carter and see a man of a bygone era. with honesty and character, faith and humility, it mattered. But I don't believe it's a bygone yet.
I see man not only of our times, but for all times.
someone who embodied the most fundamental human values we can never let slip away. Although sometimes it seems like it is. or may never see his like again. We'd all do well to try and be a little more like Jimmy Carter. It's sad to listen to him.
And like we were just speaking with Bobby Barack, the most underreported story of 2024 is that Joe Biden really never was president.
Now, Donald Trump. I don't know who wrote this. I don't know if he wrote this, but he did put this out. He said. I just heard the news about the passing of President Jimmy Carter.
Those of us who have been fortunate to have served as president understand that this is a very exclusive club, and only we can relate to the enormous responsibility of leading the greatest nation in history. The challenges Jimmy faced as president came at a pivotal time for our country, and he did everything in his power to improve the lives of all Americans. For that, we all owe him a debt of gratitude. Melania and I are thinking warmly of the Carter family and their loved ones during this difficult time. We urge everyone to keep them in their hearts and prayers.
And then he later wrote that although he strongly disagreed with Carter philosophically and politically, he realized that Carter truly loved and respected the U.S. and all it stands for. He said he worked hard to make America a better place, and for that I give him my highest respect. He was truly a good man and of course will be greatly missed. He was also very consequential, far more than most presidents, after he left.
the Oval Office. One thing I liked about Jimmy Carter is that for the vast majority of his life after being president, he was like that president who was quiet. He went back to Georgia. He worked for Habitat for Humanity. He was a good example.
And he was not like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and George Bush who just had to keep popping up with their opinions on stuff. I would prefer that they stay out of it. That's just me personally. I just think they need to retire with grace. Although Jimmy Carter then started to get involved when it was Donald Trump, he started to say things that I don't think he should have been involved in, but.
He was, and I think that that's part of his voice came because of Obama and Bush and Clinton speaking out so strongly against Donald Trump.
So, if you want to comment on this, 866-408-7669. I'll also take your calls on the H-1 Visa thing and what we've been talking about this hour. Let's go to Mike in Illinois. Mike, you're on the Brian Kilmeet Show. Welcome.
Hi. Well, hi, Mary. I'm a 32-year tech veteran that can and has run circles around these so-called foreign geniuses in more than one Fortune 500 corporate environment. And if there's time, I'll explain how bad it really is in tech hiring, but because I haven't been able to find work in four years. But if I may, Mary, I just wanted to comment on the last guest talking about how journalists think they stand above the public.
Well, the reason they believe this is that they actually do. And this is because they know that it's legal. It is completely legal to propagandize American citizens with media intended for a foreign audience, and neither political party dares to talk about it. I just want all of your listeners to be aware of the Smith-Munt Modernization Act and its repeal by Barack Obama. What it means is that any media contractor being paid by the State Department or affiliated with the State Department is legally allowed to propagandize American citizens with using media that was intended for a foreign audience, in which in turn has resulted in the last well, a long time, over 10 years, in people not being able to tell what is real and what isn't when it comes to being told the truth.
And I think you are absolutely right. This is going to completely be uh just Taken advantage of in this next couple months. And on a note of the DEI and being a 32-year tech veteran. It's so bad out there. I'm being told literally by people in private that it is not because of your skills.
We have our marketing department, we have our tech department literally petitioning to hire you, and we cannot because the government dangles a carrot in front of people when it comes to DEI, and this is how they got away with it. They dangled a government funding loan in front of them. And then if they do not hire people an enough percentage, that loan is taken away. And that is how they are getting this. And they're then propagandizing everyone with le having it being legal, and everyone's confused.
And it's only shows like yours that give the chance for me and someone else to call in, or just for you to even bring it up, that we're going to get anywhere. And I wish you were on longer. I really do. I hope to see you more in the new year because you brought something up that is so important and it's happening to everyone around us. And it's really just dividing us at the core.
Well, I appreciate that, Mike. And you can follow me on X at Mary Walter Radio because I'm all over the place, just not in one place for very long.
So I'm all over, and I do television as well.
So thank you so much, Mike. That was very, very kind of you. I'm looking up the Smith Munt Modernization Act was contained within the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2013 E some restrictions so that media produced by the U.S. Agency for Global Media and intended for foreign audiences could be distributed domestically upon request, according to the text. Prior to its passage, the content was banned from being disseminated in America.
They say the act did not make it legal for the independent, privately owned media organizations where most Americans get their news to purposely lie.
So it's I I gotta read more into it, but uh I gotta see at ease some of the restrictions.
So I got I gotta look more into it before I can decide. But look it up yourself. Smith Munt M U N D T Act and of twenty thirteen when Barack Obama did indeed change it.
So, look it up and educate yourselves on this. And I'm going to do that during this quick break here. And then I will get to more of your calls. And I'll try to get to more of your comments on X, too. Thank you for the comments on X.
Appreciate that. I'm Mary Walter. You're listening to the Brian Kilmead Show. Both sides, all opinions. It's Brian Kilmead.
From his mouth to your ears, it's Brian Killmead. Welcome back to the Brian Kilmey Show. I'm Mary Walter sitting in for Brian Kilmey just here on X. Gene reached out to me on X at Mary Walter Radio and said, I like Stephen more, but he's wrong about H-1B Visa program. I was a computer programmer until Indians took over and replaced American workers.
This ruined my career. Before I graduated college, our professor warned us this was coming, and he was so right. It's horrible. And Mary, oh, another Mary says, Color's giving first-hand experience with H-1B is proving to be very informative. Oh, I'm glad.
Jean clarifies: she said, the company I worked for had one Indian guy who dealt with all the Indian programmers. Many didn't speak good English, were getting paid much less and had no benefits, so they were cheaper. Each were allowed to go home for one month per year, so there was no assimilation, which often delayed programmes. Projects. And to add insult to injury, this company had Indian Celebration Day at work where those brought in on H-1B visa, all dressed in their native clothing, brought their food, played horrible-sounding music, and we all had to celebrate with them.
That's going to be tough, especially when you know you're losing your job to these people. And so that's why I got to tell you, I think there's a lot of questions that I have about this H-1B visa program. And I don't. I don't know that expanding it, maybe we should pare it down, maybe we should enforce the laws on it. and and enforce the cap?
and make some kind of America first issue with it, that if you're not hiring if you're hiring f foreign workers over American workers, you need to pay a very, very hefty fine. There's got to be some kind of punishment for this. And it goes to me, it goes against everything Donald Trump says about America first. And I'm a big Trump supporter. Trust me, the flags are flying all the time.
Let's go to Texas and talk to Mike. You're on the Brian Kilmead Show. Hi, Mike. Good morning. How are you doing today?
I'm doing great. You want to talk about Jimmy Carter? Go ahead. Well, I do because back in the nineties when he came to Amarillo, he helped build a house with Habitat for Humanity. And I got to work on that project with him.
I was also driving a calf at the time, so I got to I met him because I picked him up uh at one of the projects and ended up helping build on the on the house and I never met somebody that was just as honest as he was. He wasn't that great a president. I mean,. uh with after the Iran hostage problems in uh in the seventies. And the final insult being that uh the hostages cleared Iranian airspace.
at noon during the inauguration of Ronald Reagan, but And he regretted that, but uh his legacy is not in his presidency, but what he did afterwards. I mean, he was just uh he was just an active, wonderful, warm human being. He and Rosalind both were that way, and they were kind of like uh Barbara and uh George W HW Bush. What you saw was what you got and Uh he just he he lived his faith. I like what you said, that his legacy is not his presidency, because that legacy, there's a lot to go into there.
A lot of people, everybody always jokes that he was the worst president. But his legacy being after his presidency, and I agree, and I just wish he had not become vocal towards the end there when it came to Trump. I don't know who told him that was a good idea. I don't know who put him up to that. But everyone you hear about him after his presidency has nothing but wonderful things to say about him.
And he was kind of that guy you looked at as like, wow, look at him actually going out and practicing what he has preached, right? Doing what he said we all should do.
So I really respected that about him. And honestly, I don't, I mean, I've read up on his presidency. I know what I've been told about it, but I don't really remember it in any way. Like, it's not, I was alive, obviously, but I don't, it wasn't something that I experienced as an adult. Let's just put it that way.
So I really don't have that experience to go by.
So part of his legacy. Is, I guess, already written in the sense that people who were not alive or don't remember his presidency can go back and read about it. Thank you for sharing that, Mike. That was really nice. I appreciate that.
Let's stick with the name Michael. It's a good name. And let's go to Georgia. Michael, welcome. You're on the Brian Kilmead Show.
Mary. Do a great job. Thank you for being there and happy new year, man. That's right around the corner. I can't believe it.
I mean, so for once, I'm looking forward to another year. Ha ha. Yeah. Well look uh As a lifelong Georgian, I was a teenager during his. Role as governor.
On to the White House. And one thing that doesn't get reported much. He Fuck.
so hard for integration. He was so against segregation. He butted heads in Georgia, then went on to the White House and butted heads at the national level le national level with other Democrats who did not want to integration done like he thought needed to be done.
So that doesn't get reported by the national media because it doesn't fit the narrative, but that is absolutely what happened. You know what? You know, it's interesting that it doesn't fit the narrative because I thought the Democrats were the party of you know, Republicans were the racists and Democrats were the ones about being the party of the minorities. It's are you telling me that, oh my gosh, maybe that narrative isn't true? Oh, absolutely.
Oh, my gosh. But your previous collar was right he was out without a doubt not not a very good president but the Yeah. Ex-president, I think we've ever had. The diseases he thought to eradicate and Africa, some kind of worm disease, I forget. Uh he did so many great things.
And one thing he did that you won't see very often, Mary, I encourage people To go out to Delta Airlines. Instagram. page on every Delta flight. after he was president. He would walk down.
The entire plane, Mary, and shake everyone's hand with the Secret Service. agent. I did see that. That's actually trending on X. You see it.
It was trending before. I don't know if it still is. Where videos of him doing that on these Delta flights when he was younger? I think that that's wonderful. I love that down-to-earth thing, and I wish more, as I said, I wish more of our presidents would do that and kind of retire with grace.
I think Ronald Reagan, I think George Bush has done it somewhat, but then he started opening his mouth about Trump. I think Bill Clinton was kind of doing that somewhat. Barack Obama, no, not so much. He's still in the game, and as far as I know, he's still running the country. But that's just me and a different topic.
Michael, thank you so much. I appreciate you joining us. And quickly, let's get Catherine in Washington State on the H-1B visas. Catherine, welcome to the Brian Kilmead Show. Yeah, hi, Mary.
I think that you're wonderful. Two things: big picture. Um I think that the whole H one B visa thing, it's a slab in the face to the D EI stuff that's going on in the Ivy League schools. Um Right. Putting DEI above meritocracy, number one.
Number two, I think that it's a slap in the face to the whole border situation. You're opening up the borders to just like anyone, but not people who want to contribute to America and to American society. That's my opinion. Um, I I think that it is, you know, the slap to DEI I kinda get, but DEI, I think, helps aid this. And we gotta run, Catherine, have a wonderful New Year and thank you for joining me here on the Brian Kilmead Show.
I I think DEI Prevents a lot of very deserving Americans from even getting into college, into school to study, to study these programs, to study accounting and engineering and some of these other STEM courses, and accounting not being necessarily STEM, but it is one of these things that H-1B visas are being used for, and actuaries and all that other stuff. And then it ultimately, as some of these companies, prevents them from getting a job too.
So I think if we crack down on the number of H-1B visas that are allocated to these companies, that you would see more. Americans being hired, and it would maybe stop some of this by just by attrition alone. It would also drive up the wages, also as well.
Well, thank you so much for letting me join you. Thank you to Allison, Eric, and Pete. Appreciate you guys. And thank you to Brian for letting me sit in the seat. I'm Mary Walter.
You can follow me on X at Mary Walter Radio, and you're listening to the Brian Kilmedy Show. The world of business moves fast. Stay on top of it with the Fox Business Rundown. Listen to the Fox Business Rundown every Monday and Friday at FoxbusinessPodcasts.com or wherever you download your favorite podcasts. Listen to the show ad-free on Fox News Podcast Plus, on Apple Podcast, Amazon Music with your Prime membership, or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Mm-hmm.