As President Trump heads to China, a California elected official admits to being a spy. Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Sekulow. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110.
And now, your host, Logan Sekulow. Welcome to Sekulow. It's Tuesday. It's only Tuesday, May 12th, 2026. Welcome to the show today.
It is going to be a packed one. Don't want to miss it. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. This is very interesting timing to say the least. As even you have you know, Fox is there, you got all the commentators are flying over to China, to Beijing, Bill Hammer is over there hanging out, and at the same time, Here in America, of course, President Trump is headed to China.
We'll discuss all the details of what that is. What they're referring to is what a summit, high-stakes summit. That's right. That we keep hearing about what's going on in China could be a very big leap in what our relationship is with China. And at the same time, And I only chuckle at this 'cause it just you couldn't write it better.
A mayor of a Southern California city outside of Los Angeles of Arcadia. Of course, it's not a means, it's not a big city, but certainly not a small city as well. It's a major area. Has admitted Pleading guilty. Again, this is an elected official, a mayor.
Of being A spy for China. This is coming out of the news this morning, and this is the real deal. This is happening. This isn't our conspiracy theories. This isn't some sort of version.
This is by, the quote is by her own admission. Eileen Wang secretly served the interests of the Chinese government. And it gets even deeper than that. That's right. So, what we've got on one hand is the President going over for this summit with Xi Jinping taking over a roster of American CEOs.
This is to try and kind of settle some of the economic differences between the two companies' countries. At the same time, you have this plea agreement that came out. This is between the United States of America and Eileen Wang, who was the mayor of Arcadia, California. Before that, she was on the city council there and is pleading guilty to charges of being a foreign agent of the Chinese Communist Party. The PRC was directing her actions.
Going back as far as at least in the allegations here, 2020, very interesting time that Eileen Wang was at the direction of the PRC. And you read some of these going back and forth in where she's responding with like, thank you, leader, to the person who's giving her the directions. Like, this wasn't just a, I'll do this. This was in the government, like, even protocol, the way you'd think of a Chinese spy responding to their handler to push propaganda in the United States. Very interesting time for this elected official also to be doing that during 2020 when maybe China needed some PR in the United States.
I mean, this is what it says. It says the agreement states that Wang, and soon this is who she's working with, received and executed directives from the PRC government officials to post pro-PRC content on the website and then sometimes sought permission from the Chinese government officials to post content as well.
So not only distributing content that was clearly made to be distributed by the PRC, also, So sought permission to post other content.
So again, when you're talking about there's control, I mean, this is happening again, and this is probably one in a million. That's happened, not a million, but this is probably a very small example of what the influence is of, you can say, China and other. Right, it's influence campaigns and it's It could be people who have even dedicated their life to being the mayor of a city, but at the same time are pushing out and asking for. Not just saying, I'm going to put out info about China on my own website, but saying, what can I put out to Chinese officials? And doing so in a way where she immediately pleads guilty.
I mean, so she knew. Once they caught on to this, and it looks like they caught on to this because her partner in the effort had already been arrested and charged and is serving time in prison right now. It's a wild story to read when you first read that. It's an elected official in the United States of America working with the PRC. Yeah, directly elected officials in the United States of America.
Who is being told what to do, what not to do, what to post, and even had to seek permission. We're gonna talk about that in a lot more. Give us a call, though. What do you think? Are you shocked by this?
I mean, I'll be honest, very few things shock me and surprise me. This is one that's pretty wild. Give me a call, 1-800-684-3110, 1-800-684-3110 to be on the air today. We're also going to talk maybe a little bit about election integrity because maybe that's something we need to be looking a little more careful at when these kinds of moments happen. You can support the work of the ACLJ.
Sign our petition at aclj.org/slash sign. We'll get into the details of that coming up. And Rick Rennell will be joining us. Be right back. Welcome back to Sekulow.
A lot of you are just joining us right now, and we have to restate what's happening. Obviously, President Trump is on the way to China. They have a big summit that is going to be happening. We're going to break down really what's going to happen in that summit as well: what the intentions are, what we could see, what the positives that could come out of it, maybe some of the negatives too. Rick Rinnell is going to be joining us a little bit later.
We'll discuss that. But at the same time, Again, just to restate, if you're just tuning in right now, at the same time, this literally happened yesterday. You had a mayor of a Los Angeles area city. of Arcadia, California, Resign from being the mayor? Plead guilty and admit to being an actor for the PRC, essentially being a Chinese spy.
This is happening again as our elected officials in the United States of America. This is the amount of influence. And you may go, that's kind of wild that what you would consider to be a, not a huge city. I mean, it is in the big market. It's at a very large market, but you're talking about LA.
Yeah, you're talking about a city of 56,000 people. It's not nothing, but it's certainly not a major metropolitan area. It is in a major metropolitan area, but they decided, you know, we're going to have influence. In these kinds of places to keep the campaign. It does beg the question of how much is this happening throughout the country?
We know that it has happened before with the police stations and all of those things that we revealed over the last few years. But again, when we say it was working directly with them, we know from at least the smallest of instances was being told what to post on social media, what was being posted on their website that promoted. Excl yeah. from the Chinese government and then on top of that On top of that, Uh, was actually seeking permission on what they could and couldn't post. Yeah, and I think that's what's kind of shocking here as well.
Is when you think sometimes some of these um these charges where it's like, oh, you were acting as a foreign agent, yeah, you understand like people get financial benefit and maybe aren't doing the rules. This one, when you really look at it and you're like, This was an elected official was having to ask permission from their handlers of what they could and couldn't publish. And then, when trying to show their work, like, look, this got so much interaction spreading this propaganda and and says, Thank you, leader, like actually taking that direction from a foreign government. That is what's so shocking here. But you have to put this in context because we've been talking about this threat for a long time.
You mentioned the police stations, we know that. Eric Swalwell notoriously had those issues where a Chinese spy was within his own office. You think about Dianne Feinstein, California senator, who had a longtime spy that was her driver. The infiltration from the CCP in the United States cannot be understated. We know that Mike Pompeo, who will be joining us later in the week, he, when he was Secretary of State, had to shut down the consulate in Houston because it was just a spy operation for the government.
This is deep within the United States right now. It's something the Trump administration's been fighting for a long time. And it's this interesting fine line in Washington, D.C., and in government as well, because you can register as a foreign agent. Right. You usually wouldn't be elected mayor of a town and you would be obviously highly regulated.
More like a lobbyist for them. And there are people that do this in a legal way in Washington. Of course. And so really, that's as we do in other countries. That's probably the highest charge she's under, it looks like right now, is the easiest one to get her on, certainly.
And it's Yeah.
So What you have to then look at is, and I think what would be the next level is, was there payment involved? Or is it really just doing this as like a as just a because you're pro-China? I mean, because usually people are getting in trouble with this. And if they were doing a website like this, it would be because of the fine there'd be financial plus. You'd be acting as a foreign agent.
Usually, you would not be considered acting as a foreign agent for free.
Well, and once again, when you read what's in this, the factual basis, because this is a plea agreement at this point, she won't go to trial. She's admitting to guilt with the government. It shows how much information the U.S. government actually had on her. But this is that it's a violation of 18 U.S.C.
951, Agents of a Foreign Government, which says for the purposes of this section, the term agent of a foreign government means an individual who agrees to operate within the United States subject to the direction or control of a foreign government or official, except, and then there's some exclusions as well. And that goes to the people that are consular, diplomatic officials. They aren't considered a violation of this, obviously. But what this does carry with it. That she has pled guilty to.
Now it'll be up to a judge. She doesn't have to get convicted by a jury. Saying I did it. It is up to 10 years in prison, $250,000 fine, and three years of supervised release.
So a long portion of, now there's some people that are saying it's not going far enough if you're spying for the Chinese. You may be saying that this person's also not going to serve that long, especially in Los Angeles County or whatever it may be. Judge ends up sentencing this individual too. But it's quite shocking when you start to think of that with the context that the President is headed over to China right now for this summer. And let's pivot to that because I think this is an important thing that's happening.
Because, look, I am not blind to the fact that our relationship with China, though it is hostile at times, if you'd say, maybe hostile is the right word, it certainly is conflicted. Right. Is necessary. We have to have a relationship with China at this point. Like, we can't just cut off China.
Like, people want to say that. It's certainly not the way we have set up our society. You may not like it, but it's not like if we got rid of Chinese manufacturing, if we got rid of those things right now. We're not ready for that in America. Let's just not pretend that we are.
We could get better at it, certainly, but we're not there right now.
So, our relationship with China and then this specific summit. Is really going to talk about also the influence of AI and what that, and who's going to be kind of the leader. In this moment. And I think that's very important when you have really the two big superpowers of the world. when you have US and China that are the that have the tech centers.
That this could become a conflict, or it could be a really big step forward towards some kind of ongoing partnership. Yes, we're the two superpowers, but think about the different personalities and way of life with where AI can go in China. Quickly. and the difference between the United States. Whereas here citizens and We publicly, freely, even our own government officials raise concerns about AI.
In China, you've got a society that you're not raising concerns. A lot easier to test these systems on people when you are not going to be subject to any kind of legal action if it goes wrong.
So you can kind of push further. And there's not going to be any kind of retribution for ba you know, uh government actors or the corporate kind of As a company, but usually controlled by the government there or significant interest there. And so I think that making a path forward that makes sense for both is very important. But like we said, We don't have the manufacturer to compete with China. In fact, Chinese goods now are the higher end of imported goods to the United States.
So a lot of the stuff you see is not necessarily made in China anymore. It's made in other places because the Chinese goods are the more expensive side.
Well, and Jordan, I think to that point as well, we've had Senator Haggerty on this broadcast many times. We've reached out to his office, see if we can have him on soon about this summit, because this is such an important topic. The United States relationship with China is necessary, but it is a difficult one. What we saw for so long was members of the left in the United States that were not as hard on China as we would have preferred. And what do you see?
You see how much they were able to infiltrate and put their influence here. President Trump, during his first term, was tough on China and then immediately returned to office and went back to being tough on China. The trade issue, where people say it will tank the world economy, if you are tough on China. uh proved to be wrong. It did not tank the world economy.
What they are going to talk about, though, is the trade relationship, those mining issues, the rare earth minerals that lead to both batteries and chips and all of these things that our economy is so reliant on now. This is all a part of it. But you also have to think. The energy aspect as well, the war in Iran. These are issues that will be discussed between the leaders while they are there as well.
This was originally supposed to happen a few months ago. but got pushed back because of the war in Iran. President Trump, I believe it was about a week into the war, was actually scheduled to be going on this trip. They pushed it back to now. And so we'll see what impact does that have because of China's relationship with Iran.
The oil that they receive from the Middle East, China, a lot of that is Iranian oil. All of these things factor in, but it goes to show that the Chinese government is not just who you're dealing with on the face. They also have all these influence operations. And we've got some interesting calls. We want to hear from you as well, 1-800-684-3110, as we talk more about this going forward.
Yeah, I mean, big momentum going forward into this big summit in China. I think it's good President Trump is going to be there, has at least a working relationship with the head in China, with really all of the, it seems like they have a good relationship with this government or the best relationship you can kind of have. considering the circumstances that we are currently in. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110.
I see a lot of comments, a lot of thoughts coming in. If you have those comments, someone said, you know, since the tariffs, price have gone up, and do my best to not buy Chinese products, makes it a lot easier, but make the effort. With that being said, I would love to hear from you. If you have those kind of comments, Bring them up on air 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110.
Will the next segment, we are going to pivot a little bit also and talk a little more domestically what's going on. That's right. There's some big news out of that redistricting story. They've officially filed at the Supreme Court, but we've got some action coming up on that as well. We want to talk about in the next segment.
So stick around for that. Yeah, if you have a comment about that as well. But look, right now, we also have a brand new petition I want you to sign. Go to aclj.org/slash sign and join the fight. It's really about election integrity.
It talks about what's going on also in the United States Supreme Court. This Thursday, we are filing. You need to be a part of it as well. If you want to learn all about it, just go to aclj.org/slash sign, and we'll be back in just a moment with your calls, comments, and more on Sekulow. Welcome back to Sekulow.
Phone lines, like you said, are open at 1800-31, or 10-684-31. Didn't you think, Will, I'd be able to know that phone number after so many times. Get ahead of yourself. I know. I was just too excited.
I had to set the right numbers just before they were supposed to be said. Yeah, it's the worst way to play the lottery. Right. I had all the numbers just in the wrong. It's the wrong order.
Yeah. All right. We got some calls coming in about this relationship we have with China. I think let's take one of those, and then we're going to move on and talk a little bit about what's going on. Even in the update in Virginia with all the redistricting, because I know you have some questions or comments related to that.
I just want to start with, let's go, Daniel. Yeah, Daniel, Washington, D.C. Go ahead. Hi, thank you for taking my call. I'm just concerned about this incident in California where we have a foreign Chinese person as a mayor.
Let's say that we have congressmen who are from Minnesota who obviously hate America. And I think that we should have people whose elected officials should be born in this country, or at least be in this country since they're five years old, to learn to love this country.
Well, Daniel, I'm going to hop in.
So, one, that would take constitutional amendments to put more restrictions on who can be elected as a representative or as a senator, because that's where those definitions come from. The President of the United States actually has a more strict requirement on being born in the United States. There's a reason we have that still for the President of the United States, but not for. I mean, I don't necessarily know. In 2026, where I land on any of that issue to begin with.
But it is interesting that we've decided that. You know, to be the highest of elected officials, there is certainly a higher standard, but that higher standard involves something that we don't even. Put on The rest of our elected officials, now, to me, it's more you can move to a city, you can learn a culture. There's a lot of different things that can happen when you're dealing with smaller populations.
Well, as well as the executive branch itself is the President. The President is his own branch of government, as we've talked about on this broadcast before. When you are a member of Congress, you are one of a multitude, depending on, I mean, that number can go up for the House of Representatives or be shifted around depending on different factors. But I think when you look at that, it would take a constitutional amendment and try getting that constitutional amendment passed in this day and age. Like you said, don't think it would happen.
It's not where people would actually come down. I think you could make cases for both ways at this point in history. I'm not taking a side on that as much as going, I think it's interesting that we still do have that, to his point, we have that requirement for President. But it doesn't trickle down.
Well, and that's from the beginning. That was the founders, and there's a lot of in-depth analysis that I don't know that we have time for to get on it this broadcast. Normally, you get on to me when I try to go too deep on things like that. But I think the other point he was making said, what if this was a senator or a congressman? You think that is the goal to some degree of the CCP.
Not to be a conspiracy theorist, but who's to say it's not?
Well, once again, we know that in Eric Swalwell's office, it was very close and was influencing the congressman. We know in Diane Feinstein's office, was at least overhearing and using information because it was her driver. You also think. in Minnesota, to a state he brought up. It may not have to be someone that wasn't born here that could be influenced by that foreign government.
We think of the current sitting governor. of Minnesota. who spoke so highly and had so many trips, To where? China. And that was actually a big issue when he was on the ticket for vice President of the United States.
He was born here. But one of the big questions is: how much influence does China have over you? Because he even was saying things like: they're not the enemy, don't worry about them. We've talked about th there's been a crackdown, certainly in the the first Trump administration, and I'm I know that's continued under the second Trump administration, but with a kind of this bizarre bind in between, there was this crackdown on you know the Chinese influence just in our higher education. The amount of influence our universities, the fact that not just sending in students, but but also sending in significant amount of resources so that these schools would be almost creating their own propaganda, pro-Chinese propaganda to begin with, without even having to.
Um Do it in some kind of Covert way, like we talked about this other with this former mayor in California. I think they were much further along in their influence campaigns. What we see is that they had multiple ways of doing it. They had the covert ways, they have the very public ways. Give money to the universities for research, and they won't blame the virus spread on you.
And that's what happened. We saw the influence of that even in our own CDC. Our officials would go over to Wuhan and not even be allowed to go to the places they wanted to see, and they'd still come out saying, No problem there. Exactly. And once again, you talk about how much, even their funding of their research, the trips that they would go on, and all of these things is that the government of China is very powerful and they know how to use their influence.
Not that the United States doesn't do that as well. I'm sure we are just as much doing it. But once again, this is our country we're talking about. And these things don't just happen overnight. These are decades of influence to get to where they are, to get people that are elected officials.
You think of spy shows or movies or things where people are living a different life. That is legitimately what is going on in this country. It sounds fantastical in that it'd be a script. But that's what we're doing. It's happening all over the world for every country.
Let's go take another call. Let's go to Anthony in Pennsylvania online too. We'll move into the redistricting one in the next segments. Let's go to Anthony in Pennsylvania. Yes, you let off asking if we were surprised.
Well, no, I wasn't surprised at all by her by her a Chinese spy being arrested. I am worried, as you mentioned, the universities because that's been an issue for at least twenty five years.
So I wonder how many more Chinese spies are in government offices, are working in corporations, are teaching in universities. I think it's a very serious problem.
Well, and to that point as well, how many people have been influenced by the Chinese government that don't even know it? That because of the way it's laid out. Doing some research program for a professor, the professor knows the grant's coming from China. And so they're obviously being influenced, but and putting out that their own influence, have to be careful about what they say, can't make it anti-China, all of that kind of language. And at the same time, you could be a student there working on the research and not even make that connection yet.
But what I think we do know is that it's it probably is widespread. It's not. Again, it's not that you're going to always see these brought to light in such a fantastical way that someone who's actually the mayor of a town, a city, you know, not too far outside of Los Angeles, but at the same time, At the same time, the influence campaign they haven't really been trying to hide. You're not hiding that at the universities. This is not something that's secret.
You just go see it. And so we've talked about those student visas from China being curtailed. And they have been. But we've also talked about the Ford Financial influence to the universities. You know, I know this just as an attorney, as someone who also with offices around the world, it's much easier to move money.
Through institutions like nonprofit universities and organizations internationally. through a banking system than it is corporately. Or a normal business that would be highly taxed or highly highly regulated, right? The the interesting part is that if you were trying to get this kind of money into China, No way. They would not ever allow what we allow tap and Freely, not behind closed doors, not secret, technically not illegal what they're doing.
In this case, it was, but I'm talking about what they're doing, the university funding. They would not let us do that kind of funny there. We're going to dive a little bit deeper into that as well as the summit that's happening in China. Rick Rinnell's going to be joining us. And of course, I want to hear from you at 1-800-68-430-110.
If we do lose you in this first half hour, make sure. That you listen to the full hour or watch the full hour. It's available live from 12 to 1 p.m. Eastern Time. Every day, Monday through Friday, at aclj.org, YouTube, Rumble.
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However, you can always find the show archived later on on the ACLJ app, aclj.org, or again, wherever you get your podcasts. Get your comments in. This is a short break, less than a minute, and then we'll be right back with more on Sekulow. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Sekulow. And now, your host, Logan Sekulow. Welcome back to Sekulow, the second half hour of the show today for your Tuesday. We're excited to have you all join us.
I want you to call me at 1-800-684-31-10. We are taking your calls and comments about the U.S.-China summit, as well as this mayor outside of Los Angeles who had to resign today or yesterday. But it was announced today because they had to admit that she was working for China and essentially a Chinese spy promoting pro-PRC content throughout. Their website, propaganda, and even going to them for permission to post other things. This is what's happening.
Again, this is admitted. This isn't how it's going to go to trial. This isn't an alleged, this isn't an investigation. This says she has admitted that this is what was happening. That's right.
This is pleading guilty in this document that's before the court.
Now she will be sentenced by a judge.
Well, sure. No trial. Because this is a guilty plea. It just also goes to show, as we talk about all this, that. While the engagement is necessary by the President, it's also why being tough on China is so important.
It is why we have been calling out the weakness by many politicians on China for a very long time. We have seen what goes on in China. We've talked about clients that we've had in China. We've talked about even the work that sometimes the ACLJ has had to engage in with China. It's a superpower that must be engaged but cannot be taken lightly.
And that is why something like this big summit, where the President's taking over business leaders, tech leaders, all of these things to work on these issues. is always Has this shadow of what China is doing to try and influence the United States? They are very good at weaponizing our freedom against us. They know that they can go and use our freedom of speech, things that you could not do in the People's Republic of China. because of how uh restrictive it is, they can do here.
They can utilize that, the money, the speech, the freedom to try and push influence here and get their way and try to come out on top on the world stage. Yeah, I think it's more interesting that it's kind of out in the clear air that this is what's happening. It's not just, like you said, not an allegation, investigation. This is admitting guilty, this is saying I'm guilty, and going forward.
Now, Rick Rinnell is going to be joining us in the next segment because I do want to make sure we also put an ample amount of time on what is happening in China as President Trump departs today to head to that meeting with Xi Jinping and the whole summit that will happen. A lot of it has to do with AI, what the future of AI looks like, who will be the leader in AI, where America will get involved with even the data farms and everything that needs to happen, and how China will be involved in that as well, where they'll be able to take property, where it's going to exist. We know this is a concern for a lot of the American people, but we also know the reality of it. I think that's where we're having something like Rick Odd will be interesting because the reality of the situation may be much different. Than what you hope and dream for.
And I think there is that reality when it comes to China that we all have to be keenly aware of in our relationship with China. That again, it's not. as if this is like any other country that we work with. Uh this we are we are probably both fairly reliant on each other. Yes.
And as much as we'd like to, you know, create our own, because business-wise, you would think we are. Like, if you just knew that, if you were a computer, just looking at the relationship corporately, just the money that's going through, and not the other kind of world, the military side, the security side, and the influence side. That you would think that this is two countries who benefit greatly from each other. Listen, we've talked about reinvesting, and President Trump has in our own manufacturing here, but that takes years. It takes a very long time, if not decades.
And like we were talking about. And consistent leadership problem. It's your iPhone that's made, you know, that's coming out of China. It's your $1,500 phone in your pocket. It is not the $5 pair of shoes anymore.
So that's they've gone to high tech. And again, the higher-end products that are being imported to the United States. And the next thing we have to figure out is cars. You know, that's they are a leader there. And though we don't see that in the United States, you can see them online.
All right, hey, we'll be back in just a moment. I want you to give me a call at 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110. Have your voice heard on the air. We'll take your calls in the last segment.
Rick Rinnell is going to be joining us here in the next segment.
So we're going to talk all about China, everything that's going on right now. And again, I want you to be a part of the broadcast. Call me at 1-800-684-1. Mm-hmm. And again, if you want to sign our new petition and really just get into what it is, I want you to go to aclj.org right now.
That's at aclj.org. We'll be right back with more on Psyculo. Welcome back to Sekulow. Joining us now, Rick Grinnell. And Rick, we had you on yesterday.
We teased us a little bit talking about the summit that President Trump is heading out for, but.
Now we have some interesting context to talk about the President going and having this summit with the Chinese. Because today we find out that a mayor in your sunny state of California. Just pled guilty, entered a plea agreement with the United States for being. Basically, a Chinese spy.
Now Is it super shocking? No, because we know all of the context of whether it be spies in Eric Swalwell's office, in Dianne Feinstein's office, the consulate in Houston that was a den of Chinese spies, whether it be the Confucius Institute or the police stations in the United States. We know how much the Chinese Communist Party tries to exert their influence here.
However, The context of this coming out today as the President goes there, I think is a very good reminder for the people of the U.S. of who we're dealing with. Look, this is a problem that we've been dealing with for a long time, in which local and state elected officials, politicians. Find themselves in positions of leverage against foreign actors.
Now, I have to be careful here and what I'm saying. When I was DI, we had a situation during COVID. That we had to give defensive briefings, as we call them. The defensive briefing is when the intelligence community, the FBI, or someone from the CIA, shows up to tell a politician. that you're being leveraged against a foreign government.
And we don't always make an immediate assessment of the motives by the politician.
Sometimes the politician finds themselves in these leverage moments. Where they didn't realize what was happening. They didn't know it was a foreign entity. Other times, they do know it's a foreign entity and they've crossed the line, and so the defensive briefing is really an offensive briefing to say, knock it off. And this happens consistently.
Now, I'm somebody when I was DNI that I think we should enforce the law. When it crosses the line, I think these people should be prosecuted. I'm not sure that normal Americans get a warning. From the intelligence community, but elected officials many times are getting warnings rather than prosecutions. And I saw it happening a lot during COVID, and the leverage was the PPP that we were trying to get from China.
China would say, hey, Say this, do that, and you'll go to the front of the line. And that is the type of stuff that local and state officials need to guard against. Many of them are inexperienced politicians or new politicians, and they don't understand what's happening to them. But some, like in this particular case, know exactly what's happening and it's their part of the scheme. And so I think that this is a growing problem that we still haven't been able to fix.
I think it's probably a human problem. It's always going to be around. But certainly we need to be very tough on those individuals who are taking an oath to help the people. And yet helping another foreign government. Aaron Powell, Jr.: Well, Rick, also when you think about the context of this as well, the fact that you have at the same time people wanting to talk about election integrity and voter integrity, we have so many freedoms here in the United States that the Chinese government knows how to exploit.
Our freedom of speech, the freedom of capital in many ways, they know how to exploit these things to their benefit. I think, though, when you look at the problem for decades, how weak. The U.S. foreign policy was on this adversary, the necessary evil to some degree that these trade relations with China are, that it took a backseat, paying attention to how much they were exploiting the things that we take for granted sometimes on a daily basis.
Now we have, and in the first administration, we saw this. We saw this with your work, and we see it again. Finally, someone willing to say We just got to stand up to them. We have to be tough. And I think that's the question.
Is that what even these summits, at a time where you're seeing all the things going on in the world, you still have this Iran war in limbo, which is what delayed this summit? But is it that important for the people, not just of the world, but of the United States, to see we have leadership who will stand up to China and will go and negotiate and get the best deal possible?
Well, let me give you one example of what the Chinese do: they try to inflame through our own courts, the American courts. Or through environmental laws and actions that they take, they try to inflame some of the conversations that we have around fertilizer, trying to get fertilizer banned, for instance, in the United States. They inflame the debate about the science of some of this stuff, knowing full well that if the Americans ban it, or at least stop the manufacturing because it's expensive and the lawsuits and the regulation, they know full well that if we stop, they supply it.
So it's a trade secret where they won't follow their own advice. They won't have tough environmental laws. They'll continue to make products that are questionable, but they don't have to face the scrutiny as much as the American business community has. And so we've seen that play out. But thank God we've got President Trump going over because he's clear-eyed about the problems that America.
American farmers have. Remember, in the last trade bill, he really got a huge win for the American farmers, really forcing China to stop playing games and to buy more of the American agriculture products. And so I think you'll see farming as one of the top issues, but also just simple trade, trying to make sure that China in the World Trade Organization behaves. We know that since they've been in it, when Bill Clinton was leaving office, he put them in the World Trade Organization. China's gotten worse when it comes to their trade practices, their currency manipulation.
They certainly have gotten worse on human rights abuses. And so we're not seeing the progress that we thought we would see by putting China in the World Trade Organization. Let's let President Trump do a good negotiation and come back with a big win for America. When we have these big summits, obviously there's so much work that goes into these summits on the front end with all the diplomatic staff, the State Department, the intelligence community, everyone working together and with their counterparts on the other side. Then you have a two-day summit.
And then you have the work that follows. Kind of the big get for these types of summits is normally some sort of signed statement or some agreement that could come out between the two leaders, and then the work has to actually follow that. Do you think that there could be some sort of big news item, a big get that the President is looking to get out of this? I know the diplomatic staff would love that, or is it mainly just going to be a tough slog and see where we end up?
Well, I think we have to remember that we have two different styles here that are coming together, and the diplomatic crash is real. The Chinese like to have everything buttoned up before the meeting even starts. They've given us, I'm sure, I don't know for a fact, but in my experiences, the Chinese will have given us an outcome document of let's be able to say this. It's basically a press release that says everything went great, and here's what we discussed before we even have the meeting. That's what the Chinese like to do.
Where Americans are much more, let's have a conversation and see what happens. Donald Trump is even much more so than an American traditional foreign policy by going all in, discussing anything and everything in real time, and pushing where possible.
So, we don't know exactly what Donald Trump is going to do. He's very unpredictable, and it's very good for America to have a President and a negotiator who is unpredictable. Rick, thank you so much for joining us today. And look, if you are inspired by what Rick had to say or any of our callers today, I want you to call in. We do have some phone lines open at 1-800-684-3110.
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1-800-684-3110. Again, 1-800-684-3110. It's been another packed show. But as I always say, I like to hear from the most important voice in the room. to wrap it all up, and that is you.
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One of the big conversation pieces we've been talking about all day has been our relationship with China, what that looks like moving forward. Whether you agree with President Trump's plan, you disagree with President Trump's plan. I see a lot from even from the conservative side saying they're getting nervous when certain concessions are made. And look, but I think we have to be clear-eyed about this and understand that the relationship with China is at an interesting point. As Jordan said, On paper, if you were just to look at the analytical side of this, it seems like China would be one of our biggest allies just for how much business that we do with China.
But of course, we know what the last six years has held. We know what the last decades have held with our relationship with China. It's certainly never been the clearest.
However, you go forward of what the kind of business getting done in China, whether that's with our major companies, the film industry, the theme park industry, whatever it may be, TikTok, of course, that whole situation happened. Look at all of the, not only the influence from China, but the manufacturing from China, but also the current relationship, the current needs that we get from China, that we work with China on, and how it works in our economic favor. At some point, and how it can also be detrimental in terms of our relationship with them. And of course, we have the oncoming onslaught of AI, which we've all been talking about for a number of years. Of course, it's here, and it's here in America.
Maybe and I again, I don't know what how it's perceived in China, but I can only imagine, as Jordan said, they're they're Relationship with humanity is even a little different, if we want to say it that way. You know, we have some concerns. There's people who want to put guardrails up, people who want to stop some of AI from getting out of hand. We will not see that similar tradition. We don't control the whole world.
Now, this relationship that we're having right now, this summit that we're having right now, maybe could put up some of those guardrails.
Well, and I think here's what's going to be the concerning thing. You're going to see, especially Democrats in the Senate that are big on foreign policy, are going to rush to microphones this week and proclaim this entire summit a failure. You say, look, Donald Trump went there. He made concessions. There's a big failure.
I mean, you can just write the script and then they'll fit in whatever issue they want after this is over, that he failed on the world stage. That is the biggest problem that I think we're facing internally right now. It's not the fact that we have the Chinese government has spies that are mayors in California or in offices or all of that influence. The biggest issue is that we have the left that will not, even on such a global important issue like this. Find ways to come together because there's a whole list of CEOs.
that I guarantee you politically not very conservative. If you were to look at their donations, guarantee you I know which party they were funding mostly. They're going with the President for this because they understand the global ramifications of this. in the future of their company, in the future of technology in the United States. They're able to get over the fact that they're having to go with President Trump to China.
to do this because they know the importance of it. Instead, you're going to see politicians here in America that are going to try and find ways to use this to score political points. And you've seen this. It goes back to even the redistricting issue. They can't get it together and try to find a way to even just be truthful to the American people about what's going on.
When they fail, it's the courts are so bad. When their other side has something happen, it's they're racist. It's all politics, and they won't just get together on the serious issues. I know that's going to happen. We are a polarized society, but something like this shouldn't be as politicized as I know it's about to be.
Yeah, and it's going to be politicized. Let's look at who is on this list that was going to be at this summit. We're not talking about a bunch of world leaders. You're talking about maybe world leaders in a business sense because you're talking about Tim Cook, CEO, about to be chairman of Apple. You're talking about Elon Musk, of course, the CEO, Larry Frink, of BlackRock, Boeing, CEO, Goldman Sachs, CEO.
This is not just world leaders coming together to come up with some concepts. This isn't even a G7, G8 summit. This is a different kind of event. And then you can go through it. The President of Meta, all of these people that are involved, a lot of aerospace.
These are the ones who are. going to directly involve and the ones that are going to be a little less if you want to say I don't want to say they're not political because they certainly are political, but they are looking out for their business interests. Our economic relationship with China is not a Cold War. You know, it's not like we just kind of have weapons pointing at each other and mutually assert discussion. We actually rely on each other.
Right. And the better our economic relations are, the less likely it is that we have a. A Get into any kind of actual military conflict.
Now, we know though that they fund our enemies. Right. Provide the technology to our enemies. In fact, there's been a lot of discussion at war with their technology right now. Right.
I mean, that China and Russia are watching Iran very closely because they're funding most of these Iranian weapons to see how they respond to much more expensive and high-tech U.S. weapons and what they can do with these smaller, cheaper drones.
So they've been interested in watching the war. At the same time, we're sanctioning vessels that are trying to get Iranian oil out right now, all related to China.
So. On the one hand, yes, we are in economic conflict and we are right on the edge always. of a military conflict but The better our economic relationship is. And the more fair. And what we do know is that China has taken advantage of the international banking system, the currency.
It's ridiculous. And They do have new industries. We also have to make sure though too, our auto industry is big in China. Their auto industry is catching up. We don't allow it here.
How close are they to saying you get out here? Make sure that somebody they're creating for. That competes with vehicles. There's sometimes $200,000 or $300,000. They're competing with $50,000 worth of cost.
They are creating some unbelievable things that we are not going to do. Think about the Huawei issue. And Huawei's all over Western Europe. You could go to Paris and get a Huawei phone. The U.S., we've stopped that.
But again, our phones. Or the the the most expensive. tech in America. Most of it, especially commercial. Is made in China.
Yeah, it may not be, it's not designed necessarily in China, but manufactured and created and designed in Palo Alto, California, whatever it is that always pops up on your phone. But that is the reality of the situation. And look, anyone who is in the sort of tech world, Uh, it is very popular to see a lot of the Chinese designs that are coming out. Like I said, they're doing some incredible work.
Now, we have not allowed it, but other many other countries have. And there is going to be a point where you start getting behind the eight ball, where you start becoming secondary. Because you are not having these real serious type conversations. And look, that's a whole nother conversation for a whole other day, but we can discuss that at length later on. I want to thank everyone who listened and watched the show today.
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