ExclusiveNTD Primetime Pilot: Trump Eyes on Canada, Greenland

Good evening and happy New Year. We're about 17 days out from an inauguration day, but there's a lot happening outside of the White House right now. For instance, airplanes are seemingly falling out of the sky. There's an H-1B visa debate raging across the nation. Trump is floating an interesting real estate acquisition plan that could literally see America double in size. And on top of all that, a new report found that homelessness in America has gone up by 18%. But there might be more to the data than meets the eye. Let's meet our guests who we'll be discussing these topics with. We have Tiffany Meyer, Christopher Bob. Over here, we have Joshua Phillips, Cindy Drew Care, and I'm your host, Roman Balmakov, and this is Primetime. All right. So one of the things that I'm sure you've noticed over the Christmas holiday leading into New Year is that seemingly one plane after another has been crashing and just falling out of the sky mysteriously. Cindy, what's going on? Maybe not exactly falling out of the sky, but does it feel like there's a lot of mishaps going on with airplanes? I mean, the big one, of course, was in South Korea. On the 29th, there were three incidents alone, right? So in South Korea, that plane, a bird hit it, then the landing gear didn't come down, the flaps didn't go up, and it just crashed upon landing, killing everybody except two people. It crashed into a barricade, yeah. All three of those things happened. A bird hit it, the landing gear didn't go down. Are those connected? We don't know. We know a bird hit it, and they gave a mayday, and they came around and tried to land again. But for still unknown reasons, the landing gear didn't go down, the flaps didn't go up, all things that could have slowed it down. So actually on Thursday, the police in South Korea raided the airline offices and the airport management offices to see, I don't know, I don't know what else they might find out about it, but also on the same day, that was the 29th, and the same day in Canada, an Air Canada flight in Halifax had a bad landing and caught fire. And then there was a KLM flight that had to make an emergency landing in Oslo right after it took off. So it feels like, oh, and then on Christmas day there, there was that Azerbaijan flight that, well, I guess that was shut down. Shut down. Putin apologizes, he apologizes. But why wasn't, it was like going off course, right? Wasn't there like some kind of technical issue that made it go off course? You'd have to ask Putin about that one, so I won't go there. I can say I fly all the time for work. Before COVID, flights were pretty, pretty on the ball. Didn't have to worry too much. After COVID, almost every flight I have has some kind of issue. Like delayed, sitting on the tarmac forever. I mean, every, almost every time you just kind of have to bet on there being an issue. I took a flight fairly recently and there was an embargo on any luggage more than 50 pounds. So we were traveling with media gear, which is a whole lot more than that. And they couldn't get on the flight. They're just like, no, there's an embargo. I'm like, what, what, what was there like some really high paying cargo that they, you know, took, took it. And I was on another flight recently where I went into the lavatory, may as well use the right word. And instead of running water, they just had hand sanitizer and a sign saying it's to reduce waste and weight that they don't have water on the plane. I was just in a plane. They had the exact same thing. Really? Yeah. So you guys suggesting there's a connection between these, uh, these planes falling out of the sky. A lot of weird cost cutting measures, let's say. So that's a great point. Actually, let's say we're on these planes and we are a statistic, uh, is sitting in any area on the plane. Does it guarantee us? The back of the plane is safer. Okay. The back of the plane is safer. For the cheaper. The economy is good. I mean, the air is going to the rest of the lavatory. So maybe that's true that the two staff members on that Korean airline, they were in the back, but, but pick the last row. It wouldn't help you because even if you're sitting in 35 D, uh, you're still not back where they are with the bathrooms, right? Yeah. But you could go back, get up, go back. Just go to the bathroom. People are going to start like running down the aisles now to get to that. I don't have people still want to get off. Here's the other thing. There's a difference between surviving and happily surviving. You know what I mean? Alive, right? If the plane blows up, you're probably, what are the conditions of the two people that got off? Uh, I don't know how they are now. I mean, they were taken to hospital, but I don't know how they are now, but you know what, this is just making me think of alive. Did you guys see that movie about the Uruguay? I was just thinking ever since I saw that movie, right. They crashed into the Andes and they had to survive all this time and most people died and they resorted to cannibalism and all this stuff. But eventually like some small number 14 or whatever it was, you know, we're rescued, but ever since I saw that movie, I've always thought about what am I wearing on the plane? Do I have good foot gear? Do I have an extra coat? Leave a beautiful. All right, Cindy, Cindy, Cindy, Cindy with that in the opening. Okay. When I introduced the topics, I mentioned that there was plane crashes happening all over the place, including in America. So you might ask yourself, Hey, wait a minute. What Cindy just said was in a what? Azerbaijan ish. Canada. It was in, uh, Korea. Am I missing one? Oslo and Oslo. None of those are America. Why did Roman say that a plane crash happened in America recently? Well, president elect Trump is floating a new real estate acquisition plan, which might see Canada become the 51st state and nation alongside the Panama canal, as well as Greenland might, might become a part of the U S Josh. Is that a possibility? Greenland, I would say is probably the biggest possibility Panama canal, probably Canada. I don't know. But I don't know. Not one state. Anyway, I don't know about Canada. It wouldn't be the 51st. He keeps saying that, but it would be like, it's too big to be a 51st state. No, no, no. Can't it be like making San Francisco like an entire country? And then there's Canadians watching our program right now that are fuming. No, no. They would just, you know, we do have a Canadian on the panel here. There we go. But Trump did actually mention this. Trump was saying that, yeah, he, he keeps calling Justin Trudeau, the governor of the 51st state total troll. And he continues doing it. And Justin Trudeau seems to be bearing the brunt of that in his own country. Uh, Denmark of course, is challenging this. They're saying that they're going to defend, you know, their hold on, on Greenland. They're not gonna let it fall into America's hands. Panama. They're basically saying it's not going to happen, but we'll see about that. Trump's basically saying, we'll see. Actually we do have a clip from Trump. I think we should play that. We'll jump into it. He will never ever let it fall into the wrong hands, but it's falling into the wrong hands. If the principles, both moral and legal of this magnanimous gesture of giving are not followed, then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to the United States of America in full, quickly, and without question. I'm not going to stand for it. So to the officials of Panama, please be guided accordingly. Hmm. So, okay. So he was saying, you know, the, the morally it's, it's legally, you know, we gave it up and it should be given back to us. Like what, what's the actual history? Like what's America's claim to the Panama Canal? So here's what happened. There were other countries working on it. A lot of them backed off. France was trying to do it. Originally we were going to do it in Nicaragua. That whole plan fell through. US built it. US Army Corps of Engineers. A lot of Americans died building it. It was ours, right? And this was to kind of facilitate global trade. Historically, the country that controls maritime trade kind of controls the world, which is why the CCP is trying to do what they call the string of pearls, where they're building military bases to try and take over all the global trade choke points. Oh, he's going back to China. They want to control global trade. Now, Jimmy Carter, who recently passed away, President Jimmy Carter, he decides to hand it back to Panama and relinquish US control over it. Well, let me just ask you there. Did he give it back to them as his own executive decision? Or was it like moving the embassy to Jerusalem type of situation where he had to do it? He didn't have to do it. Absolutely not. But this is the kicker with it. It wasn't a full handover. There was an exception to it where if the neutrality of the Panama Canal is ever under threat, America can re-establish control over it. And some people... Is that the case? Are they allowed to actually go in there and take it over? Or is it just that they can protect it? America still protects it to an extent. I actually went to the Panama Canal when I was doing the border documentary, and we actually went on a boat through the canal. And a couple of the guys with us were people whose families had actually been part of building it, some of the original captains and stuff. So part of the agreement was, yes, sovereignty is threatened. America can just re-establish control over it. And some people would argue the CCP has already basically destroyed the neutrality of the Panama Canal. First off, by trying to build bases there and trying to gain control over it. And second off, by building an additional canal right next to it, which ironically pulls its water from the main Panama Canal. And then they try to say global warming is causing the water shortage in the canal. When in reality, it's because China built the canal right next to it and they're pulling the water from it. So they're draining the water from the existing one. In 97, didn't a company based in Hong Kong set up two ports on either side? Yeah, yeah. And of course, you know, the CCP basically runs the show. They have a history of trying to have ownership over there. OK, so so that's the Panama Canal. That's that's one. Greenland, you said, is the one that's most likely to actually happen. Denmark is trying to hold on to it. But before we get into Greenland, let's head on to a break, as the producer told me nicely in the air, stay tuned and when then we'll come back and discuss the real possibility of Greenland becoming the 52nd state of America. It's kind of good. Welcome back. And right before the commercial break, we discussed Trump's acquisition plan, part one, which was the Panama Canal. Second part is Greenland and perhaps even the more realistic part, because it's closer and Greenland is in this weird legal situation. Can you actually give the audience an idea of the legal status of Greenland as a nation? They're technically part of Denmark, right? But they were they only recently became self-governing. It was like the last it was the last decade they basically became self-governing. And so they used to be totally part of Denmark. They've been trying to become independent. But the reality is it's there's barely any people there. There's almost no economy. There's almost 6,000 people, 56,000, 90 percent of which are Inuit. What? Ninety nine percent. That's crazy. You told me that during the commercial break. I couldn't believe it because I thought it was like 56,000 people, which is like very little. But but the Danes have a claim to it because it's 56,000 Danish people. But you're saying 90 percent of those 56,000 are Inuit and they all live in that southern border, not not not up. They don't live in the ice so much. But here's but here's the thing. Because of China and Russia pushing into the Arctic right now and also because of the threats of Russia, of course, Europe, Greenland would be kind of a way for America to break out of its kind of defensive mainland circle. And America really needs to have some kind of Arctic presence. We're working with Canada, of course, and we provide most of their security, by the way. But well, we have Alaska. Yeah, we have Alaska. But but America. But but but basically, Greenland is extremely important for Arctic security. And also because they have a lot of untapped resources. They just they just don't really have the capability to tap into, you know, oil and so on like that. And so they have they have huge economic potential sectors that are untapped. I don't think Trump is going to actually make the mistake. I really doubt he would end up doing that. I don't think they would ever agree to that. But he could very easily make defensive agreements with them, business agreements with them and all kinds of other stuff. And it would probably jumpstart their economy in ways that would make that a very nice place. The U.S. is basically is already like de facto in charge of defense up there. There's, you know, U.S. bases and it's been that way since World War Two. So I do wonder, you know, that most of the economy, most of the money is coming from Denmark, right? So the U.S. want to not take that on. Well, most of their economy is like fish and then something like half of the people work in the public service or something like that. And all that money is coming from Denmark or some huge amount of it. So I'm like, they've already de facto in charge of defense. So what? Just wait. Just wait. I think I think he wants to do a lot more with defense because right now they actually did start up a new a new global program with NATO. Again, United States, Canada. Arctic defense is becoming a very, very, very big issue. Yeah. Well, it doesn't matter. China is now, you know, what is it? A near Arctic? They call themselves the main concern with that, like with China calling itself a near Arctic state and trying to state and trying to lay claim to everything. It's like when you have countries like Russia over there, you're like, OK, yeah, we're, you know, letting you be here for research purposes. And China is like, I'm going to join in on the research. We just launched a huge new ship. Yeah. And then they come in and it's, you know, dual use, which China loves. So part of it is civilian that you can argue. The ship is in the Arctic, you're saying? Well, yeah. So you know how a lot of countries will have joint research opportunities. We have that in terms of space, right? Like the International Space Station, the ISS, you have all the happy stories where the Americans and Russians are working together, even if on the ground, like right now you have war happening or proxy wars. But the concern with communist China being in the area is just based on their own documents. I know, Josh, you've covered this several times on your shows, right? Their own documents saying that communist China wants to be a hegemonic power. So whenever they're in different areas, they're like, oh, we're here for research. But then you look at what they're actually doing and they're either destroying the ground floors to get to the minerals, the Arctic minerals down there, or they're setting up strategic places because that's a much closer trajectory if you're trying to fire missiles at the continental U.S. from, say, the Arctic side. That's the biggest other side of the U.S. And so there's the defense concerns in terms of the U.S. where you're like, hold up, would we even have time to respond to that kind of a threat? Right. Meanwhile, China the whole time is like, we're just here for research purposes. So that's where a lot of that concern is. And then to your point about Greenland, like trying to build up that defense chain, if you will. Let's put it this way. If Russia or China were to ever launch nuclear weapons in the U.S., they wouldn't do it over the Pacific. They do it over the Arctic. And if they can build up bases, military bases in the Arctic, it's basically game over in terms of missile defense in the U.S. Well, Russia already has icebreakers up around there, don't they? They do. Yeah. So Russia and China are trying to establish right now a trade passage where they can connect basically, you know, through trade routes going through the Arctic, the eastern and western coasts of Russia. And Russia used to not want China up there. But now that Russia is in a weakened state and they need the money, they're letting the CCP basically use their territory to do it. Did you see Medvedev's comment about Trump's plan to annex Greenland? He basically encouraged him. He said, yeah, it's good. Probably thinking it'll make them look better for the Ukraine war. Well, heck, you know, China could take Hong Kong. Russia can take part of Ukraine. Why can't we just take Greenland? Well, I guess one question I would have is like, what's the legal status? Is Greenland like Puerto Rico to to Denmark? Is it like that same type of relationship? It's basically it's basically like that. Until very recently, it was fully a part of Denmark. Now it's a self-governed region. But they also they have had a referendum and, you know, saying they want more self-control and it's going to be parliamentary elections next year, 2025 this year, that could get them even closer to self-government. I think it's a good time for Trump to go in. That's the complicated part for actual independence. That's the thing with them. They're basically getting so close to actual independence that the idea of just becoming part of the U.S. would be kind of a step back for them, which is why I think that if they do want to if they do want to become independent, they need to basically secure economic deals. And I think, you know, an alliance with the United States of some kind. You know, it's interesting. The U.S. is almost like a minuscule trading partner of Greenland. I was looking this up. Right. Denmark, obviously, is number one. Number two at like 50 percent. Number two, Canada, China. Oh, really? The U.S. is like 0.2 percent or something like like super or 2 percent. Very low. I was surprised. They're only big industries is they they do server farms, server farms for like high tech stuff because they can they can do it. A lot of cooling around. Exactly. Exactly. They don't have to pay a lot. But the thing is, like, if they become an independent state, fifty six thousand people for a landmass that big. I mean, I know on maps and usable ice. But it's melting. Well, a that. But also, but it has like, you know, all that defense, you know, capability. I guess it has all those resources underneath. I just don't know. Fifty six thousand people. I don't think that can be a country that represents such a large landmass. That's like I mean, you can think of like, I don't know what's a small nation. Singapore, that's a small country, but it's not, you know, there's such a disparity between the size. I think you can't defend the big landmass of fifty six thousand people. Yeah, right. They would need they would need good friends. Yeah. OK, so here's a question. How come Greenland? I mean, I guess one question would be like, why the U.S. is in Canada closer to to Greenland, and that leads us to that leads us to our next point, which is Trump is trying to get Canada as well. I think that's why Trump wants Canada, because he wants to, like, collect all the pieces. And I actually got Alaska way up there. He's like, you know what? They've been like out there too long. We've got to connect all the pieces. But OK, Canada is not realistic. Right. Maybe Panama, maybe, maybe Greenland. Canada's not realistic, but but there is recently a survey, a pretty serious poll done in Canada, and the results were kind of surprising. What percent of Canadians do you think would say, yeah, I'm down with being part of Canada? Probably more than he would admit. All right. So to the question, would you or would you not like to be part of Canada to be part of the United States? Thirteen percent said yes. But here's the interesting thing. It's mostly the over 55s don't want it. Eight percent. Only them. But everyone under 55. Nineteen percent. Wow. Nineteen percent. I lied. Sixteen percent. Never mind. Sixteen percent. But but in Alberta and Western Canada, Alberta is kind of like Texas of Canada. There it was like around 20 percent. The more conservative there. And people who vote conservative, the conservative leaning parties, it was over 20 percent would be interested in being part of the US. But here is what is that poll really mean? I don't know. But I would like to be a part of another country like who answers honestly to that. Because they're like, I want my Canadian dollars worth nothing right now. They're like, you know, that greenback that's looking really good. So it's more of, you know, a score of how good you feel about being a Canadian. Perhaps. But this way, this is the really interesting part. Right. So I'm going to dig into this. The Bloc Québécois, the party that is dedicated, only exists in Quebec, that's dedicated to separating from Canada. Right. To making Canada a country or its own country. Eight percent of those voters said that they would join the U.S. Eight. Eight. That's small. It's small, but they don't even want to be part of Canada. Well, I guess I guess any action for them is good action. Like, OK, we'll split and then we'll split again. Double split. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, do the old one, too. Right. This is not a serious. It's just trolling. OK. It's Trump trolling. Canada's never going to be part of the U.S. Well, here's the here's the thing. Trump wants to renegotiate his trade deal with Canada because we basically just have like a hundred billion dollars deficit and we still lose a ridiculous amount of money. And he's he's raising the point that we don't really get a whole lot out of our trade relationship with Canada. They get a lot from us. We don't get a lot from them. And, you know, honestly, in that type of a negotiation, it doesn't hurt to like flow this crazy idea. OK, you should become a part of the U.S. Polls come out saying 20 percent of people would agree with that in some in some pockets of Canada. That definitely weakens the position of the federal government in negotiating a trade agreement with the U.S. It's not a bad tactic. Now, you know, here's the big thing that Trump funded that poll. Well, maybe the truth social fund that poll. I don't know. Trump media group. Here's the thing. Trump, by saying that, basically destabilized the Canadian government, the way to push Justin Trudeau out now over this. Well, that happened before. But it was the tariffs. It was a jump in on it. I think I think several pieces of the same puzzle. However, however, for the Canadians watching this program, even though probably the U.S. will not be taking you over anytime soon, you know, you might not be satisfied about that, but that's the case. However, there is a way for you to be able to come to the U.S. That's through an H1B visa. Stay tuned after the break. And first, we'll break down for you exactly how you can jump on the bandwagon and join the tens of thousands of Indians who are already here. Come on in. All right. I'm sure like many other people during the Christmas holiday, you check Twitter, you check Instagram and all of a sudden there was this debate about Visa came out of nowhere, seemingly out of nowhere, but these H1B visas and you had a fracturing in a seeming fracture in the conservative side, with some people supporting H1B visas, saying it's a great opportunity to import very intelligent people to the U.S., other people saying it's just a scam to get more bodies at a lower rate to, you know, help the large corporations. I guess the first question I would have for Chris is what exactly is an H1B visa? Well, it is the gift of Santa Claus to the Democratic Party on Christmas. That's really what it is. It was started the program around 1990, actually in 1990, and it was meant to do just as you said, bring high skilled workers to America and fill jobs. You know, think about 1990. That was really the rise of the Internet age. That's when, you know, World Wide Web came online. So the reason why it's a big controversy is because of this Vivek tweet that really set it off. We can put that on the screen now. He basically said that the reason why so many people are needed in Silicon Valley in tech, it's due to a lack of. A work ethic and a culture in the United States, we glorify people who are jocks and not people who are science and math Olympiads, that sounds like the words of a guy who was bullied in high school, to be honest, to be in the 40s, tweeting out something no offense if you're watching, but that's like that tweet got one hundred and sixteen million views. I'm saying that now this is when we're taping, so it's probably going to go up more and more and more and more people are commenting about it and giving their own takes. And it's created that rift in, you know, the MAGA group. But, you know, it's only about sixty five thousand people who are eligible for H1Bs, an extra twenty thousand if you graduated from an American university with a graduate degree. That's per year, though, right? Per year. But it's only for three years and you can only extend it once another three years. So it's max six. And you have no pathway to citizenship with an H1B. OK, so you're saying that H1Bs is like eighty five thousand max per year. Correct. So why is that? Like, why is it a big deal? That doesn't sound like a big number. Well, there is a lot of fraud with it. And, you know, it's a contentious issue. But here's how the fraud is perpetrated. So it's a low number of people. But you have these outsourcing companies and these IT staffing firms and they account for like half of all of the accepted H1Bs. Basically, they it's a lottery in order to get an H1B visa. So they just flood the system with tons of applications and they have stacked odds against them. Sometimes they found out new research showed that they were actually submitting multiple applications for the same person. They were rigging the lottery to get people in. And then you also have a lot of like discontent with American companies hiring foreign workers. Like in 2015, Disney got rid of 250 IT people and some of the people who they got rid of had to train their Indian H1B replacements before they left. So it's a polarizing topic. Vivek has his side. He came out really strong. Elon had his side. I think, Cindy, you have the tweet there. Yeah, he said some pretty strong words. And I want to see what you guys think he would actually do. So he said, well, he said the reason I'm in America, along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is because of H1B. But later he says, I will go to war on this issue, the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend. What do you think Elon could do? Ban people on Hex? He was telling me what it is. But he just bought America so he can do a little more. I think he has enough money to pump it into the right people that he thinks are going to protect H1Bs. But they're all saying they want reform now. So Elon, he came out really strong with that. And now over the past few days, people have said, you know, there is a lot of problems. The VAC reference comments he made a long time ago, which said, yeah, that needs to be reformed. Trump in 2016 at the debate basically said that he wanted to get rid of H1Bs. And now Trump mentioned the thing with Disney, where people had to train their cheaper replacements. Yeah. But now he says, you know, I have H1Bs at my properties and I like the program. The issue is fraud for people. Fraud. And so a lot of people are saying that they need to move it from like a lottery system to a merit based system. So if a company is looking for a specific person, they can hire them, not people get entered into a lottery and then maybe you can choose one of them. It's not a fair way to go about it. That's what people are proposing. That's people on the moderate side. But I mean, I don't I don't really think that there's a lot of power players who want to get rid of H1B. I just wanted to confirm something with you. Sure. When I was reading about this debate, I thought that H1B visas were like us trying to recruit like the top nuclear scientist talent. Like that could be the O visa. OK, so that's different. Yes, that's different. OK, so there's extraordinary ability. And if you prove that you're in a certain tier and you're sought after by all these different companies because you can contribute something that nobody in the United States can, that's the O visa. The H1B, I mean, there's anything from people who work in nuclear or people who work in Silicon Valley to people who work in pickleball. I mean, there's a lot of things going viral on X right now. You can find like janitors and Cindy, you found some pickleball. Yeah. Pickleball. Yeah. You know, like managing a pickleball. Set up, it was in Kansas, the one part of it was, as you're pointing out, Roman, supposed to be that like when it was first started in 1990, it was the congressman, a Democratic congressman at the time from Connecticut, Bruce Morrison. He told CBS News at the time that he wrote the bill because he was tired of talent coming in and then disappearing. So he's like, we need to keep them here. And so under the federal guidelines, it's like you do need those specialized requirements. So you're supposed to at least have a bachelor's degree. And the federal jobs are saying that, you know, this job is supposed to be, quote, so complex or unique that it can only be performed by an individual with a degree or equivalent experience. And then you're supposed to also make sure that that doesn't take away that job from an American. Right. So it's like it's supposed to be pretty specialized, not as far as the one, but still pretty specialized. You at least need the bachelor's and then you're not going to be taking that job from an American worker who might also qualify. So that was what it was supposed to be. But then what they found out was that within three years of this new law, CBS News again was reporting that tech companies especially were suddenly firing their U.S. workers, as you were mentioning, and then replacing them with these cheaper import labors. And then the point about that, like why it's being, you know, so, you know, violated, if you will, is the Department of Labor doesn't actually check the individuals listed. They just see if the form is completed. Right. They're not actually checking if this who this person is and if they tick those boxes, they're just like, oh, is the form filled out? Yes, it is. Moving on. So then what happens is you have this spawning of new companies whose whole job is to bring in these people and fill out those forms known as, you know, body shop. So the main one is Cognizant. And it was Bloomberg News was reporting in just October that they were found guilty of discriminating against white workers. So it's a given if you're qualified, they're like, oh, no, no, we don't want you. And then they fill them in. And then as to the point of where they're coming from, right, Axios News was 70 percent, 72 percent. Yeah. India, India and 12 percent from China. Correct. And 70 percent of all the applicants are mostly men, which does kind of make sense if you're looking at like STEM type jobs that normally is 65 percent of the jobs that come over for H1Bs are in computers. So and another thing that is important when you're talking about your family on an H1B, there is H-O or something like that where you can get your relatives to come. Oh, I don't know if it's oh, but if there's another H that there is chain migration, you can bring your dad or your wife. Yes. And then there's other ones for other things. So the another area where there's fraud is the the payment, the compensation of these foreign workers, because a lot of people are saying, OK, there's people coming in here, they're undercutting American wages and they're basically, you know, the companies are getting richer and the people of this country are getting poor. Well, the way that the system works is. Companies hire based on tiers, so there's four levels, you know, tier one, you're making like, you know, 50, 60,000, you're fresh in, you're an early hire, like the tier four is like you're an expert in your field when a lot of these people are accepted in. They'll only take the tier one people and they'll give them a job that's meant for an expert. So there's no one checking whether or not that person is overqualified so they can hire a bunch of overqualified people, pay them a low wage and then they they they fit the bill. It's not illegal. That's interesting, because when I was looking in the database, I checked entry level like just as a you know, and there are so many things listed as entry level jobs. Well, that almost sounds like I was like there's two debates going on that like half of the debates are people who are just like saying, well, this is the way the program is like in theory, like the way the law is designed. But then like in practice, it's actually not functioning as it's supposed to. Right. So it's like. Well, you know, there has been attempts to try to mitigate some of the fraud like like earlier last year, you can say that now January of twenty twenty four. Basically, they made it so you couldn't enter in multiple applications for the same person. Well, they're trying to make sure you you you are allowed to do that before. There was somewhat of a glitch or some issue where people were spamming them. You know, there's a lot. So you have more. You have more of us. If you if you have. I understand the logic of why you would do it, but we're doing it. People were doing they were allowed to do it. And they were getting in because they had to hire from 1990 up until January of twenty twenty four. You were allowed to enter your name multiple times into this lottery. Yeah. Well, people did it. Yeah. People I don't know if you're allowed to do it. They didn't intend for you to do it. But yeah, people were doing it. Well, there might be several different jobs. Yeah. But it was for several different jobs. No, I think you could have done it. Yeah. But but here's the thing. So for a lot of Americans, I think the reason why it really riled up so many people is they feel that they're being robbed on every front. So they can't get the high tech jobs. They can't get the high paying jobs. They can't get the blue collar jobs. They can't get like, you know, the normal jobs. Yeah. I can't do anything. Which is actually a good job. I mean, I actually did an apprenticeship for carpentry right out of high school. It was fantastic. But but a lot of those businesses, what happens is, you know, legal immigrants fill them and they undercut people. And then what happens when they undercut people is it drives down the bidding wages. So you can't make you can't make a decent wage. And it's the same thing with the high tech stuff. They say it's high paying jobs. They drive the prices down. You can't make it. You can't make what you normally make with it. And then people get trained. They go back to their countries after three to six years. And then it's an offshoring of American innovation. The psychological element is what really is making people angry. The idea that, you know, just like you said, you can't get an entry level job and you can't be an expert. It's the whole picture that bothers. Yeah, I think if you can get an entry level job, you can be an expert. You might become homeless. Because if you can't pay your bills, you can't find a job anywhere, if the job of literally all the jobs are taken, a bit of an extreme example, but a new report found that 18 there has been an 18 percent increase in the level of homelessness in America year over year. Stay tuned after the break and Tiffany will break down for us what that report says and whether that data is actually what it is. Is there a little nuance to it that we don't know about? Is it really 18 percent? They didn't find out. We had a cat that would have been disastrous. All right, so now that we are fully caught up on the H1B visa debate, one of the consequences of having to importing so many immigrants that take up jobs and essentially bidding out the American local workforce is that their wages get depressed and some of them who are already, let's say, on the lower tier fall below that tier, which is the state of homelessness. A recent report found that there was an 18 percent year over year increase in homelessness. Tiffany, is that true? That is what the report is saying. So last week, basically what happened is the Biden administration came out and was talking about this number, which is from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. They have their annual data that comes out. But what is interesting is this data that they do is just one single night of the year in January. And so the way they calculate it is that when they did this data reporting, that's what they do every year, just one night. What they found was about 770,000 of residents in the U.S. were either experiencing at least one night in a shelter, a temporary housing or on the streets. Oh, there's a lot to unpack there. There is. OK, so it's one single night in January. OK, I guess the first question is, like, how do they collect that data? That's just how they do their their data collecting. How can they like asking people on the streets? Yeah. So they like go around and they figure out. So there's a couple different in that, right? It's like either you're like in the street, you're in a temporary housing or they just ask people. So under that, there's several different categories. But before we get to the categories, the way the news was reacting to this was immediately you had a ton of different media reports in their headlines noting this number. And then you have the Associated Press and Politico saying that this number underlines the crisis of affordable housing or the lack of in the U.S. But then when you start digging into these numbers, it's like, OK, well, some of this this is in the report, too. So the report itself notes this, that some of this was from the Maui fire in Hawaii, where you did have over five thousand two hundred people were not in their own homes because they burned down. So they were in hotels. Right. But that's like that's not their home. So that counts as homeless. And then you had another part where it was the impact of immigration, especially on family homelessness. So when it comes to like a group or a family of immigrants, they saw that that number went up thirty nine percent from the previous year. And they were counted as homeless. Yes. So if you're in a temporary shelter under so like the sanctuary cities and stuff that gets into the immigration question, because that's what they were noticing as well. Like if you start digging into the numbers of wait, OK, so what are we actually seeing here? Because you do have cities like New York, Chicago and Denver, where they are sanctuary cities. And those cities saw their number either double or triple like they saw a double or triple digit increases in terms of homelessness that they saw, because the ones in the shelters like the migrant shelters or in New York, the five star hotels, you know, those count as homeless as well, because that's not their home. It's just a temporary place. Well, it's true. But I guess they are still homeless. Like they're still a homeless individual in the city. Yeah. Has that number. So then that the city is paying for. Presumably that's why these numbers are important. And then so then as a result, right, you see President Biden pledging more money into these different departments of you've seen California, where they have billions of dollars to deal with their homeless problem. But then they have. So there's new federal data just for California. So it's a lot more recent than this, because this is like one night in January. Well, that's another question. So, OK, it's one night in January that they did the data and the report was released last month. So this that data does not reflect twenty twenty four. No. So this is like how they calculate it, though. So for year on year, they're like one night of the year we go around, we poke it and that's the numbers from the previous year. But they released it before this January. So that that number is for twenty twenty three. No, no, no. Because so this this was just last week that the Biden administration came out to cite this data, which is from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. And the data from that was collected on January of twenty twenty four. So we're now in twenty twenty five. So that's the number. Why didn't it come out February 1st? But then it's like that's how they do it. So they're saying like that was the number compared to like the number they saw the previous year. That's the way they do it. Ah, why didn't it come out? This and oh, did we have an election or something? Would an 18 percent spike in homelessness heard the election? I don't know. I mean, here's the real thing that gets me with this. OK, so here's what you do. You import 10 million people, make them be reliant on government handouts, document that as homelessness, then demand money from the federal government under the under housing and urban development to pay for your homelessness. You get money in your state from the federal government then. And they basically bail out your housing industries. Is this how this works? I just heard an interview from a mayor and he basically said all these NGOs are being loaded with cash and then they're probably just giving it off to the politicians who gave it back to them. You know, it's just a circle. I mean, it's a circle. I mean, I mean, this is like this is like, you know, for 40 chests of business right here, you know, especially you get in the especially if you get into the real estate market. Is that was that what they're doing? I have one. That was the argument that you had now. President while vice president like J.D. Vance arguing about, you know, the housing or affordability crisis, he was saying it's an immigration crisis that they're bidding against each other for the same limited homes, like we were talking earlier about the same limited jobs. So that's one argument that is out there. The only good news, if you want, of this report was that the homelessness among veterans dropped to the lowest in record. They saw a decrease of 8 percent. So there has been more effort put into making sure that veterans can find a home instead of like temporary situations. Is that the is that the real solution? Because I also know that another report that said like veteran suicides are at an all time high. So I mean, like I know that sounds macabre, but like is like they know for a fact that veteran homelessness is declined because they were able to find homes. That's what this report is saying. Yes, is that reciting efforts that were like made by, say, like the Veterans Affairs Department and stuff like that, where it seems to be successful because they said they saw nearly 8 percent decrease from the previous year. And the thing that is one side of that's the only positive. Yeah, well, that's how you want. Maybe not if you're an NGO. You're seeing this as a great report. Oh, yeah. Or like a local politician, you know, especially if Trump actually does like kick out all these migrants, illegal migrants still get that money. You know, because the money is reflected based on the homelessness number, the homelessness number increase. And it'll probably take another year for that number to go back down if they're only doing January. Right. How much money did they get from housing and urban development? Then does that have to go to building new homes? Does that work? There's a couple of different categories. So it depends on like how you look at it and where it goes and then how it's used. Right. So then it's like you have now the different number, the fed, the new federal number in terms of California, where California's homeless population actually grew. And so then now you have a group. It grew. Obviously not. So the this is this is also like a legal immigrant. Right. This is like a better place to be homeless. True. Yeah. It's warmer weather. You're not gonna be freezing to death. But so then. So it. So obviously this is a different data set. This is more recent for just California. And it's saying California's homeless population grew to one hundred and eighty seven thousand. So it's about a 3 percent increase. And then a lot of critics are being like, wait, because California, especially California's governor, Gavin Newsom, is always touting the billions of dollars they're spending on homelessness. You have like twenty five billion a year. California is the most expensive state to live in. It is. And then you have the videos of Gavin Newsom out there like clearing out the homeless. Wait, are they are they building houses or is this like a high speed rail type? Everyone was like, is this a PR stunt? What happened? But it's not it's not a house issue really, is it? It's a money issue. And one of the big problems that the people I watch so many interviews of people explaining why they became unhoused or why they became homeless. And and they say they wrapped up a lot of credit card debt. They got medical debt. Their their now deceased mother was really sick. And then they find themselves out on the streets. The problem is that they don't have a place to stay. The real problem is that they have no more money left. And they're and they're riddled with debt. And one statistic that I was I wanted to search for as soon as I knew that we're going to talk about homelessness tonight is consumer debt. And I found out that our consumer debt credit card debt has gone up to a trillion dollars, a trillion dollars, 18 trillion for household debt in the U.S. Oh, just went up to 18.1 interest. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. And that's up. And they wrote off the big guys, the big banks. They wrote off just from, you know, the first to the ninth month in of last year, they wrote off like forty six billion dollars of debt that they're they know they're never going to see again because people can't afford it. We have inflation. We have the costs of just living in California, like I mentioned. And then you have credit card debt, which averages around 22 percent interest rate. I mean, you can't get a break. These people, if Trump doesn't carry out his campaign promise that he made in Long Island, that he was going to cap credit card interest rates at like 10 percent. I don't know. We're going to see a lot more homeless people in this country. People just put more on their credit card if it goes down. I mean, there's no like a little tiny piece of this. All right. All right, Chris. Chris, with that extremely upbeat final word from you, I'm getting, you know, the word from the producer that we have to wrap up. However, Josh, give me 20 seconds of positivity. I got nothing. Cindy, Cindy, 20 seconds. Give me something positive. I'm going to build on what Josh said. OK, let's say we might take over Canada. Yeah. Maple syrup. That's if we take over any of those any of those real estate acquisitions that will solve a lot of issues, a lot of natural resources and empire needs to grow. Listen, thank you so much for tuning in. And ultimately, what matters is your local community, your family. The news does not matter so much. My producer is telling me to not denigrate the news. Please be back here next time. Same time, same channel, primetime. We'll have our lovely guests discussing what's happening in the country until then. Take care and be well.