April 23, 2025 • 26 mins
White House Dynamics
- Team Cohesion: Mailman highlights the improved teamwork and unity in the current administration compared to previous ones, noting fewer leaks and a more collaborative environment.
Lawfare
- Judicial Challenges: The administration faces significant opposition from activist judges and the court system, which Mailman describes as a strategic move by Democrats to block the President's agenda.
Trade Policy
- China Trade War: The administration is focused on reducing dependence on China and securing better trade deals with other countries. Mailman emphasizes the importance of national security and supply chain independence.
Gender Ideology in Sports
- Title IX Enforcement: The administration is actively investigating and challenging states that allow men to compete in women's sports, aiming to protect women's rights under Title IX.
Energy Policy
- Drill Baby Drill: Significant progress in energy policies, including new permits for LNG exports, coal leasing, and regulatory changes to facilitate energy projects.
Economic Deregulation
- Cost Reduction: Efforts to rescind regulations and lower costs for consumers, including changes to environmental rules and standards for various products.
Future Plans
- Trade and Deregulation: Continued focus on securing trade deals and implementing de-regulatory measures. The administration is also working with Congress to solidify its priorities through legislation.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning, Welcome. It is the Ben Ferguson Podcast. Nice
to have you with us. We're live here at the
White House, and my guess with me now is May Melman,
senior policy strategist at the White House and a unique
perspective because she was in forty five in that administration,
you're now in forty seven. We were talking before the
show and I just let's just start with this because
(00:21):
I think it's so cool. This White House is running
at a different pace than it did with the first
time around. Part of that was learning government. I think
part of it's having a team this time that seems
to be working as a team and just seems like
everyone wants to win and is getting along. The leaks
were not seeing like we did last time. It seems
(00:42):
like everybody's a team player. This is really fun to
watch on the outside. I was in the Bush administration
and it was in the second from four to HO eight,
and it was just a different type of team than
we had in the first part. You got to enjoy
watching the past and now the president. How cool is
that for you? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:59):
I used to be jealous of what the Bush people
had in the sense that they still did reunions, and
they all hung out with each other and they you know,
we had our criticisms, certainly, but it felt like they
were all very unified. And I think during Trump one
point zero, people very much got along. It was friendly.
(01:19):
But people had come from different places. So you had
people who were campaign people, you had people who were
RNC people, you had people who were either longtime friends
of the family, these sort you know, everyone kind of
had their own different background. But now there is such
a thing as Trump World, and there are people who
have been here and those they've had relationships and they've
(01:39):
had ups and downs with each other, and so it
is easier to have everybody rowing in the same direction.
And I've had strange experiences that I never had during
the first time. So during the first time, I was
also writing a lot of executive orders, helping push a
lot of policies, and I would have to follow up
and follow up and follow up, and nothing would happen
at the speed and the pace and the level that
(02:02):
I wanted it to. Now, if I write something that's
very nuanced, I'm careful, Okay, we're not trying to do this.
People will just do it at the one hundred out
of ten, even though we we just need a ten
out of ten. That's okay. So the excitement people have
been planning, people are ready to go, and it does
feel very different, even though it is actually a lot
(02:22):
of the same people. I'm working with a lot of
the same people, but it's just different this time.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
So let's talk about where we are one hundred days in.
You're here, your senior pology strategists. I think one of
the big things that people are witnessing right now they're
concerned about is the law fair. There is very clear
a movement by the left, by the Democrats to use
the court system and activist judges, their allies that they
(02:47):
know are quarly on their team, making sure they're filing
things in certain courts where they know it'll give them
a favorable opinion, which is against this White House, and
trying to stop the president of a law fair. You
guys are fighting back. You work with Jason Miller. You
guys are out there hardcore going against this. Where are
we now and how big of a roadblock is this
going to be for Trump's agenda getting actually done well.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
The Democrats have no political strategy, they have no political leader,
They have no North Star, so all they have is no.
And the place you go for no is the courts,
and so that's where all the money has been, that's
where the excitement is, that's where the investment is. Is
just no. There's some protests, there's blowing up tesla's, but
mostly it's in the courts. And I think the judges
(03:31):
are very excited. These are activists, these are longtime Democrat donors, partisans,
you know, they're part of the movement. They're excited to
actually be the leaders of the left right now. And
so yeah, it is a problem. I'm a lawyer. For
four years when I was not in the White House,
I was bringing lawsuits and the judges that we would get,
even if we were in conservative areas of the country
(03:53):
with very conservative judges, these were measured approaches. I'll just
take Title nine for example, twenty six states brought lawsuits
and I think eight different jurisdictions to challenge Biden's rewrite
of Title nine. Each one of those judges, every single one,
issued an injunction that was just narrowed to the parties
that had brought the suit, So there never was a
nationwide injunction. Even with twenty six states in eight different lawsuits.
(04:17):
Compare that to here, where you just have any sort
of group. It's not states bringing these this is just
random people, random activists, bringing these lawsuits and getting nationwide
injunctions at the TRO stage, the temporary restraining order stage,
which is not even assessment of the merits of whether
you're right or wrong. It's just, hey, I'm the judge,
(04:39):
and I feel like doing this nationwide thing based not
even on the merits. I want to freeze the Trump
administration from doing anything. So this law fair is a serious,
serious problem in my opinion. I think that it violates
the job of the judiciary, which is to say what
the law is, not to become the policymaker. So I
think there's been some calls for impa and things like that.
(05:01):
You know, Congress should absolutely impeach judges who are not
doing their jobs. However, that's just not going to be
the solution. The solution, I think, is going to be
a reshaping of what it means to have judicial power,
whether that's coming from the Supreme Court, whether that's coming
from Congress, or whether that's coming from the administration. Just
saying you know what, if you are actually stepping into
the executive branch's power. We're not going to abide by it.
(05:25):
And so I think these judges are really playing with fire.
But they know it, and they want it, and they
want to pick this fight because they feel the leadership
of the Democratic Party right now.
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Let's talk about trade, and that is a big issue
that is I think top of mind for virtually every American.
I have dear friends that knew I was going to
be here today, and I was like they're dealing with
this and they've got companies that are American companies, startups
(07:45):
from their garage that are now being affected because of
this trade war with China. They're very concerned about what
they've built. Where are we with this master plan from
the President? It seems to me he's saying, Hey, I
want to get great deals to with a lot of
countries so that we have much less dependence on China.
(08:06):
This is about reducing China's influence in the world, especially
when it comes to trade. Are we moving forward and
when are we going to start getting deals announced to
calm the markets but also the people that have businesses
and how long are they going to have to deal
with this? Because we saw yesterday it is a good
sign President was meeting with top companies. They're meeting with
Lows and Home Depot and Walmarting Target about this trade war.
(08:30):
That could be good news, but also could be bad
news depending on who you read and what you're being told.
We know the media wants us to be miserable. They
want to be fear mongering. They want this inflation issues
to happen. They want this to be a Trump disaster.
I don't see it that way.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Though, Yeah, I think the President's heart is where actually
a lot of Americans' hearts are, which is that we
want to be supply chain independent. We want to be
able to make our pharmaceuticals at home. We don't want
to be reliant on a country who who is threatening
to us. And yet I think the President also is
(09:05):
a very practical person. He's a business person, he is
a listener, and you can see even from the changes
to the original announcement of reciprocal tariffs, that he wants
to be in it with allies to shore up our
manufacturing against people who do not have our best interests,
including China. So while I can't give a timeline for
(09:28):
when you would see an exact announcement, I can say
that the White House is in listening mode and we
have been hearing from people changes and those changes have
already been implemented, whether whether it has to do with
lower tariffs on certain electronics that we simply can't make
we can't on shore quickly. And then I think also
(09:52):
part of the tesch.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Of security, right, this is when I've asked, and I've
had leaders call me and they're like, Ben, what is
he doing? Why is he doing this and say, look,
you got to look at this from two views. One
is national security, and if you bring enough of that
back to the US, you don't have to be the
leader in the world, but you need to have enough
from a national security standpoint that if something happens frowhere
else in the world, you're still good. And that's part
of what the president I think learned from COVID.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Yeah, and so from a national security standpoint, I think
the nation is pretty strong and we feel good there.
And so really it is focusing on small businesses and
the impact and it is alarming actually how tightly our
supply chains and how quickly they are connected to China, which,
of course, you know something that we all know, which
(10:34):
is why the whole action exists to begin with. But
nobody wants to harm American small businesses. What we want
is for China and the United States to find a
resolution and then of course to eventually work toward a
trade policy that is going to be best for our
(10:55):
national security, best for our economy. And you know, as
President Trump is going to be income tax replacement. And
it's a complicated thing, but no president has really taken
this on seriously and year by year by year by year,
we become more reliant, less safe, less secure, less independent.
(11:20):
And it almost doesn't matter whether you have a southern
border or if the threat is coming in from your
nation's dependence. That said, I think, as you noted, the
President is in complete listening mode. So there is a
need to make sure that our small businesses and our
large businesses, and our supply chains and our consumers are
(11:40):
all accounted for. And these are conversations that are happening
every day in the White House. They're competing every day
in the agencies, at the US Trade Representative, at the
Department of Commerce, at the Department of Treasury, farmers, at
the USDA. This is definitely the number one topic. This
is extremely important. Nobody is taking it lightly, No nobody
(12:00):
looking for you know, massive sacrifices. This is something that
it's a policy that needs to be fixed, it's something
that needs to be implemented. And yet I think you're
going to see reasonable policies being implemented that in our
country toward a more secure posture.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
So when do we start to see I guess, and
you know, momentums everything right, people say, when are we
going to start to see big announcements and hey, we've
got to deal with this country in that country. Are
we days away from that? Are we weeks away from that?
Because momentum is everything and it makes people feel better. Okay,
now we're having success, and now we're getting another one,
(12:41):
and now we're getting another one. We're about one hundred
days in here at the White House. What is that
rollout going to look like? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Hard to say a number of days, but I can
say that those conversations with foreign countries are happening right now,
and so at some level, I think there has been
a lot of progress. You've already seen countries make certain
types of concessions, make changes, make promises, and so it's
locking those in. Sometimes that takes a little bit of
(13:10):
time from the other countries perspective in order to get
an announcement to reality.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
But it's so it's all had done deck right.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
It's presently happening.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
So I talked to an ambassador yesterday who said to me,
he said, look, we just want to know what the
new normal is, and that's what we're working on as
fast as we can with this White House, so that
we can continue to see businesses grow. The spirit from
that ambassador was not one of anger. It was almost
a spirit of hey, we know we were taking advantage
of you guys, so was the rest of the world.
(13:40):
We did what the rest of the world did. This
is a smaller country and I don't want to name
it because it was in confidence, but he was basically admitting, like, hey,
we followed the lead of other countries as they would
take advantage. We were a little lower than they were.
But it was like, why not if this is what
the world looks like in the trade, And he was admitting,
we're willing to totally read this thing. We want to
(14:01):
get it done because we want to keep doing business
with America. We love doing business. He wasn't even upset,
and that gave me, I think a lot of hope
that like, there's a lot of company countries I should
say that are coming to the table who are saying,
we know this deal is going to get redone. In
other words, we know that the price is one described
to me the day they go. We know if you
live in a house under a lease for a long time,
ten years later, there's a very good chance there's going
(14:23):
to be a major change in what you're paying. They
all know that they're accepting it, and so that to me,
sin is a signal of something good coming.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah, the new normal. You know, for the present time,
there is that ten percent rate, which is sort of
a baseline that I think people have accepted and that
the market celebrated when when President Trump first announced it.
And then you know, as far as there are certain
countries who are willing to help us out and do
(14:52):
additional things Elsealvador, Let's take, for example, there are countries
that I think are trying to either lock in those
rates or secure more favorable deals, but you know not
there are a lot of countries out there who want
to have those conversations. Those conversations are all happening, I
would say, starting with like a group of twenty or
(15:14):
so right now and then moving on, moving on, moving on,
And I think the President has signaled multiple times he's
willing to have those conversations with China, and so that's
something that if the you know, Chinese are here to
make a deal, that that can happen as well. But
even for small countries, just because you're small does not
(15:37):
mean that you're forgotten. I think these are going to
happen just on their own time.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Let's move to another issue that I think is really important,
and that is the fight for the president. He has
done this in sports gender ideology, has been saying. He said,
we're going to protect them. We're going to protect women
and women's sports. We're not backing down on that issue.
You look at the president doing this. Democrats do feel
like in some states this is a fight worth fighting
for them. They're trying to rally the troops. As you
(16:05):
mentioned earlier, there is no leader of the Democratic Party
right now. That the party of just no because no
one's in charge. It's totally anarchy and chaos. But they
are trying to find an issue to hone in on.
I think they believe that this gender ideology issue is
one that can at least rally their core base. And
they're saying, we're not going to abide by what you're
telling us to do. Mister President, go ahead and sue.
(16:27):
We'll see you in court. We heard that, but said
from a governor at the White House, like, we'll see
you great, can't wait to see you in court. Where
are we now with that? Because there are still men
acting like women that are still getting to play with
women as we speak in some states.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Right, so it is about to be high school championship season,
and you're already seeing a lot of men at the
regional level, and beyond take trophies from women. You're not
seeing it from the college level because these colleges know
that the NCAA policy requires sex space participation in women's sports.
(17:02):
That doesn't mean you can change your birth certificate. That
means it's based on sex. And this is something that
the NCAA has picked up the phone and enforced when
they feel like something has gone on. So we need
but there's no similar structure at the state level. So
each state is governed by its own state Athletic Association,
and the Trump administration has started investigations into several of them,
(17:24):
into California, into Minnesota, Maine. We filed a lawsuit. First ever.
It has never before happened that a school has lost
its money because of a Title nine violation from the
federal government.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Why never, that's amazing.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Never in the history of Title nine since nineteen seventy two.
Never there've been private lawsuits where people have had to
pay private judgments, but never has the federal government had
to come down on a school and take their federal money.
Why because usually when the Feds come asking, hey, will
you stop discriminating against women, the school is like, sure,
I'd love to stop discriminating against women. It is wild
to me that Maine, this is a very simple ask,
(18:01):
can you just not have men in women's sports? Man
won't do it, And their governor has doubled, tripled down.
And then other states like California, same deal. Colorado is
not only allowing men in women's sports, but they're now
going to disallow you from calling a parent from calling
his or her own child the correct pronouns because that's
(18:24):
child abuse. So I think you are going to see
a divide and we're not going to actually just sit
by and take it. Title nine is a nineteen seventy
two law that says that in education programs, you cannot
discriminate against women. You have to have equal opportunity. You
are not providing women equal opportunity. If you're saying, okay,
yeah you can come here, but you have to use
the bathroom with men. Yeah you can come to our school,
(18:46):
but there will be no women's sports because you are
unequally harming them privacy wise. You're unequally harming them safety
wise competitive and so these I think are very easy
winnable cases. Will take them all the way up to
the Supreme Court if they need to be. But we're
going to make some examples out of some states that
(19:06):
continue to double down on gender ideology, even though the
American public eighty twenty is the other way you.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Look at what the fight looks like. I have a
feeling this is going to be for years because they're
just not going to stop. And you're saying that the
White House has a commitment that we're not going to
let them get away and just isolate and do what
they want to do, and that maybe a liberal university
or a liberal state exactly.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
So if they want to not take federal money, so if.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
You, yeah, fine, do your thing. It's like Harvard, please
give us their tax hours back. I'd love for you
to operate as a radical left university and just admit it, exactly.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
And so this is not some sort of federal takeover
of anything. This is the taxpayers have given you a deal.
And the deal is if you take billions of dollars,
then you're not going to discriminate against women. And we're
just here to enforce that deal. But for states that
spend billions of dollars on illegal immigrant health care, like California,
they can afford to fund their se schools. The federal
(20:00):
government actually is a pretty small percentage of school funding.
Most of it, as you know, is your property taxes
that are local. So it is perfectly possible for states
to fund their own education system, and they would like
to do that and discriminate against women on their own time.
Titlenine has nothing to say about that. Their own state
statutes probably have something to say about that, but Title
(20:22):
nine itself does not. And so that's all we're trying
to do is enforce the deal. And I think Democrats
had a really big opportunity after the election, after they
they took a huge loss because they were too progressive,
and you could hear Seth Moulton and some of these
people saying, maybe we should be more moderate, and I said, no,
they're not going to do that. They can't, and sure
(20:43):
enough they can't. They are owned by their left flank
because they just don't have any leaderships. So this is
going to continue to happen, and we're going to continue
to say fine, no federal funding.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
My guess to me is may Melman. She is a
senior policy strateger just here at the White House. So
let's talk about the first hundred days and what are
your top takeaways if you're checking boxes. I think for me,
number one is the border and I think that has
just been an amazing success to watch border crossings drop
by ninety seven, ninety eight, nine nine percent, whatever the
number is now, it keeps changing, So I want to
(21:12):
you know, it's why I'm giving a little leeway there.
Some fact checker out there will freak out, no, you
got it wrong by decimal point. It's the reality that
this is something he promised and paid off on. But
there's a lot of other wins right now that have
not been talked about in the media specifically.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
So I will just say one of the biggest wins
is our energy agenda, the drill, Baby drill. I think
it's harder to see wins here because some permits take
a long time to actually turn in to a project.
But when you see what's actually happening, So Biden said,
for LNG exports, we're not going to issue any new permits.
(21:49):
We have already issued four new permits. Biden said, We're
not going to do any coal leasing. We've opened up
federal lands for coal leasing, and we've rescinded regulations that
are preventing coal's minds from moving forward, and several have
already either announced or already opened up. I think you're
(22:09):
going to see a lot of news coming very soon
on this crazy thing called the Social cost of Carbon,
which basically said that if you want a new project,
you have to present to the government as a cost
of your project, the carbon that you would use to
build the project, and then the carbon that would be
created from your project. Meaning no projects could ever move
(22:30):
forward because it would seem like it was just going
to be so costly, so terrible. These are, of course
invented things about what's going to happen in three hundred years.
I don't even know what the weather's going to be tomorrow,
and so I think that you're going to see a
lot of positive movement there. The Endangered Species Act, I'll
do one more. For years, you can't build anything because
if you hurt the butterfly's habitat, you can't have a project.
(22:53):
And so Biden spent all this money on the Inflation
Reduction Act, and we're going to build this and this
and this billions of dollars nothing was build. Why, well,
you have to do all of these neaper rules, and
you have to do the Environment Metal Species Act, and
what about the caterpillar? So we proposed a rule that said,
it's not about whether you're harming the habitat in some
emotional sense. You actually have to physically harm the animals
(23:17):
in order to trigger this law. So we're making a
lot of these regulatory changes that are going to expand building,
expand energy. We've already hosted all the major energy companies here.
They're very excited building pipeline in Alaska, finishing pipeline on
the East Coast, talking to governors there who are from
not friendly states, but who understand the national security needs.
(23:38):
So energy, I think is something that's under talked about
but has huge wins and actually will have huge implications.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
It's amazing how it's not talked about. When the price
of gas comes down, it's like, okay, it's better, But
when it's up, everybody wants to know who to blame. Well,
it's come down, and then the media is like, great,
we don't have to talk about it anymore.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Right. Even the cost of eggs is I think down
three dollars from the time.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Man, it was a big deal though at the beginning.
Remember go back one hundred days ago. Everything's Trump's fault. Now,
no one's talking about the cost of.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Eggs, right, and there are no shortages. And what Biden
did is he implemented a kill all the chickens strategy.
And so, of course, when Biden kills all the chickens,
there are no chickens left to lay eggs. Not asking
whether you could do pasteurization, other types of things you
could protect the you know, protect the flocks. Whatever kills
all the birds, and so then tries to blame President Trump.
(24:30):
But of course these are things that we are working
through in order to lower costs, our deregulation costs. We
have twelve rules that have either been already rescinded or
being proposed to rescind that have a savings of fifty
billion dollars. So that's just easy deregulatory wins already in
the first one hundred days. So these types of things,
(24:52):
you know, maybe a deregulatory effort that says you no
longer have to purchase an EV won't affect you immediately,
but it will affect you the next time you buy
a car and that car doesn't have an inflated price
of another ten to fifteen one thousand dollars, I think
people can remember how expensive things got, or the California
Evy mandate, where California basically gets to make the car
(25:13):
rules for half the country and we're saying no, California
doesn't get to do that anymore. So these are the
types of things that Americans are going to feel when
they may have those big purchases. You know, standards for showerheads,
washing machines, gas stoves, these types of things, expanding options, furnaces,
water furnaces, these types of things that are deregulatory, giving
(25:33):
options for consumers and lowering prices.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Final question for you, looking for the next hundred days,
what do you think the biggest win is going to
be for the American people? Is that going to be
victories with trade.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
I think we can look forward to victories with trade.
I think deregulation is going to really kick in. We
have a ten to one deregulation mandate. It's not a goal,
it's a mandate in order for to see this. But
then I think also we're going to see some action
from Congress. So Congress is going to push forward its
Reconciliation bill, which is going to have a solidify a
(26:05):
lot of our priorities, but some things that we couldn't
do administratively, things about you know, benefits that go to
illegal aliens that shouldn't these types of things fixes that
we absolutely need. You're going to see that come through Congress.
So a lot of our focus right now is shifting
away from some of these must have administrative wins to
how can we lock those wins in with Congress. It's
(26:27):
a little bit difficult working with you know that many people,
but that's at least where my attention is going right now.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
It's awesome. I appreciate your time. May Melman, Senior Policy Strate,
just here at the White House. Firste hundred days of
successes are big for the American people. You guys are
working hard, and there's a lot more to come in
and we'll obviously be chatting with you again real soon.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
All right, Thanks for having me
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Don't forget share this podcast with your family and friends,
share it on social media please, and I'll see you
back here tomorrow.
Good morning, Welcome. It is the Ben Ferguson Podcast. Nice
to have you with us. We're live here at the
White House, and my guess with me now is May Melman,
senior policy strategist at the White House and a unique
perspective because she was in forty five in that administration,
you're now in forty seven. We were talking before the
show and I just let's just start with this because
(00:21):
I think it's so cool. This White House is running
at a different pace than it did with the first
time around. Part of that was learning government. I think
part of it's having a team this time that seems
to be working as a team and just seems like
everyone wants to win and is getting along. The leaks
were not seeing like we did last time. It seems
(00:42):
like everybody's a team player. This is really fun to
watch on the outside. I was in the Bush administration
and it was in the second from four to HO eight,
and it was just a different type of team than
we had in the first part. You got to enjoy
watching the past and now the president. How cool is
that for you? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:59):
I used to be jealous of what the Bush people
had in the sense that they still did reunions, and
they all hung out with each other and they you know,
we had our criticisms, certainly, but it felt like they
were all very unified. And I think during Trump one
point zero, people very much got along. It was friendly.
(01:19):
But people had come from different places. So you had
people who were campaign people, you had people who were
RNC people, you had people who were either longtime friends
of the family, these sort you know, everyone kind of
had their own different background. But now there is such
a thing as Trump World, and there are people who
have been here and those they've had relationships and they've
(01:39):
had ups and downs with each other, and so it
is easier to have everybody rowing in the same direction.
And I've had strange experiences that I never had during
the first time. So during the first time, I was
also writing a lot of executive orders, helping push a
lot of policies, and I would have to follow up
and follow up and follow up, and nothing would happen
at the speed and the pace and the level that
(02:02):
I wanted it to. Now, if I write something that's
very nuanced, I'm careful, Okay, we're not trying to do this.
People will just do it at the one hundred out
of ten, even though we we just need a ten
out of ten. That's okay. So the excitement people have
been planning, people are ready to go, and it does
feel very different, even though it is actually a lot
(02:22):
of the same people. I'm working with a lot of
the same people, but it's just different this time.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
So let's talk about where we are one hundred days in.
You're here, your senior pology strategists. I think one of
the big things that people are witnessing right now they're
concerned about is the law fair. There is very clear
a movement by the left, by the Democrats to use
the court system and activist judges, their allies that they
(02:47):
know are quarly on their team, making sure they're filing
things in certain courts where they know it'll give them
a favorable opinion, which is against this White House, and
trying to stop the president of a law fair. You
guys are fighting back. You work with Jason Miller. You
guys are out there hardcore going against this. Where are
we now and how big of a roadblock is this
going to be for Trump's agenda getting actually done well.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
The Democrats have no political strategy, they have no political leader,
They have no North Star, so all they have is no.
And the place you go for no is the courts,
and so that's where all the money has been, that's
where the excitement is, that's where the investment is. Is
just no. There's some protests, there's blowing up tesla's, but
mostly it's in the courts. And I think the judges
(03:31):
are very excited. These are activists, these are longtime Democrat donors, partisans,
you know, they're part of the movement. They're excited to
actually be the leaders of the left right now. And
so yeah, it is a problem. I'm a lawyer. For
four years when I was not in the White House,
I was bringing lawsuits and the judges that we would get,
even if we were in conservative areas of the country
(03:53):
with very conservative judges, these were measured approaches. I'll just
take Title nine for example, twenty six states brought lawsuits
and I think eight different jurisdictions to challenge Biden's rewrite
of Title nine. Each one of those judges, every single one,
issued an injunction that was just narrowed to the parties
that had brought the suit, So there never was a
nationwide injunction. Even with twenty six states in eight different lawsuits.
(04:17):
Compare that to here, where you just have any sort
of group. It's not states bringing these this is just
random people, random activists, bringing these lawsuits and getting nationwide
injunctions at the TRO stage, the temporary restraining order stage,
which is not even assessment of the merits of whether
you're right or wrong. It's just, hey, I'm the judge,
(04:39):
and I feel like doing this nationwide thing based not
even on the merits. I want to freeze the Trump
administration from doing anything. So this law fair is a serious,
serious problem in my opinion. I think that it violates
the job of the judiciary, which is to say what
the law is, not to become the policymaker. So I
think there's been some calls for impa and things like that.
(05:01):
You know, Congress should absolutely impeach judges who are not
doing their jobs. However, that's just not going to be
the solution. The solution, I think, is going to be
a reshaping of what it means to have judicial power,
whether that's coming from the Supreme Court, whether that's coming
from Congress, or whether that's coming from the administration. Just
saying you know what, if you are actually stepping into
the executive branch's power. We're not going to abide by it.
(05:25):
And so I think these judges are really playing with fire.
But they know it, and they want it, and they
want to pick this fight because they feel the leadership
of the Democratic Party right now.
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Let's talk about trade, and that is a big issue
that is I think top of mind for virtually every American.
I have dear friends that knew I was going to
be here today, and I was like they're dealing with
this and they've got companies that are American companies, startups
(07:45):
from their garage that are now being affected because of
this trade war with China. They're very concerned about what
they've built. Where are we with this master plan from
the President? It seems to me he's saying, Hey, I
want to get great deals to with a lot of
countries so that we have much less dependence on China.
(08:06):
This is about reducing China's influence in the world, especially
when it comes to trade. Are we moving forward and
when are we going to start getting deals announced to
calm the markets but also the people that have businesses
and how long are they going to have to deal
with this? Because we saw yesterday it is a good
sign President was meeting with top companies. They're meeting with
Lows and Home Depot and Walmarting Target about this trade war.
(08:30):
That could be good news, but also could be bad
news depending on who you read and what you're being told.
We know the media wants us to be miserable. They
want to be fear mongering. They want this inflation issues
to happen. They want this to be a Trump disaster.
I don't see it that way.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Though, Yeah, I think the President's heart is where actually
a lot of Americans' hearts are, which is that we
want to be supply chain independent. We want to be
able to make our pharmaceuticals at home. We don't want
to be reliant on a country who who is threatening
to us. And yet I think the President also is
(09:05):
a very practical person. He's a business person, he is
a listener, and you can see even from the changes
to the original announcement of reciprocal tariffs, that he wants
to be in it with allies to shore up our
manufacturing against people who do not have our best interests,
including China. So while I can't give a timeline for
(09:28):
when you would see an exact announcement, I can say
that the White House is in listening mode and we
have been hearing from people changes and those changes have
already been implemented, whether whether it has to do with
lower tariffs on certain electronics that we simply can't make
we can't on shore quickly. And then I think also
(09:52):
part of the tesch.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Of security, right, this is when I've asked, and I've
had leaders call me and they're like, Ben, what is
he doing? Why is he doing this and say, look,
you got to look at this from two views. One
is national security, and if you bring enough of that
back to the US, you don't have to be the
leader in the world, but you need to have enough
from a national security standpoint that if something happens frowhere
else in the world, you're still good. And that's part
of what the president I think learned from COVID.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Yeah, and so from a national security standpoint, I think
the nation is pretty strong and we feel good there.
And so really it is focusing on small businesses and
the impact and it is alarming actually how tightly our
supply chains and how quickly they are connected to China, which,
of course, you know something that we all know, which
(10:34):
is why the whole action exists to begin with. But
nobody wants to harm American small businesses. What we want
is for China and the United States to find a
resolution and then of course to eventually work toward a
trade policy that is going to be best for our
(10:55):
national security, best for our economy. And you know, as
President Trump is going to be income tax replacement. And
it's a complicated thing, but no president has really taken
this on seriously and year by year by year by year,
we become more reliant, less safe, less secure, less independent.
(11:20):
And it almost doesn't matter whether you have a southern
border or if the threat is coming in from your
nation's dependence. That said, I think, as you noted, the
President is in complete listening mode. So there is a
need to make sure that our small businesses and our
large businesses, and our supply chains and our consumers are
(11:40):
all accounted for. And these are conversations that are happening
every day in the White House. They're competing every day
in the agencies, at the US Trade Representative, at the
Department of Commerce, at the Department of Treasury, farmers, at
the USDA. This is definitely the number one topic. This
is extremely important. Nobody is taking it lightly, No nobody
(12:00):
looking for you know, massive sacrifices. This is something that
it's a policy that needs to be fixed, it's something
that needs to be implemented. And yet I think you're
going to see reasonable policies being implemented that in our
country toward a more secure posture.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
So when do we start to see I guess, and
you know, momentums everything right, people say, when are we
going to start to see big announcements and hey, we've
got to deal with this country in that country. Are
we days away from that? Are we weeks away from that?
Because momentum is everything and it makes people feel better. Okay,
now we're having success, and now we're getting another one,
(12:41):
and now we're getting another one. We're about one hundred
days in here at the White House. What is that
rollout going to look like? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Hard to say a number of days, but I can
say that those conversations with foreign countries are happening right now,
and so at some level, I think there has been
a lot of progress. You've already seen countries make certain
types of concessions, make changes, make promises, and so it's
locking those in. Sometimes that takes a little bit of
(13:10):
time from the other countries perspective in order to get
an announcement to reality.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
But it's so it's all had done deck right.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
It's presently happening.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
So I talked to an ambassador yesterday who said to me,
he said, look, we just want to know what the
new normal is, and that's what we're working on as
fast as we can with this White House, so that
we can continue to see businesses grow. The spirit from
that ambassador was not one of anger. It was almost
a spirit of hey, we know we were taking advantage
of you guys, so was the rest of the world.
(13:40):
We did what the rest of the world did. This
is a smaller country and I don't want to name
it because it was in confidence, but he was basically admitting, like, hey,
we followed the lead of other countries as they would
take advantage. We were a little lower than they were.
But it was like, why not if this is what
the world looks like in the trade, And he was admitting,
we're willing to totally read this thing. We want to
(14:01):
get it done because we want to keep doing business
with America. We love doing business. He wasn't even upset,
and that gave me, I think a lot of hope
that like, there's a lot of company countries I should
say that are coming to the table who are saying,
we know this deal is going to get redone. In
other words, we know that the price is one described
to me the day they go. We know if you
live in a house under a lease for a long time,
ten years later, there's a very good chance there's going
(14:23):
to be a major change in what you're paying. They
all know that they're accepting it, and so that to me,
sin is a signal of something good coming.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah, the new normal. You know, for the present time,
there is that ten percent rate, which is sort of
a baseline that I think people have accepted and that
the market celebrated when when President Trump first announced it.
And then you know, as far as there are certain
countries who are willing to help us out and do
(14:52):
additional things Elsealvador, Let's take, for example, there are countries
that I think are trying to either lock in those
rates or secure more favorable deals, but you know not
there are a lot of countries out there who want
to have those conversations. Those conversations are all happening, I
would say, starting with like a group of twenty or
(15:14):
so right now and then moving on, moving on, moving on,
And I think the President has signaled multiple times he's
willing to have those conversations with China, and so that's
something that if the you know, Chinese are here to
make a deal, that that can happen as well. But
even for small countries, just because you're small does not
(15:37):
mean that you're forgotten. I think these are going to
happen just on their own time.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Let's move to another issue that I think is really important,
and that is the fight for the president. He has
done this in sports gender ideology, has been saying. He said,
we're going to protect them. We're going to protect women
and women's sports. We're not backing down on that issue.
You look at the president doing this. Democrats do feel
like in some states this is a fight worth fighting
for them. They're trying to rally the troops. As you
(16:05):
mentioned earlier, there is no leader of the Democratic Party
right now. That the party of just no because no
one's in charge. It's totally anarchy and chaos. But they
are trying to find an issue to hone in on.
I think they believe that this gender ideology issue is
one that can at least rally their core base. And
they're saying, we're not going to abide by what you're
telling us to do. Mister President, go ahead and sue.
(16:27):
We'll see you in court. We heard that, but said
from a governor at the White House, like, we'll see
you great, can't wait to see you in court. Where
are we now with that? Because there are still men
acting like women that are still getting to play with
women as we speak in some states.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Right, so it is about to be high school championship season,
and you're already seeing a lot of men at the
regional level, and beyond take trophies from women. You're not
seeing it from the college level because these colleges know
that the NCAA policy requires sex space participation in women's sports.
(17:02):
That doesn't mean you can change your birth certificate. That
means it's based on sex. And this is something that
the NCAA has picked up the phone and enforced when
they feel like something has gone on. So we need
but there's no similar structure at the state level. So
each state is governed by its own state Athletic Association,
and the Trump administration has started investigations into several of them,
(17:24):
into California, into Minnesota, Maine. We filed a lawsuit. First ever.
It has never before happened that a school has lost
its money because of a Title nine violation from the
federal government.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Why never, that's amazing.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Never in the history of Title nine since nineteen seventy two.
Never there've been private lawsuits where people have had to
pay private judgments, but never has the federal government had
to come down on a school and take their federal money.
Why because usually when the Feds come asking, hey, will
you stop discriminating against women, the school is like, sure,
I'd love to stop discriminating against women. It is wild
to me that Maine, this is a very simple ask,
(18:01):
can you just not have men in women's sports? Man
won't do it, And their governor has doubled, tripled down.
And then other states like California, same deal. Colorado is
not only allowing men in women's sports, but they're now
going to disallow you from calling a parent from calling
his or her own child the correct pronouns because that's
(18:24):
child abuse. So I think you are going to see
a divide and we're not going to actually just sit
by and take it. Title nine is a nineteen seventy
two law that says that in education programs, you cannot
discriminate against women. You have to have equal opportunity. You
are not providing women equal opportunity. If you're saying, okay,
yeah you can come here, but you have to use
the bathroom with men. Yeah you can come to our school,
(18:46):
but there will be no women's sports because you are
unequally harming them privacy wise. You're unequally harming them safety
wise competitive and so these I think are very easy
winnable cases. Will take them all the way up to
the Supreme Court if they need to be. But we're
going to make some examples out of some states that
(19:06):
continue to double down on gender ideology, even though the
American public eighty twenty is the other way you.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Look at what the fight looks like. I have a
feeling this is going to be for years because they're
just not going to stop. And you're saying that the
White House has a commitment that we're not going to
let them get away and just isolate and do what
they want to do, and that maybe a liberal university
or a liberal state exactly.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
So if they want to not take federal money, so if.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
You, yeah, fine, do your thing. It's like Harvard, please
give us their tax hours back. I'd love for you
to operate as a radical left university and just admit it, exactly.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
And so this is not some sort of federal takeover
of anything. This is the taxpayers have given you a deal.
And the deal is if you take billions of dollars,
then you're not going to discriminate against women. And we're
just here to enforce that deal. But for states that
spend billions of dollars on illegal immigrant health care, like California,
they can afford to fund their se schools. The federal
(20:00):
government actually is a pretty small percentage of school funding.
Most of it, as you know, is your property taxes
that are local. So it is perfectly possible for states
to fund their own education system, and they would like
to do that and discriminate against women on their own time.
Titlenine has nothing to say about that. Their own state
statutes probably have something to say about that, but Title
(20:22):
nine itself does not. And so that's all we're trying
to do is enforce the deal. And I think Democrats
had a really big opportunity after the election, after they
they took a huge loss because they were too progressive,
and you could hear Seth Moulton and some of these
people saying, maybe we should be more moderate, and I said, no,
they're not going to do that. They can't, and sure
(20:43):
enough they can't. They are owned by their left flank
because they just don't have any leaderships. So this is
going to continue to happen, and we're going to continue
to say fine, no federal funding.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
My guess to me is may Melman. She is a
senior policy strateger just here at the White House. So
let's talk about the first hundred days and what are
your top takeaways if you're checking boxes. I think for me,
number one is the border and I think that has
just been an amazing success to watch border crossings drop
by ninety seven, ninety eight, nine nine percent, whatever the
number is now, it keeps changing, So I want to
(21:12):
you know, it's why I'm giving a little leeway there.
Some fact checker out there will freak out, no, you
got it wrong by decimal point. It's the reality that
this is something he promised and paid off on. But
there's a lot of other wins right now that have
not been talked about in the media specifically.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
So I will just say one of the biggest wins
is our energy agenda, the drill, Baby drill. I think
it's harder to see wins here because some permits take
a long time to actually turn in to a project.
But when you see what's actually happening, So Biden said,
for LNG exports, we're not going to issue any new permits.
(21:49):
We have already issued four new permits. Biden said, We're
not going to do any coal leasing. We've opened up
federal lands for coal leasing, and we've rescinded regulations that
are preventing coal's minds from moving forward, and several have
already either announced or already opened up. I think you're
(22:09):
going to see a lot of news coming very soon
on this crazy thing called the Social cost of Carbon,
which basically said that if you want a new project,
you have to present to the government as a cost
of your project, the carbon that you would use to
build the project, and then the carbon that would be
created from your project. Meaning no projects could ever move
(22:30):
forward because it would seem like it was just going
to be so costly, so terrible. These are, of course
invented things about what's going to happen in three hundred years.
I don't even know what the weather's going to be tomorrow,
and so I think that you're going to see a
lot of positive movement there. The Endangered Species Act, I'll
do one more. For years, you can't build anything because
if you hurt the butterfly's habitat, you can't have a project.
(22:53):
And so Biden spent all this money on the Inflation
Reduction Act, and we're going to build this and this
and this billions of dollars nothing was build. Why, well,
you have to do all of these neaper rules, and
you have to do the Environment Metal Species Act, and
what about the caterpillar? So we proposed a rule that said,
it's not about whether you're harming the habitat in some
emotional sense. You actually have to physically harm the animals
(23:17):
in order to trigger this law. So we're making a
lot of these regulatory changes that are going to expand building,
expand energy. We've already hosted all the major energy companies here.
They're very excited building pipeline in Alaska, finishing pipeline on
the East Coast, talking to governors there who are from
not friendly states, but who understand the national security needs.
(23:38):
So energy, I think is something that's under talked about
but has huge wins and actually will have huge implications.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
It's amazing how it's not talked about. When the price
of gas comes down, it's like, okay, it's better, But
when it's up, everybody wants to know who to blame. Well,
it's come down, and then the media is like, great,
we don't have to talk about it anymore.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Right. Even the cost of eggs is I think down
three dollars from the time.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Man, it was a big deal though at the beginning.
Remember go back one hundred days ago. Everything's Trump's fault. Now,
no one's talking about the cost of.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Eggs, right, and there are no shortages. And what Biden
did is he implemented a kill all the chickens strategy.
And so, of course, when Biden kills all the chickens,
there are no chickens left to lay eggs. Not asking
whether you could do pasteurization, other types of things you
could protect the you know, protect the flocks. Whatever kills
all the birds, and so then tries to blame President Trump.
(24:30):
But of course these are things that we are working
through in order to lower costs, our deregulation costs. We
have twelve rules that have either been already rescinded or
being proposed to rescind that have a savings of fifty
billion dollars. So that's just easy deregulatory wins already in
the first one hundred days. So these types of things,
(24:52):
you know, maybe a deregulatory effort that says you no
longer have to purchase an EV won't affect you immediately,
but it will affect you the next time you buy
a car and that car doesn't have an inflated price
of another ten to fifteen one thousand dollars, I think
people can remember how expensive things got, or the California
Evy mandate, where California basically gets to make the car
(25:13):
rules for half the country and we're saying no, California
doesn't get to do that anymore. So these are the
types of things that Americans are going to feel when
they may have those big purchases. You know, standards for showerheads,
washing machines, gas stoves, these types of things, expanding options, furnaces,
water furnaces, these types of things that are deregulatory, giving
(25:33):
options for consumers and lowering prices.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Final question for you, looking for the next hundred days,
what do you think the biggest win is going to
be for the American people? Is that going to be
victories with trade.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
I think we can look forward to victories with trade.
I think deregulation is going to really kick in. We
have a ten to one deregulation mandate. It's not a goal,
it's a mandate in order for to see this. But
then I think also we're going to see some action
from Congress. So Congress is going to push forward its
Reconciliation bill, which is going to have a solidify a
(26:05):
lot of our priorities, but some things that we couldn't
do administratively, things about you know, benefits that go to
illegal aliens that shouldn't these types of things fixes that
we absolutely need. You're going to see that come through Congress.
So a lot of our focus right now is shifting
away from some of these must have administrative wins to
how can we lock those wins in with Congress. It's
(26:27):
a little bit difficult working with you know that many people,
but that's at least where my attention is going right now.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
It's awesome. I appreciate your time. May Melman, Senior Policy Strate,
just here at the White House. Firste hundred days of
successes are big for the American people. You guys are
working hard, and there's a lot more to come in
and we'll obviously be chatting with you again real soon.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
All right, Thanks for having me
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Don't forget share this podcast with your family and friends,
share it on social media please, and I'll see you
back here tomorrow.
Host
Ben Ferguson
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