cities off the map. horrifying, but has to be understood in the peculiar context of this most terrible war in history too. yes. >> there's been some speculation that roosevelt's, toward the end of the period of this book roosevelt said we were going for unconditional surrender. and there's been some speculation that it extended the european war -- >> sorry, what was that last part? >> there's been some speculation that it extended the european war. do you think it impacted the pacific war? >> yeah, i think it did, absolutely. you know, roosevelt -- and i get a little bit into the way roosevelt made decisions. he was a brilliant leader, great president. he was often a real disaster as an administrator, would make decisions without talking to his advisers, would make them off the cuff, would refuse to make decisions when decisions were needed, and then would suddenly

make sweeping decisions that weren't very well thought out. and that was an example, it was at the casablanca conference where he simply blurted out in front of newsmen we're going to accept nothing less than unconditional surrender. and you can look at the expression on winston churchill's face -- [laughter] and say, well, you know, we haven't talked about that, and that could be a mistake. of course, once the words had been said, they couldn't be taken back. it was a gift to the propaganda, propagandists on the other side who said, well, what does unconditional surrender mean? it means they're going to come in and basically enslave us. so, therefore, we have to fight to the end. on the other hand, if the allies had pushed for unconditional surrender in 1918, 1919, perhaps the second world war wouldn't have had to have been fought. so that's the counterpoint. yes, ma'am.

>> i ask ask you about -- can i ask you about the -- [inaudible] what do you cover necessarily? are you covering the naval battles or the philippine -- >> the philippine sea, yes. >> the one in october 1944? >> that one will come in the next -- >> okay. >> there's a three-book series. the first one is really just the first three months of the war, the surprise strike on pearl harbor to the devastating american counterpunch at the battle of midway and also quite a bit on the background to the war and things that had happened earlier. this is the middle, the heart of the war between june 1942 and july 1944, really ending with the marianas campaign and the battle of the philippine sea, so the battle -- >> and your next book will be laity gulf --

>> to some extent. yes. yes, ma'am. >> okay. can i just say one thing? >> sure. >> on saturday, october 24th, if anybody's interested, there is a conference on world war ii in the philippines. it's at the san francisco main library. >> that's right, i saw that. yeah. >> so i'm one of the co-chairs of it. >> what is the date again? i'll repeat it. >> october 24th. >> on october -- >> october 24th. >> that's a saturday? >> it's a saturday. >> october 24th at 10:00 -- >> yes. it starts at 10:30 and ends in the afternoon. >> and it's at the main branch of the san francisco public library in the civic center. so try to make that, if you can. [applause] >> so if you have a book, please come on up, and if you'd like to purchase one, the registers are open behind you. [inaudible conversations]

>> you're watching booktv, nonfiction authors and books every weekend on c-span2. television for serious readers. >> michelle malkin, in your new book "soldout," what happened at disney? >> disney workers were summoned into this meeting room. a lot of them had just gotten off of a project where they performed with excellent skill, and a lot of them assumed that they were going to be rewarded somehow, and it was a horror story that no hollywood writers could conjure up. in this case the reality was so much worse than anything that they could have are imagined. they were -- they could have imagined. they were informed that they were going to be laid off, but even worse, and this is something that has been repeated

over and over again in american companies over the last couple of decades, it's been sort of like the dirty little open secret of the information technology industry, they were told that they were going to be forced to train their cheap foreign replacements from india as a condition of receiving any kind of severance pay. this is not some sort of aberrant outcome of our current immigration and entrance policies, it's actually built into the law that created the h-1b specialty worker program. and we blow the lid off, my co-author and i, in our new book, and i think that it is -- and we have been told and it's already been written in a computer world book review that the timing of the book is very fortuitous. i think in some ways providential. at a time during an election cycle when these issues are finally coming to the fore and

where there's now a growing awareness of this practice, and the devastating impact that these policies are having on the best and brightest workers in america. >> host: well, your co-author is also with us, he's with the center for immigration studies as well. how does the h-1b guest worker program work? >> guest: well, the way it works is, actually, it's a three-steps process. first, the employer has to make a labor condition application in which they certify they're going to be paying the so-called prevailing wage and that they're not going to be adversely, that they're not going to be violating certain rules. unfortunately, this step is just a paper-shuffling exercise, because once it's submitted, the department of labor is required to approve all of these labor condition applications as long as the form is filled out correctly. then when that's approved, and you can pretty much guess it'll be automatically approved, they submit the actual visa petition

to u.s. cis, and if they approve it, they go to the state department to get the visa. >> host: and how many workers are coming into the united states, and where are they going? >> guest: about 120-130,000 are coming a year. >> host: i thought this was capped at about 65,000. >> guest: yeah, well, see, that's the little mistake. they don't count all the visas in that cap. there's a base cap of 65,000, there's an additional cap of 20,000 for u.s. graduates and unlimited for people going to academia and research. and the reason why they say, do it this way is because you can say, oh, we've been capped for all these years. in reality, the number of visas has more than doubled since the 1990s. >> host: in your book, michelle malkin, you write: the manufacturing of a crisis, there is no s.t.e.m. shortage. we repeat, there is no s.t.e.m. shortage. s.t.e.m., of course, being science, technology, engineering

and math. >> guest: this is one of the keystone issues of the entire debate over the last 25 years. this month, november, actually marks the 25th anniversary of the creation of the h-1b program. and all along there's been this underlying premise on the part of both big business and big government cheerleaders for the program that we need to bring in these, we need to have this huge pipeline, and it needs to be increased. and in some cases, many of these political crap weasels, as i call them, that's what the subtitle is of the book, "the bipartisan beltway crapweasels in washington" who cut all the back room deals to do things like what john said, to have the unlimited number of people coming in under the h-1b program who are hired by academic institutions and research institutions. and it all rests on this

presumption that there are not enough american high-skilled workers doing this job. and we trace the history of a lot of the advocacy research, much of it which was born inside the government bowels, to bolster this claim that there were not enough native-born and legal permanent residents already here to fill these jobs. and it's not true, and the fact is that outside of sort of the d.c. front group, front groups of lobbyists, this constellation of lobbyists and special interests that always masquerade by these patriotic names. we have a chapter in the book called "legion of doom" where we basically catalog where these people are coming from, where the money is coming from, and we highlight a lot of the shoddy advocacy research they're doing. but when you look at independent

academics, people who don't have a vested interest, people who are nonpartisan, it's clear from all the economic evidence just simply looking at wages in this country in these particular sectors that there is no shortage. and, in fact, we've had a lot of data come in over the last couple of years that indicates that you've got millions, 11 out of some 15 million americans who have these so-called s.t.e.m. diplomas who aren't able to find work because they're undercut and underpriced by these h-1b visa holders. >> host: the numbers are going to be up on the screen if you'd like to participate in our conversation with the co-authors of "sold out." michelle malkin, my guess is that crapweasels was something you put in the title of this book. [laughter] what is a crapweasel?

>> guest: look, it represents this creature in washington, an elected official who says one thing to get elected and then turns around and not just does another thing, but completely betrays the base of voters who sent hem there in the fist place. and, well, that pretty much covers 99.9% of washington, doesn't it? [laughter] >> host: exposed, how beltway crapweasels cooked up the gang of eight's immigration reform. everyone in washington pretends to agree america's immigration system is broken and needs to be fixed. john milano. >> guest: well, it's interesting you mention that, because somehow we've been sold that this bill would actually reform the immigration system. in reality are, comprehensive reform didn't reform anything. and that's how, essentially, washington works. they distracted the public by creating a bill that doesn't reform immigration, calling it immigration reform, so there's absolutely nothing out there to

reform immigration. and one of the obvious examples of that is the bill that created the current immigration system in 1952 was 120 pages long. comprehensive reform in 2013 was 1,198 pages. and that wasn't 1,198 new pages, that was 1,198 pages on top of the 120 pages and on top of everything added over the decades. >> host: okay. got two articles here that i want to push back just a little and get your view as an immigration lawyer and somebody who is with the center for immigration studies. first of all, here is debunking the myth that immigration harms america. this is put out by several groups including national association of manufacturers, u.s. chamber of commerce, fwd forward didn't us.

myth: lowering the number of immigrants would free up jobs for american workers. and they say, fact: immigration helps create jobs for american workers. >> guest: where's the evidence? anyone can just say that. i mean, immigration itself isn't going to just create a job. there has to be other factors as well. >> host: such as? >> guest: you know, that -- what is the type of immigrant? i mean, if i, if you import a, someone who's a panhandler as an immigrant, let's go with one end, that person's not going to create a job. so there have to be certain, you know, you have to qualify it more than immigrant creates jobs, and that's how they express it. >> guest: the other thing, too, that i think is important in the book, you know, really one of my core missions as a journalist over the last 25 years is to help people synthesize information. and the sinnery that -- synergy

that john and i had in writing this book came from, you know, my journalism background and being able to tell stories and john's, with his analytical skills and, of course, the depth of knowledge that he has about how all of the immigration so-called reform sausage making has occurred in this town. and part of that entire kabooky theater involves these advocacy groups that pose as neutral number crunchers. and so we have what i think is a very important and enlightening section on one of these very prominent groups. it's the partnership for, national partnership for a new economy, and in conjunction with not just from my perspective as a conservative journalist, people on the left, but people on the so-called right. big business interests, conservative think tanks.

and they come up with, they just pull these figures out of the air and then have them regurgitated by bill gates or mark zuckerberg, and they march up onto capitol hill, and not only do they claim that there's a tech worker shortage, but they also say that h-1b actually magically creates some random multiplier of jobs, 10, 20, 50 times. and it really takes even just a basic knowledge of things like, yes, regression analysis. i know your eyes are glazing over. but it's important to understand how they cook the books. >> host: some of these groups' names include compete america, council for global immigration, information technology industry council and things like that. but then on leftish side of the spectrum is the american immigration council, and they say before employer can file a

petition with the u.s. citizen and immigration service, the employer must attest that employment of the h-1b worker will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly-employed u.s. workers. >> guest: actually, they're quoting from a different statute, not one that doesn't apply to h-1b. that's 85a which the government claims does not apply to h-1b. and, in fact, as they said, when they make those at testations, the department of labor is required to approve them as long as the form is filled out correctly. >> guest: yeah. this is just part, again, of the entire smoke screen that goes on. because they assume that your average, ordinary american doesn't have time and is not interested in knowing the distinction thes between a labor certification application and a labor condition application. and so it is part of the big,

fat lie. and we bust all of these myths in the chapter on all of the talking points that you always hear. somehow american workers are protected not only with regard to so-called nondisplacement clauses, but with recruitment conditions as well. and it turns out, of course, that many of these things that they claim protect the entire class of american workers only apply to a tiny, teeny, tiny, tiny amount of businesses in this country. and then for the businesses that they do apply to, of course, they've got lobbyists in the back room trying to make sure that their special preference or special loophole is built into, oh, i don't know, the gang of eight bill and its 6,000 pages or whatever it is. >> host: well, let's take some calls. let's get our callers involved. the book is called "sold out." michelle malkin and john milano are the co-authors, and steve is calling in from phoenix on our democrats' line.

please go ahead, steve. >> guest: good morning, and thank you for c-span. i'm not trying to beat up anybody, but the question is, where is the surprise? yeah. it's all about capitalism. capitalism is about gathering market share. it only seems reasonable to me that in the desire to lower the prices, we're going to get the lowest priced labor. it worked so good with the palette maker and the forklift driver, why not work up the chain? that's my question. it worked down below, why not up above? >> host: john milano? >> guest: what i'd say is you see that it's coming, that the big business is coming at the american worker from all sides, that, you know, we've seen it as you're describing at the low wage, and most of the public debate is on the low wage. low-wage immigration, should we have some sort of amnesty for illegal aliens. but problem of americans in tech industries being fired and

replaced by foreign workers really hasn't hit the news until recently. >> guest: and the other thing i would add, too, is that this comes up a lot because, of course, there are a lot of fissures on the right side of the aisle between libertarians who join with sort of open borders folks on left, and this is all in the headlines of the papers today about where does the gop stand. i think our feeling about the h-1b program and all of these foreign guest worker programs is this is not capitalism. [laughter] this is cronyism. this is american businesses, the creme de la creme in silicon valley using the power of government to rig the game. and, in fact, in an appendix in the book we reprint the e-mails between google and apple fixing wages. hay want to fix wages -- they want to fix wages, and they want to fix their pipeline for this, or you know, cheap foreign labor supply that's undercutting america. >> host: well, in fact, this headline came from this

morning's "usa today," more temp workers might come to the u.s. congress is considering legislation to allow u.s. employers to bring in thousands more unskilled foreign workers for seasonal jobs that last as long as ten months at a time. i know that's not what your book is about, it's about the h-1b program that everybody seems to support, but what about the issue of unskilled workers, bringing in more? >> guest: well, i mean, again, they're facing the same problem as the tech workers are. i mean, the reality is not everybody in the united states really has the skill to become a computer programmer, and so there are going to be people who are going to be doing labor, manual labor type jobs. and, i mean, if we're going to do anything about poverty, we have to improve the conditions for them. and in tierly, the free -- theory, the free market should allow that to happen, but congress isn't allowing the free market to work by bringing in

more free labor. >> guest: we already have 66,000 visas issued for nonagricultural workers and another 117,000 every year for ag workers. in the same way these tech companies are always catting about a shortage, you will also hear that in the agricultural industry as well, and it's just as suspect. >> guest: i saw an article just recently in the newspaper where the writer was saying that paying someone $13.59 was an absurdly high wage. that person can barely make it by on that, and that was for agriculture work. >> host: carrie is in canton, north carolina. is that in the raleigh-durham area? >> caller: no, that's right beside asheville. western north carolina. up in the mountains. >> host: okay. go ahead. >> caller: michelle, my best friend would be so jealous if he

could just even know i was talking to you this morning. >> guest: oh, good morning. >> caller: being that said, i've got pros and cons on both sides of this. i can listen to the democratic party and some of the latino groups, and they can say, well, we're pretty much trying to blackmail the country into accepting amnesty. but on the other hand, i can see a man from san salvador having to walk 2,000 miles across a desert because he knows once he gets to this country, he's got a job. when he looks at our inner cities and sees most of the population of our inner cities won't walk across the street to get a job, i can see why he wants to come. i mean, i'm torn both ways. i grew up working tobacco, tomatoes, beans, on the farm. that's how i worked my way up to get a skilled trade job. i'm a transmission mechanic. fifteen years ago i went to a seminar which they said that the average age of a mechanic today

is 46 years old. it just, i can look at the universities out there today and see where our government has actually failed not only us, but our children. >> host: all right. carey, we're going to leave it there and get a response from michelle malkin. >> guest: yeah, there's a lot there. i think i would approach it in this way, and, certainly, as a child of legal immigrants to this country, i understand what he's saying about america as a beacon for people who want to come here and work hard. but we already have many processes in place to bring people here who have something to contribute. whatever part of the pay scale we're talking about. and the fact is that the number one problem in terms of immigration enforcement that this federal government faces is that they're completely overwhelmed. we go into great detail; gao

reports and inspector general reports and every single agency of the immigration enforcement bureaucracy. they're creekinging. they can't even -- creaking. they can't even enforce these worker protections in h-1b and l1 and the eb5 program which is selling green cards to the highest bidder, let alone the problem, the ongoing problem of the illegal immigration situation. and so not only do we have to fight this compulsion that both parties have -- and i think that's one thing that's really distinctive about this book. we go after republicans probably even harder than the democrats, and it really does transcend all of these party lines, the inability of the federal government to do its basic duty. every single one of these immigration and entrance programs should put american workers and american citizens first. their public safety, our national security and our

economic security. >> host: want to show some charts from bloomberg business and, john milano, you'll be able to see them right there. here is a cluster of skilled formers. it says that in total employment 22% of the raleigh-durham, north carolina, area is for skilled workers is held by h-1b visa holders. says that most of these folks come from india. you can see there that the vast majority of h-1b employees come from india. and then china is next in the line. and then who is employing them. and these are some groups that, you know, at the top that maybe we haven't heard of. and it begins with tata consultancy services limited and cognizant tech solutions u.s., the two biggest employers of these h-1b. and i want you to address that. and we have, i think, one more

chart? nope, that's it. yeah, we have one more chart, and this is the jobs that the h-1b visa holders are holding, systems analyst, programming computer-related, university, educational, electrical education. but tata consultancy. what is that? >> guest: tata consultancy is a division of tata which is india's mitsubishi. but they are in the business of moving jobs out of the united states to india. and so what we see, what the h-1b program has done, it's created the business of importing foreign workers and moving jobs overseas. so what tata will do is bring in a few people into the united states, five or six, then send thirty jobs overseas. so you'll see five or six people in the united states on an h-1b visa, and then there'll be about 30 americans that have lost their job and the rest of the business going to india.

>> host: william is calling from minneapolis. william, you're on the air, independent line. >> caller: thank you, peter. i like you very much, but i think you've really got to make an effort to get to more callers there. >> host: i, or you know what? you are absolutely correct. [laughter] >> caller: okay. i like you. michelle, i don't usually agree with you on things, but i have to agree with you on this. i like to think i live in the h-1b capital of america, which is minneapolis. and we have target corporation and best buy here, and all their employees in their engineering are, quote-unquote, engineering is all indian. it's, and they overstay their visas, and, you know, they never go home. i mean, that's never even addressed in immigration with. all they talk about is there have been mexicans or hispanics coming across the border, but the true illegal immigrants are the ones that come with these h-1b visas and get the high-tech jobs and high jobs in corporations like best buy and

target corporation who, i don't think you guys are aware of -- >> guest: we're aware, oh, yeah. >> guest: oh, yeah. >> caller: and they overstay their visas. >> host: all right. we got the point, william, thank you. who wants to answer that? >> guest: i think maybe a little bit of both of us. you got senator amy klobuchar there who is the cosponsor of legislation on capitol hill that would greatly expand the number of these h-1b visas. and he hit on exactly something that is the theme of the introduction of the book. one of the things that we find has been flawed in much of the reporting and it has improved over the years is that even "the new york times", which is playing catch-up on covering these issues, treats it as ifs this is something new -- as if this is something new when, as we have emphasized, this idea of bringing these people over here, making american workers train them and then watching these american workers have to see these replacements go back to

their home countries carrying all the knowledge that they imparted with them as a condition of receiving severance. it's happened at disney, southern california edison, car gil, harley davidson. it is a massive horror story. and the fact that the caller disagrees with me on most things but that we can come together on this again shows you just the very interesting fault lines here. and it's going to make a lot of people vulnerable. hillary clinton, we talked about tata consultancy. as a senator, she brought tata to buffalo as part of this government deal. they said they were going to create american jobs. they created ten. meanwhile, in the back door tata was petitioning for 1600 h-1b visas. where's the democratic outrage of that? the party of the people, the party of workers? >> host: from "the new york times," large companies game h-1b vis a vis -- visa program. this is julia preston writing. she says that many of the visas

are given out through a lottery, and a small number of giant global outsourcing companies have flooded the system with applications significantly increasing their chances of success. john in virginia, democrat, good morning. >> caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. i just want to say, michelle, that i live in virginia, and i work -- [inaudible] and i am shocked at how many indians are living in this area that bought houses and stuff like that. and it comes to me that we see a lot of young students graduating universities, working -- [inaudible] and they can't get a job, and they've got 80,000 loan on their backs. it really bothers me that when someone tells me that we don't have enough employees, we can train our young students another direction, and we can give that job that we're bringing in

overseas. here's the thing. most of of these companies, they care about the money. and instead of paying the americans 80,000 or 90,000, they'd rather pay indians 40,000 so they can save 50,000 for their pockets. and most of all i heard a lot of -- i don't know if this is true or not. there's a lot of bribery going on and corruption about these visas. it's not only here. the people that they're bringing, they're not qualified. they have to retrain all over again. and when this guy gets into the system, guess what they're going to say? they ask him to management, can i bring my cousin? he's an indian. it's amazing to me what's going on, our children. >> host: all right, john, we got the point. mr. milano, the salary. is he right about the salary differential? >> guest: yes, he's correct. the h-1b program allows the employer to pay a prevailing wage, the 17th percentile of the minimum wage. the 50th percentile is the

median, actually what we would normally call the prevailing wage. i would like to say that he's focused on the indian aspect of this, which is certainly a problem. but the problem with the h-1b program isn't in india, it's right over there on capitol hill with americans, you know, largely european-americans, not indians. and they're the problem, not the indian companies. >> host: is he right about corruption? or is it a gaming of the system? >> guest: well, it's not, it's not even a gaming of the system. the h-1b program is working exactly as it's designed to do. that's one of my issues -- i'm glad to see "the new york times" covering this issue. but i think, but my biggest objection to the new york times' coverage other than it being new to this issue is that it's portrayed as exceptional. this is exactly how congress has set the system up and how it's working. the only thing that's not working as it's designed is that the news media is starting to

cover it now, and they haven't been doing it in the past. >> host: we are talking with the co-authors of "sold out" about the h-1b visa program, and david is in chicago. hi, david. >> caller: as an american tech worker, i want to thank you so much, john and michelle, for writing this book. i'd like you to discuss how these trade deals have, as part of wto and the foreign guest workers whether it's the immigration chapter in tpp or the fact that we're baked into a 65,000 h-1bs per year because of wto. and, secondly, discuss the three executive actions that the obama administration wants to do in terms of spouses of h-1b work permits, the fast track green cards and the opt, if you could do that. and the total number of -- >> host: okay. a lot there. a lot of act proto anymores, david -- acronyms, david. what kind of tech work do you

do? >> guest: i do data center network club with some mace sent cyber -- nascent cybersecurity. i'm very skilled, well trained, and i'm making wages i was making 20 years ago because of the wage suppression. and wages have been flat for tech workers since about 2000. we know there's no shortage, because if there was a shortage of s.t.e.m. workers, wages would be going up. certainly, that's ooh the argument for -- that's the argument for paying executives high compensation, because there's not enough talent. if that were the case for tech workers, wages would be going up like they did in the '9 0s, but, in fact, they're not. >> host: all right, we got it. john milano. >> guest: well, h-1b is just the tip of the iceberg. there are other ways labor is coming in citizen in this -- in in this area of technical workers. one of the issues he raised is trade deals and that the inside lobbyists are using trade deals as a means to bring foreign

labor in, that the u.s. is locked into giving at least 65,000 h-1b visas every year under the treaty. and now under this new, the trans-pacific partnership, they're also trying to slip in more foreign labor. then -- i'm just going through the list, david's list. [laughter] the other thing we could add is that there's, that there are executive actions going on. obama this year started allowing spouses of h-1b workers to work. industry lobbyists have sought that in hopes they can eventually turn h-1b into a twofer where they can get spouse and get both spouses to work on a single visa. another one we have is what's called the optional technical training program which is a student visa. in 2008 microsoft came to the department of homeland security secretary at a dinner party with the idea of using student visas

as a means to get around the h-1b quota, and dhs worked in absolute secrecy to produce the regulations. and the public didn't even know that these were being considered until dhs put them out without notice and comment. and so, essentially, had this situation where microsoft was telling dhs to do regulations, they just did it and dropped it in. and i've been involved with that because i had a court case that got those regulations set aside. but the obama administration's response to that was, oh, well, let's just put out new regulations and let them work even longer. so i've hit on several, and i haven't even hit all the different ways that are being used to admit foreign labor here. >> host: but they are detailed in "sold out." jean is in dublin, virginia. democrat. hi, gene. >> caller: good morning. thanks for c-span. i'd like to relate two things and get a comment. first one is i'm a former, i'm a refugee from the big blue oval

up in dearborn, and when i was looking for a new engineer for my group, i went to my hr person, and all i got was h-1b vis a vis people. now -- visa people. now, i've worked internationally most of my life. in fact, if i was still working, i'd be in brazil this weekend. but they -- i went to -- so i'm far from xenophobic. i went to my hr person and said, hey, here in dearborn we are surrounded by universities that are turning out, making out pretty good little engineers. can we find at least one american to which i was told, quote: h-1b visa people work between $9-$14,000 a year cheaper, so that's who we hire. the other issue is i now have graduate students who are showing me mails from i.t. companies that are literally based within miles of where you guys are sitting, one of them being tyson's corner. and in the e-mail it says, quote: come to work for my i.t.

company, and i guarantee you will be accepted at one of these two universities. and if you look -- and one of them is also in tyson's corner. and if you look at them, they're unaccredited universities. basically, what they're doing is they're using the student, the student visa system as a scam to get around the immigration workers and get i.t. workers in the companies. and by the way, this i.t. company, i did a little research because i do policy work. my undergrad's engineering, but i do policy work. and this company has government contracts. >> host: all right. gene, we got the point. tyson's corner, of course, is here in the washington suburbs, a high-tech area. >> guest: yes. we have an entire chapter in the book on how the f1 foreign student visa program has been exploited as the, another one of these alternative channels to bring in all of these cheap foreign students. and that's tied to the optional practical training program. and i think it's interesting again to note that these calls

are coming from the democratic line and the independent line and the republican line. and we really think that we've struck a nerve here because if all we do, if all we can serve to do is amplify these voices of america's best and brightest who have -- this is not news to them. but what this is is really a wake-up call to the beltway, to those crap weasels, i'll say it one more time on c-span, to talk about this collusion. and i think that this is really one of the key, key issues that's a wreakout issue -- breakout issue for this presidential campaign cycle. because it's talking about how the donorrist class has bought both parties. and the testimony on the ground from workers like this engineer shows two things. not only are these american workers being devastated, but of course all of the h-1b visa holders who are used,

essentially, as indentured servantses and are being exploited as well needs to be shown too. and so we have a whole chapter on that. very perverse practices, and they call them names like handcuffing and bodyshopping. and really, of course, sabotaging the original intent of the program in the first place. >> host: michelle malkin, is there any relationship between this book and your earlier book this year which was on innovators and american manufacturers? >> guest: that is a really good question, and the answer is, yes. in part i've been thinking about delving into this issue more a long time because, of course, my first book in 2002 was "invasion" which was about the illegal immigration aspect. all along i had wanted to get here, and it really just was providential that the two of us were able to get together on this. but when i talked to anthony, the head of maglite flashlight, and we talked about this back in may, he was such a fierce proponent of american companies hiring american workers.

and this is an immigrant who came here from croatia for the american dream. he refused to outsource. he knew that the best and brightest were right in southern california, and really that just spurred me to tell the other side of the story. these two books, i think, are flip sides of the same coin. >> host: jenny, springfield, virginia, here in the suburbs. michelle malkin, john milano, co-authors of "sold out." >> guest: i'm really, really glad i have a chance to speak to both of you, and to the host, please don't cut me off. we just went through an election cycle, and the polling, the phone calling from the different candidates. and one of the things that was really stressed about how our american students are so undereducated and that we really need to compete with india and china, and, you know, i'm talking about the democratic party telling me how our students aren't really getting

the math education early enough. well, you know, then they go ahead and say about they can't compete in the work environment because of their lack of education. and i happen to know because i have children who actually are educated as, you know, engineers and really the real world of what they go through. and what i saw was, you know, they're saying that, you know, we have to compete. and i'm, like, what about the kids who are graduating from the top universities in the state of virginia? whey don't you take -- why don't you take your message about how undereducated these kids are as they graduate and go on to graduate schools in degrees in engineering, in degrees in physics, and they can't get jobs. but yet you've got people who are being brought in. we have -- >> host: all right. jenny, we've got a lot will on the table. michelle malkin, any response for her? >> guest: that's as trenchant a commentary i've heard on this

entire issue. more trenchant, of course, than anything you'll hear from most of these candidates who continue to buy into the myth of the american tech worker shortage. and at the same time, are doing the bidding of these companies who want to staple green cards to every foreign student visa. and, you know, even among the candidates who are sounding the sanest on this -- donald trump, for example -- we point out that he's got a terrific immigration reform plan not only on illegal inflation and the southern border, but also with regard to h-1b, the most detailed, the most detailed we've seen. he consulted with someone who we think has his head screwed on straight more than any other on capitol hill, jeff sessions. but even donald trump has sort of paid lip service to this american tech worker shortage and talked about the need to import untold numbers of these

foreign students. there's another aspect of the education part of this, too, that we delve into in the donor chapter, because you have bill gates wanting to open up the floodgates to h-1bs. and with another side of his tongue, talking about how we need common core. and common core, of course, supports the myth that there's an american tech worker shortage. and in the meantime, what is it really doing? a lot of the independent academics who are behind the scenes here in d.c. where all the back room deals were cut on that racket say that all it will do is lower standards, particularly now in math and science which they're working on. so in essence, he would, he would take this common core scheme which he's poured hundreds of millions of dollars into and actually put american students at the disadvantage that they're not at now. [laughter] >> host: from your book, clinton foundation donor and corporate mogul donald trump vaulted to

the front of gop pack in the top of the polls in 2015 by spotlighting brutal crimes by illegal aliens against americans. but while vowing to build a trump wall on the southern border, the celebrity apprentice star also espoused a path toward legalization for illegal aliens he deemed outstanding, a path to citizenship, in other words, that sounds a lot like the amnesty path of his rivals. linda's calling in from knoxville, democrat. hi, linda. >> caller: hi. i'm another liberal democrat who never thought i'd be agreeing with michelle malkin about anything -- [laughter] but on this one, we do. >> guest: yeah. >> caller: there was an episode of "the west wing" about this in the mid 2000s that dealt with h-1b visas, and it also fingered congress as the villain. there are so many things here. i'm a high-tech worker. these people who are coming in

on the visas are are victims too. you mentioned that a little bit earlier, right after i called. and what they -- these people, what they want more than anything is to stay. they have to be here. so this makes them ripe for all kinds of exploitation. the salaries that they are purported to be getting, they don't get those salaries. half of that is skimmed off by the agencies they have to go to on the way here to get here. and if they make any kind of waves about it, don't pay it, they never get a chance to stay or to come back -- >> host: linda, what kind of work do you do. >> caller: i would, i should -- i don't really want to -- >> host: then you don't have to, don't worry about it. let's get a response about this agency issue from john milano. >> guest: well, it's said that most of these companies are coming through -- most of these aliens are coming through companies that are in the business of importing workers and basically taking a cut off

the top of the salary. i mean, that's not the way the system is supposed to work. but one of the things i'd like to, you know, say, we have a liberal democrat here, we probably have had conservative republicans speak. this is an issue that, essentially, everyone in america agrees to except in a small elite. and yet while, you know, liberals, conservatives, moderates all agree that americans should not be replaced by foreign workers, most of the presidential candidates right now support replacing americans with foreign workers. i mean, it's shocking. >> guest: and, actually, of course, this is broken out into the open now, and we'd like to think that part of it is sort of the "sold out" effect of the open warfare that you have between cruz and rubio over issues like this. cruz is rightly attacking marco rubio for all the water that he carried on the gang of eight bill, and then, of course, rubio points out -- as we did in the book -- that until recently ted cruz had supported the quintupling of the h-1b visa program. i think our shared attitude

about it is if everybody gets to the right position, if every one of the gop candidates, well, the democrat candidates too, that's not going to happen, adopted jeff sessions' platform on reforming h-1b, if we could finally produce some kind of real results, not just fake, phony, so-called reform over true comprehensive, pro-american immigration enforcement reform, then we'd be pretty happy with that, i think. >> host: jim at fern hollow tweets in: michelle malkin ragging on nasty, evil corporations, and the left still hates her? gosh. [laughter] and jodi says: michelle malkin, you have finally woken up. there are liberals saying the same thing, union people, you know? susan is also calling from knoxville this morning on our independent line. >> caller: hi. >> host: hi. >> caller: nice to talk to you. this is a real burning issue and has been for some time among

tech people. quite a few people in my family are in engineering, physics, so on. so i've known about it. but also this is happening in health health care, such as physical therapists. physical therapy assistants. there are pockets in knoxville where all the hospitals' physical therapists and the aides are all from the philippines. yet i know two families whose girls have gotten out of physical therapy school which now takes a master's degree and can't get a job. so this is true many so many industries. and it's so detrimental to the united states. it really needs to be a big issue. >> host: either of you? >> guest: well, i could tell you the h-1b is primarily in the, used in the tech industry, but it is used in all industries as well, and as you said, physical therapist is one, doctors, even

accountants. so the damage is very widespread. >> guest: yes. and teachers too. we actually have a section in the book that talks about that. and, you know, fun fact about h-1b, you know, it's sold on capitol hill as, you know, for these bright specialty workers who are entrepreneurial who are going to come here and create new businesses, you'll hear this propaganda from h-1b promoters on both sides of the aisle all the time. and yet it covers things like supermodels. [laughter] and there's an interesting special interest story behind that too. >> host: "sold out" is the name of the book, and donald is in south bend, indiana, democrat. >> caller: yeah. i'm sitting here watching this, and i'm, i'm just skeptical of ms. malkin's, i don't know, i'm

just skeptical. i mean, i've seen you talk a lot of times on fox news, and i don't know what to make of all of this. now, okay, primarily the reason why i called is because, well, what to you expectsome -- what do you expect? i mean, that's capitalism as you and your friends on fox have been trying to to tell us in labor that if a company wants to come in, i mean, if they want to hire somebody at a low cost, i mean, labor is cost, you know? forget about their people and everything, they have families. they don't care. it's about cost. so now that it's happening to people who are working -- and don't get me wrong, you know, we need programmers and, etc., people in white collar jobs and careers. but now that it's happening to them, well, you know, hey -- [laughter] you know, welcome to my world,

you know? >> guest: well, a couple of things. we challenge the leaders of the h-1b racket and the funders of it and the promoters of it across party lines. and i don't agree with everybody at fox news about everything, and i know that rupert murdoch probably doesn't agree with what i'm saying, and yet i've gone on as many venues, and we've tried to reach out to as many people as possible. we already addressed the fact that this isn't any kind of capitalism in the form that i ever support, and i've long been an outspoken critic of the kind of crony deals that we see not only with regard to h-1b, but whether it's green cronyism, the crony bism that was embedded -- cronyism that was embedded in the health care bill. and i think this is where there are shared interests among so

many of the callers that we've already heard from. i understand he's skeptical. he thinks that i have an agenda. but the fact is as a journalist who's been out of the closet as a conservative for 25 years, you can take my biases and judge them against the evidence in the book. just judge the evidence. we cite everything, we urge everybody to do their homework on not just the journalists here in washington who should be covering it better, all of those campaigns out there that are crusading for the american dream and the american worker, but, you know, it's important as a functioning of a healthy republic that citizens be informed, and this is our educational and evangelical mission. >> host: john milano, this tweet from i love politics: h-1b lies told by ceos to congress. u.s. workers are not available, not able to do the work, unwilling to take the job ands. to take the jobs.

>> guest: basically, it's summed up as nonsense. i used to be a computer programmer, so i saw what these callers and what the tweeters are saying firsthand. right now if you are trying to find a computer programming job, it would be really tough. >> host: why? >> guest: because they just simply aren't out there, and they're not being advertised. i go, every so often i go into dice.com to go look for computer jobs in my area. it's rare you find any. occasionally it's one or two. and the only listings are through agencies, you know, who submit a resumé and maybe we'll submit it to someone else. very few real jobs that i can actually find. so if i were back as a computer programmer, it would be really tough. >> host: dana, chico, california. republican. hi, dana. >> caller: yes. your guests have done a really good job of explaining the problem, and it's an eye-opening thing for me to know about all

this. but my question is, what is the solution? is the solution to force companies to raise wages so that they're forced to pay everybody those high wages? would that cut down or help the problem? or is the problem education? or what's the problem? and how -- what's the solution? >> host: michelle malkin. >> guest: well, before you fix a problem you have to know just how bad it really is. and that was the purpose of the book, to really shake people and wake them up to the depth of the problem. and we have our own comprehensive immigration enforcement reform plan. it's the very, very last section of the book. and it takes the a comprehensive look at what needs to be done on many, many levels. and i think the immediate thing that the next president do is

should put a moratorium on all of these programs and reassess, you know, how exactly their working -- they're working, who's being hurt. of course, it's hard to do anything with regard to the foreign guest worker rackets when you've got upwards of 30 million illegal aliens, 40% of them being visa overstayers with the government having no way to track them down and make sure people who should leave have already left. and then john can address some of the reforms with regard to h-1b. but, you know, the problem of dual intent is one of them. and making sure that the prevailing wage is actually the prevailing wage. >> guest: well, the caller was asking what he could do. the first thing is to be informed. and one of the things about doing the book is you can explain things that i could not possibly explain on this show. for example, we talk about how regression analysis is used to come up with these bogus statistics about h-1b visas

creating a job. you know, that's one or two college lectures. i could put, we could put that in the book and explain to you how they get these numbers. so you can, so from the book -- and this is a shameless plug, i guess -- but you can get informed about what's happening and understand the whole scope of the problem. and then once you know the problem, vote. you know? find out where your congressman, where your senator stands on these issues. and if your senator and congressman support replacing americans with foreign workers, vote them out. and call your congressman, write your congressman and senators. let them know you don't support replacing americans with foreign workers. you know, same thing with presidential candidates, you know? let rubio and company know you do not support replacing americans with foreign workers. >> host: and from "sold out," a quote by former representative tom davis on big tech's push to eliminate h-1b caps altogether. quote: this is not a popular

bill with the public, it's to popular with the ceos -- it's popular with the ceos. and jim in lodi, ohio, on our independent line. you're the last caller for our guests. >> caller: well,ing thank you. good morning, all of you. i never realized really how big the problem is, but it's very personal to me, and i believe that she's right, michelle, that both the immigration laws and these problems that you brought out here are, you know, they're interrelated. ..