Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Vivek Ramaswamy On Pulling Out Of Prez Race, Support For Trump, How To End Racism + More
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning.
- 0:02Speaker 2: Breakfast Club.
- 0:05Speaker 1: Morning.
- 0:05Speaker 3: Everybody is DJ Envy Charlamagne the guy. We are the
- 0:09Speaker 3: Breakfast Club. You got a special guest in the building.
- 0:11Speaker 3: He's back, Vivik Ramaswami. Welcome back.
- 0:14Speaker 1: It's good to see you. Man.
- 0:15Speaker 3: I'll say your name right this time.
- 0:16Speaker 1: Thank you for asking. It's vivec like vivic like cake. Okay, Vivik,
- 0:21Speaker 1: you got it. Well.
- 0:22Speaker 3: Last time you were here, you were running for president.
- 0:24Speaker 3: That's right in that ancient past, ancient past, but six
- 0:28Speaker 3: days ago.
- 0:28Speaker 1: Must have been feels like an eternity of this.
- 0:30Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, but now your your roles have changing and
- 0:32Speaker 3: you're no longer running for president.
- 0:34Speaker 1: That's right. So for people that.
- 0:36Speaker 3: Don't know, why are you not on that run anymore?
- 0:38Speaker 3: What made you pull out?
- 0:39Speaker 2: Yeah?
- 0:39Speaker 1: I mean, look, the people of Iowa spoke loud and clear.
- 0:42Speaker 1: I got about eight percent, which I started at, not
- 0:45Speaker 1: zero percent, but I started at zero point zero percent
- 0:48Speaker 1: and we made it to eight percent in Iowa. If
- 0:51Speaker 1: you looked at who were the second choice to Donald
- 0:53Speaker 1: Trump and Iowa, so if he weren't on the ballot,
- 0:55Speaker 1: I would have been number one. But the people spoke
- 0:58Speaker 1: loud and clear they wanted not only in America first candidate,
- 1:01Speaker 1: but they wanted the one who they voted for before,
- 1:04Speaker 1: and they want him to get back in there and
- 1:05Speaker 1: get that job done. And So for me, the first
- 1:07Speaker 1: moment that it became clear that I was not going
- 1:10Speaker 1: to be the next president, you know, absent terrible things
- 1:13Speaker 1: happening in this country that we don't want to see happen,
- 1:15Speaker 1: I pulled myself out of the race, gave support to
- 1:17Speaker 1: Donald Trump. And I think that's the right thing for
- 1:19Speaker 1: the country, is to allow the people of this country
- 1:22Speaker 1: to make a choice. It's the beauty of our country.
- 1:24Speaker 1: It's not a monarchy, it's not an autocracy. The people
- 1:28Speaker 1: of this country get to decide who runs the country.
- 1:31Speaker 1: And the people spoke loud and clear in Iowa.
- 1:32Speaker 4: And so that night you said you was number one
- 1:35Speaker 4: behind Trump.
- 1:36Speaker 1: No, no, no, among second choice to Trump. So among the
- 1:39Speaker 1: people who voted for Trump, who would be who would
- 1:42Speaker 1: be their second choice? That would actually have been me. Yeah,
- 1:47Speaker 1: America first, right. And I don't use the word Republican anymore.
- 1:50Speaker 1: I think that label has lost its meaning. I think
- 1:53Speaker 1: the Republican Party, I think both parties really need to
- 1:55Speaker 1: rediscover who they are. But the movement that I'm part
- 1:58Speaker 1: of and that I was aiming to lead, was one
- 2:00Speaker 1: that says, we put the interests of American citizens first.
- 2:04Speaker 1: America first includes all Americans, but we put our interests,
- 2:07Speaker 1: our citizens interests first. Anyway, I got about eight percent
- 2:10Speaker 1: of the vote. Donald Trump got what well over fifty
- 2:13Speaker 1: percent of the people who voted for him. Most of
- 2:15Speaker 1: them would rather see me than anybody else, but they
- 2:17Speaker 1: were crystal clear about who they wanted to see representing
- 2:20Speaker 1: that movement and representing this country in the White House.
- 2:22Speaker 1: And so that night we were prepared to go to
- 2:25Speaker 1: New Hampshire. I could tell you for a fact we
- 2:27Speaker 1: were not in the head space to drop out. But
- 2:30Speaker 1: we saw the results come in, we were going to
- 2:31Speaker 1: go to the campaign office. Instead, I just took some
- 2:35Speaker 1: time with my wife. We went we had an apartment
- 2:36Speaker 1: in Des Moines. We took about twenty five minutes. Try
- 2:40Speaker 1: to look at it every which way. We're squinting at
- 2:42Speaker 1: you know, different statistics that would say, okay, here's the
- 2:44Speaker 1: path forward. Then we just took a step back and said,
- 2:46Speaker 1: all right, what is what is God's plan here? It
- 2:50Speaker 1: has revealed itself and it doesn't include me being the
- 2:53Speaker 1: Republican nominee for US president. Personal money close to thirty
- 2:58Speaker 1: damn yeah.
- 3:00Speaker 4: Out of your own potez.
- 3:02Speaker 2: And so what happens with that money is the tax
- 3:04Speaker 2: tax right off or it's gone and it's gone. Wow.
- 3:08Speaker 1: And I've donated, I mean, I've gotten in the habit
- 3:12Speaker 1: of donating my money to charitable causes over the last
- 3:14Speaker 1: you know, five years or so. After we've done I mean,
- 3:16Speaker 1: we've done well in this country. I didn't grow up
- 3:18Speaker 1: in money, but I also have been pretty clear. I
- 3:22Speaker 1: think the inheritance we want to give our kids is
- 3:24Speaker 1: in a bunch of green pieces of paper. We see
- 3:26Speaker 1: what that has, what that does to people. It's a
- 3:29Speaker 1: country that is the same one that allowed me to
- 3:31Speaker 1: live the American dream that I have. And so we
- 3:33Speaker 1: were looking at this charitably for a while. Is there
- 3:35Speaker 1: a way to be philanthropic? Is there a way to
- 3:37Speaker 1: be a political donor? I put all that to one
- 3:39Speaker 1: side and said, the best way to do this is
- 3:41Speaker 1: to actually put your effort and put your not just
- 3:43Speaker 1: your money where your mouth is, but your effort where
- 3:45Speaker 1: your mouth is. And so the biggest sacrifice we made
- 3:48Speaker 1: wasn't the money. I mean to take a year doing
- 3:50Speaker 1: what we did. My wife is the hero of this story.
- 3:53Speaker 1: To tell you, the truth is she was. She's a
- 3:55Speaker 1: surgeon at a hive state. She did not compromise on
- 3:58Speaker 1: her schedule wants. She's one of the few people in
- 4:00Speaker 1: the country that does a special form of throat surgery
- 4:03Speaker 1: where most of the people she's treating they haven't swallowed
- 4:07Speaker 1: food for years. She's one of the few people in
- 4:09Speaker 1: the country who does a surgery where she can actually
- 4:12Speaker 1: fix them they can swallow food after years of not
- 4:14Speaker 1: having swallowed food. And early on in the campaign, I mean,
- 4:17Speaker 1: we know this is going to be grueling. We looked
- 4:19Speaker 1: at different options. Should she change her schedule. She was
- 4:23Speaker 1: pretty firm, and I respect her for it, saying that
- 4:26Speaker 1: these are people who depend on her for doing what
- 4:28Speaker 1: she does. But she's going to go all in, side
- 4:30Speaker 1: by side with me without compromising on her career and
- 4:35Speaker 1: what she's doing. That's excellent for people that depend on her.
- 4:39Speaker 1: And we made that work. And so with two kids,
- 4:41Speaker 1: one is about to be four years old, one is
- 4:43Speaker 1: about a year and a half old, the sacrifice of
- 4:47Speaker 1: actually put in the effort in was even I would
- 4:49Speaker 1: say more significant than the financial investment.
- 4:52Speaker 4: What's the most you ever lost in just an investment
- 4:54Speaker 4: in life?
- 4:55Speaker 1: Oh, the ups and downs on a given day or
- 4:59Speaker 1: even in a given month would be greater than thirty million,
- 5:02Speaker 1: just based on how the market goes. Yeah, so it's
- 5:04Speaker 1: within the it's within if you look at it. Actually,
- 5:07Speaker 1: that makes me feel better when you put it that way.
- 5:09Speaker 1: It's within the margin of error of how it goes.
- 5:12Speaker 1: But I'm not one of these people that is, you know,
- 5:16Speaker 1: trying to hoard and figure out how many of the
- 5:18Speaker 1: green piece of paper can pass on versus what's the
- 5:21Speaker 1: point of generating wealth if you're not actually using it
- 5:23Speaker 1: to advance your own convictions? And so if we've gone
- 5:26Speaker 1: deeper in this race, we were to put more in
- 5:27Speaker 1: as well. So it wasn't a financial decision, but it
- 5:30Speaker 1: was a decision that the people of the country had spoken,
- 5:34Speaker 1: made their well known clearly. There's many ways to change
- 5:36Speaker 1: the country, and I'm all into yes, what I believe
- 5:39Speaker 1: is good for the country, and we'll do that. You know,
- 5:41Speaker 1: whatever way we can going forward.
- 5:42Speaker 3: This will make money for you. I'm sure you write
- 5:43Speaker 3: a book. I'm sure you'll be ANALYSTOK.
- 5:44Speaker 1: I don't really make serious money I've written. I've written
- 5:47Speaker 1: best selling books. I mean the They're not needle movers
- 5:50Speaker 1: for me. But I've written books because I care about
- 5:53Speaker 1: expressing the ideas in there. I don't particularly care to
- 5:56Speaker 1: monetize this experience. I mean, if you, if you're sitting
- 5:59Speaker 1: in my shoes, you would sort of understand, you know.
- 6:02Speaker 1: I mean some people politicians have come out give you,
- 6:05Speaker 1: you know, give speeches and make a million and a
- 6:06Speaker 1: half bucks on a given year. We put thirty into
- 6:08Speaker 1: this campaign without really thinking about it, you know, in
- 6:12Speaker 1: a big way. And so I'm not I'm not in
- 6:15Speaker 1: this to monetize the experience. But I do want to
- 6:17Speaker 1: make sure that what we began, which I do think
- 6:21Speaker 1: is a different movement outside of the traditional bounds of
- 6:25Speaker 1: the Republican and Democratic Party, but I believe could be
- 6:29Speaker 1: a vehicle to unite the country, continues, And so I'm
- 6:32Speaker 1: not going anywhere. I haven't decided what I'm doing next.
- 6:34Speaker 3: What's your relationship with Trump?
- 6:37Speaker 1: Yeah, we have a good relationship, mutual respect from time
- 6:41Speaker 1: actually from time to time, yeah, I mean, especially over
- 6:43Speaker 1: the course of this campaign. I met him a few
- 6:44Speaker 1: years ago when I wrote my first book, Wokink. We
- 6:47Speaker 1: ended up having dinner, and I think, to both of
- 6:50Speaker 1: our surprise, we actually hit it off. I didn't expect to.
- 6:52Speaker 1: I don't think he expected to. And so since then
- 6:54Speaker 1: we've been in touching. Over the course of the campaign,
- 6:56Speaker 1: we've obviously gotten to know each other pretty well, and
- 6:59Speaker 1: so I'm going to be as helpful as I can
- 7:00Speaker 1: to him and.
- 7:01Speaker 2: Hopefully make sure. Well.
- 7:03Speaker 1: It's because the public impression of what you see of
- 7:05Speaker 1: the man, right, it's filtered through the media.
- 7:08Speaker 4: Public impression.
- 7:08Speaker 1: So I'll just give you so one of the things
- 7:10Speaker 1: that struck me well, I mean, I didn't buy that stuff,
- 7:13Speaker 1: but what I would say is that he's not detail oriented, right,
- 7:18Speaker 1: Like you get an impression of a guy who's just
- 7:20Speaker 1: floating out around in the clouds. But the people who
- 7:22Speaker 1: do the real work must be other people. And that
- 7:24Speaker 1: first dinner we had, I was actually pleasantly shocked by
- 7:29Speaker 1: him going into the details of different deals he had done,
- 7:32Speaker 1: each of the trade deals, and I pressed him back
- 7:34Speaker 1: and forth just because I wanted to get a feel
- 7:36Speaker 1: and this guy, definitely on the things he cared about,
- 7:39Speaker 1: was pretty deep in the details. And I'm a details
- 7:42Speaker 1: guy too, and so I said, oh, okay, That's interesting, right,
- 7:45Speaker 1: because the public perception, and this is back you know,
- 7:48Speaker 1: even before this presidential run, was some guy who was
- 7:51Speaker 1: running some type of chaotic, bumbling White House didn't necessarily
- 7:54Speaker 1: have a handle for the details. I'll tell you on
- 7:56Speaker 1: details relating to US funding of NATO, specific country's obligations,
- 8:01Speaker 1: one of his trips to South Korea, and the details
- 8:03Speaker 1: of how he actually negotiated some of our arrangements over there.
- 8:07Speaker 1: It struck me as a guy who's looking after the
- 8:10Speaker 1: United States interests like it's his business, which I thought
- 8:13Speaker 1: was impressive and interesting, and so that made me want
- 8:16Speaker 1: to continue to at least Okay, this is somebody who
- 8:18Speaker 1: I can actually converse with over time. I think he
- 8:22Speaker 1: was probably surprised when I started running for president, but
- 8:25Speaker 1: I think over the course of the process you running
- 8:27Speaker 1: each of the candidates, I've gotten to know I would
- 8:29Speaker 1: say pretty much all of the candidates pretty well. And
- 8:32Speaker 1: my relationship with Trump has been positive. I think we
- 8:36Speaker 1: respect each other.
- 8:36Speaker 4: One more question about your business.
- 8:38Speaker 2: Are you worried that you know, people hear your political view,
- 8:42Speaker 2: your ideologies on things, and he think that it'll you
- 8:44Speaker 2: think it'll impact your business in the future.
- 8:46Speaker 1: Yeah, So That's why I stepped down from all of
- 8:48Speaker 1: my businesses before running for president. I think that so
- 8:52Speaker 1: this is just me speaking for me, not for anybody else.
- 8:55Speaker 1: I think if I was elected president, I would have divested,
- 8:58Speaker 1: And if I ever do become president, I think the
- 9:00Speaker 1: right thing to do is to divest all of your
- 9:03Speaker 1: holdings so you're not thinking about what advances your business interest.
- 9:07Speaker 1: I'm speaking for myself. Yeah, and so I think that
- 9:10Speaker 1: that's what I would do if I were the president.
- 9:12Speaker 1: And it also is actually better for your businesses too,
- 9:15Speaker 1: because one of the things I did even before running
- 9:18Speaker 1: for president was all the boards I was on either
- 9:20Speaker 1: stepped off or went on hiatus, nonprofit for profit, across
- 9:23Speaker 1: the board because I saw this actually happened to me
- 9:26Speaker 1: a few years ago. So my first book was I
- 9:28Speaker 1: think I gave it to you last time we were here.
- 9:30Speaker 1: I can't remember. Woke, Inc. Was my first book. I
- 9:34Speaker 1: was a biotic CEO here in New York City back then,
- 9:37Speaker 1: and you know, I was minding my own business, wasn't
- 9:39Speaker 1: really involved in you know the kind of stuff we're
- 9:41Speaker 1: talking about today. George Floyd died. There was the demand
- 9:45Speaker 1: that every CEO, including a demand of me to make
- 9:47Speaker 1: a statement on behalf of BLM. And you know, I
- 9:49Speaker 1: looked at the website the Nuclear Family statements. I couldn't
- 9:53Speaker 1: really get behind dismantling the Nuclear Family structure. I didn't
- 9:56Speaker 1: think it was the job of a business to be
- 9:57Speaker 1: waiting into this anyway, and so I decided not to
- 9:59Speaker 1: make make a statement and said, you know what, our
- 10:02Speaker 1: business is unified in the pursuit of medicines to treat
- 10:05Speaker 1: patients who need them. And that actually, surprisingly that statement
- 10:09Speaker 1: generated a lot of controversy. Multiple advisors to my company
- 10:13Speaker 1: resigned about six months later. And so back then already
- 10:17Speaker 1: I had the lesson learned. But either you're going to
- 10:19Speaker 1: speak your mind freely as a citizen, do it separately
- 10:22Speaker 1: from your business interests. And so I actually stepped down
- 10:25Speaker 1: from my job as CEO back then to write that book.
- 10:28Speaker 1: But for me, that was kind of an early warning anyway,
- 10:30Speaker 1: that you don't want to mix business and politics. And
- 10:33Speaker 1: so I stepped down from all my jobs as a CEO,
- 10:36Speaker 1: stepped off all the boards before running for president. If
- 10:39Speaker 1: I ever become elected president, were to have become elected president,
- 10:42Speaker 1: I would have divested across the board voluntarily. And I
- 10:46Speaker 1: do things a little bit differently than other you know,
- 10:49Speaker 1: business people might be advised to when they're running for president.
- 10:52Speaker 4: Do you go back now that you're not running, go back,
- 10:55Speaker 4: meaning to business? Do you go back on some of
- 10:56Speaker 4: those boards?
- 10:57Speaker 2: Do you go back?
- 10:58Speaker 1: I got to think about it. You know, it's been
- 10:59Speaker 1: only a few days, and it has been a long time,
- 11:02Speaker 1: Charlomane since I have been in a position where I
- 11:05Speaker 1: actually had a clear card, you know what I mean.
- 11:08Speaker 1: So I want to take advantage of that and the
- 11:11Speaker 1: few times I've been in that position before. I can
- 11:13Speaker 1: be a restless person. But one of the things I've
- 11:14Speaker 1: learned is taken at least a breath to understand. And
- 11:18Speaker 1: I'm still you know, collecting and processing everything that happened
- 11:23Speaker 1: over the last year. I mean as a life experience,
- 11:25Speaker 1: it's a hell of an experience. I mean, the kind
- 11:27Speaker 1: of people you've met, the way you've changed as a
- 11:30Speaker 1: person through this process. I still want to process that
- 11:33Speaker 1: and land that first before I decide what exactly comes next.
- 11:38Speaker 1: But I think whatever it is, it's going to be
- 11:40Speaker 1: focused on having the impact on the country that I
- 11:43Speaker 1: wanted to have going in and we're going to figure
- 11:46Speaker 1: out what.
- 11:46Speaker 2: That is you have to explain something to me, right,
- 11:47Speaker 2: because when I watched the GOP nominees with the exception
- 11:52Speaker 2: of Chris Christy, and always thought, how are any of them,
- 11:55Speaker 2: you know, ever going to beat Trump if they're not
- 11:58Speaker 2: even willing to challenge Trump? Yeah, anything.
- 12:01Speaker 1: Well, I will say that I do have about ten
- 12:05Speaker 1: percent of policy areas where I'm different from Trump, but
- 12:06Speaker 1: that was that wasn't actually ever going to be the
- 12:08Speaker 1: difference for me. The case I made to the voters
- 12:10Speaker 1: was if you like Donald Trump's policies, but you want
- 12:13Speaker 1: a leader from the next generation, with fresh legs who
- 12:17Speaker 1: can reach and lead the next generation of Americans, Nobody's
- 12:20Speaker 1: going to do that. Like I am forty percent of
- 12:22Speaker 1: our donors to this campaign, and we had whatever six
- 12:25Speaker 1: figure numbers of small dollar donors. Forty percent of them
- 12:28Speaker 1: were first time ever donors to the GOP, and most
- 12:32Speaker 1: of them were young, actually many of them were young.
- 12:34Speaker 1: And so we're reaching a different generation in a way
- 12:37Speaker 1: that nobody else in the Republican Party, including Trump, really was,
- 12:41Speaker 1: And I also do think that's what's going to be
- 12:42Speaker 1: required to really take our America First movement to the
- 12:46Speaker 1: next level. So that was the case I made to
- 12:48Speaker 1: the voters, and I think a lot of people found
- 12:50Speaker 1: that resident. A lot of people love that who ended
- 12:52Speaker 1: up voting for Donald Trump anyway, say we love you.
- 12:54Speaker 1: But for now, this is still Donald Trump's turn to
- 12:58Speaker 1: get his job done that he wasn't able to get
- 13:00Speaker 1: done fully the first time around in one term, when
- 13:03Speaker 1: you know they bogged down as presidency and everything else.
- 13:05Speaker 1: I mean, that was the clear message from the voters.
- 13:07Speaker 1: But that was the case that I made. Every other
- 13:08Speaker 1: candidate had their own, you know, shade of lemonade that
- 13:11Speaker 1: was slightly different, But for me, it was if you
- 13:14Speaker 1: want the same basically the same policies. In some ways,
- 13:17Speaker 1: I'm going far further than Trump did with that America
- 13:20Speaker 1: First agenda. But if you want the America First of
- 13:23Speaker 1: the future, then pick the candidate of the future with
- 13:25Speaker 1: fresh legs coming in from the outside, unencumbered and able
- 13:29Speaker 1: to reach the next generation. And I would have been
- 13:31Speaker 1: the youngest president ever elected if elected.
- 13:34Speaker 4: But why vote for the second rate version of something?
- 13:37Speaker 1: Why don't think it's second rate?
- 13:39Speaker 4: The reason I say the second rate is because y'all
- 13:41Speaker 4: act like.
- 13:41Speaker 1: You said, the fresh, the fresh version, which y'all.
- 13:43Speaker 4: Don't act like that though y'all act like Trump is
- 13:45Speaker 4: keen like, and you'll act.
- 13:46Speaker 1: Like I disagree with that. Actually, I mean, you saw
- 13:48Speaker 1: Donald Trump and the late phase of the race. You know,
- 13:50Speaker 1: we had some we had some healthy friction, and it's competition.
- 13:53Speaker 1: It's in the heat of competition. But I don't I
- 13:55Speaker 1: don't bet the need anybody.
- 13:56Speaker 2: Man, Cause when you look at the numbers in Iowa
- 13:58Speaker 2: and you see that about half the Republicans did go
- 14:01Speaker 2: out there and vote for the Santists, voted for Nikki,
- 14:03Speaker 2: some even you know, voted for you. So clearly there's
- 14:06Speaker 2: some Republicans looking for something different. But it feels like, yeah,
- 14:10Speaker 2: everybody was too busy trying to either be Trump's VP
- 14:14Speaker 2: or buying to be for a position in Trump's cabinet.
- 14:16Speaker 4: Some of y'all just looked like Trump's lackey.
- 14:18Speaker 1: So I can't speak for the others.
- 14:20Speaker 2: So it's hard to look at you as a leader
- 14:22Speaker 2: if you're moving like a lackey.
- 14:23Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think I disagree with that characterization. I mean,
- 14:26Speaker 1: I think that the right answer to the bottom line
- 14:28Speaker 1: is Donald Trump, I think did advance a lot of
- 14:29Speaker 1: the right policies for this country. He kept us out
- 14:31Speaker 1: of war and grew the economy. So I don't disagree
- 14:34Speaker 1: with the policies one bit. But the question is how
- 14:36Speaker 1: do we actually reunite a country and reach a next
- 14:39Speaker 1: generation on that basis? And I ran for president because
- 14:42Speaker 1: I thought I was going to be best positioned to
- 14:44Speaker 1: do that. Not as anybody's lacking that's some Republican Party
- 14:46Speaker 1: pawn lackey, not Donald Trump's lackey, not anybody's lackey, but
- 14:50Speaker 1: as my own man, reaching the next generation, honestly speaking
- 14:53Speaker 1: hard truths that nobody else was able to speak in
- 14:55Speaker 1: the campaign. Yes, that's what I was doing in the world. Well,
- 14:59Speaker 1: I think a lot of I mean you could, you
- 15:01Speaker 1: could think Chris christ Chris christ So, Chris Christie was
- 15:04Speaker 1: lobbying Donald Trump and licking his feet about three years ago,
- 15:06Speaker 1: after Donald Trump's first term.
- 15:08Speaker 4: He was, and y'all doing a lot of looking at
- 15:10Speaker 4: the feet.
- 15:11Speaker 1: That's I disagree with you. That I just I just
- 15:14Speaker 1: disagree with you. I think it's true for some people.
- 15:15Speaker 1: I mean, these people have been asking all the politicians
- 15:18Speaker 1: in this race have been asking for money and endorsements
- 15:20Speaker 1: for Trump for years and then Monday Morning quarterback, in
- 15:22Speaker 1: some decision he made you know Chris Christie, he was
- 15:24Speaker 1: a lobbyist. And by the way, this is a side point.
- 15:27Speaker 1: I don't think any politician should be allowed to be
- 15:30Speaker 1: a lobbyist for at least ten years after they've left
- 15:32Speaker 1: their position in government. But this guy ends up becoming
- 15:36Speaker 1: a lobbyist on behalf of special pharmaceutical clients in New
- 15:39Speaker 1: Jersey for coronavirus cash from Donald Trump, licking his feet
- 15:42Speaker 1: doing his debate prep while lobbying him, and then suddenly
- 15:45Speaker 1: decides and has an epiphany, this after Trump's first term,
- 15:47Speaker 1: for God's sake, decides is going to make it a
- 15:49Speaker 1: shtick to do the to do the anti Donald Trump thing.
- 15:52Speaker 1: My view is, I've been clear. I love Trump's policies.
- 15:55Speaker 4: I love policies. His conspiracy theories.
- 15:59Speaker 1: Well, actually, to be clear, a lot of what I've
- 16:01Speaker 1: actually stated on behalf of my views of what happened,
- 16:04Speaker 1: the truth of what happened, on a lot of what
- 16:05Speaker 1: the government has I think suppressed. They're not conspiracy theories.
- 16:09Speaker 1: They're realities that even Donald Trump hasn't touched. So I'm
- 16:12Speaker 1: speaking with my own convictions what they are. And I'm
- 16:15Speaker 1: not a political analyst either, right, you guys probably be
- 16:17Speaker 1: better at that than me. No, maybe you are, but
- 16:19Speaker 1: that's not my job anyway. I'm sharing my convictions, and
- 16:23Speaker 1: my whole view of this whole campaign is I'm going
- 16:25Speaker 1: to tell people who I am and what I stand for,
- 16:28Speaker 1: and if they want to vote for that, I will
- 16:29Speaker 1: volunteer to be the next president. And if they don't,
- 16:32Speaker 1: then I'm not going to be the next president. I'm
- 16:34Speaker 1: gonna put my head on the pillow at night and
- 16:35Speaker 1: know that I at least shared with you what my
- 16:37Speaker 1: true convictions actually are.
- 16:39Speaker 3: Have you told them about being possibly a run of
- 16:40Speaker 3: meet Have you had that conversation.
- 16:42Speaker 1: No, I think that we've had an open conversation about
- 16:44Speaker 1: the fact that I'm in for the country to make
- 16:47Speaker 1: change in a lot of different ways, you know. I Mean,
- 16:49Speaker 1: the truth is, I think it's important that everybody know
- 16:53Speaker 1: what they're getting with me, and I think there's ways
- 16:55Speaker 1: to drive change in this country that don't just come
- 16:57Speaker 1: through government. That's what I've been doing my whole career. Anyway. Now,
- 17:00Speaker 1: there's a lot of speculation out there, and you know,
- 17:02Speaker 1: if that came up, it would be a serious conversation
- 17:04Speaker 1: that I'd be willing to have and I'd want to
- 17:06Speaker 1: make sure that we're on the same page to deliver
- 17:08Speaker 1: for the country. One of the things I've learned is
- 17:11Speaker 1: from building businesses is the people who you work with,
- 17:14Speaker 1: you know, the chemistry between them, alignment on the vision.
- 17:17Speaker 1: That's really important. And if you have you know, if
- 17:19Speaker 1: you have a little bit of daylight early on, that
- 17:21Speaker 1: can become you know, wide open gaps later on in
- 17:24Speaker 1: the course of building a business. I think it's not
- 17:26Speaker 1: going to be any different in running the government. So
- 17:29Speaker 1: I believe that he and I are deeply aligned. But
- 17:31Speaker 1: I think that if that were a serious conversation, I'd
- 17:33Speaker 1: want to make sure it was the right choice for him,
- 17:35Speaker 1: just as it was the right choice for the country
- 17:36Speaker 1: and for me. And if it was, that's something I
- 17:38Speaker 1: would be willing to evaluate.
- 17:40Speaker 4: I read you're not on the short list anymore.
- 17:42Speaker 1: But I heard him say, y yeah.
- 17:44Speaker 4: I heard him say he said that y'all would be
- 17:46Speaker 4: working together for you.
- 17:47Speaker 1: I think I think that I'm in this for the country,
- 17:50Speaker 1: so I'm gonna do whatever allows me to have maximum
- 17:52Speaker 1: impact on the country. I believe there's lots of ways
- 17:55Speaker 1: to have impact in the country that don't come just
- 17:58Speaker 1: through government service. But that is something that's required right now.
- 18:01Speaker 1: I do think the government bureaucracy in Washington, DC, what
- 18:04Speaker 1: we call the administrative state, the permanent state, the shadow government,
- 18:08Speaker 1: the deep state. I do think that that is the
- 18:10Speaker 1: real threat to liberty in this country. I do think
- 18:13Speaker 1: it's the real threat to prosperity in this country. Goes
- 18:15Speaker 1: beyond black versus white or Republican versus Democrat. I think
- 18:20Speaker 1: this is about the permanent state, the managerial class, the
- 18:22Speaker 1: bureaucracy versus the citizen. And so if that is a
- 18:27Speaker 1: focus of Donald Trump and believes that he needs to
- 18:29Speaker 1: actually shut down that deep state, as I believe we
- 18:32Speaker 1: need to, I think he has that conviction. I definitely do. Then, Yes, absolutely,
- 18:36Speaker 1: I'm going to go in there and do everything I
- 18:37Speaker 1: can to make that happen. But that's what my focus
- 18:40Speaker 1: was in this race, and I think there's a lot
- 18:41Speaker 1: of ways to drive change even outside of government, to
- 18:43Speaker 1: at least kill the swamp outside of government as well.
- 18:46Speaker 1: And so that's what I'm evaluating right now. Haven't made
- 18:48Speaker 1: any solid plans on what comes next.
- 18:51Speaker 2: You set the record for the most campaign events ever
- 18:54Speaker 2: in Iowa.
- 18:54Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely.
- 18:55Speaker 4: Why do you think that didn't translate the voice.
- 18:57Speaker 1: Well, I mean, if you look at where we started,
- 18:59Speaker 1: I think the law most people started zero percent stayed
- 19:02Speaker 1: zero percent. Most people started zero point zero percent stayed
- 19:05Speaker 1: zero point zero percent. And so for me coming out
- 19:07Speaker 1: as a guy whose name most people couldn't pronounce at
- 19:10Speaker 1: the start, didn't know, some of them still can't pronounce
- 19:13Speaker 1: in a state like Iowa, and you know, I'm beating
- 19:17Speaker 1: former vice presidents, US senators, multiple governors in that same race.
- 19:21Speaker 1: I'm proud of what we accomplished in a short period
- 19:23Speaker 1: of time. I only decided about a year ago. Is
- 19:26Speaker 1: actually exactly when I even decided seriously to run for president.
- 19:29Speaker 1: I declared for president less than a year ago. And
- 19:32Speaker 1: so to go from being there to be in the
- 19:33Speaker 1: solid number four candidate in this race, beating out governors
- 19:37Speaker 1: and former vice presidents and senators, I think we accomplished
- 19:39Speaker 1: a lot. And I think the people of this country
- 19:41Speaker 1: that doesn't usually happen. And so I think that was
- 19:43Speaker 1: a testament to a distinctive message and a distinctive candidate
- 19:47Speaker 1: who was willing to be unshackled as I was in
- 19:49Speaker 1: this race. And so did I expect to do better? Yeah?
- 19:52Speaker 1: I expected to be the next president. That's why I ran.
- 19:54Speaker 1: I did not This is not an exercise in futility.
- 19:56Speaker 1: I didn't write a thirty million dollar check or close
- 19:59Speaker 1: to thirty million of my own because I believe that
- 20:01Speaker 1: this was going to be a second place endeavor. But
- 20:04Speaker 1: am I proud of what we did. Absolutely. And I
- 20:06Speaker 1: think that the people of Iowa if you asked somebody
- 20:09Speaker 1: at the start of this race, when I declared what
- 20:12Speaker 1: I have even made it through the fall, let alone
- 20:14Speaker 1: through where we did in Iowa, they would have said,
- 20:15Speaker 1: that's crazy. And you know what, I think that we're
- 20:18Speaker 1: just getting warmed up.
- 20:18Speaker 4: That's what you said something earlier that I agree with.
- 20:21Speaker 2: You said that, you know, you feel like Democrats and
- 20:24Speaker 2: Republicans both need to figure out what their party are. Yes,
- 20:26Speaker 2: And I agree, And I think that starts with Democrats
- 20:29Speaker 2: moving away from President Joe Biden. I think that starts
- 20:32Speaker 2: with Republicans moving away from Donald Trump. So it makes
- 20:35Speaker 2: me wonder, like, why have you chosen to endorse Donald
- 20:39Speaker 2: Trump as a polled to somebody like a Nikki Haley.
- 20:42Speaker 1: Yes, So I think this goes to the ideological divide
- 20:45Speaker 1: in the GOP. Actually, because I do think that there's
- 20:47Speaker 1: a choice on the table. It may be that I
- 20:49Speaker 1: come out on a different place. I think I do
- 20:51Speaker 1: than you do. Within the Republican Party is one direction
- 20:54Speaker 1: of the Republican Party is a belief that it is
- 20:57Speaker 1: the job of the US government to play the role
- 21:00Speaker 1: of global policemen, to establish a surveillance state here at home,
- 21:04Speaker 1: to be able to defend what they will call national security.
- 21:07Speaker 1: I'm not criticizing it. I'm just describing with the views
- 21:10Speaker 1: and that whatever it takes fighting those foreign wars, having
- 21:14Speaker 1: people who have interests in them running the government and
- 21:17Speaker 1: people who are adopting a surveillance state here at home,
- 21:19Speaker 1: that that's the right vision. We've had that Republican Party before.
- 21:22Speaker 1: I didn't vote for it. This is George Bush, Dick
- 21:24Speaker 1: Cheney back in two thousand and four. I voted libertarian
- 21:27Speaker 1: because I did not want to vote for that agenda
- 21:29Speaker 1: in the time of the Iraq War and otherwise. Nikki Haley,
- 21:32Speaker 1: I believe is a representation of that George Bush era
- 21:35Speaker 1: Republican Party. There are people in the Republican Party that
- 21:38Speaker 1: want to see that be the future of the Republican Party,
- 21:41Speaker 1: that want to fork over more money to Ukraine, that
- 21:44Speaker 1: believe and agree with Nikki Haley that for our national security,
- 21:47Speaker 1: we do need to require every citizen to tie their
- 21:50Speaker 1: social media account and their Internet profiles to their government
- 21:54Speaker 1: issued ID and driver's license. I disagree with these things,
- 21:57Speaker 1: but that is a view I think Dick Cheney would
- 21:58Speaker 1: agree with that. I think the post nine to eleven
- 22:00Speaker 1: Patriot Act proponents would agree with that. I think that
- 22:03Speaker 1: the George Bush era, Karl Rove era, Lindsey Graham Republicans
- 22:06Speaker 1: would agree with that. And that's one vision for the
- 22:08Speaker 1: Republican Party. It's not mine. My vision for the Republican
- 22:12Speaker 1: Party is one that you could call a libertarian nationalist vision,
- 22:15Speaker 1: which says that two simple ideas. The people we elect
- 22:19Speaker 1: to run the government should be the ones who actually
- 22:23Speaker 1: run the government, not the bureaucracy. The people we actually
- 22:26Speaker 1: elect should be the ones that actually make the laws,
- 22:28Speaker 1: not a bunch of bureaucrats. And number two is the
- 22:31Speaker 1: moral duty that they owe. The sole moral duty of
- 22:34Speaker 1: the US President and every elected official is to the
- 22:37Speaker 1: citizens of this country, not another one. That's a very
- 22:41Speaker 1: different vision than the Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Nikki Haley,
- 22:44Speaker 1: George Bush, John Bolton view which exists in the Republican Party.
- 22:48Speaker 1: That's the choice.
- 22:49Speaker 4: That don't look like Trump's Republican Party either.
- 22:51Speaker 1: Though. Well, I think I respectfully disagree with you there,
- 22:55Speaker 1: because I was to lead that to the next level
- 22:57Speaker 1: with clarity.
- 22:57Speaker 4: But I think that Donald co owner and you know,
- 23:01Speaker 4: they're beholding.
- 23:01Speaker 1: So I'll tell you what I favor. I'm not speaking
- 23:03Speaker 1: for anybody else but myself here. I'm here as a
- 23:05Speaker 1: private citizen today, not even as a political candidate. I'll
- 23:08Speaker 1: tell you what I stand for. I don't think that
- 23:10Speaker 1: we should have super PACs in American politics. I think
- 23:12Speaker 1: the super packs. I don't know if you're familiar with
- 23:14Speaker 1: this concept, there are cancer on American politics.
- 23:17Speaker 2: It's called eighty eight. Should watch it, okay on Stars
- 23:19Speaker 2: and Hulu right now?
- 23:20Speaker 1: All right, sounds good? Back to my that'll that'll probably
- 23:23Speaker 1: be my inaugural movie. I'ven't watched it on in a
- 23:24Speaker 1: long time. I think that the super packs are cancer
- 23:27Speaker 1: on American politics. I think lobbying is a cancer on
- 23:30Speaker 1: American politics. As I said, I don't think you should
- 23:32Speaker 1: be able to leave the government and lobby that same
- 23:35Speaker 1: government ever, but at least for ten years after you've left.
- 23:38Speaker 1: If you've done special favors for a company. I don't
- 23:41Speaker 1: think you should be able to join the board of
- 23:43Speaker 1: that company. This is my issue with Nikki Haley. Right
- 23:46Speaker 1: she's scratched Boeing's back, gave hundreds of millions of dollars
- 23:49Speaker 1: of special benefits in South Carolina. As soon as she leaves,
- 23:52Speaker 1: government has a board seat waiting on none other than Boeing,
- 23:55Speaker 1: the company that apparently can't even fly planes in the
- 23:56Speaker 1: sky anymore. I think that I don't think congressman should
- 23:59Speaker 1: be allt to trade individual stocks. I don't think bureaucrats
- 24:02Speaker 1: should be allowed to trade individual stocks. Actually, my first
- 24:05Speaker 1: job was in New York City at the hedge Fund World.
- 24:07Speaker 1: I worked with some pretty smart people here, and I've
- 24:09Speaker 1: met most Congressmen. I could tell you they would be
- 24:11Speaker 1: better off not trading individual stocks unless they were actually
- 24:14Speaker 1: using inside information from Congress and from their bureaucracies to
- 24:18Speaker 1: their advantage. I don't think that should be allowed. Now,
- 24:21Speaker 1: these aren't Republican ideas or Democrat ideas. I think we
- 24:23Speaker 1: need to.
- 24:24Speaker 4: Get the influence everything you described both parties, for.
- 24:27Speaker 1: Both parties, I mean, if you look at I mean,
- 24:28Speaker 1: I hit Nikki Haley on this, but you take Elizabeth Warren,
- 24:31Speaker 1: you everybody knows what her salary is, and now her
- 24:33Speaker 1: net worth is disclosed to sixty eight million bucks. I
- 24:36Speaker 1: know how you makes sixty eight million bucks, and it
- 24:38Speaker 1: is not from collecting the salary of being a US senator.
- 24:41Speaker 1: And so if you look at the networks, it's actually
- 24:43Speaker 1: an interesting exercise. If you look at the net worth
- 24:45Speaker 1: of people who have spent their entire career in government,
- 24:48Speaker 1: that math does not add up. And so that's one
- 24:51Speaker 1: of the core elements of my campaign. I think it
- 24:53Speaker 1: drew a lot of people to us, which is the
- 24:55Speaker 1: people we elect to run the government. The congressman, the senator,
- 24:59Speaker 1: is the president. Say what you will agree or disagree.
- 25:01Speaker 1: They should be the ones who actually run the government.
- 25:03Speaker 1: It's not too much to ask today. That's not the case.
- 25:06Speaker 1: They're all puppets. It's really the permanent state, the bureaucrats
- 25:09Speaker 1: that are running the show. And the second thing is
- 25:11Speaker 1: the moral obligation they owe as to the citizens of
- 25:14Speaker 1: this country, not another one. So yes, I come down
- 25:16Speaker 1: on the side of saying that we should be using
- 25:19Speaker 1: our taxpayer resources, we should be using our military resources.
- 25:23Speaker 1: Radical idea to protect an invasion across our own border
- 25:28Speaker 1: sooner than we're using it to protect an invasion across
- 25:30Speaker 1: somebody else's border. I don't think that's too much to ask,
- 25:33Speaker 1: But the fact that that's controversial, both in the mainstream
- 25:36Speaker 1: media and narrative of American politics today and even in
- 25:39Speaker 1: the Republican Party says that, yes, the thing we need
- 25:42Speaker 1: to decide in the Republican Party is not me or
- 25:44Speaker 1: Ronda Santis or Nikki Haley versus Donald Trump. Forget the personalities,
- 25:48Speaker 1: Who are we and what do we actually stand for?
- 25:51Speaker 1: I think the Republican parties should become the Party of
- 25:53Speaker 1: seventeen seventy six, the party that says we stand for
- 25:58Speaker 1: the ideals of the American Revolution, self governance, free speech,
- 26:02Speaker 1: open debate, that you get to speak your minds openly
- 26:04Speaker 1: as long as I get to in return.
- 26:06Speaker 2: You know, we weren't included, and none of that though
- 26:08Speaker 2: black people, brown people like yourself, yeah, age people like envy.
- 26:11Speaker 2: We were never including black men.
- 26:13Speaker 1: But let's celebrate the progress we have made towards those ideals.
- 26:17Speaker 1: Because here's the thing about the United States of America.
- 26:18Speaker 1: We're a nation founded of I don't mean this as
- 26:21Speaker 1: a joke. We're not a nation of gods. We're a
- 26:24Speaker 1: nation of men. The difference between man and God is
- 26:27Speaker 1: that man is imperfect. Yet we're a nation still founded
- 26:31Speaker 1: on ideals, but always is That's the problem. That's in
- 26:35Speaker 1: the past.
- 26:35Speaker 3: Man, that's not in the past.
- 26:36Speaker 2: You know.
- 26:37Speaker 3: The other day, I can't remember to site what he said.
- 26:40Speaker 3: I think that we referred to as a seven eleven
- 26:42Speaker 3: worker at the White.
- 26:43Speaker 4: House Babylon like this is this is this is sad.
- 26:47Speaker 3: But that's how they look at us, sad sight, that's
- 26:49Speaker 3: how to look at you, and that's how I look
- 26:50Speaker 3: at us.
- 26:50Speaker 1: Can I what do what do you think it was
- 26:53Speaker 1: a joke? I took it as a joke. It actually
- 26:55Speaker 1: if you read it into the article, which I did,
- 26:57Speaker 1: it was actually it was actually poking fun at a
- 26:59Speaker 1: lot of the left doing self awareness here. What do
- 27:02Speaker 1: you think Martin Luther King would say? We just had
- 27:04Speaker 1: MLK Day, we celebrated. That was the day that I
- 27:05Speaker 1: wad call us.
- 27:07Speaker 4: What do you think he.
- 27:07Speaker 1: Would say about where we are as a country today?
- 27:09Speaker 1: He said, I hope my four children grow up in
- 27:11Speaker 1: a country where they're judged not on the color of
- 27:13Speaker 1: their skin, but on the content of their character. When
- 27:15Speaker 1: he said that about sixty years ago, and he woke
- 27:18Speaker 1: up to the country. Let's say he just tell a
- 27:20Speaker 1: transported to the country we're in right now. Do you
- 27:23Speaker 1: think he would say that, oh, my gosh, we have regressed,
- 27:27Speaker 1: or that, oh, I'm very upset about where we've landed.
- 27:30Speaker 1: Or he sees a country where everybody's able to go
- 27:33Speaker 1: to the ballot box and cast their vote, anybody's able
- 27:35Speaker 1: to start a business, everybody start from the same place.
- 27:38Speaker 4: Now, a lot of voter depression that keeps up black.
- 27:40Speaker 1: I'm asking you a question, though, if you just snap
- 27:43Speaker 1: of a finger from nineteen sixty three or nineteen sixty four,
- 27:45Speaker 1: whenever it was, he would.
- 27:46Speaker 4: Say it is sixty years he would say that progress.
- 27:48Speaker 1: But still he would say to the and so is
- 27:52Speaker 1: there racism today? Yes, there is, of course there is.
- 27:55Speaker 1: I have a theory on how to deal with it
- 27:57Speaker 1: at this point, which is different. Tell from nineteen sixty,
- 28:00Speaker 1: which is different from eighteen seventy, but today, because there's
- 28:03Speaker 1: different stages in a nation's life, I think require different response.
- 28:07Speaker 3: How would you deal it? Because obviously it's not a
- 28:10Speaker 3: racist country.
- 28:11Speaker 1: So I think right now I'm not saying this is
- 28:12Speaker 1: the answer sixty years ago, but right now today, I
- 28:15Speaker 1: think the right answer is actually to let it atrophy
- 28:20Speaker 1: to irrelevance. It's like the equivalence. I'm a biologist by background,
- 28:23Speaker 1: that's my background. If a virus gets so low, right,
- 28:29Speaker 1: racism is the virus. If it gets so low in
- 28:31Speaker 1: the bloodstream at a certain point, the natural host immune
- 28:36Speaker 1: system can just take care of it, and an atrophy
- 28:37Speaker 1: is to irrelevance. But sometimes the way people actually die
- 28:41Speaker 1: COVID is an example of this. The way people die
- 28:44Speaker 1: of a virus isn't actually from the effect of the virus.
- 28:47Speaker 1: It's from an overactive immune system that kills the very
- 28:50Speaker 1: host organ in the name of fighting a virus long
- 28:53Speaker 1: after it's gone. And I think that that's close to
- 28:56Speaker 1: what we're happening in this country with the fight against racism.
- 28:58Speaker 1: Is we're creating new racism today that I believe would
- 29:02Speaker 1: not exist if we at a certain point would say
- 29:05Speaker 1: we're going to let it go and move on.
- 29:07Speaker 3: Was an example, It was an example.
- 29:09Speaker 1: New anti black racism, a new wave of anti black
- 29:13Speaker 1: racism that I think is beginning in this country because
- 29:16Speaker 1: of people's feeling that they are being denied something on
- 29:19Speaker 1: the basis of their skin color in the name of
- 29:21Speaker 1: these day policies, I think that that's actually existing.
- 29:24Speaker 2: Og anti black racism.
- 29:26Speaker 1: Just I'm not talking about I'm talking about Gen two
- 29:29Speaker 1: is what I'm talking about.
- 29:30Speaker 3: Example, I've run a company, and I've both in my
- 29:34Speaker 3: campaigns and my companies.
- 29:35Speaker 1: And I don't say this like, oh, I hired black
- 29:38Speaker 1: people or black women and put them in roles of positions.
- 29:40Speaker 1: I don't care what skin color they are. But it
- 29:42Speaker 1: so happens that in multiple of my company's enterprises, businesses,
- 29:45Speaker 1: even campaign people in significant positions of authority leadership happened
- 29:50Speaker 1: to be black and black women included. All right, so
- 29:53Speaker 1: what they're the best people for the job is why
- 29:55Speaker 1: I put them there. One of my companies, I mean
- 29:58Speaker 1: you turns out was of the hight paid, if not
- 30:00Speaker 1: high paid person of the company. Okay, you hear what
- 30:03Speaker 1: the other people will say who weren't as good to
- 30:05Speaker 1: get that job, which is to say, oh, she only
- 30:07Speaker 1: got that job because she's a black woman, which is
- 30:09Speaker 1: unfair to her, It's unfair to the company, it's unfair
- 30:12Speaker 1: to the people who led the company to make meritocratic decisions,
- 30:15Speaker 1: and yet they are able to say that and have
- 30:18Speaker 1: that impression because we do live in a corporate America
- 30:22Speaker 1: where pharmaceutical companies and other companies say that we need
- 30:26Speaker 1: to have quota systems that twenty five percent of our
- 30:28Speaker 1: workforce and vice president ranks are above need to be
- 30:30Speaker 1: people of a certain skin color. Imagine if we didn't
- 30:33Speaker 1: say that, but we just did it by merit, we
- 30:35Speaker 1: would probably get to the same place or something darn
- 30:37Speaker 1: close to it anyway, without that second wave of race.
- 30:41Speaker 1: I'm telling you out of my self interest is why
- 30:42Speaker 1: I did it right. I grew up in this country,
- 30:45Speaker 1: came from nothing, built multi billion dollar businesses in part
- 30:48Speaker 1: by hiring the best person for the job. So it
- 30:51Speaker 1: was self interest that guided me to do it.
- 30:53Speaker 2: Yeah, but the reason they have to have those twenty
- 30:55Speaker 2: five percent quota is because of systemic and structural races.
- 30:58Speaker 1: Let me tell you. One of the most best interactions
- 30:59Speaker 1: I have in Iowa was with a black pastor not
- 31:02Speaker 1: that many of them in Iowa. I promise you. He
- 31:05Speaker 1: came to one of our events. The first thing he
- 31:07Speaker 1: says is, before I ask my question to do a
- 31:09Speaker 1: push up challenge with you, can you actually handle ten
- 31:11Speaker 1: push ups? So we hit ten push ups on the spot.
- 31:13Speaker 1: Then he asked me the hard question.
- 31:14Speaker 4: I don't believe you did on the spots.
- 31:17Speaker 1: I did thirty push ups on the spot. Why not
- 31:20Speaker 1: do it? Hit it right now, right now? I did
- 31:22Speaker 1: thirty this morning.
- 31:23Speaker 4: Let me see you're gonna do with me?
- 31:25Speaker 1: Pop them out, Let's do it, Let's do it.
- 31:26Speaker 4: You get the blood man, All right to.
- 31:29Speaker 3: Go v vic All right, let's do it, he says,
- 31:35Speaker 3: some burpy's let's go one.
- 31:39Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh, push ups man, Oh wow, he's just gonna
- 31:44Speaker 1: push ups final pound him out.
- 31:45Speaker 2: Wow.
- 31:47Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm at twenty. It'll be so tired. I mean,
- 31:53Speaker 4: you fought it.
- 31:54Speaker 2: It did.
- 31:55Speaker 3: Oh my good.
- 31:55Speaker 4: What kind of far was it?
- 31:59Speaker 1: That's thirty.
- 32:01Speaker 4: He's beat rays beat ray. Good job, good job, job.
- 32:10Speaker 2: Job good.
- 32:11Speaker 1: Just one of the things I missed from the campaign.
- 32:13Speaker 4: Nice and ask him the hard questions.
- 32:15Speaker 1: That's what he got me out of breath. And then
- 32:17Speaker 1: he asked me the hard question, which is one of
- 32:19Speaker 1: our ten truths in the campaign, was reverse racism is racism?
- 32:25Speaker 1: And the thing he asked me is which the question
- 32:27Speaker 1: you would ask me? What does that mean in the
- 32:30Speaker 1: context of systemic racism and historical inequality in the US? Water. Yeah, healthic, Yeah, exactly.
- 32:41Speaker 2: You shouldn't fall so easily to pay a pressure.
- 32:42Speaker 1: But I ad man, I'm trying to peer pressure you
- 32:47Speaker 1: into the birpe. But he's but he's a usual. It
- 32:50Speaker 1: was just a healthy but skeptical question. And I'll tell
- 33:02Speaker 1: you what I told him, which is.
- 33:07Speaker 4: You're still trying to catch it.
- 33:10Speaker 1: You definitely got to get a certain point. We gotta
- 33:12Speaker 1: we have to embrace because he's a pastor, right, And
- 33:16Speaker 1: so I was trying to think about how to speak
- 33:19Speaker 1: the language that we both share in common, the virtue
- 33:24Speaker 1: of mercy forgiveness. So this is not to say that
- 33:31Speaker 1: we're going to deny something that's happened in the country,
- 33:32Speaker 1: because I think that is an approach some people try
- 33:36Speaker 1: to take denialism, right, Oh that didn't happen. No, I'm
- 33:39Speaker 1: not taking that approces.
- 33:40Speaker 2: Nicky did last week or two weeks ago or whatever
- 33:43Speaker 2: it was. That's what Tim Scott has done, that's what
- 33:44Speaker 2: the Vice president has done, Joe Biden has done. They
- 33:46Speaker 2: all say, oh, America is not a racist country.
- 33:48Speaker 1: Yeah, and order the history, right. But at a certain point,
- 33:52Speaker 1: I think here's the approach to national unity is I
- 33:55Speaker 1: believe and I think it's the truth. At a certain point,
- 34:01Speaker 1: the right answer is Clemency is mercy. There's a time
- 34:06Speaker 1: for mercy and there's a time for justice, and sometimes
- 34:09Speaker 1: those are intention with each other. But I think then
- 34:13Speaker 1: now is the time for mercy. I think we have
- 34:15Speaker 1: reached not the ultimate promised land. MLKA say, I may
- 34:20Speaker 1: not get there with you, but we will get there
- 34:23Speaker 1: one day. And I think that at a certain point
- 34:25Speaker 1: when you get there, it's when you're closest to the
- 34:29Speaker 1: promised land that there's a temptation to actually focus on
- 34:34Speaker 1: where you were at the start. But I think that
- 34:37Speaker 1: we have to resist that temptation and say that, you
- 34:39Speaker 1: know what, at a certain point in time, it's like
- 34:41Speaker 1: when that virus is almost cleared. It's still a little
- 34:44Speaker 1: bit of a left, but it's almost cleared to say
- 34:46Speaker 1: that we're going to let it atrophy to irrelevance. And
- 34:51Speaker 1: I think that's the point we're at right now, or
- 34:52Speaker 1: else I worry we're creating more race consciousness in a
- 34:57Speaker 1: way that creates more division rather than less right now.
- 35:01Speaker 1: And that's my that's one of my core issues with
- 35:02Speaker 1: the with the so called deigen So it's not to
- 35:04Speaker 1: deny anything else. But and it's a hard thing to say,
- 35:07Speaker 1: well I was wrong. Well, how can you just say
- 35:09Speaker 1: clemency and forgiveness now? And now I'm gonna say some
- 35:13Speaker 1: things that might make you up. So then, but then
- 35:15Speaker 1: you could have a bunch of other people that make
- 35:17Speaker 1: a claim on something that they were wrong with Japanese
- 35:19Speaker 1: people were internment camps, or Jewish Americans or anybody else.
- 35:23Speaker 1: We can all play that game.
- 35:24Speaker 2: And the reason you need the that becomes a currency
- 35:26Speaker 2: is because of systemic and structural racism. Can you admit
- 35:29Speaker 2: I just agree that this country there is systemic and
- 35:32Speaker 2: structural racism in this country.
- 35:34Speaker 1: I have to know what those terms mean, Charlemagne to
- 35:36Speaker 1: be able to answer systemic racisms.
- 35:39Speaker 2: Use I said racism, you said systemic in structural racism,
- 35:42Speaker 2: you said you said structure.
- 35:43Speaker 1: In stating the argument for the other side of what
- 35:45Speaker 1: what's used, I don't think systemic racism. It's it's a
- 35:49Speaker 1: little bit of a cop out, right. I know what
- 35:50Speaker 1: racism is.
- 35:51Speaker 2: We know that any healthcare system, we know that inequalities
- 35:54Speaker 2: and the justice system.
- 35:55Speaker 4: We know these things are right.
- 35:57Speaker 1: So has there historically been in this country? Right? And
- 36:01Speaker 1: I think that what we want to do is amentivil
- 36:04Speaker 1: rights movement right? And actually a lot of what I'm
- 36:06Speaker 1: standing for, for example, is I think that there are
- 36:08Speaker 1: civil rights inequalities right now when it comes to your
- 36:11Speaker 1: political beliefs. I think that that's actually something that exists
- 36:14Speaker 1: right now. So the same FBI that was going after
- 36:16Speaker 1: Martin Luther King sixty years ago on the basis of
- 36:20Speaker 1: incorrectly collected tapes, it's a mystery to me that much
- 36:23Speaker 1: of the left that should remember this from sixty years ago,
- 36:26Speaker 1: somehow believes that that same FBI is a saintly organization.
- 36:29Speaker 2: That is somehow we've never thought that. We've been telling
- 36:32Speaker 2: you all the FBI is corrupt.
- 36:33Speaker 1: Yeah, good, So why does everybody what does everybody somehow
- 36:36Speaker 1: now believe that just because it's Christopher Ray or James
- 36:39Speaker 1: Callmey who's leading again says, so everybody believes that if
- 36:42Speaker 1: you praying and bring that same point up suddenly that
- 36:44Speaker 1: that's a conspiracy.
- 36:45Speaker 2: Is an investigation, and if there's evidence in that investigation,
- 36:48Speaker 2: you make in arrest, and then that's why we have
- 36:49Speaker 2: a judicial system is due process. So what we're seeing
- 36:52Speaker 2: now is somebody going through due process.
- 36:54Speaker 1: So I think that I think that I'm in a
- 36:57Speaker 1: different place than you, which is I think the FBI
- 36:59Speaker 1: was corrupt then and I think the FBI is corrupt today.
- 37:02Speaker 4: I'm not disagreeing.
- 37:03Speaker 1: And so the idea that.
- 37:05Speaker 4: They don't I don't mean that they don't even vabtigate people.
- 37:07Speaker 4: And if you have committed a crime, that.
- 37:09Speaker 1: Right, I think. But I think we can't talk out
- 37:10Speaker 1: about sides of our mouth, right for a lot of
- 37:11Speaker 1: these institutions that have been corrupt in the same way
- 37:14Speaker 1: in our past, have they gone There have been two
- 37:15Speaker 1: standards of justice based on your skin color? Absolutely there
- 37:17Speaker 1: have been. If you look at other points today, are
- 37:20Speaker 1: there two standards of justice today based on your political beliefs?
- 37:24Speaker 1: I think the answer to that questioning.
- 37:25Speaker 4: Biologic the FBI.
- 37:27Speaker 2: That means everybody they've ever arrested it was it wasn't
- 37:30Speaker 2: they should.
- 37:31Speaker 1: I'm saying that, but I'm saying that there's there is
- 37:33Speaker 1: a by anybody's logic. But you could say that sixty
- 37:36Speaker 1: years ago the same thing that wasn't true then that
- 37:37Speaker 1: isn't true today. But is there a fundamentally corrupting influence
- 37:41Speaker 1: and bias today that is based on your political belief
- 37:44Speaker 1: I think the answer is yes, and I think that's
- 37:45Speaker 1: as wrong today as it was sixty or eighty years
- 37:49Speaker 1: ago for it to be based on your skin color.
- 37:51Speaker 1: And what I've seen on the modern left is now
- 37:53Speaker 1: questioning that fundamental corruption in the FBI. And I favor
- 37:58Speaker 1: shutting down the FBI. And that's a different place than
- 38:00Speaker 1: pretty much every other Republican who says maybe fire Christopher
- 38:03Speaker 1: am the only Republican in this field who thinks that's
- 38:04Speaker 1: a good idea. I think shutting down the FBI is
- 38:07Speaker 1: a good idea because the only way you're going to
- 38:09Speaker 1: reform a corrupt bureaucracy isn't just by reforming it, it's
- 38:13Speaker 1: actually by shutting it down. And so you know, we
- 38:16Speaker 1: got thirty five thousand employees at the FBI. Twenty thousand
- 38:19Speaker 1: of them are back office bureaucrats. Okay, fifteen thousand of
- 38:23Speaker 1: them are cops on the front lines. I'd say send
- 38:26Speaker 1: the back office bureaucrats home. The twenty thousand, we could
- 38:29Speaker 1: send them home. Fifteen thousand on the front lines. We
- 38:32Speaker 1: will move them. We'll move them to the US Marshals,
- 38:35Speaker 1: We'll move them to the DEA, both of which, by
- 38:38Speaker 1: the way, have been far more effective at fighting child
- 38:40Speaker 1: sex trafficking rings, far more effective at fighting the fentanyl epidemic,
- 38:45Speaker 1: far more effective. You can move them to the financial
- 38:46Speaker 1: Crimes Enforcement network, go for the financial fraudsters, the sbfs
- 38:50Speaker 1: and the ftx's of the world, more specialization than they
- 38:53Speaker 1: have at the FBI. So that's the fifteen thousand cops,
- 38:55Speaker 1: but the twenty thousand back office bureaucrats send them packing.
- 38:59Speaker 1: That's how how you actually tackle corruption in the United
- 39:02Speaker 1: States and in the administrative state, in the bureaucracy. I
- 39:05Speaker 1: think we should be able to unite around that the
- 39:07Speaker 1: same FBI. You know what the name of the building is.
- 39:09Speaker 1: You know what the headquarters name is of the fdat
- 39:11Speaker 1: Jaeger Hoover Building. So the same guy who committed, I
- 39:15Speaker 1: would say, in many cases racially charged investigations and breaches
- 39:19Speaker 1: of power sixty years ago is still the legacy that
- 39:22Speaker 1: the current FBI is celebrating today. And yet when I
- 39:26Speaker 1: say things like this, people will put that now in
- 39:28Speaker 1: the category of right wing conspiracy theories celebrate In fact, yes,
- 39:32Speaker 1: of course, they celebrate the founding fathers.
- 39:34Speaker 4: The founding fathers were rapists and.
- 39:35Speaker 1: Murderers, Charlemage. So I think we're going to have a
- 39:38Speaker 1: deep disagreement on this one. These are people who set
- 39:40Speaker 1: Without the ideals that they set into motion, we wouldn't
- 39:43Speaker 1: be where we are today. Tell me about John Adams,
- 39:45Speaker 1: how much, how familiary with his story. He was an
- 39:49Speaker 1: abolitionist in his own time. He was the second president
- 39:52Speaker 1: of the United States. He did not own slaves on principle.
- 39:54Speaker 1: Not only that, he actually fought for the liberation of
- 39:57Speaker 1: slaves as the second president. Jefferson, I mean, look, a
- 40:01Speaker 1: lot of these, a lot of these guys and majamas.
- 40:02Speaker 1: Jefferson one of my favorite presidents'.
- 40:03Speaker 4: Favorite one person to make a point, but no.
- 40:06Speaker 1: No, But I'm making the point that the people today
- 40:07Speaker 1: who are going to go decry or founding fathers for
- 40:10Speaker 1: being slaveholders would have been back then the people who
- 40:12Speaker 1: were slave holders. What you do, right That's what I'm saying,
- 40:14Speaker 1: because they're just following you at.
- 40:16Speaker 2: What you're doing right now, with what you're accusing everybody
- 40:18Speaker 2: else are doing. Because you support Donald Trump. You think
- 40:21Speaker 2: that the FBI is targeting Donald Trump, and you think
- 40:23Speaker 2: Donald Trump has been unfairly prosecuted.
- 40:25Speaker 1: I think not only Donald Trump, but it's because you
- 40:27Speaker 1: support dontru I think, no It's not because I support
- 40:29Speaker 1: Donald Trump. It's because I believe the FBI has been
- 40:31Speaker 1: a corrupt institution for the last seventy years. I was
- 40:33Speaker 1: against the Iraq War back when this wasn't a Republican position.
- 40:36Speaker 1: So the mystery to me is actually a lot of
- 40:38Speaker 1: the modern left. I was libertarian. I told you I
- 40:40Speaker 1: voted libertarian in my first election in two thousand and four,
- 40:42Speaker 1: when I'm nineteen years old. The mystery to me, though,
- 40:45Speaker 1: is that the same left that was correctly I think
- 40:49Speaker 1: correctly skeptical of the federal police state, the national security establishment,
- 40:53Speaker 1: that believed that they're infringing on our civil rights and
- 40:56Speaker 1: liberties with the Patriot Act after nine to eleven in
- 40:58Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties, with the incorrect collection of tapes to
- 41:00Speaker 1: go after civil rights activists, that that left somehow has
- 41:04Speaker 1: abandoned its long standing skepticism of the Trump it is,
- 41:13Speaker 1: which is to say that anybody who then questions that
- 41:15Speaker 1: same FBI or apparatus has dismissed as some conspiracy theorist,
- 41:19Speaker 1: when in fact I think that we should from the
- 41:20Speaker 1: left and the right finally, and the right used to
- 41:22Speaker 1: be the ones that defended the federal police state if
- 41:24Speaker 1: you question it, shut up, sit down, and do as
- 41:26Speaker 1: you're told. That was the George Bush Dick Chene era,
- 41:28Speaker 1: which is my problem with Nikki Alia as a representation
- 41:30Speaker 1: of that. But today it's shut up, sit down, and
- 41:32Speaker 1: do as you're told. If somebody questions that same federal
- 41:34Speaker 1: administrative police state, and so Isaiah's dismantle that bureaucracy. And
- 41:40Speaker 1: that's how you actually revive integrity. And that should not
- 41:42Speaker 1: be a left wing or a right wing point. But
- 41:44Speaker 1: for my part, and I don't know where you were
- 41:47Speaker 1: where your views were back then, I was against the
- 41:49Speaker 1: Iraq War, I was against the Patriot Act then, I'm
- 41:51Speaker 1: against it now. I would repeal every remaining vestige of
- 41:53Speaker 1: the Patriot Act. Today. A lot of those vestiges are,
- 41:56Speaker 1: indeed what are being used by Joe Biden found up
- 42:00Speaker 1: the people who would otherwise be labeled as insurrectionists or
- 42:04Speaker 1: white supremacists or otherwise that are threats today, many of
- 42:07Speaker 1: whom I think are being wrongfully arrested in the same
- 42:10Speaker 1: way that civil rights activists were wrongfully arrested and spied
- 42:13Speaker 1: on by the I think Trump. I think these politicized
- 42:17Speaker 1: accusations against Trump would not exist were he not running
- 42:20Speaker 1: for president. So yes, I believe they're absolutely politicized. It's
- 42:23Speaker 1: going to be such a tired discussion because everybody's beaten
- 42:26Speaker 1: this dead horse to death. But if you take something
- 42:28Speaker 1: like the Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping plot, right, that hasn't been
- 42:33Speaker 1: beaten to death. Remember this story, Yeah, so it actually
- 42:36Speaker 1: began as a storm on the Capitol in Michigan, a
- 42:39Speaker 1: plot to storm Capitall in Michigan ended up being headed
- 42:42Speaker 1: in the direction of a kidnapping plot for Gretchen Whimmer.
- 42:45Speaker 1: Multiple of the defendants are acquitted. First, there's a hung jury.
- 42:48Speaker 1: They retry them. After retrying them, multiple of the defendants
- 42:53Speaker 1: are acquitted at trial. Why on grounds of entrapment. Literally
- 42:59Speaker 1: a third of the people involved in this, if not more,
- 43:01Speaker 1: were FBI agents. Gave them five thousand dollars credit cards.
- 43:05Speaker 1: These are poor people. One of these guys is going
- 43:07Speaker 1: to a Mexican restaurant across the street to go get
- 43:09Speaker 1: hot water. These are poor people in a tough spot.
- 43:12Speaker 1: They happen to be white. Sixty years ago could say
- 43:14Speaker 1: it's black skin color. Take it out of the equation.
- 43:16Speaker 1: Five thousand dollars credit cards to go by munitions, et cetera.
- 43:19Speaker 1: Multiple people acquitted, and the juror at the trial after
- 43:24Speaker 1: the acquittal comes over to the defendant, gives one of
- 43:26Speaker 1: them a hug and just apologizes for what they had
- 43:29Speaker 1: seen and been put through. And so, where is the
- 43:33Speaker 1: I don't say right, right wing, left wing, where is
- 43:35Speaker 1: the accountability for a federal administrative police state that has
- 43:40Speaker 1: put people up to do something that they otherwise wouldn't
- 43:42Speaker 1: have done. They're under poor circumstances, exploited, they're angry, paid
- 43:46Speaker 1: for by the government, tried to put them in jail
- 43:49Speaker 1: for it. Except for thank god, we have a jury
- 43:50Speaker 1: system that is the final, last bastion of defense acquitted
- 43:54Speaker 1: those men who were put up to do something the
- 43:55Speaker 1: otherwise never would have done. I think it was wrong.
- 43:58Speaker 1: What's happened in the nineteen sixties. I think it's long
- 44:00Speaker 1: if it's happening today. And so again, that's why a
- 44:02Speaker 1: lot of the principles I'm standing for, I don't think
- 44:05Speaker 1: they should be viewed as Republican versus Democrat principles.
- 44:08Speaker 2: I agree.
- 44:09Speaker 1: Do you think there are opponents to what I'm saying
- 44:10Speaker 1: in the Republican Party?
- 44:11Speaker 4: Do you think some people are should be above the law.
- 44:15Speaker 1: No, okay, We're a nation of laws, not of men.
- 44:18Speaker 1: That's one of our founding principles, which I give credit
- 44:20Speaker 1: to our founding fathers for setting in motion. By the way,
- 44:22Speaker 1: So what's.
- 44:23Speaker 2: The problem with Trump having ninety one criminal charge? If
- 44:26Speaker 2: he's innocent, then it'll be proven in a court of law.
- 44:28Speaker 1: I think it will. They've proven in a court of law.
- 44:30Speaker 1: But I think it's wrong for the country in terms
- 44:32Speaker 1: of what we're going through in the meantime, and.
- 44:33Speaker 4: You just tainting the course of the show him in
- 44:36Speaker 4: the capitol.
- 44:36Speaker 2: What about the attempted coup that happened on January sixth?
- 44:39Speaker 1: Do we want to go down this rabbit hole? Because
- 44:41Speaker 1: I think that I'm at a again. I was a
- 44:44Speaker 1: private citizen three years ago when it happened. I was
- 44:46Speaker 1: biotech CEO, consuming just I like to think of myself
- 44:49Speaker 1: as independent, but consuming what a lot of the news
- 44:50Speaker 1: media feeds me. As a presidential candidate, you have a
- 44:53Speaker 1: responsibility the country to dive deep into the facts, and
- 44:55Speaker 1: a lot of new facts have actually come out since
- 44:57Speaker 1: then three years ago. If you had told me that
- 45:01Speaker 1: January sixth was some type of government entrapment, I would
- 45:06Speaker 1: say that was crazy talk. I don't believe it's crazy
- 45:09Speaker 1: talk today.
- 45:10Speaker 4: Government and trap mean, what do you mean?
- 45:12Speaker 1: Well, I mean that again the same people. What I
- 45:14Speaker 1: just told you happened in Michigan.
- 45:15Speaker 2: Right.
- 45:16Speaker 1: So here we go. All the way through trial. Multiple
- 45:19Speaker 1: of the people were acquitted because it was found that
- 45:22Speaker 1: the FBI put them up to do something that Dells
- 45:24Speaker 1: wouldn't do. The head of the Detroit Field Office there
- 45:27Speaker 1: was a man by the name of Stephen d'antono.
- 45:29Speaker 2: Well, people weren't quitted it on January six, people would.
- 45:31Speaker 1: Depend I'm lets let me just draw the line said
- 45:34Speaker 1: you want to go down the rabbit hole. You know
- 45:36Speaker 1: it's going to take about five minutes to do it
- 45:38Speaker 1: at least, but we'll go down the rabbit hole if
- 45:40Speaker 1: you want to, if you want to open that door.
- 45:42Speaker 1: The head of the Detroit Field Office of the FBI
- 45:45Speaker 1: is a gentleman to man named Stephen d'antono. In late
- 45:47Speaker 1: twenty twenty, Christopher Ray, the head of the FBI, moves
- 45:50Speaker 1: him to be the DC Field office head. So let's
- 45:52Speaker 1: get this straight. The Detroit Field Office has created a
- 45:56Speaker 1: fake plot to storm the Michigan Capital. Multiple people get fraimed,
- 46:00Speaker 1: through that, several get acquitted on grounds of entrapman. The
- 46:02Speaker 1: person who is heading the Detroit field officer of the
- 46:05Speaker 1: FBI that masterminds that now moved to DC several months
- 46:07Speaker 1: before what happened on January sixth. We all saw what
- 46:10Speaker 1: happened on January sixth. What turns out was that the
- 46:12Speaker 1: video footage we saw shortly after did not include, as
- 46:16Speaker 1: video footage has now come out in the last year,
- 46:18Speaker 1: did not include shooting rubber bulletin tear gas into a
- 46:21Speaker 1: peaceful audience. And then you actually see the response to
- 46:24Speaker 1: that and didn't include Capitol police officers welcoming people into
- 46:29Speaker 1: the capitol, and one of the people on jan six
- 46:31Speaker 1: it turns out, Charlemagne was acquitted because he came in
- 46:35Speaker 1: with the Capitol police officer waiving him to come in.
- 46:37Speaker 4: What they got to do Trump's speech.
- 46:39Speaker 1: But I'm not saying I'm not talking about Trump at all.
- 46:41Speaker 1: I'm talking You asked about the two, but you asking
- 46:43Speaker 1: about the people who were on the grounds on January sixth.
- 46:46Speaker 4: The grounds because Trump called for them to be on
- 46:48Speaker 4: the grounds.
- 46:48Speaker 1: Which is their right to do as long as they're
- 46:50Speaker 1: doing it peacefully and protesting. Because the tradition in this country.
- 46:53Speaker 1: The civil rights movement wouldn't happen after Martine.
- 46:55Speaker 2: Washington, right, we saw him stole them the Capitol. We
- 46:57Speaker 2: saw the video. It's right there for you to see.
- 46:59Speaker 1: We saw of the video. And anybody who was violent,
- 47:01Speaker 1: it's a different category. But if you were a peaceful
- 47:03Speaker 1: protester on January sixth and you ended up in the
- 47:06Speaker 1: Capitol because a Capitol police officer let you in and
- 47:09Speaker 1: you took some selfies and walked around and then left,
- 47:12Speaker 1: I don't think you should be sitting in prison. And
- 47:14Speaker 1: I think that that is an application of a different
- 47:16Speaker 1: standard of the rule of law, which is why I've
- 47:17Speaker 1: said any peaceful January sixth protester would have gotten a
- 47:22Speaker 1: pardon on my first day in office. I don't know
- 47:24Speaker 1: if Trump brothers have made that commitment. I can't speak,
- 47:27Speaker 1: but you do.
- 47:27Speaker 2: Believe that some people were there to attempt to cool
- 47:30Speaker 2: with his country.
- 47:31Speaker 1: If you were violent that day, you need to be helped.
- 47:34Speaker 1: You need to be held accountable for that violence. Now
- 47:36Speaker 1: was there I think a lot of unanswered questions that
- 47:39Speaker 1: need to be answered, and I think it's up to
- 47:41Speaker 1: good journalists to step up.
- 47:42Speaker 2: And understand though did Donald Trump inside?
- 47:46Speaker 1: I don't think Donald Trump insided a violent cool if
- 47:48Speaker 1: you just look at the words of what he said.
- 47:49Speaker 1: He specifically said peacefully.
- 47:51Speaker 4: Did you got a fight like hell? He said, you
- 47:54Speaker 4: got to fight like hell, and.
- 47:57Speaker 1: He was using the word peacefully. But there's at his speech.
- 48:00Speaker 1: This is about. This is about a deeper sure of
- 48:02Speaker 1: people who are in prison today. And I think that
- 48:04Speaker 1: if you're in prison for peacefully expressing your views on Washington, DC,
- 48:09Speaker 1: no matter what your views are, I don't care if
- 48:11Speaker 1: you're a black civil rights activist in the sixties, I
- 48:14Speaker 1: don't care if you're a white January sixth peaceful protester.
- 48:19Speaker 1: You should be held to the same standard of the
- 48:21Speaker 1: rule of law, which is that peaceful protest, peaceful and
- 48:25Speaker 1: the expression of your viewpoint should never be criminalized in
- 48:28Speaker 1: this country.
- 48:29Speaker 2: Yeah, but you're talking about two totally different things. That
- 48:31Speaker 2: you're talking about peopleho're not talking about right, and you
- 48:33Speaker 2: know you're talk about people who are trying to overturn redolis.
- 48:34Speaker 1: I'm saying, regardless of what your views are, regardless of
- 48:37Speaker 1: what your views are, you should be able to peacefully
- 48:39Speaker 1: express yourself. And once you lose that, we don't have
- 48:41Speaker 1: a country left.
- 48:41Speaker 4: I argue with those people want a lot of people
- 48:43Speaker 4: on January sixth, more.
- 48:44Speaker 2: And peaceful at all.
- 48:45Speaker 1: Well, I'm drawing a distinction.
- 48:47Speaker 4: Some of them were literally saying they were looking for
- 48:48Speaker 4: a vice president.
- 48:49Speaker 2: To hang them.
- 48:49Speaker 1: I'm drawing a distinction for countless peaceful protesters who are
- 48:53Speaker 1: in prison today for trespassing unlawfully entering the Capitol when
- 48:57Speaker 1: you have Capitol police officers opening the door to them. Atum,
- 49:00Speaker 1: we should all be able to agree that those people
- 49:02Speaker 1: should not be riding in a prison cell. Not only
- 49:04Speaker 1: is that a violation of the standard of the rule
- 49:06Speaker 1: of law. Let's talk about just the project of uniting
- 49:08Speaker 1: this country, and right now we have a major divide
- 49:11Speaker 1: in this country. And at a certain point, we're going
- 49:13Speaker 1: to have to look three hundred and sixty degrees across
- 49:15Speaker 1: the board and say, all right, we're all laying down arms.
- 49:18Speaker 1: We're going to agree to be one nation. We're going
- 49:19Speaker 1: to agree to disagree on the issues where we disagree
- 49:22Speaker 1: most profoundly, to say that we are still going to
- 49:25Speaker 1: be bound by a common set of principles. As Americans
- 49:28Speaker 1: take abortion right, this is one where they say there's
- 49:30Speaker 1: going to divide the country to a breaking point. I've
- 49:32Speaker 1: stood for policy, and that's the mystery. Man. I'm the
- 49:34Speaker 1: only Republican who has advocated for this. I think it's
- 49:36Speaker 1: a winner politically, but I think it's also the right
- 49:38Speaker 1: thing to do. They say, Okay, you can't find common
- 49:41Speaker 1: ground and abortion, how about this one. Tell me. We
- 49:43Speaker 1: got three guys here at the table. Let's talk from
- 49:45Speaker 1: man to man on this. I think that if a
- 49:48Speaker 1: woman brings a child to to this is.
- 49:50Speaker 2: What you fucking up at. You find up because there's
- 49:52Speaker 2: three men and you're saying you're having a conversation in
- 49:54Speaker 2: all women, you should bring to women to the table.
- 49:57Speaker 2: This is why you're talking about found some bullshit.
- 50:00Speaker 1: Well to make most women no, no, most women here
- 50:04Speaker 1: like what I'm about to say, most men don't have them.
- 50:08Speaker 1: We have actually and and and we've had a conversation.
- 50:10Speaker 1: I think I think you're I think you makee worried
- 50:12Speaker 1: about what I'm about to say, which is that I
- 50:14Speaker 1: think if a woman brings a child to term, she
- 50:17Speaker 1: should be able to make the man financially responsible for
- 50:20Speaker 1: both her and the child if she does it, period,
- 50:22Speaker 1: and that should be the law of the land. That
- 50:24Speaker 1: happens though, no, it doesn't. It doesn't happen today, not
- 50:27Speaker 1: not not to the scale I'm talking about full financial
- 50:29Speaker 1: it's you do fifty to fifty, you got forty percent.
- 50:32Speaker 1: For the man, I'm talking about one hundred percent of
- 50:34Speaker 1: its two x over. He's fully responsible for the woman
- 50:36Speaker 1: and fully responsible for the child ability because she has responsibility.
- 50:40Speaker 1: She took nine months to actually bring the child to
- 50:41Speaker 1: term if it's confirmed with the genetic paternity test.
- 50:44Speaker 3: So right now today, four years ago, he has full
- 50:46Speaker 3: responsibility for the child's eighteen.
- 50:48Speaker 1: Absolutely, and full responsibility for the woman during that time.
- 50:51Speaker 1: I don't think that's I don't think it's bad either,
- 50:53Speaker 1: because I think that part of the criticism of Republicans is, oh,
- 50:56Speaker 1: you're just throwing women under the bus. I say, let's
- 50:58Speaker 1: actually that's a fair criticism. Let's actually take that seriously
- 51:02Speaker 1: and say, we're all in this together. If you believe
- 51:04Speaker 1: that under life, agree with that. I think most women
- 51:08Speaker 1: absolutely for the child and for me, most women would
- 51:10Speaker 1: agree with that, right, And that's not and that's not
- 51:13Speaker 1: the state of look for that. But but then men
- 51:15Speaker 1: should think about that in the front end. That's the
- 51:16Speaker 1: whole point. Because women can't afford that either that's the
- 51:18Speaker 1: whole this this gets to the heart of the abortion point.
- 51:21Speaker 1: It gets to the heart of the abortion.
- 51:22Speaker 2: But what you say it is you think about that
- 51:24Speaker 2: on the frontd exactly which got the whole point.
- 51:26Speaker 4: Remember young Doug was like, Yo, if you broke, shouldn't
- 51:28Speaker 4: be having baby?
- 51:29Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Things happen and don't.
- 51:31Speaker 3: But if you think it's going to work out, and
- 51:33Speaker 3: it obviously does it now a man, if it's confirmed
- 51:36Speaker 3: by the thousand dollars a year, you want him to
- 51:39Speaker 3: to to pay for the woman and the child.
- 51:41Speaker 1: That's not the wildest thing because she's actually got nine
- 51:44Speaker 1: months of carrying the child. So this is when I'm
- 51:45Speaker 1: talking back about the project of uniting the country. I
- 51:48Speaker 1: don't know if that's a Republican idea, democratic idea, or whatever,
- 51:51Speaker 1: but right now one of the criticisms is one of
- 51:53Speaker 1: the things I believe as a leader. You talked about
- 51:55Speaker 1: being a leader. What does what does the leader do?
- 51:56Speaker 1: One of the things the leader does is listen to
- 51:58Speaker 1: the best arguments for the other side, understand them deeply,
- 52:02Speaker 1: and then give the best possible response to that you can.
- 52:05Speaker 1: I had eleventh grade teacher you taught me. If you
- 52:07Speaker 1: can't state the best argument for the other side, you
- 52:09Speaker 1: don't know what you actually believe yourself. And I think
- 52:11Speaker 1: that that's true. And here on this question, the best
- 52:13Speaker 1: argument for the other side is how are you only
- 52:16Speaker 1: putting this responsibility on women, to say, okay, you stand
- 52:19Speaker 1: for life and all of that, but how come that
- 52:20Speaker 1: only falls on the woman. My answer is it shouldn't.
- 52:23Speaker 1: So nature has made a decision. And some people will
- 52:26Speaker 1: be offended as saying this the women only women as
- 52:29Speaker 1: only women have children. Okay, that's I believe that's a
- 52:31Speaker 1: biological fact. Some people might disagree with that. But if
- 52:34Speaker 1: you have two X chromosomes, you have children. But we're
- 52:37Speaker 1: going to do everything we can to even that responsibility
- 52:40Speaker 1: out by saying that if the man is making a
- 52:42Speaker 1: sexual decision, it's not just the woman that's responsible for that.
- 52:46Speaker 1: The man actually pays for the woman and the child
- 52:49Speaker 1: for the next eighteen years.
- 52:50Speaker 4: I'm not mad at that.
- 52:51Speaker 1: Yeah. So so I'm giving you an example though, the
- 52:53Speaker 1: same thing we're bringing up with the FBI recognized. Now
- 52:56Speaker 1: don't say the FBI wasn't racist or whatever. Sixty years ago,
- 52:59Speaker 1: it was acknowledge that same institution that we're celebrating with
- 53:02Speaker 1: the Jadgar Hoover Building. How do we suddenly believe that
- 53:05Speaker 1: somehow it's immune from corruption today? And so I think
- 53:08Speaker 1: part of what's happened in this country is are partisan
- 53:10Speaker 1: goggles have gotten so far in the way of us
- 53:14Speaker 1: actually just having actually a conversation amongst citizens without the
- 53:19Speaker 1: black label or the white label, or the red label
- 53:22Speaker 1: or the blue label, and just say, actually, let's have
- 53:25Speaker 1: a conversation among citizens where there's almost a certain guilt,
- 53:29Speaker 1: right Like, if you're among your liberal friends in New
- 53:31Speaker 1: York City and you're saying something that Donald Trump said,
- 53:34Speaker 1: but you're also saying the same thing about the border
- 53:36Speaker 1: or whatever, you have to be guilty and flogged yourself
- 53:38Speaker 1: for saying it. Just forget about the guilt and just
- 53:41Speaker 1: locate what are our actual principles. And I think I
- 53:45Speaker 1: come back to two basic ones that unite us as Americans.
- 53:48Speaker 1: The people we elect to run the government should run
- 53:50Speaker 1: the government, not the bureaucracy. Those elected leaders owe a
- 53:53Speaker 1: moral duty to the citizens of this country, not the
- 53:56Speaker 1: citizens of Ukraine or another one. And oh, by the way,
- 53:59Speaker 1: we all get to expels press and speak our minds
- 54:01Speaker 1: freely and in the open whether or not we disagree.
- 54:03Speaker 1: You get to speak your mind, and you do and
- 54:05Speaker 1: I do too, as long as each of us gets
- 54:08Speaker 1: the same right in return. I think those are basic
- 54:11Speaker 1: rules of the road that most of us, ninety percent
- 54:14Speaker 1: of us in this country agree on.
- 54:15Speaker 4: And you know Trump doesn't agree with that though.
- 54:17Speaker 2: Trump I was speaking Trump Wardy said he wants to
- 54:19Speaker 2: shut the media down for speaking about him if he
- 54:21Speaker 2: becomes president of again.
- 54:21Speaker 1: I think that. Here's here's what I've noticed happening in
- 54:24Speaker 1: the country. I've had a front row seat to the media,
- 54:27Speaker 1: okay for the last year. Believe me, they've twelve of
- 54:30Speaker 1: them follow me around everywhere I've gone for a long time.
- 54:32Speaker 1: We do interviews at the end of every day, and
- 54:34Speaker 1: I've granted more, you know, media access or press access
- 54:37Speaker 1: than anybody else for full transparency. Actually, you know, we've
- 54:41Speaker 1: become friends with some of them, young people actually, not
- 54:44Speaker 1: the people who are their bosses up the chain. I
- 54:46Speaker 1: think a lot of them have lost their way. But
- 54:47Speaker 1: the young people twenty two years old, who have you know,
- 54:51Speaker 1: earnestly got a job, think they're actually doing a good job.
- 54:53Speaker 1: Several of them. Actually we became I became personally quite
- 54:55Speaker 1: friendly with and I expect to remain friends with over
- 54:58Speaker 1: the course of life. And the best ones I think aren'
- 55:00Speaker 1: I hadn't end up even standing.
- 55:02Speaker 4: Trump wants to show I'm.
- 55:03Speaker 1: Gonna I'm gonna tell you, I'm gonna tell you something else.
- 55:04Speaker 1: Is what I've seen happen is because I get questions
- 55:07Speaker 1: on this regularly. Trump will say something. There will be
- 55:10Speaker 1: one word they pick out. Vermin was one. They followed
- 55:13Speaker 1: me around about that for a week. What do you
- 55:15Speaker 1: think about the Donald Trump called his opponents vermin? And
- 55:17Speaker 1: it's a whole game that the media plays where they
- 55:19Speaker 1: will pick Hitler, they will they will they will pick
- 55:22Speaker 1: they will pick one word he says, and then actually
- 55:25Speaker 1: have you respond to it as opposed to taking action.
- 55:28Speaker 1: But the obsession over picking some word that Donald Trump
- 55:32Speaker 1: said and making that the news story versus actually asking
- 55:37Speaker 1: about the substance. I mean, Charle Man, I think I've
- 55:40Speaker 1: saw some of some of your own commentary recently where
- 55:42Speaker 1: you agree with me on the border being a crisis
- 55:44Speaker 1: and it's ridiculous what's happening on this other.
- 55:49Speaker 2: What did he say?
- 55:49Speaker 1: What did he say? The quote Hitler, let's actually just
- 55:51Speaker 1: just go go to the specific let's let's let's just
- 55:53Speaker 1: let's just go to the specifics and do this because
- 55:55Speaker 1: this is exactly is exactly what happened. Pull it up
- 55:57Speaker 1: word for word, Read me the whole paragraph, what comes
- 55:59Speaker 1: before there after. I don't even know what you're referring to,
- 56:01Speaker 1: but I enough of how the game is played that
- 56:03Speaker 1: I just want to play this out.
- 56:04Speaker 4: And he also said that he didn't know Hitler had
- 56:07Speaker 4: used the term.
- 56:08Speaker 2: Okay, well, and that was the poisoning the blood term
- 56:11Speaker 2: that's straight out of the manifesto.
- 56:14Speaker 1: Just because somebody says a word that also appears to
- 56:17Speaker 1: the translation of the manifesto with some totally weird game
- 56:19Speaker 1: of gotcha. Just just re read to me the full paragraph.
- 56:22Speaker 4: Say immigrants poison the blood of.
- 56:24Speaker 1: There give me, give me Donald Trump's quote, We're not
- 56:26Speaker 1: going to do the game of the secondhand. You know,
- 56:28Speaker 1: NBC News distillation of it. Just get to the primary source,
- 56:33Speaker 1: because I know Donald Trump and he's not somebody who
- 56:35Speaker 1: goes around quoting Adolf Hitler. It's just not a thing
- 56:36Speaker 1: that happens. I don't have this country is taught to
- 56:38Speaker 1: believe by the media that that's what he does.
- 56:39Speaker 2: But that's the Trump I think the real number is
- 56:42Speaker 2: fifteen to sixteen million people into our country. When they
- 56:44Speaker 2: do that, we got a lot of work to do.
- 56:46Speaker 2: They're poisoning the blood of our country, Trump told the
- 56:49Speaker 2: crowded the rally in New Hampshire.
- 56:50Speaker 4: That's what they've done.
- 56:51Speaker 2: They poisoned mental mental institutions and prisons all over the world,
- 56:54Speaker 2: not just in South America, not just the three or
- 56:56Speaker 2: four countries that we think about, but all over the world.
- 56:58Speaker 2: They're coming into our country from after, from Asia, all
- 57:01Speaker 2: over the world. And he kept repeating the phrase poisoning
- 57:03Speaker 2: the blood of our country.
- 57:05Speaker 1: Here, just doing one fair because we got it. I
- 57:06Speaker 1: think this is so valuable. Just read exactly read the.
- 57:09Speaker 4: Whole Immigration is poisoning the blood of our nation.
- 57:12Speaker 1: Okay, and read the rest of it as you did.
- 57:14Speaker 1: Just just just go the whole paragraph, because I think,
- 57:17Speaker 1: just do one more time, just everybody. Can everybody hear
- 57:19Speaker 1: what he actually said versus the news.
- 57:20Speaker 4: Term blood poisoning was used by him.
- 57:22Speaker 1: What Donald Trump said, now size.
- 57:25Speaker 4: Immigration in the mixing of all races. Trump is doing exactly.
- 57:28Speaker 1: Said, they're poisoning the mental health institutions, They're poisoning the
- 57:31Speaker 1: prison of our country. That was one line from a
- 57:34Speaker 1: broader Hitler. And I'll tell you this man. I went
- 57:38Speaker 1: to the South side of Chicago in this campaign against
- 57:40Speaker 1: the advice of my campaign advisors, because they said, why
- 57:42Speaker 1: are you going there in the middle of a primary.
- 57:43Speaker 1: I'm running to unite the country. You know what they're
- 57:45Speaker 1: doing in Chicago right now, or at least at the
- 57:47Speaker 1: time I went there, they were converting South Shore High School,
- 57:50Speaker 1: a poor high school in the south side of Chicago,
- 57:53Speaker 1: into an encampment for migrants who were in this country illegally,
- 57:56Speaker 1: at a cost of seven thousand dollars per migrant per month.
- 58:01Speaker 1: There were things said in the room that I was
- 58:03Speaker 1: in that were far more incendiary than what you just
- 58:08Speaker 1: read right there. And I don't hold it against the
- 58:10Speaker 1: people who are in that room with me, because America
- 58:14Speaker 1: first includes all Americans. And I think it is dead
- 58:17Speaker 1: wrong that we are rewarding mass numbers of people who
- 58:21Speaker 1: have entered this country illegally, breaking the law as they
- 58:24Speaker 1: do it, coming in by the millions, and rewarding them
- 58:27Speaker 1: more than we are our own fellow citizens right here
- 58:29Speaker 1: at home. Why So, that's a major problem affecting people
- 58:33Speaker 1: black and white Democrat, Republican, poor and middle class across
- 58:37Speaker 1: this country. And yet we're sitting here obsessing over one
- 58:41Speaker 1: word in a long paragraph that said poison the blood
- 58:44Speaker 1: when it included a reference to mental health institutions in
- 58:46Speaker 1: jails and other public resources in the United States. That
- 58:49Speaker 1: is everything that's wrong with our media right now. People,
- 58:52Speaker 1: You guys who are actually going to help lead the
- 58:53Speaker 1: media out of this because you are actually not beholden
- 58:56Speaker 1: by the same partisans talking about the actual substance.
- 59:00Speaker 2: But when what we need to address, it's hard to
- 59:02Speaker 2: when you've got a guy who said he wants to
- 59:03Speaker 2: be a dictator for a day you got. It's hard
- 59:05Speaker 2: with just a guy who says it's a guy who
- 59:07Speaker 2: says you got to terminate terminate the constitution in order
- 59:09Speaker 2: to overturn the results of an election.
- 59:11Speaker 4: It's hard when it's a guy who's.
- 59:14Speaker 1: The country for the derangement syndrome. And focus on the
- 59:18Speaker 1: actual problems we have to solve as a country, and
- 59:20Speaker 1: you look at actually the border, the economy, you want
- 59:22Speaker 1: to look at staying out of foreign wars. Yeah, I
- 59:25Speaker 1: will take a president who has sharp elbows, who is
- 59:28Speaker 1: actually able to accomplish those things.
- 59:29Speaker 4: Words don't matter over somebody.
- 59:31Speaker 1: I'm not saying words don't matter, words matter, but words
- 59:33Speaker 1: taken out of context in a way. Am I going
- 59:35Speaker 1: to say everything the same way that Donald Trump did?
- 59:36Speaker 1: I don't know why I'm sitting here being questioned again
- 59:39Speaker 1: with the entire media loves to do on picking some
- 59:42Speaker 1: word Trump said, and we're sitting here talking about that
- 59:44Speaker 1: rather than a vision for the country, talk about the
- 59:46Speaker 1: actual country, talking about the actual issues were dressing as
- 59:49Speaker 1: a country, and yes, exactly, we'll talk about the actual country.
- 59:53Speaker 2: Just the point of the GOP attaching themselves to Trump
- 59:56Speaker 2: the way they have when he hasn't won anything since
- 59:58Speaker 2: twenty sixteen.
- 1:00:00Speaker 1: The GOP attaching themselves to Trump is I think a
- 1:00:03Speaker 1: bizarre framing where the GOP is electing a leader to
- 1:00:07Speaker 1: lead our America first movement to the next level, and
- 1:00:09Speaker 1: they're saying in drove that Donald Trump should be that leader. Now,
- 1:00:12Speaker 1: how do we actually use that to accomplish something for
- 1:00:15Speaker 1: our country? Our country? I think made a poor decision
- 1:00:17Speaker 1: in putting Joe Biden in office. I think the results
- 1:00:19Speaker 1: speak for themselves. I think a lot of the economic
- 1:00:22Speaker 1: numbers are a fallacy. Prices are higher, wages, haven't gone
- 1:00:25Speaker 1: up to the same degree. More gage rates are higher,
- 1:00:27Speaker 1: people live in tougher circumstances. We've got millions more who
- 1:00:30Speaker 1: have entered this country illegally, taken up public resources that
- 1:00:33Speaker 1: should be used on other purposes. And yet somehow we
- 1:00:37Speaker 1: are still focusing on some word that Donald Trump said,
- 1:00:40Speaker 1: as opposed to asking ourselves, how are we going to
- 1:00:42Speaker 1: trust that underlying.
- 1:00:43Speaker 4: Yahn won anything since twenty sixty.
- 1:00:46Speaker 2: From sixteen and I think what you lost the House
- 1:00:52Speaker 2: on electionen you lost the House twenty twenty, you lost
- 1:00:54Speaker 2: the White House.
- 1:00:55Speaker 1: I think he's going to win in a landslide this.
- 1:00:56Speaker 4: Year, But what about in a haven't won any fair
- 1:01:00Speaker 4: conducted election.
- 1:01:00Speaker 1: I think he run wins in a landslide this year. Look,
- 1:01:02Speaker 1: I think people voted for the policies, and at the
- 1:01:04Speaker 1: end of the day, look, I'm looking to take many
- 1:01:06Speaker 1: of those policies to the next level. That's what I
- 1:01:07Speaker 1: was doing in my candidacy. But the people were clear
- 1:01:09Speaker 1: they want someone who's tried and true, and they want
- 1:01:12Speaker 1: the policies we had from twenty sixteen to twenty twenty.
- 1:01:14Speaker 1: That's what we're gona happen in this country now.
- 1:01:15Speaker 3: Vivig let me ask you a question. Now here's a
- 1:01:17Speaker 3: regular citizen, you said today?
- 1:01:18Speaker 2: Correct?
- 1:01:19Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, Now you're a cool guy. We could
- 1:01:21Speaker 3: play basketball, pickle ball, whatever you want. What is next
- 1:01:24Speaker 3: with vvig? Why are you here? Are you here to
- 1:01:26Speaker 3: promote Trump?
- 1:01:26Speaker 2: Like?
- 1:01:26Speaker 3: Why is VVIG here today? I thought you were going
- 1:01:29Speaker 3: to announce something like why is VVICK here today?
- 1:01:31Speaker 1: So to tell you the truth, I was over the weekend. Yeah,
- 1:01:34Speaker 1: I mean pretty much. We I was with family over
- 1:01:36Speaker 1: the weekend. Haven't seen them in a long time. We
- 1:01:38Speaker 1: got we're here with my kids. We saw friends and
- 1:01:41Speaker 1: family over the weekend. We haven't seen in forever. We've
- 1:01:43Speaker 1: been living in Iowa and New Hampshire and braving the
- 1:01:46Speaker 1: campaign trail. And you know, honestly, I think that we
- 1:01:48Speaker 1: need to have more open conversations in this country because
- 1:01:50Speaker 1: I know I'm going to blood, because I know that
- 1:01:51Speaker 1: we don't you know. And I also actually to tell
- 1:01:54Speaker 1: you the truth. I don't know if you remember this.
- 1:01:56Speaker 1: Last time, we had a little bit of a more
- 1:01:58Speaker 1: contentious exchange with with the third friend who joined by
- 1:02:01Speaker 1: a screen. But you said, are you going to come back?
- 1:02:04Speaker 1: I bet you're not going to come back? I said,
- 1:02:05Speaker 1: I bet you, I will, and so.
- 1:02:06Speaker 3: I remember your challenge was like I'm gonna come back.
- 1:02:08Speaker 1: I a challenge, it's a promise. I mean, your promise.
- 1:02:10Speaker 1: We're going to come back and close the loop on
- 1:02:12Speaker 1: the conversation. And that's what I want to do. And
- 1:02:13Speaker 1: I have a feeling, you know, if you guys will
- 1:02:15Speaker 1: have me, we'll do this again, you know, six months
- 1:02:17Speaker 1: or whenever we come back to New York again.
- 1:02:18Speaker 4: Do you think a person of color could ever be
- 1:02:20Speaker 4: a GOP nominee?
- 1:02:21Speaker 2: Yes?
- 1:02:22Speaker 1: Absolutely, because I read an.
- 1:02:23Speaker 2: Article in the Nation that said you and Nikki Haley
- 1:02:26Speaker 2: can't escape gop racism. And the article says you two
- 1:02:29Speaker 2: are boxed in by the bigotrea that you deny exist.
- 1:02:33Speaker 4: What are you think of that?
- 1:02:34Speaker 1: So I'll tell you what probably the bigger obstacle was
- 1:02:37Speaker 1: for me. It wasn't skin color, and I still don't
- 1:02:40Speaker 1: think it's irresolvable obstacle, but it was religion. I'm Hindu,
- 1:02:44Speaker 1: and you know, I think the easy thing you're supposed
- 1:02:46Speaker 1: to do as a politician is, even if you're not
- 1:02:49Speaker 1: claimed to be Christian, check the box. Maybe shorten your
- 1:02:53Speaker 1: name a little bit, make it easier to pronounce. Would
- 1:02:56Speaker 1: that in the short run help my electoral chances. A
- 1:02:58Speaker 1: lot of people were professionals at this certain say it would.
- 1:03:00Speaker 1: But as I told you, my whole approach to politics
- 1:03:03Speaker 1: is I'm gonna tell you who I am and what
- 1:03:05Speaker 1: I stand for. And I'm a religious.
- 1:03:06Speaker 4: Person, religion of the reason of jop No.
- 1:03:09Speaker 1: No, not at all, not at all. But I'm saying
- 1:03:10Speaker 1: that if I had to pick even between the two factors,
- 1:03:13Speaker 1: it's not even race one. I'm not making this up
- 1:03:16Speaker 1: because I got a lot of earnest people in Iowa
- 1:03:18Speaker 1: who told me they loved everything I say, and I
- 1:03:22Speaker 1: don't begrudge them for this, but it was difficult to
- 1:03:25Speaker 1: vote for me because I'm not Christian and I respect
- 1:03:29Speaker 1: that honesty and the kinds of conversations we had about
- 1:03:31Speaker 1: faith in Iowa. I mean these were including with the
- 1:03:34Speaker 1: with the pastor the gentleman who you know, put me
- 1:03:36Speaker 1: through the push up ringer before asking me the question
- 1:03:38Speaker 1: about systemic Rayson was actually one of the people who
- 1:03:40Speaker 1: came down the side of I know the difference between
- 1:03:41Speaker 1: a pastor and a president, and I think he ended
- 1:03:43Speaker 1: up becoming a supporter of mine. Actually, he became a
- 1:03:45Speaker 1: precinct captain, which was funny how that story ended. He
- 1:03:47Speaker 1: came back a few weeks later to an event, even
- 1:03:50Speaker 1: though he disagreed with me on some of or thought
- 1:03:52Speaker 1: he disagreed with me on some of the views initially
- 1:03:54Speaker 1: that I had on illuminating affirmative action. Came back a
- 1:03:58Speaker 1: few weeks later, ended up being one of our precint
- 1:03:59Speaker 1: captains in Iowa, and he's a Christian pastor black coming
- 1:04:02Speaker 1: out with disagreeing with me on the politics at one
- 1:04:04Speaker 1: point and a different religion on the other and became
- 1:04:06Speaker 1: a priestinc captain. So it's not insurmountable, but I think
- 1:04:09Speaker 1: that was a bigger question and understandably on people's minds.
- 1:04:12Speaker 1: Right the nation is founded as a matter of history
- 1:04:15Speaker 1: on Judeo Christian principles. But one of the things I
- 1:04:18Speaker 1: had an opportunity to share with people was actually and
- 1:04:21Speaker 1: it almost forced me to take a step back and
- 1:04:24Speaker 1: really locate, like, what are my actual faith convictions. Most
- 1:04:28Speaker 1: of us think we are whatever religion we are, but
- 1:04:30Speaker 1: when you're really pressed on it. It's one of the
- 1:04:32Speaker 1: things in this campaign is it really brought me back
- 1:04:34Speaker 1: in touch with my own faith and I shared with
- 1:04:37Speaker 1: people what my faith is. There's one True God. He
- 1:04:40Speaker 1: puts us here for a purpose. He works through us.
- 1:04:43Speaker 1: It's not being done by us, it's being done through us.
- 1:04:47Speaker 1: But we are still equal because God resides in each
- 1:04:51Speaker 1: of us. That's the heart of my faith, which is
- 1:04:54Speaker 1: slightly different than the way you'd say it is that
- 1:04:55Speaker 1: we're we're equal because we're all made in the image
- 1:04:57Speaker 1: of God and were equal in the eyes of God.
- 1:04:58Speaker 1: But it's making the same point. And I also learned
- 1:05:03Speaker 1: a lot about the difference in how to talk about
- 1:05:06Speaker 1: the difference between being a president and a pastor. So
- 1:05:08Speaker 1: you brought up Thomas Jefferson, and a lot of the
- 1:05:11Speaker 1: left likes to cancel part of his legacy because he
- 1:05:13Speaker 1: was a slaveholder. There's actually something coming from the other
- 1:05:16Speaker 1: side that I saw as well, and I had a
- 1:05:18Speaker 1: chance to educate people on and even refresh myself on.
- 1:05:21Speaker 1: Thomas Jefferson was not a Christian, not a traditional Christian.
- 1:05:24Speaker 1: He was a Deist. Actually, he made a part of
- 1:05:27Speaker 1: the Old the New Testament. He didn't like all the
- 1:05:30Speaker 1: stuff about the miracles and everything else, but he liked
- 1:05:32Speaker 1: the philosophy and the teachings of Jesus Christ, and so
- 1:05:35Speaker 1: he took a razor blade, and he cut out the
- 1:05:38Speaker 1: parts of the New Testament that had the philosophy that
- 1:05:40Speaker 1: he thought spoke to him. He used glue to glue
- 1:05:43Speaker 1: them together. That constitutes the Jefferson Bible today. And so
- 1:05:48Speaker 1: the interesting thing about that is I would meet a
- 1:05:50Speaker 1: lot of people on the campaign trail who would be
- 1:05:53Speaker 1: frankly disgusted, and I have to admit part of me
- 1:05:56Speaker 1: is also disgusted with the view that we can't respect
- 1:05:58Speaker 1: Thomas Jefferson's legacy, guy who at the age of thirty
- 1:06:01Speaker 1: three wrote the Declaration of Independence. I'm sitting in a
- 1:06:04Speaker 1: swivel chair right now. This was invented by Thomas Jefferson,
- 1:06:07Speaker 1: the man who was thirty three when he wrote the
- 1:06:08Speaker 1: Declaration of Independence. He invented the swivel chair right around
- 1:06:10Speaker 1: the same time that man, the unafraid, the guy in
- 1:06:13Speaker 1: the Lewis and Clark expeditions, that we can't celebrate him
- 1:06:15Speaker 1: today because he was a slaveholder. From that angle, to
- 1:06:19Speaker 1: also tell a group of people that who believes that
- 1:06:21Speaker 1: only Christian can be the US president who loved Thomas Jefferson,
- 1:06:24Speaker 1: who loved the signer of the Declaration of Independence, who
- 1:06:26Speaker 1: hate the left for saying that we can't celebrate Thomas
- 1:06:30Speaker 1: Jefferson because he was a slaveholder who actually believe that
- 1:06:33Speaker 1: only Christian can be president. And yet Thomas Jefferson wasn't
- 1:06:36Speaker 1: a traditional Christian.
- 1:06:37Speaker 2: At the time he became the president, was a slave
- 1:06:39Speaker 2: holder because he created the swivels chair. No, I'm not.
- 1:06:42Speaker 1: I'm saying that we are imperfect human beings. Yes, and
- 1:06:44Speaker 1: that you know what, two hundred and fifty years from now,
- 1:06:46Speaker 1: somebody will look at something that each of the three
- 1:06:48Speaker 1: of us have done and criticize that two hundred and
- 1:06:51Speaker 1: fifty years from now and say, can you believe these
- 1:06:53Speaker 1: people shit?
- 1:06:54Speaker 2: They doing it now?
- 1:06:56Speaker 1: No, but they're really good. If they're doing it now
- 1:06:58Speaker 1: and they're doing it for him, then too. But if
- 1:06:59Speaker 1: they're doing it now, they're really going to do it
- 1:07:01Speaker 1: two hundred fiftyears now and right now. If we really
- 1:07:04Speaker 1: thought about it, and we took a few hours or
- 1:07:06Speaker 1: a few days to reflect on it, we could probably
- 1:07:08Speaker 1: figure out what that is. But if you ask you
- 1:07:11Speaker 1: on the spot right now, no, I don't think you
- 1:07:12Speaker 1: could tell me on the spot right now what people
- 1:07:14Speaker 1: two hundred fifty years from now going to come here
- 1:07:16Speaker 1: and tell you that you were an immoral man for
- 1:07:18Speaker 1: and all the other truths that you spoke that we
- 1:07:20Speaker 1: should reject them because you did some small thing that
- 1:07:22Speaker 1: the people two hundred fifty years from now disagree with.
- 1:07:24Speaker 4: Well, being a slave owned a small thing, but I
- 1:07:26Speaker 4: know you got to go.
- 1:07:27Speaker 1: But back then it was actually and that's the thing.
- 1:07:29Speaker 1: In seventeen seventy six, it was the.
- 1:07:30Speaker 4: Nature of the nature to be.
- 1:07:32Speaker 1: And so right now, don't be the person who was
- 1:07:35Speaker 1: the slaveholder back then, Be John Adams. That's what we
- 1:07:37Speaker 1: should call ourselves, to be the person who bucks the
- 1:07:39Speaker 1: trend of their time, to say I'm going to speak
- 1:07:41Speaker 1: on my own conviction and do what's different than being
- 1:07:43Speaker 1: the product of my own time. Because anybody can pare
- 1:07:46Speaker 1: it what the slogan is of their day. But the
- 1:07:49Speaker 1: hard thing to do is to say the pack is
- 1:07:50Speaker 1: running this way, and I'm going this way instead anyway,
- 1:07:53Speaker 1: because it's back on my conviction. That's what we need.
- 1:07:55Speaker 4: People like John Adams. Arter reason. You can point at
- 1:07:57Speaker 4: it and say it was wrong, though, because John Adams
- 1:07:59Speaker 4: knew it was.
- 1:08:00Speaker 1: Well. A lot of people are going to be doing
- 1:08:01Speaker 1: things today that are different than the way that each
- 1:08:03Speaker 1: of us is going to be living our lives and
- 1:08:04Speaker 1: say the same thing. In two and fifty years from now,
- 1:08:06Speaker 1: somebody else will conversations. Abe Lincoln wasn't around then, man,
- 1:08:09Speaker 1: that was still later on. That was still later on.
- 1:08:11Speaker 1: And we'll just take the story down. We'll just pass
- 1:08:13Speaker 1: this lineage down. We don't talk American history enough. Actually
- 1:08:16Speaker 1: irritates me. A lot of consertives talk about the importance
- 1:08:18Speaker 1: of knowing history without actually just talking about history. Let's
- 1:08:20Speaker 1: talk this through. So John Adams, you know, his son
- 1:08:22Speaker 1: is John Quincy Adams. He's the first non founding father
- 1:08:25Speaker 1: who became a president. Here's a funny fact about him.
- 1:08:28Speaker 1: He was the first outside of the founding fathers. He
- 1:08:30Speaker 1: was the first one who was elected president. He actually
- 1:08:33Speaker 1: wasn't a great president he had He was elected out
- 1:08:35Speaker 1: after one term. People didn't love him, and so he
- 1:08:38Speaker 1: tried to find everything else he could do. He went
- 1:08:41Speaker 1: and tried to write some books, and he went and
- 1:08:43Speaker 1: tried to start some nonprofits, and none of that spoke
- 1:08:45Speaker 1: to him. He is the only presidence, John Adams's son
- 1:08:50Speaker 1: who went back to Congress after being a president. So
- 1:08:54Speaker 1: he's elected to multiple terms of Congress. And you know what,
- 1:08:56Speaker 1: he went back to Congress with was one thing he
- 1:08:58Speaker 1: regretted not doing as a president was abolishing slavery. This
- 1:09:02Speaker 1: long before Abraham Lincoln comes along. Okay, so he wanted
- 1:09:05Speaker 1: abolish slavery. His father was an abolitionist. He didn't accomplish
- 1:09:08Speaker 1: much during his tenure as president. He was a good
- 1:09:09Speaker 1: Secretary of State, but he was not a very good president.
- 1:09:13Speaker 1: Think about the humility to say, I'm not even gonna
- 1:09:14Speaker 1: go to the Senate. I'm going to go become a
- 1:09:16Speaker 1: congressman and get re elected multiple times with the mission
- 1:09:19Speaker 1: of abolishing slavery. Now here's what happens. There was a
- 1:09:23Speaker 1: rule that Congress passes, it's called the gag rule, which
- 1:09:27Speaker 1: stopped people from using the word slavery. Like they literally
- 1:09:31Speaker 1: couldn't use the word slavery because they don't want people
- 1:09:33Speaker 1: to utter the word because it made them uncomfortable. So
- 1:09:36Speaker 1: this guy's already been the US president, Okay, so he
- 1:09:39Speaker 1: has nothing to lose. So he's just a congressman. Now
- 1:09:41Speaker 1: he says, I'm gonna say the word. I'm gonna say
- 1:09:43Speaker 1: it slavery, slavery, slavery, slavery. There, Congress has set the
- 1:09:46Speaker 1: rule that you can't say the word slavery. Well, I'm
- 1:09:48Speaker 1: going to say it. So they censure him and have
- 1:09:51Speaker 1: just like they have today George Santos or whatever, they'll
- 1:09:53Speaker 1: have the equivalent of kicking him out of Congress. So
- 1:09:55Speaker 1: they have his trial in Congress, and he uses his
- 1:09:59Speaker 1: own personal trial, because this guy's got nothing to lose.
- 1:10:01Speaker 1: They use his own personal trial for saying the word
- 1:10:04Speaker 1: slavery when you're not allowed to say the word slavery
- 1:10:06Speaker 1: to make the case for abolition from the stand of
- 1:10:11Speaker 1: his own trial to being kicked out of Congress. At
- 1:10:14Speaker 1: the end of that, they get rid of the gag rule,
- 1:10:16Speaker 1: so you're allowed to say slavery, which opens up the
- 1:10:19Speaker 1: debates that you're then allowed to have. So a year later,
- 1:10:22Speaker 1: about a year or so later, he's given a speech
- 1:10:24Speaker 1: on the Congress floor. It means, it's amazing this guy
- 1:10:28Speaker 1: with this humility. He's given a speech on the Congress floor.
- 1:10:32Speaker 1: He has a stroke in the middle of his speech.
- 1:10:36Speaker 1: He dies right there. He doesn't die quite yet. They
- 1:10:38Speaker 1: take him up to the upstairs room, keep him alive
- 1:10:41Speaker 1: for another couple of days, and eventually he dies up
- 1:10:45Speaker 1: in that ante room outside in the same Congress where
- 1:10:48Speaker 1: he then devoted that later stage of his career, and
- 1:10:51Speaker 1: they took volunteers for who's going to be the person
- 1:10:54Speaker 1: who carries out his funeral rights and carries him out
- 1:10:58Speaker 1: and the guy who raises his hand and does as
- 1:11:00Speaker 1: it was a first term congressman nobody had heard of,
- 1:11:04Speaker 1: hadn't said a word by the name of Abraham Lincoln.
- 1:11:08Speaker 1: And so these are the stories of our history. Man,
- 1:11:10Speaker 1: we don't tell these stories anymore. We celebrate. We would
- 1:11:13Speaker 1: put back our founding fathers and would talk about how
- 1:11:16Speaker 1: these people are, how these people are slave owners who
- 1:11:19Speaker 1: want to dismiss the ideals they said into motion without
- 1:11:22Speaker 1: recognizing that, like us today, these are imperfect human beings
- 1:11:26Speaker 1: that still strived and to be the best that they
- 1:11:29Speaker 1: possibly could have, just as we do today. And so
- 1:11:33Speaker 1: it bothers me deeply for us to just lazily reject that,
- 1:11:37Speaker 1: as opposed to saying we acknowledge those imperfections, but were
- 1:11:40Speaker 1: founded on the pursuit of a more perfect unit, absolutely
- 1:11:43Speaker 1: the pursuit of liberty and justice.
- 1:11:46Speaker 4: Dismiss it and s I'm not dismissing.
- 1:11:48Speaker 1: Do it sound like I'm dismissing at charlet mane, I
- 1:11:51Speaker 1: disagree with you, man, and I I agree that put
- 1:11:54Speaker 1: me in the category of the conversation we had, and
- 1:11:56Speaker 1: saying that I just dismissed it out of hand, I
- 1:11:58Speaker 1: think that that's I think that's unfair. I think that
- 1:12:00Speaker 1: that's unfair. I don't think I dismiss it, but I
- 1:12:02Speaker 1: acknowledge the totality of what a human being is, which
- 1:12:06Speaker 1: is an imperfect and flawed human being who we can
- 1:12:07Speaker 1: still celebrate.
- 1:12:08Speaker 2: I'm fine with that, but you can have to be
- 1:12:10Speaker 2: but you can't tell people just to ignore the fact
- 1:12:12Speaker 2: that Thomas Jeffson.
- 1:12:12Speaker 1: I'm not telling people to ignore it, though, And this
- 1:12:15Speaker 1: is what I think we I'm in this to unite
- 1:12:18Speaker 1: the country, and I think if we're going to take
- 1:12:20Speaker 1: this seriously, every one of us has to acknowledge the
- 1:12:24Speaker 1: full nuances of our history in every direction. To say
- 1:12:26Speaker 1: that we're not going to listen to Thomas Jefferson or
- 1:12:28Speaker 1: there are founding was illegitimate because they were deeply imperfect
- 1:12:31Speaker 1: and flawed is every bit as bad as somebody who's
- 1:12:35Speaker 1: going to say that I'm going to entirely dismiss the
- 1:12:37Speaker 1: fact that they were slave owners. I think that both
- 1:12:40Speaker 1: of those are mistakes that could lead lead to the
- 1:12:44Speaker 1: failure of our country as we know it. I think
- 1:12:47Speaker 1: our country will cease to exist if either side of
- 1:12:50Speaker 1: our debate is that one hand willing to say, oh,
- 1:12:52Speaker 1: slavery was some made up myth, and actually I don't
- 1:12:55Speaker 1: know it was in the interest of people could say
- 1:12:57Speaker 1: such things, It was the interest of black people to
- 1:12:58Speaker 1: be slaves. Whatevericulous. Okay, Well, I think that if we
- 1:13:02Speaker 1: have a different side that says our founding fathers, who
- 1:13:04Speaker 1: wrote a declaration of independence founded on the pursuit of
- 1:13:07Speaker 1: a more perfect union, right, the pursuit of liberty, quality
- 1:13:09Speaker 1: and justice for all, not claiming were perfect, but that
- 1:13:11Speaker 1: our nation founded on freedom for all who aspire to
- 1:13:14Speaker 1: have them. That were imperfect, but we eventually got there
- 1:13:17Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty years And as darn close as
- 1:13:19Speaker 1: we've ever been to reject that and say that we
- 1:13:22Speaker 1: can't celebrate that founding because they made a mistake of
- 1:13:24Speaker 1: being slave owners, I think that that is every bit
- 1:13:26Speaker 1: as bad for the future of our country versus acknowledging
- 1:13:30Speaker 1: that we are still pursuing that more perfect union.
- 1:13:33Speaker 2: What I would say is what you talked about with
- 1:13:34Speaker 2: Thomas Jefferson when he took the razor, and he took
- 1:13:36Speaker 2: out some of the philosophies that he agreed with. We
- 1:13:39Speaker 2: should take some of those things that we agree with,
- 1:13:40Speaker 2: but then everybody should come to the table, because all
- 1:13:44Speaker 2: was not at the table when those people wrote those documents.
- 1:13:46Speaker 1: We got that we have too much under our country.
- 1:13:48Speaker 1: We understand that, okay, But my point is my point
- 1:13:52Speaker 1: is not rejecting that or taking a hammer to it.
- 1:13:54Speaker 1: It's more of a different response. It's like, we got it,
- 1:13:58Speaker 1: like totally. Like at a certain point we've got to
- 1:14:00Speaker 1: say we've got it. We don't do no, but I can,
- 1:14:04Speaker 1: but we don't. We got it. And now and now
- 1:14:06Speaker 1: it's time for three hundred and sixty degree mercy, clemency,
- 1:14:11Speaker 1: forgiveness across the board and that we're moving forward as
- 1:14:15Speaker 1: one nation under God. And I think that I think
- 1:14:19Speaker 1: that moment is now actually and that's why I ran
- 1:14:22Speaker 1: for president, and it clearly I did not succeed to
- 1:14:25Speaker 1: the scale that I wanted to. I'm proud of what
- 1:14:27Speaker 1: we accomplished. As I said, started as ordinary guy, kid
- 1:14:30Speaker 1: of immigrants, came to this country with no money. They
- 1:14:31Speaker 1: would have never imagined that I'm self funding a presidential
- 1:14:35Speaker 1: campaign to try to try to reach the people with
- 1:14:37Speaker 1: this message. But I'm not stopping now, and I don't
- 1:14:40Speaker 1: know what form that's going to take in this next phase,
- 1:14:43Speaker 1: but I'm all in for that. And even for people.
- 1:14:47Speaker 1: I don't know if you guys are on the left
- 1:14:48Speaker 1: or not, how you'd characterize yourself, but people have different views.
- 1:14:51Speaker 1: I'm gonna asking you, okay, I mean, whatever it means
- 1:14:54Speaker 1: right and these labels, what do these things mean right? You know,
- 1:14:57Speaker 1: hard right, hard left? I think these things actually mean
- 1:14:59Speaker 1: a lot less right now in an era where we're
- 1:15:01Speaker 1: closer to World War three than we've ever been, and
- 1:15:03Speaker 1: the only bipartisan consensus in the establishment of both parties
- 1:15:06Speaker 1: is to march us closer. Forget the labels. I'm asking
- 1:15:10Speaker 1: those of you who care about the country, and I
- 1:15:12Speaker 1: believe you do. You wouldn't be doing what you're doing
- 1:15:14Speaker 1: every day if you didn't have a care for this country.
- 1:15:16Speaker 1: And I don't think you would be either, man. I
- 1:15:18Speaker 1: mean you could. I know you like cars, you could
- 1:15:20Speaker 1: be talking about cars the whole time, but you're not.
- 1:15:22Speaker 1: You're talking about this and I think it's because you
- 1:15:24Speaker 1: care about the country.
- 1:15:25Speaker 2: How can you.
- 1:15:26Speaker 1: I think it is because you support Trump? I do
- 1:15:28Speaker 1: care about the country. And I think the Trump I.
- 1:15:30Speaker 2: Want to be spend the constitution, the overturn the results
- 1:15:33Speaker 2: of an election.
- 1:15:33Speaker 1: Charlemagne, I think, I think that, I think that a
- 1:15:37Speaker 1: lot of democracy. Here's what I will say is.
- 1:15:39Speaker 4: How can you respect the country?
- 1:15:40Speaker 1: If don't make democracy, I'll make I'll make a deal
- 1:15:43Speaker 1: with you can even do this off one because we're
- 1:15:44Speaker 1: not gonna do it here with an open mind. Take
- 1:15:47Speaker 1: a look at the totality of government entrapment in the
- 1:15:52Speaker 1: lead up to the twenty twenty election and even afterwards,
- 1:15:56Speaker 1: and then you look at the same cases from sixty
- 1:15:59Speaker 1: years ago, and what you realize is this is just
- 1:16:01Speaker 1: history continuing as it has for the last six years.
- 1:16:04Speaker 1: A good book, I'll give you. My wife actually read
- 1:16:06Speaker 1: it when I told her I wanted to shut down
- 1:16:08Speaker 1: the FBN. She's not a terribly political person at all,
- 1:16:11Speaker 1: but I told her I want to shut down the FBI.
- 1:16:13Speaker 1: She thought it was crazy. She thought a lot of
- 1:16:15Speaker 1: what I'm talking about here sounded like crazy talk, because
- 1:16:17Speaker 1: I would have believed three four years ago myself. She
- 1:16:19Speaker 1: read a book herself. She doesn't take it from me.
- 1:16:22Speaker 1: She's an independent student. She reade a book called g
- 1:16:25Speaker 1: Man and if everybody is watching this right now. I
- 1:16:29Speaker 1: would recommend taking a look at it too. It's not
- 1:16:30Speaker 1: some right winger wrote this book. It's some as far
- 1:16:32Speaker 1: as I know, some sort of liberal Yale historian. But
- 1:16:35Speaker 1: it's a Politzer Prize winning book, not some right wing screed.
- 1:16:39Speaker 1: G Man stands for government. Man gives you the history
- 1:16:42Speaker 1: of JEdgar Hoover's FBI, And once you read that, I
- 1:16:46Speaker 1: think you will likely most people, I think probably ninety
- 1:16:50Speaker 1: percent of people will actually come around to having the
- 1:16:52Speaker 1: same views that I do about the tortuous impact of
- 1:16:57Speaker 1: that federal bureaucracy. And I think part of a lot
- 1:16:59Speaker 1: of the stuff that we might argue against, what I'll
- 1:17:01Speaker 1: call the woke stuff or whatever, is really just woke
- 1:17:05Speaker 1: smoke to deflect accountability for the failures of that bureaucracy. Right,
- 1:17:10Speaker 1: you take the Federal Department of Education, Right, you know
- 1:17:13Speaker 1: what the woke smoke is. Math is racist. You've heard
- 1:17:16Speaker 1: people say this, it's forget about the forget about the smoke.
- 1:17:18Speaker 1: Don't fall for the smoke, fall for the reality that
- 1:17:21Speaker 1: they have failed to teach our kids how to do
- 1:17:23Speaker 1: math for those last forty years.
- 1:17:24Speaker 2: You want to rise and fall of the third Reich,
- 1:17:28Speaker 2: and you'll see how what's going on right now in
- 1:17:30Speaker 2: this country is too close to comfort.
- 1:17:32Speaker 4: What happened.
- 1:17:33Speaker 1: I think a lot of people would hear you say that,
- 1:17:35Speaker 1: Charle Mane, and I'm one of them who worry about
- 1:17:38Speaker 1: all right, forget about the labels. If we have a
- 1:17:40Speaker 1: country that says that, you know what, if you say
- 1:17:44Speaker 1: something on social media and you like to retweeted a
- 1:17:47Speaker 1: post of one particular political candidate, you're the subject of
- 1:17:51Speaker 1: a subpoena. And we have a candidate of a different
- 1:17:54Speaker 1: party who says that we need to tie your social
- 1:17:56Speaker 1: media account to your government issued ID, and the government
- 1:18:00Speaker 1: gets to see every time you've liked or retweeted a
- 1:18:02Speaker 1: social media post. That that would be pretty frightening. Yet that's
- 1:18:05Speaker 1: exactly in the Jack Smith investigation of Donald Trump. The
- 1:18:07Speaker 1: subpoena includes literally on Twitter. You guys use Twitter, anybody
- 1:18:11Speaker 1: who hit like or retweet you want the government to
- 1:18:13Speaker 1: be able to include that as part of a subpoena.
- 1:18:15Speaker 1: And you've got Nikki Haley coming over from the so
- 1:18:17Speaker 1: called right saying that actually you need to actually have
- 1:18:19Speaker 1: used your.
- 1:18:21Speaker 4: Social media period.
- 1:18:23Speaker 1: And I don't think the government officials should be able
- 1:18:25Speaker 1: to intrude on what you're saying on the internet if
- 1:18:27Speaker 1: you're actually saying it with your expressing your opinion, and
- 1:18:30Speaker 1: have the ability to actually come up to you and
- 1:18:31Speaker 1: question you based on what you said. Either. That sounds
- 1:18:34Speaker 1: a lot like the third Wreck of Germany to me.
- 1:18:36Speaker 1: So you could cut this a lot of different ways.
- 1:18:38Speaker 1: The infringements on free speech. To say that if you
- 1:18:40Speaker 1: said the COVID pandemic originated in a lab in China,
- 1:18:43Speaker 1: We're going to lock your account. You can't say that.
- 1:18:45Speaker 4: That's what Trump wants to do to media who goes
- 1:18:46Speaker 4: against him.
- 1:18:47Speaker 1: Well, why I'm talking about something very specific here during
- 1:18:50Speaker 1: the COVID nineteen pandemic. It wasn't it wasn't Donald Trump
- 1:18:53Speaker 1: that that wanted this.
- 1:18:55Speaker 2: Hit.
- 1:18:56Speaker 1: I think that both political parties are full of shit. Okay, now,
- 1:18:59Speaker 1: both political parties are full of shame. I think both
- 1:19:01Speaker 1: political parties are full of shit. I agree with you
- 1:19:03Speaker 1: on that the repub and that's you know, a lot
- 1:19:05Speaker 1: of the influence, actually the influence of money that's really
- 1:19:08Speaker 1: the problem, because it's some of the same donors who
- 1:19:11Speaker 1: are writing multimillion dollar checks that are pulling the strings
- 1:19:14Speaker 1: of both of these people. Like puppets. They're like pawns
- 1:19:16Speaker 1: on a chess board. And so that's why I spent
- 1:19:19Speaker 1: I mean, I got probably more connections to be able
- 1:19:21Speaker 1: to raise outside money into superpacks or whatever, but I
- 1:19:24Speaker 1: don't want to do that. I'd rather put thirty million
- 1:19:26Speaker 1: of my own money. I'd rather do that than to
- 1:19:28Speaker 1: be somebody else's circus monkey or pawn on a chessboard,
- 1:19:32Speaker 1: which is what basically, both political parties have become.
- 1:19:35Speaker 3: A shame full of sh its, like both sides and
- 1:19:37Speaker 3: call salespeople. Nothing ever changes. We had the same thing
- 1:19:40Speaker 3: over and over.
- 1:19:40Speaker 1: I don't think it has to say that one first,
- 1:19:46Speaker 1: But don't you think it's a shame that we're not
- 1:19:47Speaker 1: even Canada anymore? A shame that every.
- 1:19:49Speaker 2: Presidential election we're voting for the lesser of two evils.
- 1:19:52Speaker 3: It's the same thing over and over again.
- 1:19:53Speaker 4: And I will say is cons when I hear you,
- 1:19:56Speaker 4: and here.
- 1:20:00Speaker 1: We preach to the Republican Party for a second, because
- 1:20:01Speaker 1: this is what I said, This is my whole last
- 1:20:03Speaker 1: message in the last two months of the campaign, troll,
- 1:20:04Speaker 1: the Republican Party has become lazy, Bucklin Barty has become
- 1:20:08Speaker 1: lazy because we are just criticizing the vision of the
- 1:20:12Speaker 1: other side, and then let's start. I'll give you a
- 1:20:14Speaker 1: vision of you know, we we'll complain about I'll complain
- 1:20:16Speaker 1: about it, race, gender, sexuality, climate correct, complain about that
- 1:20:22Speaker 1: without offering an alternative vision of our own. What do
- 1:20:26Speaker 1: we actually stand for? And I'll be the first person
- 1:20:29Speaker 1: acknowledge that is missing in the Republican Party today, an
- 1:20:32Speaker 1: actual alternative vision. Biden bad is not an agenda. And
- 1:20:37Speaker 1: yet the reason why we got trounced in that midterm,
- 1:20:40Speaker 1: relative to what should have happened, I wasn't. I don't
- 1:20:43Speaker 1: think it was because abortion. I don't think it was
- 1:20:44Speaker 1: because of Trump. Those are all things that people failed
- 1:20:47Speaker 1: to you know, just blame game stuff. The real reason
- 1:20:50Speaker 1: is Biden bad is not an agenda. We have to
- 1:20:53Speaker 1: offer an alternative vision of what we stand for. So
- 1:20:56Speaker 1: if we're talking race, gender, sexuality, and climate over here,
- 1:21:00Speaker 1: we'll talk over here about individual, family, nation, and God.
- 1:21:08Speaker 1: It's an alternativision. You could agree or disagree with it.
- 1:21:10Speaker 1: The value of each individual, the value of the family
- 1:21:13Speaker 1: as a grounding institution, the value of the nation. I'm
- 1:21:16Speaker 1: a citizen of this nation, not some nebulous global citizen.
- 1:21:20Speaker 1: Fighting climate change in Davos. No, I'm a citizen of
- 1:21:22Speaker 1: this nation, and I have an obligation to my fellow
- 1:21:24Speaker 1: citizens and God in the same way as a leader.
- 1:21:27Speaker 1: As I'm a father of two sons. My moral obligation
- 1:21:29Speaker 1: as a father is to my family and to my
- 1:21:31Speaker 1: son's period, and I won't be shaken in that. Well,
- 1:21:34Speaker 1: then my moral obligation as a president of this nation
- 1:21:37Speaker 1: is to the citizens of this nation, not another one,
- 1:21:39Speaker 1: not just to people who agree with me, people on
- 1:21:41Speaker 1: the South side of Chicago to Kensington, to everywhere else
- 1:21:43Speaker 1: that I've visited in this campaign. All of those are
- 1:21:45Speaker 1: equally included as Americans. But that's still what it means
- 1:21:48Speaker 1: to be an American. And yes, we are one nation
- 1:21:51Speaker 1: under God. And you know what, if more of us
- 1:21:53Speaker 1: acknowledge that, do you think we'd be more united or
- 1:21:54Speaker 1: more divided. I think we'd be more united. And I
- 1:21:57Speaker 1: say this as somebody who has been hit for having
- 1:21:59Speaker 1: a slightly different relation than the most predominant religion in
- 1:22:02Speaker 1: the country. I still think it's a good thing for
- 1:22:03Speaker 1: us technoledge that we were one nation under God. You
- 1:22:06Speaker 1: could agree or not with that vision. I think it's
- 1:22:08Speaker 1: a winning vision. For the Republican Party, that you are
- 1:22:10Speaker 1: an individual and I'm an individual. We're not riding the
- 1:22:13Speaker 1: tectonic plates of group identity. You're Charlemagne and you're DJNV,
- 1:22:16Speaker 1: and I'm me, and I'm an agent in this world
- 1:22:19Speaker 1: that can achieve whatever I want, not writing somebody else's
- 1:22:22Speaker 1: tectonic plate. That I'm a family and a member of
- 1:22:25Speaker 1: a family, and that there's a mother and a father
- 1:22:27Speaker 1: involved and that's inherently a good thing, and that the
- 1:22:29Speaker 1: nuclear family is the greatest form of governance known to mad.
- 1:22:33Speaker 2: After Republican Party, though they've been the party in the
- 1:22:35Speaker 2: Confederacy forever.
- 1:22:36Speaker 1: So listen, I'm coming in. I've said this since day one.
- 1:22:40Speaker 1: I was using the Republican Party as a vehicle to
- 1:22:43Speaker 1: advance a pro American agenda, and it made people mad
- 1:22:45Speaker 1: when I said it. Roni McDaniel, I don't know if
- 1:22:47Speaker 1: you know she is. She's the chairman woman of the RNC.
- 1:22:50Speaker 1: She after the third Debate or whatever, said I would
- 1:22:54Speaker 1: not get another scent of funding from the RNC. I mean,
- 1:22:57Speaker 1: almost proven my point about the managerial interest, and so yes,
- 1:23:02Speaker 1: I will admit it. I was and am and if
- 1:23:04Speaker 1: there's a future we'll be using the Republican Party as
- 1:23:07Speaker 1: a vehicle to advance a pro American agenda. It's not
- 1:23:11Speaker 1: about Republicans and Democrats. I think it is about the
- 1:23:14Speaker 1: managerial class. We can talk about what that means. It's
- 1:23:17Speaker 1: the bureaucracy in government. Outside of government, the people you know,
- 1:23:21Speaker 1: staffing the boards of some nonprofit, the associate dean of
- 1:23:24Speaker 1: God knows what at a university, the undersecretary of something else.
- 1:23:27Speaker 1: In the administrative state. It's the managerial class versus the
- 1:23:30Speaker 1: everyday citizen.
- 1:23:31Speaker 2: I think we need multiparty systems. And the reason I
- 1:23:33Speaker 2: think we need multiparty systems is because those terms Republican
- 1:23:36Speaker 2: and Democrat both are too radioactive. The only thing I'll
- 1:23:38Speaker 2: say about multiparty system as soon as you hit one,
- 1:23:41Speaker 2: you already label a person. As soon as you hit
- 1:23:43Speaker 2: oldest person's that you label. As soon as you hit
- 1:23:44Speaker 2: this person that you label them.
- 1:23:45Speaker 1: We need a multipartiesis the only thing I'll say about
- 1:23:47Speaker 1: multiparty system. Is you go to a place like India
- 1:23:50Speaker 1: or whatever. Right, My myand parents immigrants from India, and
- 1:23:53Speaker 1: you think it's bad here, It's like horrific over there.
- 1:23:56Speaker 1: You got a multi party system. But people will just
- 1:23:58Speaker 1: be shipping TVs into people's houses as a way to
- 1:24:01Speaker 1: just get their vote. And I think it's less about
- 1:24:04Speaker 1: two party versus multi party. It's more about actually us, right,
- 1:24:09Speaker 1: So we can all blame the system, but I think
- 1:24:11Speaker 1: part of the problem is we as people were conditioned
- 1:24:14Speaker 1: to behave like sheep. Actually, I think all. I mean,
- 1:24:18Speaker 1: there's an inner part of us that's a lion, and
- 1:24:20Speaker 1: an inner part of us that is a sheep, and
- 1:24:22Speaker 1: I think right now we live in a moment where
- 1:24:23Speaker 1: the inner sheep has taken over. I think it's a
- 1:24:27Speaker 1: big part of it. In kids, I would ban social
- 1:24:29Speaker 1: media in kids under the age of sixteen. I would
- 1:24:32Speaker 1: get phones out of the high schools. I mean, let's
- 1:24:34Speaker 1: just start with basics that we can agree on. Out
- 1:24:36Speaker 1: of the board. The algorithms train you to behave like
- 1:24:39Speaker 1: a sheep, because the more you behave like a sheep,
- 1:24:40Speaker 1: the more it is you're likely to click buy. Actually,
- 1:24:43Speaker 1: that's what That's what Mark Zuckerberg's basic insight was. You
- 1:24:46Speaker 1: know what the site was on Harvard's campus. I was
- 1:24:49Speaker 1: a year behind him in college when Facebook came out,
- 1:24:52Speaker 1: But you know what the predecessor site was to Facebook,
- 1:24:55Speaker 1: was youre familiar the story is hot or not? That
- 1:24:58Speaker 1: was the that was original Facebook. So he was a sophomore.
- 1:25:02Speaker 1: I was a freshman, and I was one of the
- 1:25:03Speaker 1: early you know, people who got in the what became Facebook.
- 1:25:06Speaker 1: But the first thing was he would just blast it
- 1:25:08Speaker 1: out to you, rip pictures from the Harvard directory, get
- 1:25:11Speaker 1: two pictures, and then there'd be all kinds of games
- 1:25:13Speaker 1: they'd make it. And the whole game was how quickly
- 1:25:16Speaker 1: you would click on one of them versus another, and
- 1:25:19Speaker 1: that would be his window into your soul. Actually, like
- 1:25:24Speaker 1: that was the insight. Now they got him for inappropriately
- 1:25:28Speaker 1: using Harvard property, and so he left and just decided
- 1:25:31Speaker 1: this is working so well, I'm just going to do
- 1:25:32Speaker 1: it separately. That became not only Facebook, but became the
- 1:25:36Speaker 1: backbone of an entire industry designed to prey on your insecurities,
- 1:25:40Speaker 1: on our insecurities, to open a window into your soul
- 1:25:45Speaker 1: that is deeper than you have into your own. And
- 1:25:48Speaker 1: that's the whole game. And so the more you behave
- 1:25:50Speaker 1: like a sheep, and that's what modern AI is actually
- 1:25:53Speaker 1: going to be very good at doing. Is you know,
- 1:25:55Speaker 1: the best antidote to AI is people going to call
- 1:25:58Speaker 1: me crazy person for saying this and misquote me, take
- 1:26:00Speaker 1: it out of context, but I don't care. The best
- 1:26:02Speaker 1: antidote to AI actually is I think a revival of
- 1:26:04Speaker 1: faith in the country because I think that part of
- 1:26:06Speaker 1: what actually these algorithms do is they prey on an
- 1:26:09Speaker 1: inner vacuum, and that I think has created this nation
- 1:26:13Speaker 1: of sheep. So in some ways we can blame two
- 1:26:15Speaker 1: party systems or this or that. Nothing's going to change
- 1:26:18Speaker 1: until we all actually have an honest introspection about who
- 1:26:22Speaker 1: we really are.
- 1:26:24Speaker 4: Listen, I got a piece. We got to wrap this
- 1:26:25Speaker 4: up for.
- 1:26:25Speaker 2: I think what you just said is great, but you
- 1:26:27Speaker 2: need to start with yourself because you have better ideas
- 1:26:30Speaker 2: than a Donald Trump's.
- 1:26:31Speaker 4: So there's no need to be his sheep.
- 1:26:35Speaker 1: Need to be the best person to lead this country forward.
- 1:26:37Speaker 4: There's no need to be his life. I disagree with
- 1:26:39Speaker 4: your characters. I believe you're better than that personally.
- 1:26:42Speaker 1: I enjoyed the conversation we're having here, and I think
- 1:26:45Speaker 1: that we need more of this in the country. I
- 1:26:47Speaker 1: don't think we need people continue to just talk and
- 1:26:49Speaker 1: feed their own echo chambers. I think we need more
- 1:26:52Speaker 1: of this, And so next time we're in New York
- 1:26:53Speaker 1: with some time. You have my word, I'll swing by
- 1:26:56Speaker 1: if you'll have me pop up.
- 1:26:57Speaker 2: We did a whole podcast. How long is that right?
- 1:26:59Speaker 2: I went already, Mass you gotta go on my guys
- 1:27:02Speaker 2: show too, Man Flagrant with sho Okay, oh the Shultz.
- 1:27:05Speaker 4: Yeah, you was supposed to do it, but I think
- 1:27:06Speaker 4: you had to reschedule.
- 1:27:07Speaker 1: Okay, all right, okay, I think I'm seeing him soon.
- 1:27:09Speaker 1: Be vake that, I say, right, vi veke the vac.
- 1:27:12Speaker 3: All right, Ram Swam, and we appreciate you for joining
- 1:27:14Speaker 3: us again. Thank you so much.
- 1:27:15Speaker 1: Good to see man wake that ass up in the morning.
- 1:27:18Speaker 2: Breakfast Club