RFK Jr. The Defender - Corporate Capture Kills Small Business with Lloyd Chapman

For over 30 years, Lloyd Chapman has worked to protect the interests of our nation s 27 million small businesses. In 2004, Mr. Chapman founded the American Small Business League with the goal of stopping the diversion of federal small business contracts to large corporations. Today, he is a champion of small business and has successfully fought the government for decades to protect small businesses and their intellectual property rights. He is also a regular contributor to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, and is a frequent guest on CNN's Hard Knocks. In this episode, we discuss how important it is for small businesses to have a voice in Washington, the dangers of artificial intelligence (AI) and the need for a strong middle class to support small businesses, and why the government should not be worried about self-driving cars and driverless trucks. He also talks about why he thinks the government is biased toward big business and against Main Street and why it s a recipe for economic suicide and why you should be concerned about the future of the economy if you don t work for a Fortune 500 company. And he explains why you shouldn t have to pay taxes on the 1% of people who don t pay taxes and don t create jobs in the same way you do for the rest of us. You can get a copy of his book, "No Deal with My Deal with the Pentagon." by clicking here. It's free and well worth the price of admission to the book, No Deal With the Pentagon by clicking HERE. If you're looking for a free copy of No Deal, you can get your own copy of the book here. No Deal with The Pentagon's No Deal by Lloyd Chapman, here you'll get it for free, no obligation to pay $900,000, no extra shipping, no additional shipping, and you get 20% off your first-world shipping and handling charges. No deal is better than $100,000 in exchange for $200,000 or more than $500,000 shipping and $150,000 gets you get an ad-free course from Amazon Prime membership, no shipping included in the course gets you a course that includes a discount on my deal, plus I'll get $5,000 and I'll send you an additional shipping and a $50,000 of shipping plan, plus you get a 20% discount when you sign up for an ad discount, plus an additional $25,000 is a discount at my website gets you an ad is available for free.

00:00:00.000 I'm really happy to have here today a guest who's one of the great champions of small business in the United States.

00:00:06.000 For over 30 years, Lloyd Chapman has worked to protect the interests of our nation's 27 million small businesses.

00:00:14.000 In 2004, Mr.

00:00:16.000 Chapman founded the American Small Business League.

00:00:19.000 With the goal of stopping the diversion of federal small business contracts to large corporations.

00:00:25.000 So let's start with basics.

00:00:28.000 How important are small business to the US economy and to employment?

00:00:34.000 Good question.

00:00:35.000 Let's see here.

00:00:36.000 Citrus Bureau data, 99% of all U.S. companies have less than five employees, 98% have less than 100, and 87% of all U.S. firms have less than 20, and the average American company has 10 employees.

00:00:50.000 No small business responsible for over half the gross domestic product, half the private sector workforce, over 90% of US exports, and most importantly, about 98% of all net new jobs.

00:01:00.000 So most Americans work in small businesses.

00:01:03.000 And I think America, quite frankly, is a small business economy, because that's where all the jobs come from.

00:01:09.000 Yeah.

00:01:09.000 How worried are you about AI? Terrified.

00:01:13.000 Well, in regard to the government using it against small businesses, is that what you're saying?

00:01:18.000 Well, the whole thing, I mean, just about displacing accounting firms, law firms, you know, there's so many things that it can do.

00:01:27.000 Do you think it's a bigger threat to bigger, big corporations or small corporations?

00:01:32.000 I'm worried also clearly about the surveillance and the control and the compliance aspects of it.

00:01:38.000 And just the ability to, you know, that we have a government that's lying to us about everything.

00:01:43.000 Absolutely.

00:01:44.000 With AI, it's going to amplify its capacity to just distort reality in order to achieve whatever nefarious ends, you know, people want to achieve.

00:01:56.000 So I share your terror about that, but I'm also just worried about, you know, I'm worried about Driverless cars, self-driving cars, that must be a huge percentage.

00:02:11.000 I saw a guy on TV talking about the fact that all the roadside businesses in America are going to go away because he says all those trucks are up there for trucks and we're going to have driverless trucks.

00:02:24.000 And so all these roadside businesses all across the country are going to go away.

00:02:29.000 So yeah, that's something that's very concerning.

00:02:32.000 Yeah, okay.

00:02:32.000 Well, let's talk about it.

00:02:34.000 I know one of your concerns is the bias that federal government has toward big business and against Main Street.

00:02:43.000 Let's talk about that.

00:02:44.000 All right.

00:02:45.000 Well, federal law, the Small Business Act passed in 1953, mandates that a minimum of 23% of all federal contracts go to small businesses, and then a subset of 5% to women, and I think it's 13% to minorities and 5% to service-enabled veterans.

00:03:01.000 And what most Americans don't know, the Small Business Act is the largest economic stimulus program ever passed by Congress for the American people.

00:03:09.000 And I would say it's largely unknown.

00:03:11.000 That law has been largely repealed by the Pentagon over the last 20 years.

00:03:17.000 They bury language in the National Defense Authorization Act.

00:03:20.000 It erodes that.

00:03:21.000 The budget for the Small Business Administration was bigger when Reagan was president than it is today.

00:03:26.000 There's been a nonstop effort For 30 years to close the Small Business Administration and end all federal programs for small businesses.

00:03:34.000 And again, here in America, 98% of all the net new jobs come from small businesses.

00:03:40.000 And most of the innovation comes from small businesses.

00:03:43.000 And there's just a very aggressive campaign in Washington to end all federal small business programs.

00:03:47.000 Here's a statistic that might surprise people.

00:03:50.000 So only 1% of businesses in America have over 500 employees.

00:03:54.000 I think I'm going to go.

00:04:16.000 With this tiny sliver of 1% that don't create jobs and don't pay taxes, I think that's a recipe for economic suicide.

00:04:23.000 I'm very concerned about that.

00:04:25.000 And those are like Fortune 500 companies, right?

00:04:28.000 Yeah.

00:04:29.000 In fact, I'll show you something funny.

00:04:30.000 So you and I both sued the government before, right?

00:04:33.000 So here's the Pentagon tells Congress they're doing a great job of small businesses.

00:04:38.000 And so I said, can you show me some of the firms that you're giving contracts to?

00:04:42.000 They said, no.

00:04:43.000 So I sued them, and this is what I got.

00:04:46.000 You've seen this before, haven't you?

00:04:49.000 Right?

00:04:49.000 That's called redacted.

00:04:51.000 Exactly.

00:04:52.000 I spent seven years in court to get this, and $900,000, right?

00:04:57.000 Yeah.

00:04:57.000 When the government says we're doing a great job of small business, say, let me see, this is what they give you.

00:05:02.000 Let me ask you, because the Pentagon only wants to deal with Boeing, Lockheed, General Dynette, Northrop Grumman, and it doesn't want to deal with any small business.

00:05:15.000 But is that rational by the Pentagon?

00:05:19.000 No.

00:05:20.000 No, I'll tell you something.

00:05:21.000 My father was a contractor for the Air Force.

00:05:24.000 That's how I really kind of got into this.

00:05:26.000 And if someone's working for the government in procurement, they want to work with big companies because when they retire, they can get a job with those big companies and it's called double dipping.

00:05:37.000 So they retire from the Pentagon after 20 years and go to work for some defense contract and work there for 20 years.

00:05:42.000 So they're not going to get jobs with small businesses.

00:05:44.000 A lot of people in government will try to say, oh, small businesses are too small.

00:05:48.000 That's not true.

00:05:49.000 I saw a statistic from a company that analyzed federal procurement data called FedMind, and I think 50% of all individual purchase orders from the government are $50,000 and less.

00:06:01.000 So any notion that small businesses can't handle the business is untrue.

00:06:07.000 The federal government is, I would say, aggressively anti-small business.

00:06:11.000 In fact, let's just say this.

00:06:13.000 So again, Census Bureau data, 98% of all U.S. companies have less than 100 employees.

00:06:18.000 I challenge anybody to show me one piece of legislation ever to address those companies.

00:06:24.000 You know, those companies are the heart of the national economy, and yet you won't see one piece of legislation that's ever been passed to help the small businesses where most Americans work, where most of the GDP comes from, and most of the tax revenue, and all the jobs.

00:06:37.000 You won't see it.

00:06:38.000 So it's concerning.

00:06:40.000 What should the government be doing to help small business?

00:06:43.000 Well, you know, I think you and I both have seen enough stories about Fortune 500 firms not paying taxes.

00:06:49.000 When they're not paying the taxes, that tax burden is shifted to the middle class, right?

00:06:53.000 And that means small businesses are having to pick up the load that the Fortune 500 firms are paying.

00:06:58.000 If it were me...

00:07:00.000 The first thing I'd do is make sure they're complying with the Small Business Act of 1953 and make sure the small business are getting a minimum of 23%.

00:07:07.000 I would raise that to like 35% since, you know, small businesses are half the GDP, right?

00:07:15.000 And 90% of the net new jobs were trying to create jobs.

00:07:18.000 So I would make sure that that law is being complied with.

00:07:21.000 The Pentagon has gotten hundreds of loopholes passed in the National Defense Authorization Act over the last 30 years that just keep willing away at that, you know, making it harder and harder for small businesses.

00:07:35.000 Just recently, there were some sweeping changes in the 2024 NDA that are, again, chipping away at the small business program's So I would make sure that laws passed.

00:07:46.000 One thing that I think that women should be concerned about is women are half the population. 1.00

00:07:51.000 They own 43% of the business in America.

00:07:54.000 And for the last 50 years, 95% of all federal spending has gone to companies owned by men.

00:07:59.000 And that's why men are responsible for over 70% of all the political contributions.

00:08:04.000 Men hold all the key positions of government.

00:08:06.000 So to me, Men, you know, pretty much control the government. 0.99

00:08:09.000 And I'd like to see more women in Congress, personally. 1.00

00:08:12.000 One thing I'd like to see happen is for women to get a more proportionate share of federal contracts. 1.00

00:08:18.000 So I think giving 95% to firms owned by men is a little lopsided.

00:08:22.000 I would do something, I'd pass legislation and policy to give women at least 25%. 1.00

00:08:27.000 And women are getting 5% now. 0.99

00:08:30.000 If we got that up to 25%, That would infuse at least $200 billion a year in existing federal infrastructure spending into women-owned businesses and middle class. 1.00

00:08:42.000 It would create millions of jobs and boost the economy dramatically.

00:08:46.000 So I think that's something that needs to be looked at.

00:08:48.000 But yeah, the government's anti-small business.

00:08:50.000 It's been that way since Reagan.

00:08:52.000 And I'll have to say this.

00:08:53.000 The Republican administrations have been very aggressive to try to close the small business administration and end all programs for small businesses.

00:09:01.000 Bush cut the SBA budget and staffing in half.

00:09:04.000 So the SBA budget was bigger when Ronald Reagan was elected than it is today in 2024.

00:09:09.000 It's the only federal agency, I think, in government whose budget is smaller now than it was 30 years ago.

00:09:14.000 And that needs to change.

00:09:16.000 That's interesting to me because Republicans, at least the Republican Party I grew up with, was very pro-Main Street, at least in its ideology and its rhetoric.

00:09:26.000 I guess one of their ideological impulses is just to get rid of all government assistance, and I suppose that's what motivates the hostility of the Small Business Administration.

00:09:39.000 You know, the way I look at it, and again, I've been suing them for 35 years.

00:09:44.000 Fortune 500 firms want every penny the government spends to go to them.

00:09:47.000 So the Small Business Act mandates that a minimum of 23% go to small businesses.

00:09:52.000 They're trying to close the SBA and end those programs because they want that money. 0.99

00:09:56.000 It's just greed.

00:09:56.000 Again, if Republicans are so pro small business, please show me one piece of legislation passed by a Republican president.

00:10:02.000 That would benefit companies with 100 employees or less.

00:10:05.000 You can't do it.

00:10:06.000 Just the opposite.

00:10:07.000 So Reagan tried to close the SBA. Bush Jr.

00:10:10.000 tried to close the SBA. Even Obama tried to close the SBA. I was shocked at that.

00:10:15.000 Reagan's plan back in 1985 to close the SBA was combined with the Commerce Department.

00:10:19.000 So the Commerce Department reps the largest business in the country.

00:10:22.000 The SBA represents the small businesses.

00:10:24.000 And the complete different interest.

00:10:26.000 Again, that was Reagan's plan to close it. 0.98

00:10:28.000 And Obama tried to do something.

00:10:29.000 I was very disappointed about that.

00:10:31.000 So President Obama tried to close the SBA by combining the Department of Commerce.

00:10:35.000 You probably know this.

00:10:36.000 A trick in Washington, if you want to close an agency and it wouldn't be popular with the American people, you combine it with another agency and then zero out the budget.

00:10:45.000 So it never is reported that that agency has been closed, but they've done that.

00:10:50.000 But that's what they would do with the SBA. They want to essentially close it by cutting the budget and staffing and combined with another agency.

00:10:56.000 And when they combined with another agency, you can't tell anymore, right?

00:11:00.000 You can't tell what it is, right?

00:11:01.000 But the staffing and the budget for the SBA when Reagan was president was, I would say, three times larger than it is in 2024.

00:11:10.000 So the S&P budget should be, I don't know, three, four billion?

00:11:15.000 It's less than a billion dollars.

00:11:17.000 So when you think about it, so we've got a country where 33 million small businesses are responsible for 98% of the net new jobs, half the gross domestic product, half the private sector workforce, over 90% of U.S. exports, and there's this little tiny agency that represent them, and they're trying to get rid of that?

00:11:32.000 I think that's someone's not thinking right.

00:11:35.000 But it's what you have talked about, corporate capture.

00:11:38.000 Those big corporations have so much power in Washington, and they want that money. 0.58

00:11:42.000 They want 100% of the money the government spends.

00:11:45.000 And that's why they're so aggressive to get rid of the Small Business Administration. 0.81

00:11:48.000 Again, I think most Americans would be shocked to find out that 97% of their tax dollars are being spent with 1% of the companies in this country.

00:11:58.000 And those companies have not created one job since 1980, and many are paying no taxes.

00:12:05.000 I just think that's just insane, right?

00:12:08.000 But Bush closed most of the regional SBA offices.

00:12:12.000 He cut the staff in half.

00:12:13.000 I think all the regional offices need to be reopened and the SBA budget needs to be restored to some reasonable level so they can help small businesses and create jobs.

00:12:23.000 And then how do you get your funding and what is your background?

00:12:28.000 My background was, quite frankly, I was a real estate agent.

00:12:32.000 And a friend of mine started a computer company around 1985, and I came out to help her just for fun, right?

00:12:37.000 Are you from Texas?

00:12:40.000 I'm from Round Rock, Texas, which is just outside of Austin.

00:12:45.000 Just trying to place your accent.

00:12:49.000 Yeah, my accent can get pretty heavy sometimes.

00:12:52.000 But yeah, I'm from Round Rock, Texas.

00:12:54.000 And I went to California just really on a vacation to help this friend of mine.

00:12:58.000 I got involved in it.

00:12:59.000 And again, my father was a contracting officer for McClellan Air Force Base in Sacramento.

00:13:04.000 And he gave me all this information to try to help this friend of mine.

00:13:07.000 And he told me how to do freedom of information requests.

00:13:10.000 I was naive.

00:13:11.000 I didn't do anything.

00:13:12.000 And so I did my first freedom of information request.

00:13:15.000 And they didn't like it.

00:13:19.000 I just fell into it.

00:13:21.000 I was asking for these reports that the Pentagon had on how much money the defense contractors were actually giving to small businesses.

00:13:30.000 So the Pentagon was telling Congress that they were giving small businesses the 20% at that time of law mandated.

00:13:36.000 I wanted to see these reports, and when I got a few of them, I saw that the small business goals were in tenths of a percent.

00:13:43.000 So while the Pentagon was telling Congress they were giving 20%, the contracts I saw were like 1,600 to 1%, you know, two-tenths percent, 1%.

00:13:52.000 In fact, here's how I really got started doing this.

00:13:55.000 Again, I just didn't know anything about it.

00:13:57.000 And I saw on television that Lockheed got a big defense contract.

00:14:01.000 And so I did a Freedom of Information request for a copy of the small business subcontracting plan for that contract.

00:14:07.000 And again, my father was telling me what to do.

00:14:09.000 I got the paper, and the small business goal was 16, 101%.

00:14:14.000 Well, at that time, the law said 20.

00:14:16.000 I thought it was a typo.

00:14:17.000 And so I called them, and they said, no, that's what it was.

00:14:20.000 So I called Barbara Boxer, and she put me in touch with Les Aspen.

00:14:24.000 Remember that guy?

00:14:25.000 Oh, yeah, I knew him very well.

00:14:27.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:14:28.000 He was a great guy.

00:14:30.000 Yeah, there was a congressional investigation into this contract, and they boosted the funds for small businesses from $16 million to $517 million.

00:14:40.000 And that was like maybe five or six phone calls.

00:14:43.000 And I thought, well, hey, this is easy.

00:14:45.000 So I requested information on a couple more contracts, and that's when they decided it was top secret.

00:14:51.000 And I sued them.

00:14:52.000 I lost at the district court level to a judge whose brother was a high-ranking Pentagon official, Judge Rukazan.

00:14:59.000 And then I appealed to the Ninth Circuit, and I won that case.

00:15:03.000 And the judges were so angry with the government's attorney, this poor woman, she was probably about 35 or 40, they were just screaming at her, and she was crying, you know, in court.

00:15:13.000 They were so angry.

00:15:14.000 And I won that, and I won basically the release of all these reports that showed that they were, you know, not hitting the goal.

00:15:21.000 So what the Pentagon did was pass a program called the Comprehensive Subcontracting Plan Test Program that eliminated reports that I'd won the right to see.

00:15:30.000 Yeah, you're familiar with that.

00:15:33.000 Yeah, you've seen that, right?

00:15:34.000 So the comprehensive subcontracting plan test program was passed to see if it would increase contracts to small businesses.

00:15:43.000 There were two provisions.

00:15:44.000 Number one, no penalties from uncompliance and no transparency.

00:15:49.000 Sound familiar?

00:15:50.000 Yeah.

00:15:53.000 Yeah, here's the funny thing.

00:15:54.000 How long do you think they've tested if limited transparency and any penalties for non-compliance is going to help small businesses?

00:16:02.000 I think they tested it for 35 years.

00:16:07.000 And they're still testing it.

00:16:08.000 So the Pentagon is still testing whether limiting transparency and any penalties for non-compliance is going to help small businesses.

00:16:15.000 That's just insane.

00:16:16.000 That's gone on for 35 years.

00:16:18.000 Yeah, well, it's been a very successful program for the Pentagon and for big business.

00:16:25.000 Absolutely.

00:16:26.000 I had a meeting one time at the Inspector General at the SBA. From my experience of winning that case in the Ninth Circuit, I prompted a congressional investigation into fraud and abuse in federal small business programs during the Bush administration.

00:16:40.000 And I was meeting with the head of the SBA, Inspector General.

00:16:44.000 And it went to a nice meeting.

00:16:45.000 And at that time, I was suing the SBA under the Freedom of Information Act for the phone records of the press office director, who I assumed was working with the Pentagon.

00:16:53.000 So as I left my meeting with the Inspector General, I got in the elevator, and I saw the sign that says, SBA press office.

00:16:59.000 I jumped out of the elevator.

00:17:00.000 He said, go over and say hi to this guy and kind of harass him.

00:17:03.000 And there was a stainless steel door with a bulletproof glass and a keypad.

00:17:08.000 So I just walked out of the executive offices of the SBA. I could see the SBA administrator's office.

00:17:14.000 When I walked in this door, there was a secretary, and I could see the SBA administrator's office.

00:17:18.000 The inspector general's office was down in the hall and their chief counsel.

00:17:22.000 But when I tried to go to the press office, it was the stainless steel door.

00:17:26.000 My personal opinion is the Pentagon runs the SBA out of that office.

00:17:30.000 And back a few years ago, I was always dealing with the SBA press office.

00:17:35.000 I was always fighting with them in the press, right?

00:17:37.000 And the guy who was head of the SBA press office was a retired naval commander whose specialty was surface weapons warfare systems and reputation management.

00:17:46.000 I find that to be a little suspicious, right?

00:17:51.000 In fact, right now, It's like 30 Rock, you know, where Alec Baldwin played the director of television programming and microwave ovens.

00:18:02.000 The General Electric Company.

00:18:04.000 It's just...

00:18:05.000 Yeah.

00:18:05.000 It's a populist designation that really doesn't make any sense.

00:18:09.000 You know what?

00:18:10.000 I'll tell you something.

00:18:11.000 I was thinking about this.

00:18:12.000 From suing the government, it's put me in contact with a lot of people in different areas.

00:18:17.000 And I prompted a congressional investigation.

00:18:20.000 I tested it for Congress.

00:18:21.000 I wrote legislation to try to change it.

00:18:25.000 And nothing in government is the way it should be.

00:18:28.000 So what's happening at the SBA, where small businesses are being cheated out of, I would say, about $300 billion a year.

00:18:36.000 So they're supposed to get 23%.

00:18:38.000 I think they're getting 3%.

00:18:39.000 And that's typical.

00:18:41.000 So every agency is like that.

00:18:42.000 You talk about corporate capture, right?

00:18:44.000 Every agency is just like that.

00:18:46.000 So the SB is just a little sample of every agency is just like that.

00:18:50.000 So an agency that was designed to help small businesses is actually being run by people that are trying to help the Pentagon, not the small businesses.

00:18:59.000 But from what I've seen, I've been in Washington quite a bit.

00:19:01.000 I've been in every office in the House and the Senate.

00:19:03.000 I've met most of the presidents in my lifetime.

00:19:06.000 And that's the way the whole town runs.

00:19:07.000 You know, so Washington is run not for the American people, but Washington, D.C. is run for Fortune 500 firms.

00:19:14.000 In fact, here's something I want to be sure to talk to you about that I think you probably know about.

00:19:17.000 In the last four or five months, I've discovered that the DNC is completely run by corporate lobbyists.

00:19:24.000 I never knew that.

00:19:25.000 I'm 74.

00:19:26.000 I didn't know that.

00:19:26.000 If you search on DNC corporate lobbyists, you'll see a multitude of stories that talk about, from the top to the bottom, it's corporate lobbyists, and the RNC, I think, is very similar.

00:19:36.000 I didn't know that.

00:19:37.000 My favorite one is people can search on top DNC committee packed with corporate lobbyists.

00:19:43.000 So the DNC is not what I think people think it is.

00:19:47.000 That's the political party that, in my view, that represents Fortune 500 firms, not the American people.

00:19:53.000 You probably agree with that, don't you?

00:19:54.000 Yeah, absolutely.

00:19:56.000 I mean, I see it every day.

00:19:57.000 The New York Times reported this week that the DNC has already raised $1.1 billion for this election and that they're on track to raise $3 billion.

00:20:08.000 You know, they're using that money to Make sure nobody else gets on the ballot.

00:20:13.000 So the Democratic Party, when I was a kid, was about voting rights.

00:20:17.000 It was trying to make sure that every American could vote no matter what.

00:20:21.000 And now the DNC, controlled by corporate lobbyists, intends to subvert democracy, to make sure that people can't vote, disenfranchise anybody.

00:20:32.000 And they're doing the same thing to Trump.

00:20:33.000 I'm not a fan of Trump's, but But they're trying to get them off the ballot in the courts.

00:20:38.000 That's not right.

00:20:40.000 This is a banana republics, you know, and trying to weaponize that, you know, they're weaponizing the Secret Service against me. 1.00

00:20:47.000 They're using the agencies to, you know, to make sure I have to pay more money, to make sure all of this stuff is nothing about democracy anymore.

00:20:56.000 It's all about promoting the interests of those big companies.

00:21:01.000 Absolutely.

00:21:02.000 By the way, it's not just the DNC and RNC that are run by them.

00:21:06.000 It's the government, you know, when they...

00:21:08.000 Absolutely.

00:21:09.000 I've been there.

00:21:10.000 In the congressional here that I prompted, Fortune 5 firms could testify.

00:21:15.000 I've won about 110...

00:21:17.000 Legal victories against the government, mainly under the Freedom of Information Act, right?

00:21:21.000 I've been on every TV network in the country talking about this for, you know, 20 years.

00:21:26.000 And when they had a hearing about small business and the Pentagon, they didn't invite me to testify.

00:21:32.000 They invited someone from Boeing to come testify.

00:21:34.000 So in the House Small Business Committee, a hearing about small business contracting in the Pentagon, they didn't invite me.

00:21:42.000 They invited Boeing.

00:21:43.000 Yeah. 0.94

00:21:45.000 The whole government is corrupt.

00:21:48.000 I thought about this driving over here.

00:21:49.000 I sincerely believe the United States government has terminal cancer, and the cancer is corporate capture, and they've captured every area of government.

00:21:58.000 There's no area of government that you can look at that's not Yeah.

00:22:02.000 500 firms.

00:22:03.000 I'm terrified, quite frankly.

00:22:05.000 I think that something really bad's going to happen.

00:22:07.000 I think our whole economy is going to collapse.

00:22:10.000 If we're giving 97% of all the tax dollars to this 1% of companies that don't create jobs, don't pay taxes, that sounds like a real bad idea to me, right?

00:22:17.000 Yeah.

00:22:18.000 And shifting all the trillions of dollars upward to create this new oligarchy of You know, somebody asked me the other day, one of the mainstream press reporters who was angry at me because she said that I was, you know, telling everybody the government was corrupt and now I'm trying to run the government.

00:22:37.000 How am I going to run it if it's all corrupt?

00:22:39.000 I said, I'm going to make it tell the truth.

00:22:41.000 That's how I'm going to make it.

00:22:43.000 She was saying, you know, you're making everybody mistrust the government.

00:22:47.000 You should.

00:22:49.000 If you trust the government, you're not paying attention, let me put it that way.

00:22:56.000 Absolutely.

00:22:57.000 If you trust the government, you're not paying attention to what you're talking about, right?

00:23:01.000 Here's the government right here.

00:23:06.000 He's showing me like a big sheaf of pages that are just solid black because they're all redacted.

00:23:14.000 Every name of the small businesses that the Pentagon helped.

00:23:19.000 He sent a Freedom Information request saying, what small business have you helped?

00:23:25.000 And they sent them like 50 pages back that are all black.

00:23:28.000 Exactly.

00:23:29.000 Exactly.

00:23:30.000 You know, you probably know Public Citizen, right?

00:23:33.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:23:33.000 Public Citizen, yeah.

00:23:34.000 Here's a report they put out called Slided, and here's what it says at the bottom.

00:23:38.000 Accounting tricks break false impression that small businesses are getting their share of federal procurement money and the political factors that might be at play.

00:23:45.000 That's Public Citizen, right?

00:23:47.000 Mother Jones did an article with me a few years ago called Corporate Giants Reaping Billions in Federal Small Business Contracts.

00:23:54.000 Yeah, the government's just...

00:23:56.000 I can't think of any area of government that's running the way it should be.

00:24:00.000 Everything's wrong.

00:24:02.000 It's scary.

00:24:04.000 The Pentagon hasn't passed an audit in like 40 years.

00:24:08.000 Here's something I want your listeners and viewers to do for me.

00:24:11.000 Go to your computer and type in 35 billion missing Pentagon and see what pops up.

00:24:18.000 There's a story that I think Yahoo did it.

00:24:21.000 Apparently, 35 trillion.

00:24:23.000 Did I say billion?

00:24:24.000 Trillion.

00:24:25.000 $35 trillion.

00:24:26.000 They're not exactly sure where it is at the Pentagon.

00:24:29.000 So type in 35 trillion missing Pentagon and see what pops up.

00:24:33.000 Can you imagine that?

00:24:34.000 Trillions!

00:24:35.000 Trillions!

00:24:36.000 Where is it?

00:24:37.000 You have it?

00:24:37.000 Where'd it go?

00:24:38.000 I can't find it, right?

00:24:40.000 35 trillion!

00:24:41.000 You know, one of the 9-11 conspiracy theories is about the Pentagon audit.

00:24:46.000 I know that story.

00:24:48.000 All right, why don't you tell it?

00:24:51.000 Well, they hit the part of the Pentagon where all the records were, right?

00:24:56.000 That's right.

00:24:56.000 So the day before 9-11, Donald Russell gave a speech and said the biggest threat, I think, to national security was not some far-flung dictatorship.

00:25:05.000 It wasn't Russia. 0.51

00:25:06.000 It wasn't China. 0.71

00:25:06.000 It was the Pentagon bureaucracy. 0.71

00:25:08.000 And he said, we can't track $2.3 trillion in acquisitions.

00:25:12.000 And then the next day, something, in my opinion, not an airplane, hit the part of the Pentagon where they're doing the audit.

00:25:19.000 And yeah, you and I, after suing the government, you know how bad it is when you sue them, right?

00:25:24.000 When you sue the government, forget about the Star Spangled Banner and the Pledge of Allegiance.

00:25:28.000 It's like suing the mafia.

00:25:30.000 They don't play fair.

00:25:31.000 They don't like it when you see them and try to expose corruption and fraud, right?

00:25:35.000 Yeah, anyway, I think the solutions are very simple.

00:25:38.000 They're very simple.

00:25:40.000 Comply with the 1953 Small Business Act.

00:25:44.000 Give small business the 23% the law has mandated they get.

00:25:47.000 They create all the jobs.

00:25:49.000 Let's create some jobs.

00:25:50.000 It will create more tax revenue.

00:25:52.000 To tell you the truth, I think compliance with the Small Business Act would address the homeless problem.

00:25:56.000 I really do.

00:25:57.000 So the middle class economy is imploding.

00:26:00.000 I believe one of the reasons is, I think you probably agree with this, one of the reasons the middle class economy is imploding is all of the government spending is going to this tiny 1% that doesn't create jobs.

00:26:12.000 And I believe that if they would comply with the Small Business Act and give small businesses at least 23%, they would create millions of jobs.

00:26:20.000 In fact, I'll tell you something.

00:26:21.000 The Senate Small Business Committee did a study about 10 years ago that said for every 1% that contracts a small business went up and create 100,000 new jobs a year.

00:26:29.000 That's the Senate Small Business Committee, right?

00:26:31.000 All the research, all the experts I've talked to, all the lawsuits I've won, small businesses are getting 3%.

00:26:36.000 So if we give small businesses 23%, that's 20% more, right?

00:26:41.000 And according to the Senate Small Business Committee, that's 2 million new jobs a year.

00:26:44.000 The government's only claiming to be creating 2.5 million jobs, which I think is completely fabricated.

00:26:50.000 But think about free and easy, no new taxes, deficit neutral, creating 2 million net new jobs a year by just complying with a law that Eisenhower signed.

00:27:00.000 I think that's a no-brainer.

00:27:01.000 We need to do that.

00:27:02.000 Well, Lloyd Chapman, thank you so much for enlightening us.

00:27:06.000 Thank you for fighting for the American middle class, for the American small business.

00:27:10.000 And when I get into the White House, I'm going to call you up on day one, and we're going to do all that you want to do.

00:27:18.000 So thank you.

00:27:19.000 Yeah, thank you.

00:27:21.000 Let's do something for women, get them their fair share of government contracts so they can have the political power to get more women elected to Congress. 1.00

00:27:28.000 Yeah, I like that.

00:27:29.000 I love that.

00:27:30.000 My wife's going to like that, and my vice president is going to like that a lot, too.

00:27:35.000 By the way, congratulations on picking her. 1.00

00:27:38.000 She is brilliant.

00:27:40.000 She's knowledgeable.

00:27:42.000 He's got the right motivation.

00:27:43.000 She's so much of character.

00:27:44.000 What a beautiful, perfect choice.

00:27:47.000 Thank you so much.

00:27:48.000 She's a lovely person.

00:27:50.000 I just, I love her.

00:27:52.000 She's amazing.

00:27:52.000 She's brilliant.

00:27:53.000 You know, being brilliant is helpful.

00:27:55.000 We need some brilliant people in government, right?

00:27:57.000 I don't get it.

00:27:57.000 That's what I said.

00:27:59.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:28:00.000 Let's get some knowledgeable, you know, Joe Biden gave people telegrams.

00:28:05.000 Joe Biden gave people telegrams, and she's writing AI programs.

00:28:09.000 All right?

00:28:10.000 We need her.

00:28:11.000 We need her desperately.

00:28:14.000 Lloyd, a real pleasure to talk to you, my friend.

00:28:17.000 Thank you, buddy.

RFK Jr. The Defender - April 08, 2024

Corporate Capture Kills Small Business with Lloyd Chapman

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript