On this Independence Day episode of RUMBLE, former presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. is joined by his wife, Cheryl Hines, to discuss his run for the White House in 2016 and how she and her husband, Robert Kennedy Sr., have managed their marriage in the midst of all of the attention and controversy surrounding their presidential campaign. They discuss how they deal with the pressure of being at the center of a controversial global conversation, and how they manage their marriage when they are thrust into the spotlight. They also talk about their relationship with their daughter, daughter-in-law, and other family members who have been publicly critical of their husband's campaign and what it's like to be married to someone who s running for president. And they talk about how they've managed the pressure on their marriage, and what they do to deal with it. This episode is sponsored by Pfizer and I'm Looking for the CEO. In this video, you're going to see the future, and in this video you'll get a preview of what's to come. Happy Independence Day, and Happy New Year, everyone! RATE 5 stars on Apple and leave a review on Apple Podcasts and become a supporter of the podcast on Apple by clicking the link below. Subscribe to our new podcast, Rate/subscribe and leave us a star rating and review on your favorite streaming platform so we can keep giving you the best listening experience in the world! and spreading the word to your friends and family about what you're listening to this podcast! Thank you so much love, RATE, review, share, and subscribe, and share it on your social media platforms, and spread the word out to your loved ones about this episode! Love you're watching this podcast and sharing it around the wide world, and be sure to spread it everywhere you do it! - Russell Brand, R.I.P. - Thank you, Russell Brand - R.S.Bobby Kennedy Jr., R.B. ( ) . R. BOBBY J. (RATE 5 STARS ( ) R. SON THE WORD, RAY ( ) and Larry ( ) - RAY MURPHY ( ) . ( ) & CHERRY ( ) AND KELLY (ROBERT ( ) ( ) !! (TALKING ABOUT THIS EPISODE, RYNN ( ) ... )
00:00:38.000In this video, you're going to see the future.
00:00:51.000Hello there you awakening wonders and happy Independence Day not only to all of you in America but to all of you across the world because what kind of independence is it if it isn't independence for every individual, every community, every nation.
00:01:11.000This is a special show We will only be on YouTube for the first 15 minutes before appearing exclusively on Rumble to have our special Independence Day conversation with Robert Kennedy Jr., presidential candidate.
00:01:26.000So tell us, why'd you decide to run for president?
00:01:29.000I felt like my country was being taken away from me.
00:01:35.000It's a very difficult issue, but it's ultimately the most important one.
00:01:40.000I think what we're talking about is, will your campaign end up being funded by the very interests that are ultimately perpetuating these problems?
00:01:47.000In terms of fixing the system, Russell, it's hard.
00:01:51.000You have a Supreme Court decision that equates, you know, monetary contributions with speech.
00:02:00.000We will only be on YouTube for the first 15 minutes before appearing exclusively on Rumble to have our special independent day conversation with Robert Kennedy Jr.
00:02:12.000And today he's going to be joined for the first time by his wife Cheryl Hines.
00:02:42.000I've deliberately adorned myself in this outrageous fashion because I knew you were participating, Cheryl, and I thought it would be wise to make an impression.
00:02:58.000Cheryl, it must be interesting for you to find yourself suddenly at the centre of this controversial global conversation as the on-screen accomplice of a stubborn and difficult partner who gets himself into all sorts of scrapes with his unwillingness to not take up unnecessarily I have a little, a few decades of experience in that, but in a funny way.
00:03:32.000So now this is a different fishbowl, shall we say?
00:03:43.000I just imagine that it must be extraordinary for a marriage that I imagine has some pressure on it anyway to find yourself in this position.
00:04:01.000She's been in the Bahamas drinking margaritas with Xanax.
00:04:09.000Well, I hope that this can provide a therapeutic function as well as a conversational one.
00:04:16.000Because the truth is, Bobby, I believe that you're having a profound impact.
00:04:21.000That's evident from the kind of coverage you're getting, both positive and negative. Obviously the polling information is
00:04:31.000encouraging and exciting and I personally believe that we're at a pivotal moment in the global
00:04:36.000conversation. I'll tell you why I feel this.
00:04:39.000The EU are looking to pass regulations that mean it will be possible to find social media platforms
00:04:47.000that don't censor according to their edicts.
00:04:50.000The Five Eyes countries, that's a term that we've all become familiar with since Edward Snowden's revelations, are all pushing for censorship legislation.
00:04:58.000You yourself have been subject already to a great deal of censorship and that's the side of the conversation I'm going to be pushing a lot Further, when we are exclusively on YouTube.
00:05:10.000But while we have Cheryl here, I'd like to focus for a while on how you're dealing with this situation.
00:05:19.000And also, have you sort of managed your answers for how you're going to deal with stuff like, do you agree with Bobby on controversial issues like ending the war, certain medical matters that I won't mention while we're on YouTube?
00:05:33.000How are you, how are you dealing with it, Cheryl?
00:05:36.000Well, I like to just take it as it comes.
00:05:41.000I like to be honest about my feelings and my thoughts, and we really do align on everything.
00:05:52.000The way the information gets out sometimes is not how I would do it.
00:06:00.000So that's where it gets a little, you know, I have to take a moment and Take it minute by minute, day by day.
00:06:11.000Ask her if it's easier being married to me or Larry David.
00:06:14.000Which one of these two curmudgeons is easier to manage?
00:06:31.000Is it true that Bobby said that he would understand if it would be easier to end the marriage now that he was entering into the foray of politics or is that a sort of a misquotation?
00:06:44.000Oh, well, I don't know if he said it would be easier to end the marriage.
00:06:47.000I think I think I'm going to speak for him, even though he's sitting next to me.
00:06:51.000I think he feels sometimes the scrutiny that I get just from being married to him.
00:07:00.000So which is odd, you know, but so sometimes he'll say, what if I we You know, take a step back from each other so people don't come at you, meaning me.
00:07:19.000In answer to your question, I would not be running if Cheryl didn't green light it.
00:07:28.000You know, it wouldn't work for me, and it wouldn't work for my family.
00:07:32.000And I think I'm going to be much better at what I do.
00:07:39.000And ultimately, when people get to know Cheryl, I think that will actually boost my campaign a lot.
00:07:48.000I think people want to have a very funny First Lady.
00:07:53.000I get the sense that you have perhaps taken on board a different understanding of spiritual practices, perhaps due to your relationship with Cheryl.
00:08:07.000This is just something that I intuitively believe because I'm the kind of man who wears open kimonos to deal with serious political figures.
00:08:14.000Am I right, Cheryl, that spirituality is a significant part of your life and has it become a significant part of your marriage?
00:08:50.000We're going to live in the moment and be truthful and go to the next moment.
00:08:57.000I think this is a hugely important time for not just American politics but potentially global politics precisely because, as I've just mentioned, it seems that there is a march towards greater authoritarianism at a time where there is a lot of divisiveness, where America in particular needs healing, where we're confronted with Ecological, cultural, economical crisis.
00:09:23.000A time almost of despair where the apocalypse is almost being built into our cultural myth.
00:09:29.000There's a kind of real lack of optimism.
00:09:32.000That's why I'm very keen that this conversation becomes, if not an interrogation, at least a serious conversation about some of the commitments to make meaningful changes In the areas of reviewing how Big Pharma functions, how the military-industrial complex functions, how the media functions, and perhaps most importantly of all, how politics is funded in particular, and specifically getting money out of politics, the practice of people in Congress, regulating corporations that they own shares in, taking donations from companies that are already able to assert too much influence over the political process.
00:10:10.000But I have already to a degree Committed to help raise funds for your campaign Bobby through a pull-up challenge which is seeming increasingly ill-advised because I've now seen you with your top off doing push-ups and you you look hench, you look stacked, you look jacked,
00:10:28.000I can't believe you've not done that without some kind of pharmaceutical support.
00:10:32.000There's some incredible upper body strength there.
00:10:34.000But nevertheless, a pull-up challenge has been agreed to.
00:10:39.000I'll just may as well reveal now that the process We're well underway.
00:10:45.000I think that it's going to be a significant battle.
00:10:51.000Because I think what we've said is we've got to raise $100,000 in order for this campaign to go ahead.
00:10:57.000Now, after this, this conversation is not going to be frivolous anymore.
00:11:01.000He said with his top off, it's going to be a serious conversation about politics, more than you would ever get on CNN or Fox or MSNBC or any other mainstream outlet.
00:11:11.000Are you personally going to be donating to this campaign, or are spouses not allowed to?
00:11:20.000Well, I want to see how many pull-ups you guys do first.
00:11:23.000I mean, maybe I'll say, what, $100 of how many pull-ups can you do before?
00:11:32.000Listen, I'm not willing to reveal that kind of data prior to the competition, but I'm telling you now that I'm training to win and I'm willing to juice to get there.
00:11:42.000I'm willing to take hormone replacement therapy.
00:11:45.000I've been eating oestrogen all morning long.
00:11:47.000I don't know what I'm going to do about these guys.
00:12:19.000I mean, his self-discipline is off the charts, and it looks like yours Is two.
00:12:28.000So I don't know if you can in one day, you know, if you beef up on your estrogen, if that's going to help you or not, because this has been decades of preparation, but I wish you the best.
00:12:40.000But I'll tell you what I'm going to do, Roswell.
00:14:31.000Like, in order to make sure that this whole thing is legitimate,
00:14:35.000I want to make sure that the rest of our conversation interrogates the subjects I've mentioned already.
00:14:40.000Censorship, the control of big pharma, money in politics, the forever war economy, ensuring that great oratory and anti-establishment rhetoric is mapped onto the way that Bobby Kennedy ultimately administrates, i.e.
00:14:58.000how do we get money out of politics in a landscape where a billionaire donor class is understood to fund most political candidature.
00:15:08.000I have to tell our viewers on YouTube we are going to be exclusively live now on Rumble where Bobby's answer Will not be censored.
00:15:17.000On YouTube, you know that Bobby's videos have been regularly taken down.
00:15:20.000He's had a video with Jordan Peterson taken down.
00:15:44.000Because, you know, I posted that video because it was fun, and it was kind of a funny comment that I put on about preparing for my debate with Vine.
00:16:06.000You know, it's a serious issue because We need to start taking care of our own health and stop relying on the pharmaceutical paradigm.
00:16:18.000My uncle When he was president, one of the first things he did was launch a physical fitness program.
00:16:25.000He challenged every American to do a 50 mile walk.
00:16:29.000We were in a lot better shape back then as a country than we are today.
00:16:33.000And it's important that we start taking control of our own health, not only for our own personal quality of life, but also For the good of our country, we're now spending $4.3 trillion annually in health care and 80% of that is because of chronic disease.
00:16:53.000We have a higher chronic disease burden than any country in the world.
00:16:58.000One of the reasons we had the highest COVID death rate, we had 16% of the COVID deaths, we only have 4.2% of the global population.
00:17:07.000One of the reasons for that is because we have the highest chronic disease rate in the world.
00:17:15.000And according to the CDC, the people who died from COVID on average had 3.8 potentially fatal chronic diseases.
00:17:25.000So people were not really dying from COVID, they were dying from chronic disease, and it was the COVID that was pushing them over the edge.
00:17:35.000And we may, you know, my uncle famously said, ask not for what you can do for your country, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.
00:17:46.000Well, the answer to both of those questions right now is to get yourself in shape, start exercising, stop eating processed foods, stop, for God's sake, eating Corn syrup, you know, and that stuff that is giving us an obesity epidemic in this country and is making us much more vulnerable.
00:19:22.000Well, you know, if I'm being candid, where we differ is, Bobby is very
00:19:31.000focused on facts and numbers and, and I, Understand feelings and people, I think, in a different way.
00:19:46.000So even during the pandemic, I understand people being afraid.
00:19:52.000I understand people on both sides being afraid of getting the vaccine, of not getting the vaccine.
00:19:58.000People were terrified that they weren't going to be able to say goodbye to their Mother or father that was passing away, there were so many feelings overwhelmingly just filling the air and people's relationships and everyone was disagreeing on a lot of things and a lot of it was coming from just feelings that we were all having.
00:20:25.000So I think that's sometimes where we I don't want to say get off track, but... I don't have feelings.
00:20:58.000Yeah, well, dirty dogs shouldn't be on a bed, but that's beside the point.
00:21:01.000Yeah, I think it's, I understand, sometimes I think that feelings should be addressed first, and maybe science second.
00:21:20.000So I don't know if that makes sense or if that is understandable but that's how I feel.
00:21:26.000It's interesting isn't it because I suppose culturally we live in a space where science has to some degree replaced, has become the prevailing orthodoxy and this is often without acknowledging that some science is a subset of certain interests And I think the point that you are making about feelings, all of us know in our individual and familial lives that what we're dealing with are our emotional reactions to our own lives, the relationships we have, to the way our experiences are either inhibited or encouraged.
00:22:05.000Those kind of conversations, though, I suppose, Cheryl, the risk is that people are able to be dismissive because Because of subjectivity, because of the very thing that makes it special, i.e.
00:22:15.000our individual experience as conscious entities is private, divine, perhaps connected to the prima materia of reality, consciousness itself, the crucible of all reality, God, God Self, held within each of us individually, enshrining all of us collectively.
00:22:35.000It's a difficult thing when politics is primarily about who gets what, where, when, how, you know, when it becomes about very The instantiation of power, the manifestation of power, the organisation of resources.
00:22:48.000In a sense, I suppose, within any marriage, being complementary to one another is different from being the same as one another, I suppose.
00:22:59.000So perhaps having a feeling intuitive person as well as a cold, unfeeling brute that cares only for legislation seems like a recipe for a successful marriage.
00:23:12.000Well, I agree with what you're saying.
00:23:15.000It is, you know, Oftentimes, perception is reality to people.
00:23:22.000So you have people that have read one article, and they truly believe that article that they read.
00:23:30.000And then we have another group of people that have read a different article, and it says something completely different.
00:23:52.000We all want our children to be healthy.
00:23:54.000We want each other to be healthy and happy.
00:23:57.000And the only way to do that is to stop, to listen to each other, and to have a conversation, and to try to understand the other person instead of the finger waving and saying, you're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong.
00:24:16.000I just think that we need to just On that note, I think it's important and I think that we are on the precipice of spirituality being included more sensibly in the discourse perhaps.
00:24:37.000Loosened from some of the language of a traditionalist new age language, I want to say.
00:24:47.000It feels like we're on there, we're beginning to talk about spirituality in terms of mental health, spirituality in terms of connection to one another and the environment.
00:24:57.000And spirituality is a kind of native and original condition that is a requirement for our mutual advancement and individual In the spirit of this invitation towards unity, Bobby, I was interested to hear your welcoming of, if not the endorsement of Trump, but at least welcoming the fact that Trump likes you.
00:25:22.000Bobby, I know that a lot of people here admire Donald Trump for the easy manner with which he engages with people.
00:25:31.000Even when Trump says something like, we'll just take that oil from Venezuela, that seems like, to some people, refreshingly open when you have Biden making a Freudian slip and saying Iraq when he means Ukraine.
00:25:45.000Perhaps because when he reaches inside himself words like exploitative war based on resources that is profitable and not undergirded by verifiable facts.
00:25:56.000is the sort of contextual complication that he uncovers there.
00:26:01.000So can you tell me what you consider to be the distinction between a political figure
00:26:06.000like Trump, what you regard as his appeal and how it highlights some of the problems
00:26:13.000that career politicians like Joe Biden appear to have?
00:26:18.000Well, you know, I've been very critical of President Trump, but I try to keep my critiques
00:26:26.000on a policy level because I think that that's a healthy thing for our country.
00:26:31.000And, you know, one of the things that I'm trying to do with my campaign is to end this toxic polarization that is, I think, more dangerous for our country than at any time since the American Civil War.
00:26:45.000And, you know, everybody, like if you talk to any Democrat, left wing, right wing, left wing, moderate, whatever, They'll all say that polarization is one of the worst things that's happening to our country.
00:26:57.000But then, if you ask them, well, how are we going to solve that?
00:28:22.000And he found something in common with them that was beyond politics, that they were all chosen this very difficult life of, you know, being in public service.
00:28:33.000And he found things to talk about, and they loved each other, you know, they wrote poems to each other, they painted paintings for each other and gave them to each other as gifts.
00:28:43.000Oh, he was able to, he never compromised his own values, and he was happy about that, but he could get through those personal relationships.
00:28:52.000He made Orrin Hatch his partner in addressing the AIDS crisis at a time when most Republicans were very punitive towards people who had AIDS, and yet Orrin Hatch stepped away from that and said, this is something that we have to address as a nation, and we have to address with compassion.
00:29:15.000And they were able to find that in each other, and I think we have to look for You know, as Cheryl just said, we all want the same thing.
00:29:58.000I've sued him twice, both times successfully.
00:30:01.000But, you know, the one thing I think that he's done is that he's talking to Americans who otherwise feel utterly forgotten.
00:30:11.000And he's talking in their language, and he's putting his finger on something that I think all of us need, that the people who support Donald Trump feel that they're regarded by the elites as deplorable people, and that, you know, they're not part of our country.
00:30:28.000And I think Donald Trump made them feel like they were part of our country, that they're being listened to.
00:30:35.000He's willing to break things, and there's so many people in this country now who are so frustrated with the political system and with, you know, political leadership.
00:30:45.000They feel like that leadership is serving the needs of this oligarchy, this corporate kleptocracy, and that they've been completely forgotten, and they want to break things.
00:30:58.000They want, you know, and a lot of them, like I, you know, Represent a thousand families in Columbiana County, Ohio.
00:31:08.000And you know, they have Trump signs on all like sprout like mushrooms on all the yards down there.
00:31:13.000And the people are living in a kind of poverty that is so desperate, so dire.
00:31:18.000Um, that I never thought I'd see anything like that in our country.
00:31:22.000And they don't, if you talk to them, I was with a group of men, a diner, and I said, you know, what, what do you think Donald Trump's going to do with you?
00:31:31.000As long as he breaks things on the other side.
00:31:35.000And I think that, you know, that at this point, they don't believe any politician is going to actually help them, but they just want to be heard.
00:31:44.000And he seems to be able to, you know, to connect with them on that basis.
00:31:49.000And I think, you know, my father, He used to look at Latin America and he saw the same thing there that is now happening in our country, where you have these huge aggregations of wealth above, you have these feudal oligarchies, and then below you have widespread poverty.
00:32:07.000And my father said there's going to be a revolution in those countries.
00:32:10.000And right, you know, up until my uncle's election, the U.S.
00:32:15.000policy was to fortify those oligarchies because they were anti-communist and to give weapons to the You know, the juntas and the military strongmen that were, you know, that were tied in with those oligarchies and because they were anti-communist, but they were keeping down the poor.
00:32:34.000My father and my uncle said, America needs to be on the side of the poor.
00:32:39.000They need to be, you know, in those countries.
00:32:41.000And so they started the Alliance for Progress so that they could end run the oligarchies and give money directly to the poor.
00:32:48.000They started USAID, they started the Kennedy Milk Program, they started Peace Corps so that they could put America on the side of the fort.
00:32:57.000Made two trips abroad that were his favorite during his presidency.
00:33:01.000One was to Ireland, which was one of his last trips right before he died, where he told them, you know, I'll be back in the springtime.
00:33:08.000And then the other was to Colombia in Latin America.
00:33:13.000And there were two and a half million people who came out on the street in Bogota to greet him.
00:33:18.000And he was there with The, you know, the left-wing leader, Jaires Carmargo.
00:33:24.000And the people were, the emotional level of, well, you know, when they saw my uncle, the people were absolutely, you know, they were crying and they were cheering.
00:33:35.000And Jaires Carmargo said to my uncle, do you know why they love you?
00:33:42.000And he said, because you put America on the side of the poor.
00:33:46.000And you know, and my father said, there's going to be a revolution.
00:33:51.000And either the communists are going to own it, or we're going to own it.
00:33:54.000And we need to put ourselves on the side of the poor so that we can, you know, so that we can harness those revolutionary energies.
00:34:03.000Or on the side of idealism and democracy, all the same things happening in our country today.
00:34:09.000You know, there's going to be a revolution, and it's either going to be Donald Trump's revolution, or it's going to be a revolution that sort of restores America the idealism and the democratic values that, you know, I think my uncle and father represented.
00:34:24.000Bobby, will you, Bobby Kennedy, get money out of politics by changing the practice of allowing donations to essentially, ostensibly, essentially run these political movements and bypass the process of democracy?
00:34:42.000and i'm gonna we're gonna let cheryl now go back to uh do the rest of my side effects then
00:34:48.000um okay i'm gonna let you guys finish this conversation um We've gone to the trouble of loading those into a deck, so I had to press those buttons.
00:35:02.000If you win the presidency, don't you get so trigger-happy pressing buttons just to see what they can do?
00:35:07.000That's the last thing we do after we narrowly avoided that Cuban Missile Crisis.
00:35:11.000We don't want you bullsying up your legacy on that one.
00:35:15.000We're going to replace Helen the Chief with that girl.
00:35:22.000First of all, it's been great talking to you.
00:35:24.000I'm going to let you guys finish this very serious conversation and I'm glad you're having it.
00:36:22.000So what do you think about, like, you know, I covered a lot there, but I know you're a man who gives a long answer and I can identify.
00:36:27.000So I wanted to talk about the censorship stuff, the stuff that's been taken down off YouTube.
00:36:31.000But significantly, because we know that when he was talking to our friend over there, Crystal, over at Breaking Points, that she pushed on the stuff about donations.
00:36:41.000And as I say, I'm excited by the Kennedy name and that your family have done great things.
00:36:47.000But some people will think, well, this is just ultimately another establishment Politician and what about also mate like, you know Trump prior to like I know a lot of people watching this will love Donald Trump But it's my personal belief that in office Trump didn't drain the swamp Trump granted tax breaks to the richest people So what specifically around this like, you know censorship we can cover but also I'd love you to cover What are you gonna do to get money out of politics through donations through lobbying?
00:37:14.000700 lobbyists from the military-industrial complex more than one for each person in Congress or What are you going to do about this important and defining issue, please, Bobby?
00:37:23.000Yeah, I mean, I think it's a very difficult issue, but it's ultimately the most important one.
00:37:32.000And if I can just go back, you know, we actually did lose our democracy at one point in American history during what we call the Gilded Age, which was in the 1880s and 1890s, in the time, the years after the Civil War, when really corruption overtook the idealism of the American experiment with self-governance.
00:37:55.000And at that time, There were no direct election of senators, so senators were chosen by the legislatures in our country, and the legislatures were on lock and stock and barrel by the trusts, the big, the sugar trusts, the rail trusts, the oil trusts, the coal trusts.
00:38:17.000And those trusts were themselves controlled by interlocking boards of these big families, these oligarchical families of the American aristocracy, the Rockefellers, the Whitneys, the Fricks, the Morgans, the Carnegies.
00:38:36.000And they were not only, so the senators were being, it was said at that time of the Pennsylvania State Legislature, There was nobody in that legislature who was for sale, because John D. Rockefeller already owned them all, and he would not sell any.
00:38:54.000And that really was the case in all the major legislatures in this country.
00:38:58.000They were owned by these big social titans, these robber barons.
00:39:10.000At that time, there was no income tax in our country.
00:39:14.000So the amount of money, you know, Rockefeller was much richer than Bill Gates or Elon Musk is comparatively today.
00:39:23.000He controlled, I think, 80% of the oil in the world.
00:39:28.000And so you had this tremendous wealth.
00:39:35.000There was no, you know, there was no child labor laws.
00:39:40.000And they really suppressed American democracy because the legislatures then were involved and they controlled the party so they could choose the President of the United States, which they did time after time.
00:39:56.000One, there was social movements, broad grassroots social movements.
00:40:01.000At the beginning of the 20th century, the populist movement, which is in the countryside, the progressive movement, which was in the cities, the reform movement, which was Republican, the populist movement was Democrat, but they got together.
00:40:15.000And then you had muckraking journalists who played a critical role in Ida Tarbell and Upton Sinclair, Sinclair Lewis, and many, many others.
00:40:27.000McClure's Magazine, which was, you know, this font of exposes about corruption in government that played a cue that everybody in the country read back then.
00:40:39.000And then you had one figure, Teddy Roosevelt, who was, who came out of the aristocracy himself, but was unintimidated by it and was willing to stand up to it and add, you know, these notions about bringing them under control.
00:40:55.000And he got into office over the next few years.
00:40:58.000They passed child labor laws, a 40-hour work week.
00:41:10.000And for the first time, they broke out the Standard Oil Company, which is the biggest company in the world.
00:41:18.000But the most important law they passed, which was in 1908, was a law that made it illegal for corporations to make direct contributions to federal elective candidates.
00:41:31.000That was in 2008, exactly 100 years later, and it restored democracy.
00:41:38.000And then we had the New Deal after that that created this robust middle class.
00:41:44.000The 50 years following World War II, the great prosperity, when we grew the middle class into the greatest economic engine in history, we owned half the wealth on the face of the earth, and the institutions of our democracy were essentially, well, tiny bits corrupt, but essentially incorruptible.
00:42:36.000Now, in exactly 100 years after we passed that law that really gave us back our democracy, the Supreme Court issued in 2008, I think it was 2008, the Citizens United case.
00:42:53.000And that Citizens United did something very unusual and I think very troubling and dangerous.
00:43:01.000Which is, the Supreme Court said that speech, that donations, that monetary donations to a political candidate are the equivalent of speech.
00:43:15.000They're protected under the First Amendment, under freedom of expression.
00:43:18.000So you're, and there's no other country that says that.
00:43:21.000You know, all the Western democracies in Europe allow very stringent regulation of campaign donations.
00:43:31.000We had this very conservative Supreme Court that gave this revolutionary holding that opened up a tsunami of wealth that began pouring into the political process.
00:43:45.000And here's the problem now is that, you know, prior to that time, presidential elections cost less than a billion dollars today for all sides.
00:44:00.000Today, You know, this coming presidential election will probably go up to $3 or $4 billion.
00:44:05.000And if a candidate, for example, in New York State or California or Florida, a candidate needs to raise $40 or $50 billion or even $100 million to run for elective office and to get into the Senate, well, if you have to raise that money, it means that you have to make several, maybe 1,000 calls a week To people who are going to give you $10,000 donations.
00:44:36.000When those people are giving you that money, most of them are not giving it out of a patriotic impulse.
00:44:43.000They're giving it because they have an expectation that there's going to be a return on that investment.
00:44:48.000And, you know, it may be a small return, meaning that you will return their phone call if they call you sometime in the future and give them your year for 10 minutes at least, or 20 minutes.
00:44:59.000That's what they can get for that 10 grand.
00:45:05.000And so if you have, you know, 3 or 4,000, 5,000 people have given you $10,000 apiece, and these are the top rungs of our society, and you have to answer all their phone calls every day, you're not going to have much time to listen to the little guy who calls you and never gave you anything.
00:45:24.000And, you know, and for a politician, Everything they do is about raising money for the next election.
00:45:33.000And they have an advisor whispering in their ear all the time, that guy's going to give me money, that guy isn't.
00:45:41.000And so we now have arrived at a situation in our country where it, which is the exact situation that we, we had a revolution to get away from, which is a rule by the oligarchy, a rule by the aristocracy, because the only person, people who have the ear of Congress is this aristocracy.
00:46:01.000And if you look, you know, recently at all the Democratic Party, the legacy media outlets, that are attacking me in this very, very vicious way, you know, ad hominem attacks that, you know, are very kind of personal and, you know, not policy related, but personal to silence me.
00:46:22.000They all have become part of this system where they're, you know, they're They're protecting the interests of the elites.
00:46:33.000And, you know, a couple days ago, I talked with David Remick, and I was pointing that out to him.
00:46:38.000He said, well, you're part of the elites.
00:46:45.000But I've spent my lifetime challenging the rule of the elites.
00:46:53.000Somebody the other day, I went to a dinner in Las Vegas and I made a little bit of a statement about my campaign and a guy next to me And then the people in this room were the highest level people in our government, you know, including the former head of the CIA, the head of the State Department, you know, two State Department Secretaries of State at that table.
00:47:17.000And I said something that made everybody at the table angry, and the guy next to me He turned to me and he whispered to me, they consider you a traitor to their class.
00:47:30.000I think that's how the press views me in our country.
00:47:33.000And I think that's how, you know, a lot of the DNC views me in our country too, that I'm a, I'm a traitor to this, you know, this, this system that is, that has us being governed, not by democracy, by the, the inverse of democracy by, you know, by its government, by a new aristocracy.
00:47:53.000Of people who don't see themselves that way but that's who they are.
00:47:56.000I think Bobby that you're right and in my obviously and evidently more minor way I've had a comparable experience.
00:48:05.000Once you move from the economic class that I was born in which is like an ordinary blue-collar background if you subsequently become successful it's almost an obligation that you remain in a state of gratitude and And indulge yourself in the idea that you as an individual have been granted this and you are an example of meritocracy and the system working.
00:48:30.000And if you continue to sort of talk about corruption and the impossibility of most people achieving that and that the system is set up in order to keep many people down and to prevent the right kind of questions or some of the right questions being asked, you are regarded as a kind of traitor.
00:48:50.000But Bobby I wonder if you are willing to and able to and if there is any value in because I would say there is to say like it seems that what you are that what I can infer from what you are saying is that you would not accept donations from corporations whilst I acknowledge it's likely I mean I was I've been speaking to Jack Dorsey, who I know is donating to your campaign, and in a sense it would be self-effacing and self-destructive not to accept money from well-intentioned wealthy individuals.
00:49:18.000I think what we're talking about is, will your campaign end up being funded by the very interests that are ultimately perpetuating these problems?
00:49:26.000The kind of people that are... I mean, it's unlikely that Big Pharma are going to be donating, but are you...
00:49:31.000Other than conversationally and by virtue of your history, your personal history, I'm talking about as a lawyer, your cases against Monsanto, your campaigning against corruption in the pharmaceutical industry, are you saying that as president you would be pushing legislation to, for example, Demonopolize big tech to break up censorship.
00:49:50.000Ban the political parties from receiving these type of donations in the manner you have described from that famous legislation a hundred years ago.
00:50:00.000Would you nationalize and break up big pharma and perhaps make the health, you know, the health industry, which seems like a sort of, in a sense, even referring to health as an industry seems wrong.
00:50:11.000What, you know, what kind of commitment To get money out of politics, to control Big Pharma meaningfully, and to break up censorship, break down this censorship complex, particularly as we have the EU passing regulations that will mean they'll be able to fine platforms up to 6% of their turnover that do not obey their censorship edicts, the Five Eyes countries all passing similar, curiously simultaneous bills to perform a similar function, which I believe actually, Bobby, are to prevent figures like you having the traction and ability to campaign
00:50:43.000Without passing through mainstream media gatekeepers.
00:50:47.000It seems to me that you have a unique opportunity to say, I will govern differently and I will address exactly these issues.
00:50:56.000I will not be accepting military industrial complex money.
00:51:03.000How close to that are you willing to go, Bob?
00:51:07.000Given some of the mad crazy shit you've already said publicly, seems you might as well go the whole hog.
00:51:14.000Yeah, I don't think I'm going to be getting a lot of corporate money.
00:51:17.000I think I've alienated, you know, most of the donors from the Republican Party and the Democratic Party.
00:51:26.000And, you know, my campaign is Essentially crowd sourced, um, we've raised over the past three days a million dollars a day, um, from, uh, you know, from just from $10, $20 donations, people giving them to us.
00:51:45.000Um, and, uh, and I, you know, so I, that's, I think that that's probably how we're going to end up funding the campaign.
00:51:54.000I, um, In terms of fixing the system, Russell, it's hard because you have a Supreme Court decision that equates monetary contributions with speech.
00:52:11.000To me, I've been campaigning against Citizens United case Uh, since it was passed.
00:52:18.000I forget it was 2006 or 2008, but I think it may have been 2006.
00:52:23.000I may have been spoke earlier, but I, you know, I think it's one of the worst things that one of the worst Supreme Court decisions in history, because I think it's really changed the nature of politics in our country.
00:52:36.000And, you know, I'm going to figure out every way I can to work around it.
00:52:40.000And that may be through publicly financed campaigns.
00:52:43.000But, you know, that is a major preoccupation with me.
00:52:49.000In terms of... What was your other question?
00:52:51.000In terms of... Censorship and how to ensure... So I'm very alarmed with what the European countries are doing right now, because it's completely anti-democratic.
00:53:06.000And now you're going to have the country censoring dissent about government policies, which is not a function of democracy.
00:53:13.000That is clearly a characteristic of totalitarian regimes.
00:53:18.000There's never been a time in history when the people who were censoring free speech and books and burning books were good guys.
00:53:27.000And if you give the government the power to do that, that power will be 100% of cases that power is going to be abused.
00:53:36.000And I think, you know, there's all these excuses to do it now, because things are being blamed on this, you know, the tsunami of misinformation that's out there, but the The remedy for bad information is not censorship, it's more information, as you said.
00:53:56.000It is a vibrant, fierce debate about information with no holds bars, with no restrictions.
00:54:13.000In our country, I think we're blessed to have Elon Musk here, and also Jack Torcey.
00:54:19.000Who are willing to take a multi-billion dollar hit, and also just the hatred and vitriol from people who should love them, in order to maintain Twitter as an oasis of free speech in this growing ocean of censorship.
00:54:48.000So I, you know, hopefully we'll continue to do that.
00:54:51.000As soon as I get in office, I'm going to issue a series of executive orders and national security orders ordering government agencies and government officials, any federal government employee, to refrain from any kind of participation in any form of censorship.
00:55:10.000I'm going to restore the Smith-Mundt Act, which was the act that made it illegal for intelligence agencies or military agencies to propagandize American people.
00:55:22.000I'm going to bring the big tech titans, the big CEOs into a meeting in the White House.
00:55:31.000And I'm going to have a, you know, all day or two day or three day seminar if we have to figure out how we can do, you know, how we can, how they're going to continue.
00:55:44.000To run their sites and to make sure that things that are not protected speech, like pedophilia and incitement of violence, those are not protected speech under the First Amendment.
00:55:55.000Those legally you can censor, or fraud you can censor, without it being incursions on the First Amendment or for free speech rights.
00:56:05.000I'm going to ask them, how do we do this?
00:56:08.000And the backstop is, if they can't do it, then I would consider making them common carriers, where it's illegal to censor.
00:56:33.000If you want to talk to large groups of Americans, you've got to do it.
00:56:37.000Those are the only places you can do it.
00:56:40.000And that will encourage the growth of more of those, more alternative sites if the government has to start its own.
00:56:48.000Under some way, under some rubric that is guaranteed to be free of censorship, then I will do that.
00:56:56.000But I'm going to figure out a way that Americans can live in this country, even as Europe plunges into the darkness of censorship.
00:57:05.000And then ultimately, it's going to be totalitarian rule, because once you start censoring, you're on a pathway that is, you're on a trajectory.
00:57:15.000Where all the other rights are going to be circumscribed.
00:57:17.000You know, in this country, as soon as they figured out they could censor us at the beginning of the COVID epidemic, what did they do next?
00:57:46.000They closed 3.3 million businesses without due process, without just compensation.
00:57:50.000All of that was allowed because they got rid of freedom of speech.
00:57:55.000If a nation, if a government, And silence its opponents.
00:58:01.000It has license now for any atrocity and it will commit those atrocities ultimately.
00:58:07.000And so we have to assume that Europe is going in a really ugly direction right now and once they start censoring these platforms and I will do, you know, everything I can to pressure the European brethren and brothers and sisters to lift those censorship rules against US and other companies.
00:58:30.000And I'm going to definitely do it and make the United States an example of a censorship-free nation.
00:58:36.000If you're watching this on Rumble, press the red button on your screen now to join us on Locals.
00:58:42.000You can post questions like Maltanz who asked, the FDA needs to be regulated and revised.
00:58:52.000And what do you make of other regulatory bodies that are similarly undemocratic, often relying on funding from the organizations that they're supposed to be regulating?
00:59:02.000How would you break up that kind of, what appears from the outside to be at least, corruption?
00:59:09.000Well, I'm going to end the financial entanglements between the regulatory agencies and the industries they're supposed to regulate.
01:00:03.000We're talking about the FDA, but also like the NCIH and like the royalties stuff that Fauci was getting.
01:00:09.000You know, I guess we're talking about these, the financial entanglement.
01:00:13.000Yeah, the financials of 50% or almost 50% about a little between 45 and 50% of FDA's budget
01:00:19.000comes from the pharmaceutical companies who are purchasing fast-track approvals of their drugs.
01:00:27.000And that now, you know, that has become the tail that wags the FDA dog.
01:00:32.000So the regulatory function has been subsumed by the mercantile ambitions of these companies that are, you know, pouring money in and they're the real bosses now.
01:00:46.000spends 40 percent of its budget purchasing vaccines and sweetheart deals with four companies and then has all kinds of secrecy about how those companies are compensated, how the prices are set, and then it mandates those products.
01:01:02.000So if you're at a CDC, you do not get a bonus and you do not get a promotion or a good work assessment by finding problems with vaccines or other pharmaceutical drugs.
01:01:18.000You get promoted there to the head of the department, etc., by promoting vaccine uptake.
01:01:26.000And so there's a huge incentive for people to overlook any kind of problems and to get these new products out into the marketplace and get into the arms of as many children as possible.
01:01:36.000And that's not a good public health strategy.
01:01:38.000And then NIH is the worst because NIH itself is allowed to take royalties under the Bullet by Dole Act.
01:01:52.000The agency itself can collect royalties on drugs that it helped develop, and it has become a major incubator, the single largest incubator of pharmaceutical products in the world.
01:02:06.000It develops, it finds the molecules that kill certain viruses or diseases, and then it markets those to the universities.
01:02:15.000The university then does phase one, phase two trials, and they then take a cut of the patent and the future royalties.
01:02:23.000And then if it gets by the phase two trial, they give it to the pharmaceutical companies, which as a phase three trial takes about 50% of the royalties.
01:02:31.000NIH keeps that, you know, for example, on the Moderna vaccine, NIH owns 50% of the vaccine, every vaccine sold, they're making money.
01:02:39.000So they'll make billions and billions and billions of dollars.
01:02:41.000Not only that, individuals who work on those products in the agency, Also get to collect a lifetime, well actually forever royalties, forever.
01:02:53.000There's four or six people that work at NIH, high-level deputies of Anthony Fauci, who now are collecting $150,000 a year Forever.
01:03:04.000Their children will get it, their children's children, as long as that product's on the market.
01:03:07.000So they're paying for their boats, their cars, their houses, their children's education from those loyalties.
01:03:15.000So they don't have a big incentive to find problems with that product.
01:03:19.000They have an incentive to get those products to market as much as fast as possible.
01:03:42.000So, Bobby, it sounds like with you we have a potentially unique opportunity.
01:03:48.000Just speaking to you and listening to you today, I recognize that there is deep systemic and institutional, if not corruption, then Then problems that seem somewhat entrenched when you talk about the banning donations is akin to banning freedom of speech.
01:04:08.000You've already said that you would revise radically social media by holding a summit with the current owners and if they were not willing to commit to a censorship ban then you would create essentially a nationalized social You've over the course of our conversation said you recognize that Donald Trump has reached people on an emotional level and allowed people to be heard.
01:04:36.000It's clear to me that you've been motivated to enter this race, to put yourself forward,
01:04:41.000precisely because you understand that we stand at the turning point, that we are witnessing
01:04:48.000the movement towards further authoritarianism, further centralisation, that currently platforms
01:04:56.000that are prioritising for free speech like Twitter under Elon Musk, although he has said
01:05:01.000of course that if the EU passed laws that will enable them to censor, he will obey the
01:06:19.000It seems like we're at a kind of point of crisis but also a point of possibility where the technology and institutions and goodwill and as well as a sort of perhaps more subtly an appetite for real change is being discerned and filmed and while corporate profits in the US may have reached an all-time record of two trillion dollars in 2022 I feel like there is a genuine opportunity for a kind of new populism, where people that find Donald Trump appealing, people that, you know, as Republicans, as Libertarians, as anti-establishment, as anti-establishment right-wing people, however they identify, can find new alliances from you, as you say, an avowed Democrat, schooled in their traditions and their principles.
01:07:11.000So I feel a good deal of I feel a good deal of optimism, Bobby, and a lot of it is from listening to the breadth of awareness and experience you have, so I thank you very much.
01:07:22.000Is there anything that you want to say, mate, in rounding up?
01:07:29.000Yeah, I mean, thanks for your enormous brain and for thinking about this stuff and, you know, also for We're doing it in a way that keeps everybody with a good sense of humor and kindness and generosity toward each other.
01:07:50.000You have a wonderful You have a wonderful energy, let me put it that way.
01:08:01.000And I think you may regret accepting, you might regret not taking those billionaire and corporate donations, because if your fund is going to be, if your campaign is going to be funded solely by my pull-ups, You might find that you're a bit short, but in order to donate to me and Bobby's pull-up challenge, you can go to kennedy24.com forward slash pull-up to make your donation.
01:08:25.000And indeed, if I do end up losing, I will be very happy, honoured even, to join you on the campaign trail.
01:08:31.000Thanks, Bobby, for giving us access once more to your thoughts.
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