Vivek Ramaswamy joins Russell Brand to discuss Trump's guilty plea, the need for purpose, the use of E. coli in the production of some of our products, and why he's running for president in 2020. He also discusses why he thinks Trump is a better choice than Hillary Clinton for the 2020 Republican nomination, and what it means for him to be running against her in the primary election. Russell Brand is an actor, comedian, writer, podcaster, and podcaster. He is the host of the podcast Stay Free With Russell Brand, and is a regular contributor to the New York Times, CNN, and NPR. He's also the author of The Dark Side Of, and has been featured on CBS Radio's Hard Knocks and NPR's Morning Mashup. His new book Other Words For Smoke is out now and is available for pre-order on Amazon Prime and Vimeo worldwide. Subscribe to Stay Free with Russell Brand wherever you get your favourite streaming platform, and find him on all of the social medias including Apple Podcasts, and wherever else you re listening to podcasts. Stay Free, wherever you re able to access new shows and listen to new episodes of your favourite podcasts. Stay Free! To find a list of our sponsors and show-related promo codes, go to gimlet.fm/OurAdvertisers. We are giving away $5 and get 10% off your first purchase when you place an ad on our new ad-free version of Stay Freebie. To buy a product or subscribe to our new podcast on Audible. Learn more about our new episodes only through Audible, become a patron of the show Stay FreezingWondering? Become a Friend of the Awakened Wonder: bit.ee/Awakened Wonders to receive $5,000 and save $10,000 in the campaign? Become an awakened wonder and receive $50 and get 5 VIP membership when you re a discount of $50 or more in the offer starts in a new episode starts in two weeks, and get $50,000 when you get a chance to become an ad discount starts in the third place? Get exclusive access to the show that gets a discount on our newest episode begins in 7 days and get 7 days of the program starts in 7 places only through the Audible membership starts in 6 months, VIP access starts in six months, and 5 VIP access gets $35, VIP discount?
00:01:43.000When a figure like Jon Stewart is nominated for cancellation, at least his Apple show can no longer be broadcast, does that show you that the road's getting so narrow that no one's going to be able to walk it?
00:01:52.000Unless you had very, very narrow feet.
00:01:54.000Maybe they've been bound up in some way.
00:01:56.000I don't know how you'd make your feet that narrow.
00:01:59.000The first 15 minutes of the show will be available wherever you're watching this.
00:02:03.000Then on sweet wings of freedom we will fly to Rumble where we will speak freely with
00:03:18.000Is this the end of the road for Trump?
00:03:21.000Is this something that's going to stick?
00:03:23.000How do you manage to manoeuvre how that would affect you personally as one of the frontrunners for the Republican candidacy, albeit one that it's starting to seem like the party itself would prefer As with Trump before you, to malign and marginalise.
00:03:42.000Do you think this is a significant moment for him?
00:03:45.000And how do you manage showing enough support for Trump, for the many people who adore him, as well as establishing a point of difference?
00:03:57.000Well, part of the reason I've been so vocal in speaking out against these prosecutions against Trump, which I do think are politicized nonsense, is precisely because I am running for president in the same race that he is.
00:04:09.000That gives me a special responsibility to actually say, you know what?
00:04:13.000Would I have been as vocal on defending Trump if they weren't going after him?
00:04:17.000Probably not, but I have a special responsibility to because these prosecutions are unjust.
00:04:23.000We could talk about the legal mechanics of any given one of the cases.
00:04:26.000I mean, the punchline is in each of these cases, they're using novel legal theories that have never been used in the past to stop an outcome from happening that has nothing to do with the law and everything to do with making sure that this man does not come anywhere near the White House again, which is they're using the legal system and the justice system to accomplish what is a fundamentally a political goal.
00:04:46.000And that's a violation of the rule of law.
00:04:48.000It's a violation of what the spirit of this country was founded on.
00:04:51.000And that's not a threat to Trump, that's a threat to this country, is what this is.
00:04:55.000It's a threat to every citizen and I'm keen to make sure that that is called out for what it is and hopefully cabinet is placed, which is why I've said that I would pardon Trump on day one if I'm elected.
00:05:07.000And not just Trump, anybody else who's been a victim of a politically motivated persecution through prosecution of somebody else.
00:05:14.000Under similar circumstances would not have been charged or would not have been punished in the same way from Douglas Mackey to Julian Assange to Edward Snowden.
00:05:24.000You know, I've given a whole long list of people who we would go down.
00:05:27.000Edward Snowden is a different case because he wasn't prosecuted, but the clemency of a particular kind, Ross Ulbricht I've talked about.
00:05:36.000Irrespective of Democrat or Republican.
00:05:38.000But this is, I bring those names up because it's for me about more than just Trump.
00:05:42.000It's about preserving the integrity of our justice system itself.
00:05:46.000And so to call a spade a spade, here's what's going on.
00:05:49.000You have a system, an establishment that has had an anaphylactic reaction to this antigen named Trump that they are Stopping at nothing to making sure that he doesn't get there.
00:05:59.000And I truly believe they will stop at nothing to make sure that this man is stopped in his tracks.
00:06:05.000And they're using every mechanism of the so-called justice system and every other lever they have to do it.
00:06:11.000Now, what are some of the lessons I take away from that?
00:06:14.000Well, look, I'm a different person from Trump.
00:06:31.000I'm going to have to continue doing that from here onward to make sure that we don't create tripwires where they're able to come after us.
00:06:38.000Look, I'm living my life and we will aspire to in the White House.
00:06:41.000I mean, the standard I want people to hold me to is I want them to be able to look their kids in the eye and say, I want you to grow up and be like him.
00:06:48.000I can't look my two kids in the eye and tell them you have to follow the rules if the government itself doesn't follow the rules.
00:06:53.000But I also can't look them in the eye if I'm also saying that I'm going to hold myself to the highest standard.
00:06:59.000I want the people of this country to hold me to that same high standard.
00:07:02.000And so, I think if you're guided by that purpose, you look at what they will do to anybody to take them down with motivations that have nothing to do with what they're actually alleging against them.
00:07:13.000Well, I think it's a lesson and I was grateful to be raised by two parents who instilled in this me at a young age and that puts me in a position to be able to do what we're doing now.
00:07:23.000We have to hold ourselves to not the standard of being good, doing a good job, but it has to be impeccable.
00:07:32.000It's not, it's not an even handed game.
00:07:34.000They don't apply the same standards across the board to people who come from those who tow the party line versus those who don't.
00:07:40.000But that's part of, part of the standard that I got to hold myself to.
00:07:43.000And part of the sacrifice we're going to make is making sure that we play by in a good way, a different set of rules, a heightened set of rules.
00:07:51.000And that's what we're just going to have to do to be able to see this through.
00:07:55.000Now, conversations like this are becoming increasingly difficult because everywhere you look, cancellations are taking place.
00:08:02.000First they came from people no one cared about, like maybe Milo or Alex Jones.
00:08:06.000I know loads of you do care about Milo and Alex Jones.
00:08:09.000Then the fog of cancellation crept everywhere.
00:08:12.000Creating a crisis where no one felt they could speak freely.
00:08:45.000Is it because he's critical of China, which are necessary for their manufacturing process and entire business model?
00:08:50.000And AI, which are necessary for their entire business model?
00:08:53.000Or is it for some other reason that's not related to money and corruption?
00:08:58.000Now the problem is when you embark on censoring free speech, curtailing and controlling the public discourse, it seems to be a process that gathers momentum.
00:09:07.000First of all you say, well I don't like that person, they shouldn't have free speech, and it's someone like Milo or Alex Jones or whatever.
00:09:13.000Then it ends up being more and more people that used to be mainstream, anyone?
00:09:18.000And then at the very end of the process, well not the end of the process because I'm sure it will continue, Jon Stewart.
00:09:23.000Valid voices that appear to be sort of respected across the political spectrum because of the work that he did with New York first responders around 9-11, he has blue collar support, he's an intelligentsia respected guy, he's a mainstream guy, he's been in movies and all that.
00:09:36.000Now Apple, who would have seen the acquisition of Jon Stewart's show as a kind of blue chip Is that because Jon Stewart in the end is a critical thinker and will ultimately have to say stuff like, wow what's going on in China and maybe comment on the escalating tensions between the US and China and the complexity of corporate relationships that are transcendent of national boundaries and are ultimately an expression of a globalist ideology and certainly the big tech companies like Apple,
00:10:08.000are in that transcendent big tech realm.
00:10:10.000So ultimately you can't, can you, have a figure like Jon Stewart on your streaming service asking questions that will in the end lead to the regulation, dismantling, demonopolising of organisations like Apple.
00:10:22.000If you start asking serious questions about Apple's business practices, you're going to come up with some answers that require intervention.
00:10:29.000So in the end, you can't have Jon Stewart.
00:10:31.000At least Apple can't have Jon Stewart.
00:11:03.000Let's see how the legacy media reported on this.
00:11:06.000Jon Stewart's Apple TV show The Problem with Jon Stewart is done after two seasons.
00:11:11.000Staff members say Stewart told them last night he and Apple executives agreed to pull the plug.
00:11:16.000The former Daily Show host had creative control over the show, but again, according to staff members, Stewart told them the company had concerns about the subject matter for the upcoming season.
00:12:15.000Apple TV Plus's esteemed talk show The Problem With Jon Stewart is reportedly drawing to a close after a fallout between the tech giant Apple and Jon Stewart himself.
00:12:23.000The Problem With Jon Stewart is they've run out of subjects that aren't offensive to Apple's business model.
00:12:27.000The Problem With Jon Stewart is one of the shows is about China next time.
00:12:30.000Yeah, we can't do that because all of our products are, how do we put this delicately, made in China.
00:12:37.000Despite the show's premiere being hailed as a major success for Apple TV+, the company and the renowned ex-Daily Show host have split due to creative differences ahead of the talk show's highly anticipated third season.
00:12:48.000That's why I think the culture has to generate issues that are divisive around which it can pick a side and just amplify that side.
00:12:56.000And these are usually subjects which Which I think could probably be less contentious if you had a decentralised system of government where you were able to say, well, seems like you people are very in favour of this way of living and you people are in favour of this way of living.
00:13:08.000Well, why don't you both carry on and leave each other the hell alone?
00:13:10.000But because no one's up for that idea for some mad reason, what we have to continually have is an ongoing culture war that's unwinnable, as well as the many military wars that are also, in my view, unwinnable for us.
00:13:21.000Unless, of course, you had some version of society where ordinary people were slaughtered en masse and autonomous machines could take over.
00:13:27.000take over the roles but there's no suggestion that that's going on anywhere.
00:13:30.000And if it is, you're not going to see it discussed on Apple TV, who would probably
00:13:34.000financially benefit from such a horrific dystopia.
00:14:13.000Apple's fears apparently stem from the fact that the tech behemoth has a future heavily pinned to maintaining a congenial relationship with China and the tech giant bends over backwards to stand the good side of the Chinese Communist Party.
00:14:25.000Although there's no evidence that they care about limbo dancing at all.
00:14:28.000When it comes to censorship of content in particular, Apple is happy to oblige the Chinese government in order to compete in the Chinese market.
00:14:35.000Do you imagine that any of these corporations that say they care about ecology, economy, social justice issues, care enough about those issues to make compromises when it comes to profit?
00:14:44.000Until you see that, what you've got is nothing.
00:14:47.000Part of their ingenuity were the kind of products that we all love, the brilliance.
00:14:59.000But the truth is Apple don't care about any of those things I'm going to offer you.
00:15:03.000They care actually about profit margins.
00:15:06.000And if ever the ideology is at odds with the profit margins and the conditions of dominion that profit margins afford, they will hastily dispatch with all of their sort of rainbow-coloured exclusive livery and paraphernalia.
00:15:18.000We'll be marched right out the door quicker than you can say Tiananmen Square.
00:15:22.000This latest incident can be seen as an instance of corporate arm-twisting to possibly cloak any criticism or controversial discourse that might jeopardize its strategy.
00:15:31.000Reports from The Hollywood Reporter suggest that Apple wanted the show to echo its official stance on these topics, therefore asserting the power of censorship over the freedom to openly discuss the aforementioned issues.
00:15:44.000What a great country that is for workers.
00:15:46.000And certainly there's no issue with the Uyghur population who haven't been put into concentration camps.
00:15:53.000And certainly there's no child labour going on, which is a necessary by-product of affordable devices that are ruining your life.
00:16:00.000Stewart didn't bow down to Apple's suppressive demands.
00:16:03.000He chose to assert his commitment to open discourse and freedom of speech by walking away from the show rather than compromising on the content.
00:16:09.000The Times report does not delve into specifics about why the show's planned coverage of artificial intelligence and China triggered such strong reactions in Apple's executive echelons.
00:16:18.000However, it does underline the inherent conflict between corporate interests and the freedom of speech.
00:16:25.000And in fact, when we talk about globalism here, we mean the conflation of these interests.
00:16:29.000When the state and corporations are entwined to the degree that the function of the state and the execution of policy becomes determined by corporate interests and is transcendent of national sovereignty in two ways, i.e.
00:16:42.000One, the population of a country can't prevent it, prohibit it, vote against it.
00:16:46.000And two, it's happening in numerous countries simultaneously across the world.
00:16:50.000And you see simultaneous legislature passed to support this evident agenda, as with the many current censorship bills brought about by the censorship industrial complex.
00:16:59.000What you have is entirely at odds not just with free speech but with humanity itself.
00:17:04.000Free speech is just one of those principles that we'd all agreed was a non-negotiable.
00:17:09.000Even though we all recognize it could lead to conflict and people's feelings being hurt and listening to stuff you don't agree with.
00:17:17.000Once you start rolling that back and saying we trust this group to regulate free speech then You're beginning to open the door to forms of tyranny and when you see that there are institutions, entities and partnerships on this planet that have unprecedented power and a plain agenda, which is not about your protection and your service, then what you have is, yes, very much, a conflict between
00:17:37.000It's not surprising that a tech giant like Apple would rather trim its content than jeopardise its relationship with a key market player like China, indicating a shift in power dynamics from content creators to corporate movers and shakers.
00:17:52.000I wonder what's going to happen to Apple with the apparent escalating tensions between US corporate interests and China, the ongoing apparent amplification of stress in that region, people lobbying Rallying, even, for war and conflict in that region.
00:18:08.000What's that going to do to those corporate interests?
00:19:28.000That's why odd extraordinary stuff like the cobble mining children in the Congo, digging that stuff up, just gets kind of... that's too much to think about.
00:19:37.000Just give me something simpler to think about where I can say I'm on this side or I'm on that side because none of us really are we are on the side of children digging for cobalt in Congo.
00:19:46.000Well actually if you've got an iPhone you are on that side and I've got an iPhone!
00:19:50.000One of the other contentious subjects that Jon Stewart is due to discuss and is now cancelled show is AI.
00:19:55.000So what's the relationship between Apple and AI?
00:19:58.000Of course their products will presumably deploy AI but is there anything else?
00:20:02.000Apple are part of a group of Silicon Valley companies helping the Pentagon in the AI arms race.
00:20:07.000Oh, well, just Silicon Valley and an arms race.
00:20:38.000Beck, who served in the US Navy for 26 years before joining Apple, where he reported directly to Chief Executive Tim Cook, is regarded as key to accelerating plans to bring the military and Silicon Valley close together.
00:20:50.000Tonight, before I go to bed, I don't know about you, I pray, Lord God, will you please, please, please bring the Pentagon and Silicon Valley closer together.
00:20:59.000Can you enmesh more big tech giants with vast, unaccountable government institutions just to ensure that people like me and my children and all the people across the world really are tyrannized into absolute terror and shame, unable to openly communicate because of the monstrosity of the state?
00:21:15.000And thankfully, the Lord, whichever one I was praying to, appears to have answered.
00:21:18.000Apple presents itself, doesn't it, as a very modern company.
00:21:37.000Look at those Russoian nutjobs, living in copses, gathering berries, hunting for elk, bloody fools.
00:21:44.000We believe in the idea of progress and Apple, perhaps more than any other brand on the planet, represents that progress.
00:21:51.000Now as long as you don't question human history or look at evidence for other civilizations or other crackpot whack job theories, that myth is a binding one.
00:21:59.000All of us are supposed to accept that we're moving in this direction.
00:22:03.000In spite of the evidence, crumbling institutions, increasing tensions, things are getting better.
00:22:08.000As a modern company, Apple of course has to appeal to modern audiences, young audiences, and they have of course generated an ideology that I believe is a disingenuous One that has in it many principles that I would support, i.e.
00:22:19.000you should be able to express yourself however you want to as long as you don't hurt other people.
00:22:22.000Values that I think most people agree with.
00:22:24.000But those too have become oddly contentious.
00:22:26.000The issue that Apple has when it comes to broadcasting content or platforming content is they can't have a truth teller and critical thinker on their platform because the truth is not good from Apple's perspective.
00:22:38.000The truth is actually quite unappealing.
00:22:41.000And even prior to this season and the potential for hypocrisy or contradiction around Jon Stewart's potential opinions on China and AI, it was already the issue of the children labouring their minds, which is not really good for anybody.
00:22:54.000But what other woke problems do we have?
00:22:56.000And where does this issue of censorship end, if indeed this is a form of censorship?
00:23:00.000Apple, one of the woke corporations, continues to use slave labour in China to make its products a 2021 report show.
00:23:07.000Now, if you were woke, and if by woke you mean you care about moral, ethical, humanitarian issues, you probably wouldn't use slave labour, I suppose.
00:23:15.000Executive Officer Tim Cook has categorically denied the technology firm sources from Chinese companies that use Uyghur slave labour in its production lines.
00:23:22.000Last year he was asked directly by Congress if he could certify here today that your company does not use and will never use slave labour to manufacture your products.
00:23:29.000Mr Cook replied, Forced labour is abhorrent and we will not tolerate it in Apple.
00:23:36.000But an investigative report from the website The Information shows seven Apple suppliers have been accused of using slave labor.
00:23:43.000So I wonder if there'll be an investigation.
00:23:45.000Hopefully the legacy media are even now sending hundreds of investigators over there to do thorough and talk to everyone involved.
00:23:51.000Make sure you get to the bottom of this because, you know, because you're so humanitarian and stuff, you're not going to want slave labor going on and certainly not going to want people lying about it.
00:23:58.000At this point, it's just an accusation.
00:24:01.000The information and human rights groups found seven companies supplying device components, coatings and assembly services to Apple that are linked to alleged forced labor involving Uyghurs and other oppressed minorities in China, the report reads.
00:24:12.000At least five of those companies received thousands of Uyghur and other minority workers at specific factory sites or subsidiaries that did work for Apple, the investigation found.
00:24:20.000You see, in China, as in our countries, there will be loads of subcontracting to the point where it's like, I don't know.
00:25:35.000The information associated with other human rights groups uncovered previously unreported public statements, photos and videos by Chinese local government offices and state-run media in China, as well as with unnamed employees to back up their reporting.
00:25:51.000People often point out when talking about dystopias the difference between George Orwell's Kind of communist version of dystopia and Aldous Huxley's pleasure-oriented, SOMA-induced stasis and slumber verses of dystopia in Brave New World.
00:26:05.000We've obviously got over here the Brave New World version, haven't we?
00:26:08.000Where we think we've got pleasure and devices and everything's slick and nice and people say the right words and trying their best to say the right things.
00:26:14.000And over in China, it's a bit more George Orwell.
00:26:15.000It's a bit more boot-in-the-face standard.
00:26:17.000There'll be shopping bags in front of a tank.
00:26:22.000But the fact is, dystopia is already here.
00:26:26.000Well, when the pandemic happened and we saw how China were able to respond as a result of being a declared and obvious autocratic society, we first of all thought we'll never be able to do that in our countries.
00:26:40.000Turns out it's pretty easy to just switch off life like that.
00:26:43.000Stay in your homes, do as you're told.
00:26:45.000People didn't go, no, wait a minute, we're a democracy.
00:26:47.000Well, some people did, and those people were cancelled either then, or just a little bit down the line they found a way to cancel them.
00:26:52.000So what this shows us is, in the end, you can't have free speech at all.
00:26:55.000You might not like right-wing libertarian people.
00:26:58.000You might think, ooh, I don't like them.
00:26:59.000But the fact is, Apple are unable to platform Jon Stewart because Jon Stewart will say things that Apple cannot have said on their platform.
00:27:07.000Not because Jon Stewart's not woke or Jon Stewart's not clever or not compassionate, but because Jon Stewart is critical of corrupt power.
00:27:15.000In a statement to the information, Apple said that despite the restrictions of COVID-19, we undertook further investigations and found no evidence of forced labour anywhere we operate.
00:27:23.000We will continue doing all we can to protect workers, ensure they are treated with dignity and respect.
00:27:28.000Yet Mr Cook continually pushed back against Congress lobbying to weaken a bill it was crafting preventing U.S.
00:27:33.000companies from using slave labor in China.
00:27:39.000In a December 2020 report, the Tech Transparency Project found one of Apple's most well-known iPhone suppliers was using forced Uyghur labor in its factories.
00:27:49.000China became a key component in Apple's supply chain in the 90s and early 2000s because of the country's vast number of low-cost labourers.
00:27:57.000We are interrupting this vital stream about cancellation and the way that censorship is increasing because we need you strong.
00:28:05.000If we're going to change the world together, we've got to be fit and healthy.
00:28:08.000Russell, how do you survive under the freight, the weight, the cargo of attack that you are enduring?
00:28:15.000I stay healthy, I stay awake, I stay stocked up on black forest supplements including NMNs, a derivative of B vitamin which plays a vital role in energy production.
00:28:30.000They're regenerating metabolism and gene expression in the body.
00:28:34.000If you are going to do a pull-up competition at some stage with RFK you've got to have NMNs coursing through your mighty veins.
00:28:42.000NMN replenishes declining NAD plus levels which drop around one percent a year meaning a 50 year old has roughly half of their youthful levels of NAD plus which is found in all living cells and is essential for life itself.
00:28:57.000It's It's the intersection between the material world and the world of God.
00:29:00.000Now, of course, Big Pharma is trying to monopolize NMN by changing its status from a supplement to, I don't know, a weapon?
00:29:47.000Okay let's get back into the censorship and cancellation crisis that is devouring what's left of the mainstream.
00:29:55.000Apple seems willing to overlook China's ongoing human rights violations in order to have access to this cost-effective manufacturing base and the country's 1.4 billion consumers.
00:30:03.000It's also willing to overlook its commitment to Jon Stewart.
00:30:05.000I mean of course it just has And it's not even, I suppose, like I'm really blaming Apple.
00:30:15.000Apple came about as a result of some ideologies that are not regulated or not controlled or not pushed back on because of ideas like centralisation, globalisation, progressivism, materialism and rationalism.
00:30:26.000This is housed in a philosophy that I would say should be as open to interrogation as any particular religious ideology.
00:30:32.000You might say, we want to form the world according to Judaic law or Christian law.
00:31:01.000Apple has a history of cowering to the Chinese Communist Party.
00:31:05.000In 2019, Apple removed HKMap.live, an application pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong were using to track police from its App Store.
00:31:13.000Wired reported around the same time that Apple began hiding the Taiwan flag from users in Hong Kong and Macau, reinforcing the CCP's One China policy.
00:31:23.000Additionally, Apple told some of its television producers to avoid portraying China in a negative light in their productions, as not to anger the CCP, BuzzFeed News detailed.
00:31:34.000I mean, you won't see me saying, stick a mule of bad guys anytime soon.
00:31:37.000But you have to wonder what the consequences are when stuff's happening on a global scale.
00:31:41.000That's why what we need are independent media, demonopolized big tech organization, decentralized government.
00:31:47.000The more these things coalesce and come together, the more damage they do while continuing to claim to serve you We pass on the savings to the consumer.
00:31:58.000Moreover, to comply with CCP, Apple removed the New York Times and other private networks from its Chinese App Store and began storing Chinese iCloud accounts in China, making it easier for the government to potentially obtain information on its citizens, Wired reported.
00:32:10.000I wonder if they cooperate with other...
00:32:12.000Yeah, Apple wants Americans to believe it's woke, virtuous, and promotes a just world for everybody.
00:32:19.000It's probably about as true as Coca-Cola is youthful.
00:32:30.000That connection we're making in our own mind and we have to stop making it because the facts are Uyghurs are likely used for slave labor, children are mining for cobalt, not just for Apple but for other smartphones too, and Jon Stewart, he's a real victim here, is not able to openly express his opinions on China or AI because it would be at odds with Apple's ideology and that is obviously frivolous compared to the exploitation of children or Genocide, but it is one of the components in the kind of globalism that we're continually critiquing here.
00:33:06.000They will do anything they can to prevent you from mobilizing and awakening and opposing their systems of power up to and including cancelling any dissenting voice.
00:33:16.000Mr Cook issued a statement in support of Black Lives Matter, promising to push progress forward on inclusion and diversity, so that every great idea could be heard.
00:33:24.000Saying the company would donate to groups like the Equal Justice Initiative, which challenge racial injustice and mass incarceration.
00:33:33.000Do you feel sometimes we live in a system where they just say stuff that's easy to say, that anyone who's actually a dissenting voice is immediately vilified and shut down?
00:33:42.000Where is the evidence of anyone having real principles in these organizations?
00:33:46.000That's why when people gag Donald Trump, you don't immediately go, oh, he must have been saying some things that are so powerful that people don't want him to... You can't have any trust in these institutions anymore.
00:33:55.000Because you see now the modality, the mentality, the morality, the lack of ethics that undergirds their entire model.
00:34:02.000Big tech and big tech organizations benefit from global centralization.
00:34:07.000The state benefits from global centralization.
00:34:09.000None of them benefit from you becoming awakened and empowered and able to make your own decisions for your health, for your loved ones, for building community.
00:34:20.000And through the media, they will amplify the agenda of the powerful and close down dissent.
00:34:25.000They will narrow the bandwidth of your possibilities as much as they possibly can, so that you're unable to be discerning, so that you're unable to awaken, so that you're unable to form alliances with other people who are basically just the same as you.
00:34:37.000Despite their cultural values or their religious values, we have more in common with one another than we do, obviously, than an organization like Apple that will do whatever is necessary to maintain favorable relationships with China, including Let me know what you think in the chat.
00:34:51.000just because there's a risk that they might say something that they don't like.
00:34:55.000But that's just what I think. Let me know what you think in the chat. See you in a second.
00:34:59.000Let me know in the chat how you feel about the increasing power of cancellation culture while we continue our
00:35:26.000Now, given that a lot of your experience was gleaned in the pharmaceutical industry, and as I've said already in this conversation when we spoke previously, you outlined how you were, in a sense, an antagonist in that world rather than a kind of Moderna or Pfizer player.
00:35:41.000I wonder what you feel about recent revelations that the vaccine, the Pfizer vaccine specifically, given to the public was different from the one tested in clinical trials.
00:35:51.000And that included the use of E. coli in terms of its plasmic component, and other undisclosed components, including SV40, which is a cancer-promoting component.
00:36:02.000I wonder what you feel these ongoing revelations, whether it's this one or the myocarditis, pericarditis is bad for you stuff, and let's throw in the Wuhan lab leak theory versus the wet market.
00:36:14.000What do you think America and the world have learned during the pandemic period about authoritarianism, about the role of the media amplifying propagandist messaging that facilitates the powerful?
00:36:26.000And how would you ensure nothing like that ever happened again, particularly with the WHO marching forward with a treaty that could mean that they demand five percent of the health budget of any member nation?
00:36:45.000One is, there is no doubt, I mean, there's not a debate, there's not a point that any sensible person can rebut, okay?
00:36:54.000There is no doubt that the FDA used dramatically differential standards To usher in the approval of the COVID vaccines compared to any other vaccine or any other medicine that otherwise is held to different exacting standards.
00:37:08.000And I'm a right-to-try absolutist, Russell.
00:37:12.000It means that just because the FDA hasn't approved it doesn't mean that you or I or anybody else in this country shouldn't be able to take it.
00:37:22.000We should be able to make an informed choice ourselves.
00:37:24.000But the other part of right-to-try is the right not to try.
00:37:28.000Just because they have forced it through a process using unprecedented standards through it doesn't mean that you should ever in any circumstance be forced to take it.
00:37:35.000So I'm a right to try absolutist in both directions and there is no doubt that they use differential standards to push this through.
00:37:42.000The same FDA that says you cannot even try a vaccine or a medication that has not been through 10 plus years of testing and been through the same process and you know in the world of biotech there's this old adage process is product so even if the process varies slightly there are other kinds of cases where the FDA says nope 10 more years you can't bring that to market they apply differential standards here that is wrong and we have to admit that or else you're going to be reliable you're going to be vulnerable to make the same mistakes again in the future as a matter of policy you know i think we got to look to the future but how do you correct the past
00:38:15.000Vaccine manufacturers have somehow gotten away with a crony capitalist privilege of saying that unlike other product manufacturers, who if you harm a consumer, you can be sued, somehow in this case, these vaccine manufacturers have a special shield of liability, the product of lobbying, no doubt, that says that those vaccine manufacturers can't be sued for product liability.
00:38:38.000That's one of the, I need Congress to do it, but I will push that through and Congress and We're going to get Congress to come along on that.
00:38:46.000Strip back that crony capitalist privilege that allows these actors to act with impunity.
00:38:59.000I mean, it applies to the earlier part of the discussion we were having relating to war.
00:39:02.000It's during times of crisis or so-called crisis.
00:39:06.000That we need to protect free speech and open debate the most.
00:39:11.000I don't think we would have shut down the schools or the economy if we had been allowed to debate in the lockdowns.
00:39:17.000I don't think we would have waited two, three years to slowly, carefully admit that that virus came from a lab in Wuhan, that it was a man-made virus.
00:39:26.000We would have known that sooner if you had been allowed to say.
00:39:31.000I don't think that the vaccine mandates would have withstood public scrutiny if you had been actually allowed to debate it on the merits, including both the risks included.
00:39:40.000So that's one of the key lessons is free speech is not meant for the easy times.
00:40:08.000And the answer as well is, we will also, by the way, bring zero-based budgeting to any source of funding.
00:40:15.000And foreign aid, so-called aid, in places like Central America or other parts of the world.
00:40:20.000No, we will ask what advances the US interest if we're using US dollars to fund it.
00:40:25.000The WHO does not advance US interest, so we're not gonna fund it.
00:40:28.000But I'm gonna bring that mentality of zero-based budgeting to the deep state abroad.
00:40:32.000I mean, that's what these multi-lateral international three-letter agencies are.
00:40:35.000But that's what the three-letter agencies are here in the United States.
00:40:38.000The SEC, to the FTC, to the FDA, to the CDC, to the God knows what, to the FBI, to the Department of Education, will apply that same standard, zero-based budgeting.
00:40:50.000And I do think from a You know, there's certain people that are too incompetent to do it this way.
00:40:54.000I think the antidote to that is you need somebody who has been a CEO, who has actually built successful things, stood up to bureaucracies in the private sector, successfully created real value to be the one who does it.
00:41:05.000But certain people in there are plenty smart to do it, but they're corruption captured by financial forces.
00:41:10.000And you got to make sure that you have somebody who's at least independent of those financial forces to be able to do the same thing.
00:41:16.000And so that's the kind of leaders I think it's going to take.
00:41:18.000And I think it's a A benefit, Russell, to also have leaders from a different generation that, in some ways, haven't been captured by the same muscle memory of the last 30 years, or the last 130 years, for that matter.
00:41:30.000I think that we have to break away from some of this as neither corruption nor incompetence, but as just habit.
00:41:38.000And I think it's important that we get to truth.
00:41:39.000It's easy to pin the tail on any one of these things.
00:41:41.000They say it's all incompetence or it's all just corruption.
00:41:44.000These are important parts of the story, but some of it is just habit and muscle memory, inertia, momentum in a direction that you happen to have gone.
00:41:52.000And so it's all of these things, right?
00:41:56.000There's temptations that we might have to say there's one silver bullet to a complex pathology.
00:42:02.000The reality is there's a complex set of forces that account for why we are where we are.
00:42:07.000And I think it behooves us not to fall in love with our favorite solution and to pin the entire thing on that donkey's tail.
00:42:16.000We've got to see the whole thing for what it is.
00:42:18.000It's a combination of inertia, a combination of laziness, a combination of outright levels of stupidity that you could not imagine combined with a level of cynical corruption that fuels the machine.
00:42:31.000And so I think when we think about what leaders lead us forward, you've got to see that problem for what it is before, you know, imagining that there's some silver bullet.
00:42:42.000In a way, you're already bringing about revolutionary perspectives and revolutionary conversation.
00:42:49.000And even in fact, on an essential level, your energy and To a degree, Persona are bringing some necessary radicalism, certainly into their Republican primary process, and hopefully it goes further than that.
00:43:05.000Do you feel that... These are a few things I'd like to put before you before we wrap this up, and thank you for all of your time today, Vivek.
00:43:11.000Do you think that some important components for a genuine advance to occur are, one, Decentralisation wherever possible, or federalism as it's known in your country, i.e.
00:43:23.000the role of governors and mayors, where possible people should have a maximum amount of power.
00:43:31.000And do you think it's important that independent thinkers and people with a different perspective enter politics to ensure that these Atrophying institutions are boosted and what advice would you offer and what warnings would you offer to anyone thinking, who's not from a conventional political background, if they're thinking of entering into that space?
00:44:16.000Thankfully, other countries don't benefit from this quite as much, but it could help other countries and other Western democracies just as much.
00:44:22.000But in the U.S., we have this thing called the Tenth Amendment.
00:44:24.000The power not reserved to the federal government is reserved respectively to the states and to the people.
00:44:29.000So, the vision is the least possible power should be concentrated in the federal government, then more to the states, then more to local communities, and then ultimately to the people itself.
00:45:26.000We've spent a lot of this conversation, I spent a lot of my time talking about the powers that be, the woke industrial complex, the merger of state power and corporate power, the top-down version of this problem, and it exists.
00:45:37.000But if you want to use a scriptural analogy, right, it's sort of when the Israelites escape the Pharaoh, okay, in the book of Exodus, they're wandering in the desert, lost in the wilderness, yet to find their promised land.
00:46:32.000And so my concern and my insecurity here, I think it's worth putting on the table, is not that we, the people, are going to fail to be successful.
00:46:45.000And I'm not looking to lead a revival of the American Revolution.
00:46:47.000Others in other countries in the modern West can look to do the same thing.
00:46:51.000Others here in the United States can do the same thing.
00:46:56.000It's actually the long hard look in the mirror that when push comes to shove are the people who are on our side of the great uprising against their great reset.
00:47:05.000The most powerful force may also be the force within that when push comes to shove causes you to make you want to bend the knee.
00:47:12.000And I think that this is a deeper, more philosophical discussion.
00:47:15.000If you lose faith, patriotism, hard work, family, pride, self-confidence at the same time, you're going to bend the knee to something.
00:47:25.000If it's not climatism, it's Zelenskiyism.
00:47:27.000If it's not Zelenskiyism, it's World War IIIism, broadly.
00:47:32.000You're going to bend the knee to something.
00:47:33.000And I think that's the real risk in this.
00:47:40.000People can find every excuse not to get behind the vision that I'm articulating to be able to say that, okay, well, I was in it part way, but then we, you know, find some excuse, whatever it might be to say that, Hey, we're not going to go that direction.
00:47:54.000That I think is at least as big of a risk.
00:47:57.000The inner, Israelite lost in the desert within each of us, right?
00:48:02.000The inner force that causes us to want to bend the knee, that is how this ends, maybe.
00:48:10.000And I think that that would be my cautionary note to any leader who's looking to do the same thing.
00:48:16.000Yes, it's going to take people coming from outside the establishment to win this war.
00:48:21.000But make sure that you're rising to the occasion to fill that vacuum of purpose and meaning enough that make sure that when you look back, you still have the people that you thought were following you, following you at every step of the way.
00:48:34.000And for me, you're catching me midway through that journey.
00:48:36.000So let's have this conversation in eight, nine months and we'll see where we stand.
00:48:40.000My heart says we're going to be successful, but that's incumbent on me as a leader and anybody else who takes this cause up to make sure that it's not just the eye on The forces that be, that's where we're taking our aim to be sure.
00:48:54.000But there's a force within each of us, within every one of us as citizens that makes us want to bend the knee as well.
00:49:00.000And the story is incomplete until we actually answer that question of what is it that makes us want to pledge allegiance to that different flag or that different God, the climate God or whatever COVID God or whatever new God they foist on us.
00:49:12.000That psychological spiritual battle is really half the story too.
00:49:24.000Thank you so much for your generosity with your time, your generosity with your vision, your open-mindedness, and your fantastic and always enjoyable discourse.
00:49:33.000Thank you, Vivek Ramaswamy, and I wish you all the best in the ongoing campaign, mate.
00:49:37.000You can follow and support Vivek's presidential campaign by going to vivek, that's v-i-v-e-k, 2024.com.
00:49:44.000We'll post the link in the description.
00:49:47.000Remember, press the red button and you get access to these interviews when they happen in the event.
00:49:52.000We have to pre-record them, which we have to sometimes, and next week you'll You're not going to want to miss Jordan Peterson.
00:49:57.000You're not going to want to miss the opportunity to be involved in that conversation, are you?
00:50:01.000To sit there while me and JP are pontificating about all manner of subjects.
00:50:06.000If you're a member of the locals community, like MisinformedMME, or Blessed Old Bird, or Gabriella90, you get early access to interviews.
00:50:14.000You get meditations, readings, and you With us, get to discuss and hopefully instantiate ways we can change the world, building new communities, discussing new ideas.
00:50:24.000I'll tell you who's on the journey already.