Stay Free - Russel Brand - Vivek Ramaswamy - Fighting The GREAT RESET

00:00:00.000 Hello there, you Awakening Wonders!

00:00:01.000 Thank you for joining me for Stay Free with Russell Brand for an extremely special show.

00:00:06.000 Today we have an extended interview with Vivek Ramaswamy, Republican presidential candidate and outsider who could become increasingly significant as the travails of Trump increase.

00:00:20.000 If Donald Trump is taken out by the state, where does that leave Vivek Ramaswamy.

00:00:26.000 Does that mean he's next in line to be taken out as an outsider?

00:00:29.000 Or does that mean that he will elevate to candidacy?

00:00:33.000 Let me know what you think in the chat right now.

00:00:36.000 In this first part of the conversation, we're going to be talking about Dave Chappelle and Dave Chappelle's role as a free speech advocate in shifting times.

00:00:44.000 We talk about Israel-Palestine and how you handle that as the President of the United States.

00:00:49.000 Of course we talk about free speech as always.

00:00:53.000 Now, this interview was pre-recorded and you can join us live when we make that kind of content.

00:00:59.000 If you are an awakened wonder, press the red button.

00:01:02.000 You can join interviews live.

00:01:03.000 We do meditations.

00:01:04.000 We're planning a movement so that we can form new communities as the apocalypse apparently unfolds before our very eyes.

00:01:11.000 How does independent media become independent politics?

00:01:15.000 You tell me, because without you, we are nothing.

00:01:18.000 Thank you for elevating your consciousness above the level of fear.

00:01:21.000 Thank you for being willing to open up the belly of the beast, chop the head of the serpent and move forward in a glorious new movement together.

00:01:30.000 We are going to have to change politics pretty radically if we're going to change the world and perhaps Vivek Ramaswamy is part of the solution.

00:01:37.000 Let me know what you think in the chat now.

00:01:40.000 Of course, the first 15 minutes will be available on YouTube, but after that, we'll be flying on wings of freedom to Free Speech's sweet home, Rumble.

00:01:49.000 Here's Vivek Ramaswamy.

00:01:52.000 Vivek, thanks for joining us.

00:01:53.000 It's good to see you, man.

00:01:54.000 Vivek, this cannot be an easy time to have off-the-cuff, spontaneous conversations about politics, when the world's best comedians, like Dave Chappelle, find themselves unable to appease an audience with regard to a subject that you've spoken very boldly and bravely on, the escalating crisis in the Middle East, and it's almost its unique position now.

00:02:20.000 As part of a cluster of wars that you might call a kind of omni-war, an emergent global war, and I wonder if you can comment on that and I wonder if you can let me know really what you feel Vivek about the The entry into an already fractured, sensorial and conflagratory cultural space, the mother of all controversial issues, an issue where it seems that it's not enough to say, well, we just want violence to end, we want war to end, where people across the spectrum on that conflict want outspoken advocacy and condemnation of their opponents.

00:03:02.000 How are you coping with that?

00:03:03.000 As you make such great progress in your own campaign to be the Republican nominee.

00:03:09.000 Well, Russell, I think it's become increasingly clear that I am a lone voice in the Republican Party standing out against World War III and against war more broadly.

00:03:20.000 So I know you're on the other side of the pond, but as you know, I'm running for U.S.

00:03:24.000 president.

00:03:24.000 So I'm looking at this from a U.S.

00:03:26.000 perspective, and I don't think we should apologize for that.

00:03:29.000 My job as U.S.

00:03:30.000 president, if I'm elected, my moral obligation is to the American people.

00:03:36.000 Now, even in America now, that is a controversial thing to say, which is interesting to understand what's lurking beneath the surface of that.

00:03:44.000 And so I look at all of the conflicts emerging now as somewhat related in escalating the risk of World War III.

00:03:54.000 Think about the funding package that's making its way through U.S. 0.50

00:03:57.000 Congress now.

00:03:58.000 Biden has called for a $106 billion foreign aid package.

00:04:03.000 The majority of that is still directed at Ukraine.

00:04:06.000 $61 billion on top of the billions and hundreds of billions we've spent escalating that war in a way that I don't think advances anybody's interests except for a select few who stand to benefit from this conflict.

00:04:18.000 And I think that itself is a disaster that is already, and I'm going to get to the Middle East and the Israel point in a second, but the context is really important here, Russell, is already against the backdrop of major conflict brewing by way of proxies between the U.S.

00:04:32.000 and Russia, between the West and Russia.

00:04:34.000 We're driving Russia further into China's hands with the Russia-China alliance. 0.91

00:04:39.000 We have a no-win war that, if you look back now, it's been confirmed in recent days, Ukraine could have Agreed to terms of peace they were willing to a long time ago, except for the US and also your guy, Boris Johnson, goading them further into war.

00:04:55.000 That's where we are today.

00:04:56.000 And then this general logic that just because Putin is bad, that means Ukraine is good. 0.90

00:05:02.000 That's a false premise for continuing this war.

00:05:04.000 I mean, this is a country in Ukraine that has banned 11 opposition parties, that has outright consolidated all media into one state media arm.

00:05:14.000 Yes, there are familiar feelings that that happens in the West more broadly, but that's happening here in Ukraine.

00:05:19.000 You have a country that has effectively threatened not to hold its elections but for U.S.

00:05:25.000 forking over more money.

00:05:27.000 And by the way, occupied regions of the Donbas, like Luhansk and Donetsk, that are Russian-speaking, many of which don't view themselves even as really part of Ukraine, have not been represented in the Ukrainian parliament.

00:05:38.000 Against this backdrop, we're escalating our way into major conflict between nuclear powers and driving Russia further into China's arms. 0.73

00:05:45.000 It's nonsense.

00:05:46.000 So that's why I've called for a clear, fair, rational path to peace in Ukraine.

00:05:53.000 And I've laid out, and we can go into it, the terms of what that deal would look like.

00:05:58.000 But then right around that same time, now you see the escalation towards a possible broader regional conflict in the Middle East.

00:06:07.000 And I say this against the backdrop of what Hamas did to Israel.

00:06:10.000 It was wrong.

00:06:11.000 It was barbaric.

00:06:12.000 I said it at the time.

00:06:13.000 I say it now.

00:06:14.000 And Israel absolutely has the right to defend itself and its own national self-existence.

00:06:14.000 It was wrong.

00:06:21.000 But now we're seeing a cascade where I hope I'm wrong about this, Russell.

00:06:25.000 I really do, but I can see it with clarity.

00:06:27.000 Here's what I fear is about to happen.

00:06:29.000 Israel goes south into this ground invasion with Gaza without any clear objectives.

00:06:35.000 That then causes Hezbollah, they've said that this is their red line, to attack Israel from the north.

00:06:40.000 Right when Israel is mired in the South, that's a two-front conflict.

00:06:44.000 No way the U.S.

00:06:45.000 doesn't then get involved.

00:06:46.000 The U.S.

00:06:47.000 is involved.

00:06:48.000 That then triggers Iranian-backed militias through the Middle East who have said that U.S.

00:06:51.000 involvement is their red line to hit targets.

00:06:54.000 The Houthis in Yemen have said it.

00:06:56.000 The Bata Brigade in Iraq has said it.

00:06:58.000 The U.S.

00:06:58.000 has its largest embassy in Baghdad.

00:07:01.000 Now we're mired in a large-scale conflict in the Middle East.

00:07:04.000 We've done that before.

00:07:05.000 We don't want to do it again yet.

00:07:07.000 Yes, yet again we are on the path to potentially doing it.

00:07:10.000 Civilian casualties will mount in Gaza.

00:07:12.000 International allies will then turn their back on Israel.

00:07:15.000 And even if Israel does succeed in toppling Hamas, what then? 0.77

00:07:20.000 After Al Qaeda, you've got ISIS. 0.91

00:07:21.000 After Hamas 1.0, you're probably slated for Hamas 2.0. 0.95

00:07:25.000 And then this rolls out the red carpet, of course, for then China to be the ultimate winner of this and go after Taiwan while the U.S. 0.73

00:07:31.000 is mired in conflicts from Ukraine to the Middle East, some of which have actually driven our already adversaries further into China's hands.

00:07:39.000 And that's a path to World War III. 0.66

00:07:41.000 And I don't think that that's an exaggeration.

00:07:43.000 So I know that took a little while for me to explain because I think these things have to be looked at in the context of one another for the risk of major conflict, dare I call it World War Three.

00:07:53.000 And so my job as the U.S.

00:07:55.000 President, I have clear pads, a clear vision of how to keep us out of World War Three. 0.51

00:07:59.000 And yet the shocking part is I am the only person in the Republican Party offering a clear stance on opposing World War III, a clear stance against this $106 billion aid package that Biden has proposed for wars that I think are not on track to advance American interests.

00:08:17.000 And it's precisely in times like these.

00:08:19.000 I mean, you brought up what does this have to do with the Jon Stewart piece?

00:08:22.000 Well, it's during times of crisis that we need free speech and open debate the most.

00:08:27.000 You know, it's easy and fashionable now to go back and say, oh, the Iraq war was bad and Afghanistan was bad.

00:08:32.000 Yes, it was.

00:08:33.000 But that's easy for people to say now.

00:08:35.000 That's lazy almost, because many of those people back then were the ones calling for that war.

00:08:39.000 They won't admit it.

00:08:40.000 They hope you weren't listening to them 20 years ago.

00:08:42.000 Well, the harder part is remember why we got into those wars.

00:08:46.000 They said after 9-11, shut up, sit down, do as you're told, follow the plan.

00:08:51.000 Well, it's moments like these that effectively you're being asked to do the same thing as an American or otherwise.

00:08:58.000 And that's the real danger of how we got into those wars.

00:09:00.000 So easy to sit in an armchair and say, oh, we shouldn't have been in Iraq. 0.53

00:09:03.000 Yeah, I said it at the time and I say it today, too.

00:09:05.000 The harder part is standing up with conviction when everybody else surrounding you is saying, skip the debate and march straight into that war again.

00:09:13.000 And I'm not refusing.

00:09:14.000 I'm refusing to comply.

00:09:16.000 To the contrary, I'm looking to lead this country in a manner that actually speaks with a spine in a manner that other Republicans seem, frankly, too afraid of their own shadow to be able to do.

00:09:26.000 Yes, Vivek, I think that's important and it is extraordinary how people are willing to mobilise condemnation of, if not entirely latent, conflicts due to the ongoing consequences of many of those actions, in particular across that region.

00:09:43.000 Certainly willing to speak out with a kind of advocacy and confidence that was As you point out, absent at the time.

00:09:49.000 One aspect or a few aspects of your answer I'd love to follow up on.

00:09:52.000 You're quite right, it was Boris Johnson of the UK that interrupted the potential peace deal between Zelensky and Putin at a time when a different pathway was clearly open.

00:10:02.000 And that is curious.

00:10:04.000 Another thing I want to touch upon is the bundling together, financially but perhaps even ideologically, these conflicts.

00:10:10.000 When you start to create aid packages of a hundred billion dollars, as you point out, the majority of which goes to Ukraine, a small amount goes to the conflict in the Middle East, some even preparatory aid for Taiwan.

00:10:22.000 You start to create I think a mental image that these wars are somehow conflated with one another, instead of discrete, distinct conflicts, each of which has to be understood in its own unique context.

00:10:34.000 And at some point, I would have to agree with you.

00:10:37.000 I mean, and how can this be a controversial thing to say?

00:10:40.000 A pathway towards peace has to be considered, particularly for you as a potential US president.

00:10:48.000 And just to let you know that 50% of our audience, at very least, ...are in the United States of America.

00:10:53.000 That's generally speaking where people consume our content.

00:10:57.000 What I'd also like to comment on is the way that you mapped out that trajectory, how the escalation of a Middle Eastern conflict in particular, even without taking a side ideologically, all of us have a responsibility to look at, hold on a minute, and then Hezbollah, hang on a minute, and now US, now Iran, whoa, where are we going with this?

00:11:18.000 It seems that we are heading towards World War.

00:11:20.000 It seems that if you're able to make that analysis, perhaps people that are heavily advocating for further expenditure and more aggression for this conflict and others have also got an idea that that's a potential outcome.

00:11:34.000 Is it conceivable Vivek, that they know that this can lead to at least an escalating conflict because there's no doubt that that will happen, but potentially even something that is global and that they can accommodate that vision and maybe even want it.

00:11:50.000 Or do you think they just haven't thought it through?

00:11:52.000 Well, it depends on who you're talking about.

00:11:55.000 Different people fall into different parts of that category.

00:11:58.000 And I'm sitting in a room here in Iowa in the middle of the campaign trail.

00:12:00.000 I can just make sure you can hear me well, right, Russell?

00:12:04.000 Good.

00:12:04.000 So listen, I think you raise an important point.

00:12:08.000 Even if you look at this morning, I wake up to Mitch McConnell, and this is not a Republican versus Democrat point in the U.S.

00:12:14.000 I want you all to really understand this.

00:12:16.000 This is not the traditional partisan conflict that they try to shoehorn into red versus blue, Republican versus Democrat.

00:12:22.000 No.

00:12:24.000 It's a bipartisan establishment in the U.S.

00:12:28.000 in both the majority of the electeds in the Republican and the Democrat party that are marching us towards this war.

00:12:34.000 These parties that otherwise disagree on everything, you know, they'll bash heads or pretend to bash heads.

00:12:40.000 On everything here at home, on some domestic cultural war and, you know, every Republican likes to be more outraged than the next about men swimming in women's swimming competitions, which I'm against too, but it's a pissing contest to show outrage.

00:12:52.000 But when it comes to the stuff that matters on foreign policy, they pretend like they're on the other, they pretend like they're opposed to the other side.

00:12:58.000 They're really on the same team.

00:13:00.000 Mitch McConnell called these conflicts interconnected.

00:13:04.000 So I want to say something about a path to world war, Russell, is the way you describe these conflicts may actually affect the way the conflicts themselves work.

00:13:14.000 I mean, that's the relationship between diplomacy and war.

00:13:18.000 And so seeing these conflicts inherently as having to be funded together or not, I think actually escalates the risk of correlation in how we potentially, God forbid, end up in World War III. 0.98

00:13:34.000 Now, your question is, are there vested interests or is this just stupidity? 0.95

00:13:38.000 I think there are elements of both. 1.00

00:13:40.000 Some people absolutely have their head in the sand.

00:13:42.000 It's amazing that even many of the politicians that will criticize me for lack of foreign policy experience I don't think they could tell you which provinces in eastern Ukraine are even occupied.

00:13:52.000 I don't think they could tell you what happened in 2014 that led us to the history of now.

00:13:56.000 They're just puppets, listless vessels, to borrow a term of Ron DeSantis, you know, in terms of reciting the slogans of their super-packed puppet masters.

00:14:07.000 They don't even know what they're saying for some of them. 0.98

00:14:09.000 For others of them, they absolutely are not dumb people, but they stand to benefit from it.

00:14:14.000 The Pentagon's budget this year, that's the, you know, here in the US, for those of you who don't know the Pentagon, that's the military branch of, the military of, the umbrella for all of the military branches and organizations where the decisions are made by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the people who run the military. 0.91

00:14:28.000 That's the way to think about it.

00:14:30.000 The Defense Department, the Pentagon's budget, half of it, 50% of it, it's like an $850 billion budget, is going to defense contractors this year.

00:14:39.000 I don't want to go off on this side tangent too far, but it's worth just understanding the context.

00:14:44.000 Back in 1993 in the United States, under President Bill Clinton, so now there's a Democrat, the Defense Secretary convened a meeting of all of the defense contractors.

00:14:55.000 Back then it was like 50 some odd defense contractors.

00:14:58.000 And the government Well, I mean, this sounds like the stuff of conspiracy theory.

00:15:01.000 It's not.

00:15:02.000 It's just plain old mundane reality coordinated for these defense contractors to start merging with one another.

00:15:11.000 So, they consolidated some 50-odd defense contractors over the years into five defense contractors.

00:15:16.000 Now, just take a look at the cost of one of the stingers.

00:15:19.000 That's a shoulder-bearing weapon, effectively, that's born today, and we're sending them to Ukraine. 0.97

00:15:26.000 It is up from like $25,000 back then to many hundreds of thousands of dollars.

00:15:32.000 Even if you adjust for inflation and the cost of technology equipment improvement, that's an over 7x increase for the cost of the exact same thing.

00:15:43.000 After you saw the government coordinated consolidation of the contractors to the military, many of whom are then in bed with that same government.

00:15:50.000 So yes, what Dwight D Eisenhower called the military industrial complex, it is alive.

00:15:56.000 It is real.

00:15:57.000 You look at the other candidates in the Republican presidential field.

00:16:00.000 I mean, one of my competitors in this race is a woman by the name of Nikki Haley. 1.00

00:16:04.000 She is somebody who, after her short stint at the UN, which she uses to brandish as her foreign policy experience, her real foreign policy experience came when her family afterwards exploits those UN connections and government connections and otherwise to start, you guessed it, a military contracting business.

00:16:22.000 You guessed it, to join the board of Boeing, which she did special favors for back when she was a governor of South Carolina. 1.00

00:16:29.000 So my litmus test is if you are making money off your time of government connections and worst category of all, making money off of war or the path to war, you are disqualified From being the commander-in-chief, and yet we live in a world right now where the establishment, from the media, to both political parties, to the super PAC puppet masters, label that foreign policy experience and then push us further in that direction into war.

00:16:55.000 These are the mistakes that took us into places like Iraq. 0.96

00:16:58.000 We're making those same mistakes all over again.

00:17:01.000 So are there cynical forces at work, people who stand to make money off of this?

00:17:05.000 Absolutely.

00:17:07.000 And are they exploiting others in their own party to then say some of whom are too uneducated or undereducated on these issues to then come along and compliantly follow the plan?

00:17:16.000 Yes.

00:17:16.000 So it's both, Russell, is the answer.

00:17:19.000 And I think that is why they are allergic.

00:17:21.000 I mean, they're having an anaphylactic reaction to an outsider like me.

00:17:26.000 I'll just give you a couple examples.

00:17:27.000 I'm not A person who spins up victimhood narratives and cries about it.

00:17:31.000 To the contrary.

00:17:32.000 I'm going to show up and I think we're going to win this thing.

00:17:35.000 But just to give you a sense for what type of allergic reaction.

00:17:38.000 At first they said, oh yeah, young guy, a little bit different.

00:17:41.000 It's a cute little addition to the race.

00:17:43.000 And we can brandish that as a, you know, a nice little trinket for the Republican party.

00:17:47.000 But now it turns out into the race.

00:17:48.000 Here I am.

00:17:50.000 They're doing everything in their power to shut me up.

00:17:51.000 I mean, you turn on mainstream media on a given day, you see the treatment that I'm able to get right now for my contrary informed policy views here to keep us in peace rather than in war.

00:18:03.000 That's a cardinal sin right now.

00:18:04.000 And you can see the establishment in both parties coming for me.

00:18:07.000 Super PACs, those are the cancer on American politics, the farce where they say there's limits on how much you can contribute to a campaign.

00:18:14.000 It's a lie.

00:18:15.000 There are no limits on how much the multi-billionaire class, frankly, that donates to both parties, is donating in this particular case to Republican potential candidates, propping them up.

00:18:25.000 There's closed door summits where they're deciding which candidate they're going to put up against Trump.

00:18:31.000 I'm not invited to those, but the Ron DeSantis' and Nikki Haley's of the world are sparring and begging these people licking their boots for money. 0.58

00:18:37.000 That's part of the corrupt system.

00:18:39.000 And then you see the kinds of things that are happening even at events that I'm going to.

00:18:43.000 This is one I haven't talked about publicly, but I'm here in Iowa on this trip just a few days ago.

00:18:49.000 I'm going on stage and everybody else is speaking at this event, right?

00:18:52.000 Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, I'm speaking.

00:18:55.000 You know, we get up on the back of a, on a stage in a room full of people in Iowa.

00:19:01.000 Literally, I can see it on my timer.

00:19:02.000 It's still like 30 seconds left before we go off.

00:19:04.000 Just for me, not for any other candidate.

00:19:06.000 And I mentioned some of these foreign policy views in that speech.

00:19:09.000 The music starts playing, like it's literally, they've got like blaring outgoing music, like I was supposed to walk out.

00:19:16.000 I just stayed on stage for the full song.

00:19:17.000 It was very, it was, it was enjoyably awkward, but you know, I, I wait till that finish and then I'm going to finish my speech and make sure people hear what I have to say.

00:19:26.000 But this is not going according to the plan of the establishment.

00:19:29.000 If a guy is defecting from the Republican party right now in the United States, Their goal is to suffocate this.

00:19:36.000 They don't want debate on the merits.

00:19:38.000 Because we win on the debate on the merits.

00:19:40.000 What should we be spending our money on?

00:19:41.000 National defense.

00:19:42.000 Protect your own borders. 0.56

00:19:44.000 I think that'd be good for Israel.

00:19:45.000 Protect its own borders. 0.87

00:19:46.000 But my job is to run for U.S.

00:19:47.000 President.

00:19:48.000 Protect our own borders.

00:19:50.000 I think it'd be good if the U.S.

00:19:51.000 didn't economically depend on China as much anymore.

00:19:54.000 Onshore production to this country.

00:19:56.000 But in the meantime, avoid catastrophic World War III, which is otherwise what we're barreling forward into.

00:20:02.000 And that's a foreign policy agenda that apparently the Republican Party, the Democrat Party alike, don't want an insurgent Canada to actually state in public.

00:20:11.000 And that's exactly what I'm doing.

00:20:13.000 And I think that's The first step to keeping us out of wars that don't advance our interest is actually embracing more speech, not less speech, more free speech and open debate.

00:20:22.000 And it's when they tell you to shut up that you have to actually grow the spine to actually be more vocal than ever.

00:20:28.000 That's our best chance to keeping our way out of this major conflict.

00:20:31.000 I can see why there would be an appetite to censor you with music or with not including you in super PAC conventions because you are an innovative and discursive thinker and, in my reckoning, precisely what's required within a Republican party that elsewise risks being captured by the same kind of militarist interests that have conventionally held sway, as you've explained beautifully, Vivek, over both parties.

00:21:00.000 When it comes to the historic conflict between Israel and Palestine now, of course I have sympathies to all of the parties directly involved and suffering as a result of that horrific war.

00:21:14.000 There's no question that throughout the history of that region, or at least certainly the relatively modern history, that it united kingdom interests, Corporate interest, US interest have made conflicts in that region a lot worse precisely because of the military-industrial complex relationships and the ability that energy companies and the military-industrial complex have had to assert and exert influence over American and, you know, 100 years ago, 50 years ago, UK foreign policy.

00:21:45.000 What's striking at this time, and perhaps the way that you say super PACs are set up and elections are sewn up and favoured political candidates are shut out, or people that are willing to speak out against the establishment speak out against censorship, speak out against wars that have not been correctly contemplated are shut down is perhaps because of

00:22:09.000 the size and scale of the influence of this awful monopoly that you just

00:22:13.000 described that collapsed from 50 organizations to just five. And you're right, the

00:22:18.000 relationships of potential opponents with military-industrial complex

00:22:21.000 companies should mean that they forego inclusion in any race for

00:22:26.000 office of the nature that you are currently pursuing. What I feel, Vivek, very

00:22:32.000 strongly is that potentially now the centrist political class, the kind of

00:22:36.000 the centrist political class, the kind of neocon candidates that are visible on both sides of the aisle,

00:22:39.000 neocon candidates that are visible on both sides of the aisle as opposed to

00:22:45.000 as opposed to the more radical, sometimes demagogic, innovative, charismatic figures that

00:22:53.000 are emerging that previously, presumably, would have been in the independent space,

00:22:57.000 in the case of RFKR, are perhaps the only chance that US politics, and therefore global politics,

00:23:04.000 have of pursuing a trajectory that seems to, by my reckoning, include the potential of world war as a favorable outcome,

00:23:13.000 as it's the kind of crisis that would permit the type of controls many believe we saw piloted

00:23:19.000 during the pandemic era.

00:23:21.000 It facilitates censorship, it facilitates lockdown, it facilitates the closing down of dissent.

00:23:27.000 Do you feel that if we have an election between party stooge candidates, Biden and whoever you would nominate as a stooge within your own party, that the advance towards war is inevitable because we'll be denied the possibility for proper conversations?

00:23:46.000 Is America, and indeed the world's only hope, to start considering Outsider candidates that are willing to speak out against their parties and to speak out against the kind of narratives that at the moment, it seems astonishing to me, aren't being questioned.

00:24:01.000 The possibility of alliance between China and Russia, terrifying.

00:24:05.000 The possibility of limitless escalation in the Middle East, terrifying.

00:24:09.000 The fact that we're bundling together funding without thinking about it, not to mention the fact that the military-industrial complex And America, as essentially their agent, sells arms to 57% of the autocracies in the world.

00:24:23.000 And even, it's potentially true, I'm sure you're aware of the CIA whistleblower that said maybe even Hamas's weapons were American-made, in office What would you do to match the invective of your campaigning to ensure that the military-industrial complex doesn't have that role in the world, given the importance of it and the power of the MIC in American political life?

00:24:46.000 It could be argued, many would argue, they're more powerful than either the Democrat Party or the Republican Party.

00:24:51.000 They dictate foreign policy.

00:24:53.000 Are you willing to oppose that and prevent arms being sent to autocratic nations and to stand up against those kind of organizations and their current Influence.

00:25:02.000 Now if you're watching this anywhere other than Rumble, Vivek Ramaswamy is about to comment on the, what he calls, this is his phrase and I don't know if it's a fair phrase to use, let me know if you agree, what he calls the Biden family and their criminal enterprises.

00:25:18.000 If you want to hear Vivek Ramaswamy talk about that and how it relates to the current Ukraine-Russia conflict, click the link in the description and join us there.

00:25:28.000 I mean, so you hit on a really important point, actually, which is the way in which we're often funding both sides of these conflicts and somebody else is making money off it.

00:25:37.000 It reminds me of Times Square, New York.

00:25:39.000 There was this guy that was selling, the guy who was selling an Israel flag and a Palestine flag to whoever wanted to buy it.

00:25:46.000 It's interesting that that guy in Times Square was making money from selling the flags.

00:25:50.000 People are buying from both sides of him.

00:25:51.000 But it's not that different than the military-industrial complex.

00:25:54.000 Even if you think about a conflict that nobody else, for whatever reason, seems to have any other interest in.

00:25:59.000 It's interesting how the good versus evil shows up in Russia versus Ukraine, but not in a different part of the Russian periphery in what's going on in Azerbaijan and Armenia.

00:26:07.000 And I'm not advocating U.S. 0.98

00:26:09.000 military involvement there at all, but it is interesting how nobody talks about how 120,000 Christians are being displaced in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, where Armenians live, back to Armenia as Azerbaijan's literally just rolled in and invaded.

00:26:22.000 But part of the uncomfortable fact is that the U.S.

00:26:26.000 has made for special exemptions that has sold and transferred arms, people making money off it, U.S.

00:26:30.000 allies, too, have armed Azerbaijan.

00:26:34.000 And so It's pervasive, this problem that you described.

00:26:38.000 And I know it's self-serving for a guy like me to say, no, this is why it takes an outsider, insurgent, anti-establishment candidate to win.

00:26:45.000 Like, this is an electoral pitch.

00:26:47.000 But I just think factually, me or somebody, it's got to be the case to be able to break this system.

00:26:52.000 Now, the reason I'm able to do it is that, and it's sad that it works this way.

00:26:57.000 It really is.

00:26:58.000 I wish it weren't this way.

00:27:00.000 But it's just a law of nature, Russell.

00:27:02.000 It's like a principle of physics.

00:27:05.000 This may be more immutable than some principles of physics, okay?

00:27:08.000 We went from Newtonian physics to, you know, an Einsteinian view to, you know, let's say a post-Einsteinian view today, string theory.

00:27:15.000 So even those things change.

00:27:16.000 This one doesn't change.

00:27:18.000 Every politician dances to the tune of their biggest donor.

00:27:23.000 Certainly in the U.S. 0.75

00:27:24.000 It's like a law of nature.

00:27:26.000 And in my case, that biggest donor is me.

00:27:29.000 I'm 38.

00:27:29.000 I've lived the full American dream.

00:27:30.000 I founded multi-billion dollar companies.

00:27:32.000 And so I don't want to be somebody else's circus monkey.

00:27:35.000 But unfortunately, that is what it takes.

00:27:38.000 It's not a system where anybody can step up and do this.

00:27:40.000 I wish it were.

00:27:41.000 But it doesn't work that way.

00:27:44.000 Politics is mother's milk. 0.99

00:27:45.000 It is money.

00:27:46.000 And so, one of the ways I'm able to do this, even getting shut out by the establishment media and otherwise now, it's one thing if I'm anti-woke and against the cult of racialism and transgenderism and even against some of the climate statements.

00:28:00.000 Okay, well that started to cross into really third rail territory.

00:28:04.000 But now, opposing these wars, that was the ultimate trigger that shuts me out of the mainstream.

00:28:09.000 So I'm spending time reaching people in roomfuls of 50, 60 people, 100, 200 people at a time in places like Iowa, where I've been in the last few days.

00:28:17.000 And my bet is that there's still some last vestige of the system where we, the people, can actually decide who governs, rather than having it decided in the back of palace halls, which is how it was done in Old World England.

00:28:30.000 But it's a myth to say that somehow that's not how it's done in modern America.

00:28:34.000 That's mostly how it's done in modern America, but there are slivers where we can exploit the crack.

00:28:39.000 And what I see is ordinary people across this country, they do not want to go to war.

00:28:44.000 Especially people in my generation.

00:28:46.000 I'm 38.

00:28:47.000 We grew up into the government lying to us about Iraq and Afghanistan.

00:28:51.000 $6.5 trillion.

00:28:52.000 See, the US has a $33 trillion national debt problem.

00:28:56.000 By the way, people forget that when they're signing up and sneezing $100 billion here, $100 billion there.

00:29:01.000 How about the backdrop of the fact that we're basically bankrupt to the tune of $33 trillion?

00:29:04.000 $33 trillion. But of that $33 trillion, $6.5 trillion was attributable just to Iraq and

00:29:11.000 Afghanistan and more than the money even.

00:29:14.000 Thousands upon thousands of our sons and daughters in this country, people my age and my generation, lives sacrificed that we will never get back.

00:29:22.000 We're on track to repeat those same mistakes all over again.

00:29:27.000 When I'm in roomfuls of people here, of actual citizens of this country, nobody wants to see that happen.

00:29:33.000 And yet the people who they've elected to office, through that broken, corrupted system are taking steps decisively to march us and make sure that same thing happens all over again.

00:29:44.000 And I just think that now is the time to debate these questions, right?

00:29:47.000 So let's just go into, for example, the Israel case which you raised.

00:29:51.000 There's a couple of different separate questions that I think we ought not conflate.

00:29:55.000 One question is that certain people will raise humanitarian questions or questions of proportionality or whatever.

00:30:03.000 I'm not even focused on that.

00:30:05.000 Put that to one side.

00:30:06.000 I think Israel does have the right to defend itself.

00:30:08.000 Absolutely.

00:30:09.000 You know, others may disagree with me on that.

00:30:12.000 Fine.

00:30:13.000 I'm on this side of the question.

00:30:14.000 Israel as a nation absolutely has the right to defend itself.

00:30:17.000 But I'm asking a different question, which is the one that they're actually even more

00:30:20.000 keen to suppress within the Republican Party.

00:30:23.000 Who says that this ground invasion is even going to be a good idea for Israel on its 0.92

00:30:29.000 terms of national self-defense?

00:30:31.000 Who said this is somehow ordained to succeed?

00:30:34.000 I think there are a lot of reasons to say it would not succeed, and that even if it does succeed nominally, what comes after Hamas? 0.87

00:30:43.000 That should not be beyond the pale to ask that question.

00:30:47.000 Should not be beyond the pale to ask how the heck did that security breach?

00:30:50.000 How the heck did that intelligence failure happen in the first place as well?

00:30:55.000 Those should be basic questions that are addressed now to say the money saved on a ground invasion, might that be better spent securing Israel's own border?

00:31:04.000 Just as we in the United States should be asking that question.

00:31:06.000 I went to the southern border of the U.S.

00:31:08.000 just a week and a week and a half ago.

00:31:10.000 I went to the northern border two weeks ago.

00:31:13.000 If that can happen in Israel, that can happen here in the United States. 0.96

00:31:16.000 And yet the irony is the same establishment that has led us into foreign wars from Iraq to Afghanistan to otherwise, has done nothing to protect this homeland.

00:31:26.000 You know, this woman by the name of Nikki Haley, she's actually calling for the Department of Defense in the U.S. 0.96

00:31:32.000 I'm not making this up.

00:31:34.000 I was here in Iowa at the same time.

00:31:36.000 She's calling for a Department of Offense. 0.81

00:31:39.000 I mean, that's ridiculous, right?

00:31:41.000 Now, I want you to use this. 0.97

00:31:43.000 I could care less for this particular individual, but she's a symptom of a deeper cancer in American politics. 0.99

00:31:49.000 And the donor class is now propping her up. 0.96

00:31:50.000 The mainstream media has decided that she should be the one opposing Donald Trump.

00:31:55.000 Just think about this for a second.

00:31:57.000 This is somebody who's saying the Department of Defense, which has badly failed to defend the American homeland, which is as vulnerable as it's ever been, is calling for, she's saying the quiet part out loud, make it a department of offense.

00:32:10.000 And by the way, this is the person who, after her short stint at the UN, started Or her family certainly did.

00:32:17.000 A military contracting business.

00:32:19.000 Made millions.

00:32:20.000 Went from being personally in debt to being a rich person.

00:32:23.000 Eight million some odd bucks made in the short time after the UN.

00:32:26.000 Joining the board of companies like Lockheed Martin.

00:32:29.000 And then now literally calling for a Department of Offense instead of a Department of Defense.

00:32:34.000 These people are bloodthirsty.

00:32:36.000 They're rooting for war.

00:32:37.000 What do these people screech? 0.98

00:32:38.000 She's screeching, finish them! 1.00

00:32:40.000 Finish them! 0.96

00:32:41.000 That's a slogan from Mortal Kombat, in case people forgot.

00:32:43.000 That's a video game.

00:32:44.000 Finishing them as though that's a model for American foreign policy.

00:32:48.000 Finish who?

00:32:49.000 They hide behind the smokescreen of saying they might mean Hamas without a clear strategy of what comes after Hamas.

00:32:57.000 But actually, it's not what they mean.

00:32:58.000 Finish them is purposefully vague.

00:32:59.000 Finish who?

00:33:00.000 It is the vague nebulous enemy.

00:33:02.000 Do they mean Iran?

00:33:03.000 Do they mean Russia?

00:33:05.000 And part of the point, I think, is to escalate for World War III.

00:33:09.000 And some of these people that, you know, the Biden family's in this category, I'd put the Haley family in this category.

00:33:14.000 When they pull the trigger, they ring the cash register for their own family.

00:33:18.000 I mean, Joe Biden, I think his son, their family sold off American foreign policy to make their family rich.

00:33:25.000 It is not an accident that we're sending We're sending billions, hundreds of billions of dollars to the very country that, huh, figure this one out, made a multi-million dollar bribe to the son of the president who had no business on Burisma's board.

00:33:42.000 I mean, this guy is barely qualified to do an ordinary job in this country, let alone to serve on the board of a Ukrainian energy company where he has no expertise, paid $5 million.

00:33:53.000 Is it an accident that when that same president or former vice president, now president, Is sending hundreds of billions of dollars of our taxpayer money to that same country?

00:34:03.000 It is not.

00:34:04.000 And I don't care if it's a Joe Biden version of this in the Democratic Party, a Nikki Haley version of this in the Republican Party, and it's symptomatic of other people in the Republican Party that have the same problem.

00:34:14.000 That's not good for the United States of America.

00:34:17.000 And Believe me, a lot of people in the establishment media, in the super PAC class, in the donor class, I can't tell you the number of, you know, potential backers I've lost over just saying the things I just told you there in that last 60 seconds.

00:34:29.000 But again, I'm not going to be somebody's circus monkey.

00:34:31.000 On a personal level, I would rather lose the election than to win by playing some careful political snakes and ladders.

00:34:37.000 But for the country, it's bad that the system works that way, because otherwise we're going to have somebody who's going to march us back into World War III, and I don't want to see that happen.

00:34:45.000 When you describe how immersed and institutionally corrupt both the Republican Party and Democratic Party are in terms of the kind of familial ties, their willingness to do the bidding of the military-industrial complex, and When you observe that in all likelihood the ability of the military-industrial complex to dictate foreign policy, even though it's harmful to American interests and potentially even the interests of their declared partners, that there's potentially an exploitative

00:35:20.000 Agenda that is both curiously familial in the case of Hunter Biden's opportunities with Burisma and potentially global when you think of Black Rock's post-Ukraine war in the event that there is a post-Ukraine war opportunities in rebuilding that nation as a kind of digital pilot scheme for a surveillance state.

00:35:39.000 Certainly one of the stories we've seen mooted.

00:35:42.000 Did it make you feel But these interests are so entrenched that you would have to enter the White House with a mandate to, for example, ban politicians in either the Republican and Democrat party from owning stocks and shares in companies that they regulate.

00:36:01.000 Certainly if they sit on special committees, you know, the kind of Nancy Pelosi type ability to be ahead of the market, that would have to be curtailed.

00:36:09.000 And perhaps even more terrifyingly, If not, I mean, for me, you talk about super PACs and stuff, but almost that, once in office, what do you do about donations?

00:36:20.000 What do you do about lobbying?

00:36:22.000 What do you do to prevent the United States operating as a kind of agent for the weapons industry when it comes to arms sales around the world?

00:36:30.000 Biden's famous lie about making Saudi Arabia a pariah before making their military capacity

00:36:35.000 a little higher with deals that went beyond any of the deals that Trump did, which were

00:36:39.000 condemned by the Democrats while Trump was in office.

00:36:46.000 These kind of policies, Vivek, are obviously much more incendiary than the rhetoric that

00:36:54.000 you're currently using.

00:36:55.000 And so are you willing to commit to policies like that, and indeed have you already?

00:37:00.000 And also, since you've been doing this, what has it done to you?

00:37:04.000 Since you've been running and having these conversations, what has it done to you spiritually?

00:37:08.000 What has it done to your feelings as a man?

00:37:13.000 You must have encountered things that are kind of damaging to encounter.

00:37:16.000 I'm not suggesting that you've been damaged by them.

00:37:18.000 I can see you're a very robust and strong person.

00:37:20.000 But what has it done to your kind of spirit to see, you know, even small things like they fade the music up to larger things like you're not invited to participate in that type of funding?

00:37:32.000 You know, that type of thing is almost, I almost laugh at that because that's exactly the system coming at me.

00:37:40.000 But the stuff that deals less with me, Russell, but an observation of now having the curtain lifted and seeing how the game actually works, that part has left me I would say it's a, it's a work in progress.

00:37:54.000 We're not, we're going to see this race through. 0.95

00:37:55.000 And so you're catching me probably halfway through this thing, right?

00:37:59.000 But it has left me cynical and jaded in a way that's not natural for me.

00:38:05.000 I'm a, I'm a naturally optimistic person.

00:38:07.000 And in my heart of heart, I still am optimistic for the future of this country, but it is, it's not, it doesn't leave you with the same optimistic Bullions, okay, that I began this campaign with. 0.89

00:38:24.000 And I think we're going to finish there.

00:38:25.000 We're going to get to that destination.

00:38:26.000 But I think having seen the game played the way that it is, having understood the expectations of how you're supposed to treat the super PAC puppet masters versus ordinary voters, just as a matter of the system, I'm not playing the game that way.

00:38:42.000 I hope I win this election.

00:38:43.000 My heart says we have a very good path to do it, but irrespective of me knowing that this is how the game works and kind of having seen it firsthand, it is discouraging.

00:38:54.000 No doubt about it.

00:38:55.000 It is deeply, it makes one deeply cynical.

00:38:58.000 It makes one jaded.

00:38:59.000 I mean, it makes a guy like me impulses, you know, that you have to sort of think about, okay, a guy like me has lived the full American dream, right?

00:39:07.000 I founded successful companies.

00:39:09.000 We've made, This country has given us the opportunity to achieve immense success and that includes wealth and we have two young sons.

00:39:18.000 One's three and a half years old, one's a year old.

00:39:19.000 My wife is doing outstanding work.

00:39:22.000 She's one of the best in the world at what she does as a throat surgeon. 1.00

00:39:24.000 We're living a great life with our family.

00:39:26.000 I mean, there are moments where you just wonder, Why bother?

00:39:31.000 We could just, we're going to be fine either way, really.

00:39:34.000 I mean, that's the reality for a lot of people who have been in the position that I'm in.

00:39:39.000 It's a reality for us.

00:39:40.000 We're going to be fine either way.

00:39:43.000 The country's not going to be fine.

00:39:44.000 And so that's what pulls me back into this, but there are moments that just make you think about if this is the way the game is played, screw it.

00:39:52.000 You know, why don't we just, why the heck don't you just opt out and just go live a better life for yourself?

00:39:58.000 And a lot of people who have achieved the kind of success that I have are making exactly that decision.

00:40:03.000 And it's sort of a jaded and cynical thing to watch.

00:40:06.000 But it's also part of what gives me my renewed sense of purpose.

00:40:08.000 Then you double back down and say, you know what?

00:40:11.000 If you're not going to do it, who else is?

00:40:12.000 You have a lot of good-hearted patriots in this country.

00:40:15.000 I meet them every day.

00:40:17.000 But money is the mother's milk of politics.

00:40:19.000 And if you've been given and blessed with the resources to be able to see this through, then if you don't do this now, I don't think we're going to have a country left.

00:40:25.000 And in some ways that cynicism comes back with a vengeance to come back and give me my redoubled sense of purpose

00:40:32.000 to see this through.

00:40:32.000 So on a personal level, that's kind of where you're catching me.

00:40:36.000 A little unstructured reflection, at least on that.

00:40:38.000 And I think it's something that will catch me three months from now and I'll let you know

00:40:43.000 how I feel about it.

00:40:45.000 As it relates to policies that I'm committing to, yeah, I think that this isn't that complicated, right?

00:40:49.000 So I don't think members of Congress or regulators or people who work in the federal bureaucracy should be able to trade personally individual stocks.

00:41:00.000 It should be all left to a blind trust.

00:41:03.000 They shouldn't know what they own or what they're trading at a given time.

00:41:07.000 It can come out with retrospect later.

00:41:10.000 That's the way that this should be done.

00:41:11.000 It's not complicated.

00:41:13.000 Now, I say this as somebody who began my career in the investment world.

00:41:17.000 I'm going to just state something obvious.

00:41:19.000 These congressmen and these bureaucrats, they would be better off financially if they weren't trading their own stocks, unless it was based on corrupt intentions, in which case they're going to do better. 0.91

00:41:30.000 That's the only way these people, these clowns, are going to do better than professional investors in a competitive market.

00:41:36.000 These are mostly clowns that would ordinarily, if they're behaving honestly, they would do better to leave their money invested In a blind trust by somebody who's not picking individual stocks or picking individual stocks without their knowledge, that would be the financially sensible decision, unless they were actually doing it and using their special access to information to be able to enrich themselves, which is exactly what's happening. 0.92

00:41:58.000 So I put an end to that. 0.88

00:42:00.000 No lobbying of the government.

00:42:01.000 For 10 years, at least, if you've been part of that government.

00:42:04.000 If you have been part of a bureaucracy or a regulator that has regulated an industry, you should not be able to serve on boards in that industry for at least 10.

00:42:14.000 Fine, let's at least make it five years after leaving office.

00:42:17.000 I think it's pathetic that you have a former head of the FDA immediately going and plopping on the board of Pfizer.

00:42:22.000 You see the same thing with the defense industrial complex. 0.87

00:42:25.000 You have a person like Nikki Haley, made special favors for Boeing in South Carolina while she was the governor of South Carolina.

00:42:34.000 After her time in government, she's now sitting, until this race, sitting on the board of Boeing.

00:42:38.000 In her particular case, for another company, collecting stock options while she is literally running for president.

00:42:45.000 As far as I know, that's unprecedented in U.S.

00:42:47.000 history.

00:42:47.000 Yet here we are.

00:42:49.000 These are basic rules of the road that should not be controversial.

00:42:51.000 And these aren't Republican ideas or Democrat ideas.

00:42:54.000 On the Super PACs, Democrats used to rail against them.

00:42:56.000 Now, they look the other way when they're the beneficiaries of the same game that the Republicans are playing.

00:43:02.000 My view is pretty simple.

00:43:03.000 If you're going to spend money on a campaign as an entity, or if you're going to run ads for a specific candidate, which is what a campaign does, then you're just bound by the same rules that the campaigns are.

00:43:15.000 $3,300 maximum.

00:43:16.000 Now, in the U.S., I'm a free speech absolutist.

00:43:19.000 I believe in free expression to the fullest.

00:43:22.000 but free expression means there's already rules that for certain other entities other than super PACs there are limitations to say you can't give to a candidate but you can advocate for whatever cause you want and you could put as much money into an entity that advocates for a specific cause a policy or a cultural vision there should be no restrictions on that but if you're advocating for a candidate And now the super PACs are literally running.

00:43:45.000 I mean, if you take a guy like Ron DeSantis, his entire campaign is literally being run down to operations to people who are knocking on doors or handing out leaflets or putting stuff in mail or advertising on television.

00:43:56.000 It's being run by the super PAC.

00:43:57.000 So if that's the case, that's corruption because obviously This is not disputed.

00:44:03.000 These people show up at events hosted by the super PACs to raise the money.

00:44:08.000 That's just running the campaign.

00:44:09.000 That's corruption.

00:44:09.000 The whole point of the $3,300 maximum in donating to a primary of a presidential election is to prevent a corrupting influence.

00:44:16.000 I would reinstitute that.

00:44:17.000 So those are what I would call my anti-corruption measures.

00:44:20.000 I've laid them out.

00:44:21.000 I'm absolutely committed to them.

00:44:22.000 And the irony is that the ideas that should be least controversial amongst Republicans and Democrats Thank you for that.

00:44:27.000 that are most controversial for a guy like me running within the primary, but I'm not

00:44:32.000 going to stop until we're done.

00:44:33.000 Thank you for that.

00:44:34.000 It's almost as if these institutions are organized to prevent individuals who might be ideologically

00:44:43.000 oriented, who might be in a position to make a meaningful difference, who might have the

00:44:48.000 personal confidence and principles to oppose the degree of corruption, be dissuaded from

00:44:55.000 ever entering the system.

00:44:57.000 In a sense, in a smaller, less relevant but comparable way, you see the same even in the entertainment industry.

00:45:04.000 The kind of products and commodities and individuals that succeed are the ones that are supportive of the The ideology of the time, even if that's a tacit ideology like materialism or progress or atheism or corporatism or consumerism.

00:45:24.000 I'm not even talking about like the hot button topics that define our time and that have become so divisive.

00:45:30.000 It's almost like the cultural machinery, the political machinery, are in alignment to sort of self-sustain, which I suppose

00:45:38.000 perhaps is a system's primary goal, is to prevent itself from being destroyed, particularly

00:45:44.000 from within. It seems though that we are at a tipping point that began, observably at

00:45:50.000 least, it seems in our country with the sort of Brexit movement, across Europe with anti-EU

00:45:57.000 parties that were opposed to measures taken after the 2008 financial crash. Trump evidently in

00:46:05.000 your country, and then that has progressed I think into figures like yourself and Bobby

00:46:11.000 Kennedy. Do you feel like what that tells us perhaps?

00:46:16.000 Is that the institutions themselves, even though when I talk to people that I respect and like, like Marianne Williamson, she would say, no, I have to do what I can for the Democrat Party within the Democrat Party.

00:46:26.000 Do you think that given the tide of corruption, the deep institutionalism, But really what is required is that, you know, let me ask you a host of things, you know, Bobby Kennedy's gone from trying to oppose Biden within the Democrats to running as an independent.

00:46:47.000 And several times you and I have both over this conversation, Vivek, observed That is a kind of neocon-centrist alliance that always comes together on matters of war even if they're willing to have highly invective spats when it comes to cultural issues.

00:47:06.000 When it comes to the major matters they fall in line.

00:47:09.000 Do you think that Even the apparent distinctions between Republican and Democrat are as not as radical as the distinction between anti-institutional thinkers from both parties and therefore is there an emerging sense that it's the machine itself that needs to be challenged which can only really happen from outside of it as it amounts to a kind of, well as you've said before and I agree with this, a revolutionary uprising.

00:47:38.000 Yeah, so look, I think the real divide in this country, it's interesting to use the word culturally incendiary invective.

00:47:46.000 The real cynical side of me, Russell, the more I'm seeing about this is thinking that all of it is in part just a production and a smokescreen to create the artifice of real disagreement or division That sidesteps the real third rail that they care to protect, which is the pro-war agenda from a foreign policy perspective.

00:48:11.000 Call it liberal hegemony, call it neoconservatism.

00:48:14.000 Two different ways of describing the same worldview.

00:48:18.000 And I think that's a big part of what's going on in moments like this one.

00:48:22.000 So, I think the real divide in the country, in the U.S.

00:48:25.000 today, it's not between black and white, as the media would at times have you believe.

00:48:30.000 It is not even between Republican and Democrat, not really.

00:48:34.000 It is between, in one version of this certainly, the managerial class.

00:48:40.000 And the everyday citizen.

00:48:42.000 Okay, what is the managerial class?

00:48:43.000 It is sort of the swamp that exists within government.

00:48:46.000 It's a horizontal class of people, the same people who become the undersecretary of God knows what in some deputy position of the bureaucracy of the federal government, who then become an associate dean of God knows what at a university, an ambassador to some second tier country abroad that then becomes the professional person who sits on on a corporate board of directors, the Lockheed directors

00:49:09.000 or the Raytheon directors on a given day. It's a horizontal class. It's the same class of people

00:49:15.000 that are crushing the will of everyday citizens by wielding control over the

00:49:20.000 institutions that they were supposed to safeguard but are actually exploiting to horizontally permeate

00:49:26.000 institutions and advance their own That's what you might call the Great Reset on one side.

00:49:32.000 It is the dissolution of barriers between the public sector and the private sector.

00:49:37.000 The dissolution of the barriers between nations, actually.

00:49:40.000 This is a trans-partisan, but transnational phenomenon as well.

00:49:44.000 The dissolution of boundaries, and we can talk about this in a little more philosophical, between the online world and the offline world.

00:49:51.000 That's what the metaverse is all about.

00:49:52.000 But it's the dissolution of boundaries between different spheres of our lives.

00:49:55.000 Let's stick to dissolution of boundaries between nations.

00:49:57.000 Dissolution of boundaries between public and private sector.

00:50:00.000 The dissolution of boundaries between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party.

00:50:03.000 That is what the Great Reset is really all about.

00:50:06.000 And then on the other side of this, you have what I call the Great Uprising, right?

00:50:12.000 I think that it's a transnational movement.

00:50:15.000 I am very focused on the U.S.

00:50:16.000 version of this.

00:50:17.000 That's the position I'm running for as President of the United States, who believe in the value of the nation, that I am a citizen of this nation, not some nebulous global citizen fighting climate change vaguely somewhere.

00:50:27.000 No, I'm a citizen of this nation, the United States of America.

00:50:30.000 It is an uprising that says hell no to the dissolution of boundaries between the public sector and private sector to create a modern form of fascism, a hybrid of corporate and state power.

00:50:40.000 So the military-industrial complex is all about, but it's really what big tech, big government is all about.

00:50:44.000 It's not big tech censorship, it is government tech censorship that does the bidding for that same force.

00:50:50.000 No, that says hell no to that vision that we, the people, decide who governs, how we settle our differences through free speech and open debate in the public square, not in the back of palace halls, not in Old World England, not in the back of a SuperPAC, not in the back of BlackRock's corner office on the Park Avenue of Manhattan today, not in the back of three-letter government agency buildings in Washington, D.C.

00:51:11.000 We say hell no to that vision.

00:51:12.000 That is what the American Revolution was fought to reject. 0.88

00:51:16.000 1776 vision said, for better or worse, and this is a crucial part of this, Russell.

00:51:21.000 For better or for worse, in the short run, we the people decide who leads and who governs.

00:51:31.000 Okay, that's a radical vision.

00:51:32.000 And so there's a lot of people in the U.S.

00:51:34.000 today, hey, say, hey, can't we all just get along, hold hands, sing Kumbaya, compromise?

00:51:38.000 No, these are Radical ideals that led to the birth of the United States of America.

00:51:43.000 The idea that you get to speak your mind openly as long as I get to in return.

00:51:47.000 That is a radical idea.

00:51:49.000 The idea that we the people sort out our differences on existential climate change, which I'm using their words, not mine.

00:51:56.000 The idea that we the people could settle that difference through a constitutional republic.

00:52:01.000 That is a wild idea because for most of human history it was done the other way.

00:52:04.000 So what you see really is a skepticism of the ideals of the American Revolution itself.

00:52:11.000 That's what's on the table right now.

00:52:14.000 I think we live in a 1776 moment.

00:52:16.000 I do.

00:52:18.000 And if that makes you uncomfortable a little bit, Good.

00:52:22.000 That's what the American Revolution was not fought to make people feel comfortable.

00:52:27.000 Right?

00:52:27.000 These are radical ideals that we have to, at times, take quantum leap steps, not just moderate steps, to fight and preserve.

00:52:37.000 And that's one of those moments we live in right now.

00:52:37.000 Fight for and preserve.

00:52:41.000 And I think it's going to take a leader that recognizes that.

00:52:44.000 You can't win a war unless you first recognize that you're in one.

00:52:48.000 And so I think it's going to take a leader who, A, recognizes that.

00:52:52.000 B, is not captured by the forces that gave us the status quo.

00:52:57.000 But I think that this is the other further step in this, Russell.

00:53:00.000 And, you know, I think that, you know, Trump brought elements of this.

00:53:02.000 And I respect him, actually.

00:53:04.000 I think he was a great leader in many respects.

00:53:06.000 There are other areas where I would build on that foundation and go further.

00:53:09.000 But I think it's going to take a leader who hasn't been wounded in that war.

00:53:13.000 And so that's what calls me into this.

00:53:15.000 I think it's going to take somebody with fresh legs, likely from a different generation to reach the next generation.

00:53:22.000 And we'll see where this goes.

00:53:24.000 I think that that's what it's going to take.

00:53:25.000 And there's a positive version of where this goes.

00:53:28.000 I think that in some ways, what a special time it would have been to be alive in America in the spring of 1776.

00:53:33.000 I mean, that, that would be a, it was a special time to be alive.

00:53:38.000 You have Thomas Jefferson.

00:53:40.000 I'm sitting here on a swivel chair.

00:53:41.000 You can see me swiveling, right?

00:53:43.000 Thomas Jefferson invented the swivel chair, the prototype of it while he was writing the declaration of independence at the age of 33.

00:53:49.000 Think about that.

00:53:51.000 There was something in the water back then.

00:53:53.000 I am optimistic that we live in a moment where we can revive the ideals of that American Revolution.

00:54:01.000 I favor doing it through peace, through activation of the energy of citizens that say hell no to that great reset in the peaceful version of a great uprising that does it through our electoral system and restores the integrity of our constitutional republic.

00:54:19.000 But if it doesn't happen that way, you know, I think That's the way I want to see it happen.

00:54:24.000 Let me just leave it at that.

00:54:25.000 I think that that's the moment we live in.

00:54:27.000 And that's what I'm looking to lead through a peaceful version of a great uprising that restores the integrity of our constitutional republic.

00:54:37.000 Vivek, when a figure like Jefferson enters into mythology, we do have a tendency to forget that they were real men.

00:54:46.000 Real people that had a real vision that they were willing to sacrifice for in order to bring about.

00:54:54.000 And it seems to me that part of the pervasive culture of our time is, except for matters that relate very directly to individualism and your ability to passively consume or passively protest without sacrifice, there's a kind of sense that the world is finished.

00:55:10.000 The famous edict that history is over.

00:55:14.000 And a kind of worldwide sense now that we're in a world where most terrain has been captured, most peaks have been scaled, many depths have been explored, that the world is over, that we've reached full saturation, that our role and our final apparition As consumers has been reached.

00:55:35.000 When we've spoken before, I've noticed in your rhetoric a kind of appetite to reawaken and revivify the principles of the founding fathers.

00:55:46.000 That kind of boldness, a willingness to embark on a brave adventure, an acknowledgement that that's going to be fraught with danger.

00:55:54.000 And when I listen to certain, sort of in particular, independent news commentators talking about the scale of corruption that we experienced during the pandemic when even in our conversation today the scope and potential for disaster that the march towards world war three plainly includes that it that what's required is a kind of firstly a revolution in consciousness when it comes to

00:56:19.000 Us all, as individuals, a willingness to look at our own lives and what motivates us and where do we see ourselves in five, ten years, both personally and on a global scale.

00:56:29.000 Obviously, I've had experiences lately working independent media where I see that the consequence and price of dissent, that dissenting voices will face serious opposition and sometimes that can be quite malign.

00:56:44.000 It's hard without scaring people.

00:56:46.000 It's hard without evoking the connotations of violence, which I noticed that you carefully stepped around, to awaken in people that this is a plain need.

00:56:56.000 This time we live in plainly has the kind of need for revolution The time that you alluded to and the people that you alluded to saw and were willing to carry out.

00:57:07.000 I suppose, though, that what we have to accept is those revolutions, whilst it was obviously a different time with different institutions and different challenges and different technology and ability to communicate, obviously revolution as part of its nature means an Overthrow of many institutions.

00:57:23.000 And when, you know, many of the things we've touched on, a military-industrial complex that's willing to risk the lives of the people of the world, the safety of the people of the world, Big Pharma, which I know you have connections to, but when we spoke previously you, you know, you said that you're an outlier and a radical in that world rather than a sort of a compliant member of a corrupt system.

00:57:40.000 That, you know, when you have Big Pharma that benefits from health crises, a military-industrial complex that benefits from military crises or wars, when you have an Energy companies that benefit from energy crisis.

00:57:51.000 It's plain that something rather radical is what's required.

00:57:55.000 When was the last time anything like that happened in your country?

00:57:58.000 Was it the revolution?

00:57:59.000 Was it the New Deal?

00:58:01.000 Is it possible that these institutions with a compliant and amplifying legacy media will provide a voice to a man like you who's willing to put these ideas in front of people and indeed, if you pursue these ideas to their natural conclusion, You're going to come up against interests that go beyond financial and go into some areas of deep state power that are pretty frightening to contemplate.

00:58:25.000 And I'm sure you've come into contact with some of the information I'm referring to there.

00:58:29.000 So how far are you willing to go when it comes to revolutionary politics?

00:58:37.000 You know, I want to also just say, I think that there's something to, just for people to know about my own background, I was an entrepreneur, right?

00:58:44.000 I mean, I'm not, I'm a business builder.

00:58:47.000 I've written some books.

00:58:48.000 This political world, or even the world of political revolution, that's not where I grew up, right?

00:58:55.000 I came to my views because of my experiences.

00:58:59.000 And one of the things I would say is, you know, people will say, or some of the things you say, do they sound conspiratorial?

00:59:04.000 Actually, I'm very different than even visionary conspiracy theorists.

00:59:09.000 What I'm describing is not conspiracy theory.

00:59:12.000 It is mundane conspiracy reality.

00:59:15.000 The real conspiracy theories are just the reality is hiding in plain sight.

00:59:21.000 I think pragmatically, Russell, to win this, I think it is going to take, I know this sounds self-serving to say, weirdly self-serving, and I don't mean it that way.

00:59:29.000 It's why I'm doing what I'm doing.

00:59:31.000 I think it takes somebody like me, who understands the other side of how this game is played, understands the mundane realities of actually the merger between state and corporate power and the corruption that that creates on both sides, to be able to really be precise in how we level that system.

00:59:49.000 And that's what it's going to take.

00:59:50.000 So here's what I'm willing to do, right?

00:59:52.000 I think that I'm in this, I'm all in this for the phase of this.

00:59:57.000 And I hope that this is the only phase that's ever required to do this.

01:00:02.000 Peacefully, through the electoral process, get in there, have enough of a mandate to shut down, and I do think that, yes, this is the revolutionary aspect of what I will bring to the table as U.S.

01:00:13.000 President, to shut down the government bureaucracies from the FBI to the IRS to the ATF to the CDC to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to the U.S.

01:00:23.000 Department of Education.

01:00:25.000 Government agencies that should not exist.

01:00:26.000 I've offered, these aren't slogans to me, in speeches I've given in Washington D.C.

01:00:30.000 and elsewhere, laid out unprecedented detailed plans for exactly how we will do this.

01:00:35.000 Phasing out the FBI, 35,000 employees, 20,000 will be fired, 15,000 will be reassigned.

01:00:41.000 What's the legal basis for doing it?

01:00:43.000 I've studied the current Supreme Court.

01:00:45.000 We're in a short window where we have a Supreme Court in the U.S.

01:00:48.000 that actually agrees with me.

01:00:49.000 On the unconstitutionality of much of what's being done and the constitutionality of a U.S.

01:00:54.000 president's ability to correct for it.

01:00:56.000 I win that 6-3 even if we're sued.

01:00:58.000 So that's the kind of battle I'm looking to go into is win this electoral battle, take battle against the deep state as the person who actually leads the executive branch of the government.

01:01:07.000 I've been a CEO.

01:01:08.000 I know that if somebody works for you and you can't fire them, That means they don't work for you, and I will exercise my power to gut that bureaucracy.

01:01:17.000 75% headcount reduction by the end of my first term.

01:01:21.000 Will they sue me for it?

01:01:22.000 Yes, it is.

01:01:23.000 We'll go to the legal battle.

01:01:24.000 I've studied the Supreme Court.

01:01:25.000 I understand the backstop of how we win.

01:01:28.000 That's what I'm signing up to lead, okay?

01:01:31.000 I am worried that if we don't seize this window to do it, I don't think we're working with a lot of time here, where either on one hand what we're going to have is a hegemonic combination of a corporate industrial complex, a modern version of the corporate state power, what we would call the Mussolini definition of fascism that governs, or something more that will be required to prevent that from happening.

01:01:55.000 And we're not... I'm an optimist, as you said, Russell.

01:01:59.000 I'm here to make sure we don't get there.

01:02:02.000 I've said this actually time and time again.

01:02:04.000 You tell people they cannot speak, that is when they scream.

01:02:09.000 If you tell people they cannot scream, that is when they tear things down.

01:02:14.000 And if pervasive government-private coordinated censorship suppression of the exercise of voice continues, I do worry that January 6th in this country will be a preview of 2021, will be a friendly parlay compared to what's to come.

01:02:28.000 But I am here to make sure we don't get there.

01:02:30.000 And so I'm all in for leading this now.

01:02:34.000 I think now is our moment to do it.

01:02:36.000 To Peacefully revive the ideals of the American Revolution.

01:02:40.000 I think we can do this.

01:02:41.000 I think that's the moment that we are in.

01:02:44.000 That's what I'm volunteering to lead.

01:02:45.000 I don't even relish being in the White House, by the way, right?

01:02:49.000 I mean, or riding Air Force One.

01:02:51.000 I don't think we should want somebody who relishes it.

01:02:54.000 You know, it's not that much of an upgrade from what I've been doing for the last several years anyway.

01:02:58.000 And I think that's, frankly, you don't want somebody who covets that position.

01:03:01.000 I don't.

01:03:02.000 But we're going to do it for eight years.

01:03:04.000 I'll be 48 years old when I leave in January 2033.

01:03:07.000 My older son won't be in high school.

01:03:09.000 And I think we will look back at this moment we were in now and laugh at ourselves.

01:03:13.000 That's what I'm hopeful we're going to get to.

01:03:15.000 It's just fast forward to January 2033.

01:03:18.000 10 years from now, we will look back and say, man, we were going through our version of adolescence.

01:03:23.000 That's what I want us to be saying.

01:03:25.000 You go through your adolescent years as a country. 1.00

01:03:28.000 You do some stupid things. 1.00

01:03:29.000 You lose your self-confidence. 1.00

01:03:32.000 You lose your way a little bit.

01:03:33.000 But we're stronger when we get to our adulthood on the other side.

01:03:37.000 That's the journey I believe we can be on.

01:03:41.000 That's what I want to say when I'm leaving the White House in January of 2033.

01:03:44.000 And so I want to stick to that path.

01:03:46.000 I think we have a clear shot at doing it.

01:03:49.000 I think we have clear objectives for success in this election.

01:03:52.000 And I mean, this election that's pedestrian.

01:03:55.000 I'm talking about that because I'm a candidate.

01:03:56.000 Fine.

01:03:56.000 But November 2024, that's not the destination.

01:04:00.000 That is the start line.

01:04:01.000 I think we have then an eight-year run after that to get this right, starting with the mother of all bureaucracies in the U.S.

01:04:07.000 federal government itself.

01:04:08.000 Anti-corruption measures for decoupling the private sector from the public.

01:04:12.000 Democracy and capitalism should not share the same bed.

01:04:15.000 They need a clean divorce. 1.00

01:04:17.000 Some social distancing, to use the parlance of the day.

01:04:20.000 That's what we need.

01:04:21.000 But if we get this right, yes, I'm confident that we will look at ourselves and this will go down as a phase in history where we were going through some deranged adolescence, but we found our way to revive who we really are.

01:04:34.000 I think that opportunity exists and I'm keen to make sure we capture it, but I don't think we're working with a lot of time, Russell, because I think the other path leads to some places where I don't want to see this country go.

01:04:44.000 Yeah, I agree with you and I thank you for elevating the calibre of the conversation with your personal integrity and your passion and vision, Vivek.

01:04:54.000 Thank you for that.

01:04:56.000 Now, what do you feel about the recent guilty plea of Trump's former legal advisers?

01:05:05.000 Is this the end of the road for Trump?

01:05:08.000 Is this something that's going to stick?

01:05:10.000 How 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 Not as with Trump before you, to malign and marginalise.

01:05:27.000 Where do you think Trump goes now?

01:05:29.000 Do you think this is a significant moment for him?

01:05:32.000 And how do you manage showing enough support for Trump, for the many people who adore him, as well as establishing a point of difference?

01:05:44.000 Well, 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.

01:05:56.000 That gives me a special responsibility to actually say, you know what?

01:06:00.000 Would I have been as vocal on defending Trump if they weren't going after him?

01:06:04.000 Probably not, but I have a special responsibility to because these prosecutions are unjust.

01:06:10.000 We could talk about the legal mechanics of any given one of the cases.

01:06:13.000 I 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.

01:06:33.000 And that's a violation of the rule of law.

01:06:35.000 It's a violation of what the spirit of this country was founded on.

01:06:38.000 And that's not a threat to Trump, that's a threat to this country, is what this is.

01:06:42.000 It'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.

01:06:54.000 And not just Trump, anybody else who's been a victim of a politically motivated persecution through prosecution of somebody else.

01:07:01.000 Under 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.

01:07:11.000 You know, I've given a whole long list of people who we would go down.

01:07:14.000 Edward Snowden is a different case because he wasn't prosecuted, but the clemency of a particular kind, Ross Ulbricht I've talked about.

01:07:20.000 So we would go down the list.

01:07:23.000 Irrespective of Democrat or Republican.

01:07:25.000 But this is, I bring those names up because it's for me about more than just Trump.

01:07:29.000 It's about preserving the integrity of our justice system itself.

01:07:33.000 And so to call a spade a spade, here's what's going on.

01:07:36.000 You 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.

01:07:46.000 And I truly believe they will stop at nothing to make sure that this man is stopped in his tracks.

01:07:52.000 And they're using every mechanism of the so-called justice system and every other lever they have to do it.

01:07:58.000 Now, what are some of the lessons I take away from that?

01:08:01.000 Well, look, I'm a different person from Trump.

01:08:03.000 I come from a different generation.

01:08:05.000 I've got fresh legs.

01:08:07.000 One of the lessons is we cannot make this easy for them, right?

01:08:11.000 We have to hold ourselves.

01:08:12.000 That's what I'm doing in this race to the highest possible standard at every step.

01:08:17.000 I've done that in my life so far.

01:08:18.000 I'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.

01:08:25.000 Look, I'm living my life and we will aspire to in the white house. 0.77

01:08:28.000 I 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.

01:08:35.000 I 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.

01:08:40.000 But 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.

01:08:46.000 I want the people of this country to hold me to that same high standard.

01:08:49.000 And 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.

01:09:00.000 Well, 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.

01:09:10.000 We have to hold ourselves to not the standard of being good, doing a good job, but it has to be impeccable.

01:09:18.000 It's just the way that it works.

01:09:19.000 It's not an even-handed game.

01:09:21.000 They 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.

01:09:27.000 But that's part of the standard that I got to hold myself to.

01:09:30.000 And 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.

01:09:38.000 And that's what we're just going to have to do to be able to see this through.

01:09:42.000 Now, conversations like this are becoming increasingly difficult because everywhere you look, cancellations are taking place.

01:09:49.000 First they came from people no one cared about, like maybe Milo or Alex Jones.

01:09:53.000 I know loads of you do care about Milo and Alex Jones.

01:09:56.000 Then the fog of cancellation crept everywhere.

01:09:59.000 Creating a crisis where no one felt they could speak freely.

01:10:02.000 Where fear reigns supreme.

01:10:04.000 How do they benefit from creating a climate of absolute fear?

01:10:08.000 Is that the climate crisis we should really be concerned about?

01:10:12.000 The climate of all pervasive terror?

01:10:15.000 Even Jon Stewart now can't speak openly on Apple because of his views on AI and China.

01:10:20.000 Here's the news?

01:10:21.000 Here's the effing news.

01:10:21.000 No.

01:10:23.000 Thanks for refusing Fox News.

01:10:25.000 No.

01:10:25.000 The news.

01:10:26.000 Here's the effing news.

01:10:28.000 Apple are cancelling Jon Stewart.

01:10:31.000 Is it because he's critical of China, which are necessary for their manufacturing process and entire business model?

01:10:37.000 And AI, which are necessary for their entire business model?

01:10:40.000 Or is it for some other reason that's not related to money and corruption?

01:10:45.000 Now 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.

01:10:53.000 It's very difficult to stop.

01:10:54.000 First 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.

01:11:00.000 Then it ends up being more and more people that used to be mainstream, anyone?

01:11:03.000 Spring to mind.

01:11:05.000 And then at the very end of the process, well not the end of the process because I'm sure it will continue, Jon Stewart.

01:11:10.000 Valid 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.

01:11:23.000 Now Apple, who would have seen the acquisition of Jon Stewart's show as a kind of blue chip Acquisition, something that made their streaming service reliable and credible, are having to get rid of him.

01:11:34.000 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?

01:11:40.000 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.

01:11:51.000 And certainly the big tech companies like Apple, Facebook, Google, etc.

01:11:55.000 are in that transcendent big tech realm.

01:11:57.000 So 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.

01:12:09.000 If you start asking serious questions about Apple's business practices, you're going to come up with some answers that require intervention.

01:12:16.000 So in the end, you can't have Jon Stewart.

01:12:18.000 At least Apple can't have Jon Stewart.

01:12:20.000 They've cancelled him.

01:12:21.000 Let's have a look at that.

01:12:22.000 We worked hard on this!

01:12:30.000 Obviously they conveyed it as a sort of a serious piece of punditry.

01:12:33.000 Jon Stewart, very respected for his willingness to go out on a limb and talk about the Wuhan lab leak story, for example.

01:12:39.000 He might not be on the same side of the aisle as a lot of you, but Jon Stewart, in my opinion, has a great deal of integrity.

01:12:45.000 That's why he won't be allowed on Apple for very long at all.

01:12:48.000 He's not allowed on it anymore.

01:12:49.000 But where will this end?

01:12:50.000 Let's see how the legacy media reported on this.

01:12:53.000 Jon Stewart's Apple TV show The Problem with Jon Stewart is done after two seasons.

01:12:58.000 Staff members say Stewart told them last night he and Apple executives agreed to pull the plug.

01:13:03.000 The 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.

01:13:14.000 Oh, the subject matter.

01:13:15.000 I wonder what subjects matter.

01:13:18.000 The planned topics included China, Israel, and AI.

01:13:22.000 Okay.

01:13:22.000 So, John, what are you going to be talking about on the next series?

01:13:26.000 Mm-hmm.

01:13:28.000 Just one moment, please.

01:13:31.000 Have Jon Stewart killed?

01:13:33.000 Sorry, what was that?

01:13:34.000 No, I'm saying we're not making the show anymore, but God, it's been great working with you.

01:13:37.000 You're very brave.

01:13:38.000 I mean, it's not me.

01:13:39.000 I wish it was up to me.

01:13:39.000 We just can't.

01:13:40.000 You know how it is, Jon.

01:13:41.000 Because remember, all of these shows and platforms have to look credible.

01:13:45.000 They have to look like they're telling you the truth.

01:13:47.000 Like, that's why when you watch regular news on CNN or BBC, dum-dum-dum-dum-dum, hello, it's the news.

01:13:53.000 This isn't just a TV show that's ultimately funded by Big Pharma.

01:13:53.000 This is serious.

01:13:57.000 What we're doing now is important, and I'm definitely wearing pants under this desk. 0.99

01:14:01.000 Shut up. 0.95

01:14:02.000 Apple TV Plus' 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. 0.98

01:14:10.000 The problem with Jon Stewart is they've run out of subjects that aren't offensive to Apple's business model.

01:14:14.000 The problem with Jon Stewart is one of the shows is about China next time.

01:14:17.000 Yeah, we can't do that because all of our products are, how do we put this delicately, made in China.

01:14:23.000 China.

01:14:24.000 Despite 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.

01:14:35.000 That'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.

01:14:43.000 And these are usually subjects 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.

01:14:55.000 Well, why don't you both carry on and leave each other the hell alone? 0.96

01:14:58.000 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.

01:15:08.000 Unless, of course, you had some version of society where ordinary people were slaughtered en masse and autonomous machines could take over the roles, but there's no suggestion that that's going on anywhere.

01:15:17.000 And if it is, you're not going to see it discussed on Apple TV, who would probably financially benefit from such a horrific dystopia.

01:15:24.000 You have 20 seconds to comply.

01:15:26.000 The signs of a rift started to emerge as reports surfaced about Apple getting antsy over Stewart's guest lineup on the problem with Jon Stewart.

01:15:34.000 However, the fulcrum of the controversy seems to revolve around Stewart's plan to tackle issues such as artificial intelligence and China, which Apple reportedly flagged as contentious.

01:15:42.000 The sudden faltering of the show, which was due to start shooting soon, caught the production team off guard.

01:15:48.000 And until they can be replaced with Apple style robots, you can't have that show.

01:15:52.000 And also you would have to replace John as well.

01:15:54.000 But they're working on all of that.

01:15:56.000 Default setting.

01:15:57.000 Crush.

01:16:00.000 Apple'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.

01:16:12.000 Although there's no evidence that they care about limbo dancing at all.

01:16:15.000 When it comes to censorship of content in particular, Apple is happy to oblige the Chinese government in order to compete in the Chinese market.

01:16:22.000 Do 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?

01:16:31.000 Until you see that, what you've got is nothing.

01:16:34.000 Part of their ingenuity with the kind of products that we all love, the brilliance, aren't they ergonomic?

01:16:38.000 And God, Weren't they well marketed?

01:16:40.000 Inclusive, diverse, cool products that connect you across the world.

01:16:44.000 I'm on a skateboard.

01:16:45.000 I've got great hair.

01:16:46.000 But the truth is Apple don't care about any of those things I'm going to offer you.

01:16:50.000 They care actually about profit margins.

01:16:53.000 And 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 colored exclusive livery and paraphernalia.

01:17:05.000 We'll be marched right out the door quicker than you can say Tiananmen Square.

01:17:09.000 This latest incident can be seen as an instance of corporate arm-twisting to possibly cloak any criticism or controversial discourse that might jeopardise its strategy.

01:17:18.000 Reports 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.

01:17:28.000 What's Jon Stewart supposed to do?

01:17:30.000 And now, China!

01:17:31.000 What a great country that is!

01:17:32.000 For workers.

01:17:33.000 And certainly there's no issue with the Uyghur population who haven't been put into concentration camps. 1.00

01:17:39.000 And certainly there's no child labor going on, which is a necessary byproduct of affordable devices that are ruining your life.

01:17:47.000 Stewart didn't bow down to Apple's suppressive demands.

01:17:50.000 He chose to assert his commitment to open discourse and freedom of speech by walking away from the show rather than compromising on the content.

01:17:56.000 The 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.

01:18:05.000 However, it does underline the inherent conflict between corporate interests and the freedom of speech.

01:18:09.000 Yeah, there is an inherent conflict.

01:18:12.000 And in fact, when we talk about globalism here, we mean the conflation of these interests.

01:18:16.000 When 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.

01:18:29.000 One, the population of a country can't prevent it, prohibit it, vote against it.

01:18:33.000 And two, it's happening in numerous countries simultaneously across the world.

01:18:37.000 And you see simultaneous legislature passed to support this evident agenda, as with the many current censorship bills brought about by the censorship industrial complex.

01:18:46.000 What you have is entirely at odds, not just with free speech, but with humanity itself.

01:18:51.000 Free speech is just one of those principles that we'd all agreed was a non-negotiable.

01:18:56.000 Even though we all recognize it could lead to conflict and people's feelings being hurt and listen to stuff you don't agree with.

01:19:02.000 In fact, that's the whole point of it.

01:19:04.000 Once 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.

01:19:12.000 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.

01:19:23.000 It'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.

01:19:39.000 I 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.

01:19:50.000 People lobbying, rallying even, for war and conflict in that region.

01:19:55.000 What's that going to do to those corporate interests?

01:19:57.000 Do they benefit from war?

01:19:58.000 I mean, it just presents us with a lot of questions.

01:20:00.000 Questions that Jon Stewart will not be analysing on his Apple show because Apple don't want those questions asked or discussed there.

01:20:07.000 At the time of writing, Apple has yet to give a reason for the cancellation.

01:20:11.000 Why are people assuming that the reason for Jon Stewart's show's cancellation is connected to China?

01:20:15.000 Could it be some of these reasons?

01:20:17.000 The nature of Apple's relationship with China.

01:20:20.000 As Apple and its flagship iPhone have grown to global dominance over the past two decades, much of that has come with the help of... Comments?

01:20:31.000 It's China. 0.90

01:20:32.000 Like a certain little cold that really made its mark like Beatlemania, the problem started in China. 0.91

01:20:32.000 China! 0.91

01:20:38.000 China!

01:20:39.000 Consider the following.

01:20:40.000 Over 95% of iPhones, AirPods, Macs and iPads are still made in China.

01:20:47.000 Oh! 0.60

01:20:48.000 In the second quarter of this year, more iPhones were sold in China than in any other country, including the US.

01:20:55.000 Oh, so it's their most important market.

01:20:57.000 Last year, about 90% of Apple's total revenue came from China!

01:21:02.000 And it was 74 billion dollars.

01:21:05.000 Okay, so there are some financial imperatives.

01:21:08.000 I mean, Apple is one of those things that's so bloody enormous we can't even really think about the scale of it.

01:21:13.000 You can't conceive of Apple.

01:21:15.000 That'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. 1.00

01:21:24.000 Just 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.

01:21:28.000 We are on the side of children digging for cobalt in Congo.

01:21:33.000 Well, actually, if you've got an iPhone, you are on that side and I've got an iPhone.

01:21:37.000 One of the other contentious subjects that Jon Stewart is due to discuss in his now cancelled show is AI.

01:21:42.000 So what's the relationship between Apple and AI?

01:21:45.000 Of course, their products will presumably deploy AI, but is there anything else?

01:21:49.000 Apple are part of a group of Silicon Valley companies helping the Pentagon in the AI arms race.

01:21:54.000 Oh, well, just Silicon Valley and an arms race.

01:21:57.000 Nothing that heavy going on.

01:21:58.000 Just a race made out of nuclear missiles and stuff that's going to kill everyone. 0.99

01:22:03.000 Nothing that contentious.

01:22:04.000 The Pentagon Silicon Valley Defense Innovation Unit recently appointed Doug Beck, a vice president of Apple Inc., as its new director.

01:22:12.000 Someone that used to work for Apple, working at the Pentagon now?

01:22:12.000 What?

01:22:15.000 That's not what happens.

01:22:17.000 Oh, wouldn't you like to see Jon Stewart's take on that?

01:22:19.000 Yeah, I would actually.

01:22:20.000 I think Jon Stewart would be incisive, come up with some brilliant jokes about it.

01:22:24.000 Not on Apple, he doesn't.

01:22:25.000 Beck, 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.

01:22:37.000 All right, 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.

01:22:46.000 Can 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?

01:23:02.000 And thankfully, the Lord, whichever one I was praying to, appears to have answered.

01:23:05.000 Apple presents itself, doesn't it, as a very modern company.

01:23:09.000 Of course it has to do that.

01:23:11.000 It's about technology.

01:23:12.000 It's one of the companies that's used to mythologise and instantiate that living myth.

01:23:17.000 But we are moving in the right direction.

01:23:19.000 Through technology, through medicine, we're progressing. 1.00

01:23:22.000 Look at those cavemen imbeciles. 1.00

01:23:24.000 Look at those Russoian nutjobs, living in copses, gathering berries, hunting for elk, bloody fools. 1.00

01:23:31.000 We believe in the idea of progress and Apple, perhaps more than any other brand on the planet, represents that progress. 0.99

01:23:38.000 Now, as long as you don't question human history or look at evidence for other civilizations or other crackpot whackjob theories, that myth is a binding one.

01:23:46.000 All of us are supposed to accept that we're moving in this direction.

01:23:49.000 Things are getting better.

01:23:50.000 In spite of the evidence, crumbling institutions, increasing tensions, things are getting better.

01:23:55.000 As 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.

01:24:04.000 One that has in it many principles that I would support, i.e.

01:24:06.000 you should be able to express yourself however you want to as long as you don't hurt other people.

01:24:09.000 Values that I think most people agree with.

01:24:11.000 But those too have become oddly contentious.

01:24:13.000 The 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.

01:24:25.000 The truth is is actually quite unappealing.

01:24:28.000 And 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.

01:24:41.000 But what other woke problems do we have?

01:24:43.000 And where does this issue of censorship end if indeed this is a form of censorship?

01:24:47.000 Apple, one of the woke corporations, continues to use slave labour in China to make its products a 2021 report show. 0.58

01:24:54.000 If you were woke, and by woke you mean you care about moral, ethical, humanitarian issues, you probably wouldn't use slave labour, I suppose.

01:25:02.000 Executive Officer Tim Cook has categorically denied the technology firm's sources from Chinese companies that use Uyghur slave labour in its production lines. 1.00

01:25:09.000 Last 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.

01:25:16.000 Mr Cook replied, Forced labour is abhorrent and we will not tolerate it in Apple.

01:25:21.000 I agree completely.

01:25:23.000 But an investigative report from the website The Information shows seven Apple suppliers have been accused of using slave labor.

01:25:30.000 So I wonder if there'll be an investigation.

01:25:32.000 Hopefully the legacy media are even now sending hundreds of investigators over there to do thorough talk to everyone involved.

01:25:38.000 Make 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.

01:25:45.000 At this point, it's just an accusation.

01:25:47.000 So get investigating, guys.

01:25:48.000 The 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.

01:25:59.000 At 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.

01:26:07.000 You see, in China, as in our countries, there will be loads of subcontracting to the point where it's like, I don't know.

01:26:12.000 Who did those Uyghurs work for? 1.00

01:26:14.000 It's difficult to say.

01:26:15.000 There's no paper trail.

01:26:17.000 You can't have little Andel computers going around the world getting updated every 10 bloody minutes without cracking a few Uyghurs. 1.00

01:26:23.000 That's the reality of the situation.

01:26:25.000 We all know that.

01:26:26.000 He's not even really working for us.

01:26:28.000 Is it the continual flow of commerce, commodity, and products?

01:26:31.000 It's not like, do you feel any better?

01:26:33.000 I mean, I love the phone.

01:26:34.000 But are we not losing something?

01:26:34.000 It's fantastic.

01:26:36.000 And what's clearly being lost is any ethics and morality.

01:26:39.000 What we have is the pose, the posture of morality.

01:26:42.000 We really care.

01:26:43.000 Hey, you shouldn't say that.

01:26:44.000 What do you mean you did that?

01:26:46.000 That's shameful.

01:26:47.000 We really need to address that.

01:26:48.000 Hey, it shows me on the phone.

01:26:50.000 Look, we can see all of the good work we're doing.

01:26:52.000 Where'd you get this phone?

01:26:53.000 I don't know this geezer. 1.00

01:26:54.000 What's your name, mate?

01:26:55.000 I don't need to know his name, some sort of little Uyghur. 1.00

01:26:57.000 Fuck him. 1.00

01:26:57.000 The whole thing is built on lies. 1.00

01:26:59.000 International human rights groups and the US have charged China with genocide against more than a million Uyghurs. 0.67

01:27:04.000 Bloody hell, they're actually being killed.

01:27:06.000 The minorities are sent to concentration camps. 0.99

01:27:08.000 That doesn't seem good.

01:27:09.000 Away from their homes, in many cases sterilised.

01:27:12.000 Apple, this is not sounding very woke!

01:27:14.000 Subjected to live and work in poverty as a way for the Chinese Communist Party to cleanse them from their Islamic faith. 0.99

01:27:20.000 Something eerily familiar about that reminded me of something, but no, I don't know what.

01:27:25.000 The information associated with other human rights groups uncovered previously unreported

01:27:29.000 public statements, photos and videos by Chinese local government offices and state-run media

01:27:34.000 in China, as well as with unnamed employees to back up their reporting.

01:27:38.000 People often point out when talking about dystopias the difference between George Orwell's

01:27:42.000 kind of communist version of dystopia and Aldous Huxley's pleasure-oriented, soma-induced

01:27:48.000 stasis and slumber verses of dystopia in Brave New World.

01:27:52.000 We've obviously got over here the Brave New World version, haven't we, where we think

01:27:55.000 we've got pleasure and devices and everything slick and nice and people say the right words

01:27:59.000 and try their best to say the right things.

01:28:00.000 And over in China, there's a bit more George Orwell, there's a bit more boot-in-the-face 0.98

01:28:03.000 standard every shopping bag's in front of a tank.

01:28:09.000 But the fact is, dystopia is already here.

01:28:11.000 How can I make such a claim?

01:28:13.000 Well, 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, but we managed just fine, didn't we? 0.77

01:28:27.000 Turns out it's pretty easy to just switch off life like that.

01:28:30.000 Stay in your homes, do as you're told.

01:28:32.000 People didn't go, no, wait a minute, we're a democracy.

01:28:34.000 Well, 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.

01:28:39.000 So what this shows us is in the end, you can't have free speech at all.

01:28:42.000 You might not like right-wing libertarian people.

01:28:45.000 You might think, oh, I don't like them.

01:28:46.000 But the fact is, Apple are unable to platform Jon Stewart because Jon Stewart will say things that Apple cannot have said on their platform.

01:28:54.000 Not because Jon Stewart's not woke or Jon Stewart's not clever or not compassionate, but because Jon Stewart is critical of corrupt power.

01:29:02.000 In 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.

01:29:10.000 We will continue doing all we can to protect workers, ensure they are treated with dignity and respect.

01:29:15.000 Yet Mr Cook continually pushed back against Congress lobbying to weaken a bill it was crafting preventing U.S.

01:29:20.000 companies from using slave labor in China.

01:29:23.000 Oh, why?

01:29:24.000 Why would you do that?

01:29:25.000 That doesn't make sense.

01:29:25.000 In 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.

01:29:34.000 Well, that's the end of that then.

01:29:36.000 China 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. 1.00

01:29:44.000 We are interrupting this vital stream about cancellation and the way that censorship is increasing because we need you strong.

01:29:52.000 If we're going to change the world together, we've got to be fit and healthy.

01:29:55.000 Russell, how do you survive under the freight, the weight, the cargo of attack that you are enduring?

01:30:01.000 I'll tell you how.

01:30:02.000 I stay healthy.

01:30:03.000 I stay awake.

01:30:04.000 I stay stocked up on black forest supplements, including NMNs, a derivative of B vitamin, which plays a vital role in energy production.

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01:30:29.000 NMN replenishes declining NAD plus levels, which drop around 1% 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.

01:30:44.000 It's the intersection between the material world and the world of God.

01:30:47.000 Now, of course, Big Pharma is trying to monopolize NMN by changing its status from a supplement to, I don't know, a weapon?

01:30:54.000 No, a drug.

01:30:55.000 And they want to charge a lot of money for it, too.

01:30:57.000 You know how they monopolize stuff.

01:30:59.000 Obviously, their intention, they claim, is probably to protect you or something.

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01:31:34.000 Okay, let's get back into the censorship and cancellation crisis that is devouring what's left of the mainstream.

01:31:42.000 Apple 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.

01:31:50.000 It's also willing to overlook its commitment to Jon Stewart.

01:31:52.000 I mean, of course it just And it's not even, I suppose, like I'm really blaming Apple.

01:31:57.000 Apple's just the system.

01:31:58.000 Apple is in itself a projection of a set of ideals.

01:32:02.000 No?

01:32:02.000 Apple 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.

01:32:13.000 This is housed in a philosophy that I would say should be as open to interrogation as any particular religious ideology.

01:32:19.000 You might say, we want to form the world according to Judaic law or Christian Or Islamic law?

01:32:24.000 And you go, well hang on a minute, should we look at this?

01:32:25.000 Because rationalism and materialism have to be judged according to their results.

01:32:30.000 And the results are in.

01:32:32.000 And they ain't looking that good.

01:32:33.000 Global war, massive corporations that lie and don't own the fact that they require slavery, products that appear to be contributing to demoralizing and demonizing our consciousness.

01:32:43.000 Is there a better way?

01:32:44.000 Is there a different way?

01:32:45.000 Can we attack it, critique it, or even discuss it?

01:32:47.000 Not on Apple, you can't!

01:32:48.000 Apple has a history of cowering to the Chinese Communist Party.

01:32:52.000 In 2019, Apple removed HKMap.live, an application pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong were using to track police from its App Store.

01:33:00.000 Wired 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.

01:33:10.000 Additionally, 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.

01:33:18.000 Look, we all have alliances.

01:33:20.000 We all have sponsors.

01:33:21.000 I mean, you won't see me saying stick a mule about guys anytime soon, but you have to wonder what the consequences are when stuff's happening.

01:33:26.000 happening on a global scale. That's why what we need are independent media,

01:33:30.000 demonopolised big tech organisation, decentralised government. The more these

01:33:34.000 things coalesce and come together, the more damage they do while continuing to

01:33:38.000 claim to serve you and we pass on the savings to the consumer. What savings? We

01:33:42.000 pass on the dead wiggers to the consumer. I don't want them. 1.00

01:33:45.000 Moreover, to comply with CCP, Apple removed the New York Times and other private

01:33:49.000 networks from its Chinese App Store and began storing Chinese iCloud accounts in

01:33:53.000 China, making it easier for the government to potentially obtain information

01:33:56.000 on its citizens.

01:33:57.000 I wonder if they cooperate with other nations' requests of that nature.

01:34:01.000 Let me know in the chat.

01:34:02.000 Yeah, Apple wants Americans to believe it's woke, virtuous, and promotes a just world for everybody.

01:34:06.000 It's probably about as true as Coca-Cola is youthful.

01:34:10.000 Coca-Cola is delicious.

01:34:11.000 Apple products are great.

01:34:13.000 But they're not anything else than that.

01:34:15.000 They are not any kind of ideal.

01:34:17.000 That connection we're making in our own mind.

01:34:19.000 And we have to stop making it.

01:34:20.000 because the facts are Uyghurs are likely used for slave labour, 0.52

01:34:24.000 children are mining for cobalt, not just for Apple, but for other smartphones too,

01:34:29.000 and Jon Stewart, he's a real victim here, is not able to openly express his opinions on China or AI

01:34:35.000 because it would be at odds with Apple's ideology.

01:34:38.000 And that is obviously frivolous compared to the exploitation of children or genocide,

01:34:42.000 but it is one of the components in the kind of globalism that we're continually critiquing here.

01:34:47.000 You have no power.

01:34:49.000 You cannot trust the media.

01:34:50.000 You cannot trust the judiciary.

01:34:52.000 You cannot trust the state.

01:34:53.000 They 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.

01:35:02.000 Mr 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, saying the company would donate to groups like the Equal Justice Initiative, which challenge racial injustice and mass incarceration. 0.78

01:35:18.000 How bitterly hypocritical.

01:35:20.000 Do 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? 0.91

01:35:29.000 Where is the evidence of anyone having real principles in these organizations?

01:35:33.000 That'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.

01:35:40.000 You can't have any trust in these institutions Because you see now the modality, the mentality, the morality, the lack of ethics that undergirds their entire model.

01:35:49.000 Big tech and big tech organizations benefit from global centralization.

01:35:54.000 The state benefits from global centralization.

01:35:56.000 None 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.

01:36:05.000 Your freedom is their problem, and through the media they will amplify the agenda of

01:36:10.000 the powerful and close down dissent.

01:36:12.000 They will narrow the bandwidth of your possibilities as much as they possibly can, so that you

01:36:16.000 are unable to be discerning, so that you are unable to awaken, so that you are unable to

01:36:21.000 form alliances with other people who are basically just the same as you.

01:36:24.000 Despite their cultural values or their religious values, we have more in common with one another

01:36:29.000 than we do, obviously, than an organization like Apple that will do whatever is necessary

01:36:33.000 to maintain favourable relationships with China, including a flagship show just because there's a risk that they might

01:36:40.000 say something that they don't like. But that's just what I think. Let me know

01:36:44.000 what you think in the chat. See you in a second.

01:36:48.000 Let me know in the chat how you feel about the increasing power of

01:36:55.000 cancellation culture while we continue our conversation with Vivek Ramaswamy.

01:37:01.000 Is he the solution?

01:37:02.000 Is bipartisan politics the solution?

01:37:05.000 Or do we need independent thinkers and independent media to come together to oppose this system?

01:37:10.000 Back to Vivek Ramaswamy.

01:37:13.000 Now, 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.

01:37:28.000 I wonder what you feel about recent revelations that the vaccine for the Pfizer vaccine specifically given to the public was different from the one tested in clinical trials and that 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.

01:37:49.000 I wonder what you feel these ongoing revelations, whether it's this one or the myocarditis, pericarditis is bad for you stuff, and, you know, let's throw in the Wuhan lab leak theory versus the wet market.

01:38:01.000 What 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.

01:38:13.000 And how would you ensure nothing like that ever happened again?

01:38:16.000 Particularly with the WHO marching forward with a treaty that could mean that they demand 5% of the health budget of any member nation.

01:38:25.000 What do you think about that, Vivek?

01:38:28.000 It's unbelievable.

01:38:29.000 So a lot there.

01:38:30.000 A couple things.

01:38:32.000 One is there is no doubt.

01:38:34.000 I mean, there's not a debate.

01:38:36.000 There's not a point that's any sensible person can rebut.

01:38:40.000 Okay.

01:38:41.000 there is no doubt that the FDA used dramatically differential standards to usher in the approval

01:38:49.000 of the COVID vaccines compared to any other vaccine or any other medicine that otherwise is held

01:38:53.000 to different exacting standards.

01:38:55.000 And I'm a right to try absolutist, Russell.

01:38:58.000 What does that mean?

01:38:59.000 It means that just because the FDA hasn't approved it doesn't mean that you or anybody else,

01:39:05.000 that you or I or anybody else in this country shouldn't be able to take it.

01:39:09.000 We should be able to make an informed choice ourselves.

01:39:11.000 But the other part of the right to try is the right not to try.

01:39:15.000 Just because they have forced it through a process using unprecedented standards to do it doesn't mean that you should ever in any circumstance be forced I'm a right to try absolutist in both directions, and there is no doubt that they use differential standards to push this through.

01:39:29.000 The 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.

01:39:38.000 In the world of biotech, there's this old adage, process is product.

01:39:42.000 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.

01:39:48.000 They apply differential standards here.

01:39:49.000 That is wrong, and we have to admit that, or else you're going to be vulnerable to make the same mistakes again in the future.

01:39:56.000 As a matter of policy, I think we have to look to the future, but how do you correct the past?

01:40:02.000 Vaccine 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.

01:40:12.000 Somehow in this case, these vaccine manufacturers have a special shield of liability, the product of lobbying, no doubt.

01:40:18.000 That says that those vaccine manufacturers can't be sued for product liability.

01:40:22.000 That's a different set of rules.

01:40:23.000 I will strip that.

01:40:25.000 That's one of the, I need Congress to do it, but I will push that through and Congress and Maybe we're going to get Congress to come along on that.

01:40:33.000 Strip back that crony capitalist privilege that allows these actors to act with impunity.

01:40:38.000 That's wrong.

01:40:39.000 That's just one example.

01:40:40.000 It's not an end-all be-all solution, but it's an easy thing we can do.

01:40:43.000 What are the lessons we've learned?

01:40:45.000 It's during times of crisis.

01:40:46.000 I mean, it applies to the earlier part of the discussion we were having relating to war.

01:40:49.000 It's during times of crisis or so-called crisis.

01:40:53.000 That we need to protect free speech and open debate the most.

01:40:58.000 I don't think we would have shut down the schools or the economy if we had been allowed to debate in the lockdowns.

01:41:04.000 I 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. 0.78

01:41:13.000 We would have known that sooner if you had been allowed to say.

01:41:16.000 That it was a virus made in a lab.

01:41:18.000 I 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.

01:41:27.000 So that's one of the key lessons is free speech is not meant for the easy times.

01:41:32.000 It's meant for the hard times.

01:41:33.000 That's who needed to defend it most.

01:41:34.000 And that relates to the merits of the wars that we're sleepwalking our way into as the United States and beyond.

01:41:41.000 And then you raise a question about institutions like the WHO.

01:41:44.000 This one's easy.

01:41:46.000 If you are hostile to the sovereignty of the United States of America, then I will not use our dollars to fund you.

01:41:51.000 We will defund the WHO.

01:41:53.000 Hell no is the answer to the WHO.

01:41:55.000 And the answer as well is we will also, by the way, bring zero-based budgeting to any source of funding and foreign aid, so-called aid, in places like Central America or other parts of the world.

01:42:07.000 No, we will ask what advances the U.S.

01:42:10.000 interest if we're using U.S.

01:42:11.000 dollars to fund it.

01:42:12.000 The WHO does not advance U.S.

01:42:13.000 interest, so we're not going to fund it.

01:42:15.000 But I'm going to bring that mentality of zero-based budgeting to the deep state abroad.

01:42:18.000 I mean, that's what these multilateral international three-letter agencies are.

01:42:22.000 But that's what the three-letter agencies are here in the United States.

01:42:25.000 The 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.

01:42:37.000 And I do think from a You know, there's certain people that are too incompetent to do it this way.

01:42:41.000 I 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.

01:42:52.000 But certain people in there are plenty smart to do it, but they're corruption captured by financial forces.

01:42:57.000 And 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.

01:43:03.000 And so that's the kind of leaders I think it's going to take.

01:43:05.000 And 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.

01:43:17.000 I think that we have to break away from some of this is neither corruption nor incompetence, but it's just habit.

01:43:24.000 And I think it's important that we get to truth.

01:43:26.000 It's easy to pin the tail on any one of these things.

01:43:28.000 They say it's all incompetence or it's all just corruption.

01:43:31.000 These 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.

01:43:39.000 And so it's all of these things, right?

01:43:42.000 And so there's no silver bullet.

01:43:43.000 There's temptations that we might have to say there's one silver bullet to a complex pathology.

01:43:49.000 The reality is there's a complex set of forces that account for why we are where we are.

01:43:54.000 And I think it behooves us not to fall in love with our favorite solution and to pin the entire tail, pin the entire thing on that donkey's tail.

01:44:03.000 We got to see the whole thing for what it is. 0.99

01:44:05.000 It's a combination of inertia, combination of laziness, combination of outright levels of stupidity that you could not imagine combined with a level of cynical corruption that fuels the machine. 0.99

01:44:15.000 And it's all of the above. 0.98

01:44:18.000 And 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.

01:44:26.000 There's not.

01:44:27.000 It's going to be a plethora of partial solutions.

01:44:28.000 That's how we get there.

01:44:29.000 In a way, you're already bringing about revolutionary perspectives and revolutionary conversation.

01:44:35.000 And even in fact, on an essential level, your energy and To a degree, Persona are bringing some necessary radicalism, certainly into the Republican primary process, and hopefully it goes further than that.

01:44:52.000 Do 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.

01:44:58.000 Do you think that some important components for genuine advance to occur are, one, Decentralisation wherever possible, or federalism as it's known in your country, i.e.

01:45:10.000 the role of governors and mayors, where possible people should have a maximum amount of power.

01:45:18.000 And 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?

01:45:38.000 What are the risks?

01:45:39.000 What challenges will you face?

01:45:43.000 So, the answer to your question is yes.

01:45:46.000 People who view public service as service, rather than as a career, I think are critical to fixing the system.

01:45:53.000 Okay?

01:45:54.000 No doubt about it.

01:45:55.000 Now, the advice that I would give is this.

01:46:00.000 Decentralization, I mean, that's baked into the U.S. 0.97

01:46:02.000 Constitution.

01:46:03.000 Thankfully, other countries don't benefit from this quite as much, but it could help other countries and other Western democracies just as much.

01:46:09.000 But in the U.S., we have this thing called the Tenth Amendment.

01:46:11.000 The power not reserved to the federal government is reserved respectively to the states and to the people.

01:46:16.000 So, 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.

01:46:26.000 We've inverted that pyramid.

01:46:28.000 Inverted back in the direction of total decentralization.

01:46:30.000 All else equal, that's the right way to go.

01:46:33.000 And I think it's a good model to bring to other countries as well.

01:46:35.000 Even if they don't have a Tenth Amendment, other countries can at least have governors, mayors, etc.

01:46:41.000 that bring that vision and I think will speak to people in a way that I think is an untapped opportunity.

01:46:46.000 So, that would be the positive advice that I'd give you, both in the United States or any other country that you're in.

01:46:52.000 Now, my advice, cautionary advice along the way, and this will be an interesting maybe note to close on Russell, I've got a campaign event I'm rolling to from here.

01:47:00.000 And maybe I'll, maybe I'll talk to them about this.

01:47:02.000 You got my, my juices flowing here.

01:47:04.000 I think I will talk to them about this actually.

01:47:08.000 It's pertinent is here's my caution.

01:47:11.000 Okay.

01:47:13.000 We'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.

01:47:24.000 But 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.

01:47:36.000 What do they say?

01:47:39.000 They say, we want to go back and be ruled by the Pharaoh.

01:47:44.000 In some ways, we are spending our time here talking about half the problem.

01:47:47.000 That is the Pharaoh of our time. 0.96

01:47:51.000 Everything we've talked about would fall in that category.

01:47:52.000 I'm not going to rehash it.

01:47:54.000 But there's another half to this.

01:47:57.000 What is it that makes us want, as a people, makes us want to bend the knee?

01:48:03.000 The great uprising only works if the populace is actually up for it.

01:48:07.000 But there's half of us.

01:48:08.000 And I say us.

01:48:09.000 I'm not blaming other people for this.

01:48:10.000 I'm including all of us in this.

01:48:12.000 There's something inside each of us that also, a side of us, that makes us want to bend the knee.

01:48:16.000 The sheep inside each of us.

01:48:19.000 And 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.

01:48:32.000 And I'm not looking to lead a revival of the American Revolution.

01:48:34.000 Others in other countries in the modern West can look to do the same thing.

01:48:37.000 Others here in the United States can do the same thing.

01:48:39.000 It's not that we can't be successful.

01:48:43.000 It'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.

01:48:51.000 The 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.

01:48:59.000 And I think that this is a deeper, more philosophical discussion.

01:49:02.000 If you lose faith, patriotism, hard work, family, pride, self-confidence at the same time, you're going to bend the knee to something.

01:49:10.000 If it's not COVIDism, it's climatism.

01:49:12.000 If it's not climatism, it's Zelenskiyism. 0.99

01:49:14.000 If it's not Zelenskiyism, it's World War IIIism, broadly. 0.84

01:49:19.000 You're going to bend the knee to something.

01:49:20.000 And I think that's the real risk in this.

01:49:27.000 People 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.

01:49:41.000 That I think is at least as big of a risk.

01:49:44.000 The inner, Israelite lost in the desert within each of us, right? 0.98

01:49:49.000 The inner force that causes us to want to bend the knee.

01:49:53.000 That is how this ends, maybe.

01:49:54.000 Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

01:49:57.000 And I think that that would be my cautionary note to any leader who's looking to do the same thing.

01:50:03.000 Yes, it's going to take people coming from outside the establishment to win this war.

01:50:08.000 But 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.

01:50:20.000 And for me, you're catching me midway through that journey.

01:50:23.000 So let's have this conversation in eight, nine months, and we'll see where we stand.

01:50:27.000 My 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.

01:50:41.000 But 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.

01:50:47.000 And 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.

01:50:59.000 That psychological spiritual battle is really half the story too.

01:51:02.000 Vivek, thank you so much.

01:51:04.000 I hope I know you for a long time.

01:51:06.000 I hope that you do well in this presidential campaign.

01:51:10.000 I'm wishing you the best.

01:51:11.000 Thank you so much for your generosity with your time, your generosity with your vision, your open-mindedness, and your fantastic and always enjoyable discourse.

01:51:20.000 Thank you, Vivek Ramaswamy, and I wish you all the best in the ongoing campaign, mate.

01:51:24.000 You can follow and support Vivek's presidential campaign by going to vivek, that's v-i-v-e-k, 2024.com.

01:51:31.000 We're posting a link in the description.

01:51:34.000 Remember, press the red button and you get access to these interviews when they happen in the event.

01:51:39.000 We have to pre-record them, which we have to sometimes.

01:51:41.000 And next week, you know You're not going to want to miss Jordan Peterson.

01:51:44.000 You're not going to want to miss the opportunity to be involved in that conversation, are you?

01:51:48.000 To sit there while me and JP are pontificating about all manner of subjects.

01:51:53.000 If you're a member of the locals community, like MisinformedMME, or Blessed Old Bird, or Gabriella90, you get early access to interviews.

01:52:01.000 You 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.

01:52:11.000 I'll tell you who's on the journey already.

01:52:13.000 Vanessa 1111.

01:52:14.000 She's joined us.

01:52:15.000 What do you do when you see 1111 on your phone?

01:52:17.000 You get excited.

01:52:17.000 Oh, it's 1111.

01:52:18.000 It's lucky.

01:52:19.000 Patrick S. Ferguson.

01:52:20.000 You're an awakened wonder now.

01:52:22.000 Come on in with us.

01:52:23.000 Jenny Loves Jesus.

01:52:24.000 Thanks for joining us.

01:52:25.000 MyColonius, Liberty Electro and StayFree172805.

01:52:29.000 All new awakened wonders with us on this glorious voyage to truth and freedom together.

01:52:34.000 Thank you for joining us.

01:52:36.000 Join us next time.

01:52:36.000 Remember Jordan Peterson coming up next week.

01:52:38.000 Loads of fantastic guests, loads of fantastic content.

01:52:41.000 Thanks for being a part of this movement with us.

01:52:43.000 Join us next week, not for more of the same, but for more of the different.

01:52:46.000 Until then, if you can, stay free.

Stay Free - Russel Brand - October 31, 2023

Vivek Ramaswamy - Fighting The GREAT RESET

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