00:00:00.000Hey everybody, today in the Charlie Kirk show, Vivek Ramaswamy joins us to unpack the FTX scandal and James O'Keefe uncovers a major child sex prostitution operation sponsored by our government.
00:00:56.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:01:30.000Coin Desk, which is some form of a blog slash news reporting agency when it comes to crypto, discovered an irregularity in one of FTX's sister companies.
00:01:47.000And that seemed to trigger what is now described as one of the great financial collapses of a generation.
00:01:54.000Sam Bankman-Fried donated anywhere between $30 to $50 million to Democrat causes this last cycle, now claims that he has no money.
00:02:06.000And then he did an interview yesterday with the New York Times.
00:02:09.000Allegedly went from being worth $25 billion to being worth nothing.
00:02:17.000If you're able to take out money for political donations and pay taxes on it, I guarantee you you are taking out money and pay taxes on it and buying real estate or buying stocks or bonds or putting money offshore.
00:02:28.000I think he's lying about his net worth for sympathy.
00:02:30.000But here to help us unpack this is a very smart person from Strive, Vivek Ramaswamy.
00:02:41.000So Vivek, there's so many different aspects to this story that I'm still confused about.
00:02:46.000But I think our time is best spent for you to explain to our audience, how should we think about the FTX scandal?
00:02:53.000What are the main lessons that we should take away here?
00:02:56.000So I think there's a couple of lessons.
00:02:58.000Probably top of the list, Charlie, is that this was a guy who put on a do-good smokescreen, a virtue signaling smoke screen, donating tens of millions of dollars to the Democratic Party and related causes, calling for so-called responsible regulation of the cryptocurrency sector.
00:03:15.000A guy who was saying all of the right things that were ESG friendly.
00:03:18.000Actually, even one ESG rating firms assigned actually FTX a higher score on leadership and governance than they did to ExxonMobil, which is laughable.
00:03:29.000This is a guy who cultivated the appearance of being a virtuous actor, but was actually just a false prophet in the end.
00:03:36.000And I'm sad to say, Charlie, that is a lesson that the public continues to learn time and again.
00:03:42.000The people who strive to appear most virtuous, the people who actually try to put on the virtue signaling smokescreen, end up being often the most fraudulent ones in the end.
00:03:52.000Be it the CEO of, you could say, Volkswagen.
00:04:10.000And this is a very complicated story, and there's a lot of technocratic detail, which we could go into.
00:04:14.000But if you cut through it all, at the end of the day, you have a guy who was entrusted with funds, stole those funds, used them for his own purposes, and that's theft no matter how you cut it.
00:04:23.000And so people shouldn't get lost in the complexity to see the basic point that if you trust someone else with your money, they can ultimately run away with it and use it for their own purposes.
00:04:40.000There are fraud laws all throughout the federal law registry.
00:04:44.000I mean, you're not allowed to give the appearance of one business purpose and then just do whatever you want with it.
00:04:50.000As a judge famously said, or a prosecutor said when explaining how to enforce fraud, you know it when you see it.
00:04:59.000And so, Vivek, for some of our listeners that don't quite understand the financial specifics of this story, can you explain how widespread, how big of a story is this?
00:05:10.000This is not some guy that did a $10 million scheme or a $20 million scheme.
00:05:15.000We're talking about a collapse of an exchange and the eradication and the disappearance of billions of dollars.
00:05:21.000That's what's so amazing: there's just billions of dollars missing and no one knows where it is.
00:05:26.000And Sam Bankman-Fried goes to the New York Times summit and cries poor.
00:05:31.000I mean, how do you lose billions of dollars?
00:05:40.000I think I want to make two points here.
00:05:42.000One is this was not a bunch of people who lost money who thought they were putting money into a risky startup and then lost that money.
00:05:49.000That's the kind of thing where you take the risk, you take the risk, and you know, your money may not come back, like the investors in FTX themselves.
00:05:57.000This is customer funds that they thought they were using to trade on an exchange.
00:06:02.000So, this is a really big deal when you look at billions of dollars of customer money vaporizing when they thought they were just engaging in trades on an exchange.
00:06:10.000So, I think that's, I think, why this is such a remarkable point, Charlie: is this was not some not people who lost money as investors, these are people who lost money when they handed their money over to a custodian.
00:06:22.000And a custodian has the highest duty not to use those customer funds for their own gambles.
00:06:28.000And it appears based on the facts that that's exactly what he did.
00:06:31.000But the other point I want to make, Charlie, is that I also watched part of that interview at the deal book conference, New York Times conference yesterday.
00:06:39.000And one of the things that was striking to me was looking at the people in the audience, right?
00:06:42.000They were laughing at him, they were distancing himself and histancy as one of the other, one of the members of the other, the weird-looking young guy with a frizz ball of curly hair and wearing a t-shirt and shorts.
00:06:55.000I think the uncomfortable truth is that you know what?
00:06:58.000A lot of the kings of elite finance, dating back to the 2008 financial crisis, don't have particularly clean hands themselves either.
00:07:06.000And in them, they actually, if they look hard, see a bit of themselves too, which is part of why this game of trying to distance themselves from him has come up so much.
00:07:16.000I mean, in 2008, he got people bailed out at the public fisk: Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, Bank of America, all of whom took risks that they shouldn't have been taking, not with proper disclosures in many cases.
00:07:28.000And so, I think one of the morals of this story is: yes, he's this weird dude who did a really bad thing at a large scale, but you know what?
00:07:36.000If you look at what happened with MF Global, John Corzine, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, political figure as well, involved in that business, that was an exchange that also misused customer funds.
00:07:47.000This is a pattern that's not specific to the Bahamas cryptocurrency 30-year-old guy who wears t-shirts and sorts.
00:07:53.000This is actually a moment for a lot of financial actors to look themselves in the mirror and a lot of customers to question their own motives, even if they wear a suit and tie.
00:08:01.000It doesn't mean that they're not often guilty of the same kind of issue, different in degree, if not in kind.
00:08:39.000And, like, if I had been, if I had been spending an hour a day thinking about risk management on FTX, I don't think that would have happened.
00:08:57.000So look, I went into that interview yesterday, watching it at least, thinking that he was going to be some kind of evil genius fraudster.
00:09:04.000I came out of it realizing that he was actually more likely to be an incompetent fraudster.
00:09:07.000That doesn't mean he wasn't a fraudster, but there was a layer of incompetence to this too.
00:09:11.000And it was sort of an amazing feat where the kinds of things that you would have expected to see in someone incompetent, sleeping through meetings, sleeping as people went in and out, not paying attention, those were vaulted by people as, oh, this guy must be some type of actual visionary genius.
00:09:26.000No, it turns out it actually was just what it looked like is he was a little bit incompetent, a poor manager, but then also had bad intentions on top of that.
00:09:33.000That was one of my main takeaways from yesterday.
00:09:35.000And again, a pattern that yet repeats itself across multiple sectors and multiple other financial firms too.
00:10:19.000You see, the most common type of magnesium is actually used as a laxative.
00:10:23.000So if you're taking it, you're probably, let's just say, depositing it in a place you shouldn't be.
00:10:29.000With 80% of Americans who are actually magnesium deficient, what if I told you you could be making that deficiency worse by actually taking the wrong kind of magnesium?
00:11:33.000Vivek, why don't you tell us about the work Strive is doing as we contrast that up against the aloof boy fraudster who needs a shower, a haircut, and maybe a suit or tie if you're going to be interviewed by the New York Times.
00:11:47.000Sorry, I just, this whole, this whole shtick that Bankman Fried has, it's okay if you're worth 30 billion, you can get away with the, you know, the hungover frat boy look that you're kind of some sort of weird programmer.
00:12:01.000But as soon as you, I don't know, make people lose millions of dollars in a life savings, like how about you clean up your act a little bit, pal.
00:12:16.000The thing I would say is one of the lessons is if you're going to stand for a principle, stand for that principle.
00:12:24.000You don't have to be everything to everybody.
00:12:25.000And I think even if you tie it to the SBF thing, just tie up that discussion for a second.
00:12:29.000He didn't have to put up the ESG smoke screen.
00:12:31.000He could have just said he's a crypto exchange and everyone could have just judged him accordingly.
00:12:35.000My view with Strive and with everything I'm working on is that companies should focus exclusively on delivering excellent products and services to their customers for profit without apologizing for it and without putting on a show.
00:12:50.000And I think everyone is better off if we can do that.
00:12:53.000But the problem today is that you have other large financial institutions, firms like BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard, that today are without the permission of their customers using their clients' money to advance agendas in corporate America's boardrooms that most of those everyday citizens actually disagree with.
00:13:11.000And so if you think about even some of the parallels here, you know, there are different issues, but there are parallels.
00:13:16.000Okay, SBF used customer funds to advance personal agendas, in this case, personal financial agendas, without disclosing it and without getting the permission of the customers.
00:13:26.000Well, what do you think is happening at other large asset managers like BlackRock on Down, where they're using their clients' funds to vote for social agendas without getting their clients' permission, without asking their clients that do not advance their best financial interests?
00:13:39.000There are parallels here that bear mention.
00:13:41.000Now, Charlie, my view is the best answer often to market problems is market solutions rather than just more regulation or government action.
00:13:50.000And my view is that if everyday Americans, or there's a lot of them certainly, who don't want to advance political or social agendas with their capital, one-sided, toxic, progressive agendas with their investments, to be able to say that the voting power and the voice you get as a shareholder in America's companies, use it to tell them to focus on products and services, to make a profit, to get out of politics and not apologize for that.
00:14:14.000And my own view is also it's important for financial institutions to be really upfront about who they can represent and who they can't.
00:14:20.000And my view is if you want with your own money to advance a social or political agenda, climate change, racial justice, or whatever, this is a free country.
00:14:28.000And if it's your money, you're free to do that.
00:14:31.000Strive would not be a good home for you as a client, as a customer, would not be a good home for your capital.
00:14:36.000And I think we need more financial institutions to be transparent about for whom they can be a good representative, for whom they can be a good fiduciary, and for whom they cannot.
00:14:45.000Even if that means sacrificing some business opportunity to be able to get someone else's money and manage it and charge them a fee, you actually operate with higher integrity if you say what you stand for and what you don't.
00:14:56.000And I think that integrity is something that we're missing in much of the financial services industry today.
00:15:13.000They trade on the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ.
00:15:16.000And you can look up Strive.com to get more information about Strive.
00:15:20.000But for me, Charlie, this is less about me and less about my company and more about hopefully a broader movement we create in the private sector that creates a tide that actually lifts the cultural boats through the economy itself.
00:15:35.000And I hope more entrepreneurs are able to step up, including in the financial sector, including other sectors, to say that there are probably 100 plus million Americans whose money is being abused by other financial institutions by advancing social agendas they don't know about.
00:15:49.000I mean, when Apple writes a multi-million dollar, $100 million check to advance racial equity or a company gives money to Black Lives Matter, that is not their money.
00:15:59.000When a company funds, defund the police, that's not their money.
00:16:02.000If you're a shareholder in that company, that is your money.
00:16:05.000And I think people waking up to that reality.
00:16:07.000That's actually the mission I'm on through Strive is an educational mission to say that if that's not something you want done with your money, you deserve a different option.
00:16:15.000And so, you know, people are free to learn more about Strive and that's great.
00:16:19.000But it's less about me and less about the commercial impact here and more about what I hope for capitalism.
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00:18:35.000She works for something called the Council on Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency.
00:18:41.000And she brought us documents, Charlie, from Texas.
00:18:44.000These are addresses of a sponsorship program.
00:18:47.000This is a program where the federal government gets sponsors to take unaccompanied children from Mexico, Guatemala, and put them in addresses.
00:18:59.000And she says that the government knew these children are being trafficked.
00:19:03.000And she brought it to the attention of one of her colleagues there at Health and Human Services and the federal government.
00:19:09.000And she was told by this government official that the cart, we don't get sued by the cartels.
00:19:15.000So there's nothing that we can do about this.
00:19:17.000So this whistleblower came to Project Veritas, very brave woman, blew the whistle on the whole program, children being trafficked.
00:19:25.000Our undercover journalists went to these addresses in Texas, interviewed the people at the addresses, and these young girls admitted to us they're being pimped out by their sponsors.
00:19:36.000So, children are being trafficked, exploited, raped, all, and the government knows about it.
00:19:42.000And this brave woman, Tara Rotis, came out.
00:20:19.000We spoke to hundreds of children, our undercover journalists who speak Spanish, were knocking on the doors of these addresses that the federal employee gave us.
00:20:30.000And we went to their doors, and you could see their faces.
00:20:35.000These young children were admitted to being sold off for sex when they got to the United States and they lived with these sponsors who are supposed to be housing them.
00:20:44.000But some of these children were living in little studio, studio, and one-bedroom apartments with multiple older men.
00:21:43.000Why aren't they looking into this sort of situation?
00:21:46.000But we think the authorities will act on this, Charlie, because we have now caught the young children on tape admitting to being trafficked and exploited.
00:21:55.000And what's most shocking about the expose, I think, is this woman, Catherine Bond, is her name.
00:22:01.000She was a lawyer with HHS who worked with Tara.
00:22:04.000And she told Tara that, listen, you know, we don't get sued by traffickers.
00:23:36.000Although, I spoke with Catherine Bond at HHS, and she actually spoke to me for 30 minutes on the phone yesterday.
00:23:43.000But here's what Rhoda said: She said, The sponsor can hold up an order of deportation, the sponsor of these children.
00:23:49.000They can hold that order of deportation up to a migrant child and say, This is your order of deportation.
00:23:54.000If you do not do what I say, when I say, I'm going to call ICE on you myself.
00:23:59.000So, Tara said that we, the taxpayers, are paying to put children in the hands of criminals, and the government knows it.
00:24:07.000They have the addresses of these people, they know who are doing the trafficking, and nothing is happening.
00:24:14.000And that's why Tara came forward to blow the whistle because they know the names and numbers of these people.
00:24:20.000I mean, she showed me their faces, but nobody's being prosecuted.
00:24:24.000In fact, the HHS lawyer said, Well, we don't get sued by these traffickers, so we don't really have anything to worry about.
00:24:30.000It's just an example of how broken it is.
00:24:33.000And the only way this is going to change is if we expose it, which now the video has millions of views on Twitter.
00:24:38.000Thanks, Elon Musk, for getting Project Veritas back on Twitter so we can publish this actual journalism.
00:24:44.000Very few people are doing actual journalism and telling these stories and getting the exposure.
00:24:49.000I think at least Charlie, the state authorities, the Texas Attorney General, and now the Florida Attorney General, those are the two states this is happening in, will do something about it.
00:25:37.000He holds up the small piece of paper that you get to be able to apply for a job, a social security guard.
00:25:42.000He says you just call the person, he comes to your home and brings it.
00:25:46.000Young man named Frander says he was forced to pay $150 to obtain a fake social security card when he got to the United States under the sponsorship program.
00:25:59.000He would go to work at 4 p.m. and get out at 2 a.m.
00:26:02.000So it's an example of the sort of child labor exploitation.
00:26:07.000They make you work wherever they take you.
00:26:09.000This is not just sexploitation, it's manual labor exploitation.
00:26:14.000Most people, this sponsorship program was intended, people originally thought to bring these children in with families and reuniting children with their families.
00:26:23.000In fact, that's not the case, the whistleblower tells us.
00:26:34.000Some of the children don't even speak Spanish.
00:26:37.000They speak a native dialect of Guatemalan.
00:26:39.000So we're really Project Veritas taking you really in to see how broken the system is.
00:26:46.000It has drifted away from its original intent.
00:26:49.000And you compare and contrast that with what the White House press secretary says or what our elected officials say about how secure the border is.
00:28:28.000If Ron DeSantis were to run for president, which I have no idea if he's going to run for president or not.
00:28:35.000If Ron DeSantis were to run for president, one of the sharpest critiques of President Trump will be the fact that Anthony Fauci stayed around as long as he did.
00:28:48.000Anthony Fauci is still running his mouth.
00:28:52.000Let's go to cut five: Anthony Fauci talking about how Republicans politicize COVID.
00:29:13.000I didn't get involved before in the politics and I'm not going to get involved now.
00:29:18.000Continues, he says that the reason why we couldn't get to the root of the problem, it was the Trump administration's anti-China.
00:29:25.000If Ron DeSantis were to run for president, President Trump would have to navigate, and I think he would do a fine job, but it would be a challenge of why on earth did you keep Anthony Fauci around so long?
00:29:40.000The anti-China approach that clearly the Trump administration had right from the very beginning and the accusatory nature, the Chinese are going to flinch back and say, no, I'm sorry, we're not going to talk to you about it, which is not correct.
00:29:53.000But they're not talking to the Biden administration about it either.
00:30:10.000If DeSantis were to run for president, just based on my connection to our audience and speaking to you and listening to you, I would say that the one issue that would probably be the greatest challenge for Donald Trump that he would have to navigate is some of the personnel that he selected in his administration.
00:30:31.000I think even the strongest pro-Trump members of our audience completely agree.
00:30:36.000And by the way, the emails are flooding in very pro-Trump.
00:31:09.000There's plenty of strong, there's a lot of anti-Trump sentiments, too, but it definitely, I would say that Trump definitely is the favorite.
00:31:18.000But Trump would have to explain in the 2024 horse race, which is down the road, but it's interesting to think about.
00:31:25.000Why did he keep so many of these snakes around the administration?
00:31:30.000I think that would be the greatest challenge for him, his personnel.
00:31:33.000You got John Bolton, Amarosa, Rex Tillerson, Bill Barr, one after the other, after the other, Anthony Fauci, Dr. Deborah Burks.
00:31:45.000As Rush Limbaugh would say, and he never said anything negative about Donald Trump.
00:31:53.000He said, Donald Trump's personnel selections at times are puzzling.
00:32:01.000Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
00:32:03.000Email me your thoughts as always: Freedom at CharlieKirk.com.