The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #2437 - Rand Paul

00:00:01.000 Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out!

00:00:03.000 The Joe Rogan Experience.

00:00:06.000 Train by Day, Joe Rogan, podcast by night, all day.

00:00:12.000 Nice to meet you, sir.

00:00:13.000 Thanks for having me.

00:00:14.000 My love to you in Austin, you know.

00:00:16.000 Have you been here before?

00:00:17.000 You've been here before.

00:00:18.000 You know, I grew up in Texas, and so we used to come up here for live music.

00:00:22.000 I went to Baylor, and there was no music, no dancing.

00:00:25.000 If you wanted to hear some live music, you came to Austin.

00:00:27.000 So I've been here many times.

00:00:29.000 Nice.

00:00:29.000 It's a great spot.

00:00:31.000 So here's your book, Deception, The Great Cover-Up.

00:00:36.000 You were a lone voice of reason during the pandemic that, you know, for me, you were extremely valuable.

00:00:44.000 And I was cheering you on every step of the way when you were grilling Anthony Fauci.

00:00:50.000 With all due respect, you do not know what you are talking about.

00:00:56.000 That guy was driving me fucking crazy.

00:01:00.000 It was mind-numbing how many people were going along with it and how many people just accepted what he was saying, ignored all the evidence that pointed to gain of function research, didn't freak out when it was quite obvious that he was lying about gain of function research.

00:01:16.000 And I just thank God that you were grilling him.

00:01:19.000 And at least it was on the record.

00:01:21.000 And we could all watch it and see it.

00:01:23.000 One of the greatest tragedies, and we knew this within days, was that children weren't getting sick, but that should have been used to our advantage.

00:01:30.000 Children did not get sick.

00:01:32.000 No child without a healthy, without a health issue really died.

00:01:36.000 Well, they got sick, but it wasn't dangerous for them.

00:01:40.000 Right.

00:01:40.000 My kids both got it.

00:01:41.000 Right, but most of them had a very mild illness.

00:01:44.000 And the point is, is that we knew this in China in the first couple of weeks, and we could have left the schools open.

00:01:50.000 And some countries left the schools open.

00:01:52.000 For the most part, Sweden left their schools open and treated this completely different and turned out with a similar, everybody wound up with a similar death rate with primarily the people dying were people who were older and overweight or both.

00:02:04.000 Right.

00:02:05.000 And well, the argument was, you're going to bring it home and you're going to infect your grandma and she's going to die.

00:02:12.000 The argument didn't really hold water though because everybody got it anyway.

00:02:15.000 But we didn't know that in the beginning, right?

00:02:17.000 In the beginning, they were lying and they were saying that, although we now know that there was no data that showed that the vaccine stopped infection and stopped transmission.

00:02:25.000 But here's another thought.

00:02:26.000 You could have said, yeah, kids could take it to their grandparents.

00:02:29.000 So until the kid has gotten it and recovered for two weeks, tell them not to visit their grandparents.

00:02:34.000 You know what I mean?

00:02:36.000 Well, the problem was people that live with their grandparents.

00:02:38.000 Yeah, I know.

00:02:39.000 And there would be the exceptions to the rule.

00:02:41.000 But most of the people, the death rate we already knew in China was very, very small once you added in the kids.

00:02:48.000 Initially, they were saying it was a 3% death rate, which would have been, instead of 1 million people, you know, would have been significantly more.

00:02:55.000 3 million people may have died.

00:02:57.000 But they knew the death rate was less than that in China early on.

00:03:01.000 But part of the reason they thought it was so high is they weren't counting all the asymptomatic cases.

00:03:05.000 You know, they knew how many people were sick and how many people died, but the denominator was the number of people who actually were sick or who actually got the infection, but they weren't counting millions of people.

00:03:16.000 But Anthony Fauci denied this at every step.

00:03:19.000 He denied that natural immunity would protect you.

00:03:21.000 And one of my favorite quotes was from a guy named Martin Koldorf.

00:03:25.000 He was an epidemiologist at Harvard who ended up getting fired.

00:03:29.000 But recently he tweeted out, as about a year or two ago, he said, well, we knew about natural immunity from the time of the Athenian plague in 436 BC.

00:03:38.000 And we knew that knowledge until 2020.

00:03:40.000 Then we lost all knowledge of natural immunity.

00:03:43.000 But the good news is in 2025, we're starting to get back that knowledge.

00:03:47.000 But this was, Anthony Fauci knew better.

00:03:50.000 You know, he couldn't even read his own basic immunology books about the fact that you do develop immunity.

00:03:57.000 Is it perfect?

00:03:57.000 No.

00:03:58.000 Can you get COVID more than once?

00:03:59.000 Yes, but I defy you to tell me somebody who got it the second time who died the second time.

00:04:04.000 You know what I mean?

00:04:05.000 People got it less severely so the second time they got it, if they got it at all.

00:04:09.000 Much less severely so.

00:04:10.000 I got it twice, and the second time I couldn't even believe it was actually COVID.

00:04:14.000 It was back when we were testing every day.

00:04:16.000 We would test all the guests, we would test all the staff before we did the show.

00:04:20.000 And I came in and I had the sniffles.

00:04:21.000 That's it.

00:04:22.000 And they said, do you have COVID?

00:04:23.000 And I was like, this is hilarious.

00:04:24.000 And I understand you did so well because your personal doctor was Sanjay Gupta.

00:04:32.000 That clip of you and he on the program is my favorite clip of all time.

00:04:36.000 I don't know what he thought was going to happen.

00:04:40.000 I think he just thought he was going to come in here and CNN was going to send their medical mercenary in with all his knowledge.

00:04:46.000 But you can't argue with someone when you can't use facts.

00:04:51.000 So he didn't have any facts at his disposal.

00:04:55.000 And he was working for a network that was openly lying about me taking veterinary medicine.

00:05:00.000 Like the whole thing was surreal.

00:05:03.000 And for someone who is, you know, up until 2020, I mean, I was reasonably distrustful of mainstream news, but in a normal way, like I'm sure they bend things a little bit or twist things a little bit.

00:05:16.000 I would have never thought I would watch a campaign against me like that, where every night it was horse dewormer, horse dewormer, Joe Rogan, dangerous conspiracy theories, COVID denier, vaccine denier.

00:05:30.000 I was like, this is fascinating.

00:05:33.000 I think it brings up a broader question, too, that when people tell you there's a consensus, and because the consensus exists, you cannot object.

00:05:41.000 I think that's a real danger to openness, to new ideas, but it's also a danger in medicine.

00:05:47.000 And in medicine, to say this is the consensus, and we're not going to do this.

00:05:50.000 So in the first month of this, maybe first or second month, Fauci comes in and I said, you know, many people who die from the flesh-eating bacteria, which is not the same, but it's a serious illness.

00:06:02.000 What they give them to try to treat them to prevent death and loss of limbs is high-dose IV steroids.

00:06:08.000 And I had a friend whose life was saved.

00:06:10.000 He didn't lose any of his limbs and he had this terrible illness.

00:06:12.000 And so I asked Anthony Fauci, I said, Do you think there's a chance as they're getting very, very sick and their lungs are filling up with fluid that we could try high-dose IV steroids like we do in other infections?

00:06:22.000 And he says, oh, no, no, we've tried that.

00:06:24.000 Turns out, and we mentioned this in the book, the best treatment when you were just about to go on the ventilator or on the ventilator, when you have a 50% chance of dying at that point, was IV steroids, an old generic medicine that a big pharma doesn't make much money off of.

00:06:39.000 Which steroids in particular were they?

00:06:41.000 It's called solumedroll, but it's just IV steroids.

00:06:44.000 And it was a 36% reduction in death, which is pretty significant when you're in the ICU.

00:06:49.000 The people in the ICU were very, very sick.

00:06:51.000 It was a third of them had a reduction in death by taking IV steroids.

00:06:57.000 But he was dismissing it from the very beginning and already acting like, oh, I know it's not going to work.

00:07:02.000 And we're going to try remdesivir, which turned out not to work very well.

00:07:05.000 Not only that, it gives people kidney failure.

00:07:08.000 Well, I mean, he has a history of using medicine that has already been through the approval rating with, you know, what they did with AZT during the pandemic of AIDS.

00:07:19.000 Right.

00:07:20.000 And that proved to be horrific, a terrible disaster.

00:07:24.000 It's just amazing that the same guy ran the same playbook.

00:07:28.000 You know?

00:07:28.000 Yeah, no, and it was really sad.

00:07:30.000 And the other thing about natural immunity that needed to be brought up is: so all the people that were declared essential kept working.

00:07:36.000 Like if you worked in a meat processing fact, these are hardworking people.

00:07:40.000 Many of them, you know, they're busting their butt all day long.

00:07:43.000 And there'd be like 296 people at a meat packing place in Missouri.

00:07:48.000 All of them got COVID.

00:07:49.000 Most of them survived, but what we should have been telling them is two weeks after you got it, come back to work.

00:07:54.000 You don't have to wear a mask now.

00:07:55.000 You've had it.

00:07:56.000 You have immunity.

00:07:57.000 You won't spread it to your family.

00:07:59.000 And guess what?

00:08:00.000 All the unknown about whether you're going to die or not, you survived and you're done.

00:08:04.000 But instead, we told people you might get it again and you still might die and you've got to wear a mask all day long when in reality we should have been celebrating the people who recovered and letting them have their freedom back.

00:08:15.000 Well there was also this kooky thing where after you got over the disease they wanted you to get vaccinated which was strange.

00:08:22.000 It was almost like they wanted you to join the team.

00:08:24.000 Like take the blood oath.

00:08:26.000 I met a man in Orange County and his mom was like 83 and she was very sick and she ultimately died from COVID probably.

00:08:26.000 Yeah.

00:08:35.000 But she went to the hospital with COVID.

00:08:37.000 They wouldn't admit her until she was vaccinated for COVID while she had COVID, which is actually against all recommendations.

00:08:45.000 And this is the problem with the mass vaccination thing.

00:08:48.000 If you're going to Walgreen, do you think they ask you if you've had COVID recently before they gave you a shot?

00:08:53.000 And so really the best medical recommendation for a young person is one, you don't need the COVID vaccine, but you certainly shouldn't be taking it close to when you've had an infection because you've got an immune response that's going against the disease.

00:09:06.000 Then you add in another stimulant to it.

00:09:08.000 That's actually related to an increase in the rate of the heart inflammation that comes along with vaccinating some of the young people.

00:09:14.000 Well, there's also the weirdness of what happened during the Reagan administration with vaccines where they're no longer liable for any vaccine injuries.

00:09:25.000 And when you call this a vaccine, it's very different than any vaccine that had ever been used before.

00:09:32.000 But yet you have all of these injuries that people have no recourse to.

00:09:37.000 Yeah, my dad was in Congress at the time and voted against giving them the liability protection.

00:09:43.000 And he also was there when they had the swine flu epidemic.

00:09:47.000 And in that, more people died from the swine flu vaccine.

00:09:50.000 I think there were no deaths from swine flu.

00:09:52.000 They said, oh, it's going to take over the world.

00:09:54.000 And, you know, we're going to lose 5% of our public.

00:09:57.000 Nobody died.

00:09:58.000 The epidemic quickly stopped.

00:10:01.000 But then several people got Guillain Beret and a few people died from the vaccine.

00:10:06.000 And I'm not against vaccines.

00:10:07.000 Look, there are many miracles to vaccines, but they should be used judiciously and the risks and benefit for each individual.

00:10:15.000 And it turns out COVID had an age differential that was more significant probably than any disease we've ever seen.

00:10:22.000 It really was an old person's disease.

00:10:24.000 Yeah.

00:10:25.000 An old person and people with comorbidities. 1.00

00:10:27.000 Exactly.

00:10:28.000 It was really bad for obese people.

00:10:31.000 But, you know, the disease aside, what was it like for you to watch this play being run?

00:10:41.000 Because that's essentially what it was.

00:10:43.000 It was like there was a play being run, and you had to follow whatever their narrative was to the T, or you'd be attacked.

00:10:54.000 And you would see these people that were acting like soldiers for the pharmaceutical drug complex.

00:10:59.000 I mean, they would go out there and just brutally attack anybody who deviated from the narrative, say the most awful things, talk about how there was blood on your hands.

00:11:12.000 It was very strange.

00:11:14.000 Well, the belief in the vaccines and the belief that you should do it was like a religious belief.

00:11:21.000 And that's the way they treated it.

00:11:23.000 So if you didn't believe in it, you were someone to be demonized as a non-believer.

00:11:28.000 You were to be cast out.

00:11:29.000 And you weren't patriotic if you weren't wearing a mask.

00:11:33.000 And even after I've already had it, I'm walking down the hallway, you know, between the office buildings and the Capitol.

00:11:38.000 And all those reporters, they're 22 years old.

00:11:40.000 Most of them are journalist majors.

00:11:42.000 They never had a science course in their life.

00:11:44.000 And they're lecturing me about why I should be wearing a mask.

00:11:46.000 And it's like, I already had the disease.

00:11:48.000 I've been field up three weeks.

00:11:50.000 I don't need to wear a mask.

00:11:52.000 I've got immunity.

00:11:53.000 Well, how do you know that?

00:11:54.000 But even in the beginning when they said they didn't know, they did know.

00:11:57.000 We had an outbreak in 2003.

00:12:00.000 It was a different coronavirus.

00:12:02.000 It was the first SARS virus.

00:12:04.000 But we knew that those people 17 years later still had T cells and still had immunity to it.

00:12:10.000 One of my favorite stories, and we include this in the book, was there was a woman, and she was 102. 0.65

00:12:16.000 She goes to the hospital, and they bring her family in.

00:12:19.000 They're talking to her daughter, who's 85, says, we don't think your mom's going to make it.

00:12:24.000 And she said, have you met my mom?

00:12:26.000 And they said, well, and she survived.

00:12:28.000 But while she was there, they decided to test her for antibodies to the Spanish flu because when she was six months old, her mother was coming across the Atlantic.

00:12:36.000 Her mom died from the Spanish flu.

00:12:38.000 She got it, survived.

00:12:40.000 They tested her 100 years later.

00:12:42.000 She still had antibodies to the Spanish flu.

00:12:45.000 So immunity lasts a long damn time.

00:12:47.000 Wow.

00:12:48.000 That's crazy.

00:12:50.000 But what was it like being in the government and seeing all this play out and that it was illogical, it didn't make any sense, but yet everyone was following the playbook.

00:13:05.000 Well, people without any kind of scientific background were lecturing people.

00:13:09.000 Sherrod Brown, Sherrod Brown from Ohio was a center.

00:13:13.000 He was the worst.

00:13:14.000 He would stop the proceedings and start pointing and yelling at me for not having a mask.

00:13:18.000 In the house, they made him wear the mask.

00:13:20.000 And so you got everybody in there with a mask.

00:13:22.000 I got the infection like in March of 2020.

00:13:25.000 So I got it just as it came over.

00:13:27.000 I'm all healed up.

00:13:28.000 I volunteered in the hospital when I was done because I had immunity.

00:13:32.000 And at that time, you're right, we didn't know everything.

00:13:34.000 And there were some risks to the orderlies and nurses.

00:13:36.000 So when they had to rotate patients that were on the ventilator, I would go in and help them.

00:13:40.000 So one less person had to go in the room because I had immunity.

00:13:44.000 And everybody acknowledged that I did at my local hospital.

00:13:47.000 They didn't ask, there was no vaccine at the time anyway.

00:13:51.000 But they all acknowledged that, oh, this is great.

00:13:53.000 He has immunity, and he can help take the place of someone else who's having to risk being in the room when we move patients around.

00:13:53.000 He's coming in.

00:14:01.000 One of my favorite scenes was there was a musical performance where there was a bunch of flutists and they had masks on with a whole cutout so they could play their flute through the mask.

00:14:10.000 I was like, this is wild.

00:14:13.000 Well, yeah, explain to me the science of that I can eat my peanuts for 20 minutes on the plane.

00:14:18.000 And my favorite is some of the flight attendants were great.

00:14:22.000 Some of them would actually come up to me and pass messages.

00:14:24.000 I would get a little folded up message.

00:14:26.000 Thank you for what you're doing.

00:14:27.000 Thank you for challenging Fauci.

00:14:28.000 But then some of them were Karens and it brings out the worst in you. 0.99

00:14:32.000 A little bit of power can bring out the worst in people.

00:14:34.000 And some of them were, you know, sir, you're not eating your peanuts faster.

00:14:38.000 Eat your peanuts faster.

00:14:39.000 You need to put your mask on in between.

00:14:40.000 You have to peanuts on planes anymore.

00:14:42.000 You're dating yourself.

00:14:43.000 They still do have peanuts on planes.

00:14:45.000 But aren't peanuts, don't they keep them off planes because the people have severe peanut allergies?

00:14:49.000 They do.

00:14:49.000 And that's a whole nother story.

00:14:52.000 And have you ever had Marty McCary on?

00:14:54.000 I have not, but I'm trying to.

00:14:56.000 He wrote a book.

00:14:57.000 He wrote a book called Blind Spots, and in it he writes about the peanut allergy.

00:15:00.000 And you know how you prevent the peanut allergy?

00:15:02.000 Give kids peanut butter. 0.84

00:15:03.000 Give your kids peanuts. 0.99

00:15:05.000 And now the recommendation, even from the American Pediatric Association, who are terrible, they're the worst people in the world on vaccine mythology and religiosity.

00:15:15.000 But they finally came around.

00:15:16.000 They said, don't get peanut butter for like a decade.

00:15:19.000 We've got all these allergies.

00:15:20.000 But now they finally, I think, changed their official position.

00:15:22.000 And I think in three months, you're supposed to start introducing peanut butter to your kid.

00:15:26.000 Why do you think they're the worst when you said they're the worst on that?

00:15:31.000 It's a blind notion.

00:15:33.000 And it isn't based on risk-benefit analysis or anything.

00:15:37.000 It's this devotion that you're a good person, but you're also a smart person if you believe.

00:15:43.000 But it's in all vaccines.

00:15:44.000 And they've made the mistake because sometimes they had the first rotavirus vaccine 15 years ago they gave.

00:15:50.000 They'd take it off the market because six months later, they learned that something called intosusption, where the intestines go inside each other, which can be a real problem for a child, was happening more often with a vaccine.

00:16:01.000 They had to pull the vaccine.

00:16:03.000 But vaccines are like anything else.

00:16:05.000 It's like you and I would sit down and we'd talk about your drugs, and I'd talk about the side effects of each one, what your disease is, and what we can do.

00:16:12.000 Like, I'm not completely, like, for example, with the COVID vaccine, I don't think children should take it because they think the risk of the heart inflammation is greater than the chance of the disease.

00:16:22.000 Early on, they said for old people and overweight people that reduced hospitalization and death.

00:16:28.000 But I've been talking to the CDC because I want to know is that still true.

00:16:32.000 So let's do a new study.

00:16:33.000 The virus has progressively gotten less dangerous.

00:16:36.000 The community's progressively gotten more immunity.

00:16:39.000 So what was true in 2020 may no longer be true.

00:16:42.000 I want to know if you're over 65 and I give 1,000 people the vaccine, the brand new one, whatever it is, and I give 1,000 people no vaccine, is a reduction in hospitalization and death?

00:16:53.000 Because this isn't 2020 anymore.

00:16:55.000 Well, not only that, I mean, when was the last time you heard of someone dying or being hospitalized?

00:16:59.000 That's what I mean.

00:17:00.000 It's not happening.

00:17:02.000 But it's also because the strains, the variants of the 2008.

00:17:05.000 The variants have become less, they've become less dangerous, and we've also increased our amount of immunity.

00:17:10.000 And so we should study this again.

00:17:12.000 Why?

00:17:13.000 Because big pharma is just making a gazillion dollars off of still scaring everybody over 65.

00:17:19.000 And if it still works, I'll come on your show and say, take it if you're over 65. 1.00

00:17:24.000 But I don't know if it works, and I doubt that it works because I don't hear of anybody dying from COVID anymore.

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00:18:48.000 Well, it's also this weird binary thing where it's like there's one thing that you could take and that's it.

00:18:54.000 There's no talk about strengthening your immune system with vitamin supplementation and what are the other options that you could have once you actually get sick.

00:19:04.000 Like what can you do?

00:19:05.000 IV vitamins are fantastic.

00:19:07.000 There's a lot of different things that people can do that are never recommended.

00:19:11.000 It's strange.

00:19:12.000 And really the two things that were controversial, at least among a lot of things, but ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, people will ask me about it and I'll say I don't know.

00:19:20.000 The government refused to study it.

00:19:23.000 And so it's very difficult because if you took in, let's say 2020, the virus was dangerous, and let's say you took 5,000 people under the age of 50 and you gave them ivermectin, and you did 5,000 people and you gave them nothing, almost nobody died in either category.

00:19:38.000 So it was hard to prove.

00:19:39.000 But I don't think ivermectin was harmful.

00:19:41.000 I don't think hydroxychloroquine was harmful either.

00:19:45.000 But they wouldn't study it.

00:19:46.000 And you need a big study.

00:19:48.000 So to figure out, since the death rate was so low for healthy people, you might need 10,000 people in each arm of the study to figure out what works and what didn't work.

00:19:57.000 There were some international studies showing ivermectin worked and hydroxychloroquine.

00:20:01.000 There weren't many here, but Fauci shut them all down.

00:20:04.000 They started a study and then he shut it down.

00:20:06.000 How does one guy get that kind of power?

00:20:11.000 He was there forever.

00:20:13.000 He was there about as long as I wrote an op-ed comparing him to J. Edgar Hoover.

00:20:19.000 Hoover was like there for 70 years, abused the civil liberties of people protesting for civil rights.

00:20:25.000 He abused the liberty and the privacy of people protesting the Vietnam War.

00:20:31.000 And so Hoover was a terrible person with his longevity.

00:20:34.000 I think Fauci ranks right up there with his disregard for people's privacy.

00:20:39.000 But even the stuff about the masks, you know that we studied pandemics for a decade.

00:20:44.000 Bill Gates has been given gazillions of dollars.

00:20:47.000 He's gotten the government to spend money.

00:20:49.000 And when we studied pandemics, all the way up until 2020, there was never a recommendation for masks among the public.

00:20:55.000 Who recommended it against masks?

00:20:57.000 Fauci recommended against masks in a very public interview that was a video where he was talking about, you know, it's not going to help you.

00:21:03.000 And worse, maybe you'll mess with your face. 0.53

00:21:06.000 Yeah, well, the good one was that Birdwell woman. 1.00

00:21:09.000 She was in the administration. 0.79

00:21:10.000 She writes him a letter in January.

00:21:12.000 She says, I have to go to a conference.

00:21:14.000 Should I wear a mask?

00:21:15.000 And he writes back to her, no, we've done all the studies and there's no evidence that for a respiratory virus, it works.

00:21:21.000 And it turns out almost all the masks, the cloth masks, you know, you've heard all this.

00:21:26.000 The pores were bigger than the virus.

00:21:27.000 The virus goes through them.

00:21:29.000 The surgical mask, a little better, but if you have these big gaps on either side, do you think the virus isn't going around the mask?

00:21:34.000 And it probably goes through that mask also.

00:21:37.000 The N95 mask, if you're a doctor or nurse and you're going in and out of a room and you wash your hands and throw away the mask, there probably is some value.

00:21:45.000 So in the hospital, they recommended this.

00:21:48.000 But one of the reasons Anthony Fauci was such a danger is what he recommended was actually dangerous.

00:21:53.000 So he's wearing a Washington Nationals cloth mask to show people, or he's wearing a Black Lives Matter mask to show people he cares.

00:22:04.000 But if that's the advice and you're 75 years old and your wife has COVID and you're going in her room to take her food and you wear a cloth mask, you're risking getting COVID and dying yourself.

00:22:16.000 He gave us the wrong advice.

00:22:17.000 And then people thought they were safe with the cloth mask, so they're actually doing something they shouldn't do.

00:22:22.000 Or they're 85 years old and they're going to church, but they're wearing a cloth mask.

00:22:26.000 Well, no, that.

00:22:27.000 You probably shouldn't go to church, frankly.

00:22:29.000 You shouldn't be told you can't go to church.

00:22:31.000 But actually, the advice early on to avoid crowds and stay home if you were older or vulnerable.

00:22:36.000 But the kids should have just gone to school and tried to stay away from people.

00:22:41.000 But eventually it happened anyway.

00:22:43.000 It went everywhere.

00:22:44.000 There was no stopping this virus.

00:22:46.000 Well, there's never been a respiratory virus.

00:22:49.000 It stopped with a vaccine anyway, right?

00:22:52.000 No.

00:22:53.000 The flu vaccine doesn't really stop with it either.

00:22:55.000 And I'm trying to get more statistics on the flu vaccine as well to see if it's accurate.

00:23:00.000 Because I think they lie to us every year about, you know, they say, oh, well, it wasn't this, it wasn't even the same category or type, but you're getting some crossover effect.

00:23:10.000 I think most of the time that is being inflated.

00:23:15.000 What they're telling you is not actually true.

00:23:16.000 And I'm trying to get them at the CDC to study all of this again because they have the power and the numbers to look at large numbers.

00:23:23.000 And let's be objective and tell people, you know, what is the odds next year the flu vaccine will work for you.

00:23:28.000 And we used to say, well, it may not work, but if you're at risk, go ahead and take it.

00:23:31.000 So it used to be over 50 or over 65.

00:23:34.000 Now they want everybody to take the flu vaccine.

00:23:37.000 And it probably is probably better unless your child has an immunodeficiency disease to go ahead and get these and develop immunity over time.

00:23:46.000 And what do you think is going on?

00:23:48.000 Like, why are they recommending this?

00:23:50.000 Is this purely a profit thing?

00:23:54.000 I think if they were here, they would argue that it's science and it isn't for profit.

00:23:59.000 But they argue vigorously against revealing if they're receiving money from big pharma.

00:24:05.000 So what I ask is if you're on the vaccine committee and you're going to recommend that every child get a COVID vaccine, shouldn't you have to release whether you get royalties from big pharma?

00:24:15.000 And Anthony Fauci in committee said, we don't have to do it.

00:24:18.000 The law, and he quoted the law, says we don't have to do it.

00:24:21.000 So for two, three, four years now, I'm still trying to get this passed.

00:24:25.000 I've gotten all the Republicans to agree to it, and I've gotten all the Democrats but two or three.

00:24:30.000 And I'm still trying to get it passed unanimously.

00:24:32.000 But it would say if you're a government scientist and you get royalties from Pfizer or from one of the big companies, you have to actually list it on a form.

00:24:41.000 And really, you should be then recused from voting.

00:24:43.000 Well, also, why are doctors allowed to be financially incentivized?

00:24:48.000 Yeah, that should be considered to be unethical or inappropriate.

00:24:54.000 We did change some of the things with pharma and gifts to doctors about 10 years ago.

00:24:58.000 It is better than it used to be as far as gifts to doctors, except for then they don't call this a gift.

00:25:03.000 I think this should be under the gift ban.

00:25:05.000 You should not be getting paid to use certain things because I think it's actually malpractice to give children the COVID vaccine.

00:25:15.000 Are you aware of Mary Tallie Bowden?

00:25:17.000 Yep.

00:25:18.000 Yeah.

00:25:18.000 You know her story?

00:25:19.000 Not a lot.

00:25:20.000 I've met her before, I think.

00:25:21.000 She told me that, you know, she has a small practice that's in like a strip mall, I believe, outside of Houston.

00:25:27.000 She said that in her small practice, if she had vaccinated everyone, she would have been compensated $1.5 million.

00:25:34.000 It's a significant amount of money.

00:25:36.000 And people have listened to these.

00:25:37.000 Yeah, no, it's insane.

00:25:39.000 And it's the one sort of exception to we have all these things preventing kickbacks to doctors, except for vaccines, and that's somehow exempt.

00:25:48.000 So, yeah, no, we've looked at whether legislation could fix this, and I don't think we've found a good answer, but I have definitely looked to see if there's a way Congress could try to fix this.

00:25:57.000 What's amazing to me is how many people in the general public are not skeptical.

00:26:03.000 How many people in the general public will hear this kind of conversation and immediately their hackles get up and they want to argue against this?

00:26:10.000 Vaccines save more.

00:26:11.000 Vaccines are so important.

00:26:15.000 And they have no information.

00:26:17.000 They've done no research.

00:26:19.000 They've never looked at it objectively.

00:26:20.000 They don't understand the whole history of compensation and what happened with the immunity.

00:26:27.000 So in the book, I tell the story of George Washington.

00:26:30.000 One, to let people know I'm not against.

00:26:32.000 And the smallpox vaccine was amazing.

00:26:34.000 And in George Washington's day, it was actually live.

00:26:37.000 So what you did is, if you'd had smallpox and you were doing pretty well and you survived, and you didn't have a bad case, you had a minor case, you had four or five POCs, not a lot, as you were recovering, that open a scab, take pus from your arm, stab somebody else's arm, and take the pus from your infection and stick it into somebody else.

00:26:56.000 That's a live vaccine.

00:26:58.000 That's crazy.

00:26:59.000 But, and they did have some people die from it.

00:27:02.000 But the death rate from smallpox is one out of three.

00:27:05.000 And when it would show up in Boston, you'd have like 20,000 people die and the whole town would get it.

00:27:09.000 It was terrible.

00:27:10.000 And so people actually chose, but people weren't being forced to do it.

00:27:14.000 But the George Washington case is very instructive.

00:27:16.000 Martha wants to come visit him at the camps, at the war camps, and there were more deaths in the Revolutionary War from disease than there were from bullets.

00:27:23.000 He says you can't come until you're vaccinated for smallpox.

00:27:26.000 It wouldn't vaccinate.

00:27:27.000 It was called inoculated because you're getting stuck with the disease, not a vaccine.

00:27:32.000 But people say, well, I guess Washington took it too if he believes so much in this.

00:27:35.000 I was like, no, because he already had smallpox.

00:27:37.000 He got smallpox when he was 15 in Barbados.

00:27:40.000 They understood immunity.

00:27:42.000 We have understood immunity for thousands of years, and yet it just went out the window with Anthony Fauci saying, well, we just don't know.

00:27:50.000 We just don't know.

00:27:51.000 We do know.

00:27:52.000 We don't always know how perfect it's going to be, but we do know that nobody got COVID the second time around and had a worse case the second time around.

00:28:00.000 Well, one thing we do know is that when Biden left office, he was granted this very bizarre pardon where he got a pardon that goes back to 2014 for crimes he was never accused of.

00:28:12.000 Never convicted.

00:28:13.000 I mean, it's got to be one of the first times that anybody's ever been together.

00:28:17.000 Yeah, and I think it should be challenged.

00:28:19.000 And so we have under the Biden administration, I sent criminal referrals for Anthony Fauci to Merritt Garland twice, and I sent them evidence that he had lied to Congress, which was a felony.

00:28:31.000 They just ignored me.

00:28:33.000 I've been working with Bobby Kennedy, and he's been very helpful on this.

00:28:37.000 I have a good relationship with him.

00:28:38.000 He's given us a lot of information, and we've looked at the communications.

00:28:42.000 And in Anthony Fauci's communications, we now have evidence that he was telling people like Francis Collins, read this and destroy it.

00:28:49.000 Well, you can't do that.

00:28:50.000 The executive branch, when they communicate, they're required to keep their communications, and they're required to do it on government devices.

00:28:57.000 So we have this evidence, and I've summarized it again in a criminal referral to Trump's Attorney General, and I still haven't gotten action.

00:29:05.000 But there's a couple reasons we should do it.

00:29:07.000 One, he shouldn't get away with lying.

00:29:09.000 He shouldn't get away with destroying records.

00:29:11.000 But two, we should check the pardon.

00:29:13.000 Is an auto-pen pardon valid?

00:29:15.000 And is a pardon a retrospective pardon back 10 years that doesn't mention a crime?

00:29:21.000 Can you give people a pardon for everything they did in a 10-year period?

00:29:25.000 I can't imagine.

00:29:26.000 And I think the court might narrow that.

00:29:28.000 But it doesn't happen unless the Trump Justice Department will do something.

00:29:32.000 And I've been sending them referrals, and I can't get them to do anything.

00:29:36.000 I can't guarantee they'll win.

00:29:38.000 They might lose, but they ought to go to court.

00:29:41.000 Take it to court.

00:29:43.000 When you were having that conversation with him about gain of function research, which clearly gain of function research was being done at the Wuhan lab.

00:29:52.000 And he was just standing in front saying that under the definition of gain of function research, that that does not qualify.

00:30:00.000 What was that like?

00:30:02.000 We all knew he was lying, and he was parsing words.

00:30:05.000 He was trying to have a semantics type of argument.

00:30:08.000 But one of the reasons we know he's lying, and one of the things that I've presented as evidence, is there was a group text chain on February 1st of 2020.

00:30:17.000 So you have all these virologists who are saying privately it came from the lab and publicly it didn't.

00:30:23.000 You have them all communicating.

00:30:25.000 But one of the things Anthony Fauci says about the Wuhan lab is he says, we know it's dangerous and possible because we know they're doing gain of function research.

00:30:37.000 So we're funding them.

00:30:39.000 He would never admit we're funding him because we were funding EcoHealth, this intermediary.

00:30:43.000 So he said, oh, we're not funding them.

00:30:45.000 Well, we're funding them through EcoHealth.

00:30:46.000 It's not gain of function.

00:30:48.000 Except for then he says the experiments they're doing are gain of function.

00:30:51.000 And so I think everything about it was dishonest.

00:30:55.000 He got away with it because people in the scientific community still to this day defend him.

00:31:00.000 And people on the left made it a partisan.

00:31:02.000 I don't know why this is a Republican-Democrat issue, but all of the main networks still defend him.

00:31:07.000 You know, he was given a million-dollar prize.

00:31:10.000 Some nonprofit gave him a million-dollar prize.

00:31:13.000 How's a bureaucrat get to accept a million-dollar prize while they're working for the government?

00:31:18.000 You tell me.

00:31:19.000 You work for the government.

00:31:21.000 Then when he leaves the government, he gets 24-7 limo service and security.

00:31:27.000 He's got people in front of his home stopping traffic like you do for a president getting in the car, which I'm okay for former presidents, but that's about it.

00:31:35.000 You know, Anthony Fauci should have never got this.

00:31:37.000 I will say that Trump ended it.

00:31:40.000 And everybody said, oh, he'll be killed.

00:31:42.000 And it's like, you know, I guarantee a lot of us have more threats than Anthony Fauci has.

00:31:46.000 And none of us have a limo picking us up every day.

00:31:49.000 Well, I'm sure he has threats.

00:31:52.000 I'm sure Anthony Fauci has threats.

00:31:54.000 And I think he probably should be concerned.

00:32:00.000 It's based on what everybody knows.

00:32:01.000 Right, but the government doesn't, you know, you're a famous person.

00:32:04.000 Government doesn't pay for your limousine.

00:32:06.000 He shouldn't have a limousine paid for by the government with 24-7.

00:32:09.000 No, no, I agree.

00:32:11.000 Also, how much money did he make?

00:32:13.000 Do we know?

00:32:14.000 We know he got the million-dollar prize.

00:32:16.000 We know he made more than the president towards the end.

00:32:18.000 He was making $450,000 a year.

00:32:21.000 But his wife, if you ever had an ethical problem, you know who he went to, his wife.

00:32:25.000 His wife was in charge of bioethics for the NIH.

00:32:29.000 So if there was a question of whether or not his royalties were a conflict, he would ask his wife to find out if he was acting unethically.

00:32:36.000 She made about $250,000.

00:32:37.000 So they're really making a combined $700, which I'm not against money.

00:32:42.000 You work hard, people pay you money.

00:32:44.000 I'm all for it.

00:32:45.000 But I am against the government paying bureaucrats that kind of money.

00:32:48.000 And so, and he really, there should be term limits for people in those positions.

00:32:54.000 You shouldn't be there for 40 years.

00:32:56.000 So he appointed all the people beneath him, and he stacked the deck.

00:33:00.000 And, you know, I asked the question, and this was an email from Francis Collins to Anthony Fauci.

00:33:08.000 He says, take them down, talking about Jay Bhattacharya, the head of the NIH now, talking about Martin Kaldorf, and then an epidemiologist from Oxford.

00:33:18.000 Take them down.

00:33:19.000 And so when I have scientists come before my committee, I'll ask them the first question.

00:33:23.000 Have you ever or would you ever send another scientist a note saying to take down a fellow scientist you disagreed with?

00:33:32.000 My goodness, that sounds like the mafia or something.

00:33:35.000 It doesn't sound like someone who's supposed to be above the fray, objective scientist.

00:33:40.000 Were there any other avenues for revenue for him because of the creation of the vaccine or any other medications?

00:33:49.000 I don't think with the current one, we don't know all of his royalties.

00:33:55.000 He would say, oh, I got $25 or something.

00:33:58.000 That's not, it might have been true for a year, but there are years in the past that he was getting more.

00:34:04.000 I think Open the Books or the Open Secrets, that group has gone through and through Freedom of Information, has gotten information that like 1,500 doctors got $1.5 billion or 1,500 scientists got $1.5 billion in royalties.

00:34:22.000 So it's not an insignificant amount of money.

00:34:24.000 It's a lot of scientists.

00:34:26.000 And once again, I'm not even sure I'm forbidding it.

00:34:30.000 I just want to know if any of them are on a committee voting for the drug that they got money from that particular drug company.

00:34:37.000 The woman that was appointed for the NIH under Biden and never got approved, you know, she may well be an ethical person, but I think she's done research grants of $231 million from Pfizer, and it was listed.

00:34:51.000 And it doesn't mean she's a dishonest person, but I wonder how she could be objective with Pfizer if through her career.

00:34:57.000 And all that money didn't go to her, it was grants that she oversaw, and some of the money went to her. 0.74

00:35:02.000 And that doesn't mean it's illegal or unethical, but I think it's hard for her to judge objectively a company that has been the main financer of her entire career.

00:35:12.000 Well, it certainly incentivizes her to be more favorable towards them, clearly. 0.85

00:35:16.000 Like, you follow human nature.

00:35:19.000 I mean, it just makes sense.

00:35:21.000 Now, Bobby Kennedy has put, you know, and the left-wing people hate all the people he's put on there.

00:35:25.000 I think he's doing a good job of getting the people out who were so pro-vaccine that it was a religion for them.

00:35:31.000 And I think they have better people.

00:35:33.000 And I've noticed as they go around the room, I don't know if you've seen this when they vote, they start by saying before they vote, I have no conflicts of interest.

00:35:40.000 They are verbally announcing I have no conflicts of interest, which is a big improvement.

00:35:45.000 But I really want to see all the scientists, who they get it from, how much, and then let, you know, part of oversight is not just Congress, it's the public.

00:35:54.000 It's people who analyze these issues, looking in and seeing how much they made and what do they oversee.

00:36:00.000 Is there a conflict of interest?

00:36:03.000 What is the tone like in the government now in comparison to when the pandemic was going on?

00:36:15.000 I'd say it's a calmer tone.

00:36:16.000 There was hysteria that sort of ruled the day.

00:36:20.000 And I think that, you know, and this was sort of the problem and how Anthony Fauci became so prominent.

00:36:25.000 You know, there was, you know, the president was out speaking, and the president speaks off the cuff and doesn't always say things that are always exactly accurate.

00:36:34.000 And so as he was saying stuff, many of these sort of establishment senators were saying, we need somebody else.

00:36:40.000 We need a scientist at those press conferences.

00:36:43.000 So it was actually many of my colleagues who pushed Anthony Fauci, pushed them through Pence and pushed them through the president to accept him.

00:36:51.000 And one of the things that's still inexplicable to this day is that as Anthony Fauci leaves government, President Trump gives him a gold medal, a presidential medal of honor, you know, as he leaves, which, you know, knowing what we know, I think should have never happened.

00:37:10.000 Yeah.

00:37:11.000 The people that were so vehemently opposed to your position and the people that were so pro-vaccine and pro-mal, like a lot of them are still in the government.

00:37:20.000 Yeah, and a lot of them are still in the news media, too.

00:37:23.000 I was called all kinds of names by people.

00:37:26.000 And it turns out that almost everything I was complaining about, turns out in retrospect, I was right about most of them.

00:37:31.000 The masks, really, most of them didn't work.

00:37:34.000 And even the ones that work, a lot of people don't realize this.

00:37:36.000 An N95 mask works to a certain degree, but once you've touched it, you've contaminated it.

00:37:43.000 And also, after you've worn it for four hours, the moisture from your breath gets rid of the electrostatic charge and it doesn't really work very well.

00:37:50.000 So the doctors don't reuse them.

00:37:52.000 They might use them a couple times.

00:37:54.000 You're breathing in your own bacteria.

00:37:56.000 Doctors throw them away and wash their hands after every if you can do that. 1.00

00:38:00.000 There's maybe some value or someone's sick in your house.

00:38:02.000 But for the general public, riding in a car, particularly when you ride by yourself in a car and an N95 mask does not help you.

00:38:08.000 I hate to tell the Democrats.

00:38:10.000 I like when they do it.

00:38:11.000 I think it's important.

00:38:12.000 It's important when people drive with a mask on because it lets me know who's out of their fucking mind.

00:38:16.000 It also, you don't have to ask them what party they're registered.

00:38:20.000 It's automatic.

00:38:20.000 Yeah, I said it was a Democrats' MAGA hat.

00:38:22.000 Yeah.

00:38:23.000 If you're hiking the Appalachian Trail and you see someone out by themselves and they have an N95 mask on, you can probably guess their party registration.

00:38:33.000 100%.

00:38:34.000 Yeah.

00:38:35.000 It was a strange time to go through.

00:38:38.000 It's interesting.

00:38:39.000 Most of the people that were at CNN are gone now, except Brian Stelter.

00:38:43.000 They got rid of him, and then that's how bad the talent is out there.

00:38:46.000 They had to bring them back.

00:38:48.000 Yeah, one of them called me a bloviating ass, and I haven't been back on since about four years ago and said I was so awful to Anthony Fauci and that everything I said was dangerous and I was endangering lives.

00:39:01.000 But I was right about the masks.

00:39:03.000 I was right about natural immunity.

00:39:05.000 But I was also right about this six feet of distance.

00:39:08.000 It's actually the opposite of what they told you.

00:39:11.000 So let's say you were 80 years old and you and I were coming together in March of 2020.

00:39:15.000 And well, let's say even worse, we're going to go to choir practice, but we're going to spread out six feet apart.

00:39:20.000 Is that safe for an 85-year-old to go?

00:39:22.000 No, they should be staying at home.

00:39:24.000 That's the best advice for them.

00:39:25.000 Stay at home in March of 2020.

00:39:27.000 Because guess what?

00:39:28.000 The virus goes 30 feet, 40 feet.

00:39:31.000 You know, if you're in this.

00:39:32.000 It's just made up.

00:39:33.000 Yeah, it was made up, but it was made up in the wrong direction.

00:39:36.000 So what he did is encourage people to stay six feet apart from people, go to a crowded room, go to choir practice, and just stay away from people.

00:39:44.000 But if you're at risk, you shouldn't be a choir practice.

00:39:47.000 Not by law, but by advice.

00:39:48.000 So he actually gave you unsafe advice on the masks.

00:39:52.000 Cloth masks don't work, so he's giving you unsafe advice to go help and feed your wife or your husband with a cloth mask on.

00:39:59.000 Natural immunity does work, and he told you it doesn't work.

00:40:02.000 It was the opposite of everything he told you.

00:40:05.000 But he also never got, and I kept saying this in the hearings, he needed humility, humility to know that there's a possibility he's wrong in what he's saying and it should be advice.

00:40:16.000 And this is what they don't get about public.

00:40:18.000 If I were the public health doctor and a new pandemic came up, I should give advice, not mandates, advice based on the best things we know, and other doctors should give advice because there might be other doctors that disagree with me on it.

00:40:31.000 So you can choose.

00:40:32.000 It's sort of the idea of getting a second opinion.

00:40:34.000 You go to your doctor and you think something's not quite right and he or she wants to operate on my leg and maybe I want to wait another three weeks, see if my leg feels better in three weeks.

00:40:43.000 You get another opinion or you go home and wait three weeks and see if you get better.

00:40:50.000 You're an ophthalmologist, right?

00:40:52.000 Right.

00:40:53.000 When you're one of the rare people that's in the government that does have a background in medicine, and at least in medical training, and you're experiencing all this illogical shit, what is that like for you?

00:41:09.000 Did you try to educate your family?

00:41:13.000 You try, but most of them aren't willing to listen.

00:41:15.000 And you wonder now if they've even gotten it.

00:41:18.000 But my favorite is sort of the response you get because the internet is full of trolls.

00:41:22.000 And so one of the favorite insults, if you'll read insults of me, oh, you know, he's just a failed dental assistant.

00:41:29.000 It's like, well, not quite.

00:41:32.000 How did they come up with that one?

00:41:34.000 I don't know.

00:41:34.000 They somehow think I'm a dentist or an optometrist and I fit glasses or something.

00:41:34.000 I don't know.

00:41:39.000 None of that's really true.

00:41:41.000 But the people, it takes a long time for people.

00:41:46.000 I think slowly some of them, like I think half the Democrats actually think it may have come from the lab now.

00:41:51.000 They're not real outspoken about it.

00:41:54.000 Only half?

00:41:55.000 Maybe.

00:41:56.000 What's going on with that?

00:41:59.000 The other half still believe in natural spillovers?

00:42:01.000 Three years into this, the doctor of the Senate was still recommending there are 16-year-olds that are pages, they're 15, 16 years old, that they get three vaccines.

00:42:12.000 And I absolutely steadfastly think that that's malpractice and a risk to them.

00:42:17.000 So I fought it, and I would come to the floor, and this is weird.

00:42:21.000 No one's ever done this.

00:42:22.000 I would ask on the floor of the Senate for unanimous consent to pass a rule of the Senate that they can opt out of this program.

00:42:30.000 You know, they can listen and write, check something and opt out.

00:42:33.000 Because it turns out that the myocarditis increases in prevalence the more you take.

00:42:38.000 So if you take one COVID vaccine, it's less likely you get myocarditis.

00:42:42.000 If you take a second one, it's a little more likely a third one.

00:42:45.000 So it's the opposite of what you should be telling children.

00:42:48.000 And the death rate for a healthy 16-year-old really is essentially zero.

00:42:52.000 I mean, it is so close to zero.

00:42:54.000 Somebody might be able to find a healthy year-old that died at 16.

00:42:57.000 Almost everybody that was on CNN, not to keep mentioning CNN, but they would put these people on there and they would hide the fact that they had terminal cancer.

00:43:05.000 And it is sad that a child dies any time, but they were dying from their cancer and they just happened to have COVID, you know, and it was dishonest because they were trying to scare regular people.

00:43:15.000 Don't send your kid to school.

00:43:16.000 The teachers' union is right.

00:43:18.000 We should never go back to school.

00:43:19.000 We need another year out, which was just crazy.

00:43:22.000 And damaged ourselves.

00:43:24.000 Also, there's a giant incentive that in this country and in New Zealand, they're the only two countries in the world where they allow pharmaceutical drug companies to advertise.

00:43:33.000 And it's a problem.

00:43:34.000 I very rarely watch regular television, but every now and then I'll just go, what are these fucking crazy people up to?

00:43:41.000 And I'll watch MSNBC or CNN and see a million drug ads.

00:43:44.000 And the number of drug ads is staggering.

00:43:47.000 And the weirdness in those ads, the calm tone of their voice as they list off these horrific side effects.

00:43:55.000 Well, and the thing that's hard to imagine is there's sometimes for a disease that like 5,000 people in the country have, a disease that, as a physician, even though I know the names of most of the diseases, I'll be kind of uncertain about that.

00:44:07.000 I don't remember seeing anybody ever with that disease, and yet it's being advertised on MSNBC.

00:44:12.000 And then the question is, do you think that affects what the newscasters are saying on the news?

00:44:18.000 And it does.

00:44:19.000 That's why they're so all in with this.

00:44:23.000 They're not trying to use those ads to sell those drugs.

00:44:26.000 They're using the money by putting those ads up to make sure that those pundits don't talk badly about the pharmaceutical drug companies.

00:44:34.000 It's probably more about shaping the news than it is getting sales.

00:44:37.000 Well, the proof is in the pudding.

00:44:39.000 There have absolutely been horrific side effects of a bunch of different pharmaceutical drugs.

00:44:45.000 You don't hear a peep about any of that stuff on CNN.

00:44:49.000 And you wonder who's buying a drug when they say, well, you could die, you could become paralyzed, you could have a stroke, you could have a blood clot.

00:44:56.000 Explosive, bloody diarrhea, loss of all your memory, suicidal ideation.

00:45:01.000 They just list them off.

00:45:03.000 They list them off like this.

00:45:05.000 Consult your doctor.

00:45:06.000 They're protecting you so you can take Ambien, but God forbid you take a hemp gummy.

00:45:11.000 They will put your ass in jail if you take a hemp gummy. 1.00

00:45:14.000 And they've just recently outlawed all the hemp stuff.

00:45:16.000 And I've been fighting this for the last two months.

00:45:19.000 But all the hemp products, I know Texas actually has a lot.

00:45:22.000 They're all going to be banned within one year now.

00:45:24.000 Now, how did that get passed?

00:45:26.000 Mitch McConnell.

00:45:28.000 How is that guy still around when he just freezes up every now and again?

00:45:31.000 He locks up like Windows 95.

00:45:34.000 He is very, very powerful, and a lot of people owe him.

00:45:38.000 You know, he raised money for decades, hundreds of millions of dollars, passed it out to the lesser-known senators and helped them get elected when they would get challenges.

00:45:47.000 And so then they all owe him.

00:45:49.000 And so I forced an amendment.

00:45:51.000 And it's funny, then people in there are going, why are you doing this?

00:45:53.000 The government's shut down.

00:45:55.000 Why are you gumming up the works with a vote on hemp?

00:45:58.000 Because they stuck it on the bill to reopen the government.

00:46:00.000 It's not my choice to talk about hemp at that time.

00:46:03.000 That was my only choice.

00:46:04.000 And so I brought forward an amendment.

00:46:06.000 I got like 20-something votes, and 70 of them voted.

00:46:09.000 But they voted to set the limit and to change the amount of THC in the plant.

00:46:14.000 So all the plants are illegal now.

00:46:15.000 All the seeds are illegal.

00:46:17.000 There's a real industry of farmers who grow this.

00:46:20.000 And the thing is, who are we to tell somebody who can't sleep at night that an ambient is better for them than taking a hemp gummy to go sleep at night?

00:46:29.000 Or a veteran who could take Percocet or some kind of psychotropic drug or who has anxiety or post-traumatic stress, and we're going to tell them they can't take a hemp gummy.

00:46:39.000 I think it's insane and very much this presumption that we know what's best for everyone.

00:46:46.000 Is this the alcohol lobby?

00:46:48.000 What is the motivation?

00:46:50.000 There was a little bit of the alcohol lobby and the cannabis lobby.

00:46:53.000 The cannabis people hate the hemp people.

00:46:55.000 The cannabis people hate the hemp people.

00:46:57.000 Well, it's complicated.

00:46:59.000 The cannabis industry develops state by state, and you really can't make a marijuana product in Colorado and sell it in Kentucky.

00:47:07.000 It can't go across state lines.

00:47:09.000 The hemp, because it was legalized nationally, they were selling it across state lines.

00:47:15.000 So we have big companies now that sell the hemp gummies, and you can order them through the mail across state lines until this law came about.

00:47:23.000 And McConnell always felt it was an unintended consequence.

00:47:26.000 And some of the growth might have been, but I don't think there were some bad products out there.

00:47:31.000 And all of us, including the hemp industry, said, all right, let's regulate this.

00:47:35.000 Let's not have 100 milligram gummies.

00:47:38.000 The more traditional is sort of like 5 milligrams.

00:47:40.000 That's in a drink or in a gummy that people will take.

00:47:43.000 Reasonable.

00:47:44.000 Yeah, and I think I haven't taken it.

00:47:47.000 I'm for the freedom to take it, but I just sleep pretty good.

00:47:51.000 So it's not really something I can attest to exactly how it works.

00:47:55.000 But people who do take it to me that have one of the drinks say it might be like drinking a beer or maybe not even drinking a beer when you drink one of these THC drinks.

00:48:04.000 So the cannabis businesses in the states where it's legal don't want it legal nationally because then it would interfere with their business because you'd be able to order it through the mail.

00:48:17.000 Well, they'd probably accept it if we'd legalize cannabis nationally and then they would compete with hemp.

00:48:21.000 What was going on is we haven't legalized cannabis nationally.

00:48:24.000 We've legalized it state by state.

00:48:27.000 But I don't think even if your state has legal adult use and another one does, I don't think you can transfer it across the state. 0.56

00:48:33.000 You're saying hemp, but you really mean THC.

00:48:36.000 That's for marijuana. 0.80

00:48:37.000 That's the CBD and THC, correct?

00:48:39.000 Yeah.

00:48:40.000 CBD has a little bit of THC in it, and so do the hemp gummies have some THC in it, and then the drinks do.

00:48:46.000 It's about 5 milligrams in a lot of the different doses.

00:48:49.000 There are different doses, but that's the same thing.

00:48:50.000 And so all of those are going to be illegal?

00:48:53.000 Yeah, the McConnell language says you can't have more than 0.4 milligrams, which is such a low number that I don't think it will have any effect.

00:49:01.000 I mean, frankly, the THC is the effect.

00:49:04.000 And so if you make the THC number so small, I don't think people will take them.

00:49:09.000 The CBD oil people might still take some of that, but I assume the effect that people are getting from the CBD oil, if they rub it on, has to be the THC.

00:49:18.000 No, no.

00:49:19.000 CBD itself with no THC has a beneficial effect.

00:49:22.000 There's CBD balm that you can use for arthritis.

00:49:27.000 That may still be legal.

00:49:28.000 The plant, though, they change the definition of the plant that the CBD oil comes from, so they're going to have to rehybridize all these plants.

00:49:35.000 What I was going to say was, my mom, not my mom, rather, my wife's mom, uses CBD with THC, and she's found that that's more effective for arthritis and aches and pains than CBD without it.

00:49:51.000 She's done both, and she says the CBD with THC is more effective.

00:49:55.000 And there are some people, and once again, I'm not here to tell you to take it or not take it.

00:50:00.000 I'm for the freedom for people to make their own decision.

00:50:02.000 There's some people with children who have seizures who take medications and the kid still has 100 seizures a day, which isn't good for your brain and for the child.

00:50:10.000 And some of them have added some CBD drops they give to the child CBD oil with the THC.

00:50:16.000 Right.

00:50:17.000 And they think it slows the seizures down some.

00:50:19.000 Yeah, I have a friend whose child has severe autism and sometimes has seizures.

00:50:24.000 And the only thing that stops the seizures is CBD with THC.

00:50:28.000 And the best way to think about it is, is I'll never forget this.

00:50:31.000 This was in, I think, 2007 when Romney was running for president.

00:50:35.000 My dad was.

00:50:36.000 In fact, I know somebody who is a supporter of my dad.

00:50:39.000 I love your dad.

00:50:40.000 But anyway, they go up to Romney, and it's a person in a wheelchair with MS. And they said, are you in favor of making it illegal?

00:50:50.000 I take marijuana at night to sleep.

00:50:52.000 Are you in favor of making that illegal for me to take it?

00:50:55.000 I have MS. Would you be for making it illegal? 1.00

00:50:58.000 Romney looked right at him and said, I sure would.

00:51:00.000 And I was like, what kind of person says that?

00:51:03.000 What kind of person is so presumptuous of their moral position that they're going to tell you it's immoral to take that, but fine to take some antipsychotic drug or some kind of narcotic that the pharmacy, pharmaceutical companies sell, but we're not going to let you use marijuana?

00:51:19.000 Well, it's ignorance.

00:51:20.000 It's people that have never consumed it and have these preconceived notions of what it actually does versus what it does.

00:51:27.000 I mean, you'd be surprised at how many little old ladies are taking CBD with THC in it to help with their aches and pains and help them sit. 1.00

00:51:37.000 My joke when I tell people who's opposed to this, like McConnell, who's older than older than dirt, is that they all watched Reefer Madness in 1937 at the matinee, and they'll never forget what happens if you get that reefer madness.

00:51:56.000 And some of them probably were alive in 1937, could have actually seen the movie.

00:52:00.000 But that's it.

00:52:01.000 It's an irrational sort of fear.

00:52:03.000 But on the other side of this, we're on a program that a lot of people hear.

00:52:06.000 I don't want people at home thinking I want everybody and every 15-year-old out there smoking marijuana after school.

00:52:11.000 I think there are some side effects to smoking marijuana all the time, particularly for the brain.

00:52:17.000 And I'm not encouraging drinking alcohol as well.

00:52:20.000 I'm for personal choice for adults.

00:52:20.000 Same thing.

00:52:22.000 And the problem with the whole Reefer Madness thing, I'm glad you brought that up.

00:52:25.000 Do you know the whole story behind it?

00:52:27.000 No.

00:52:27.000 William Randolph Hearst.

00:52:29.000 William Randolph Hearst was responsible for this whole terrifying craze of people thinking that marijuana was driving people nuts and jumping out of buildings.

00:52:39.000 In 1930-something, I forget the year, they came up with a new product called the Decorticator.

00:52:46.000 And it was in Popular Science magazine, Hemp, the new billion-dollar crop, because they had this new machine that allowed them to effectively process hemp fiber.

00:52:54.000 William Randolph Hearst owned Hearst Publications, but he also owned paper mills.

00:52:59.000 Hemp was a far more effective and far more durable form of paper.

00:53:04.000 He was going to compete with hemp, and he had forests that he was using for his paper, where they were, you know, for paper mills.

00:53:12.000 And hemp was going to replace all that.

00:53:15.000 It was a competitor.

00:53:16.000 So they were arguing against it as a commodity.

00:53:19.000 Marijuana was never a name for cannabis.

00:53:22.000 Marijuana was a name for a wild Mexican tobacco.

00:53:26.000 And so they started saying in his newspapers, they started printing these fake stories about how blacks and Mexicans were taking this new drug and raping white women.

00:53:37.000 And that's where reefer bandis came from.

00:53:39.000 And they call this new drug marijuana.

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00:54:31.000 I know this is going to be shocking to you, but that's the story of government.

00:54:35.000 Most things that come out in government, if you look beneath the surface, they all have pretty names.

00:54:35.000 Yeah.

00:54:41.000 They have acronyms, say Patriotism, the Patriot Act.

00:54:45.000 You must be anti-patriotic if you're not for the Patriot Act.

00:54:48.000 But most of the things they say, it's the opposite, or someone has put something forward that really is about, like, let's say it's a banking regulation.

00:54:56.000 You say, this is going to protect the poor people.

00:54:58.000 But it turns out the banking regulation is easier paid for and absorbed by big banks.

00:55:03.000 And so what happens to your small local bank, and you say, how come all the small banks get gobbled up by big banks?

00:55:08.000 It's because you put regulations on that who favored?

00:55:11.000 The big banks favor the regulations because it puts the small bank out of business.

00:55:16.000 They get absorbed by the big bank.

00:55:17.000 And then the new banks trying to come in can't afford the compliance cost.

00:55:22.000 Right now, one of the extraordinary things we're doing with banks, and I don't think many people know this, the Federal Reserve is now paying interest to big banks on keeping reserves at the Federal Reserve.

00:55:32.000 There's $3 trillion there.

00:55:34.000 Last year, the big banks, primarily the big banks in New York, got $187 billion in interest.

00:55:41.000 Previously, that interest would go back to the Treasury to offset the debt.

00:55:45.000 That's about 10 percent of our debt.

00:55:47.000 So our debt is 10 percent worse because we're now paying, and we never did this.

00:55:50.000 Before 2010, we never paid interest on reserves.

00:55:55.000 And what it means to pay interest on reserves is that it's an incentive for the Fed just to leave it there.

00:56:00.000 Why loan it to you if you're expanding a business when I can just leave it here and get 4 percent?

00:56:04.000 It also keeps interest rates from going down.

00:56:06.000 Because if the Fed pays the big bank 4 percent, are they going to loan it to you for 3.5 when it can just sit at the Fed and gain 4?

00:56:13.000 So it's kind of, you know, President Trump always wants what he wants, and sometimes he wants good things, but he, you know, may not go about it the best way.

00:56:21.000 He wants interest rates to be lower.

00:56:23.000 I think most people do.

00:56:24.000 But one way to make interest for her is tell the Fed they can't pay interest to these big banks. 1.00

00:56:29.000 Have you ever had a conversation with him about this?

00:56:30.000 I've been trying for like three months to get out of conversation with Besant.

00:56:34.000 And I held up one of their – with the Secretary of Treasury.

00:56:37.000 I held up one of their appointees last week, which is one of the things you do to get the attention of the people you want to talk to.

00:56:42.000 And they've agreed to meet with me, but we're already halfway into January.

00:56:46.000 But I'm trying to get a meeting with Besant to talk to him about this idea of paying interest because they said, oh, it will only take $30 billion to set up the system.

00:56:55.000 Then it was a trillion.

00:56:56.000 Now it's $3 trillion.

00:56:58.000 And I think it just keeps growing and growing.

00:57:00.000 But that money really isn't being productive.

00:57:03.000 And it's a gift to these big banks.

00:57:06.000 When it comes to this TAC thing, what can be done?

00:57:12.000 Trump's been good on some things.

00:57:14.000 The whole idea of changing it from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3 is an improvement.

00:57:18.000 It's still illegal without a prescription.

00:57:21.000 But a lot of the research with marijuana didn't happen because Schedule 1 is just almost impossible.

00:57:27.000 You've got to have like safes and guards and everything to deal with a Schedule 1 drug.

00:57:33.000 And so very little research occurred on marijuana over time.

00:57:37.000 And so lowering the schedule is a good idea.

00:57:42.000 State by state has kind of worked in the sense that it's allowed people to see what it's like and get used to it.

00:57:49.000 But some of the states have backtracked and some are worried that they went too far.

00:57:55.000 It's harder to determine, I think, acute intoxication if someone is driving under the influence to do a test.

00:58:03.000 I would guess the technology should be out there.

00:58:06.000 But I don't know that it's widely available.

00:58:07.000 I think it would have to be a blood test, right?

00:58:09.000 I don't know if you've consumed an edible.

00:58:12.000 You're not going to be able to get something with a breathalyzer.

00:58:15.000 I don't know that for certain.

00:58:17.000 Your breath is amazing what it actually has in it.

00:58:20.000 So I don't know the answer to that.

00:58:22.000 So maybe it's just that the testing is not adequate.

00:58:25.000 Yeah, which reminds me.

00:58:27.000 There's a guy in California I've met.

00:58:28.000 You meet extraordinary people.

00:58:30.000 He's actually studying contents of what you exhale to look for cancer markers.

00:58:36.000 So, I mean, they're really minute.

00:58:38.000 But he's going to try to diagnose things like, you know, you'll hear of a friend, you know, is like 45 years old and has pancreatic cancer.

00:58:44.000 Or we actually have a former senator right now, Ben Sasse, who says he has stage four pancreatic cancer.

00:58:50.000 And the reason it spreads before you know you have it, but he's trying to get a – and he has a test that measures markers just from what you exhale to try to pick up on cancers before they be detected.

00:59:03.000 So there's a possibility that they can come up with some sort of a detection method to find out if you're intoxicated.

00:59:07.000 I think probably.

00:59:08.000 And I don't know the technology that well.

00:59:11.000 But it's either way, just for responsible use for adults, it just doesn't make any sense that they would change it from what it is now and make it more restrictive.

00:59:20.000 Right.

00:59:21.000 I don't think any states have gone backwards.

00:59:23.000 Most states have gone forward.

00:59:24.000 We find the – in Kentucky, we don't have adult use.

00:59:27.000 I think we've just legalized the medical.

00:59:29.000 But the way medical works, it's still strictly by state.

00:59:33.000 So you have to have physicians who decide to prescribe it, farmers who decide to grow it.

00:59:37.000 And it's a little bit of a niche industry.

00:59:40.000 And, you know, most industries in our country, one state gets really good and they export it to other states.

00:59:45.000 And some climates are better for growing it.

00:59:48.000 But that has been a hindrance to the marijuana industry.

00:59:53.000 Well, it's also – you're enabling the cartel to make money off of it.

00:59:56.000 That's the real problem.

00:59:57.000 I had a gentleman on my podcast named John Norris.

01:00:00.000 He was a game warden in California and, you know, just checking fishing licenses and making sure that people are following the laws.

01:00:09.000 And wound up chasing down a dry creek and trying to find out like had a farmer diverted the creek, like what had happened here.

01:00:18.000 Well, it turned out there was an illegal grow operation by the cartel because when California made marijuana legal in the state for adult use, what they did was make it a misdemeanor to grow it illegally.

01:00:32.000 So it's just a misdemeanor.

01:00:33.000 So the cartel just started growing it in state parks and forests.

01:00:36.000 And so they would find these heavily armed cartel operations in the middle of national parks and national forests.

01:00:45.000 And, you know, his group became – he's got a great book called Hidden War.

01:00:50.000 And his organization became essentially a tactical group.

01:00:55.000 You know, they had Belgian Malinois and bulletproof vests and they were having shootouts with the cartel in the forest because these guys were growing this stuff.

01:01:04.000 And 90 percent of all the marijuana that's sold in these states where it's illegal was being grown in a state where it's only a misdemeanor to grow it.

01:01:14.000 So they're growing it in California.

01:01:15.000 And they were using all sorts of horrific pesticides and herbicides that are illegal everywhere else.

01:01:23.000 But they would use them.

01:01:24.000 And so you'd get pesticide poisoning, herbicide poisoning.

01:01:28.000 You know, it's crazy.

01:01:29.000 It's like we're – it's just responsible adult use.

01:01:32.000 We're curtailing.

01:01:33.000 And the way we're doing this is by propping up these illegal drug cartels the same way that during alcohol prohibition, they propped up the mob.

01:01:41.000 Right.

01:01:42.000 And the moonshiners.

01:01:43.000 And this is what people don't understand about prohibition.

01:01:45.000 When you have prohibition, you get products that are more dangerous because they're not openly regulated.

01:01:50.000 You also have more young people using it because if it's already illegal, what do I care?

01:01:54.000 If I'm selling out of the back of my car, I'm not going to check your ID.

01:01:58.000 So to get adult use and to get rules on those things, it's better to actually have it legal.

01:02:03.000 So with the hemp thing, McConnell, I'm in the same state.

01:02:06.000 So he goes home and he tells everybody, yeah, Ruin Paul wants your kids to use hemp.

01:02:10.000 That's not true because Kentucky passed a state law that says you have to be 21, regulates the amount.

01:02:16.000 His law is going to overturn that.

01:02:18.000 And there is no federal law in the age of hemp.

01:02:20.000 So he's actually the one that's going to overturn the law by prohibiting it all.

01:02:25.000 But most of the states have reasonably looked at this.

01:02:27.000 Now, Texas looked at it and then Texas was going to ban it and then Governor Abbott stepped up and vetoed it.

01:02:33.000 But Texas, the legislature was terrible.

01:02:36.000 They were going to they were going to they passed a ban on hemp here and then Abbott's vetoed it.

01:02:41.000 It's sort of in limbo now.

01:02:43.000 So when this this national one, when does this go into effect?

01:02:46.000 It's one year from when we passed it, and I think we passed it in probably November.

01:02:53.000 So this coming November, the entire hemp industry will go bust.

01:02:57.000 This is a twenty five billion dollar industry.

01:03:00.000 This is not a small industry.

01:03:02.000 And there's a lot of jobs.

01:03:03.000 There's a lot of people using it.

01:03:05.000 Like you say, these aren't reefer madness people out there committing crimes.

01:03:08.000 It's your grandmother, your mother.

01:03:10.000 It's people who have difficulty sleeping.

01:03:12.000 It's, you know, there's still hope.

01:03:15.000 And I'm trying to reverse it.

01:03:17.000 I have several bills that we're working on and going to introduce in the near future to either try to extend the deadline and or change it.

01:03:24.000 I'd like to change it where if your state has regulated it, the federal government would accede to your state regulation or allow your state to regulate it.

01:03:38.000 It's got to be very bizarre being a rational person working for the government.

01:03:43.000 Yeah.

01:03:44.000 Um, and I don't, the people up there are of a different sort.

01:03:51.000 Many of them have never worked really outside of government.

01:03:54.000 So they really, yeah, they, they know, they know nothing about writing checks.

01:03:58.000 Yeah, exactly.

01:03:59.000 We're telling you how to live your life.

01:03:59.000 And it's kind of when people come up to me and they say, you know, they're young, smart kids, kids that have been interns in my office.

01:04:05.000 I want to run.

01:04:07.000 I want to be part of government.

01:04:08.000 And I say, go out and have a career first.

01:04:10.000 Work somewhere.

01:04:11.000 You know, I worked as a physician for about 20 years before I ended up running.

01:04:15.000 And really, you have to have a real career because politics, one, isn't that great a career.

01:04:19.000 And two, there's no guarantee you can be the smartest person in the world, not win.

01:04:23.000 It doesn't always, you have to be in the right, right person, right time, right place, and a little bit of luck.

01:04:28.000 Yeah, and, you know, it's like, how can someone effectively govern if you haven't experienced life outside of the government?

01:04:39.000 It just doesn't seem even rational that you could be a person that would be a good representation of all these hardworking people if you've never actually had a job.

01:04:49.000 It just seems weird.

01:04:50.000 Yeah, that's why people thought one of the Bushes was out of touch.

01:04:53.000 I think it was the elder Bush when he went to the grocery store and he didn't know what a scanner was.

01:04:56.000 He had never seen groceries came because he had never been in a grocery store.

01:05:00.000 That's funny.

01:05:01.000 But what is it like, like being – I mean, how – it's got to be incredibly frustrating, but it's also got to be bizarre.

01:05:10.000 Yeah, and I'll give you an example of what I think is bizarre.

01:05:14.000 So we've been blowing up these people in boats off the coast of Venezuela.

01:05:20.000 They're accused of running drugs, but nobody knows their names and nobody's put up any evidence.

01:05:25.000 When we've had them September 2nd, two of them were still clinging to the wreckage.

01:05:31.000 They're shipwrecked.

01:05:32.000 They blew them up.

01:05:34.000 And so what I think is bizarre is I hear mostly my Republican colleagues say, well, we shouldn't have to.

01:05:41.000 How do we know they're not armed?

01:05:43.000 And it's like, but there's this thing called presumption of innocence.

01:05:46.000 They say it doesn't apply.

01:05:47.000 Well, it actually always has applied on the oceans.

01:05:50.000 We have always – we've had drug interdiction, but we have always stopped boats and asked to search them.

01:05:56.000 If they flee or shoot at the Coast Guard, they will get shot and blown up, but it's usually an escalatory sort of steps.

01:06:04.000 We know that when the Coast Guard boards vessels off of Miami and off of California, one in four of the boats they board don't have any drugs on them.

01:06:12.000 So I look at my colleagues who say they're pro-life and they value God's inspiration in life, but they don't give a shit about these people in the boats.

01:06:20.000 And are they terrible people in the boats?

01:06:22.000 I don't know.

01:06:23.000 They're probably poor people in Venezuela and Colombia.

01:06:25.000 And really they say, well, we're at war with them.

01:06:28.000 They're committing war by bringing drugs into America. 0.97

01:06:30.000 They're not even coming here.

01:06:31.000 They're going to these islands in the south part of the Caribbean, the cocaine, and it's not fentanyl at all.

01:06:37.000 The cocaine is going to Europe.

01:06:38.000 Those little boats can't get here. 1.00

01:06:40.000 No one's even asked this common question.

01:06:43.000 Those boats have these four engines on them.

01:06:45.000 They're outboard boats.

01:06:46.000 You can probably go about 100 miles before you have to refuel, 2,000 miles from us.

01:06:51.000 They have to refuel 20 times to get here.

01:06:53.000 They really – it was all a pretense and a false argument.

01:06:55.000 But I guess what I don't feel connected to my Republican colleagues is that those lives don't matter at all and we just blow them up.

01:07:02.000 And against all justice and against all laws of war, all laws of just war, we never have blown up people who were shipwrecked.

01:07:11.000 It's against the military code of justice to do that.

01:07:13.000 And we're doing it and everybody just says, oh, well, they're drug dealers.

01:07:16.000 Why do you think they were attacking those people?

01:07:19.000 Because I've heard a bunch of different theories and one of the big theories was they were trying to get the cartel upset at Maduro in order to get him out of office.

01:07:28.000 It's all been a pretense for arresting Maduro.

01:07:32.000 So we have to set up the predicate.

01:07:34.000 We've got to show you we care about drugs.

01:07:36.000 But the weird thing about it is they really care about drugs except for the former president of Honduras, Hernandez, who was given a 40-year sentence, was tried, was found guilty.

01:07:46.000 He was given 40 years in a U.S. jail, and he's let go at the same time we're arresting Maduro because he's attacking the United States with drugs.

01:07:55.000 And then I get this stuff.

01:07:56.000 I had this on air from a respectable journalist the other day.

01:07:59.000 She said, well, don't you care about the kids in our country dying from fentanyl?

01:08:04.000 I said, of course I do.

01:08:05.000 But, you know, no fentanyl comes from Venezuela.

01:08:07.000 Not a little bit.

01:08:09.000 Zero.

01:08:09.000 Yeah.

01:08:09.000 If we were really interested, we'd be attacking Mexico.

01:08:12.000 Well, they want to do that next.

01:08:14.000 They want to bomb Mexico. 0.99

01:08:15.000 Well, do you think that this is like sort of a predicate?

01:08:17.000 Like we're trying to set that up?

01:08:19.000 I hope not.

01:08:19.000 That's why I've opposed it because, look, I have no love lost for Maduro.

01:08:23.000 I wrote another book called The Case Against Socialism.

01:08:25.000 I think the socialism, historically, there's been a link between socialism and state-sponsored violence.

01:08:31.000 And so in the book, we talk about a 16-year-old girl who has a gang, and her gang's turf or territory are the dumpsters outside of restaurants to scavenge for food.

01:08:42.000 That's what Maduro and Chavez did to Venezuela.

01:08:47.000 And so I'm glad he's gone.

01:08:49.000 I'm glad.

01:08:49.000 You know, I hope they choose wiser.

01:08:52.000 But at the same time, if the predicate is we're going to snatch people, why don't we snatch da Silva from Brazil? 0.88

01:08:59.000 Some people say Bolsonaro is unfairly in prison.

01:09:02.000 It may be true.

01:09:03.000 And they say da Silva cheated in the election.

01:09:05.000 It may also be true.

01:09:07.000 But should the president of the United States, no matter who he or she is, have the ability, without a vote of Congress, the people's representatives, just go snatch people out of jails in Brazil and put a new government in it?

01:09:18.000 One, it doesn't usually work.

01:09:20.000 I'm hoping it's successful here.

01:09:22.000 But, you know, we've tried it in other places.

01:09:24.000 It's one of the things I liked about Donald Trump.

01:09:26.000 He was against regime change in Iraq.

01:09:28.000 He was against regime change in Libya.

01:09:30.000 And it didn't work real well in Iraq or Libya.

01:09:33.000 So what do you think changed?

01:09:34.000 Why do you think they're so interested in Venezuela?

01:09:36.000 Just because of the oil?

01:09:36.000 Influence.

01:09:38.000 Influence.

01:09:38.000 And I've jokingly said that there ought to be a recurring issue that we thought was resolved with the software.

01:09:45.000 Right back?

01:09:46.000 OK.

01:09:46.000 We're good.

01:09:46.000 All right.

01:09:48.000 Sorry, folks.

01:09:49.000 The program was interrupted by the NSA.

01:09:52.000 You know, they are spying on the show to see.

01:09:55.000 So here's the question.

01:09:57.000 The Biden administration had a $20 million.

01:10:00.000 Was it $20 or $22 million bounty on Maduro?

01:10:03.000 Like they've wanted Maduro out forever.

01:10:05.000 Why was that?

01:10:08.000 Because, you know, they don't have free elections.

01:10:11.000 It's an authoritarian government.

01:10:13.000 The people are suffering.

01:10:15.000 So it's this idea that that's wrong and government should.

01:10:18.000 But and I think that's a noble concept to want better government, more freedom for people.

01:10:23.000 But I could probably list for you a dozen different countries that have autocratic rulers right now.

01:10:29.000 And we could go in and we could arrest them all and put people in place.

01:10:34.000 But it sometimes backfires.

01:10:35.000 For example, I think one of the things I think there's a good feeling towards America from a lot of Venezuelans right now that are happy that Maduro is gone.

01:10:42.000 But ask them again in six months if we're still controlling their oil and we're doling out a little bit of money.

01:10:49.000 But the money is not going to the people.

01:10:51.000 It's going to the socialist government.

01:10:52.000 So you realize we've traded one socialist for another.

01:10:56.000 Maduro is gone, but his second in charge, who is elected with him and holds all of his beliefs, is there.

01:11:01.000 And if she graciously or fearfully decides to accept what they're telling her, that we're going to confiscate all the oil and we're going to sell it on the international market.

01:11:11.000 We're going to give her a little bit back if she behaves. 1.00

01:11:14.000 And let's say that austerity doesn't lead to a real vibrant economy.

01:11:19.000 I think six months from now, the people will be just as upset as they were.

01:11:23.000 And they'll still have the same government, essentially.

01:11:25.000 Right.

01:11:28.000 So one of the things that I've read was one of the primary reasons why we went in was because Russia and China were also interested in Venezuela's oil.

01:11:38.000 And China had met with Maduro literally the day that he was kidnapped by the United States, right?

01:11:45.000 Yeah.

01:11:46.000 I think China gets about 4 percent of their oil.

01:11:48.000 So it's a small amount of their oil.

01:11:50.000 The best way, I think, is not through war to keep China out of South America.

01:11:55.000 It's through trade, cooperation.

01:11:59.000 That's why threatening to bomb Colombia was a bad idea because we should continue to trade. 0.96

01:12:03.000 We buy coffee from them.

01:12:05.000 We buy bananas from down there.

01:12:06.000 We should have trade.

01:12:07.000 So this Monday, I sent the president a text and he responded to him.

01:12:12.000 I said, the ambassador called me and he said their president's been trying for several months to get a phone call through and he'd love to talk to President Trump.

01:12:20.000 And the good thing about President Trump, and this is something I always really like about him, he'll make decisions on the spot.

01:12:25.000 He didn't ask a committee to vote on whether he can talk to the president.

01:12:29.000 He said, of course I will.

01:12:31.000 And the president still has good instincts.

01:12:33.000 I disagreed with the bombing of the boats and the bombing of Maduro.

01:12:37.000 I'm not too unhappy with the result, but I don't want the chaos to spread to Colombia.

01:12:43.000 And I think Colombia does cooperate with us, particularly on the drug trade.

01:12:47.000 It's not perfect, but they do cooperate.

01:12:49.000 But he did end up making a phone call to the president of Colombia.

01:12:53.000 And I think the setting is for less of a problem.

01:12:58.000 And you say, well, why have things changed from where he was talking about regime change in the campaign?

01:13:03.000 Some of it's the influence of the people around him.

01:13:05.000 I've jokingly said we ought to pass a law saying Lindsey Graham shouldn't be allowed in the White House because I think he is a bad influence. 0.99

01:13:13.000 And Lindsey and I are friends.

01:13:16.000 You know, we do OK.

01:13:17.000 But he's much more for a different type of philosophy for me.

01:13:21.000 I say we fight when we have to.

01:13:23.000 We fight when attacked.

01:13:25.000 That's about it.

01:13:26.000 I'm not too interested in fixing every problem around the world.

01:13:29.000 Look, we have a $2 trillion deficit.

01:13:30.000 We can't really go fix every problem in every country.

01:13:33.000 And sometimes when we try to change the regime and put better people in, it actually we get the opposite.

01:13:38.000 Well, this is your dad's philosophy as well.

01:13:38.000 Right.

01:13:41.000 It's one of the things I really enjoyed about him.

01:13:41.000 Yep.

01:13:44.000 When you see these things at play, like the kidnapping of Venezuela and the bombing of the boats, how informed are you about why they're making their decisions?

01:13:56.000 Are you – do you have conversations with the people that are making the decisions?

01:14:01.000 We do.

01:14:02.000 But the reasoning is mostly public.

01:14:04.000 Like we'll get briefings.

01:14:05.000 We've had briefings on the boats.

01:14:07.000 Like what do they say in those briefings?

01:14:10.000 They say that – I'll ask are they carrying arms because it kind of makes a difference whether they kill unarmed people to me.

01:14:18.000 Right.

01:14:18.000 And they'll say, yes, their arms are drugs and they're invading us with drugs.

01:14:23.000 OK.

01:14:24.000 But they're not really, right?

01:14:25.000 Because if they're – if you look at it geographically, like you were just saying, they're so far away from us.

01:14:30.000 They're on small boats and they're not bringing those drugs to the United States.

01:14:34.000 And the only way they can make war with the drugs is if they're hitting you over the head with the drugs and then making you take the drugs, all right?

01:14:40.000 So I think that's ridiculous.

01:14:42.000 And I think that there is a difference between crime and war.

01:14:46.000 And the reason why they have to get it is it normally – like if – let's say the boat came all the way here.

01:14:52.000 That speedboat got all the way to Miami, offloaded it into a U-Haul truck and it's going down the road.

01:14:58.000 Do we stand on the side of the road and hit it with grenade launchers?

01:15:02.000 Nobody would be for that.

01:15:03.000 All of a sudden, we're going to believe that, well, gosh, there might be the wrong – we might blow up the wrong truck or maybe we got the information wrong.

01:15:11.000 We would stop and search them.

01:15:13.000 But why don't we do the boats?

01:15:14.000 The Coast Guard actually still does.

01:15:16.000 Amidst all this, Coast Guard is still stopping dozens of boats.

01:15:19.000 But they tell us we're only blowing up the ones that are related to the terrorist, the trend de Aragua or whatever.

01:15:28.000 I don't know how they can know that with certainty.

01:15:31.000 I don't know how they can know with certainty that some of – I think most of these probably were drug boats.

01:15:35.000 So why do you think they're doing it then?

01:15:36.000 They wanted regime change and I think Rubio has wanted regime change.

01:15:40.000 He's been itching for it for 15 years and I think he has a great deal of influence with the president.

01:15:44.000 And they have convinced – and it's selling someone like the president that he can use his power for good is an argument that I think a lot of people would succumb to.

01:15:56.000 He believes that he's doing good.

01:15:58.000 And if it all works out and freedom rings true in Venezuela, people will say, well, gosh, yeah, I think he did.

01:16:04.000 And that's why now people think he did the right thing.

01:16:07.000 I think people don't know yet what's going to happen, whether or not people are going to be happy keeping the same socialist government, whether they'll have a free election and somebody else to win isn't known yet.

01:16:17.000 But I do think that while he's done that and it seems to have worked, it's my job and others to say that really invading Greenland is not a reasonable thing, invading Cuba, invading Colombia, that there has to be pushback.

01:16:31.000 But I get a lot of flack.

01:16:33.000 I mean there are people that rally behind the president that are telling me I need to pipe down, that I need to be quiet.

01:16:40.000 So the threats – Who tells you that?

01:16:42.000 Well, a lot of the – the mob, the internet mob is angry.

01:16:47.000 Oh, the internet.

01:16:48.000 Is angry.

01:16:49.000 Yeah, you can't read that.

01:16:50.000 Yeah, you can't listen to those people.

01:16:51.000 You've got to be a little bit wary also.

01:16:53.000 But I mean there is a thought and I don't think it's good for government though.

01:16:58.000 I also don't even think it's good for the president who I largely like on a lot of issues.

01:17:02.000 It's not good for him to have no critics, for people to be afraid to criticize him.

01:17:06.000 I agree.

01:17:07.000 So is the argument that they want regime change that these cartels are working with Maduro and that's why we blow them up?

01:17:18.000 That's sort of the argument but I don't think the cartels and the drugs aren't really important.

01:17:21.000 It's about regime change because – Okay, but if it's about regime change, why blow up the drug boat? 0.88

01:17:26.000 Because they need a drug predicate.

01:17:28.000 They need – they want to say this isn't war.

01:17:31.000 It is kind of war and we're going to take people as if it's war but it's not really war.

01:17:34.000 It was an arrest warrant.

01:17:36.000 And they've actually persuaded some otherwise good people in my caucus to say, well, normally I would be against bombing another nation's capital and removing the leader.

01:17:45.000 Oh, but he was indicted for the indictment.

01:17:48.000 Most people don't know this.

01:17:50.000 Part of the indictment is for drugs.

01:17:52.000 He's breaking a U.S. law.

01:17:54.000 How do we indict foreigners in their country?

01:17:56.000 They haven't broken a law in our country for breaking a law.

01:17:59.000 But other than drugs, they've also indicted Maduro for possessing or conspiring to possess machine guns.

01:18:06.000 And it's like what leader in the world doesn't have security guards with machine guns?

01:18:10.000 We have machine guns.

01:18:11.000 Wait a minute.

01:18:12.000 Did Maduro personally have illegal machine guns and illegal how?

01:18:16.000 Is it legal internationally?

01:18:18.000 Like what does that mean?

01:18:19.000 It means absolutely nothing.

01:18:20.000 That's crazy.

01:18:21.000 It's completely insane.

01:18:21.000 How many people in Texas have machine guns?

01:18:24.000 You could legally have them here.

01:18:26.000 I used to go to the machine gun fest and it was a machine gun shootout.

01:18:31.000 They'd have a line of 50 machine guns.

01:18:32.000 You have to have a special permit to get them, but you can get them.

01:18:35.000 And but the thing is, is what's ridiculous about it is our leaders, our soldiers have machine guns.

01:18:42.000 Every country that has soldiers and security forces, machine guns, but to indict him.

01:18:47.000 But that's then their argument is it's OK to blow up Caracas.

01:18:50.000 It's OK to do something that looks like it looks like a war, but it's not a war because it was just an arrest warrant.

01:18:56.000 It's a game.

01:18:57.000 It's gamesmanship for people who might succumb to, I think, a silly argument.

01:19:03.000 So what is the primary motivation for regime change?

01:19:08.000 It can't just be he's a bad guy.

01:19:10.000 Well, there's a lot of, you know, there's I think a country suffers and they want people justifiably want better stuff for the people there.

01:19:17.000 I think they also do worry, as you mentioned earlier, they says too much influence of Russia and China there.

01:19:25.000 I think that's what I've been reading most.

01:19:27.000 That makes sense is that the concern was that China or Russia was going to ramp up oil production.

01:19:33.000 Right.

01:19:34.000 But I don't know.

01:19:36.000 You know, the whole oil situation is an example of why socialism doesn't work very well.

01:19:42.000 I mean, it's like 30 years old.

01:19:45.000 Everything's old.

01:19:46.000 Everything's rotting and rusting.

01:19:47.000 They do a million barrels a day.

01:19:49.000 They have more oil than Saudi Arabia, but they are just it's completely incompetent.

01:19:55.000 And mainly because the one thing that capitalism does is it gives you supply and demand and a price.

01:20:00.000 And they've controlled the price, not the oil price, because that's an international price.

01:20:04.000 But they've controlled the price of all the things that go into the equipment and who owns it.

01:20:09.000 So you have a bunch of people who studied in Marxism in Cuba running the companies.

01:20:15.000 That's not what we do here.

01:20:16.000 You either make a profit here or you get fired.

01:20:19.000 Isn't the oil in a much more difficult form to extract than the oil in Saudi Arabia?

01:20:25.000 So by saying they have more oil than Saudi Arabia, maybe.

01:20:28.000 That may be true.

01:20:29.000 That may be true.

01:20:30.000 There's a difference.

01:20:30.000 I think it's like almost like asphalt.

01:20:32.000 A lot of it's heavy, crude, I think.

01:20:34.000 I don't know the details of which kind of oil they have.

01:20:37.000 But I think there probably are some technological problems.

01:20:40.000 But I think there's – I think it's easy to make the argument that they're not hitting their maximum efficiency with the current socialist government.

01:20:48.000 Right.

01:20:48.000 I think that's a good argument.

01:20:50.000 But the – what I had read about the extraction was that the oil that is in Venezuela is almost like asphalt and that it requires all these – That could be.

01:21:03.000 Chemicals to break it down.

01:21:05.000 And so there may be more difficulty than Saudi Arabia.

01:21:07.000 But I think also the system, you know, so when you look at Venezuela and you look at what happens under price controls, you need prices to go up and down based on demand because if you don't, you have shortages.

01:21:19.000 If you set the price too low and I'm a manufacturer, I'm not going to sell it for that.

01:21:23.000 So you also can get shortage.

01:21:24.000 If you set the price too high, then it just sits on the shelf and a black market develops.

01:21:30.000 There was a story in Behind the Iron Current, and I think it was in Poland.

01:21:34.000 I love this story.

01:21:35.000 A guy goes in a store and he says, oh, are you the store that doesn't have any eggs?

01:21:39.000 And the shop owner said, no, no, no.

01:21:41.000 Well, the store doesn't have any toilet paper.

01:21:42.000 The store across the streets doesn't have any eggs.

01:21:45.000 But it was so common that you always knew that you were – the stores were always missing something.

01:21:49.000 There were always shortages.

01:21:50.000 And this is the main thing about prices that is so incredibly important.

01:21:56.000 And people don't think about it, but it's incredibly important to let prices go up and down without the government getting involved.

01:22:03.000 That's why, like, it's a mistake.

01:22:04.000 It will sound right, but the president wants to ban interest rates above 10 percent for credit cards.

01:22:09.000 Well, part of the interest rate being much higher if you're going for a same-day loan is, one, you're a much higher risk.

01:22:16.000 You're more desperate.

01:22:17.000 But also by you having to pay 30 percent, it's going to teach you to be a better planner the next time because you can't keep borrowing at 30 percent.

01:22:27.000 But the marketplace demands the 30 percent is what the market will bear.

01:22:31.000 And if it was too much, then the interest rate will come down.

01:22:33.000 And no one should borrow at 30 percent.

01:22:35.000 I mean they should teach in high school how people to plan their budget so you don't do that.

01:22:40.000 Put those in on college students, those kind of credit people that are a little bit more at risk.

01:22:45.000 We're talking about ignorant people.

01:22:46.000 College students, they're high up on the list of ignorant people or people lacking common sense.

01:22:52.000 Yeah, it's that.

01:22:53.000 Well, they're also very young.

01:22:54.000 Yeah, people get into a gambling problem.

01:22:57.000 They get into some problem where they don't have money.

01:22:59.000 But if you say it can be 10 percent, what does that tell me about my behavior?

01:23:04.000 I just keep borrowing at 10 percent.

01:23:05.000 I might have to stop someday at 30 percent.

01:23:08.000 You know what I mean?

01:23:09.000 And so the marketplace develops these things.

01:23:11.000 But that price is sending signals back to people.

01:23:14.000 It's the same way with interest rates on houses.

01:23:17.000 The president's always like, we need lower interest rates.

01:23:19.000 Houses are so expensive.

01:23:21.000 Why don't we just fix the price at 2 percent and tell the banks they can't get more than 2 percent?

01:23:26.000 The problem is this.

01:23:28.000 If there's a boom and everybody's buying houses and the demand goes up for houses, prices will go up.

01:23:34.000 The demand for the money goes up.

01:23:35.000 And as the interest rates rise, then the economy will slow down.

01:23:39.000 So in 2000, from 2000 to about 2007, the Federal Reserve kept the interest rates low.

01:23:45.000 It's like 2 percent.

01:23:46.000 You could get money.

01:23:47.000 It was free.

01:23:48.000 And there was this boom in houses.

01:23:50.000 And there was some dishonesty, too, in the subprime market.

01:23:53.000 But the boom kept going.

01:23:54.000 If interest rates had risen to 4 or 5 percent, home sales would have gone down and people would have lamented that.

01:24:01.000 But you wouldn't have gotten such an enormous boom in the crash.

01:24:04.000 So the cycle of the economy going up and down is dictated by interest rates.

01:24:09.000 And you want interest rates.

01:24:10.000 You don't want high interest rates.

01:24:11.000 Nobody wants that.

01:24:12.000 But if you don't allow them to move, that sends a signal back that we're buying too many houses and we're building too many houses and we'll slow down.

01:24:20.000 If you just send the signal to keep interest rates at 2, you get the boom so high up here that the crash is devastating like it was in 2010.

01:24:28.000 What are your feelings about corporations buying up personal homes?

01:24:32.000 Like there's Blackstone and there's a bunch of different corporations that have bought – I don't know if it's Blackstone, but I heard that Blackstone – there was a drop in their stock price because of this thing that Trump is trying to do now to stop corporations from buying individual family homes and then leasing them out to people.

01:24:55.000 So in a free market, in a free world where you can choose a hemp product, you also make contracts with who you sell to.

01:25:03.000 So for me to tell you – to me it's a freedom issue.

01:25:06.000 If I tell you you can't sell your house to Blackstone, that's me limiting your choices. 0.62

01:25:11.000 Maybe Blackstone is going to give you 5 percent more.

01:25:13.000 I'm stealing 5 percent from you.

01:25:15.000 And it's not a given that it's going to be bad.

01:25:17.000 It might be bad.

01:25:18.000 But I think if you look at this carefully, for example, what's – one of the impediments or one of the costs of buying a house is the real estate price.

01:25:26.000 So the realtor takes – they used to take what, like 6 percent.

01:25:29.000 But now sometimes you can get 3 percent and you go through a bigger company.

01:25:34.000 So corporatization or making something bigger where a bigger entity owns something sometimes leads to lower costs because they can actually lower costs.

01:25:43.000 So to me it's just a freedom issue.

01:25:45.000 I don't think actually probably – I think the price of homes has gone up because the value of the dollar has gone down.

01:25:50.000 We are destroying the dollar.

01:25:51.000 It's like is gold more precious?

01:25:53.000 No, people are freaking out about how many dollars have been printed and how much debt we're incurring.

01:25:57.000 So the dollar loses its value.

01:26:00.000 And prices are home.

01:26:01.000 I don't – I'm not making light of the problem.

01:26:03.000 You know, I have kids of the age of trying to get into houses.

01:26:07.000 It's difficult.

01:26:08.000 Prices are extraordinarily high.

01:26:10.000 And interest rates are still high too.

01:26:12.000 Yeah, I think the fear is like people are terrified that these enormous corporations are going to buy up all of the single-family homes and you won't be able to get one and you'll be forced to lease a home and you'll never be able to own a home.

01:26:25.000 That's the fear.

01:26:27.000 I think I would probably want to study it more thoroughly to find out if that's actually the result because some people talk about a fear of it happening.

01:26:27.000 Yeah, I know.

01:26:35.000 You know, if I'm Blackstone, I'm not doing stuff just to hold them around. 0.95

01:26:40.000 I'm not like, you know, Mr. Potter on, you know, It's a Wonderful Life and wringing my hands together and I'm going to wait.

01:26:47.000 They don't make any money holding on to a bunch of houses.

01:26:49.000 They're going to have to sell them.

01:26:50.000 And it may be – what if Blackstone does have 10,000 homes?

01:26:54.000 Maybe they'll do it with a reduced – you go directly to them by website.

01:26:58.000 Goldman Sachs owns homes.

01:27:00.000 There are entities like this – Buffett, Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway owns homes as well.

01:27:06.000 So I don't think it's a brand new thing.

01:27:08.000 But I would explore it.

01:27:09.000 I think the – it's a reaction to think big is bad and that these big players are going to rip us off.

01:27:15.000 But if it's a free contract, I think more of whether or not I should infringe on your liberty and tell you you can't sell your house to Blackstone.

01:27:22.000 I think that's me limiting your ability to contract with whoever you want.

01:27:26.000 That makes sense.

01:27:28.000 It's – I think the fear is – well, the only reason why they would be doing it is that they could make more money leasing the homes out than – Yeah, I don't know.

01:27:38.000 It's the same way with buying apartments too.

01:27:40.000 I'm guessing they bought apartments too because kids are staying in apartments longer and the apartment business has been a really good business for like the last 10 years buying apartments.

01:27:50.000 But corporations own apartments.

01:27:52.000 I mean the real disaster isn't stuff like that, the marketplace.

01:27:55.000 The disaster of like rent and homes and not having enough places like to live in Manhattan, which is very expensive, or New York in general.

01:28:04.000 And I'm positive the socialist is going to make it worse.

01:28:07.000 Rent control, what does that mean?

01:28:09.000 So if you're in the middle of Manhattan and you can get apartments for $300, you're like, oh, that's great.

01:28:13.000 But if I'm the landlord and all the stuff is broken in there and there's holes in the walls, I'm not fixing it for $300 a month.

01:28:20.000 I need $3,000 a month to keep the place up.

01:28:23.000 So what happens is the apartments go to – into ruin and also there's a shortage.

01:28:30.000 You need money and you need big people with money to build apartment complexes, particularly in New York where you got to tear something down and build something new.

01:28:37.000 I'm not doing it if you're going to tell me what my rent is going to be.

01:28:40.000 So socialism doesn't work.

01:28:42.000 And the one thing people don't understand about it because they fear somebody being ripped off and how expensive something is, is there was an economist, Joseph Schumpeter, and he put it this way.

01:28:54.000 He said the miracle of capitalism is not that the queen can buy silk stockings, but the factory girl can. 0.92

01:29:00.000 But in the beginning, the first person and the only person to buy them will be queens and kings and rich people.

01:29:07.000 So the story of calculators, my dad had a calculator.

01:29:10.000 He was a doctor and we were well-to-do.

01:29:12.000 We weren't extraordinarily rich but well-to-do.

01:29:14.000 He had a calculator for $300 in the 1970s.

01:29:18.000 All he could do was add, subtract, and multiply and it was about this thick and this big.

01:29:23.000 But you can go tour a condo and pretend to buy a condo and the real estate agent will give you a calculator now.

01:29:29.000 But in the beginning, only rich people got them.

01:29:31.000 But if you forbid rich people from getting them at a high price, the only way it gets to a low price, like Tesla started with more expensive cars at a high price.

01:29:39.000 They're coming down, but they only come down because rich people bought them first.

01:29:43.000 So we can never be of the notion that we're going to make things better by preventing prices from being too high in something.

01:29:51.000 It's how products get started.

01:29:52.000 So the queen may have bought the first silk stockings, but eventually capitalism brings the price down enough that you have mass distribution and actually a factory girl can buy them. 1.00

01:30:02.000 Cell phones are a good argument about that.

01:30:04.000 Yep, exactly.

01:30:05.000 In that defense.

01:30:08.000 So when it comes to the economy and when it comes to spending money, what do you think can be done differently?

01:30:18.000 Like say if you had a magic wand and you could turn things around, what would you do differently?

01:30:25.000 I think the first thing to acknowledge is both parties are equally guilty.

01:30:28.000 The debt is the problem of both parties and the spending is both parties.

01:30:31.000 And there is a compromise.

01:30:33.000 I tell people it's a dirty little deal that's going on right in front of your nose.

01:30:37.000 The right, Lindsey Graham and the Warhawks want more military money. 0.99

01:30:41.000 The left, Chris Murphy and Booker, they want more welfare.

01:30:46.000 What's the compromise?

01:30:48.000 You scratch my back, I'll scratch you. 0.58

01:30:50.000 I'll let you have more military money if you let me have the welfare money.

01:30:53.000 So the compromise of the last 50 years is they've both grown enormously.

01:30:57.000 But the budget we vote on is only one-third of the spending.

01:31:02.000 Two-thirds of the spending is mandatory spending that's just on autopilot.

01:31:05.000 We never vote on it.

01:31:07.000 The one-third that we vote on is about $2 trillion.

01:31:11.000 That's what the deficit is.

01:31:12.000 So when I vote for spending and I vote against most of it, almost all of that is borrowed.

01:31:18.000 What would be the compromise that would fix it?

01:31:20.000 The reverse.

01:31:22.000 I would go to, you know, the left, my buddy Ron Wyden, who I am good friends with, and I would say, look, we're out of money.

01:31:28.000 The interest is killing us.

01:31:29.000 It's crowding everything out.

01:31:31.000 What if we spend 1% less next year on welfare, and I'll tell my party they have to spend 1% less on military?

01:31:39.000 If you do that across the board, but you'd have to include the mandatory programs, you can balance your budget gradually over a five-year period.

01:31:46.000 And I've called this the penny plan.

01:31:48.000 And I think it's a compromise because instead of what conservatives have typically done is they've said, it's Sesame Street.

01:31:55.000 If we can get rid of public TV in Sesame Street, we'll show those liberals that we'll balance the budget.

01:32:00.000 Well, it's not enough money, and I'm not against doing it.

01:32:04.000 I voted to reduce the money.

01:32:05.000 But there are some people on the left who live and die by public TV, and they think it's the greatest thing, and it's an offense to them.

01:32:13.000 So rather than cut 100% of it, let's cut the – and you can balance the budget right now if you cut 6% of the military, 6% of Sesame Street, 6% of everything everybody wants.

01:32:26.000 And I think you could actually do it.

01:32:27.000 And I try this message out sometimes.

01:32:30.000 Everybody that comes to Washington wants money, and there are usually things that you can have sympathy for.

01:32:35.000 So one week they come, and they wear the purple ribbons, and it's for Alzheimer's disease.

01:32:40.000 Well, I have family members who have Alzheimer's.

01:32:42.000 I have a great deal of sympathy, but we're $2 trillion short.

01:32:45.000 So what I usually say to them is we're a rich country, and we should be able to spend some of our money on Alzheimer's research.

01:32:51.000 But you got $100 million last year.

01:32:53.000 I'm making up the number.

01:32:54.000 But let's say you got $100 million last year, and because we're short of money, everybody has to get less this year.

01:33:00.000 Would it be okay if I only vote for $94 million for you next year?

01:33:04.000 And when you put it that way – and they're usually in there with tears running down their face talking about their mom and their grandmother and Alzheimer's, and they're worried they're going to get it.

01:33:12.000 But to a person, you look around the table, and they say, well, that sounds kind of fair.

01:33:16.000 Everybody has to take a hit, right?

01:33:19.000 94%.

01:33:20.000 Almost everything that is like, for example, food stamps.

01:33:24.000 People say, well, the people are going to starve without food stamps.

01:33:26.000 Well, why don't we just get rid of Coca-Cola and Pepsi?

01:33:29.000 No sugar drinks on food stamps.

01:33:32.000 That's 10% of food stamps.

01:33:34.000 That would be a 10% cut.

01:33:36.000 We're going to spend 10% less.

01:33:38.000 No one's going to starve.

01:33:39.000 Would you spend – hold on.

01:33:40.000 But would you spend less, or would you just limit the purchasing to non – We'll probably be lucky just to limit the purchase, but I would spend less. 0.89

01:33:46.000 But you couldn't spend – but how could you spend less?

01:33:48.000 You would have to give them less, and you'd say, hey, not only can you not buy sugary drinks, but now you'll have less money to buy healthy food, which is more expensive.

01:33:55.000 Well, what you would do is – Do you know what I'm saying?

01:33:58.000 Well, maybe.

01:33:59.000 If you had a budget, let's say it's $100 million, and next year the food stamp budget is going to be $94 million, and you say you can't buy Coca-Cola and Pepsi and sugar drinks, they would still have to make their decisions with a little bit less, but they, on average, are spending 6% or – yeah, I think it's about – no, I think it's about 10% of the dollars are going towards these sugar drinks.

01:34:21.000 They would have to make decisions to do it.

01:34:23.000 But I think even something like food stamps, there's a strong argument, oh, people will be hungry.

01:34:28.000 Hunger is not a problem in our country.

01:34:29.000 It really isn't.

01:34:31.000 Our problem is too much food.

01:34:32.000 It frankly is.

01:34:33.000 There is no one starving in our country.

01:34:35.000 There is food everywhere.

01:34:37.000 Right, but it's not too much food.

01:34:39.000 It's non-nutritious food.

01:34:41.000 I mean, it's not – Too much bad food.

01:34:42.000 It's not even food.

01:34:44.000 It's things you eat that have no nutrition in it at all.

01:34:44.000 Well, you're right.

01:34:47.000 Like Coca-Cola.

01:34:47.000 Exactly.

01:34:48.000 Yes, exactly.

01:34:49.000 Like candy and cookies and all the shit that you can buy on food stamps.

01:34:51.000 And I've been talking – you can get candies.

01:34:53.000 You know you can get a bag of candy on your food stamps.

01:34:56.000 There's no – that should – and so I've been talking about this for years.

01:34:56.000 Right.

01:34:59.000 And so I had a Democrat senator who I can talk to.

01:35:02.000 We're friends.

01:35:03.000 We're walking down the hall.

01:35:05.000 And I tell him about it.

01:35:06.000 He says, well, that sounds reasonable, but I don't want to reduce the dollars.

01:35:09.000 So what you're saying is the compromise is probably Democrats are never going to vote to reduce the dollars.

01:35:13.000 We should, but we won't get it.

01:35:15.000 But even when we got – push came to shove, his staff piped up and they said, oh, I thought you were a libertarian.

01:35:20.000 I thought you were for choice.

01:35:22.000 And I said, I am with your money.

01:35:24.000 I'm in the taxpayer money.

01:35:25.000 We don't let you buy alcohol.

01:35:27.000 Right.

01:35:27.000 I think it's arguable that sugar drinks are as bad as buying alcohol.

01:35:31.000 It's close.

01:35:32.000 I mean certainly in terms of health consequences.

01:35:32.000 Yeah.

01:35:35.000 You know, diabetes and obesity and all the other comorbidities that come along with more obesity.

01:35:35.000 Yeah.

01:35:41.000 But the thing is, it's like if you're asking them to buy healthy food, healthy food is definitely more expensive.

01:35:48.000 Sometimes.

01:35:49.000 Well, if you want to go to Whole Foods and buy things there, it is more expensive to buy all the fresh fruits and things.

01:35:49.000 If you want to go to Whole Foods.

01:35:55.000 But there is a lot of things that you can buy that really frankly aren't – you know, a head of lettuce is not that expensive.

01:36:02.000 Right, but it's not going to fill you up.

01:36:03.000 If you want calorie-rich food.

01:36:05.000 Right.

01:36:06.000 If you want to match calorie per calorie.

01:36:08.000 Beans aren't that expensive and they're healthier for you than most of the things we eat.

01:36:11.000 But really the thing is – You've got to teach people how to cook now?

01:36:14.000 Yeah.

01:36:14.000 That's the problem.

01:36:15.000 Actually, I would.

01:36:17.000 Not me.

01:36:18.000 Right.

01:36:19.000 I would have this in schools.

01:36:21.000 So I would have the old concept of home economics in schools and here's what I would teach.

01:36:26.000 Some of this comes from a book.

01:36:28.000 There was a book written by Charles Murray years ago called Coming Apart.

01:36:31.000 And it compared people and said these are the rich people in your society and these are the poor people.

01:36:36.000 It was just divided into two groups and the two main statistics that put you in either rich group or poor group, having kids before you were married, and education.

01:36:46.000 Charles Murray, isn't that the guy that had very controversial ideas about race and IQ?

01:36:50.000 Yep.

01:36:51.000 Yeah.

01:36:51.000 But this wasn't racial.

01:36:53.000 This was based on whether or not you – we're in one of those two categories.

01:36:59.000 But I would teach this in home economics.

01:37:01.000 I wouldn't teach morality.

01:37:02.000 I wouldn't teach people that it's evil to have sex.

01:37:04.000 I would say that the odds are, the statistics are, if you have not had your children, you have a choice.

01:37:11.000 The statistics are overwhelming that if you have your kids before you're married, you'll be poor.

01:37:17.000 And the thing is, it is true.

01:37:19.000 Why not teach that?

01:37:20.000 But in that same class, I would teach how to go to the grocery store, what to buy, and also how to prepare it.

01:37:29.000 I would do this for obese people in our country.

01:37:32.000 So Medicaid pays just gazillions of dollars for diabetes and all that stuff.

01:37:36.000 I would pay for dietary training.

01:37:40.000 But I actually think you need to go to the grocery store with people and show them all the crap they're putting in their cart that they shouldn't be putting in.

01:37:46.000 That sounds like you're for another government program.

01:37:49.000 Damn, you got me.

01:37:50.000 You got me.

01:37:52.000 It sounds great on paper, but the reality is, in order to change people's behavior, it takes a radical shift of your perceptions.

01:37:58.000 And that's very difficult to do.

01:38:00.000 You can't just teach people, like, this is how you make spaghetti and meatballs, and then now they're going to eat healthy.

01:38:06.000 It's not that spaghetti and meatballs is the most healthy.

01:38:08.000 You don't really have to teach people.

01:38:09.000 People aren't as dumb as you think they are.

01:38:11.000 It's not that they're dumb.

01:38:12.000 It's just they're setting their ways.

01:38:13.000 I know.

01:38:14.000 To change people's behavior patterns is extraordinarily difficult.

01:38:14.000 You're right.

01:38:18.000 I know, but that's why they have to make choices.

01:38:20.000 They become smart very quickly.

01:38:22.000 If you give somebody 96% or 94% of what they were getting for food stamps, they will be smart within a week.

01:38:28.000 They will make these decisions.

01:38:30.000 I would argue against that.

01:38:31.000 I think that there's a problem in that people are very set in their ways, and they've developed a pattern of behavior over the course of decades.

01:38:40.000 So you're not just going to shift with a change in policy and a reduction in their food stamps.

01:38:44.000 What about this?

01:38:45.000 Do you think anybody has changed their lifestyle in America since two people at McDonald's cost $20 to eat now?

01:38:51.000 A burger, a drink, and fries is $20 for two people.

01:38:54.000 Do you think anybody in America has shifted their buying patterns for food and are eating at home more?

01:38:59.000 I guarantee you thousands and thousands of people are eating less out.

01:39:03.000 Probably, yeah.

01:39:04.000 I've seen Wendy's go to business, you know.

01:39:06.000 It's a bad example because McDonald's is fucking terrible for you, too.

01:39:09.000 Like, that doesn't make any sense.

01:39:10.000 The president eats it.

01:39:12.000 Yeah, well, I do, too.

01:39:14.000 But it's not good for you.

01:39:15.000 Filet-o-fish is actually a delicious little sandwich.

01:39:17.000 People will not.

01:39:18.000 You can't teach.

01:39:19.000 I agree with you to a certain extent.

01:39:21.000 I don't think you can teach people to make wiser decisions.

01:39:24.000 You can sort of encourage it as part of the educational model.

01:39:27.000 And I wouldn't spend more money on this.

01:39:28.000 We spend a lot of money on education.

01:39:30.000 I would make this part of the curriculum.

01:39:31.000 But I do think that if you aren't given a financial incentive to make these decisions, you won't do it.

01:39:37.000 You could ban the foods.

01:39:39.000 And I actually am for taking them off the formulary.

01:39:42.000 We have something called WIC, which is women and children. 0.80

01:39:46.000 It's for food during pregnancy.

01:39:48.000 It only has healthy food on it.

01:39:50.000 You can't get Coca-Cola with your WIC dollars.

01:39:52.000 But you can go through the line with your SNAP plus your WIC and all that stuff.

01:39:57.000 But I'd get rid of the sugar drinks.

01:39:59.000 I'd get rid of chips.

01:40:00.000 I'd get rid of candy.

01:40:01.000 Ding-dongs. 0.80

01:40:02.000 Well, I think that's a no-brainer.

01:40:03.000 That's a no-brainer because that stuff's not food.

01:40:05.000 But I don't have one Democrat sign on.

01:40:08.000 I have yet to get a Democrat.

01:40:10.000 No reduction in money.

01:40:11.000 So my bill doesn't reduce money.

01:40:13.000 Yeah, the problem is they're voters.

01:40:13.000 I think we should.

01:40:15.000 The Democrats won't vote.

01:40:16.000 They're held prisoner, but they're voters.

01:40:19.000 Their voters want that.

01:40:21.000 They don't want you to tell them what to do with that money.

01:40:23.000 And a lot of people feel entitled to that money, which is also very odd.

01:40:26.000 But I don't do it because I dislike people on food stamps.

01:40:29.000 I do it because I want them to be healthier.

01:40:31.000 Yes.

01:40:32.000 And I actually don't want – you know, the goal is – see, people think the goal is we need more Medicaid.

01:40:37.000 No, what we need is less people on Medicaid.

01:40:39.000 The goal should be an economy where 5% of the economy, really in a good functioning world, 5%, 6%, not much more than that, shouldn't be able to take care of themselves.

01:40:49.000 There really should be health care that almost everybody can afford except for a small percentage of people.

01:40:57.000 You know, once you have kidney disease, you're on dialysis, it's a story on expense.

01:41:00.000 So almost everybody is on Medicaid.

01:41:02.000 It's a little more understandable.

01:41:04.000 Diabetes, if we fed people right, 80% of adult-onset diabetes is curable by loss of weight.

01:41:09.000 Right.

01:41:11.000 I see – and I see where they're going to argue against what you're saying about food stamps and, you know, from this libertarian perspective.

01:41:19.000 But I think you're absolutely right in that you should be allowed to do whatever you want with your own money.

01:41:24.000 But if you're going to get government assistance, there should be some sort of a limitation to you getting food that's only healthy.

01:41:30.000 We shouldn't be paying for you to kill yourself.

01:41:32.000 Just like you can't buy cigarettes, right?

01:41:35.000 You can't buy alcohol.

01:41:36.000 And this is something Bobby Kennedy is changing, and they hate him, just hate him.

01:41:40.000 Because they're voters.

01:41:41.000 They're voters.

01:41:42.000 No, not the voters.

01:41:43.000 The establishment hates him more.

01:41:45.000 His own family hates him more.

01:41:45.000 Of course.

01:41:47.000 But you know what?

01:41:48.000 If he only does one thing, and one thing he's remembered for is treating sugar as a – not a sin, as a bad food.

01:41:57.000 Sugar added to convince us that adding sugar to cereals and all these things that we add sugar to, that it's bad for your health, that will transform the people who accept that.

01:42:09.000 And the education, the understanding of that.

01:42:09.000 It certainly will.

01:42:12.000 When I was a kid – and I talked about this the other day with my friend Whitney.

01:42:15.000 We were doing a podcast.

01:42:16.000 Like we didn't think sugar was bad for you.

01:42:18.000 We just thought it gave you cavities.

01:42:20.000 Yeah, I agree.

01:42:21.000 We would throw sugar on our cereal and we would put sugar in their coffee and sugar in this and sugar.

01:42:27.000 Nobody thought anything of it.

01:42:28.000 But since the government is responsible for so much food anyway, think about how healthy – I don't think we should have sugar drinks in high schools. 0.73

01:42:36.000 They have machines in all the high schools.

01:42:37.000 They say, oh, we get extra money for our football field.

01:42:40.000 Let them put non-sugar drinks in if you really want their real advertising dollars.

01:42:44.000 I agree.

01:42:44.000 You know?

01:42:45.000 I agree.

01:42:45.000 I mean, look – but again, if you're a kid and you work and you've got a job, you're working at a corner store and you're making whatever you make, $15 an hour, whatever – not even.

01:42:57.000 What's minimum wage?

01:43:00.000 Well, federal is different.

01:43:02.000 Some states have $15 an hour.

01:43:05.000 Federal is still like $7.

01:43:05.000 What's federal now?

01:43:06.000 It's inconsequential.

01:43:07.000 So if you're a kid and you make $7 an hour, let's say, working at a store, and you want to use that $7 to buy a Coca-Cola and a pack of ringdings, who cares?

01:43:16.000 $7 is probably gone now.

01:43:17.000 Yeah.

01:43:19.000 That's it.

01:43:20.000 That's your whole paycheck for the hour.

01:43:21.000 Yeah.

01:43:21.000 But the point is when the government is giving you money, I think it's very reasonable to say this money can – like we're supposed to be helping you get back on your feet.

01:43:33.000 This is the problem with social safety nets, where I'm a big believer in it.

01:43:38.000 When I was a child, my family was poor and we were on welfare and we were on food stamps.

01:43:43.000 But they worked their way out of it and then when I was in high school, they were doing really well.

01:43:49.000 So it's like – it's a very valuable thing for families that are down on their luck and things aren't going well.

01:43:56.000 And I'm a big believer in – I think we should treat this country like a community.

01:44:01.000 And when you have the downtrodden and the people that aren't doing so well, I think it's really important to help them.

01:44:07.000 I think to let abject poverty and starvation exist in a country that has such extreme wealth is abhorrent.

01:44:15.000 It doesn't make any sense to me.

01:44:16.000 But I also think people get very dependent on social safety systems and social safety nets.

01:44:23.000 And when you have people that have generation after generation have existed on welfare, then it becomes a problem.

01:44:29.000 And it becomes a problem where we have to figure out how to motivate people or educate people as to choices that they can make that will be more beneficial to their lives to provide for themselves and be outside of it.

01:44:44.000 Another thing that's going to mess with that motivation is unhealthy food because one of the surest ways to keep people unmotivated and have no energy is to keep them unhealthy.

01:44:56.000 Healthier people have more vibrancy.

01:44:59.000 You have more energy to go pursue your dreams and do the things you want to do in life.

01:45:03.000 If you're constantly dealing with type 2 diabetes because you've been eating sugar all day and garbage all day and you're morbidly obese, you're not going to have the same energy as a person who's eating healthy food and getting up early and drinking water.

01:45:20.000 And it's just – it's going to affect the choices that you make because it's more burdensome to carry around that body.

01:45:26.000 Yeah, I think that – and I don't disagree with what you're saying on having a safety net.

01:45:31.000 But we have to have tough love involved with it and we have to have the idea that it's temporary and we're trying to get you to another place.

01:45:39.000 It can enable people to continue bad choices over and over and over again and say, well, we just have to take care of them.

01:45:45.000 Right.

01:45:45.000 So food stamps when they started were really primarily for mothers, single mothers with many kids who can't work.

01:45:52.000 So mom can't work. 1.00

01:45:53.000 We don't want them all to starve.

01:45:54.000 She has four kids.

01:45:55.000 And once you've had the kids, I'm not against that.

01:45:57.000 They're there and you've got to do some of the kids.

01:45:59.000 But we didn't give it to able-bodied, you know, 21-year-old men who are in college didn't get it or able-bodied men who are out of high school didn't get it.

01:46:09.000 You didn't do that because they need to work and they still can work.

01:46:11.000 There are jobs everywhere for able-bodied people.

01:46:14.000 So we have to look carefully at all these programs.

01:46:17.000 And this is what some people on the left complain about.

01:46:19.000 Able-bodied people, if they get something, should be very, very temporary, if at all. 1.00

01:46:23.000 Yes, I agree.

01:46:25.000 So then all the programs have to be reevaluated.

01:46:28.000 Like when I first moved to Bowling Green, Kentucky in 1993, one of my patients was head of the local welfare.

01:46:35.000 And there was a local welfare department.

01:46:37.000 And there was some real degree of the people had to come in on certain deadlines.

01:46:43.000 They had to prove that they were looking for work or why they couldn't look for work.

01:46:47.000 And there would be some people that still have four kids at home will come back and won't be able to work again.

01:46:51.000 But the able-bodied people come back in six weeks and she would show them, here's the newspaper.

01:46:57.000 Here's a job.

01:46:58.000 I want you to go here tomorrow.

01:46:59.000 And she'd make them do that.

01:47:01.000 And not because she hated them.

01:47:02.000 She worked with welfare because of the beneficial part of it. 0.77

01:47:06.000 But we've gotten away from that.

01:47:08.000 And so if I propose something like that, it's like, oh, you don't like the poor.

01:47:11.000 No, I want them to become rich.

01:47:13.000 But we also do have, and this is a fallacy, people are moving up and down from rich to poor all the time in our country.

01:47:20.000 20% of the people born in the bottom 20% make the top 20%.

01:47:25.000 60% of the people who make a million bucks this year will not make a million bucks next year.

01:47:29.000 People are going up and down.

01:47:30.000 We have great income mobility.

01:47:33.000 And the reason you have to express that is otherwise you lose hope.

01:47:36.000 If you live in a poor area of town and, you know, you're a single mom and everybody tells you, you know, you're just never going anywhere, that's when your reaction is I might as well steal or sell drugs or something.

01:47:48.000 But instead, the message to our young people is it should be.

01:47:52.000 There's never been a better time to be alive.

01:47:55.000 I believe that so strongly and that we're doing a disservice to our young people by saying you're a victim.

01:48:01.000 Oh, your color of skin is dark. 1.00

01:48:03.000 Nobody's going to want to hire you.

01:48:04.000 It's the opposite.

01:48:06.000 We live in a time where people are less likely to judge you based on your color of the skin than ever in the history of mankind.

01:48:13.000 It doesn't mean there's no bigots out there.

01:48:15.000 People are less likely to judge you on your sexuality than they ever have, on the color of your skin, on your religion.

01:48:21.000 We are an incredible country.

01:48:22.000 Are we perfect?

01:48:23.000 No.

01:48:24.000 But there's never historically been a better time to be alive.

01:48:28.000 And you can do it.

01:48:29.000 I mean, you literally can do a manual job, earn enough money to start your own small business.

01:48:34.000 You know, if you're in high school and you're a decent student but you're not a rocket scientist and you don't love reading books and you don't love math but you're pretty good and you're intelligent enough, if you do HVAC, you'll have one hell of a career.

01:48:48.000 You go to a technical school in Louisville, all of the people in the class – I went to one recently.

01:48:53.000 There was 100 people in the class for HVAC, fixing air conditioners.

01:48:56.000 Every one of their tuition was paid for and they had a job if they completed the course.

01:49:00.000 And HVAC – if you're an HVAC worker, I'm guessing – I'll bet you you could make $80,000 to $100,000 a year fixing air conditioners.

01:49:07.000 But if you start your own HVAC company, you'll be the richest man or woman in town.

01:49:12.000 They're – in my town, the people in the HVAC companies are some of the richest people in our town.

01:49:17.000 Well, it's a good argument also with automation and AI because automation and AI is going to do a lot of jobs that people are going to school for unfortunately.

01:49:28.000 A lot of people are getting degrees that are going to be irrelevant when automation and AI takes whatever percentage of jobs it's inevitably going to take.

01:49:39.000 But trades, being a carpenter, being a plumber, those are always going to be valuable.

01:49:44.000 I think things like that – you may have technical assistance when you get there that a computer helps diagnose the problem and helps fix the air conditioner.

01:49:51.000 But I don't think the jobs – I talk to people every day and many of them are – Well, you're going to have to carry things and install things.

01:49:57.000 You're going to have to get in to open up walls.

01:49:59.000 I think it's still going to exist.

01:50:00.000 But I talk to everybody every day and they're scaring the world saying there will be no more jobs and everybody will just sit around looking at each other.

01:50:06.000 And I really – I don't – I hope that's not true.

01:50:10.000 And I – you know, they're richer and smarter than I am maybe, but they all say it's going to happen.

01:50:14.000 But I say if it happens, what will also develop is secret societies.

01:50:19.000 And they'll be like speakeasies and you'll go down the stairs.

01:50:22.000 You'll knock on the door and someone will decide.

01:50:24.000 You'll do the password and you'll go inside and you'll be able to build shit in there.

01:50:27.000 You'll be able to like grout bricks and put them together.

01:50:30.000 You'll be able to nail wood together.

01:50:31.000 Secret work because people will still want to work even though there are no jobs.

01:50:35.000 They will secretly want to work.

01:50:37.000 Why would it be secret?

01:50:38.000 Because the government will make it illegal.

01:50:40.000 The government is stupid.

01:50:41.000 The government will make work illegal?

01:50:42.000 Is that what you're saying?

01:50:43.000 Yeah, I think this is a dystopian society.

01:50:45.000 Here, bear me out.

01:50:46.000 So – What novels are you reading?

01:50:48.000 This is – I taught a course in this.

01:50:50.000 So when we have AI, people are saying the jobs disappear, work will become so foreign, but there will be a small remnant that searches for work.

01:50:58.000 But they'll do it secretly.

01:51:00.000 And after you build stuff in the little speakeasy down under with a secret password, you'll have to destroy it before the government comes.

01:51:06.000 So that's just my theory of what's going to happen.

01:51:09.000 I might be wrong.

01:51:10.000 I could be wrong.

01:51:11.000 Have you ever had a conversation with Elon?

01:51:12.000 Yep.

01:51:13.000 He thinks that we're going to need universal basic income.

01:51:16.000 And he thinks it won't actually be universal basic income.

01:51:21.000 His rose-colored glasses version of it is universal high income because he believes that AI is going to create so much wealth that there will be so much money that people won't have to work anymore.

01:51:33.000 Which – so hear me out here.

01:51:36.000 So the question is like is it essential that the only way you take care of yourself and feed yourself and house yourself is through work?

01:51:45.000 And can people find meaning outside of work?

01:51:48.000 Can they find things to do or will they just be sitting around playing video games all day?

01:51:52.000 So the first thing that I'll probably just acknowledge is he may be smarter than me and he's probably a little bit richer than me.

01:52:00.000 So I don't discount his opinion, Elon Musk.

01:52:02.000 But I hope he's wrong.

01:52:04.000 And with regard to work, I think work is something so necessary that the problems we have in our society are with the people who aren't getting the benefit of working. 0.93

01:52:15.000 And so I see work and I would mandate work for welfare programs.

01:52:19.000 I don't – if you're able-bodied, you would have to work.

01:52:21.000 I wouldn't give you a penny.

01:52:22.000 Everybody would have to work.

01:52:23.000 But I tell people I don't – I'm not in favor of that as punishment.

01:52:27.000 That is reward.

01:52:29.000 Work is a reward.

01:52:30.000 I can tell you that I've never been unhappy.

01:52:33.000 Maybe I'm lucky in the work I've had.

01:52:35.000 But I've always wanted to go to work.

01:52:37.000 And I've done hard jobs.

01:52:38.000 I've roofed houses.

01:52:39.000 I've worked on lawns.

01:52:40.000 I've done every job that a kid growing up in the 70s, but I was never unhappy to do it and always felt better.

01:52:47.000 If I sweat off five pounds, ten pounds in the hot sun, I felt great.

01:52:52.000 Okay.

01:52:52.000 You and I are very different because my bad jobs that I had motivated me to never want to do those jobs.

01:52:58.000 Well, yeah, I didn't want to do them forever.

01:52:59.000 You're right about that.

01:53:00.000 Well, it motivated me to find a thing in life that I didn't have to just work as a laborer.

01:53:05.000 Yeah.

01:53:05.000 And I notice you don't really sweat too much in this current gig you've got.

01:53:08.000 No, this is a pretty easy gig.

01:53:09.000 But, I mean, I did a lot of those kind of jobs when I was younger.

01:53:14.000 What they did was teach me that I didn't want to do that forever.

01:53:19.000 There has to be work.

01:53:20.000 And I hope people won't preach too much that AI is going to be no work because that, to me, is a despairing future.

01:53:26.000 It's a dystopian future when there is no work.

01:53:29.000 Most of the time – and this is – well, I do respect Elon Musk and think he may know more than I know about this.

01:53:35.000 The reason I would say is that from a historical perspective, every bit of automation has led to more jobs.

01:53:42.000 This would be the first time in the entire history where automation took jobs.

01:53:47.000 They feared that when the automated loom came that all the weavers would go out of business.

01:53:53.000 What they found instead is people had to make the sewing machines.

01:53:57.000 People had to fix the sewing machines. 1.00

01:53:58.000 And then clothing prices went down and people used to have one wardrobe, maybe two shirts.

01:54:05.000 People have – even regular people can have dozens of shirts.

01:54:08.000 You can get a shirt for five bucks at Target or eight bucks at Walmart.

01:54:12.000 So it changed things when electricity came around.

01:54:16.000 The candlestick makers rioted.

01:54:18.000 The Luddites in the 19th century broke the wombs with hammers and protested against – but we always got more jobs. 0.99

01:54:25.000 Progress went on.

01:54:26.000 So I guess from a historical point of perspective, I don't know that there's a good example of automation.

01:54:32.000 It could lower employment in a certain industry.

01:54:35.000 But overall employment – look, we have like seven billion people on the planet.

01:54:39.000 And we have less poverty on the planet than we've ever had right now.

01:54:42.000 Right, but it's not Luddites that are concerned.

01:54:45.000 It's people that are aware that this is an unprecedented technology.

01:54:49.000 That's the question.

01:54:50.000 Artificial intelligence is an unprecedented – And that's the question.

01:54:53.000 They're positing that this is different than it's ever been.

01:54:57.000 And I guess my argument – and like I say, I am willing to acknowledge these people may know more about this.

01:55:02.000 But my argument is from a historical perspective, we have never had any kind of invention or automation that ultimately led to less jobs.

01:55:11.000 It always led to more and led to more prosperity.

01:55:13.000 Now, they're arguing AI is going to get more prosperity.

01:55:16.000 And that's why – and they'll say artificial high income.

01:55:19.000 There will be plenty of money.

01:55:20.000 But there has to be work for the mental well-being of people.

01:55:24.000 They cannot sit around and it – No, I agree.

01:55:29.000 But I mean there's the question.

01:55:29.000 It will be a terrible world.

01:55:30.000 Can you find meaning in life without it just being for money?

01:55:33.000 Can you find tasks and things and goals?

01:55:37.000 Which gets back to my speakeasy and it may or may not have to be secret.

01:55:40.000 But people are going to go work even just to work.

01:55:44.000 But – Well, why does it have to be work?

01:55:46.000 I mean why can't it be art?

01:55:47.000 Why can't it be – It could be.

01:55:49.000 Learning how to play music.

01:55:50.000 Something interesting.

01:55:51.000 But I also think that the more leisure time you have, AI is going to give – I grant them that AI is going to give us more leisure time.

01:56:00.000 And we also are progressing and progress is exponential at this point.

01:56:06.000 In 1820, before the Industrial Revolution, at the beginning of it, 98 percent of people lived on less than $2 a day.

01:56:12.000 And the World Bank does these statistics.

01:56:15.000 The only people that didn't were royalty.

01:56:15.000 Everybody.

01:56:17.000 You know, the only obesity was among royalty.

01:56:21.000 Even in 1920, there were no fat people.

01:56:21.000 Regular people – Right.

01:56:23.000 Well, they didn't have processed food back then.

01:56:25.000 They didn't have abundance of time and – they didn't have an overabundance of food.

01:56:30.000 The reason we're taller, everybody but me got more calories and got taller.

01:56:34.000 Protein.

01:56:35.000 And so it's a food thing.

01:56:35.000 Yeah.

01:56:37.000 But in 1820, 98 percent of people live in abject poverty, less than $2 a day.

01:56:41.000 Today, not just the United States, the entire world is less than 10 percent live on $2 a day.

01:56:47.000 Constant dollars, controlling for inflation.

01:56:49.000 We went from 98 percent to less than 10 percent.

01:56:53.000 AI is going to continue that.

01:56:54.000 And maybe it's exponential.

01:56:56.000 But when you have more leisure time, you have time to think of other stuff to do.

01:57:00.000 We have time for our idle brains, which are pretty big.

01:57:04.000 To come up with new ideas.

01:57:06.000 So I think it's not yet known what we will think of, what may pass as work.

01:57:10.000 Maybe art is work at some point and everybody's an artist.

01:57:14.000 But maybe there also are people who like to – you know, even now, there's automation and we can grow with pesticides and fertilizers and stuff.

01:57:25.000 Just an enormous amount of food.

01:57:27.000 And actually, that's been good for the most part in supplying more food for people.

01:57:32.000 But there are still people who have organic farms who don't use pesticides or any of this.

01:57:36.000 There are people who have cattle with no antibiotics and no vaccines, chickens.

01:57:41.000 And that's sort of labor intensive and not as cost effective.

01:57:44.000 But the only way that can exist is you've got to let them charge more, you know, so that niche market, you know, can still exist.

01:57:51.000 So it's the same with AI.

01:57:53.000 There probably will be some things that maybe AI could do it, but maybe you'd rather a human do it.

01:57:58.000 Even now with art, my wife, Kelly, has written a children's book and she's looking at art.

01:58:05.000 She looked at the AI and it was pretty darn good, but she really wanted an artist because she wanted something to be – to have real meaning, you know, and to be something that people connect with.

01:58:16.000 You know, for children's books, a lot of it is connecting with the pictures.

01:58:19.000 Well, I certainly think there's going to be a lot of value in art that's made by humans.

01:58:23.000 Just like there's value in music and even films, you know, that's the argument that – you know, I had Bradley Cooper in here the other day and we were talking about the concern that a lot of these artists that create films, they're really worried that they're going to start using digital actors and doing everything through computer-generated AI prompts and films even being written by AI prompts.

01:58:48.000 My favorite Dilbert cartoon is this woman comes up to Dilbert and she says, I'm really worried about the robots.

01:58:55.000 I'm worried about automation and I'm worried my son won't get work because of the robots.

01:59:01.000 And Dilbert looks at her and he says, well, you know, I've met your son and he could be replaced by a hammer.

01:59:07.000 Always has been this fear, but we have to have innovation and get around it.

01:59:12.000 There will be, you know, technical jobs, other jobs.

01:59:16.000 I don't know.

01:59:17.000 I guess I'm not – I'm an optimist just by nature and I – technology historically has not destroyed jobs.

01:59:25.000 It's created jobs and we're way better off.

01:59:28.000 You know, absent the industrial revolution and all those inventions, we'd still be living 98 percent of us on $2 a day.

01:59:37.000 One of the things I want to talk to you about is what's going on in this country right now.

01:59:42.000 Well, one of the big ones, one of the big things that's in the news is this whole Minnesota thing, particularly – a lot of things to cover.

01:59:50.000 But particularly fraud and that they're uncovering a lot of fraud that it seems like not only was there a lot of fraud, but a lot of these people that were getting a lot of money from this fraud were donating to politicians.

02:00:05.000 There's I believe $35 million by daycares was donated to Democrats in Minnesota last year.

02:00:12.000 Is that an accurate – is that an accurate number?

02:00:15.000 Let's find out.

02:00:16.000 It's extraordinary.

02:00:17.000 That's one of the best things for AI.

02:00:18.000 AI will give you good information.

02:00:19.000 I saw a good cartoon yesterday.

02:00:22.000 It was an iceberg and the top of the iceberg was Minnesota fraud, but the iceberg beneath the surface was California.

02:00:29.000 Yes.

02:00:29.000 And can you imagine?

02:00:30.000 Just be sure to eyes.

02:00:31.000 Well, they're looking into California fraud now because of Minnesota fraud and it's – look, just the homeless thing alone, just the fact that California spent $24 billion on the homeless can't account for where the money went and the problem just got worse.

02:00:46.000 Well, there's a couple things about the refugee thing.

02:00:49.000 I don't think refugees should get welfare and I have a bill to say they shouldn't get it. 1.00

02:00:53.000 If you come to this country and your church sponsors somebody to come to it, you support them.

02:00:58.000 You sign up.

02:00:58.000 You sponsor them.

02:00:59.000 You support them.

02:01:00.000 The taxpayers shouldn't support them.

02:01:02.000 The other thing is we did a lot of – a lot of these people came on special visas.

02:01:06.000 They weren't part of the normal.

02:01:07.000 It's part of this refugee program, but they got special visas.

02:01:10.000 The smallies came because there was perpetual war in their country and famine.

02:01:16.000 No evidence Minnesota daycares gave millions to political campaigns.

02:01:20.000 What is this, Yahoo News?

02:01:23.000 I don't believe that.

02:01:25.000 So I don't believe they haven't given any money.

02:01:28.000 OK.

02:01:28.000 This is where I got it from.

02:01:29.000 The figure appears to come from viral social media posts, widely shared video alleging that the daycares – So here's the problem with this.

02:01:37.000 If this fraud is as widespread as it is, you're going to get a lot of people that are covering their tracks right now.

02:01:44.000 And so one of the ways to cover the tracks is to debunk things and to post stories.

02:01:49.000 And I don't think we really know how much money is missing.

02:01:53.000 I think part of the reform is we just shouldn't give out welfare.

02:01:56.000 This doesn't mean we shouldn't help people.

02:01:58.000 But if you're coming to this country and you want to experience the greatness of this country and someone sponsors you, they should take care of you.

02:02:04.000 But what happens is most of these charities that work on bringing refugees in, they have a big heart.

02:02:11.000 They're bringing them in.

02:02:11.000 But the first paperwork they fill out is signing up for welfare.

02:02:15.000 OK.

02:02:16.000 So according to our AI search, it says, Fact-checking organizations review campaign finance data and public records report no evidence that Minnesota daycare or childcare operators donated anything close to $35 million to political campaigns.

02:02:30.000 One fact-check notes that the supposed charge circulated online misrepresents or fabricates contribution totals and far exceeds what small childcare businesses would realistically give.

02:02:42.000 But it depends on how much money they're making.

02:02:45.000 Right.

02:02:45.000 When you say small – just I don't like the way they phrase that, small childcare businesses, because you're talking about a large number of these businesses.

02:02:53.000 And so the total, the all told, what is the number, especially compared to large corporate donors, that's fact, right?

02:03:01.000 Also, they're listing Snopes as a source, which I don't like.

02:03:06.000 It's a very biased source.

02:03:08.000 So I had this debate for years with McCain.

02:03:11.000 McCain said we should admit all these people who were interpreters in Afghanistan, all these people that are interpreters in Iraq.

02:03:18.000 And my response to him was this.

02:03:20.000 If they can speak English and they're pro-Western, they need to stay in their country and be the founding fathers of their country. 0.99

02:03:26.000 If the people who speak English and are pro-Western all leave, then all the crazy jihadists are the ones going to run the government. 0.87

02:03:33.000 So part of the reason the Taliban runs Afghanistan, again, is 80,000 of the best people probably came over here that speak English and have some kind of knowledge.

02:03:43.000 They should have stayed in their country. 1.00

02:03:44.000 But isn't that kind of a simplistic perspective because a lot of those people would be dead?

02:03:50.000 We won the war.

02:03:52.000 What war?

02:03:53.000 We won what war?

02:03:55.000 Well, the war went on forever and ever.

02:03:57.000 We didn't win anything in Afghanistan.

02:03:59.000 I don't think saying we won the war in Afghanistan is even remotely.

02:04:02.000 They won and it immediately reverted to the Stone Age when we left.

02:04:05.000 But for many, many years when they were coming over here.

02:04:07.000 But you can't say we won it.

02:04:08.000 What I'm saying is from the perspective of the people, the government that was in place for the 20 years that we were there was a moderate government that was friendly to these people.

02:04:17.000 I think them leaving was them.

02:04:20.000 They should have been the founding fathers of their country.

02:04:23.000 So, for example.

02:04:24.000 But wait a minute.

02:04:25.000 Once we left, they had no protection and they were in grave danger.

02:04:29.000 Right.

02:04:29.000 A lot of them became – also a lot of them were working with the Americans.

02:04:32.000 We left them there to die.

02:04:34.000 In 1812, the British came back and attacked us. 0.63

02:04:37.000 If we would have all left and said, oh, well, damn, they're attacking us again.

02:04:40.000 We're under attack.

02:04:41.000 No, they should have fought for their country.

02:04:43.000 And the thing is, is everybody – sure, you can – it sounds like a good thing.

02:04:47.000 Bring them over here. 0.94

02:04:47.000 But we really didn't need another 80,000 people from Afghanistan. 0.94

02:04:50.000 We didn't need another 80,000 people from Iraq.

02:04:53.000 And we certainly didn't need another 80,000 people from Somalia.

02:04:56.000 And if they're coming, they should be ineligible for welfare. 0.98

02:04:59.000 If you come as a legal immigrant, you're not supposed to get welfare for five years.

02:05:03.000 And yet we know it's happening.

02:05:05.000 The refugees can get it immediately. 1.00

02:05:07.000 And they're on Medicaid.

02:05:09.000 That's the problem is the refugee status, right? 1.00

02:05:11.000 And then they figured out, gosh, they are smart at one thing.

02:05:14.000 That's those learning centers, those leering centers where they're smart at those.

02:05:17.000 Well, I mean, once you realize that you can get a lot of money doing that.

02:05:21.000 There was also autism diagnoses and then they'd open up an autism center.

02:05:25.000 And, you know, all that money going overseas.

02:05:27.000 I don't fault people for taking advantage of a system that has giant loopholes in it, especially when you come over here from a war-torn country and there's a bunch of people that are already doing it.

02:05:39.000 Like, how do you make money?

02:05:40.000 Everybody's doing it.

02:05:40.000 Let's do this.

02:05:41.000 But somebody had to have helped them.

02:05:41.000 Yeah.

02:05:43.000 But, you know, there are people saying, and the whole thing needs to be audited.

02:05:48.000 And I'm also presenting a bill that will audit the whole system everywhere.

02:05:53.000 But there are people saying that there are either Chinese hackers as well as Russian hackers that are also stealing millions of dollars.

02:06:01.000 The Somalis were so good at it, they were sending hundreds of millions of dollars, you know, back overseas.

02:06:07.000 So I think that we're at the tip of the iceberg.

02:06:11.000 I don't know.

02:06:11.000 Because we read that as well.

02:06:13.000 No, don't ask Snopes.

02:06:13.000 We need to ask Snopes.

02:06:15.000 Put it in a perplexity.

02:06:16.000 If Snopes gives it, as an example, ignore it.

02:06:20.000 Well, they said it was $700 million the other day.

02:06:22.000 The reports were $700 million.

02:06:25.000 I think you have to check off a box when it goes through the airport.

02:06:28.000 And they weren't even hiding that they were sending it back.

02:06:30.000 So the poor Somalis sent like $700 million over the last couple of years. 0.98

02:06:36.000 So if they had $700 million to send back to Somalia, if that's true, where's that coming from?

02:06:44.000 Well, they stole $9 billion.

02:06:46.000 Is that real?

02:06:47.000 Well, that's the number they're saying.

02:06:49.000 That's why it all needs to be.

02:06:51.000 It's been in the press reports.

02:06:53.000 I can't tell you exactly who.

02:06:54.000 But we need the whole thing needs to be audited.

02:06:56.000 Right.

02:06:56.000 So California and New York, you know, are going to be enormous problems with the same kind of fraud.

02:07:03.000 Yeah.

02:07:03.000 And I think it's virtually a guarantee that we will find more.

02:07:07.000 But why in the world would we run a government where we don't audit this stuff every year?

02:07:10.000 Right.

02:07:11.000 How did it get to this point?

02:07:12.000 That's the real question.

02:07:13.000 We don't audit the Pentagon.

02:07:13.000 The Pentagon can't match their records either.

02:07:16.000 But this is the TSA stuff.

02:07:16.000 Okay.

02:07:18.000 This is just – No, but this is – you check it off in a box.

02:07:21.000 Okay.

02:07:21.000 So for a total of nearly $700 million over two years.

02:07:25.000 So this – we actually ran this through Perplexity, which is our sponsor.

02:07:25.000 Okay.

02:07:30.000 It's an AI program.

02:07:31.000 It's always pretty accurate.

02:07:33.000 Federal officials say that TSA flagged nearly $700 million in cash and luggage leaving Minneapolis, St. Paul Airport.

02:07:40.000 So if you have more than $10,000, the law says you have to check a box.

02:07:44.000 And I think these people voluntarily checked a box.

02:07:47.000 So they're looking through data.

02:07:48.000 TSA forms, they just added them all up.

02:07:51.000 So I think it's real.

02:07:52.000 But this is the same thing.

02:07:54.000 This is this one weird website that we found the other day, Just the News.

02:07:58.000 So this website, Just the News, published a report saying – a report recently that revealed Transportation Security Administration has flagged approximately $700 million in declared U.S. cash.

02:08:10.000 But the question is like where is Just the News getting this information from?

02:08:14.000 I think from TSA.

02:08:16.000 But why is it one weird right-wing website that is reporting this that everybody refers to when they're talking about this – the number attached to this fraud?

02:08:25.000 Because nobody's been looking.

02:08:25.000 John Solomon is a good researcher, and he does come up with stuff.

02:08:28.000 So have him on.

02:08:30.000 Ask him where he came up with it.

02:08:32.000 I'm pretty sure it comes from TSA forums.

02:08:34.000 I don't think he's making the number up.

02:08:36.000 I think this is an – That's the main amount of money to send back to Somalia.

02:08:40.000 But this is also the gall.

02:08:42.000 You're stealing welfare money, and you're taking it out of the country, and you are so in the belief that you won't get caught.

02:08:49.000 You're not smuggling it out.

02:08:51.000 You're putting on the form.

02:08:52.000 I'm taking $20 million out of the country today.

02:08:54.000 Well, they've been doing it, if it's true, and it seems to be true.

02:08:58.000 They've been doing it for decades.

02:08:59.000 And this is – I mean, when did we start mass-immigrating people from Somalia into this country?

02:09:08.000 You know what I think we should do?

02:09:10.000 The next step would be, OK, we know how much is going on in Somalia.

02:09:14.000 Let's look at every airport around the country and see who else is shipping money out.

02:09:20.000 Yeah, we tried to find that the other day too, but we couldn't find any – we tried looking at different money that was like, how much does a TSA flag over the entire course of the year all over the country?

02:09:33.000 We couldn't find that data.

02:09:34.000 But that might just because nobody's published it.

02:09:37.000 Well, I'll ask.

02:09:38.000 I can ask, and I'll have my staff.

02:09:39.000 We'll look into it and see if we can find that answer for him.

02:09:42.000 That would be great.

02:09:42.000 One of the things I was reading recently is interesting because Minnesota has this one group of immigrants in the Somalis, but they also have another group in the Hmongs.

02:09:53.000 And they have a completely different result in terms of the amount of people that are on welfare, the amount of people that graduate from college or high school, the amount of people that are on Medicaid.

02:10:05.000 All of them are like radically different.

02:10:08.000 It's much lower in the Hmong community.

02:10:11.000 Right.

02:10:11.000 Which is interesting.

02:10:12.000 It's like, well, what is that?

02:10:14.000 Is it education in their community?

02:10:16.000 Is it they don't come from a culture that enables fraud?

02:10:22.000 I mean, you have to realize Somalia is obviously where you get an enormous amount of piracy.

02:10:27.000 Right.

02:10:27.000 I mean, this is – that's the movie with Tom Hanks.

02:10:30.000 Look at me.

02:10:31.000 I'm the captain now.

02:10:32.000 That's Somalia. 0.61

02:10:32.000 Right? 0.61

02:10:33.000 Right.

02:10:34.000 And by the way, they were kind of forced into that behavior.

02:10:38.000 Their original name – they didn't call themselves Somali pirates.

02:10:38.000 Right.

02:10:41.000 They called themselves the People's Coast Guard of Somalia because the Europeans were dumping toxic waste off the coast and killing all their fish, and they were fishermen. 0.97

02:10:51.000 So they started kidnapping the people that were in these boats and then, you know, to try to get a ransom because you've destroyed our fishing ground.

02:10:58.000 And then they went, oh, well, you know what?

02:11:01.000 It's probably easier to just kidnap people than it is to be a fisherman.

02:11:04.000 So the discussion reminds me of a story.

02:11:07.000 So the Hamongs versus Somalis, why are 86 percent of the Somalis still on Medicaid and why are the Hamongs doing better? 0.99

02:11:14.000 So they used to always make this argument that Sweden is so great because it's socialist and that Swedes are all just doing fine.

02:11:22.000 They're all so happy.

02:11:23.000 Everybody's happy in Sweden.

02:11:24.000 And so they were talking to Milton Friedman about that, and he was over there, and they were bragging about the country, about how great Sweden was and everything, and they were attributing it to socialism.

02:11:34.000 And he looked at them, and he says, you know, the Swedes are very happy.

02:11:39.000 They're also very happy in Minnesota.

02:11:40.000 If you look at the statistics of people from Sweden who immigrated to Minnesota, they're kicking butt. 1.00

02:11:46.000 They're in the top 1 percent, and it gets back to what is the argument.

02:11:50.000 Why do Swedes do so well?

02:11:52.000 Many people say it's this northern Scandinavian work ethic.

02:11:56.000 They brought it with them and kept it in their families, and it's transmitted down.

02:12:00.000 They're also not fleeing a war, right?

02:12:02.000 Oh, I mean, I'm not saying it's more difficult.

02:12:04.000 It's more difficult for refugees.

02:12:05.000 But they're not coming over here as a refugee from a war.

02:12:08.000 They're coming over here as an immigrant who wants a better life.

02:12:11.000 But I will tell you that, so, for example, there are people who come and in one generation just kick ass.

02:12:16.000 I'll tell you the Vietnamese. 0.73

02:12:17.000 The Vietnamese came. 0.99

02:12:19.000 I know a guy.

02:12:19.000 He came over here.

02:12:21.000 He was on an island for a year, and he got one cup of rice.

02:12:24.000 He lost like 60 pounds, and he wasn't fat to begin with.

02:12:28.000 He was just nothing.

02:12:29.000 He finally got here because he had fought with us or his brother had fought with us.

02:12:32.000 He gets here, opens a transmission business.

02:12:35.000 Three of his kids are doctors.

02:12:37.000 One's a vet.

02:12:38.000 One's a pharmacist.

02:12:39.000 They just kick butt in one generation. 0.77

02:12:41.000 There are Nigerians that have come here.

02:12:44.000 They have dark skin.

02:12:45.000 Everybody says, oh, America's racist.

02:12:47.000 They kick ass.

02:12:48.000 They have – the average Nigerian income is higher than the average white income. 0.97

02:12:53.000 They're also famously scammers overseas in Nigeria.

02:12:58.000 Yeah, but what I'm saying – They do a great job in tricking people to giving up their money.

02:13:01.000 I think it is.

02:13:02.000 It's not so simple as to say racism keeps people down.

02:13:05.000 It's ingenuity.

02:13:06.000 It's your family.

02:13:07.000 And Nigerians are particularly ingenious when they come into this country. 1.00

02:13:12.000 They're hard workers.

02:13:13.000 Yeah.

02:13:14.000 But it's also what we should in an immigration system select for.

02:13:18.000 Instead of saying we're going to bring in 50,000 Somalis, why don't we look one at a time? 0.98

02:13:23.000 And if you want to sponsor a family or another Somali family wants to them, let's do it one at a time.

02:13:28.000 And then let's not offer them any kind of welfare.

02:13:30.000 And if they struggle, you take care of them when they come over, whoever sponsors them.

02:13:34.000 What do you think they're going to uncover when they do a full audit of the – let's just talk about Minnesota.

02:13:39.000 What do you think is going to – I mean what do you envision the real scope of this is?

02:13:47.000 Well, I think it's going to be out-and-out fraud.

02:13:49.000 It's not going to be like just some mistakes on forums or something.

02:13:53.000 It's going to be these learning centers that have nobody coming to them.

02:13:58.000 They just don't even exist.

02:13:59.000 Food kitchens that aren't feeding anyone.

02:14:01.000 But I do believe the 700 million leaving Israel – they say it's only a few people.

02:14:05.000 But I believe it's real because I think it's marked on the forums voluntarily by the people doing it.

02:14:10.000 700 million leaving Israel?

02:14:11.000 What do you mean?

02:14:12.000 No, 700 million leaving Minnesota.

02:14:14.000 Okay.

02:14:15.000 You said Israel.

02:14:15.000 I didn't mean to say it.

02:14:16.000 I was like, what's going on?

02:14:17.000 It's a new thing.

02:14:18.000 The 700 million leaving I think is voluntarily checked off on those forums by Somalis. 1.00

02:14:18.000 Yeah. 1.00

02:14:23.000 Well, that has to be fraud, right?

02:14:25.000 Yeah.

02:14:26.000 So I think that's part of the fraud as well.

02:14:28.000 But I think that if we audit the system, we're going to find organized gangs of Russians and Chinese doing the same thing.

02:14:35.000 We know that during COVID, there were gangs of Russian hackers and Chinese hackers stealing stuff.

02:14:40.000 There were Americans stealing stuff. 1.00

02:14:42.000 But we have to have a tighter – our problem is everybody's so generous.

02:14:47.000 Everybody wants to help people, and you're a grumpy old terrible scrooge if you don't want to give refugees more money.

02:14:53.000 But ultimately, you have to give them less money or you won't get to this.

02:14:57.000 So let's say we gave them $5 billion last year.

02:15:00.000 If you give them $6 billion, do you think we're going to do a better job at rooting out the fraud or a worse job?

02:15:05.000 If you give them more money, they'll steal more money.

02:15:07.000 You have to give them less so everybody's looking harder at the money and you do it.

02:15:12.000 It's the same way with the Pentagon.

02:15:13.000 If you give the Pentagon $500 billion more, do you think they're going to be better with our money or worse?

02:15:19.000 Right.

02:15:20.000 So we've got to give less money.

02:15:21.000 So you've got to give less money to the refugees, and then you have to have more scrutiny of it.

02:15:25.000 But the interesting question is if I put forward a bill that says we're going to audit all the welfare, not just the refugee program, we're going to audit all the cash transfer programs for every state, do you think any Democrats will vote for that?

02:15:38.000 Zero.

02:15:39.000 I don't think one Democrat will vote for it.

02:15:40.000 I doubt it.

02:15:41.000 Well, also, it would be terrible for their base if they found out that these are the people that are voting to audit.

02:15:46.000 But you could argue you're actually making it better for poor people because I'm trying to get rid of the Somalis stealing it so more of the dollars actually go to people who are poor. 1.00

02:15:55.000 Great to say, but most people think you're trying to reduce the amount of money that a hungry family gets.

02:16:00.000 That's how they would frame it, and then people would frame it as you being cruel.

02:16:03.000 Unfortunately.

02:16:04.000 And that's the problem with having the debate.

02:16:04.000 Right.

02:16:06.000 Right.

02:16:07.000 Because the debate is demagogued.

02:16:09.000 So speaking of which, what was your take on the border being wide open for the last four years?

02:16:19.000 And not just wide open, but they were encouraging people to come to America, telling them how to do it, and even helping them get across, giving them EBT cards, giving them cell phones.

02:16:31.000 What was your take on all that?

02:16:34.000 I do believe that they understand that most of the people coming across will ultimately be voters and that two out of three will vote Democrat.

02:16:42.000 So it's all power politics.

02:16:45.000 They say it's about, you know, humanity and being humane and all that.

02:16:50.000 It isn't that.

02:16:51.000 It's all about voting demographics, and they want these people to come in because many of them are suffering, you know, through sex trafficking, all the other crap that went along with this mass migration.

02:17:01.000 So I don't think it's necessarily a best place to be, but I'd say it's one of the most extraordinary accomplishments.

02:17:07.000 You know, as you know, I occasion on the other side with Donald Trump, we don't always agree on everything, but on the border, I think he did a fabulous job by sheer force of personality.

02:17:17.000 He fixed it before any money was allotted.

02:17:20.000 He fixed it in the first three months, and it went from whatever the number was down.

02:17:25.000 He reduced it by 98 percent.

02:17:27.000 He relocated some people there, but by sheer force of personality, before any money was even spent, he fixed the problem on the border.

02:17:35.000 Well, it seemed like the Democrats wanted the problem to exist.

02:17:38.000 I think because they want more voters.

02:17:39.000 They don't vote immediately.

02:17:40.000 And they were moving people to swing states, and the idea being that the census only counts human beings.

02:17:45.000 It doesn't count citizens.

02:17:46.000 Right.

02:17:47.000 And so you get more congressional seats.

02:17:48.000 So California probably has a couple of congressional seats that are based on illegal aliens.

02:17:54.000 You know, so there's such a large population that I think you have about, what, it's about 750,000 people per congressional district.

02:18:02.000 There's got to be one or two congressional districts that they have that they probably don't.

02:18:06.000 They shouldn't be allotted.

02:18:08.000 So then the problem becomes the people are here, and a lot of the people that came across the border are here illegally.

02:18:16.000 Even though they were encouraged to be here, they are here illegally. 1.00

02:18:20.000 What do you do?

02:18:23.000 Well, this is going to shock you.

02:18:24.000 I'm a moderate on this.

02:18:25.000 I actually think that most of the people that are here and working lawfully and can pass a background check, I would give them no welfare.

02:18:32.000 And I would give them no citizenship, no voting privileges, but you can work, and we won't arrest you.

02:18:39.000 Okay.

02:18:40.000 No citizenship, but a potential path to citizenship?

02:18:45.000 I think it's better just to say the tradeoff is this, that you came illegally.

02:18:49.000 Right now the law says you've got to go back, and you'll never get in, basically.

02:18:54.000 So the compromise is you came in illegally, you just don't get to be a citizen your kids will be.

02:18:58.000 Now the new ones, the 8 million that might have come in last year, some of them need to go back, and particularly any of them committing crimes.

02:19:05.000 And I think people are very open, and I think the Trump administration has sent a lot of criminals back.

02:19:09.000 I think that's good.

02:19:10.000 There's no question they've sent a lot of criminals back.

02:19:12.000 There's also no question they've arrested citizens that they thought were illegal aliens.

02:19:18.000 They've sent people back that were in this country most of their lives. 1.00

02:19:22.000 They came over here as infants, and they don't have birth certificates, and they don't have ID.

02:19:28.000 They don't have citizenship. 1.00

02:19:29.000 See, the compromise I'm offering is different than anybody's ever talked about.

02:19:33.000 Everybody thinks the compromise has to include voting and citizenship.

02:19:36.000 If in Texas we gave amnesty and let, I don't know, a couple million people vote, immediately Texas becomes Democrat for the next 20 years.

02:19:46.000 So that's what it's all about.

02:19:47.000 It's about voting.

02:19:48.000 Is the problem the census?

02:19:51.000 Because why are they counting people and giving congressional seats based on people that aren't citizens?

02:19:59.000 If they changed that alone and made it so you're counting people, but you're only giving congressional seats based on the amount of citizens.

02:20:07.000 We could change the law, but changing the law is difficult.

02:20:10.000 You know, I mean, you have to end up getting 60 votes, which means we need seven Democrats.

02:20:14.000 Right, but it's not a crazy law to begin with where you can get congressional seats based on the amount of illegal aliens you have in your area, which is crazy because then it encourages you to bring in illegals so that you get more congressional seats. 0.62

02:20:28.000 Yeah.

02:20:28.000 Kind of nuts.

02:20:29.000 And then what do you do?

02:20:30.000 You give those people Medicaid, you give those people food stamps, and then they're on your side.

02:20:34.000 And it's part of the answer to immigration that makes it less of a burden on us is if we base our society on work, we put a wall around our welfare system, and we don't give it to people, refugees or immigrants, legal or illegal. 0.88

02:20:48.000 Nobody gets any.

02:20:49.000 And you have to come for work.

02:20:51.000 And what that does is you're going to select out for people who work.

02:20:54.000 And that's why I try to say, and not many people on my side will see this, say this, I think some of the best Americans just got here, frankly.

02:21:01.000 They have good work ethic.

02:21:02.000 They're hardworking people.

02:21:03.000 They work in our fields.

02:21:04.000 They pick our tomatoes.

02:21:05.000 They clean fish.

02:21:06.000 They work in chicken houses.

02:21:07.000 They do a lot of the dirty jobs in our country are done by immigrants. 1.00

02:21:11.000 So they also came here with ambition because they want a better life at great peril and great risk.

02:21:16.000 And some of them here are here illegally. 0.98

02:21:18.000 I would have a work program.

02:21:19.000 I'd let them sign up for a work program.

02:21:21.000 Pass a background check.

02:21:22.000 But do you think that they should have to go back home in order to become a citizen?

02:21:27.000 Like if some guy came over here 20 years ago, started off as a laborer.

02:21:31.000 Now he's a carpenter.

02:21:33.000 He's working for some construction company.

02:21:35.000 But he's an illegal.

02:21:37.000 The trade is you don't get citizenship at all.

02:21:40.000 Your kids will.

02:21:41.000 I would just say you don't get citizenship. 0.76

02:21:43.000 That's your trade off.

02:21:44.000 Here's an interesting survey.

02:21:44.000 You know what?

02:21:47.000 Let's find a thousand people who are in Texas illegally and do a poll and say, would you accept this? 0.99

02:21:53.000 Would you accept that you don't get to vote during your lifetime, but your kids will get to vote if they were born here in exchange for not having to worry about being in a car accident or being sent back to Mexico?

02:22:03.000 I'll bet you 80 percent of the people who are illegally would take work without citizenship. 1.00

02:22:08.000 But you know who wants the citizenship and doesn't care about work? 0.98

02:22:12.000 Democrats.

02:22:12.000 All they care about is the voting part.

02:22:15.000 See, what I'm trying to propose is something humane on the work part.

02:22:19.000 Plus, I think we need some workers.

02:22:20.000 And I think the people would actually accept it, but they give up.

02:22:23.000 They don't have to give up the country and leave and come back, which might never happen.

02:22:26.000 They just give up the voting.

02:22:28.000 They're not supposed to vote now anyway.

02:22:30.000 They broke the law to come here. 1.00

02:22:32.000 Well, that's the really concerning thing that some of them are voting.

02:22:35.000 Yeah, and that shouldn't happen.

02:22:37.000 And that's one of the craziest things that California has passed where you're not allowed to show ID when you vote, which is just – you're essentially saying you're encouraging fraud.

02:22:48.000 Fraud.

02:22:49.000 No, that's insane.

02:22:50.000 It's insane.

02:22:51.000 It's insane that it passed.

02:22:53.000 It's insane that it's legal.

02:22:54.000 It's insane that they could say that with a straight face and have any sort of a weird, you know, gaslighty answer as to why that would be a good thing.

02:23:03.000 Yeah, but it sort of shines a light on the gulf in our country between, you know, one party and the other.

02:23:10.000 The gulf is so huge that they really don't want to verify who the voters are.

02:23:14.000 They come up with arguments that just frankly aren't true.

02:23:19.000 Oh, there's racism in the ID and stuff.

02:23:22.000 Almost all the voter ID bills have said you can get an ID for free, you know, to make sure there isn't some sort of inherent racism.

02:23:30.000 Well, also, you needed an ID to prove that you had a COVID vaccine just a few years ago.

02:23:35.000 Not me.

02:23:36.000 I didn't get a vaccine.

02:23:37.000 Right, but you needed one if you wanted to fly just a few years ago.

02:23:40.000 Yeah, it was terrible.

02:23:41.000 Go to New York.

02:23:41.000 And that was fine with them.

02:23:42.000 The hypocrisy is astounding.

02:23:44.000 You want to go to a restaurant, you had to have a COVID vaccine.

02:23:47.000 You had to have your ID.

02:23:48.000 It was astounding.

02:23:50.000 But the weirdest one was the open shipping people to swing states.

02:23:56.000 Just the fact that that's okay and that they spent tax dollars just flying people to these states.

02:24:05.000 Yeah, you start to think it's not a humanitarian project.

02:24:08.000 It's a voting project.

02:24:09.000 Yeah.

02:24:10.000 I mean, it does make sense.

02:24:13.000 But how do you feel about the way the government currently is going about trying to round up illegals? 1.00

02:24:20.000 Like, obviously, we have this terrible tragedy in Minnesota where that woman was shot, which was horrible.

02:24:29.000 I mean, I don't know why I feel way worse when a woman gets shot, but I always do, especially in that situation. 0.99

02:24:38.000 I understand that the officer that shot her, apparently he had been dragged by a car, like, really recently.

02:24:45.000 Right.

02:24:47.000 Which I would imagine also tensions very high.

02:24:51.000 But it just seemed all kinds of wrong to me.

02:24:54.000 I think there is general consensus about getting rid of gang members, people committing crimes, rapists, murderers, even among Democrats.

02:25:05.000 I think when you go to Boston, you round up some of these really bad people in Boston that are committing crimes.

02:25:09.000 I think some of the Democrats are quietly okay with it.

02:25:12.000 I think when you get beyond the criminals to the next set of people who some of them are just working in our country, I think it's harder.

02:25:20.000 I also think that the ICE agents have a tough job.

02:25:23.000 So do the police.

02:25:25.000 Police are trained in this, and there's a lot of training on how you deal with protesters, how you do things.

02:25:31.000 It would be better if it were local police than ICE.

02:25:33.000 But what do you do if it's Minnesota and the local mayor says we're a sanctuary city?

02:25:39.000 We're not asking anybody whether they're here legally or not.

02:25:42.000 Someone robs you.

02:25:44.000 Someone rapes somebody.

02:25:46.000 Somebody steals a car.

02:25:48.000 We are a sanctuary city.

02:25:49.000 We're not going to tell you.

02:25:50.000 The only way you can have police is you have to bring in the federal police.

02:25:53.000 So one thing I would tell these left-wing cities is if you want less ICE in your city, why don't you police your city?

02:26:01.000 Yeah, but they don't want to police.

02:26:03.000 That's what I mean.

02:26:04.000 And if you can't force them to do it, if they don't agree with it, and if the people in the state largely, if they vote against it, and if you have a large percentage of population of illegals, like, say, California, not just a large percentage of populations that are illegal, but a large percentage of people that think that those illegals are a part of the community.

02:26:22.000 Right.

02:26:22.000 I mean, L.A. without Mexicans would be crazy.

02:26:25.000 I mean, it wouldn't be L.A.

02:26:27.000 I mean, they are an integral part of Los Angeles, both illegal and legal.

02:26:32.000 But illegal as well.

02:26:34.000 I mean, how many restaurants employ – great restaurants in Los Angeles employ illegal people from Mexico? 1.00

02:26:40.000 Right.

02:26:41.000 I think that local police is better than national police.

02:26:45.000 But the only way you can have local police is the local police have to enforce the law.

02:26:48.000 And so they are breaking the law and having an obscure – a bizarre way of interpreting the law to say we are going to defy the national immigration laws.

02:26:58.000 So I think it would be better done by the local cities.

02:27:01.000 But if the local cities aren't going to do it, then you have to have national agents going in.

02:27:05.000 And it is a tragedy.

02:27:07.000 But like I say, I also have sympathy for the people that are in law enforcement trying to do a very difficult job.

02:27:14.000 I do as well.

02:27:15.000 But what was your take on the actual shooting itself?

02:27:18.000 You know, I don't know that I want to go too much into the specifics of it because I don't want to pass judgment like a jury would because really someone will have to go into and look specifically at every fact and every angle and every angle of camera.

02:27:33.000 So I don't like to judge criminal things that happen in our country and say, well, that person needs to go to jail or that person is innocent.

02:27:41.000 I don't know that I can make that judgment.

02:27:43.000 And then am I coloring the situation for anybody who will have to make that judgment someday on some kind of jury?

02:27:51.000 Let's see if we can find this out.

02:27:53.000 How many people have been sent back during the time of this administration?

02:27:58.000 So in the year now that this administration has been operational, how many illegals have been rounded up and sent back?

02:28:08.000 I know a lot of people self-deported when Trump got into office because I think they were probably worried about being sent somewhere that they didn't want to be, which was a thing.

02:28:17.000 I've seen somewhere that it doesn't greatly exceed some of the deportations under Obama, that the numbers aren't as big as you think they are.

02:28:24.000 Right, but I think the deportations under Obama, what they're counting is people that snuck across the border and were turned back, not people who were snatched up at Home Depot and then brought to some country that they didn't even come from.

02:28:40.000 I don't know what the numbers are.

02:28:42.000 The answer is?

02:28:44.000 Horrible prison.

02:28:46.000 So we'll pull this up here.

02:28:49.000 Public estimates indicate the Trump administration has removed on the order of a few hundred thousand people since returning to office January of 2025, not millions.

02:29:01.000 So here's the problem with that.

02:29:02.000 What was the numbers of people that were sneaking in every year?

02:29:07.000 It was kind of crazy, right?

02:29:08.000 Because it was 20 million over four years, right?

02:29:11.000 Isn't that what the number is on the high side?

02:29:13.000 Yeah, I don't know what the number is.

02:29:15.000 The numbers are in the millions, but I think it's hard to estimate because some of them didn't get, you know, if you're not getting caught, how do we estimate how many there are?

02:29:24.000 But I think millions of people came in and I think it was a tragedy.

02:29:28.000 And like I say, you know, it's one of the things Donald Trump has been an absolute success on is controlling the southern border.

02:29:35.000 Yes, and it should have been done a long time ago.

02:29:38.000 But the question is, like, how effective is the removal process?

02:29:42.000 And is it do they have a quota that they have to meet?

02:29:47.000 Is this why they're being so aggressive about it?

02:29:49.000 So it says here, October 2025 Homeland Security Update referenced in one overview stated more than 2 million people were removed from the country in 2025.

02:29:58.000 But that total combined formal deportations, which were 527,000 with roughly 1.6 million people who voluntarily left or lost status rather than being physically deported.

02:30:12.000 Separate NPR report described about 600,000 deportations in 2025, along with about 1.6 million immigrants.

02:30:20.000 So similar off by, you know, OK, let's see here, reflecting broader crackdown.

02:30:27.000 OK, here's the question.

02:30:29.000 What what is the estimate of the amount of people who came in illegally between 2020 and 2024?

02:30:38.000 What would you I think I've seen some guesses at 8 million?

02:30:42.000 I think 20 is going to be high.

02:30:44.000 But 20 million is the exaggeration.

02:30:46.000 Oh, I don't know.

02:30:47.000 There's also been reports through the years of how many are here illegally.

02:30:50.000 They used to say 11.

02:30:52.000 Now, some people say 20.

02:30:53.000 Some people say 30.

02:30:54.000 In the whole country?

02:30:55.000 Yeah.

02:30:55.000 I don't know what the number is.

02:30:57.000 But I mean, we don't know.

02:30:58.000 The estimates vary widely.

02:30:59.000 If 20 million people got in in a year, that's crazy.

02:31:02.000 Well, that would be insane.

02:31:03.000 That means we doubled what was here and then made a triple.

02:31:03.000 That would be crazy.

02:31:06.000 And even 8 million in a year would be a lot.

02:31:08.000 I would guess that at least millions came in under the Biden administration.

02:31:13.000 But how many?

02:31:13.000 Certainly millions.

02:31:14.000 Okay, it says from 2020 to 2024, government data shows roughly 11 to 12 million encounters in italics with people crossing the U.S. border illegally and mainly at the southwest border because many people try to cross multiple times.

02:31:30.000 The number of individuals is slightly lower than the number of encounters.

02:31:35.000 U.S.

02:31:36.000 And also that's but then you have to factor in the people that they didn't encounter, which were numerous, right?

02:31:42.000 So by saying the number of encounters is the accurate representation of the amount of people that got in illegally is kind of crazy.

02:31:49.000 That doesn't make any sense.

02:31:50.000 U.S. Customs and Border Protection counts encounters, which includes apprehensions between ports of entry and people deemed inadmissible at ports of entry.

02:31:59.000 Okay.

02:32:00.000 So we don't know.

02:32:01.000 So but that number was 10.8 million encounters nationwide between 2021 and 2024 alone.

02:32:09.000 That's just encounters.

02:32:11.000 I think it'd be safe to say that whatever the encounters are, the actual number is probably higher, even if you have, you know, people getting caught multiple times.

02:32:21.000 That's a lot of people, whatever it is.

02:32:23.000 Let's say it's 5 million.

02:32:24.000 Let's say it's 8 million.

02:32:25.000 That's a that's a that's way bigger than the city of Austin snuck in illegally in four years because they wanted them to be here and they didn't want to enforce it.

02:32:36.000 Yeah.

02:32:37.000 So they say Austin is kind of a liberal city.

02:32:39.000 It is very liberal.

02:32:41.000 What do you have any of the sanctuary city kind of policies here or not?

02:32:44.000 I don't believe so.

02:32:45.000 I don't think they do.

02:32:46.000 I mean, there's certainly a lot of ICE protests.

02:32:49.000 You know, there's a lot of people that protest ICE.

02:32:51.000 I mean, there was some arrests here, I guess, yesterday or the day before.

02:32:54.000 I mean, I think after that woman was shot, I think, unfortunately, well, everything is unfortunate about it.

02:33:00.000 Right.

02:33:00.000 But one of the one of the real problems is now ICE are villains.

02:33:04.000 And now people are looking at them like murderous military people that are on the streets of our city and they're masked up, which is also a problem.

02:33:13.000 Right.

02:33:13.000 Because if you get arrested by a cop, you're allowed to ask the cop, what is your name and badge number?

02:33:19.000 And you could film that cop.

02:33:21.000 If you get arrested by an ICE agent, you have no such right.

02:33:25.000 They're wearing a mask.

02:33:26.000 They don't have to tell you shit.

02:33:27.000 That's a problem.

02:33:28.000 That's a problem on our city streets.

02:33:30.000 Right.

02:33:31.000 Because you could also pretend to be an ICE agent.

02:33:34.000 Right.

02:33:34.000 So I saw this terrible story about this family that was killed where these guys pretended to be a UPS driver and they showed up and they made their way into the house and killed people because they were dressed up as a UPS driver.

02:33:48.000 If you could pretend to be a UPS driver, for sure, you could pretend to be an ICE agent, especially since they're completely anonymous.

02:33:56.000 So think about how many people can get arrested or robbed or by criminals.

02:34:01.000 Right.

02:34:02.000 Because you could just have people pretending they're like, it's not like it's impossible to fake their logo.

02:34:09.000 Right.

02:34:09.000 It's pretty easy.

02:34:10.000 Just as ICE.

02:34:11.000 You know, how hard is that?

02:34:12.000 You could easily imagine armed gangs pretending to be ICE agents robbing people.

02:34:19.000 Yeah.

02:34:19.000 I think you could make an argument when you're working right along the border or at night with large groups that there's a lawlessness to the cartels that hiding the identities of ICE along the border.

02:34:33.000 It's a little harder to make the argument.

02:34:36.000 And I saw this image in a courthouse in Chicago where it's a big elevator and the ICE agents all have masks on and they're arresting people and it's all women and children in a big elevator in a courthouse.

02:34:48.000 It's like, really?

02:34:49.000 I don't think you really need to be wearing a mask.

02:34:51.000 Well, they're worried about being doxxed and, you know, they're finding that happening.

02:34:55.000 But our local police have to do that and they don't wear masks.

02:34:57.000 The local police go to the courthouse to arrest somebody or the bright lights of the city during the day don't wear masks.

02:34:57.000 You see what I mean?

02:35:04.000 But again, the local police have to state their name and badge number.

02:35:08.000 The local police have always been here.

02:35:11.000 The ICE element is completely new.

02:35:11.000 Right.

02:35:13.000 Right.

02:35:13.000 Or at least at this scale.

02:35:15.000 I'm saying that for most of the regular arrests, you probably don't need to have them wearing masks.

02:35:19.000 The problem is once they don't wear a mask, then they're going to get doxxed.

02:35:19.000 That's what I'm saying.

02:35:22.000 And people have actively doxxed them and threatened their families.

02:35:26.000 Well, they do that to the local police, too, though.

02:35:27.000 I mean, it's what I'm saying.

02:35:28.000 Right, but the police have always been there and police are there for a reason.

02:35:28.000 Local police don't wear masks.

02:35:31.000 If you call the police, if someone's breaking into your house, you're assuming the police are going to come.

02:35:35.000 You don't call ICE because you don't self-report.

02:35:39.000 You don't say, oh, I'm having an issue with some immigrants.

02:35:41.000 Let me call ICE.

02:35:42.000 No, they're a new factor in the community and they're wearing masks.

02:35:47.000 That's a big difference.

02:35:48.000 It's not the same comparison.

02:35:50.000 Like most people, except the kooky people that went nutty during 2020 after the George Floyd riots that were like, defund the police.

02:35:57.000 And boy, did they change their tune as soon as they started getting riots and their buildings burned down.

02:36:02.000 They're like, where's the police?

02:36:03.000 Well, you fucking defunded them, stupid.

02:36:06.000 Like people, most people believe that police are necessary.

02:36:10.000 Most people believe that crime is awful and you can't have murderers and armed robbers roaming the street.

02:36:17.000 You should arrest them.

02:36:17.000 And you're going to need police officers to do that.

02:36:19.000 But those same people that believe that might also believe that once someone is here, they should be able to stay in this country.

02:36:26.000 And ICE is operating illegally and we shouldn't have militarized groups of people roaming the streets, just showing up with masks on, snatching people up, some of them U.S. citizens, and shipping them to countries they didn't even come from.

02:36:40.000 So that's why they have to wear a mask.

02:36:42.000 If you want them to do that job, if you want them to be able to deport 500,000 people over a year, which is a lot of people, if that's the real number, you know, they're going to be – their life is going to be at stake.

02:36:53.000 You're not going to be able to get people to do the job unless you allow them to be anonymous.

02:36:58.000 And then, again, allowing them to be anonymous creates a whole host of other problems where you could have people pretend to be them.

02:37:05.000 And how would you know who's who and who's not?

02:37:07.000 Some people have offered sort of an in-between where they wear badges that have a number or a first name on them such that when you're arrested, if I think you've abused my rights in arresting me, Steve, you know, and a number, 324.

02:37:25.000 People are going to dox them instantaneously.

02:37:28.000 Their face will be on the internet instantaneously.

02:37:30.000 They'll make lists.

02:37:31.000 They'll put it on social media sites.

02:37:35.000 It's complicated, obviously, but it's also very ugly.

02:37:38.000 To watch someone shoot a U.S. citizen, especially a woman, in the face where it's like I'm not that guy.

02:37:46.000 I don't know what he thought.

02:37:48.000 And again, this is a guy who had almost been run over, but it just looked horrific to me.

02:37:54.000 I mean, when people say it's justifiable because the car hit him, it seemed like she was kind of turning the car away.

02:38:02.000 It seemed like she was out of her fucking mind to begin with.

02:38:04.000 That lady seemed crazy, right? 1.00

02:38:07.000 And didn't she move there specifically to get involved in all this?

02:38:11.000 Yeah, I don't know.

02:38:12.000 She didn't seem mentally healthy, but does that mean she should be shot in the head?

02:38:15.000 Is there no other way to handle this?

02:38:17.000 And then you've got these people that are showing up at these ICE people and they're blocking traffic.

02:38:22.000 And she was one of them that was doing those kind of things where they think they're an activist and they're an agitator.

02:38:27.000 But I get back to my initial sort of argument about having local police do it.

02:38:34.000 They're not doing it.

02:38:35.000 But in an ideal world, the way we fix this and have less ICE agents in cities where they're having a very difficult job is the local people do their job and they're not sanctuary cities.

02:38:45.000 Well, how could you stop sanctuary cities?

02:38:47.000 Well, I'm not sure I can.

02:38:48.000 I'm saying – but what I'm saying is that some of the blame for ICE being there is the left and their policies of sanctuary cities.

02:38:56.000 So when they want to just say, oh, we hate ICE and we don't want ICE in our city, maybe they should be reflecting that ICE is in your city because you're disobeying the law and when someone is arrested and they're clearly not a citizen, you're not reporting them to ICE.

02:39:10.000 See, it's defiance.

02:39:13.000 It's nullification.

02:39:14.000 They have been nullifying our laws on deportation for years and years.

02:39:19.000 And so now there's something they really dislike.

02:39:22.000 But who brought it upon?

02:39:23.000 My point is the left brought this.

02:39:25.000 It's not an answer, but it's an explanation that the left is bringing this to their cities because they're refusing to enforce the laws.

02:39:33.000 Right.

02:39:33.000 And they don't want those laws.

02:39:35.000 They don't like those laws.

02:39:36.000 They think that once people are here, they should be able to stay.

02:39:39.000 And this is what my friend Gad Saad calls suicidal empathy.

02:39:43.000 And I think there's a balance to be achieved.

02:39:48.000 I just don't know how it gets done because I see both perspectives.

02:39:53.000 I see the perspective of the people that say, hey, there was an illegal program moving people in here to get votes, moving people in here to get congressional seats.

02:40:02.000 And we've got to change that.

02:40:04.000 We've got to take those people that got in and send them back to where they came from or do something because if we don't, they're going to keep doing it if they get in office again in 2028 and it's going to accelerate.

02:40:15.000 And you're going to have to take away some of the damage that's been done to a true democratic system because you've kind of hijacked it.

02:40:23.000 And they kind of have.

02:40:25.000 And then I can also see the point of view of the people that say, yeah, but you don't want militarized people in the streets just roaming around, snatching people up, many of which turn out to actually be U.S. citizens that just don't have their papers on them.

02:40:36.000 Are we really going to be the Gestapo?

02:40:39.000 Where's your papers?

02:40:40.000 Is that what we've come to?

02:40:41.000 So it's more complicated than I think people want to admit.

02:40:46.000 People want to look at this as a black and white issue if you're a compassionate person or if you're a pragmatic person.

02:40:52.000 And I don't think that's true.

02:40:55.000 I think it's both.

02:40:57.000 But I think the argument needs to be made again and again.

02:40:59.000 And the left needs to hear that they have created this situation by disobeying the immigration laws, by ignoring the deportation orders, by not reporting people who are committing crimes.

02:41:10.000 Now, we're not talking about some guy mowing lawns.

02:41:13.000 We're talking about somebody who stole a car, somebody who raped somebody.

02:41:17.000 They are in jail.

02:41:18.000 So this isn't the ordinary working person who's here illegally.

02:41:22.000 We're talking about the criminal illegals in our country. 0.60

02:41:25.000 Well, I think most people were in favor of getting rid of gang members, criminals, murderers, rapists.

02:41:30.000 Because most people were in favor of getting rid of those people.

02:41:33.000 But the thing is, is that the left-wing cities that are sanctuary cities are not reporting that.

02:41:38.000 That's part of the reason why ICE is in Minnesota.

02:41:41.000 And a good example of that is Aurora, right?

02:41:43.000 Aurora, Colorado, where Trent Ogwa was taking over apartment buildings and they were a sanctuary city.

02:41:47.000 So the police literally could do nothing about it, which is just pure insanity.

02:41:54.000 It's a lot of problems.

02:41:55.000 But we solved at least half of them today, right?

02:41:58.000 Rand, thank you so much.

02:42:00.000 I've been a big fan of yours for a long time.

02:42:01.000 And thank you again for being a voice of reason and for holding him to the fire during the whole COVID thing.

02:42:08.000 Because you were really one of the only people that was asking informed, tough questions of him.

02:42:15.000 And I really, really appreciate that you did that.

02:42:17.000 We think he needs to come in one more time.

02:42:19.000 And I have asked him to come in voluntarily for testimony.

02:42:23.000 We're negotiating with his attorneys.

02:42:26.000 If he comes in voluntarily, we can get him to test.

02:42:28.000 If he resists, I have subpoena power, but it would probably require a court case to get him to come in.

02:42:34.000 But I think he needs to fully explain why this wasn't gain of function and why it was destroying federal records.

02:42:42.000 Oh, what was the destroying of federal records?

02:42:44.000 Emails back and forth saying, destroy this after you've read it.

02:42:47.000 That's illegal.

02:42:48.000 And we have evidence of that.

02:42:52.000 I'm sure all that's in the book.

02:42:53.000 Deception.

02:42:54.000 Now, did you do the audio version of it?

02:42:57.000 No, somebody else did.

02:42:58.000 And I wanted my wife to do it because she's a great reader and she helped me write the book.

02:43:02.000 But no, but my wife and I wrote it together.

02:43:04.000 This is our second book together.

02:43:06.000 We wrote The Case Against Socialism a few years ago.

02:43:09.000 And then she and I collaborated.

02:43:11.000 And I jokingly say the boring, dry, scientific part is mine.

02:43:14.000 If there's anything really interesting to read, that's my wife.

02:43:18.000 Well, it was a pleasure to meet you.

02:43:18.000 All right.

02:43:19.000 Thank you very much.

02:43:20.000 Thanks for being here.

02:43:20.000 Thank you.

02:43:21.000 Thank you.

The Joe Rogan Experience - January 13, 2026

Joe Rogan Experience #2437 - Rand Paul

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Transcript