The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #801 - Gary Johnson

00:00:00.000 Johnson.

00:00:00.000 What's happening, buddy?

00:00:01.000 Joe Rogan.

00:00:02.000 Thanks for coming aboard.

00:00:03.000 I appreciate it, man.

00:00:04.000 Oh, man.

00:00:04.000 Other way around.

00:00:05.000 You're on the short list of people that folks consider a rational person that's running for president.

00:00:12.000 We're in a very strange time.

00:00:13.000 Would you agree?

00:00:14.000 I think we're in the strangest time ever.

00:00:18.000 Maybe in the history of politics.

00:00:20.000 Certainly in my lifetime.

00:00:22.000 Yeah, it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.

00:00:25.000 It almost seems like this is the last gasp of the idea of running for president.

00:00:29.000 You know, when you just do the mathematics of the fact that Hillary and Donald Trump are arguably the two most polarizing figures in American politics today, That Trump has to go out and get 30% of the far right to get the nomination.

00:00:45.000 Hillary has to go out and get 30% of the far left. 1.00

00:00:48.000 When 50% of Americans right now who are registering to vote are independent, at the end of the day, don't the two major parties represent about 30% of the electorate?

00:01:00.000 And so where is – where are the interests?

00:01:04.000 Where is the representation for the majority of interest in America?

00:01:08.000 I think it's the Libertarian Party.

00:01:10.000 I think it's Libertarian.

00:01:12.000 People just don't know it.

00:01:14.000 And speaking with a broad breaststroke, Libertarian, fiscally conservative, socially liberal.

00:01:19.000 Yeah, that seems to be where most people hang their hat, but it's not something that most people identify with when they talk about their actual political persuasion.

00:01:29.000 They usually say, you know, they're on the left or they're on the right.

00:01:32.000 When someone says they're a libertarian, that's that dude at the office that has guns.

00:01:36.000 You know what I mean?

00:01:37.000 Yeah.

00:01:37.000 I'm sorry, that what?

00:01:39.000 The dude at the office, the crazy dude at the office, you know?

00:01:43.000 Well, so we hit the streets the other day in New York, a film crew, and asked 40 people what a libertarian was, and it was zero.

00:01:53.000 No one knew.

00:01:54.000 No one knew.

00:01:54.000 So, you know, I'm with you.

00:01:57.000 I understand the crazy guy with the guns, but for the most part, libertarian is just undefined.

00:02:02.000 Nobody knows.

00:02:03.000 I'm not saying there's anything wrong with being a libertarian.

00:02:06.000 I'm just saying when you think about libertarian, it's the guy who is fed up and is like sort of on the fringes.

00:02:14.000 That seems to be what a lot of people associate with being a libertarian.

00:02:18.000 I would – and I'd carry that a little bit further and say that the baggage that the libertarians carry is survival of the fittest.

00:02:26.000 The notion that you're about no government whatsoever.

00:02:29.000 People are going to die in the streets.

00:02:31.000 Anarchists.

00:02:31.000 Yeah, no government.

00:02:33.000 Well, that's the rap.

00:02:35.000 Yeah, that is the rap. 0.87

00:02:36.000 And it's almost like – Everyone knows that the two-party system is kind of stupid, but everyone seems to think that any other party other than the two-party system is unrealistic, or any other party, like a Libertarian, Green Party, anything independent is unrealistic.

00:02:53.000 Well, I'm back to right now. 0.75

00:02:56.000 50% of all people that are registering to vote are registering as independent.

00:03:01.000 Statistically, right now, 43% of America is independent, but new registrations, 50%.

00:03:08.000 So I don't know.

00:03:11.000 As people do identify with the two parties, the rigged game of the system is that we're only presented with two choices, and that really starts with just being in the polls.

00:03:21.000 Look, right now, if Mickey Mouse were the third name in any poll, Mickey would be polling at 30%, but Mickey's not on the ballot in all 50 states, and if I'm the Libertarian nominee, and I hope to be the Libertarian nominee, that happens next weekend,

00:03:38.000 I'm going to be the only other candidate on the ballot in all 50 states.

00:03:43.000 So, polling, I just want to be in the polls.

00:03:47.000 There is no way a third party wins without being in the presidential debates.

00:03:52.000 That's just not going to happen.

00:03:54.000 A Super Bowl of politics.

00:03:56.000 To get in the presidential debates, you have to be at 15% in the polls.

00:04:00.000 Joe, the rigged game is that If you're not in the polls, there's no way that you can poll at 15%, but it has to be a consistent polling starting now.

00:04:14.000 I was in the first national poll that I've been in a month ago.

00:04:18.000 I haven't been in a national poll since, but a month ago I was at 11% against Hillary and Trump.

00:04:26.000 And was this all established back when Ross Perot sort of shook up the political establishment because there was a lower percentage required to get involved in debates before that?

00:04:36.000 Wasn't it 5%?

00:04:37.000 Well, actually, there was no percentage points prior to Ross Perot.

00:04:42.000 That was something that got established after Ross Perot.

00:04:44.000 And what is amazing to me is Ross Perot, after having gotten 19% of the general election vote the first time, The second time he ran, they did not allow him in the presidential debates, which is just, I mean,

00:05:00.000 that's the rigged nature of the game.

00:05:02.000 The rigged nature of the game is, come this fall, if my name does not appear in another single poll, the Presidential Debate Commission will say, Gary Johnson, he just didn't poll high enough.

00:05:14.000 What they won't say is that he wasn't in the polls.

00:05:17.000 Yeah.

00:05:17.000 And the Commission for Presidential Debates is a privately funded institution.

00:05:21.000 Private.

00:05:22.000 Democrats and Republicans were suing the Presidential Debate Commission also.

00:05:25.000 We think that it's antitrust.

00:05:28.000 We think that, not think, it's Democrats and Republicans and they collude with one another to exclude everyone else.

00:05:36.000 Bruce Fein is suing the Presidential Debate Commission.

00:05:40.000 Bruce Fein's claim to fame is that he brought Nixon down in Watergate.

00:05:44.000 But in the next sentence, he will tell you that the biggest thing he's ever done in his life is suing the Presidential Debate Commission because this has the opportunity of changing politics in America.

00:05:53.000 I mean, this is really at the heart of this rigged game.

00:05:56.000 You can't win the presidency if you're not in the Super Bowl of politics.

00:06:02.000 We figure the dollar value alone of being in the presidential debates is several hundred million dollars.

00:06:08.000 Just think of the Super Bowl and the ads that sell during the Super Bowl.

00:06:12.000 And imagine having the second biggest audience, you know, like 75 million people for 90 minutes, two hours.

00:06:22.000 That's a couple hundred million dollars worth of advertising.

00:06:26.000 Yeah, that is the show.

00:06:27.000 And if you're not in the show, people don't consider your vote.

00:06:31.000 Even if you have 50% of these people that are registering and saying they're independent, what they're really saying is they're not committing to a left or a right.

00:06:38.000 They're not committing to a Democratic or Republican.

00:06:40.000 But are they going to vote independent?

00:06:42.000 A lot of people, they have this idea that if you vote independent, you're throwing away your vote.

00:06:48.000 That is a stigma that has to be overcome, right?

00:06:50.000 No, no, no.

00:06:51.000 I agree.

00:06:52.000 But for those people, they do vote, right, and they end up voting on the basis of the lesser of two evils.

00:06:59.000 But since they're registering to vote, and they're registering to vote as independent, they end up at the polls, I mean, for the most part.

00:07:06.000 Most people don't even go to the polls.

00:07:09.000 Most people don't even vote.

00:07:10.000 Yeah.

00:07:11.000 Is there a way to fix it?

00:07:13.000 Do you think that there's a way to maybe somehow or another allow people to vote online and change the way it's set up now?

00:07:19.000 You don't have to physically go to a location.

00:07:21.000 You don't have to sign up physically in a place.

00:07:25.000 You can actually just do it from your computer the same way we bank?

00:07:29.000 That has to be the future.

00:07:32.000 That does not exist now, but that has to be the future.

00:07:36.000 And from a legislative standpoint, meaning, okay, you're president of the United States or governor of New Mexico, you could sign legislation.

00:07:45.000 And these are the things that are going to happen.

00:07:47.000 It's going to be easier and easier to vote, and that's what should be the case.

00:07:51.000 Which should be the case if the system isn't totally right.

00:07:54.000 Because the problem is, people like Hillary, the people that are longtime establishment people that have been a part of politics forever, the last thing they want to do is turn over the reins to the internet. 1.00

00:08:04.000 Because she's had, how much did they say they were spending?

00:08:08.000 Spending over a million dollars just to combat online trolls?

00:08:12.000 Just to go on Reddit and forums and correct people?

00:08:15.000 Yes, and I would be surprised if the number was that low.

00:08:19.000 Yeah, I would be surprised too.

00:08:20.000 I think they're probably being pretty conservative about that.

00:08:23.000 But the idea is that the internet doesn't like the establishment.

00:08:28.000 They know that there's a real problem with the system in place as is.

00:08:32.000 And the internet, when I say the internet, the broad...

00:08:35.000 The stroke that you're painting is obviously young people who are a little bit more aware of how screwy this whole system that they're sort of born into is and that the people that are in charge don't want to change it.

00:08:47.000 They want to keep it a two-party system. 0.70

00:08:49.000 They want to keep this silly white hat, black hat, goofy game going on forever and keep control of the power. 0.96

00:08:56.000 Right on. 0.96

00:08:57.000 But this cycle, for the first time in my lifetime, this might change.

00:09:03.000 I mean, because of just how polarizing the two of them are.

00:09:07.000 Yeah.

00:09:08.000 And I think Bernie Sanders is what a lot of people think of as the alternative right now, mainstream alternative.

00:09:14.000 And he stands pretty far out there from the other guys.

00:09:17.000 So have you seen the website isidewith.com?

00:09:20.000 No, I haven't.

00:09:20.000 You've got to write it down.

00:09:21.000 You've got to take this political quiz.

00:09:23.000 And everybody listening, take this political quiz, isidewith.com.

00:09:28.000 It's about 60 questions.

00:09:29.000 It's really easy.

00:09:31.000 You don't have to sign up on the website.

00:09:34.000 But you take this quiz, and at the end of the quiz, you get paired up with the presidential candidate most in line with your views.

00:09:40.000 It just makes real sense.

00:09:42.000 I think everybody should take the quiz, and whoever you line up with, I think you should knock yourself out supporting that person.

00:09:49.000 Well, for me, taking the I side with quiz, amazingly, the next politician that I align with outside of the libertarians that are running for president is Bernie Sanders.

00:10:00.000 I align with Bernie Sanders 73% of what he says.

00:10:03.000 Now, when it comes to economics, we come to a T in the road.

00:10:07.000 When it comes to socialism versus being an entrepreneur, I think?

00:10:32.000 I push this website because it should work the other way around.

00:10:37.000 Okay, I side with Bernie most of the time, but oh my gosh, the libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson, I side with next in line.

00:10:46.000 And I do believe that Bernie is not going to get the nomination.

00:10:50.000 I don't think that's going to happen.

00:10:52.000 And where do all those voters go?

00:10:54.000 Where does 50% of Republicans go that really are, at the end of the day, socially tolerant and fiscally conservative?

00:11:04.000 And I think that is the majority of Republican voters, but they've been co-opted by the social conservatives that have an agenda that I think is really a turn-off to most of America.

00:11:16.000 And it's okay to be a social conservative.

00:11:18.000 There's nothing wrong with being a social conservative, but if you equate...

00:11:23.000 If you make that public policy, if you pass laws regarding social conservatism, you end up putting people in jail for personal choices.

00:11:31.000 And we do have the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world, and I think that starts with the drug war.

00:11:37.000 The word conservative is interesting, too, when you apply it to socialists, like social conservatism, because conservatives really want...

00:11:44.000 The original conservatives were, stay out of my business, I'll stay out of yours.

00:11:48.000 So social conservative really wouldn't apply to, like, things along the lines of gay marriage or same-sex unions or anything along those lines.

00:11:57.000 You would say, well, leave those people alone.

00:11:58.000 That would be the conservative approach, that government should stay out of those people's lives, right?

00:12:03.000 Well, it started out as classical liberal.

00:12:07.000 Classical liberal is being fiscally conservative and socially liberal, which got co-opted.

00:12:13.000 I mean, that used to be what a conservative was, and that got co-opted.

00:12:19.000 I think we're a little bit of both.

00:12:38.000 Well, and it's so polarizing because those issues at the end of the day, why can't Democrats and Republicans come together on some very common sense issues that would move the country forward?

00:12:53.000 Well, decades ago, the term libertarian was very, very rarely used.

00:12:57.000 When was it invented?

00:12:59.000 And I think we would all agree that it's at least something discussed today.

00:13:04.000 So, 71 is when the Libertarian Party was established.

00:13:09.000 And I remember in 71, I graduated from high school in 71, and I remember getting a book that said, here's what it is to be a Libertarian.

00:13:20.000 And it was a very short read.

00:13:22.000 I read the book, and clearly I was a Libertarian.

00:13:26.000 I've identified myself as a Libertarian since.

00:13:29.000 Now, have I registered as a Libertarian?

00:13:31.000 No.

00:13:33.000 But back to the book.

00:13:34.000 I read the book.

00:13:35.000 It said, pass the book on as I had had it passed on to me.

00:13:39.000 And for me, I've identified myself as such since.

00:13:43.000 I think it's very typical that...

00:13:46.000 Well, in New Mexico, I remember in the 80s, early 80s, there was a congressional debate, Republican, Democrat and the Libertarian.

00:13:53.000 And the discussion in the bar afterwards went something like this.

00:13:57.000 Who won the debate?

00:13:59.000 Well, there's just this overall consensus.

00:14:01.000 Well, the Libertarian won the debate, but who are we going to vote for?

00:14:04.000 Because the Libertarian never wins.

00:14:06.000 Right.

00:14:07.000 Yeah.

00:14:07.000 Yeah, that's the real rub, right?

00:14:09.000 The throwing your vote away.

00:14:11.000 Throwing your vote away.

00:14:13.000 And how can you, I mean, throwing your vote away is voting for somebody that you don't believe in.

00:14:20.000 That's throwing your vote away.

00:14:21.000 You vote for somebody you believe in, and that's how you change the system.

00:14:25.000 Yeah, it's really become a stigma that has to somehow or another be removed publicly.

00:14:30.000 And I just keep thinking that with each one of these fiasco elections, that this idea of a third party will slowly but surely emerge.

00:14:41.000 And it seems to be gaining ground.

00:14:43.000 And it could be this cycle, but so far, no.

00:14:46.000 I mean, it hasn't happened.

00:14:48.000 Yeah.

00:14:49.000 Well, it's the TV thing, man.

00:14:51.000 Those debates, they're so bizarre.

00:14:54.000 It's such a strange show where one person says something and the other person's standing there shaking their head and not agreeing, and then they interject or they go over their time and the other person jumps in.

00:15:04.000 It's one of the worst ways ever to get your point across.

00:15:09.000 But, I agree, but if you're not in those debates, you are a non-entity.

00:15:15.000 You have no chance.

00:15:16.000 I mean, that's a seal of approval, if you will.

00:15:20.000 It's a seal of credibility that you're on the stage in the first place.

00:15:24.000 And if you're not on the stage, you don't have a chance.

00:15:26.000 So a lot is riding on this Bruce Fine lawsuit, you believe.

00:15:29.000 No, actually, what everything is riding on for me is being in the polls.

00:15:36.000 If I am in the national polls, I'm back to the Mickey analogy, but Mickey's not on the ballot in all 50 states.

00:15:43.000 So the justification of having me in the polls is that I am on the ballot in all 50 states, and I really do think that I represent the majority of Americans.

00:15:52.000 I'm offering up proof of that with this iSide website.

00:15:56.000 People say to me, why should I vote for you?

00:15:58.000 Well, how about...

00:15:59.000 How about getting online and seeing where you are at philosophically with those people running for president?

00:16:05.000 I mean, don't you owe it to yourself to find out who lines up with what it is that you believe in?

00:16:13.000 Well, that's a rational approach.

00:16:15.000 It's a very rational approach, and people owe it to themselves.

00:16:18.000 It's just fascinating that, look, nobody really knew who Bernie Sanders was until this election.

00:16:24.000 It wasn't something that was in the public eye.

00:16:25.000 I mean, if you knew about him, you knew of him as a senator, but no one knew a lot about him until this cycle.

00:16:32.000 Yep.

00:16:33.000 And then when you go down the litany of his issues, like I say, I agree with the guy three quarters of what he has to say.

00:16:41.000 But what I'm saying is...

00:16:42.000 To the point of economics.

00:16:44.000 That's the real proof that this is a locked up system.

00:16:47.000 Because if you were in those debates with all those people during the same time, most likely a lot of people would be looking at you and go, you know, this Gary Johnson guy makes a lot of sense.

00:16:58.000 And what you point out is absolutely correct in that every single Republican on stage was a social conservative.

00:17:06.000 And when it comes to the Democrats, look, well, both parties are well-intentioned.

00:17:13.000 But when it comes to Democrats, look, they do grow government.

00:17:16.000 And I really believe that bigger government, although it's well-intentioned, at the end of the day, it takes tax money out of my pocket.

00:17:25.000 That I could be spending on my life as opposed to the government spending that money.

00:17:29.000 Ideally, you'd take your money and you'd be able to donate it to just exactly where you wanted that money to be spent, ideally.

00:17:38.000 And I realize that that's not practical at all.

00:17:40.000 But that's a really good point, the fact that the larger the government gets, the more money it costs to keep that going.

00:17:45.000 So the idea that it's going to do better, it's going to do more, because there's more government, there's more people, there's more programs, but they cost more money.

00:17:53.000 And then it just becomes a point of diminishing returns.

00:17:56.000 And at the end of the day, statistically, it doesn't help.

00:17:59.000 And that isn't to say, you know, I'm in the camp that believes that there are those people that are truly in need, but I think we've gone way over the line when it comes to people in need.

00:18:11.000 And at the end of the day, if we continue the growth of government and taxation, And printing money, at the end of the day, we're going to suffer from horrible inflation at some point.

00:18:25.000 This is my belief.

00:18:26.000 Do we have a fighting chance against what is the worst, most insidious tax of all, which is inflation, which erodes your buying capacity for the money that you earn?

00:18:38.000 There's nothing worse than inflation.

00:18:39.000 But that's what we're looking at if we don't actually just get some common sense at the helm.

00:18:46.000 Now, when you say those in need, like particularly or specifically, what programs or what's in place right now that you don't agree with?

00:18:54.000 Don't agree with?

00:18:55.000 Yes.

00:18:56.000 I don't know if there's anything that I really don't agree with.

00:18:58.000 It's just within the context of those programs, you have lines drawn for eligibility.

00:19:04.000 Should there be cell phones?

00:19:06.000 And I just use this as an example.

00:19:08.000 Should those people on welfare have cell phones?

00:19:10.000 Well, the argument is that without a cell phone, you can't be connected to a job.

00:19:16.000 Well, does it really mean a job?

00:19:18.000 And I point that out just as this was a line drawn that this is now a benefit of being on welfare.

00:19:28.000 A benefit of being on welfare is that you get a cell phone.

00:19:30.000 A benefit of welfare is that, yeah, you get a cell phone.

00:19:34.000 So there's an allotment or an allowance for cell phone usage or something like that?

00:19:38.000 The federal government spends multi-billions of dollars a year on cell phones for those on welfare.

00:19:47.000 Now, I just point that out as, gee, is that really a function of government?

00:19:55.000 And wouldn't people be connected otherwise?

00:19:58.000 The notion that if you can work, you should work.

00:20:02.000 The notion that if, let's say, the government is giving you $100 a month.

00:20:06.000 These are very theoretical figures.

00:20:08.000 But let's just say the government's giving you $100 a month and you can't work.

00:20:13.000 If you work, you're going to lose the $100 a month.

00:20:16.000 What about the notion of if you work, the government will give you $75 and you can make $100.

00:20:23.000 So at the end of the day, you're working and you make $175.

00:20:28.000 Doesn't that make sense?

00:20:30.000 A little less money from the government incentivizing you to actually go out and get a job.

00:20:37.000 It is as simple as what I'm talking about, having done the exact same thing in New Mexico today.

00:20:44.000 The Supreme Court ruled that what I did administratively was unconstitutional.

00:20:49.000 And what was the exact ruling?

00:20:51.000 What did you do?

00:20:52.000 Well, what we did is just exactly what I just now said is, okay, so the government is giving you $100 a month.

00:21:00.000 How about the notion that there's a requirement that if you can work, you will work?

00:21:06.000 So now you can go out and make $100 without getting penalized.

00:21:11.000 But without getting penalized, you make $100 and instead of the government paying you $100 a month, the government pays you $75 a month.

00:21:20.000 At the end of the day, you've got a job and now you're getting $175.

00:21:24.000 Am I making sense here?

00:21:26.000 Yes.

00:21:26.000 Yeah.

00:21:27.000 So that's what we implemented.

00:21:29.000 All the help wanted signs in the state went down because everybody had to go out and get a job.

00:21:33.000 Now the legislature sued me immediately on the basis that what I was doing was unconstitutional, that what I was doing needed to be passed by the legislature, that it couldn't be an executive order.

00:21:45.000 And after six weeks of implementing this program, the Supreme Court in New Mexico ruled that what I had done was unconstitutional.

00:21:52.000 I'm not here to debate that, but we kind of proved that what I was saying was correct.

00:21:59.000 They never did back it up with legislation.

00:22:02.000 They could have overridden the courts by just codifying what we did in legislation, but they never did that.

00:22:10.000 So what you're saying is what you did was effective, but they just ruled it unconstitutional and they never changed any of the rules.

00:22:17.000 Exactly.

00:22:18.000 Exactly.

00:22:18.000 Is that frustrating for you?

00:22:20.000 No.

00:22:20.000 I mean, it's the three branches of government.

00:22:24.000 I'm very reality-based.

00:22:28.000 This is the power that the executive has.

00:22:32.000 The power of the executive is the executive gets to run government.

00:22:36.000 Now, within the bounds of legislation, it is three branches of government, and I respect that, and I understand it.

00:22:45.000 It is the nature of the beast.

00:22:48.000 But that should never dissuade you as an executive from doing what you think is right.

00:22:55.000 And in many cases, like I say, that's where the courts step in.

00:22:59.000 That's where the legislature will step in.

00:23:01.000 It should have been legislated.

00:23:03.000 So if it was effective and it was proven to be effective?

00:23:06.000 Yeah, well, all the help-wanted signs in the state went down for six weeks.

00:23:10.000 And then immediately on this ruling, all the help-wanted signs went back up.

00:23:15.000 Realistically, though, were there actual numbers of unemployment being down and you could show it and bring it to them?

00:23:22.000 And if you did, what was the argument against what you did?

00:23:25.000 Well, that what I did needed to be legislated as opposed to executive action.

00:23:32.000 But once it was proven to be effective...

00:23:35.000 You would think that that would be...

00:23:40.000 So I was a Republican governor in New Mexico, state's two-to-one Democrat.

00:23:46.000 One of the big surprises I've had, having served as governor, is I really naively thought at the end of the day Democrats and Republicans would come together over issues that were right, meaning do the right thing as opposed to lining up politically.

00:24:01.000 So in this case, they lined up politically and never passed the legislation that...

00:24:10.000 And six weeks was not, I mean, I say anecdotally, all the help wanted signs went down.

00:24:16.000 They did go down, but really not enough time to garner the statistics that could have made that, in fact, a national program, emulated by other states because we would have shown success doing it.

00:24:29.000 Here's one for you, Joe.

00:24:31.000 So, welfare in New Mexico.

00:24:35.000 I had a health insurance policy as governor of New Mexico.

00:24:39.000 Okay?

00:24:40.000 I mean, this is given to me.

00:24:42.000 This is a perk, being governor.

00:24:45.000 I have a health insurance policy.

00:24:46.000 It covers me and my family as governor of New Mexico.

00:24:48.000 We took all the welfare recipients in the state, which were a quarter of a million, 200,000 people and did the math.

00:25:02.000 Gee, what if we gave all of them my health insurance policy as opposed to just paying the bills when it came to welfare?

00:25:11.000 Get it?

00:25:12.000 I mean, everybody on welfare would receive my insurance policy as governor of New Mexico.

00:25:18.000 Would we really save 20%?

00:25:21.000 Yes, we did that.

00:25:23.000 We did that.

00:25:24.000 And that's what happened.

00:25:25.000 And you saved 20%?

00:25:26.000 Yeah, it saved 20%.

00:25:29.000 And to this day, that is still in place.

00:25:33.000 That was moving from a fee-for-service, meaning if you were on welfare and you went to the hospital or you went to the emergency room, a bill was sent to the state, Medicaid, and the state paid that bill.

00:25:46.000 Three-quarters of that bill got picked up by the federal government.

00:25:49.000 One-quarter of it gets picked up by the state, but that's Medicaid.

00:25:54.000 And by switching to an insurance model or a managed care model, we saved 20% on the whole bill.

00:26:03.000 I mean, it's just common sense to the max.

00:26:08.000 I mean, just really flabbergasting.

00:26:11.000 Now, when you look at things like Obamacare and the criticism of Obamacare, and you look at what you were trying to implement in your own state, what do you think could have been done differently?

00:26:22.000 Well, I think that welfare and Medicare, so health care for those over 65, I think the federal government needs to devolve both of these services to the states.

00:26:35.000 Now, currently, of course, health care for those over 65 is completely federal.

00:26:40.000 But in my heart of hearts, if the federal government would have block granted New Mexico a fixed amount of money, I think?

00:27:09.000 Governor Johnson, you are in charge of healthcare delivery to those that are poor, welfare, and healthcare to those that are over 65. In my heart of hearts, I believe that I could have delivered that or seen over the administration of the delivery.

00:27:25.000 Of that health care.

00:27:27.000 So if the federal government did that, and that's the only way to reform Medicaid and Medicare, is devolve it to the states, 50 laboratories of innovation, best practice, there would be some fabulous success that would get emulated.

00:27:42.000 There'd be horrible failure that would get avoided.

00:27:45.000 But as opposed to one size fits all, the federal government, we'd actually come up with solutions on how to cap And how to contain the costs within the system.

00:28:00.000 Talking about Obamacare, what we really need when it comes to health care is just free market solutions to health care.

00:28:11.000 Healthcare is as far removed from free market right now as it possibly can be.

00:28:17.000 In a free market system for healthcare, we would not have health insurance to cover ourselves for ongoing medical need.

00:28:26.000 We would have health insurance to cover ourselves for catastrophic injury and illness.

00:28:31.000 And we would pay as you go in a system that would probably cost about one-fifth of what it currently costs.

00:28:38.000 We would have gallbladders are us. 1.00

00:28:41.000 We'd have gallbladder surgery for thousands of dollars as opposed to tens of thousands of dollars.

00:28:47.000 We'd have stitches are us.

00:28:48.000 We'd have x-rays are us.

00:28:50.000 We'd have the radiologist next to x-rays are us to read those x-rays.

00:28:59.000 And at the end of the day, we would pay out-of-pocket for those services, and they would be a fifth of what they currently are.

00:29:06.000 So in a sense, what you're saying is that right now, medical healthcare is kind of being subsidized by the government?

00:29:12.000 Well, right now- It's almost like an unrealistic amount of money is being spent on it.

00:29:17.000 Is that what you're saying?

00:29:18.000 Right now, health insurance would be like having grocery insurance.

00:29:23.000 Hey, you got grocery insurance.

00:29:25.000 Gee, I go to the supermarket.

00:29:29.000 There's no prices on any of the shelves because I got grocery insurance.

00:29:32.000 It doesn't matter what anything costs.

00:29:34.000 Am I going to buy a hamburger?

00:29:36.000 Well, why should I buy a hamburger when I have grocery insurance and I can buy fillets?

00:29:41.000 Right, but under that logic, what is anyone doing differently because they have health insurance?

00:29:46.000 It's not like they're getting extra treatments.

00:29:48.000 Well, right now, Chief Justice Roberts, when he said that Obamacare was a tax on people, my personal insurance premiums have quadrupled, and I have not been to see a doctor in three years.

00:30:06.000 So it's a tax for me.

00:30:08.000 I'm subsidizing those that aren't healthy.

00:30:11.000 I wish I didn't have to have insurance to cover myself for ongoing medical need.

00:30:17.000 Look, we go into the hospital right now There's no advertised pricing.

00:30:21.000 You have no idea what you're going to pay.

00:30:23.000 There is no statistics on the wall that say, hey, if you're here for gallbladder surgery, you can expect a 99% outcome.

00:30:32.000 There's none of that.

00:30:33.000 If you had a free market approach to healthcare, you would have all of that.

00:30:38.000 You'd have advertised pricing and you would have...

00:30:42.000 Outcomes based on prior patients that had gone in.

00:30:47.000 But there is an issue with people that do have injuries, whether it's a catastrophic injury, whether it's some sort of a disease that comes up, where the amount of money that they're going to have to spend for healthcare can be catastrophic.

00:30:58.000 It can be astronomical.

00:30:59.000 And I started out by saying we would not have insurance to cover ourselves for ongoing need, but we would have insurance to cover ourselves for catastrophic injury and illness.

00:31:10.000 Right, but how do you define what's catastrophic and what's not?

00:31:12.000 At a certain dollar amount.

00:31:14.000 Right.

00:31:14.000 A certain dollar amount.

00:31:15.000 Yeah.

00:31:15.000 Okay, but what about the health consequences of avoiding or not avoiding treatment?

00:31:18.000 Because there's going to be a lot of people that don't have the money and are going to just deal with certain issues, like a surgery perhaps that you need, and you're just going to avoid it, knee surgery, things along those lines?

00:31:28.000 No, no.

00:31:29.000 Would that be considered catastrophic?

00:31:31.000 Well, yes, absolutely.

00:31:33.000 Beyond a certain dollar amount.

00:31:34.000 I mean, these are the things that you could choose in a genuine free market approach.

00:31:39.000 What about like a meniscus scope?

00:31:41.000 Like a meniscus scope, meniscus tears can be incredibly painful if you...

00:31:45.000 You know, you get it scoped, a few thousand dollars, would that be considered catastrophic?

00:31:49.000 It's not really a catastrophic injury.

00:31:51.000 Well, today it's a few thousand dollars because it's one of those no-advertised pricing for meniscus tear.

00:31:58.000 And having had several meniscus tears myself...

00:32:02.000 If you had a free market approach to healthcare, you would have meniscus tears are us. 0.99

00:32:06.000 We specialize in meniscus tears.

00:32:08.000 Here are our outcomes and you can come in and get a meniscus tear surgery for what would end up to be hundreds of dollars as opposed to thousands of dollars.

00:32:17.000 So sort of like the way they do Lasix eye surgery today?

00:32:20.000 Great example.

00:32:21.000 Advertised pricing, cosmetic surgery, dentistry now.

00:32:26.000 I mean, you're starting to see advertised pricing.

00:32:29.000 And as opposed to the $100 aspirin that when you go into the hospital, when you read the fine print, but of course you're not paying for it, so you don't care.

00:32:37.000 So in that sense, you would essentially go to a hospital, they would diagnose you, they would tell you, here's the issue, you have to get a gallbladder, and then you'd go to gallbladders or us.

00:32:45.000 Well, or just from the very beginning, right.

00:32:48.000 What's wrong with me?

00:32:50.000 I mean, man, with the internet today, there could be so much innovation.

00:32:57.000 And I'm talking about a utopia, if you will, and I don't want to say utopia.

00:33:02.000 This is very doable.

00:33:03.000 This is something that government could really lay the groundwork for.

00:33:08.000 But it's, like I say, it's far removed from what I'm talking about.

00:33:13.000 Fiscally conservative, when you say fiscally conservative, when you talk about issues like welfare and things along those lines, people get a sense, a lot of people do, that you are perhaps callous or uncaring about poor people.

00:33:28.000 I'm not saying that you are.

00:33:29.000 But in our own lives, look, it's best product, it's best service at the lowest price.

00:33:38.000 That's how we analyze things.

00:33:40.000 We don't give away our own money.

00:33:42.000 Why should government be giving...

00:33:44.000 Why shouldn't government have the same credo?

00:33:46.000 Well, what I was going to get at was what you're saying as far as, like, the 50 states.

00:33:52.000 That...

00:33:53.000 It's probably one of the most interesting things about having 50 states is that you can have 50 different experiments.

00:34:01.000 And we're seeing that, of course, with legalized marijuana in Colorado bringing in more tax revenue than alcohol for the first time ever.

00:34:09.000 I mean, this is a huge thing that's happening right now in Colorado, an experiment in government.

00:34:16.000 The federal government tried to block it at one point, and they were very concerned with it, but now they're letting it go, and it's proving to be incredibly financially beneficial to that state.

00:34:24.000 Now you're seeing Seattle or Washington State, Washington, D.C., other states are starting to join in, and it's going to probably go nationwide within the next decade or so.

00:34:35.000 Yeah, perfect example.

00:34:36.000 This is a perfect example, right, of states coming up with an experiment, the experiment proving to be fiscally effective, and then moving forward with it.

00:34:43.000 And Colorado probably has done the best job when it comes to the recreational states.

00:34:48.000 Washington State has done the worst job, meaning that the taxes are so high in Washington State that the black market is alive and well. 1.00

00:34:57.000 How high is the taxes in Washington State?

00:35:00.000 Because Colorado's 39%.

00:35:02.000 Yeah, and Washington State, well, Washington State, they'll have an...

00:35:07.000 Whatever the rate is, though, it applies four times.

00:35:10.000 It applies to growing, it applies to processing, it applies to every single...

00:35:15.000 So that at one point, two summers ago, right after Washington State implemented it and that pot went on sale, at one point, Marijuana in Washington State was selling for $26,000 a pound.

00:35:32.000 Whoa.

00:35:33.000 $65 a gram.

00:35:35.000 That's insane.

00:35:36.000 That's insane.

00:35:37.000 Well, for what you had, you had people lined up around the block, people who'd never used marijuana before.

00:35:44.000 Well, everybody that had been using marijuana continued to get it on the black market because that was and is insane.

00:35:51.000 Well, and are there regulations as far as personal growing?

00:35:56.000 Yeah, in some states.

00:35:57.000 But to me, that's also a common sense caveat to this legislation is they need to allow for home grow.

00:36:07.000 Well, the same way you get your groceries.

00:36:09.000 I mean, it really should be no different.

00:36:10.000 If you want to grow your own tomatoes, you can grow your own tomatoes.

00:36:13.000 And I've always said that this, you know, we always talk about or everybody is talking about the tax revenue, which is correct.

00:36:20.000 It's significant.

00:36:21.000 But more significant than the tax revenue is the savings in law enforcement, the courts and the prisons.

00:36:29.000 We have the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world, and the reason behind that is the war on drugs.

00:36:37.000 We've got tens of millions of convicted felons in this country that but for our drug laws would otherwise be taxpaying, law-abiding citizens.

00:36:46.000 End the drug war.

00:36:48.000 Yeah, that's a huge factor.

00:36:51.000 It's a huge factor in distrust in law enforcement.

00:36:54.000 It's a huge factor in frustration with the system, feeling disenfranchised with the very system that's supposed to be governing us.

00:37:01.000 You just feel like it's your enemy.

00:37:02.000 Black Lives Matter.

00:37:04.000 At the heart of that is the drug war.

00:37:06.000 Yes.

00:37:06.000 At the heart of that, at the heart of the militarization of our police forces is breaking down doors in the name of confiscating drugs.

00:37:15.000 And a lot of that has been recently revealed, was started off during the Nixon administration as just trying to control the civil rights movement and trying to control the anti-war movement.

00:37:24.000 The way they did it, they recognized that these people were using marijuana.

00:37:27.000 Let's go after them.

00:37:28.000 Let's make it a big deal.

00:37:29.000 Well, one of those political boogeymen that, as a politician, elect me and I will save you from the ills of marijuana right now. 1.00

00:37:39.000 Another one of those political boogeyman is immigration.

00:37:42.000 And it's a political boogeyman.

00:37:44.000 Look, immigration is really a good thing.

00:37:46.000 They're not taking jobs that US citizens want.

00:37:50.000 And it's not an issue of lower pay unless it's an issue of language.

00:37:53.000 And they're the first ones that recognize that.

00:37:56.000 And building a wall across the border is just crazy.

00:37:59.000 What can be done at this point?

00:38:01.000 Like if someone became a president, what could be done to stop this influx of private prisons, this prison industrial complex that we're finding ourselves in this horrible quagmire with?

00:38:13.000 Well, so don't mistake...

00:38:16.000 Look, it's not just private prisons, it's public prisons.

00:38:20.000 The number one opposition to legalizing pot in California was the public prison union.

00:38:26.000 So, you know...

00:38:28.000 The guards union, correct?

00:38:29.000 Yes.

00:38:30.000 They want to keep jobs.

00:38:31.000 They want to keep jobs.

00:38:33.000 We got 2.3 million people behind bars.

00:38:36.000 That's terrifying.

00:38:37.000 That's terrifying that guards would want to keep jobs so that they would want more people locked up for things that no one agrees with.

00:38:43.000 That's really scary.

00:38:45.000 I'll just say it's a bad rap for private prisons as opposed to just prisons, period.

00:38:54.000 I said as governor of New Mexico, and I privatized half the state prisons in New Mexico.

00:39:01.000 Apples to apples, oranges to oranges, the private prisons offered up the same goods and services for two-thirds the price.

00:39:09.000 And why is that?

00:39:11.000 Because they're not the government.

00:39:13.000 Because they can do it for less money.

00:39:15.000 Just like every aspect of life, private can do it better than public.

00:39:20.000 Every aspect of life.

00:39:22.000 Isn't the issue, though, with something like a private prison?

00:39:25.000 So this is a private corporation that profits from incarcerating people.

00:39:29.000 Amazing that they can even profit and offer...

00:39:31.000 So in New Mexico, if I may...

00:39:34.000 When I took office, there were 800 prisoners housed out of state.

00:39:38.000 There had been massive prison riots in New Mexico so that the federal courts were in charge of the prisons in New Mexico.

00:39:46.000 It was called the Duran Consent Decree.

00:39:48.000 The legislature refused to appropriate money to build new prisons.

00:39:52.000 It was a huge problem that we had.

00:39:55.000 So the private prison, Wackenhut in particular, came in and said, And the federal courts were running the prisons in New Mexico.

00:40:04.000 So, what I'm about to tell you, if you think that we were going to get away with any less goods or services being delivered to the prison industry, guess again.

00:40:16.000 Federal courts are running the prisons in New Mexico.

00:40:19.000 On an apples-to-apples, oranges-to-oranges basis, instead of $100 a day, they offered it up for $66 a day.

00:40:27.000 Two-thirds the cost.

00:40:29.000 If that isn't good government, I don't know what is.

00:40:32.000 And in New Mexico, I constantly said, if we would adopt rational drug laws, if we could let people out of prison, it'll be a lot easier to empty the private prisons than it will be the public prisons.

00:40:44.000 Well, excuse my ignorance on this.

00:40:45.000 I'm not sure if I'm right.

00:40:46.000 But I would imagine that something like a private prison, which is a company, and it's a company that...

00:40:52.000 Companies tend to aspire towards growth.

00:40:55.000 And when you have a private prison that profits off of people being in jail, you would tend to think that they would try to maximize their potential for growth versus the government, right?

00:41:06.000 It's logical.

00:41:06.000 But maybe the component in here that you're missing is, as opposed to growth, just think of it as stepping in and taking over the services that are currently being provided for a lot less money.

00:41:19.000 Meaning taking over all the prisons and that would be their growth.

00:41:24.000 Exactly.

00:41:26.000 And assuming, and this is my experience now, and don't get me wrong, I mean, there's just a logic behind, gee, if you're a private prison, then you're in it for the money.

00:41:38.000 Right.

00:41:39.000 That's logical, but in my experience, it's completely removed from the reality.

00:41:46.000 But in your experience in New Mexico, which is a fairly small state – well, not small, but it doesn't have a large population.

00:41:53.000 Right.

00:41:56.000 Excuse me.

00:41:59.000 Have there been, you know, private prisons that lobby for more prisoners?

00:42:05.000 I'm not going to say that that hasn't happened.

00:42:07.000 Didn't happen, did not happen in New Mexico, but just don't discount that that's not happening on the public side also.

00:42:17.000 Of course.

00:42:17.000 Right.

00:42:18.000 Exactly what you're talking about with the unions, the guard unions, that they are trying to somehow or another maximize their potential.

00:42:24.000 Maximize their growth.

00:42:25.000 And this mandatory sentencing, which really starts with the drug laws that we have, I mean, this is the reason why we have this high incarceration rate that we have.

00:42:35.000 How is it legal that these prison unions actually do that?

00:42:40.000 What's that squeak? 0.98

00:42:41.000 Is that you?

00:42:42.000 Yes, it is.

00:42:44.000 I was trying to figure out what it was.

00:42:50.000 Yeah, no.

00:42:51.000 How is that legal, though?

00:42:52.000 It shouldn't be!

00:42:53.000 Guard unions can try to change laws where it's so transparent. 0.59

00:42:58.000 It's not like they're trying to lock bad people up because they're really concerned about the safety of the public.

00:43:02.000 They're worried about their jobs, so they want to incarcerate people that may or may not be incarcerated without their input.

00:43:10.000 Joe, you nailed it.

00:43:12.000 Just extend that to other things that we see also.

00:43:15.000 For example, you see ads on television that say increase the expenditures for education that's being paid for from tax dollars from teachers.

00:43:26.000 That we'll advertise for that.

00:43:28.000 We see advertisements all the time from public institutions that, in essence, we're paying for for increased funding all the time, every time we turn around.

00:43:39.000 How is that fair?

00:43:40.000 How is that legal?

00:43:41.000 Isn't that a manipulation of our brains, you know, in a way that many times just belies the underlying logic that, no, they shouldn't get more money.

00:43:54.000 They should get more efficient.

00:43:56.000 Well, the issue though is this is very different because you're talking about people lobbying to try to lock up other human beings for their own profit.

00:44:04.000 Well, like I say, you're...

00:44:08.000 It's logical.

00:44:09.000 What you're saying is logical.

00:44:11.000 It's got a perfect logic.

00:44:12.000 But it's evil, kind of.

00:44:13.000 It's evil.

00:44:14.000 Right.

00:44:14.000 I mean, if you really think about it.

00:44:16.000 If there's a group of people, the massive amount of the general public doesn't believe that people should be in jail for a lot of the drug crimes they're in jail for, especially marijuana. 0.99

00:44:25.000 If you look at the statistics, you look at the amount of money that's being spent on it, most people would say, this is fucking crazy. 0.96

00:44:30.000 We've got to stop this, right? 0.95

00:44:33.000 I've been more vocal about this than anybody in an elected office.

00:44:36.000 So when prison unions lobby, Contrary to public opinion.

00:44:40.000 Prison unions.

00:44:40.000 Yeah.

00:44:41.000 Prison unions.

00:44:42.000 Public or private.

00:44:45.000 Either side of it lobbies for more lockup.

00:44:49.000 Contrary to public opinion, there should be an investigation and it should be criminal.

00:44:53.000 I mean, what you're doing is you're lobbying to try to go against the wishes of the general public to put people in jail.

00:44:59.000 And there's only one reason.

00:45:01.000 To maximize profit.

00:45:02.000 You're not talking about any threat to the public.

00:45:04.000 You're not talking about any healthcare threat.

00:45:06.000 You're not talking about any tax burden from people out there smoking marijuana or selling marijuana.

00:45:11.000 What you're talking about is maximizing your profit as a guard.

00:45:14.000 That should be illegal.

00:45:16.000 Spot on.

00:45:18.000 I would just ask everybody listening to just apply that same argument.

00:45:23.000 To a whole lot of other things that we're exposed to when it comes to government.

00:45:27.000 So let's talk about if you're applying that same argument to education, what's your take on that?

00:45:35.000 Well, back to 50 laboratories of innovation and best practice, the federal government should not be involved in education at all.

00:45:43.000 And very quickly, federal government gives each state 11 cents out of every school dollar that every state spends.

00:45:51.000 But it comes with 15 cents worth of strings attached.

00:45:54.000 The federal government says, here, we're going to give you 11 cents and you have to do A, B, C, and D to get the 11 cents.

00:46:01.000 And what are those steps they have to do?

00:46:03.000 Well, one of those steps is now providing transgender bathrooms, as the Obama administration has now stated.

00:46:14.000 This is reality now.

00:46:15.000 If you don't provide these bathrooms, you're not going to get your 11 cents. 0.94

00:46:20.000 So do they have to have a third bathroom? 0.98

00:46:22.000 Yes!

00:46:23.000 Well, make accommodation.

00:46:26.000 Now, this perfect example is they say that you have to do A, B, C, and D, use the transgender bathroom as the latest and greatest front page. 0.93

00:46:35.000 Here's what the federal government is requiring.

00:46:37.000 But it costs you as a state 15 cents to deliver on getting the 11 cents.

00:46:43.000 It actually is a negative to take federal money.

00:46:46.000 So abolishing the Federal Department of Education, which I think people think was established under George Washington when it was established under Jimmy Carter, tell me what really has been value added when it comes to the Federal Department of Education since the 80s,

00:47:04.000 since when it was implemented?

00:47:06.000 Well, let's talk about that one step.

00:47:07.000 Because is there any benefit at all to being open-minded and trying to get people to discriminate against transgender people less?

00:47:16.000 Or is this some sort of a political hot topic that the government has latched onto to try to get people to think that they're progressive and they're moving towards the right direction?

00:47:25.000 Because, I mean, how many people are we even talking about?

00:47:28.000 Well, it's the latter.

00:47:29.000 It's been a non-issue.

00:47:30.000 It's not been an issue our entire lives.

00:47:33.000 It's an issue for certain individuals in certain environments.

00:47:36.000 And they've been accommodating themselves this whole time throughout our lifetimes.

00:47:43.000 There should be, I think there's absolute heightened awareness, but look, this is overkill.

00:47:51.000 This should be an issue that Los Angeles deals with, that the state of California deals with.

00:47:56.000 Correct me if I'm wrong, because we were actually discussing this yesterday.

00:47:58.000 I believe what North Carolina has said was that you have to use the bathroom that corresponds to the gender on your birth certificate.

00:48:04.000 However, if Gary Johnson, you decide at 50, how old are you, sir?

00:48:08.000 63?

00:48:09.000 63. If you decide at 63 years old, you want to be a woman. 0.77

00:48:11.000 That's what Bruce Jenner did, right?

00:48:13.000 Yeah.

00:48:13.000 If you decide you want to be a woman, you could change your birth certificate.

00:48:15.000 Your birth certificate literally can be changed to say that you're a woman, then you can use the women's room.

00:48:20.000 So that's all they're requiring.

00:48:21.000 And so this up in arms is really, like, they want a commitment, I think, before you decide to go and use the women's room.

00:48:30.000 Like, you literally have to just go and get your paperwork changed.

00:48:33.000 Is that correct?

00:48:35.000 No, no, no disagreement.

00:48:37.000 But am I correct technically?

00:48:40.000 Yeah, no.

00:48:40.000 That is what they're requiring, right?

00:48:42.000 But when I think of that bullshit, if you will, over an issue that has never been an issue before, as governor of New Mexico, Joe, I may have vetoed more legislation than the other 49 governors in the country combined. 0.96

00:48:58.000 Where's this coming from, then? 0.98

00:48:59.000 Where's it coming from?

00:49:01.000 Well, it's...

00:49:03.000 It's discrimination against the LBGT community.

00:49:06.000 That's the heart of all of it.

00:49:08.000 As governor of North Carolina, if I'd have been governor of North Carolina, I'd have vetoed that legislation.

00:49:14.000 This is much to do about nothing.

00:49:16.000 This is not an issue.

00:49:19.000 And certainly, the federal government shouldn't be stepping in and doing this because North Carolina right now is suffering the wrath, if you will, of the whole country that says we're going to boycott North Carolina, we're going to have nothing to do with North Carolina as a result of them having passed this legislation.

00:49:35.000 But again, what they're saying in passing this legislation is not that complicated.

00:49:41.000 No, it's not.

00:49:41.000 They're just saying that you have to change your gender and your birth certificate, right?

00:49:44.000 I mean, it may be discriminatory at heart, but when you look at the actual paperwork, like what's required in order to use the women's room...

00:49:53.000 Like, it's not saying that you have to have an XY chromosome to use the men's room.

00:49:58.000 They're saying you have to identify as a male on your birth certificate.

00:50:01.000 So if a woman decides to become a man or transition to a man, she decides she's a man at heart, and she changes that on her birth certificate, they don't do a chromosomal test on her.

00:50:09.000 So it's just a matter of a paperwork change.

00:50:11.000 I'm not really sure how much less you could require of someone to use a different bathroom that corresponds to the gender of their birth.

00:50:21.000 Well, I would just disagree that the government has taken a role here that never had to be established in the first place.

00:50:31.000 I agree with that.

00:50:31.000 But if you do want to discourage discrimination against transgender people, how would you go about encouraging that?

00:50:39.000 Or is that just a social issue that needs to be worked out with people?

00:50:51.000 This issue has existed our entire lifetimes, and have there been any reported incidents of anything anywhere?

00:50:58.000 I'm not aware of any incidents anywhere.

00:51:00.000 Well, I'm sure there's been something, and I'm sure some people feel maligned, but I just don't know if necessarily there's enough demand to require a law change and what all this hullabaloo is about, about this law change.

00:51:13.000 When I discuss it with people, and I'm I try to be as open-minded as humanly possible when it comes to people's choices and what they want to do, whether it's regarding gender or sex or whatever you want to do.

00:51:24.000 Me too.

00:51:24.000 I'm fine with it.

00:51:26.000 But my issue with this is I feel like it's a chance for people to jump up and say that they're outraged.

00:51:34.000 I think it's almost like a recreational outrage thing.

00:51:36.000 When I heard that Bruce Springsteen was boycotting North Carolina and all these people jumping up, I'm like...

00:51:41.000 Is that really the way to go about this?

00:51:43.000 Yeah, I think so.

00:51:44.000 I mean, that is the way to go about it.

00:51:46.000 To stop...

00:51:47.000 So you're saying it in terms of, like, government's gotten too big, you want to stop this law.

00:51:52.000 Yeah.

00:51:52.000 The way to go about it is to boycott the state.

00:51:54.000 The way to go about it is boycott the state, just like happened in Arizona when Jan Brewer started to talk about vilifying Mexican immigration and...

00:52:03.000 And conventions and the whole country was boycotting Arizona when it came to, you know, traveling there.

00:52:10.000 I mean, it happened.

00:52:12.000 And because of that, you know, the change took place.

00:52:16.000 North Carolina, same thing.

00:52:19.000 So really what's unnecessary in your eyes?

00:52:21.000 You're a small government guy.

00:52:22.000 What's unnecessary is the government getting involved at all?

00:52:25.000 At all.

00:52:26.000 In this case.

00:52:27.000 And don't get me wrong.

00:52:28.000 Government has a fundamental role to protect us against individuals, groups, corporations, foreign governments that would do us harm.

00:52:36.000 And I'm running for President of the United States.

00:52:39.000 I'd like to think that at the end of the day, I'm going to sign on to anything that makes things better.

00:52:46.000 A transgender law in front of me as governor of the state of North Carolina or president of the United States?

00:52:53.000 You know, you make that analysis.

00:52:54.000 Is this going to make things better?

00:52:56.000 Or at the end of the day, is it just going to add time and money to our lives and not really do anything?

00:53:02.000 To play devil's advocate, is there any benefit in having it in the news?

00:53:06.000 Is there any benefit in it being debated so that people become more and more aware of it?

00:53:12.000 I mean, I think whether or not you look at Caitlyn Jenner as a real issue in this country, I think what the issue is is that people are becoming more aware that there are folks out there that don't necessarily fit with our standard Idea of what gender is.

00:53:28.000 They're all over the place.

00:53:30.000 There's people on the far right and the far left, just like politically.

00:53:33.000 Yep, yep.

00:53:34.000 And at the end of the day, aren't most of us absolutely tolerant of that?

00:53:38.000 Most of us, yeah.

00:53:39.000 And the people that aren't, they're the real issue, right?

00:53:42.000 The people that are intolerant of other people's choices that don't affect you at all.

00:53:45.000 And the intolerant folks are the ones that are passing this legislation. 0.96

00:53:49.000 Okay, so the intolerant ones are the ones who are saying enough is enough with all this transgender nonsense. 1.00

00:53:54.000 You can't use the women's room if you're a man. 1.00

00:53:56.000 Much to do about nothing.

00:53:58.000 But see, there's some men...

00:54:01.000 It's so confusing in some ways because they're outliers on both sides.

00:54:06.000 Like, I have met transgender women who, without a doubt, I would consider them a woman. 0.97

00:54:11.000 I mean, it looks like a woman, she talks like a woman, has sensibilities like a woman, dresses like a woman, whatever the fuck that means, right? 0.99

00:54:16.000 But then on the other side, I've seen, I mean, there's this guy that identifies, we were talking about this guy recently, identifies as a woman, has a beard, has a penis, doesn't want to have a sex change, doesn't take hormones, identifies as a woman, wants to use the women's room. 0.99

00:54:29.000 And he's been doing it probably? 0.97

00:54:31.000 No, he hasn't.

00:54:32.000 But he wants to.

00:54:33.000 Now he wants to.

00:54:34.000 It's an outlier.

00:54:36.000 But you're dealing with...

00:54:38.000 There's all sorts of people when any issue like this comes up, right?

00:54:41.000 And you're going to have rational, logical, obvious choices.

00:54:44.000 And then you have, like, what do you do with that guy choices?

00:54:46.000 Well, and where does that decision-making best lie?

00:54:50.000 That decision-making best lies in the municipality where that person lives.

00:54:56.000 And if it's an issue, let's say, in Albuquerque, and I'm the mayor of Albuquerque, welcome to come into the boys' room.

00:55:05.000 I mean, welcome to come into the boys' room.

00:55:07.000 Boys' room can be labeled transgender and boys' room, as far as I'm concerned.

00:55:12.000 Hmm.

00:55:13.000 So the only worry there would be if they went into the boys' room and they were discriminated against?

00:55:19.000 Sure, sure, sure.

00:55:21.000 If you're in the boys' room, though, see, I think it would be less of an issue.

00:55:25.000 This is knee-jerk, of course, and it's based on, let's have, instead of having a one-size-fits-all, how about let's work this out at the absolute lowest level we can work it out, and maybe we'll come to some real,

00:55:41.000 you know...

00:55:45.000 Monumental, you know, epiphanies on how to do this.

00:55:48.000 What would possibly be the epiphany?

00:55:49.000 I think that's one of the problems with this issue.

00:55:51.000 Yeah, okay.

00:55:52.000 But, you know, that's you and I thinking about this.

00:55:55.000 And if you had municipalities thinking about it all across the country...

00:55:59.000 Someone would come up with a solution.

00:56:00.000 Well, there'd be some best practices that would emerge from this that would make sense for everybody.

00:56:04.000 Well, the only suggestion I've ever heard that makes any sense at all is a three-bathroom rule.

00:56:09.000 Like, male, female, whatever.

00:56:12.000 Male, female, and go for it. 0.99

00:56:14.000 Well, and imagine all schools in this country having to be retrofitted with that third bathroom. 0.91

00:56:22.000 I mean, we're talking about a hundred billion dollars.

00:56:25.000 I'm just guessing.

00:56:26.000 Well, yeah, it's a lot of money.

00:56:27.000 A lot of money, and the federal government's going to give you 11 cents for you to accomplish their 15 cents worth of mandate.

00:56:35.000 Yeah.

00:56:37.000 I like the issue.

00:56:38.000 You know why I like the issue?

00:56:39.000 Because it's so bizarre, and there's no answer.

00:56:41.000 I love when something has no answer, when you just sit around going, man, I don't know.

00:56:45.000 Because people will take sides, and they'll run with their side and make sure that you think that their side is the only solution whatsoever, when there really isn't an only solution.

00:56:56.000 Profound.

00:56:56.000 Yeah, it's a weird one, right?

00:56:58.000 You're back to squeaking.

00:56:59.000 I'm back to fiddling.

00:57:02.000 Well, it's something to fiddle with.

00:57:04.000 I mean, this is a fiddling sort of a conversation because it's...

00:57:08.000 It's polarizing.

00:57:09.000 It's confusing.

00:57:10.000 And again, I'm not right.

00:57:12.000 You're not right.

00:57:13.000 There's no right on this.

00:57:13.000 This is a weird thing.

00:57:15.000 Like, the whole transgender thing is weird. 1.00

00:57:17.000 It's very rare.

00:57:19.000 I mean, you're talking about, is it even 1% of people that become transgender?

00:57:22.000 I doubt it.

00:57:23.000 It's probably far less than that.

00:57:25.000 It's.03% of...

00:57:28.000 So it's...

00:57:29.000 Yeah.

00:57:29.000 It's a very small amount of people.

00:57:31.000 3% of 1%.

00:57:32.000 Yeah.

00:57:33.000 It's a very, very small amount of people.

00:57:34.000 Yeah, very...

00:57:37.000 Couple of kids out of thousands of students.

00:57:41.000 That's kind of an easy way to look at it. 0.97

00:57:43.000 And wouldn't it be better for everyone if we just became more open-minded and more friendly and loving and let people do whatever the fuck they want to do. 0.98

00:57:51.000 Let the man who identifies as a woman, let him use the woman's room if he actually looks like a woman. 1.00

00:57:57.000 But if you have a beard, maybe we should pull you aside and go, dude, you can use the men's room. 0.86

00:58:00.000 You're just freaking people out.

00:58:01.000 You probably spent as much time or more time than I have in Europe.

00:58:05.000 But you know what?

00:58:06.000 The showers are men and women.

00:58:09.000 It's men and women.

00:58:10.000 You mean bathrooms.

00:58:11.000 I don't shower in Europe in some gigantic prison.

00:58:14.000 What kind of prison showers are you going to, sir?

00:58:16.000 Men and women showers? 0.92

00:58:17.000 Yes.

00:58:18.000 Open showers?

00:58:19.000 Yes.

00:58:19.000 Where?

00:58:20.000 These recreational facilities in virtually every single mountain community in the Alps, for example.

00:58:28.000 Oh, like skiing communities?

00:58:30.000 Like they have open showers?

00:58:31.000 Well, in this case, you know, they've got these marvelous recreational facilities, it seems like, in every town.

00:58:39.000 And in those towns, you know, you've got a swimming pool and you've got the showers and the showers are men and women, both.

00:58:47.000 Now, as a person who has governed...

00:58:49.000 There's no choice.

00:58:50.000 There's no choice.

00:58:50.000 I'm back to Europe now.

00:58:52.000 I mean, this is a really different...

00:58:54.000 It's just...

00:58:54.000 This kind of a thing is not an issue in Europe, I'm going to imagine.

00:58:58.000 Well, that would require a gigantic cultural shift, though.

00:59:01.000 We're very used to segregating male and female when it comes to showers and people being naked. 0.99

00:59:06.000 I got it.

00:59:06.000 But, you know, awareness.

00:59:07.000 Here it is.

00:59:08.000 We're spreading awareness that, oh, shoot...

00:59:12.000 Europe, they shower together?

00:59:14.000 Yeah, but that means your wife has to shower with some dude. 1.00

00:59:17.000 Like, trust me, that's not going to fly.

00:59:19.000 You let that go.

00:59:20.000 It flies in Europe?

00:59:22.000 Yeah, a lot of stuff flies in Europe that doesn't fly over here.

00:59:25.000 That might not necessarily be a good thing.

00:59:27.000 You can't trust American men with American women in a shower together. 1.00

00:59:30.000 Well, but in Europe, where you've grown up with that your whole life, there aren't any incidents.

00:59:36.000 Right.

00:59:36.000 We're not going to grow up with that, though, right?

00:59:38.000 Well, we haven't grown up with it.

00:59:39.000 It's not going to change.

00:59:41.000 That would be even more ridiculous to adjust the way children growing up and say, listen, kids, everyone's going to shower together.

00:59:47.000 Parents would freak out. 0.86

00:59:48.000 They'd be like, what kind of government is this? 1.00

00:59:49.000 Gary Johnson's a psychopath. 0.88

00:59:51.000 Just awareness, you know, as you were talking about earlier. 0.83

00:59:56.000 That people be aware that there are all sorts of different ways of doing things.

01:00:01.000 Yes, there's all sorts of different ways of doing things.

01:00:15.000 And so they know what alcohol is from a very young age, and so they don't have near the issues with alcohol abuse.

01:00:23.000 They end up getting their driver's licenses at 21, but they can drink with the consent of their parents at 4 years old.

01:00:32.000 And so they understand the impact of alcohol, and now they drive at 21. Well, here in this country, you can drive at 14. 14?

01:00:42.000 Yeah.

01:00:43.000 In this country?

01:00:44.000 I think it's 15. It's 15. You get a learner's permit, 16 driver's license.

01:00:48.000 Is that what it is?

01:00:48.000 Whatever.

01:00:49.000 It's close enough.

01:00:49.000 In New Mexico.

01:00:50.000 I mean, it was...

01:00:51.000 14 in New Mexico?

01:00:52.000 Well, 13. I had that motorcycle license at 13. Whoa.

01:00:55.000 You could drive a motorcycle in New Mexico at 13. Whoa.

01:00:58.000 Now, as a person who's governed a state, and you look at what happens when someone gets in office, when Obama gets in office, promises all these things, gets in office, changes almost everything.

01:01:11.000 What are the hurdles?

01:01:12.000 I mean, what are the differences between the hurdles of someone who governs a state versus someone who governs the United States?

01:01:19.000 And how much more difficult is it to change things?

01:01:22.000 It seems like the United States is like a gigantic ship That takes so much effort to shift even slightly that these presidents get out of office eight years later, exhausted, looking like they've aged 50 years, and very little gets done.

01:01:40.000 Well, I think there is a silver bullet to the system, and I hope I'm tying into what you're saying, but I do think there's a silver bullet to the system, and that would be term limits.

01:01:50.000 I think that for the most part, politicians, once they get in office, the main concern is to stay in office.

01:01:57.000 Right.

01:01:58.000 And if you had term limits, I think that people would do the right thing as opposed to whatever it takes to get to stay in office.

01:02:05.000 You mean for Congress and for the Senate?

01:02:06.000 Congress, Senate, anywhere.

01:02:10.000 Supreme Court, even?

01:02:16.000 Agreed.

01:02:17.000 Yeah, I mean, we have it for the President.

01:02:18.000 Why not have it for all elected offices?

01:02:20.000 I think I'm the best example of term limits.

01:02:23.000 I really enjoyed the job.

01:02:25.000 I had the opportunity to serve for two terms.

01:02:28.000 So in my estimation, I pressed the limits.

01:02:51.000 Welcome to my show!

01:02:56.000 That would make the world a better place.

01:02:59.000 But because of term limits, I was emboldened because, man, I was getting out of office and there was no return.

01:03:07.000 Right.

01:03:07.000 What are your thoughts on all the other recreational drugs, not just marijuana, but the more controversial ones, like maybe cocaine or psilocybin, LSD, things along those lines?

01:03:18.000 Well, so when I was governor of New Mexico, I had a...

01:03:23.000 I went to Portland, Oregon, and judges in Portland, Oregon—there were judges that wanted to meet with me in Portland.

01:03:30.000 And so I went to meet with these judges, and I didn't know what it was going to be about, but it was six judges, Portland, Oregon, state district judges—I'm sure I'm getting the wrong label— What they said was, hey, Governor Johnson, we're here to tell you we completely agree with everything it is that you're saying,

01:03:48.000 but we would like to share with you some stories here that maybe you can pass on to others that will allow others to better understand the drug issue.

01:03:58.000 They said that the really horrible drug out there is methamphetamine, that people that use methamphetamine really have their behavior altered and not in a good way.

01:04:07.000 So it's really the boogeyman drug out there.

01:04:11.000 They said methamphetamine is the best example that we can think of of a prohibition drug.

01:04:17.000 It exists because it's cheap and it's easy to make.

01:04:21.000 And what they said was that, hey, we're not suggesting the following, but if cocaine were legal...

01:04:28.000 These people would be using cocaine instead of methamphetamine without the negative behavioral consequence.

01:04:35.000 And that's true.

01:04:37.000 But if the government were to tell the truth when it comes to cocaine, cocaine puts holes in your heart.

01:04:45.000 People that use cocaine their entire lives are stereotypically Whitney Houston that die before they're 50 because they die of a heart attack from using cocaine.

01:04:53.000 Now, will there still be people that will use cocaine knowing that they might die of a heart attack?

01:05:00.000 I think there'd be less cocaine use if people actually knew the truth and could trust government when it comes to the truth.

01:05:08.000 I just maintain that 90% of the drug problem is prohibition-related, not use-related, and that is not to discount the problems with use and abuse, but that should be the focus.

01:05:19.000 When you have 8,000 deaths a year in this country—8,000, which is staggeringly low— Welcome to my show!

01:05:52.000 Yes.

01:05:53.000 You're always going to have people that abuse everything.

01:05:55.000 Everything.

01:05:56.000 I mean, we're living in a culture that has alcohol available at every block all over the world.

01:06:01.000 I mean, everywhere you go, there's a restaurant or a bar or somewhere that you can buy enough alcohol to drink yourself to death.

01:06:07.000 It's readily available, yet When you consider the amount of people that actually drink alcohol, the low number of deaths is pretty incredible.

01:06:16.000 And it's because we're aware of the effects of alcohol and it's pretty, when you get a bottle of Jack Daniels, it is pretty consistent.

01:06:24.000 Well, but there are 100,000 deaths a year that get contributed to alcohol consumption.

01:06:32.000 And I'm not talking about drinking and driving or violence committed under the- Just alcohol abuse.

01:06:37.000 Alcohol abuse.

01:06:38.000 Statistically, no one dies from marijuana, statistically.

01:06:42.000 What I was going to get to was that when you look at what's happening in Colorado, one of the more interesting things is the lessing of violent crime and drunk driving.

01:06:51.000 Those are two effects that have dropped pretty drastically, noticeably, statistically, because of the legalization of marijuana.

01:07:00.000 You would reduce, because of the legalization of a less harmful, more peaceful drug, you'd reduce the effects of what's right now a readily available and incredibly prevalent drug.

01:07:11.000 I have always maintained that legalizing marijuana will make for a better planet.

01:07:17.000 On the medicinal side of marijuana Marijuana products directly compete with legal prescription drugs, painkillers, antidepressants that statistically kill 100,000 people a year.

01:07:31.000 No documented death due to marijuana.

01:07:35.000 On the recreational side, I've always maintained that legalizing marijuana will lead to less overall substance abuse because people are going to find it as such a safer alternative than everything else that's out there, starting with alcohol.

01:07:50.000 The campaign to legalize marijuana in Colorado was a campaign based on marijuana is safer than alcohol.

01:07:58.000 And Joe, as you were pointing out, all the statistics that all the naysayers were going to go south have gone better.

01:08:07.000 There are less traffic incidents.

01:08:09.000 There's less overall crime in the state of Colorado.

01:08:13.000 Colorado is vibrant.

01:08:14.000 And does it have to do with marijuana?

01:08:17.000 I think that that's an ingredient comprised in why Colorado is so vibrant right now.

01:08:23.000 Unquestionably.

01:08:24.000 Unquestionably.

01:08:24.000 And I think a prime example of how screwy the system gets when people lobby against the legalization of things that don't harm anyone is the fact that hemp is illegal federally.

01:08:37.000 And that we're trying to make it legal and trying to make it legal statewide in various states and start production of hemp.

01:08:44.000 But hemp is not psychoactive.

01:08:46.000 It's crazy!

01:08:47.000 We can sell hemp products in this country, but they come from China.

01:08:53.000 It's crazy!

01:08:54.000 My company, Onnit, we buy it from Canada.

01:08:57.000 We buy hemp protein from Canada.

01:09:00.000 And we can't grow it in America.

01:09:01.000 We can import it, but we can't grow it.

01:09:03.000 CBD oil.

01:09:05.000 Yes.

01:09:05.000 Same thing.

01:09:06.000 Not psychoactive.

01:09:07.000 Helps pain.

01:09:08.000 Very effective for people.

01:09:09.000 It's not getting people high.

01:09:10.000 It's not ruining lives.

01:09:12.000 It's not doing anything.

01:09:13.000 But there's a lot of people that are concerned that are making money off of the alternatives, especially with hemp.

01:09:19.000 I mean, that was the reason why marijuana was made illegal in the first place.

01:09:22.000 That's the reason.

01:09:22.000 Yes, it was about hemp.

01:09:24.000 The conspiracy of DuPont to promote nylon as opposed to...

01:09:29.000 William Randolph Hearst with his paper factories.

01:09:33.000 They made marijuana illegal, but because the marijuana plant and the hemp plant look...

01:09:41.000 The same, then hence hemp was also made illegal.

01:09:45.000 I mean, that was the conspiracy.

01:09:48.000 Yeah, well, that's, I mean, that's all been proven.

01:09:50.000 So we're in a strange time that it's 2016, it's still illegal.

01:09:55.000 And it's slowly starting to become legal and people starting to...

01:09:58.000 I believe in Kentucky and a few other states, they're allowing farmers to profit off of this incredibly vibrant plant that's easy to grow, doesn't require pesticides, has a variety of uses as a textile, as a commodity for food, full amino acid profile.

01:10:14.000 It makes amazing clothes.

01:10:16.000 This jacket, this is made out of hemp.

01:10:19.000 If the marijuana plant were discovered today in the Amazon, it would be hailed as the greatest discovery of humankind.

01:10:28.000 In 1999, good news, bad news here.

01:10:32.000 In 1999, I was the highest elected official in the United States to call for the legalization of marijuana.

01:10:38.000 In 2016, bad news.

01:10:40.000 I'm still the highest elected official in the United States to call for the legalization of marijuana, although Bernie Sanders apparently rolled out of bed, hit his head, and now he's come to that same epiphany.

01:10:51.000 Wonderful.

01:10:52.000 I'm glad.

01:10:53.000 But in 1999...

01:10:56.000 Well, that he came to this epiphany at this point in his life.

01:11:00.000 He's never said it before?

01:11:01.000 No, not until he's been running for Senate.

01:11:06.000 So you think it's like one of those lick your finger, put it up in the air, check where the breeze is going?

01:11:09.000 I'm glad that he's joined the big crowd.

01:11:12.000 But in 1999, 30% of Americans supported legalizing marijuana.

01:11:18.000 In 2016, Sixty percent of Americans now are supporting the legalization of marijuana, and not one politician outside of Bernie Sanders in office is, and when I say elected official, at the congressional,

01:11:34.000 senatorial, or gubernatorial level, not one politician in that group outside of Bernie Sanders, myself, have espoused legalizing marijuana.

01:11:44.000 What a disconnect.

01:11:45.000 What an incredible disconnect between what people think and our elected officials.

01:11:50.000 It's also because when people take a stand on something that's controversial, it's risky.

01:11:55.000 And politics are about minimizing risk.

01:11:58.000 It's about getting people to like you as much as possible, going down the middle as much as possible.

01:12:02.000 Term limits.

01:12:03.000 Term limits.

01:12:04.000 I want to stay in office more than I want to do the right thing.

01:12:07.000 Do you think that ultimately the idea of having one individual that's the figurehead of an entire nation is archaic?

01:12:14.000 No, no.

01:12:16.000 You know, I'm certainly...

01:12:20.000 Is our system perfect?

01:12:22.000 No.

01:12:23.000 But is it perhaps the best system?

01:12:25.000 So if we woke up today and there was no government at all, would you think that we would possibly create one guy that runs the whole thing?

01:12:34.000 We would agree that that would be the best way to run things?

01:12:38.000 I have a theory that the best way to run things would be that every 16 years we would have a benevolent dictator take over for two years.

01:12:47.000 So what would happen in those other days, the other 14 years?

01:12:51.000 Well, the other 16 years, you'd have elected officials.

01:12:54.000 And then for two years, you'd have a benevolent dictator step in and right all the wrongs that...

01:13:00.000 But of course, the problem is...

01:13:02.000 Finding a benevolent dictator.

01:13:03.000 Well, and how do you...

01:13:04.000 How do you decide?

01:13:06.000 Someone could fake being benevolent.

01:13:08.000 I'm trying to be funny here, but trying to bring out a point that Actually, if you could have that benevolent dictator step in and right the wrongs that... 0.57

01:13:19.000 We don't live in a democracy in this country.

01:13:22.000 It's not a democracy.

01:13:23.000 We live in a constitutional republic.

01:13:26.000 We are a republic.

01:13:27.000 We're governed by laws.

01:13:29.000 The laws are the constitution.

01:13:31.000 We democratically elect our representatives.

01:13:34.000 But in a democracy, the demise of every democracy is that at some point in a democracy people vote themselves a raise.

01:13:44.000 And it becomes unaffordable.

01:13:47.000 Nazi Germany was a democracy before Hitler took power.

01:13:53.000 So what would be the, I mean, besides your 16-year, two-year benevolent dictator thing, what would be the way to fix the current system?

01:14:03.000 Like, say, if Gary Johnson gets in office, what would you do?

01:14:06.000 What would be one of the first things you did?

01:14:08.000 Well, I do think that government is too big, that it tries to accomplish too much.

01:14:13.000 If, at a minimum, Gary Johnson were able to just put a cap on spending, the impact of that, when you consider When you consider the ultimate impact of inflation and how that's going to kick in and how that's going to so adversely affect our lives,

01:14:33.000 that would right a lot of wrongs because you do have economic growth.

01:14:37.000 You tie that with the fact that you just put a...

01:14:39.000 I'm trying to put the most minimal bars out there possible that would really have a positive impact going forward from a financial standpoint.

01:14:51.000 And...

01:14:52.000 It isn't just financial.

01:14:53.000 It is about liberty and freedom.

01:14:55.000 It's about your liberty.

01:14:57.000 It's about your freedom.

01:14:58.000 It's about you making decisions in your own lives.

01:15:01.000 It's about the fact that the government, that crony capitalism is alive and well, that there are favors granted to those that have money, as opposed to a level playing field that everybody would actually have an equal shot at the opportunity that That there currently is unavailable because of government and the actual protections that exist for those that do have money as opposed to those that don't.

01:15:29.000 So once you get into office, how would you go about minimizing government?

01:15:35.000 Well, without any legislation whatsoever, and I am speaking now, having been governor of New Mexico for eight years, I ran all of state government.

01:15:45.000 I appointed the heads of all the agencies, and from that standpoint, the idea was just to make things better.

01:15:52.000 And what's the definition of better?

01:15:55.000 Well, that the average person on the street would have to spend less time and less money dealing with government.

01:16:03.000 Right.

01:16:23.000 So going back to what we had discussed earlier, that when government gets too big, you reach a point of diminishing returns, when it becomes so swollen that it requires so much money to stay up, that it just doesn't support itself.

01:16:35.000 It gets too large.

01:16:36.000 So what do you cut?

01:16:37.000 So say you get into office, and you look at the current system we have right now, you look at all the bureaucracy and the red tape, what do you start to chop away at?

01:16:45.000 Well, what I did in New Mexico, and I said I would do this in New Mexico, is that, you know, I wasn't going to fire anybody, but let's just manage attrition.

01:16:54.000 Let's just have some common sense here.

01:16:56.000 Let's not grow it anymore.

01:16:58.000 At a minimum, it's not going to grow anymore, and it will shrink because there will be attrition.

01:17:04.000 So how about the notion of as people leave, as people retire, quit, retire, that you just not backfill those positions?

01:17:14.000 So when I left office, there were 1,200 fewer state employees than when I got there.

01:17:20.000 I think it was a testament to better government because people were doing more with less resource.

01:17:27.000 And I think everybody saw that.

01:17:29.000 New Mexico is a state that's two to one Democrat.

01:17:32.000 I made a name for myself pinching pennies, being frugal, just like we're frugal in our lives.

01:17:38.000 At least I certainly am.

01:17:40.000 Difference between cheap and frugal, but I'm a pretty frugal cat.

01:17:44.000 So what do you do with something that's very controversial and often criticized, like Homeland Security?

01:17:49.000 Like, there was an article that came out yesterday about Homeland Security going after, they're using Homeland Security to go after massage parlors for giving sex to people, for, you know, hand jobs or whatever.

01:18:01.000 I would have never, in the first place, I would have never established the Department of Homeland Security.

01:18:07.000 Now, as president, I either get to sign or veto legislation.

01:18:11.000 I would sign legislation that would abolish the Department of Homeland Security, or I would merge it with the FBI. I just think we do have too many agencies.

01:18:21.000 And when you hear about a story like Homeland Security going into a massage parlor...

01:18:28.000 I just get outraged.

01:18:29.000 What causes that?

01:18:30.000 This is what I wanted to get to.

01:18:32.000 How does that happen?

01:18:33.000 How does Homeland Security, something that's set up to prevent terrorist attacks, how does it eventually get bastardized and distorted to the point where they're utilizing the legislation that was put in place to protect people from terrorist attacks to stop guys getting hand jobs?

01:18:50.000 It's human nature.

01:18:51.000 It's the Peter Principle.

01:18:52.000 It's when you're assigned to a job in government The more important you are is the more work that you have.

01:19:02.000 So you literally create the work that you have.

01:19:06.000 You try and grow.

01:19:10.000 Well, that's the private sector, not the public sector.

01:19:13.000 Public sector people that get involved in the public sector, they think that success is growing their mandate.

01:19:20.000 I mean, it's just that simple.

01:19:22.000 But someone has to approve that.

01:19:24.000 Like someone has to say, good idea, go after the massage parlors.

01:19:26.000 Exactly.

01:19:27.000 Exactly.

01:19:27.000 In this case, where's the President of the United States?

01:19:30.000 The President of the United States could step into this in a nanosecond and say, whoa, stop!

01:19:35.000 But is it possible that he's not aware of it?

01:19:37.000 It is possible.

01:19:39.000 There's so many things to be aware of.

01:19:41.000 Well, as governor of New Mexico, here's something I did as governor of New Mexico, and it's something I would do as president of the United States.

01:19:47.000 As governor of New Mexico, I set up this open door after four policy, where the third Thursday of every month, I saw anyone in the state of New Mexico starting at four o'clock in the afternoon until 10 o'clock in the evening on five-minute increments.

01:20:03.000 And it was amazing, Joe, the stories of people that came in and what they had to say.

01:20:07.000 Now, they could come in for anything.

01:20:09.000 They could come in for a picture with me.

01:20:10.000 They could come in to visit me for five minutes.

01:20:13.000 They could come in and talk about, here's a government atrocity that's happening to me, and I'd like you to fix it.

01:20:20.000 And I always viewed it from the standpoint of, well, this is one person that's come in, but you know what?

01:20:24.000 Everybody that's dealing with this same situation is having the same outcomes as this person.

01:20:29.000 It was an incredibly valuable tool.

01:20:32.000 As President of the United States, I would set up an open door after four policy for atrocities in government, for waste fraud and abuse atrocities.

01:20:42.000 Open door after four, but you're talking about 300 million people.

01:20:48.000 Right.

01:20:48.000 So you have an open door for five minutes available for 300 million people in six-hour increments?

01:20:54.000 Well, this would...

01:20:55.000 Five-minute increments?

01:20:56.000 This would be...

01:20:58.000 There would be a criteria for it, and it would be...

01:21:01.000 I'm certain I could make this happen.

01:21:07.000 Really?

01:21:07.000 Yes, I'm certain that I could.

01:21:08.000 But I mean, I think this is a great idea for a governor.

01:21:11.000 Maybe a better idea for a mayor.

01:21:13.000 But when you get to a president, is that really a way to handle some things?

01:21:18.000 So what is a mechanism?

01:21:20.000 I'm just saying, I think I can make this mechanism work.

01:21:23.000 That as a result of having this mechanism, I'm going to find out in a very short amount of time that the Department of Homeland Security is busting massage parlors.

01:21:32.000 Well, you can find that out just as easily through Twitter.

01:21:36.000 Yes.

01:21:36.000 And so I'm going to be connected that way, too.

01:21:39.000 But waste, fraud, and abuse.

01:21:41.000 The Marine One helicopter.

01:21:42.000 I was more thinking in terms of the Marine One helicopter.

01:21:45.000 What is that?

01:21:45.000 Well, it was a contract that went from $4 billion to $16 billion without a single helicopter being delivered because...

01:21:55.000 You had the military hierarchy on a committee that determined that they wanted this helicopter to be steel instead of aluminum.

01:22:06.000 And this was Augusta Westland.

01:22:08.000 And in a nutshell, they come up with a completely redesigned helicopter as opposed to the original bid, which was off the shelf.

01:22:15.000 That would have been $4 billion, now it's $16 billion and they haven't flown a helicopter.

01:22:21.000 Well, if you had a waste, fraud and abuse open door after four, I'd have known about it and I would have stepped right in the middle of it.

01:22:29.000 But is that waste, fraud or abuse or is it just innovation and the expenses involved in changing a design?

01:22:36.000 But the bid originally was for off-the-shelf helicopters that they were building and that there was going to be bolt-on avionics.

01:22:46.000 And the first thing that this military procurement committee said was, we don't want an aluminum frame, we want a steel frame.

01:22:53.000 Well, steel frame, that meant that...

01:22:57.000 Everything had to be redesigned.

01:22:59.000 The engines had to be bigger, the fuel...

01:23:02.000 Right.

01:23:02.000 So is that waste?

01:23:03.000 You would go into waste.

01:23:05.000 Totally.

01:23:05.000 It wouldn't be fraud or abuse necessarily.

01:23:07.000 Waste.

01:23:08.000 Just total...

01:23:08.000 Right.

01:23:09.000 Where's the logic behind that?

01:23:11.000 But is it an engineering decision based on knowledge that we have about the rigidity of steel versus aluminum?

01:23:17.000 Or what is the...

01:23:18.000 Gosh, you would think that Augusta Westland, a helicopter manufacturing business... 1.00

01:23:25.000 With an off-the-shelf helicopter that exists, that existed, that's what the government bought.

01:23:33.000 And it transformed into a completely new helicopter that has yet to fly.

01:23:39.000 That sounds insane.

01:23:41.000 It's insane!

01:23:42.000 It is insane!

01:23:42.000 Well, what's insane is that it was originally agreed upon without...

01:23:46.000 I mean, if they had like an order, an initial order.

01:23:49.000 They had an initial order.

01:23:50.000 What was the reasoning for making the steel frame?

01:23:53.000 What was the reasoning for changing it?

01:23:55.000 That the order then had to go to this procurement committee for any tweaks.

01:24:02.000 And you'd have to think that there are tweaks.

01:24:05.000 Right.

01:24:06.000 But this wasn't a tweak.

01:24:07.000 Not a design tweak.

01:24:08.000 That's redesigning an incredibly new...

01:24:12.000 It's about as nutty as it gets.

01:24:14.000 Flint water, you know, the Flint water crisis.

01:24:18.000 Why didn't...

01:24:19.000 I'll tell you what, that just sounds about as atrocious as it gets when it comes to government turning its back on an obvious situation.

01:24:26.000 I think about...

01:24:27.000 So I'm reading about it, and as governor of New Mexico, I guarantee you that residents from Flint would have been at my open door after four saying, look, I got dirty water.

01:24:41.000 I'd like to think, Joe, that I would have gotten into the middle of it immediately.

01:24:46.000 But you know what?

01:24:47.000 If I didn't get into it immediately, I'm guessing my second door, open door after four, instead of having four people show up from Flint, would have 80 people showing up from Flint.

01:24:56.000 Point is...

01:24:58.000 It would not have gone unnoticed by me as governor, and I'd have gotten right into the middle of it.

01:25:03.000 And I had a mechanism for doing it.

01:25:05.000 And there needs to be a mechanism for the President of the United States to stay in touch.

01:25:09.000 The imperial presidency, the notion that the president, you know, whenever the president travels, it's tens of millions of dollars every time he travels.

01:25:20.000 Well, that's...

01:25:22.000 If I'm elected President of the United States, that's going to change dramatically.

01:25:26.000 Does Air Force One really need to fly everywhere?

01:25:29.000 Gosh, you wouldn't think so.

01:25:32.000 Why can't the President of the United States come into Los Angeles in a very stealth way and travel without having to block all of traffic in Los Angeles?

01:25:43.000 Which you have to have experienced many times.

01:25:46.000 Yeah, that's pretty gross.

01:25:47.000 Well, also, why do they have to fly in Air Force One?

01:25:51.000 How come they can't just get in American Airlines?

01:25:52.000 How come?

01:25:53.000 Well, or how about one of those corporate aircraft that are in the military that would cost a tenth of what Air Force One cost?

01:26:03.000 What are the benefits of Air Force One?

01:26:04.000 Does Air Force One have some sort of a pod where the president can parachute to safety if they try to shoot it down or something crazy like that?

01:26:10.000 You wonder about that one, but what about an ejection seat?

01:26:15.000 I mean, it goes on and on and on.

01:26:18.000 I mean, I can handle the ejection.

01:26:21.000 You could handle being ejected?

01:26:23.000 I could handle being ejected.

01:26:24.000 I'm certain of it.

01:26:27.000 I mean, we could go on and on about things along those lines. 0.91

01:26:30.000 It seems a little silly. 0.96

01:26:32.000 But it's a little silly. 0.92

01:26:34.000 The whole thing has become not just a little silly. 0.93

01:26:36.000 It's become pretty crazy.

01:26:38.000 Well, also, when you isolate the president and you make them this person, they have to shut down all the city streets and bring in a gigantic parade of stormtroopers that have to stand by his side.

01:26:50.000 It's just...

01:26:51.000 And you know what?

01:26:52.000 It would be great as President of the United States to just shuttle around in an F-16.

01:26:57.000 I mean, let him shoot me down in an F-16.

01:26:59.000 I'll just take the back seat.

01:27:02.000 Well, they don't go very far.

01:27:03.000 You know that.

01:27:04.000 They don't go very far, but they go really fast.

01:27:07.000 And when we're talking about money and dollars as opposed to the F-16...

01:27:13.000 It sounds like you just want to be in an F-16.

01:27:16.000 No, no.

01:27:17.000 I just want to spend less money.

01:27:19.000 I want to be a frugal cat in the White House.

01:27:23.000 What kind of odds do you think there are?

01:27:26.000 I mean, this election is very tricky, obviously.

01:27:30.000 But what kind of odds do you believe there are for 2020?

01:27:35.000 I think, first of all, I would not be doing this if there weren't the opportunity to win.

01:27:40.000 But the only opportunity that there is of winning is to be in the presidential debates.

01:27:45.000 That's the only chance.

01:27:46.000 Now, what's the keys into the presidential debates?

01:27:49.000 Kind of where we started off.

01:27:51.000 Doesn't that seem insane, though?

01:27:52.000 Doesn't that seem insane?

01:27:53.000 That what?

01:27:54.000 That you have to get in this one thing, this presidential debate, this thing that is run by...

01:27:59.000 It's the reality.

01:28:00.000 Yeah.

01:28:00.000 It is the reality.

01:28:01.000 Yeah.

01:28:02.000 No, maybe not.

01:28:03.000 I mean, maybe that's not the insane part.

01:28:06.000 Does it not seem logical that anyone who can mathematically be elected president in 2012, that would have included the Libertarian Party and the Green Party, Does it not seem logical that anyone capable of being mathematically elected president of the United States,

01:28:27.000 270 electoral votes, should at a minimum be included in the polls?

01:28:32.000 That there be a requirement?

01:28:33.000 And you know that in 2016, there are like 1,600 people that registered to run for president?

01:28:43.000 Wasn't Roseanne Barr one of them? 0.63

01:28:45.000 Well, that was 2012. That was 2012. But anybody can run for president.

01:28:51.000 All you've got to do is sign up with the Federal Elections Commission and you can run for president.

01:28:55.000 But at the end of the day, in 2012, there were only four people that could have mathematically been elected president.

01:29:01.000 Doesn't that seem fair?

01:29:02.000 It doesn't seem.

01:29:03.000 Well, the two-party system is the biggest hurdle right now for...

01:29:09.000 I think most people, when you think about the potential of running for president, the biggest hurdle is that you have to be accepted and you have to be the nominee of one of these two parties.

01:29:19.000 Right.

01:29:20.000 Or that you be included in the polls.

01:29:23.000 And right now, because of just how polarizing Hillary and Trump are, that just being in the polls, that that will register enough dissatisfaction with any third party name, in this case, me, that I'd like to think that all the things that we've talked about right now,

01:29:44.000 you wouldn't hear out of the mouths of either Hillary or Trump.

01:29:53.000 So, well...

01:30:11.000 The real problem is a lot of the stuff that he said running versus what he's done in office.

01:30:17.000 The hope and change website that talks about whistleblowers and then you look at his actual actions towards whistleblowers and actual actions towards the press.

01:30:25.000 It's pretty disturbing.

01:30:27.000 Well, back to my open door after four for whistleblowers.

01:30:31.000 Look, come on in.

01:30:32.000 Talk to me.

01:30:32.000 Tell me about what's going on.

01:30:34.000 Well, that was what I wanted to get to next.

01:30:36.000 Maybe I can jump into the middle of this.

01:30:37.000 That's what I wanted to get to next.

01:30:39.000 So, you're president.

01:30:40.000 How do you handle Julian Assange?

01:30:42.000 How do you handle Edward Snowden?

01:30:45.000 What do you do about these two very high-profile situations where most people believe that the information they...

01:30:55.000 I agree.

01:30:58.000 I agree.

01:30:59.000 Do you pardon Julian Assange?

01:31:04.000 Well, Julian Assange has not been charged, I don't think, by the U.S. government.

01:31:09.000 Well, we know what's really going on, though.

01:31:11.000 Well, we know what's really going on.

01:31:12.000 Well, Snowden, yes.

01:31:15.000 You pardon Snowden, you know, that he has brought to the forefront.

01:31:20.000 This, you know, this mass surveillance.

01:31:23.000 But to play devil's advocate.

01:31:26.000 Okay, go ahead.

01:31:27.000 Yeah.

01:31:28.000 The entire NSA is an executive order.

01:31:32.000 12-333, under Truman.

01:31:35.000 You could repeal that executive order to simply turn the satellites away from you and I. Yeah.

01:31:44.000 If you did that...

01:31:46.000 110 million Verizon users, this metadata collection.

01:31:51.000 It's my understanding that by executive order, you could actually turn the satellites on the bad guys as opposed to U.S. citizens.

01:32:00.000 But don't you think that if someone actually did that, they'd probably put you in a convertible and roll you through Dallas?

01:32:06.000 That's also a possibility.

01:32:08.000 No.

01:32:09.000 Believe me.

01:32:09.000 If you tried to say you're going to get rid of the NSA or diminish the NSA or the CIA or the FBI, you would be in a bad place.

01:32:17.000 It's a possibility.

01:32:18.000 So you'd have to kind of work with them, right?

01:32:20.000 Isn't that the best way to handle it and still keep your head?

01:32:22.000 Or how about the notion of really just doing the right thing?

01:32:26.000 So the Edward Snowden situation.

01:32:28.000 Did you see the Snowden movie?

01:32:30.000 No.

01:32:30.000 What was it called?

01:32:32.000 Citizen Four.

01:32:33.000 Citizen Four.

01:32:35.000 Everybody listening, gotta see it.

01:32:37.000 Edward Snowden, I mean, he laid it all out there.

01:32:40.000 It wasn't about him.

01:32:41.000 It was about the information.

01:32:42.000 He gave all the information to media, saying, I do not in any way have the resources to release this data, because if I release this data, maybe I'm going to put people in harm's way.

01:32:55.000 I don't want to put people in harm's way, so I'm giving this up to...

01:33:01.000 And I can't remember the institutions that he gave it up to, but he said, they have the resources that they will be able to disseminate this information and not put people...

01:33:15.000 It was just an excellent, excellent documentary on what I will say is a real American patriot.

01:33:22.000 It was a docudrama, right?

01:33:23.000 It was a dramatization?

01:33:24.000 No, it was...

01:33:25.000 Which one was a dramatization?

01:33:27.000 Wasn't there one that was a dramatization?

01:33:28.000 There's one coming out soon that's a dramatization.

01:33:30.000 Okay, so Citizen Four was the actual documentary.

01:33:33.000 It was the actual documentary where when they showed up, it was Edward Snowden.

01:33:38.000 They showed up.

01:33:38.000 They didn't know who Edward Snowden was.

01:33:40.000 They didn't.

01:33:41.000 It's amazing.

01:33:43.000 You've got to see it.

01:33:44.000 You've got to see it.

01:33:45.000 I'll definitely see it.

01:33:46.000 To play devil's advocate, if you do pardon Snowden, that means that if there was a crime being committed at all, that crime was being committed by the NSA. If you demonize Snowden...

01:33:58.000 As soon as they arrest Snowden or they try to arrest Snowden, they say Snowden's a bad guy.

01:34:02.000 What he's done is terrible.

01:34:03.000 If he comes to the United States, we're absolutely going to arrest him.

01:34:06.000 What you're saying is, and they're putting the focus on him as a potential criminal.

01:34:11.000 Well, if somehow or another he is exonerated and he's really, well, what happened then?

01:34:17.000 Well, is there a crime?

01:34:18.000 Well, if he's exonerated, if he's done something that violates the whatever agreement that he had to sign in order to work for the NSA, That means that the crime that he exposed was so significant that it was valid for him to violate whatever agreement he signed with the federal government that right now they're pursuing him as a criminal for.

01:34:40.000 Which means someone needs to go to jail for the crime.

01:34:42.000 If they're not going to put him in jail...

01:34:45.000 They're not going to prosecute him.

01:34:47.000 Interesting way of looking at it.

01:34:48.000 I'd look at it from the standpoint of this is a mistake that we've made.

01:34:53.000 Let's acknowledge the mistake and let's move forward.

01:34:56.000 Let's correct it.

01:34:57.000 It's not just that simple, right?

01:34:59.000 It may not be, but I'm not looking at this from the standpoint of prosecuting people as much as we've made a mistake.

01:35:08.000 Let's correct it.

01:35:10.000 Is this what this country is really about?

01:35:12.000 They're still moving forward with this data collection thing in Utah.

01:35:16.000 It's unabated.

01:35:17.000 And when you have testimony before Congress that says, are you spying on the American people?

01:35:22.000 And the response is, well, let's see.

01:35:27.000 Is there mass surveillance of the American public going on?

01:35:31.000 And when they said no, the question should have been...

01:35:35.000 Total surveillance.

01:35:36.000 Mass surveillance.

01:35:37.000 What does that mean?

01:35:38.000 Thousands of people?

01:35:39.000 Well, no.

01:35:40.000 We're talking about a hundred.

01:35:41.000 So he says no, the answer being hundreds of millions of people.

01:35:45.000 Total surveillance, not mass surveillance.

01:35:47.000 Total surveillance as far as mass surveillance.

01:35:49.000 So it's correct.

01:35:50.000 It's actually honest to say no.

01:35:53.000 We're parsing things here, but come on.

01:35:57.000 We've been misled.

01:35:58.000 This is not the country that we fought wars to preserve.

01:36:03.000 Does this go back to what we were talking about before, where businesses tend to lean towards growth?

01:36:08.000 So the NSA is involved in growth, and they don't want to stop.

01:36:13.000 I think so.

01:36:14.000 It's the Peter Principle.

01:36:15.000 I want to justify my life.

01:36:20.000 I'm talking about bureaucrats now.

01:36:22.000 Justify my life.

01:36:23.000 I need to grow what it is I'm doing.

01:36:25.000 I need to prove that what I'm doing is so important that I need people working for me.

01:36:29.000 I need to expand what I'm doing because it's so important.

01:36:32.000 So what would you be able to do, if anything, as a president?

01:36:37.000 So you get into office and...

01:36:38.000 With the NSA? Yes.

01:36:41.000 This just came to my attention like 10 days ago, that the NSA is an executive order under Truman that the President of the United States could repeal immediately.

01:36:53.000 But God, that would be ugly.

01:36:55.000 Why would it be okay?

01:36:55.000 They wouldn't let you do that.

01:36:56.000 I mean, it wouldn't be so simple.

01:36:59.000 Well, nothing is simple.

01:37:01.000 Nothing is simple.

01:37:02.000 I do not want to downplay on the complexity of what this might entail.

01:37:07.000 But at the end of the day, is it possible to turn the satellites away from you and I? Well, that wouldn't be that we would want to get rid of the NSA. What would it want to be is maybe redirect their efforts.

01:37:20.000 Wow!

01:37:20.000 Like as in protecting us again, you know, having an impenetrable national defense.

01:37:31.000 Is an impenetrable national defense?

01:37:34.000 I mean, this is Orwellian.

01:37:36.000 This is 1984. They've got the satellites on us.

01:37:41.000 Yeah, it is bizarre.

01:37:42.000 It's bizarre that they've just randomly decided to get the entire country under surveillance when there's no evidence to point that, you know, you're stopping anything or eliminating anything.

01:37:52.000 But you are putting people in a compromised position because if people know that the government has been paying attention to all their emails and voicemails and all that jazz, then People will adjust their behavior.

01:38:04.000 They'll be a little bit more cautious.

01:38:05.000 They're a little bit more cautious with their criticism.

01:38:08.000 And if you are ever in a situation where you are against the government in any way, they will have so much data on you.

01:38:19.000 Like, if you're one of those people that decides to Edward Snowden it from here on out, boy, good luck with that.

01:38:25.000 I mean, they will instantly be pulling up emails and voicemails and you've got a real problem on your hands.

01:38:32.000 Because it's not just metadata, right?

01:38:34.000 I mean, that's also been proven.

01:38:35.000 What is it?

01:38:36.000 We don't even know.

01:38:37.000 We don't know.

01:38:37.000 We don't even know.

01:38:38.000 Nobody knows.

01:38:39.000 Do you remember the guy who initially was the whistleblower many, many years ago?

01:38:44.000 There are many of them.

01:38:45.000 There are many of them that are in prison for the same.

01:38:49.000 Yeah, well, there's a gentleman that was one of the original whistleblowers who was actually one of the coders who was working with the NSA when they first started designing this sort of program, and he resigned and went public with all this.

01:39:03.000 And he was vilified.

01:39:07.000 And when Edward Snowden came out with all of this information, this guy started doing interviews again.

01:39:13.000 And he started saying, like, listen, I was talking about this in the early 2000s.

01:39:18.000 This is something they've been putting into play for a long time.

01:39:21.000 During the Bush administration, they started us all off.

01:39:24.000 The NSA? The...

01:39:27.000 Yeah.

01:39:28.000 Yeah, I think it goes back further than that.

01:39:30.000 Yeah, I think it does, too.

01:39:31.000 It goes back to Truman.

01:39:32.000 Yeah, here's the guy, Bill Binney, the original NSA whistleblower on Snowden 9-11 and illegal surveillance.

01:39:37.000 It's a very, very interesting story.

01:39:40.000 There's several interviews with this guy.

01:39:42.000 This one is from Computer Weekly.

01:39:44.000 But there's several interviews with this gentleman.

01:39:46.000 He was the original whistleblower.

01:39:48.000 What was the year of this, Jamie?

01:39:50.000 Because I want to say 2007, but I might be wrong.

01:39:54.000 It doesn't say.

01:39:56.000 Well, it doesn't matter.

01:39:58.000 Bill Binney is the guy, and I've seen him interviewed several times, and he realized while this was all going on, he's like, you're not looking for criminals.

01:40:07.000 You're trying to spy on everyone.

01:40:08.000 You can't do this.

01:40:10.000 And I think we all agree that you shouldn't be able to do that, but right now that's happening.

01:40:15.000 And very simply, there is a process, the Fourth Amendment.

01:40:19.000 There is due process.

01:40:20.000 So if there's a bad guy out there that the federal government wants to spy on...

01:40:25.000 Gotta get a warrant.

01:40:26.000 That's how it should be.

01:40:27.000 But this FISA court, where the government goes before the FISA court and says, we want authority to...

01:40:35.000 To collect metadata on 110 million Verizon users?

01:40:39.000 I fail to see where that's due process in any way, shape, or form.

01:40:43.000 No one has made an argument against that.

01:40:45.000 No one has made an argument that makes any sense whatsoever supporting that.

01:40:48.000 So if that's the case, why does the president allow it?

01:40:52.000 Good question.

01:40:53.000 Good question.

01:40:54.000 If he's the guy that has all this music coming out of his mouth, what are his words that are so beautiful and melodic about this?

01:40:59.000 Melodic?

01:41:00.000 Melodic?

01:41:01.000 What's the word?

01:41:02.000 Well, that's the big Obama disappointment.

01:41:06.000 I'm sure if we went into the archives, he would have been addressed.

01:41:10.000 Well, maybe he wouldn't have, because he wouldn't have even known about this metadata collection.

01:41:14.000 But I do.

01:41:15.000 Well, he was in the Hope and Change website when he was running for president.

01:41:19.000 One of the things he was talking about was supporting whistleblowers that are revealing criminal activity.

01:41:24.000 Well, he's directly contradicted that.

01:41:27.000 Everything he's done in regards to people blowing whistles and revealing government problems, they've prosecuted them.

01:41:35.000 They've been worse on freedom of the press than any other president.

01:41:38.000 We look at Bush as being this really terrible, draconian guy.

01:41:43.000 But the Bush administration was easier on whistleblowers and easier on press and trying to get press to reveal their sources than the Obama administration.

01:41:52.000 Back to the reality not matching up at all.

01:41:56.000 Exactly.

01:41:57.000 Yeah, the reality not matching up at all, not just with the words, but with the appearance.

01:42:03.000 Like, it's the appearance of this really educated...

01:42:09.000 Like, socially aware guy who gets into play, like, finally, we've got this articulate, intelligent, well-read president. 1.00

01:42:16.000 This is a relief from the guy who, you know, stumbles through words and says a bunch of stupid shit. 1.00

01:42:22.000 Like, this is our guy. 1.00

01:42:24.000 This is our guy, finally.

01:42:25.000 But then, same practices.

01:42:27.000 In fact, worse.

01:42:28.000 Worse.

01:42:29.000 More drone attacks.

01:42:30.000 More, I mean, what do you do about that?

01:42:32.000 What do you do about a program that the drone attacks have...

01:42:35.000 Resulted in, I believe the numbers, like more than 80% accidental death or more than 80% civilians being killed versus the intended target.

01:42:47.000 Well, this is the unintended consequence of our military interventions, that they're making things worse, not better.

01:42:54.000 And I am talking about boots on the ground.

01:42:57.000 I'm talking about dropping bombs and the fact that drones do fly and kill thousands of innocent people.

01:43:03.000 And when I had Mike Baker on, who was a former CIA operative, when he and I were discussing this, he was saying that, look, what you're seeing is lawyers make those decisions.

01:43:13.000 These decisions of whether to bomb or not to bomb, they're being done by lawyers.

01:43:17.000 They sit down, they go over the possibilities, they go over the risks versus reward, and they make the call. 0.99

01:43:25.000 What the fuck on the world is that? 0.99

01:43:28.000 That's the world that can be changed, I think. 0.99

01:43:33.000 Right.

01:43:33.000 So here's the big battleship.

01:43:34.000 It's the United States.

01:43:36.000 How do you turn that?

01:43:37.000 Supertanker.

01:43:37.000 Yeah, supertanker, whatever you would call it.

01:43:40.000 Luxury cruiser.

01:43:41.000 First, what is it?

01:43:44.000 It takes six miles to turn the supertanker around, turn around 180 degrees?

01:43:49.000 Well, first you've got to stop the engines.

01:43:51.000 First, you've got to actually start the process.

01:43:54.000 Yeah, and okay, so it's six miles before you can actually pull the U-turn.

01:43:57.000 Well, we're full steam ahead.

01:44:00.000 We're still full steam ahead.

01:44:01.000 Okay, so let's talk military.

01:44:02.000 So you're in office.

01:44:04.000 Obviously, you need to protect people.

01:44:06.000 Obviously, there's threats out there, both...

01:44:09.000 Broad and locally, what do you do in terms of minimizing the amount of money that we spend on the military, minimizing the amount of invasion of privacy, the branches of the military, things like the NSA, which I guess you consider the military, some sort of security apparatus for us,

01:44:26.000 right?

01:44:27.000 What would you consider the NSA? Is that military?

01:44:29.000 What would you consider it?

01:44:31.000 I don't know.

01:44:31.000 National Security Administration.

01:44:33.000 But I mean, obviously, it's something to do with the military, right?

01:44:38.000 There has to be oversight.

01:44:39.000 Yeah.

01:44:40.000 Or has to be some transparency.

01:44:43.000 So when you're talking about the military, how do you go about minimizing the impact or minimizing the negative aspects of it?

01:44:52.000 Well, make no bones, if we're attacked, we're going to attack back.

01:44:57.000 That we should have an impenetrable national defense, but we're anything but defense.

01:45:03.000 Where is Congress in all of this?

01:45:05.000 They've abdicated their responsibility to declare war, for the American people to have a discussion and debate over how the military should proceed.

01:45:17.000 They've abdicated that responsibility to the President of the United States, who's doing this on executive order along with the military.

01:45:24.000 That's where Iraq got really weird, right? 1.00

01:45:27.000 Where it wasn't an actual act of war.

01:45:30.000 It wasn't...

01:45:30.000 That Congress had allowed...

01:45:32.000 Well, the Congress has allowed the President to carry on this...

01:45:39.000 To do what the president sees fit.

01:45:41.000 Well, that is, in my opinion, that's an abdication of constitutional responsibility by Congress.

01:45:48.000 So let's reestablish that.

01:45:50.000 I think the biggest threat in the world right now is North Korea and the fact that at some point, Kim is...

01:46:00.000 At some point, these intercontinental ballistic missiles are going to work. 0.98

01:46:05.000 And this guy is a nut.

01:46:07.000 So how about the notion of really getting together with China, because this is in China's best interest, to get rid of Kim, unify the Koreas, get American troops out of South Korea. 0.76

01:46:22.000 If Cuba, look, we didn't put up for a second that Russia was going to occupy or have missiles in Korea. 0.55

01:46:33.000 In Cuba, do you think China likes the fact that we got 40,000 troops in Korea?

01:46:39.000 No, they don't like it a bit.

01:46:41.000 Well, do we not make the world a lot more secure if we can't come to terms with China on how we can deal with what I will argue the biggest threat in the world right now? 0.99

01:46:52.000 And China is an ally of North Korea, correct?

01:46:55.000 They are, but they're an embarrassment from all that I can glean. 0.99

01:46:59.000 They're an embarrassment.

01:47:01.000 70% of South Korea's trade export goes to China.

01:47:07.000 None of North Korea's export goes to China because there is no product to export.

01:47:14.000 It's...

01:47:17.000 But to turn that ship around, boy, you want to talk about turning a tough ship around, the North Korea ship, you're talking about an entire brainwashed country. 0.81

01:47:24.000 It's a very sad, sad state.

01:47:27.000 China is not blind to that.

01:47:29.000 Let's take advantage of establishing a partnership and alliance with China to deal with that. 0.98

01:47:38.000 But they're already so poor and so screwed over. 0.78

01:47:41.000 What do you do outside of a military intervention? 0.56

01:47:45.000 As opposed to us, as opposed to us dealing with it, it's in China's best interest to deal with this. 0.95

01:47:52.000 And so that China has, what do they have, this island that they build 40 miles off their coast or whatever it is? 0.62

01:47:58.000 What's the big deal?

01:48:00.000 The United States does this all the time.

01:48:02.000 I mean, what's the big deal?

01:48:04.000 What big deal in what way?

01:48:05.000 Like, what are you saying?

01:48:05.000 Well, this is somehow a threat to U.S. security that they've built an island 40 miles off of their mainland.

01:48:13.000 I don't get it.

01:48:15.000 We're spending as much money on our military as all the other nations in the world combined.

01:48:23.000 What does that say?

01:48:24.000 Does that say maybe we're spending more than our fair share?

01:48:29.000 Well, that's also we're the number one superpower in the world in order to maintain that position and be the benevolent dictators of the world.

01:48:38.000 Well, to what end are we maintaining that position?

01:48:42.000 What is the endgame here?

01:48:44.000 Well, the endgame is to provide national impenetrable national defense for our country.

01:48:51.000 I don't want to put troops in harm's way.

01:48:53.000 I don't want men and women dying in situations where that does not have to take place.

01:49:00.000 You know, the fact they get injured, they come back here, the rest of their lives, they're affected by...

01:49:08.000 Stop! 1.00

01:49:09.000 Stop! 1.00

01:49:10.000 Stop! 1.00

01:49:10.000 I agree with you, but to play devil's advocate and take their point of view, they would say that what they're doing overseas is saving... 1.00

01:49:25.000 Yeah, that is always the argument.

01:49:33.000 But the reality is, is that these interventions, at best, make things the same, or leave things the same, but...

01:49:41.000 Versus get worse.

01:49:42.000 And that's what their argument would be.

01:49:43.000 Like, if they weren't doing this, that you would have these superpowers develop in these other countries, and it would become a gigantic issue, whether it's Iran, whether it's Russia, whether it's whatever it is.

01:49:53.000 Take Iraq, for an example.

01:49:55.000 We intervene in Iraq. 0.70

01:49:58.000 The biggest threat to Iran was Iraq, was Saddam Hussein. 0.82

01:50:02.000 That's all their concern was, was how do they deal with Saddam Hussein in Iraq?

01:50:08.000 We go in, we take out Saddam Hussein.

01:50:10.000 Well, now all of a sudden we cut the head of that hydra off.

01:50:13.000 Now all of a sudden we have to deal with Iran, something that we weren't having to deal with before. 0.95

01:50:18.000 That's an unintended consequence.

01:50:20.000 But do we need to deal with Iran? 0.99

01:50:22.000 I mean, what is the reason why we have to deal with Iran? 0.99

01:50:25.000 They're the biggest funder of terrorism in the world.

01:50:28.000 They fund terrorism.

01:50:30.000 It's undeniable.

01:50:31.000 So at first I was in support of this treaty and naively, meaning the treaty that we signed with Iran that ended up releasing, however much money it was, $160 billion.

01:50:43.000 And by Secretary Kerry's own admission, The question was, will there not be funds that will get directed at terrorism?

01:50:52.000 And he said, yes, there will be funds that will be directed at terrorism.

01:50:56.000 So how on earth could we have signed that agreement with Iran, given the fact that they are the biggest funder of terrorism in the world? 0.97

01:51:07.000 What is their motivation to fund terrorism?

01:51:09.000 Is their motivation to fund terrorism because they're concerned with the United States continuing to develop power in the Middle East?

01:51:15.000 Like, what is their...

01:51:16.000 Well, it could be a combination of...

01:51:18.000 Again, devil's advocate.

01:51:19.000 Well, yeah.

01:51:19.000 No, no.

01:51:19.000 It could be a...

01:51:20.000 I don't want to discount anything that's being said by anyone, but from our standpoint, this is...

01:51:30.000 We're contributing to what will be more terrorism, because terrorism will get funded from some of this money that got freed out.

01:51:40.000 Now, when you say that, when you say funding terrorism, specifically, what do you mean?

01:51:44.000 Well, at some point, these terrorist groups, and who's to say where the connection, using Brussels as an example, who's to say where those guys were getting their funds from,

01:52:01.000 their support from?

01:52:02.000 Well, it's not a stretch to say that it may have come from Iran.

01:52:08.000 But isn't that a big statement that should be qualified?

01:52:14.000 Right.

01:52:22.000 Right.

01:52:32.000 Are we not making the situation worse?

01:52:35.000 When we go in and militarily intervene and leave equipment, Afghanistan, we leave equipment, we end up arming the Taliban. 0.95

01:52:45.000 When the Russians leave, the Taliban is equipped. 0.97

01:52:49.000 They're equipped with U.S. arms because we use the Taliban to fight the Russians. 0.79

01:52:56.000 Right.

01:52:56.000 But to bring it back to Iran, what, if any, evidence is available that shows that Iran funded terrorism?

01:53:02.000 Unequivocal.

01:53:04.000 I can't state for you the ABCs of it, but unequivocal.

01:53:10.000 Secretary of State Kerry said, Was asked the question, well, isn't some of this money, some of it, going to get directed at funding terrorism?

01:53:21.000 And his response was, yeah, yes, some of it unquestionably is going to get directed toward terrorism.

01:53:28.000 I don't know how we could have okayed that, given what has been acknowledged.

01:53:35.000 What is the benefit of giving the money?

01:53:38.000 You know, I'm all for the free trade.

01:53:41.000 I think that free trade at the end of the day is a really powerful tool.

01:53:47.000 I don't have the answer to this, and I don't want to misstate anything, but this is a conversation that we're having.

01:53:55.000 Could we have not opened up free trade with Iran and still kept their assets frozen?

01:54:01.000 And by that, assets that now they enter into the world community, that they can sell their oil, and on an ongoing basis, we'll have free trade with Iran.

01:54:15.000 They can spend the money as they see fit.

01:54:17.000 But with regard to the money that's been frozen, if we believe that any of that's going to be redirected, Or directed at terrorism.

01:54:28.000 Why did we do that?

01:54:30.000 I'm just saying.

01:54:31.000 I don't get it.

01:54:33.000 Well, what has been the response by the administration?

01:54:35.000 I mean, has this question been brought up and how have they answered it?

01:54:40.000 Well, that was the – this was, gosh, maybe, I don't know, six months ago when Kerry was asked this.

01:54:47.000 And, you know, it was very matter-of-factly, yes, some of it's going to get redirected to – you know, you have to – I think it's secondhand or firsthand.

01:54:57.000 I mean I'm repeating what I thought I heard him say, which was, yeah, unquestionably some of this is going to go to terrorism.

01:55:03.000 I don't get it.

01:55:05.000 Okay, well, we don't have specifics to discuss when it comes to that, like specific facts, so it gets a little murky.

01:55:13.000 We got the internet going here?

01:55:14.000 Yeah, we definitely do.

01:55:16.000 I wonder what, if anything, can be done to calm some of the areas down in the world, and how much of what's going on in the world is about controlling resources, and how much of that would change if we had less reliance on fossil fuels?

01:55:35.000 Well, we're not getting any of our oil right now from the Middle East.

01:55:40.000 We're not getting any.

01:55:40.000 We're fracking.

01:55:41.000 Well, we are fracking, and that statement is not completely true.

01:55:46.000 We are getting oil from all over the world.

01:55:50.000 Canada and...

01:55:51.000 Well, our refineries here in the United States, so there's a trade-off.

01:55:56.000 We're exporting really clean oil, oil that doesn't need as much refining, and we're importing oil that is dirty, so it's cheaper.

01:56:07.000 So there's more of a profit margin to bring in dirty oil, refine it.

01:56:13.000 And make more money by exporting cleaner oil that refineries overseas can handle as opposed to the United States.

01:56:21.000 So there is that going on, but for the most part we're energy sufficient at the moment because of fracking.

01:56:28.000 But when we entered into Iraq, one of the more cynical concerns was that we were doing it because we were trying to control natural resources.

01:56:36.000 Yes, and at that time, I think that that, I mean, did that not play a part in the equation?

01:56:42.000 Certainly the administration denied that, but everybody, I think, saw that for what it was, too, that that was the case.

01:56:52.000 Right.

01:56:52.000 So when you look at the world in terms of threats and imminent danger to the United States, what could be done to try to lessen that?

01:57:01.000 Well, first and foremost, and this is where the Obama administration has concentrated on, and I couldn't tell you the status of how effective it is, but it is to cut off funding to terrorism.

01:57:14.000 I mean, that's the goal.

01:57:17.000 The word terrorism, such a weird word, because it's such a blanket statement.

01:57:24.000 You're not talking about an individual nation with an individual motive.

01:57:28.000 You know, you say terrorism.

01:57:30.000 It's like we have a war on terror.

01:57:33.000 What does that really mean?

01:57:34.000 You know, I mean, you're talking about so many different groups.

01:57:38.000 The Muslims get extremely offended when you use the term Islamic terrorism, which, looking at it from the outside, it does appear as though there is that constant. 1.00

01:57:53.000 But Muslims would say that, look, that's not inherent in the Muslim religion, which I more than agree with. 1.00

01:58:04.000 So this is the political correctness about saying terrorism as opposed to Islamic terrorism. 0.53

01:58:11.000 Right. 0.87

01:58:12.000 But the terrorists just happen to be Islamic. 0.53

01:58:16.000 Does seem to be that common element.

01:58:19.000 But is that something that's taught?

01:58:22.000 Is that something that most of Muslim religion believes in?

01:58:30.000 No.

01:58:31.000 No.

01:58:32.000 But it does seem to be a common thread.

01:58:37.000 I'm repeating myself here.

01:58:40.000 Right.

01:58:40.000 How do you calm that down?

01:58:43.000 Is there any way to appease people that are so upset at the United States?

01:58:47.000 What is their major gripe?

01:58:48.000 What is their major reason for being upset with us?

01:58:51.000 And as a president, what would you do to try to stop that?

01:58:55.000 Well, that you would contain it.

01:58:56.000 At a minimum, you'd try and contain it to where it's at and not allow it to spread.

01:59:01.000 And now I'm back to military policy, defense, having an impenetrable national defense.

01:59:10.000 The notion of somehow a dirty bomb getting over here into the United States, I mean, that should be a real live concern.

01:59:18.000 When I've talked to military operatives, though, they believe that a proactive attack or proactive action is much more likely to stop ISIS or any of these ISIL. Well, and that's been our tact to date.

01:59:33.000 And I'm going to say that...

01:59:36.000 Without exception, that every one of those military interventions have had an unintended consequence of, at best, you know, we always deal with atrocity.

01:59:49.000 There are atrocities going on.

01:59:51.000 We go in to deal with that atrocity, and at the end of the day, The new dictator, the new despot that we put into place to replace the bad despot at the end of the day is just as bad or in many cases worse.

02:00:03.000 We cut off the head of the Hydra and lo and behold, there are more heads.

02:00:08.000 So how does one stop that?

02:00:10.000 I mean, have you ever tried to come up with some sort of a solution or look at some sort of a long-term plan that would somehow or another calm the world or at least allow the United States to make peace?

02:00:22.000 One of the reasons that I'm seeking to become President of the United States is I think I do a really good job of presiding over all the intelligence that we do have regarding all of this, and I don't want to present myself as having the answers as much as,

02:00:41.000 you know what, give me the intel, let me be part of this discussion, and But I'm going to enter into this discussion as a real skeptic on what we've done to this point and a real skeptic on what appears to be what we're going to do in the future regarding all this.

02:01:02.000 And isn't there a more effective way of dealing with this?

02:01:05.000 I wouldn't be seeking this job if I didn't think that I could make a difference in it.

02:01:11.000 And I do not want to misstate.

02:01:15.000 I don't want to play cards.

02:01:17.000 Obama draws lines in the sand.

02:01:19.000 I'm not going to draw lines in the sand.

02:01:21.000 If you draw any lines in the sand, you better be prepared to back up what you've said with action.

02:01:27.000 And that's also been an issue with Obama.

02:01:30.000 How much different do you think perspective changes once you get into office?

02:01:34.000 Once you get into office and you sit down with military leaders and you sit down with someone who explains to you the actual landscape you're dealing with?

02:01:42.000 I think that perspective can change a lot.

02:01:47.000 But how about being transparent?

02:01:49.000 How about being transparent with the American public?

02:01:53.000 How about educating the American public to the intel that does exist?

02:01:59.000 But wouldn't they possibly alert the enemy that we have knowledge of some things they may or may not know we have knowledge of and that would put people in danger?

02:02:06.000 Well, you certainly wouldn't want to cross over that line in any way whatsoever.

02:02:09.000 But if you got elected to office saying that we should not militarily intervene, that military interventions have an unintended consequence, and then the next day you militarily intervene somewhere, you better darn well get up in front of the American public and take the...

02:02:26.000 Take the eggs and the tomatoes or worse.

02:02:31.000 What was your take when Obama went on television and was talking about how we needed to invade Syria?

02:02:38.000 And Syria was a huge issue.

02:02:39.000 And then the American public was up in arms, both the right and the left.

02:02:42.000 People were like, what are you talking about?

02:02:44.000 This is craziness.

02:02:45.000 And then the administration backed off.

02:02:47.000 I mean, in my opinion, it was one of the first...

02:02:51.000 That was drawing?

02:02:52.000 I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt.

02:02:53.000 No, it's okay.

02:02:53.000 But it was one of the first examples of the United States, like, sort of collectively, the will of the people, like, being openly expressed that the idea of entering Syria was outrageous.

02:03:04.000 Nobody wanted to do it.

02:03:05.000 It didn't make any sense to people. 0.98

02:03:07.000 This gas attack, like, how is this any more horrible than a lot of shit that's going on all over the world all the time? 0.97

02:03:12.000 What is it about Syria that all of a sudden we have to go and invade Syria, one more intervention in one more country, and the administration backed off? 0.99

02:03:22.000 Great example.

02:03:23.000 People are fed up with this and the fact that 22 million people in Syria and 11 million of them have been displaced.

02:03:32.000 Don't we have a share in that consequence?

02:03:36.000 What was the motivation?

02:03:37.000 What was the motivation for the United States wanting to invade there in the first place?

02:03:41.000 Well, wasn't it McCain going over there and beating his chest, along with Lindsey Graham, and let's go over there and support the good guys?

02:03:52.000 Well, the good guys are the minority, and the good guys, at the end of the day, look, this is...

02:04:02.000 Somehow we're going to determine the outcomes in other countries?

02:04:06.000 I mean, that's just, it's preposterous that as individuals we can do that.

02:04:12.000 But this seems so contrary to what Obama stood for before he got into office.

02:04:16.000 So when he gets on television and talks about intervening, going over to Syria, about, you know, there's gas attacks and all this jazz.

02:04:23.000 Like, where's that motivation coming from?

02:04:25.000 Like, who's behind him, pushing him into this direction?

02:04:28.000 Or is this just how he's been?

02:04:30.000 The entire time.

02:04:32.000 He just sold us a song and danced before he got into office.

02:04:36.000 You let off this kind of line of thought by saying, or this is where I thought you were headed, was can you get in and not be co-opted by the system?

02:04:47.000 Based on my only experience, having been governor of New Mexico, yeah, meaning that good government was easy, it wasn't hard, that you weren't co-opted.

02:05:01.000 There was plenty of co-option that tried to wield itself, but you know what?

02:05:08.000 You're the President of the United States.

02:05:09.000 You're the governor of a state.

02:05:11.000 You're at the top of the pyramid.

02:05:13.000 Yes, you do have limited powers, but even with those limited powers, you're still the most powerful human being on Earth.

02:05:19.000 Don't you think there's a pretty radical difference between being a governor of a state without a military and being the President of the United States dealing not just with the same sort of problems that you dealt with as a governor, but on a much larger scale, plus the problems of the world, plus the military,

02:05:35.000 plus the weird stuff like the NSA and the CIA and the FBI? It has to be extremely more complex.

02:06:06.000 But really, at the end of the day, doesn't it boil down to telling the truth and fessing up to mistakes and fixing things?

02:06:14.000 I would think so.

02:06:15.000 But it seems to me that the wiring of the office is so complex and there's so much craziness going on that no one gets in office and does what they said they were going to do before they got in office.

02:06:28.000 Because it almost seems insurmountable.

02:06:32.000 That was not my experience.

02:06:34.000 That was not my experience.

02:06:35.000 As a governor.

02:06:36.000 Yeah, right.

02:06:37.000 Governors have done what they've pledged.

02:06:39.000 Well, so would you rather elect someone who has had the experience of not having been co-opted as opposed to somebody who has been co-opted?

02:06:53.000 Won't someone that's been co-opted...

02:06:56.000 At the end of the day, if I'm elected president of the United States, at the end of the day, would I be able to make that same statement?

02:07:03.000 I hope so.

02:07:05.000 That's the best way to put it.

02:07:06.000 That's an honest way to put it.

02:07:07.000 You hope so.

02:07:08.000 Because I really would like to know.

02:07:11.000 I would love it if you became president and we could stay friends.

02:07:14.000 And I could go, hey man, I won't tell anybody.

02:07:17.000 No, we'll tell the world.

02:07:19.000 What's going on back here?

02:07:20.000 We'll tell the world.

02:07:21.000 Well, I don't want to get shot with you.

02:07:22.000 I'm going to run away.

02:07:24.000 Okay.

02:07:26.000 The whole thing seems so almost impossibly intertwined.

02:07:34.000 You go fishing?

02:07:36.000 You ever go fishing?

02:07:37.000 No, I'm on my mountain bike as opposed to fishing.

02:07:40.000 Okay.

02:07:40.000 I do have a, just a side light, I do have a stream running through my, right by my house.

02:07:46.000 Do you?

02:07:46.000 I have 1,600 feet of frontage on the Hondo River and it's loaded with taxpayer trout.

02:07:52.000 Really?

02:07:52.000 So I'll give you an invitation to come fish that stream.

02:07:55.000 That would be like probably fly fishing, right?

02:07:57.000 What I'm talking about is...

02:07:59.000 There's a thing called a bird's nest.

02:08:01.000 A bird's nest is when you use a bait casting reel and the line spools quicker than it can roll over and it becomes this gigantic tangle.

02:08:12.000 And when you use a bait casting reel, you're supposed to sort of regulate it, at least the old school ones.

02:08:17.000 You regulate the amount of pressure with your thumb as to how fast the wheel turns.

02:08:22.000 The wheel turns too quick, the line gets so tangled, and it almost becomes impossible. 1.00

02:08:26.000 You look at it and you go, shit. 0.99

02:08:28.000 What am I going to do with it? 1.00

02:08:29.000 There's a perfect image.

02:08:31.000 That's what a bird's nest looks like.

02:08:33.000 See how all that line is all just...

02:08:36.000 Try getting through that.

02:08:37.000 That's a mess.

02:08:38.000 See, when I think of the government, I think of that with bullets.

02:08:45.000 I like the analogy.

02:08:46.000 It's almost like it's so tangled.

02:08:49.000 And with all the other variables that you discussed, terms, term limitations that aren't in place, ideological blockades on the left and the right, supporting your constituents on the left and the right, special interest groups,

02:09:06.000 lobbyists, the fact that there's...

02:09:08.000 I mean, there's this one area outside of Washington, D.C. that is just all lobbyists, these neighborhoods, and it's one of the wealthiest parts of the area.

02:09:17.000 And it's just because people are making insane amounts of money manipulating the system.

02:09:21.000 So, I am advocating eliminating income tax and corporate tax, and as a result of that...

02:09:28.000 Wait a minute.

02:09:29.000 Hit the brakes.

02:09:33.000 Did you just say?

02:09:34.000 You were talking about lobbyists.

02:09:36.000 Eliminating income tax?

02:09:37.000 Yeah, yeah.

02:09:39.000 How are you going to do that?

02:09:40.000 So eliminate income tax, eliminate corporate tax.

02:09:44.000 Because you're going to do that, you're going to also be able to abolish the IRS. Whoa!

02:09:51.000 Just hear me out here.

02:09:53.000 You just went down Radical Boulevard.

02:09:54.000 Just hear me out for a couple more minutes.

02:10:01.000 Yeah.

02:10:17.000 If we had zero corporate tax in this country, I believe tens of millions of jobs would get created.

02:10:24.000 If we did not have corporate tax, if we did not have income tax, I believe that pink slips would get issued to 80% of Washington lobbyists because that's why they're there, to garner special tax favor.

02:10:39.000 At the end of the day, it's all about So how does this consumption tax work, and how would you possibly implement it, and how would you possibly get anyone to agree to do this,

02:10:55.000 to get rid of the IRS, to get rid of the...

02:10:59.000 Yeah, actually, a couple hundred congressmen and women, maybe 160, have actually signed on to this proposal.

02:11:07.000 So this proposal's been around for quite a while.

02:11:10.000 And how many oppose it?

02:11:12.000 Well, you've got, what, how many?

02:11:13.000 400 and...

02:11:14.000 Well, by oppose, not necessarily oppose, but, you know, you do...

02:11:18.000 Haven't signed on.

02:11:19.000 Well, that would be more than half have not signed on, but a significant number have.

02:11:24.000 So it's been vetted.

02:11:26.000 It's out there.

02:11:28.000 Okay, so this consumption tax, how does this work?

02:11:31.000 It would be a 28% consumption tax on all new goods and services, not used goods and services.

02:11:38.000 And before you fall off the chair...

02:11:40.000 The theory is that it wouldn't necessarily—it would be cost-neutral.

02:11:46.000 So if I could use a can of Coke as an example, a can of Coke that sells for a buck today has corporate tax contained in that buck.

02:11:56.000 It has unemployment contained in that buck.

02:11:59.000 It has Social Security match contained in that buck.

02:12:02.000 It has Medicare— Okay.

02:12:26.000 That's the theory.

02:12:27.000 So by doing this and eliminating income tax, how much different would the amount be that the government receives?

02:12:36.000 This is intended to be revenue neutral.

02:12:40.000 Revenue neutral.

02:12:41.000 So a government's still going to receive the same amount of money.

02:12:45.000 That's also the projection.

02:12:46.000 How's that possible if people are not paying income tax?

02:12:49.000 Say if someone's wealthy, if they make a million dollars a year, and a million dollars a year, you're probably in a 48% tax bracket.

02:12:56.000 Take away all your tax shelters and all the various ways, corporations, LLCs, all that jazz.

02:13:01.000 You're in the 30s probably, right?

02:13:03.000 That's a lot of money.

02:13:04.000 That's $300,000.

02:13:06.000 So how much money...

02:13:07.000 How are you going to regain that?

02:13:10.000 Well, if you're making a lot of money, you spend a lot of money.

02:13:12.000 So you're going to pay that money in consumption tax as opposed to...

02:13:16.000 What if you're Scrooge McDuck and you're just hanging back?

02:13:18.000 Whoa! 0.71

02:13:19.000 Then that's a way that you can...

02:13:21.000 Isn't there a fairness in that?

02:13:23.000 But the reality is the more people make when it comes to money, the more people spend.

02:13:28.000 But if you want to save your money...

02:13:30.000 When you say new and used, does that apply to homes?

02:13:32.000 Yep.

02:13:33.000 So a new home, you would have to pay 38%.

02:13:35.000 That would cripple the home market.

02:13:37.000 28%.

02:13:38.000 That would cripple the home market because no one would want to buy a new home.

02:13:42.000 No, but I'm back to the theory.

02:13:44.000 Right now, when you enlist the aid of the plumbing company, the plumbing company has...

02:13:51.000 So, first of all, no more payroll deductions.

02:13:55.000 The Social Security, unemployment...

02:14:00.000 Medicare, all of that would come out of the proceeds of one federal consumption tax.

02:14:06.000 So all government proceeds would come from this new pot of money.

02:14:12.000 So it's just like a sales tax.

02:14:14.000 So instead of the plumber on your home giving you a $100,000 bill for the plumbing, theoretically the bill will be $73,000.

02:14:26.000 With me?

02:14:28.000 So the theory is the House really isn't going to cost you any more because all these hidden taxes that exist are going to go away.

02:14:40.000 That sounds cute in theory.

02:14:44.000 Well, and let me also just say I'm looking to get elected President of the United States.

02:14:50.000 I'm going to sign on to what I think is going to make anything better.

02:14:55.000 But when you talk about making things really better, I think this is a proposal that simplifies all of our lives in a huge way.

02:15:05.000 Imagine not having to deal with the IRS. It would be tremendous.

02:15:09.000 But you would also put all those people out of jobs, and they're going to fight for that.

02:15:13.000 They're going to try to fight against that.

02:15:15.000 That would be a giant issue.

02:15:16.000 That would be the accounting and the attorney fees that go along with complying with the IRS and the IRS employees themselves.

02:15:25.000 And if you think about the pressure that the police unions or the guard unions, rather, prison guard unions put to make sure that marijuana remains illegal and drug laws remain in place, imagine the kind of pressure that lobbyists and the IRS and anyone else that might be affected by these decisions are going to put to try to stop this from happening.

02:15:43.000 Well, this, though, would be a dialogue.

02:15:47.000 If you had, in this case, Gary Johnson on stage in the presidential debates talking about something like this, wouldn't that maybe open people's eyes to the fact that, whoa, life could change dramatically?

02:16:03.000 Some would argue for the better.

02:16:05.000 I think at the end of the day, you can argue that this would make life a lot better for everybody.

02:16:13.000 Well, it certainly stimulated dialogue, but I wonder if you can get that point across in those little sound bites that they do in those debates.

02:16:19.000 Yeah, I think so.

02:16:22.000 Tens of millions of jobs would get created overnight here in the United States because of a zero corporate tax rate.

02:16:30.000 Why so?

02:16:31.000 Why would you create a job anywhere in the world other than the United States given zero corporate taxes?

02:16:38.000 So you think that, like, Apple would move their iPhone factors, they're paying people five cents an hour, they'd move them to the United States and have to pay a working wage because they don't have to pay corporate taxes?

02:16:47.000 Wouldn't they cancel each other out?

02:16:49.000 Wouldn't it be more profitable to still invoke foreign labor and use third world countries? 0.89

02:16:54.000 Well, but they would have to pay that corporate tax in that foreign country.

02:16:58.000 Right, but it's minimal, right?

02:16:59.000 No, it's not minimal, but it's less.

02:17:02.000 But now I'm back to, hey, I get elected president of the United States and I get legislation submitted to reduce corporate tax.

02:17:11.000 Yeah, I'm going to sign on to that because I think it really is a hindrance to job creation when we have the highest corporate tax rate.

02:17:19.000 But imagine, instead of having a debate over...

02:17:23.000 Should we reduce the corporate tax rate to 28% or 29% and Republicans and Democrats both get their peacock feathers all up in arms about 29% or 28% or 27%?

02:17:34.000 Well, how about zero?

02:17:36.000 How about doing away with the IRS? Oh my gosh.

02:17:39.000 I mean, if lowering it is good, how about eliminating it?

02:17:44.000 Well, I think you would get universal support from the United States.

02:17:48.000 I mean, from people in the country.

02:17:49.000 If you ask people how much do they love the United States IRS system, they would say zero.

02:17:55.000 I mean, I don't think there's a single person other than people who work for the IRS that says, I love them.

02:17:59.000 They're awesome.

02:18:00.000 I love when they go after your bank account.

02:18:02.000 I love when they take all your money.

02:18:03.000 Yeah, no, you're right.

02:18:04.000 I love when they sue you.

02:18:05.000 Yeah, no, no, no.

02:18:06.000 I'll drop the thought completely because of the love that does exist for the IRS. You're right.

02:18:12.000 No, I'm saying no one loves it.

02:18:14.000 I know.

02:18:14.000 Yeah.

02:18:14.000 You know what I'm saying?

02:18:15.000 I do.

02:18:16.000 I mean, everyone hates it.

02:18:17.000 Everyone hates it.

02:18:18.000 You would get 100% support.

02:18:20.000 Well, no, there's nothing.

02:18:22.000 There's no such thing as 100% support.

02:18:26.000 Of course.

02:18:26.000 Obviously.

02:18:27.000 But how about this entering into the debate?

02:18:33.000 Yeah, well, it would be a great thing to talk about because the system is not good and no one thinks it is.

02:18:38.000 So the idea of keeping it exactly the way it is seems pretty ridiculous, right?

02:18:42.000 I mean, that's like the definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

02:18:47.000 It's crony capitalism.

02:18:48.000 Yes.

02:18:49.000 You know, those that have money pay less of their share.

02:18:53.000 This really, at the end of the day, is very fair.

02:18:57.000 Right.

02:18:58.000 So thinking of that and along those lines, how do you feel about corporations donating to political candidates?

02:19:07.000 We're good to go.

02:19:23.000 Make for unlimited contribution.

02:19:25.000 Just make the contributions 100% transparent.

02:19:28.000 I'm the one that said candidates should wear NASCAR-like jackets with...

02:19:34.000 I think that was Robin Williams, actually.

02:19:36.000 Actually, that was me, maybe.

02:19:37.000 Maybe he got it from me.

02:19:39.000 He had a bit about it on HBO. You sure you didn't go to sleep with the TV on?

02:19:43.000 No, I think I had this first.

02:19:45.000 I think I did have this first, huh?

02:19:48.000 Tell me what the year was.

02:19:48.000 Let's Google it.

02:19:49.000 Well, yeah, no, Google it.

02:19:52.000 If Robin Williams ripped you off, that would be brutal.

02:19:55.000 No, I'm not.

02:19:56.000 There's no ripoff here.

02:19:57.000 You might have.

02:19:58.000 But this would have been, I'd have been saying this in 2009. Ooh, I think he might have got you.

02:20:04.000 Well, maybe so, but I'm not infringing on his stuff.

02:20:10.000 I thought it was original.

02:20:12.000 I want to think it's special.

02:20:13.000 It was in 2006. I want to think...

02:20:15.000 I want to think...

02:20:16.000 You might be.

02:20:17.000 Well, listen, it's parallel thinking.

02:20:18.000 It doesn't mean...

02:20:19.000 Yes!

02:20:19.000 Right, right, right.

02:20:20.000 There you go.

02:20:21.000 That's the problem with intellectual property.

02:20:24.000 Look, if it's parallel thinking...

02:20:26.000 Well, certainly jokes.

02:20:27.000 I'm not the only other one either.

02:20:29.000 Right, I'm sure.

02:20:30.000 There are probably 100 people listening right now that are going, no!

02:20:33.000 I said that first!

02:20:34.000 100%.

02:20:35.000 I said that in kindergarten.

02:20:36.000 Well, it's a pretty obvious connection, right?

02:20:37.000 You see NASCAR. They're all covered with logos.

02:20:39.000 It stands out.

02:20:40.000 And you know who's sponsoring them.

02:20:42.000 Bigger the logo, the more money was controlled.

02:20:45.000 Well, they're the direct comparison because they're the most obvious sponsored thing.

02:20:50.000 The car is sponsored.

02:20:51.000 Their jackets are sponsored.

02:20:53.000 Everything's covered in logos.

02:20:54.000 If you look at basketball players, you don't see that.

02:20:56.000 It's very rare that you see.

02:20:58.000 Yeah, yeah.

02:20:59.000 Any sort of a sporting event where they're covered with logos like that.

02:21:03.000 What year?

02:21:04.000 That's coming next season.

02:21:06.000 What?

02:21:06.000 The NBA is adding all those logos to all their things.

02:21:08.000 They're adding one.

02:21:09.000 They're adding one.

02:21:10.000 Okay.

02:21:10.000 Yeah.

02:21:10.000 They're adding one logo.

02:21:12.000 And this is what was actually argued against the Reebok deal for the UFC. I get real concerned with super PACs for sure.

02:21:22.000 I get real concerned with money and politics.

02:21:25.000 And that is, I think...

02:21:28.000 One of the reasons why Bernie Sanders has stood out is because he's the only guy that is not really accepting money from these giant corporations and he's fairly self-funded.

02:21:37.000 One of the misconceptions about campaign finances is that...

02:21:42.000 One of the misconceptions is that if you limit campaign contribution, that things are going to get better.

02:21:50.000 You're going to eliminate the influence of big money, when the reality is by limiting campaign contribution, that's an incumbency protection act.

02:22:01.000 So limiting campaign contribution is all about re-electing incumbents.

02:22:06.000 That's what it's all about.

02:22:08.000 Look, if you could get – if somebody would finance me to the tune of a billion dollars, they might change this country in a really big way.

02:22:17.000 Should the billion dollars be anonymous?

02:22:20.000 I don't think so.

02:22:21.000 I think that it should be front and center and whomever contributed that should be known completely.

02:22:28.000 And that their goal was to change America, and by giving Gary Johnson a billion bucks, I have the opportunity to do that.

02:22:37.000 That it just be transparent.

02:22:39.000 As opposed to having to take 500,000 contributions at $2,000.

02:22:48.000 Which, at the end of the day, has more of a corrupting influence.

02:22:53.000 More of a corrupting influence than one super rich person that wants to influence your decision making?

02:22:58.000 Well, as an example, governor of New Mexico, my number one contributor for two terms gave me $150,000.

02:23:08.000 May sound cheap to a lot of people.

02:23:10.000 That doesn't sound cheap.

02:23:11.000 It sounds like a guy with a lot of money can throw $150,000 your way.

02:23:14.000 Yeah.

02:23:14.000 And over an eight-year period, he was never, not once did he call for anything.

02:23:26.000 There was never any request.

02:23:28.000 That's fairly rare though, no?

02:23:29.000 No.

02:23:30.000 Well, maybe, but my point is that if I would have had 1,000 contributors giving me $1,500, I guarantee you,

02:23:47.000 Joe, that 10 of them at some point would have been on the phone wanting something.

02:23:52.000 Right.

02:23:52.000 Guarantee it.

02:23:53.000 Okay.

02:23:54.000 That's pretty anecdotal, though, no?

02:23:57.000 I mean, you're talking about one contributor versus...

02:24:00.000 If you're looking at someone who's trying to contribute, though, to the United States, to someone running for the United States, and if they give you a billion dollars, one person who gives you a billion dollars, that guy's gonna want something.

02:24:13.000 I really don't think it's that simple.

02:24:15.000 Let's use a more realistic term, a billionaire that wants, you know, a multi-billionaire that wants to give $10 million.

02:24:23.000 Like Bill Gates or someone like that.

02:24:24.000 Someone like that, yeah.

02:24:25.000 Is it inconceivable that there aren't a whole bunch of those people out there that would just be looking for good government?

02:24:36.000 And just be looking to back the candidate of their choice based on what it was they were saying?

02:24:43.000 Right.

02:24:44.000 I don't think it's inconceivable at all.

02:24:46.000 But just let's all know who that contributor was and how much money they gave.

02:24:51.000 Well, I understand that, the transparency aspect.

02:24:54.000 That sort of makes sense.

02:24:56.000 But boy, having one person that influences politics that much is concerning.

02:25:01.000 It concerns people.

02:25:02.000 And I think rightly so, because someone who has that much money They're already in this very strong, advantageous position.

02:25:11.000 And the only reason why you would rationally give someone a billion dollars is if you thought that it was going to be an advantage to you.

02:25:18.000 You were going to somehow or another reap the rewards of giving them that money.

02:25:21.000 Yeah, good government.

02:25:23.000 So I'd never been involved in politics before running for governor of New Mexico.

02:25:29.000 Never.

02:25:29.000 You're a businessman, successful businessman?

02:25:31.000 Never even pounded in a campaign sign.

02:25:34.000 Well, how did I get elected?

02:25:35.000 Well, I paid for my own campaign.

02:25:38.000 My primary, this is going to sound really cheap, but my primary the first time was $540,000.

02:25:45.000 510 of it was mine.

02:25:47.000 What was your motivation?

02:25:49.000 Just good government.

02:25:50.000 The notion of life and what do you do with your life.

02:25:54.000 For me, my entire life, politics, I viewed it as a high calling.

02:26:01.000 The notion of being in a position to make things better.

02:26:05.000 Look, I'm the first person to also admit that if you had people lined up or if you asked, how many are going to line up here to say Gary Johnson was the scourge of the earth?

02:26:16.000 Hey, you know, there'd be lines, blocks long out here.

02:26:20.000 I get it.

02:26:21.000 I get it.

02:26:21.000 But you try and do that.

02:26:22.000 What would their main criticism be?

02:26:24.000 No, I don't think you'd actually have that happen.

02:26:27.000 But there's always criticism, regardless of what you do.

02:26:31.000 And the motivation for what I've done, always, is to make things better.

02:26:35.000 But there are always people that have something contrary to say.

02:26:41.000 No matter what you do.

02:26:42.000 No matter what you do.

02:26:43.000 I mean, you could write an article about soccer and you're going to have 100 people mad at you.

02:26:46.000 Well, so I didn't have to go out and raise any money.

02:26:49.000 I gave the money to myself.

02:26:51.000 Well, why can't you extend that argument and say that if somebody would have given me, if one person would have given me that same $510,000, that that person wouldn't have changed the, okay, my contributor that gave me $150,000 for good government.

02:27:08.000 Well, he had the ability to write, you know, he had the ability to give $510,000 and essentially get me elected.

02:27:17.000 Wouldn't that have been...

02:27:18.000 Isn't that a good thing?

02:27:20.000 Well, it's only a good thing if it's a good guy.

02:27:22.000 Well, right.

02:27:22.000 But we don't know that it's a good guy.

02:27:24.000 We just know it's a rich guy.

02:27:25.000 And the amount of influence that one rich person has is very problematic to regular people.

02:27:30.000 And should be part of the equation on the analysis of is this having an impact and who is it and how much money have they given, which currently...

02:27:39.000 These super PACs, 100% non-transparent.

02:27:43.000 But do you think that transparency protects you from influence?

02:27:46.000 If it is transparent and you have one of the Koch brothers giving all the money up, even if it's transparent, you know what the hell their motivation is.

02:27:54.000 They want to continue to extract massive amounts of money, right?

02:27:57.000 Well, if it's one person that's giving all the money, then there's that much more scrutiny that goes along with that person giving that much more money.

02:28:05.000 And you'd have to think...

02:28:09.000 That the influence wouldn't be as blatant as it was if it was completely non-transparent.

02:28:15.000 Yeah, I'm a little skeptical.

02:28:17.000 That's all right.

02:28:18.000 That's okay.

02:28:19.000 What did you think when the Supreme Court made the decision to allow corporations to donate as if they were individuals?

02:28:24.000 It doesn't make much sense to me.

02:28:26.000 No.

02:28:26.000 It doesn't make much sense.

02:28:27.000 What do you think the motivation was for that, though?

02:28:30.000 Why would they pass something like that?

02:28:33.000 You know, I'm too far in the weeds.

02:28:36.000 But they did it, and it just doesn't make any sense.

02:28:39.000 It's kind of creepy, though, isn't it?

02:28:40.000 A little.

02:28:41.000 Yeah, I think so.

02:28:42.000 I like what you're saying.

02:28:43.000 I really like this idea of abolishing the IRS, a consumption tax.

02:28:47.000 I love the idea of...

02:28:48.000 Check out the fair tax.

02:28:50.000 I will.

02:28:50.000 Check out the fair tax.

02:28:51.000 And there are no fair taxes, but like I say, dot the I's and cross the T's on how you accomplish one federal consumption tax.

02:28:59.000 To wrap this up, I'm just going to give you the floor.

02:29:01.000 Just sell it.

02:29:03.000 Sell it to the American people. 1.00

02:29:04.000 What is wrong?

02:29:05.000 What can be fixed?

02:29:06.000 And what can Gary Johnson do to fix this thing?

02:29:08.000 Well, I want to make a pitch for myself, and that is that I think I really am a unique package.

02:29:14.000 I am fiscally conservative.

02:29:17.000 I I'm as frugal a human being as you've ever met, but that doesn't mean that I'm cheap.

02:29:24.000 It just means that I spend my money wisely.

02:29:26.000 I got to serve as governor of New Mexico for two terms.

02:29:30.000 I served as governor of New Mexico for two terms as a Republican in a state that's two-to-one Democrat.

02:29:37.000 I got re-elected by a bigger margin the second time than the first time, made a name for myself as a real government skeptic, vetoing legislation.

02:29:45.000 I may have vetoed more legislation than the other 49 governors in the country combined.

02:29:51.000 Coupled with that, I'm socially tolerant, socially liberal.

02:29:56.000 Look, you and I should be able to make decisions in our own lives that only affect our own lives as long as those decisions don't adversely affect others.

02:30:07.000 And then there is a very real terrorist threat out there.

02:30:10.000 It exists.

02:30:12.000 But I do believe that our military interventions have resulted in making situations worse, not better.

02:30:19.000 So I'm a real skeptic when it comes to government and the fact that government is too big.

02:30:26.000 I've been an entrepreneur my entire life.

02:30:29.000 I know what it is to hire and fire.

02:30:32.000 I know what it is to share in the profits and what a magic formula that is, that when you share in the profits, amazingly, the profit pie grows significantly.

02:30:44.000 We're good to go.

02:31:04.000 Look, things go wrong all the time.

02:31:06.000 You can crawl up on the couch.

02:31:08.000 You can declare yourself a victim.

02:31:10.000 You can give up or you can recognize that that's just part of life and wake up the next day with a smile on your face and continue to move forward and just do your best.

02:31:21.000 I've told the truth.

02:31:24.000 I think it's really hard to do any damage to somebody who's willing to tell the truth regardless of the consequences.

02:31:29.000 And then I admit mistakes.

02:31:31.000 I think mistakes have a way of so compounding themselves just because people don't acknowledge those mistakes.

02:31:38.000 So given this pitch, all I want to do is just get in the polls that determines who is in the presidential debates.

02:31:50.000 I think that if I'm in the presidential debates, I have an opportunity of actually winning because of this package that you've allowed me to present here today, Joe.

02:32:01.000 Thank you.

02:32:02.000 I appreciate you coming on, sir.

02:32:03.000 I really do.

02:32:04.000 It was very enjoyable talking to you.

02:32:06.000 And I hope you win, man.

02:32:08.000 I really do.

02:32:08.000 I hope you at the very least make enough headway to get people paying attention to you and to get into the polls and just to listen to your message.

02:32:19.000 I think?

02:32:23.000 I think?

02:32:35.000 25 million people because he's in the debate, so we better pick up a little bit on what he has to say, because they're going to see some sense in it also.

02:32:44.000 Anyway, thank you again.

02:32:44.000 Gary Johnson, ladies and gentlemen.

02:32:46.000 Thank you very much, sir.

02:32:47.000 Really appreciate it.

02:32:48.000 Thank you.

02:32:49.000 Thank you.

The Joe Rogan Experience - May 17, 2016

Joe Rogan Experience #801 - Gary Johnson

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