33 Reasons to Vote for Trump - Bill Ackman
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Summary
Bill Ackman is one of the most successful investors in the history of capitalism. He s a partner at Pershing Square and has invested in some of the biggest companies in the world, including Uber and Chipotle. But over the course of the last year, he s become increasingly involved in American politics and cultural debates, which has drawn him a lot of flack.
Transcript
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I truly believed that Trump had said that the neo-Nazis and the white
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nationalists were among the very fine people who were protesting and it takes
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about two minutes to actually watch what he said to realize that he said
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precisely the opposite. That's the moment when you realize oh my god I really have
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been misled by the media. We have two candidates it's Trump or Kamala. I think
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it's a very different world if it's Trump versus Kamala and I prefer the world
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under Trump. I saw a tweet from our friend and a former guest on the show
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called Bridget Phetasy. We fear deep down he's not going to let go of the reins
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four years from now and after January the 6th whatever you think happened on that
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day sure that is a doubt in people's minds how can you assuage people who are
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concerned? Bill you're one of the most successful investors in the history of
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capitalism you've got a beautiful family have everything a man could want and
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over the course of last year for some reason you've decided to get heavily
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involved in American politics cultural debates which has drawn you quite a lot
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Thinking behind it is really beginning with the first part I feel like I'm one
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of the most fortunate people in the world and with good fortune comes
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responsibility and I care about the country care about society care about
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the world and to the extent you know I have I've also always been a very big
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believer in speaking freely about things that are important and this Twitter
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post you know X thing platform kind of grew and enables me to reach a large
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number of people and I actually started to realize I can influence to some extent
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the discussion and ultimately perhaps policy and outcome actually had some
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experience with that before October 7th and it just sort of got got me more
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motivated after. But was it October 7th that made you go okay I need to get
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really heavily involved here? It wasn't like a conscious thing it was a natural
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thing actually I was pretty active posting about the Ukraine war and about
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child sex trafficking and you porn and if you go back in time there have been a
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series of issues that I felt passionate about so this was obviously
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something I felt passionately about. And Bill if you looked at America as a
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company do you think it's actually in a healthy state is it something that you
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would want to invest in? Yeah so we invest in great businesses at a time when
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they've lost their way so they're cheap we're getting it at an attractive
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valuation and we think we can play a role in helping fix it. I think the United
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States is it you can think of it as a big business in some sense of course it's a
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big economy it's a big country but it's at a vulnerable place and if the extent you
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know what we try to do is bring in the right leader to turn around a
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challenging situation you know Chipotle series of food safety issues we took a
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stake in the company we joined the board we helped recruit a new CEO we did a
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fabulous job so yes it kind of fits the Pershing Square active activist
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playbook yes. Well so using that metaphor why has it lost its way what what is it
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what is this country not doing correctly? Sure it's it's not dissimilar to
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enormously profitable businesses and you think back in time of these sort of
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iconic companies like Kodak or IBM which were so dominant but when
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businesses get so dominant and profitable they also can get lazy they can get
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inefficient bureaucracy can grow people as you know the board gets complacent the
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shareholders aren't paying attention the CEO spends too much time on the golf
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course they end up you know not hiring the right people and they and they lose
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their way and the same thing of course can happen to a country and I think we
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suffer from our success to some extent. Since you've got involved over the last
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year what has been your diagnosis when you drill down into the things that are
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going wrong because look objectively October 7th or something happened in
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another country sure so why that would spring you into action is perhaps not
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clear for for everyone to see. Yeah so the October 7th obviously it was not a
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terrorist attack in Israel that got me interested in being involved in the
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discussion here it was the response the terrorist attack in Israel that began on
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really in a very apparent way on the campus of a university I used to attend
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right it was the morning of October 8th when 34 Harvard student organizations
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wrote a letter saying Israel was solely responsible for Hamas's barbaric acts and
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that was while the terrorist activities were underway it's sort of like while the
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buildings were collapsing they're out you know supporting Osama bin Laden and that
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to me was a massive wake-up call. I remember the same thing happening with me as a
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not an American being actually abroad seeing people celebrating as the towers
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were coming down there is a lot of hatred in the world how do you think that has
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come to America though because that is quite unusual. What I came to learn is it
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really came through whether it was the importation of an ideology or the
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expression of an ideology that began perhaps in university classrooms you know
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sort of a modern-day version of Marxist ideology you know this oppressor
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oppressed narrative and you know wasn't it well it was to some extent the
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capitalist versus the proletariat but really was about successful people
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successful countries against people who were deemed to be oppressed and that
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narrative you know Israel became kind of center stage in that sort of narrative or
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ideology. And Bill if we use it sort of the company metaphor America really
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reminds me of Disney which is embraced all this DEI stuff and is rapidly driving
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its company into the ground I mean that's basically what seems to be
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happening here isn't it? I think that's one of the proximate causes you know
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America has always been about excellence and competition and land of
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opportunity and if you work hard and you can succeed and once it becomes about
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allocating resources based on what's deemed to be equity as determined by some you
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know subset of people it loses a lot of the American spirit and entrepreneurship you
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know this is supposed to be I'm huge believer in equality of opportunity spent a
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lot of time resources etc trying to improve quality of opportunity is not
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perfect in the United States by any means but this was a movement toward a
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quality of outcome where the conclusion was if you know a business or or a
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university or some kind of outcome of a test or mathematics generally led to an
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outcome that was not representative of society at large from racial gender
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sexual identity perspective and it was deemed to be structurally racist in some
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form and that kind of ideology I think is dangerous and I really knew nothing
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about it to be honest before October 7th it wasn't until I started you know
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learning yeah. And Bill what do you think will happen if this ideology remains
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unchecked? What do you think is the end goal? Well you know one of the points I've made is if you want to
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undermine another country you know convince people that the country's evil convince
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them that there's structural racism that the majority class has if you will taken
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advantage of and hurt the sort of minority class and that leads to infighting and you
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know deterioration of progress you know civil war perhaps you know so it you know the
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end point is grim I mean it's a bit like the end point of Marxism socialism is not you know
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people die millions and millions of people die societies are destroyed you know so
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that's the the grim sort of outcome I do think we've rebounded from the bottom but
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we were heading in that direction and it's still unresolved I think the election of
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course plays an important role on this issue. What are your data points for saying
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we've rebounded because I actually do agree with you but I'm curious to see what
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you think is the evidence for that? I would say in my world this was something
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that was not I would say center stage and it was not something that people felt
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comfortable talking openly about I think one of the things I did is I wrote this
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5600 word piece on DEI that was spread around 40 million views or so and I think it
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you know my my followership if you will includes a lot of CEOs of companies and
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media organizations and I think I elevated I made a conversation that needed to
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happen that started to happen in a much more open format and people started
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examining some of these principles and then you've seen of course reversals of a
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number of these policies in the business community and various universities the New
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York Times wrote a piece in the last week about DEI you know the failure of DEI at
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University of Michigan which has invested 250 million dollars in a program that's led
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to actually it sounds like more racism more uncomfortable feelings on campus and a decline
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in free speech you know so if the New York Times is writing that story I would say that's
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a moment for sure. Do you feel that corporate America is sort of on your side of the argument
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like most people were kind of in the position where you were you it's not something you were
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aware of necessarily and then things started happening that made people notice and now
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they've kind of gone well there's two positions here one is sanity the other isn't I'm going
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to go with science do you feel that's what's happening? Well I would say I thought DEI was
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you know kind of pro-diversity pro-equity fairness pro-inclusion which uh which all sounded like
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pretty good stuff to me and uh you know building a diverse organization uh you know big believer in
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that uh I certainly want to be fair in the way uh we treat people and then obviously who can argue
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with inclusion you know creating an organization and by the way this is you know I'm talking from
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the business community's uh perspective um but what you know those words were uh kind of the Trojan
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Trojan these are Trojan horse words as I would describe them I think that's much more well understood
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today there's still some debate of people who think that you know there's some people who think
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I'm opposed to diversity and I'm opposed to equity and I'm opposed to inclusion no I mean
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what is inclusion it's you know a business that has a culture where people feel comfortable being
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who they are and where they can succeed equity in my view is about quality of opportunity hugely in
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favor of it but not in favor of a quality of outcome not in favor of allocating resources uh based on
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on race or gender whatever I think yes if one were to find uh you know equally talented
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successful people of one race versus another getting very very disparate outcomes that you
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have to figure out why that's happening um but I do think that there's a lot more understanding of
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what the problems are of what I call the cap you know the the capital letter dei ideology and I think
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that that is what's getting uh revisited and adjusted Bill do you think it's fair to say that in
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the corporate world particularly around these types of conversations there's been a culture of fear
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for sure for sure if you even questioned the dei orthodoxy uh you were deemed to be racist I mean
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it reminds me of the kind of you know the McCarthy era which my parents told me about and you can see
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some clips on on YouTube but where you were basically accused of being a communist um if you
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you know questioned uh Mr. McCarthy's uh accusations uh and there was sort of a moment at which uh people
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sort of woke up from that I think that moment has kind of happened uh with dei people still you know I
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I have been accused of being racist um and uh I do think there are people who you know challenge
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the orth you know when challenge the orthodoxy one of the powerful ways to shut people down is by
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shutting down speech one way to do that is by canceling people or or making the out you know
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making it very expensive for them to challenge the orthodoxy i.e you lose your job uh so I think
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people have been uh and I do think Elon's takeover of Twitter provides a platform uh for kind of
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anonymous speech and also you know a public forum where people can uh you know talk are now talking
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about these issues in a very open way so Bill this is a bit of a provocative question but
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I look at not yourself but some of your colleagues shall we say and we talk about this culture of fear
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but isn't that just a polite way of saying a culture of cowardice there needs to be more people
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to stand up and go no particularly people in positions of power particularly people who've got
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the authority to be able to challenge this and too many people have just capitulated for want of
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a better word or is that an unfair framing I don't think it's unfair and I don't think it's
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really a provocative question either you know look I think the the you know it's a bit like running
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for office right you know the the problem we have in our country is some of the most talented
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people won't run for office because they're in a place where life is good uh you know I can I live
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in a nice home I've got a beautiful family life is good why threaten any of that beauty with the
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headache of being accused of being a racist or saying something that could cause some people to
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uh hate you not like you or worse and I I think that uh discourages people from running for office and
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it discourages people from from seeking out but I think it's really important and in fact the number
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of people that come up to me every day you know walking down the street in a restaurant or whatever
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come up to you look bill thank you so much for saying what I've wanted to say but have not been
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able to say uh you know you're speaking on behalf of all of us now I do think it's important to have
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that group be a larger group but I do feel like I'm speaking on behalf of a very large number of people
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because I hear it literally every day as long as I'm in a public place uh and 99.8 percent of that
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feedback has been positive 99.8 yeah well uh the question I wanted to ask you is you mentioned that the
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most talented people the highest integrity people perhaps the the best people that this country
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produce do not run for office um and very understand I would say in general right you know
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like I was I was a big advocate for Jamie Dimon running for president and I think he would be an
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outstanding president for a whole bunch of reasons yeah um but he's you know he's at the top of his game
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he's you know the best bank ceo ever basically uh and to go into the into the mud of politics to have
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to kind of make your way through the primaries you know get to a place uh where you could be president
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you know they'll it's very challenging on someone's family and uh and if you're used to being something
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pretty close to god it's it's a very ungodly uh practice to get there for sure so it's actually quite
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a selfless act I think to to run for office uh or a very narcissistic one those are the two options
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it seems yes I think the the narcissism overcomes the selflessness that's how it works yeah so that
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being the case I'll take it either way you know I don't care what someone's motives are as long as
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they're the right person yes um I I see what you're saying I guess my question is you thought very
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carefully I think about who to support in this election and you yourself have spoken a number of
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times about some of the things that you believed about Donald Trump for example that you were
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misled about by the mainstream media sure so that's the kind of environment you're really talking about
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right where somebody runs and they immediately become the sort of demon monkey and they're
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completely misrepresented it doesn't mean they don't have flaws but they're misrepresented about
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the things that they say is there a way to change that first and foremost well you need uh
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neutral spaces uh in media uh there was an optimist by the way neutral spaces in media where where those
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uh where you can counteract uh the the I hate I don't want to use the word misinformation because
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that itself has has problems look I don't want to sit here and just be an advertisement uh for x um but
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what's interesting you know someone writes a profile of me on what in some media form I can you know
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within an hour of that article coming out I can you know very specifically fact check rebut address
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uh the issue as could obviously any candidate for office um you know prior to x being sort of this
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neutral platform um you know you you know you send the times a beg them for a correction right in a few
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weeks on quote unquote page 43 in a place no one would read their correction would appear and I think
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the uh the more the public has lost confidence in kind of conventional media the more they're going
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to look to uh empirical voices in podcasting and kind of citizen journalism on x and I do think that's
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a powerful counterpoint um you know the the most powerful moment for many people actually one of them
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for me is I truly believed that Trump had said that the neo-nazis and the white nationalists
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were very fine people were among the very fine people who were protesting and it takes
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about two minutes to actually watch what he said to realize that he said precisely the opposite that
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he condemned he said I'm not talking about the neo-nazis and the white nationalists when he's
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talking about very fine people um and that's the moment when you realize oh my god I really have been
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misled by the media um you look at the 60 minutes uh excerpting that was done of uh you know
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Kamala um and you realize how much you can be manipulated particularly by taped
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and uh excerpted uh media so I really if I'm trying to get to the truth I want to hear the
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voice of the candidate uh untaped unscripted uh without the uh teleprompter because we've got to
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a point now where and I still can't believe this is true where everybody in the democrat party was
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going there's no problem with Joe Biden there's no problem there is no problem with Joe Biden and
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then he brings Vladimir Zelensky to the stage as Vladimir Putin and you go how can how can this
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happen how how has this been allowed to happen and then you clearly look at him and you go that looks
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like someone's granddad who isn't doing particularly well sure you know that that is perhaps the
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greatest scandal in the the history of I would say uh at an administration and the media uh you know
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trying to fool the public um and uh I was very loud on this issue pretty early calling uh for his uh you
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know to step aside because he I did not believe he had the cognitive wherewithal potentially to make
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it through this term let alone be a president for the next four years and I was scolded uh pretty
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aggressively by close friends and family plus people online billiards you know when I would send
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out actual videos you know bill these are corrupted right-wing propaganda sort of videos but I think
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people are believing their own eyes more now in in the AI era you have to be careful when you say
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that of course because it's become even easier to manipulate uh uh content um but I do think people
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are going to go increasingly rely on uh you know this kind of format to get a better understanding of a
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person uh than you know what what gets played on uh MSNBC or CNN or otherwise because by the way that's
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going to force mainstream media you would think to improve I actually think CNN since uh Biden stepped
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down has been one of the better uh kind of you know cable news uh networks you know they have a
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they have a Scott Jennings you know they've got a Republican uh uh protagonist you know debating with
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a you know a Democratic uh influencer you know when they're discussing issues and I think it's much
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more powerful I think it's what the public wants I think the public wants the truth and they understand
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the truth is not only served by uh you know a media organization that has one political posture
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but let's be fair it's a pretty low bar I think it was on the Stephen Colbert show where he was
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talking to one of their journalists or he was I can't remember who he was talking to and he was
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saying oh you know they're a fact-based organization or something along those lines and he got a huge
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laugh from his audience from his audience yeah no I saw that I know you guys are objective over there
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that you just report the news as it is oh I know a CNN makes it I know that's supposed to be a laugh
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line it wasn't supposed to be but uh I guess it is um yeah and you go that's surely the end
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look at the unfortunate thing is that when people buy a media property they think that you know the idea
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is okay now I can control the conversation on an issue I feel strongly about and you know you I'm
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you know I have sort of this naive kind of view that the media should be about getting to the
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truth and that people who go into journalism should not just be political advocates they
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should be people interested in investigative journalism let's get to the truth and the
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media has an incredibly important role to play and uh you know serving the people the truth I
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mean you think about uh going back to the Marxism socialism discussion right how did the Soviet Union
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keep control over its people one they shut down free speech and two they control the media
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uh they control the propaganda organization yeah so one of the questions that we wanted to ask you
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bill is that all being the case you've come out as a supporter of Donald Trump or at least you support
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him in this election let's say is that because of all the things that have been debunked and the
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disappointment or is it because you actually think he's a good candidate for this country because
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those are two very different things and I think so many Americans that we speak to are very much stuck
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in between those two positions on the one hand they're really unhappy with many of the things
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they've seen from the Democrats and the media on the other hand not all of them are convinced that
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Donald Trump is you know the perfect president to put it mildly yeah I don't know we've had a perfect
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president uh when I think back to when Reagan uh was running for office and he was widely derided as
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being a stupid actor right uh Clinton had his uh women issues when he was running for office
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you know you know a lot of people uh you know George Bush George W was not viewed as the sharpest
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tool in the you know whatever sure um and uh yeah I I other than JFK who didn't make it through
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because he was assassinated and I'm sure perhaps if he made it through you know he survived he would
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have been he would have done something that people uh he's idealized I think because he was a good
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president but also yeah uh unfortunately because he was assassinated um so you know we're my first
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approach to this election was trying to create alternative choices right so I actually supported
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Nikki Haley uh uh Chris Christie uh spent some time with RFK um actually you know financially supported
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him uh Dean Phillips I got to meet thought he was an interesting guy uh I'm a big believer in
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competition and hoped that that whole system would lead to the I hadn't picked I didn't have my horse
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so I was I was betting on a lot of different horses and and uh I thought for the benefit of the
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American people at large to the extent that we had better competition um you know so my issues are
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are multi-faceted you know among them I think the Democratic Party has massively massively lost its
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way in a very profound way uh you know you could start with misleading the American people about the
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cognitive health of the president but you could also go to the their practices and how they got rid
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of uh alternatives you know RFK you know some combination of litigation not paying for his uh
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not providing him with security um you know the various efforts to keep him off the ballot uh off the
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debate stage you know the used to be that the you know there was seriousness with how the presidential
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debate you know there's certain criteria by which you could become a candidate and uh you could get on
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the debate stage they kept him off the debate stage disrupting really the primary process in a way
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that the scales were tipped and then last minute effectively withdrawing Biden and then there was
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really no process to select the next candidate uh that was an opportunity I you know went on x and said
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look great opportunity for an open primary uh I actually thought what a great opportunity for Jamie
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Diamond to run he doesn't have to go through the you know two years of running for office
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um and let's have a series of debates of of relevant people that didn't happen and then we
00:24:10.180
had a candidate selected in some kind of backroom process by the Democratic Party elites um you know
00:24:16.260
someone who uh was not ranked particularly highly as uh or actually uh maybe the lowest ranked vice
00:24:21.780
president in many many years uh someone who didn't make it through you know kind of dropped out very
00:24:25.160
early when she ran uh you know earlier uh for the presidential office so I that I found disturbing
00:24:31.880
um and then you know if you look at uh the you know one of the best uh you look at the empirical data
00:24:39.140
you look at uh at a state level look at where the crime is look at the mismanaged cities and
00:24:45.140
unfortunately there are basically blue cities you know it's San Francisco it's LA it's Chicago
00:24:48.980
uh to maybe a lesser extent New York um but you know these are where the problems are
00:24:53.440
and you have the whole country moving to Texas and Las Vegas and you know uh uh that's not uh
00:25:00.380
so I I think the the country uh is realizing that the Democratic Party has kind of lost its way
00:25:06.040
so that makes me less excited about supporting a Democratic candidate kind of generally but what
00:25:10.640
we have here is we have an election we have two candidates it's Trump or Kamala I think it's a
00:25:15.540
very different world if it's Trump versus Kamala and I prefer the world under Trump than I do to Kamala
00:25:20.960
and I can walk you through the issues yeah well let's talk about geopolitics because it's something
00:25:24.400
you've talked about yeah that's where it starts for me I think the single biggest threat to the
00:25:28.340
United States uh today is you know some combination of World War III uh and uh you know we're uh we had
00:25:35.980
a relatively we had a very peaceful uh period you know the I think um was it Jake Sullivan who said
00:25:41.140
several days before October 7th that we're in the quietest period in history in the Middle East but um
00:25:46.860
we've had the perception and reality of weakness in the White House and the the all you know the
00:25:54.240
autocrats and the dictators um you know the Putins of the world and the Kim Jong-uns uh and the Iranians
00:26:01.540
or the IRGC uh you know they step into that kind of a breach and I think uh we've had a bad series of
00:26:09.600
foreign policy decisions uh uh beginning with the you know awful withdrawal from Afghanistan basically the
00:26:15.520
abandonment of our partners in Afghanistan and the and by the way if you the Democratic Party presents
00:26:20.500
as the party you know supporting women and Trump's attacked often women issues probably the most
00:26:25.260
damaging uh event for women around the world in the last uh many many years is the way we withdrew from
00:26:32.700
Afghanistan and what the implications were uh for Afghani girls uh and Afghani women uh actually
00:26:38.920
we philanthropically we supported you know airlifting out uh robotics teams and other uh you know young
00:26:46.240
uh women young girls from Afghanistan but you know we took very few and the ones that are left their lives
00:26:52.420
have been horribly harmed and I think that's an incredible stain on the reputation of the United
00:26:56.140
States it sort of begins there maybe even begins even before then when uh Obama allowed Putin to take
00:27:02.420
Crimea with really no um no implications uh so we've kind of had a a weak history until Trump and then
00:27:10.680
we had a period of peace and then we have uh you know the lifting of sanctions on the Iranians you know
00:27:15.940
they have 200 billion dollars now which they've been using to fund their terrorist proxies and I think
00:27:21.920
all this has led to a world on fire and um I think I don't see how that changes uh with Kamala as our
00:27:29.620
president yeah that's that's hard to see exactly so I don't think she's going to be perceived as a
00:27:33.800
strong president and uh I think I think Putin would actually like to end the war I think Trump will give
00:27:38.620
him the opportunity or and or excuse to do so and I think he'll you know he there's some great examples
00:27:44.020
of how Putin managed um you know everything from the Taliban to otherwise and when people take threats
00:27:50.000
from him pretty seriously he's kind of unpredictable and that seems to work uh for foreign policy
00:27:55.020
Bill I think you meant uh Trump not Putin I think you misspoke oh what did they say you did a Biden
00:28:01.580
there so switch out Trump there yeah okay so that's the one issue that's interesting to me you
00:28:09.480
and I've discussed this privately as well I also feel as someone who's like you a big supporter of
00:28:15.500
Ukraine's stand for its independence that Donald Trump is more likely to bring the war to a close
00:28:20.360
do you think it's likely though that he will do so without making Ukraine pay too heavy a price for
00:28:26.680
peace he's I think publicly said his strategy uh is to go to Putin and say look a war needs to end
00:28:33.360
uh and if you don't end the war I'm going to give you know a trillion dollars of weaponry I'm going to
00:28:38.500
you know give Zelensky everything he needs to win uh and that's how he's going to get Putin to
00:28:43.800
move and then he's going to go to Zelensky and say look if you're unreasonable in what your
00:28:47.920
demands are I'm going to withdraw support and so he's in a very you know powerful position to
00:28:52.940
negotiate that kind of deal look Trump looks at the world as a series of negotiations everything's
00:28:58.080
a deal and I think that's kind of why he likes among other reasons why he likes being president
00:29:02.060
and his whole life was about making deals I think he's pretty good at making deals and I think that's
00:29:06.780
how this gets resolved and it will get resolved in a place where you know I think Zelensky and Ukraine
00:29:12.340
won't be you know obviously entirely happy with every element of the outcome uh nor will Putin
00:29:17.740
uh Ukraine needs real security guarantees as opposed to what they've been given in the past
00:29:23.520
um you know maybe there's some kind of uh demilitarized zone um a la you know uh Korea um
00:29:32.760
and but it it's not helpful this war is not helping Putin and I think he'd like to be able to end it
00:29:39.600
in a way that's not damaging to him politically and in Russia and on a global stage and are you
00:29:46.160
concerned if we're looking at geopolitics are you you concerned about China and Taiwan yes I mean
00:29:52.380
you know just in the last 24 hours you know China's uh taking more and more steps kind of showing they
00:29:58.520
can very easily blockade Taiwan so my point is it's a very dangerous world I think this is the single
00:30:04.480
biggest issue uh threatening the United States and the country uh and and really the the globe and
00:30:11.060
that's uh I just think Trump's going to do a better job he's going to be perceived as a much
00:30:14.600
stronger leader he's got a degree of uh unpredictableness which I think is unsettling
00:30:19.780
uh to the Chinese I think it's unsettling to uh to Russia uh I think our uh Trump's uh Middle Eastern
00:30:26.260
policy was vastly superior uh we you know he basically shut uh the you know shut down uh around
00:30:32.800
funding by virtue of you know the uh the sanctions uh Abraham Accords were the most significant progress
00:30:39.460
we've had in the Middle East in in many many decades and there are meaningfully more steps to take and
00:30:44.840
those steps basically were stopped uh so I start on foreign policy I think it's going to be uh I think
00:30:50.280
we'll have peace in the Middle East I think the war in Ukraine will get resolved and uh I think that's
00:30:55.540
the most important thing for the world right now. You think we'll have peace in the Middle East the
00:30:59.020
reason I'm somewhat skeptical Bill is it feels to me and it's interesting because the the weakness that
00:31:05.880
you talk about actually works in both directions I'm pretty confident that for example Benjamin
00:31:11.040
Netanyahu is acting with such panache in this moment let's say precisely because he knows that
00:31:17.560
President Biden isn't going to do anything to restrain him so it almost feels like the conflict has
00:31:22.740
been inflated by that weakness on both sides the Iranians attacked yeah I don't agree I don't agree
00:31:27.520
I think Netanyahu is doing what he needs to to protect his country I think he's made enormous
00:31:31.540
progress in debilitating Hamas and Hezbollah we're going to see what happens to Iran maybe in the next
00:31:37.960
24 48 hours but I think in a matter of days uh and then I think uh I think that has sent a pretty
00:31:45.080
strong message to terrorists uh and I think that's a predicate for peace in the Middle East yeah I don't
00:31:50.420
think we actually disagree I'm not saying that Benjamin Netanyahu shouldn't be protecting his country or
00:31:55.020
eliminating terrorists I just think he wouldn't have if there was a strong democratic president
00:31:59.800
who has every political incentive not to allow him to go to the lengths that he's going yeah I well
00:32:05.960
let's put it I I again I feel a lot better Trump was a much better president for Israel uh than Biden's
00:32:12.060
been I mean they're just again in the last 24 hours there's a story uh that uh Sinwar basically uh told
00:32:18.680
his negotiators uh to hold back on a deal because of his perception that the Israel was losing the
00:32:25.660
support of the United States and that came from uh basically you know Biden withholding weapons and
00:32:30.980
that becoming a public fact and I think Trump will be a much more decisive stronger supporter of our
00:32:36.680
ally uh and that will be peace comes from deterrence and when you show weakness um that's when you have
00:32:43.980
there's a lot of people who are listening to this who are American they go great points Bill but I'll
00:32:50.560
be honest with you I don't really care about geopolitics I'm not saying I advocate for it I'm
00:32:54.340
just saying that we've got serious problems in the U.S. Sure by the way I I said this is a really
00:33:00.580
important issue and I think again if the world blows up in a nuclear holocaust and the domestic
00:33:06.720
problems are relevant right um that's one of my issues yeah right you know number two is probably
00:33:12.600
the way the border has been managed right the reversal of 94 executive orders within days of
00:33:17.820
Biden becoming president uh and the very porous border of unvetted people coming into the country
00:33:23.960
a couple hundred thousand migrants coming to New York you know 20,000 to a city of 40,000 you know in
00:33:29.740
Springfield um and uh you know growing crime in cities uh and I think that's uh very unsettling and
00:33:38.220
damaging to the country and it sets up for you know how many terrorists came into the country how
00:33:43.320
many murders how many uh criminals from Venezuela we don't know uh who they are and what the numbers
00:33:48.640
are and so I'm I'm again I think you know I'm my family came here as immigrants in the 1890s um big
00:33:55.260
believer that immigration is part of the strength of the United States right we get the the most motivated
00:34:00.300
best and brightest entrepreneurs and and people aspiring families from all over the world who come here
00:34:05.920
and want to take their family want to come to a place where there's free speech supposedly and where
00:34:11.100
they can live their lives and the land of opportunity but that I'm a big believer in legal immigration
00:34:16.460
and I think we've allowed illegal immigration to uh get completely out of control and I think that gets
00:34:22.160
resolved on day one of a Trump administration there's all these conspiracy theories about illegal
00:34:28.680
immigration and I understand why we have illegal immigration in the UK it's a legal issue and it's to do
00:34:35.760
with the uh European Court of Human Rights blah blah blah but why is it in America because I I don't
00:34:41.940
understand why there is effectively an open border you even got guns bill yeah yeah look I think uh it's
00:34:48.580
you know the the argument which is you know I would say becomes to sound compelling is that you have one
00:34:54.720
political party who views you know uh these immigrants as potential supporters of a party you know
00:35:01.260
Elon Musk makes the point that you know California was not a definitively democratic uh voting uh state
00:35:08.060
until the uh you know a lot of immigrants came into California and the politics of the state changed
00:35:14.220
you can envision you know Elon Musk makes the argument this is the last election because of the number of
00:35:20.940
migrants that have come in that that if legalized and become voting members of of society if they vote
00:35:27.420
left uh then then we become the United States becomes California politically so I don't I don't have a
00:35:33.740
better argument than that um you know it uh you can be very supportive of immigration and change
00:35:42.220
immigration policies in such a way to allow more people into the country but to do it on an unvetted
00:35:47.580
basis where you're where Texas is putting in barbed wire and the federal government is removing it with
00:35:53.260
uh backhoes it's a very very strange thing to me it's absolutely bizarre because everyone who watches
00:35:59.340
this podcast will now drink my mother's Venezuelan so the Tren de Aragua which is the name of the of
00:36:04.700
the gang they're notorious in Venezuela that people are terrified of them for good reason sure and all
00:36:09.820
of a sudden you see them popping up here and you're going what's going on it's crazy and this I add
00:36:15.340
this to my list of uh grievances against the democratic establishment and I I it to me it's
00:36:23.180
I don't know how viable a democratic party is because when you look at the way they've handled
00:36:31.180
the immigration if a country doesn't have borders if it can't police its borders then it's not a country
00:36:37.180
sure I agree with that so you you think how can they possibly attract voters
00:36:45.500
and the only reason I think they've got a chance is through abortion
00:36:49.820
yes I I do think the border will be one of it's going to be in the top one or two issues
00:36:54.780
for people because it's being felt around the country it's being felt in cities uh and by the way
00:36:59.020
in New York which is a obviously a democratic party stronghold uh I I know many many people that
00:37:05.020
are voting Trump on just this issue alone um because you had a taste of it yeah yeah and by the way it's
00:37:12.060
you know we've taking in 200 000 migrants in a city of 11 million you know that's a two percent
00:37:18.460
move in the population well think about the small towns around the country small cities where now a
00:37:23.900
third of the population are uh you know immigrants that maybe don't have the economic wherewithal to
00:37:29.980
take care of themselves or uh using up uh you know available local resources I think it it's it
00:37:36.620
creates resentment you know it's not good for the country and to be clear that you're not making
00:37:41.340
this up I mean when I was in LA I have a Russian name and all the Uber drivers and the Lyft drivers
00:37:46.300
in LA are Armenian so they speak Russian they don't know who I am they start talking to me the ones that
00:37:50.860
came in the 80s and 90s they all came legally the ones that have come more recently I mean one of the
00:37:55.500
guy was telling me how he smuggled his 83 year old father in a wheelchair through the southern border
00:38:00.700
and you're going that doesn't seem to me like a secure border you know what I mean uh but moving
00:38:06.140
on a bit Bill I think one of the interesting things to discuss um given your financial expertise and
00:38:12.140
background is the economic situation one of the things that I don't think people are either they're
00:38:18.700
not concerned or they don't understand or for some reason maybe I'm the idiot and I don't understand why
00:38:23.740
it's not important but the fact that almost every western country is is at a hundred percent debt to GDP or
00:38:30.060
more that seems to me like kind of a problem am I wrong about this so it's less of a problem for
00:38:36.780
United States and other countries because we pay our debts on our own we can print money to pay our
00:38:41.020
obligations um but it's part of the mismanagement you know one of going back to your early question
00:38:45.660
what do you look for you know great businesses can access the bond market uh on very attractive
00:38:51.580
terms and the bond market's usually a uh when you lose the confidence of the bond market that's when
00:38:56.940
you know companies are ultimately threatened the United States has this sort of privilege
00:39:01.580
of being able to issue unlimited amounts of debt uh is that true Bill can you print money forever with
00:39:06.700
no repercussions no and that's what I'm getting at we're not approaching that point where it's like
00:39:11.260
the scary part is we don't know what that threshold is right before the globe decides to not trust the
00:39:16.540
United States now uh the Federal Reserve is cutting interest rates um and they can control you know
00:39:22.700
uh the kind of short end of the curve if you will with uh monetary policy but longer term bond interest
00:39:28.700
rates are creeping up which is kind of an interesting uh sort of phenomenon um but you know typically when
00:39:35.180
there's you know enormous amounts of securities being issued uh you know the the the uh the yield on
00:39:42.860
those securities has to go up in order to accommodate uh you know to meet the demand from the from the
00:39:48.380
parties and it's a threat to the country look it's a threat already because we're spending on interest
00:39:53.420
expense what it costs to defend the country and the kind of long-term history of companies our country
00:39:58.140
spending more on interest expense than on defense it has not ended well how would you fix this problem
00:40:03.900
if you are concerned about the direction of travel it seems to me that politically it's almost
00:40:09.260
unfixable because the public will not tolerate significant cuts on expenditure because it will make
00:40:15.260
their lives worse and that doesn't seem to be the sense of like we're all one people we need to come
00:40:20.220
together and deal with this issue because it's really pressing sure so how do you solve this sure
00:40:24.540
so the um what you think about with uh there are two ways to resolve debt one way is to cut expenses yeah
00:40:33.500
uh another way is to grow revenues but ultimately you need to grow the value of the asset that the debt
00:40:39.580
secured by to make the leverage comfortable that's one way to think about it and so the trump approach is
00:40:45.340
i'm going to i'm going to accelerate the growth of the country and uh the way i'm going to do that
00:40:49.500
is one i'm going to eliminate a lot of regulations that are holding back uh that make make no sense and
00:40:56.220
are actually holding back economic progress and if you think about how long it takes to build a bridge
00:41:00.380
in the united states or build a building or even build a home and the nature of the approvals you have
00:41:04.300
to get and the number of government agencies uh you know they're you look at the uh the biden
00:41:09.740
administration right the uh 42 billion dollars for rural uh internet access and no one's been
00:41:16.780
connected and it's been years right seven or eight billion dollars for a dozen charging stations
00:41:23.340
uh so the government is you know touristy inefficient and then you have all of the
00:41:27.900
again all the regulatory so i think one uh a master review of all the regulatory
00:41:32.460
kind of quagmire uh and you know set up the country efficiently um two i think bring you know
00:41:38.620
having elon musk as your partner in this enterprise i think is a huge humrun right so when was the last
00:41:44.140
time we heard about a presidential candidate talking about cutting waste in government
00:41:47.660
so having a department of government uh efficiency i think makes tremendous sense so eliminate waste no
00:41:53.660
one likes waste uh accelerate growth um uh and among that reduce the cost of energy which is embedded in
00:42:01.980
the cost of everything and we grow our way we grow our way and we improve our efficiency uh way out of the
00:42:09.420
problem and that's and that's how we do it and the united states kind of unleashed right this is still
00:42:13.900
the most entrepreneurial nation in the world yes uh ai is this incredibly powerful technology that uh is
00:42:19.820
going to be transformative and i think that's how we're going to solve the problem we solve it with
00:42:24.060
growth and efficiency and imagine how much more gets done how many more people get employed how much
00:42:29.180
wages ultimately go up in a world in which uh it's easier to get things done because there are a lot of
00:42:35.740
people who want to build things want to build houses want to start companies uh want to grow their
00:42:41.420
businesses that are being held back by the way that our very inefficient government oversees the country
00:42:47.420
you say no one likes waste and i think i know what you mean i would argue that the people who
00:42:52.140
benefit from all of this bureaucracy and corruption and uh you know we talked we started talking about
00:42:58.620
dei i mean di in government is a huge industry and none of those people want to cut waste because that's
00:43:04.700
that's their salary i i hear you uh but uh i don't think there's a lot of sympathy for people who are
00:43:10.300
benefiting by waste yeah and uh you know the the result will be a much more efficient effective
00:43:16.220
uh economy you know there's a book i think it's called bullshit jobs i think we have a lot of
00:43:21.020
bullshit jobs unfortunately in government and i think we need to eliminate them you know it you
00:43:26.860
look at the education system it hasn't changed in you know 100 years the typical schoolhouse one
00:43:33.660
teacher gets up in front of a group of students it's you know we're spending uh you know enormous
00:43:39.100
amounts of money particularly in you know our cities i heard a number today we spent a hundred you know
00:43:42.940
a third of was two-thirds of the budget uh for the for for uh new york state on education some some
00:43:49.740
number like this some crazy number you must be getting great educational results bill of course
00:43:53.820
the results uh uh aren't working so that by the way ai is going to be a very powerful technology and
00:43:58.620
custom tailoring education for each kid each kid's progress um so i just think we have to we're
00:44:05.420
introducing technology into the corporate landscape in a way that's making businesses more efficient
00:44:09.820
we haven't looked at introducing technology in government to make government more efficient
00:44:14.140
i couldn't imagine a better person than elon musk uh to help uh with that but isn't that going to be
00:44:19.900
an almighty battle because you're not just dealing which is the constantine's question alluded to
00:44:25.900
let's be fair it's not just the people who benefit from it you're fighting against an ideology
00:44:31.100
which is why you need a trump type president to do it uh one he's not he can't get re-elected this is
00:44:36.620
his second term uh he's got four years to make it happen and he doesn't care um and i think you
00:44:42.300
need someone who's independent enough to be able to execute on this you know if you compare to
00:44:47.420
vice president harris well this is her first term she's going to want to get re-elected she's going
00:44:51.420
to be beholden to the to the system that's another reason to support trump let's talk about trump's
00:44:57.500
divisiveness because i don't think you know when people talk about his divisiveness it is a fair
00:45:02.380
point especially when you look at his behavior towards the end of his term people will go this
00:45:08.060
is not what a presidential candidate should be he's inflammatory he's divisive his language is
00:45:15.100
it's unpleasant let's be honest about it and he and he inflames situations where
00:45:20.220
it doesn't that doesn't need to happen you know trump walked into a stadium
00:45:24.700
uh over the weekend and the entire stadium was chanting usa usa usa um i haven't seen that happen
00:45:33.340
for uh president presidential you know presidents normally or politicians normally get booed in
00:45:38.860
stadiums or they get ignored uh so i think i do think there is uh you know i think he has enormous
00:45:45.180
support um i and i think it's become it's even more challenging today to say publicly that you support
00:45:53.020
trump which means that the polls i think really understate uh his his performance and i think
00:45:58.380
the best thing for the country is a landslide of victory uh where he takes uh you know the vast
00:46:03.740
majority of electoral you know reagan style electoral college victory who knows i know who knows whether
00:46:08.460
that can happen or not and that will uh empower him you know if you think about the first time he was
00:46:13.180
under siege from the day he walked into the oval office uh by the media by uh you know the russian uh collusion
00:46:22.700
allegation um and he also didn't expect to be president you know the poll said 92 percent uh
00:46:29.740
you know clinton was going to win um and he was unprepared he didn't know who he could trust and
00:46:35.980
now he's had four years of experience uh i also think he's a try i think you look at the who is the
00:46:42.780
uh vice president harris team right on trump's side we have trump we have musk we have rfk we have
00:46:50.140
tulsa gabbard we have vivek ramaswani these are actually very very capable people that have kind
00:46:55.260
of joined the team and once he actually wins i think a lot more very capable people are going to
00:47:00.620
sign up and i think if you look at the issues that they're focused on musk is focused on everything
00:47:05.740
from regulation to government efficiency to waste and cutting costs and he's obviously pretty good
00:47:10.220
at that he let go 80 percent of x and it's a much more highly functioning better product today
00:47:16.220
um you know kennedy's going to focus on uh you know corruption pharma uh you know making america's
00:47:23.580
healthy these are i think critical issues for the country by the way part of the reason why uh our
00:47:27.980
budget's out of balance is we have such an unhealthy populace we spend an absolute fortune as you know on
00:47:33.820
health care and we have the worst health outcomes of any you know major country in the world uh if we
00:47:38.860
can change that uh that alone um you know we're gonna save an enormous amounts of money francis may i jump
00:47:44.860
in very briefly just to press this point with you i saw a tweet from our friend and a former guest on
00:47:51.260
the show called bridget fetus she's a comedian and commentator and she wrote a piece about how she's
00:47:57.020
hesitant to vote for either presidential candidate and took a lot of flag for it and she said let me say
00:48:02.460
it in terms the reason suburban moms like me are concerned about voting for trump is we fear deep down
00:48:10.220
he's not going to let go of the reins four years from now and after january the 6th whatever you
00:48:16.060
think happened on that day sure that is a doubt in people's minds how can you assuage people who are
00:48:20.700
concerned uh so one he's gonna be 82 years old uh two i actually think he's not a bad guy okay i've
00:48:26.700
actually spent some time with trump uh he doesn't want to i i don't think he wants to be it first of
00:48:33.100
all the system is stronger than any one president right they're not going to allow someone all of a
00:48:37.100
sudden to take over america we're going to give up our 250 year history and we're going to go to
00:48:41.020
a dictatorship it's just not going to happen um and uh look he's got a very capable vice president
00:48:47.100
that i'm sure has aspirations ultimately to be president or i think the next generation of
00:48:51.500
leadership uh is going to be very strong one uh and he can go off into the sunset still be relevant
00:48:58.060
i think an 82 year old who was uh formerly president is going to want to be relevant he'll be
00:49:02.620
relevant as long as he's healthy uh at that point in time but that's not i don't think that's a real
00:49:06.700
risk you know the um the system if he wanted to be a dictator um he would have had a second term
00:49:15.260
but he did you know there was a peaceful transfer of power on january 20th and i'm glad actually
00:49:20.860
constantin brought up the the kind of the point of view from a woman because how big an issue is
00:49:28.620
abortion going to be when it comes for particularly female voters voting republican sure so look the
00:49:34.780
supreme court has decided you know on the uh on the issue uh it's a state level issue uh technology i
00:49:42.220
think is helpful and that we now have an abortion pill that's legal everywhere um you know yes i guess
00:49:47.660
in a harris administration you'll have the opportunity for later term abortions in the seventh eighth or
00:49:52.540
ninth month uh i i don't know that that's uh an issue that you know there's some people that this is their
00:49:59.260
entire issue and that um but i don't think that's the bulk of the country i think the bulk of the
00:50:03.820
country actually believes that a woman should have the right to have an abortion earlier in her term
00:50:09.820
and that is you know certainly possible uh going forward and uh a new president is going to have a
00:50:16.060
hard time reversing uh the supreme court's decision in any case so by the way trump is actually uh on this
00:50:23.580
point made very clear that one he's in favor of abortion event of incest health of the mother uh
00:50:29.980
you know for example rape um and that he said he you know uh said and posted that he would not sign a
00:50:36.380
federal abortion bill before we ask you our final question and move over to substack where our fans
00:50:41.740
get to ask you their questions sure you talked about jamie dynamo what about bill ackman is blackman
00:50:46.540
ever going to run for president not for now oh that is a scoop right there look i think the good news
00:50:54.220
is like i'm excited about the next uh kind of generational leadership that's showing up i think
00:50:58.860
for example glenn youngkin uh has done i think an excellent job as governor virginia obviously has
00:51:03.660
aspirations to be president uh i've gotten to know him briefly i think he'd be outstanding uh i'd only do
00:51:08.620
it if there was no one better um and i'm very confident it's gonna be someone better that's a
00:51:13.580
politician's answer so you know he's ready all right bill the question we always end our interviews
00:51:17.980
with the main section before we go over to substack is what's the one thing we're not talking about as
00:51:29.740
i like what's interesting that we're not talking about is that um progress compounding is one of the
00:51:38.300
most powerful forces in the world and that if we can actually change the growth trajectory of the
00:51:43.900
united states instead of growing at you know these very low single-digit growth you know two percent
00:51:50.220
or two and a half percent which is you know kind of what we've achieved in the last you know number
00:51:54.460
of decades and we can take that to three and a half four percent the implications for the poor for meeting our
00:52:02.300
obligations for scientific advancement uh for uh national defense for a safer world uh are very very
00:52:11.660
powerful and uh it sounds like such a small difference um but you know with the passage of time
00:52:19.340
you know uh you know one that's one of the powerful forces that you learn about when you're in my
00:52:23.100
industry i'd love to see it apply uh in the government so i'm excited about a trump musk uh uh administration
00:52:31.660
and by the i i credit to trump you know i think the other point i would make here uh and i do think
00:52:37.180
this is a really important election um is that you know strong leaders are not afraid to bring on
00:52:44.620
talented people uh and work alongside them you know jd vance is an extremely intelligent articulate
00:52:52.140
debater you know compare tim waltz uh in terms of i would say mental acuity talent
00:53:02.060
life achievement uh versus jd vance so i think that speaks to what the leadership team will look
00:53:07.820
like in a trump administration and i'm excited about it bill akman thanks for coming on trigonometry
00:53:12.780
head on over to our substack now to hear bill answer your questions does he think we're watching the
00:53:19.340
two parties switch roles as democrats increasingly represent niche cultural elites while republicans at
00:53:26.060
least prepare pretend to care about blue-collar workers who've been left behind