TRIGGERnometry - May 17, 2023


Dan Crenshaw： Fortitude in the Era of Grievance


Episode Stats

Length

52 minutes

Words per Minute

200.44853

Word Count

10,517

Sentence Count

390

Misogynist Sentences

6

Hate Speech Sentences

13


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.720 I'm saying learn unemotionally, stay, keep your heart out of it, because it's not developed.
00:00:07.640 Put your head in it a little bit.
00:00:09.160 I'll get some pushback sometimes.
00:00:10.380 Kids will be like, how could I not be mad?
00:00:12.200 And I'm like, you're making my point for me.
00:00:14.280 People have a real misunderstanding of basic civics, who holds power up here, what kind
00:00:19.380 of powers we have as congressmen.
00:00:21.580 They simultaneously want government out of their lives, while you also be a dictator
00:00:24.740 and do what they want.
00:00:25.800 And how do we heal the rift between left and right?
00:00:28.600 Because the reality is you need to work together in order to have a cohesive country, don't you?
00:00:35.700 That's tough.
00:00:36.860 I do think, I think objectively the left has moved way, way further off the spectrum than the right has.
00:00:41.660 The right's gotten angrier, but I'm not so sure how our policies have shifted dramatically.
00:00:45.600 You noted before how victimhood and outrage has been elevated in our society, unfortunately on both sides.
00:00:52.140 I think the right did it to match the left.
00:00:54.100 You've got to fight fire with fire, right?
00:00:56.060 I'm like, what fire have you ever put out with fucking fire?
00:01:09.640 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry on the Road from the USA.
00:01:14.140 I'm Francis Foster.
00:01:15.460 I'm Constantine Kissin.
00:01:16.360 And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.
00:01:21.200 Our terrific guest today is Navy SEAL, best-selling author, and the congressman from the great state of Texas.
00:01:26.940 I've always wanted to say that.
00:01:28.360 Dan Crenshaw, welcome to Trigonometry.
00:01:29.860 Thanks for having me.
00:01:30.900 It's a real pleasure.
00:01:32.000 Thank you for letting us take over your office.
00:01:34.020 I mentioned that you are a best-selling author.
00:01:36.820 And actually, your book, Fortitude, is one of the things we really wanted to talk about.
00:01:40.400 You talk about the fact that you lost your mom when you were 10 years old, watched her pass away from cancer.
00:01:47.240 Then you skip forward.
00:01:48.820 You become a Navy SEAL.
00:01:49.880 You go out on deployment, you get injured, and the fortitude of dealing with all of that.
00:01:55.200 And that contrasts so sharply with the culture that we now seem to live in.
00:01:59.500 What is it like for you with your life experience watching people freak out and melt down over tiny little things all the time?
00:02:06.100 Yeah, geez, where do we begin?
00:02:07.540 So one of the chapters in that book is called Perspectives from Darkness.
00:02:12.660 And the whole point of that book is it's not like a political book.
00:02:15.560 It's not even a book about Navy SEALs.
00:02:17.360 It's not even really a book about my life.
00:02:18.720 I mean, there's a confluence of themes that sort of, you know, create this sort of multifactorial explanation of the mental sense of fortitude.
00:02:27.520 But you've got to start somewhere.
00:02:29.820 So where do you start?
00:02:30.360 Well, a little perspective might help.
00:02:32.280 And people, I think, are objectively more upset just in general.
00:02:36.800 Like, he's angry and fragile and, like, deeply fragile than, you know, years past.
00:02:43.660 And maybe that's, like, the natural tendency of civilization.
00:02:47.240 And, you know, to some extent, that's okay.
00:02:48.720 like we don't need you to be hard as nails it's kind of the point of civilizing but you have we
00:02:54.380 have come to a point where maybe it's it's been overdone a little bit and we complain a little
00:02:58.720 too much about things that we shouldn't be complaining about and so it's healthy
00:03:01.860 just i mean just you don't even have to look that that far back in time um maybe it's maybe it's
00:03:08.440 past generations maybe it's just a few years ago maybe it's just comparing yourself to somebody
00:03:11.940 else's situation and think you know what maybe it's comparing yourself to your own situation
00:03:16.240 10 years ago and you're like you know what i've been through something harder than this let me
00:03:19.060 let me get through this too i don't need to be triggered by this um i i you know somebody else
00:03:24.100 dealt with what i'm dealing with now and and they performed way better than i'm than i am now
00:03:29.240 right that's like a key lesson in perspective um we hear it all the time in buds you know they'll
00:03:35.500 say like look you guys are you guys are looking pretty miserable but you know what there's like
00:03:39.880 10 000 people who've done this before you they they did just fine so either like sack up or just
00:03:45.380 get the hell out um that should be a fortifying message now to a lot of young people these days
00:03:50.160 that's like that's like an attack like you're attacking my sense of well-being attacking my
00:03:55.160 self-esteem i was told that i'm perfect the way i am but that's like the worst thing you can do
00:03:59.100 to somebody i would tell you you're perfect the way you are if i don't like you because then i
00:04:01.920 don't want you to improve i care about you i want you to improve and seek self-improvement so you
00:04:06.660 can only do that if you have some kind of perspective and the reason i bring my mom
00:04:10.200 into this conversation is because i watched her truly suffer and but i but i'm not sure that i
00:04:15.880 was really aware of how bad she was suffering you know at the time because she didn't she hid it
00:04:20.600 from us i mean she all we saw was like my best friend and this this like humorous lady um made
00:04:29.340 jokes and and still looked after us and like so you know i'm sitting on my own kind of not a
00:04:34.840 deathbed that's a little too dramatic but like a a bed that i can't really move out of um blind
00:04:39.980 And it's like, well, you know what?
00:04:42.540 I'm still not that lady in her late 30s dying from cancer.
00:04:46.280 She manned up.
00:04:48.380 Maybe I should too.
00:04:49.920 That's the point there.
00:04:51.240 And you mentioned perspective.
00:04:52.360 It's something you talk about in the book when you went to Afghanistan on deployment
00:04:55.300 and you would see people and you had the sense that they see the world differently.
00:05:00.440 And for Francis and I, both living in the UK, very comfortable, very prosperous.
00:05:04.100 I'm from Russia originally.
00:05:05.460 I've seen the way that people live outside the West.
00:05:07.640 His mother is from Venezuela.
00:05:08.580 you know how do how do you give that perspective to young people who grow up in comfort who grew
00:05:14.880 up in stability who grew up in in in places that are better than humanity has ever experienced
00:05:20.180 how do we create perspective when there isn't the first i was just telling them to try learning
00:05:25.300 about it i don't think it's that much more complicated than that and i guess not you
00:05:28.840 mentioned i did have the advantage of i grew up abroad too so you know i lived in cairo egypt
00:05:34.960 before. Those were my first basic memories as a toddler.
00:05:40.440 Deep, deep poverty, obviously, in Cairo region. I went to high school
00:05:43.200 in Bogota, Colombia, so I know what bad can look
00:05:47.320 like. Not that Colombia's bad. I actually love that place. But as far as inequalities go,
00:05:51.120 as far as problems in a country go, a civil war, it's kind of a thing.
00:05:55.640 It's a real issue. So you appreciate it more when you have
00:05:59.420 here. So how do you get people to understand that? Just tell them.
00:06:03.140 I don't think a lot of this is complicated.
00:06:05.540 Say, hey, look, there are, you need to be knowledgeable about how people before you live,
00:06:11.460 what the truth is about, say, inequality.
00:06:14.860 And before you guys walked in here, I actually just recorded a podcast with the economist
00:06:17.760 and Senator Phil Graham about the myths of inequality.
00:06:21.320 So this is like, what you're talking about is really fresh on my mind because we just
00:06:23.740 had this conversation.
00:06:25.060 People have really, people are just misinformed about basic truths, about how other people
00:06:29.960 are living about what our history is about what the history of the world is uh and and what the
00:06:36.000 truth is about economic disparities discrimination versus disparities all of these things are just
00:06:40.700 left is deeply misinformed people for their own political opportunism right because it's people
00:06:46.700 have to be people have to believe there's a crisis in front of them if they're going to demand rapid
00:06:52.560 change right revolution never took place when people were like i don't know i think things are
00:06:56.820 fine i do we do we need the revolution i kind of like you know that you're not going to get your
00:07:02.040 bernie sanders revolution if everyone thinks everything is fine and frankly obviously we're
00:07:06.760 not getting the bernie sanders revolution so to an extent people do understand the truth here
00:07:11.520 but i part of being a conservative is making sure we don't get there okay so um telling people
00:07:18.680 presenting the facts i don't know that it's more complicated than that dan do you think part of
00:07:23.420 The problem as well is that America is such a materialistic culture
00:07:28.280 that people go on social media and then they see the people
00:07:32.020 living these incredible lives and they get angry and frustrated
00:07:34.660 when their lives don't match up to what they see on the screen.
00:07:38.020 Yeah, I do.
00:07:39.240 I'm not sure if I had much to expand on it.
00:07:40.660 I don't know if it's America specific, but it's certainly true.
00:07:47.260 So, you know, it's almost, again, it's sort of a natural outcome of civilization.
00:07:54.100 Because in civilization, really smart people get the opportunity to create really amazing things that make everybody's life better.
00:08:01.360 The thing about making everybody's life better and easier is that it is a form of dependency.
00:08:07.020 Like, if I'm paying for your rent and paying for your school and paying for it, you are going to be dependent.
00:08:10.960 You know, it's a natural human nature.
00:08:12.280 The left doesn't quite understand that fact.
00:08:14.260 It is true.
00:08:15.160 It is a fundamental truth.
00:08:17.260 But what we forget about, too, is that some of the technological advances of our time have created that same kind of lethargy.
00:08:26.780 And I don't want to reverse it.
00:08:28.540 Don't get me wrong.
00:08:29.520 It is what it is.
00:08:31.200 But the easier it is for someone to live without it being actually productive, you're going to have more unproductive people, and that will increase inequality.
00:08:42.260 There's no escaping that set of truths.
00:08:45.520 How do we deal with that as policymakers?
00:08:47.260 I'm not sure.
00:08:49.660 Our job really is to maintain what works.
00:08:53.460 Again, that's the essence of being a conservative.
00:08:55.460 I want to maintain the principles that work.
00:08:57.660 There's economic foundations, cultural foundations, and political foundations.
00:09:02.340 Maintain people's freedom within a set of rights and a set of policies
00:09:05.900 that solve problems through a framework of limiting principles.
00:09:10.040 That's conservatism.
00:09:11.500 To the extent that we move away from that, it's a dangerous territory.
00:09:15.360 In your book, you actually put the words in italics,
00:09:18.500 which is outrage is weakness.
00:09:20.620 And that really stuck with me.
00:09:22.460 Why do you think that, Dan?
00:09:24.940 Because you're letting emotions get the best of you.
00:09:27.700 You know?
00:09:29.880 Just because, you know, that doesn't mean it's not justified, right?
00:09:32.720 Like, outrage is justified.
00:09:34.560 Like, when I give talks, I tell young students all the time,
00:09:37.260 I'm like, look, just, I didn't have to deal with politics
00:09:39.980 when I was your age.
00:09:41.140 It wasn't a thing for us.
00:09:42.660 Like we divide it up into friends groups based on like who listened to country and who listened to like alternative rock.
00:09:48.680 Like you guys are dividing yourselves up based on political beliefs.
00:09:51.700 That's insane.
00:09:52.780 You always don't know anything.
00:09:54.400 You're 16, 17.
00:09:55.700 You don't know anything.
00:09:56.680 You don't have a like a set of experiences that help frame what you're seeing on a day to day basis.
00:10:02.400 So I'm not saying don't get involved.
00:10:04.380 I'm saying learn unemotionally.
00:10:06.800 Stay.
00:10:07.500 Keep your heart out of it because it's not developed.
00:10:10.980 Put your head in it a little bit.
00:10:12.660 I'll get some pushback sometimes.
00:10:14.000 Kids will be like, how could I not be mad?
00:10:15.880 And I'm like, you're making my point for me.
00:10:18.020 Because I'm like, look, the way you're reacting to me, whatever you want to tell me, I'm going to tune out.
00:10:22.880 Because it's just, it's pure emotion.
00:10:25.280 And maybe you're mad about something and maybe it is justified, right?
00:10:28.240 Maybe there's a true injustice that you're truly upset about.
00:10:30.580 I'm just saying, if you want to be productive about it, if you want to solve that problem, you're not going to get there with outrage.
00:10:37.880 People stop listening to you.
00:10:39.020 It's just, it is not a practical solution.
00:10:42.020 So you've got to learn to control it.
00:10:44.480 In the SEAL teams, it's like we're not fearful, just like everyone else is.
00:10:47.600 It's not like we're not outraged, just like everyone else is.
00:10:49.740 We just have an extreme ability to control our aggression and control our fear.
00:10:54.600 That's all it is.
00:10:55.300 It doesn't mean you're fearless.
00:10:56.280 If you're fearless, you're a psychopath.
00:10:58.100 So we don't tend not to like those guys.
00:11:00.680 They don't actually mesh well.
00:11:04.260 So it's really that simple because it means that you've allowed yourself to give in
00:11:09.360 to a completely unproductive path.
00:11:12.080 And it's really interesting you say that
00:11:13.440 because we now celebrate emotion.
00:11:16.080 If somebody's offended, it's celebrated.
00:11:18.100 If they're outraged, it's celebrated.
00:11:21.120 If they're angry, it's seen as righteous.
00:11:23.920 But the point that you make is that
00:11:26.260 we can't change anything just with emotion alone.
00:11:28.880 Yeah, it's very typical
00:11:30.000 if you're kind of far right and left, like, spectrums.
00:11:32.800 You know, like, the biggest indicator
00:11:34.740 of being extremely left or extremely right
00:11:38.300 is their tendency towards outrage.
00:11:41.500 And also the preference, frankly,
00:11:45.540 for a set of ideas maybe that are unsolvable, right?
00:11:51.140 Because they prefer the outrage,
00:11:53.180 like they feed off of it.
00:11:54.620 So they don't really want to solve a problem.
00:11:57.380 That's very clear to me after being in politics
00:11:59.440 for almost five years now.
00:12:00.700 So if you want to solve problems,
00:12:04.480 you got to keep the emotions out of it.
00:12:07.020 I mean, it's just really that simple.
00:12:08.940 And, you know, you're obviously a Republican,
00:12:11.360 so the fact that you would take a couple of swipes at the left makes sense.
00:12:14.580 Francis and I are somewhere in the center.
00:12:16.040 We have a lot of center-right guests on like you.
00:12:18.820 And one of the things I'm thinking about increasingly is that, yes,
00:12:22.340 the left started all this emotional stuff.
00:12:24.840 But, you know, we're sitting here not very far from the Capitol
00:12:27.480 where we saw what happens when the right does the same thing.
00:12:31.440 Are you concerned that both sides are now at this?
00:12:34.860 Yeah, I talk about it all the time.
00:12:36.260 so that's why i take so much flack some from some of those audiences um because i call it out i
00:12:41.580 mean like when you start acting like this the populist right the populism to me is a left-wing
00:12:46.340 sensation okay because what is populism it's me telling you what you want to hear right for
00:12:51.080 popularity's sake well look it yes it is popular if i just promise the population three thousand
00:12:56.160 dollar checks every month for free of course that's popular does that make it a solid policy
00:13:02.040 Of course not. The left is really good at that kind of stuff. I want to buy your vote. I'm going to pay for your school. I'm going to cancel your student debt. I'm going to pay for this. I'm going to pay for that. I'm going to tax the rich to do it. Oh, yeah, that's populist. I mean, it's buying your votes. The right wing populists have given into that nonsense to some extent. That concerns me a great deal.
00:13:22.040 But what do you make of their argument, Dan? Because what they would say is, look, the corrupt elite right here in Washington is ruining the country.
00:13:29.940 It's rhinos like Dan Crenshaw, you know, Republicans in name only.
00:13:33.700 They don't want to change anything. They want to sit there and profit off blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:13:38.600 What do you say to people like that?
00:13:40.600 Give me specifics. You can go through your list of sort of talking points that we can all read on Twitter.
00:13:47.820 They've been recycled a million times. What does it mean? What the hell do you mean by that?
00:13:52.040 You know, let's get down to the actual brass tacks.
00:13:54.540 What do you mean?
00:13:55.700 And it becomes this sort of whirlwind of answers once we get to that point.
00:14:01.840 You know, you want to profit.
00:14:03.160 You're in everybody's pocket.
00:14:04.220 I'm like, what does that mean?
00:14:06.880 People have a real misunderstanding of basic civics, who holds power up here,
00:14:12.360 what kind of powers we have as congressmen.
00:14:15.820 I mean, people want you to solve that.
00:14:16.760 They simultaneously want government out of their lives while you also be a dictator
00:14:20.160 and do what they want.
00:14:20.900 I know this because I read the comments.
00:14:24.180 Why are you posting?
00:14:25.060 You should be doing this.
00:14:26.020 Why do you do this?
00:14:27.040 It's like, well, this is just how our government works.
00:14:29.380 I mean, you're a constitutionalist, right?
00:14:31.880 So you have to follow the Constitution and the parameters it sets out.
00:14:36.920 I think people say those things, too, because they've been conditioned to hear those things
00:14:41.620 and then repeat those things by political campaign after political campaign on the left and the right.
00:14:47.920 It's just become this popular sentiment.
00:14:49.560 And yeah, I guess you could define populism that way, too. Just counter elites. Well, but again, like, what the hell does that mean? You know, what is it? Which elites? Why? Let's get specific and then and then address that problem within a set of principles that we all adhere to that I thought we agreed upon. Not just resentment for resentment's sake.
00:15:08.320 Well, I suppose what people mean is that there is a big disconnect between what happens in this city and the lives of ordinary people out there.
00:15:17.240 The values of the people who are here are very different.
00:15:19.940 Their way of looking at the world is different.
00:15:21.480 And for a lot of people, I think the reason that they're tempted by populism is they feel unheard.
00:15:27.360 They feel unseen.
00:15:28.540 They feel like politicians don't respond to their needs and what they want.
00:15:34.440 yeah i mean i just what i would tell people then again i want specifics like like you know and
00:15:40.100 i know i'm not sure you're in that category so it's hard for you to come out with specifics
00:15:44.420 because you're not the one yelling at me about it yeah but i have had these conversations and
00:15:48.620 i always try to say like what that's fine but what do you mean like give me give me an example
00:15:53.740 of a policy and it'll give me a policy and i'll be like okay well just so you know like that that
00:15:57.700 policy pulls 60 with the american people so are we not listening to the american people
00:16:01.480 okay just because you know and they're like i am the people i'm like well you're not though
00:16:05.520 okay there's there's actually a lot of you and you think this is what the internet does is this
00:16:10.120 what the internet does everyone has got their own little silo and my in my own little silo i'm the
00:16:15.480 king of the world i represent the people and therefore i represent everybody when actually
00:16:19.420 you're about three percent of society i hear it all the time we the people want you to do this
00:16:22.780 i'm like well you want me to but if you go and pull your own neighbors you're gonna get a lot
00:16:28.040 different opinions, man. So that's just, that's life. And I will say this too, that most of the
00:16:33.700 normal people just going to work, like they're actually not paying attention to my political
00:16:38.080 posts or they actually do just talk about kitchen table issues. So you've got, social media has done
00:16:44.380 this, right? It's elevated very fringe issues in our politics that actually most people don't
00:16:51.200 really care about. So you do have to use scientific polling to really get what people care about.
00:16:56.280 then it starts to make more sense it's like it starts to be like inflation like basic economics
00:17:00.700 the border things that you should expect people to care about it's it's it becomes a little less
00:17:06.140 of the kind of lightning rod issues not that light or not broad issues don't matter on day to day
00:17:10.180 but there's there's like social media world like you know twitter isn't real life it doesn't
00:17:16.060 necessarily translate to how people are feeling and you know i i always do feel better when i
00:17:21.100 actually and i do this a lot but i'm just taking questions from at my events like back home now
00:17:27.820 now i'm hearing from the people like now i'm actually hearing from the people especially when
00:17:32.800 i go to there's two different kinds of events okay there's one where i advertise it so who's
00:17:39.200 going to show up to that political people like people are really interested in politics
00:17:42.500 um so you have to do other kinds of events like i'll do like a town hall but i'll go to a like
00:17:48.400 a specific company and like get to talk to all their workers these are all people would not take
00:17:53.640 the time to go to some random political event i don't blame them um but now i get now i get to
00:17:58.360 hear what regular people are asking right and it's it's very different from what your political
00:18:03.360 entertainment industry wants you to think they're asking about so i'm not sure the disconnect is
00:18:08.520 that big i will say the other thing i tell people is whether you like it or not the congress
00:18:12.880 represents you a lot better than you think it's wild up here there's a lot of different types of
00:18:17.440 people they do represent very very different ideas and demographies and parts of the country
00:18:22.640 you know and then it's messy because nobody agrees and you don't like that nothing gets
00:18:27.200 done and i'm like well what exactly is it you want to get done what does that mean
00:18:30.740 and how do you and tell you what go have dinner with like six of your neighbors
00:18:35.780 and and you find a kind of a simple problem and i want you all to agree on a solution
00:18:40.860 like really think through it you tell me that all six of you agree yeah now try to get 435 people
00:18:46.580 to all agree. You know, when you actually start doing it, it's a little more complicated than
00:18:54.280 people realize. Dan, how do you, because the left went nuts, and I'm someone who was on the left
00:19:00.260 quite a while ago with the embracing of wokeism, which to me is a conspiracy theory. But now I've
00:19:06.500 seen the right go just as nuts about things like Ukraine and QAnon. How do you deal with your own
00:19:13.680 side when they are quite frankly losing the plot on the far right? Well, the good news is QAnon's
00:19:21.280 kind of bunk, I guess. But, you know, the people who follow QAnon, the way they think hasn't
00:19:28.780 changed. It'll happen again. Obviously, I am where I am on Ukraine. It's not super secretive,
00:19:37.300 like how I feel about how we should support Ukraine. One of the main problems there is
00:19:42.340 it's a partisan reaction it's biden's war so i'm against it like it's honestly that simple yeah
00:19:47.900 uh and also like there's some it's not really spoken about but it's like well zelensky it was
00:19:53.320 zelensky's fault that trump got impeached you know so there's there's that it really is like
00:19:57.340 these simplistic partisan thing there is an isolationist wing to the right always has been
00:20:02.040 um kind of goes like up and down like this it's extremely strong at the moment and
00:20:06.960 because nobody's speaking to them i try to but you got to listen you got to like actually
00:20:12.040 download my podcast to hear what i'm saying about it i can promise you i can convince you um like
00:20:18.260 because i'm not making these like nancy pelosi-esque arguments of like we have to fight for democracy
00:20:23.860 what the hell does that mean no that's not why we're doing it we're doing this out of
00:20:27.120 complete self-interest and what is that i'm with you by the way on this issue but
00:20:32.520 educate us please right so there's a few lines of self-interest one is strategic deterrence
00:20:37.800 right you do not fundamentally want a world where everyone is invading everyone we lived in that
00:20:42.820 world for like thousands of years and how was that world everyone it sucked it was not good it was
00:20:48.220 like a lot like your life expectancy was like 28 you had gray hair so it was it was not a good
00:20:53.900 world to live in you will not have the same lifestyle you have if you allow that world to
00:20:58.060 happen right china's watching the russian invasion they're like when can we invade taiwan how long
00:21:03.620 will the americans actually last for their friends and this is just payments by the way this
00:21:08.580 isn't even like lives we're dark we're not we're not spending a single american life we're saying
00:21:13.160 i want to avoid the following scenario because for those because those who don't want to support
00:21:18.360 ukraine you by definition have to support russia winning people like no no i just don't want to
00:21:22.180 stay out of it well like no no you're supporting russia winning because that's that's the other
00:21:26.280 scenario like if you start kicking his ass right now i have a choice right now no either i stopped
00:21:33.360 i do i can stop you and i have the ability to stop you so you know because i'm just stronger
00:21:38.300 than you so i can stop you or i can let it happen by definition if i let it happen i'm choosing
00:21:43.860 choosing that so what does that mean in the ukraine sense it means that you want an intact
00:21:48.300 russian military that's been emboldened and hyper aggressive probably has way more support
00:21:53.000 amongst the russian population because russians like one thing they like winning they like winning
00:21:56.660 and they they they love strength and now you're on four more nato countries borders how is that
00:22:02.900 a better how is that a good thing what the hell is wrong with you and you're telling me that all
00:22:07.420 i have to do is write a check to ukrainians and then they'll like stop that from happening
00:22:10.720 that's a good deal so strategic returns is a big deal you know a world without chaos is a really
00:22:16.580 big deal um and and two large countries warring is is chaos and it turns out if you bother to look
00:22:23.880 at history at all european wars tend to spread and it's just europeans um you guys explain it
00:22:30.040 and they draw us in so on the other hand it's like and then they kind of diminish ukraine is
00:22:38.000 this like economic backwater which is crazy it's like 50 of the world's neon a ton of iron ore
00:22:42.720 that we use in our steel like 13 15 of the world's food supply like you haven't felt those effects
00:22:48.260 because it is the economy is still working and they're still exporting a bunch of that it's not
00:22:52.340 nothing neon by the way is used for semiconductors so this gets to the taiwan the situation like
00:22:56.820 everything is connected like you can't build a freaking pencil these days in your country you
00:23:01.680 can't it just not not without it costing like way more than it should um you know i've had that
00:23:08.420 conversation with like really conservative high school students who have like been kind of captured
00:23:12.260 by this like in an emotional way like by this this kind of right-wing bernie sanders ism and i'm like
00:23:20.000 dude like the iphone you have you can't make you can't make it here you just can't you'll never
00:23:23.940 make it here unless you want to pay ten thousand dollars for it like and even then i'm not so sure
00:23:27.800 you can make it here so he's like yes we can i'm like who told you that i got it i don't have time
00:23:32.740 i i can't teach you basic economics and the history more importantly the history of trade
00:23:37.240 and economics um in 30 seconds but i promise you it's not true so look um i think that's a that's
00:23:45.380 a succinctive explanation as i can as i can give you real quick on on ukraine absolutely so but
00:23:50.120 Dan, what would you say to those people who go, look, we're in real economic trouble in this
00:23:55.680 country. You go into the city centers of places like LA, the homelessness population is exploding.
00:24:01.920 There's a fentanyl crisis. This money could be used to help Americans in America, not in some
00:24:08.560 far off country. Yeah. It's disappointing when that kind of argument comes from the right,
00:24:12.540 which is, it does come from the right all the time. Cause I'm like, are you, well, you can
00:24:16.100 join the Democrat party if you want. Cause that is a Democrat argument, like where money just
00:24:19.780 solves everything. If we could spend a billion dollars and solve poverty in downtown and in
00:24:24.940 Houston in general, like we would have spent it by now. That's not what solves the problem.
00:24:30.540 You know, a more compelling argument is the border. Like, why are we worried about their
00:24:34.020 border, if not our border? Totally fair. We should. But it's like it's a false choice. You
00:24:38.800 don't know if it's not an either or situation. We should do both. You people who know me know
00:24:43.280 I've been pretty hardcore. I don't really talk about Ukraine. I talk about fighting the Mexican
00:24:47.120 drug cartels. That's what I talk about. So I'm all, you know, it's not really a money problem.
00:24:52.160 Our border issue is not a money problem. So can you explain this to us, Dan, because we have a
00:24:56.420 very similar problem in the UK where we have tens of thousands of people coming to the country on
00:25:01.360 small boats, in our case, illegally. They don't get checked. They get put up by the government
00:25:05.440 in a hotel. Why are we in the position where some of the most powerful countries in the history of
00:25:12.620 the world are unable to enforce what every other country in the world does which is a controlled
00:25:17.860 border yeah well because the the left has become just hostage to their own sense of compassion i
00:25:26.080 guess you know um i was people asked about this like why can't democrats see it our way and i'm
00:25:31.820 like there's a couple things there's probably political incentives in america there's probably
00:25:36.540 some political incentives they think they'll vote for them eventually i it's not a really good
00:25:41.380 strategy so i'm not not sure that's true but anyway but but i think fundamentally they they
00:25:46.240 have different moral reasoning than conservatives and so so they they don't even conservatives think
00:25:52.500 that like loyalty to your group i'm referencing like jonathan height's work here he does it lays
00:25:57.980 this out really well and explains a lot of policy differences between the left and the right it does
00:26:02.280 you know conservatives have pretty even keeled on all sort of the moral frameworks that we might
00:26:06.900 point out like a sense of authority sanctity a sense of in-group loyalty which is important
00:26:12.000 when you're talking about a border and compassion loyalty things like that so the left really only
00:26:18.480 cares about compassion and equity that's their whole thing so everyone should have the same
00:26:22.660 thing which means everyone should have access to all of america's benefits and i just feel for
00:26:27.900 someone like they're always a victim right so this is a victim this is kind of where victimhood
00:26:32.220 culture probably comes from because you know it's you noted before how how victimhood and
00:26:39.360 outrage has been elevated in our society unfortunately on both sides i think the
00:26:42.960 right did it's gonna match the left it's gotta fight fire with fire right i'm like what fire
00:26:48.360 have you ever put out with fucking fire that's the point i always make is like when the fire
00:26:53.720 brigade turn up at your house they're not turning up with lighters and fuel that's not what they do
00:26:57.920 no like could you imagine just just burn it all down just do it faster but don't you worry that's
00:27:03.580 the political attitude in america at the moment in both sides drain the swamp or whatever else
00:27:09.100 yeah just you know abolish abolish capitalism that seems to be the solution for both sides
00:27:14.520 yeah that's what populism is right it's based in emotions based in outrage and it's like blame
00:27:18.600 someone else and and burn it all down right that's that's real dangerous and the left does it
00:27:25.680 because they're utopianists um so like when you can't when you envision utopia and you're not
00:27:30.720 quite there what do you do you get mad and you like want to burn it all down the problem is is
00:27:34.660 like they're literally you know i always i tell people look envision a librarian and she's like
00:27:39.300 standing on a bunch of books and she's almost at the top shelf that's utopia but she can't really
00:27:44.060 reach it this really frustrates her and so her reaction instead of instead of adding more books
00:27:49.040 to her foundations and those foundations might be like you know christianity or you know a sense of
00:27:55.340 meritocracy like i'm talking about really basic foundations capitalism just burns them all down
00:28:00.340 right and boom they named the french revolution that went really well so um and on the right like
00:28:05.720 it's i don't think the writer utopian is but it's just just mad like people just mad and like you
00:28:12.100 know and our job as leaders is to be like i understand why you're mad so here's the truth
00:28:15.460 about first let me i just like let me give you the truth about what you think is true whether
00:28:20.520 it's washington or this policy whatever it is first let me do that and then let me walk you
00:28:24.940 realistically like how we get to the solution i think you'd be happy with that's what a leader's
00:28:29.120 job is what a lot of leaders do instead is be like what is it you think again huh i agree with you
00:28:34.520 totally like that's populism because i'm like i'm just mirroring your emotions so that i can
00:28:39.340 manipulate you that that's what populism is then but let's come back to the immigration because
00:28:44.220 if it was as simple as the right taking power uh i'd be you know i'm not on the right but i would
00:28:52.040 support the right if that's what i thought in the uk we've had a conservative government well
00:28:57.520 conservative government since 2010 and in this country only until very recently you had a
00:29:03.040 republican president who did not solve this problem so why is it that our countries because
00:29:09.040 i feel like it's almost like it's not just about the individual circumstances it's almost a
00:29:12.680 cultural phenomenon where even the right has actually swallowed a lot of these leftist ideas
00:29:18.260 of utopia, all things to all men, et cetera.
00:29:21.460 Do you think there's some truth to that?
00:29:24.120 No, it's just the politics of it got messy probably.
00:29:26.960 So I will say Trump's policies did make it a lot better, right?
00:29:34.040 And it's a simple disincentive to come across the border illegally by saying, look, you
00:29:37.780 can come across, fine, but you can claim asylum, but you're just going to wait in Mexico while
00:29:41.900 we adjudicate that.
00:29:43.220 And so what that did fundamentally was stop the abuse of the asylum system.
00:29:46.640 That's the fundamental problem in our country.
00:29:49.260 You guys have a different problem, I think.
00:29:50.920 So it's hard to compare the two.
00:29:52.500 You guys are actively bringing them in.
00:29:55.520 We're allowing them to come in.
00:29:57.040 Yeah.
00:29:57.360 So I guess we are too, but Trump wasn't necessarily, he was looking for ways.
00:30:04.060 He'd eventually found ways.
00:30:05.120 It took him a long time to kind of get to that point.
00:30:07.860 We didn't have 60 votes in the Senate.
00:30:10.340 Honestly, the answer is as simple as that.
00:30:11.860 You know, you got to have serious majorities here to make that policy change.
00:30:16.640 we're going to pass something out of the House here soon.
00:30:19.580 That's going to be a really solid border security.
00:30:22.300 And it's not going to go anywhere.
00:30:24.260 Because I don't, maybe we'll get one.
00:30:25.880 You need 60 votes in the Senate.
00:30:27.980 So that's the simple explanation.
00:30:30.800 I don't think that there's a single Republican out there
00:30:33.820 who would be like, yeah, I mean,
00:30:35.680 we should just keep letting them across.
00:30:37.280 Like, it's pretty well ingrained in our base
00:30:40.980 to believe the opposite.
00:30:43.040 I know.
00:30:43.660 The reason I bring up the cultural point, though,
00:30:45.580 is I talk about this in my book, you know, the Barack Obamas, the, I mean, Hillary Clintons,
00:30:52.280 the Bill Clintons, they all sounded to the right of Donald Trump on immigration in their own time.
00:30:57.560 Recently, too.
00:30:58.140 And recently, too. So something has changed in the mindset of the country on these issues.
00:31:03.480 Yeah, that's true. That's fascinating. And I've never figured it out. I mean,
00:31:09.060 i think i think they they're might be as simple as them pandering politically to their latin
00:31:16.900 base that's backfired and then now they have no way out you have to understand too that the that
00:31:22.120 the people say all the time that the politicians in washington don't want to solve the immigration
00:31:27.260 problem because they benefit from it being like a lightning rod issue all the time i actually don't
00:31:31.040 think that's true even for democrats because we all have plenty of lightning rod issues and
00:31:35.260 political footballs that we can throw around and i'd be really happy to just solve this one um
00:31:40.700 it's the it's the outside groups it's the it's the groups that like literally make money off
00:31:46.420 of this people like oh again it's like going back to the you just line your pockets what the fuck
00:31:50.080 does that mean like we know we don't like we literally don't um but you know who does make
00:31:54.380 a lot of money um activists that run these organizations who take donations from you
00:31:59.080 and tell you that they're you're fighting for them and all that so on the left those are very
00:32:03.200 very powerful pro-immigrant groups and i think they're really scared of them i think that's a
00:32:08.740 fundamental truth uh we have them on the right too like you know they will try to prevent us from
00:32:12.980 like coming up with a compromise that would because a compromise would you know be something
00:32:17.120 like okay let's figure out what to do with like better legal immigration but like really get the
00:32:22.460 border secured um i would i could foresee a lot of those far right anti-immigrant groups torpedoing
00:32:28.940 that i could see that happening because they don't really want a solution so i don't think it's the
00:32:34.020 politicians up here do you think part of the problem is as well dan is that people don't know
00:32:38.340 how congress works they don't know anything about you how policy is passed so that creates
00:32:45.720 conspiracy theories yeah is that something you find yourself battling all the time yeah yeah
00:32:53.780 for sure it's just all the time like i said before people think you're a dictator
00:32:57.360 pretty consistently.
00:33:01.300 When you do something about it, Dan,
00:33:02.860 I'm like, well, let's lay it out.
00:33:04.700 What is the action?
00:33:07.760 I mean, I'm like, you know,
00:33:09.440 it's, yeah, it would make everybody
00:33:12.560 a little less unhappy
00:33:13.880 if they understood the system
00:33:15.700 a little bit better.
00:33:16.800 Sounds like a very frustrating job.
00:33:19.000 Yeah.
00:33:19.760 Yeah, it's politics,
00:33:20.680 so it's extremely frustrating.
00:33:21.920 You do it because it's important,
00:33:23.720 not because it's enjoyable.
00:33:24.680 My last job was pretty enjoyable.
00:33:25.960 Even if I lose an eye
00:33:26.780 every once in a while,
00:33:27.360 like very enjoyable um politics you do it because it's important because you need leaders who are
00:33:35.580 actually willing to kind of tell people the truth um the truth makes people really mad
00:33:40.320 is is there's a lot of emotional attachment to false narratives that are comfortable
00:33:45.020 whether that's how the government works whether that's the the nature of inequality and what's
00:33:50.800 true about it whether that's climate alarmism i don't know like there's there's plenty of
00:33:55.440 comfortable false narratives that people like really enjoy holding on to it makes them really
00:33:59.980 mad especially if you tell your own side like that's that's not right what you just it's not
00:34:04.480 true yeah because then you're like a traitor like no no just say the thing we saw on twitter it's
00:34:09.740 like no i can't say the thing because it's not true so what do you do when you're in a system
00:34:15.720 that actively rewards that kind of behavior how do you navigate that and how do you maintain a
00:34:22.240 sense of integrity. Yeah, well, I guess you just got to hope that integrity and truth wins out in
00:34:29.580 the end. I think it tends to. It's not obvious to me that in the long run, it doesn't. But you're
00:34:37.880 going to have your battles in between. That's for sure. You don't have any other choice. So that's
00:34:43.460 never said it was easy. Things that are easy are usually not very worthwhile.
00:34:48.420 And Trump is, he's on the comeback trail.
00:34:52.520 Do you think he's what America needs at this point, Dan?
00:34:55.780 Well, he's on the comeback trail for sure.
00:34:57.540 I'm not going to get into the politics of the primary.
00:35:00.220 Staying out of that one.
00:35:02.640 But, you know, we definitely don't need Biden.
00:35:06.380 Republicans need to figure out how to win.
00:35:11.100 And beating Democrats is really easy.
00:35:14.120 I find it to be the easiest thing in the world.
00:35:17.000 I had, like, a barely Republican district.
00:35:19.080 I got redistricted.
00:35:19.900 Now I'm super Republican.
00:35:20.680 But barely Republican before.
00:35:23.540 Trump barely won, like, a point he won, won it by.
00:35:27.060 But I won, like, 14 points.
00:35:28.280 So it's not hard to beat Democrats, even when they're spending a ton of money on me.
00:35:32.280 Even when Beto's coming in to campaign against me and, like, all this nonsense.
00:35:36.280 It's not hard to beat them.
00:35:37.960 Really isn't.
00:35:39.320 You just got to be somewhat likeable.
00:35:40.960 Like, how do you win an election?
00:35:42.180 Get enough people to know who you are and be somewhat likable, more likable than the other guy
00:35:45.400 that's winning so this is not a hard thing to do i mean democrats are trying to ruin women's sports
00:35:50.700 they're trying to trying to tax your business out of existence they've literally biden is is making
00:35:55.700 a deal you said you were going to ask me what i think people should know about well here's one
00:35:59.820 thing they should know that biden has made a deal with the oecd with maybe like 180 countries
00:36:05.740 signatories that that if he isn't able to raise corporate taxes here in america then everybody
00:36:11.920 else should raise taxes on our American companies in their country. What the hell, man? I don't
00:36:18.720 care what side of the aisle you're on. That's like treason. It's nuts. It's the global corporate
00:36:25.800 minimum tax, right? So holy crap, this shouldn't be that hard to beat these folks. Like most people
00:36:32.740 do not want an open border, like a vast, vast majority. Most people think you shouldn't have
00:36:36.820 an abortion past 12 weeks. How are we losing this debate? It's not even most people. It's like 60
00:36:41.900 70 percent of people don't think you should have abortion past 12 weeks like you lose it by by
00:36:46.960 by pushing the extreme yeah that's how you lose the debate yeah and doing it in an angry way yeah
00:36:52.100 like like you gotta be like look i'm a conservative i'm just not angry about it that's like a funny
00:36:57.300 line a lot of people say this is so true and it's like look just just fire and brimstone i know it
00:37:01.860 like and they do it because it riles up their base and they're only interested in talking to
00:37:05.420 their base i'm like look i'm interested in actually fighting for my base and for me to
00:37:10.420 fight for my base, you need to give me the space to actually do it. You need to give me the space
00:37:15.540 to persuade other people slowly to come over, which means I can't go be an asshole like you
00:37:20.900 want me to be. I think most people get that. I guess the only point I'm making here is it's
00:37:29.060 easy to be Democrats. We just got to want to do it. And how do we heal the rift between left and
00:37:33.780 right? Because the reality is you need to work together in order to have a cohesive country,
00:37:39.040 don't you that's tough i do think i think objectively the left has moved way way further
00:37:45.860 off the spectrum than the right has the right's gotten angrier but i'm not so sure how our policies
00:37:49.660 have shifted dramatically i mean you can point to some things right like some things that are good
00:37:54.840 like a skepticism of trade with china i think that's a good skepticism to have like there's
00:37:58.980 nothing in conservative philosophy that says we just have to let chinese do whatever they want
00:38:02.260 free trade for all like it's actually not a conservative philosophy domestically speaking
00:38:06.180 economically yeah it is but international trade like you've got to negotiate so there's some
00:38:11.540 healthy aspects to the so-called i wouldn't even call that populist it's just smart policy um anyway
00:38:17.760 you can people point to things like that but i'm like we haven't really moved off the deep end
00:38:21.420 that's the whole point of conservatism it kind of stays in a box and like people i'm trying to
00:38:25.480 keep it there the left has moved way far um you know how do you solve that man i don't it does
00:38:33.480 come from the top right there's there's probably room for some more things to happen i will say
00:38:37.560 too like it's not that hard for me to work with democrats i i was just working some democrats on
00:38:42.400 a bill just now on on improving our our health care system right on working on direct primary
00:38:48.820 care which is like a very fundamental conservative philosophy but like some democrats are into it so
00:38:54.720 it's not totally crazy we work together on our national security committees too like i'm on the
00:38:58.980 Intelligence Committee, that's a very bipartisan committee. I've seen us argue in there. It's
00:39:04.920 helpful when there's no cameras. And Armed Services Committee is usually pretty bipartisan
00:39:10.900 as well. So there's most bills that pass, but by far the majority are bipartisan, pass with a lot
00:39:16.760 of support. They're not like changing the world. You know, we're always going to disagree on
00:39:20.460 fundamental things. And that's, by the way, that's the whole point of having a left and right.
00:39:24.800 I do think America does seem to me like the last place where it's like truly 50-50.
00:39:31.480 It doesn't seem that way anywhere else.
00:39:34.060 I mean, I'm sure you can maybe argue with me on that.
00:39:36.440 But, you know, we need to, it's healthy.
00:39:39.580 There's something about that that's healthy.
00:39:41.560 I think it'll be like that for the next 1,000 years.
00:39:44.220 And it was like this 1,000 years ago.
00:39:45.700 I think that's naturally wired within the human race
00:39:48.860 to see things in sort of the Thomas Sowell conflict of visions framework, right?
00:39:56.560 It'll always be that way.
00:39:57.780 It's like that everywhere.
00:39:58.800 You guys have different names for it.
00:39:59.980 We call them Republicans, Democrats.
00:40:01.340 You'll call it Labour and Conservative.
00:40:03.900 You need a few more Conservatives, I think.
00:40:06.660 We absolutely do.
00:40:08.100 Work on that.
00:40:09.020 Just a balance.
00:40:09.700 The balance is good.
00:40:10.740 Balance is very good.
00:40:11.720 What does Conservatism mean to you, Dan?
00:40:13.440 Because people, you ask conservatives what it means to them,
00:40:17.280 and you get a million different answers.
00:40:19.320 Yeah, that's a problem most people don't know.
00:40:21.540 I said it earlier.
00:40:22.440 So it's a conservation of Western values fundamentally,
00:40:25.320 and I would categorize that three ways, cultural, political, and economic.
00:40:29.840 So cultural just means like Judeo-Christian values.
00:40:34.080 I'm going to say you're happy and fine.
00:40:35.260 You can be an atheist, but you still adhere to the same values
00:40:38.480 that Judeo-Christian morality teaches.
00:40:41.620 just you know whether you like it or not you do and you agree with it so that's one meritocracy
00:40:46.880 right like this is there are cultural issues a personal responsibility like a sense of personal
00:40:51.240 responsibility a sense of fortitude like i should be strong like that's a that's like a real important
00:40:56.140 cultural thing and like we actually do have to say it because like you said earlier people are
00:41:01.200 celebrating weakness victimhood like that's a that'll destroy a civilization from within so
00:41:06.140 you know conservatism has to actually fight for these basic values i could go on and on i guess
00:41:10.960 on cultural issues, but economic issues.
00:41:13.260 What is that?
00:41:13.520 It's just a market, like a free market society,
00:41:16.020 property rights protected, your basics, right?
00:41:18.640 Like a sensible tax system
00:41:20.520 that incentivizes proper behavior,
00:41:23.300 disincentivizes negative behavior.
00:41:24.920 I don't know, this isn't complicated stuff,
00:41:27.340 but we do find ourselves in disagreement
00:41:29.780 with the left on it.
00:41:30.800 So like, and political, so small are Republican.
00:41:34.420 That's what we're preserving as conservatives.
00:41:35.980 You know, we're preserving federalism, states' rights.
00:41:39.160 It's we're preserving the idea that if you have a problem, it's likely that the local people will kind of know how to solve the problem better than somebody in Washington.
00:41:48.160 So, you know, preserving checks and balances are preserving the nature of the court system and its insulation from Congress.
00:41:57.540 Right. Like it's really basic stuff that is actually in sharp disagreement with how the left wants to operate.
00:42:05.920 Like what do they say? They want to pack the courts. They want to remove the filibuster.
00:42:08.940 They want to remove these really basic political institutions.
00:42:12.040 So when I describe all that, you're like, well, isn't that just normal stuff?
00:42:15.560 And I'm like, yeah, that's the point.
00:42:18.000 It's just normal stuff.
00:42:20.460 And then we look at new problems.
00:42:22.920 Conservatism means having a framework with which to solve the problem.
00:42:25.880 Too many conservatives think it means don't ever solve a problem.
00:42:29.760 That's a problem.
00:42:31.060 That's not what it means.
00:42:32.440 It means I approach a problem with a certain framework in mind.
00:42:35.860 And generally, that framework is limiting principles.
00:42:38.280 So I ask questions like, OK, if I want to give you a benefit, like, what do I have to take from him?
00:42:44.860 That's an important question. If I want to give you free health care, but he's a doctor.
00:42:48.180 So, like, do I, like, say you just do I pay him? Do I decide how much he gets paid?
00:42:53.540 How does that work? This is a real these are real questions.
00:42:56.480 Like liberals are just like, no, you just have it.
00:42:59.320 And I'm like, how do you have it? You know, you didn't work for it.
00:43:02.700 How does that work? Maybe we'll try and get to that point.
00:43:05.320 I'm not saying we don't, but you've got to think about his rights as well.
00:43:09.000 If I want to take your guns away, just to make him feel safe,
00:43:14.020 but now you can't protect yourself, but he feels safer.
00:43:17.420 Well, what?
00:43:19.320 I'm sorry, what principle are you going back to?
00:43:21.680 Feelings?
00:43:22.740 Is it the principle of feelings?
00:43:24.580 So only conservatives ask these, and I can keep going, right?
00:43:27.880 Like ask these questions.
00:43:28.840 Is this best solved at the local level?
00:43:30.320 Is it best solved by just civil society?
00:43:32.640 we ask those questions and that's like a test for how we solve a problem you know and the
00:43:37.980 conservatives can internally disagree on like well it does infringe on somebody's rights well
00:43:41.460 no it doesn't let's have that discussion but at least we're asking the questions dan in your book
00:43:45.880 moving on a little bit you talk about the values that were instilled in you as a navy seal
00:43:50.620 on a stepping up when you know when there's no one in charge you take charge all of that sort
00:43:57.060 of stuff and they're really beautiful values for people to get and to aspire to what's the
00:44:03.780 contrast like going from that to politics where at least from the outside it seems that the
00:44:08.680 principles are upside down you know if you can screw somebody you do if you can throw someone
00:44:13.300 on the bus you will if you can avoid being at the front and taking the bullets you etc what's
00:44:19.800 the contrast like i don't know you put that really well it's exactly like that because i i have been
00:44:25.840 people ask me what has surprised you and i'm like well i'm not if somebody comes up here and they're
00:44:30.280 super surprised about everything you shouldn't have elected them like it means they don't know
00:44:33.680 what the hell they're doing and there's a lot of people like i can't believe it's like this
00:44:36.720 why did you run um like jeez uh so you thought it would be a bit of a shit sandwich when you got
00:44:44.120 the job i just understood basic civics like i'm like yeah i mean you know you don't get to rule
00:44:47.540 the world when you become a congressman a lot of people are like legitimately frustrated by
00:44:51.280 by by you know how slow the system can be you really don't understand what it's for
00:44:58.080 um what your powers are like what what what people are very uneducated on basic policy so
00:45:04.020 that's that's a problem in the SEAL teams you like you do have to meet certain standards before
00:45:07.560 you deploy that ain't the case in a democracy in electoral politics so that's all i'm saying um
00:45:14.300 but the thing that actually truly surprised me was was the extent people were willing to
00:45:19.300 throw someone under the bus and like betray a friend or me like multiple cases like this
00:45:24.920 for almost nothing in return i mean just for a little just for a quick glimpse uh just for a
00:45:31.800 quick like highlight on twitter like just for almost nothing i'm like wow you stabbed me in
00:45:37.140 the back for not at least do it for something man i have multiple stories like this or i could i
00:45:41.440 could name people but i'm like jeez like it's just like it's almost psychotic like it's so
00:45:47.220 irrational to me i'm like man you would have been better off just saying nothing he's like now you
00:45:52.240 just made an enemy um and so it's it's very irrational maybe that's poor judgment maybe
00:45:57.780 it's just like the the snake pit of um nature of of this game that everybody's playing and
00:46:05.760 everybody's so used to there's no loyalties whatsoever it's like again in the SEAL teams
00:46:09.700 i'm like it i have a platoon member who's you know who's an enemy i don't know this enemy
00:46:17.100 he's always trying to hurt this guy i'm not going to go have drinks with his enemy like i'm just not
00:46:22.420 going to do it but in politics it's like oh no i mean we didn't talk about you like what the hell
00:46:27.000 like it's like okay well noted we're not friends like it's it's it's just that yeah the idea of
00:46:31.900 friendship is almost non-existent it seems like um the sense of loyalty yeah the sense of honor
00:46:37.400 it don't get me wrong it certainly exists with a lot of people um most of the people you probably
00:46:42.880 never heard about never get credit for it but there's a lot of them and like it does need to
00:46:46.380 be noted that there is um but you do have to you do become cynical sometimes because you begin to
00:46:52.760 wonder is that what the people even want you know or do you want the snake oil salesman because
00:46:57.300 sometimes it seems like you do you know and so this is this is why like i find it incumbent on
00:47:02.100 myself to tell truth about the left and the right and um and like who's just selling you a bag of
00:47:08.100 goods and who isn't like am i am i telling you it sounds good because you've been conditioned to
00:47:12.820 hear it or am i telling you the truth you know it's um people gotta people gotta sniff that out
00:47:19.040 well i kind of when i was reading your book and i was thinking about the attitude and you know i
00:47:23.520 heard your conversation with joe rogan as well um did you ever watch game of thrones yeah i sort of
00:47:30.380 had a sense you might be a bit of a ned stark yeah probably you come here turn up idealistic
00:47:35.980 and then before you know it you're getting your head chopped off i haven't had my head chopped
00:47:39.360 off yet um but yeah the game of thrones isn't kind to him but isn't his doesn't his son went
00:47:46.980 out in the end right uh isn't that his son yeah yeah yeah yeah well he's not actually his blood
00:47:53.680 son but yeah yeah all right john snow we're giving all the spoilers away here we're ruining
00:47:58.900 it's a terrible ending by the way but like i guess but but but you know but the reality is is
00:48:04.000 that in game of thrones the the the quote-unquote truth like the right path though extremely
00:48:11.040 difficult and with much sacrifice still won out in the end it has to so it might be different
00:48:17.340 characters at the end but it still wins and so yeah you can't let go of that i mean what do you
00:48:22.380 have if you if you do let go of that you have nothing so it's not worth it it's not worth
00:48:28.560 selling your soul some people sell their souls up here because they can't they probably can't do
00:48:32.000 anything else let's be honest like i can do plenty of other things uh so it's just it's not worth
00:48:37.900 selling up the soul and do you sometimes feel that that's a problem that the characters politics
00:48:44.560 attracts the people who want to be center stage the people who want to be revered that's kind of
00:48:50.180 a side effect do you think that might be the case it depends on the district right you definitely
00:48:54.220 see that in some places you see you see that character get demolished in some districts
00:48:58.180 right and like a much more like normal person gets elected so it really really depends that's
00:49:03.880 why i tell people all the time like look man the congress represents you just fine trust me like
00:49:08.140 you can find your person up here it might not be your representative but it is your person like
00:49:13.100 you've got somebody voting for you like there's a lot of different characters up here um it's you
00:49:19.060 know the average iq up here is 100 what a great note to wrap up a couple more questions and we'll
00:49:26.840 ask you some questions for our locals well no in fact not a couple our final question is always the
00:49:31.060 same we did warn you about it um why is the sas better than the navy seals oh okay i'm leaving
00:49:39.040 i don't want to get choked out by a certain congressman uh we like them very much honestly
00:49:43.720 what's the one thing we're not talking about as a society that you think we should be
00:49:48.040 oh well i already gave you one answer you know we probably got to talk more about this ai thing
00:49:54.960 remember when i spoke to you earlier when i said earlier about the how inequality is inevitable
00:49:59.020 even with all the policy you know meddling that you want just because well first of all people
00:50:05.160 naturally produce differently naturally have different skill sets naturally are taller shorter
00:50:08.460 uglier more beautiful whatever there's all that but also that the fact that that and this is really
00:50:13.320 only it feels like a very recent phenomenon last 50 years where massive innovation has allowed a
00:50:18.720 lot of people to remain completely unproductive and live like kings of the future without
00:50:24.680 knowing anything like anything and what is ai going to do it can make it even easier so now
00:50:32.000 you don't even have to know how to write essays like you just hey ai write an essay on this i
00:50:35.860 don't know you don't have to know how to it seems like what are we how is the legal profession going
00:50:41.200 to move forward if if if a legal contract that used to cost millions to write you got to hire
00:50:48.660 a firm to do a corporate merger now be written by ai is that a good thing or bad thing i
00:50:54.340 I, we just have to talk about it.
00:50:56.660 I don't, I'm not sure.
00:50:59.180 You know, you've got really Elon,
00:51:01.760 Elon Musk just announced a new AI company.
00:51:04.700 I'm glad, and again, like I can't,
00:51:06.760 you could say, look,
00:51:07.960 we just have to make certain services
00:51:09.360 that have to be done by a human.
00:51:10.580 You could do that.
00:51:11.980 Well, now we just,
00:51:12.920 now we completely stop our own AI development
00:51:15.580 and let China run around,
00:51:17.800 run around us and run circles around us.
00:51:20.140 So that's not an option either.
00:51:21.760 we got to think about this
00:51:24.500 I haven't really
00:51:26.320 thought a lot about it
00:51:27.680 I have not come to any conclusions
00:51:29.560 but
00:51:30.100 these last few months have moved
00:51:33.040 really really really fast
00:51:35.360 didn't Joe Rogan like release an episode
00:51:37.200 that wasn't him
00:51:38.320 yeah there was an AI
00:51:39.660 how long ago was that
00:51:42.560 I think Joe released it a couple of weeks ago
00:51:45.280 so this is moving very fast
00:51:47.240 it's all pretty recent
00:51:48.240 I don't know man
00:51:52.200 Something to keep an eye on.
00:51:53.860 Well, Congressman, thank you very much for giving us your time.
00:51:56.640 It's been an absolute pleasure to chat with you.
00:51:58.420 We're going to ask you a couple of questions for our supporters
00:52:00.740 that they've already submitted.
00:52:02.360 But for now, thank you guys for watching and listening.
00:52:04.560 We'll see you very soon with another brilliant episode like this one.
00:52:07.460 Or also, all of them go ahead, 7 p.m. UK timeout.
00:52:09.500 And for those of you who like your trigonometry on the go,
00:52:11.820 it's also available as a podcast.
00:52:13.480 Come on over to Locals. We'll see you there.
00:52:16.240 So this is Benita C.
00:52:19.080 And she says, what can be done in America about shady media practices in a way that holds our journalists more accountable without impacting the freedom of the press?