Truth Podcast - Vivek Ramaswamy - Disrupting the Mainstream Media | The TRUTH Podcast #43

00:00:00.000 If you're watching this, we finish.

00:00:01.000 He's on a call.

00:00:02.000 We're jumping on a call.

00:00:03.000 Now we're doing this.

00:00:04.000 It tells you why you're getting the kind of eyeballs you're getting.

00:00:06.000 Can I succeed?

00:00:07.000 I don't participate in the upside anyway.

00:00:09.000 If I lose, I end up getting penalized and blamed for it.

00:00:12.000 You're going to have a lot of powerful people coming after you.

00:00:14.000 I know what that feels like already.

00:00:15.000 He was pro-DeSantis at first.

00:00:17.000 By hiring congressmen as their rent-a-rent-a-politician.

00:00:20.000 There you go.

00:00:23.000 So, hanging out with my friend today, Patrick Bed-David.

00:00:28.000 We just had a long conversation with his crew at the other place, and now we're here in South Florida.

00:00:34.000 And this is a conversation that we were just beginning to discuss as going to be a regular fixture when I'm in the White House.

00:00:42.000 Presidents used to do fireside chats with the nation, and I actually think that was a good thing when a U.S. president would take the time to say, okay, out of the hustle and bustle of the day, I'm going to talk directly to the American people.

00:00:57.000 Called a fireside chat because there's a fireplace in the background.

00:01:00.000 That model has now disappeared.

00:01:02.000 I think that age is behind us, and it would be a little fake if Joe Biden or Donald Trump did that every week.

00:01:10.000 But that leaves missing the room for actual open conversations where you are able to level with the American people and tell them the truth about what's going on and rebuild trust.

00:01:20.000 And so that's why we launched this podcast on the campaign trail.

00:01:24.000 It's called Truth.

00:01:25.000 I tell the truth and I'm going to continue it once a week when I'm in the White House.

00:01:29.000 We'll probably release it on weekends and do a fireside chat.

00:01:33.000 Be honest with the American people.

00:01:35.000 Honest with them where my head space is and pick great Americans across this country to invite and tell their stories along with it.

00:01:41.000 And so we're already practicing what we preach on the campaign trail and today I am glad to be joined by my good friend now Patrick Beddavid and We actually spent a lot of time, Patrick.

00:01:53.000 You've always been asking me the questions, and you know my story, I think, better than I realize I know yours, and you have an interesting one.

00:02:01.000 And, you know, I thought it would be interesting to kick off with...

00:02:04.000 We'll get into issues and everything in a little bit, but...

00:02:08.000 What led you to be doing what you're doing now versus the business background that you have in your day job in the insurance world and otherwise?

00:02:17.000 What do you think it was about...

00:02:19.000 Maybe talk about that insurance company in the background and what led you to have the insight you have as an entrepreneur that led you now to doing what you're doing in the world of new media?

00:02:31.000 It's a pretty interesting story, and as a guy who's doing something totally different than where I began my career as an entrepreneur as well, I'm kind of interested to hear your version of it.

00:02:39.000 Yeah, so thank you for having me on your show.

00:02:43.000 We literally, if you're watching this, we finish.

00:02:45.000 He's on a call.

00:02:46.000 We're jumping on a call now.

00:02:47.000 We're doing this.

00:02:48.000 It tells you why you're getting the kind of eyeballs you're getting.

00:02:51.000 I was born and raised in Iran, lived there 10 years.

00:02:53.000 Oh, I didn't know that.

00:02:54.000 Yeah, I was born already in Iran.

00:02:55.000 I thought your parents were there.

00:02:56.000 No, I lived there 10 years.

00:02:57.000 I'm a 78 baby, October 18th in Tehran, Iran.

00:03:02.000 I went to school in Iran, Gulbengian.

00:03:05.000 I went to an Assyrian school, Armenian school.

00:03:07.000 And then six weeks after Khomeini died, he died around June 2nd of 89 or 3rd.

00:03:12.000 We escaped July 15th and went to Germany.

00:03:14.000 I lived at a refugee camp in Germany for a year and a half.

00:03:17.000 And then we finally got our green cards.

00:03:19.000 This is 89, 90. We came to the States November 28, 1990. So I was in Germany when Germany won the World Cup.

00:03:26.000 That's when I lived in Germany.

00:03:28.000 And then came to the States.

00:03:29.000 You know, I went to Glendale High School.

00:03:32.000 I got out of high school.

00:03:33.000 I went to the Army, went to the 101st Airborne Air Assault.

00:03:35.000 I did that for two and a half years.

00:03:37.000 I was going to re-enlist.

00:03:39.000 Last minute I get out, I decide I'm going to be the next, you know, bodybuilder, Mr. Olympia, Arnold, you know, win a couple Mr. Olympias, be an actor, marry Kennedy, and then one day run for governor.

00:03:49.000 It's kind of what the plan was back in the days.

00:03:51.000 And I'm like, nah, change of plans.

00:03:53.000 But did you actually go with the weightlifting thing?

00:03:54.000 No, because I went to Mr. Olympia, one event, and I hung out with the guys that were competing, and I just told them, I said, guys, tell me what I need to take to compete.

00:04:02.000 And they told me, I said, I'm not going to do that.

00:04:04.000 I'm too tall, and I'm going to be off-season, 400 pounds.

00:04:06.000 I'm not doing this.

00:04:07.000 One day, I just made a decision on the way back from Vegas.

00:04:10.000 Bodybuilding's not for me.

00:04:11.000 I'm going to go into finance.

00:04:12.000 I love money.

00:04:13.000 I love numbers.

00:04:13.000 Numbers is something that learning about how numbers and money works is very interesting to me, especially coming from a guy that we didn't have that.

00:04:21.000 So, start working.

00:04:22.000 I'm working in Stanley Dean Witter, day before 9-11.

00:04:24.000 I get my Series 7, 66, 31, 26, Life and Health.

00:04:29.000 And I'm doing that for minutes.

00:04:30.000 And then 9-11 happens.

00:04:32.000 I'm seeing what's going on with stockbrokers.

00:04:34.000 I choose to go specific.

00:04:36.000 My niche became insurance.

00:04:38.000 I go to Transamerica for 7.5 World Financial Group.

00:04:41.000 I'm there for 7.5 years.

00:04:43.000 October of 2009, I notice what's going on with the marketplace.

00:04:46.000 I leave, start my own company with 66 insurance agents.

00:04:50.000 We grow to 45,000 agents.

00:04:52.000 We sold it last year to Integrity and Silver Lake, where the money came from.

00:04:58.000 It was a beautiful thing that happened over the last however many years.

00:05:01.000 Now, you're asking a question about getting into media.

00:05:05.000 Back in 2009, 2008, I'm trying to find out a cause that's going to move me.

00:05:11.000 I learned how to make money.

00:05:12.000 I've learned the magical words from my mom and dad.

00:05:14.000 I'm proud of you.

00:05:15.000 And I go to an event.

00:05:17.000 A man named Bill Vogel invites me to an event with Larry Arnn at Claremont Institute and George Willis speaking.

00:05:25.000 And he's speaking and he's talking about lawyers, how lawyers are ruining America and all this stuff.

00:05:29.000 And I'm like, well, very interesting.

00:05:30.000 By the way, at this point, I have nothing to do with politics.

00:05:32.000 I'm just a capitalist.

00:05:34.000 I'm a business guy.

00:05:35.000 And afterwards, George comes up and he says, hey, you know, What should Patrick be doing?

00:05:42.000 He says, why don't you study why immigrants come to America?

00:05:44.000 Why is capitalism so attractive?

00:05:46.000 What makes America so attractive?

00:05:47.000 I do.

00:05:49.000 Three months after that event, I put an event together in JW Marriott Palm Springs in 09, July 15, called Saving America, Doing the Impossible.

00:05:57.000 I'm dressed as George Washington.

00:05:59.000 My wife is dressed as Lady Liberty.

00:06:01.000 I've got a 40-foot American flag on the stage.

00:06:04.000 I had Michael Reagan, Ronald Reagan's son come and talk about his father.

00:06:07.000 I had Larry Greenfield talk about capitalism, and I had Dudley Rutherford talk about Star Spangled Banner.

00:06:13.000 And then boom, from there it takes off.

00:06:14.000 I don't create content for a few years.

00:06:16.000 And while I'm doing the insurance thing, I'm seeing what's going on with media, the manipulation, the gamification, all this stuff that's going on.

00:06:24.000 When is this now?

00:06:25.000 This is in 2012, 2013. So I started a YouTube channel, a video I would do once a week called Two Minutes with Pat.

00:06:33.000 And it was just two minutes?

00:06:34.000 None of them were two minutes, but I would call it two minutes with Pat.

00:06:37.000 It were eight minutes, seven minutes, six minutes.

00:06:39.000 The only one that was two minutes was the 100th episode.

00:06:41.000 That was a minute 59. And then I started to create content, you know, specifically around entrepreneurship.

00:06:46.000 Then a couple things took off and went viral.

00:06:49.000 And then, you know, we did business, politics, all this stuff.

00:06:52.000 And then eventually I said, here's Valuetainment.

00:06:54.000 Valuetainment's got a few million subscribers.

00:06:55.000 I'm going to start a podcast separately called PBD Podcast.

00:06:58.000 And we're going to talk about current events and then turn it into a media company, consulting firm, product development company.

00:07:03.000 And, you know, now we moved from Texas to South Florida, Fort Lauderdale, two and a half years ago.

00:07:08.000 And this is what we're running out.

00:07:10.000 Awesome, man.

00:07:10.000 Yeah.

00:07:11.000 I mean, what do you think that What were your motivations when you started, got in the insurance business versus your motivations now when you're getting into new media?

00:07:21.000 Motivation for insurance business, I noticed, I read Blue Ocean Strategy in 2008, 2009. What is that again?

00:07:27.000 Blue Ocean Strategy, WC Chen.

00:07:29.000 The whole concept is Most companies are in the red ocean.

00:07:33.000 It's shark-infested ocean where they're biting each other, so it's all bloody.

00:07:38.000 The idea is go and compete in a completely different market.

00:07:41.000 Their main case study they did is Yellowtail.

00:07:43.000 Yellowtail was getting their assets handed to them when they're competing with wine.

00:07:46.000 They said, let's go compete with beer. 1.00

00:07:48.000 Boom, they take off.

00:07:49.000 That whole concept about blue ocean.

00:07:51.000 So I read the book, and it says decrease a part of the business, increase Create, eliminate.

00:07:57.000 Okay, what are we going to increase?

00:07:58.000 What are we going to decrease?

00:07:59.000 I saw the average age of an insurance agent at the time was a 56-year-old white male.

00:08:05.000 And at the same time, I'm seeing social media taking off.

00:08:07.000 I'm seeing Ron Paul raising $6 million on MySpace in 24 hours.

00:08:12.000 And I'm seeing Obama, a one-term senator, raising $5, $10, $15, $20 on Facebook.

00:08:18.000 And the Hispanic vote, and that's the market I was in.

00:08:22.000 So we started a company.

00:08:24.000 Target audience was women and Hispanic.

00:08:27.000 Today, 54% of our agents are Hispanic.

00:08:30.000 51% are women.

00:08:32.000 And when that took place, the market couldn't find somebody like us.

00:08:36.000 So purpose was more.

00:08:37.000 I saw a great opportunity.

00:08:39.000 Loved the industry.

00:08:40.000 Life-changing.

00:08:41.000 Pure financial freedom, that was the motive.

00:08:43.000 The motive now is, I think the market...

00:08:46.000 And I get that, actually.

00:08:47.000 I mean, I'll tell you a little bit about this, but that was how I looked at it early in my career as an entrepreneur, too.

00:08:53.000 And it worked.

00:08:53.000 Financial freedom.

00:08:54.000 Absolutely.

00:08:55.000 And then, what are you going to do with the money?

00:08:56.000 This time around, it's something else.

00:08:59.000 As a sports guy, you know how you notice there's free agents or a certain position, there's too many of them retiring?

00:09:07.000 In the media space right now, who is Ted Turner?

00:09:09.000 Who is the current Ted Turner?

00:09:10.000 Who is Rupert Murdoch?

00:09:12.000 Who is the next big media mogul that's building and competing and loud and Able to impose and challenge and recruit and make people think and create opportunities for others to sit there and say, okay, I never thought about that.

00:09:26.000 That's a good point.

00:09:27.000 Good debates, good conversations, good exchange.

00:09:29.000 I think right now the modern day media mogul at the top is probably Elon Musk.

00:09:34.000 He's at the number one spot.

00:09:36.000 But I think the market is wide open right now for having others.

00:09:39.000 The old way of doing business is not working.

00:09:42.000 Fox is a little bit confusing right now with their brand.

00:09:45.000 What direction do they want to go?

00:09:46.000 CNN is for sale.

00:09:47.000 They're trying to sell CNN. No one's buying CNN. They try to sell it for $10 billion, $6 billion.

00:09:52.000 How do we get somebody to pay $1.5 billion, $3 billion for it?

00:09:57.000 Zucker's out.

00:09:58.000 You know, you can't find a lot of power players today.

00:10:01.000 You know, DW is trying to do what they're doing.

00:10:02.000 A lot of independent guys are trying to do what they're doing.

00:10:05.000 But yeah, I think the marketplace is wide open and we want to disrupt it in our own way.

00:10:11.000 Yeah, I mean, I think it's funny because my first company I started, first major company, I started a small company in college, but the first real company I started was a business in the biopharma industry where you look at It's a monopoly profit industry.

00:10:28.000 It's regulated.

00:10:29.000 Some parallels with insurance, actually, in a certain sense, but big behemoths.

00:10:34.000 They're highly regulated.

00:10:35.000 Those regulations create monopoly profits.

00:10:38.000 But they start behaving like governments, actually.

00:10:42.000 When you're government regulated, when you've been running as monopolies like big pharmas do, they behave with the bureaucracy of a government.

00:10:48.000 And so I've actually talked about this that much in the campaign trail, but more of maybe a business conversation.

00:10:53.000 There's something that interesting that happens is they leave certain areas behind at the exact same time.

00:11:01.000 So let's say there's different therapeutic categories, like you've got dermatology or cancer or women's health or bone health, etc.

00:11:09.000 There's multiple different areas.

00:11:10.000 The way it works in big pharma, it's kind of interesting the way opportunities come up, is If you fail in one of those areas and you're the only one doing it, then you look bad.

00:11:21.000 But if everybody else in the industry is failing in the same area and you're the head of R&D and you fail there, it's okay because you're failing with the pack.

00:11:29.000 Well, where's the opportunity?

00:11:31.000 And the problem is those people aren't participating in the upside.

00:11:33.000 So even if they take the risk and they succeed and you're the head of R&D at one of those industries, you don't participate in the upside of inventing Lipitor or whatever, right? 0.92

00:11:42.000 But if you take the downside risk and you fail, you might get your budget cut, you might get fired, and you look like a fool if you're the only one who took that risk.

00:11:49.000 And then it's a regulated industry. 0.95

00:11:50.000 People coming back and forth from the FDA.

00:11:52.000 They start to think and behave like government bureaucrats.

00:11:54.000 So that ends up being big pharma in a nutshell.

00:11:56.000 They behave like giant bureaucracies.

00:11:59.000 Have you been paid much attention to sort of the public market investing universe or is it more of like a private company building?

00:12:05.000 Just like even your career as an investor?

00:12:07.000 We looked at investments or ourselves, like if we wanted to go public.

00:12:11.000 We thought about going as a SPAC. You thought about going public, yeah.

00:12:14.000 We thought about going as a SPAC and $10.50 a share of that whole game.

00:12:18.000 And then last minute we were like, you know, we watched Shamat was doing a bunch of guys.

00:12:21.000 I'm like, you know what?

00:12:22.000 Now we're going to pump the brakes.

00:12:23.000 We're not going to do it.

00:12:23.000 You know, it's interesting because when you then become a public company, there's this other further inefficiency for pharma companies where they have a lot of cash on their balance sheet.

00:12:32.000 But the way public markets work is they want you to deliver consistent earnings year over year, which means that even if in one given year you have to take an extra R&D expense, but that makes you less profitable, even if that makes sense from a value perspective, these companies weren't doing it.

00:12:48.000 So there was all of these reasons why there were these drugs that a lot of pharma companies decided they weren't going to develop because it either hit their P&L too much, even though it had inherent value.

00:12:59.000 The people who worked there didn't have any incentive to do it because as an individual, if I take that risk and I succeed, I don't participate in the upside anyway.

00:13:06.000 If I lose, I end up getting penalized and blamed for it.

00:13:09.000 And so all of them pursue the same areas that are popular or hot at the same time.

00:13:14.000 So back when I started my career as a biotech investor in 2007, cancer wasn't hot.

00:13:18.000 It got hot later.

00:13:19.000 So everybody shifts to cancer, but they leave women's health or whatever.

00:13:23.000 Different other areas, dermatology behind.

00:13:25.000 So I said, what if there's an interesting opportunity to start a business that does the exact mirror image in the opposite of what they're doing?

00:13:34.000 Which is to say, we'll give somebody's skin in the game.

00:13:37.000 A scientist can make millions of dollars, upside, uncapped upside, in their own project if they actually succeed at it.

00:13:42.000 We'll pick the areas that the other pharma companies are dropping.

00:13:45.000 To say, I don't care if one year the profit and loss statement is high and low versus the next year.

00:13:51.000 It doesn't matter.

00:13:52.000 We're going to focus on what creates the most value.

00:13:54.000 That's why I always paid attention to your company, Valuetainment.

00:13:57.000 It has value in the name.

00:13:59.000 You know, Royvent was the company I founded.

00:14:00.000 Return on Investment was in the name.

00:14:03.000 And you end up being able to, you know, one case is after I left the company, I mean, I founded the company and got it off the ground for seven years as CEO, but even after I've left, they're doing the same thing.

00:14:13.000 You know, case of being able to develop a drug for $15 million, you pick it up, you sell it for $7 billion because another pharma company needs to fill that hole.

00:14:23.000 It's sort of an opportunity that was founded on a kind of value disconnect, a sort of arbitrage in the market.

00:14:32.000 And that was sort of my motivation for my first company.

00:14:35.000 But when I got to my second one, or endeavor with Strive, which was the first time we met and talked about taking on the ESG space, it was a slightly different, it was a different motivation, right?

00:14:44.000 And, you know, kid of immigrants, you were an immigrant, kid of immigrants as well.

00:14:50.000 Talk to me a little bit about that.

00:14:51.000 For me, it was a different life journey after we hit that first milestone about what comes next.

00:14:58.000 Do you ever have that kind of insecurity growing up from like the perspective of not knowing that you or your family had financial freedom and how much of a motivator was that for you for that first company?

00:15:09.000 Yeah, of course.

00:15:10.000 I mean, absolutely.

00:15:11.000 No, I mean, listen, talk about insecurity.

00:15:14.000 My parents, my mother was on welfare.

00:15:16.000 My dad worked at a cashier, worked as a cashier at a 99 cent store in Inglewood next to Great Western Forum.

00:15:24.000 So that's my parents.

00:15:27.000 They got divorced twice to each other, by the way.

00:15:28.000 They got married.

00:15:29.000 My sister's born.

00:15:31.000 They get divorced.

00:15:32.000 Then they get remarried.

00:15:34.000 I'm born.

00:15:35.000 Then they get divorced.

00:15:36.000 Really?

00:15:36.000 Twice to each other, by the way.

00:15:38.000 And they've never been remarried to anybody else or nothing.

00:15:41.000 So that's what happened with them.

00:15:42.000 That's an interesting relationship.

00:15:42.000 Very interesting relationship.

00:15:43.000 Are they divorced now?

00:15:44.000 They are fully divorced.

00:15:45.000 Are they in touch now?

00:15:46.000 My dad lives with me.

00:15:46.000 My mom will come and visit.

00:15:48.000 But when they're together in the same room, it's very awkward.

00:15:49.000 It's not like a...

00:15:51.000 Comfortable situation where they're at.

00:15:52.000 No, but we grew up, you know, we grew up with nothing.

00:15:54.000 I mean, we didn't have anything.

00:15:56.000 I've never lived in an apartment, let alone a house with a swimming pool in it.

00:16:01.000 Anybody in our family and friends that had a swimming pool in their apartment, to us, you were a millionaire.

00:16:05.000 Oh, yeah.

00:16:06.000 First time I was a kid, I went to...

00:16:07.000 We know that feeling.

00:16:07.000 Yeah, so when I went to Sizzlers the first time, I came back, I was in high school, I came back, I said, hey guys, you know, we went to a high-end restaurant yesterday.

00:16:15.000 I'm like, really?

00:16:15.000 Where'd you go?

00:16:16.000 We went to Sizzlers.

00:16:16.000 You know, should the rich people go to Sizzlers?

00:16:18.000 Scissor's not a high-end restaurant, guy.

00:16:20.000 What are you talking about?

00:16:20.000 To us, a $9 steak or whatever it was, you know?

00:16:23.000 Sounds familiar to me.

00:16:24.000 So, first time I had lobster, I was in South Carolina.

00:16:27.000 My dad, after boot camp, took me to Red Lobster and said, this is what Red Lobster tastes like.

00:16:33.000 So, you go through that, right?

00:16:34.000 The first time you have ananas, pineapple, you're like, this is the fruit of the rich when you're in Iran. 0.98

00:16:39.000 Everybody doesn't eat ananas.

00:16:40.000 What's the point here?

00:16:42.000 Capitalism works.

00:16:43.000 A guy like me, you went a different route.

00:16:46.000 You made it to the top.

00:16:47.000 You won.

00:16:48.000 You've succeeded.

00:16:49.000 You and your wife, classy couple.

00:16:51.000 Your wife's also somebody that's a surgeon doing what she does. 1.00

00:16:54.000 When you were here last time, you're like, my wife's actually doing a surgery right now.

00:16:57.000 She's not here with us.

00:16:58.000 But this is the great thing about America.

00:17:00.000 Pick and choose what kind of a life you want to build.

00:17:02.000 I think you tweeted yesterday or two days ago saying the younger generation wants to know if the American dream is still alive.

00:17:08.000 The problem with that is this.

00:17:09.000 The problem sometimes is the amount of gaslighting that's taking place where kids are being confused who the hero is.

00:17:16.000 Kids are going to simply look on TV. Or look on social media and see who we're turning into a hero and they want to emulate that person.

00:17:25.000 So is the hero today being the victim?

00:17:27.000 You've written a book on that.

00:17:28.000 Is the hero today somebody that complains and whines and blames everybody else for what's going on?

00:17:33.000 Or is the hero what we once used to have in America where the son of the founder of Forbes magazine, the guy who actually grew Forbes magazine, Before China bought 95% of it, he had a plane on the corner, on the plane it would say capitalist tool.

00:17:49.000 He had a helicopter, on the corner of the helicopter it would say capitalist tool.

00:17:53.000 His boat, capitalist tool.

00:17:54.000 He looked at everything as a capitalist tool.

00:17:57.000 He used a plane as a tool for a capitalist to advance your business, right?

00:18:02.000 This is a capitalist tool.

00:18:04.000 This is a capitalist tool.

00:18:05.000 You're on a flight.

00:18:06.000 It's loud.

00:18:06.000 You can hear certain things.

00:18:08.000 So we've gotten away from seeing the tools that people have accessible to them to use to win at whatever levels they want to do.

00:18:14.000 Whether they want to work with a guy like you.

00:18:16.000 Interesting concept.

00:18:17.000 You're saying scientists could come up with something and make as much money.

00:18:20.000 Make millions.

00:18:20.000 Hey, I invented this.

00:18:21.000 Great.

00:18:22.000 Upset, you can make 5, 10 million.

00:18:23.000 That's a brilliant concept.

00:18:24.000 Because it didn't happen at big pharma companies, you know?

00:18:26.000 Yeah.

00:18:27.000 I love that.

00:18:27.000 Similar mentality.

00:18:28.000 Yeah, similar mentality.

00:18:29.000 To us, we also gave equity, which got people incentivized to want to treat the company like their own.

00:18:33.000 So either go build a company, build a business, be a salesperson, start something that you can get passionate about, a product, or go work with a guy like you, Bring value, own a piece, participate, profit sharing, you know, in a way that you're contributing above and beyond everybody else.

00:18:50.000 America's going to allow you to win.

00:18:52.000 Ballmer never started a company.

00:18:54.000 He was with Bill Gates, one of the employees.

00:18:56.000 Ballmer today is, what, a $60 billion guy, and he owns the Clippers he bought for $2.2 billion today.

00:19:01.000 It's valued at $4.6 billion.

00:19:02.000 There's so many ways to make it.

00:19:05.000 In America.

00:19:06.000 But I got a question for you.

00:19:07.000 The question I got for you is, from the big pharma side, and I'm curious to know what you'll say about this.

00:19:11.000 Yeah.

00:19:12.000 So out of all the, you know, 195 whatever amount of countries that we have worldwide, only two of them allow big pharma to advertise on TV. It's us in New Zealand, right?

00:19:18.000 Yeah.

00:19:21.000 As a president, because cable networks right now, a chunk of their money is coming from big pharma.

00:19:28.000 They can afford to pay, you know, a certain guy $6 million a year, $10 million a year, some $20 million a year.

00:19:32.000 Totally.

00:19:33.000 It's not really them paying for it.

00:19:34.000 Pfizer's paying for it or some of these other guys are paying for it.

00:19:37.000 What do you think about the idea, and could you even do this as a president, what do you think about the idea of saying, moving forward, because I'm asking to see who would have the audacity to do this, and it's not really being brought up.

00:19:49.000 What if somebody got elected?

00:19:50.000 You're in the pharma space.

00:19:52.000 And you say, moving forward, Big Pharma is not going to be able to advertise on TV here for whatever reasons.

00:19:58.000 Is that a good idea?

00:19:59.000 Is that a bad idea?

00:20:01.000 And if somebody were to move with that, how catastrophic would that be to Big Pharma and how catastrophic would that be to media?

00:20:08.000 Well, actually, the latter question is actually more interesting.

00:20:12.000 I'm not sure it would be catastrophic to Big Pharma.

00:20:15.000 Actually, they just do it because it's a habit.

00:20:17.000 I personally believe that there are probably, just from a business standpoint, forget American public policy for a second, we'll come back to that.

00:20:25.000 Just from a pure business standpoint, I told you the pharmaceutical industry behaves like it's a government, sort of in packs.

00:20:32.000 They go roaming in packs.

00:20:33.000 They all do the same thing.

00:20:34.000 They imitate each other.

00:20:35.000 So advertising on TV has become...

00:20:39.000 A almost habit, a rote behavior, right?

00:20:42.000 And you think about the swamp in government.

00:20:44.000 Well, the swamp exists in every sphere of our lives.

00:20:46.000 It exists in the private sector and corporate America as well.

00:20:48.000 And so people in the swamp, in the bureaucracy, they just do the things that they're trained to do.

00:20:53.000 So I believe if you look at the math, and I've been a few years out of the industry, but I'm thinking about my time in there.

00:21:00.000 The ROI on TV advertising is actually not that good.

00:21:03.000 They just do it because it feels like it's part of the plan that you're supposed to actually do.

00:21:08.000 And it's a monopoly profit industry.

00:21:11.000 See, that's the thing.

00:21:11.000 So normally in an industry, you would never find it would be ridiculous if you're in the consumer product industry or if you're in like a tech, high tech industry for me to say something like, oh, it's not a high ROI motive of internal investment.

00:21:24.000 We'd say, well, that's a crazy thing for you to say because that means a competitor would be doing it better and you'd be out of business.

00:21:29.000 Not so in the pharma industry because it is a monopoly profit industry where if you get your product to the finish line because of the patent system and because of not just the patent system but the statutes, the laws of this country, literally give you a monopoly to sell it for at least 12 years.

00:21:42.000 So when you have a true monopoly profit industry, you don't have an incentive quite as much with the same competitive market pressure to release yourself from old habits.

00:21:53.000 And so as old media has sort of died away, the fact that big pharma is advertising as much as they are in television, I don't even think is a good...

00:22:00.000 Business decision, actually.

00:22:01.000 So is it kind of like, you know, these guys work at these Fortune 500 companies and before they want to pitch an idea to the board, they first go spend $500,000 with McKinsey.

00:22:08.000 Then they come back and say, here it is.

00:22:10.000 Totally, totally, totally that.

00:22:12.000 Just what we typically do.

00:22:13.000 Totally that.

00:22:14.000 But then it's also even like one step I would double click here, which is...

00:22:20.000 in the psychology of like the person who's like the chief commercial officer of a product launch or whatever, as I said, they're incentives.

00:22:27.000 They're not like they're making millions of dollars on the upside if their project succeeds or whatever.

00:22:34.000 They just want to do things the standard way.

00:22:37.000 So if somebody tries launching that product without the TV ads and that ends up being a flop, but you're the only one who did it, then you get second guessed.

00:22:44.000 And it's also pretty cool to be a guy who actually your product that you're working on is your ads on TV.

00:22:49.000 So the psychology of it is more of a bureaucrat swamp type mentality.

00:22:53.000 Oh yeah, I got to advertise at the Superbowl.

00:22:55.000 Well, it's not a high ROI.

00:22:56.000 It doesn't matter because no one's competing against us anyway.

00:22:59.000 And we're printing billions of dollars in bottom line profit off of that drug after it's made it all the way through the process.

00:23:05.000 Once you're commercializing it, there's no real market disciplining.

00:23:09.000 So that's a business point that's separate from the public policy point you're raising.

00:23:13.000 I think the real public policy point on pharma, I think, should be applying to a lot of industries and the corruption of lobbying.

00:23:22.000 Okay.

00:23:22.000 If you have worked in the government, you should not be able to lobby that government any longer.

00:23:27.000 If you've worked in the last commissioner of the FDA, guess what he does now?

00:23:32.000 He sits on the board of Pfizer.

00:23:35.000 Literally.

00:23:35.000 Like, it's the first thing.

00:23:37.000 I like what you said today.

00:23:38.000 Ten years, right?

00:23:39.000 You said ten years.

00:23:39.000 Ten years.

00:23:40.000 Just give it ten years.

00:23:40.000 You can do it later.

00:23:41.000 And in those ten years, you can do whatever you want.

00:23:44.000 I mean, you could do it to make money for yourself through ingenuity.

00:23:47.000 But that's how they make their money.

00:23:49.000 Do it the real way, but just for 10 years, don't exploit your government connections to do it.

00:23:55.000 I don't think that's too much to ask.

00:23:57.000 That's the real problem with pharma, because then they lobby in these special, like with the vaccines, the whole controversy is, and I think it's idiotic and it's wrong, that Normally, if you're a product manufacturer and something hurts you, I don't know, this drink or, you know, I don't know, your furniture breaks and you get hurt or your car breaks down, you get to sue the manufacturer as a tort.

00:24:18.000 That's the system as it works. 0.87

00:24:19.000 You bought something that didn't function as it was supposed to.

00:24:22.000 If there's damage that somebody did to you, then that's a tort.

00:24:27.000 You get to sue them in court.

00:24:28.000 It's product liability, basic feature of just common law and state law.

00:24:33.000 But for pharma companies, there's a special federal blanket of immunity that say, if you're a vaccine manufacturer, you can't be sued even if that harms you.

00:24:42.000 That's the product of lobbying.

00:24:44.000 So I would say get the lobbying for the special privileges out of the way.

00:24:49.000 That's the real problem with pharma.

00:24:51.000 I'm a pretty liberty oriented guy.

00:24:53.000 And so for kids, I have separate sets of rules.

00:24:56.000 Kids aren't the same as adults. 0.84

00:24:57.000 For kids, you have to actually have separate rules that protect children.

00:25:02.000 But if you're a freely grown adult, you know, I think I'm a freedom-oriented guy, and so regardless of the industry, I don't want to get in the business of you can tell this person that or that thing, or you can ban her.

00:25:14.000 What you say, if you're telling adults truthful things and you're not lying to them, then that's fine.

00:25:17.000 Why do you think the other 193 countries don't?

00:25:19.000 I mean, forget about the 50%, you know. 0.99

00:25:22.000 It's an interesting question, right?

00:25:23.000 You know, the main ones, BRICS, you can take, you know, Europe.

00:25:27.000 Why don't they do it?

00:25:28.000 Yeah, but I think they also don't let cigarette companies advertise.

00:25:30.000 They also don't allow lots of other categories of companies to...

00:25:33.000 I mean, there's a lot of things that other countries do that the United States don't do.

00:25:37.000 And the United States, at least historically, has been the bastion for freedom, for liberty, for embracing...

00:25:42.000 Capitalism through liberty and economic freedom.

00:25:44.000 So it's not that like I think the motivation of it is is spot on.

00:25:48.000 The motivation is pharmaceutical industry because of its connectivity in the government is fundamentally corrupt and everyday citizens are left holding the bag as a consequence, higher costs for health care, etc.

00:25:58.000 My point is knowing what I know from, you know, at least the time I was in the industry, if this market were more competitive, A, the TV advertising is sort of not really a smart source of expenditure anyway.

00:26:10.000 And the real problem is they've erected barriers to competition by lobbying those governments, by hiring congressmen as their rent-a-rent-a-politician to be able to get special protections like the product liability for vaccines.

00:26:24.000 Right.

00:26:25.000 The product liability immunity for vaccine manufacturers that are just playing by a different set of rules because of the lobbying.

00:26:31.000 So that's what gets me worked up, and that's where I'm more focused from a public policy perspective.

00:26:36.000 And then from a pharmaceutical industry perspective, most of these companies can be run far more efficiently.

00:26:40.000 We were talking on your show just a little bit ago about an analogy that I would bring – about something that I intend to bring to the U.S. government.

00:26:48.000 If I'm the chief executive of the U.S. government as the U.S. president, there's millions and millions of federal employees.

00:26:54.000 I would literally take somebody the last – We talked about it over there.

00:26:58.000 The Social Security number, if it ends in an even number, you stay.

00:27:01.000 If it ends in an odd number, you go.

00:27:04.000 Boom.

00:27:05.000 Day one, 50% the size of the federal government.

00:27:07.000 The federal bureaucracy is half as thin.

00:27:09.000 And if that still is too big, which I fear it might be, you look at the first number of your Social Security number.

00:27:13.000 Okay?

00:27:14.000 If it's an odd number, you stay.

00:27:15.000 If it's an even number, you go.

00:27:16.000 Period.

00:27:17.000 Boom.

00:27:17.000 That's a 75% cut.

00:27:19.000 You go to most big pharma companies today...

00:27:22.000 I have no doubt in my mind that the value of those companies and big pharma would go up if a CEO of that company did the same thing.

00:27:29.000 That's what we're doing on day one.

00:27:30.000 Because otherwise it's too hard to figure out, like, you know, by the time you wrap your arms around it, you think you're actually making the more micro-thoughtful decisions with a chisel.

00:27:41.000 And there's a time for a chisel, but there's a time for a chainsaw.

00:27:44.000 A lot of these bureaucracies, both in the federal government and even some of the private sector bureaucracies, have become bureaucracies where now is the moment for a chainsaw and not a chisel.

00:27:52.000 You bring the chisel later.

00:27:53.000 And I think that part of what makes the pharmaceutical industry behave like the government is they share something in common.

00:27:59.000 They're both monopolies.

00:28:00.000 Yeah, to me, the reason why I bring this up specifically with you is you've been in this space before.

00:28:07.000 And you almost think about these big pharma companies that indirectly own these media companies because these media companies need to take the accounts.

00:28:15.000 It's almost like a podcast or YouTuber you watch, right?

00:28:17.000 Okay.

00:28:19.000 If a guy doesn't have money, hasn't made money, he has to take every sponsorship because he has to pay the bills.

00:28:26.000 So he'll do manscaped.

00:28:27.000 He'll do anything and everything that anybody spends, you know, hey, can you promote this?

00:28:31.000 No problem.

00:28:32.000 CBD, gambling, no problem, right?

00:28:33.000 Because you've got to take it.

00:28:34.000 Versus somebody that's like, no, we're not doing that because that's not part of our brand.

00:28:39.000 And a part of this concern is from COVID because we were told this is the way to go because the guys were giving the media company money, so they were the mouthpiece.

00:28:49.000 So how do you prevent that from happening again when we experienced those two and a half years during COVID? Yeah, I mean, I think that competition is a big part of the answer.

00:28:59.000 I mean, because again, if there's one industry that's saying, I'm going to buy and own you, that's the answer, because you're effectively tethered to it, then that's one thing.

00:29:07.000 But presumably, if that's a useful mode of advertising, it's going to be a useful mode of advertising for people that have different agendas as well.

00:29:13.000 So I think the real root cause of the COVID cultural censorship that we saw in this country, again, comes back to the relationship between big businesses and government.

00:29:24.000 So pharmaceutical companies have these special blankets of privileges that the government has granted them through lobbying.

00:29:29.000 Big tech is the same thing.

00:29:30.000 I mean, this is part of what stifled dissent during COVID. It wasn't just we own you as a cable network.

00:29:36.000 It's that we own you as a social media company, too.

00:29:39.000 Look at what the advertisers tried to pull on Elon, which is by saying that unless you have certain restrictions on speech, we're not going to advertise with you.

00:29:46.000 So this is just a problem as it relates to commerce.

00:29:48.000 But the problem here is when the government gets in on it and starts coming down on the side of saying that If you don't take down certain kinds of speech or if you don't promote the kinds of speech that we, the government, want, then there's going to be consequences for you.

00:30:02.000 I think that's really where the real problems emerged during sort of the COVID era.

00:30:08.000 And the orthodoxies is the invisible hand of government forcing a lot of companies to do what those companies otherwise wouldn't have done.

00:30:17.000 But if it weren't for that, then if you're a company and you need to sell ads, sell the ads to anybody.

00:30:22.000 But if you don't want to be owned by somebody, then don't sell them all of your ads.

00:30:27.000 And if you really have a value proposition for people to be able to sell more products, they should be able to sell more products.

00:30:33.000 A lot of people should be able to sell more products by doing it.

00:30:35.000 That's kind of the way I see it.

00:30:36.000 What do you think?

00:30:36.000 Yeah, I'm trying to think, because, okay, so Nikki Haley, whom you guys are best friends with, so Nikki Haley, you know, back in 40, you guys said it's fantastic watching to see what's going to happen there.

00:30:47.000 But, so she leaves her job and goes, works at Boeing, and she becomes a millionaire, the whole allied, you know, Department of Defense that you were talking about earlier.

00:30:57.000 Let's find out the contract.

00:30:58.000 Let's find out that's valid.

00:30:59.000 We want to know what the contracts are.

00:31:01.000 Okay, but so you said the solution would be lobbyists.

00:31:04.000 Okay, Harry, didn't Harry become a chief executive of some kind of a company, a C-suite of a company that they hired him?

00:31:11.000 I don't know if it was Visa or MasterCard, one of those companies that hired, I'm talking Harry, Prince Harry, he got hired.

00:31:17.000 So if you can't hire him as a lobbyist, they'll find a way around it.

00:31:20.000 They'll find a loophole and put him as a high-paid employee and say, we're paying $4 million a year, we're paying $3 million a year.

00:31:25.000 And it's really another job as a lobbyist.

00:31:27.000 Yeah, I mean, he's not able to, I mean, he should not have, and it should be criminal to have contact with government officials in any capacity.

00:31:35.000 Now you say, how are you going to detect that?

00:31:36.000 Are you going to have secret dinners, etc.?

00:31:37.000 Well, I mean, that's an enforcement issue, and that's that.

00:31:40.000 But at least right now, we haven't even drawn the lines.

00:31:42.000 Right now, our entire system blesses those people being able to, I mean, let's take the Nikki Haley example.

00:31:48.000 She literally was scratching the back of Boeing, did special favors for them, unique favors just for that company while she's governor of South Carolina. 1.00

00:31:55.000 They kept a nice seat warm for her.

00:31:56.000 She joins the board of Boeing when she's done with her time in government.

00:31:59.000 So that's perfectly not only within the rules.

00:32:05.000 It's standard operating procedure today.

00:32:06.000 I think if you actually put a clear ban on your ability to do that, that at least says, okay, if you're going to violate that law, you're going to be a criminal.

00:32:15.000 but it at least criminalizes the behavior that's the actual root cause.

00:32:19.000 Then there's always a question of execution, right?

00:32:20.000 Just because you have implemented a law doesn't mean that it always gets followed.

00:32:24.000 That's a question of execution and enforcement.

00:32:26.000 But I do still think that that's the right next step, is eliminate the governmental special privileges.

00:32:34.000 You got the Section 230 issue in tech, right?

00:32:37.000 The equivalent of the pharma liability shield for vaccine manufacturers is a special liability shield that tech companies win through lobbying.

00:32:45.000 Which is to say that even if there are state laws, and they exist in this state, in Florida and other states, that say you cannot take down content that is politically a product of discrimination.

00:33:00.000 Many states, even California has such a law actually.

00:33:02.000 California worried about discrimination against liberals in the post-Bush era.

00:33:06.000 That even if those laws exist at the state level, that Big Tech got a special benefit, Section 230C2, specifically that part of it, that says you are not liable under those state laws.

00:33:20.000 You have a special blanket of immunity from the federal government if you're an internet company that removes content that is otherwise constitutionally protected.

00:33:30.000 There's no reason for that special blanket of liability except for the product.

00:33:35.000 Of lobbying.

00:33:37.000 So there's other ways to lobby.

00:33:38.000 To say, even if you can't leave the government for 10 years, you can't lobby the government.

00:33:42.000 Well, that means that at least they can't hire the congressman to go, you know, pick off his old crony friends. 0.94

00:33:48.000 But what do they do?

00:33:49.000 They write big checks to the super PACs.

00:33:51.000 That's where I think the problem is.

00:33:52.000 You don't know where the big pharma spending problem is?

00:33:55.000 Super PACs.

00:33:56.000 How big is that?

00:33:57.000 What's the number?

00:33:59.000 Super PACs are the cancer in American politics.

00:34:01.000 I can explain how this works, actually.

00:34:03.000 A lot of people probably have heard the word but may not be familiar with how it works.

00:34:07.000 So the rules of the road are this, normally.

00:34:11.000 We don't want our politicians to be corrupted, so you can only give $3,300 to a presidential campaign for a primary.

00:34:21.000 Except that's not how it actually works.

00:34:23.000 You can only give that directly to the campaign.

00:34:25.000 But the way all of these campaigns are funded is a small group of wealthy people give money to these independent groups called super PACs that are basically affiliated with a candidate.

00:34:37.000 Everyone knows that there's an affiliate.

00:34:39.000 And they'll say, because we've spoken to them, they'll say, yeah, we don't talk to the candidate.

00:34:42.000 This is, you know, we're independent of the candidate.

00:34:45.000 Yet, I mean, in Ron DeSantis' case, I mean, let's just get real.

00:34:48.000 The literal campaign bus they travel around on.

00:34:51.000 Is arranged by the Super PAC. The private jets flights that they take are paid for by the Super PACs, right?

00:34:57.000 The Super PAC is the one that sends the cameraman, oh, it's a funny thing, by the way, to my events.

00:35:02.000 There's a little, there's like a guy in his 20s.

00:35:03.000 He follows me around all my events to see if there's ever a flub with an audience member or whatever so that they can pass it over to the folks over there to distribute and make a competitor look bad.

00:35:14.000 And I'm not blaming, the kid's a good kid actually doing his job.

00:35:17.000 I'm not blaming dissents.

00:35:17.000 It's just the way the game is played.

00:35:19.000 So the Super PAC's idea that they're not individually supporting a candidate is ridiculous. 0.87

00:35:23.000 But here's the dirty little secret people need to know.

00:35:28.000 The candidates show up at massive mega fundraising summits, right?

00:35:34.000 In fact, sometimes multiple candidates will show up at a summit for the people who are funding the Super PACs.

00:35:39.000 That's where the candidates spend more of their time than in small-dollar fundraising.

00:35:44.000 They don't care about small-dollar fundraising.

00:35:46.000 It doesn't matter to them.

00:35:47.000 What matters is the people who are writing the multimillion-dollar checks.

00:35:50.000 So if the candidate is literally spending their time with them to raise the money, goes to the Super PAC, and the Super PAC is actually just propping up the candidate, even paying, not in normal cases, but now in this cycle, Ron DeSantis' private jets and buses, tell me that's not having some corrupting influence.

00:36:06.000 Yet we tell this farce that it's $3,300 that an individual can donate because we don't want to corrupt the politician.

00:36:12.000 Well, the politician's meeting with the people who are writing $10 million checks.

00:36:17.000 And knowing that those checks are directly going to help the campaign and having meetings about what their objectives are, that's a joke.

00:36:22.000 Okay?

00:36:23.000 That's a joke.

00:36:25.000 So the fact of the matter is...

00:36:27.000 That's where the other source of informal lobbying and corruption occurs. 0.66

00:36:32.000 So I think we should end that system, right?

00:36:35.000 So we think about the impact of paid advertising on TV where anybody in the marketplace can buy a paid ad.

00:36:40.000 Finishing super PACs is what you're saying.

00:36:42.000 Yeah, I think the super...

00:36:43.000 So here's what I would say.

00:36:44.000 King Griffin right now, who was pro DeSantis at first, and rumor had it he may give 100 million bucks, and now he's St. Haley.

00:36:51.000 Now he doesn't have a way to give that money to a super PAC. His maximum is 3,300 times two whites. 0.59

00:36:57.000 Here's the way I would do it.

00:36:59.000 You're max at $3,300.

00:37:00.000 So if there are entities that are specifically supporting individual candidates by name, you're capped at giving $3,300, just like to a campaign.

00:37:10.000 Let's say you want to give to a cause, right?

00:37:12.000 You're advancing, I don't know, educational freedom, or you're advancing healthcare access.

00:37:18.000 Pick your issue.

00:37:18.000 We have free speech in this country, and I believe in that.

00:37:20.000 You can give an unlimited amount, right, to express yourself and your view.

00:37:24.000 But we've already said that the government and the state and our society has a compelling interest in preventing corruption, which is why we have a $3,300 maximum for giving to a campaign.

00:37:34.000 Well, if that same corrupting influence exists at a super PAC, it's a joke if the entire system is run without applying that maximum.

00:37:43.000 I'm a free speech absolutist.

00:37:45.000 But applied the same set of rules we're already applying for the campaign to just write, if you're going to write the check to an entity that is supporting a campaign, make it $3,300 maximum.

00:37:54.000 Same thing as for the campaign.

00:37:55.000 When did it come up with the Super PAC concept?

00:37:56.000 It was post-2010.

00:37:58.000 There was a Supreme Court case called Citizens United versus FEC. Actually, an interesting case.

00:38:03.000 It was a non-profit group that, anyway, it's a long story relating to a documentary of Hillary Clinton.

00:38:09.000 But that was the case after which the left used to complain and say, corporations aren't people.

00:38:14.000 Because the core holding of that case is, well, corporations still have free speech rights and these corporate super PAC then became the corporation, an entity.

00:38:21.000 And so after that, it became a tortured interpretation of the law.

00:38:25.000 But back in 2010, if you told those justices, the basic holding of the case was that The government can restrict you from expressing your opinions through speech in giving specific money to a candidate because the government has a compelling interest in preventing corruption, even though you're allowed to speak your mind freely however you want and give money to whatever cause you want.

00:38:45.000 If it's donating to a campaign, we want to put limits on the absolute maximum you can give.

00:38:52.000 That was the premise.

00:38:53.000 But if there's an independent cause, like you want to make a documentary or, you know, pursue climate change fanaticism or whatever, you're free to do that.

00:39:00.000 It's a free country and no one's going to stop you from spending how much money you want to do that.

00:39:04.000 What they never imagined was that that independent entity that's advocating for some climate change policy or some, you know, whatever, gun rights policy, that that entity Right.

00:39:20.000 And then those entities provide the campaign bus that takes you from place to place, pay for the private jets from take you from place to place, pay for the ads that are on television, pay for 90 percent of the expenditures of your campaign are paid for by most of your employees for the Ron DeSantis effort to become president or employed pay for 90 percent of the expenditures of your campaign are paid for by

00:39:40.000 The people who wrote the Supreme Court case in the majority opinion in Citizens United never imagined that would actually be the case today because there's obviously a corrupting influence.

00:39:52.000 Have you seen the numbers?

00:39:53.000 We did an episode on it.

00:39:54.000 Is this live or is this...

00:39:55.000 This is not live, it's taped.

00:39:57.000 Okay, so do you guys typically add stuff, B-roll?

00:39:59.000 Yeah, we can add that.

00:39:59.000 If you find the numbers of what happened after 2010, you'll see 430 million and then it goes to 1.4 billion All of a sudden, the amount of money that went into it.

00:40:11.000 You're making a very good point here, but let's go back.

00:40:13.000 Let me ask you this.

00:40:14.000 What industry is illegal to advertise on TV today?

00:40:18.000 What industry is it illegal to advertise on TV? I'm not sure I know that question.

00:40:22.000 Are cigarettes illegal to advertise?

00:40:24.000 Because I've not seen a cigarette commercial for a long time.

00:40:26.000 Yeah, I don't see Camel.

00:40:28.000 I don't see Winston.

00:40:29.000 They used to be on TV all the time.

00:40:30.000 They used to be, of course.

00:40:31.000 I'm just actually curious.

00:40:33.000 Yeah, I'm curious as well.

00:40:35.000 I should know the answer.

00:40:36.000 I don't know the answer.

00:40:37.000 Let's actually take a look at that.

00:40:38.000 Kelly, can you check to see what industry is not allowed to advertise on TV? I'm not going to trust the first thing that comes out of here, but I'm just curious what at least the facial answer is.

00:40:50.000 Advertise on TV. He says there's additional restrictions or disclosure for tobacco products, for alcohol under 21. Political and controversial matters.

00:41:05.000 So tobacco products cannot be advertised on television.

00:41:08.000 Okay, so there you go.

00:41:09.000 So then the question becomes, because the argument typically when I bring this up, people will say, well, why?

00:41:14.000 They used to be able to.

00:41:15.000 Right.

00:41:16.000 Gun ads are allowed still, I believe. 0.90

00:41:19.000 Yep.

00:41:19.000 Okay, so there's some controversy around that.

00:41:22.000 Yeah, but they're not going to pick it up.

00:41:24.000 A lot of these companies are not going to let you do it.

00:41:25.000 Hey, here's a Smith& Wesson ad.

00:41:27.000 Let me tell you how I killed a deer the other day.

00:41:29.000 Here's what I used.

00:41:31.000 But many times when I bring up this conversation about New Zealand and US, people say, well, you know, that's not fair because, you know, capitalism, you got to let them out.

00:41:41.000 I say, okay, good argument.

00:41:42.000 And if that's the case, if we make it...

00:41:44.000 How about beer companies?

00:41:45.000 You know, look how many people die every year from alcohol.

00:41:47.000 Okay, but why is tobacco not allowed?

00:41:49.000 And why is this not allowed?

00:41:51.000 So, I don't know.

00:41:52.000 The only thing I think about where it's a clear, indefinite way that stops the gamification and the manipulation is if I go to the doctor, doctor tells me, here's the vaccine, take it, fine, the doctor's telling me.

00:42:09.000 If I go to whoever, but if a media company...

00:42:12.000 It's getting tens of millions of dollars per year from Big Pharma.

00:42:16.000 I almost have to go dance around in a syringe, and my name is Stephen Colbert saying, hey, take the vaccine.

00:42:24.000 So, yeah, it's a deeper problem.

00:42:28.000 I mean, you could talk about the same thing as BlackRock advertising on television too, right?

00:42:34.000 I mean, they're basically the company that controls, as a shareholder, All major publicly traded companies as the top shareholder of those companies that when they advertise on a given network, the influence they're going to have is disproportionate because they not only do they own the company literally as shareholders, but they own it directly as well.

00:42:53.000 And so I think it strikes me as a form of where to use the pharmaceutical analogy, like a symptomatic therapy.

00:42:59.000 You know what I mean?

00:43:00.000 Because there's going to be still so many other ways, as we're saying, legacy TV is dying anyway.

00:43:03.000 So that means you can't advertise on digital either.

00:43:05.000 And what counts as an Internet advertising or otherwise?

00:43:08.000 Maybe we don't want advertisements at all.

00:43:10.000 But then now you're then beholden to the expert class.

00:43:14.000 I mean, think about like, you know, what the FDA says a doctor can and can't tell you.

00:43:19.000 Now you're getting your information through a different source that's captured versus, for me, the right answer is more competition in the marketplace and get the government out of the business of indirectly using these companies as pawns.

00:43:33.000 And the way...

00:43:35.000 The companies capture the government to keep out competition and to get in bed with government is with these special lobbying-based measures.

00:43:42.000 I mean, they lobby the government, hire lobbyists who have left their time in government, and then they...

00:43:47.000 Go through the front door of Super Packs.

00:43:49.000 Did you ever watch the movie, Insider?

00:43:51.000 The Philip Morris lobby?

00:43:52.000 Yeah, I did.

00:43:53.000 It was actually really good.

00:43:55.000 Very good movie.

00:43:55.000 Yeah, who was the guy who was the actor?

00:43:58.000 He was in Batman as well.

00:43:59.000 He was the guy who was the prosecutor in Batman.

00:44:00.000 Yes.

00:44:01.000 Yeah, in Dark Knight.

00:44:03.000 Very good movie.

00:44:03.000 That was a really good movie.

00:44:04.000 It's the best lobbying movie one can watch.

00:44:06.000 And it was so cynical.

00:44:09.000 But it was funny.

00:44:10.000 It was funny.

00:44:12.000 Is that the one where there's like the reporter and he kind of have like a relationship even though she's the one supposedly exposing the whole thing?

00:44:19.000 It's a must watch.

00:44:20.000 I mean if anybody wants to know about lobbying go watch that movie.

00:44:23.000 But you know if the argument we go of the capitalism argument let the market decide And get the government out of the way.

00:44:30.000 Okay.

00:44:30.000 And if I'm taking that position, perfect.

00:44:33.000 Let's take that as a position.

00:44:35.000 If I'm Philip Morris, I'm coming, I say, listen, guys, hey, Vivek, hey, President XYZ, if that's the case, you guys should allow us to advertise on TV. What's wrong with that?

00:44:44.000 We are more responsible today.

00:44:46.000 So there is that.

00:44:47.000 So I think the issue there is...

00:44:52.000 I'm processing what the logic there is, and so we want to look more into this.

00:44:55.000 But I think that cigarettes are banned for any kid under the age of 18. So if kids are using the platform they're advertising on, I think that would be the justification.

00:45:07.000 Versus...

00:45:09.000 Any other product, let's say, I don't know, a car.

00:45:11.000 It's not banned for usage.

00:45:13.000 How about alcohol?

00:45:13.000 Alcohol is banned for under 21. They're advertising everywhere.

00:45:16.000 I see Budweiser everywhere.

00:45:17.000 You see, you know...

00:45:18.000 Yeah, I'm not saying...

00:45:19.000 I mean, Pat, I'm with you.

00:45:21.000 Do you think our laws are consistent?

00:45:22.000 No, that's what I'm saying.

00:45:23.000 No, they're not.

00:45:23.000 They're pretty random, actually.

00:45:24.000 All I'm thinking about is being a devil's advocate for Philip Moore, saying, if I'm a guy saying you're taking that position, I'm coming in and saying, fine, I agree with you, Vivek.

00:45:31.000 You should allow us to advertise.

00:45:32.000 We'll put, you know, a billion-dollar year of ads going back to making people realize cigarettes are cool again.

00:45:38.000 Yeah, I mean, I think that that would culturally fail, actually.

00:45:43.000 I don't think the reason that cigarettes have gone down dramatically in popularity is because they don't advertise on TV anymore.

00:45:53.000 You don't think that's a leading factor?

00:45:56.000 I think a leading factor of it was massive, massive, massive tort suits that found people got lung cancer and made them culturally unpopular.

00:46:04.000 People realized that their kids are actually going to be dying much earlier.

00:46:06.000 I think that's one.

00:46:07.000 I think the other one is education, right?

00:46:10.000 Yeah, totally.

00:46:11.000 Money that's out of TV. That's not taking place anymore.

00:46:17.000 You make me want to look into this, actually.

00:46:20.000 And the reason why I'm talking to you about it is because you're the guy that, if there is a candidate, like let's just say on Alabama debate, okay?

00:46:28.000 You take the next 30 days and you're looking, nah, Pat's not, I'm not going to entertain this.

00:46:32.000 It's not going to be an idea.

00:46:33.000 But if you get convicted about this, like if there's a guy that gets conviction behind what we're talking about, and you go drop this bomb at the Alabama deal, and next thing you know, you know who else is coming after you afterwards.

00:46:46.000 Now you got it because people are like, if there's one company or industry you don't want coming after you, it's Big Pharma.

00:46:52.000 But I think that's a whole different conversation where you have the moral authority because you've been in the industry to say, here's how it would happen.

00:47:00.000 You make me want to, you have given me a motivation.

00:47:03.000 First of all, you made me curious on this because you make, you raise some really good points on the entire inconsistency between the regime for tobacco advertising versus alcohol advertising versus farm advertising.

00:47:14.000 And so it's a good set of questions, but I think there's a deeper question where we do have, I mean, actually one of the areas where, you know, the issue I do talk about this relates to is why do you think we shuttered psychiatric institutions in the United States?

00:47:31.000 Why did we shutter psychiatrists?

00:47:33.000 Because in the debate stage we're talking a lot about crime, right?

00:47:35.000 So crime has gone up.

00:47:36.000 Crime has gone up directly over the period that psychiatric hospitals have closed.

00:47:41.000 Yeah.

00:47:41.000 So I would say this to you.

00:47:43.000 So I got a book coming out called Choose Your Enemies Wisely.

00:47:45.000 December 5th it comes out.

00:47:46.000 It's business planning for audacious few.

00:47:50.000 I think those who win, you know, choose their enemies wisely.

00:47:53.000 I'm talking to Brady about this.

00:47:54.000 I'm like, Brady, there's three factors of somebody that takes it to a whole different level in their lives.

00:47:58.000 One, they have experienced unconditional love from one person.

00:48:02.000 It's mandatory.

00:48:03.000 You need to have it because you know that exists.

00:48:05.000 Number two, unconditional pain From somebody you loved that they betrayed you and let you down.

00:48:11.000 I think that's necessary because you have to experience that pain.

00:48:14.000 And then the last one is choosing your enemies wisely because that gets something out of you, right?

00:48:18.000 Like when I'm watching you, your energy, where's the stem from?

00:48:21.000 What are you doing this for?

00:48:22.000 Are you doing it just because you want to be famous?

00:48:23.000 I don't think so.

00:48:24.000 I think you're doing this because there's a real enemy that's moving you and driving you, right?

00:48:28.000 Okay.

00:48:29.000 So you asked this question about...

00:48:30.000 That's interesting.

00:48:31.000 I like that thesis.

00:48:31.000 Those are three interesting...

00:48:33.000 Yeah, so you asked this question, and one of the enemies that I think Nixon did a lot of good, you know, everybody, when you think about Nixon, they think about Watergate, but Nixon also did a lot of good.

00:48:43.000 Oh, yeah, he did.

00:48:44.000 Yeah, he did.

00:48:44.000 One of the things on the case study that backfires on him is the following data, and that's the war on drugs, right?

00:48:50.000 1971, when they come out with it, and then the data...

00:48:54.000 To follow after that, in 1970, per 100,000 men in America, 200 were incarcerated.

00:49:02.000 And we had around 350,000 people in jail, give or take.

00:49:07.000 So again, 100,000, 200 men.

00:49:10.000 Every decade, that went up.

00:49:12.000 From 200 to 400,000.

00:49:14.000 To 600, to 800, to almost 1,000 today.

00:49:18.000 Per 100,000, 1% of men are incarcerated.

00:49:22.000 That's a big number right there.

00:49:23.000 Okay.

00:49:24.000 We went from 350,000 in jail to 2.3 million in jail.

00:49:28.000 Population has increased from there till now 67%, 70% give or take.

00:49:34.000 Jail prison population has increased 550-575%, depending on what numbers you're looking at.

00:49:39.000 Okay, so did Nixon choose the right enemy?

00:49:42.000 Did he do it because he tried to put drug dealers in prison?

00:49:46.000 Well, what was the other thing that backfired with that?

00:49:48.000 Fatherless homes, you know, back in 1950s or something, 4% of kids were being born to a single father.

00:49:56.000 Now it's 25%?

00:49:58.000 Now it's up to 40%.

00:49:59.000 And so maybe we chose the wrong enemy.

00:50:02.000 When you're talking about what you're talking about, I think that's another one of those cases where we chose the wrong enemy, the wrong solution for a problem, and we're paying a price for it today.

00:50:11.000 Yeah, I think it's...

00:50:13.000 That's an interesting...

00:50:16.000 Analysis, I agree with it.

00:50:17.000 Now, why did we choose the wrong enemy?

00:50:20.000 It comes back to one of the points you were making.

00:50:22.000 I think big pharma played a big role in it.

00:50:24.000 See, when the psychiatric medications came out, which were some of the biggest blockbuster medicines, they said, wait, these people are stuck in there.

00:50:32.000 They could be out in the world actually using these antipsychotics and otherwise.

00:50:36.000 And so that was a product in part of Lobbying.

00:50:40.000 To say, you know, there's many arguments for it.

00:50:42.000 There are psychiatric abuses, and those are real at those psychiatric institutions and otherwise.

00:50:46.000 But it's not a coincidence that it's precisely over the period that you see blockbuster antipsychotic drugs coming out, that you also see the shuttering of psychiatric institutions in this country, right?

00:50:58.000 And so that gets back to, you know, when you think about picking the enemy from my vantage point, it's all about the merger of of state power and corporate power most bad things in the economy that look like they're failures of businesses or that's something we need to fix through government intervention into a business to fix a problem that exists in the society most i'm not saying all the time but most of the time you can trace and pull that string all the way back up to

00:51:29.000 some other form of special government protection That comes from, it never happens automatically.

00:51:35.000 It's always the product of some form of corruption.

00:51:37.000 Either the influence of money on an election process, indirectly or through lobbying or otherwise.

00:51:42.000 So that's where I go to.

00:51:44.000 I mean, it's a different Big Pharma problem.

00:51:47.000 Big Pharma lobbied for a result that created the shuttering of psychiatric institutions that, in part now, is responsible for a wave of violent crime as psychiatrically ill people were able to be dangerous.

00:51:59.000 Strategically, strategically.

00:52:00.000 It's deceptive, but strategically, they made the right move economically for themselves.

00:52:05.000 Oh, yeah.

00:52:06.000 It's a dark move, but it's the right move they made.

00:52:08.000 But this is the part that, you know, I'm sure you've read this and I'm sure, you know, Big Pharma book about how heroin used to be sold by these big pharmaceutical companies and how they sold it.

00:52:17.000 Even fentanyl today, it's, you know, 50 times more potent, more powerful than heroin, killing 150 people a day.

00:52:24.000 Totally.

00:52:24.000 But it's FDA approved.

00:52:25.000 Fentanyl is FDA approved.

00:52:27.000 Most people don't know this.

00:52:28.000 If you go right now Google fentanyl FDA approved, it would say fentanyl is FDA. How is it even possible for it to be FDA approved?

00:52:35.000 So to me, that enemy, it would be an enemy that I'm sure knowing how you're wired and how you think, you're going to have to be very methodical and meticulous whether this is an enemy.

00:52:44.000 Tied to the facts, yeah.

00:52:45.000 Yeah, but if you go after that enemy and your background on how you made your money Is this space, and you saw the good, bad, and the ugly, the dark side.

00:52:55.000 I mean, I'm sure you saw who Tucker had on his show a couple weeks ago.

00:52:59.000 The guy that bought the patents of this pharmaceutical, this drug, and he was selling it for $5,000.

00:53:04.000 What's the guy's name?

00:53:05.000 Martin Shkreli?

00:53:06.000 He was on with Tucker?

00:53:07.000 Two weeks ago.

00:53:08.000 Oh, really?

00:53:09.000 I didn't see that.

00:53:10.000 Oh, you've got to watch it.

00:53:12.000 Oh, that's funny.

00:53:12.000 So all I'm saying, I think if you go that space...

00:53:17.000 I really think it's going to trigger a lot of mothers, a lot of family, a lot of people that were forced to do certain things to their kids that are hurt, that were not happy.

00:53:29.000 There's a reason why RFK's book on Fauci did so well and got 27,000 reviews on Amazon, a self-pub book.

00:53:35.000 It's not a self-pub, but it's not through Simon& Schuster or Penguin.

00:53:38.000 I think there is...

00:53:40.000 Some buttons there to be pressed where any of the candidates today, take RFK out, environmental lawyer, this is what he's going after with the whole vaccines.

00:53:49.000 I think you're the most qualified to hit this hard.

00:53:53.000 But just be ready before you do it because you're going to have a lot of powerful people coming after you if you do that.

00:53:57.000 I know what that feels like already.

00:53:59.000 There you go.

00:53:59.000 So I appreciate that, man.

00:54:01.000 Well, good, man.

00:54:02.000 Well, all I'll say is the next edition of the Truth Podcast, you know, time's going to fly by.

00:54:07.000 Hopefully it'll be from the White House, all right?

00:54:08.000 I look forward to it.

00:54:09.000 You down for that?

00:54:10.000 Absolutely.

00:54:10.000 That'd be one of our early fireside chats.

00:54:12.000 Let's do it.

00:54:12.000 That'd be fun.

00:54:13.000 Good seeing you, brother.

00:54:14.000 Appreciate you.

00:54:14.000 Keep up the good work.

00:54:15.000 I'm proud of you.

Truth Podcast - Vivek Ramaswamy - November 20, 2023

Disrupting the Mainstream Media | The TRUTH Podcast #43

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