Truth Podcast - Vivek Ramaswamy - Megyn Kelly and Vivek Ramaswamy on The Power of Personal Responsibility | The TRUTH Podcast #34

00:00:02.000 So I'm usually pretty ready with a response to a question I'll get on the campaign trail.

00:00:29.000 Sponsored by the WS.

00:00:30.000 Policy issues, I'm good.

00:00:31.000 Cultural issues, I usually have my views already formed.

00:00:36.000 But there's one recurring question, Iowa, New Hampshire.

00:00:40.000 You know, last night we did an event in Ohio.

00:00:42.000 Actually, it was our first fundraiser that we did for the campaign on our three-month anniversary of launching it.

00:00:48.000 We got the same question.

00:00:49.000 And I have to admit, I don't have a great answer.

00:00:52.000 I'm not sure the next US president can do anything about it either.

00:00:59.000 I'm not talking about woke culture.

00:01:01.000 I'm not talking about the merger of state power and corporate power.

00:01:06.000 I'm talking about the US energy sector, inflation, foreign policy, China, none of that stuff.

00:01:11.000 The question I get is, what are you going to do about I have to admit, it's a question that Stumps me a little bit.

00:01:38.000 The best I'm able to say is, look, I believe in the internet.

00:01:41.000 I think the internet decentralizes the provision of information.

00:01:46.000 But then again, there's now the means of accessing the internet that are themselves centralized, which then get captured by external forces, including the government itself.

00:01:55.000 I didn't have a great answer.

00:01:56.000 And that's why I was looking forward to a conversation with somebody who has done something that I haven't, which is to have lived in, grown up, professionally succeeded within the world of media itself, who's unafraid to speak truth On anything, including about media as well.

00:02:14.000 And as a friend, but I haven't had this conversation with her yet, and I'm looking forward to it.

00:02:18.000 So, Megyn Kelly, welcome to my podcast this time around.

00:02:21.000 I've been on yours many, many a time over.

00:02:24.000 Hi, thank you.

00:02:25.000 Thanks for having me.

00:02:25.000 Looking forward to the chat.

00:02:28.000 Yeah, me too.

00:02:28.000 Where I can learn a thing or two from you.

00:02:31.000 I've got your answer.

00:02:32.000 Yeah, good.

00:02:33.000 All right.

00:02:33.000 Well, I'm eager for it.

00:02:34.000 Let's get right into it then.

00:02:36.000 Stay out of it.

00:02:37.000 That's really all you can do.

00:02:38.000 We don't need more government interference and the government can't help.

00:02:41.000 Can't help media. 0.78

00:02:42.000 Can only hurt.

00:02:42.000 You know, they're definitely not the solution to this massive problem.

00:02:45.000 I think the solution to this massive problem of, you know, dishonest media is media Darwinism.

00:02:52.000 That'll take care of it.

00:02:53.000 And it's already taken care of it.

00:02:54.000 CNN is collapsing.

00:02:55.000 Fox News is being punished for its disastrous Tucker decision.

00:02:59.000 MSNBC still has some viewers because that's where the leftists go. 0.98

00:03:03.000 But they will, the viewers figured out eventually, and they will punish the channels appropriately, and then they will find other outlets.

00:03:09.000 You know, media trust is at an all-time low.

00:03:12.000 The search for outside sources, we just saw this in this Harvard Harris poll, is greater than ever.

00:03:17.000 More independents are seeking their news outside of their old channels, like no more ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, no more for them.

00:03:24.000 More independents are seeking outside channels like the digital lane than ever before.

00:03:29.000 More Republicans are doing that than we've ever seen before.

00:03:32.000 Democrats are still watching TV, so they're still like dividing their eyeballs between all those channels I just mentioned.

00:03:38.000 And I think we really started to add to our problems when we started to have other performance of media like Facebook try to do little fact corrections on the ads, the political ads that were being run on it.

00:03:50.000 Like, no, just stay out of it.

00:03:54.000 You know, I agree with you on the government staying out of it.

00:03:56.000 I'm intrigued by your optimism on the market working this out.

00:04:01.000 I guess you're seeing it real time.

00:04:03.000 I mean, your own success through your channels of reaching people is probably a good testament to that.

00:04:09.000 But I guess it's fair to say then it sounds like you're pretty optimistic that the problems introduced by so-called media capture of narrative and the flow of information, that's not too high on your list of concerns just because you think competition is more or less working itself out.

00:04:25.000 Yeah, I think we're already correct.

00:04:27.000 We're well on our way to correcting it.

00:04:28.000 I think it was a bigger problem like five years ago than it is now.

00:04:31.000 Now, look, it's never been a problem for the left.

00:04:35.000 They're the ones who have all the institutions, so they can jam their narratives down our throats, and we've been sort of their prisoner.

00:04:41.000 Then Fox News was born and provided somewhat of an antidote.

00:04:44.000 Now, you know, it's a little wobbly.

00:04:46.000 But since, you know, even six years ago, the explosion of digital media, podcasting, radio as well, it's always been a sort of a hotbed for conservatism in a good way.

00:04:58.000 But look, right now, if you want to listen to anybody, like Glenn Greenwald is a liberal, but he's not woke and he fights these government institutions that have been, you know, corrupted, you can listen to him.

00:05:09.000 If you want to listen to Matt Taibbi, same thing.

00:05:10.000 If you want to listen to Ben Shapiro, you want to listen to me, you want to listen to you.

00:05:13.000 There's so many places that you can get us now where you don't have to surrender to...

00:05:18.000 These institutional rules that queer the debate, right?

00:05:21.000 And that's a good thing.

00:05:22.000 And I think that's as a result of consumer demand and a couple of intrepid, I don't know, just searchers like Glenn Beck.

00:05:32.000 You could name a few who have gone out into the space first and given it a try and created a lane for the rest of us.

00:05:36.000 I mean, I'm here because Ben Shapiro pulled me aside when I was post-NBC and said, MK, when you're making a decision about what to do next, this is a real lane for you.

00:05:44.000 And I was like, it is?

00:05:45.000 You know, podcasting?

00:05:46.000 What do you mean?

00:05:47.000 And he walked me through the numbers.

00:05:48.000 He showed me how to do it.

00:05:49.000 I'm like, you know what?

00:05:50.000 This is what I want to do.

00:05:51.000 I was so excited after meeting with him.

00:05:53.000 I'm like, I can be my own boss.

00:05:54.000 I can do the news the way I want it.

00:05:56.000 I don't have anybody pressuring me to do it this way or do it that way or say this or the other thing.

00:05:59.000 And there are many more just like me.

00:06:01.000 And I feel like this is the place for honest conversation.

00:06:06.000 And more and more people are getting it.

00:06:07.000 So yeah, I do feel hopeful.

00:06:08.000 I think the other things are dying.

00:06:10.000 And I'm glad about that.

00:06:11.000 And I feel like our lane is rising, and I think the future of media is with individual personalities and not these behemoth corporations.

00:06:19.000 Yeah, it does certainly seem to be moving that way.

00:06:21.000 It's kind of still fascinating to hear about your alluding to it.

00:06:25.000 Do you actually – I mean, this is interesting for me, right?

00:06:27.000 Now I'm interfacing with this as a political candidate and whatnot.

00:06:31.000 Do you get the sense that major networks broadly – it's not even a left-wing or right-wing thing – do have a – Sort of a top-down, invisible hand kind of thing going on internally?

00:06:44.000 Or do you think that, you know, what most of the people will say is that, no, they're totally independent and feel unconstrained to say what they do.

00:06:52.000 And you've been in that seat before, so it's like a pretty unique, and you're liberated now.

00:06:56.000 Look, when I was at Fox, there was more of an implicit understanding as to how you would cover the news.

00:07:01.000 And I honestly, I was okay with that bargain because Fox was an antidote to the left wing media bias that was everywhere else.

00:07:08.000 And my political sensibilities were more in line for the most part.

00:07:11.000 I mean, I started off more left leaning when I first joined Fox than I wound up.

00:07:16.000 But just, you know, that's what age and wisdom will do to you, in my view.

00:07:19.000 And plus, the country lost its ever-loving mind and moved far left.

00:07:22.000 So if you were a centrist, suddenly you were a conservative Republican by the end of that 10, 15-year period.

00:07:28.000 But I will say that it was more implicit at Fox than explicit.

00:07:32.000 At NBC, it was explicit.

00:07:34.000 I mean, they wanted the news covered this way.

00:07:39.000 And like take out your thoughts and your, you know, your take on the news and not replace it with like objective fact.

00:07:46.000 They would replace it with their take on the news.

00:07:48.000 And I remember thinking like, I can't do the news like this.

00:07:51.000 This is not going to work for me.

00:07:52.000 And my entire experience there was spent feeling like they were looking at me like it's not like the others.

00:08:00.000 It says things that the others don't say.

00:08:02.000 It does things that the others don't say.

00:08:06.000 And that was interesting.

00:08:07.000 So you think that's more the norm than not?

00:08:10.000 I mean, that's the sense I get, though it's not part of the prevailing narrative.

00:08:15.000 One point to push back on your...

00:08:19.000 I mostly share it, by the way, but to push back a little bit on your optimism of market solutions here, I suspect what your response is going to be.

00:08:29.000 If you just take Newsmax, for example, and some of the obstacles to Newsmax reaching consumers through its chosen medium, which is still cable, One America and Newsmax both were in the camp of AT&T and DirecTV taking governmental pressure to – at least it appears taking governmental pressure.

00:08:53.000 There's a hearing.

00:08:54.000 Congress calls them in, citing specifically this network and these two networks as to why you're carrying them.

00:08:59.000 And then lo and behold, the market later, the market makes the decision to remove them in due course thereafter, after the carriers had been threatened.

00:09:09.000 Does that – Does that kind of example worry you?

00:09:12.000 It's not that different than Twitter choosing to silence.

00:09:19.000 You could pick your favorite one.

00:09:22.000 Alex Berenson after the White House specifically called out Alex Berenson.

00:09:27.000 What's your take on sort of the governmental pressure angle here?

00:09:31.000 OAN has no right to be on DirecTV or with AT&T. They have no right to that.

00:09:37.000 They can easily just go the Daily Wire model tomorrow.

00:09:40.000 They don't need this outlet.

00:09:42.000 You can reach millions of viewers just by doing it, you know, by plugging in your computer and launching an internet company.

00:09:49.000 That's exactly what Jeremy Boring and Ben Shapiro did with Daily Wire.

00:09:53.000 They're not on a cable channel.

00:09:55.000 You know, the thing with Newsmax...

00:09:57.000 My understanding is they had a dispute with DirecTV because they wanted to get paid instead of paying DirecTV or at least just doing it for free.

00:10:04.000 And DirecTV didn't think they were worth it.

00:10:06.000 Well, that is market Darwinism.

00:10:08.000 That's okay.

00:10:08.000 You know, DirecTV is allowed to say, no, that doesn't work for us.

00:10:11.000 And I realize other people had suspicions about what the real reason was, but I have some good sourcing on it.

00:10:16.000 And I think that landed fine.

00:10:18.000 I think, look, the bigger you build your brand, like DirecTV could never get away with that if it were Fox News.

00:10:25.000 Because the audience, even though they're mad at Fox at the moment, they're still too big and too loyal to, So that works.

00:10:31.000 You know, net-net, it's going to work.

00:10:33.000 There are going to be a few players that don't have as much power who could get hurt.

00:10:36.000 And look, there's a reason they targeted OAN. You know, I don't watch OAN, but I understand it's a little bit more extreme in its politics, and that's fine.

00:10:45.000 There's a place for that.

00:10:46.000 But of course, if you're dealing with a company like AT&T, you realize you're more vulnerable.

00:10:50.000 So you better have a backup plan.

00:10:54.000 They should.

00:10:55.000 And, you know, the way things are going in this country, anybody who's on the right better have a backup plan.

00:11:00.000 That's why the people who are mostly on YouTube are now hedging their bets with Rumble, right?

00:11:03.000 We all see it coming.

00:11:04.000 They can't get rid of us all.

00:11:06.000 And so that – you put in a different category than maybe a higher level of concern you have with the government leaning on, say, Twitter for deciding what does and doesn't get posted.

00:11:16.000 That's sort of a different category.

00:11:17.000 I'm totally against that.

00:11:18.000 Yeah, I'm totally against what the government did there.

00:11:20.000 I don't think that this was the government leaning.

00:11:22.000 This wasn't the government at all.

00:11:24.000 This was a private company, DirecTV, saying, no, I don't like your deal.

00:11:27.000 I'm going to – I'm going to go book a new deal with The First, which is a conservative leading channel, which has got a lot of very popular personalities on it, from Bill O'Reilly to Dana Lash.

00:11:36.000 It's not like they replaced them with an MSNBC alternative.

00:11:39.000 So I genuinely believe the dispute with Newsmax was not about Newsmax politics.

00:11:45.000 It was about the number that they wanted.

00:11:48.000 Otherwise, why would they have replaced them with people like Bill O'Reilly?

00:11:50.000 It doesn't make sense.

00:11:51.000 Jesse Kelly is on The First.

00:11:54.000 I think the government needs to stay out of it.

00:11:56.000 Every time they interject themselves in these disputes, things get worse, not better.

00:12:00.000 Let the consumers decide.

00:12:01.000 Media has been very, very divided for a very, very long time.

00:12:04.000 We had sort of a honeymoon period in the 70s, 80s, and that's fine.

00:12:08.000 I think it was leftist even then, though not as bad as it is now.

00:12:13.000 And I think it's good to have fractured media.

00:12:15.000 People will figure out who they trust.

00:12:17.000 And yes, maybe we don't all agree on a basic set of facts, but those who want real facts, as opposed to just their worldview confirmed, We'll find them.

00:12:24.000 It's not that hard.

00:12:25.000 You listen to the Daily Wire in the morning and you listen to NPR. You know, you listen to both podcasts.

00:12:29.000 You get the times and you get the journal.

00:12:31.000 You spend a little time with Brett Baer in the evening and maybe you subject yourself to a little wolf blitzer. 0.53

00:12:36.000 You do what you have to if you really want facts.

00:12:39.000 So I want to switch gears for a second.

00:12:45.000 One of the big questions all over our mind is, of course, You know, the content and the future direction of our, what I'll call our movement, the conservative movement, pro-American movement.

00:12:56.000 We can apply what label we want to apply to it.

00:13:00.000 I think one of the fissures that I see, it's a little different than the traditional debates we're having within the Republican Party or whatever.

00:13:12.000 But I think the debate between whether we're really a party built and a movement built on Certain first principles around proceduralism, free market, free speech, classical liberal values, let's call it that.

00:13:28.000 Because I think that that's a strain that exists.

00:13:30.000 I think you and I share a commitment to those values in common.

00:13:35.000 But a moment that we're living in, I see this in the campaign trail a lot, Megan, where, you know, when I get questions like, oh, what do you think is going on with the media?

00:13:42.000 I think people are hungry for direction and leadership.

00:13:45.000 And For people who actually need some more substance to sink their teeth into.

00:13:51.000 This is something that I see a lot in traveling this country right now.

00:13:55.000 And it's interesting where there will be certain audiences, maybe like New Hampshire or other places, where you talk about the virtues of free speech, that the path to truth runs through free speech and open debate.

00:14:05.000 That's how we settle our questions.

00:14:07.000 That really gets certain people going.

00:14:10.000 I'm in that category.

00:14:12.000 But for certain people, that doesn't really do the trick anymore.

00:14:14.000 That's not quite enough, where we need more content, more substance of what it actually means to be a conservative.

00:14:23.000 I have my ideas on what should fill that void, the revival of family, the revival of faith, the revival of belief in a nation and patriotism, but sort of the content of something that stands in contrast to the left's I think that's something interesting I've noticed in the first three months of traveling the country,

00:14:51.000 talking to audiences, of seeing, I think, a You know, fissure means it seems like a conflict, but maybe two different camps in large conservative audiences, those who are actually just hungry for the revival of those classical liberal values that even a liberal in 1990 would have embraced versus this broader separate kind of hunger for purpose and meaning and actual identity to be filled by more than just the procedural values of classical liberalism.

00:15:22.000 So if we should shift gears a little bit, I just wanted to hear your reaction to that.

00:15:26.000 I know you're very thoughtful about questions like these.

00:15:30.000 I was curious for your take there because that's on my mind as we're heading back on the travel circuit campaign trail for the next few days.

00:15:39.000 And it was on my mind.

00:15:40.000 I'm curious for your thoughts on that.

00:15:42.000 Well, I mean, the way I view liberalism and what's annoying about it is it's like an enormous thumb that keeps trying to pin us down wherever we go in our lives.

00:15:54.000 They want to pin down our kids and tell our kids how to live.

00:15:56.000 They want to pin us down and tell us how to live.

00:15:58.000 They want to get us in our employment situation and tell us exactly how much taxes we need to pay, and it's a lot, and the kind of words that we can use when we're at the workplace.

00:16:07.000 Just everywhere you go, there's just like another thumb trying to pin you down.

00:16:11.000 And the way I view conservatism is there's no thumb.

00:16:14.000 It's hands-off.

00:16:15.000 You know, there might be a safety net under you, but there's no thumb coming down over you.

00:16:20.000 And to me, that's what's appealing about conservatism is I can be free.

00:16:25.000 In general, conservatives don't want to bother you.

00:16:27.000 They don't want to run your life.

00:16:28.000 They would like to make some suggestions to you, like maybe you should consider the introduction of faith into yours and your children's lives.

00:16:34.000 It might lead to something wonderful that would lead you without this vacuous hole that you feel the need to fill with Empty identity politics, et cetera.

00:16:42.000 Something to consider.

00:16:43.000 You might favor a smaller government approach where you are responsible for your life, not somebody else.

00:16:48.000 You will change the life as you want it, not some government bureaucrat.

00:16:53.000 But that's in direct contrast to liberalism.

00:16:55.000 And I just think it's so much more empowering.

00:16:57.000 That's what's attractive to me about the way conservatives govern, is it's more empowering.

00:17:03.000 And the other one is more belittling.

00:17:04.000 And one makes me feel good about myself and my children's prospects.

00:17:08.000 And one makes me feel terrible about myself, my children's prospects and my country.

00:17:13.000 You know, one is a massive downer and one is a massive upper.

00:17:16.000 There was a poll recently talking about how depressed liberals are and how they're way more depressed and likely to need psychiatric services and therapy.

00:17:25.000 Now, there's anything wrong with therapy, but way more so than conservatives are.

00:17:30.000 And it gets right to the heart of what you're saying and what I'm saying.

00:17:34.000 If you feel like you are in charge of your life and no one's coming to save you and you can change what's ailing you, it's a wonderful moment.

00:17:42.000 It's a great realization.

00:17:43.000 You want to start tomorrow and do it.

00:17:45.000 If you feel like it's somebody else's fault and I have to wait for them to fix their errors for my life to get better, it's depressing.

00:17:51.000 You feel disempowered.

00:17:52.000 You want to blame somebody else.

00:17:54.000 You feel resentful, which is a critical piece of what the left's messaging is today.

00:18:00.000 So that's the way I see it.

00:18:01.000 I don't know if that's too self-helpy for you, but that's how I see the two sides.

00:18:06.000 At the same time, I do think that when you think about the...

00:18:13.000 I guess when it comes to kids, this way you sort of put pressure on this a little bit, even from the conservative angle, right?

00:18:21.000 Like, what's your perspective on whether or not a social media product that Is known, let's say TikTok or whatever, to result in dissatisfaction, depression, anxiety, etc.

00:18:35.000 amongst teens who are using it, maybe 15, 16 years old.

00:18:40.000 You know, put after 16 in a different category.

00:18:44.000 The free view of the world, some would say, and I don't subscribe to this, but the free view of the world is, hey, listen, that's up to parents.

00:18:51.000 Parents are supposed to decide what their kids do and don't use, but if the reality is that mechanism isn't actually delivering on...

00:19:01.000 The right outcome for kids, or let's just say, with respect to whether or not kids are going to go through gender conversion therapy, whether they're going to get through puberty blockers, chemical castration, surgical intervention, when a kid feels like they're born in the wrong body.

00:19:17.000 What's your perspective there when the outer limits of freedom only apply as we think about it to fully formed adults?

00:19:25.000 I think this is kind of where the rubber hits the road a little bit.

00:19:28.000 Is that in the realm of freedom for parents to be able to say that, no, my kid's actually going to go and get this gender conversion therapy and surgical intervention without the state telling me that I can't stop them from doing that?

00:19:41.000 You're on a sliding scale there.

00:19:42.000 So there's a big difference between, let's say, you must stick your kid with a COVID vaccine because I, the president, will tell you that's what he or she needs. 1.00

00:19:52.000 And you're free to chop off your son's penis when he's nine years old. 0.99

00:19:57.000 There's a big, big scale there between those two things. 0.99

00:20:00.000 And I think at one point, it's appropriate for government to pass a law saying, no, you may not actually harm your child in that way.

00:20:08.000 You may not cut off body parts of young children, any children, until they reach the age of majority, they can make their own decisions.

00:20:16.000 That, to me, seems like an appropriate government role to prevent the harm, that level, against children versus You know, most of the stuff to the other side of that, I'd probably be against government involving itself.

00:20:28.000 Like, I don't think, I don't like the TikTok ban.

00:20:30.000 I don't like TikTok.

00:20:31.000 My kids don't have any social media.

00:20:33.000 So it's not like I am in favor of it.

00:20:35.000 I'm not.

00:20:36.000 And I have a 13, a 12, and a 9-year-old.

00:20:38.000 But I do think it's up to the parents to regulate how their kids use a device that is ubiquitous in American society.

00:20:45.000 The solution is not going to work very well to do a whack-a-mole banning of the various apps.

00:20:50.000 TikTok, okay, fine.

00:20:51.000 It's not good.

00:20:52.000 But you know what?

00:20:53.000 Instagram's the one that's leading girls to want to kill themselves. 1.00

00:20:55.000 Snapchat, probably the most pernicious.

00:20:57.000 I've done so many stories on parents who have lost kids because of the bullying that goes on on Snapchat, but we're not going to ban each of these social media companies.

00:21:04.000 That's not going to work.

00:21:05.000 We're not going to do it.

00:21:06.000 It's America.

00:21:06.000 We're too pro-free speech and pro-freedom in general.

00:21:09.000 So on those, no, I think it comes down to good parenting.

00:21:13.000 People need to parent again.

00:21:14.000 Sorry.

00:21:14.000 I know you're tired.

00:21:15.000 Too bad.

00:21:16.000 You had them.

00:21:17.000 You raise them.

00:21:18.000 It's tiring.

00:21:19.000 It's hard.

00:21:19.000 Do it.

00:21:20.000 You know, everybody else needs to.

00:21:22.000 So do you.

00:21:22.000 I don't give those parents a pass.

00:21:24.000 You know, figure it out.

00:21:25.000 Try to find a way.

00:21:26.000 Yes, okay, he's got to have a phone because you got to pick him up and you got to know where.

00:21:29.000 Get him the phone.

00:21:30.000 Doesn't have to have social media.

00:21:31.000 You have to have social media for something.

00:21:32.000 You feel like he has to do it.

00:21:34.000 You have to submit to it.

00:21:35.000 Monitor it.

00:21:36.000 Make sure it's no more than 10 minutes a day.

00:21:37.000 They can live without TikTok.

00:21:39.000 They can live without Snapchat.

00:21:40.000 Anyway, so I just think we can't sort of shrug our shoulders and be like, well, the government, you know, he doesn't ban it.

00:21:46.000 No, do your job.

00:21:48.000 Yeah, that's totally the lazy answer, but the government get in there and ban it. 1.00

00:21:55.000 The shorter...

00:21:58.000 Version of the question though is, okay, that'd be great if that's what parents were doing across this country.

00:22:03.000 So many parents are not rising up to the role they're supposed to play, let alone, you know, the loss of the nuclear family structure altogether.

00:22:14.000 25% of households now living without dads in the house.

00:22:16.000 I mean, we can go all the way upstream, even two-parent households.

00:22:20.000 But that's not an invitation for government to come in.

00:22:22.000 I mean, you know how many kids are eating McDonald's every day?

00:22:24.000 You know how many kids are having the Big Gulp in their baby bottle in Appalachia?

00:22:28.000 They are.

00:22:29.000 Like, that's not an invitation for government.

00:22:31.000 I agree with you.

00:22:33.000 The harder question is, what is it an invitation for?

00:22:36.000 Fill in the blank.

00:22:37.000 And I think that that's actually the open question that remains unanswered where, okay, I got you.

00:22:43.000 We're on the same page.

00:22:45.000 Keep the state out of my hair.

00:22:46.000 But the fact of the matter is we open our eyes and that's the society we're living in.

00:22:51.000 What then actually drives that change?

00:22:54.000 What revival?

00:22:55.000 If not the government, and I agree with you, that's not the right answer.

00:22:59.000 That's the gaping hole where what I see amongst a lot of conservatives across the country, Megan, is that's what I was getting at in the beginning is a hunger for more than just the answer that we've often served, which is the government should not be involved in this.

00:23:13.000 I agree.

00:23:13.000 And that's what elected officials' jobs are, is to decide what the government does and doesn't do, and they should stay out of this.

00:23:19.000 But I think the hunger that I think a lot of people correctly have is a hunger for an answer for what then?

00:23:27.000 Got it.

00:23:28.000 But we see what we see.

00:23:30.000 What do we actually, as a culture, forget the government, what do we as a culture, as leaders in capacities outside of government, like what do we actually do against a state of affairs where we're seeing the breakdown, for example, is to stay on the issue of the family, the breakdown of the family, both in terms of parents exercising what their correct responsibilities ought to be in the way they bring their kids up, or even worse, the absence of family formation or the breakdown of the nuclear family altogether.

00:23:57.000 That's a hard question, it seems to me.

00:24:00.000 It is.

00:24:01.000 And if I had the answer, you know, I'd be something even more important than president.

00:24:05.000 I don't think it's going to come from government.

00:24:07.000 I do think it's going to have to come from the hearts of Americans struggling with these problems.

00:24:11.000 I do think we have a history of seeing when we hit rock bottom, then we change, you know, when there's enough suicides.

00:24:17.000 Thanks to Instagram, then the parents will pull the social media and say, we're not doing that.

00:24:22.000 Like, we've seen that in case after case, and clearly we're not there yet, but we're getting more and more information.

00:24:28.000 You know, that movie The Social Network was important.

00:24:31.000 The attention that's being called to some of these issues, that Facebook whistleblower, she was important. 0.90

00:24:36.000 Some of these stories I reference on Snapchat and so on that get out there, those are important as parents learn.

00:24:40.000 But it's not just what's happening to the children.

00:24:43.000 The parents are depressed, too.

00:24:45.000 You know, I mean, like, we need to make people pull themselves out of their depression in order to give them the skills to tackle these problems.

00:24:54.000 Otherwise, nothing will change.

00:24:55.000 And we're doing all the opposite things.

00:24:58.000 I mean, one of the reasons why identity politics is so pernicious, and one of the reasons I love how hard you fight against it, is because it leads to despair.

00:25:07.000 For all involved.

00:25:08.000 It's disempowering to the people of color, and it's offensive and depressing to white people who get blamed, or Asians, depending on the setting, who get blamed for the world's problems.

00:25:19.000 And it leaves you feeling like you can't change anything because you're born with original sin or you're born with original deficiencies that are impossible to overcome.

00:25:28.000 You know, people are depressed.

00:25:30.000 All these guys running around right now, They're depressed.

00:25:33.000 They've been told they're toxically male. 0.98

00:25:35.000 They're too white by coke, you know, whatever it is. 0.97

00:25:38.000 And they feel like, I guess I'm terrible and there's no behaving my way out of it. 0.76

00:25:43.000 So what do they do?

00:25:44.000 They start Googling and maybe they land on a Jordan Peterson video.

00:25:49.000 Good.

00:25:50.000 Good start.

00:25:51.000 Stay there.

00:25:51.000 Keep clicking.

00:25:52.000 He'll help you. 1.00

00:25:53.000 Oh wait, then you'll get called an insult by Olivia Wilde, one of Hollywood's biggest stars, and she'll make a whole movie about how pathetic you are. 0.99

00:25:59.000 That's effed up. 0.98

00:26:01.000 That's one of the problems of the left running Hollywood and controlling that national messaging. 0.80

00:26:05.000 I don't have a solution to that other than, again, back to the Darwinism.

00:26:09.000 Now we have the Daily Wire.

00:26:10.000 They're making different kinds of movies.

00:26:12.000 Right?

00:26:12.000 There are more and more, like my friend Mark Joseph is a conservative-leaning filmmaker who's making this movie, Reagan.

00:26:18.000 It'll have a different kind of messaging.

00:26:19.000 He also did the movie No Safe Spaces, which talks about the need for free debate on college campuses.

00:26:23.000 Like, the more we can get alternative viewpoints out there to reach out to these people who are suffering and tell them, don't listen to those people.

00:26:30.000 They're wrong.

00:26:31.000 The more empowered they'll feel, and hopefully the better their lives will be, But it's hard to inject self-help into someone's life from the outside.

00:26:42.000 You know, it has to come from within.

00:26:45.000 Yeah.

00:26:46.000 You know, you're someone who strikes me, Megan.

00:26:48.000 I think you have something that I think maybe more Americans...

00:26:54.000 We would do well with and it's not just a kid's thing.

00:26:56.000 It's even the parents that lack it is the parents are depressed.

00:26:59.000 But I think a lot of that comes from seems like we just live in this moment where there is a certain loss of self-confidence.

00:27:06.000 I think that that is upstream of a lot of the mental health epidemic.

00:27:10.000 You could say depression, anxiety, etc.

00:27:12.000 And then the hunt for woke ism or climatism or transgenderism. 0.62

00:27:16.000 I think these are all actually symptoms of a deeper loss of self-confidence and hunger for for meaning.

00:27:23.000 Where do you get your self-confidence from?

00:27:25.000 I'm just curious.

00:27:26.000 You seem like you've taken risks in your career.

00:27:29.000 I'm not here to talk about my story, but I find a lot of admiration for the way you've taken risks in your career, the self-confidence you bring in the show you put on every day.

00:27:43.000 What's your inner source of that?

00:27:45.000 You brought up the word self-help.

00:27:47.000 It doesn't have to come from the government, but it just comes from, you know what?

00:27:50.000 Let's say you're talking to a bunch of parents or a bunch of teenagers.

00:27:52.000 What's your perspective on where you derive your sense of self-confidence in hopes that somebody else might take something useful away from it?

00:27:58.000 Well, I would say the best gift I had was parents who never gave me any false praise or really any praise.

00:28:05.000 Yeah, we share that in common.

00:28:06.000 I like that.

00:28:08.000 You know, they just weren't that.

00:28:09.000 It was the 70s.

00:28:10.000 It was a different way of parenting back then, but never false praise.

00:28:14.000 And so if they ever did compliment me, I knew it was real.

00:28:16.000 And that helped me figure out what I actually am good at and what I'm not good at.

00:28:21.000 And also a sense of humor, you know, like You can't take this whole thing too seriously.

00:28:26.000 You can't take yourself too seriously.

00:28:27.000 Say you tried and you fell and you embarrassed yourself.

00:28:29.000 Okay, make it be your rocket fuel for your next adventure.

00:28:32.000 And that's true for people insulting you and attacking you and being jealous of you and trying to tear you down.

00:28:37.000 All of it's fuel.

00:28:38.000 It shouldn't be seen as a negative.

00:28:40.000 It should be seen as, oh yeah, okay, this is my secret juice that's going to make me even more powerful on my next encounter because how do you build up the muscles without tearing them down first?

00:28:52.000 We're framing everything wrong right now.

00:28:54.000 Everything wrong.

00:28:55.000 You know, we're telling people, as you know, you've heard the whole speech, but like leaning into victimhood and feeling sorry for yourself and feeling like everybody's out to get you.

00:29:04.000 I mean, I was just reading up about, it was one of these actresses who was at the Cannes Film Festival wearing nothing.

00:29:10.000 Nothing.

00:29:10.000 Literally, the breasts were out.

00:29:12.000 It was like, oh.

00:29:13.000 So I just did some Googling on this person.

00:29:15.000 It's like, who would do that? 0.98

00:29:15.000 Who would use their big moment in the sun to literally show their nipples? 0.98

00:29:19.000 Like, hello? 0.99

00:29:20.000 Where's your class?

00:29:20.000 And it was like, she's openly acknowledged she has ADHD and OCD and anxiety and autism and postpartum depression.

00:29:30.000 I mean, it was like, Okay.

00:29:32.000 I stopped listening when we got on, like, number four.

00:29:35.000 Okay?

00:29:35.000 So she doesn't have all that stuff.

00:29:37.000 She's just decided that there's cultural cachet and leaning into all this stuff.

00:29:41.000 And that same person, if I could spend a year with her, would say, I have none of that.

00:29:45.000 I have none of that.

00:29:46.000 I'm good.

00:29:47.000 Watch me act.

00:29:48.000 And she might actually wear a bra to her next big public appearance. 1.00

00:29:51.000 Why?

00:29:52.000 because I would try to show her that it's so much easier, more delightful, happier, funnier way of living.

00:30:01.000 If you can accept, we all have these little picadillos about ourselves and they're what make us interesting.

00:30:07.000 Who wants to be this perfect person who never fell down, who never had a bad moment, who never, whatever you take OCD.

00:30:13.000 Yes.

00:30:13.000 A lot of people have that weird thing where you've got to wash your hand five times.

00:30:17.000 It's not a disorder.

00:30:18.000 You know, it could just be something quirky about you.

00:30:20.000 People, they need to start embracing their weirdnesses and their failings and their disastrous moments as part of the mosaic that makes them an interesting person that's sticky, that people want to stick to, as opposed to somebody who's annoyingly perfect and you know they're actually not, and they're just hiding their stuff.

00:30:39.000 They're better at hiding it than you are.

00:30:41.000 Anyway, we've gone exactly the opposite way as a culture.

00:30:44.000 And I think it's depressing.

00:30:46.000 And I do think it leads to a lack of self-confidence because you're faking most of your life as opposed to being like, we'll see.

00:30:52.000 I'll put it out there.

00:30:53.000 They'll like it.

00:30:54.000 They won't.

00:30:55.000 I'm good.

00:30:56.000 Well, I think that that's a formula that probably the government's going to have very little to do with spreading.

00:31:01.000 I agree with you on that.

00:31:03.000 I do think we are like, wait, we mean it just like us as Americans are going to have to find a way of rediscovering that on our own.

00:31:12.000 I do think that there's a role for leaders to play in, you know, coaches, teachers.

00:31:18.000 I think US President, I mean, Ronald Reagan, I think in a certain way, there was something about, you know, leading in the 80s that led the country back from an identity crisis akin to the kind we might be going through now in the late 70s that revived our national self-confidence, but our national self-confidence starts from confidence in each of us in the way we live our daily lives.

00:31:39.000 And I don't think it's going to happen automatically, but I do think More people like you, Megan, honestly, who are willing to share what works for you.

00:31:47.000 I don't think that self-help books – yeah, I used to laugh at the category, but I don't anymore.

00:31:51.000 I think that there's actually something to be said for people who have discovered what works for them.

00:31:57.000 In a deeply first personal way to open up and share that with those who can take something and use something that comes of it, that's more likely to result in an epidemic of self-confidence that we're hungry for than any form of top-down political leadership or institutional reform.

00:32:15.000 I don't think that's where the ballgame is right now.

00:32:18.000 And so I like the way you said it.

00:32:20.000 Thank you.

00:32:20.000 I mean, I will say one thing you talk about, which I also support and agree with, is the importance of civics and reminding people what's important about being an American citizen, what's great about being an American citizen, what's great about our country.

00:32:32.000 I think that, you know, there was a time in this country...

00:32:36.000 Look, when I grew up, we had...

00:32:38.000 My husband was just asking me this.

00:32:39.000 This is before you were born, Vivek.

00:32:41.000 You were not even as twinkling in your daddy's eye.

00:32:44.000 But we had television.

00:32:45.000 What we have?

00:32:46.000 Happy Days.

00:32:47.000 We had Laverne and Shirley.

00:32:48.000 We had The Love Boat. 0.97

00:32:50.000 These like silly shows.

00:32:51.000 But they were about friendships and they were about family. 0.50

00:32:53.000 Little House on the Prairie was something I grew up with.

00:32:56.000 We had like songs that told a nice story that would be somewhat uplifting, you know?

00:33:02.000 Now we have...

00:33:03.000 The N-word in every two words in these rap songs and others.

00:33:08.000 We have WAP from Cardi B. We have the most disgusting messaging wherever we turn.

00:33:14.000 You turn on TV, it's like another nude scene or sex scene or some other just deviant scene that you're being subjected to at a young age. 0.98

00:33:23.000 Most 12-year-olds have seen porn, including really raunchy XXX porn on their phones. 0.95

00:33:29.000 Is that true?

00:33:29.000 I didn't know that.

00:33:29.000 Yeah, the vast majority of 12-year-olds have.

00:33:31.000 So, it would be nice if we, in this quest, could get some help from those running our cultural outlets.

00:33:40.000 And I do think it's starting to happen.

00:33:42.000 You know, the pushback on Disney. 0.96

00:33:44.000 You know, wherever I can, I sneak in my secret gay agenda. 0.97

00:33:47.000 Well, that's not for you to do, right? 0.95

00:33:49.000 Like...

00:33:50.000 But thanks for admitting it, and thanks to the whistleblower who leaked the tape, because now we know, right?

00:33:55.000 And now the Daily Wire is into children.

00:33:57.000 Not that this is a big promo for the Daily Wire, but I just like what they're doing.

00:33:59.000 They're building an alternative and we need more and more of those alternatives because there has to be a vision, you know, of an America that we love, of the family unit that's intact and working and loves one another.

00:34:12.000 You know, we do little things in our family.

00:34:14.000 Like when we go on vacation together, we don't bring a friend.

00:34:17.000 You know, the kids, they're still young, but they can't bring friends.

00:34:20.000 Like we spend the vacations together, the five of us.

00:34:23.000 That's our time to reconnect, the five of us, not for you to reconnect with your friends.

00:34:27.000 And the teenagers will hate it and too bad.

00:34:30.000 Then they'll get used to us and we'll reconnect and it'll be good.

00:34:33.000 Nurture this thing that you're building.

00:34:35.000 Nurture it with church or synagogue or wherever you pray. 0.90

00:34:39.000 Nurture it with human connection.

00:34:40.000 Time around the dinner table could not be more important.

00:34:43.000 And the value of each dinner goes up exponentially.

00:34:46.000 The takeaway that your kid gets from five versus two per week is enormous.

00:34:53.000 So you have to make an investment in tomorrow, in your children, in them feeling loved, in them not just doing this all day.

00:34:59.000 You have to, like American parents need to take that thing by the helm and try to steer it in the right direction. 0.63

00:35:06.000 I love it.

00:35:07.000 Megan, you're a good soldier and a good messenger.

00:35:10.000 And I think that I'm actually with you.

00:35:14.000 I think most of that change is going to come from outside of the instruments that we spend most of our time arguing about, the government or otherwise.

00:35:19.000 It's going to come from everyday people taking inspiration to do what they're already – and most people are empowered to drive the kind of change you described without having to go to some ballot box every November.

00:35:29.000 It's just the choices you make every day, and I appreciate you being a voice for – And a voice for restraint in just lazily resorting to centralized state-based solutions to things that actually absolve us of the responsibility that each of us bear as human beings, as parents, as citizens.

00:35:50.000 And keep at it.

00:35:52.000 Well, right back at you, Vivek, on all fronts.

00:35:55.000 It's been super fun to watch you.

00:35:56.000 And I'm so, so glad that more and more people are getting exposed to your ideas and your message.

00:36:01.000 I'm Vivek Ramaswamy, candidate for president, and I approve this message.

Truth Podcast - Vivek Ramaswamy - June 22, 2023

Megyn Kelly and Vivek Ramaswamy on The Power of Personal Responsibility | The TRUTH Podcast #34

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