Truth Podcast - Vivek Ramaswamy - The Opioid Crisis: A Personal Tragedy Reveals America's Hidden Enemy | The TRUTH Podcast #8

00:00:02.000 All right, so I'm here hanging out in Columbus with my good friend, actually, someone I've gotten to know over the last couple of years who, you know, we've shared stages with.

00:00:32.000 We've run into each other at conferences.

00:00:35.000 But those settings are always so rushed that I don't think we've ever gotten a chance like outside of like a large group where you're introducing me to speak or someone else is speaking and we're, you know, in a rush to say quick close to actually sit down and hang.

00:00:56.000 And so, you know, today's our day for that.

00:00:59.000 But you know what?

00:01:00.000 What better way to do that than on a podcast?

00:01:02.000 Than on a podcast in our hometown, you know?

00:01:05.000 Exactly, exactly.

00:01:06.000 But I'm ashamed to say, I guess, we were just chatting a little bit before for the last couple of minutes, but...

00:01:14.000 I know a ton about your views and how principled you are, but I don't know a ton about your background and the why of what you got into what you're doing.

00:01:23.000 So, no time better than now, man, and then we'll get into it.

00:01:27.000 I'm happy to tell you, and it's a pleasure to be here, Vivek.

00:01:32.000 We've met through all those channels that you outlined and, you know, being at the Heritage Foundation, where I'm the vice president for outreach, has given us that opportunity.

00:01:41.000 You know, Heritage is very particular about not endorsing candidates and making sure that we maintain neutrality.

00:01:45.000 And so, it's a pleasure for me to be here in a personal capacity with you.

00:01:49.000 The best way to tell my story is I'm Andy Olivastro.

00:01:52.000 I'm a quarterback, I'm a coach, I'm a communications pro, and I'm a coalition builder.

00:01:56.000 And as a quarterback, I've always been Did you actually play football?

00:01:59.000 Oh, yeah.

00:01:59.000 You look like football players.

00:02:01.000 You know, 20 pounds ago, I was a quarterback.

00:02:02.000 Now, I just retain the bumps and bruises and the pain in the tendons.

00:02:07.000 But as a quarterback, you call the play and you try to lead the team to victory.

00:02:11.000 As a coach, you review the plays, you refine the playbook.

00:02:14.000 It's all about continuous improvement.

00:02:16.000 And that's a sort of operational mentality that I've brought to my life.

00:02:19.000 And so, at the Heritage Foundation, where I'm in my third tour of duty, is the way I like to talk about it.

00:02:25.000 I worked as a political appointee, as a presidential appointee in the Bush administration.

00:02:29.000 I coached cabinet secretaries in the corporate world.

00:02:32.000 I worked at Edelman Public Relations for a number of years, and then I was in the corporate world at United Technologies, now Raytheon, for almost 10 years.

00:02:40.000 That was all C-suite executive support, writing speeches, developing executive communications plans and programs.

00:02:47.000 You know, that was my operational kind of outlook was I'm going to be the quarterback, the coach and the comms pro, but always try to build a community and drive this sort of coalition of willing participants in the direction that I thought we needed to go.

00:02:59.000 And that was, you know, free market economy and global trade and all these things.

00:03:03.000 But something happened really interesting in my career.

00:03:05.000 I was, you know, about a handful of years ago, I was sitting with some friends from India and China and they were colleagues and they were back here in the States for an event that we were holding.

00:03:13.000 And they started to tell me something that was really special to them, that I had gifted them.

00:03:18.000 And it was pocket copies of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

00:03:24.000 Because when I travel around the world, I used to bring those with me.

00:03:27.000 And I'd leave one in the seat of the pocket on the airplane, I'd leave one in the hotel room, and I would give them to colleagues.

00:03:33.000 And that was my American playbook.

00:03:35.000 That's what I think is our American playbook.

00:03:37.000 And I always thought it was special to share that and have a conversation about that.

00:03:41.000 It wasn't so much about supply chains.

00:03:43.000 You could have those conversations.

00:03:44.000 It wasn't just about employee engagement when you have 200,000 employees around the globe.

00:03:48.000 It was, what are the ideas that actually animate people?

00:03:51.000 What should we be striving to do?

00:03:53.000 And that was something that just always motivated me.

00:03:55.000 And when the opportunity presented itself to sign back up with Heritage, You know, I just looked at where the movement was.

00:04:03.000 I looked at where the country was.

00:04:04.000 And I said, the bow ties are off and the brass knuckles are on.

00:04:07.000 Let's go have these conversations.

00:04:09.000 Love that, man.

00:04:10.000 Love that.

00:04:11.000 And what are the – I mean, I guess I didn't think of you as a generalist because we have always been in our tours of duty on ESG and that circuit.

00:04:21.000 And what are the other issues that I would say personally interest you kind of the most?

00:04:27.000 It's kind of cool because usually you get someone with that background, you don't think of themselves as a domain expert.

00:04:32.000 But I think of you as a domain expert in areas where we've crossed paths.

00:04:36.000 Sure.

00:04:36.000 Yeah, I've developed, I think, a deep interest in ESG, and that comes from, I mean, and we've talked a lot about this, and obviously the American people have heard a lot from you on this, and I think to their benefit, because you've changed the conversation and the tenor of that debate, and you've changed incentives in that debate, which I think is fundamentally important for the direction of the country.

00:04:56.000 But in terms of ESG in general, I've always looked at it as – The broader debate of business's role in society.

00:05:02.000 When corporate social responsibility becomes corporate socialism requirements, that's a big problem.

00:05:08.000 I've always looked at it as a lot of people that believe stakeholders have just as much say as everybody else, but then they insert themselves as far upstream as they can.

00:05:15.000 That's about controlling the means of production.

00:05:17.000 I think we all know, anybody who's read history, has read economics, knows that that's communism and that's Marxism, is controlling the means of production.

00:05:25.000 That's just always been something that's – that whole kind of continuum is something that's always been interesting to me.

00:05:30.000 But the other issues that are interesting to me are the ones that affect the American people in the most fundamental way.

00:05:36.000 I think education reform is absolutely the number one driver.

00:05:40.000 And I think the alchemy in the grassroots right now, we really haven't seen that.

00:05:43.000 Everybody was looking for this red wave that maybe didn't come except in Florida.

00:05:47.000 But that red wave is – that alchemy is still brewing across the country.

00:05:51.000 Our friends at Moms for Liberty – You know, Tiffany and Tina, they will tell you what they see and what they hear.

00:05:56.000 And they are growing just as fast today as they were a year and a half ago.

00:05:59.000 And so that's still brewing.

00:06:01.000 And I think the education conversation is fundamentally important.

00:06:03.000 The other one that's really important to me is fentanyl and the opioid scourge that's affecting the country.

00:06:08.000 I lost my younger sister in 2016 to an accidental overdose.

00:06:12.000 So I know it personally.

00:06:13.000 My family knows the pain of that.

00:06:15.000 And I think if we really want to look at The ways in which we need to address that and the idea of declaring federal health emergencies, the idea of making sure that a public health bureaucracy is actually leading to better outcomes, the idea that our streets shouldn't be awash in attics, and then the idea that we shouldn't have an open border. 0.93

00:06:36.000 These things should be non-starters, should be unacceptable, and bright, clear lines should be drawn in this.

00:06:41.000 And you've spoken to that, and other candidates, obviously, have spoken to that.

00:06:44.000 But those are things that are fundamentally important.

00:06:46.000 We're losing 100,000 of our fellow Americans.

00:06:49.000 I mean, these are individuals.

00:06:50.000 They have names.

00:06:51.000 They have parents.

00:06:52.000 They have siblings.

00:06:53.000 They have positive value to add to society and we're losing them to a drug addiction, a drug scourge that we're not even really fighting.

00:07:01.000 And I think that's something that we fundamentally have to talk about.

00:07:04.000 And if we can solve that, I would see a better future for America.

00:07:07.000 You know, we – we'll come back to ESG.

00:07:11.000 Right.

00:07:12.000 Actually, I think – you know, I'll take a little bit of time to – I don't think I've done it as part of this presidential campaign yet.

00:07:19.000 And I think it's important to lay that out.

00:07:21.000 Right.

00:07:23.000 You know, just for a minute, if you don't mind me asking about it.

00:07:26.000 And I – Sure.

00:07:26.000 You know, I don't mean to cause any more pain than you've already endured.

00:07:32.000 I'm sorry for your sister's loss, but do you mind me asking about that story a little bit?

00:07:37.000 No, please do.

00:07:37.000 My sister, her name is Amy.

00:07:38.000 She's great.

00:07:39.000 Tell me about her a little bit.

00:07:43.000 You can't talk about her without bringing a smile to your face because she was brilliant and she was beautiful.

00:07:50.000 But I- She's your younger sister?

00:07:51.000 She's my younger sister.

00:07:52.000 I have an older brother, RJ.

00:07:53.000 He's two years older than me.

00:07:55.000 And so she was- She was nine years younger than me.

00:07:57.000 Nine years younger.

00:07:58.000 So in many ways, the conversation, when I think about her, you know, she lived a different life than my brother and I did.

00:08:04.000 He was two years older.

00:08:05.000 We went through school together.

00:08:06.000 He was always the better quarterback than I was, the better baseball player than I was.

00:08:10.000 And I was just chasing after him.

00:08:11.000 And so she was our little sister, literally.

00:08:13.000 And she was an actress and she was a, you know, active in theater.

00:08:19.000 But she was really exceedingly bright and wanted to either do law school or theater school. 0.91

00:08:25.000 Ended up getting a degree in philosophy, magna cum laude from University of West Florida, and But that was because she had started on somewhat of a challenge.

00:08:34.000 She made some bad personal decisions and I don't blame other people for the individual decisions that other people make, that individuals make.

00:08:40.000 But she developed an addiction and had to wrestle with that for a long time.

00:08:45.000 And so, what you So it wasn't from like a hospital stay or something?

00:08:48.000 It wasn't from a hospital stay.

00:08:50.000 How old was she when this happened?

00:08:52.000 She was 33 when she died.

00:08:54.000 So she was 33. And when did she develop the addiction?

00:08:57.000 You know, a handful to almost – you know, it was probably more recreational use of drugs that led her in that direction. 0.91

00:09:05.000 I don't think she ever really wanted to start on heroin.

00:09:08.000 I think it was a boyfriend who convinced her that it was – Is it after college or during college?

00:09:13.000 This was right about the time before she graduated.

00:09:17.000 Right, before the end of college.

00:09:18.000 Before the end of college.

00:09:19.000 And you think that's when she got into the use of drugs?

00:09:22.000 Yeah.

00:09:23.000 She fought it, and she would have clean spells, and then she would have relapses. 0.66

00:09:28.000 And when those clean spells would come, those were beautiful moments.

00:09:31.000 You know, she would think and act with clarity.

00:09:33.000 She would be a great part of family conversations.

00:09:36.000 She would be present, literally and figuratively.

00:09:38.000 Mm-hmm.

00:09:39.000 And, you know, and that's the pain that people feel.

00:09:42.000 I mean, there's, for my parents especially, sleepless nights.

00:09:45.000 Yeah, I can imagine.

00:09:46.000 Driving her to methadone clinics to get that and just hoping, beyond hope, that you never have to drive there again.

00:09:53.000 You know, trying to find work for her, which was always difficult because how reliable might she be, but also who wants to hire somebody who, you know, you might tell by appearance maybe hasn't been...

00:10:06.000 Hasn't been standing on her own two feet for too long.

00:10:08.000 But, you know, that's the upsetting part of it and the very sad and tragic part of it.

00:10:15.000 And it was fentanyl.

00:10:16.000 It was fentanyl.

00:10:16.000 It was an accidental overdose of fentanyl.

00:10:19.000 And she, you know, this is the thing that I think I would want everybody to understand.

00:10:26.000 It's the finality of it all that makes you realize that when there's 100,000 of our fellow Americans dying every year, that moment is terrible.

00:10:35.000 But those sleepless nights, those unanswered prayers, the idea that when somebody does overdose and they often do it in their home...

00:10:45.000 That now the family home has become a place where a death like that has taken place.

00:10:50.000 It's not natural causes.

00:10:52.000 And so you've got 15 police officers, a medical examiner, a coroner showing up and zipping up an industrial zipper that you can hear through two walls to take your sister out.

00:11:04.000 It's devastating.

00:11:05.000 I mean – and this is what's wreaking havoc across America.

00:11:09.000 And if we don't take it seriously and more seriously than we currently are, we're going to see more of that.

00:11:15.000 And so, you know, that's what's wreaking havoc in families across America and in every community here in Ohio where we are and in my home state of Connecticut.

00:11:23.000 Yeah.

00:11:24.000 It's – it's sad.

00:11:29.000 But I think it's sad in a way that feels – Like there's a cynical force behind it too, right?

00:11:38.000 Because you know it's coming from the cartels.

00:11:40.000 Right.

00:11:40.000 Who in turn are getting it from China.

00:11:42.000 Right.

00:11:43.000 And I think there's something about, you know, maybe COVID is a bad example.

00:11:47.000 We now obviously almost nearly definitively know it came from a Chinese lab too.

00:11:51.000 But there's something about something that's passive that is just a fact of nature.

00:11:57.000 Yes.

00:11:57.000 That makes like a hurricane or something like this, just a tragedy that you are able to mourn as just a tragedy because life is uncertain.

00:12:09.000 And there's something about living in the world that leaves us vulnerable to the uncertainty of higher power in nature and that we can't control.

00:12:19.000 But I think the thing that frustrates me about – The fentanyl crisis is that it feels like we can do something about it.

00:12:29.000 It feels preventable.

00:12:30.000 It feels like this shouldn't be happening.

00:12:33.000 And it is happening in part because there's an enemy of the United States that's, frankly, and I don't mean to touch the emotional nerve, but creating a problem that leaves good Americans like your sister I

00:13:03.000 agree with you, Vivek.

00:13:08.000 If anybody's listening and they think my sister Amy made bad choices and Pay the consequences.

00:13:16.000 In a way, that's true. 0.95

00:13:19.000 But then I would say, think about Bishop Evans, who was a 22-year-old Army National Guard in Texas, who was protecting the border, and two illegal aliens were trying to cross the river.

00:13:32.000 And his training was, don't go in there, it's too dangerous.

00:13:35.000 But his humanity took over, and he went into the river to try to save these two illegal aliens crossing the border.

00:13:42.000 And the tragedy of it is Bishop Evans died, those two illegal aliens survived, and they were smuggling drugs into the United States of America. 0.65

00:13:50.000 Something is fundamentally wrong if we're going to lose a good American like Bishop Evans because his humanity was, I'm going to try to help these two people, and these two people were coming into our country to peddle death and depression.

00:14:05.000 I think that's something fundamentally wrong.

00:14:07.000 Yeah, I mean, that encapsulates, there's so much emotion in that story, right?

00:14:14.000 So that another American like Bishop is going to likely die at behest of using those drugs or be harmed by it.

00:14:23.000 That's where we are in the country.

00:14:25.000 And, you know, I mean, I think one of the things I've said in this presidential campaign that for whatever reason, and I can't quite understand why people get so worked up about this proposal, is that if we're going to use The US military to protect us against anything.

00:14:48.000 It ought to be protecting us from the risks that present themselves on our own soil.

00:14:55.000 We now know that there are literally Chinese individuals at behest of the government Who are in Mexico, not just – not only are they shipping the raw materials, in Mexico producing fentanyl, 0.65

00:15:11.000 to literally send it across that southern border via mules who get across the border one way or another, in their vision of the opium war, and literally by the hundreds of thousands, just as measured by deaths,

00:15:27.000 let alone the countless more who are homeless or displaced from living normal lives in the United States – It is working, and yet we're sitting by as bystanders just watching it happen in plain sight.

00:15:43.000 It's infuriating to me, just as an American, forget the politics of it, just to watch that happen to us in plain sight.

00:15:50.000 And I think part of why – I mean, there's this whole debate about Ukraine now.

00:15:55.000 Right.

00:15:56.000 But I think part of what pisses people off about Ukraine isn't even the expenditure of the dollars, though sometimes they'll say it that way.

00:16:06.000 It isn't just the legacy of Iraq or the Iraq War or something like this.

00:16:12.000 It's the sense that we can't even protect our own border here at home, that we have real problems in America.

00:16:21.000 That we're purposefully sidestepping to create some other, you know, what some will say, I don't agree with this necessarily, made up problem.

00:16:31.000 I don't think it's a made up problem, but take on somebody else's problem.

00:16:34.000 I think that you wouldn't, here's my hypothesis, I guess, where I'm going with that is, I don't think you would see nearly as much American opposition to engagement in Ukraine if it weren't for the fact that we're failing to take care of actual problems that our military should be concerned with here at home.

00:16:58.000 If they were, then I don't think you would see nearly as much of a debate about what our role should be in Ukraine.

00:17:03.000 And I think that's what the people who criticize the The so-called isolationists miss is that it's actually not an isolationist sentiment at all.

00:17:12.000 It's a sentiment that mostly reflects a frustration of dealing with problems that we could have and should have dealt with first.

00:17:20.000 You know what I mean?

00:17:20.000 I do.

00:17:21.000 And I think that what you've just outlined is exactly the right – A set of questions to start to ask should have been asked many, many years ago.

00:17:30.000 What is the American national interest?

00:17:32.000 And when you ask that question, and you start to, you know, have that conversation and that debate, you know, there's a role for deliberative bodies like the House of Representatives and the United States Senate.

00:17:43.000 There's a role for I think we're good to go.

00:18:08.000 The way this should take place, and we see some glaring mistakes happening right here at home, glaring needs that need to be addressed at home, and the framework that you just outlined is exactly the kind of framework that should be driving that debate at a national level.

00:18:19.000 Yeah.

00:18:19.000 Are there folks, just as out of curiosity, at Heritage who are focused on either the cartel issue and or the use of military force there, and also the Ukraine issue, or is this out of scope?

00:18:29.000 It's not out of scope.

00:18:30.000 I mean, one of the great things, again, this is my third tour of duty at Heritage, and I believe that As goes Heritage, so goes the conservative movement.

00:18:38.000 As goes the conservative movement, so goes the United States of America.

00:18:41.000 It's a proud, deeply proud affiliation that I have.

00:18:46.000 On behalf of Heritage, I would say we have people like Laura Reese who are focused on border security.

00:18:51.000 We have people like Mike Howell focused on border security, the oversight that's needed to make sure that the Biden administration answers difficult questions that they have been sidestepping.

00:19:01.000 In terms of drug policy, we have a brilliant guy named Paul Larkin who has been writing quite a bit on the sort of discontent around illicit drugs and sort of unpacking that across all forms of illicit drugs.

00:19:18.000 Because, Vivek, if you think about it, we have this problem that we've been talking about.

00:19:22.000 And it runs concurrent to the idea that we decriminalize and legalize all form of narcotics.

00:19:28.000 And for us to just shrug our shoulders and assume there's no connection, I think it sort of belies logic in that way.

00:19:34.000 And there's just no way that you can walk through any major city these days, not see some people that are clearly under the influence to the point where they're not functioning very well at all on our streets.

00:19:45.000 And for us to sort of shrug our shoulders at that is a major problem and I think a dereliction of duty for anybody who wants to be a part of these conversations.

00:19:51.000 This might be more of a conversation with Paul, but I mean, to the extent that you have a good sense for this.

00:19:58.000 Sure.

00:19:58.000 Do we – because I actually should know this and don't off the top of my head.

00:20:02.000 Right.

00:20:02.000 Do we have a good sense for – How much of a role fentanyl versus these other drugs are playing?

00:20:10.000 I mean, I know it's 100,000 deaths a year for fentanyl.

00:20:12.000 Right.

00:20:13.000 Like, what's the order of magnitude on some of these other drug-related deaths as it compares to fentanyl?

00:20:19.000 Yeah.

00:20:19.000 Yeah, I mean, that's not something that I could probably answer with any – I wouldn't want to mislead anybody on the numbers, but obviously fentanyl is deadly, and you can overdose on that.

00:20:30.000 It's instantaneous, and you only need the amount of fentanyl that would cover the tip of the pen or pencil that we've got in front of us, and it will end somebody's life.

00:20:40.000 The other drugs, it's usually much different and not so potent and not so fatal in the Culturally, what are the habits that are drawn out of that?

00:20:51.000 When I was growing up in the Just Say No campaign that the Reagan White House was launching, that was what we were taught in school.

00:21:00.000 The idea that the war on drugs hasn't been a success or something like that is not a reason to Flip the card over and say, well, let's do it the other way and let's legalize and decriminalize all of this because all you're going to end up with is a bunch of people that perhaps need a little bit more help and are finding themselves in a situation where they're not going to get it.

00:21:20.000 In fact, they're going to find themselves on a much worse path.

00:21:23.000 I mean the argument goes, right?

00:21:25.000 That – well, you wouldn't have the cartels if everyone was actually able to sell.

00:21:29.000 So that – the only reason you have the cartels is because of the prohibition that gives them a shadow monopoly, which in turn gets to the same result of still people dying of addiction.

00:21:40.000 So I mean that's – it's not – I don't find that persuasive, but I think it's an argument that deserves – It deserves airing.

00:21:49.000 Yeah.

00:21:49.000 It deserves airing.

00:21:50.000 It deserves to be weighed.

00:21:51.000 Yeah.

00:21:52.000 Now, I mean I think the question is then – but if you're going to be in the worst of all worlds, you might actually create the conditions for the cartels without actually going the distance and dealing with them.

00:22:04.000 I think you said something earlier, which to me, I'm telling a personal story about my sister, and there's a positive, much as one could say, ending or point of the story that we're at, which is we've got a scholarship under her name now.

00:22:19.000 We give scholarships out to graduating seniors in our hometown under her name, and so we try to have her legacy live on in the best sense of the words.

00:22:28.000 But the leading cause of death to 18 to 45-year-old men in this country is fentanyl overdose.

00:22:35.000 And if you're a Mexican drug cartel or the Chinese Communist Party, you don't look at that metric and think that's a deep concern.

00:22:42.000 You look at that metric and you think that's a wonderful thing.

00:22:44.000 And so, we need to be having the conversation that we're having under the rubric of public health, under the rubric of saving families and saving communities, but also from a national security point of view.

00:22:54.000 And so, I think all those options should be on the table that you've outlined.

00:22:57.000 Yeah.

00:22:57.000 I mean I think that it's considered uncouth to say something like this.

00:23:04.000 The southern border, it's a failed – it's a failed narco state south of the border. 1.00

00:23:09.000 We should be willing to do what we ought to do when we deal with terrorists.

00:23:13.000 I think the way that ISIS behaves is not that different from the way those Mexican drug cartels are behaving and President Obrador is basically in the pockets of the cartels.

00:23:24.000 Well, I think that if they're actually terrorists, we don't just freeze their financial assets.

00:23:29.000 We ought to treat them in the way we treat Soleimani or Bin Laden or al-Zawahiri, drone strikes, airstrikes, tactical special force operations for a fraction, by the way, of what we've spent in Ukraine.

00:23:40.000 I think we could decimate the cartels and solve the supply side problem in the fentanyl crisis.

00:23:45.000 And yet in that context, we worry about concerns relating to nation building and destabilization.

00:23:55.000 Yet somehow if it's in the other hemisphere, we actually lack those same concerns.

00:24:01.000 It's just fascinating to me that that's where we are.

00:24:04.000 Do you – and I think that there's room for reasonable debate in this, but like does the work that Heritage is doing – Point in one direction or another on the emerging Ukraine debate we're having in the conservative movement, which I think is a good debate to have because it airs a lot of other issues that have nothing to do with Ukraine.

00:24:20.000 But I'm curious what the orientation is of heritage so far around that particular debate.

00:24:25.000 The opportunity to be here with you today is a pleasure for me.

00:24:29.000 But, you know, the Heritage Affiliation kind of put that to the side.

00:24:32.000 As an observer, if both of us are just sort of seeing where… Yeah, I mean, yes, absolutely.

00:24:36.000 I mean, we've been, I think, driving a big part of that conversation.

00:24:39.000 The idea that, you know, no checks and balances on the spending or no checks and balances on the result of that investment.

00:24:49.000 It's deeply problematic, but it's problematic from a pure spending standpoint.

00:24:54.000 But I don't think you can approach every national security concern in a war in Europe purely from a spending standpoint.

00:25:03.000 But we have deep concerns there.

00:25:05.000 We've written a lot about it.

00:25:07.000 But in favor of engagement, though?

00:25:09.000 You know, listen, I think Putin is a menace.

00:25:12.000 And, you know, I think that, you know, personal hat, you know, I think that the idea that America would stand by and allow him to advance on Ukraine is probably one that fails the test of what is our interest.

00:25:30.000 But we have to make that case a lot better.

00:25:32.000 I think, you know, we've sort of, you know, I think there was a calculation made by By certain world leaders, country leaders, I should say, that the United States was not in a position to thwart any of that activity.

00:25:48.000 I mean, there was probably four months of constant daily Russian troops mounting a presence at the Ukraine border, and it just became this sort of fait accompli that this was going to happen.

00:26:00.000 And, you know, if NATO is meant to be A protection against that sort of thing happening and it fails, then you have to start to question, you know, are these international institutions really doing their part?

00:26:14.000 And obviously, things will happen in that way.

00:26:16.000 But so, I think from a heritage standpoint, you know, we question it, but we question it.

00:26:20.000 The discussion needs to happen, but obviously, we understand the severity of it and the importance of having a free Europe in a It's weirdly linked to – in an Unexpected way to one of the issues that are near and dear to both of our hearts actually,

00:26:48.000 which is the ESG question.

00:26:51.000 I sometimes joke around that – cynically at least that ESG stands for Export Soviet Gas because that's the effect that it's had on – Global financial markets and commodity markets and even energy markets more broadly for people's access to energy because here's the sad part of the story, right?

00:27:12.000 We've got this Ukraine debate going, more or less US engagement, okay?

00:27:17.000 And legitimate debate to be had there.

00:27:20.000 I've been pretty clear as a presidential candidate that I believe the top two foreign policy priorities in the United States – and I do think foreign policy is about prioritization – is declaring independence from communist China and actually protecting our southern border, including solving the fentanyl crisis, including using the US military as a just including solving the fentanyl crisis, including using the US military as a just and justified use of the US military to But in some ways, the debate about Ukraine is a false –

00:27:49.000 Straw man, because actually the real issue is that while with one hand the Biden administration gives 40 plus billion plus another 60 plus billion for a total of 100 plus – 60 plus in weapons and 40 plus in just raw aid to Ukraine with one hand to fight against Vladimir Putin.

00:28:10.000 While with the other hand, not a lot of people know this.

00:28:14.000 Joe Biden's administration and White House was the number one major Western power that was lobbying against the EU's ban on Russian oil imports.

00:28:28.000 Think about that for a second.

00:28:29.000 So if the EU wants to ban Russian oil imports, well, that would be a big problem.

00:28:36.000 You know, sort of undercutting of Putin's ability to finance his war machine.

00:28:41.000 And then who's lobbying against that?

00:28:44.000 It's none other than the Biden White House, which with the other hand is giving a hundred plus billion dollars worth of taxpayer money.

00:28:54.000 To Ukraine to fight against Vladimir Putin, who's financing his war machine with the European purchase of Russian oil that the Biden White House is itself lobbying against.

00:29:04.000 It's actually nuts.

00:29:05.000 This is where I get to do one of my favorite things in our conversations.

00:29:09.000 I get to ask you a question.

00:29:10.000 Why do you think that is?

00:29:11.000 Because I think that's fascinating.

00:29:13.000 Why do we think that is?

00:29:15.000 Well, I mean mechanically why that is and then we can get the philosophy of actually why what's really – what the hell is really going on in our country.

00:29:24.000 But the mechanics of why that is, is because the US and the West, and Western Europe included, shot itself in the foot when it comes to its ability to produce fossil fuels.

00:29:36.000 And also nuclear energy.

00:29:38.000 Germany shut down nuclear plants.

00:29:40.000 Coal plants have been shut down.

00:29:42.000 Fossil fuel restrictions in Western Europe, even in the United States, created a dependent relationship on Russia.

00:29:50.000 To provide oil and gas.

00:29:51.000 So think about the farce here.

00:29:53.000 You have a climate religion in the United States, a climate cult in the modern West that obsesses over Western countries like the US and Canada and Norway and others not producing oil and gas.

00:30:06.000 Now, keep in mind, the three countries that are probably the cleanest at producing just in terms of raw pollution into the environment on oil and gas are countries like the United States, Canada and Norway.

00:30:18.000 And yet, just watching, it's a global market for these commodities that we're talking about, Russia pick up the slack. 0.72

00:30:25.000 So prices are a little bit higher when you have constrained production.

00:30:29.000 Russia's able to sell that into a market with higher prices and rake greater profitability for one of its main sources of revenue because we shot ourselves in the foot.

00:30:39.000 Now, is that because we care to stave off global climate change?

00:30:42.000 Well, no.

00:30:43.000 Last time I checked, it was called global climate change for a reason.

00:30:46.000 Actually, there's a double irony in this.

00:30:47.000 From what I've described so far, it might just look like a net neutral transaction.

00:30:53.000 Less oil and gas production here, more oil and gas production over there, and we call it a day with just a virtue signaling wrapper.

00:31:01.000 That would be bad enough.

00:31:02.000 No, no.

00:31:02.000 It's actually one step worse than that.

00:31:07.000 When you're producing oil and gas and oil in places like Russia is actually far worse than it is in the United States.

00:31:13.000 And even if you buy into the crazy commandments of this religion, methane is 80 times worse for global warming than carbon dioxide.

00:31:25.000 And so wait a minute.

00:31:26.000 Now we're shifting oil production to places like Russia where methane leakage is worse in the name of fighting carbon emissions.

00:31:31.000 Actually, the absolute oil produced is the same.

00:31:34.000 The absolute carbon production is the same.

00:31:36.000 It's just a worse form of carbon with methane leakage to top it off.

00:31:42.000 It reveals that it actually has nothing to do with even climate change.

00:31:45.000 It has to do with the United States and the modern West engaging in this some sort of self-loathing behavior.

00:31:52.000 It's a form of self-hatred.

00:31:54.000 It's a form of self-flogging.

00:31:55.000 It's like wearing a hair shirt.

00:31:57.000 It's like a form of religious self-punishment.

00:32:01.000 That's actually what's going on in America.

00:32:03.000 And then we create the kinds of geopolitical problems in the other side of the world that create the need for these debates we have to help Ukraine or not to help Ukraine.

00:32:14.000 When, in fact, if we were just self-sufficient on our energy needs, Russia would have withered into irrelevance.

00:32:19.000 And actually, what we've seen is this bluff of the idea that Putin did indeed have some sort of military prowess that was going to pose a threat to the United States.

00:32:28.000 He can't even fight Ukraine, right? 0.99

00:32:30.000 And by the way, it brings up for me the nuttiness of the American intelligence complex that says that somehow Kabul was not going to fall for years to the Taliban.

00:32:41.000 It falls within days.

00:32:43.000 Then says Ukraine is going to fall within days and that war is still going on over a year later.

00:32:49.000 That's a whole separate point about what we call – should we call it intelligence or should we call it something other than intelligence because we seem to be systematically wrong about what we're supposedly intelligent about?

00:32:59.000 But it creates these false straw man debates that were actually just grounded in our own lack of self-sufficiency on something as basic as energy.

00:33:10.000 Why is that?

00:33:11.000 Is it because of the climate?

00:33:12.000 No, that doesn't make sense because then you'd be embracing nuclear and the US has – the progressive movement has hostility towards nuclear.

00:33:19.000 It would have worried about shifting oil production to places like Russia.

00:33:21.000 No, it doesn't care about that.

00:33:22.000 It's about self-hatred.

00:33:23.000 It's about self-punishment.

00:33:25.000 It's about self-loathing.

00:33:26.000 And so is it any surprise that you then see Biden with one hand financing Putin's war machine and with the other hand funding Ukraine to fight against Putin's war machine?

00:33:34.000 No, this is just a form of self-hatred and self-loathing in America.

00:33:37.000 That's what's going on.

00:33:38.000 That's why – I mean that's why I believe that though I can go deep on the geopolitics or the economics of it.

00:33:44.000 At the core of it is just this national identity crisis.

00:33:48.000 And if we fill that national identity crisis, if we solve that national identity crisis, these other questions actually become a lot easier to address.

00:33:54.000 Do you think – so this is one of the beauties of your message and your posture and your positioning is that you've identified this, which I think is 100% accurate.

00:34:06.000 And so when I hear you speak, I hear you speaking to the need for a renewed American purpose and renewed and restoration.

00:34:14.000 We use a lot of interesting language on this, but I think it was at CPAC you mentioned, you know, the ideas that will propel us forward are the ideas, those radical ideas that were in the Declaration of Independence and in our Constitution, right?

00:34:27.000 And if we believe in equality and self-governance and the consent of the governed to pursue life or for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, if we can have that conversation again, Is that something the American people can agree on?

00:34:39.000 Yes.

00:34:40.000 You think so?

00:34:41.000 Yes.

00:34:41.000 I'm just – I mean like absolutely this is – not only can agree on, I think most of us do agree on, right?

00:34:49.000 I think that most Americans – Agree on these basic rules of the road.

00:34:54.000 Okay?

00:34:54.000 I said in my opening campaign video, you know, maybe we disagree as a joke, right?

00:34:59.000 Maybe we disagree on whether corporate tax rates should be high or low.

00:35:02.000 Maybe we disagree on whether ivermectin treats COVID, but those are details.

00:35:06.000 What really matters is the basic principles that bind us together.

00:35:10.000 Funny little notice, the Council for Foreign Relations literally did a write-up on me that someone published today that said that it was the first presidential campaign ever where a candidate was promoting ivermectin to treat COVID.

00:35:21.000 I'm just like – either you have to be so dense as to miss the tenor of the point I was making.

00:35:30.000 or intentional deception That describes the Council on Foreign Relations right there.

00:35:34.000 I was just shocked when I read this.

00:35:36.000 It was just not credible stuff.

00:35:38.000 But you know what?

00:35:39.000 I don't think we have to – We don't have to do much other than open our eyes to the fact that most of us actually share these values in common.

00:35:47.000 Meritocracy, free speech, open debate, self-governance over aristocracy.

00:35:51.000 These are basic American ideas.

00:35:53.000 This is what it means to be American.

00:35:56.000 But most of us already believe, know deep down that our neighbors and our colleagues and our classmates also believe these things to be true.

00:36:04.000 But there's this doubt.

00:36:05.000 We can't quite be sure about it anymore because we're not allowed to talk about it.

00:36:10.000 And I think that's what creates this new culture of fear that causes us to see artificial divisions that don't actually exist.

00:36:17.000 But, you know, you're right.

00:36:19.000 I do see this as a moment where there's this opportunity for a national revival.

00:36:25.000 But if we miss it, I think the stakes are really high because then we're on our way to this national divorce.

00:36:29.000 And I just think we're at one of those moments where we're at that precipice where hairs trigger away from a positive national revival if we want one, but it's not going to happen automatically.

00:36:39.000 So to hear you talk about that, Vivek.

00:36:43.000 One would say we're poised for both – maybe these are more complementary than contrasting, but a realignment election and maybe even a landslide election – But as a declared presidential candidate, how do you see yourself getting 65-75% of the vote of the American people?

00:37:06.000 I think that's the number we should be shooting for, by the way.

00:37:08.000 We think sometimes small ball in the conservative movement.

00:37:11.000 Let's not think about how we get from 50.1 to 50.2 or 49.9 to 50.1.

00:37:17.000 Right.

00:37:19.000 Yeah.

00:37:22.000 I mean, the way I divvy up the political landscape right now is not between – certainly not between black and white, but it's not even between red and blue.

00:37:30.000 Okay.

00:37:31.000 It is between those who are fundamentally pro-American, who believe in the ideals that set this nation into motion, and those who are fundamentally anti-American, American, the camp in this country that wants to apologize for the ideals that set this nation into motion, for the existence of a nation founded on those ideals themselves.

00:37:50.000 And those people exist.

00:37:51.000 But then you draw it that way.

00:37:52.000 It's not 50-50 anymore.

00:37:54.000 It's 80-20 in our favor.

00:37:56.000 And I think that that creates the opportunity for a landslide election where even if 80% of them agree, even if you peel off, you know, 10 to 15% of them because they just can't muster the muscle memory to vote for somebody who's a declared Republican candidate, you're still at a 65-70% landslide election.

00:38:14.000 It's a 1980-1984 style, Reagan-style landslide election that could be the single most unifying thing we deliver for this country.

00:38:23.000 But I think it requires reawakening self-confidence a little bit.

00:38:31.000 It's actually what the theme of this entire podcast is, is reviving American self-confidence.

00:38:37.000 I think it takes a bit of self-confidence for someone who's An identified Democrat.

00:38:46.000 To be able to say that, yeah, you know, I'm not supposed to vote for what they teach me is the party of white supremacy, the party of tyranny, or whatever.

00:38:56.000 You know what?

00:38:57.000 I'm an independent soul.

00:38:58.000 I'm not anybody's slave.

00:39:00.000 I'm going to think independently.

00:39:02.000 I'm not going to do something just because someone taught me to, just because somebody drove a bus that brought me to the voting booth and I somehow owe them paying them back by voting for being the person who brought me here.

00:39:14.000 No.

00:39:14.000 I'm an independent – I'm a man.

00:39:17.000 I'm my own man or I'm a woman.

00:39:19.000 I'm my own woman.

00:39:19.000 I'm my own person who's going to do what I think is right because I can think independently.

00:39:25.000 I'm not a psychological slave.

00:39:28.000 That takes courage.

00:39:29.000 That takes self-confidence.

00:39:30.000 But I think that courage can be – I say this often.

00:39:33.000 I think courage can be contagious in this country.

00:39:36.000 And you know what?

00:39:37.000 I think that actually people who can lead the way there are not just Republicans.

00:39:41.000 I think there's going to be some Democrats in this election who will lead the way with courage to say that, yeah, I disagree with them on, I don't know, corporate tax rates.

00:39:51.000 Let's pin it to that.

00:39:53.000 But I agree deep in my bones about the importance of free speech, about the importance of open debate, about the importance of actually living in a self-governing nation rather than one that's governed from the aristocrats sitting on the mountaintops of Davos in Old World Europe.

00:40:10.000 No, I don't agree with that.

00:40:13.000 You know what?

00:40:14.000 I might disagree with you, but I'm going to have it out with you the way citizens do in the public square rather than by using some sort of cynical, subtle use of force, maybe even through financial markets or whatever.

00:40:29.000 That's what the ESG cancer is all about, to settle it.

00:40:33.000 I think a lot of Democrats quietly feel that way.

00:40:36.000 I think they're going to require courage to be able to You know, muster the fortitude to act with their conviction, but I think it's in their heart already.

00:40:44.000 I give somebody like a Bill Maher a lot of credit.

00:40:46.000 He's become a friend over the last couple of years for embracing that despite the fact that he's not where the Republican Party is on abortion or capital punishment or I don't know where he's on, you know, a variety of the traditional issues that divide Republicans and Democrats.

00:40:59.000 I think the real cultural issues right now relate to free speech, relate to actual culture of fear we've created in this country.

00:41:07.000 I think if we can make this election about those elements of American national identity and we nominate the person who's actually able to articulate these issues to the general public, yeah, I think it's a landslide election.

00:41:20.000 The best antidote to fear is courage, right?

00:41:23.000 And the way you've articulated that, to me, it's very much the principles of subsidiarity, right?

00:41:30.000 I mean, be governed by those institutions closest to you.

00:41:34.000 That's yourself, your family, then it's your community, then it maybe is your local government, then there may be some other sort of mediating institutions, obviously the state government and then the federal government and everything.

00:41:47.000 But the idea that the federal government has jurisdiction on half of the things that we're talking about is a role that the government doesn't need to play.

00:41:55.000 The idea that somehow we're having a debate, corporate tax rates, that might be their jurisdiction, and that might not be what's deciding the election right now, but what it means to be a man or a woman, or what it means to have some hierarchy of values that dictate the culture and the norms and mores of society.

00:42:12.000 I mean, that's very much a debate that we should be having with ourselves, with our families, with those local institutions, and that's the best way you get towards virtuous self-governance, which I think is the path that we can go on.

00:42:22.000 But you mentioned being able to articulate that and needing somebody who can articulate that.

00:42:27.000 You know, I've been wanting to ask you, Abraham Lincoln said, and I believe it was in the first debate with Stephen Douglas, that public sentiment is everything.

00:42:35.000 With public sentiment, everything can succeed.

00:42:39.000 Without it, nothing can.

00:42:41.000 And those who shape public sentiment...

00:42:44.000 Are, in a way, not quoting him, more important than judges and regulators and others, lawmakers even, right?

00:42:51.000 Because you're able to dictate and shape that.

00:42:54.000 And so, you know, we talk in the conservative movement a lot about the Overton window, and I've concocted the Olivastro sequence of winning, right?

00:43:01.000 But it's shaping public opinion.

00:43:03.000 It's creating the political will and sometimes somebody shows up who has that will and hasn't necessarily needed to be shaped.

00:43:09.000 And then there's legislation that's modeled, drafted, passed, and then you sort of reset that process.

00:43:14.000 But how important is it in your mind to get your message out and how do you get it out?

00:43:20.000 Because if you're going to shape public sentiment, To make it a successful election, but then also to then govern successfully.

00:43:27.000 I mean, that's a monumental task.

00:43:28.000 It's exciting that you're doing it, but you must have had some thoughts around how you're going to do it and the ways in which you're going to do it.

00:43:34.000 Yeah, I think so.

00:43:35.000 I mean, I think it's – I think unifying the country is a complicated project.

00:43:41.000 I think people are hungry for unity, but delivering it's complicated.

00:43:44.000 I said this on the CPAC stage, I think, when you're out there.

00:43:46.000 I mean, we're not going to do it by showing up in the middle.

00:43:50.000 Right.

00:43:51.000 Saying we can all compromise and hold hands.

00:43:53.000 I don't think people are in a mood for compromise.

00:43:55.000 I think people have convictions in this country and they're competing convictions.

00:44:00.000 And that's what creates, you know, even the language around the possibility of a national divorce.

00:44:05.000 And so that can seem very complicated.

00:44:07.000 How do you compromise against the backdrop of, you know, competing but deep-seated convictions?

00:44:15.000 And I think it's by rediscovering that many of those convictions...

00:44:21.000 Are really convictions in the same thing, even though, based on the angle of where you sit, the shadows that you cast, you're made to believe that they're actually different.

00:44:32.000 And so what does that mean?

00:44:33.000 I think we have to unapologetically embrace the extremism, the radicalism.

00:44:42.000 Of the actual American ideas that set this nation into motion.

00:44:45.000 And just wear on our sleeve that they are radical ideas.

00:44:48.000 The idea that you can speak your mind freely, say whatever you want, express whatever opinion you want, bar none, so long as I can do the same in return.

00:45:00.000 The idea that whether you or I win in the system of free market capitalism in America is just exclusively determined by our unique skills and the effort we put into cultivating those skills to make contributions.

00:45:15.000 Nothing else.

00:45:16.000 There's nothing else that matters other than that.

00:45:19.000 The idea that we as citizens, non-expert citizens, by the way, Those are radical ideas.

00:45:43.000 Right?

00:45:43.000 For most of human history, it was done the other way.

00:45:46.000 But those are crazy ideas.

00:45:48.000 But you know what unites us is that that craziness of that commitment, that's what brings us together as Americans.

00:45:54.000 And so I think, ironically, the way we deliver national unity and see that all the way through a governing agenda that actually implements policies that get this done, I think is actually by embracing that spirit of extremism.

00:46:07.000 Because if we don't lean into it, it's still there anyway.

00:46:10.000 And the idea of compromising across that That's a lost cause and a false project if it was ever going to work.

00:46:16.000 But I think that this way of doing it, I'm actually pretty optimistic.

00:46:21.000 I think if we get this right, we're about to deliver an American revival, but it's not going to be by being tame.

00:46:33.000 It's not going to be by being meek.

00:46:35.000 That's kind of my advice even to young people when I talk to them.

00:46:38.000 We're talking about this at a political level, but even at an individual level, I think we live in this moment that you're taught to be genteel.

00:46:47.000 You're taught to be, you know, wear your gloves when you're handling a tough issue.

00:46:55.000 Even the athletes who compete in America today, right?

00:46:58.000 It's not Michael Jordan anymore.

00:46:59.000 It's not Kobe Bryant anymore.

00:47:00.000 It's like the equivalent of LeBron James, where, you know, you care more about the The hug you give to the teammate on the other side at the end of the game rather than just unapologetically winning on the basketball court, right?

00:47:16.000 And it's a trivial example about basketball.

00:47:17.000 But that's what we're taught is that the way we have unity with one another is actually by, you know, by shaking hands, you know, and building a bridge and compromising when in fact, I don't know, I think that Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson and Larry Bird were – United more – I mean,

00:47:39.000 Matthew Johnson and Larry Bird's rivalry, for example, by actually their shared commitment to leave blood on the court before they get off and competing against one another.

00:47:50.000 That's almost more unifying, kind of the extremism, the unapologetic nature of that relationship between John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg or whatever.

00:47:59.000 We miss that in our culture today.

00:48:02.000 And then we wonder why we're divided.

00:48:04.000 It's because – The extent of our commitment to one another was just paper thin.

00:48:14.000 Of like a compromise.

00:48:16.000 If you don't stand for anything, then you can't actually have a deep bond of solidarity.

00:48:20.000 And I think we just need to actually embrace the gloves-off nature of our disagreements.

00:48:26.000 And I think that actually weirdly brings us back together.

00:48:30.000 It also allows you to be more successful, by the way.

00:48:32.000 I think the reason we have a generation of people who live in their parents' basements is that they're too afraid to actually take the gloves off.

00:48:40.000 I think we need a little bit more of that in our culture.

00:48:42.000 My advice to young people is if you live in a culture of people who are meek puppets, if you're actually willing to keep your elbows nice and sharp, you'll actually clean up and succeed in the system whether it's financially or otherwise.

00:48:57.000 That's – I'm a 37-year-old self-funder running for president.

00:49:02.000 Didn't happen automatically.

00:49:04.000 I think that you could – if you're in your teens right now, you could be doing the same thing as long as you're unafraid, right?

00:49:11.000 To tear some things down along the way without apologizing for it.

00:49:15.000 The unapologetic, relentless pursuit of excellence should be how everybody wakes up in the morning and looks in the mirror.

00:49:22.000 And they all have a different – everybody has an individual sort of, you know, path through life, distinct path through life.

00:49:27.000 But we're all on that same journey together.

00:49:30.000 There aren't, you know, separate truths and things like that.

00:49:33.000 There are separate circumstances, of course.

00:49:35.000 But I love the Magic Johnson-Larry Bird comparison.

00:49:37.000 I mean, those guys battled ever since, you know, college in 79 when they played against each other all the way through a professional career and they hated each other.

00:49:45.000 But that developed into a respect and an admiration as they got later in their career because they wanted to beat each other.

00:49:51.000 But that's what makes it wonderful.

00:49:52.000 You can have that pursuit of excellence.

00:49:55.000 There's a great book called The Captain Class and it talks about what it actually means to differentiate yourself and how in all these different circumstances, different athletes from a Brazilian volleyball team to an Australian rugby team to even Bill Russell with the Celtics and how very early in his career, or his rookie season, if I'm not mistaken, they were destined to lose.

00:50:15.000 There was a turnover late in game six, and they were destined to lose.

00:50:19.000 And he covered 90 feet of the court in less than two seconds to block a shot.

00:50:23.000 It's a – there's no video of this, but there's audio of it.

00:50:27.000 And when you read about it and then you listen to it, that's what made his teammates realize that this guy – not only is he a captain in terms of a presence, but we can follow him.

00:50:38.000 He has an unparalleled example of excellence because it's a superhuman feat in that sense, but the fact that he could do it, and then obviously his record bears it out that he could do it repeatedly over a course of many seasons and lead the Celtics in the way that he did.

00:50:53.000 Those are the amazing stories, and if you want to write that story for yourself – That's the unapologetic pursuit of excellence that's so very important.

00:51:02.000 And that's part of what can unify us, can galvanize us.

00:51:05.000 It's embrace that extremism a little bit.

00:51:07.000 You know, it reminds me – I mean we talk about Michael Jordan and Larry Bird and Matt Johnson.

00:51:13.000 It's like the rivalries between Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, right?

00:51:18.000 I mean these guys would go in at each other's throats.

00:51:21.000 Right.

00:51:21.000 Yet when push came to shove, you know, Hamilton – Came out and endorsed Jefferson over Aaron Burr.

00:51:27.000 That got him into a duel that got him killed.

00:51:29.000 But that was – I mean, those were the characters that we missed that set this nation to motion.

00:51:35.000 I mean, Adams and Jefferson, head-on rivals.

00:51:38.000 Right.

00:51:38.000 Until they finally, kind of like Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, once they take the jerseys off and they're done, hang the jersey and retired, kind of say, you know what?

00:51:48.000 We always loved each other.

00:51:49.000 We were part of something special.

00:51:50.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:51:51.000 We made it together and it wouldn't have happened without either of them.

00:51:54.000 Both die on July 4th – what is it?

00:51:56.000 1826, 50th anniversary of the birth of the nation.

00:52:02.000 We don't have – I mean I think what we're missing today is as much as – we were talking just a little bit about those founding principles and rediscovering a shared American identity around those founding principles.

00:52:12.000 I think we could use a little bit of that founding culture.

00:52:15.000 I think the people who are unafraid to explore a little bit, be daring a little bit, Thomas Jefferson or Benjamin Franklin, these guys are political philosophers, but they didn't invent something in the realm of science.

00:52:26.000 They didn't say, oh, that's for just the scientists.

00:52:29.000 I'm going to teach myself and do what I need to to learn what I need to about electricity because it's weird what's happening in the sky.

00:52:35.000 I wonder how I could use that if you're Benjamin Franklin.

00:52:38.000 Oh, I'm Thomas Jefferson.

00:52:39.000 I need to write the Declaration of Independence, but I need a swivel chair to do it.

00:52:42.000 Well, I'll just invent it.

00:52:44.000 You know that Jefferson invented the swivel chip?

00:52:45.000 Yes, absolutely.

00:52:46.000 We don't do that anymore in this country because we have this self-confidence problem that starts with kids being taught that you need to wait in line and wait your turn before you actually do something and gain expertise to try something out or else you might make a mistake.

00:53:01.000 So what?

00:53:02.000 You make a mistake, you fall flat on your face, you pick yourself up, you're better off for it, and then you compete with the person who's better than you and you compete until you actually get better than them.

00:53:11.000 I mean, that was – That was Jefferson Adams.

00:53:13.000 That was Jefferson Hamilton.

00:53:15.000 That was Larry Bird, Magic Johnson.

00:53:17.000 Where do those people exist today?

00:53:21.000 I don't know.

00:53:22.000 I mean, like I said, I mean, people – I was talking to a mainstream media reporter today who says, you know, why didn't you just wait your turn before running for president?

00:53:31.000 Because I don't feel like waiting my turn because it's not about me.

00:53:34.000 It's about accomplishing something for the country.

00:53:37.000 And if I think I can do it, then I'm not going to follow some playbook that tells me that I'm too young or haven't jumped through the right hoops to do it.

00:53:45.000 Forget about that.

00:53:46.000 I don't think that's what Thomas Jefferson would have said if he were alive today, and he was our third president.

00:53:50.000 If I want to be our 47th, then I'm not going to be doing the same thing either.

00:53:53.000 And we just miss that spirit.

00:53:55.000 It's not even about politics.

00:53:56.000 It's not even about...

00:53:57.000 It's not even about, you know, the presidential race or whatever.

00:54:01.000 It's just about a culture that we miss in this country.

00:54:04.000 I agree with you.

00:54:06.000 It's harnessing that broad umbrella or even this sort of rubric that we talk about of American exceptionalism, but how do you internalize that and make that a part of who you are?

00:54:16.000 It's easy to talk about in the abstract for a nation.

00:54:18.000 What about being exceptional yourself?

00:54:20.000 Right.

00:54:20.000 I think that's vitally important.

00:54:22.000 Yeah.

00:54:22.000 I mean, you're running the risk of making Americans fall in love with America again.

00:54:26.000 Yeah, who would have ever thought?

00:54:28.000 But it's a beautiful- Fall in love with yourself.

00:54:30.000 Fall in love with yourself.

00:54:31.000 You know, I mean, you're an American.

00:54:32.000 Get out of self-hatred.

00:54:34.000 Fall in love with yourself.

00:54:35.000 That's part of what it means to be American.

00:54:37.000 A big part of understanding self-governance Mm-hmm.

00:54:44.000 Can you have self-governance if you're ruled by your passions and not some reason, or if you're ruled only by reason and not some passion?

00:54:55.000 You know, I think as the story would go is that Ronald Reagan would often quote Thomas Paine and say that we have it within our ability to start America all over again.

00:55:08.000 And there's a breed of conservatives who would say, "That's not how this works." And there's another who would say, but we understand the messaging that he's trying to communicate here.

00:55:18.000 But we do have that ability, right?

00:55:19.000 And you could have the Obama administration release a YouTube video of Julia, cradle to grave government, taking care of you. 1.00

00:55:27.000 And if you see that and it soothes you, then I would say with all due respect to any of my fellow Americans that you need to examine yourself.

00:55:36.000 And you need to understand that somebody who's going to give you something is going to be able to take it away at some point.

00:55:41.000 Totally.

00:55:42.000 You know, there's a lot to say about that.

00:55:45.000 I mean, one thing is just as a leader, one of the better pieces of advice I got about being a CEO is that every so often you got to – Approach it when you walk in the door to say that I was just – especially if you're a few years in.

00:56:00.000 Assume I was just hired into this job and it's day one.

00:56:04.000 What would I do?

00:56:07.000 Which is like almost every CEO who goes through that experience would say it's clearly not what I'm doing right now.

00:56:14.000 Right.

00:56:17.000 Why?

00:56:18.000 That's a logical disconnect, right?

00:56:19.000 Because it shouldn't be any different if it was your first day versus if it was your 30th day or versus if it was in the middle of your sixth year.

00:56:29.000 Now, that's like true up to a point.

00:56:31.000 Obviously, if every day is your first day, you'd sort of be stopping and starting a new strategy.

00:56:35.000 So I don't mean literally treating every day.

00:56:36.000 But probably every six months, every year, you've got to come into work one day with that perspective.

00:56:43.000 And I think it's not that different with approaching the presidency right now.

00:56:47.000 I think that – I think that's true.

00:56:48.000 Come in and you don't have to take any of that existing status quo is given.

00:56:52.000 But it's approaching the presidency.

00:56:53.000 It's approaching also just the life trajectory you're on if you're trying to make it in the system of American capitalism, making your grind.

00:57:02.000 Yeah, if you wake – if every day was just an extension of the last, most days you got to build towards progressing your journey, your career, whatever it is.

00:57:11.000 But every once in a while, you got to wake out of bed and just say, okay – If I'm starting with a blank slate, would I be doing exactly what I'm doing now?

00:57:19.000 And the more I did that, I would say the more often I started finding that actually when I woke up on a given day, is this actually, if I had to snap my fingers, it could be doing anything I wanted to in the world right now.

00:57:30.000 Am I sure it would be this?

00:57:33.000 And as I started thinking this way more...

00:57:37.000 Actually, the answer started to become yes more often.

00:57:40.000 And that too is a source of self-confidence and conviction.

00:57:43.000 And you lose the doubt that it should have been something else you were doing.

00:57:47.000 And so I don't know.

00:57:48.000 I just think that even outside of the politics of it, if we just had a culture of people who were unafraid to sort of live their lives that way, I think in a certain sense, the nation and the national culture is almost automatically fixed as a consequence.

00:58:00.000 I think it creates...

00:58:03.000 untold opportunity for every individual because in free market system of voluntary exchange you can you can create the market that you might want to dominate you can create the set of conditions that will dictate whether you're successful or not or you can greatly influence them of course um but it requires you to be in service of other people it

00:58:27.000 It requires you to work and earn and demonstrate some sense of effectiveness.

00:58:35.000 That's the beauty of the marketplace.

00:58:36.000 I mean, it's why democracy and capitalism are not Separate things that happen to come together to fuel what is America.

00:58:44.000 I mean, these are deeply integrated in ways that make the other work and make the other possible, and it's something that we are sorely lacking trust and faith in, and that has deep implications.

00:58:58.000 Yeah, I mean, I think it's no accident that, you know, I've sometimes quipped, but it's not a joke.

00:59:04.000 It's true.

00:59:04.000 I mean, 1776 was the year of both the wealth of nations and the Declaration of Independence, right?

00:59:10.000 Capitalism and democracy are both of America's parents.

00:59:16.000 That's the contradiction at the heart of the American identity is that we're both of these things, right?

00:59:20.000 We each want to be our individual, the best expressed version of ourselves.

00:59:26.000 But we also, you know, hunger to be part of a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

00:59:32.000 And, you know, we're both of those things, not just one of them.

00:59:38.000 That's okay, actually.

00:59:39.000 I think we sometimes in the conservative movement embrace one of those now, the individualist, while resisting the impulse of being a collectivist.

00:59:47.000 But just because you believe in a greater whole called the nation doesn't mean you're a collectivist.

00:59:50.000 It means that there's a certain apparent contradiction in American identity, but actually both of those two things go deeply together.

00:59:56.000 You know what I mean?

00:59:57.000 I do.

00:59:57.000 And I wonder how – I mean – You've talked about creating or recreating a sense of purpose about that national identity.

01:00:06.000 And I think this, in my mind, connects directly to that, which is that people need to see that, see that in themselves, see that in their families and in their communities, but also see it across the country.

01:00:16.000 And that doesn't mean that it has to be homogenized.

01:00:19.000 It's not that America is this one thing for everybody.

01:00:23.000 And I think that that's the scope...

01:00:25.000 That some on the other side of the political spectrum will look at and say, we sort of need to centralize and bureaucratize, which leads to the homogenization of the American experience.

01:00:34.000 And I think that's deeply troubling, which is why it's very exciting when you have individuals like yourself out there and other individuals who have raised their hand to say that I want to be counted in this contest and previous ones that are not just out there to perpetuate the status quo.

01:00:49.000 That's really very, very important.

01:00:52.000 Yeah, stultifying.

01:00:54.000 Now, we did talk about capitalism and democracy.

01:00:56.000 I just phrase it a slightly different way where I think both of them are America's parents, but I think that sometimes each can infect the other too.

01:01:03.000 And that's what gets us to this ESG cancer that I think you and I have shared passion for.

01:01:11.000 I thought it would – I mean I haven't done this since launching on the presidential campaign.

01:01:16.000 I thought it was worth explaining to people exactly what's going on here and then you can highlight some of the other people including yourself who have been doing great work on this.

01:01:26.000 But just to shift gears to that for a second, I mean I think what's going on in America is that this is a symptom of a deeper hierarchical – Order, governing order in our country where the people who control the dollars are now determining not just the rules of the market.

01:01:53.000 But really, the rules of governance itself.

01:01:57.000 So probably most people watching us have this conversation right now don't know that their own money is invested in a 401k account or a retirement account or a brokerage account that's literally handed over to someone else who's using that money to vote in favor of political or social agendas like racial equity audits, like emissions caps at companies like Chevron.

01:02:26.000 That most of those everyday citizens actually disagree with.

01:02:30.000 And by the way, which are completely unrelated to their best financial interests and in fact, in some cases, outright contrary to their best financial interests.

01:02:36.000 That's a form of financial fraud, right?

01:02:39.000 It's a form of – It's a form of bait and switch, telling people you're doing one thing when in fact you're doing another.

01:02:48.000 And I think that that Is an example of when someone finds out about that, they're not surprised.

01:02:54.000 They kind of knew something like this was happening all along, but they didn't know exactly the extent to which it was true with their own bank accounts.

01:03:02.000 I think that's the kind of thing that sows the kind of mistrust to say that, okay, because the people who manage my money in the system of free market capitalism are also looking out for the kind of thing that I should have done through the political system.

01:03:14.000 That's, I think, part of what creates this mistrust too that makes you – I think sows the seeds for this culture of apologism in America.

01:03:23.000 I agree 100%.

01:03:26.000 I don't think I can agree more than 100%, but I don't know that – it's an awkward position to be in to add to comments that Vivek makes about ESG. As you've scoped out so much leadership on this issue, I would say that, you know, I came at it slightly different.

01:03:43.000 And in 2007, I did a fellowship at the Claremont Institute, the Lincoln Fellowship, where you study Abraham Lincoln's statesmanship.

01:03:50.000 Wonderful program.

01:03:52.000 And when I did that, I was working at Edelman Public Relations and working on behalf of a lot of large companies.

01:03:59.000 But Edelman would publish the trust barometer, and we would look at, survey the American people or opinion elites, as we put it at the time, to look at the state of trust across different industries and whatnot.

01:04:10.000 And what we found was that business was much more trusted than media and government and others.

01:04:17.000 And my motivation for understanding Abraham Lincoln's statesmanship and my fondness for the American founding – I'm a conservative movement guy.

01:04:26.000 That was my background before I ever ended up at Edelman.

01:04:30.000 But my thought process was, well, if we're going to have a bunch of corporate executives out there who are carrying greater water for explaining the direction of the country or the way in which the world should work because they're trusted more than all these other institutional representatives, elected officials, media figures, and others, if we're going to have a bunch of corporate executives out there who are carrying greater And it was something that I was deeply interested in.

01:04:54.000 But I also saw it ran right directly up against Michael Porter at Harvard Business School who saw that you have this challenge of social problems that business can step in and help solve because business can scale faster.

01:05:07.000 They operate on a profit loss motivation.

01:05:09.000 They can sort of address these things and be more solutions oriented.

01:05:12.000 So government take a backseat.

01:05:13.000 Business can come in and solve these things.

01:05:16.000 And you just saw the confluence of all of this and then the confluence of sort of corporate reputation campaigns that would come in and say, well, if we talk about all these things, nobody's going to talk about this other thing where maybe we didn't perform as well or, you know, we had a health or safety issue or something that we're just going to kind of push over here, but we're going to be measured we had a health or safety issue or something that we're just going to kind of push over here, but we're going to be measured by something

01:05:38.000 But the confluence of all of this just represented that the conversation was shifting away from merit, away from excellence, excellence and to a whole other set of bean counters as to what actually would describe the pieces that would make up a successful company.

01:05:57.000 And so it became diversity, equity, and inclusion.

01:06:01.000 Those metrics matter more than your financial metrics.

01:06:04.000 Those were the messages that were pushed to employees more than anything else.

01:06:07.000 You know, you might think about environmental health and safety.

01:06:10.000 You might think about a multinational corporation that's going to create a new plant in an emerging market.

01:06:16.000 And you might say, like, okay, is there a local water source?

01:06:18.000 Is there reliable this and that, energy supplies, and all these things.

01:06:21.000 All of those concerns, which are legitimate ones for a successful business to be run, were all pushed up.

01:06:30.000 came the stakeholder capitalism conversation.

01:06:32.000 And I just thought from a pure fundamental sense of who owns the capital that we're talking about, obviously shareholders are the primary, but individual employees who bring their time, talent, and their expertise to the table are being short shrifted on this because they're not having a say in this.

01:06:46.000 Now they'll tell you that they're factoring that in, but we all know it's the noisy employees that actually drive some corporate behavior and all that.

01:06:53.000 So I think – What I looked at and I saw this happening was we've got a fundamental problem and a fundamental distrust of all these institutions.

01:07:01.000 Business is going to end up in a worse place because they're trying to solve for something that they cannot solve.

01:07:06.000 And then insofar as any CEO, he or she is now genuflecting in front of every single stakeholder that ever crosses their path, they're not leading a company.

01:07:17.000 And so you have this weird world where Business leaders sit on nonprofit or NGO boards, and those NGOs write letters to the business community to tell them to stop doing something that the business community is doing, which is their normal course of operations.

01:07:30.000 And it's just this weird nebulous influence sector, which you talked about earlier, but it's sort of the cream rises to the top.

01:07:38.000 And then you have this complete elite infrastructure of deciding how money is spent, where money is invested.

01:07:43.000 Oh, and by the way, In 2003, at the United Nations, they decided that they could weaponize everybody's capital and start to drive and push the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

01:07:53.000 I mean, they've written about it.

01:07:54.000 It's out there.

01:07:54.000 They want to take credit for it, so they're finding a way to do that.

01:07:57.000 But all of this is a simple thing.

01:08:00.000 It's incompatible Yeah.

01:08:11.000 Yeah.

01:08:17.000 You know, every day and twice on Sunday side with the great uprising.

01:08:20.000 And I think that that's the moment that we're in.

01:08:22.000 And it just, it paints a really interesting picture for how we got here.

01:08:26.000 The people that I've worked with in corporate America, I'm sure it's the same for you, some of them are wonderful people and brilliant.

01:08:32.000 Some of them, not so wonderful and not so brilliant.

01:08:35.000 And so, that managerial class that's infected across the board, the way in which a lot of these decisions are made, I think we're

01:09:07.000 going to do something.

01:09:08.000 I think we're going to do something incredible for the country.

01:09:11.000 But it's not going to be a silver bullet from the presidency or even through – I'm really proud of what we've set into motion at Strive.

01:09:19.000 I'm proud of what you guys do every day in your daily work.

01:09:22.000 But it's going to be an all of the above approach.

01:09:25.000 We live in complicated time.

01:09:26.000 There are no silver bullets.

01:09:27.000 It's a plethora of partial solutions.

01:09:30.000 And I think as long as we cultivate a generation – I mean even your parent of twins, I have two kids as well.

01:09:39.000 Even in our capacity as parents, teaching that next generation to actually have the fortitude and the self-confidence to weather the storms created by the forces that be.

01:09:50.000 I think that's actually going to be some of the most important tickets to the national revival, not just what I do as an ex-president or not even what we do through our market solutions.

01:09:59.000 Yeah, those play a role.

01:10:00.000 Some of this is just passing on some of that cultural strength, the Michael Jordan, the Alexander Hamilton mentality of not having to apologize for who you are.

01:10:10.000 I think the more we pass that on to the next generation, I think the more likely it is that this other stuff becomes a lot less complicated than it might seem when we're looking at it straight in the face.

01:10:19.000 I agree with you.

01:10:20.000 And I'd say three things in parting, and it's been a pleasure to be here with you.

01:10:24.000 So thank you for the opportunity to sit with you.

01:10:26.000 But the number one thing is raising our kids right is the most important thing.

01:10:29.000 And And I try to do everything I can to do that right.

01:10:32.000 And then I say, go check with your mother, make sure that I'm right, and we'll find out if that's true.

01:10:36.000 The second thing is, Vivek, you have, and I've said this to you before, you know, you've changed the tenor of the conversation, you've changed the debate, and you've created new incentives for Americans and for people around the globe to think about what it is that America is and should be.

01:10:50.000 And so just deeply grateful for that.

01:10:52.000 That's a commitment that you've made.

01:10:54.000 And it's something that we should all be grateful for.

01:10:56.000 And so I'm just very grateful for that.

01:10:59.000 But I speak on behalf of many people that are very proud to know you and proud to see the success that you're having and carrying that message forward.

01:11:04.000 And then the last thing is, you know, in our daily work at Heritage, and again, I don't have my Heritage hat on here today, but We do have this thing called Project 2025. Yes!

01:11:14.000 Oh yeah, I'm pumped about that.

01:11:16.000 This is agnostic of who the nominee is, but the next friendly administration is going to be prepared to do the right thing on day one.

01:11:26.000 This is about staffing the next friendly administration, getting patriotic Americans to come to Washington, D.C. The conservative movement has always said, stay out of D.C., we're going to drain the swamp.

01:11:35.000 Well, the only way to drain the swamp is to get good patriotic Americans to come to D.C., And help drain the swamp.

01:11:40.000 And that means changing the way the government operates, getting rid of agencies that don't need to exist and all of that.

01:11:46.000 But in order to do that well, you've got to have those good patriotic Americans sign up, Project 2025, get the training that they need, because in order to serve in the federal government, you have to have training.

01:11:55.000 So get that training before day one even comes.

01:11:57.000 And then later on this year, you know, again, Heritage is going to release a playbook and that policy playbook has- Oh, I'm pumped for that.

01:12:04.000 The policy playbook has- I hope to be successful in this election.

01:12:07.000 I'm going to be using that thing.

01:12:08.000 That's got 50 coalition partners are working on that.

01:12:11.000 Fill the roles in that manager of bureaucracy.

01:12:14.000 Absolutely, man.

01:12:15.000 That's great.

01:12:16.000 Well, thanks for coming over, dude.

01:12:17.000 Thank you.

01:12:18.000 To be continued.

01:12:19.000 And, you know, it's been really encouraging seeing the work that you do.

01:12:24.000 But even, you know, the way we've crisscrossed our paths, it's not just the substance of what you bring.

01:12:28.000 I like that attitude, that positivity that, you know what, you've been through a lot.

01:12:32.000 And I wasn't aware of even your sister's story and, you know, what your family's been through.

01:12:38.000 But I love the...

01:12:40.000 I love the positive energy you're able to bring, even as you're talking about some of the most dire subjects in our time.

01:12:46.000 And I think we need a little bit more of that in the country.

01:12:48.000 I'm going to try to bring that, too.

01:12:49.000 I like that.

01:12:50.000 I am my brother's keeper.

01:12:51.000 That's the way I look at it, right?

01:12:52.000 Yeah.

01:12:53.000 In a certain sense, there's a good sense in which that's true.

01:12:56.000 So, yeah.

01:12:57.000 Thank you.

Truth Podcast - Vivek Ramaswamy - April 07, 2023

The Opioid Crisis: A Personal Tragedy Reveals America's Hidden Enemy | The TRUTH Podcast #8

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