Pete Buttigieg DEFENDS Democrats 2028 Agenda & Wealth Taxes | PBD Podcast #886

Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg debates Patrick Bet-David over a national wealth tax and explains why he favors coordinating taxes internationally. He reflects on how Democrats misjudged the border crisis and why he thinks the right put Antonio Gramsci’s ideas about culture to work first. ——— . 👞 Get the NEW Billionaire Suede Loafer: https://bit.ly/4ym5oRA . 🇰 GET STARTED ON KALSHI WITH $10 ON US! SIGN UP HERE: http://kalshi.com/pbd . 👕 SHOP THE ICON COLLECTION: https://bit.ly/3TuUU3x . 👞 GET THE FLB1's: https://bit.ly/4mC4uf6 . Ⓜ️ CONNECT ON MINNECT: https://bit.ly/4kSVkso . Ⓜ️ PBD PODCAST CIRCLES: https://bit.ly/4mAWQAP . 👔 BET-DAVID CONSULTING: https://bit.ly/4lzQph2 . 🥃 BOARDROOM CIGAR LOUNGE: https://bit.ly/4pzLEXj . SUBSCRIBE TO: @VALUETAINMENT @BetDavidConsulting @vtgenz @ValuetainmentComedy . ABOUT US: Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller “Your Next Five Moves” (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Patrick Bet-David?

  Do you think America is ready for a gay president?

• 0:02Speaker 01

  The kind of marriage voters have seen before.

• 0:05Speaker 02

  It isn't about you, it's about what people think you will do to help or hurt them. Most people voting vote based on how they think their lives are gonna go different, better or worse.

• 0:16Patrick Bet-David?

  Guess what happens next? People are gonna leave the country.

• 0:19Speaker 02

  Not if you establish an international agreement, which we did.

• 0:22Patrick Bet-David?

  That's what scares the crap out of people, because now you sound like a globalist.

• 0:26Speaker 02

  Whoa, whoa, hold on. Corporate consultant, a globalist. My side likes to think of ourselves as the more intellectual ones. But I think sometimes we've been outgunned by the right.

• 0:37Speaker 02

  I just think we need certain standards in this country, on what's okay and what's not okay. We should apply them to everybody. See, the thing is, Democrats really care about making sure that vulnerable groups are protected.

• 0:50Patrick Bet-David?

  I don't want to be like the other countries around the world, international.

• 0:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I want the other countries to have to sign a deal with us not to undercut us with tax.

• 0:57Patrick Bet-David?

  That is bullshit.

• 1:05Patrick Bet-David?

  Great to have you here.

• 1:06Speaker 02

  Thanks a lot for having me.

• 1:07Patrick Bet-David?

  Yes, it's, you know, obviously, we watch you on stage. I was talking to a group of people the other day. I said, he's one of the most polished, talented, capable guys on stage. You do great work when you're on stage. Carry yourself very well.

• 1:19Speaker 02

  Thanks for saying so.

• 1:20Patrick Bet-David?

  Yes, and so your background, you know, of course, you know, when you, when you look at your background, you know, Harvard, I think you speak eight languages, if I'm not mistaken, or you can say a few phrases.

• 1:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, some of them are pretty rusty by now.

• 1:31Patrick Bet-David?

  I was disappointed that Armenian and Assyrian wasn't there, but that's okay.

• 1:34Speaker 02

  Someday.

• 1:35Patrick Bet-David?

  You worked at McKinsey three years, Navy Reserve eight years, then you go become a mayor. From 2012, if I'm not mistaken, you're mayor eight years, you run for office, then you become Secretary of Transportation. Then from 2025, you've kind of been a free agent. So what have you been up to and what are you running for next?

• 1:52Speaker 02

  So basically, there's two things that I've been trying to do for the last year or two. One is to help candidates and causes I believe in. I'm not on the ballot right now, but there are a lot of people who are. It's what I'm doing right now, traveling the country, trying to be there for, for candidates that I think would do a great job. And then the other thing is kind of a little more inside my party. I'm trying to make sure that our focus is to move to the future and not to go back to the past. Because I think, like, I obviously am extremely opposed to most of what the president is doing and most of what congressional Republicans are doing. That does not mean that the right thing to do is to turn back the clock and just go back to whatever we were doing before. So my message to my own party is, you know, we can't be there to just restore some previous status quo

• 2:37Speaker 02

  because a lot of that from the past is what led to the situation we're in right now. So those are my two drives right now.

• 2:43Patrick Bet-David?

  Very interesting.

• 2:44Speaker 02

  Work with candidates and to make sure that we're looking to the future.

• 2:46Patrick Bet-David?

  What do you think didn't work? Like, you know, when you look at, even when I look at the Republican or Democratic, I'm like, that was a bad move. Bad timing. That ad, what are you doing talking about the guy's mom at a time like this?

• 2:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:57Patrick Bet-David?

  So what do you, what do you think Democrats got it wrong in 2020 when you guys won? You had a lot of power, you had a lot of control. What did you guys screw up?

• 3:07Speaker 02

  Well, a few things. I mean, look, I want to start with the things we did right. You know, I believe in the policies that we had that were about supporting the working class. Obviously, I was a big believer in the infrastructure bill, which is what I spent most of my effort on when I was Secretary of Transportation. We got 70,000 projects launched, 20,000 of them are done. There's still people right now with good-paying construction jobs doing that. I'm proud of all that. There's also a lot of things that we didn't get right, both in terms of the politics and sometimes in terms of the substance. You know, I think that the administration I was part of let the issue of the border get away from us. I think we were too quick to think that that was being kind of played up by Fox News and not the real issue that it really was for a lot of communities around the border.

• 3:51Speaker 02

  And, you know, not just on the border, but cities around America, you know, you have places like New York getting to an emergency level because they weren't able to handle what was going on. That was a problem. You know, I could point to plenty of others. On the political level, I think that there was a sense, by the way, this is a mistake I think the Trump administration is repeating, of trying to tell people that the economy was better than they felt it was. So, you know, we were proud of the fact that we had unemployment at very low levels. But the reality is, you know, what people were feeling the most pain around wasn't the number of jobs, it was prices. It was the cost of living. And anytime we did or said anything that made it seem like we were focused on anything else, there was a political cost to that.

• 4:36Speaker 02

  I think the same thing's going on right now, where people know that the cost of living is not going down the way Donald Trump promised it would. They're upset about that. And that's one of those where it doesn't matter whether you're watching Fox News or MSNBC. It doesn't matter whether you're on right-wing Twitter or left-wing Twitter because the evidence that you get that is the opposite of what the president is saying isn't coming from the news. It's coming from your own budget. It's coming at the pump when you're filling up your car. It's coming at the grocery store. And so I think that, you know, that's not a mistake that is unique to Democrats or Republicans, but it's certainly a mistake I see happening right now.

• 5:06Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, so this is your sport, right? You're in this game. Like, this is the sport you're playing. What do you think are the 80/20 issues that Democrats screw up? And what do you think are the 80/20 issues that Republicans screw up in?

• 5:18Speaker 02

  Uh, well, you know, to take the second part.

• 5:20Patrick Bet-David?

  Well, let's say border being one of them, because you kind of brought that up.

• 5:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, although I think the border is a really interesting one, right? Because if you look at the kind of what I would call the grand bargain, the three-legged stool of what most people can get on board with, is what I believe in, what I think most elected Democrats believe in, which is three pieces. A secure border, sorting out lawful immigration, so it's more rational process when you're coming into this country legally. And for everybody who is in the country without documentation, who's not a criminal, not dangerous, creating some kind of pathway to citizenship, a tough but fair pathway to get fully into the responsibilities and privileges of being an American citizen. So that's an example of some of the two-thirds of Americans support.

• 6:06Speaker 02

  More than two-thirds of Americans believe we ought to raise the minimum wage. A majority of Republicans believe we ought to raise the minimum wage.

• 6:13Patrick Bet-David?

  This is the 720. This is the national minimum wage, not statewide, but.

• 6:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm talking about the federal minimum wage. Some states have it high, right?

• 6:18Patrick Bet-David?

  Right.

• 6:19Speaker 02

  But a majority of Republicans, so it's really interesting to me on an issue like that, where you got a majority of Republicans agree with most Democrats, we ought to do something, but Washington Republicans are systematically against it. You know, even on something like background checks on guns. So obviously, there's a lot of policies around Second Amendment that there's a lot of controversy over. But the idea that everybody ought to be subject to background checks, something like 80% of Americans, about 80% of Republicans, of gun owners, more than 70% of gun owners think we ought to at least do that, right? On the economy, most Americans support the Affordable Care Act. That wasn't true when I was getting started in politics. My first time on the ballot was 2010. The Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, was a terrible political issue for us.

• 7:00Speaker 02

  Now, it is a winning issue for us because most people agree that government ought to do more to make health care more affordable. You look at the tax code. Most Americans agree with us and disagree with the Republicans that if you're asking, are the wealthiest people and the biggest corporations paying too high a tax, too low a tax, or just right? Most people think that the wealthiest people and the biggest corporations are paying too low of a tax. You look at the Iran War. Look, either the American people are wrong and the president is right, or the American people are right and the president is wrong. That's like a two-to-one issue, maybe not 80/20, but definitely more than a 60/40 issue that we should not be in that war.

• 7:39Speaker 02

  So one of the things I've noticed is when you look at a list of what most people in surveys say they care about the most, most of those are actually issues where most of them agree with Democrats and are against the position of this White House or congressional Republicans. And so I think the question for us politically is, how do we get to a place where our policies are more popular than our politicians or our politics? And part of what I'm trying to urge my party to do is really double down on those issues, those many, many issues, especially around the economy, where people agree with us. Just one more thing I would mention, the system itself. So there's certain things about our system that I think most people, left, right, and center, can agree are messed up.

• 8:22Speaker 02

  It shouldn't be a Democrat-Republican issue. Gerrymandering would be example number one. This idea that you draw the districts.

• 8:29Patrick Bet-David?

  I agree.

• 8:29Speaker 02

  Right, so we can agree on that.

• 8:30Patrick Bet-David?

  Totally, yeah.

• 8:31Speaker 02

  The idea that you got politicians picking their voters instead of the other way around, that shouldn't be a liberalized thing.

• 8:35Patrick Bet-David?

  It's just the one side does it, and the 10 years, and the other side, if you're gonna do it, I'm gonna do it. It's a back-and-forth thing, unfortunately.

• 8:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, so we should just say, nobody do it. Now, certain states have done that.

• 8:44Patrick Bet-David?

  Could you do that? Could you at the top say, we get rid of that?

• 8:46Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 8:46Patrick Bet-David?

  Could a president pass that?

• 8:48Speaker 02

  I believe so. You could have federal legislation that bans partisan gerrymandering.

• 8:53Patrick Bet-David?

  Is that a two-thirds you need from Senate, or what do you need?

• 8:55Speaker 02

  I don't think it's a constitutional change. I believe you could have, just through statute, you could do that.

• 8:59Patrick Bet-David?

  So how come others haven't done it?

• 9:00Speaker 02

  That's a great ques-- well, I think it's because there's so many people in Congress who, the one thing they, if, you know, you and I, most Americans, left and right, can agree that we don't want gerrymandering. But most people in Congress can agree that they want to keep their job, right? And so, you know, it's been hard to get that through Congress as we know it. I would say the same about money and politics. Now, this may be a little more left versus right, but, you know, fundamentally, campaign finance reform as we know it came from John McCain, right? And most people believe, and I believe, that there's too much money in politics, that Citizens United was a disaster for our democracy. You know, living in Florida, I'm sure every time you're trying to watch a football game or just, you know, trying to watch anything, you're getting bombarded with these ads. Most of them are paid for, this kind of dark money super bank.

• 9:43Patrick Bet-David?

  If we get money out of politics, so, so far, gerrymandering and that, yes.

• 9:47Speaker 02

  Right.

• 9:47Patrick Bet-David?

  But, but you, good luck with that one, right? Because it's a business, that's the industry of politics. It's so much money's being made in it. But keep going, I'm fine with one.

• 9:55Speaker 02

  Well, I think, one of the things I'm pushing for is that we need to have bigger ambitions. And I don't just mean like be further left, be further right. I mean that there's so many things we just take as a given. It can't change. When, of course it can. Like, we've had 27 constitutional amendments, right? But we haven't had a meaningful one in about 50 years. There was one very technical one about, I think, congressional pay in the 90s. But, but we used to do that more often. We don't do it lightly. But I think if a constitutional amendment is what it takes to establish that for the purposes of spending money to manipulate elections, corporations are not the same thing as people, and using money that way is not the same thing as speech, then we ought to.

• 10:36Speaker 02

  And if it takes 10 years to do it, fine, let's get to work. We should have done it 10 years ago. We'd be there.

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• 12:53Patrick Bet-David?

  So now give me the other 80 20. So you so far addressed the 80 20 on the liberals on the conservative side, which background checks on guns, fine. I don't know if it's 80%, but it's up there. Most people don't have a problem with that. Minimum wage, whatever, 720, leave it to the state doing it. I don't think it makes a difference anyways, because do you know how many people in America today make 720 an hour? Do you know the number?

• 13:14Speaker 02

  It's relatively few, but this is important. You raise, yeah, because it's like 1% or 1 million workers, something like that.

• 13:19Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, it's even 79,000.

• 13:21Speaker 02

  Right, but there's been some really good analysis. Yeah, it's worth looking up, but then the next thing I would look at, yeah, about 1% of hourly workers.

• 13:28Patrick Bet-David?

  But you know what it is, though? The way they added it up to say people make that is because they're adding it as tips and all the other stuff. And so they take a hit because very few people make 725 an hour. It's not that many people.

• 13:40Speaker 02

  Right, but here's the thing. If you raise it to let's say 12 or 15, you're not just raising it for people who make 725. You're making raising it for anybody who makes less.

• 13:48Patrick Bet-David?

  Do you know who that hurts though? Like, let's address that one. Let's talk about it just purely on issue. So who do you think is impacted if you raise minimum wage to 15 bucks an hour? The numbers I did when I ran data on this, Amazon, Anthropic, Walmart, Target alike, raise it. The guy that can't afford it is that small shop in Hope, Arkansas, that has got a small little place. Amazon's across the street, Walmart's across the street. Do put it 20 bucks. Oh, Joey's place that's been there for 60 years is out of business. I think raising the minimum wage hurts that guy. Doesn't hurt the Fortune 500 companies at all.

• 14:25Speaker 02

  I'm not interested in who it hurts. I'm interested in who it helps. And now, now let me be clear.

• 14:28Patrick Bet-David?

  You gotta fire those.

• 14:29Speaker 02

  No, no, look, look, small businesses, you definitely got to do it in a way that that cushion.

• 14:34Patrick Bet-David?

  You know what I'm saying?

• 14:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, I know what you mean. And yeah, I've talked to restaurant owners, small business owners. I don't mean to dismiss what you're saying. But we have enough experience now, both as a country and states doing it on their own, that we know that you can do it gradually enough that it doesn't kill the small business owners. And you know, look, they used to think it would cause a lot of inflation. They used to think it would add to unemployment. But we have enough cases where there's basically a controlled experiment because the states, it's been since 2009, since the federal minimum wage was raised. So some of the states have done it on their own. And sometimes on both sides of a state line, one state does it and the other state doesn't. And so you get a really good experiment in the same economic market on what happens. And there's been a lot of good research. There's a whole book on this called The Wage Standard

• 15:16Speaker 02

  that talks about why it turns out fears were overblown about the idea that it would lead to a lot of inflation or lead to unemployment. What it does for sure is it raises the standard of living for a lot of people.

• 15:26Patrick Bet-David?

  But Pete, respectfully, what it does do is I don't pay anybody less than 20 bucks an hour here.

• 15:32Speaker 02

  Right.

• 15:32Patrick Bet-David?

  And I know, I don't think most people do. But if I'm in a small market, this like, I think the Fortune 500 companies are going to be ecstatic about this. Like, I remember the first time when Bernie Sanders called out Jeff Bezos 15 bucks. He said, let's do it. I don't know if you remember that exchange on Twitter or something like that. We're going back and forth. And then they found that Bernie was paying his helpers 13 bucks. And I was like, wait a minute, what are you doing? So that controversy kind of came out. I don't know if you remember that. That was a few years back. So to me, fair, let's keep that on there. Let's have the conversation. Next one is the Affordable Care Act you talked about. Okay, fine. Next one, you talked about that they feel the wealthy is not paying their fair share. And I also think that's a bit of a marketing campaign because if you look at the taxes,

• 16:16Patrick Bet-David?

  the top 1% pays 41% of all the taxes today. I don't know if you've seen this.

• 16:23Speaker 02

  Right, but also look at how much of the money they're making, right? So you got to consider this, a billionaire pays a billionaire pays a lower tax rate than a teacher.

• 16:31Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 16:32Speaker 02

  Look this up, like, this is a good one. For the top, what is the effective tax rate on the top 0.01%? So the very, very richest billionaires are even paying lower taxes than millionaires.

• 16:45Patrick Bet-David?

  Billionaires contribute more to the job market than anybody else does. So then my concern becomes the following. So this is the part for us to debate. Do you, do you think the wealth tax should be a national thing? Do you think it should be state or do you think it should be a national thing?

• 17:00Speaker 02

  I definitely think it makes way more, if you're going to do it, makes way more sense to do it nationally than at a state level. Because at a state level, basically, somebody says, okay, I'll just go to another state. I mean, I met a bunch of people here in Florida who were like tax refugees from other states, right? So I get that. I get that.

• 17:15Speaker 02

  I think that it could make sense to do nationally. Look, I started out as a mayor. The way that we raised revenue to pay for things like streets and cops and firefighters was property taxes. A wealth tax is a property tax by another name. So philosophically, I'm okay with it. Having said that, let me point to some other things. Before we go creating a whole new category of tax, the categories we already have, right? We're talking about top income tax rates, capital gains tax rates. A lot of estate tax, right? Which is only paid by the wealthiest. And you know, that's when, when you die. So it's just, it's not about what you earn. It's about what you inherit, right? Those have all been slashed and you know, economists have found that you can explain most or all of today's debt

• 18:01Speaker 02

  and deficit by the Bush tax cuts, the first Trump tax cuts and the most recent Trump tax. Like, if we didn't have all of those things, we would not have the deficits that we have. And by the way, when they cut those tax rates, they said, we got to do this because it's going to speed up economic growth and economic growth slowed down.

• 18:17Patrick Bet-David?

  But it's much more complicated.

• 18:18Speaker 02

  Of course, it's complicated, but it's true.

• 18:19Patrick Bet-David?

  And but the reason is, it's not, it's not necessarily true. It's half the story. Because the other part is also the following is would I rather have $100 billion handed to politicians at the White House? Or would I rather keep in the free market? That's a political, you know, philosophical.

• 18:35Speaker 02

  But I could restate your question a different way.

• 18:37Patrick Bet-David?

  Go for it.

• 18:38Speaker 02

  Would I rather have that $100 billion spent by one dude? Or would I rather have it spent according to something that the public can have input on?

• 18:46Patrick Bet-David?

  Well, but that's not your business though, because that guy who created the jobs, he's earned the right to have that, right? So if he went out there and earned that money, no one's created more jobs for America than a guy like Elon Musk. And I get it. Some people are worried because he's got a lot of power. And when you're talking about the money and politics of how much money you put out. But the basic fundamental issue in this is the wealth. If you go with the wealth tax nationally and you're, you're one of the first people that at this level says, I think we need to take, we need to take it nationally. What does that do next? So watch, California says they're going to do the wall tax. Who leaves? Bren live, leaves. Uh, you got a bunch of other billionaires left. Elon Musk obviously left with the issue with Newsom. Uh, but now Zuck, who was about to pay the 5%,

• 19:29Patrick Bet-David?

  the board came to him and they said, hell, we'll still let you have the power. I know the 21 billion dollars you gotta pay. But California lost a bunch of people leaving. If you make it a national wall tax, guess what happens next? People are gonna leave the country.

• 19:41Speaker 02

  Not if you establish a international agreement, which we did during the Biden administration on a minimum.

• 19:45Patrick Bet-David?

  And that's what scares the crap out of people because now you sound like a globalist.

• 19:49Speaker 02

  Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on.

• 19:50Patrick Bet-David?

  If you go to internet, you just.

• 19:51Speaker 02

  No, no, yes, an international agreement to stop.

• 19:54Patrick Bet-David?

  The international, that's what I fear the most. I don't want to be like the other countries around the world, international.

• 19:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I want the other countries to have to sign a deal with us not to undercut us with tax shelters.

• 20:03Patrick Bet-David?

  Bullshit. That was the exact thing.

• 20:04Speaker 02

  No, no, we gotta force other countries to, if they wanna do business with us, they cannot be undercutting the American taxpayer.

• 20:09Patrick Bet-David?

  There was an agreement that I think you guys were trying to pass about making the corporate taxes the same everywhere.

• 20:16Speaker 02

  No, it wasn't that. It was making sure they couldn't undercut us.

• 20:18Patrick Bet-David?

  I know. I mean, it's the same thing to not be able to.

• 20:20Speaker 02

  It's not the same everywhere.

• 20:21Patrick Bet-David?

  I get that, but that means I want, I want the market to be able to compete. I want Puerto Rico to say, come to me, you don't pay any taxes. And I, I want Singapore to be able to compete. I want these other markets to be able to compete. But if you think Pete, like when you go to the policies and then it's like, well, why don't we, why don't we get to this point where internationally let's protect this? So if people wanna leave America, let's get everybody around the world on World Economic Forum to agree that you can't do this as well. So they cannot go to a different country. Now I have no competition. I can't go anywhere.

• 20:48Speaker 02

  No, we have competition based on who's actually got a better economy, not based on tax trickery.

• 20:52Patrick Bet-David?

  But why go eliminate competition without what the other people want to do? Let them do it.

• 20:56Speaker 02

  So this brings me to my other point though, right? Which is that if we just had tax rates that were more like they were under Clinton, under Reagan, when we had perfectly good economic growth, but we had more reasonable tax rates.

• 21:07Patrick Bet-David?

  Two different things.

• 21:08Speaker 02

  We wouldn't have to be thinking about a whole new category of tax.

• 21:10Patrick Bet-David?

  Different things. These are two different things respectfully. One is proposing a tax idea. Fair, go ahead and do it. The other one is what you just said, two things. You said well taxed nationally. It's gonna scare shit a lot, lot of different people. Cause you know, California was losing people to Texas, Chicago's losing people to New York, to Florida.

• 21:26Speaker 02

  That a bunch of people are gonna choose to not be Americans anymore over this, but let's, let's, let's park that to the side. Again, I think just the categories of taxes we have could be more fair. Here's another example. You got a tax code right now that privileges wealth over work. In other words, the effective tax on hiring somebody is higher than the effective tax on replacing them with a machine or a piece of software. So we're already worried about.

• 21:50Patrick Bet-David?

  Different concern.

• 21:50Speaker 02

  And that's part of the tax code, right?

• 21:51Patrick Bet-David?

  But that's a, that's a valid concern. And also, so share with me your solution to that.

• 21:56Speaker 02

  Well, I think they should be closer to level, right? So, uh, when you look at, at just how much, for example, the, the effective tax rate on software or machinery, some computed to be 10% or 5%, whereas the effective tax rate on labor, this is from a firm perspective, is more like in the twenties. So we're basically subsidizing automation. At a moment where we're already worried that automation's gonna come in and take a lot of people's jobs. And I grew up in the industrial Midwest. I saw what happened. And look.

• 22:24Patrick Bet-David?

  It's a real concern right now for both parties. Someone's gotta have a better solution for it.

• 22:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, and we don't see much, right?

• 22:29Patrick Bet-David?

  No, no, neither side has figured it out.

• 22:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I think these are the kinds of things that would at least help.

• 22:35Patrick Bet-David?

  Do you like when Elon or I think it's Anthropic who, uh, correct me if I'm wrong on this one here, where one of them said they wanna give a SpaceX stock to everybody, which that one's gonna be Elon, but I think Anthropic said they wanna give 5% of the company and, uh, raise it all the way up to 20% where the public's participating in that. Do you think the solution for what's gonna happen with AI will be solved by the government or you think it'll be free market?

• 22:58Speaker 02

  Look, I think both. I think every economic problem or every new economic thing that comes up, you have, remember, markets are structured by government. Right? A market only exists if you have certain things, you know, starting with very basic things, like being able to protect the right to property, right? With policing, all the way up through, you know, tax structures and all of these things that set up a market. Cause sometimes I think people talk about the market like it's this kinda cosmic thing created by God. Uh, the market is something that we shape through policy decisions, but to actually answer your question, I'm really interested in these ideas because I think they deal people in on ownership. And more of an ownership society, I think, especially when you have a lot of people who, what you start out with, what the economists would call your initial endowment, unfortunately still plays a huge role

• 23:43Speaker 02

  in what's gonna happen for the rest of your life. Yeah, you can beat that. That's the American dream, right? But the American dream's been slipping away. If you were born the year my mother was born, which is the end of World War II, you had a 90% shot of coming out economically ahead of your parents. If you were born when I was born in the early eighties, that was like 50/50 coin flip. And I think for a new generation, it might be worse than that. So there's a lot of things we gotta do about that, but if one of them is to make sure people just start out owning more, if people like are, are participating, uh, including in this huge wealth that maybe is about to be created by AI. And by the way, you know, the American taxpayer did fund the invention of the internet. So to me, there's, there's something philosophically fair about this too. If these firms are making huge amounts of money,

• 24:27Speaker 02

  having benefited, yes, from their own creativity, but also from public investment. Then we should make sure some of those returns are getting out to people.

• 24:34Patrick Bet-David?

  So let's go to the, if you, if you can pull this up, because this is one of the questions I ask, and, and I want you to be a rebuttal to this. I interrupted you. So I want you to give you respond back to this, is what percentage of taxes comes from the top 1%? You look at this and you were gonna say something on the, so what percent tax, okay, so top 1% go a little bit lower to see.

• 24:51Speaker 02

  Whoa, whoa, whoa, that's federal individual income taxes. That leaves out payroll taxes.

• 24:56Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, we can do that as well.

• 24:57Speaker 02

  Say, include payroll taxes.

• 24:58Patrick Bet-David?

  But let's look at this one first and then we'll go to the next one. So top 1%, 38.4%, top 5%, 59.3%, top 10%, 70 and a half. The bottom 50%, can you go to the bottom 50% pays 3.3% of taxes? So the wealthy are really funding the majority.

• 25:14Speaker 02

  Again, that's income taxes. So you've completely left out capital gains. You've completely, and, and put in capital gains too.

• 25:20Patrick Bet-David?

  Capital gains is by who though? Who gives capital gains? Where does capital gains come from?

• 25:25Speaker 02

  Comes from investors making money off their money.

• 25:28Patrick Bet-David?

  That's great.

• 25:29Speaker 02

  So, okay, great. See, see how different it is when you go to all federal taxes? It's 26%, not 38%. Uh, now, uh, capital gains taxes, you're gonna see go back up, right? Because the wealthy, uh, tend to have more in terms of corporate earnings. So that's gonna moderate it again. Now, one more thing I'd like you to do. Do what percentage of US wealth is owned by the top 1%?

• 25:51Patrick Bet-David?

  You're gonna be an 80 to 90%.

• 25:53Speaker 02

  You think? I don't actually know the answer to this.

• 25:54Patrick Bet-David?

  It's gonna be a high number. Maybe, maybe it's less than that, but it's a big number.

• 25:57Speaker 02

  Okay. So this is where we get, and we might, might just be in a philosophically different place on this, but look, I admire when somebody creates a business, creates something new and earns a lot for it. There you go. 30%, 1% of people own 30% of everything.

• 26:10Patrick Bet-David?

  Does that shock you though?

• 26:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:11Patrick Bet-David?

  The top 1% of NBA players have scored the most points ever.

• 26:15Speaker 02

  Good for them.

• 26:15Patrick Bet-David?

  The top 1% of baseball players have hit the most home runs ever. Is that a bad thing? Like, should we punish them because they hit more home runs?

• 26:20Speaker 02

  It's not about punishing anybody. I guess what I'd say is these.

• 26:22Patrick Bet-David?

  But that's normal to me.

• 26:24Speaker 02

  But back when we had normal taxes, they were just as productive. As a matter of fact, productivity increased more back when these top tax rates were higher.

• 26:31Patrick Bet-David?

  The numbers don't, uh, uh, the outcome and results doesn't validate that.

• 26:36Speaker 02

  Well, of course it does. You're a data guy. Like, why wouldn't you look at the results?

• 26:39Patrick Bet-David?

  Look at the innovation, but even if you, if you're talking about this year, you're talking about capital gains. Who feeds capital gains? Like even for me, when I lived in California, I lived in California 24 years. I never wanted to leave California, but then I sat there, my accountant comes and says, you know, if you sell this company for every hundred million dollars you sell, you're gonna pay 13.3 million dollars in California. I said, you're kidding me? He says, no. I said, so what do I do? He says, you got seven states to choose from. I said, I'll go to Texas. I went to Texas. Then I went to Florida. No state income tax. You know how much money I saved? I sold a business for a quarter of a billion dollars. How much money you think I saved? I want 88% of it. A good amount. That money could go to me and my kids instead of going to my governor, Newsom, or that state.

• 27:18Speaker 02

  Well, I would've said instead of going toward cops and firefighters and streets and schools, but okay.

• 27:22Patrick Bet-David?

  But that, that's many other.

• 27:23Speaker 02

  But does it bother you that much for it to go to cops and firefighters and streets and schools?

• 27:26Patrick Bet-David?

  Look what you're doing. You're pandering now.

• 27:28Speaker 02

  No, I'm serious.

• 27:29Patrick Bet-David?

  The same amount happens here. Cops are moving to Florida from New York because they're not happy in New York, because they're not protected in New York. So are you, are you okay with cops being told that we should defund the police and you shouldn't be protected? Are you okay with that? You don't support that. So there's a part of it here that we can pander to each other. I don't wanna do that with you. I really wanna have a logical conversation with you. But the argument then goes to, do we wanna lose those guys? My concern, so I'm, I'm at a dinner and I said, hey, I'm gonna have Pete, uh, uh, on the podcast. We're gonna have a conversation together. Okay, great. Why don't you ask him the following thing? I said, what's that? Ask him, um, the globalist conversation, right? Where, hey, is the plan for globalists to, uh, uh, get protection in a way where

• 28:14Patrick Bet-David?

  America declines and other people catch up and so people can't leave here to go have different opportunities elsewhere? Kinda like what we talked about earlier. When I talk about wall tax, you said national wall tax. Earlier, I think this, was it May 2026 when you guys were at a meeting in, uh, Canada, I think Mark Carney, yourself, Slotkin, Obama, you guys were at this closed door event that you were part of.

• 28:34Speaker 02

  Gathering of center-left people from around the world.

• 28:36Patrick Bet-David?

  What was the outcome of that meeting? What was, what was the meeting about?

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• 30:50Speaker 02

  Basically, we were sharing what we were seeing in our countries and kind of sharing our values and our views in the same way that you see the center-right and the right doing, right? Maybe a little different, I don't know. I don't know what goes on at the right-wing version of this when you got like the far-right German Party and then, you know, the Hungarians and all of that with J.D. Vance and that kind of thing. But yeah, look, I love international relations. One of the, you know, not a big part of my job at the U.S. Department of Transportation, but a significant part of it, was dealing with other countries. We signed open skies agreements with other countries to facilitate international air travel. We signed one with Mongolia. We worked with Ukraine. I went to Kiev and sat down with Zelensky to try to make sure that we were being helpful

• 31:35Speaker 02

  in their war effort, a lot of things related to supply chains and civil aviation. So I believe that we should be talking to people from other countries. I especially believe we ought to be talking to the Canadians right now because the President's done so much to piss them off. Canadians are the most polite, laid-back people I can think of, and they are pissed. And by the way, this isn't just some question for fellow foreign policy geeks. When I was in Las Vegas, talking to the cocktail servers and the workers there in the Culinary Union, they were talking about what they call a Trump slump, partly because a lot of people, including Canadians, have stopped coming to Las Vegas in February, March because they're so pissed off at the U.S., right? So I think it's really important to have these engagements. I know anytime anybody does anything internationally now, there's just conspiracy stuff around it.

• 32:20Speaker 02

  I just believe it's important to engage with other countries.

• 32:22Patrick Bet-David?

  I don't know if it's conspiracy yet.

• 32:23Speaker 02

  Well, but when I hear the word globalist, it sounds like a conspiracy theory.

• 32:27Patrick Bet-David?

  You just said something that's a globalist position. I just told you.

• 32:30Speaker 02

  Which is a globalist position?

• 32:31Patrick Bet-David?

  You want me to tell you?

• 32:32Speaker 02

  Signing a tax agreement with another country so they can't undercut you as globalist?

• 32:35Patrick Bet-David?

  I just asked you, do you believe wealth tax should be a national thing or state by state? You said, I think we need to make it nationally. I said, why is that? He says, well, because if, I said, what if they choose to leave the country? Well, this is why we need to get everybody around the world to be on the same page. What do you mean by that?

• 32:50Speaker 02

  Well, this is what we do, trade all the time. Like, if a country's gonna undercut us on trade, we do something about that.

• 32:56Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 32:57Speaker 02

  We have, we have deals with other countries on trade.

• 32:58Patrick Bet-David?

  Why don't you just take care of the guys here so they don't want to leave you to a different place? Why don't you make the states so competitive so they don't want to leave you to a different place?

• 33:06Speaker 02

  Well, look, I think we have. But there are gonna be some cynical people who would turn their back on the United States just to save a buck.

• 33:10Patrick Bet-David?

  I was born and raised in Iran, okay? So what do my mom and dad do? You think they want to leave Iran? They speak Farsi, they know all the places, they know all the places. They didn't want to go Iran. They know the music, they're Armenian, they're Syrian, they got the life there. And then all of a sudden, Shah leaves, Khomeini comes in, and my mom's a communist, hardcore, from the two-day party. Their Bible was Karl Marx. I've read Karl Marx, we studied all the philosophy. And so I had influence from this side, on my mother's side, and my dad, on the other side, is an imperialist. He believes in what the Shah was believing in. So these guys married and divorced each other twice, Pete.

• 33:42Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 33:43Patrick Bet-David?

  Same people.

• 33:44Speaker 02

  Over politics, you think?

• 33:45Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, the worst debates I've seen in my life was in my house. One would say, poor people are lazy, the other one would say, rich people are greedy. And I'm in the middle. Who's right? Who do I listen to? And each of them have a blind spots in their argument. But we came here. And then, guess what? Go build your life. And I lived in California, then Texas, then Florida. If you take that opportunity away and you go and do that, that's why some people will look at you and say, this is a globalist.

• 34:09Speaker 02

  But take what opportunity away?

• 34:12Patrick Bet-David?

  If the element of American president no longer has to fear losing talent to another country.

• 34:19Speaker 02

  Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I gotta stop you right there. Losing talent to another country is something Donald Trump is driving. I don't believe, look, people, whether people are here or not is gonna happen.

• 34:30Patrick Bet-David?

  Go do it internationally. Those were your words.

• 34:32Speaker 02

  I'm saying that for the profits, if you try to cheat the American taxpayer by parking your profits elsewhere, we can have agreements that will make it harder to do that, to undercut and cheat on your tax.

• 34:44Patrick Bet-David?

  You're eliminating.

• 34:45Speaker 02

  You can still be, you can still live here. You live wherever you like, but right now you got people who live here, but they hide their profits elsewhere.

• 34:50Patrick Bet-David?

  No, no, no, that's not the.

• 34:51Speaker 02

  You don't think there's a problem with tax shelters?

• 34:53Patrick Bet-David?

  I, I think.

• 34:54Speaker 02

  Seriously, though, you don't think there's a problem with tax shelters right now?

• 34:56Patrick Bet-David?

  It's not as big as you think it is. So this is, again, the conspiracy.

• 35:00Speaker 02

  That might be worth a little.

• 35:01Patrick Bet-David?

  To make it much bigger. You think Elon's trillion dollars is off of other countries? You think he's got his money in other places?

• 35:06Speaker 02

  I don't know about him.

• 35:07Patrick Bet-David?

  Elon's trillion dollars, what do you think his money, we think Bezos' money is.

• 35:09Speaker 02

  Let's look it up. Let's look it up. How much, how much tax revenue does the U.S. lose to overseas tax shelters in a typical year? I don't know the answer, this is a good faith question. Maybe you're right, maybe I'm overstating it, but I think this is a real problem.

• 35:21Patrick Bet-David?

  It's gonna be a 1% issue. It's not gonna be a, you think it's gonna be a 20% issue?

• 35:25Speaker 02

  I don't know. Let's find out.

• 35:27Patrick Bet-David?

  I don't think so. I think it's gonna be a 1% issue.

• 35:29Speaker 02

  60 to 130.

• 35:30Patrick Bet-David?

  That's not even 1%. That's probably .001%.

• 35:33Speaker 02

  130 billion? No, that's a lot more than that. 130 billion was the entire budget of the Department of Transportation when I was there.

• 35:39Patrick Bet-David?

  But wait a minute. You're saying loses 60 billion to 130 billion?

• 35:42Speaker 02

  Annually.

• 35:43Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, that's not as big as a number as you think. What number you think that falls on? You think that's a 30% issue?

• 35:48Speaker 02

  Say, what percent of the U.S. federal budget is that? It's more than 1%, that's for sure.

• 35:53Patrick Bet-David?

  Federal budget? It's gonna be more than 1%, but it's gonna be less than 30%.

• 35:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, less than 30, sure, I'll give you that. This is fun, by the way, usually on these, I look up stuff up in real time.

• 36:05Patrick Bet-David?

  This is what you do for a living. This is your world.

• 36:07Speaker 02

  Well, yours too, in a different way. 7 trillion? All right, so about 2% of the budget.

• 36:12Patrick Bet-David?

  Thank you. It's nothing, less than 1%.

• 36:14Speaker 02

  I wouldn't say nothing. That was my, that was my entire budget when I was at the O.K.

• 36:17Patrick Bet-David?

  You just, you just called yourself fine. You got .6%.

• 36:20Speaker 02

  I'll give you that, it's lower than I thought as a percent.

• 36:21Patrick Bet-David?

  But this is the part, Pete, stay with me here. If I am worried about leaving, if I'm, if I'm not worried as a state, as a governor, for me to fear losing you.

• 36:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:31Patrick Bet-David?

  To another state, that's a very good thing.

• 36:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:34Patrick Bet-David?

  So I think if you do well tax, tested by states, and let's see how it does, maybe it works. Maybe other billionaires want to come to your state. Maybe other people want to come and live in California because the weather is so great.

• 36:43Speaker 02

  Don't you think there ought to be a federal Florida, this kind of stuff?

• 36:45Patrick Bet-David?

  No, I don't think, not on well tax, because Pete, it's not 5%. It goes, it ends up becoming 8 to 12% because you're gonna force the guy to sell things and I'm gonna lose jobs. I have to fire people, I have to pay, it's not gonna be a positive thing for the smallest person. Let's go to the next story, I don't want to stay on this, go next one. 80/20. Then you said, okay, so I'm gonna ask you two questions, I'm curious what you say on this. Voter ID. That was an 80/20 issue, right?

• 37:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:12Patrick Bet-David?

  But many of the Democrats on the left were like, no, this is not a good idea, we shouldn't do this. Close call Supreme Court.

• 37:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:19Patrick Bet-David?

  5 to 4.

• 37:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:21Patrick Bet-David?

  Do you think that's a good idea?

• 37:22Speaker 02

  Look, I'm used to voter ID. That's how it was in Indiana when I was a voter there for years, Michigan. It's, any way you cut it, you gotta be able to show that you are who you say you are. Now, some of the voter.

• 37:30Patrick Bet-David?

  Many states, you don't need it when you vote.

• 37:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, and those states, when they audit them, any kind of like voter fraud through impersonation is tiny.

• 37:38Patrick Bet-David?

  You don't think it happens?

• 37:39Speaker 02

  And I'll tell you why. Two reasons. One, remember that you only record one vote per voter, right? If I come in and I say, I'm Patrick Bedavid, and I try to vote as you and I try to fake your signature.

• 37:49Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 37:50Speaker 02

  And then you go in and vote, they're gonna say, sorry, but you already voted, right? There's a reason why this doesn't happen, and there's a simple auditability that you can only record one vote per person. That's reason number one. Reason number two, and again, in fact, this is another good thing to Google. What, you know, what percent of votes cast in America have been found to be fraudulent? The other reason is, look, I was just at a get-out-the-vote rally, just now, trying to help a candidate I believe in running for Congress.

• 38:16Patrick Bet-David?

  Yep.

• 38:17Speaker 02

  It is hard work to get people to vote. Eligible U.S. citizens, making sure they actually vote, we gotta really push them sometimes. So the idea that people in large numbers are out there risking jail so that they can...

• 38:31Patrick Bet-David?

  Let's say you're right.

• 38:32Speaker 02

  Here we go, here we go. Let's look at the, look, it is generally far below 0.01% of votes cast.

• 38:36Patrick Bet-David?

  Then if it's not an issue, then have everybody have an ID. All these states that don't want photo IDs, why not just?

• 38:41Speaker 02

  No, look, I think some way to prove.

• 38:42Patrick Bet-David?

  Make that a federal thing.

• 38:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:44Patrick Bet-David?

  You think it's not a big deal?

• 38:45Speaker 02

  As long as you do one other thing.

• 38:46Patrick Bet-David?

  What's that?

• 38:47Speaker 02

  Make sure everybody gets an ID.

• 38:48Patrick Bet-David?

  What do you mean?

• 38:49Speaker 02

  Well, right now.

• 38:50Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, I see, that, that's a, you're funny. You are good. So you mean all the, the ones that you were saying with the illegals, give them a path towards citizenship? That's what you mean on them getting an ID?

• 39:01Speaker 02

  No, no, I'm saying eligible U.S. citizens.

• 39:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Uh-huh.

• 39:05Speaker 02

  Should have an ID.

• 39:06Patrick Bet-David?

  I agree.

• 39:07Speaker 02

  But a lot of them don't.

• 39:08Patrick Bet-David?

  Most people, let's see, did.

• 39:09Speaker 02

  Let's look it up. What percentage of U.S. citizens do not have photo ID?

• 39:13Patrick Bet-David?

  Pete, come on.

• 39:14Speaker 02

  And they're almost always the poorer citizens.

• 39:17Patrick Bet-David?

  So Pete, do you know how many clips I got I can pull up of black people saying, stop assuming I'm dumb that I can't get an ID? So watch this. One of the things that you had that came up on, I think Bill Maher had Stephen A. Smith on, okay? And you've been on Bill many times, you know who Stephen A. Smith is. And Bill Maher asked Stephen A. Smith, I don't know if you have that clip or not, I wasn't planning on, go for it. Watch this here, go back, play.

• 39:37Speaker 07

  Democratic primary voters, 16% would support Buttigieg. That's the highest of any candidate, Pete Buttigieg. I don't believe it. I think that, I think that's just a poll number, I can't see that happening. Well, okay, but wait. 16%. Black voters, zero. Zero. You don't usually see zero anywhere. Zero's low. For who? For Buttigieg. Explain that, I mean, why, why do black voters have this, I mean, he's a nice guy? Yeah, he's under-indexing a little bit with black voters, yeah. What is that all about? He doesn't move us.

• 40:22Speaker 07

  I respect the man. I've interviewed him before, very nice man, highly intelligent. But you gotta be able to move us, bro.

• 40:29Patrick Bet-David?

  You can pause. So to me, there are a lot of clips where people were being asked, hey, do you have an ID? Can you get an ID? I can't get an ID. Why do you think I'm dumb enough that I get the ID? So then when you think you're messaging, because your challenge is, I think it's the black vote. To me, you're the best guy on stage. No one is better on stage than you. And by the way, I said this two years ago. I've said, this is not, they can go document me saying this, no one's better on stage than you. You're cool, calm, collected, the argument you make. Didn't you get Iowa caucus like before? Didn't you?

• 41:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, we won that.

• 41:03Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, yeah, you won that. So it's not like I'm saying this because I'm trying to make you feel good. You are there. But if you look at numbers, the black vote, sometime when you say voter ID, the lower paid people, they're like, dude, don't assume automatically I'm not smart enough to get an ID.

• 41:15Speaker 02

  It's not about that, though.

• 41:16Patrick Bet-David?

  But if you're saying that's an 80/20 issue, why not have everybody have a voter ID?

• 41:20Speaker 02

  Again, that's fine, as long as we make sure it's easy to get an ID. Easier than this.

• 41:22Patrick Bet-David?

  How hard is it to get an ID?

• 41:23Speaker 02

  Well, for example, this, this bill that the president's pushing makes it impossible to vote with just a driver's license. You would have to go pull a birth certificate if you have changed your name. So if you're a married woman, you change your name. By the way, this will actually disproportionately hurt conservatives. So I'm not making this as a partisan claim.

• 41:41Patrick Bet-David?

  Then, then, if you, if you think it does, support it. Why not do it?

• 41:45Speaker 02

  Because it's wrong.

• 41:46Patrick Bet-David?

  Would you campaign on that? Would you campaign on people having IDs to vote?

• 41:49Speaker 02

  What's that? Yeah, I think it's fine to make sure that people have, have to have a way to show that they are who they say they are. And I don't have a huge problem. I know some people say like, it's just never okay.

• 41:58Patrick Bet-David?

  I don't want to beat a dead horse if you support it. I can move on to the next topic. If you say you support it, I'll move on.

• 42:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, I'm okay with it. We just got to make sure that as you do that, you do things like automatic voter registration for citizens, or other things that make it easier, not harder. Because there are these frictions, and in elections that are decided by 1%, if 1% of people, not because they're dumb, but because they're working three jobs, right? And they're low income, and maybe they don't have a driver's license, find it a little difficult to get that, it's going to be harder for them to vote, and that 1% could make a huge difference. I just think it ought to be fair. That's all I'm saying. I do not have a problem. I think it's very important, in fact, and you and I am sure agree, that only eligible US citizens should ever be voting.

• 42:38Patrick Bet-David?

  Thank you for that. Can you pull up what states don't require a photo ID? I don't know what the number is, but I think it's 16 or 21. How many, how many states don't require a photo ID? So this part, we'll be on the same page. So so far, we're on the same page on gerrymandering. We're on the same page with, what was the second one you said that I agree? Oh, money out of politics. Minimum wage, I don't think it's going to do anything, but you know, it is what it is. What states don't require photo ID? Go a little bit higher. So states requiring no documents, 14 plus DC. States accepting non photo identification, 12 states. So you've got 26 states that don't require a photo ID to go vote. I think that's catastrophic. I think that's a scary thing to put that. But we'll go, I'll give you your final words if you want to say something, or else I can

• 43:23Patrick Bet-David?

  go to the next one.

• 43:24Speaker 02

  Let's keep going.

• 43:24Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay. So next one. All right, so you're a gay man. Scott Besson is a gay man. Both of you very successful. You've moved up in your life. You're net positive to society. You've done good work. But I think one of the issues, and I want to know what you're going to be saying, because I asked the same question of Governor Westmore. We've become good friends. We talk. I really like, you know, where he's open to it. We'll disagree on a lot of different topics, but he's very respectful about it. One of the 80/20 issues that I think happened, I had, who was the former CEO of Disney? Bob Chapek was just here six weeks ago, five weeks ago. And I asked him the question, I said, listen, why drive LGBTQ towards kids?

• 44:08Patrick Bet-David?

  Or even, maybe not him, other people. I asked this from Governor Westmore, puberty blockers and transgender, all that stuff with kids under the age of 18. After 18, do whatever you want to do. Why push that? I think that's an 80/20 issue. That pushed a lot of independents out and saying, guys, this is a little bit out of control, right? What do you think? What's your position on that?

• 44:59Speaker 02

  I think the most important thing for kids who are gay or transgender, or whatever difference they might have from most people when it comes to identity, is that they're safe. That's the most important thing. And, you know, I've talked to parents who describe the experience of having a kid who seems normal, healthy, doing well, and they hit a certain stage in their development, they're teenagers usually, and something changes. And something feels like it's wrong. And their student is increasingly having trouble with mental health. They are not themselves. They are depressed. Sometimes their lives are in danger. And it becomes clear that this has something to do with what's called gender dysphoria,

• 45:42Speaker 02

  this person figuring out that the gender they need to be is not the one that they're assigned. And when they get treatment, everything changes. And I've talked to parents who talk about their students, who they would do anything to help, who were at risk of death from suicide and mental health problems. When they get the right kind of support, what happens next is they are back to focusing on their friends, focusing on their studies, and they're thriving again. I think any parent would want that for their children.

• 46:15Patrick Bet-David?

  So you're, those are two different things. Let me isolate it, because I want to really understand what you're saying here. One is, if a child, you know, if a kid is gay or lesbian, and they've already come out and they've told their parents, and this is what I am. And we have friends that have done. This happens. I had a very, very, very conservative guy, that's my neighbor, whose son was a piano player, of course, I won't give this name, but if he watches this, he'll know who I'm talking about. At 14 years, this guy's a diehard Trump supporter, by the way. Major money donor. He comes out and his 14-year-old son comes in and says, Dad, I'm gay. And you know when he told him? On his birthday. He says, Pat, I'm devastated, crying. I said, so what did you do? He says, exactly what I'm supposed to do. I supported him.

• 47:00Patrick Bet-David?

  And I was his father. And he moved on. Whatever you want to do, son, we're going to help you out throughout the process. Great relationship, everything ended up being good. Of course, that part is welcoming. I'm not talking about that. I want to isolate this with you, and I want you to, I want to see what you're going to say. I'm specifically talking about the constant pushing of allowing puberty blockers under the age of 18, and certain material that's accessible to them, to teach kids at a young age. Do you think that's a good decision?

• 47:59Speaker 06

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• 48:11Speaker 04

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• 48:15Speaker 04

  This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required. Compatibility and availability varies 18 plus.

• 48:41Speaker 05

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• 49:10Speaker 05

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• 49:39Speaker 02

  So you just used two extremely different words as if they were the same.

• 49:42Patrick Bet-David?

  You can isolate both of them.

• 49:43Speaker 02

  You just, okay, you used two different words.

• 49:44Patrick Bet-David?

  Do me a favor and isolate each one of them, address each of them.

• 49:46Speaker 02

  Pushing and allowing. Pushing and allowing, which you just used like it was the same thing, are completely different.

• 49:53Patrick Bet-David?

  Pushing and allowing.

• 49:54Speaker 02

  You just, you just said pushing.

• 49:55Patrick Bet-David?

  Then let me restate the word, let me, let me clarify myself and, and I'm gonna see what you're gonna say about that. Let's use puberty blockers. Do you think puberty blockers should be available to kids under the age of 18?

• 50:05Speaker 02

  I think if the medical community says that's important for their health, then as a politician, I'm not gonna disagree.

• 50:10Patrick Bet-David?

  I don't think that's gonna, I think that's gonna hurt you guys.

• 50:13Speaker 02

  Well, maybe it will. Look, I haven't studied transgender issues as closely as you have, I can already tell. But what I will say is, sometimes, especially when it comes to something that many believe saves the lives of children, if you have to take a somewhat politically awkward position to help those young people, you have to.

• 50:31Patrick Bet-David?

  How much have you studied? How much, how many of them transitioned and then wanted to come back and their lives was completely devastated as adults? Have you ever met with one?

• 50:39Speaker 02

  Again, I, I've clearly not studied this issue as much as you have, but what I'm saying is-

• 50:43Patrick Bet-David?

  What I'm saying to you is, as a parent, that is a true issue that bothers a lot of parents when it's being pushed to them.

• 50:50Speaker 02

  But see, now you said pushed.

• 50:51Patrick Bet-David?

  But it is though.

• 50:51Speaker 02

  I'm talking about, look-

• 50:53Patrick Bet-David?

  It is though, certain states don't even allow puberty blockers. Certain states are like, we're not even gonna allow that to happen. Because if somebody wants to do it after the, do you think it's a good idea for a 13 year old to have a driver's license?

• 51:04Speaker 02

  No.

• 51:05Patrick Bet-David?

  Do you think it's a good idea for a 13 year old to have a gun?

• 51:07Speaker 02

  No.

• 51:08Patrick Bet-David?

  But what makes you think it's okay for a 13 year old to have a puberty blocker?

• 51:11Speaker 02

  I have no idea whether it is. I'm just saying that I would trust, yeah, but it's probably illegal because politicians made it illegal. Let's listen to the medical community.

• 51:18Patrick Bet-David?

  Legal, legal, in many states.

• 51:20Speaker 02

  Okay, then let's listen to people who have a history of finding out what kinds of treatment helped these students thrive, instead of them being in extreme danger. And look, as a, I just don't think it's the job of politicians to decide this stuff. I think when families are, are concerned about the well-being of their students, and they engage mental health support or medical support, it is not my job as a politician to get in the middle of that.

• 51:45Patrick Bet-David?

  Can I send you material for you to look at?

• 51:46Speaker 02

  Sure, yeah, by all means.

• 51:47Patrick Bet-David?

  You can still disagree, but I wanna send it to you and I wanna see what you say about that.

• 51:50Speaker 02

  Sure, but I also wanna talk about the politics around this for a second.

• 51:53Patrick Bet-David?

  Sure.

• 51:53Speaker 02

  Cause maybe you're right, maybe this is an issue where, see, the thing is, Democrats really care about making sure that vulnerable groups are protected and aren't discriminated.

• 52:02Patrick Bet-David?

  So do independents, so do libertarians.

• 52:04Speaker 02

  And maybe the, maybe the disconnect here is you think we take that too far, sometimes.

• 52:09Patrick Bet-David?

  I, I think it's overlapping the parent to get in front of the, my child, rather than letting it happen when he becomes 18 or she becomes 18.

• 52:19Speaker 02

  Right, but if a parent thinks that their child who is younger than that, that their life is in danger, then I don't want some law to block that parent from working with metal, medical professionals to take care of the student. But again, I wanna turn to the politics of this, because here's the question on my mind.

• 52:33Patrick Bet-David?

  Doctors were using cocaine, 100 years ago, doctors were using cocaine, thinking that was good for you, and then they realized that was bad and they got rid of it.

• 52:40Speaker 02

  Sure, but you know who's wrong even more than doctors? Politicians. So the idea that politicians getting in the middle, and this brings me to the political side of this, I keep asking myself, this is an issue that affects a tiny, and by the way, extremely vulnerable minority of Americans. If you ask most people, what are your top five issues?

• 52:57Patrick Bet-David?

  This was not top five.

• 52:58Speaker 02

  Top seven issue, right, but it is the top five in what Republicans spend money to put in the ads.

• 53:01Patrick Bet-David?

  No, not, not, not-

• 53:03Speaker 02

  I mean, it was the number, I'm pretty sure you looked it up, I'm pretty sure it was the number one ad buy of the, of the 2024 election was the trans ad.

• 53:10Patrick Bet-David?

  It could be because of what many schools were teaching.

• 53:12Speaker 02

  Well, who's pushing this into, I think that this is, if a young person hears transgender this, transgender that, they're way more likely to hear that from political ads than they are from something that's-

• 53:22Patrick Bet-David?

  All you guys had to do was leave it alone, that's all you had to do.

• 53:24Speaker 02

  We tried!

• 53:25Patrick Bet-David?

  No, you didn't try, you realized it backfired.

• 53:28Speaker 02

  We were not the, well, we were not the ones spending unbelievable amounts of money to try to make it a top political issue.

• 53:32Patrick Bet-David?

  Because it was such an 80/20 issue, that's why, why would they, why Americans disagreed with you?

• 53:36Speaker 02

  Right, so if Americans disagree-

• 53:37Patrick Bet-David?

  In a big way.

• 53:38Speaker 02

  Republicans on-

• 53:39Patrick Bet-David?

  No, they disagreed with Democrats on transgender.

• 53:41Speaker 02

  Hold on, what I'm saying is, if Americans disagree with the Republicans on taxes, which affects every American, and disagree with the Republicans on healthcare, which affects every American, and disagree with the Republicans on the minimum wage, which affects every American, and disagree with the Republicans on the war, which affects every American, and meanwhile, Republicans want to make it as though one of the topics, one of the most important things is this issue. There was a bill on trans, I forget what state, on the sports thing that affect one-

• 54:13Patrick Bet-David?

  It's their kids.

• 54:14Speaker 02

  But the parent-

• 54:15Patrick Bet-David?

  It's their kids, it's none of anybody's business to try to manipulate kids on what they need to do with their bodies.

• 54:20Speaker 02

  Okay, ask the, ask the parents of transgender kids, who they think is supporting their kids' well-being?

• 54:24Patrick Bet-David?

  Of course it's gonna be you, because they're, they're probably 99% chance they're, they're liberals themselves.

• 54:30Speaker 02

  No, that's not true.

• 54:30Patrick Bet-David?

  Of course they're gonna be on your side.

• 54:32Speaker 02

  We gotta get away from this idea.

• 54:33Patrick Bet-David?

  I'd love to know how many conservatives have transgender kids, I'd love to know that number.

• 54:36Speaker 02

  What if you do?

• 54:37Patrick Bet-David?

  And you think it's, what percentage you think it is?

• 54:39Speaker 02

  It almost does, lots of, lots of-

• 54:40Patrick Bet-David?

  You think he got it because he wanted his kid to be transgender? He lost-

• 54:44Speaker 02

  What do you mean got it?

• 54:44Patrick Bet-David?

  You think, you-

• 54:45Speaker 02

  What do you mean got it?

• 54:46Patrick Bet-David?

  You think-

• 54:46Speaker 02

  This is not like a disease, you, this is something that happens to people.

• 54:49Patrick Bet-David?

  You think if he raised a kid himself, that would have happened?

• 54:51Speaker 02

  Maybe, that's my point.

• 54:52Patrick Bet-David?

  You think if other politics got involved because they made him allow to be an evil guy that painted everybody against him? You think, you don't think that's a reason?

• 55:00Speaker 02

  I guarantee you, that me being gay, had absolutely nothing to do with, with my parents. And I believe that when I, now, I also believe that when somebody experiences-

• 55:11Patrick Bet-David?

  And what age did you come out, by the way? What age did you come out?

• 55:13Speaker 02

  Later in life, I was in my twenties.

• 55:14Patrick Bet-David?

  Thirty-three years old?

• 55:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, okay.

• 55:15Patrick Bet-David?

  Thirty, yeah, yeah. Yeah, 33 years old, I read when you came out.

• 55:17Speaker 02

  Cause it took that long.

• 55:18Patrick Bet-David?

  Guess what? No problem.

• 55:20Speaker 02

  Right, but what I'm saying is, there's a lot of, not a lot, there's a small, but real number of young people who experience this, gender dysphoria.

• 55:30Patrick Bet-David?

  Such a small percentage, man.

• 55:31Speaker 02

  You're right, and yet we've already spent a huge percentage of this podcast talking about it. Why? Because the politics are better for your side.

• 55:36Patrick Bet-David?

  No, because you guys supported ideas that were terrible, and it backfired, that was one of them.

• 55:40Speaker 02

  We just wanna make sure people don't get hurt.

• 55:41Patrick Bet-David?

  So now, let's go to the other one, that you gave credit to the president, is of the border, right? The border that overnight, he becomes president, boom.

• 55:53Speaker 02

  Well, I do need to stop you, well, no, I wanna let you go, I don't wanna interrupt you.

• 55:56Patrick Bet-David?

  You can interrupt all you want, please feel free about that. So, he becomes president, all of a sudden, what happens? And I remember six weeks before he became president, oh my God, Biden, Lord, you know, amount of people coming in, but over the four years he was president, whether you wanna call Kamala Harris the border czar, no, I'm not the border czar, you know, all this other stuff. The moment he came in, Tom Homan, whoever he had as his team, immediately went away. The border issue hasn't been talked about for two years because it was cleaned up like this, it wasn't that complicated. Why didn't Democrats do it?

• 56:26Speaker 02

  Okay, so let me complicate that story a little bit. I don't agree, I don't disagree with the big picture, which is the Democrats should have done more, should have done it sooner. We need a secure border, there was a real problem with the border, and, excuse me, my party was way too quick to ignore it. I will say, the story you just told was one for all four years of Biden, you have this huge amount of crossings at the border, and then the, I think the way you just told the story, the moment Trump comes in, it drops. The truth is, there was a pretty big drop in 2024, in the summer of 2024.

• 56:59Patrick Bet-David?

  A new Trump was coming in, come on.

• 57:01Speaker 02

  No, no, I agree.

• 57:02Patrick Bet-David?

  You're a guy in the-

• 57:02Speaker 02

  No, no, no, I, I know, I don't think it was because, it was because of the executive orders.

• 57:07Patrick Bet-David?

  You're a guy in the space.

• 57:08Speaker 02

  You don't think it was the executive orders?

• 57:09Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh my God, Pete.

• 57:10Speaker 02

  Wait, wait, are you seriously arguing that the executive orders of June 2024 had no effect on border crossings?

• 57:15Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, but you had three and a half years, you could have done it earlier, why didn't you?

• 57:18Speaker 02

  You're right, I agree.

• 57:18Patrick Bet-David?

  Why didn't you? So to me, so now watch this, this is the concern. I asked you a question, open-ended. I asked you, so, you know, you're at McKinsey, you speak eight languages, da-da-da-da, and you're like, oh, what are you up to? I'm working on these three issues, right? And I asked you about something, and you said, um, secure the border, illegal lawful immigration, and then you said, given a path for the people to, so, the third one is the concern of conservatives, independents, and libertarians, that the democratic playbook is, let them in, open the floodgates, and let's find a path towards citizenship, and then let's eliminate Electoral College, and then let's pack the court, and guess what? We'll have this for many, many decades under control, and we can do our globalist agenda.

• 58:03Patrick Bet-David?

  You're, you're laughing at this, this is the step process.

• 58:06Speaker 02

  That sounds pretty fanatical, though.

• 58:07Patrick Bet-David?

  It doesn't sound fanatical.

• 58:08Speaker 02

  Globalist agenda, like, look, first of all, one thing my party learned the hard way is, just cause somebody's an immigrant or the son of an immigrant doesn't mean they're gonna vote for us. Another thing that's really important is, and this is where, look, I agree with you-

• 58:19Patrick Bet-David?

  Most of them will.

• 58:20Speaker 02

  I, I-

• 58:20Patrick Bet-David?

  60% will for you.

• 58:22Speaker 02

  But, but here's the thing-

• 58:23Patrick Bet-David?

  That data's out there.

• 58:25Speaker 02

  I think that you're right, that in order to satisfy concerns about what happens with the pathway to citizenship, you first have to satisfy concerns about the border actually being secure. And I will give the Trump administration credit for that. Now, I think they also went way too far. Rounding up people, just yesterday I met somebody, a citizen, by the way, US citizen, Cuban-American, gets detained at the airport for no reason. They never give him a reason. They treat him like shit. And it's clearly the only real reason he can think of is he's Latino, and he looks Latino, he has a bit of an accent. He's Cuban, and he's a citizen. And people have stories like this by the millions, not to mention citizens being dragged off their doors, people getting shot in the street. Like, I think most of us can agree, I'm sure, I haven't looked up a poll, but I'm pretty sure most

• 59:09Speaker 02

  of us can agree, that the Trump administration has gone way too far with the way ICE is roaming the streets and some of this stuff. But I think, I really believe there's a grand bargain here, where most of us agree on most of what has to happen. Border security, lawful immigration, done the right way, and doing something that is not just deporting every single man, woman, or child who's in this country who isn't documented. Because I think about a lot of people who came to this country undocumented, had been here for five years, 10 years, 20 years, paying taxes, by the way, payroll taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, maybe not income taxes, paying taxes, building businesses, whether it's, you know,

• 59:52Speaker 02

  somebody owns a diner, this happened in my part of Indiana, a guy got deported, or, you know, whether it's, you know, somebody people rely on to work for their family or for their business. But we've also got to face that we're in a situation right now where the US economy has taken advantage of this situation. So you have some people who say our immigration system is broken. I often say that. There are other people who have a point when they say that this immigration system is working exactly as intended. And what they mean by that is it creates this kind of underclass of people, right, who don't have protections, don't have status, they get underpaid. But the reality is, we've allowed this gap to

• 1:00:33Speaker 02

  open up between the level of immigration that our economy needs and the level that our law allows. And the last person to deal with that was Ronald Reagan. They had an immigration reform in the 1980s that dealt with that. Bush tried, came close, didn't happen. They tried under Obama, John Boehner, didn't happen. I really think there's a chance to get to some common ground here, where maybe not everybody, you know, whether it's the far left in my party who really do believe in open borders, or the far right in the Republican Party who are just against immigration, period. But everybody in between those poles, which I think is most people, including most Democrats, and I hope most Republicans, can find their way to a grand bargain around a balance of those three issues.

• 1:01:14Patrick Bet-David?

  I think, I think that's fair. I think to be able to figure something out there is fair. I do think it needs to be a way of you earning the right to get it, and somehow to pay, I don't know what that is, to be honest with you, like, you know, if you're under a certain age, go join the military. If you're in this, go do this. It's got to be some way that you contribute, like back in the days with LSD. If it's like that, if you don't have to earn, and it's like, no, we are lucky to get you here. No, no, we have to go back to your, I'm lucky to come to America. America's not lucky to have me. I'm the guest. I'm grateful. That mentality of, I had 200 countries to choose from. I chose to come here. They gave me a green card. We waited almost eight years. The day we

• 1:01:58Patrick Bet-David?

  found out we're coming here, we're doing backflips at celebrations. So I think, I think that's the only thing about it. But it's fair to, you know, it's fair, I respect the fact that you're saying on the immigration stuff. So to be fair, if let's just say you were to win, your mindset is not going to be with the border. Like, let's let the border in, let's people come in as much as they want. That's not you.

• 1:02:17Speaker 02

  You mean like, open up the border?

• 1:02:19Patrick Bet-David?

  Open up the border, like Biden did. You wouldn't do it that way. Your strategy would be more along the way Trump did it than the way Biden did it, with the border.

• 1:02:25Speaker 02

  I mean, those are two pretty big extremes to pick from.

• 1:02:27Patrick Bet-David?

  But one of them got zero, the other one got quite a few millions of people that came here. By the way, you know how difficult it is? I knew this was going to be horrible. When a guy who's in the space, he sends me a proposal, he says, can you please give this to the president? I said, what's this? Here's how much it's going to cost them to deport all the illegals that came here. So I'm going through this thing, and it was like a $600 billion cost to deport the people. I said, how? He says, you need this many this, this many that, this many this. And it was actually a very methodical way he broke it down. Okay. So he says, Pat, this is not going to happen.

• 1:03:03Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:03:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Because no one's going to approve that budget. And what's going to happen is the moment they need one story when an ICE incident, he has to shut the whole thing down. The guy ended up being right. They had one incident from there, it's like, the left is, look what they did, oh, they're trying to do this. And then you had to stop it. So those people stayed in here. So guess what? Democrats ended up winning. So they ended up winning because we didn't deport those guys. There was about, what's the number of self-deportation? Did you see that number, Pete? I think it was like a million and a half or something like that. I don't know what the number was.

• 1:03:30Speaker 02

  Here's another area where I care about something that I think conservatives care about, maybe in a slightly different way, which is the population of the country. And two things go into that, right? Birth rate, immigration, that's how countries grow, obviously. We are now on track for negative net migration as a country, might even be there right now. I'm not sure. I know we were close.

• 1:03:51Patrick Bet-David?

  2.2 million self.

• 1:03:53Speaker 02

  I agree that we want immigration to be lawful, we want it to be controlled, we want it to be safe, we want it to be reasonable. If it's, the level is too high, that causes all kinds of problems. What if it's zero? Or if it's net zero? That could be fatal to our economy.

• 1:04:09Patrick Bet-David?

  For a period, no. For a long term, yes. So I think you want them to come here, you want them to still be the, you know, the land of the free, and you know, hey, American dream. You still want that. But you want to be selective of who comes, not just anybody and everybody. We're seeing what's happening in Europe right now with immigration. Some, I don't know if, of course, you follow what's going on in France, you know, some of these other places. That's a whole different model of immigration, of who they let in. Hopefully we won't be making decisions like that here. So, question. I'm a business podcast, you know, we talk politics, but we're also business guys that watch the content. 39% of the

• 1:04:49Patrick Bet-David?

  audience are business owners. Your philosophy, or your definition of what capitalism is, what socialism is, what communism is, what is your definition of each of those three?

• 1:05:00Speaker 03

  The award-winning American Airlines Advantage program rewards more than travel. It takes your whole life to new heights. Earn miles when you fly, as well as with thousands of your favorite brands, and then redeem those miles for flights, upgrades, and experiences worldwide. Advantage members also enjoy earlier boarding and free high-speed Wi-Fi in flight. Join for free and start earning towards your next adventure at aa.com/spotify.

• 1:05:29Speaker 06

  Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change, your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5. Only at McDonald's for a limited time.

• 1:05:43Speaker 04

  Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing. This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up require compatibility and availability varies 18 plus.

• 1:06:10Speaker 05

  What's the secret to being a great host this season? Keeping things deliciously simple, like mixing Simply Cranberry into a festive drink as guests arrive, or serving up a warm mug of Simply Apple on a chilly night. That means less time behind the scenes and more time in the moment with everyone. Crafted with real fruit, Simply juices and fruit drinks make any holiday drink effortless, inviting, and completely delicious. Simply. Say yes to simple. This episode is brought to you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed-sponsored

• 1:06:52Speaker 05

  jobs can help carry the load. It boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed-sponsored jobs. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now? Then this is a job for Indeed-sponsored jobs.

• 1:07:12Speaker 02

  So I think capitalism is that the market allocates capital and most transactions take place in a market that is structured, but what we would consider a free market. That you make sure, you have the government there to make sure there's things like property rights, also to make sure that you don't have things like monopolies that cheat the system. But fundamentally, we have a market economy. Communism is pretty much the opposite. Government controls the means of production. If you work for any number of industries, you are a government employee, even if you're making Cheerios or tires or whatever. And socialism is a word that I think is actually losing meaning

• 1:07:55Speaker 02

  over time, because usually when I hear it, it's being thrown around in politics. So I hesitate to offer a definition for socialism, because it's been twisted beyond all recognition by, by politics.

• 1:08:05Patrick Bet-David?

  What is the pro of each, in your opinion?

• 1:08:09Speaker 02

  I mean, look, the intention of communism is to create equality. The problem is, first of all, that doesn't actually happen, because you have corruption. And the other problem is, even, even to the extent that it's equal, it's, it's a pretty terrible way to live, right? The pros of capitalism is you got more production, build more wealth, grows more. The, the problem is, you get these concentrations of power that happen, and I think it's happening right now. We have an extremely high level of inequality, both measured by income and measured by wealth. Usually, when you have a republic, and I'm going back to the Roman Empire, when you have a republic that hits a level of inequality like what we've got right now, it doesn't last very long as a republic. And so, for

• 1:08:54Speaker 02

  capitalism to work, you gotta have certain guardrails around it. You gotta make sure that nobody can get extreme amounts of power. And part of the problem with money in politics, where I think you and I broadly might agree, is that it allows a concentration of wealth to turn into a concentration of power. And then, of course, people can use that to gain even more wealth and even more power. I think that's happening right now, whether it's the, the corruption that we see in the Trump administration, or whether it's just the thumb on the scale that industries are able to put in elections, by using that money to try to make sure that their preferred candidate wins.

• 1:09:26Patrick Bet-David?

  And I hope we take that money out. And if that's ever on the ballot, I'm voting for it.

• 1:09:31Speaker 02

  Awesome. Good. They're doing it in Montana right now, actually.

• 1:09:33Patrick Bet-David?

  If it's out there, I've been saying, I had Paul, is it Paul Manafort? Is he, who was the lobbyist? Was it, am I saying the name correctly?

• 1:09:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:40Patrick Bet-David?

  He was, uh, yeah, he was one of the guys that was in it. I said, why don't we take the money out of politics? This was like five years ago, maybe four years ago. He says, well, if the other side does it, sure. But neither side wants to do it. So we don't, you know,

• 1:09:53Speaker 02

  I'd make that deal.

• 1:09:54Patrick Bet-David?

  You do it, I'm sure, you can get a lot of people that are gonna wanna entertain that. But my mother was a massive communist, massive supporter, her entire family. They're from Azerbaijan, Baku, you know, father's side, they were communists. Your father was a professor, and noted them, and he was a big supporter of Antonio Gramsci. You can correct me on any time with him. So this is what I've read from the internet. And Gramsci is an interesting guy, right? Very much of a, probably a pro-communist himself, some of the leanings that it, Marxists, whatever you wanna call it. And some would even sell it, he was more influential than Marx was, because he was able to bring it into the systems. And when you study the guy, you're like, alright, the whole hegemony, you know,

• 1:10:37Patrick Bet-David?

  what's gonna happen again, you know, first get the kids, let's win the teachers over, let's get the kids, and then send them to different industries, and then keep replicating this, and then eventually we'll get enough people that wanna be communists, all this stuff. What part of your dad's admiration for Antonio Gramsci, because you've said good things about your dad, that he was a big influence in your life, what did you debate with your dad and say, dad, I disagree with the following philosophies that Antonio Gramsci had?

• 1:11:02Speaker 02

  Oh, we debated all the time. We used to have, I think that's how I learned to debate, was, obviously, I love my father. Arguing with my father, usually it'd be after dinner. We'd, we'd have dinner. Sometimes him, but usually my mom would do the cooking. But he and I were in charge of the dishwashing. And we'd start dishwashing, I'm bringing in the dishes, I'm loading the dishwasher, he's scrubbing the pots and pans, and we'd get arguing about something. And usually, not always, but usually, it was him being a little more politically left than I was, and us kinda hashing it out. He was somebody who was pretty skeptical of communist governments. He was extremely skeptical of Cuba, the Soviet Union. But he was a scholar of Gramsci. And so, like you said, Antonio Gramsci is a leftist

• 1:11:46Speaker 02

  Italian thinker. He did most of his work in prison. Mussolini, the fascist dictator, locked him up. And he spent most of his life writing in these little notebooks in prison that eventually got smuggled out. And what he wrote turned out, it turned out to be pretty important.

• 1:12:02Patrick Bet-David?

  Your father translated it.

• 1:12:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. He translated many of those notebooks.

• 1:12:06Patrick Bet-David?

  It went everywhere, went everywhere.

• 1:12:07Speaker 02

  And the really interesting thing is, most of the people in America right now, who have put Gramsci's ideas into practice, are on the right. So you look at Breitbart, for example. Breitbart was famously somebody who paid a lot of attention to Gramsci. Now, this isn't just in the US. In Hungary, Viktor Orban actually wrote his thesis on Gramsci. In Italy, right now, there's, there's a minister in the Maloney government who wrote a whole book on Gramsci. So even though Gramsci was a leftist, most of the people who have used his ideas recently have been on the right. And as a leftist, I think my dad would probably be rolling over in his grave if he knew that it was really Trumpism that kinda beat the left to some of these insights. For example, one of these sayings that's attributed to

• 1:12:50Speaker 02

  Breitbart, "Politics is downstream from culture." Steve Bannon says that, too. I forget which one of them said it first. But it's the kinda thing that Gramsci talked a lot about, this idea of hegemony, that,

• 1:13:01Patrick Bet-David?

  I think the strategy is true, but the end in mine was different. Of course, Gramsci wanted a different result at the end than the other ones do. Gramsci gave the marketing strategy, but his intention was, at the end, to have a different world than the ones conservatives would build. Would you agree with that?

• 1:13:18Speaker 02

  Probably. I mean, to be honest, I'm not the expert that my father was on his whole political theory. What I know is that the part that seems most relevant in our time is this strategy question. And, you know, my side likes to think of ourselves as the more intellectual ones. But I think sometimes we've been outgunned by the right. You look at, yeah, you look at things like the Heritage Foundation. And, you know, the truth is, we don't have quite the Cato Institute, that whole ecosystem of think tanks.

• 1:13:45Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:46Speaker 02

  I think they set those up, you know, 30, 40, 50 years ago, because they felt like they needed a balance to the universities. They were kinda, they felt doing the same thing to the left, for the left. I think over the years, the universities have actually become less connected to the political left. And the right and these think tanks have become very, I mean, you look at things like Project 2025. You remember, we had a whole fight over Project 2025? Trump swore up, up and down, he had nothing to do with it, had no idea what it was.

• 1:14:13Patrick Bet-David?

  Mm-hmm. But now, the biggest thing, though, I don't even remember what the biggest field was.

• 1:14:18Speaker 02

  Well, it's like a thousand pages of stuff.

• 1:14:19Patrick Bet-David?

  But what was, what was the most intimidating thing?

• 1:14:21Speaker 02

  I don't know, stuff like getting rid of the Department of Education, stuff they're actually doing now. So the Heritage Foundation boasts that the majority of Project 2025 is now reality. And it was an extremely unpopular set of ideas, it was politically toxic, which is why we tried to use it as a matter of campaign strategy. You remember, we held up big copies of it at the end.

• 1:14:37Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, yeah, sure, yeah.

• 1:14:38Speaker 02

  I think it even worked a little bit, because, obviously, it didn't win. But it worked in the sense that, you know, I got a mailer.

• 1:14:44Patrick Bet-David?

  Well, I mean, if Trump distanced himself, that's a form of working.

• 1:14:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Then he put the guy in charge of it, in charge of the OMB, Ross Vaught, right? So he was a big Project 20.

• 1:14:52Patrick Bet-David?

  I had the president on. What was the guy's name? Kevin Roberts, I think?

• 1:14:55Speaker 02

  Oh, President Heritage, yeah.

• 1:14:57Patrick Bet-David?

  Heritage. Oh, you're talking about, yeah, President Heritage, yes.

• 1:15:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. But yeah, you're right. The Ross Vaught who was involved with all of that, President Trump, him in charge of the OMB, right? So, obviously, I don't think the president was telling the truth when he distanced himself from it. But, anyway, my point is, that level of strategic thinking, actually, there's not been as much of that in my party. So when I think about the 30, 40, 50-year project to end the right to choose in America, that was the result of some really patient and organized work. I think, I think my side has been a little more caught up in the moment, and a little bit less attentive to the kinda the longer-term strategy of how to, you know, build a country that reflects the values that, that guide us, which, again, I would argue, were valued to the most Americans share. Which is why most Americans are increasingly aligning

• 1:15:44Speaker 02

  with us in a lot of these big issues, like healthcare, taxes, wages, political reform. So part of what I'm trying to get my side, my party, to do is to be, to frankly, learn from the right, and be a little more strategic, be a little more thoughtful, be even a little more intellectual. It's a weird thing for somebody left to center to say.

• 1:16:02Patrick Bet-David?

  Intellectual.

• 1:16:03Speaker 02

  But be as intellectual as the right wing is. Because I think the right wing doesn't get enough credit for strategic credit.

• 1:16:10Patrick Bet-David?

  Define intellectual to me, because when

• 1:16:12Speaker 02

  I mean, a relationship between your first principles, your big ideas.

• 1:16:16Patrick Bet-David?

  You're not talking schooling, degrees, you're saying?

• 1:16:18Speaker 02

  No, no, yeah, yeah. No, I'm just saying, like, you need to, you need to have a relationship between your first principles and your foundational philosophical beliefs, and what you're doing all day in your campaigns, in your policy ideas. I actually think sometimes the right pays more attention to that than we do.

• 1:16:33Patrick Bet-David?

  Interesting. How much of that do you think was a new age guy, like the late Charlie Kirk? Or do you think it's others who were leading it even before him? How much do you think it was him playing that role? Because, obviously, he's no longer here. He was, I think he was the most intimidating person for the, for the left, in my opinion. Because for the longest time, the left had the youth. I mean, Antonio Gramsci's philosophy, hey, get him in school, get him early. And next thing you know, it's like, yeah, I don't need to go to school. Oh, no, no, we can't do that. Kids need to go to school. What happens if we lose the kids that are going to school? And then we saw girls are getting degrees, bachelors degrees, ladies, more than men were. So then, you know, they have a certain

• 1:17:17Patrick Bet-David?

  role they're playing. But do you put it as somebody like a Charlie Kirk? He was one of the guys that had the influence?

• 1:17:23Speaker 02

  Um, I think it's probably upstream of somebody like him.

• 1:17:25Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:17:26Speaker 02

  But I do think he did something that, yeah, obviously, I have enormous disagreements with him. But he did something that is really important, which is going out on those campuses and having those debates. And I think that's harder now, especially because young people live more and more online, right? So you're in this online world where most of what you see is somebody that you already agree with, looking good. Or when you do see somebody you disagree with, they're making an ass of themselves. Like, I would guess that your feed, as somebody who's more conservative, when it features people from my party, it's usually our biggest gaffes, our dumbest moments, right? And vice versa, right? Like, if I see J.D. Vance in my feed, it's definitely some moment where he's doing something dumb.

• 1:18:11Speaker 02

  But in both directions, that's obviously very cherry picked, right? But that's what the algorithm gives us, because you don't have to challenge your own ideas. You're just looking at this, you're like, well, it doesn't make you stop and think. I mean, part of why I like trying to engage more conservative media is, you know, first of all, I think I'm responsible for bringing my worldview into spaces where it isn't always there. Policy's just more interesting, right? Like, you learn more and you think more. You think harder.

• 1:18:34Patrick Bet-David?

  You know who I had on last week? Frances Haugen. You know who Frances Haugen is? The social reckoning girl that was a whistleblower at Facebook and they had to pay like $25 billion auto fine in 47 states, sued Meta. You know what she said that was the most interesting thing, Pete? She said at Facebook, they had a program called Crosscheck, and then under Crosscheck, they started a new thing that they measured, say you're liberal yourself, and they wanted to see, why do so many people on the conservative side like your post? Or you're a conservative? Why do so many people on the left still like this guy? And then they rank those people. Like, even you right now, sitting here, this is not, most people on your side don't do this. Like, they're not gonna come and sit down, so...

• 1:19:16Patrick Bet-David?

  But they'll sit this and they'll say, at least this guy's willing to have the conversation. They widened the algorithm. She said, Facebook started doing that. For people that had a high reasonable score, that they can sit down and talk to person on the other side. So it's funny you're saying that.

• 1:19:30Speaker 02

  You mean they score us as users on how reasonable we are? I heard like how open to...

• 1:19:34Patrick Bet-David?

  Specifically you, because you're sitting here with me.

• 1:19:36Speaker 02

  Oh, like as a speaker?

• 1:19:37Patrick Bet-David?

  So they're gonna say, he just got, let's just say your post gets on Instagram 20,000 likes, I'm just making it up, but 2,800 were conservatives. Why did 2,800 people like Pete? Who is this guy? Oh, it's Pete Buttigieg. Interesting. Whatever he says, he's getting people on the opposite side to also agree with them on certain issues. Let's widen his audience. That's just something they started, you know, this was like when she was talking about it. I thought it was fascinating. And I think we need more of that, whoever that is. It's a question for you. So who do you think has more power in America? I've asked this of a lot of different people, I'm curious what you'll say. The president? The people who run universities? You got the people who control the algorithms? Or the billionaires? Who do you think has the most power?

• 1:20:20Speaker 02

  I mean, I'm still gonna say the president, but I think whoever controls the algorithms, which is increasingly billionaires, is a pretty close second.

• 1:20:28Patrick Bet-David?

  So you think, okay, so do you think it's still gonna be presidents? Let's just say 10 years from now, and Elon's Starlink, we saw what happened with Ukraine, where he's like, hey, they were going 250 miles an hour, he lowered it to 100 miles an hour, so they kind of, you know, the drones couldn't hit the place and kill people, and he's like, no, I'm gonna lower the speed. Do you think if a person like that, he's doing the long-distance service, he's doing the, you know, batteries, cars, Starlink, you know, satellites, do you think a person like that by 5, 3, 5, 10 years from now could be more powerful than a president?

• 1:21:02Speaker 02

  Yes, I think that's possible.

• 1:21:03Patrick Bet-David?

  Tell me why.

• 1:21:04Speaker 02

  Because more and more is going to depend on these systems that are controlled by fewer and fewer people. Like, it'd be one thing if there were like 10 competitors to Starlink, right? Or 10 competitors to the, you know, Instagram algorithm. There's obviously different social media, but so much of it is concentrated into so few hands. And the problem is, no one person should have too much power. The whole point of this country, right, was we had one person who had way too much power, namely the King of England, and we said, we're out, we're not gonna let it be that way. And one reason the founders were even a little bit conflicted about creating the presidency in the first place is, there was a lot of hesitation around even the amount of power that a president could have.

• 1:21:47Speaker 02

  And I'm, you know, I'm somebody who believes that the current president is using power in a lot of dangerous ways. But at least with a president, even this president, but certainly a normal president, there's a level of, if you had a functioning Congress and good courts, you have some accountability that that person can be constrained. They're constrained by law, and they're constrained by the electorate that can vote them out, or vote out their party. There's no constraints like that. Those political constraints don't exist on, on somebody who controls some, you know, like a private satellite network. There still might be legal constraints, but if that person can flex so much political power, that they can have control over the people who write those laws, then they're not really constrained by anything.

• 1:22:31Speaker 02

  And to me, freedom requires two things. You need a government to be constrained, that it can't take away your freedom, but you also need a government capable of constraining anybody else who could take away your freedom, including somebody who controls communications, media, or anything else that's not, where you don't have a lot of choice.

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• 1:25:08Patrick Bet-David?

  So with Elon moving forward, how do you view him? How do you view Elon? Because he's gonna be a formidable guy for you guys to go up against. He's not, he's not a fan of, he just had something, Kara Swisher was just, I don't know who she was, I think maybe she was talking to Hillary Clinton, and she came out and she said, you know, we should go after Elon afterwards, and we should, you know, put him in prison and do this and do that, and she's like, wait, really? You know, and he tweets in the bottom, responds back and says, I will pay attention to everybody. Says, I'm not just gonna look at the handlers, I'm gonna identify who's behind it, I'm gonna come after you if you come after me. He flat out said that. So part of it is, you know, they're egging him on.

• 1:25:49Patrick Bet-David?

  The other side is, this is not a guy that's gonna sit around and just allow people to bully him. How do you feel about, how do you feel about Elon?

• 1:25:56Speaker 02

  I don't believe in going after people. I do believe in going after behaviors. And if some, something happens that is against the law, that needs to be constrained. Now, as far as Elon specifically, look, I've dealt with him from time to time when I was Secretary of Transportation. We had relatively normal interactions, and I would like to engage with him or anybody else on relatively normal terms. I think that with a lot of these Silicon Valley folks, they, and he's obviously a pretty special case, pretty unique guy, but a lot of these tech leaders, two different things were going on. One was that they were taking certain actions that created a policy concern, and you had a, kind of a typical tug-of-war like you get sometimes between government and industry, and sometimes you fight over that, the way I sometimes fought with the airlines, but

• 1:26:41Speaker 02

  sometimes I was working with them on other stuff. But then something else happened, which is, there was a sense that, there was a sense that we were, the Democrats were kind of poking them in the eye, like trying to have them be an enemy. And I think when that happened, that created something that was so much harder to handle than just a normal policy disagreement. It became this very emotional thing, and this highly politicized thing. I think a bit of that happened with him. So I just believe in government should call balls and strikes, and if somebody's doing something that is wrong or illegal, that needs to be stopped. And I don't care whether they give a lot of money to Republicans or Democrats or whatever, I just think we need certain standards in this country, on what's okay and what's not okay, and we should apply them to everybody.

• 1:27:25Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, it's gonna be interesting what happens. He's, whoever offended him, really offended him to the point where he is not going away. And I don't know how he became a Republican, by the way, because he was the biggest person on the left, everybody drove his car, everybody loved him, everybody...

• 1:27:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, he's the person most responsible for electric vehicles being in America.

• 1:27:45Patrick Bet-David?

  And all of a sudden, he became the enemy, and I don't even know what the tipping point was, but at some point, something happened, and he says, I'm going the other side with this. One of your challenges, I have to ask you this question because I can't do a podcast without asking you this. The 2023 East Palestine train derailment that happened. The biggest thing you'll hear about, they'll say 22 days to come visit. What would you have done differently?

• 1:28:09Speaker 02

  So I would have gone out earlier. Look, I was trying to respect protocol. Normally, a Secretary of Transportation does not go to a derailment site, whether it's non-fatal or fatal. Normally, secretaries don't do that because you're trying to stay out of the way of the NTSB. And in the early days after that disaster, it's funny, I gave like a dozen interviews, the national media weren't asking us about it. To be clear, as a department, we were responding right away. We had people on the ground on day one.

• 1:28:34Patrick Bet-David?

  Paying a visit, like going out, you would have gone there the next day?

• 1:28:36Speaker 02

  I would have gone there sooner. And I'll tell you, I'll tell you why, even though it was a little bit outside of protocol. The reason is, the people of East Palestine were victimized twice. First, they got hurt by the actual derailment. And if you talk to people there, I was talking to somebody actually recently who's there because she's trying to do some good work on railway safety reform. She said the cloud of black smoke when they decided to burn off the chemicals was so big, you couldn't tell whether it was coming from the sky or coming from the ground. And in the early days, nobody was really paying attention. And even J.D. Vance, who was the senator from Ohio, didn't go there for about 10 days. And I don't think that's because he's a bad guy. I'm just saying

• 1:29:18Speaker 02

  that's an indication of how it didn't get a lot of attention at first, and then the attention increased. And then they got victimized a second time by the information circus that started to surround them. You started to see certain players, especially online, who found that they could take advantage of the confusion and the pain of the people on the ground. And later on, the Associated Press kind of analyzed the different accounts that were tweeting, sometimes tweeting identical images and information about what was happening in East Palestine. Some were far left, some were far right, and some were linked to the Kremlin, all of them trying to take political advantage. And it became a circus out there. Rudy Giuliani was there for some reason. It was a circus atmosphere.

• 1:29:59Patrick Bet-David?

  I think it could have been eliminated. I think it could have been eliminated if you would have gone a little bit earlier.

• 1:30:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think I could have got ahead of that information issue. But here's the other thing.

• 1:30:07Patrick Bet-David?

  And by the way, with that, and so here's a pattern, and again, feel free to push back. There seems to be a lack of urgency of going to issues like that. One of them was you, the other one was Kamala Harris with the border. Have you been to the border? No, but I've also not been to Paris, that one comment she made. And I think, you know, she's one of the worst candidates in the left. I don't think she makes your party look good. My opinion. I can't say that about you. I can't say that about a couple. But I don't think she makes the party look good. I think she is, you know, there are certain people you want on stage talking more and more and more and more because it hurts the party? My opinion. This is your friend. I'm not, you don't need to agree. I'm just giving you my opinion. But I think there was a lack of urgency. There's issues with border. Take

• 1:30:49Patrick Bet-David?

  in your time. There's issues with, you know, take in your time. There's, there was a certain lack of urgency. You can, you can push back.

• 1:30:58Speaker 02

  There was a lot of urgency about the response. Again, we had people there within hours. I did not have a lot of urgency about a photo op. But what I, what I realized was that being there became very important for this information situation that was terrorizing people in the community because they didn't know who to believe. Now, the other thing I'll say, and this is one of many experiences that was borderline radicalizing, seeing how Washington works, is the same week that the president went there and gave out cheeseburgers, President Trump, I went out there and laid out railway safety reforms that I thought would make a difference. And I put them in three categories. Things we were working on, but I wanted to accelerate inside the department that we had the power to do. Things I thought industry should do better, and I was going to pressure them to do. And then

• 1:31:40Speaker 02

  the biggest category of all, things that Congress needed to do. And a bill was put together bipartisan, Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, J.D. Vance, then Democratic Senator from Ohio, a railway safety act that was doing a lot of the things that I was calling for. And some of the same people who, including congressional Republicans, who couldn't wait to try to exploit what happened in East Palestine for political purposes, to attack the administration, to attack me, they were nowhere to be found when I was trying to give votes for that railway safety act. And to this day, it has not passed because in today's Washington, by the way, Democrats are all for it. Some Republicans are for

• 1:32:19Speaker 02

  it, some are not. But I believe that if it came to a vote, it would pass overwhelmingly. But the railway industry lobby has so much power that they've been able to stop it.

• 1:32:30Patrick Bet-David?

  You said something when you said the...

• 1:32:32Speaker 02

  I'm talking about East Palestine.

• 1:32:34Patrick Bet-David?

  I know, I know. But in the, there was a comment, you said that, maybe that's a different story I'm thinking about that you made.

• 1:32:38Speaker 02

  I don't remember race being much of an issue in the derailment.

• 1:32:41Patrick Bet-David?

  Last question for you before we wrap up. Are you running 2028? I'm assuming you are.

• 1:32:46Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 1:32:46Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay. So do you follow the Calci markets?

• 1:32:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, once in a while.

• 1:32:52Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay. I think if I'm a betting man, I am counting on you running. Here's a question for you. Do you think America is ready for a gay president?

• 1:33:01Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, I ran for president once, and I wouldn't have done that if I didn't think the answer to that was yes.

• 1:33:05Patrick Bet-David?

  So in what areas do you think you need to win over for you to have a shot? Because there is a, so you have the Muslim vote that generally may not vote for a gay president. Then you have the African-American vote, which Stephen A. had, the one that I played earlier for you. What's going to be your strategy on getting some of those votes?

• 1:33:27Speaker 02

  Well, look, I would not have got reelected the way I did in South Bend without support from the black voters who knew me best. So part of the challenge that I was not able to do when I ran for president in 2020, and remember, I'm in South Carolina, I'm introducing myself for the first time, nobody's heard of me, they don't feel like I've done anything for them, and they're right. And I'm running against one of the most trusted people in the black community in the Democratic Party, was Joe Biden, right? Not to mention a number of black candidates. So pretty uphill then. But, you know, what I'd say is, you know, when I came out, that was before the general election in my reelection in South Bend. South Bend's not the country, it's one city. But I'll tell you, it's a pretty socially conservative

• 1:34:09Speaker 02

  place. And I got a higher vote the second time after I came out than I did the first time. So what I, what I believe as part of that, and also the fact that when I won the Iowa caucuses when I was running for president, you know, my margin of victory really came from some conservatives and independents crossing over to caucus with Democrats. What that tells me is, more than anything else, politics is, it isn't about you, it's about what people think you will do to help or hurt them. Most people voting, I'm convinced, vote based on how they think their lives are going to go different, better or worse. I think a lot of people voted for President Trump because they thought, even if they didn't like him, they thought he would make their lives better. I think one reason Democrats

• 1:34:53Speaker 02

  are doing well right now is because they've seen that he's made life more expensive with the tariffs and the war and everything. And they are giving Democrats another chance. I just think it is way less about the candidate, the politician, and way more about the voter. And I think anybody running for office should focus that way.

• 1:35:11Patrick Bet-David?

  It'll be interesting. It'll definitely be interesting. Pete, thank you so much for coming down.

• 1:35:15Speaker 02

  Appreciate it.

• 1:35:15Patrick Bet-David?

  Really enjoyed it.

• 1:35:16Speaker 02

  Likewise.

• 1:35:16Patrick Bet-David?

  Take care, everybody. Bye bye, bye bye.

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