"This Was A Bad Idea" – Andrew Callaghan’s WILD Coverage Of BLM Riots, COVID Protests & Border Chaos | PBD Podcast | Ep. 580

Patrick Bet-David sits down with Andrew Callaghan of Channel 5 to discuss citizen journalism, censorship, Trump, homelessness, Scientology, and why Gen Z is turning anti-establishment. 📺 ANDREW CALLAGHAN'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL: https://bit.ly/42ri6S1 🎥 ANDREW CALLAGHAN'S NEW DOCUMENTARY: https://bit.ly/4jKIL1T ------ 👕 THE LATEST VT MERCH: ⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3BZbD6l⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/3BZbD6l 🥤THE VT YETI COLLECTION: https://bit.ly/4iHfe8Q 📕 PBD'S BOOK "THE ACADEMY": ⁠⁠https://bit.ly/41rtEV4⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/41rtEV4 📰 VTNEWS. AI: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3OExClZ⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/3OExClZ 🎙️ FOLLOW THE PODCAST ON SPOTIFY: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4g57zR2⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4g57zR2 🎙️ FOLLOW THE PODCAST ON ITUNES: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4g1bXAh⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4g1bXAh 🎙️ FOLLOW THE PODCAST ON ALL PLATFORMS: ⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4eXQl6A⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4eXQl6A 📱 CONNECT ON MINNECT: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4ikyEkC⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4ikyEkC 👔 BET-DAVID CONSULTING: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3ZjWhB7⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/3ZjWhB7 🎓 VALUETAINMENT UNIVERSITY: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3BfA5Qw⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/3BfA5Qw 📺 JOIN THE CHANNEL: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4g5C6Or⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4g5C6Or 💬 TEXT US: Text “PODCAST” to 310-340-1132 to get the latest updates in real-time! 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.

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 0:55Speaker 02

  It's funny, in the moment I wasn't nervous, but watching this now, I'm nervous because I realized this is such a bad idea.

• 1:04Speaker 03

  Ever have a moment where you were actually scared?

• 1:07Speaker 02

  Oh, all the time.

• 1:08Speaker 03

  Where was that? What's the scariest one?

• 1:09Speaker 02

  I mean, personally, probably getting arrested by border patrol.

• 1:12Speaker 03

  So you didn't pay the $5,000 to the coyote? But you paid the $10,000 to the guy?

• 1:16Speaker 02

  I probably should pay the coyote back.

• 1:21Speaker 02

  I'm thinking, holy [bleep]. They stole this car. And then I look around, I look in the rearview mirror, and there's a cop trailing us. That was a classic example of just me taking it too far in the field with documentaries.

• 1:32Speaker 03

  Even when you put this up, cops never got a hold of you?

• 1:34Speaker 02

  No, they might after this podcast, though. I'm more scared of Scientology than any other subgroup in the world.

• 1:39Speaker 03

  Really? Do you have any interest? I have some friends I can introduce you to.

• 1:41Speaker 02

  I have an extreme interest in Scientology, but I also have an interest in being alive.

• 1:47Speaker 03

  You ever seen this?

• 1:48Speaker 02

  Is it a breakdown of it?

• 1:49Speaker 03

  Oh dude, I love the fact that you're seeing this for the first time.

• 1:52Speaker 02

  Let's make a Channel 5 video. I would do it.

• 1:54Speaker 03

  Oh, I would love to see it.

• 1:56Speaker 02

  A lot of people would be upset with that.

• 2:11Speaker 03

  Adam, what's your point? The future looks bright. My handshake is better than anything I ever signs, right here. You are a one of one?

• 2:20Speaker 04

  My son's right there.

• 2:21Speaker 03

  I don't think I've ever said this before.

• 2:28Speaker 03

  How you doing?

• 2:29Speaker 02

  I'm good, thanks for having me. It's great to be back in the country's greatest state.

• 2:32Speaker 03

  Greatest state?

• 2:33Speaker 02

  I think so.

• 2:34Speaker 03

  Really?

• 2:34Speaker 02

  Florida.

• 2:35Speaker 03

  And you're saying this living in LA?

• 2:36Speaker 02

  Yeah. I've only lived in LA for a year and a half, but I think I might have a Floridian future.

• 2:40Speaker 03

  You do? You may have it.

• 2:41Speaker 02

  I like it. I like Key Biscayne. I like Orlando, Tallahassee, Jacksonville.

• 2:45Speaker 03

  But not south?

• 2:46Speaker 02

  Ah, it's okay. I like Fort Lauderdale. Miami's a little bit overwhelming.

• 2:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, for me too. I don't know if I could do Miami. But the right place is Fort Lauderdale, in my opinion. Because if you want to go to Miami to do something you're 45 minutes away. You want to go to Palm Beach 45 minutes away. Orlando 3. You can have lifestyle here, water, all the good stuff that comes with it. But that's interesting. We'll talk about the LA stuff. But let me tell you how I feel about you. Okay? And it's very important because I have a 13-year-old son, okay? Patrick, who has your personality, okay? And he is extremely curious. He loves politics for whatever reason. He's a jujitsu guy. And I think you're one of the most important voices for the younger audience. And here's why.

• 3:33Speaker 03

  Because I think you're going through a journey, which you kind of, you know, you have your own opinions and they're strong. But also you're developing it as you're going through the process by actually going to the place. Instead of seeing what the news is telling us, you're like, nah, I want to go see what you guys are doing. And you've been to what? You've been to Miami Beach during COVID.

• 3:52Speaker 02

  Definitely.

• 3:53Speaker 03

  Old Block, Chicago.

• 3:54Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 3:54Speaker 03

  Philly Street, Kensington, the whole Fentanyl place that you went to. San Francisco, George Floyd protest in Minneapolis. CHAZ, which became this special thing during COVID and, you know, in Seattle. You swam across the Rio Grande.

• 4:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:09Speaker 03

  Phenomenal. Yeah, bad choice. Anti-vaccine protests, you went to Israel and Tel Aviv for the protest, cockfighting in Mexico. Connecticut, Kia, you, you were in the car with the Kia boys.

• 4:21Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 4:22Speaker 03

  While they're stealing, you have a mask on, you're going with them.

• 4:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:24Speaker 03

  And that's some crazy stuff you've done. And it's, it's one of those shows that if you watch one episode, guys, you could get stuck watching two hours worth of content. You do such a good job. And you don't put your opinion in it, you just ask, what do you think? What do you think? How do you feel about this? I just want to say, great job on what you've done with Channel 5. I think prior to that, it was what? All gas, no brakes, right?

• 4:46Speaker 02

  And I have some, some good news. I'm actually reacquiring All Gas No Brakes.

• 4:49Speaker 03

  Oh, no shit?

• 4:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, we use a quarter of the proceed from our new film, Dear Kelly, to make the acquisition of our, our first child, All Gas. So I'm gonna make that announcement probably in the coming days, but I'm gonna be in control of both Channel 5 and All Gas and the entire catalog.

• 5:01Speaker 03

  I love that. So, you know, for, for the audience that maybe doesn't know backstory, how did you say, I'm gonna go out there and do this? How did this happen?

• 5:08Speaker 02

  Well, I had a really great teacher back in the day. I had a journalism course in high school. I had a teacher named Cal Shaw, Calvin Shaw, and he just inspired me to, you know, pursue journalism as a career path. For me, the coolest thing about being a journalist is you get to be on the, in the front row seats for all the things that you want to witness in the world. Whether it be a political event, you get to dive into a subculture because everybody wants coverage, everybody wants to be heard. And if you can be a medium for them to get their message out there, um, you can go wherever you'd like.

• 5:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, and, and today's marketplace as a citizen journalist, it's almost you have more credibility than the actual journalist that's sitting in front of the camera speaking. You're like, no, I'm going to the street. I'm gonna go see what's exactly going on versus what's you, what you're seeing it out there. And I think that's, that's been a game changer, right?

• 5:52Speaker 02

  Definitely.

• 5:53Speaker 03

  A lot of people that have been doing this.

• 5:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:54Speaker 03

  Was there anybody else that was an inspiration for you? Cause are you a 97 baby?

• 5:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was born in 1997, four years before 9/11, right when the internet first came around, the first iPod.

• 6:03Speaker 03

  So who, who was that person? Like 97, YouTube starts in 03, 04, so when did you start consuming YouTube content?

• 6:11Speaker 02

  Oh, man, YouTube content? Well, probably as soon as I got on the internet. But I came on, online during like the chocolate reign, Charlie Bit My Finger, 4chan era. So the online sub- still being formed but as far as like the first citizen journalist that I was into I was mostly into comedians at first like Sasha Baron Cohen even early stuff like Kasim G was really good there was a really fringe show called Shams de Baron or brushstrokes with Norman Van Amie that was like a graffiti adjacent interview show where this guy would go to art shows dressed as like a breakdancer and kind of like a pretend to be a high art customer

• 6:41Speaker 03

  yeah

• 6:42Speaker 02

  you know high end art

• 6:42Speaker 03

  yeah yeah

• 6:43Speaker 02

  and some of that stuff was just hilarious to me I didn't put the journalism pieces together until I went to college for it and I had that professor

• 6:49Speaker 03

  interesting let me Sasha Baron Cohen to me is is a dude what he did with what was that HBO was it HBO or Max where he goes to a couple rallies he has this guy teaching him he's an Israeli he's gonna train him how to fight off gay men you know which one I'm talking about

• 7:05Speaker 02

  absolutely

• 7:06Speaker 03

  some of the stuff the guy did that he was able to convince he sits there he says uh so you know you know the what was it the Ali G one you know that's my favorite one when he says so I want to talk to you about you know euthanasia he says yes have you seen this one

• 7:20Speaker 02

  mm-hmm

• 7:21Speaker 03

  where he says yeah what about he says why is it always the youth in Asia he says no it's about euthanasia says but what I know but why is it not other people why is the target only youth in Asia this guy is freaking hilarious what he does

• 7:35Speaker 02

  my favorite part of that show is when he goes to a city council meeting meeting in a Kingman Arizona which is a very hardcore like biker town

• 7:41Speaker 03

  yeah

• 7:41Speaker 02

  and he proposes the construction of the largest mosque in North America and they're like screaming they're like we don't want any fucking terrorists here that to me was like the fact that he was able to keep a straight face during that that character performance

• 7:51Speaker 03

  gotta love it okay so you know for you with the places that you visit we got a lot of stuff that's going on right now that you know it's kind of timely with Luigi Mangiuni you know the protest for that and you know Tesla Elon and you know United there's a bunch of stuff that's going on but let's start off with something very important that you and I were talking about I think it's probably the most important issue that most people are not aware of and that is your favorite movie your favorite movie of all time is

• 8:17Speaker 02

  The Dark Knight the second film in the Christopher Nolan Batman series

• 8:20Speaker 03

  and and why is it the second one

• 8:21Speaker 02

  well everyone expects me to say that I'm into like really cutting edge documentaries like by Adam Curtis and Errol Morris and stuff like that but I actually just love Batman and I loved it so much When it first came out in 2012, I saw it five times in a row in Ocean City, New Jersey. Every matinee up for a week straight, just trying to really digest all of the different subplots and narratives.

• 8:40Speaker 03

  Which character though?

• 8:41Speaker 02

  I mean, there's the Joker, there's Commissioner Gordon, there's Christian Bale's Batman character was amazing. There's just so much. Batman Begins was a great segue to The Dark Knight. Dark Knight Rises didn't really do it for me, a little bit too political.

• 8:54Speaker 03

  Too political for you?

• 8:55Speaker 02

  Well, you know, Dark Knight Rises was like a metaphor for the Occupy Wall Street movement going too far. When they start, you know, when Bane is supposed to be like the commander of Antifa and they roll up in the New York Stock Exchange and start shooting people and stuff.

• 9:05Speaker 03

  Too divisive.

• 9:06Speaker 02

  Well, it was literally like, I feel like it was subsidized in some way by Wall Street.

• 9:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, so, so, but character wise, like who do you relate? Because for me, for a long this time, my podcast set had three characters behind me, Batman, Joker, and the Incredible Hulk. And it's like the three personalities I relate to, right? But which one was it where you said, I kind of feel like I'm this guy in this movie?

• 9:26Speaker 02

  Well, this is a hard one to answer because if I say I'm like the Joker, that makes me sound like I'm a dark sort of sinister.

• 9:31Speaker 03

  But I have a Joker side to me as well.

• 9:33Speaker 02

  You have a lot of vengeance in you where you get Joker brain?

• 9:35Speaker 03

  It's not though. It's when you see somebody that, you know, when you're sick and tired of being taken advantage of and you can't let go of the... You choose a wrong enemy can really destroy your life. And I think that's what happened to him. He couldn't let it go.

• 9:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:50Speaker 03

  But he's a hero to a lot of people as well. A lot of people followed his fire and the pain that he had.

• 9:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, I would say that I'm somewhere in between Batman and the Joker.

• 9:59Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 9:59Speaker 02

  But I think that the Joker is definitely a relatable character, more so in The Dark Knight than he was in the Joaquin Phoenix movie a couple of years ago, which I know you said you were not a fan of.

• 10:06Speaker 03

  Dude, I walked out 43 minutes into the movie, I go and I look at my wife. We had 20 people at the movie. Rob, were you with us or no when we watched Joker?

• 10:12Speaker 02

  No.

• 10:13Speaker 03

  So we're in a movie theater. I'm like, yeah, I'm out. Why? So this is divisive, man. You're pitting America against America. We don't need more of this. And it's interesting because that movie, what ends up happening at the end of that movie? He kills.

• 10:27Speaker 03

  He ends up killing, is it Robert De Niro? Who is that, like the Johnny Carson character of the movie?

• 10:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, he kills, he says, "How about another joke, Murray?", and he kills him. And that was after he killed a couple bankers on the subway.

• 10:37Speaker 03

  After he kills a couple bankers on the subway. And then that leads to one of the stories, the Luigi Mangione story.

• 10:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, wow.

• 10:45Speaker 03

  Here's a guy, you got Luigi Mangione, you look at his background, stud of a guy, student, good grades, everything's looking good. Minus the last 90 minutes he disappears, 90 days he disappears, where you can't really see what's happening then. The people he followed on X, I was one of them, he followed some 74 people who were libertarian type of guys that he followed. So it's not like he followed only right, or only left, or only middle. He was open-minded, is what he seemed like. And then all of a sudden, the rage gets there to want to take out the United Healthcare CEO. How much, when you hear that story, you went to the rally, by the way, right? What did you hear people saying? Like, what were you noticing that caused people to go rally for this guy?

• 11:27Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, if the manifesto was legitimate, the one that was leaked, that was published by an independent reporter named Ken Klippenstein, if that's real, it seemed like Luigi Mangione had a lot of grievances against the health insurance claim denial system. Particularly how United Healthcare had implemented AI to automatically deny people's healthcare claims. So people needed treatment, they were paying customers, and there was a machine that had one of the highest insurance claim denial rates of any other major health insurance company.

• 11:54Speaker 03

  32, 33%.

• 11:54Speaker 02

  Something that was ridiculously high.

• 11:56Speaker 03

  Can you pull up that number, Rob?

• 11:57Speaker 02

  People were trying to appeal the robot's decision, and it was almost impossible. You were stuck, you know, with someone on the phone for days. And a lot of times during that window where people were waiting to get care, they would pass away. So I'm not sure if he had someone in his family who was affected by the healthcare policies. But I felt like a lot of people in my generation are kind of fed up with things not changing. You know, the cost of living being ridiculously high, the wages being really low. And they felt like Luigi Mangione was something like a martyr who spoke for the rage of the collective public who feels like nothing is changing.

• 12:29Speaker 03

  So how should, what do you think is the level to go to? Because some people, what's the one girl lately that's been talking about Luigi Mangione in a very complimentary way? Tracy is a-

• 12:42Speaker 02

  Taylor Lorenz.

• 12:43Speaker 03

  Taylor Lorenz, have you heard about Taylor Lorenz?

• 12:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, she helped us whenever we lost all gas during a contractual dispute. She leaked all the information, which kind of like segwayed millions of fans to Channel 5. So shout out to her for that. I'm not sure what she was saying about Luigi, but I think that basically, probably what I'm assuming she was saying is that many people felt like he represented the call for direct action. And there's a generational shift to the idea that awareness culture and raising awareness doesn't actually create change. So there's a lot of people-

• 13:11Speaker 03

  Say that one more time.

• 13:11Speaker 02

  There's kind of an idea that has persisted over the course of the past couple of years, especially with the progressive left in the US, that raising awareness doesn't do much to actually create change. And so for someone to break out of the mold of like making people aware and actually take things a step further, made people feel some type of revolutionary spirit.

• 13:28Speaker 03

  Wow. So even if it means killing the CEO?

• 13:31Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm. Well, because their logic is, you know, how many people have died as a result of their healthcare claims being denied?

• 13:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:39Speaker 02

  Health insurance claims, you know?

• 13:40Speaker 03

  So to you, to somebody that is going through this and you're touching and you're talking to people and you're hearing the arguments at the protests, walking away, what argument got for you to say, ah, it's a little too much? And what argument was like, you know what? These guys may have a point in this area. Which one was it?

• 13:58Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, the reality is that regardless of like how I felt about the opinions, killing a bunch of CEOs is not going to change any of that infrastructure in the health insurance industry. You know what I mean? That's not like-

• 14:09Speaker 03

  For sure, I agree with that. See, that was my concern with the movie Joker.

• 14:14Speaker 03

  Say, here's your chance for me to be a hero.

• 14:16Speaker 02

  But the fact that it spurred conversations, I thought was interesting. I mean, just it was fascinating to see such an, you know, the instant valorization of Luigi that happened overnight. Everyone's like, oh my God, this guy's so hot, we love him, he's our hero. It was interesting because that was very much poisoned by the social media algorithms of the time. You know, where like Luigi Mangione becomes a hero to so many. And in general, I think that it did spark some good conversations, but I think you can acknowledge that while still saying it's not good to shoot people in the back of the head in the street.

• 14:43Speaker 03

  Rob, what's that clip, by the way, you just had? Because I think that's the one where she breaks down her argument, right? Can you play this clip? I think she does a good job explaining why she's for Louis Jimenez. And I don't think she's alone. I think there's a lot of people that are probably on her side as well. Go ahead, Rob.

• 14:58Speaker 05

  Hilarious to see these millionaire media pundits on TV clutching their pearls about someone standing a murderer when this is the United States of America, as if we don't lionize criminals, as if we don't have, you know, we don't stand murderers of all sorts and we give them Netflix shows. There's a huge disconnect between the narratives and angles mainstream media pushes and what the American public feels. And you see that in moments like this. And I can tell you, I saw the biggest audience growth that I've ever seen. Because people were like, oh, somebody, some journalist is actually speaking to the anger that we feel.

• 15:37Speaker 06

  The women who got her outside course in New York.

• 15:40Speaker 05

  So you're gonna see women especially that feel like, oh my God, right? Like, here's this man who's revolutionary, who's famous, who's handsome, who's young, who's smart. He's a person that seems like this morally good man, which is hard to find.

• 16:00Speaker 06

  Yeah, I just realized, women will literally date an assassin before they swipe right on me. That's where we are. I'm sure you wouldn't like to become...

• 16:09Speaker 03

  By the way, he's doing a pretty good job. I've been seeing his stuff last two weeks and I think he's actually doing it pretty good. I don't know who he is, but...

• 16:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think she broke it down quite well. In terms of like the romantic appeal as well.

• 16:17Speaker 03

  I mean, you hear the stories. Who are some of the people that ladies would be lined up in prison just to kind of see him? Was it Charles Manson? Who else was it, Rob? Like, people would be lined up outside...

• 16:25Speaker 04

  Ted Bundy. He had the Menendez brothers who killed their parents in California. One of them got married while they were behind bars.

• 16:32Speaker 02

  Wow, I mean, every serial killer has typically had like dozens, if not hundreds, of women writing them in prison.

• 16:37Speaker 03

  Why do you think that is?

• 16:38Speaker 02

  I don't know. I think people are just fascinated by the allure of it when people's names are in the headlines, like just someone's sort of profile being that large. Just fame attracts a certain kind of person regardless.

• 16:47Speaker 03

  And you know, she said something here, which is very interesting. And I was having this conversation with us, Rob. One day you and I, seven of us, were at Casa di Angelo. And you even said this once when you were been interviewed with Vice, I believe. And I don't know what the guy asked you. He said something about, did you ever catch yourself, you know, creating content that the audience was reacting to or something like that? I don't know what the context of it was. But you were kind of explaining that where she says, I've never had this many followers. That's not necessarily a good thing.

• 17:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:17Speaker 03

  Because who is following you? Who is agreeing with you? You know, who is saying, man, I like what you have to say. And all of a sudden, you're like, you're in the room with them. You're like, whoa, I don't relate to you guys. Where did you guys show up?

• 17:27Speaker 02

  Yeah. And that's the thing about social media nowadays in particular is like people kind of become, it's a very fine line to walk when you exist online, is doing things that you believe in and doing things that you know your fans will appreciate and kind of want you to do. Because once you pigeonhole yourself as a certain type of person, you know your audience quite well. You know that if you say a certain thing to the audience you've built up that they disagree with, that a lot of them are going to walk away. You know, for example, like there's a lot of people, both conservative and progressive, who might have opinions about different things like abortion, homelessness, drug, you know, gay marriage, Israel, Palestine, that they know that if they speak their opinion on it, they might lose a significant percentage of their audience. And so I think that keeps a lot of people going in line with what they see as like the majority consensus narrative, as opposed to finding a middle ground and having conversations. Because at the end of the day, everyone's trying to survive too.

• 18:10Speaker 02

  Like imagine if for someone like Alex Jones went on, you know, TV and said, I support, you know, a Palestinian two-state solution. A lot of people will be upset with that.

• 18:19Speaker 03

  But Alex has also not been the most agreeable guy in the Republican side that's, every president has had a little on the conservative side. Nobody outside of Trump has been very close to him. Most of the Republican presidents can't stand Alex Jones.

• 18:36Speaker 02

  Really?

• 18:37Speaker 03

  You think George Bush likes Alex Jones?

• 18:40Speaker 02

  What is George Bush doing nowadays?

• 18:42Speaker 03

  No, but seriously, do you think George Bush likes Alex Jones?

• 18:44Speaker 02

  I mean, I don't know if George Bush knows who Alex Jones is.

• 18:46Speaker 03

  No, I guarantee you, he knows who Alex Jones is. I guarantee you, he knows who Alex Jones is. Wasn't Alex like the first one that came out saying nine eleven is going to be happening and they're going to blame this and they're going to blame that? Isn't that, didn't he do something like that?

• 18:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, he was, he was warning of an impending terrorist attack. I think specifically on the World Trade Center, like years and years before it happened.

• 19:04Speaker 03

  Right.

• 19:04Speaker 02

  Bear in mind, that was after there were bombs detonated in the parking garage of the World Trade Center. I think it was in nineteen ninety-seven or ninety-nine.

• 19:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:10Speaker 02

  So it makes sense. It wasn't like he was conjuring up that image from scratch, but it makes sense as to why George W. Bush doesn't like Alex Jones.

• 19:16Speaker 03

  So what I guess what I'm trying to say is when you use the example of Alex Jones. I don't know if Republicans side with Alex Jones.

• 19:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:23Speaker 03

  Outside of Trump.

• 19:24Speaker 02

  I guess what I'm kind of trying to say is when you become a social media influencer on a different political side, on one political side of the aisle, it can disrupt your business and income if you decide to deviate from the norm of the consensus.

• 19:34Speaker 03

  So for you, when I watch you, you say, you know, I have leftists, but I'm not really, I don't want to be tied to a political side and I don't want to do this and that. But I'm, you know, I'm kind of this. As you're going through all of these places and, you know, you're living your life and you're developing your own opinion, you're only 28, you're growing.

• 19:50Speaker 02

  Twenty-seven.

• 19:51Speaker 03

  Twenty-seven, ninety-seven, I'm doing a math, so you're gonna be twenty-eight.

• 19:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:53Speaker 03

  When is you, what month are you born?

• 19:55Speaker 02

  I'm actually, I was born on April twenty-third, so it's coming right up.

• 19:57Speaker 03

  Well, that's right, we made a note of that, your birthday's coming up, that's right. But happy early birthday to you, by the way.

• 20:02Speaker 02

  Thank you, I appreciate it.

• 20:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, as you're going through this, you know, would you consider yourself more of an anti-establishment person?

• 20:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, anti-establishment, like socially progressive. You know, I think people should be able to do whatever they want to do, within reason. But yeah, socially progressive, anti-establishment, definitely don't find any identity in either of the major political parties today.

• 20:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, and, and to you and Alex Jones would be a guy that is, would you put him as an establishment guy or anti-establishment?

• 20:32Speaker 02

  Anti-establishment, for sure, hundred percent.

• 20:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I think, I think you and Alex are, obviously, he claims, he makes claims, he says things, you don't do that, you just go get the content and say, hey, what do you think, audience, make up your mind.

• 20:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:45Speaker 03

  This is up to you, right? You don't get up there and say, let me tell you what I think is gonna be going on, that's not your brand.

• 20:49Speaker 02

  Definitely.

• 20:50Speaker 03

  You're more going out there doing the journalism, but to me, he is, it's almost like whenever somebody isn't invited to the White House too often by president, they don't trust the guy fully.

• 21:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:01Speaker 03

  The only guy that's given this guy the opportunity to come in is Trump. All the other guys weren't comfortable with him. As a young guy yourself, how do you feel about Trump?

• 21:09Speaker 02

  I mean, in what sense?

• 21:11Speaker 03

  I mean, okay, so you're in the streets, you're talking to everybody. Did you think he was gonna win, or did you think, oh, there's no way this guy's gonna win?

• 21:19Speaker 02

  I definitely did not think that he was gonna win.

• 21:21Speaker 03

  Even till the last minute?

• 21:21Speaker 02

  I mean, I, I think I'm kind of in a bubble to a certain extent, I'm mostly in like progressive major cities, so I didn't even realize that he was gonna win. But then after the assassination attempt, I knew he would win. You know, specifically when he pumped his fist and said, "Fight," I was like, it's done. There's nothing the Democrats could possibly do to take the trophy away from this guy. But yeah, and I would say in general, like, I'm not really like a Trump guy. Mostly, I don't like the way that, um, that that political movement makes people treat each other. You know, just on like a day-to-day human, human level, like interpersonal interactions get really dark between the Trump crowd and their opposition.

• 21:53Speaker 03

  Who do you think created that?

• 21:55Speaker 02

  I just think that the showmanship of politics that's happened in the last, you know, probably six to eight years, it's kind of like two football teams, and it gets pretty gnarly out there. I don't think people were fighting in the streets during the Obama and Romney election. You know, I don't think there was like a Romney Proud Boys, you know?

• 22:10Speaker 03

  You don't think there was Romney Proud Boys? Okay, so, uh, let me ask you this. Do you think, uh, for a guy that's anti-establishment, do you view Romney as an establishment guy or an anti-establishment guy?

• 22:20Speaker 02

  I mean, I know he's part of the Utah establishment because he is a Mormon.

• 22:23Speaker 03

  Right.

• 22:24Speaker 02

  Which, which is, no disrespect to Mormons, they're actually really nice.

• 22:25Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 22:26Speaker 02

  Uh, but I, I think so, yeah, for sure. He's like an RNC guy.

• 22:28Speaker 03

  Did you do something with Mormons, or no?

• 22:30Speaker 02

  No, I want to.

• 22:31Speaker 03

  Oh, you got to.

• 22:32Speaker 02

  But it's kind of hard, because if you portray them negatively, it's kind of like Scientology. It's like, the Mormons have a lot of money to sue you.

• 22:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, but Scientology will come after you in different ways.

• 22:39Speaker 02

  I'm more scared of Scientology than any other subgroup in the world.

• 22:42Speaker 03

  Really?

• 22:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know about fair gaming, right? Their policy where they can like stalk you and harass you for years and use-

• 22:47Speaker 03

  Of course, I'm very familiar with that.

• 22:48Speaker 02

  Use CIA technology to make you think you're having a schizophrenic break.

• 22:51Speaker 03

  For sure. They are incredible at what they do. I mean, the guy's wife's been missing for how long? David Miscavige's wife's been missing for how many years now?

• 23:00Speaker 02

  Shirley.

• 23:02Speaker 03

  Is it Shelley or Shirley?

• 23:03Speaker 02

  Shelley. Yeah, and it was, there was like an LAPD checkup where they like reported that nothing was wrong. I was like, what do you mean? Did you talk to her? They're like, ah, we're not gonna say, but like, everything's fine. There's a guy in Los Angeles right now, he, he's one of those like, um, Second Amendment, First Amendment audit, like, uh, cop watcher guys.

• 23:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:19Speaker 02

  His name is, um, I think it's like Scientology, Stop Scientology LA. He stands outside of the Church of Scientology on Hollywood Boulevard every single day, live streaming for hours, physically like blocking the entryway, getting people to not go inside and get a free auditing session. So he's single-handedly shut down their recruitment operation in Hollywood. One man.

• 23:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, she's, she's apparently been missing since oh seven, okay? Since two thousand and seven, she's been missing.

• 23:43Speaker 02

  Well, I think we know what happened.

• 23:45Speaker 03

  What's that?

• 23:46Speaker 02

  She's dead.

• 23:48Speaker 03

  You think so?

• 23:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, dude.

• 23:50Speaker 03

  Leah Remini, did you ever see the Leah, uh, am I saying her last name correctly?

• 23:55Speaker 02

  Shelley Miscavige.

• 23:56Speaker 03

  No, no, Leah, uh, Remini.

• 23:58Speaker 02

  Remini.

• 23:59Speaker 03

  Do you know who she is?

• 24:00Speaker 02

  She did.

• 24:01Speaker 03

  No, no.

• 24:01Speaker 02

  Oh, she, oh, she, she made a, she was in Going Clear, right? That big Netflix documentary about Scientology?

• 24:05Speaker 03

  Yeah. And she went on and she says, well, one time I went and I said, so, how is Shelley doing? And everybody looked at me saying, hey, you don't ask a question like that. And it's like, well, I'm just asking a basic question. She's a friend of mine. You don't ask a question like that. And then she's like, that's when I realized, something's weird over here.

• 24:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:21Speaker 03

  So you think she's been dead in 07? So let me ask you, if that's the case, what is the protocol? What are they supposed to do? Is the government supposed to investigate? Or are we, when they're gonna sit there and say, Shelley Miscavige is 173 years old, been missing since 2007? Like, you know what I'm saying?

• 24:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, is she gonna get a funeral?

• 24:37Speaker 03

  When does it get to a point that the government says, I want to investigate what really happened to her? Has there ever been one, Rob? Has the US government or the PD ever investigated to find out what happened to her?

• 24:49Speaker 03

  You just went after Scientology.

• 24:50Speaker 02

  Another crazy fact, too, is that David Miscavige, their leader, has never done an interview. He's only ever been docu, wait, with who?

• 24:57Speaker 03

  One interview he did. You've never seen this?

• 24:59Speaker 02

  No, I gotta find it.

• 25:00Speaker 03

  You have to watch this. Are you, you're saying, you're, you're in the space, so maybe...

• 25:06Speaker 02

  I've only seen him portrayed by Scientology media.

• 25:09Speaker 03

  He's done one interview, his entire life. Yeah, I'm all right, with Ted Koppel. By the way, if you've never seen this...

• 25:15Speaker 02

  Okay, thank you for the fact check on this, 1992. So it's been over 30 years since his last appearance.

• 25:21Speaker 03

  And let me tell you, the way he interviews, the way this guy interviews with Ted Koppel, is unbelievable. And if you watch him, you know whose mannerisms you'll pick up? Okay, I want you to watch this and tell me what actor's mannerism do you pick up? Go ahead, Rob, just press play. Watch this. I feel perfectly comfortable with my life. I like my job, I'm happy with my family, I love my wife, uh, I'm healthy, uh, I'm, I'm... I'm perfectly content, that's why I'm asking you. What is it you can do for me?

• 25:49Speaker 04

  Well, number one, I would never try to talk you into that Scientology is for you. You see, that's the funny thing about this, is if

• 25:54Speaker 03

  Who's your man?

• 25:55Speaker 04

  I'm now gonna give a sales pitch to you on Scientology, believe me.

• 25:58Speaker 02

  Right?

• 25:58Speaker 04

  Scientology is valuable enough that it doesn't require any sales pitch. But let's look at it this way then, what Scientology does. If you look out across the world today,

• 26:06Speaker 03

  This is the only interview he's ever done since ninety-two.

• 26:08Speaker 04

  You could say that if you take a person who's healthy-

• 26:09Speaker 03

  We can posit. Whatever you do, watch this when you're out of here.

• 26:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, I can't wait.

• 26:13Speaker 03

  You will be blown away by this guy's interview. We've tried to have him on many, many times. I'd love to talk to the guy.

• 26:19Speaker 02

  Have you gotten to the stage of like him considering doing an interview?

• 26:22Speaker 03

  No, but we spoke to his camp because we've had a few people on. One guy who left the organization and we had a couple other guys. Uh, uh, Mike Rinder, who, uh, what is his relation to David Miscavige? He was one of the highest ranking guys there, right?

• 26:38Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 26:39Speaker 03

  The senior executive of the Church International and he ran the Sea Organization, which is like the place to be.

• 26:45Speaker 02

  Yes, that, for those unfamiliar, that's the top organization in the hierarchy of Scientology. And if you buy your way into the Sea Org, there's an annual cruise that you get to go on and that is sort of the top tier, I think. I don't know how much you have to spend to get into Sea Org, but once you're there, you're in. Whatever, and I don't know what that, what the benefits are of that.

• 27:02Speaker 03

  Do you have any interest? I have some friends I can introduce you to.

• 27:04Speaker 02

  I have an extreme interest in Scientology, but I also have an interest in being alive.

• 27:09Speaker 03

  So you don't want to be a member?

• 27:11Speaker 02

  No, I mean, holy shit, can you imagine having those guys against you?

• 27:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, but imagine if you have them with you.

• 27:17Speaker 02

  That's even worse, I'm gonna lose all credibility.

• 27:19Speaker 03

  It would be like Andrew Callaghan. Imagine if you were part of our organization and we had your back. You would never have to worry about anything. Does that sound appealing to you?

• 27:29Speaker 02

  It does, but what sounds more appealing is staying away from them or being a liaison between Scientology and the public. Like David Miscavige is like, you know what, Shelley's actually at my apartment here in Florida.

• 27:39Speaker 03

  Come meet her.

• 27:39Speaker 02

  Come meet her, do an interview, let's make a Channel 5 video. I would do it.

• 27:43Speaker 03

  Oh, I would love to see it.

• 27:44Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 27:45Speaker 03

  I'd love to see it. I'd love for you to go and just talk to it. You know what else would be interesting for you to do if, many, many years ago, when I was an atheist, I would go to churches in LA and I would just go on to talk to everybody about whatever they believed in. I'd go to LDS and I'm like, "So tell me about this, Gordon B. Hinckley. Tell me about this, you know, Joseph Smith. Tell me what happened with, you know, Vermont when he found these plates and he moved to, you know, these states and every time you guys moved, you got kicked out until you got to Utah. What happened there? Tell me about this." I would go to Scientology church and I would say, "What do you believe in? Who's God? Who's this? Whoever you believe in. Who do you believe in?" And it was always such an incredible method of communicating with you, which is so impressive. If you notice one thing about Scientologists, you know what they definitely can do?

• 28:30Speaker 03

  Better than mostly other religions? They're incredible communicators. John Travolta, Scientology.

• 28:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:36Speaker 03

  Tom Cruise, Scientology. If, just look at the way David Miscavige speaks. He speaks better than most preachers speak.

• 28:42Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 28:43Speaker 03

  The way they teach their guys, I had an office one time where seventy agents in the office were all Scientologists. I loved working with them.

• 28:51Speaker 02

  Yeah. They're kind of like toastmasters, intergalactic.

• 28:54Speaker 03

  On steroids and growth hormone and they hang out with Gary Brekka all the time, Tap of Health.

• 28:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:59Speaker 03

  Like, they're at that level.

• 29:00Speaker 02

  But one thing I know they do is whenever they do the auditing sessions and they ask you to, like, you know, recall a traumatic memory or something that's sitting in your subconscious. I know that they, they record that session so they can hold whatever you're saying as blackmail to leverage against you in the future. I do believe that Scientology is sort of a massive for-profit blackmail operation that has, it's deeply entrenched in Hollywood and the police departments of Southern California.

• 29:22Speaker 03

  Interesting.

• 29:22Speaker 02

  Because, I mean, what, what is the purpose? Because they're not atheists. They believe in an ascendant spiritual plane where the Thetan, Thetan, which is your soul, will live there and occupy its own planet after you pass away for eternity. Which sounds fantastic in theory, so I hope it's true. So if you're a Scientologist watching this, I hope you're right. But imagine you die, you get to heaven and you're a Christian and God is like, "Scientology was right." You're going to hell.

• 29:47Speaker 03

  So what are you? What do you believe in?

• 29:49Speaker 02

  Me? Man, I'm try- that's the thing, man. Like you said, I'm 27. I'm still trying to figure things out. Like, my opinions sort of change as I'm learning more stuff about life. I would like to think that, um, there's an afterlife. When I was a kid, my grandma told me that, you know, there was. And that all my great-grandparents were there, watching the Phillies games. And the Phillies always win in heaven. That sounded nice. I was like, oh, that sounds great, because they're losing right now. But as I'm getting older, man, I don't know. Sometimes I watch a, uh, a bug die, or a dog, you know, we just had to put down a puppy. Never mind. Anyways, uh, I think to myself, like, man, what, what makes me different from all these animals and, and wildlife that's passing away? Is there something special about the human spirit that allows us to occupy the kingdom of heaven? Are we more than animal?

• 30:35Speaker 03

  Well, listen, I don't know if you ever watched Charlie, uh, uh, All Dogs Go to Heaven? You ever saw the movie All Dogs Go to Heaven?

• 30:41Speaker 02

  Mm-mm.

• 30:41Speaker 03

  I believe all dogs go to heaven.

• 30:42Speaker 02

  So you think, are they-

• 30:43Speaker 03

  I don't know about cats, but I think all dogs go to heaven.

• 30:45Speaker 02

  But do they get their own specific heaven, or are they with us?

• 30:49Speaker 03

  I think they're hanging out with us. I can't imagine going to heaven and not seeing dogs.

• 30:52Speaker 02

  So, dogs are the only species in heaven, or all other domesticated pet breeds?

• 30:56Speaker 03

  I, I don't know. I, I mean, that's a, a, a pay grade that I'm, I'm having reached that level 32 or 33 to know if they're gonna be there or not. I'm kinda going based on faith. I'm hoping they're gonna be there, because we love animals. But i- i- if my dad's version of faith, to him, he is hoping animals don't go to heaven.

• 31:14Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 31:15Speaker 03

  Because my dad can't stand dogs.

• 31:17Speaker 02

  Because they poo everywhere?

• 31:18Speaker 03

  Because my dad is a clean freak, and God forbid an animal touches him. He loses his mind. Till today, his, his mother, my grandmother, had 12 cats, two dogs, two parrots, 12 birds, two snakes. All her kids loved dogs and animals, except for my dad. She had four kids. They all love animals. My dad can't stand them. So, my dad's depiction of heaven, it's just human beings.

• 31:41Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 31:42Speaker 03

  So mine, I'm hoping there's some animals, but we'll see. So you don't have a faith? You don't have something you believe in right now?

• 31:46Speaker 02

  No, I'd like to, though. I'd like to have some sort of ecstatic religious experience.

• 31:50Speaker 03

  Well, you know, you're 27. You're going through it. You know, when it, the, the way, the, the journey you're going on- is so awesome that I'm really curious to know who you are three years from now, six years from now, sincerely, I want to know where you're gonna be 10 years from now. You know, there's certain people you watch who are coming up and you're like, I think this guy's gonna change a lot of times and I can't wait to meet the next guy. You know, you know what I'm saying? Like, look, 10 years ago, Rogan was a Sanders guy. And then all of a sudden, wait, what? He was one of the reasons why Trump got elected. They hug each other at UFC as if they're best friends. What this? This is not the same guy. When I was on Rogan's podcast, he's like, I'll never have, you know. You know, he was thinking about it, but at one point he told Lex, I'll never have him on. He called me all this other stuff.

• 32:35Speaker 03

  What happened to him? What evolution did he go through? I think last week Rogan just said, I'm no longer drinking alcohol.

• 32:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:40Speaker 03

  Or two weeks ago.

• 32:41Speaker 02

  I stopped about 39 days ago.

• 32:43Speaker 03

  Really?

• 32:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:44Speaker 03

  How is it so far for you?

• 32:45Speaker 02

  It's just fantastic, man. Like, you know, I used to spend so much time socializing, it became like a second job. You know what I mean? I'm like, I get off work, I have my, it's, it felt like partying was a job. And I just have much more time on my hands, much more emotional regulation. That's why I'm putting out three videos a week now as opposed to one. Where I wake up at 5 o'clock in the morning, been running, get to work, edit, put something out.

• 33:04Speaker 03

  And you edit your own stuff out here?

• 33:05Speaker 02

  Yeah. One thing I wanted to ask you, wait, what'd you say?

• 33:08Speaker 03

  I hear you edit your own videos.

• 33:09Speaker 02

  I edit my own videos mostly, but I have a new team of editors. Shout out to Charlie, Nate, Gabe, and Ethan. Those are my first four editors, my first four Channel 5 employees of history.

• 33:19Speaker 03

  Charlie.

• 33:20Speaker 02

  Charlie Brady. He edited the video about West Virginia Greyhound racing.

• 33:23Speaker 03

  Oh, very cool.

• 33:24Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm. I wanted to ask you though, what religion was your father or is your father?

• 33:27Speaker 03

  Mom and dad, both Christians.

• 33:29Speaker 02

  And they're from?

• 33:30Speaker 03

  Iran.

• 33:31Speaker 02

  Iran?

• 33:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:32Speaker 02

  Is that the dominant religion there?

• 33:33Speaker 03

  No, but remember, my dad's a Syrian and my mother's Armenian. So I speak Armenian, I speak Aramaic, but I lived in Iran for almost 11 years, went to Germany, then we came here.

• 33:44Speaker 02

  Were Christians expelled under the Shah?

• 33:46Speaker 03

  Not under the Shah. The Shah was like open.

• 33:48Speaker 02

  Oh, I mean, Khomeini, sorry.

• 33:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, under Khomeini, you do not want to, um, you're walking on eggshells under Khomeini when you were Christian at my time. Uh, it was, it was uncomfortable, it was, um... You couldn't go out and be too public about it. See, there's a couple of things when, you know, you talk about Iran and you talk about America. And for me, when you grew up as a kid, you're like, whoa, why can't I be a Christian here? Why can't I be public about it? Why is this so judgmental and unsafe? And you gotta be careful and all this other stuff. And then you come to America, you're like, yeah, you're a Muslim? Great. Go to Detroit. Take over Detroit.

• 34:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:28Speaker 03

  Take over Dearborn. Do what you want to do. You want to be Scientologist? Go to LA. Build it up. Go to Tampa. No problem. You want to be a Mormon? Go to Utah. Do your thing. You want to be Jehovah? You want to... So it's like, you know, it allows you to do it. This country being a great one. But going back to it, establishment as the anti-establishment, we're talking about Trump. And your industry's talking to, you would be a what? Are you a Gen Z with the...

• 34:51Speaker 02

  I think I'm on like the very late Gen Z.

• 34:54Speaker 03

  Right.

• 34:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm like the last, I'm like the oldest Gen Z person.

• 34:57Speaker 03

  Wow, you're old.

• 34:58Speaker 02

  I'm like, you know how there's like the Aries-Taurus cusp, which is today?

• 35:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:01Speaker 02

  I'm like that for Gen Z. I'm not a millennial, but I'm definitely not Gen Alpha. Like I, when I was a kid, I was like playing with sticks and kicking rocks around.

• 35:08Speaker 03

  Still, so you experienced that?

• 35:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was, I had no, the internet came around when I was like seven or eight, at least home computers. So I was out there, you know what I mean, just doing my thing.

• 35:15Speaker 03

  The good old days.

• 35:16Speaker 02

  The good old days, you know, I wasn't watching people on livestream typing in like W chat or L chat. Like I was really experiencing.

• 35:21Speaker 03

  How old is Mr. Beast? Is he older than you?

• 35:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, Mr. Beast is, I would estimate 31.

• 35:26Speaker 03

  How old is Logan? Logan Paul's what, like 28? Oh shit, is he really 26? He's not 26.

• 35:31Speaker 02

  Oh, Mr. Beast was born in 1998. I gotta get my hustle on.

• 35:35Speaker 03

  Holy shit, he's 26? Dude, I thought he was 30. How old is Logan Paul? Can you pull that up? Rob, how old is, he's gotta be like 28-ish?

• 35:44Speaker 02

  Oh, I've got Logan Paul's about three years. Alright, we're good.

• 35:46Speaker 03

  And Jake is what, 29? Jake like a year younger?

• 35:51Speaker 04

  28.

• 35:52Speaker 03

  28. So this is like the 26, 27, 28, 30.

• 35:57Speaker 03

  I think the way you're going, if you, if you continue the way you're going, you'll be a 20 million plus sub-channel.

• 36:02Speaker 02

  I hope so.

• 36:02Speaker 03

  No, I, I think you will be. I think your only reason you won't is because you're gonna be your own enemy and get your, in your own way. If you kind of buckle down and stay disciplined, I think you're gonna get there. And I think

• 36:10Speaker 02

  Definitely.

• 36:11Speaker 03

  you'll be a very, very influential voice in citizen journalism in America.

• 36:15Speaker 02

  Thanks.

• 36:15Speaker 03

  And help a lot of us that maybe we don't have the time to go there will be like, okay, where's he at now? Oh shit, I didn't know that. That's what it looks like. But going back to it, you say you're not, you're not a Trump guy. But you said, when I asked you about Romney, somehow we went to Scientology.

• 36:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:28Speaker 03

  Right? Which was a very weird left turn we took.

• 36:30Speaker 02

  Well, I think it was the Mormon Scientology.

• 36:32Speaker 03

  Establishment Mormon.

• 36:33Speaker 02

  However, that happened.

• 36:34Speaker 03

  Yeah. But would you put him more, like, do you think Romney is more with President Bush? Or do you think Romney is more friends with Trump?

• 36:41Speaker 02

  I mean, as far as Trump, he's not part of the RNC establishment, but there's a new establishment forming around Trump. You know what I mean? Like, I think that he ran on the platform of being against the DNC establishment, who obviously are entrenched in like the mainstream press, late night television, most cable news networks, except for Fox, do, are kind of obedient to the Democratic Party. You saw that when they disenfranchised Bernie Sanders during the primaries in 2016.

• 37:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, for sure.

• 37:03Speaker 02

  So I think that, yeah, he was for a long time, but I think there's a new establishment forming.

• 37:07Speaker 03

  But, but, but, but hang on, forming, but prior to being established, they were anti-establishment before they got established?

• 37:14Speaker 02

  Well, there's multiple establishments is kind of the thing.

• 37:16Speaker 03

  I totally get it. But they, but establishment is what? Those who are the majority, they have the control, they're established, and this is our way? You have to come ask our permission to run, right? Kind of like, hey, I'm Obama, I'm Clinton, I'm this, you're gonna come through us.

• 37:31Speaker 02

  Right.

• 37:31Speaker 03

  Before you run, right?

• 37:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, Trump is totally an outsider, anti-establishment 2016.

• 37:34Speaker 03

  So check this out, this is kind of where I'm going with this, because I'm trying to see, you know, uh, uh, positioning. So Obama, would you put Obama as establishment or anti-establishment? For sure.

• 37:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:44Speaker 03

  Would you put Bush as establishment or anti? How about, uh, Clinton?

• 37:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:49Speaker 03

  How about Senior?

• 37:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:50Speaker 03

  How about Reagan?

• 37:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:52Speaker 03

  How about Carter?

• 37:54Speaker 02

  Every president ever before Trump was a part of a major political establishment.

• 37:57Speaker 03

  How about Kennedy?

• 37:59Speaker 02

  Kennedy, I believe, was assassinated by the government because he went against the agenda. What that agenda is, I'm not sure. I'm gonna have to do some research.

• 38:05Speaker 03

  So, I would say, the last two anti-establishment presidents we've had are Kennedy and Trump.

• 38:12Speaker 02

  I think that the Democratic Party wanted Trump to win in 2016, to run in 2016, because I think they believed that he had no chance. And I think that the Democrats actually propped him up. It's called the Pied Piper Strategy. I think they did that in 2016. Hillary in particular in the DNC camp, because they thought, this guy's ridiculous. After he went down the elevator, they were like, no way is the birth certificate guy gonna possibly win. So I think that they purposely propped up an anti-establishment candidate in 2016, anti-political establishment, not, you know, financial corporate establishment, with the idea that he'd be so easy to beat. But he was so good at speaking and, you know, having a genuine connection with the people and the way that he talked casually, off-script, pulling no punches, that people resonated with Trump a lot.

• 38:57Speaker 03

  Why do you think, even from the younger males, Gen Z's, why do you think there's such a big growth and attraction to Trump today, like never before? Because it's more your generation, your age, guys, 18 to 27-ish, 28-ish, they're seeing themselves like, man, I kinda want a guy like Trump instead of what's going on. Why do you think that number's increasing the most, that demo?

• 39:24Speaker 02

  I think it has a lot to do with the, sort of like-

• 39:26Speaker 03

  Can you pull that up, Rob? Because we've talked about this before a few-

• 39:28Speaker 02

  A lot of the culture war identity stuff being pushed a lot by the Democratic establishment is backfiring in a way that makes a lot of young white dudes feel like, why are people hating on me all the time? Feeling kinda disenfranchised. They're being told their voice isn't important and that it's not about what your ideas are, but it's about what you look like and what your background is. And if you're from a high place of privilege, then you shouldn't be able to have as much of a role in the conversation as someone else who's been given less in life. And so I think that, especially in academia, where you're seeing a lot of people kinda feel disillusioned with the discourse there, because it's so generally one-sided on college campuses. I think there's a lot of young people who are also seeing Trump go on podcasts like The Yvonne, Nelk Boys, this one, a lot of podcasts where you're talking, you're having a regular conversation that you wouldn't be able to have with most establishment candidates. And they think, alright, you know what?

• 40:12Speaker 02

  I might not love everything about this guy, but I'll tell you that he's able to have a conversation here, or with someone who's just willing to talk. And they feel like, you know, if he can, he could be my friend too.

• 40:22Speaker 00

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• 41:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's, that's, that's interesting. You said, "I'm kind of in a progressive bubble." Is what you said a few minutes ago, right?

• 41:25Speaker 02

  To a certain extent, yeah.

• 41:25Speaker 03

  Okay, so in the progressive bubble that you're in, what, what is that progressive bubble believe in?

• 41:33Speaker 02

  Well, in the progressive bubble that I'm in, which would be like more leftist oriented, late Gen Z years, there's not much Kamala Harris or Biden support. You know, I think that's the big thing that conservatives missed. Is that nobody in my age demographic was excited about the Harris campaign, except for a select few. Most people I know didn't even vote for the Democrats, who would be considered very anti-conservative. Because they felt like that we didn't have a candidate that would speak for the interest of the more progressive youth. And I think that we still don't. And that's why I kind of look for 2028 as the great equalizer year. Because after the Harris loss, I think the DNC establishment is going to be in obscurity. And I think that with Trump taking over the conservative side, the traditional Bush RNC is also not as important.

• 42:15Speaker 02

  So I think we're going to have fresh primaries in four years with, you know, great voices from both sides of the aisle. And I think that's going to be one of the most fair and free elections ever.

• 42:24Speaker 03

  Okay, so what I want to hear is values.

• 42:28Speaker 03

  Progressive bubble.

• 42:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:29Speaker 03

  What are the values you believe in, your top three values? Socially progressive.

• 42:34Speaker 02

  Probably socially progressive, I believe in like the complete legalization of gay marriage.

• 42:38Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 42:39Speaker 02

  Pretty pro-choice. I think that the richest people in the country should be taxed a little bit more. And I think that the working-class people should be paid a little bit more as well. I think that there's a wide gap that you're seeing, especially when you have the richest cities in the country have the most inequality. You have a state or a city like Los Angeles, which has the highest corporate tax rate and the highest homelessness rate in the country. So the fact that these two things are existing in tandem shows that the money from taxation is not being spent effectively. People are not able to afford to live a normal life. I think that even thirty or forty years ago, it was normal to get a college degree, go straight into the workforce in the white-collar sector and be able to buy a home for yourself and start a family at thirty.

• 43:23Speaker 02

  Most people that I know are so overwhelmed by student debt at this point in their life and that they can't even think about anything except for clearing that debt by any means necessary. People are so overworked, they have no time to pursue their creative interests. There's no politician they feel like speaks for the working people of the country. And I think that I'm more in line with that way of thinking. You know, but I'm not like, I don't sit around hating on Trump or getting upset about that because I think all this stuff is just a symptom of the dysfunction in our country that at some point will work itself out if we can come together.

• 43:51Speaker 03

  Would you say you're a pretty reasonable guy?

• 43:54Speaker 02

  I think so, yeah.

• 43:55Speaker 03

  Okay. I think so as well. You give me the vibes to, do you, the conversation of allowing men to compete in women's sports, how do you as a young Gen Z progressive view that argument?

• 44:08Speaker 02

  I mean, I just wonder how much of like an issue that really is. It seems like the kind of thing that is really like small, that doesn't affect that many people's lives. It's being blown out of proportion by different news organizations to distract people from the real, you know, growing income inequality that's happening. I mean, evidently if there's like a buff person who identifies as non-binary, who is competing in women's sports, but they were born as biologically male. Obviously, that's an unfair situation.

• 44:32Speaker 03

  Okay, so you say that.

• 44:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean.

• 44:34Speaker 03

  By the way, that's logic to us as well, right? But when, again, to me, this is where a couple of things are happening. That's one thing that I'm curious to know your thoughts. So when I look at the Democratic Party. And their approval rating was higher pre, what do you want to call it? Pre Obama, it was higher and even let's just say during Obama as well was higher. To where it's at today, I don't know if you've seen the rating or not, where they're at. Have you seen that lately, what they've been reporting?

• 45:03Speaker 02

  I didn't even know they did approval ratings for people who aren't in power.

• 45:06Speaker 03

  Oh, you know, you gotta see this, it's done by CNN, which is the one I trust the most because CNN polls Democrats.

• 45:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, they do not, they want that number to be as high as possible.

• 45:14Speaker 03

  That's exactly, so Fox did it, I would be like, yeah.

• 45:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, Fox is like, turns out everyone's.

• 45:19Speaker 03

  That's right. Rob, do you have the video where the guy, Hinton, what's his name, Hinton? Harry, yes. Harry, that does it, he does a very good job, we have that clip. But when you watch this, you know, you ask yourself, okay, why is that not idea not as popular as it used to be? What happened all of a sudden, right? The numbers are staggering on how much it's dropped.

• 45:42Speaker 02

  What's it at now, like what, thirty, thirty-five percent?

• 45:45Speaker 03

  No.

• 45:45Speaker 02

  Less than that.

• 45:46Speaker 03

  You gotta see this. Rob, did you find it or? I'm looking for the video now, I did find the article that you. No, it's a video, what's the guy's name? Harry Enton, E-N, yeah.

• 45:59Speaker 03

  Okay, so if you go on X, just type in Enton Democratic rating, there you go, is that the most recent one? Uh, this is from February. There is another one that he did that's more recent. November, March.

• 46:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, but.

• 46:14Speaker 03

  March 12th. Okay, go with that one. Watch this. No, that's old, hold on, sorry.

• 46:20Speaker 02

  While he finds it, I just want to say, I think that the, the trans women in sports thing is like a classic divide and conquer, overblown culture war distraction, divide the public thing. Because like realistically, they know that what they're doing now by creating that issue is that it's taking precedence over things that are far more important that affect millions and millions of people. And they know that there's going to be a push on the progressive side to vehemently defend that, you know, because that's what they do. And there's going to be a conservative push to make that the main issue. And so it's creating this like matrix, it's almost like filibustering public conversation.

• 46:53Speaker 03

  But, but also, let's say you're right and let's give credence to 20% of the argument of that being a part. Part of it. Let's let's put that there that I think there's a part of it that the opposing sides like, hey, show this clip. Look at what this happened. So I get that. I get a little bit of that, you know, uh, that's happening where they're showing. Okay. Like, hey, look at what's going on with, you know, the economy, stock market drop. New job reports came up. It's higher than expected. No, no, don't show this report CNN.

• 47:21Speaker 03

  Show what's going on with the stock market. You're in tariffs, right? I get that part. However, maybe some of it is also the bad policies cost a lot of people to leave the Democratic Party.

• 47:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:33Speaker 03

  More than ever before. Rob, if you want to play this clip, watch this one here. This is how long ago, Rob?

• 47:37Speaker 04

  This is March, uh, March seventeenth, March seventeenth.

• 47:42Speaker 03

  There's, there's an updated one, but let's just watch it. That's close enough. Yeah. They are all I have to say. Democrats, call your office. You know where March Madness times? Terrible, terrible, terrible to quote the great Charles Barkley. View Democratic Party favorably. CNN SRS, look at this. Twenty-nine percent. NBC News, you want to go lower than that? How about twenty-seven percent? Both are record lows. The low is going back to nineteen ninety-two in CNN polling. The low is going back on record to nineteen ninety in NBC News polling. CNN, the guy to the left is uncomfortable.

• 48:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, because he can't match the guy's energy on the right. Guy's going full like sports announcer mode.

• 48:20Speaker 03

  All I can say is I'm a big fan of the oldies, so I'm going to quote Trump. How low can you go?

• 48:26Speaker 04

  Nice. Well done. Nice.

• 48:29Speaker 04

  Nice.

• 48:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, what about congressional Democrats?

• 48:31Speaker 04

  Why does he look so uncomfortable?

• 48:32Speaker 03

  You think these numbers are low? How about this one? Holy Toledo. Voters' views of the Democrats in Congress among all voters disapprove. Sixty-eight percent. And look at the approved number, just twenty-one percent, even lower than the Democratic Party.

• 48:47Speaker 04

  Look at Bernie Sanders Trump crossover. It looks like the dad from Modern Family.

• 48:52Speaker 03

  So, if you're positive, watch this one. Watch this Dems on Dems. Go. Keep playing. Democratic voters feel, get this, the plurality of Democratic voters disapprove of Democrats in Congress at forty-nine percent and just forty percent approve. So, data is data, right? Data is data. So, when you look at that, this is not good. So, then the question becomes, how did you guys get here? What ideas were bad ideas? You said something very interesting and where you're like, you're for gay marriage.

• 49:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:22Speaker 03

  And then you said you're for higher taxes for the guys that are making more money.

• 49:26Speaker 02

  Not, okay, just to clarify, I'm talking about like the genuine like billionaires. Like, for example, California, the tax system is ridiculous.

• 49:34Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 49:34Speaker 02

  Like, I got, they took, I think, forty-five percent of my income in total when you add up state and federal taxes last year, and I would have used that money to hire more people. So, the logic is like, we're gonna take this money and distribute it to those who need it, but I actually would have used that money to hire like five more of my friends and pumped it back into the economy. I don't believe that entrepreneurs who are, entrepreneurs who are like around that like million, two million to ten million level should even be taxed. But I'm talking about when people are hoarding such absurd amounts of wealth, multi-billion dollars, I just think that it should, to a certain extent, be distributed, not necessarily in the way of like the government seizes all of their assets and gives it to the poorest people, but there has to be a way to bridge the extreme divide and income inequality in the country.

• 50:12Speaker 03

  Okay, so check this out. You just answered a very important question that took me a while to figure out. When I was making thirty, forty, fifty thousand dollars, I'm like, dude, these rich people are greedy. You know, they suck. They should pay more taxes. It's not fair. Then, when I started working my ass off and I build a business and the money came in, I'm like, dude, if I had the money, I would hire five more people right now. If I had that money, I would hire ten more people right now, right? You're thinking about it from, and you literally would. And if you don't, you go buy a car, you're creating jobs. If you don't, you put in a bank, the bank's gonna lend it to somebody. If you don't, you put in a mutual fund that company is working, someone's getting paid. No matter where the money flows, it's creating jobs, right? So, the question... On raising of the taxes. Do you think you're more capable of doing good with your money or the government can?

• 50:56Speaker 02

  Uh, that's a really, really good question in terms of like personal financial liberty. I mean, as far, I mean, as far as that question goes, obviously you would be better at spending your own money than the government if you're managing a business. But the fact is that once you get past a certain threshold of wealth, a lot of people are just hoarding it and not pumping it back into the economy. Like back, back in the day with Reagan when he installed supply side economics. The idea was, oh my God, it's going to stimulate the economy so much if we give no taxes to billionaires who run corporations. But what happened is they ended up just kind of hoarding the money, buying more estates, jets, vacations, living a lavish lifestyle because there's a human tendency to just want to be as much of a baller as possible when you have a billion dollars. It's just how people are. Everybody wants to flex, get the nicest car, get a helicopter, do things that you can't do, things that you dreamed of when you were playing like Grand Theft Auto as a child.

• 51:39Speaker 03

  So, but go there, go there with that. Let's say you're the greedy billionaire. Okay? What's a greedy billionaire buy?

• 51:46Speaker 02

  Oh damn. You're asking me like, what would I buy if I was a greedy billionaire?

• 51:49Speaker 03

  What network do you want to do? You want to do a hundred million, one new billion, or you want to stick to billionaires?

• 51:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, let's stick to people who are making, you know, multi-billion dollars every, every year.

• 51:58Speaker 03

  How about let's say billionaires enough? What does a rich billionaire buy? What things do they buy?

• 52:02Speaker 02

  Um, well, what I, what, first thing that comes to mind for me is a, a pool, like an infinity pool that bleeds directly into the Pacific Ocean.

• 52:09Speaker 03

  Beautiful.

• 52:09Speaker 02

  A fleet of jet skis for all of my friends.

• 52:12Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 52:12Speaker 02

  Uh, so we can kind of travel.

• 52:13Speaker 03

  I love it, keep going, bro.

• 52:15Speaker 02

  Corporate real estate on the water so we can jet ski from the house to work.

• 52:21Speaker 03

  I love it. This is like Larry Ellison. You ever seen Larry Ellison's headquarters?

• 52:25Speaker 02

  No, I haven't.

• 52:25Speaker 03

  So this guy's from Oracle. This, this is the kind of shit that you're talking about. Tap in Larry Ellison, headquarter, parks his yacht. Parks his yacht, something like that. And then go to images if you could. Uh, so this guy builds his headquarters. Oracle, um, put in Oracle, Oracle Ellison headquarters, um.

• 52:49Speaker 03

  Is ship, maybe type in ship, type in if that comes, maybe go to Oracle's headquarters. Okay, just take out, take out uh uh the yacht. This guy built his headquarters, I don't know which one this is. He builds a place to put his yacht, I'll find it, I'll text it to you here in a minute. He literally parks his boat in front of property that he has, whether it's Intel or Oracle, it's one of the two. But okay, what else, so far we got pool, infinity pool on the water, at the Pacific, you know, ocean. You got jet skis and then you have a corporate real estate on the water to jet ski from office to the house.

• 53:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, personal trainer, private chef, nutritionist.

• 53:30Speaker 03

  Private chef.

• 53:31Speaker 02

  Dermatologist to live on scene to help me with my skin problems.

• 53:34Speaker 03

  Dermatologist love it, we need these dermatologists, who else?

• 53:37Speaker 02

  Um, I can't even think about, I just know that once you pass a certain amount of money, it becomes a competition as to who can get the most.

• 53:42Speaker 03

  Give me more, bro, go greedy, what else is this billionaire gonna buy? I want more, get creative.

• 53:47Speaker 02

  Okay, well, I'm trying to think, what kind of billionaire, am I a tech billionaire or am I like a Saudi royal family member?

• 53:51Speaker 03

  Give me both of them.

• 53:52Speaker 02

  Okay, I can't even think of anything else.

• 53:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, but okay, let's just say, private jet, is that fair?

• 53:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:58Speaker 03

  You for sure have a private jet, let's just say yacht, do you have a vacation home?

• 54:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, in Santa Fe.

• 54:03Speaker 03

  In Santa Fe?

• 54:04Speaker 02

  Oh, no, that's where Jeffrey Epstein had it, I gotta pick somewhere else, I gotta pick, I scratched that, I scratched that. I have a vacation home, um, on the west coast of Jamaica, Westmoreland Parish.

• 54:13Speaker 03

  Holy shit, good taste.

• 54:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:15Speaker 03

  What else, what else do you do to hoard the money, where do you hoard your money?

• 54:18Speaker 02

  Um, you could just sit on it.

• 54:19Speaker 03

  What do you, but what do you sit on, like, what bank?

• 54:21Speaker 02

  Well, what a lot of billionaires do is they use their money to kind of like use the legal system, civil court in particular, to bully people who talk badly about them.

• 54:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, but that's like.

• 54:30Speaker 02

  It's happening to me right now.

• 54:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, I get that part, but I'm saying what do they buy, but let's even say that, so that means they hire a PR firm and lawyers, right? So they hire PR firms and lawyers, okay, do they buy expensive watches?

• 54:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think so, I mean, I I personally wouldn't buy a watch.

• 54:46Speaker 03

  But they probably do it.

• 54:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:47Speaker 03

  Crazy, I don't know why they do this kind of stuff. What else, what else do these guys?

• 54:50Speaker 02

  Now I feel like, now I feel like I'm being set up right now, where does this end?

• 54:54Speaker 03

  This is where I'm going with this.

• 54:55Speaker 02

  If there's something that I don't know about billionaires, I want you to tell me.

• 54:58Speaker 03

  I'll tell you what it is, here's how I process it. So if they have an infinity pool, does it have to be maintained?

• 55:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, but okay, I see what you're saying. There is pool staff that needs to make sure the water goes is not there's not too much chlorine going into the ocean.

• 55:13Speaker 03

  Do they have to be maintained though? Somebody has to take care of it on a weekly basis to build an infinity pool. Rob, how much, put average price of building an infinity pool in Malibu. Okay, let's just average price of infinity pool building in Malibu, California. Yeah, California. Let's just say what it says, price point, 250, 500, 200, I don't know what the number's gonna be. Give us a price point on infinity pool estimated cost 65 to 150,000.

• 55:39Speaker 02

  That's actually a lot less expensive than I thought it would be.

• 55:41Speaker 03

  And watch what it says, in the luxury infinity pool, 150 can exceed to 500,000. That's a lot of jobs that people are gonna get paid. Okay. If you buy jet skis, let's say it's 25,000 for a good jet ski.

• 55:52Speaker 02

  That's a lot. But you're right, for a good jet ski.

• 55:54Speaker 03

  You're creating a job.

• 55:55Speaker 02

  And you need to get six to eight so that you and your core employees can commute to work together like some kind of fleet.

• 56:00Speaker 03

  That's right. We gotta do it the right way. You can't screw around with this one here. Headquarters, corporate headquarters underwater.

• 56:04Speaker 02

  Expensive.

• 56:05Speaker 03

  Construction workers, plumbers, electrician, it's a lot of jobs being created, right? If you have a private, personal trainer, that's a job you're creating.

• 56:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:13Speaker 03

  If you have a chef, that's a job you're creating.

• 56:15Speaker 02

  Okay, I get, I get the point you're trying to make. People should be able to get nice things for themselves if they work super hard.

• 56:20Speaker 03

  But that's not.

• 56:21Speaker 02

  I'm not the kind of guy who's like, if you work hard, you have to, you should give all your money to people who are, you know, are on the lower income. I'm just saying that like the, the specific tax rate should be a little bit higher. Not ridiculously higher, but higher enough to where they can have substantial social welfare programs.

• 56:34Speaker 03

  My biggest challenge with that is, is even the greediest of the greediest who goes and is like flaunting a big ass platinum gold chain that they're putting around their neck that they bought for whatever that somebody took three months to build, no matter what it is, the money is flowing. Even if they put the money in the bank and they're sitting on it, the bank is lending it back to somebody. So money's always working. Chase is not gonna let money stay in the bank.

• 56:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:58Speaker 03

  The moment you put money in Chase, guess what Chase is doing? Chase is lending it to somebody ASAP. They don't want the money staying in the bank. They're not making money like that. So no matter what you do, the basis of this question for me goes, who's gonna do better with the money? Giving it to the government because you said what, right after when I said taxes? You said in California, what did you say? Let me go back to it. You said in California, you know, the taxes that you're paying forty-five percent. But then at the same time, taxes are not being used effectively.

• 57:26Speaker 02

  Right.

• 57:27Speaker 03

  How much of that are we going through right now?

• 57:29Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, on the inverse, what do you think will solve the problem of the extreme poverty and wealth inequality in the country?

• 57:36Speaker 03

  Well, let's see, California's been trying to do it.

• 57:38Speaker 02

  Well, the thing is, they tried. That's the thing is, everyone sees Gavin Newsom as like an enabler for all these destructive democratic policies. But he still makes concessions to conservatives who are like bullying him into not carrying it out. For example, let's take the Tenderloin in San Francisco, which is the biggest, is still the biggest open-air drug zone in the city. Been that way for decades. He, you know, obviously during the Biden administration and when Newsom was in control, he still is. It was a crazy scene out there. There was people smoking fentanyl in the streets, people defecating and sleeping in the streets.

• 58:06Speaker 03

  It's in San Francisco.

• 58:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, in this particular area.

• 58:08Speaker 03

  Is there a clip you want him to show?

• 58:10Speaker 02

  No, I think we can just overlay it or something. But I mean, in general, Governor Newsom was being kind of like shit on for letting that happen. But the reality is, and people on the ground know this, there was supposed to be a safe injection site that was two blocks long, two blocks wide, that was supposed to be maintained by the state and the city. So it made it so people wouldn't be able to use heroin, fentanyl, and meth on the streets. They would have to go to a controlled environment where the public and children and people who were living in that community wouldn't have to interact with them and they could have the access to the services they need. At the last minute, Governor Newsom didn't build it because he was too scared of being, getting another media smear campaign and being made to seem like someone who lets people do drugs in the open, but he still does drugs in the open.

• 58:50Speaker 02

  So with the democratic establishment in California, there's a lot of hypocrisy and there's a lot of, we don't know where the money's going. There's not much transparency as far as what's happening with all these taxes that are being taken away from people who worked hard to make that money. We do know that a trillion dollars of wealth have left California in the past four years. We do know that cities like San Francisco and LA that are still generating a ton of money. Much of that money isn't even being given pumped back into the city because so many workers have gone remote. There's a lot of people working in California that decide not to live there because they can do their work for tech companies remotely elsewhere.

• 59:21Speaker 03

  For Nevada.

• 59:22Speaker 02

  In a more affordable state like Montana.

• 59:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's right.

• 59:24Speaker 02

  You know, so I think that when you look at progressive policies and you look at poverty and it's not changing. And then you look at, you know, the tax rate going up and down, it can easy, it can, it can be easy to say, you know what? Nothing's ever going to change. And that's why there's so much like a sense of apathy and nihilism when it comes, when it comes to the billionaire thing. That's why people are saying, oh, billionaires are the worst. Kill them all like on the internet. Because they've seen nothing change and they're seeing, okay, the cost of living is high. There's homeless people everywhere. There's so much poverty, yet there's this class of people who are unaffected by it. So the question is then, if we don't raise the taxes, what can be done to change that situation on the ground?

• 59:57Speaker 03

  The taxes?

• 59:58Speaker 02

  No, I mean, the situation with inequality and poverty.

• 1:00:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, but that's, that's not how it works though, because to me, here's how it works. Okay, let's just say you got three sons and they're all 25 years old, okay? And you're 60 years old at this time. Could you be, yeah, 60, yeah, 25, 60, yeah. Let's just say you're 65 years old, you got three sons, 25, 26, 27. They're all out of college. You give each of them a hundred thousand dollars. First one to give a hundred thousand dollars, he goes to Singapore. He parties, he comes back, has a lot of stories, says that I tried an opportunity, I met with this businessman in Singapore, didn't work out. I need another quarter million dollars. I'm up to something big. Second son comes up, you give him a hundred thousand dollars. He takes a hundred thousand dollars, go buys a small condo, gets a nice little job, makes 120 grand a year.

• 1:00:42Speaker 03

  Doesn't need any money from you anymore. He's doing okay. He's happy. He's got a girlfriend. They're pretty serious. Third one to give a hundred thousand dollars, takes a hundred thousand dollars, starts a little real estate shop, turns it into 3.2 million dollars. Okay, two years later. Now they're all two years older. The first son to give a hundred thousand went to Singapore, comes back, says he wants a quarter. The second wants a quarter, the third one wants a quarter. Which of those three? Are you more comfortable giving more money to knowing you're gonna get a rate or a tune on your money? The first, the second, or the third?

• 1:01:12Speaker 02

  Probably the first, right?

• 1:01:13Speaker 03

  What, the first?

• 1:01:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:14Speaker 03

  The guy that went to Singapore?

• 1:01:15Speaker 02

  Oh, no, not that guy, my bad. I kinda got lost in the metaphor here, cuz I was just thinking about Singapore.

• 1:01:19Speaker 03

  The second guy is a stable guy, good citizen, gets a job.

• 1:01:21Speaker 02

  Number two.

• 1:01:22Speaker 03

  Or the third one that starts a business and makes the money grow for you.

• 1:01:25Speaker 02

  I mean, probably the three, three, cuz it would be a bigger investment. But I mean, aside from a business standpoint, like, if, we obviously, you recognize that there's a big problem with homelessness, poverty, unaffordability.

• 1:01:34Speaker 03

  But why do you think that is, though?

• 1:01:36Speaker 02

  What do you think?

• 1:01:37Speaker 03

  I'm asking you. You're in the streets. Why do you think that is?

• 1:01:39Speaker 02

  I mean, I would just assume that because the social safety net is so small here, and there's such, such little being provided for people in terms of mental health services, the broken veterans administration, so many different things, unaffordability, like, there's just not enough resources to set up people who are, to help people who are at rock bottom here.

• 1:01:53Speaker 03

  You think we haven't given enough money? So, to me, when you ask the question, if we don't raise the taxes, then how are we gonna fix this? To me, the question becomes, the last thirty times we agreed to give you more money, you wasted it. Why should we trust you to give you more money? Because if I give money to Amazon, if I give money in a company like Nvidia, if I give money to Tesla, if I give money to Ford or Disney, and I buy the stock, and I'm like a believer, here's what's gonna be happening. I kinda can track publicly, there's accountability, there's accounting, there's quarterly earnings, there's calls to get on. If I give more money to, to the government, what is the quarterly earnings? Where's the accountability?

• 1:02:31Speaker 02

  No, I totally agree with you. I agree with you.

• 1:02:33Speaker 03

  Why am I giving money to that? There's no way logically, one would give money to a company or a business that I don't get to see what you did with my money. There's no tracking to it.

• 1:02:41Speaker 02

  I, I agree. I, I do think that, like, we can both agree that, like, you know, throwing money at things doesn't always fix the problem. But you've been around for longer than me. Like, if it's not that, if it's not funding programs to provide for people who are down and out, like, what, what do we do? Cuz the problem is already here. Like, it's not in theory. Like, there's a hundred thousand people who are homeless in LA alone, and, and San Francisco combined. So it's like, what do we, what do we do? What's the solution? Do you have any, like, wisdom as to what you think would happen?

• 1:03:04Speaker 03

  Do you think, long-term, you'll live in LA? You said earlier, you're considering leaving, right?

• 1:03:08Speaker 02

  Uh, well, that's the thing, as I love the landscape and the people of California so much, where I live now, I'm an hour and a half from the beach, hour and a half from the Mojave Desert, can drive to Vegas or Tijuana, can get to the bay. In Florida, kinda just in Florida.

• 1:03:22Speaker 03

  So would you see yourself living there long term?

• 1:03:23Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:03:24Speaker 03

  We're gonna document this, because we're gonna come back when you come to Florida.

• 1:03:27Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:03:27Speaker 03

  How's it feel being a Floridian?

• 1:03:29Speaker 02

  I like being in Florida because you can feel like, it's kind of like Texas right now where things are moving. You can feel people like excited about new projects and it doesn't have this air of like, you know, bygone greatness L.A. has. I have an office in Universal City. It's my first ever Channel 5 office that I opened four months ago. And there's a cafe that's abandoned in the lobby. It looks like I moved into like a Ford Motor Company factory in Detroit. There's only four people working in this giant building and like, I remember the janitor came by. He was mopping the floor and he like pointed at some derelict office and he goes, "That's where Michael Jackson recorded Beat It." And I was just like, "Jesus Christ." You really feel like you're in like a post Rust Belt decline society.

• 1:04:04Speaker 03

  What's the address? Where are you in?

• 1:04:06Speaker 02

  I don't want to say it exactly.

• 1:04:07Speaker 03

  Is it like, what part of Universal, like close to?

• 1:04:09Speaker 02

  Across from Universal Studios.

• 1:04:11Speaker 03

  Oh shit, okay.

• 1:04:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, so it's like literally there's this like bygone, there's in the air you can feel that the place has seen better days.

• 1:04:17Speaker 03

  Like by Disney and where Forest Lawn is, give or take.

• 1:04:20Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 1:04:21Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:04:21Speaker 02

  I had a makeup artist come by when I was having a lot of breakouts or whatever. And so she came by and she was so happy and I was like, "Why are you so happy?" She goes, "I haven't had work in two months." She said, "Before COVID, every single day I was on set for a different awesome director, getting to do makeup for the stars." And she says, "Now I have to travel to Poland or Taiwan to find work." Because Hollywood is moving their productions to different continents just to save money on staff.

• 1:04:44Speaker 03

  So why do you think, why are people leaving?

• 1:04:47Speaker 02

  Taxes.

• 1:04:48Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:04:48Speaker 02

  Money.

• 1:04:48Speaker 03

  So why else? Why else you think they're leaving? You think it's just taxes?

• 1:04:51Speaker 02

  There's a couple of different, like, okay, so there's Hollywood leaving, they're leaving to save money. Comedy leaving is because of the culture of the coastal cities. Tech left for a little bit because remote work was more profitable, but tech is returning to Silicon Valley. So I think tech is still going for California. But those three big industries, Hollywood, tech, and then comedy, all left for different reasons. But comedy is for sure because of the culture of California.

• 1:05:14Speaker 03

  So long term, you're kind of open to leaving to Austin or Florida or something?

• 1:05:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, at some point in my life, but I mean, I also just love California. I also believe in it. I could see California having a second wind. I mean, it's obviously.

• 1:05:24Speaker 03

  How did it get it? How did it get a second wind?

• 1:05:25Speaker 02

  I mean, new leadership.

• 1:05:27Speaker 03

  So like such as who is there anyone that you think that could turn things around?

• 1:05:31Speaker 02

  No, not right now, but maybe.

• 1:05:36Speaker 02

  Maybe a rising star could emerge from the ashes.

• 1:05:39Speaker 03

  And that rising star that emerges from the ashes, what would you want that person's policies to be on like?

• 1:05:44Speaker 02

  Take the money that you're taking, use all of that tax money to provide for people who are sleeping on the streets and dying on the streets. Provide robust mental health services, shelter options, opportunities to people who have been basically dejected by society. Clean up the street like make for the amount that we're being taxed in California, it should be a utopian society. And when you talk about homelessness, another problem is that people say, oh, there's so many homeless people in California because of the progressive policies. But it also has to do with the fact that homelessness has been criminalized so heavily in red states and counties. The people are leaving those counties to California so they don't go to jail. I don't know if you're familiar with the Grants Pass, Oregon ruling, it's a rural county in Oregon, which is a blue state.

• 1:06:25Speaker 02

  And it ruled that if you're a homeless person because of vagrancy laws, you can be taken to jail and cited even if there's no shelter beds available for sleeping in the street. And if you get your third vagrancy citation, it's a mandatory 90 days in county jail. So a lot of people who are homeless, suffering from, you know, different mental disorders and substance abuse issues. They're like, all right, I don't want to go to jail, I'm going to go to LA. So then you have all of these mental health and support services being overwhelmed by people who are migrating from red counties and states. So I think that the solution is, I wish this was viewed as a, as an America problem as opposed to a Dems versus Republican problem. Because, you know, when you politicize people who are going through like hardcore suffering, it can, it can be easy to overlook their suffering and use them as political cannon fodder. If you're Republican or Democratic.

• 1:07:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, and, and I think you're coming from a very sincere place that you want to improve. This is why I said, I can't wait to watch your journey. It's exciting to watch you go through what you're going through right now because in the business world, here's how it works. If you have a billion dollars, your name is Bill Ackman. And my name is John Doe. I come to you and I say, hey, Bill, uh, my, I need twenty million dollars from you. Really? Tell me what your background looks like. First deal, I, uh, put twenty thousand dollars of my own money. My dad gave me a hundred thousand. My uncle and family gave me half a million dollars. I sold the business for thirty-two million dollars. Second company, I put two million dollars of my own money. It failed, uh, moved on, didn't work out for a year, but I didn't take money from anybody else. Third company, I took twenty million dollars, turned it into a hundred and eighty million dollars, and I sold the business.

• 1:07:53Speaker 03

  Fourth one is the one I'm doing right now, and I want twenty million dollars from you.

• 1:07:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:07:57Speaker 03

  Will you consider giving me money? Yes, right? Okay. So, number one is, a guy like Newsom has credibility issue. We want to give you more money, for what? I'm not comfortable with this. So liberal policies have lost credibility to get more money. Number two, reputation. If your policies are so good, why are twenty-seven out of thirty cities in America that are the most unsafe cities in America ran by democratic mayors? That's data, twenty-seven out of thirty, right? So you have all these years to fix the issues, how come you haven't? Third one for me is the following. Had a friend of mine, who, if you ever went to dinner with him, he wouldn't order dessert once.

• 1:08:36Speaker 03

  He would eat more dessert than steak. Like, to him, it's like, let me try this ice cream, and bring this one out, and bring the carrot cake, and bring this, this, and bring the tres leches, and he's just eating it, right? And he says, you know, I'm about to do the stomach stapling, uh, here coming up. I said, really? Yeah. I said, shit. And he says, really, you're going to say that? He goes and staples his stomach, loses fifty pounds, literally, he loses fifty pounds, okay? So now he can't keep anything down, but guess what he still eats?

• 1:09:04Speaker 02

  Dessert.

• 1:09:05Speaker 03

  Same exact thing.

• 1:09:05Speaker 02

  Key lime pie.

• 1:09:06Speaker 03

  Key lime pie, the whole night, right? All of it, right? There's strawberry sorbet, give me all of it, right? So his habits didn't change. So even though we stapled the stomach, he still kept doing the same thing. So when he asked the question, how do we fix this homelessness problem, money to me is Band-Aid. Money to me is stapling the stomach. Money to me is not changing the habits. Money to me is not getting rid of the bad behavior that they have. It's not gonna do that. It's standard and protocols. So if somebody feels safer, it's like a kid Who wants to come and hang out with you and your dad and your dad smokes weed?

• 1:09:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:39Speaker 03

  But you don't want to be with me because I'm a tougher dad that I don't smoke weed. You're like, man, that dad is cool. You're not cool. California is the cool dad smokes weed with you.

• 1:09:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:45Speaker 03

  Texas is like, no, you come to my house smoking weed, you get your ass kicked out of the house.

• 1:09:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:49Speaker 03

  So who's right?

• 1:09:49Speaker 02

  But you can bring your gun to my house.

• 1:09:51Speaker 03

  But that's okay because I feel safer. But I will feel safer for some of the people because we're a second amendment country, right? That's, that's, that's the part where it's the back and forth for me. Where if your, if your ideas have credibility that you've done well, let's give you more.

• 1:10:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:10:06Speaker 03

  But they've lost so much credibility where people don't want to raise taxes because you don't have credibility, right, and to ask for more.

• 1:10:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, and that's what I was saying about the safe injection site in San Francisco. That would have solved the problem of open air drug use in the area.

• 1:10:18Speaker 03

  You think so?

• 1:10:19Speaker 02

  Oh, definitely.

• 1:10:19Speaker 03

  Tell me why.

• 1:10:20Speaker 02

  Because people aren't going to get cited, they're not going to get, I mean, most of the, the open air drug.

• 1:10:25Speaker 03

  Is that a Band-Aid or is that permanently fixing something?

• 1:10:27Speaker 02

  I mean, if the safe injection site was also had, you know, harm reduction services, had mental health treatment options, had people working there day in, day out, trying to help people get back on their feet, it would not fix the problem. There's still going to be drug use and homelessness no matter what, but it would allow for an, an exit ramp for those who want to make that choice. As opposed to, you know, living literally on, in, outside of people's apartments, shooting up and passing out.

• 1:10:50Speaker 03

  You ever heard of Jared Clickstein?

• 1:10:52Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:10:52Speaker 03

  Do you know who he is? So can you pull him up, Rob? Jared Clickstein, I had him on this, on the podcast three months ago. So this guy was in Skid Row for seven years, okay? He lived there, homeless guy, heroin addict. His mother, Rob, if I'm not mistaken, died from heroin, right, at 14 years old, when he was 14. And then his dad was a heroin addict. He eventually got off of it. This guy becomes an addict. He starts selling. He goes to Skid Row. Every day he's stealing a thousand dollars on the streets, CVS stores, and he's selling it for $300. That was the rate. And he comes in and he talks about, he wrote a book, I don't know what the, A Crooked Smile. Can you, can you, uh, uh, is there a picture of what he did to himself, why he calls it Cricket Smile? So he explains, I asked him, I said, tell me what happened there with LA?

• 1:11:36Speaker 03

  Okay, what was the problem with you being homeless? And then he breaks down the incentive program of him constantly going through it.

• 1:11:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:44Speaker 03

  This guy burned his own lip, that he had to do surgery. He was so high on drugs that he burned his own lip. I mean, he's got a mustache now, but he openly talks about it. Where he titled the video, Crooked Smile.

• 1:11:55Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 1:11:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, he, I think this guy would be a very interesting guy for you in LA to go to Skid Row. To document stuff with him.

• 1:12:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:03Speaker 03

  Cause he can give you a different perspective, because he was there for seven years.

• 1:12:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:07Speaker 03

  That would be a very interesting thing. But can you go to the $24 billion dollar number, Rob? I don't know if you follow this number or not. California State Audit revealed that a substantial amount of money allocated for homelessness program, roughly 24 billion, over the past five years was not consistently tracked or evaluated to determine if it was effectively addressing the crisis. The lack of tracking and valuation led to a lack of transparency in how the funds were spent.

• 1:12:28Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:12:28Speaker 03

  Whether they were actually helping or not. And guess what? Homelessness from five years ago was lower than it is now, but they lost 24 billion dollars. Nowadays, more than ever, the brand you wear reflects and represents who you are. So for us, if you wear a Future Looks Bright hat, or a ValueTainment gear, you're telling the world, I'm optimistic. I'm excited about what's going to be happening. But you're a free thinker, you question things, you like debate. And by the way, last year, 120,000 people got a piece of Future Looks Bright gear with ValueTainment. We have so many new things. The cuff links are here. New Future Looks Bright. This is my favorite, the green one. Just yesterday, somebody placed an order for 100 of these. If you watch the PBD Podcast, you got a bunch to choose from.

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• 1:13:49Speaker 02

  So we're talking about throwing money at something. There was money, but it wasn't being funded to the right places. So in theory, there's probably a world in which the money isn't being embezzled or given to the wrong people.

• 1:13:59Speaker 03

  Why?

• 1:14:00Speaker 02

  Well, obviously.

• 1:14:01Speaker 03

  Who embezzled it?

• 1:14:02Speaker 02

  Newsom's administration.

• 1:14:03Speaker 03

  Yeah. So then, but what side of the political aisle is that?

• 1:14:07Speaker 02

  I would not describe the Democrats who control California as leftists or progressives.

• 1:14:12Speaker 03

  What would you call them?

• 1:14:13Speaker 02

  Liberals, Democrats.

• 1:14:15Speaker 03

  Liberals and Democrats?

• 1:14:16Speaker 02

  I think it's different.

• 1:14:18Speaker 03

  So what's the difference?

• 1:14:19Speaker 02

  I think liberals are more oriented in maintaining power for themselves, dominating the political landscape of the state.

• 1:14:27Speaker 03

  You don't think leftists are?

• 1:14:29Speaker 02

  I don't think leftists have any semblance of political power in the US.

• 1:14:32Speaker 03

  Why do you think?

• 1:14:33Speaker 02

  I just think they've been disenfranchised by the liberal establishment, the democratic establishment. I think progressive people's movements, also if you look at, you know, there's been over a half a century plus of infiltration of these organizations by the FBI, breaking them down. And we're not just talking about like, you know, communists and far left stuff here, we're talking about people's organizations. Black Panthers, Brown Berets, American Indian Movement, farm workers' unions, environmental groups. They were all infiltrated, all infiltrated and taken down by the government. And so you have the democratic establishment claiming to be a progressive organization, but I do not think that they are.

• 1:15:04Speaker 03

  So, you know, it makes me think, Anthony Scaramucci said something very interesting the other day, actually very interesting. Where he said, a guy, the way the US system is set up is, guy said, "I'm gonna go be a congress because I think I can make some changes." And you realize you can't do shit. "I'm gonna go be a senator because that's where the power is, I can make some changes." And you can't do shit. "I'm gonna go be president because..." you know, you can't do shit. So the American system is built that somebody can't, so even if the leftists that you think could change something, if they get in, they still have to go through the other people that if you give the money to them, it's not like they're gonna personally go count the money and do something good with it.

• 1:15:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:15:42Speaker 03

  The money is still gonna go to these institutions that's ran by people that have been there for decades, that you can't do nothing about them.

• 1:15:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's kind of depressing and kind of goes back to Luigi Magioni thing. When you talk about this deeply entrenched bureaucracy that's halting change, that kind of thing makes sense.

• 1:15:54Speaker 03

  You know what it makes me think about though? It makes me think about, what would you trust more, a bigger government or a smaller government?

• 1:16:02Speaker 02

  Small.

• 1:16:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:16:03Speaker 02

  Small but effective in actually working for the people.

• 1:16:06Speaker 03

  So a small government means more money stays with you and I? Leave it in the market. I trust you knowing better what to do with the money with a million dollars than the government.

• 1:16:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:16:15Speaker 03

  I trust you instead of paying forty-five percent of, let's just say you made a million bucks last year. Forty-five percent went to taxes. You kept five fifty. How many more jobs would you have had if that was only twenty percent? You would have kept that two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Realistically, let's just say you had an additional two fifty last year. Of tax saving, what would you have done with the two fifty in California?

• 1:16:34Speaker 02

  Hired more employees, been able to, you know, expand the newsroom at a quicker pace. You know, we expanded to the Middle East and Mexico and elsewhere as well, the UK and New Zealand. Would have been able to do that a little bit faster. I was still able to do it, you know, but definitely. It's, uh, there's not quite a sting like getting an invoice from the IRS after working your ass off for an entire year. And, uh, like I said, that sting wouldn't be as bad if they were using the money well. I mean, if I was living in a world where there was no traffic, where there was, where people were happy and there wasn't this massive, um. You know, working class despair taking over, you know, you could feel it in the air in California and elsewhere in the entire country. If that didn't exist, I would probably be okay with a higher tax rate. Cause I would say, okay, well, I don't have to, people at large, the community, this American experiment is progressing in a mutually beneficial way.

• 1:17:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, but if they were efficient, they wouldn't need to tax us more. You, you get what I'm saying? Because.

• 1:17:22Speaker 02

  Like if there wasn't such bureaucracy in the government and the IRS.

• 1:17:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, and, and so bless you. So, but to me, it's also deeper than that. Think about it. Like, let's just say I got five C suites that are working for me. A CMO. Chief Marketing Officer, CFO. CTO Technology, Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Compliance Officer. And we have a meeting at the end of the year. What's your budget? My budget is five million. My budget is four million. My budget is three million. My budget is ten million. Great. If a guy at the end of the year had a five million dollar budget. But ended up hitting his budget for the year and the BHAG. But they did it on eighty percent of budget. So he didn't spend five million, he spent four million. You're like, dude, good job, right? You saved the company twenty percent of your budget. But if a guy that had a ten million dollar budget doesn't hit his goal, but asks for fifty million and spends fifty million.

• 1:18:09Speaker 03

  You don't have credibility.

• 1:18:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:18:11Speaker 03

  So it's that simple that for me, I would much rather take more power away from them. Because they don't have a track record of getting good things done.

• 1:18:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:18:21Speaker 03

  They keep making it bigger and bigger and bigger at what expense. So that's the part where I think a part of why Kennedy and Trumps are so hated.

• 1:18:30Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 1:18:31Speaker 03

  Is because the one thing those two have in common is the establishment couldn't stand these guys. Cause they couldn't control them. What do they have in common? They both have money.

• 1:18:38Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 1:18:39Speaker 03

  And they both had the ears of who?

• 1:18:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:18:42Speaker 03

  Some of the most powerful people in Hollywood and they liked them.

• 1:18:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:18:45Speaker 03

  Trump on the right, Kennedy on the left.

• 1:18:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:18:48Speaker 03

  Right? So it's kind of like that, that, that relationship where they were both hated. CIA, FBI, the Fed, who the hell are these guys? Trump's not getting along with the Fed. Kennedy didn't get along with the Fed. There, there's some of those commonalities where now the, the flip side of it, guess what Trump and his camp have to do? If they don't produce results, guess what happens?

• 1:19:12Speaker 02

  What?

• 1:19:12Speaker 03

  Oh, the other side's gonna come on and say, you had them. What did they do? Nothing.

• 1:19:16Speaker 02

  And that's kind of where I'm at as well. Like, I'm obviously not, not a really a big Trump guy. But if, if positive things happen for the country during the, the Trump term in these next four years, I'm gonna report on that. You know, I'm not gonna be, I'm not dedicated to making Trump look bad.

• 1:19:29Speaker 03

  I know you are. No, I know, I know you are. Yeah.

• 1:19:31Speaker 02

  If, if great things start happening, it's not like I'm gonna look for an alternate angle that undermines the success. I'm just looking at how average people are living every day, happiness and, you know, fulfillment.

• 1:19:41Speaker 03

  Very cool. Chicago, you went to Chicago, right?

• 1:19:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, back in the day, I covered a music festival called Lyrical Lemonade or Summer Smash. I went to O Block the next day and somehow that became my like most watched video of all time.

• 1:19:51Speaker 03

  13 million views. Yeah, that was sick. I love it. It's sick.

• 1:19:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:19:54Speaker 03

  Why do you think it was so special? Why do you think it did so well?

• 1:19:57Speaker 02

  Well, O Block is like the genesis of drill music.

• 1:19:59Speaker 03

  You mind if we played?

• 1:20:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, sure.

• 1:20:00Speaker 03

  Rob, go ahead and play. Go ahead. You're saying O Block is the genesis?

• 1:20:03Speaker 02

  O Block is the genesis of drill music, which is a, a subgenre like of, of rap, which is hyper violent and focuses on like real life violence. It's actually been a pretty destructive cultural force, to be honest with you, but you know, O Block is where it started. So it's kind of like, you know how people would go to Mississippi to document the origins? Story of Blues, or they go to New Orleans for jazz, or they go to Nashville for country. Chicago and South Chicago is like that for drill music. And I think that in a hundred years, there's gonna be like drill tours in the same way that there's like a Kentucky Bourbon Trail, where people will like drink the whole way and go say, "This is where, uh, Pappy Van Winkle put his 15-year barrel up for sale in 1798." They're gonna do this in O Block and be like, "This is where Chief Keef was born in the year 1995."

• 1:20:46Speaker 02

  And there's gonna be people in 2150 like, "Oh, my God, that's so crazy."

• 1:20:50Speaker 03

  What is that peak? Rob, go back on the video. At the beginning, there was a peak, all the way to the bottom. First, first part, first two minutes.

• 1:20:56Speaker 02

  Oh, sorry.

• 1:20:56Speaker 03

  What is that? What is that peak? What happens here? Press play.

• 1:21:02Speaker 04

  G D K, G D K, G D K, G D K, G D K. Come on. G D K, G D K, G D K. Folks came out, the folks, the youngest G D K, he invented that shit. To you, like, what is drill music? We started the word "drill" with our music. Like, let's do a drill. We started that shit. Like, how would you explain drill music to someone who doesn't know?

• 1:21:20Speaker 04

  Music that make you wanna kinda get outside and go just be outside, you know that? Makes sense?

• 1:21:31Speaker 03

  So, so means what? Meaning you can go outside and cause mayhem? Kill somebody? That's literally what he's saying.

• 1:21:40Speaker 02

  It's pretty dark, but I mean, drill has now become like the, one of rap's mainstream sounds.

• 1:21:46Speaker 03

  How, how, how safe did you feel?

• 1:21:48Speaker 02

  Pretty safe, honestly, only because like, you know, people don't understand this now, like, all hoods in America, all like, you know, poor neighborhoods that have music in them and have like micro-influencers, they recognize content as a viable avenue for income. You know, back in the day, if this was 2005, pre YouTube, you could never go to somebody's hood just as a voyeur and film with them. But now, there's kind of an informal agreement, that is, that's why there's so many hood vlogs now, is they recognize that being featured on a predominant, like a major YouTube channel, could be their ticket out, people are gonna see them, it could be their, uh, you know, um, it could be their moment for more exposure and attention. And especially, O Block is probably the most famous housing project in the US, and I had a big YouTube channel, so it just happened really fast.

• 1:22:31Speaker 03

  One of the craziest things you did is when you went to, uh, uh, who's the Kia, Kia's, uh, what was it Kia's?

• 1:22:39Speaker 02

  I'll break it down. So the Kia boys are a car, a car theft ring-

• 1:22:42Speaker 03

  We talked about on the podcast, go for it.

• 1:22:43Speaker 02

  In the beautiful coastal town of Bridgeport, Connecticut.

• 1:22:45Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 1:22:46Speaker 02

  And they're in high school. Uh, for an update, I heard the Kia boys aren't stealing cars anymore. Part of that has to do with the, uh, security update that was installed in the push to start system-

• 1:22:55Speaker 03

  They can't do it anymore?

• 1:22:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, you can't do it anymore. Unless somebody hasn't gotten the software update, but one of them's in jail. One of them just disappeared and the third guy is working at a factory and he bought his own car and it's not a Kia. He bought an American made car. That's the real message of this documentary by American.

• 1:23:10Speaker 03

  Can you put the video of him being in the car, Rob? When you're in the car, where is it where you're in the car?

• 1:23:14Speaker 02

  Well, I, I should have put two and two together, but, um, yeah, they picked me up in a car and they're like, yo, let's, let's hang out. And I got in the car and I'm sitting in the backseat and I thought about it and I'm like, wait a second, this is a Kia. Holy shit, I'm in the back of a stolen car with three juveniles. Window with a special tool and clears the broken glass with his bare hands. Back up a little bit. So this is a crazy scene. So back up like maybe, uh, yeah.

• 1:23:41Speaker 03

  This shows what they were doing.

• 1:23:42Speaker 02

  So they picked me up at the McDonald's in Bridgeport. I'm, I'm riding with them in the back of this car. Sometimes I don't realize what's happening until it's too late, for example, and I don't want to jump ahead too much. But when I hopped the border, I didn't realize that I had to hop it with the coyotes until I was at the Rio Grande. I'm sitting in the back of this, uh, stolen, I think it was a Mazda actually, not a Kia. And I'm thinking, holy shit, they stole this car. And then I look around, I look in the, uh, the, the rear view mirror-

• 1:24:03Speaker 03

  Oh shit.

• 1:24:04Speaker 02

  And there's a cop trailing us. And so I say to these Kia boys, I say, hey guys, pull over, I gotta hop out. Cause I'm thinking like, I'm 25, these kids are 16 and I don't know what they're gonna charge me with. And so-

• 1:24:14Speaker 03

  Can you play it, Rob?

• 1:24:15Speaker 02

  And the kid sitting in shotgun named Swervo, he looks at me and he goes, homie, you shouldn't have hopped in the car if you weren't ready to do the dash. Meaning, you know, go on a high speed chase. And so they turn the lights off and they just go 105 miles an hour and the cop stops following them.

• 1:24:28Speaker 03

  Are you, play, I want to see this, Rob. I want to go back 30 seconds. Press play. Let me hear the audio.

• 1:24:34Speaker 02

  Roads for cops. They said they'd had the car for over a week now.

• 1:24:37Speaker 03

  That's 105 miles an hour?

• 1:24:38Speaker 02

  No, no, no, not yet. This is before the cops rolled in. It was getting hotter and hotter to drive by the day. No less than two minutes into our drive, I began to hear police sirens.

• 1:24:49Speaker 02

  Perhaps naively, I assumed the Kia boys would just pull over and try to talk their way out of it, but no. Swervo dipped onto a service road and hit the gas, approaching 110 miles per hour.

• 1:25:00Speaker 03

  You're sitting outside or you're inside?

• 1:25:02Speaker 02

  I'm sitting in the backseat.

• 1:25:05Speaker 02

  By some stroke of luck, the cops stopped pursuing us. I'm not sure why. Now I know why. At this point, my adrenaline is... The cops don't pursue... Time seems to move in hyperspeed. High-speed chases with stolen cars, because they figure like it's such a public safety risk, you know what I mean? If it's a residential street, they don't want two cars going 105 miles an hour because that could like kill a pedestrian or something. So the cops, they abandoned us, uh, not abandoned us, they stopped following us. And then I told them to drop me back off at the McDonald's. And then, so my plan was like, I want to document these guys, but I don't want to be in this situation again. So I gave them my camcorder for the night. And I said, you guys are, I know you guys are going to go steal cars. I don't want to come with you. I don't condone that, but just do me a favor and take this camcorder from Best Buy and just film yourself.

• 1:25:45Speaker 03

  What a great concept. Literally. And were they honest enough that they brought it back to you?

• 1:25:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, you want to watch the footage?

• 1:25:51Speaker 03

  Do you have it?

• 1:25:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's in the video.

• 1:25:52Speaker 03

  Where's it at? At the end or?

• 1:25:54Speaker 02

  If you skip ahead 10, 15 seconds, right there.

• 1:25:57Speaker 03

  Press play, let's see what they... This is them?

• 1:26:00Speaker 02

  Then goes to put a cheap USB cord into the ignition.

• 1:26:02Speaker 03

  Let's watch this.

• 1:26:03Speaker 04

  I think it's got the update.

• 1:26:05Speaker 02

  He says the car is a dud. The driver recently installed the anti-theft software update. So this is all filmed with me? Just a few cars down, he locates a 2010 Kia Forte and starts all over.

• 1:26:18Speaker 00

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• 1:27:21Speaker 03

  Cut himself.

• 1:27:27Speaker 02

  After successfully activating the engine with a USB cord, Suervo's on the move. That's me watching him. And I'm following close behind, genuinely curious as to what his plan is.

• 1:27:40Speaker 02

  Suervo begins driving as fast as he possibly can, then comes to a stop and tells me, "It's time to turn up." All right, let's turn up.

• 1:27:56Speaker 02

  So yeah, that's their plan is they just start swerving. They're really like 16 years old. Like they swerve for like 20 minutes and then they just abandon the car.

• 1:28:03Speaker 03

  You're joking. So they don't go sell the car, they just?

• 1:28:06Speaker 02

  Well, apparently like they sell it to their like older brothers for I think $250. Then they go to the mall and get shoes and the weed socks.

• 1:28:13Speaker 03

  And what do the older brothers do?

• 1:28:15Speaker 02

  Crime, real crime. Well, not this, not, I'm not saying this isn't a real crime, but like, you know, robbing people, you know.

• 1:28:22Speaker 03

  That's low level stuff.

• 1:28:24Speaker 02

  They sell drugs and stuff. I don't know.

• 1:28:25Speaker 03

  What did you, what was your experience? When you, why, when you're on the flight coming back, what are you saying to yourself?

• 1:28:29Speaker 02

  Well, I didn't even put this in the documentary, but I guess the cops had still been following us. So I go back to the Red Roof Inn in, in Bridgeport and the cops knock on the door and they're like, "Do you see anybody with a stolen car around here?" And I was like, "Dude, I don't know what you're talking about." All right, thanks. Yeah, I was.

• 1:28:44Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 1:28:45Speaker 02

  I flew home.

• 1:28:45Speaker 03

  So you didn't get arrested? Even when you put this up, cops never got a hold of you?

• 1:28:48Speaker 02

  No, they might after this podcast though.

• 1:28:49Speaker 03

  They might after this.

• 1:28:51Speaker 02

  Thankfully, the Kia boys are no longer stealing Kias. But yeah, well, after that, that was a classic example of just me taking it too far in the field with the documentaries. Like if I was to look, look back or looking forward to my own life, I'm not going to get in the back of any stolen cars with 16 year olds in Connecticut or any other state for that matter.

• 1:30:59Speaker 02

  I actually sent correspondence there. I sent my friend Albie here to the Tesla boycott in Palo Alto. I was in Jamaica for like an anniversary trip at the time when this was going down. Then I sent another friend of mine to the one in Burbank. But yeah, it was kind of interesting like with the Tesla boycott movement. It was, I see it as a broader offshoot of the anti Elon stop the queue movement. But then at some point after that began, they started targeting Tesla factories directly. And their idea was that if they lower Tesla's stock price, that will in turn take away from Elon's economic power, which would disempower Trump in some capacity.

• 1:31:32Speaker 03

  Right. And again, this goes back to the Joker to me. Because in the movie Joker, Elon would be Batman. And Joker would be the guys that are going after him, right? It's funny, we're in DC. Is it January 20th? Is it inauguration, Rob?

• 1:31:48Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:31:49Speaker 03

  So we go to this part.

• 1:31:50Speaker 04

  Oh, CPAC. It was actually CPAC.

• 1:31:52Speaker 03

  Was it CPAC or inauguration?

• 1:31:53Speaker 04

  No, because CPAC, because we went after CPAC. We had the invite.

• 1:31:56Speaker 03

  Okay, so we're in DC, and there's this Doge party. And a guy invites us to go to this Doge party. And apparently Elon's gonna be showing up. So we go to this party. I take my 13-year-old son. They're upstairs watching. If you pull up one of the clips, Rob, of someone else who reported, it was reported all over the place. There's a couple of them. So we're there, we're walking. Pause it, pause it, Rob, so we can hear it. So we're walking, we get outside, there's the protesting across the street. I decide to walk up to these guys to just talk to them with my 13-year-old son.

• 1:32:26Speaker 04

  Pretty bad call, I think.

• 1:32:27Speaker 03

  Pretty bad call. Don't think you're wrong. Well, watch this. This is my curiosity here. Go ahead and play the clip. Go ahead, Rob.

• 1:32:48Speaker 03

  This is the wrong clip, Rob, because the one is, you gotta show the clip.

• 1:32:53Speaker 04

  So that one I can show you guys, but we can't show because it's copyrighted content.

• 1:32:57Speaker 03

  Oh, well, did we record it or no?

• 1:33:00Speaker 04

  I can look for the best version.

• 1:33:03Speaker 03

  Is this one right here, but these are the Can't show this, that's copy? Well, why don't you show it so he can see it and the audience, you know, you guys can tweet this and see this is me talking to the guy. Just to kind of see where it's at. The guy in the ball to the right is a federal agent. Look what he does to him. Look at the spit coming up. Look at this.

• 1:33:21Speaker 02

  Oh, that was a real loogie, damn.

• 1:33:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:33:24Speaker 02

  Damn, it gives me real nostalgic flashback seeing somebody with a MAGA hat next to somebody with an N95 mask on. Those are the two, those are the two real genders.

• 1:33:34Speaker 03

  Here's a question for you. Do you, when you're out there, wow, you've not been out there. Maybe your guys that came back. There's always, you know, numbers that show up. That some of these guys are paid agitators and paid protesters. When you've been out there, whether it's the Luigi Mangione or any of the other stuff. Do you ever ask them the question, or did you guys get paid to do this?

• 1:33:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's typically not true.

• 1:33:58Speaker 03

  Typically not true?

• 1:33:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't think I've ever seen a paid protester. I mean, it's a narrative that gets pushed a lot. Which makes sense because there is NGOs that organize protests. But they're making that decision to do the protest. Like, okay. There are groups that receive funding who decide themselves to protest. And they use some of that funding to do stuff like, you know, make signs. But they're still making the decision most of the time. It's not like someone like George Soros is like, hey, go over there and have a sign that says Elon sucks. It's them being genuinely upset and thinking, okay, cool, let's use some of this funding to have, to do something. On the other hand, I have actually seen though, paid protest groups go into places that are more radical like Portland and Seattle and disrupt, you know, more direct action movements.

• 1:34:44Speaker 02

  Like, for example, I remember in Portland, Oregon during the crazy summer of 2020. There were organizations, I'm not going to say the name, that were basically paid by the city of Portland and the state itself to go into the protest groups and encourage nonviolence. So all the protest groups that I've seen that are paid are mostly like peacemakers that are represented by the state. I wouldn't say that, I think the paid protester thing is like super overblown.

• 1:35:05Speaker 03

  Have you asked them?

• 1:35:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. I just know a lot of them, you know what I mean?

• 1:35:09Speaker 03

  So let me tell you what came up. This came up with the AOC rally. During the AOC rally, they were like, hey, we had 34,000 people there. But GPS data analysis revealed that the number was closer to 20,000, still big but not record breaking. And it continues saying a whopping 84% of the devices had shown up at at least nine other protests.

• 1:35:29Speaker 03

  Including Antifa, Bialam events, pro Hamas, pro Palestinian demonstrations, and Kamala Harris campaign, so 84% of them and over 30% of them had attended 20 or more.

• 1:35:39Speaker 02

  That makes sense to me. I feel like people who protest for, you know, for a living and go to rallies is kind of their lifestyle.

• 1:35:44Speaker 03

  But watch the rest of it. Data analysts say the crowd was anything but organic. The majority were tied to activist networks like Disruption Project, Indivisible, Democratic Socialists of America, Rise and Resist, and Troublemakers, all reportedly funded by Act Blue and some receiving backing by Via USAID. Optics over authenticity. The playbook hasn't changed, just the targets. This is from Zero Hedge.

• 1:36:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was at the Bernie Sanders AOC rally doing some interviews three days ago in Bakersfield, California. And I just think there's a big difference between NGOs and political groups and parties that receive some level of funding and then decide to go to the events as opposed to like direct orders. The people who are showing up, they may be receiving some level of funding, you know, in a nebulous way, but they believe what they're doing. It's not as if, when you say paid protester, it kind of suggests that they don't actually feel that way, that they're just showing up simply because they received orders from the person that's cutting them a check. I think there's a mix and it's easy to cast them. It's easy, especially when you disagree with someone, to think they can't actually think that. They must be paid to show up. But, you know, the Democratic Socialists of America, they are there with their clipboards, asking people to donate and volunteer and

• 1:36:50Speaker 02

  sign up. But, you know, I think there's some element to organization. But a lot of people just, you know, the protest crowd is relatively small and they show up to everything.

• 1:36:59Speaker 03

  You think it's small?

• 1:36:59Speaker 02

  Well, the same people that went to 2020 protests for George Floyd are the same people that were protesting Israel on college campuses are the same people who vote for AOC and Bernie. It's kind of like, it's a demographic. You know, it's kind of like, I'm willing to bet that a solid percentage of the people that showed up to a Trump rally here in Florida probably also

• 1:37:17Speaker 03

  I don't know about that because

• 1:37:18Speaker 02

  have been to five or more Trump events in the past five years.

• 1:37:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, but that's different because what it says is if somebody's been to 20 or more, you don't have a life to go to 20 or more. It's impossible to go to 20 or more unless if you don't have a job. And if 34% have been to 20 or more, so maybe not majority, let's say 50% is real, let's say 60% is real, let's say 70% is real. But the 33% that's showing up, who has been to 20 or more, you have to kind of speculate and say, who's paying these guys to be over here?

• 1:37:50Speaker 02

  Well, I think when you say real, 100% of them believe what they're saying. The question is I mean, I've been to a bunch of rallies. I can't think of a single rally where I've interviewed a protester where they're just straight up lying.

• 1:38:00Speaker 03

  You think those guys that stepped up to us and they spat on us, do you think they fully believe in what they're talking about?

• 1:38:04Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, dude, for sure. I think you don't spend enough time around like internet leftists, man. They really think that. Like, those people are really-

• 1:38:10Speaker 03

  I don't disagree with you, but also at the same time, when you see the funding, uh, you, you, the paper trail of Soros and what he's done with his money, there's plenty to track into what he's doing as well.

• 1:38:19Speaker 02

  What about people on the other hand, who are like funding the Trump campaign? What about his top donors?

• 1:38:23Speaker 03

  But to me, the way I would look at that, your, your counterargument to that would be, what about the fact that Elon Musk spent $250 million to win Pennsylvania? Right? Guess what? The answer to that is what? It's open. But the money is what? If you do this, here's what it is.

• 1:38:38Speaker 02

  I just think Citizens United should be repealed. It's crazy that corporations can be so powerful that they can speak more than a human being possibly could, even though, I mean, how much, what, what's the, how many, before Citizens United, what was the maximum amount of, amount of money that a person could donate to a political campaign?

• 1:38:56Speaker 03

  Oh, by the way, I would love that. It would never happen.

• 1:38:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:39:00Speaker 03

  I would also love to get the lobbyists out, but it will never happen. It would never happen. Uh, one of the first steps to it is if they're able to get Big Pharma from not advertising, that's a first step. Cause out of all the countries, only two countries are allowed to advertise Big Pharma, us and New Zealand.

• 1:39:17Speaker 02

  Oh, shit, really?

• 1:39:18Speaker 03

  Did you know that?

• 1:39:18Speaker 02

  Except in Europe, they don't have commercials for OxiCup?

• 1:39:20Speaker 03

  Zero. You cannot. You cannot.

• 1:39:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, so it says that individual contributions to candidates could only be as much as $2,400 per election to a federal candidate. So 4,000, 800 total per cycle. And then after the, uh, the Citizens United is passed, you have corporations who are donating millions and millions, if not hundreds of millions, to political campaigns. They use that money to then subsidize large, large scale advertising campaigns and different PR optics to put themselves in front of it.

• 1:39:48Speaker 03

  Who do you think gives more money? You think the bigger companies give more to the left or the right?

• 1:39:52Speaker 02

  It depends what you're talking, because back then, of course, it would have been the left, or not the left, the liberals, the progressives, the Democrats.

• 1:39:58Speaker 03

  What do you think it is today?

• 1:39:59Speaker 02

  Uh, I would, I would assume, well, there's so much, that's the thing, is there's a second sort of, uh, sort of deep state, I believe, forming around Trump.

• 1:40:05Speaker 03

  This may not help you, by the way, because a lot of mu- uh, okay, so, but, but, do you know by company, how much leftist companies? Big Fortune 500 companies give to the Democratic Party versus the Republican. Do you know the dollars?

• 1:40:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, how much?

• 1:40:19Speaker 03

  You ever seen this?

• 1:40:19Speaker 02

  Is it a breakdown of it?

• 1:40:21Speaker 03

  Oh dude, I love the fact that you're seeing this for the first time.

• 1:40:23Speaker 02

  But I mean Elon, Zuckerberg, Bezos, they all support Trump, right?

• 1:40:27Speaker 03

  No, no, but watch, watch what happens here. You're gonna see where this goes. This isn't it, Rob. Nope, there's one that says, uh,

• 1:40:34Speaker 03

  Brandon, Humberto, if you guys can send this to Rob, there's one that shows, it's not this one. There's another one that shows 98%, 97%, 96%. You have it. We've shown that once before, maybe eight months ago. And we have that chart, but the, the, it breaks down by company on what they gave 2024, 2020, 2016. You will be blown away by this number. So even if we get rid of that.

• 1:41:00Speaker 02

  I'm curious to see it just because that's just all wasted money.

• 1:41:04Speaker 03

  Well, but watch it.

• 1:41:04Speaker 02

  I mean.

• 1:41:05Speaker 03

  Watch it here. Watch to see what happens. It's that one right there, Rob. The second lane, uh, third one. Yeah. Zoom in. Okay, watch this. This is blue, left, red, Republican.

• 1:41:20Speaker 02

  But I mean, even though, even those top companies, like if the top blue donor is Facebook, we know that Mark Zuckerberg is now partial to Trump. He's not running against him.

• 1:41:29Speaker 03

  He's not though. And that's not, that's not about being partial to Trump. That's where the money is going.

• 1:41:32Speaker 02

  So you think that as political power, conservative, they're following it that way?

• 1:41:36Speaker 03

  No, no, your argument was the fact that citizens, if they get rid of companies being able to give to big, uh, uh, super PACs, and this number is even further opposite side today. That's 2017. It's worse today for 2024, Rob, if you do have it. Just stay on that one right now to just kind of show that until we go to the next one. And these guys will send it. You will see the numbers. Look at that. Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Intel, Oracle, BlackRock, Charles Schwab, IBM, Cisco. This is Trump.

• 1:42:03Speaker 02

  If you go down, there's also a significant amount of money being given to political campaigns. Exxon, Las Vegas Sands, Morgan Stanley, Lockheed Martin, Goldman Sachs, Delta, Johnson and Johnson. Those are all giving, uh, equal amounts, if not more, to conservative campaigns.

• 1:42:16Speaker 03

  It's more, it's more to the go. Okay, just look at the chart here. You have to be able to see it. Can you tell me where 50% is?

• 1:42:23Speaker 02

  I see what you're saying.

• 1:42:24Speaker 03

  Go to where 50% is right there. So go up. You're right. The bottom, what? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9? Give more to the right than the left. But now let's count. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21. 21 is left. Only 9 is right. So the control, if they stop doing that, liberals get their money from the wealthy. Billionaires support more liberals than they do conservatives. As weird as it is.

• 1:42:58Speaker 02

  No, I actually agree with that 100%. And just to clarify, I mostly agree with you. Like, I'm not a supporter of the Democratic Party either. So, I mean, I just...

• 1:43:03Speaker 03

  No, I get that. But I also see that as you're going through this process, when you're going to it, the one thing that is phenomenal to see is the data to show what's going on with it. Eventually, Zuck realized he effed up because I think Zuck's play... Rob, when did Zuck come out and talk about the fact when he put that tweet out about Joe Biden and his camp, forced them to take down some content? And the $400 million I regretted, when was that tweet? Do you remember when that tweet was?

• 1:43:33Speaker 04

  August 27, 2024.

• 1:43:35Speaker 03

  Can you put that tweet and pull it up?

• 1:43:36Speaker 02

  So this, I'm assuming, goes back to his Joe Rogan podcast where he wore the gray t-shirt and he was like, kind of admitting that the Biden administration was pressuring him to take down posts on Facebook related to what he saw as COVID-19 misinformation.

• 1:43:48Speaker 03

  So you see the timing of it, though. You know when the timing of that tweet was? The timing of that tweet, if you can find the tweet, just go to the tweet if you can. The timing of it was,

• 1:44:00Speaker 03

  it's important to see the dates.

• 1:44:03Speaker 03

  So I think this is the part where...

• 1:44:08Speaker 04

  So he wrote a letter. I have the letter. August 26, 2024, to Jim Jordan.

• 1:44:14Speaker 03

  That's right. And he says what? "I appreciate the comments. There's a lot of talk right now on US interaction. I want to be clear about our position. Our platform is for everyone. We're about promoting speech and helping people connect in a safe and secure way." As part of this, we regularly hear the governments around the world, da, da, da, da, da. In 2021, senior officials from the Biden administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our team for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn't agree ultimately was our decision whether or not to take the content down. And we own our decision, including COVID-19-related changes we made to our enforcement. In a wake of this pressure, I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it. I also think we made some choices that with the benefit of hindsight and new information,

• 1:44:59Speaker 03

  we wouldn't have made today. Like I said to our teams at the time, I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any administration in either direction. And we're ready to push back if something like this happens again. In a separate situation, the FBI warned us about a potential Russia disinformation operation about the Biden family and Burisma in light of 2020 election that fall when we thought on a New York Post. So he's explaining that they effed up, right?

• 1:45:21Speaker 02

  You know what?

• 1:45:22Speaker 03

  But what's the date? Go for it.

• 1:45:24Speaker 02

  I don't think that Zuckerberg would have done that if he thought Trump was gonna lose.

• 1:45:28Speaker 03

  I agree.

• 1:45:29Speaker 02

  Yeah. Because realistically, he's doing that as a concession because he's worried about retribution with the new Trump presidency. And he's seeing power shift, right? And he wants to be on the right side of history because he knows that he's gonna lose his financial backing to go against.

• 1:45:42Speaker 03

  Or could it be that he realized he was wrong?

• 1:45:44Speaker 02

  Well, I think that if you... People always ask me, "Why do you think Trump won?" And I think that Facebook censorship in 2020 played a huge role in that. I've said it before, it was like a collective Tiananmen Square moment for so many people who are critical of the vaccine and lockdown mandates. Because whenever you're banned from a social media platform, your first logical next step is, "I'm banned because I'm speaking the truth." Not, "I'm banned because I'm propagating misinformation that's gonna be harmful to people." You think if the establishment, if a large social media company takes little old me's page down for, you know, expressing my First Amendment right and saying my opinion about the Moderna vaccine or something like that, whether it's right or wrong, you feel that you're on that you are an anti-establishment person who is inherently telling the truth

• 1:46:28Speaker 02

  that's being censored by the greater machine. And so someone like Trump comes along and he's seen by them as being like the arbiter of truth and justice. And so Mark Zuckerberg and all those people during 2020, who colluded to deplatform people, are paying for their mistakes big time.

• 1:46:43Speaker 03

  So they were wrong?

• 1:46:45Speaker 02

  Deplatforming people is wrong.

• 1:46:47Speaker 03

  No, but they were wrong about the position they took that they didn't allow any argument about vaccine, or that the lab leak came from China, that, you know, forcing military personnel to take the vaccine, or else you gotta get out, or other doctors who are licensed from major institutions, who practice medicine, who had an opposing position towards the vaccine. Those videos were taken down by Channel 5, like literally, K K L A or K T L A.

• 1:47:14Speaker 02

  I was like, we didn't take it down.

• 1:47:15Speaker 03

  No, not you, but a Channel 5 in California, they were taken down because of this. And then today, White House comes out with this. The lab leak, origin. Rob, if you can go a little bit lower, I think this is today or yesterday.

• 1:47:25Speaker 02

  Today.

• 1:47:26Speaker 03

  The proximal origin of COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2 publication, which was used repeatedly by public health officials and the media to distract the lab leak, was prompted by Dr. Anthony Fauci to push the preferred narrative that COVID-19 was originated naturally. The virus possesses a biological characteristic that is not found in nature. Two, data shows that all COVID-19 cases stemmed from a single introduction to humans. This runs contrary to previous pandemics where there were multiple spillover agents. Three, Wuhan is the home of China's foremost SARS research lab, which has a history of conducting gain-of-function

• 1:48:04Speaker 03

  research, gene-altering, and organism, supercharging, and inadequate biosafety levels. Four, Wuhan Institute of Virology, researchers were sick with COVID-like symptoms in the fall of 2019, months before COVID-19 was discovered at the wet market. Number five, by nearly all measures of science, if there was evidence of a natural origin, it would have already surfaced, but it hasn't. Rob, is there something to go lower to it? This is it. That's the Wuhan Institute of Virology. That's to Wuhan seafood market.

• 1:48:38Speaker 02

  That's where the pangolin bat sandwich was allegedly.

• 1:48:40Speaker 03

  That's exactly what the story was. Yes, go a little bit lower. And then what does it say here? The gain-of-function, they broke all of it down, or government themselves was on danger of gain-of-function. Go a little bit lower, Rob, to see what that one is saying. Is there anything with data? So, this is now coming out today. So, think about it. While we're sitting here.

• 1:48:58Speaker 03

  And you think about Anthony Fauci, who was, we were supposed to be told, he was the sexiest man on earth.

• 1:49:04Speaker 02

  Who said that?

• 1:49:06Speaker 03

  You see this typing Guardian, typing Guardian?

• 1:49:09Speaker 02

  The Guardian?

• 1:49:10Speaker 03

  Guardian, Anthony Fauci, sexiest man on earth. Maybe he is, maybe our taste is bad, maybe we gotta get our act together.

• 1:49:17Speaker 02

  I mean, you gotta look him up when he's younger to see if he's got some more. I mean, he's got handsome, he's got a symmetrical.

• 1:49:21Speaker 03

  Don't question it. Listen, I understand you're like, don't question the integrity of mainstream media that says sexy, if they say he's the sexiest man alive, just receive it, bro. I don't understand this with Gen Zs. I mean, you guys challenge this a little bit too much. So anyways, but the part is, this is where America, cause you.

• 1:49:40Speaker 02

  All right. I don't know, can the audience see this headshot of Fauci right here? That's his, this is Zoolander blue steel face right here.

• 1:49:47Speaker 03

  That's a good look though, bro. That's like, listen, Brad Pitt's got nothing on Anthony Fauci. Look at that. Ryan Gosling, forget about it. Right? Robert Redford, young, hell no. Right? McQueen, you got James Dean, Anthony Fauci, damn dog, look at that. Sexy.

• 1:50:05Speaker 02

  I wanted to back up just a little bit to a miscalculation that Zuckerberg, Susan Wojcicki and others made during that time.

• 1:50:11Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:50:11Speaker 02

  Is they forgot that the internet itself is actually free. A lot of people, when they talk about censorship, they're talking, they're existing within the big four. You know, what back then was Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and I guess it was TikTok? But the reality is you can still make a website and say pretty much whatever you want within the confines of free speech protections. I could start AndrewsOpinions.com and I can say anything. It's just a matter of getting traffic to the website. And what happened after they removed people from Facebook is in shutting down that discourse, people created alternative platforms that had a huge resurgence and actually emergence during that time as well. Gab, Parler, Rumble, BitChute. And so what you did is you took them away from the public discourse and the marketplace of ideas. And you put them into a tighter echo chamber amongst each other

• 1:50:53Speaker 02

  to where more fringe beliefs like the QAnon stuff were able to incubate in a smaller focus group. And they just kind of exploded. And that wouldn't have happened if the surface net was existing as it is. Now, you might say that, okay, this, this may have stopped some of the Q stuff from spreading and infecting the brains of, you know, hundreds of millions of people and was maybe focused on seven or eight. But those seven or eight million of people who were under absolute political hypnosis during the 2020 election, were, you know, are still suffering from that to this day.

• 1:51:22Speaker 03

  Listen.

• 1:51:25Speaker 03

  So funny when you say that we forget up until 2024.

• 1:51:32Speaker 03

  When did, when was, uh, when did, uh, no, up until October of 2022. It's not a long time ago, 20 and a half years ago.

• 1:51:41Speaker 03

  Mainstream media had a chokehold on influence, period. Yeah. Period. There was a guy named Dr. Mike, who was like the YouTuber and he would always have Anthony Fauci on. He agreed to come to our podcast three times. And he was going to talk to this lady who used to work with Anthony Fauci. Last minute he bailed, I would never do this and I never agreed, you agreed to it. We have the text documentation of him agreeing to come to it. I would never come to, all this other stuff. Okay. We were supposed to think he knew, he knew it all. And that was the way to go. We can't question anything with the vaccine stuff. No, no, no, Fauci's God and we gotta go with the lead. And then, and then Musk buys Twitter in October 27, 2022. Then what happens? Trump is back on X, which he rarely uses. Trump comes back on YouTube.

• 1:52:26Speaker 03

  Trump's come, comes back on Facebook and Instagram. Then everybody follows lead. Then content creators can go back to sharing their opinions. Then content creators, a lot of them were kind of like, hey, here's what I believe. For us, we got a lot of strikes. I don't know how many strikes you've gotten, but we got a lot of strikes. Just one. You got one? In the era of 2019 to 2022, we got many strikes. Our channel would be like, hey, you're one away, you're two away, you're one away, you're two away. And once you get three, they can do a lot of things if they choose to. Yeah. So what happened in October of 2022? When you're saying, when you're saying, hey, you know, they kind of got it wrong and they kind of did this. We didn't have a, the market didn't have a choice. You couldn't speak about the opinions that you had.

• 1:53:09Speaker 03

  Then when they could, when they realized they effed up, then the populace realized, ah, shit, we were right. We were right about this stuff. Trump wasn't going to start World War III. Never did in the first term. The economy was doing good until COVID happened. Oh shit, Russia and Ukraine happened under, I thought Biden was peace. Multiple major wars on a guy that's supposed to be peace. So that's when the markets finally like, look dude, I've had it. You win seven battleground states and every state becomes more Republican than they were before. And the two states that became more Republican are the two states that lost a trillion dollars or what that left. So even after they left, they became even more Republican. That's like a landslide type of a victory that Reagan had back when he won against Mandela or whoever it was.

• 1:53:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:53:53Speaker 03

  It's a very interesting time of what happened to it. So to me, I think a part of it is also, you know, it's a different social media now the last 20 and a half years than what it was 2019 to 2022. Those were dark times for a lot of people.

• 1:54:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, definitely.

• 1:54:09Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying?

• 1:54:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. And I think that right now is a pretty good time for social media comparatively to then.

• 1:54:14Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, it is. What was the anti-vaxx when you went to? What was that like?

• 1:54:18Speaker 02

  Oh man, so I mean, the anti-vaxx rally, the one that I went to was, obviously it was taken down by YouTube. But that was the first major anti-lockdown rally.

• 1:54:25Speaker 03

  Why was it taken down?

• 1:54:26Speaker 02

  You know?

• 1:54:27Speaker 03

  Same thing?

• 1:54:28Speaker 02

  Uh, just like bots.

• 1:54:29Speaker 03

  What was the craziest thing that somebody said?

• 1:54:31Speaker 02

  I mean, it was, this is a pre-vaccine era. This is before the vaccine rollout happened.

• 1:54:34Speaker 03

  What year was that?

• 1:54:35Speaker 02

  This is in April 2020.

• 1:54:37Speaker 03

  Oh my God, so peak.

• 1:54:40Speaker 02

  Oh no, that Hollywood anti-vaxx rally is like a year later. If you look up coronavirus lockdown protest, all gas, no brakes, you will find the video that was removed by YouTube.

• 1:54:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, but that was like at the California State Capitol in Sacramento.

• 1:54:54Speaker 03

  Is that the one?

• 1:54:54Speaker 02

  Right after it popped off.

• 1:54:55Speaker 03

  Is this it?

• 1:54:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:54:56Speaker 03

  So this is the one they took down?

• 1:54:57Speaker 02

  This is the one that was taken down.

• 1:54:59Speaker 03

  So it starts with this clip?

• 1:55:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:55:00Speaker 03

  I want to hear what the first thing is to see what upsets YouTube. Go ahead. I got every problem with the government saying we can't go out. It's a prohibition and it's illegal. It's against the Constitution. I am immune compromised. I put that at risk today. I put that at risk today because I gotta be here. Are you scared to die? No more scared than I am for anything else. Freedom!

• 1:55:31Speaker 00

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• 1:56:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, so that was like, that was when it first popped off.

• 1:56:35Speaker 04

  How many people own the news companies? How many? Well, you tell me. Three, three or four. How many does Disney own? How many? How many? I don't know. Well, maybe you ought to find out. You're in the media, are you? Yeah, but I'm independent. You're independent what? Independent media. Me and this guy, it's called All Gas No Brakes. Gee, you're bad. Exactly.

• 1:56:54Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 1:56:59Speaker 03

  That's the idea. I don't have a badge.

• 1:57:03Speaker 02

  This shit was crazy, man. I'm giving some flashbacks.

• 1:57:06Speaker 03

  This is April of 2020, the peak. And this is in LA or this is?

• 1:57:10Speaker 02

  This is in Sacramento at the California State Capitol. And as you can see, we were, I was like, I don't know if you were right, how you felt when the, when the thing first happened, but I was definitely nervous, you know, pre-vaccine, you know, all that. It was a pretty unsure time for people. And I think that that caused many to gravitate toward the extreme directions. You had people who were like, I'm never going to wear a mask. One guy here had a shirt that said cough in my face. And he was saying, everybody cough in my face. I don't care who you are, young, sick, old, cough. in my face, I will show you. And then you had people who were literally like refusing to go outside of their house. I remember in Seattle with the community that I grew up with, right? Like if you had a picnic at a public park and you hadn't, you didn't have a mask on and there was five or more people,

• 1:57:53Speaker 02

  somebody would walk by you with their phone, take a picture of you and it would circulate all on social media and it would say, this is a super spreader and you could lose your job because of that. So there was like a mutual polarization and I would argue that we're still living in 2020.

• 1:58:05Speaker 03

  You think?

• 1:58:07Speaker 02

  People's brains have never recovered, man.

• 1:58:09Speaker 03

  I, I think the, the 5%, you're probably right.

• 1:58:12Speaker 02

  I know, dude, think about it, man. Like, okay, so I would actually argue we're still living in the 1960s. But if you think 60s, you know, the divisions that were planted there, you know what I mean? As far as like red scare and then people's movements being anti, it's kind of, we're still living.

• 1:58:24Speaker 03

  If you're breaking it down like that, yeah, but I think, I think the level of fear that you had in 2020 in April, you probably don't have today with COVID.

• 1:58:32Speaker 02

  Oh, not the level of fear, but I mean, the way people perceive politicians in reality is very 2020 coded still to this day, even if people don't, you know.

• 1:58:39Speaker 03

  But they divided America.

• 1:58:40Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:58:41Speaker 03

  The mainstream media divided America in a major way. They, they convinced Americans that Trump was with Russia until they realized Hillary Clinton funded that whole thing.

• 1:58:50Speaker 02

  And I think Trump convinced Americans to look at people with masks as like these moronic sheep that are worthy of, you know, harassment.

• 1:58:58Speaker 03

  Well, some of them are.

• 1:58:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I just.

• 1:59:00Speaker 03

  You don't like, for example, when, when, I remember one time, Rob, can you put up the picture I posted of the lady that was in the car driving?

• 1:59:09Speaker 03

  I don't know if you have this or not. So during COVID, I, I used to love watching people.

• 1:59:16Speaker 03

  Let me see if I can find this. Where, no.

• 1:59:23Speaker 03

  Let me see if I can find this. This is so funny if I can find it.

• 1:59:27Speaker 03

  But yeah, when I would see guys wearing a fricking mask while they're driving in the car by themselves. Is this me, Rob?

• 1:59:35Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:59:36Speaker 03

  Do it again. Go back to it. Yeah, this is it.

• 1:59:38Speaker 02

  That's it. I can tell this is gonna be a good one.

• 1:59:40Speaker 03

  What are you doing? So this person's not a, you weren't a mask in a car by yourself? You think that's normal?

• 1:59:55Speaker 02

  But, you know.

• 1:59:55Speaker 03

  Probably went to Harvard, quite frankly.

• 1:59:57Speaker 02

  Part of you, doesn't part of you kind of feel bad for those people?

• 2:00:00Speaker 03

  No, I don't. You know why? Let me explain to you why.

• 2:00:04Speaker 03

  I, I don't feel bad because if, yeah, that's the second picture, Rob. If you can put the second picture, I think it's the second one to the left, top left. That's the one I think. Click on it. Driving alone, yeah, this is it. Driving alone with a mask on is like going to bed alone with a condom on.

• 2:00:24Speaker 03

  Like, what are you afraid of? You're not gonna get an STD.

• 2:00:27Speaker 02

  But you gotta think, like, they're under algorithmic hypnosis, like, the other half of the country, and they're being told every single day that there's a new variant. They're glued to their phone. Six hours of screen time is like the national average in 2020. So they're constantly being fed this fear stuff. Much like people on the far right were also being fed a similar type of fear content, outrage machine.

• 2:00:45Speaker 03

  Like what? Like what? Give me the fear on the right.

• 2:00:47Speaker 02

  Uh, probably, oh my gosh, the QAnon stuff?

• 2:00:50Speaker 03

  No, not QAnon. Give it to me from, like, from conservative media, like mainstream versus liberal media mainstream. Not QAnon people.

• 2:00:57Speaker 02

  Oh, I mean, that was the dominant thread of 2020.

• 2:01:00Speaker 03

  No, no, I'm just going, stick to mainstream media, what the conservative right was saying, that was selling fear porn, versus what the liberal left was saying, selling fear porn. They both sold fear porn, but what was it?

• 2:01:11Speaker 02

  I think that the democratic censorship on major social media platforms pushed people in the conservative activist movement into small fringe platforms, where they're, where they're being fed QAnon stuff more so than they were mainstream press, and that was a direct blowback. I mean, obviously, mainstream liberal media at the time was telling people not to go outside to social distance and to be wary of anybody without a mask on. And also, there was a, the right-wing machine was telling people that you're, you're, we're gonna turn to a communist country and all your freedoms are gonna be taken away. There's a cabal of baby-eating pedophiles that are connected to Epstein Island, who are controlling the entire world. So there was just mass exaggerations on both sides.

• 2:01:48Speaker 03

  But on the podcast, yes. On the podcast world, when it's coming to, uh, what do you say, the baby eating? What was that? What is the thing called that you drink it, you age backwards?

• 2:01:57Speaker 02

  Um, adrenochrome.

• 2:01:58Speaker 03

  Adrenochrome, right. And so for me, yeah, for sure. Some people saying that, that's kinda weird when they say that. I get it. But I'm saying mainstream, mainstream. On mainstream, if they said, if you give up too much control, this could be a step away from communism. It's partly not wrong if you give up too much control. We were told that our kids can't go to school and you're telling them to stay home for a year and a half? And people left California, New York? Yeah, that's crazy shit. You, you, you and I don't know what that is. When you went to school, you, you didn't have to stay home for a year and a half. Imagine how hard it is on the wife and the mother and mom and the father trying to make the marriage work and pay bills and get the job? And you lose the job and you lose the restaurant, you lose the business.

• 2:02:41Speaker 03

  That's policies from the left that destroyed all these things. So they destroyed America for a year and a half. But what did the right do? The right was telling you, don't believe it. Question it. Even libertarians said, don't believe it. Even libertarians became incited with Trump.

• 2:02:57Speaker 02

  Some of them did die though, like Herman Cain.

• 2:03:00Speaker 03

  Well, some of them did die, Herman Cain. Yeah, there's, there are some that died. There's more than just Herman Cain that died. There was a lot more than that. But that's not the point. The point is you have a choice. If you drive a car on the freeway, somebody hits you, you're going a hundred miles an hour, it's your choice. You kill yourself, you're dead, you're going to, you're dead. There's choices that you gotta make, but if it's all controlled.

• 2:03:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:03:21Speaker 03

  You want me to sit here and give you that? By the way, right now, like one of the conversations that's coming up here in the office was about, um, what do you call it? The personal ID. Are you following this? The real ID?

• 2:03:33Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, that's like when you go to the airport now, you can't just give them your driver's license?

• 2:03:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, you gotta have this real ID with like the star on the top.

• 2:03:38Speaker 02

  Is that what it has to do with like the face scanner thing?

• 2:03:40Speaker 03

  Right, right. Like we're going in that direction. Some people are not comfortable with that. And these are people that are conservative, that are not comfortable with that. With Trump, that voted for Trump. So this isn't like just a, a community that's all in. Like even if I voted for Trump, I'm a hundred percent in now.

• 2:03:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think that one of the, um, like ways that my logic is thinking, some, is, is kinda flawed sometimes. Is that I, I always have the impression that the conservative side is really united? And that everyone's kind of rallying together with their support of Trump and Elon.

• 2:04:10Speaker 03

  It's not.

• 2:04:11Speaker 02

  Uh, like what are the major points of division right now within the conservative movement?

• 2:04:15Speaker 03

  Oh dude, are you kidding me? Like, holy shit. Uh, do you know who Steve Bannon is?

• 2:04:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:04:22Speaker 03

  So do you know who Howard Lutnick is?

• 2:04:23Speaker 02

  Uh-uh. Is he connected to Steve?

• 2:04:25Speaker 03

  No, Howard Lutnick is, um, what's, what's Howard Lutnick's job, Rob?

• 2:04:32Speaker 03

  What's Howard Lutnick?

• 2:04:32Speaker 04

  The United States Secretary of Commerce.

• 2:04:34Speaker 03

  So he's the Secretary of Commerce. That's a heavy job, okay? Steve Bannon, who was a guy that helped Trump at the beginning when he's coming up?

• 2:04:43Speaker 02

  Old school.

• 2:04:43Speaker 03

  Old school. Like, he's a strategy guy, right? Have you seen what Steve Bannon has said about Howard Lutnick?

• 2:04:49Speaker 02

  I've only seen what Steve said about Elon, which is, he's like a foreigner or something.

• 2:04:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, so the point is, there is something going on on the conservative side. Wha- what's this about, Rob?

• 2:04:57Speaker 04

  Uh, this is Steve Bannon. He calls, in this clip, he calls Howard Lutnick an unmitigated disaster as the Secretary of Commerce.

• 2:05:04Speaker 03

  Go for it. Play the clip. ... to have a trading order that puts America first and puts American citizens first, and most importantly, starts to bring back high-value-added manufacturing, uh, to the United States. And no, uh, Howard Lutnick is not gonna all be done by robots. We're not doing this so we can set up so robots have a better life. Uh, in fact, I don't know why Lutnick's still doing media. Let me be blunt. Lutnick, who is Elon's pick for Secretary of Treasury, I think he's close to being an unmitigated disaster. Uh, we should see a lot less of Lutnick on TV. Hassett, Navarro, um, Jameson, the trade rep, and particularly Scott Beson, and I think Beson's being very smart in

• 2:05:46Speaker 03

  choosing and being very selective on the media. We have to have a clear message and people understand what the process is, and we have a process. It's a very well thought-through, and this, oh, by the way, Miller should, Steve and Miller should be doing more about trade and about this new economic order that we're trying to hammer through. This guy's got a big following, by the way.

• 2:06:05Speaker 02

  Steve Bannon?

• 2:06:06Speaker 03

  Yeah. Oh, yeah. Do you know that CPAC after CPAC, who, who was number one for presidency for 2028? Was who, Rob? Trump? Or no, J D Vance, I'm sorry, J D Vance was one.

• 2:06:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:06:17Speaker 03

  You know who was 231%? Him.

• 2:06:19Speaker 02

  Really? Damn, so there's kind of like different factional leaders within the conservative thought.

• 2:06:23Speaker 03

  Oh, for sure. There is not 100% unity. No, no, there's not, which by the way, that's good.

• 2:06:28Speaker 02

  But which issue is most divisive, not just in terms of people they look up to?

• 2:06:31Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, the, the issue that's divisive, the, the, there's the America first, right? Which is like the people that hate, the policies that makes us first. America first, globalist, right? Nationalist, we're about America versus globalist. There's, there's that part. Um, there's a debate on some of these guys that are more, they're kind of like part of the establishment side versus the anti-establishment. Like, hey, we voted you in to do these things. How come you're not doing that? How come you're not going after these three or four or five issues that you, we voted for you for? So, and then the tariffs, there is a camp in Republican Party that's not for the way tariffs are going.

• 2:07:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was, I was at the Bernie Sanders rally, I told you, in Bakersfield. There was a guy there in a MAGA hat and he was like, I just want to hear what Bernie has to say because these tariffs are destroying my business.

• 2:07:17Speaker 03

  He said that?

• 2:07:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:07:18Speaker 03

  Well, that would qualify for a paid agitator to, to kind of, to kind of throw it off.

• 2:07:23Speaker 02

  So that, that. You know, just because you disagree with him, man.

• 2:07:25Speaker 03

  No, but that is the perfect way to confuse the hell out of somebody to come in. You, you know how much it costs to do something like that? Hey, I'll give you $200 worth of MAGA hat and just go say, say this to that guy in the camp. He'll use it.

• 2:07:36Speaker 02

  To be fair, I was confused. So, mission success.

• 2:07:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, so what I'm saying to you is that's that effective, that a guy that gets billions of views, I don't know how many total views you got. I'm assuming you got hundreds of social media views, if not over a billion, total social media views.

• 2:07:49Speaker 02

  Got 600 million.

• 2:07:50Speaker 03

  On YouTube?

• 2:07:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, actually, no, in total, I probably have around a billion.

• 2:07:53Speaker 03

  No, you got over a billion, bro. And you, don't count YouTube, your TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, X, everywhere. So, so you got over a billion views. That'd work with a guy like you. So, these are the things that we got to be thinking about on the Republican side? No, no, it's not, it's not what you think it is. So, but all I'm saying is, during that time with COVID, dude, they, they gaslit the.

• 2:08:14Speaker 03

  They gaslit the hell out of a lot of us, mainstream media. Who, did you ever do anything where you actually, ever have a moment where you were actually scared like, "Holy shit, we gotta be careful with this," where your camera guys were in the word?

• 2:08:25Speaker 02

  Oh, all the time.

• 2:08:26Speaker 03

  Where was that? What's the scariest one?

• 2:08:27Speaker 02

  I mean, personally, probably getting arrested by border patrol.

• 2:08:31Speaker 03

  Oh, Rob, we have to do this. This, can you, can you break down what you did here? Cause this is absolutely edgy.

• 2:08:39Speaker 02

  Okay, so the, the video is called Border Patrol Arrest. So let me first, before you watch this, let me tell you the purpose. This is when the, the border was wide open and there was a big, uh, you know, migrant crisis happening. So I wanted to see what it was like on the Mexican side as far as the final step of actually meeting up with a coyote who was connected to the cartel and crossing the, the border, specifically over the river, cause I wanted to get in the water as opposed to be in the hot desert. And so, yeah, we did that. I didn't actually, I didn't realize that we were gonna cross the river until we got there. But then I kinda put two and two together and there was a guy that was collecting tacks with a machete that he was like hitting against this tree in the distance. And I was like, "All right, fuck why, I gotta get out of Mexico." I'm looking at America like, "Oh, home free finally." So, you know, I link arms with the coyote, we cross the river.

• 2:09:22Speaker 02

  I get to the American side and I think that I'm good to go. The coyote's like, "Man, stay down." Like, you know, "You can still get arrested." Like, even if you're an American citizen, you can't just hop your own border. And I was like, "Dude, I can hop my own border. I've been here my whole life, it's fine." So I, I walk up and then I get up and then the border patrol agent is like, you know, "Stand up." I stand up like I've done nothing wrong. And he's like, "You know, you just, that's a felony, right?" And I was like, "What do you mean?" He's like, "You have to go through a port of entry." And I was like, "Oh shit, my bad. Can I get a ticket or something?" And he was like, "No, bro." So he took me to a processing center for migrants. And, uh, yeah, it was like hundreds, hundreds of them wearing, uh, space blankets in this freezing room. They make it really cold.

• 2:10:03Speaker 03

  Did you record or they didn't let you record it?

• 2:10:04Speaker 02

  I couldn't record this, so we had a, a designer do like a 3D animation rendering of it. So I go into the room after being processed and like, all the migrants, like, it was the worst day of their life, obviously, cause they've just gotten caught trying to come into the US.

• 2:10:16Speaker 03

  Rob, you can hear the audio if you wanna mute it because we hear it.

• 2:10:18Speaker 02

  But it made their life, seeing a white guy walk into the holding tank. All these guys were having the worst day and they just stand up, they're just laughing. They're like, "What the hell did you do? What are you doing?" And I speak Spanish.

• 2:10:28Speaker 03

  Do you have the clip up, speaking to the coyotes?

• 2:10:30Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:10:31Speaker 03

  Go to the front, Rob? Uh, I think speaking to the coyotes is where? Earlier?

• 2:10:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:10:36Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:10:37Speaker 02

  Well, um, I would say around the seven minute mark. Uh, yeah.

• 2:10:42Speaker 03

  Earlier or right there?

• 2:10:44Speaker 02

  So that's the coyote who I blurred out and he was...

• 2:10:46Speaker 03

  Go back a little bit, Rob. Go back a little bit, little, because he starts talking, okay, right there, right there.

• 2:10:50Speaker 02

  Right there. Barbed wire at all. It's a non-issue and a distraction. Designed to create controversy from afar.

• 2:10:56Speaker 04

  Ya vamos pa' terra, ya vamos pa' terra.

• 2:10:58Speaker 02

  He says this is the perfect place to cross, but he's worried it's a bit too deep.

• 2:11:03Speaker 04

  Y si él mira que está hondo, busca otro lado.

• 2:11:08Speaker 04

  Si no, si no está hondo, pues por ahí pasamos los cuatro. Los cuatro agarrados.

• 2:11:13Speaker 02

  You can see my face, I'm like... Ustedes van a pasar con nosotros a los Estados Unidos.

• 2:11:17Speaker 03

  Good for you.

• 2:11:17Speaker 02

  You see, I'm like, what? But I didn't realize up until this point that we were actually gonna cross the river ourselves. I was expecting just like a tour of their route, but obviously, they had other plans.

• 2:11:28Speaker 04

  Y luego ahí ya cruzamos pa' los Estados Unidos.

• 2:11:30Speaker 02

  Sí.

• 2:11:31Speaker 04

  Ah, sí, como cinco mil dólares.

• 2:11:34Speaker 02

  God damn it. It was also gonna cost us five thousand dollars apiece.

• 2:11:38Speaker 03

  Did you have it?

• 2:11:38Speaker 02

  This was not discussed, but I wasn't sure what to do. So, eso es la primer parte.

• 2:11:43Speaker 04

  La primer parte es esta.

• 2:11:46Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 2:11:47Speaker 04

  Y luego...

• 2:11:51Speaker 04

  Y luego necesitamos conseguir alguien que nos levante. De cuenta es un carro...

• 2:11:58Speaker 04

  Y ya nos sube hasta San Antonio.

• 2:12:00Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 2:12:00Speaker 04

  Pero tenemos que caminar, haz de cuenta... Hasta Uvalde. Hasta, háganse por acá, mira.

• 2:12:07Speaker 02

  At this point, it became quite obvious that I was in far too deep. The coyote told me that after crossing the river, we had to walk from Eagle Pass to Uvalde, Texas, which is over sixty-seven miles on foot. How would this be possible? According to Apple Maps, it said it would take over twenty-four hours. We had no water. Plus, we apparently owed these guys five thousand dollars. Looking back, I would have asked to turn around, but we were in far too deep. And while they're being pretty cool, you never know when a switch could flip or something. Abruptly, the younger coyote asked me to duck down because a border patrol boat was speeding by.

• 2:12:39Speaker 00

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• 2:13:41Speaker 03

  How are you getting this footage?

• 2:13:42Speaker 02

  Uh, we got that from just YouTube. They publish, they do this sweeps every 30 minutes.

• 2:13:56Speaker 04

  Okay. You want to live in the United States or do you want to live in America?

• 2:14:01Speaker 03

  How are you feeling at this moment? Anxiety or no? You look pretty calm.

• 2:14:03Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah. The thing is, I don't really feel anxiety until like I'm looking at the footage. Like, it's funny, in the moment I wasn't nervous, but watching this now, I'm nervous because I realized this is just like a bad idea.

• 2:14:13Speaker 03

  So what's about to happen next?

• 2:14:15Speaker 02

  I'm about to cross the border and get arrested by Border Patrol.

• 2:14:17Speaker 03

  Go to the Border Patrol part when he's talking? Do you record when you're talking to Border Patrol?

• 2:14:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, right there.

• 2:14:23Speaker 03

  Go back a little bit, like, is this it? Okay, press play.

• 2:14:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is now in the US. Coyotes tell me to be quiet.

• 2:14:35Speaker 02

  That's me right there. Roly poly for him.

• 2:14:40Speaker 06

  Manos arriba!

• 2:14:43Speaker 03

  Who is that?

• 2:14:45Speaker 02

  Speak English.

• 2:14:45Speaker 06

  Hands up, speak English? Get up, let me see your hands. Got any guns on you?

• 2:14:49Speaker 02

  No, sir.

• 2:14:50Speaker 06

  Face away from me.

• 2:14:51Speaker 02

  We're journalists.

• 2:14:52Speaker 06

  Usted, manos arriba! Bajate, subete!

• 2:14:56Speaker 03

  You haven't paid the five grand yet.

• 2:14:57Speaker 06

  You too, you speak English?

• 2:14:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:14:59Speaker 06

  Stand up.

• 2:15:00Speaker 02

  I couldn't believe it. Border Patrol had been watching us the entire time since we entered the forest.

• 2:15:06Speaker 06

  Yeah, I could clearly hear him swimming.

• 2:15:08Speaker 02

  And set up an ambush on the American side to apprehend us.

• 2:15:10Speaker 06

  You two, face away from me. Walk backwards over here. Hey! ¡Empacáwe!

• 2:15:15Speaker 02

  Immediately, my coyotes jumped back into the water, swimming back to Mexico.

• 2:15:21Speaker 06

  Come back, come back, over here. Get over here.

• 2:15:23Speaker 02

  This left us alone in Border Patrol custody.

• 2:15:28Speaker 06

  There was one guy here, he obviously ran back, and then the two USC's right there.

• 2:15:32Speaker 02

  And watch, he grabs the camera and it's still rolling, he doesn't even realize it's rolling.

• 2:15:38Speaker 02

  That's a Border Patrol agent.

• 2:15:39Speaker 03

  No shit. That's perfect footage. That's golden.

• 2:15:43Speaker 02

  Dude, right?

• 2:15:45Speaker 03

  Wow, look at this, he's doing a great job. He should be a camera guy.

• 2:15:49Speaker 02

  Honestly, this is pretty much a, this is a commercial for the US Border Patrol.

• 2:15:52Speaker 03

  This is like, these guys are great shooters, literally.

• 2:15:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, look at this, cinematography, he's holding it like at a perfect eye level here, or hip level.

• 2:16:02Speaker 02

  And we're sitting in the back of the car there, you can't see us, but...

• 2:16:06Speaker 02

  Come on, bro.

• 2:16:07Speaker 03

  Good for him. You should have given him the $5,000.

• 2:16:10Speaker 02

  It doesn't get better than that.

• 2:16:11Speaker 03

  No, wow. So now what happens? You go to jail?

• 2:16:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, well I went to a processing center, and they just held me in-

• 2:16:17Speaker 03

  This is the one you were with a couple hundred other guys that got caught as well?

• 2:16:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, and they put me in a solitary confinement cell for like three days.

• 2:16:22Speaker 03

  Did somebody say like, "What the f-" what were you thinking?

• 2:16:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, they understood, but like the immigration court system was so bloated because of the crisis, that I couldn't get heard by a judge for like three days. As soon as she heard that I was an American citizen, they just gave me a $10,000 fine and dropped me off at a gas station.

• 2:16:36Speaker 03

  You paid the fine?

• 2:16:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, I paid it.

• 2:16:38Speaker 03

  So you didn't pay the $5,000 to the coyote, but you paid the $10,000 to the government?

• 2:16:41Speaker 02

  I probably should pay the coyote's back.

• 2:16:48Speaker 02

  I never thought that, I, I'll tell somebody.

• 2:16:50Speaker 03

  Well, listen, man, that guy's probably upset, he's like, "Look dude, I did my job."

• 2:16:53Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, to be fair, I mean, I got arrested, they were supposed to help me get into the US.

• 2:16:58Speaker 03

  They're not arrested, so he didn't fulfill his commitment.

• 2:17:00Speaker 02

  No, not at all.

• 2:17:01Speaker 03

  That's disappointing, that's a good point. Now, you're a businessman, you want things to get done, and then I'll pay you.

• 2:17:06Speaker 02

  Definitely.

• 2:17:06Speaker 03

  I'll think about paying you.

• 2:17:07Speaker 02

  But dude, it was horrible in there, it was the most depressing place I've ever seen in my life.

• 2:17:11Speaker 03

  What's the worst part about it?

• 2:17:11Speaker 02

  Just seeing like little kids covered in water from the Rio Grande with sticks in their hair, crying hysterically with their moms, as they're being, you know, detained by Border Patrol and put into freezing rooms, where they're just screaming all night. And in my cell, they had a TV, and the movie The Matrix was playing, and it was, but it was just the loading screen, I couldn't adjust it, so it was like play special features, and it was the same song over and over again. And I finally got the jailer to change it to a different movie, and they played the movie Marley and Me, the Owen Wilson film about the dog who passes away, spoiler alert, over and over again. So I had to watch Marley and Me for three fucking days.

• 2:17:51Speaker 03

  At least it's a decent movie, but I don't know for three days.

• 2:17:53Speaker 02

  I know every scene by heart. And so I get out. And my mom calls me and she was like, you're taking years off my life. You can never do that again. So.

• 2:18:02Speaker 03

  So when are you going to Iran?

• 2:18:04Speaker 02

  Should I go?

• 2:18:05Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, listen, if you really wanna give your mom three years back. Years back to her, you know, go back to Iran, one of the safest places.

• 2:18:12Speaker 02

  Are you a fan of Iran?

• 2:18:13Speaker 03

  I would love to go back, but if we go to Iran, you would be arrested by guilty of association with me.

• 2:18:19Speaker 02

  Oh, they don't like you?

• 2:18:20Speaker 03

  No, they don't like me, but they would, they would, they would entertain you.

• 2:18:23Speaker 02

  Your family grew up there like?

• 2:18:24Speaker 03

  I grew up there. I lived there 11 years. Yeah.

• 2:18:26Speaker 02

  After 79?

• 2:18:28Speaker 03

  78 through 89.

• 2:18:29Speaker 02

  So do you have a memory of that transition?

• 2:18:31Speaker 03

  Vivid.

• 2:18:32Speaker 02

  Jeez.

• 2:18:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, I remember the war, maybe not the transition, but I remember the war. I remember what it was like.

• 2:18:37Speaker 02

  You think that condition you're thinking as an adult a lot? Do you think that condition, like your way of thinking a lot, just experiencing such a drastic regime change?

• 2:18:45Speaker 03

  I value freedom and I'm extremely paranoid with the government having too much power. And you know who I had here on the podcast three months ago? I had the Islamic Revolutionary Guard founder.

• 2:18:57Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 2:18:58Speaker 03

  I had him here. This is a guy whose direct report, while they're in a building together, he's on the fourth floor. His direct report's on the first floor of the building in Iran. The direct report goes and puts a bomb, kills the president of Iran and the prime minister. And then claims he's dead. This guy claims that his ashes are everywhere. The entire country mourns for the president and the prime minister. You know, who is the people that they killed, Rob? It was the president and, um. Uh, uh, uh, anyways, they killed the two leaders that they have. Two weeks later, they find that the killer's not dead. So the ceremony, anyways, this guy, when I have it on, uh, in our podcast, we're having a conversation together with him.

• 2:19:41Speaker 03

  I said, what's the first thing you guys did when Khomeini took over Iran? He said, we had to confiscate everyone's weapons. I said, why is that? He said, well, it's the natural thing. We had to make Iran safer. I said, so you take the guns away from citizens, scare the crap out of them. Now you have the guns? Yeah. That's the part where, for a person like me that lived there, where I saw what happened with a beautiful country that fell all of a sudden like this, because Iranians never thought this was gonna happen, ever thought this was gonna happen, and what's happened to the Middle East since then? It's been a shit show.

• 2:20:11Speaker 02

  What were the main promises that Khomeini promised to keep as far as like transforming Iran into a different society?

• 2:20:17Speaker 03

  You ready? Free food, free rice.

• 2:20:20Speaker 02

  Really?

• 2:20:20Speaker 03

  Free phones, free gas, free housing. Sounded like Bernie Sanders.

• 2:20:25Speaker 02

  So is the promise of free services without having to work for them?

• 2:20:28Speaker 03

  Everything was given. Take the money from the rich and give it to the poor. And I've had to heard that message here many, many times. You know how many times that's been tried? Many times. It always fails. Why? Because a person eventually gets so much power, that power they start abusing. And when they start abusing, it's not like, hey, I can do whatever I wanna do. The rest is history. So you know, for me, I come from a different life that I witnessed what happened. And they got rid of this guy Shah, who made Iran an incredible place to be at where Frank Sinatra performed a concert in Iran in 1975. You probably don't even believe that.

• 2:21:05Speaker 02

  No, I do. I mean, the same thing in Havana, it was Vegas 2.0.

• 2:21:08Speaker 03

  Bingo.

• 2:21:08Speaker 02

  It's like the Godfather 2.

• 2:21:09Speaker 03

  So similar stories. Iran and Havana is actually a good combination. Good comparison, Cuba and Iran.

• 2:21:14Speaker 02

  So do you think there's something about human nature that just, you know, once people hoard a tremendous amount of power, they just naturally gravitate toward corruption and human rights abuses?

• 2:21:24Speaker 03

  You planning on having kids one day?

• 2:21:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:21:26Speaker 03

  Okay. It's one of the greatest gifts in life. There's no love like how a kid loves you. Nothing. Not mom, dad, brother, sister, cousin, girlfriend, husband, nothing. Nothing like a kid liking you. And you like girls or you like guys?

• 2:21:38Speaker 02

  What? Oh, girl.

• 2:21:39Speaker 03

  Are you gay or straight?

• 2:21:40Speaker 02

  I think girls.

• 2:21:41Speaker 03

  No, I mean, you're pro-gay. I thought maybe you were.

• 2:21:42Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no, no.

• 2:21:43Speaker 03

  Oh, you're fully, you're a girl?

• 2:21:44Speaker 02

  I've got a girlfriend. She's a girl, real human woman.

• 2:21:47Speaker 03

  But is she like a girl that, a guy that identifies as a girl?

• 2:21:50Speaker 02

  No, no, no, she's a straight up lady. Hair and everything.

• 2:21:53Speaker 03

  Fantastic.

• 2:21:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:21:54Speaker 03

  Congrats, bro.

• 2:21:54Speaker 02

  Thanks, bro.

• 2:21:55Speaker 03

  Part of the same camp. I'm proud of you.

• 2:21:58Speaker 02

  I appreciate the respect with which you asked that question. You're like, wait, you support gaming?

• 2:22:05Speaker 03

  Listen, you can't assume nowadays, man. That was your number two point.

• 2:22:08Speaker 02

  Imagine if you were like, what's her name? And I got really offended.

• 2:22:13Speaker 02

  She's a girl. She's probably watching.

• 2:22:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, but when you have a kid, let me tell you what happened. The way you're going, you're gonna make a lot of money. You're gonna make a lot of money. Again, if you don't screw it up, but the way you're going, you're gonna have a lot of great opportunities for you. Cause you're likable, you have that effect, you got the charm, charisma, you're very interesting as well. So when money comes, probably by the time you're 45, you're gonna be worth anywhere between 20 to 200 million dollars. Okay, it's gonna be your network, whether you like it or not.

• 2:22:40Speaker 02

  Okay, thank you.

• 2:22:41Speaker 03

  Could be higher, but that's a number that you're gonna have, right? You're not gonna just say, hey kids, when you turn 18 years old, mommy and daddy's gonna give you all the money. You're gonna put some controls in place, right?

• 2:22:51Speaker 02

  I wanna make them work a regular job.

• 2:22:52Speaker 03

  Thank you. So that's the part, you're gonna have to earn a way to go while daddy worked. Daddy put his life on the line, went to Mexico and fricking tried to swim over and almost got killed. That's work. That's not easy. You risk a lot of things, right? To me, a part of that with here, where we are, I think we gotta be, you know, the system of socialism and some of the ideas that they had. It's tough. If we don't expect people to have to earn it themselves and kind of give things out away to them without having to earn it. It's a troubling place to be. It's a challenging place to be. And I'm overly paranoid if we do end up getting there one day.

• 2:23:31Speaker 02

  That's very reasonable, given your life experience.

• 2:23:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, and that's the, and that's the part, you know, and I kinda wanted to know what your, what your family life was when. You said your parents used to be conservatives? Your father was conservative, right?

• 2:23:42Speaker 02

  My parents were never, I mean, so I grew up in Philadelphia. I moved to Seattle when I was 12, but um. My grandparents were, you know, fiscally conservative.

• 2:23:49Speaker 03

  Grandparents, right.

• 2:23:50Speaker 02

  Reagan era, like, but you gotta think too, their parents were, you know, World War II veterans. Who after the GI Bill were able to build homes in suburbia. And so the baby boomers were the first suburban generation who got to experience that life. With no wars until Vietnam, but it was a solid 15, 20 years of real American prosperity for them. Where that were everybody with a good. Job was able to afford a house and live a fulfilling life. Uh, my parents were um, probably a little bit more conservative oriented when I was really young. But I think that the war in Iraq really transformed their perception. Uh, the war on terror post nine eleven, I think the early war on drugs and you know, US intervention in Latin America as well. Really changed their perspective on things. So they were big time Al Gore vegetarians. Um, even today, they're not very political, but my early political thinking was definitely more progressive.

• 2:24:35Speaker 02

  Uh, when I moved to Seattle, I started hanging out with a bunch of like anarchists and more left wing circles in high school. I went to school in the south. I went to New Orleans for college. And I got to know a lot more conservative leaning people, learned about, you know, the second amendment and stuff like that and got more exposure. And now I've lived on the road and you know, between different cities for a long time. So. I'm definitely, like I said, more left leaning, but I'm a very uh, open to all perspectives. And also I think that most people are generally well intentioned. And I think that also as a country, what we need to be able to do is let some of the stubbornness go a little bit. You know, when you've committed to a certain way of thinking for a long time, it's very, it's kind of an ego blow to change your mind. And I think that's kind of where we're at, where a lot of people don't want to accept new information or different ideas because they've committed and they have so much emotion and passion behind this way of thinking that they've.

• 2:25:19Speaker 02

  Kind of nursed for a long time. And so like I said, if something positive happens in the next four years, I'll report on it. Uh, I just know that maybe communism, socialism isn't the way to go, probably not. I don't know. I just know that what's happening right now isn't really functioning that well. And so I think that's why there's so many different political ideas happening right now. This. In, in my opinion, there's more diversity of political thought now than there's been ever.

• 2:25:42Speaker 03

  And guess what? I love that.

• 2:25:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:25:43Speaker 03

  That's why I say I'm excited about what you're gonna be doing. I think you're very important and I think. You're gonna inspire a lot of younger guys that are gonna wanna do what you're doing as well, that are interested. My thirteen year old son would be fascinated by you.

• 2:25:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:25:54Speaker 03

  Literally, my thirteen year old son would have a thirty minute conversation with you and enjoy it. Because of where you're at. There's a lot of guys nowadays that are gonna look up to you. Twelve year kids that are looking up to what you're doing because it's entertaining. It sounds fun. It's a little edgy, but also you're in pursuit of something. Let me see what they're going through. Anyways, do you want to tell us about the documentary?

• 2:26:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. So Dear Kelly was my first independently released film. I did it direct to streamer, dropped on January 15th of this year. And so the whole thing was I didn't want to go through a studio. I wanted to just drop it so you can rent it for $5.55 or buy it for 15.55 at www.dearkellyfilm.com. It was a project that I've been working on for a really long time. It's kind of a project about radical right wing stuff during the Biden years. Not so much now, you know, and it's.

• 2:26:43Speaker 03

  It's an interesting angle, though.

• 2:26:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:26:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, that the, if you want to tell the audience who the individual that influenced you at a time that you needed.

• 2:26:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, so Kelly J. Patriot, Kelly Johnson is the protagonist of the film. And he's someone that I documented over the course of three and a half or four years. I first met him at a White Lives Matter rally in 2021. And I just, his instantly, his story resonated with me because he was kind of spouting off the typical talking points of that time. You know, like Fauci's evil, Jeffrey Epstein, Suez Canal's block, child trafficking, all the 2021 flashpoint stuff. And then the second part of our conversation was all about a personal vendetta that he had against a guy who gave him a loan. Named Bill Joyner, who was like this guy who he took a loan from. And Kelly felt like he got his home stolen because of the situation. And I felt it was so interesting seeing how his personal vendetta and the collapse of his core needs bled into a greater spiritual, political battle in the country.

• 2:27:32Speaker 02

  And so the documentary itself is documenting his journey throughout the course of these four years, as well as his family's intervention attempts to get him to turn the page.

• 2:27:42Speaker 03

  What a timing to follow him for three and a half years.

• 2:27:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think the best documentaries, in my opinion, are the ones that are shot over a long period of time. It's very hard to create an amazing, compelling piece of documentary work when you only have three or three and a half months with a subject. I mean, you can make it entertaining, you can add music and supplemental media to make it pop, but time is the true essence of a great film.

• 2:28:03Speaker 03

  I agree, and that's why I'm excited to follow your journey.

• 2:28:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:28:06Speaker 03

  And I look forward to having you on next time to see what you're going through. And by the way, for those of you that are not watching, you're listening. We're gonna put the link below in the description, but those listening, it's DearKellyFilm.com. Again, Dear like D E A R, Kelly as in K E L L Y Film.com. DearKellyFilm.com, Rob, put the link below as well for them to go watch. If you love him-

• 2:28:29Speaker 02

  Oh, we just had 3 million subscribers.

• 2:28:30Speaker 03

  Oh, congratulations, buddy. That's sick. He just said it right before the podcast. We're 50 away. Boom.

• 2:28:37Speaker 02

  3 million subscribers.

• 2:28:38Speaker 03

  3 million subscribers on 149 videos.

• 2:28:40Speaker 02

  That's a good feeling.

• 2:28:41Speaker 03

  Sick. Congratulations to you and happy early birthday. So again, go to the site, support him. Andrew, it's been a pleasure having you on. This was amazing.

• 2:28:49Speaker 02

  Thanks for having me, man. I appreciate it.

• 2:28:50Speaker 03

  Appreciate you for coming on and I look forward to doing this again in the future.

• 2:28:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'll see you when I'm 35.

• 2:28:54Speaker 03

  I look forward to it. Take care, buddy.

• 2:28:56Speaker 02

  Thanks, man.

• 2:28:56Speaker 03

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