#271 Ro Khanna - The Internal Failures Undermining America’s Institutions

Ro Khanna is the U. S. Representative for California's 17th Congressional District (Silicon Valley) since 2017, serving his fifth term as a Democrat. Born to Indian immigrant parents, Khanna graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a B. A. in economics from the University of Chicago and earned a J. D. from Yale Law School. He taught economics at Stanford, worked in the Obama administration on commerce and manufacturing, and authored key provisions of the CHIPS and Science Act to boost U. S. tech manufacturing. A leader on climate, labor rights (supporting the PRO Act), and digital privacy, Khanna refuses PAC and lobbyist contributions and has championed bipartisan efforts like the Epstein Files Transparency Act (2025) for releasing sealed documents. In late 2025, he faced Silicon Valley backlash for supporting a proposed wealth tax on billionaires to fund healthcare amid Medicaid cuts. Khanna advocates for progressive economic patriotism, reducing inequality, and ethical tech governance while working across the aisle on national security and innovation. Married to Ritu Ahuja Khanna, with two children, he resides in Fremont. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: Ready to give your liver the support it deserves? Head to https://dosedaily.co/SRS or enter SRS to get 35% off your first subscription. Receive 30% off your first subscription order at https://armra.com/SRS or enter code SRS at checkout. Head to https://factormeals.com/srs50off and use code srs50off to get 50% off your first Factor box plus free breakfast for 1 year (new customers only, with qualifying subscription purchase). Take care of your skin like you take care of your gear—visit https://CalderaLab.com/SRS and use code SRS for 20% off your first order. If you’re serious about selling to the Department of War, go to https://SBIRAdvisors.com and mention Shawn Ryan for your first month free. Ro Khanna Links: Website - https://khanna.house.gov Campaign Site - https://www.rokhanna.com X - https://x.com/RoKhanna FB - https://www.facebook.com/RepRoKhanna IG - https://www.instagram.com/rokhannausa Roblox Petition - https://act.rokhanna.com/a/save-roblox-petition Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:05Shawn Ryan?

  Ro Khanna, welcome to the show.

• 0:07Speaker 01

  Thank you. You've got quite the studio. You know, I've done a lot of these. I haven't ever seen a studio with liquor, guns, from your time in Afghanistan, Iraq. It's worth coming here just to see the studio.

• 0:20Shawn Ryan?

  Well, thank you. If you get thirsty, we've got plenty of booze here. I don't drink, but it looks pretty cool.

• 0:25Speaker 01

  You've got a great collection.

• 0:28Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you. But, um, man, this is so... Tried to get you and Thomas Massey on at the same time, but he couldn't make it. But I just want to say that what you guys are doing, trying to bring disclosure or transparency to the Epstein files and what the hell has been going on with all that. I mean, thank you for doing that.

• 0:52Speaker 01

  Well, thank you for your voice, because you've been talking about this early on. And it's why I wanted to come down here. And it's the survivors. I mean, you know what? People don't get how bad this stuff was. And of course, Thomas has been a key partner. But you have over 1,200 women, many of them from working-class backgrounds. A lot of them, by the way, didn't have a father. Like, they were purposely targeted because they were vulnerable. Epstein creates a rape island where basically rich and powerful people go down there either to abuse or sexually exploit these young girls

• 1:34Speaker 01

  or to watch in parties as 13- and 14-year-olds are paraded around and they're drinking booze and laughing. And then you have people trafficking these girls, even when they were underage or 19, 20, being trafficked to other rich and powerful folks. They call the FBI. The FBI says, "We're not going to do anything."

• 1:59Shawn Ryan?

  The FBI says, what the fuck does the FBI do?

• 2:03Speaker 01

  So there's a-

• 2:03Shawn Ryan?

  What do they do? I, so, I'm just gonna, I'm sorry, I'm gonna cut you off. I've been covering this topic for a long time.

• 2:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10Shawn Ryan?

  I started this with Ryan Montgomery about two years ago.

• 2:14Speaker 01

  I know you did.

• 2:15Shawn Ryan?

  Then I brought on Tim Tebow. We're bringing on your buddy Schlep, who's going after Roblox. I know you're the first and only congressman to actually speak out against Roblox, at least according to Schlep's attorney.

• 2:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:29Shawn Ryan?

  And, you know, it's, I just interviewed Elizabeth Phillips. You're, are you familiar with this Camp Canuck?

• 2:35Speaker 01

  I'm not.

• 2:36Shawn Ryan?

  It's the biggest Christian camp in the fucking world.

• 2:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:39Shawn Ryan?

  And they are, they, they, I brought Elizabeth Phillips on and she talks about how they've been molesting thousands of kids for years. And putting them under NDA after a settlement so that they can never, as a kid, so that they can never come out and talk about their sexual abuse at fucking Camp Canuck.

• 3:00Speaker 01

  It's sick.

• 3:00Shawn Ryan?

  You know, and now we have, I mean, I fucking voted for this shit. I voted to get these damn files released and it's like a total 180 just happened.

• 3:11Speaker 01

  Well, I don't, I don't know if you had the president on or the vice president on, on your show, but they-

• 3:15Shawn Ryan?

  Had both of them on.

• 3:16Speaker 01

  They campaigned on this, right? And so when Massey and I originally did the bill, we thought, okay, Trump should be for this, cause he campaigned, he said, "Look, we're gonna release the files." Here's the truth of the matter. No one cared about this issue since the 1990s. It's not like a Donald Trump thing. Biden, we didn't release the files under Biden. This thing was going on, uh, since the 2000s. In 1996, Maria launched a complaint with the FBI and she was told-

• 3:48Speaker 01

  And we're not gonna do anything. By the way, you talked to some of the other survivors. They were told, "Don't talk to the New York police." Epstein is too connected. For thirty years, until some of the documents just came out because of Massey and my bill, Maria was called a liar by everyone in the power and said, "Oh, she never filed a complaint with the FBI." So, when Trump said he wants to release the files, he was right. When he said that the system is corrupt protecting rich and powerful people, he was right. And we gave him the benefit of the doubt. Then Pam Bondi comes and says, "Oh, there's no, there are no more files." I mean, come on. That's when Massey and I do this bill. And we initially thought maybe Trump would support it because his own Attorney General is betraying his promise.

• 4:33Speaker 01

  And what has been disappointing is we've, for the last five, six months, have had to fight the administration at every step of the way, which gets me to believe, like, who is protecting these people?

• 4:43Shawn Ryan?

  I, I just, I don't understand. I, I cannot, I got really fucking pissed off at the Democrat Party because the maps, the minor attracted persons shit, before Trump came into office, we talked about it all the time. Now, I, I, why are we protecting, why is the White House protecting pedophiles? Why is the White House protecting pedophiles? I just don't understand it, Ro. I can't fucking get it through my head, why we would protect pedophiles. The other thing is, this country has the biggest fucking problem with sex exploitation and sex trafficking in the world. We can talk about fucking Venezuela and Mexico and Ukraine and Russia and fucking China

• 5:26Shawn Ryan?

  and waste fraud and abuse and fucking liberals this and Democrats this and Republicans and... We have a pedophile problem. We have a fucking pedophile problem in this country and nobody's doing anything about it in government, except you and Thomas Massey. What the fuck is going on?

• 5:46Speaker 01

  You know how I know this cuz? Is everybody in government a fucking pedophile now? What the fuck is happening? Well, I don't understand who they're trying to protect cuz I keep saying it's not about Trump. There's, there's so many people, Democrats, Republicans, who were involved in all of this. Just release the files. And we know, they say, how do you know, Earl, that there are other men involved? First of all, just use your common sense. There are 1,200 plus survivors. You think one guy raped all of them? You think one guy abused all of them? Of course not. There was a system of powerful, rich men who either trafficked in these girls or abused them or showed up to Epstein's rape island. The survivors haven't told me the specific names, but what they have told me with their lawyers

• 6:30Speaker 01

  is the type of people who were involved. A, uh, Wall Street banker, a powerful politician. And they said that they sat through interviews with the FBI. They're called 302 statements and they told the names on those 302 statements. So release the 302 statements. They're not doing that, even though the law explicitly calls for releasing those statements. We'll know who these powerful men are. Then there was a prosecution memo. You know, originally, there were 60 counts against Epstein in, supposed to be in Florida. They prosecuted him on two counts. There's a memo which explains why there should have been 60 counts, including ties with foreign countries,

• 7:12Speaker 01

  including ties with people, uh, who were being, who were financing him, including allegations of a honeypot, uh, system where he was trying to entrap basically powerful men. And they're not releasing the memo, even though the law explicitly says, we want to know all the decisions of why he was charged or not charged. This is, I mean, it's, it's, they're covering it up and the people are asking, why? Who are the powerful forces that have such influence that they're covering this up? Every-

• 7:43Shawn Ryan?

  Every citizen I talked to, hear, see, say on social, anything, once those files were released, was it every single person in Congress that voted for it to release them? And was there every single person in the Senate except one person?

• 7:59Speaker 01

  Everyone in the House except one.

• 8:01Shawn Ryan?

  Everyone in the House.

• 8:02Speaker 01

  And every Senator. And, but I gotta give credit, not just to Massey's courage, because he's got billionaires funding against him, and the billionaires don't like me these days either. I mean, so you, you go after the Epstein class, you make a lot of enemies. You know, look at my ex, and you see the people who go after Massey and me, but it wasn't just Massey and me. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, and Nancy Mace stuck their neck out to sign a discharge petition that the two of us had to force a vote on it. They got bullied by the White House, they got bullied by the Speaker, they got threatened, their political careers were threatened. Marjorie Taylor Greene lost her seat, gave up her seat in Congress over this.

• 8:44Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, didn't, didn't, didn't the President tell her, what did he tell her?

• 8:49Speaker 01

  He, he, he told, he told her that she's betraying him. Look, Marjorie Taylor Greene was for Donald Trump when he came down the escalator. She was with Donald Trump when he ran in 2020 and lost. She was with Donald Trump when he said the election was stolen. I don't disagree with her, but she was out there defending it. She was with Donald Trump in 2024 when DeSantis and others were talking to, about running against him. No one had been more loyal to Donald Trump. And she, when she joined the petition, she says, well, I'm gonna explain to Trump that he actually can be a hero. He's gonna come on board, I'm telling you, he's gonna come on board. She said, Trump says to him, well, you're hurting some of my friends, you're, this is not the right thing, you're hurting people. How about hurting the survivors?

• 9:34Speaker 01

  How about hurting the women?

• 9:36Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, how about the fucking kids?

• 9:37Speaker 01

  Kids, girls.

• 9:39Shawn Ryan?

  Kids, hurting your friends?

• 9:41Speaker 01

  No.

• 9:41Shawn Ryan?

  Gives a shit about your fucking friends? We give a fuck about kids.

• 9:45Speaker 01

  And these are, these are working class girls. I wish people could see their stories and how they were exploited. It's a class issue. Rich, powerful people connected to politicians. Doing, figuring out, well, who's vulnerable? Who doesn't have a father? Who doesn't have a lot of money? You know, how do we get that girl to start with giving us massages? You know what the saddest thing that I heard from a survivor? They were saying that the survivors are guilty because the survivors were actually recruiters of aiding and abetting other girls in getting raped or getting abused. So one of the survivors says, yeah, I did that. You know why I did that? Because I was so afraid that I was going to be abused, that I went and I got other junior

• 10:29Speaker 01

  high girls and other high school girls to take my place because I didn't want to be abused.

• 10:33Shawn Ryan?

  Junior high girls.

• 10:35Speaker 01

  Junior high girls.

• 10:35Shawn Ryan?

  Junior high girls, and we can't release the files. Before we move on, and we just both get pissed off at both sides of what we're doing, I just, what, we talked about Ryan Montgomery, Tim Tebow, I told you about Elizabeth Phillips, who I just interviewed, bringing on Slep. It's such a problem in this country. What, I'm just curious, what, what can parents do right now? Not call their congressman, not call their senator? That shit's not working. What can people do right now on their own to protect their kids?

• 11:14Speaker 01

  Well, they need to know how widespread this is. You know how it's widespread? I, I realize this because since I've been affiliated with Epstein, I get stopped on an airport. People will say, hey congressman, can I tell you about what happened to me? I get, I had, I've known people for 30 years. And they said, you know, Roe, something happened. One person told me, you know, when I was four to eight years old, my babysitter's boyfriend abused me. And I never told my mom or my dad, because my dad would have killed the guy and my mom would have totally lost it. So I've held this with me. And she said to me, Roe, it's like a box.

• 11:55Speaker 01

  You put it in a box and you put it away, but it comes back at any moment. And the amount of people who have faced this, I'm not saying all from Epstein, obviously, just faced this in this country, is extraordinary and it's sickening. It's a sick, it's a national crisis. First thing we need to realize is we've got a moral crisis in this country. Second thing is, when you're having your kids go to a sleepover, go to a sports team, go on a field trip, be paranoid. I mean, I don't want to scare folks, but when you have them on a gaming site, when you have them on the internet, they need to be paranoid. The parents need to understand that this is not something that happens in a remote

• 12:40Speaker 01

  part of the country. This could happen to your kids. But the main reason I want these Epstein files out is because it'll force a reckoning in this country. People, it'll be the biggest scandal I fundamentally believe in 100 years because it's going to expose what's how sick our elite culture is. Where for their own gratification, they think that they can just abuse these girls and nothing will happen. And that kind of culture has permeated across the nation. They need to be shamed. They need to be held accountable. You know, John, their building's named after some of these people. And these survivors go around and they're seeing these people celebrated in the financial world, in the political world, honored, and they've committed the most heinous act.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  It's like, we may not agree on much, I think most Americans agree you don't rape American girls. Like, that's, that's the, the one you don't cross.

• 13:31Shawn Ryan?

  Don't rape any girls. None. But, uh, well, let me give you an introduction here before we get started. So. Roe Connaught, Representative for California's 17th Congressional District in Silicon Valley, an advocate for progressive economic patriotism, reducing inequality in ethical tech governance.

• 13:56Shawn Ryan?

  And most significantly, you had the courage to co-sponsor along with Representative Massey, the bill to fully release the Epstein files to the public. And that's really why you're here. Husband to redo and father of two children. And I've heard, I'm told you're here to break, break some new news here as well. So I'm excited about that. And, uh, you know, while we're on, while we're on the Epstein stuff, I looked at polymarket on polymarket that they give a 3% chance that the evidence Epstein blackmail politicians will be released by January 31st. Only a 3% chance. Anything that has to do with government accountability or doing the right thing always

• 14:39Shawn Ryan?

  has a very, very, very low chance that it's going to happen on polymarket. What do you think that is?

• 14:46Speaker 01

  That's sad. It's 3% because we pulled off the almost impossible getting the bill through the house, through the senate, the president to sign it. Uh, and having a judge now ordered all the files released. The fact that people still don't believe government, I mean, this should be a wake-up call. We've got a crisis in this country of trust. And I'll tell you what the files are that need to be released. The witness statements, the prosecution memos, and we'll know who the people are to hold accountable.

• 15:22Shawn Ryan?

  Good, good. Real quick, everybody gets a gift.

• 15:26Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 15:27Shawn Ryan?

  There you go. Their vigilance league gummy bears made in the USA. Legal in all 50 states.

• 15:37Speaker 01

  I'm gonna, does this give you like some secret power?

• 15:39Shawn Ryan?

  Nope. I wish it did.

• 15:41Speaker 01

  Does it, you know, I, do I get to like take these and then go meet Pam Bondi, get the files out through, you know?

• 15:47Shawn Ryan?

  I hope so.

• 15:49Speaker 01

  I love it.

• 15:49Shawn Ryan?

  I'll give you an extra bag for. And then, uh, I have a Patreon account. It's a subscription account. We've turned it into quite the community and, uh,

• 15:58Speaker 01

  Thank you for this.

• 15:59Shawn Ryan?

  You're welcome. And so I offer, I offer them the opportunity to ask every guest a question. So this is from Braxton Ballard. Congressman Connor, with the current delay of the Epstein file release and lack of clarity in the information that is provided, what actions do American citizens have to begin demanding justice?

• 16:21Speaker 01

  They need to say first why this matters. Because you know what politicians say, oh, people just care about healthcare costs. They do. They care about housing costs. Oh, Rowan Massey, this is a conspiracy theory. It's a distraction. People don't care. Let him know, first of all, you're a congressman, you're a senator, you're politicians, that you care that rich and powerful people can't play by their own rules. And you want to know who these people are so they're prosecuted and held accountable. And that you're disgusted that young girls were raped on a rape island and abused. And you don't think it's a conspiracy theory. That you want to know who the other powerful men are. Look, you either believe Massey, me, and the survivors and people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, that this is one of the greatest scandals and there are a lot of powerful people

• 17:04Speaker 01

  who raped these girls or covered it up and are hiding behind it. Or you believe that it's a hoax. There's no in-between. You either think I'm a liar, Massey's a liar, Marjorie Taylor Greene's a liar, the survivors are a liar. Or you believe that something disgusting happened. So if we have that kind of outrage and then you, Massey and I, this is my fight. I'm not giving up. Massey's not giving up. We've taken on a lot of interests. I don't care. Like, I'm going to fight every day I'm in Congress until these files are released. And we, we just put to a judge to create a special master to get these documents out. There are millions of these documents. I know where, which documents have the information. And we need people amplifying it.

• 17:48Speaker 01

  When we, Massey and I do something, blast it all over to the members of Congress. Tell the president that the MAGA base, you know what's most helpful is when the MAGA base speaks up. Because he doesn't care about people like me who voted for Kamala Harris. He doesn't care about people who are upset who've impeached him twice. I mean, he's like, well, screw them, I won. He cares about people who voted for him. He cares about people who are with him. And if they say to him, you know, Mr. President, like, we're with you on all your other stuff, but not this, that's what's going to make a difference.

• 18:19Shawn Ryan?

  I've seen a lot of people reverse their opinions about, a lot of, a lot of very big podcasters. Dropping like flies, you know, in this, in this administration. But you, how many, how many files are there?

• 18:35Speaker 01

  There are, there's 300 megabits is what Cash Patel said, the FBI director. And they've released one so far megabit. So it's like, they've released less than 1%.

• 18:47Shawn Ryan?

  So...

• 18:50Shawn Ryan?

  How is that legal? Isn't, isn't it illegal what they're doing?

• 18:55Speaker 01

  Well, it's illegal, it's obstruction of justice. A new president could prosecute them uh for what they're doing. They realize this, and that's why Pam Bondi has now said to the judge, "Okay, we have millions more documents we need to release, we need more time." And so-

• 19:10Shawn Ryan?

  Why, why do they need time? It's a fucking digital file. Why do you need time?

• 19:17Speaker 01

  So they've got actually two thirds of the Southern District of New York attorneys working on this apparently.

• 19:21Shawn Ryan?

  Working on what?

• 19:22Speaker 01

  On, on, on redactions. Look, they need to look for some redactions, which is the survivors. But you know what? They've released some files with the survivors' names, but not the people who abused the survivors' names. So they're claiming that they've got to get the survivors' names out. Fine.

• 19:37Shawn Ryan?

  They're legitimate, they are legitimately, proactively protecting pedophiles.

• 19:44Speaker 01

  They are protecting pedophiles at this point.

• 19:46Shawn Ryan?

  By redacting the abusers' names.

• 19:49Speaker 01

  They're by, by-

• 19:49Shawn Ryan?

  The White House, listen up everybody, the fucking White House is protecting pedophiles. You hear that? They're fucking protecting pedophiles. That's what the fuck they're doing.

• 20:04Speaker 01

  And they're doing it because these people are rich? Because they were donors? Because they're powerful politicians? Uh, look, I don't want to stoke baseless allegations, but it's clear to me that there's been some connections to foreign governments.

• 20:20Shawn Ryan?

  Which foreign governments?

• 20:22Speaker 01

  Well, there's connections of, of certainly in the, in the files to Israel. We need to know what, what those connections are. There have been questions and connections to Russia and the Russian oligarchs. Need to know what that information is. And from survivors' lawyers, they're saying there are other national security uh agencies involved. I mean, think about it, how does Epstein as a schoolteacher end up with a half a billion dollars?

• 20:49Shawn Ryan?

  It's a great question.

• 20:50Speaker 01

  He didn't invent AI. You know, he's not like those founders who came, come to you and doing some tech company. He's there and he's getting money from all these people. And he's got this ring of sex trafficking going on. Where he's farming out girls to different people and he's having these parties on Epstein's rape island. Like, how is this not the biggest scandal that you got these rich, powerful people in our society who think they get to play by their own set of rules? You know what, what, what upsets me, what pisses me off is people like you go and take all this risk with your life in Iraq, in Afghanistan. The, the guys, whatever you think of Venezuela, the guys who took the risk of their lives

• 21:33Speaker 01

  with that, they have this honor to the country, sacrifice for our values. And you got rich and powerful people who think they get made a bunch of money, who can exploit American girls or girls who are, girls are immigrants and have no consequence and get away with it. They're, it's un-American, it's the most un-American selfish thing that totally degrades the service of people who do things, honorable things like wear our, the military uniform and serve the nation. And that's why I want to stick it to them. This whole Epstein class needs to go. And to me, this is the biggest issue in American politics. I mean, I'm biased because it's something I've devoted now this, a lot of my life to,

• 22:16Speaker 01

  but if we're going to allow rich and powerful people to do whatever they want in this country, and what's more elite impunity than abusing a young girl? If you're going to allow that, then you don't have a country, you don't have values, you don't have a democracy.

• 22:30Shawn Ryan?

  A hundred percent agree with you. Do you think that this was a blackmail operation?

• 22:38Speaker 01

  I, I, I suspect that it was. And I, I, like a honey pot.

• 22:43Shawn Ryan?

  Seen anything?

• 22:44Speaker 01

  Well, survivors and survivors lawyers. I mean, I, I think that there are people, uh, that were, uh, rich and powerful folks, uh, who, uh, conveniently were, were, were given access to these parties or access to these girls. Uh, and, um, Epstein in turn had a lot of information and a lot of contacts and was able to facilitate a lot of meetings. Now, I don't know. What his motive was, was he, was he doing, what was he doing, who was he doing the bidding for? That's why we need the files out. You know, you've got a background in intelligence, you'd have better sense than me, but I know

• 23:26Speaker 01

  that it's not, something doesn't smell right, it doesn't smell right that you have someone contact the FBI in 1996, Maria, and say that this guy is abusing young girls and the FBI doesn't, doesn't look into it. Not only do they not look into it, our government and every person in the media has spent the last 30 years saying she was a liar. She never contacted the FBI. And it's only because of Massey and my law that part of the documents that came out was her complaint to the FBI in 1996. 30 years later, she's vindicated. Jeez. But there is something deeply rotten about what happened. And I want to know the financial interests, who paid this guy? What his motive was to try to get all these rich

• 24:11Speaker 01

  and powerful people? I mean, don't you think it's a bit odd that he's talking to prime ministers and politicians and head bankers and they all are going down to this? Everybody thinks it's odd. You know? Everybody thinks it's odd. And, and if there's nothing to hide, here's what I don't understand. All these people are saying, it's a hoax, it's a conspiracy. Massey and Khan are out there, they're stoking conspiracy. You know how you settle it? What conspiracy? That's why they're like, oh, their, their claim, this is how ludicrous their claim is. Their claim is the only bad guy is Epstein and Maxwell. And everyone else, it's all, it's all, it's just Epstein and Maxwell who was a pervert and that, and we're, we're focused on a dead guy who was a pervert and give it up. No one else was involved. Okay?

• 24:53Speaker 01

  If that's what you believe, that Epstein and Maxwell pulled this off with 1,200 girls and survivors and all the girls and, and the women now are lying about the other rich and powerful people, and then he just happened to make a half a billion dollars and he just happened to email every powerful person in the world, including the current president and past presidents and heads of states around the world. You know, most people can't even shake hands or get within a, a, a thousand feet of a president and this guy knows them all. And it, but it was just that he was a sexual pervert and no one else was involved. If that really is the case, then release the damn files. Release the files and prove Massey and me a liar. But there's, there's no gray here. Either Massey and I and the survivors are telling the truth.

• 25:39Speaker 01

  Or we're lying. So expose us. If you think we're lying, expose us. You'd end our political careers. But I know that I'm telling the truth. Massey knows that he's telling the truth. And I'm willing to take on the wrath of powerful interests. Because ultimately, until we hold a corrupt class accountable, people aren't going to trust government. And I'm, you know, I'm more liberal than you. I'm a progressive. I want the government to do stuff. Healthcare, childcare. How do I make that case when people say the government is corrupt? You gotta have transparency in government.

• 26:13Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I mean, what are these, what are the files? Who wrote the files? Where did they come from? Are they FBI files? Are they Epstein's files? Are they Mossad's files? Are they Russian files? What are the files? Who is keeping tabs on all this shit?

• 26:29Speaker 01

  So, some of the files are the FBI. That's the most straightforward thing. There are basically 1,200 survivors and their lawyers who meet with an FBI agent and were interviewed. And they ask these survivors, "Tell us what happened to you. Tell us who else was involved." They're called 302 statements. Those statements should come out. They haven't released a single one of those. That's the first thing they should release. And then the FBI goes and interviews these men, suspects. Some of them may be innocent. I'm not saying everyone who the FBI interviews is guilty. But they have memorandum of that. They say, "Okay, when did you show up to the island? What were you doing? Why did you meet Epstein?" They should release all of that. They have not released that.

• 27:13Speaker 01

  Then you have, so those are the FBI files. Then you have the Justice Department that took Epstein's computer. And they've got all his emails. They've got the photographs. They've got his correspondence. They should release all of that. They haven't released any of that. We know that evidence in the Epstein computer will show who else was involved.

• 27:36Speaker 01

  Then you've got the Justice Department having these prosecution memos. Why does that matter? Because there was a brave Assistant U.S. Attorney who said there's 60 counts against Jeffrey Epstein back in Florida in the early 2000s, 2007. And they told her, drop the case, only charge him with two counts. When does that happen? 58 counts vanish. A guy who's raping underage girls only gets charged with two counts is let out while under arrest to go continue to rape and abuse underage girls. Show us what those other 58 counts were. Show us why you decided not to prosecute. And then in 2019, there were co-conspirators who were named. Okay, Epstein wasn't alone.

• 28:20Speaker 01

  Suddenly, though, those co-conspirators are released. We don't have to prosecute the co-conspirators. Well, there's a prosecution memo explaining why the co-conspirators should have been prosecuted. Release that. So we know why you chose to not prosecute people. Who are you protecting? Look, if you're not moved by the fact, picturing like a 7th grader being raped on an island, or think of like an 8th grader at a party with multimillionaires and politicians being paraded around naked and people with, you know, drinks in their hand laughing. If you're not disgusted by that, be disgusted by the fact that rich and powerful people are so influential in this country, that they had a president campaign on releasing

• 29:04Speaker 01

  the files, they've had a House of Representatives pass a law, the Senate pass a law, and they still can't get the damn files out. Like, doesn't that just make you disgusted?

• 29:14Shawn Ryan?

  I want to know what the repercussions are. I mean, because the deadline was December 19th, if I remember correctly, right?

• 29:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:21Shawn Ryan?

  It's January 9th.

• 29:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:25Shawn Ryan?

  What are the repercussions? Are there any repercussions? I haven't seen any politicians have any fucking repercussions, ever.

• 29:31Speaker 01

  Well, there are repercussions. First of all, they thought, okay, they're going to do the release. And people are gonna forget about it. They'll release a bunch of BS and then no one's gonna care. And one of the reasons that I appreciate your voice is that you're not, you're calling them on that. You're not letting them get away with it. And they were shocked. Christmas Eve, they come out and say, okay, no, no, no, we're, we have got more documents. Cause they realized that the, their own base, the MAGA base, wasn't letting them get away with this. So they come out now in January and they say to the judge, we've got 3 million more documents, 5 million more documents, we're going to release them in these next, next few weeks.

• 30:13Speaker 01

  And Massey and I went to the judge and said, you need to supervise this and see how these documents come out. Now, if they don't do it, there's three repercussions. Massey and I will be introducing inherent contempt next week, which is, only requires the House to pass it, and Pam Bondi can be personally fined up to $10,000 every day that the documents don't come out.

• 30:39Shawn Ryan?

  That's it?

• 30:39Speaker 01

  No, that's, that's the first. The second thing is, she's breaking the law and she and other people in the Justice Department can be put in jail. I mean, they, they can be prosecuted. Now, I don't think Donald Trump's gonna do it, but we're gonna have a new president and that new president can do it.

• 30:55Shawn Ryan?

  They'll all be pardoned, so that will never happen.

• 30:58Speaker 01

  You think he'll pardon all of them, even?

• 31:01Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, of course. Why wouldn't he?

• 31:04Speaker 01

  Well, their career Justice Department officials, who, if they're along with this, I mean, he'd have to pardon a lot of people. There are hundreds of attorneys reviewing this stuff. It'd be a pretty big conspiracy if everyone is breaking, breaking the law. But yeah, I mean, look, it may be a case that it takes a new president to get all of this out. And some people get away with it, but you know, I'm concerned about the destruction of evidence too. I mean, making sure that the evidence is not destroyed. The-

• 31:32Shawn Ryan?

  How would you do that?

• 31:33Speaker 01

  How would you destroy?

• 31:34Shawn Ryan?

  How would you ever be certain that the evidence wasn't destroyed? Or it hasn't been already?

• 31:39Speaker 01

  Well, look, you can't be certain, but the survivors' lawyers have seen the files. Some of the survivors' lawyers, so they would know if there's things missing. Their career Justice Department officials have seen the files. And it now, if you're part of the group that are destroying these files, you're taking a big risk because you're violating the law. You could be prosecuted. I mean, it's not just people in Trump's circle. You're a career prosecutor. You're really risking your career if there's prosecution. So I do think we're going to get to the truth of the matter. Whether we're going to get accountability for Bondi and Patel. I mean, we're trying everything we can, but ultimately, if Trump pardons them, yeah, they get away with it.

• 32:23Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, let's just reverse engineer this. So you say the only thing that needs to be, maybe you didn't say the only thing.

• 32:29Speaker 01

  The main thing.

• 32:30Shawn Ryan?

  The main thing that needs to be redacted is 1,200 names.

• 32:33Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 32:33Shawn Ryan?

  The victims' names.

• 32:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:35Shawn Ryan?

  You're a Silicon Valley guy. You mean to tell me we can't create a fucking AI program that just redacts the names in about, I don't know, three minutes? All three million files in there, just blacks them out? We can't, all the people over there in Silicon Valley, Palantir, all these things, they can't figure out how to make a program that just redacts that real quick?

• 32:56Speaker 01

  They could.

• 32:57Shawn Ryan?

  I'm sure.

• 32:58Speaker 01

  They could.

• 32:59Shawn Ryan?

  I know, I'm being a little facetious here, but...

• 33:02Speaker 01

  But they could, yeah. No, look, I mean, obviously, they want to drag their feet. They'll claim, okay, that's not enough. There needs to be human check on AI, fine. Massey and I are less concerned about the time. If they had come back to us and said, look, you're pushing too fast on December 19th. We're going to do it by March 15th. Fine. The problem we have is they're not releasing the actual documents. They're releasing fluff. I mean, here and there, they gave us something, but they're not releasing the witness memorandum. They're not releasing the Epstein files. They're protecting people. And, you know, Trump is out there himself saying, yeah, I got a lot of people get hurt. I don't want my buddies to get hurt. That's what I don't get.

• 33:42Speaker 01

  I really don't get why he doesn't just come out and get these files out. And what is the force? Like, what is holding it back? It's a, because he's...

• 33:54Shawn Ryan?

  It's a blackmail operation. What do you think's holding them back? Say it.

• 34:00Speaker 01

  Well, I, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I, what do you thi- I mean, I don't know. I don't know.

• 34:04Shawn Ryan?

  What do I think?

• 34:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:05Shawn Ryan?

  I think it's Israel. I think Israel, Mossad is holding this shit back. That's what I think. Have you seen anything that, that, any context here that might make you believe that? In the recent, like, last six months, last year?

• 34:20Speaker 01

  Like I've said, I, I, I've, I, I have reason to believe that foreign governments were involved and that the names that have come up have been Russia and, and, and Israel. What, what the level of involvement? I have no idea. Uh, and, but there's some force more powerful than just campaign donors involved in covering this up. Cause otherwise it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense why they're fighting so hard to keep these files. Like, you can say a lot of things about Donald Trump. He understands politics. He don't get elected president twice. He knows this thing is hurting him. It's the one issue that is hurting him amongst his base. So why wouldn't he just get the files out?

• 35:01Shawn Ryan?

  I mean.

• 35:02Speaker 01

  And that's what Marjorie Taylor Greene was saying. Like, this thing was never about trying to go after Trump. And there's actually no evidence that I've seen that he was involved in the abuse of underage girls. We haven't seen any evidence of that. There are other rich and powerful men. So why, if you're the president, wouldn't you just say, okay, like, get it out there? I don't get it. There's some force bigger than that, that is holding back us getting to the truth. And that's what should be disturbing to Americans. Other than that, like, our culture is, needs a moral reckoning that this, that we allow this to happen. What are the forces that are preventing us from doing this? And are, and are we gonna

• 35:44Speaker 01

  get people actually willing to stand up for it, to it?

• 35:48Shawn Ryan?

  Seems like you got a lot of people standing up to it. I mean, I don't know what else everybody can do, but everybody's screaming at, I don't, I don't know anybody that's not screaming at the top of their lungs, release these damn files.

• 36:03Speaker 01

  Invite the vice president back. Ask him. Well, he could get involved.

• 36:10Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, they're not gonna come back here, Roe.

• 36:12Speaker 01

  Really?

• 36:13Shawn Ryan?

  No.

• 36:15Speaker 01

  He'll, he's got, but Trump may not. He needs to, he's gonna, he wants to run. He's gotta come back in 28.

• 36:20Shawn Ryan?

  I hope he does. I would love for him to come back, but.

• 36:23Speaker 01

  I don't know, I've been pretty hard on him lately. Well, I, I, I just think, look, he was a, we disagree, we go back and forth, uh, but I think he could be a constructive force here. He should, he should be the guy saying, well, let's get, get these files out. Like, does he want to have this as a liability? Why? I mean, he said it three years ago. He was. I just retweeted it today. Yeah. No, I mean, he, he should be, he should be out there saying, get all the stuff out there. Like, this is a new generation of politicians, Democrats like Ro Khanna, May, Massey, Marjorie Taylor Greene. Yeah, it's a previous generation that did all this horrible stuff. Expose it, the absentee class. You know, when Democrats have fallen, I haven't had any sympathy.

• 37:09Speaker 01

  First guy taken out was a British ambassador. He constructed Tony Blair's victory. The reality is Larry Summers was Treasury Secretary for Bill Clinton and he was, his is caught up in all of this. And I said that, you know, I support, if the Clintons coming and testify, fine. If it's Democrats, Republicans, I don't care. Massey doesn't care. What was the deal with the Clintons? They were supposed to show up. They should show up. They, they, there's, I support Comer, that he's the Republican. He said, look, let's have him in front of the committee and I, they're scheduling it, but, but I've said, yeah, they should, they should answer what they know. So they did not refuse to show up? They have not refused. Okay, so that's. Yeah, I mean, not. Media bullshit?

• 37:50Speaker 01

  It's, now, the scheduling, like, they need to do it soon and we need to have, they should show up, they should do the deposition and, and, you know, but there, there shouldn't be a selective release. Like, don't have the Justice Department just put Bill Clinton's pictures in there because you know you want to make political headlines. Release everything. I mean, so play it straight. Massey and I have played it straight. If it's 90% Democrats in their files, I don't care. If it's 90% Republicans, I don't care. Vance should have the same thing. He's not in the files. He's in his 40s. You know, it's a bunch of people who are now in their 70s and 80s who were caught up in all of this stuff. It, it, it, there needs to be a cleaning. That's why I said this Epstein class needs to go.

• 38:35Speaker 01

  And I think we need, you know, we, we, we, the, the only thing that's going to get this out is the MAGA base, because that's, that's what got the bill passed. You know, Trump had, I don't think he even realized he signed my bill. I mean, we, we kept saying it was a Massey bill because it was a Republican bill. I don't think he's like, ah, I signed Rokana's bill. He didn't, he didn't have a signing ceremony. We, Massey and I called. He didn't want to do a signing ceremony for the bill. But the point is, we had 70 Republicans willing to vote for my bill in defiance of his opposition. Then he realized, okay, I don't want that. So he said, I'll sign the bill. The only thing that'll get him to release these files is if America says, look, we're with you on a lot of things. We voted for you three times.

• 39:15Speaker 01

  We disagree with Kana on Medicare for All. We disagree with him on Venezuela. We disagree with him on, uh, on, uh, on calling ICE. We're with you, Mr. President. But you know what? This MAGA stuff, this Epstein stuff? He's right about that. Release these files. That's what we need. His base needs to demand this of him.

• 39:35Shawn Ryan?

  They are though. They are. Am I missing something? They are.

• 39:39Speaker 01

  I don't think they've been vocal, not to the point where, where he thinks that he could lose them. I mean, that, he thinks, okay, they're upset on this one thing. They need to say like, this is a red line for us because you told us there were pedophiles in part of the government. You told us there are rich and powerful people who are corrupt. You said you were going to drain the swamp. You never pretended to be a perfect person. We knew, you know, okay, like many people, you had warts in your life, but you were going to clean up the system. You were going to expose the system. You haven't done that. Do that. That, that, that, that, that, whether it's Vance or Trump, they've got to get these files out. And they, they think, oh, it's, you know, it's not the central issue. The cost of living is an issue.

• 40:24Speaker 01

  Affordability is an issue. I get all of that, but there's something deeper. There's something called morality. There's something called, uh, countries' values. That's what this is getting at.

• 40:34Shawn Ryan?

  They know this is, they know this is a big deal. They're, oh man, it makes me so fucking angry.

• 40:42Shawn Ryan?

  How many, how many, how many abusers do you think were involved? Do you know?

• 40:47Speaker 01

  I think there are two types of, three types of abusers.

• 40:52Speaker 01

  The ones who were actually raped underage girls.

• 41:00Speaker 01

  I would say maybe at least a dozen or a handful. I mean, I'm not saying that that's the, the, the biggest number, but I, there are people from, from just conversations with survivors will know once the files are out. The second, people who showed up at these parties and saw young girls parading around and knew they were being abused and didn't say anything. That number is in the hundreds and covered it up. And then the third is people who were trafficking girls who were slightly over age, 19, 20, and being exploited, who may have been raped as, when they were underage, and saying, okay, yeah, do you have a girl for me? Where do I meet her?

• 41:45Speaker 01

  And technically it was, uh, over the age of consent. But anyone who looks at that will know they were abusing these girls in terms of the emotional, physical damage to, to, to, to these girls. And all of that is in the files.

• 41:58Shawn Ryan?

  Jeez. How long was this going on?

• 42:02Speaker 01

  Decades.

• 42:03Shawn Ryan?

  Decades?

• 42:03Speaker 01

  Decades.

• 42:04Shawn Ryan?

  Twenty, thirty years?

• 42:05Speaker 01

  Twenty, thirty years. That's why when people like, they do the gotcha question sometimes, oh, "Roe, you, you guys didn't speak out about this enough in the Biden administration." And first of all, I did speak out in 2019, but second, I say, yeah, we should have. We were wrong. This country has been asleep. Like, that's not a, that's not a, uh, a, a, a reason not to care now. Now I've gotten to know these survivors. Like, yeah, all of us were guilty for 25 years, uh, other than a few journalists for not caring, for abandoning these girls. Fine, guilty as charged. Now, let's move on. Let's actually do something about it and get these files out.

• 42:45Speaker 01

  And that, that, that, that's the honest truth. Like, this is not a Trump thing or a Vance thing. This is an America thing. It's a crisis that we didn't care about these girls. We treat them, treated them as abandoned. Property for the gratification of rich and powerful people. And they didn't matter.

• 43:06Shawn Ryan?

  How was, I mean, we know how, we know a lot of ways he was tied to Israel. He was an Israeli. Maxwell's dad was involved with Mossad. I mean, he wears an IDF shirt and a bunch of the photos that were released. So we know that he's tied to Israel. How was he tied to Russia?

• 43:25Speaker 01

  There are survivors' accounts, again, without the specific names, of talking about Russian oligarchs who were involved in coming to the island, who were involved in the trafficking. There are accounts about him having access to Putin and being able to facilitate meetings with Putin in some of the documents. So he obviously had ties to both the oligarchs in Russia and to people close to Putin. And those are, that needs to be explored. I mean, like, why wouldn't you want to know if there, these other countries that have access to the most powerful people in our country and are getting information about that?

• 44:11Shawn Ryan?

  Because it exposes them. That's the only thing I can think of. Am I missing anything with the ties to Israel?

• 44:19Speaker 01

  Look, I, I think you're right that there, there's, there are obviously ties. I've tried to be, you know, Massey and I have tried to be careful in that, you know, we want, we don't want to stoke something unnecessarily, but it needs to be, it needs to be examined and we need to get, get the facts out. And that, that, that the fact, that the fact that foreign governments are involved, every lawyer of the survivors who I've talked to and many survivors have said that that is the case. So let's figure out the facts.

• 44:53Shawn Ryan?

  Man, man, what am I missing? What should I be asking you that I'm not asking about the Epstein files right now?

• 45:01Speaker 01

  How do we actually get them out? And I'd say this, look, there are going to be a number of dates in January where they're going to do a document release. And so far, people have been paying attention. Every time they've done a document release, the server has crashed because so many people are looking at the documents. And every time they do that, they think, okay, we're done. People are satisfied, they can move on. Don't let them move on. Every time they do a document release, if it's not actually the things there, speak out, speak out on social media, tag Bondi, tag Blanchard, tag Vance, tag Massey, Marjorie Taylor Greene, me, Boebert, say we want this information out.

• 45:42Speaker 01

  That's the only thing that you say, like, is Massey and my contempt going to work? We'll try. Is future prosecution going to work? We'll try. It's when the American people speak out. That's why I flew down here. That's why I came here, because I know you've got a lot of people following this. You've been on this before, even I or Massey were on this. You've been speaking about this for years. Your audience cares about this. We need them to continue to fight for it.

• 46:08Shawn Ryan?

  They're going to be pissed. Roe, let's take a quick break. When we come back, we'll get into some Roblox stuff.

• 46:14Speaker 01

  Sounds good.

• 46:15Shawn Ryan?

  Perfect. All right, Roe, we're back from the break. I think we've pretty much wrapped up the Epstein stuff, but I do want to ask you, I mean, you've talked to a lot of these victims, you've talked to their attorneys, you are their champion. What do these victims want to see happen? What are these poor girls that have been fucking raped over and over and over and over again? What do they want?

• 46:44Speaker 01

  They want to be seen and heard. That's why some of them cared about the law passing. Some people said, first time I actually felt heard and seen by the American people.

• 46:57Speaker 01

  Many of them want to meet the president to explain to him what happened. So they have some sense that they're not being just labeled as a hoax. They've asked that, can they go meet with him? They want the people who abused them or stayed quiet to be publicly exposed and to be held accountable. They don't want buildings named after them. They don't want them to see them on television being celebrated. They don't want to be, see them at powerful positions in corporations. And they want prosecution. I mean, the prosecution is the hardest part. They're not naive. They think that may be the hardest part. But they want some sense of acknowledgement by this country that what happened to them

• 47:42Speaker 01

  was wrong and disgusting.

• 47:45Shawn Ryan?

  Do you think they'll ever see that?

• 47:50Speaker 01

  I do think that the House and Senate passing that was a big moment for survivors. If you watch the footage of them in tears and feeling hurt. And by the way, for sexual assault survivors around the country, saying, finally, the government waking up and actually saying that there's a problem in this country. But I think it will be a betrayal of all of that if these files remain stuck. And until these files are released, and they're released fully, and we have some sense of accountability as a country, they're going to feel abandoned. There needs to be a reckoning, a sense of, that, of, of, of justice and before we can

• 48:34Speaker 01

  have people moving on and healing.

• 48:36Shawn Ryan?

  Do you, are you, are you at all worried about the repercussions if it is fully disclosed? I mean, a lot of people think that the, that the entire country's power structure will be decimated. A lot of people think that the entire world power structure will be decimated because so many people are involved in this. Do you have any fear about that? That the, that the power structure will be? And rubble because they were so many were involved with this.

• 49:06Speaker 01

  I think if it had hap- if this had been released 15 years ago, yes. But I think some of these people are no longer actively in power. They're towards the end of their careers. Uh, they just want this to, to go away. Uh, so now I think it can be, uh, exposed, uh, without that kind of disruption. But will it, uh, cause an enormous moral reckoning in this country? I think we're going to be embarrassed and shocked and angry and disgusted with ourselves as a people that we allowed it to happen. I think it's going to cause us to reexamine, uh,

• 49:47Speaker 01

  potentially relationships around the world and what we, what we allowed to take place. I think it's going to allow, force us to reexamine the power that rich and powerful people have in this country over the justice system. And, uh, the sense that there are elites who've gotten away with things you and I can't, right? Most people, they get a parking ticket, they get a camera light ticket and their car will get booted if they don't pay the tickets, right? That's the life for 95% of Americans. And then you got these 5% who are doing the most heinous things and laughing about it.

• 50:21Shawn Ryan?

  Man, let's move on to Roblox.

• 50:24Speaker 01

  Another topic of, uh,

• 50:26Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, but you're doing the right thing. It sounds like you're the only one doing the right thing over there. Well, are you, is it true that you're the first and only congressman to go up against Roblox?

• 50:38Speaker 01

  I was because of this kid, Schlep, who you know. And he showed so much courage. He was basically a whistleblower, right? I mean, there are people on, uh, Roblox who are

• 50:51Speaker 01

  acting as predators, pedophiles, taking advantage of kids or playing games. And there was not.

• 50:58Shawn Ryan?

  Still happening.

• 50:59Speaker 01

  Still happening.

• 51:00Shawn Ryan?

  Not was, still happening.

• 51:02Speaker 01

  Still, uh, happening when he started, well, he's been kicked off the, the, the platform, which is why you see the past tense, it's still happening. But he was kicked off because he was going out and he was exposing these folks because Roblox wasn't doing it. And no one was listening to him. And he was basically kicked off the platform for doing this. And so as a guy from Silicon Valley, I said, this is crazy. You know, because the company is in my area. And I said, I'm going to come to this 21 year old kid's defense. And people said, what are you doing? You're going to take on, I mean, uh, these billionaire founders. I said, yeah, I don't care. I took on the Epstein class. This is, who cares about this?

• 51:39Shawn Ryan?

  Man, good for you.

• 51:41Speaker 01

  You know, and so I, we, we, we did a petition to support what Schlapp was doing. And saying he should be reinstated onto the, uh, uh, uh, in, in Roblox. I mean, they've kicked him out. I mean, let, let's let him back on, uh, onto the platform. And let's have transparency of what are you doing to make sure that you don't have pedophiles and predators on your platform preying on 12, 13, 14 year old kids?

• 52:05Shawn Ryan?

  Is he back on there?

• 52:06Speaker 01

  He's not, not, not, not, not yet.

• 52:11Speaker 01

  But he, you know, all he was doing is saying, okay, I'm going to expose this guy. Who's a creepy old guy, uh, having conversations with a young girl, young boy. And because Roblox is not doing it. And so the response to that is to kick him off? I mean, come on. And all he's fighting for is safety standards. I mean, you, your kids are on these platforms. They're playing games.

• 52:33Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, he just doesn't want a 12 year old girl to be exploited sexually and have to carve slut into her forehead with razor blades.

• 52:44Speaker 01

  Seriously?

• 52:45Shawn Ryan?

  That's the kind of shit they're doing on there. Did you know that?

• 52:48Speaker 01

  I didn't know that example. I didn't know that one, but I know they're doing.

• 52:50Shawn Ryan?

  There's a bunch of these. They've had women, not one, excuse, girls, young girls swallow razor blades.

• 52:57Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 52:57Shawn Ryan?

  They had one commit suicide on camera.

• 53:02Speaker 01

  That's disgusting.

• 53:03Shawn Ryan?

  It's disgusting, isn't it? We did, we uncovered a lot of this, uh, about a month ago, two months ago with Ryan Montgomery. The day we released the episode, it took one week, six, six billion dollars off their stock. In one week.

• 53:17Speaker 01

  Because of this episode. You know, I mean, that's, that, that's why you, you should have Schlapp on. I don't know if you've had him on, but he.

• 53:25Shawn Ryan?

  We're talking to him.

• 53:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, but he, you know, he's a, he showed courage and the, the reality is, look, if you're a 44, 45, 50 year old guy. And you're talking to a 13 year old girl online. That's unacceptable. Like that's my, like, you know, if you're a coach or something, fine, but there's no reason for a 50 year old guy to be talking to a 13 year old girl on a gaming site.

• 53:49Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 53:50Speaker 01

  So, how hard is this to detect? Like, they're like, well, we don't know if it's pedophilia. You don't have to have like, people swallowing razors. Just, you can't be talking to young girls being a 45 year old guy on a gaming site. You can't be talking to young boys. Like, what the hell are you doing on there? And that's going on and it's rampant and they hide behind, well, how do we know? Well, you know, based on common sense. If you wouldn't allow your own daughter to hang out with someone in a a room unsupervised, uh, playing a game, then you shouldn't be allowing it online.

• 54:24Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. I want to clarify too. That's not happening on Roblox. It's that 764 satanic cult that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's pursuing the kids on Roblox, pulling them off. And they're doing it in these chat rooms and stuff. But Ryan has showed me

• 54:43Shawn Ryan?

  tons of stuff that's going on on there. It's just horrific. It's all censored, but.

• 54:50Speaker 01

  Ryan, look, this is the responsibility of technology companies, right? It's, there's a lot of positives to allowing people to get information being on social media, but you can't have exploitation. You can't have pedophilia. You can't have pornography. You can't be having algorithms feed junk, uh, on social media to young girls where they're thinking of eating disorders or suicide. And we've allowed a lot of the social media to get out of hand and not protect our kids. And I'm the guy who represents Silicon Valley. I'm for innovation. I'm for technology, but I'm, but you do that with common sense, that you protect kids on these platforms.

• 55:34Shawn Ryan?

  Speaking of Silicon Valley, how about that billionaire tax? How's that going?

• 55:39Speaker 01

  I've gotten quite a lot of hot water with that one. You know what I found out, though? You know who was the first person to propose one of these taxes, one of the first people? Donald Trump, when he was running for president in 2000, he called for a 14.5% tax on anyone making over $10 million. And he said, "If you're wealthy, you can pay a tax." And, you know, since I don't know what he thinks now, but my point is this, look, I'm all for entrepreneurs and I'm all for people making billions of dollars. Fine, you're brilliant like Steve Jobs and build Apple, great. You build Tesla, SpaceX, great. I wouldn't say to Elon, "Stick to cars and Mars"

• 56:23Speaker 01

  or something. You build all that wealth, fine, but we've got to have a social contract in this country where the wealth can't just be in the hands of the few. You've got to have some sense that every person, working-class families are going to benefit from that. And you get people having healthcare, childcare, education. That's my view.

• 56:42Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I mean, I'm not going to disagree with you and say that there is a, I mean, there's definitely a, there is a, there is a gap here and it's a fucking problem. But, I mean,

• 56:57Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, if you just look at history, every time this happens, the billionaires, I mean, the business owners, they just leave. They go somewhere else and then there are no jobs. And so, and it sounds like that's what they're going to do if this tax goes through, so.

• 57:15Speaker 01

  Well, I think we have, it has to be designed in a way that you can't tax illiquid stocks. You can't tax companies that are still not profitable. You've got to get conversations with people who want to design it in a reasonable way and have a consensus on how to do it. So I'm not saying that the, the, that you can't fix some of the design, but ultimately. The idea that having just a 1% tax a year, I mean, in a theory on building wealth, when you're, you make about 10% every year anyway in the stock market, and that you're gonna use that to make sure people have healthcare and childcare and education. I just think

• 57:57Speaker 01

  that's what's gonna prevent a revolution. You know, think about the guys who went in Venezuela, right? And like, they, they stick the landing despite being shot at. They wear the uniform. They give every single thing for this country. And you're saying to me, okay, if you're gonna, let's say, the countrywide have a 1% tax on wealth, that people are gonna leave? Like, come on, have some more patriotism. You have some loyalty to the country.

• 58:22Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, just a caveat to that. I mean, what are you gonna spend the money on? Where's the money gonna go? I mean, look at our fucking cities, bro. Look at Chicago, St. Louis, San Francisco, LA, New York. Tons of Minnesota right now. I mean, look at all this shit. Our, our cities are fucking trashed. We have a fentanyl problem. I mean, and where's all the money going? It sure as fuck isn't going into this country. You know where it's going? It's going to Ukraine. It's going to Israel. It's going to fight war in Venezuela. It's going, it's going everywhere but here. And we all see it. Everybody fucking sees it.

• 59:04Shawn Ryan?

  Everybody sees another billion, another, another, another... More billions allotted to Ukraine. More billions allotted to Israel. More billions allotted to whatever. You know, it's just, it, it, everything seems to go out of the country. So, why would any business owner wanna pay more tax just to have it shipped out of the fucking country?

• 59:26Speaker 01

  Well, there, I agree with you about the waste and the...

• 59:29Shawn Ryan?

  Look at the shit that just happened with the, with the, the, the learning centers. And nine, supposedly nine billion dollars?

• 59:39Speaker 01

  I'm not gonna defend the waste and the fraud, two things.

• 59:41Shawn Ryan?

  Been sucked out of the country and then, I mean, on top of that, I mean, Scott Beson just said yesterday that there's approximately $600 billion in fraud in the US. I mean, don't you think we might want to get a handle on that before we tax everybody more? Or tax the wealth, the wealthy more?

• 59:59Speaker 01

  I, I think we absolutely need to get a handle both on the overseas wars. I mean, we spent $6 trillion on Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm against these kind of regime change wars. I'm against going and trying to do regime change in Venezuela and now, what, do we want to occupy the country for three years? Think about how much that's gonna cost? I voted against the billions of dollars that we gave Netanyahu when he was slaughtering people in Gaza. I was opposed, of course, to October 7th as a terrorist attack in Hamas. But, uh, we can't just be giving billions of dollars of offensive weapons, uh, for two years to, to Netanyahu. And I do believe that we need to stop, uh, a military budget of any of these endless wars.

• 1:00:41Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, here's a great analogy.

• 1:00:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:43Shawn Ryan?

  You're a dad. If your kids are fucking starving to death, what, and somebody gives you, and, and why would you give your money to your neighbor so that your neighbor's kids can eat instead of yours? Why would you do that?

• 1:00:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I, look, I think we have to first take care of our family.

• 1:01:02Shawn Ryan?

  People here. We have people that are dying of fentanyl every day. We have.

• 1:01:06Speaker 01

  You know, so, so, so look, in Argentina, we're bailing on Argentina's, uh, failed leadership. I'm all for focusing on, uh, and not these endless wars, uh, not, uh, wasting money overseas, focusing on building our communities. And I'm also for getting rid of the fraud, waste and inefficiencies. FDR, who's one of my favorite presidents, New Deal, he said, there's total local inefficiencies in government, wasted money, uh, in, uh, local governments, state governments. I'm gonna tackle that. And I'm also going to tax the wealthy to get people healthcare and, and childcare and jobs. I think we have to do both. But I spoke out on Oversight yesterday, uh, about the fraud that.

• 1:01:49Speaker 01

  was going on in Minnesota and other places. I wasn't like, okay, let's just defend it. I said, let's do an audit on all 50 states. Look at the inefficiency spending in Sacramento. Look at it in Minnesota, but look at it in all 50 states. And let's have an audit. Let's understand why we wasted money. Why did we waste money in the pandemic? When unemployment checks were claimed as fraud and what were the projects that have been wasted? And have a clear accountability so that people know that where their tax dollars are going. And you have to do that if you have my view that we want government to do healthcare and childcare and jobs. I mean, people may disagree with me that that's the obligation of government,

• 1:02:31Speaker 01

  but I feel that people should have basic education and healthcare to be able to have a decent life. But I've got the responsibility to take on a fraud and waste and abuse. And I don't think this should be partisan. Like, I don't think we need to be defending wasteful, inefficient government.

• 1:02:47Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, would it be, I don't think, I'm sure a lot of people would argue, but I mean, I think all in all, it is better for you and I and everybody in this country if we have a better education system. So, I mean, I can't argue that. I don't want my taxes to go up. I don't want to fucking pay for it. But yes, I can't argue that. It would be great if everybody had healthcare and it was actually affordable.

• 1:03:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:16Shawn Ryan?

  But, but I mean, would it be, I mean, is it even a possibility to just think and go, you know what? We're not going to tax them anymore. Let's get this waste, fraud and abuse under control and reallocate those funds to what you want to do. I mean, why couldn't we do it like that rather than penalize them? Because, look, I'm a business owner, bro. I bust my fucking ass to make what I have.

• 1:03:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:43Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, 12 to 18 hour days.

• 1:03:46Speaker 01

  I know you're.

• 1:03:47Shawn Ryan?

  Every day, seven days a week. My team works their ass off. I don't want to pay for everybody else's shit. I have a drive. You know, and it takes a lot of work and I do not want to pay for somebody else to sit on their ass at home. It's just.

• 1:04:02Speaker 01

  But did you, I don't know your story of, did you go to public school or did you?

• 1:04:06Shawn Ryan?

  I did go to public school.

• 1:04:07Speaker 01

  So did I, right? You want a decent public school for everyone. I don't know about you. I had teachers who believed in me and paved the way. Uh, I grew up in a middle-class family, but I didn't have to worry about being able to see a doctor, get a physical. Uh, you know, I just want the basics. And the reality is, I mean, by being honest about the math is, yes, we need to go about waste and fraud. I don't think the math works to be able to get healthcare for everyone and to be able to get a decent education for everyone, trade schools or college, uh, if you just do that without having the extraordinary wealthy pay a bit more in tax. Look, my district, where you get, you have more people on for my district than anyone.

• 1:04:49Shawn Ryan?

  Probably.

• 1:04:50Speaker 01

  We've, we've got 18 trillion dollars of wealth. One-third of America's wealth is in my 50-mile radius district. Five companies over a trillion dollars. Nvidia, uh, Google, Apple, uh, Tesla and Broadcom. And they asked Jensen, the Nvidia CEO, he said, yeah, okay, fine, I'll pay a tax or something. I love living in Silicon Valley. Whatever you think about the design of this tax, you can't have a nation where you've got some places with 18 trillion dollars. And then where I grew up in Pennsylvania, in Bucks County, the steel mill, fearless works shut down in Western Pennsylvania, hollowed out factories, all going over to China or Mexico. People feeling like their kids and grandkids aren't gonna have a shot at the American dream. Like, that's not a country that works.

• 1:05:34Speaker 01

  So why can't you say, okay, we've got to get this prosperity, not just in Silicon Valley, not just in the AI revolution. We need to industrialize America, have a Marshall Plan for America, build up new factories and industry, build up new trade schools, build up new tech centers and jobs across the country, have healthcare and basic public education for the country. That's what I call economic patriotism. It's to build up this country. And I, I don't think that's a bad bet long-term because it's saying that we want prosperity, but a basic shot for everyone in this country.

• 1:06:07Shawn Ryan?

  Uh huh, uh huh. It'd be great. I'd just love to see the waste, fraud, abuse gone first before we all have to pay more taxes, but

• 1:06:18Shawn Ryan?

  that's just me and everybody else.

• 1:06:21Speaker 01

  The, uh, let, let me ask you this, though. Yeah, I don't know if you're a billionaire. Now you don't have to tell me.

• 1:06:25Shawn Ryan?

  I'm definitely not a billionaire.

• 1:06:27Speaker 01

  But if you, if you became, when you become a billionaire, if you thought that the money was actually going positively, right? Like we're actually building factories in Western Pennsylvania or jobs for kids in Warren, Ohio.

• 1:06:39Shawn Ryan?

  Well, if I knew the money was going to the right place, I would do it.

• 1:06:43Speaker 01

  You would do it.

• 1:06:43Shawn Ryan?

  I would do it, but I don't believe the money is going to go to the right place. I mean, I donate a lot of money to kids. This kind of stuff that we're talking about.

• 1:06:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:54Shawn Ryan?

  Organizations that are doing something to protect kids. Uh, that's, that's the thing that's nearest and dearest to my heart. I spend a lot of time and donate a lot of money to veteran organizations because I'm a veteran.

• 1:07:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:06Shawn Ryan?

  But, and I would, I, I donate to single mothers. That's another thing that's, that's near and dear to my heart. But so I, I still do my part. I'm not

• 1:07:15Speaker 01

  I know you do.

• 1:07:16Shawn Ryan?

  I'm not the, I'm not the asshole that's, you know, keeping all, everything.

• 1:07:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:20Shawn Ryan?

  I'm, I'm, I'm, I care about people. I want people to succeed. I want them to be successful. I want them to get over their trauma. I want, I just, I love good people. But, you know, when, when I see all this stuff, when I see

• 1:07:35Shawn Ryan?

  illegals being housed in, in, in, in hotels and I see the Somali stuff that we just, it was just uncovered by, uh, by, by, by Nick. You know, I mean, it's, it's just like, man, I just, when I see another couple of billion go to another country, I'm like, man, why the, why? Let me ask you this, how do you? This place looks like a fucking war zone. Why are we sending money overseas? I mean, yeah, I would love to help all the people overseas, but look at this place. This is where we live.

• 1:08:05Speaker 01

  No, that I agree with you. We're wasting all this money on Argentina and Venezuela. We should be focusing more on Virginia and Pennsylvania and Ohio and people here. But let me ask you your genuine view, because I know you're, you know, a little bit more conservative than I am. We used to have a national aspiration, a national project of doing great things as Americans, right? We won World War II. We built up Europe with the Marshall Plan. We built up our own industry and doing amazing things. We won the Cold War. We went to the moon. We started the internet through DARPA and NSF. We invented GPS. We invented AI through the government.

• 1:08:48Speaker 01

  How do we convince people that you can have public excellence again? That you can have national projects that work again? That you can have a sense that we can all do something with government that makes life better? Because I agree with you, right now, people think it's corrupt with Epstein, they waste money, but you can't have a great nation if people don't believe it's possible to do great things with our government. And we've lost that ability or faith, other than the military. People are like, okay, we've got a great military, but how do we have that more broadly as a national aspiration?

• 1:09:20Shawn Ryan?

  I'll tell you, we have to have trust in you guys, and that's at an all-time low. And we have to have trust in the institutions, and that's at an all-time low. And I think you'd know why all of those are at an all-time low. Because exactly, exactly what you're fighting right now. A lot of stuff that happened within the last administration, and the one before that, the one before that. But, I mean, we haven't, we just, we haven't seen any of these agencies be held accountable for going rogue. We haven't seen any politicians held accountable for going rogue. I mean, and so, why would any of us believe you? I mean, it's, well, I'm just, just gonna be honest, it's so fucking bad now, I don't

• 1:10:04Shawn Ryan?

  even think I'm gonna vote the next time.

• 1:10:06Speaker 01

  You gotta vote.

• 1:10:07Shawn Ryan?

  Because what's the point? What's the point? I sat there and interviewed everybody. They all fucking lied to my face, nothing has happened.

• 1:10:13Speaker 01

  Let me, let me challenge you, Sean, look.

• 1:10:17Speaker 01

  We've had people scale the cliffs of Normandy, right? And so you and I could be free. John Lewis was beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. My grandfather, he wasn't American, he was in India. He was part of Gandhi's movement for independence. He was in jail for four years so that India could be a free country. So my parents could come here. There are so many people who have sacrificed for this country, to build this country. You did, when you wore the uniform. We can't give up out of cynicism on the American project. It's like we have been so blessed with people who have sacrificed so much more. And to say, look, it's all corrupt, we're gonna give up is to squander the sacrifices of people who built America.

• 1:11:02Shawn Ryan?

  I hear ya. I mean, I'm...

• 1:11:05Speaker 01

  Get up and run for Congress. Get up and...

• 1:11:07Shawn Ryan?

  I'm not running for Congress. I've thought about it.

• 1:11:11Speaker 01

  Run for president. I mean, run for, you know, you'd, you know, you never know. There was another guy who didn't have elective office and did pretty well.

• 1:11:20Shawn Ryan?

  I think I'm good on, I actually thought about it, but...

• 1:11:22Speaker 01

  You would be great.

• 1:11:23Shawn Ryan?

  Well, the people that I thought, that I talked to about it that are in there said that I have a lot more influence out here than I ever have.

• 1:11:29Speaker 01

  That's, that is true. That is true, you do. But you, but look, the, the, anyone... I'm not saying this, a lot of people, it's easy to tear things down. The harder thing is how do we build it up? And you've got a huge platform.

• 1:11:46Shawn Ryan?

  We have to have trust, though. I mean, when I have, I don't even know how many politicians I've had sit across from me, you know, over the years. And, oh, man, I can't think of a single one of them that got in there and did what they said they were gonna do, maybe even attempted to do what they say they were gonna do.

• 1:12:05Speaker 01

  That's a, that's sad.

• 1:12:07Shawn Ryan?

  It is fucking sad.

• 1:12:08Speaker 01

  How do you assess my honesty here? I'll go see.

• 1:12:11Shawn Ryan?

  Because you're going against the grain.

• 1:12:14Speaker 01

  Well, Basy and I are willing to say we're willing to risk our seats, right? Whatever you think.

• 1:12:18Shawn Ryan?

  And you're coming together with, with, with, with the enemy or, you know.

• 1:12:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:22Shawn Ryan?

  Not the enemy. You know what I mean? I mean, it's been very divisive and so, you know, that's, and that's one thing that I've been trying to display here. That's why I brought Gavin Newsom on. That's why I brought Hunter Biden on. I want to show that, hey, we, we can have a conversation without trying to kill each other.

• 1:12:36Speaker 01

  I didn't know Hunter was this smart till I heard about your thing. I was like, because he was so caricatured in the media. Then I was like, wow, the guy has like complex thoughts. Probably gonna get in trouble from Hunter, but I was like, the first time I heard him was on, on, uh, your show where like, and he, and he held his own. So you did him a big, big favor.

• 1:12:53Shawn Ryan?

  I like him. I like him.

• 1:12:55Speaker 01

  I like, yeah, that, that, that, that thing went, went, uh, went viral. But look, I, I think we need people like you to, to participate in the political process to help to rebuild the process. Cause the, the thing that concerns me about China, I was just in China. I'm now the top Democrat on the China committee. They got 20% youth unemployment. They don't have nearly, in my view, the kind of innovation that we do, uh, or the sense of having the best and brightest from around the world want to come to America. They're not lining up to go to China. They're lining up to come to the United States of America. So what is our problem? Our problem is cynicism and corrosiveness and division where we give up on the government

• 1:13:39Speaker 01

  and we give up on, uh, our ability to self-govern. And that's a real risk. Like, okay, we did Epstein, the files aren't coming out. We aren't being able to stop money and politics. We're see all this waste and fraud. If we give up on having a national purpose, national aspiration, we lose this country. And I, and I don't know how, that to me is the hardest thing to fight. It's like, I could tell you the programs I'm for, but how do we overcome the despair, the anger, the cynicism? How do we inspire this country? The way, whether we were John F. Kennedy or FDR, Lincoln, Reagan, who I disagreed with. How, how do we create that sense of like, yeah, I want America to succeed, succeed?

• 1:14:24Speaker 01

  You know, I felt like that the last time I felt like that.

• 1:14:27Shawn Ryan?

  You're gonna have to prove to the people that it's not a two class, two-tiered class system.

• 1:14:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:32Shawn Ryan?

  That's how it's, and that is. Likely the only way it's gonna happen. Somebody's ass is gonna have to get pinned to the fucking wall. And we're all gonna have to see it to believe that there is not a two-tiered system. But there is a two-tiered system. It's very obvious. You're seeing it right now.

• 1:14:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that's what the Epstein class is all about. It's one set of rules for the powerful. And by the way, look what they did to this country, right? Symbolically, not just the people who are pedophiles, but this Epstein class of rich and powerful people. They watched as jobs left America. All the industries hollowed out. They didn't care. Profits were going up. They, their shareholders were doing fine. They watched as people's costs of healthcare went up. Childcare went up. They watched as 70% of Americans don't think the American dream matters. They got us in all these wars overseas and didn't make us safer.

• 1:15:31Speaker 01

  So people have had it with that class of folks. They want something new. They want something different. They want people who are gonna take on a corrupt elite. And I think that's why I'm saying we need people like you or others at your show to get out there, run, get, start to take the government back and to have a sense of transparency, not fraud, not standing up against a corrupt elite, and then offering a sense of a vision for what we can do as, as, as a, as a country.

• 1:16:04Shawn Ryan?

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• 1:16:49Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, even guys that I have there, I mean, really, I am very good friends with Eli Crane. Don't agree with everything he says. I love the man because I think that he holds true to his values and his constituents' values.

• 1:17:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:02Shawn Ryan?

  In fact, I know for a fact, he's even voted against what he wants to appease his constituents.

• 1:17:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:08Shawn Ryan?

  Which I have a tremendous amount of respect for. But I mean, I see these guys, and I mean, there's a handful of SEALs in Congress. I'm a SEAL. It's a tight-knit community, right?

• 1:17:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:20Shawn Ryan?

  You know, and, and, and other veterans too, Green, especially the special operations guys. But, I mean, they are so, except one SEAL, there's one guy in there. But, um, but, um, but no, it's seriously, I mean, they are, they are, they are frustrated. I can see it on their face. They, I mean, they're demoralized.

• 1:17:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I, I, I hear that because they, there's a different sense of camaraderie. It's not just, I think, the folks in the, the SEALs are...

• 1:17:57Shawn Ryan?

  They can't get on a committee if they don't play ball.

• 1:17:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:00Shawn Ryan?

  They, all they care about, I don't know about all of them, but, you know, the few that I'm speaking about, that I'm close with are, I mean, they're, they just want to do the right thing, and they can't. And it's sad. It's sad.

• 1:18:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I mean, I, I, I hear that. I mean, one, we need term limits, I think, in these Congress...

• 1:18:22Shawn Ryan?

  Four term limits?

• 1:18:22Speaker 01

  I am. I'm one of the few Democrats. I worked with Brian Fitzpatrick and Jody Erickson. I don't think you should do more than 12 years as a House member or two terms as a Senator. Some people, they're 30, 40 years. Come on, do something else with your life. Uh, I think we got to get rid of all the PAC money and lobbyist money, super PAC money.

• 1:18:42Shawn Ryan?

  I'd love to see that.

• 1:18:43Speaker 01

  Now, those two things, you do...

• 1:18:45Shawn Ryan?

  You don't take any PAC money.

• 1:18:46Speaker 01

  I don't take PAC money. I don't take lobbyist money. I don't have a super PAC. You know, you just get rid of PAC money, lobbyist money, you create term limits, and you make sure members of Congress can't become lobbyists. You know, I've been on the Armed Services Committee for 10 years. And I didn't serve in the military, but I've developed such admiration, respect for people who have served, right? And you know what a lot of people do after they're on the Armed Services Committee? They don't go wear the uniform. They don't go like Theodore Roosevelt to go fight the wars or Abraham Lincoln did. They go and work for the defense companies that they were supposed to regulate as lobbyists. So stop members of Congress from becoming lobbyists.

• 1:19:28Speaker 01

  You do those three things and you would clean up so much of our country. You know, I respect people who sort of disagreed with me, let's say, on the wealth tax. But what I don't respect is people say, okay, now I'm going to pour in millions of dollars to take this guy out because I disagree with them. Like, how do we have that kind of system of government? Where people can use their wealth for power, where people can stay in Congress for years just to accumulate power and no turbulence. We've got to return to basic democracy. And people who wear the uniform, you know why your guys, your friends see it most? Just because

• 1:20:10Speaker 01

  they sacrifice. And it's a totally different culture in the military. There, it's all about the mission. That's the difference. It's mission. Mission first, ego second. Politics is ego first, you know, mission second. Country second. And you know what? I'm tired of the charismatic politicians. How about courage is the new charisma? Like, I don't need the guy who's going to be the entertainer, or the charmer, or the, like, do we think in the military, the best person is the guy who's the funniest, or the most charming, or the person who's kind of got the most magnetism? No. It's the person who, despite being shot

• 1:20:47Speaker 01

  five times, still lands the mission. The person who cares more about the guys in his battalion than his own life. How about we start to get people of courage and substance in politics? It is not their ideas, it's not their intellect, it's not their degrees. Frankly, it's just courage and putting people first, instead of putting themselves first. And that's the culture of the military, actually, in terms of what works. There are no big egos. It's all about the mission. And that's what we've lost in our politics. The last time we had a mission, I disagreed with the... More in Iraq, but the last time I really felt that was when George W. Bush after nine eleven

• 1:21:30Speaker 01

  was saying, you know, the rocks and he's like, those people who did this to us, they're gonna hear from us. It was a sense of okay, like, I, I remember I was, that they stopped the Flyers game because I was, grew up in Philadelphia to hear the President of the United States talk about what this country was gonna do. Like, how do we get that mission again as a country?

• 1:21:51Shawn Ryan?

  I think I just told you, but we gotta see it happen. Well, I'm just curious, what percentage of Congress is for term limits?

• 1:21:59Speaker 01

  It's not a lot.

• 1:22:02Shawn Ryan?

  I'll bet.

• 1:22:03Speaker 01

  It's not a lot.

• 1:22:04Shawn Ryan?

  How many of you are there? Two or three?

• 1:22:06Speaker 01

  No, they're, they're, they're, candidly, there are more Republicans are for it than Democrats.

• 1:22:13Shawn Ryan?

  Why do you think that is? I'm just curious.

• 1:22:17Speaker 01

  You know, they, the, the real reason, one reason, which is legitimate, but changing, is when we had the Jim Crow South, and when it was very, very hard for African Americans to run for office and win statewide, the only way the black community would be able to gain a voice is to get to Congress because they couldn't win statewide and then develop seniority in Congress. So, some people feel like, okay, finally, they have a voice. Now, if you're gonna have term limits, you're gonna get rid of that voice that, that, that's been building since the Civil Rights Movement. That's one substantive reason. But a lot of, it is also cultural. I think Republicans feel like, you know, they do other stuff, they're business

• 1:23:02Speaker 01

  owners, they're military. Democrats have a love for public service. So, that's a good thing, because we think government can do important things, it should do important things, but it can also become a sense of, well, let other people have a turn. Don't, don't just do forty years. You know, one of the reasons- When it was for Bernie Sanders is he was an outsider. He was like, yeah, I want a new group of people in charge. It wasn't even his policies. It was just like the same group of people are running things. Let me break up the system. And that's why you had some so many people drawn to outsider candidates. But yeah, there are more Republicans than Democrats, but I think it's also generational and new generation. I think it'd be for turbolimits.

• 1:23:43Speaker 01

  But you get rid, you get turbolimits, you get rid of the money in politics, and those are the two biggest things that would would clean up the the system.

• 1:23:52Shawn Ryan?

  What what do you think would happen? What what do you think would happen if the if the country's power structure? Let's say the let's say all the Epstein files get released, we prosecute.

• 1:24:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:24:03Shawn Ryan?

  Picture perfect, everything you want, and the victims.

• 1:24:09Shawn Ryan?

  Power structure is gone.

• 1:24:12Shawn Ryan?

  What do you think the consequences of that are?

• 1:24:16Speaker 01

  Like I said, a lot of it is the older, older generation, but I think the consequences of that is you would have a a totally new group of people start to get into our congresses and into our positions of leadership. I think you would have a sense of accountability like, okay, you can't just call up your buddy to stop prosecution. You can't just call up your buddy to have a different set of rules. I I think it would, it would start to get our country back to the founding values of of what it used to be that you got you you were in public service for public service. It would be a a a reset for for America.

• 1:24:52Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I mean, when we talk about hundreds of people that are the abusers, I think you said hundreds, right?

• 1:25:01Speaker 01

  They're direct abusers or trafficked or covered up.

• 1:25:05Shawn Ryan?

  How many people? I mean, I don't know if you have any more insight than I do, but.

• 1:25:10Speaker 01

  Probably you have. I mean, you've studied this so deep based on your stuff. I mean, I I the only insights I have that you may not have, I don't know how many survivors you've talked to or survivors lawyers, but my information that I've been repeating to you is what's coming from survivors, from survivors lawyers.

• 1:25:24Shawn Ryan?

  Okay, okay.

• 1:25:27Shawn Ryan?

  Do you have any indication of how many people are? In politics or?

• 1:25:33Speaker 01

  Quite a few.

• 1:25:34Shawn Ryan?

  In power.

• 1:25:35Speaker 01

  I don't know how many are still in power, but I know there were a lot of, there were, there were politicians who were involved, people in politics who went to Epstein's Rape Island, who engaged in the trafficking of women. I think there were a lot of people in New York in finance, and there were people in politics that were caught up in this. Now, they're probably formal politicians by now, but it was a group of people who didn't think even it was anything wrong. Like, they just thought this is their gratification. You know, it's like, they're powerful, they get this, they've conquered, and they're gonna exploit these girls, and no one's gonna touch them.

• 1:26:19Speaker 01

  You know, the other thing is that they're ruthless, right? Like, most Americans, you know, one statistic I read, which surprised me, is most Americans end up living 15 miles away from their mom. Most people don't travel that far. And they settle down, whether it's their rural community, factory town, place where they grew up. And you look at this Epstein class and these people, and they're like, "I'm in Davos, I'm in Britain, I'm like, flying all over the world. Where can we be? It's Silicon Valley, New York. Let's go to Epstein's Rape Island." Like, it's just ruthless. They're not, they're not, people going to church every week, they're not going by their synagogue or a temple, they're not going to the barbecues,

• 1:27:01Speaker 01

  they're not in their PTAs. And that's part of what the country has lost, right? When our founders envisioned democracy, they envisioned it, the power with people in community. And now, if you're in one of those communities, so you're like the Little League coach, who everyone loves, and you say, "Okay, I wanna run for Congress." Like, what chance do you have if one of these kind of multi-millionaires or billionaires moves into your district and says, "No, I wanna run for Congress, I'm gonna put in $10 million on TV"? Like, who do you think's gonna get elected?

• 1:27:36Shawn Ryan?

  The billionaire.

• 1:27:37Speaker 01

  And that's the problem. It's like the people are the money is so skewed it the that they're like you're the people who are just like decent like okay maybe you don't want the little league coach being president of the United States like okay president of the United States you gotta really like you've gotta know a lot of stuff and I want someone who really understands everything but like there are forty or thirty five people in Congress I just want like people like love the community care about the kids care about things have good values I don't I don't need like every person that have built a ton of wealth and values like and you look at Congress how many people are like that or just from the community it's all people who like including

• 1:28:17Speaker 01

  me like you have to raise money you have to it's it's not a it's it's a game that is so rigged against ordinary people who just love their community and want to serve their community and that's the sad thing that's that's not how it was intended to be

• 1:28:35Shawn Ryan?

  Well, how did you get in there?

• 1:28:36Speaker 01

  I've lost twice you know my story I I grew up son of immigrants I was born in Philadelphia and our bison tenery grew up at the public school graduated with like over a hundred thousand dollars of debt fascinated with Silicon Valley went out there while you were serving in Iraq I ran against a powerful incumbent member of Congress Democrat who had voted for the war in Iraq and I thought it was a terrible mistake and I ran against an incumbent in my own party and he was a Holocaust survivor someone I respect but people said you're gonna kill your career how can you run against this guy and it was the first anti-Iraq war campaign in the entire country and I got killed I got seventy one he got seventy one

• 1:29:20Speaker 01

  percent I got nineteen percent and but I didn't I thought I was right I kept staying at it

• 1:29:26Shawn Ryan?

  You were right.

• 1:29:27Speaker 01

  You know I kept at it and then Obama won and that's when I got my break because I had worked on his very first campaign at when he was a professor at University of Chicago and I was a student there I had knocked on some doors and so I got to go work for him at the Commerce Department. And then I came back and I said, okay, let me give it one more try. And I lost again. Why did I lose twice? Cause I didn't know all these rich people. I didn't have a machine, you know, I wasn't uh, related to Nancy Pelosi. Nancy Pelosi endorsed against me three times. When I, when I ran, all three times in California. California is a machine state, you know, it's like, you gotta know the, the, the, the, the ends. I never had anyone

• 1:30:11Speaker 01

  there. I moved there from Pennsylvania. I was a son of immigrants. I didn't have wealthy people, parents. I'm very proud of them. They have a middle-class life. And then I ran the second time, lost. And the third time I said, okay, I'll try one last time. And I won. And you know, every time I go into Congress is one of the reasons I think I have a little bit of guts. Cause I wasn't supposed to get there. There was not some destiny of, you know, Ro Khanna is gonna go become a Congress. I'm a Hindu faith, Indian American. Came from a middle-class background, lost twice before I won. So every day I was like, I'm gonna make the most of it. I'm actually trying to do something. Cause it was a miracle that I got to Congress. And I wanna change something and do something for the country.

• 1:30:54Shawn Ryan?

  It's a good story.

• 1:30:57Speaker 01

  It's a true story.

• 1:30:58Shawn Ryan?

  I wanted, um, back to the tax issue. I'm just curious, I mean, do you guys run models or anything like that where you, I mean, what if you lowered the taxes? And attracted more people to Silicon Valley? Maybe some of the people that left and went to Austin. I mean, have you thought about that?

• 1:31:19Speaker 01

  So.

• 1:31:20Shawn Ryan?

  That would probably bring more tax money in. Than actually raising the taxes.

• 1:31:25Speaker 01

  Well, that's, that's the theory that, uh, you know, the Laffer curve for Reagan. I mean, I uh, disagree with some of it. The main thing though, I'll answer your question. Main thing I think what attracts people to Silicon Valley, the AI revolution, is all the AI talent, right? Like the AI talent is in two places. In China, one-third of the AI talent is there. And it's in Silicon Valley. And that's what Jensen said on, at Admedia, like, why are they there? Why aren't they in Austin or in Florida? Because all the, the AI researchers, the AI uh, talent is in, in Silicon Valley. Now, I, I think it's a balance. Obviously, if you move the rates too high, uh, everyone will leave. But the, the, the, the putting aside how you do it, if you're

• 1:32:10Speaker 01

  an ordinary person, you're making money, you're paying your tax, you're paying. Income tax, or you're paying capital gains tax. The challenge is if you're a made a billion dollars, you're a billionaire. You may never have to pay an income tax, you're not getting income. And you may never sell your stock, you're not, you're not realizing capital gains. You may be borrowing against this money and you're not, you're living your life and you're not paying tax. So how do you, how do you get at that? Now, some people have said, one proposal, which is a reasonable one is if someone borrows against their assets, tax that if they're, if they're doing their, their, their lifestyle. But I think one of the things people feel is like,

• 1:32:51Speaker 01

  if you made all this money, you should be paying the same tax as a secretary or a bus driver, or someone in the military. You know, that's what Warren Buffett said, and we can discuss how to do it. But that's the feeling of unfairness people have that, that, that it's not like they want to sock it to the rich. It's just that they want them to pay the same percentage as someone who's a teacher.

• 1:33:15Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, I was just, you know, what makes me think of that is, when you see all these states going tax-free, Tennessee is one of them.

• 1:33:22Speaker 01

  Are you guys there?

• 1:33:24Shawn Ryan?

  We're a tax-free state.

• 1:33:25Speaker 01

  No income tax?

• 1:33:26Shawn Ryan?

  No income tax.

• 1:33:28Speaker 01

  No, uh?

• 1:33:29Shawn Ryan?

  Unearned income tax.

• 1:33:30Speaker 01

  But you have high property taxes or no?

• 1:33:32Shawn Ryan?

  Nope.

• 1:33:33Speaker 01

  Nope?

• 1:33:34Shawn Ryan?

  We have a high sales tax.

• 1:33:35Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:33:36Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I don't know if it's high by your standards, but it's just under 10%. But by, by making, and I don't know if we're 100% unearned income tax-free yet. If it's not, it's like a stair step thing, it goes down, right? But, I mean, Tennessee went tax-free. And there are more Californians living here now. I'm not joking, and I'm not, this isn't like a thing, but you know, it's, there are more, a lot of neighborhoods, at least here in Franklin, 60% of the people are from California in the neighborhoods.

• 1:34:07Speaker 01

  Do they like them? Do they like Californians here or no?

• 1:34:10Shawn Ryan?

  What's that?

• 1:34:10Speaker 01

  Do the folks down here like the Californians or?

• 1:34:14Shawn Ryan?

  I don't know.

• 1:34:16Speaker 01

  No comment.

• 1:34:17Shawn Ryan?

  But I think there was a lot of concern at around covid time, but I think a lot of that has kind of died down now. But um, because it's brought a hell of a workforce and it's it's it's, I mean, it's overpopulated.

• 1:34:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:32Shawn Ryan?

  Around here, but it's brought in a it's brought in a lot of business and a lot of the infrastructure has has flourished as well. So that's good to see. But but what I'm saying is we got we've got all these people from California, New York, Michigan, moving in here. And I mean, the state is growing, I believe, 20% year after year since covid. You know, so.

• 1:34:56Speaker 01

  For Tennessee.

• 1:34:57Shawn Ryan?

  But but then you look at Florida and I mean, Florida is just go, I mean, this this place isn't even compared to what's going on down there. Another tax-free state. And so I'm just I'm just curious, I mean, when you guys are thinking about raising taxes, are you looking at what the other states are? And are you seeing the draw that they're getting from states with higher taxes?

• 1:35:21Speaker 01

  I I grant that, that there are people who go to Florida for lower taxes or.

• 1:35:25Shawn Ryan?

  Taxes.

• 1:35:26Speaker 01

  Uh, or Texas. But you look at some of the things that California has done well, right? We had five Nobel laureates out of the UC system, so that's because of a lot of funding in the UC system. We've got great higher education, we've got great community colleges. Uh, we have invested in a lot of healthcare for people in the country, in in in the state. And the healthcare costs are far lower for many people than in uh, in Texas. Now, we've screwed up housing, you know, we don't build enough, Austin and Texas does that a lot more. You know, I think when Gavin ran, he promised that we would build 3.5 million houses and we built 120,000 houses. So I'm not going to defend California on housing. We've got to have less restrictive zoning. I'm a Yimby guy, let's build.

• 1:36:11Speaker 01

  And I think that we need to look at places like Austin or other parts of the country that have built uh, to be able to build more housing. But this idea that uh, that that if you you you just need to be low tax. Low government, I don't, I just philosophically disagree with that model. My view is if you have a investments in community colleges, in trade schools, in public schools, in healthcare, that is a high functioning society where you can build wealth, where you can build wealth for every, every family. Like, I just want the shot in America that I had as a son of immigrants, right? I got to go to a good public school. I didn't have to worry about going to a doctor.

• 1:36:56Speaker 01

  I got to live in a safe community. You know, I couldn't hit for anything in baseball. They always said, "Conan bats ninth, watch the bun." But I got to play. I got to go to Phillies games. Like, I, I had a great childhood. On my street, like, there were kids of electricians and plumbers. And there was a kid of someone who was like a big shot vice president as a company. That guy had the pool and we all used to go to that house to, in the afternoons. But the country, they didn't give me a lot, but they gave me enough. And my parents, you know, they said, "Row, you won the lottery. You were born in America. Go work hard. Go make something of yourself. Learn about the country's history." My mom used to, one of the things I never understand is folks who say, "Don't learn English."

• 1:37:40Speaker 01

  My mom used to sit at the kitchen table with note cards of every big English word. And she was convinced that you had to know every word in the English language to make it in America. See, that's the spirit I want in this country. Yeah, you gotta work your, you know, work with everything you have, hard work. You gotta love this country. It's the greatest country in the world. You gotta love the history, appreciate the sacrifice of everyone who fought from the Revolutionary War to World War II, that fought for civil rights. Understand how great the country is, but, but give a shot to everyone. That's the same shot I had. That's, that's what I want. I really do. And we don't have that right now.

• 1:38:23Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm. I'm not gonna disagree with you. And, you know, we're kinda winding up down the interview here, but I just wanna say that, you know...

• 1:38:33Shawn Ryan?

  Now that I'm coming out of the, the, the tribalized, whatever psy-op that I fell into, and I think just about everybody in the country has fallen into, I mean, you know what I'm realizing? The more other people on the other side of the fence that I talk to like yourself, we all want the same fucking thing. We just have different roadmaps how to get there.

• 1:38:55Speaker 01

  And that's not a bad thing, right? Cause let's say it was just like Ro Khanna gets to run America, and no one is saying like, are you wasting the money? Is the money actually, are people, are you gonna move away? Are you actually gonna help the kids you wanna help? That wouldn't be good. And let's say it was just someone saying, okay, I just don't wanna waste any money, don't wanna, don't wanna spend anything. And I was like, yeah, but what about building those public schools and factories? That wouldn't be good. What makes this country work, or has made it work, is like having people on all sides challenge each other, and then we get to a common understanding and good. And what's not working in this country is we're busy launching ad hominem attacks on each other, dunking on each other without

• 1:39:39Speaker 01

  having like, actual debate.

• 1:39:41Shawn Ryan?

  It's not constructive criticism or productive criticism, it's just tribalism. And it's not going anywhere. And, uh, but, and what I meant, you know, is, is you care about people, and I care about people, and we want the best for people, but it's just different avenues how to get there. And, uh, people, you guys especially, have got to start figuring out how to work out these problems, man.

• 1:40:07Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm counting on you to join me. I don't think you ruled it out. I don't think you ruled it out.

• 1:40:11Shawn Ryan?

  You will not see my ass on the floor of the House. Can guarantee you that. But, um,

• 1:40:18Shawn Ryan?

  but Ro, I really appreciate what you're doing. I mean, I, I know what it's like to go against the grain, and I just, I applaud you. Good job for doing that. People, that, what you're doing right now with the Epstein stuff, that's how you're gonna get these, that's how you're gonna get, get the win that you're asking. How do we get this place back? And accountability from that would be a great start. It may be only the start that we, the only start we need, you know, to get things moving in the right direction. But, um, but I do wanna ask you,

• 1:40:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:49Shawn Ryan?

  if you could recommend three people for the show, who would they be?

• 1:40:54Speaker 01

  Thomas Massey, of course, uh, who's a, who's, who's a interesting, uh, person and really smart, I mean, really, and courageous. Um, have you had Marjorie on, Taylor Greene?

• 1:41:09Shawn Ryan?

  I haven't. Think I should have her on?

• 1:41:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, she, she risked her career for it. I mean, these are just, because we're talking about the Epstein files, but let me, you know, uh, the, the guy at, uh, uh, Dario Amade at Anthropic, actually, you know, you should have, have you had Jensen on from Nvidia?

• 1:41:27Shawn Ryan?

  I've tried to get him.

• 1:41:28Speaker 01

  I'll talk to him. I, I know him well. He's in my district. I'll tell him he should come on the show, because he's, uh, you, you know, he's one of the great innovators of our time, uh, and he's humble, and, uh, and he, he just understands technology and where we're going in a, in an incredible way.

• 1:41:46Shawn Ryan?

  Man, I would love to do that.

• 1:41:48Speaker 01

  And he'd, it'd be a great conversation.

• 1:41:50Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, it would be. Man, please connect me. That would be amazing. And I got one.

• 1:41:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:58Shawn Ryan?

  Can you get me AOC?

• 1:41:59Speaker 01

  Oh, I'd, I'd love to get her. Yeah, I'd talk. Have you had Bernie?

• 1:42:03Shawn Ryan?

  No.

• 1:42:04Speaker 01

  Would you do Bert?

• 1:42:06Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I'll take him too.

• 1:42:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, they, they, I, I'll talk to both of them.

• 1:42:10Shawn Ryan?

  Perfect. Thank you.

• 1:42:12Speaker 01

  I'll tell you who else are big progressives, uh, and they're obviously two of the, have you had Mamdani?

• 1:42:17Shawn Ryan?

  I haven't.

• 1:42:19Speaker 01

  Would you talk to Mamdani?

• 1:42:20Shawn Ryan?

  I would talk to just about anybody. So, yes, I would love that too.

• 1:42:25Speaker 01

  You know, I think to the extent you have people on both sides, um, I think that's, that's great. The thing I admire about you, respect about you, why I came all the way down is because you take on power. You're willing to speak truth to power. And you, you were doing that on Epstein, like I said before, I did. And you're against the grain in taking on orthodoxies. And to me, like, what we don't want in this country is more of the same. It's like, people are sick of the status quo.

• 1:42:56Shawn Ryan?

  Yep, yep. I'm with you. Bro, thank you.

• 1:43:01Speaker 01

  Thank you. Appreciate it.

• 1:43:02Shawn Ryan?

  It's a lovely way to end it.

• 1:43:03Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:43:04Shawn Ryan?

  Cheers.

• 1:43:17Shawn Ryan?

  No matter where you're watching Sean Ryan's show from, if you get anything out of this, please like, comment, subscribe, and most importantly, share this everywhere you possibly can. And if you're feeling extra generous, please leave us a review on Apple and Spotify Podcasts.