E567 Hasan Piker

Hasan Piker is a Twitch streamer and political commentator known for his leftist ideologies and reactions to current social issues. Hasan Piker joins Theo to talk about Trump’s speech to congress, why he thinks no political party represents the workers of this country, and how he thinks America could use its immense wealth and power for good. Hasan Piker: https://www.instagram.com/hasandpiker ------------------------------------------------ Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour New Merch: https://www.theovonstore.com ------------------------------------------------- Sponsored By: Celsius: Go to the Celsius Amazon store to check out all of their flavors. #CELSIUSBrandPartner #CELSIUSLiveFit https://amzn.to/3HbAtPJ BetterHelp: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp — go to http://betterhelp.com/theo to get 10% off your first month. BlueChew: Go to http://bluechew.com and use code THEO to try your first month free - just pay $5 shipping. Oracle: Go to http://oracle.com/theo to see if your company qualifies for this special offer. ------------------------------------------------- Music: “Shine” by Bishop Gunn Bishop Gunn - Shine ------------------------------------------------ Submit your funny videos, TikToks, questions and topics you'd like to hear on the podcast to: [email protected] Hit the Hotline: 985-664-9503 Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: https://www.theovon.com/fan-upload Send mail to: This Past Weekend 1906 Glen Echo Rd PO Box #159359 Nashville, TN 37215 ------------------------------------------------ Find Theo: Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheoVonClips Shorts Channel: https://bit.ly/3ClUj8z ------------------------------------------------ Producer: Zach https://www.instagram.com/zachdpowers Producer: Nick https://www.instagram.com/realnickdavis/ Producer: Colin https://instagram.com/colin_reiner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Theo Von?

  I want to say thank you for the support of our merch.

• 0:04Theo Von?

  Really, really appreciate it. And we have restocks, those are in now. We've got Gang Gang, Baitin' Tackle, I'm Upstairs! A lot of items are restocked. You can check that out, theovonstore.com. And again, thank you so much. Today's guest is one of the most popular streamers. He's a leftist political commentator. You can see countless clips of him debating social issues and political topics. I admire his work ethic and his pursuit of information and communication. I am thankful today for his time and our conversation.

• 0:47Theo Von?

  Today's guest is Mr. Hasan Piker.

• 1:08Speaker 01

  It feels like I made so many requests where I'm like, oh my god, I need to have my dog here, all this shit.

• 1:13Theo Von?

  No dude, I'm just gonna style it. Yours is like probably, yeah, or is that?

• 1:19Speaker 01

  This is, the top is some, I mean, both are Japanese, I think, actually.

• 1:23Theo Von?

  Oh yeah, that's what it is.

• 1:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a Japanese brand called Color with a K. And the pants are Adidas Y3, Yoji Yamamoto collab.

• 1:35Theo Von?

  Damn.

• 1:35Speaker 01

  You don't fuck with fashion at all.

• 1:37Theo Von?

  I, I mean, I, I, yeah, I don't.

• 1:40Speaker 01

  I mean, you got, you got a look, though.

• 1:42Theo Von?

  I mean, I don't like to have a lot of.

• 1:44Speaker 01

  Should we save this for the pod? That's Norman, oh, we're rolling? Oh, okay. Alright, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, my bad. That's why I didn't have it on the, that's why I didn't have it in my mouth, because I thought we weren't filming yet.

• 1:57Theo Von?

  Yeah dude, that is style, that's, yeah, I mean, yeah, it's definitely very stylish. My good friend Aaron, he started a company called John Elliott.

• 2:08Speaker 01

  I feel like I've heard of that.

• 2:09Theo Von?

  Yeah, they have them like in now and like in Nordstrom and it's like a they have like a it over like. I think it was like right after like G star kinda came out like G I try I got into some G star.

• 2:18Speaker 01

  Oh, you got some G star?

• 2:19Theo Von?

  That was like as like. Let me see what we're doing kind of as I got. I would like to have more fashion sometimes. I just don't know if I. I don't care.

• 2:29Speaker 01

  Well, you gotta look.

• 2:30Theo Von?

  I get too overwhelmed. I like knowing like there's about seventeen eighteen things that I wear that'll be okay.

• 2:35Speaker 01

  Bro, you gotta look. You can't be saying, um, I need to get into fashion and you're making a deliberate choice to not have a mustache and grow a beard out.

• 2:43Theo Von?

  Oh, you think so?

• 2:45Speaker 01

  I feel like that's that's a look.

• 2:47Theo Von?

  Maybe that. I never thought about that. Yeah.

• 2:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, you got the flannel.

• 2:51Theo Von?

  It's that little bit like a sock for your chin kind of, I guess.

• 2:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's brave, by the way. I just gotta say.

• 2:57Theo Von?

  To do just this?

• 2:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it's brave.

• 2:59Theo Von?

  But do you think that's a culture thing? What culture is your family from?

• 3:02Speaker 01

  I'm Turkish.

• 3:03Theo Von?

  Okay, so in Turkey, is that a thing? Do you see just this ever in Turkey?

• 3:09Speaker 01

  Sometimes. I mean, we don't got Amish people. Normally, the only time you see the the beard and the no mustache combo is if they just go with the full one.

• 3:17Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:18Speaker 01

  And it's just like, I don't know why they do that.

• 3:21Theo Von?

  Yeah, I saw a guy with a huge beard the other night at a comedy show. I think it was in Ohio. He had a huge beard. And then a Edgar, that kind of Mexican kind of Edgar cut in the front.

• 3:31Speaker 01

  I love that.

• 3:31Theo Von?

  Oh, it was great. This guy was ginger. I mean, probably Amish or recently Amish or once removed or whatever. And he had had like.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  How does that work?

• 3:42Theo Von?

  I mean, you could tell somebody in his wa- somebody had fucking. He probably had nails in his pocket. You know what I'm saying? He definitely, somebody had, somebody, uh. I don't know, man. But no, you're probably the most sty- I'm trying to think of somebody else more stylish that's come in here. Oh, here's some facial hair types right here. This is very important.

• 3:59Speaker 01

  Bro, this is like that that Russian ethnicities, uh, photo grid. You know what I'm talking about? Like in the USSR. This is crazy.

• 4:07Theo Von?

  This does look like.

• 4:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're like, they're showing us the different kinds of Armenians.

• 4:14Theo Von?

  This does look like forty degrees of Uber. That's what it looks like.

• 4:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, see? Look, that's what I'm talking.

• 4:20Theo Von?

  Oh, I thought this was one of those terror watch fucking charts, dude.

• 4:23Speaker 01

  No, no, this is like, look at, look at all the different ethnicities in the USSR. It's the, it's the, it's to be better at races, uh, racism.

• 4:31Theo Von?

  Well, that's what I, dude, racism used to be so easy in America. Like when I was growing up, it was like easy, easy to do, easy to be racist. Now, I've been to these, it's almost like you have to have a chart. You have to have.

• 4:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what.

• 4:45Theo Von?

  A calculator to even be racist now, it feels like.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, I hate that.

• 4:51Speaker 01

  God damn it. Racism used to be so easy.

• 4:53Theo Von?

  Yeah, what happened in the good old days, you could just point out the window and your stepdad just knew immediately what was going on, you know?

• 5:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, um, I, I think it's just, it's just a extra difficulty now. That's what it is. So you have to be smarter as a racist. We're trying to make the races better.

• 5:11Theo Von?

  Yeah. Yeah, dude, because, oh, you said there's like a barrier to entry now?

• 5:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's a, there's a barrier entry to doing racism. Like, it's like, uh, it's, it's unironically a, a more difficult process now. Um, but what I was gonna say is, uh, if you wanna go back to the, to the facial hair chart.

• 5:31Theo Von?

  Yeah, bring it up again, please, cuz I wanna know what, what we're doing. Or was it yours, the other one?

• 5:37Speaker 01

  No, no, that was the, that was just the USSR races, uh, USSR race chart, but, um.

• 5:43Theo Von?

  Yeah, you can also get, that USSR chart is easily, a lot of those men you'll see meeting with very young girls at Starbucks, trying to get them involved in something a lot of times, it seems like.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:53Theo Von?

  But what is this one?

• 5:55Speaker 01

  What do you got? You got the chin curtain? No, you got the goatee. That's what you have.

• 5:59Theo Von?

  Yeah, I guess I have the goatee. It's very simple, kind of. It's like, I have a big nose, so I try to mat, you know, you do little things to try and, you know, trick a wife or what it, trick a, you know, you wanna have a spouse. So I have that, and then I have a little bit more chin than my brother does. So I have a real chin in here. Some people, it's, it's completely, it's a total mirage. Like, there's a guy that's in that power slap game and they can't even, like, he has this huge.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  They can't identify where his chin begins? Yeah, I love that, especially when like dudes have that situation going on and then they'll just like grow out their beard and basically try to like line it up so that there's like a chin there. It's like, bro, you are not fooling anybody.

• 6:42Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 6:43Speaker 01

  And I don't even know what to do in that situation. Like, if you got that, if you got that no-neck edge shit, then you're kinda cooked regardless.

• 6:51Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 6:51Speaker 01

  But, I mean, good luck. I don't know.

• 6:55Theo Von?

  There is the one where it's crazy where sometimes, yeah, they, they cut the hair exactly. Oh, that's no neck Ed yet. He's doing real estate now, too. He was doing lemonade sale. He was in like a, he got caught up in Big Lemonade, or not Big Lemonade, but like Lemonade.

• 7:09Speaker 01

  Big Lemonade?

• 7:10Theo Von?

  He was, I know he's, he got, I think he was involved with Lemonade for a bit. I saw him selling a.

• 7:15Speaker 01

  He was involved with like a, like a child? Like, what do you mean?

• 7:18Theo Von?

  No, like he was selling, he got caught up, Ed and Pete's, there it is, something like that, or Lemonade.

• 7:22Speaker 01

  Oh, he like actually had his lemonade brand?

• 7:24Theo Von?

  Yeah, he was selling, it was like a, it was the opposite of, you know, they have like a long neck bottle, that was the whole play on it.

• 7:30Speaker 01

  Oh, oh, that's weird.

• 7:32Theo Von?

  I know.

• 7:32Speaker 01

  That's such an odd thing that he was, so he made like, like a short and stubby one?

• 7:36Theo Von?

  Yeah. Who wants that baby lemonade out of Ed? Oh, he's definitely looks like the kind of guy that you would just, you want to fucking crack open. He looks like that fancy syrup. You ever see the fancy bottle of syrup? It doesn't have, bring it up if you can. It's kind of light brown. There's a brown top on it. It's maple syrup, but it's wide.

• 7:56Speaker 01

  Oh, like the, like the maple version like that?

• 7:59Theo Von?

  Yeah, the 365 by Whole Foods, that matte finish one.

• 8:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, the one that looks like a liquor bottle.

• 8:04Theo Von?

  Yes.

• 8:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:06Theo Von?

  Yeah, look like an old brown jug.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  That one, yeah.

• 8:09Theo Von?

  I always, he kind of had that. Anyway, I feel bad we're making fun of the guy now.

• 8:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, he wasn't, I don't know. I remember watching 90 Day Fiance and he didn't seem like a good dude.

• 8:18Theo Von?

  Oh, really?

• 8:20Speaker 01

  He didn't seem, he didn't strike me as like a very nice guy, but I mean, who knows?

• 8:24Theo Von?

  Oh, I'll jump on a hate wagon in a heartbeat, dude. Fuckhead, bro.

• 8:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:28Theo Von?

  Um, no, but I, I saw the other day he's doing real estate, man. Hasan Piker, thanks for coming in, dude.

• 8:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, hell yeah. Thanks for having me.

• 8:35Theo Von?

  I know you're super busy, man. I, I admire, um, I admire, first of all, how streamers, how the effort it is. It almost seems like it's like, um, one of those races in the Olympics that it's like, like an endurance game. Um, but also just like your openness to like thinking about things. You don't seem like, um, just like one type of person. Or, or like you could pigeonhole you.

• 8:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I do, I do a little bit of everything. I mean.

• 9:01Theo Von?

  But even just in your own beliefs, like in, you know, and when you talk about political stuff, it's like.

• 9:06Theo Von?

  You seem very poignant, but also like aggressively open to things, you know, which I think, and that's a judgment and maybe I shouldn't have said something like that. But anyway, I just admire the way that you do things, dude. So I appreciate you coming and hanging out. That's all I should have said.

• 9:19Speaker 01

  Thanks for, thanks for having me. I, I think streamers are basically like the bottom of the totem pole as far as content creators goes. Like it's definitely laborious, but I wouldn't say that it's like super difficult because like overall a Hollywood production, if it's, if that is like the highest stage of like content creation and you have, you know, hundreds of people working all around the world, working around the clock to put like two and a half hours of, of content together where everyone's going to sit there and watch. Twitch streaming is like the lowest of the low.

• 9:55Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 9:55Speaker 01

  Where it's just like a dude like me, half the time, you know, picking at his crotch, watching YouTube videos, picking his nose. And it's, you know, it's, you have to be on for eight hours at a time. And it's like usually one person doing that. And that's annoying. And you gotta be like constantly listening to people chirp at you. And that part sucks, but overall I would say it's like the, you know, lowest tier of content, lowest effort of content.

• 10:21Theo Von?

  Would you say that it's the purest of content though, in a weird way? Like because it's?

• 10:25Speaker 01

  I mean, what I do is like,

• 10:27Theo Von?

  You can't hide.

• 10:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. What I do is AM radio, but what I do is, is basically AM radio, but for zoomers, you know, like that's how, the way I describe myself. Like, you know, like I'm sure you know Rush Limbaugh.

• 10:41Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 10:41Speaker 01

  Um, like that's, that's the way that I describe what I do to older people in general, where like I'm like Rush Limbaugh, but without the brain, uh, without the brain rot.

• 10:53Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 10:54Speaker 01

  Quite literally and figuratively. I mean, he did die of brain cancer.

• 10:56Theo Von?

  Did he? He had addiction, I know.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. He also had a, yeah, he had a hole, I think in his brain from all the perks. He was perked up. He was a perked up shouty.

• 11:03Theo Von?

  Well, he was definitely. My body, my money. Yeah. I think he definitely was one of the early, um, he was almost like a rapper in a way, like with the pills. I think he had the women. Bring up Rush Limbaugh's wife. Let's even get a.

• 11:18Speaker 01

  No, I don't, I don't know. I feel like those guys don't fuck. I, I don't know why, like unless they're. Unless they're gay, the gay conservatives, like the ones in the closet, like they fuck. Okay, never mind. She's kind of, she's kind of a looker, huh?

• 11:34Theo Von?

  I mean, she's better looking than him.

• 11:35Speaker 01

  I mean, that's not saying much.

• 11:37Theo Von?

  But still, I've seen, yeah, sometimes you get a, uh, yeah, she has a very, who does she look like a little bit? I've never seen his wife, or someone's widow Catherine.

• 11:47Speaker 01

  She kinda looks like, in that photo where they're kissing, she kinda looks like Walter White's wife. You know what I mean?

• 11:53Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 11:54Speaker 01

  From Breaking Bad?

• 11:55Theo Von?

  The blond-haired lady?

• 11:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, but like hotter.

• 11:58Theo Von?

  And Tori Spelling a little bit too, she looked like, if you go back one, Tori Spelling was probably four year time, but, oh yeah, she does. Um, yeah, I never looked at his wife, or, or, yeah, I've never seen a picture of her before. Um.

• 12:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it'd be weird if you were just like out there Googling Rush Limbaugh's wife. I do that all the time. I look at all the, all my favorite conservative commentators' wives.

• 12:20Theo Von?

  You just think like, yeah, I guess what do people, I don't know, yeah, yeah, I guess it's good that I'm not doing that. What's one of the toughest things about streaming that people don't understand, though?

• 12:29Speaker 01

  Um, I'll say it like this, back in the day, Joe Rogan used to always talk about how, uh, when you do a three hour podcast, like, there are so much that people can just like clip out of that and then take, uh, out of context, like rob it of its nuance and rob it of its context. And it was funny because like, at the time when he was saying this, like podcasting was a relatively new medium. I'm talking like 2014, 2015, when Joe, when, when he like first was building out the Joe Rogan experience, right? Every other week, seemingly the media would yell at him over some shit that he said on his podcast. And he was like, we're having an honest discussion. It's three hours. It's back and forth. It's gonna happen. Like, things are gonna get taken out of context.

• 13:12Speaker 01

  I think for Twitch streaming, that's tuned up to 11, where not only am I live, I'm talking about politics, which are, you know, I mean, I'm talking about some really, uh, crazy issues, uh, hot button topics. And also, I'm doing that with a live audience who's constantly chirping at me, uh, in real time.

• 13:34Speaker 01

  Trying to, you know, trying to constantly piss me off. And then when they do successfully piss me off, they'll clip that shit and post it on Twitter, post it on Reddit. Be like, call out post, call out post, this guy's bad. Look at what he said. And, um, you know, when you got like crazy dedicated haters too, especially because they're doing politics in general, you're gonna have a lot of crazy dedicated haters. Uh, they, they just do, you know, they just compile all of that to be like, this is a bad person over and over and over again. Like you'll see it in the, in the comment section of this video, there will be a ton of people who are gonna come in and be like, this guy is a bad dude. Like he said this, he said that. Cause like, the major reason obviously for that is because I'm anti-Israel. Like I'm, I'm, I'm pro Palestine.

• 14:19Speaker 01

  I've been pro Palestine for quite a while and that really brings out the crazies.

• 14:24Theo Von?

  Does it really?

• 14:25Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You, you haven't encountered this? I mean, you had Gabor Maté on.

• 14:31Theo Von?

  Yeah, we had Gabor Maté. We had a rabbi, uh, we had Bassem Youssef and we definitely have tried to like learn something about it. I think in the end, for me, it just became like, my feelings just tell me that it's just messed up what's happened to those people. It's like, and that a lot of it was covered up by the media or they didn't want you to share certain information or you weren't allowed to.

• 14:54Speaker 01

  No, for sure. I mean, that's how it's always been though. It's not just for Israel. It's just in general, like when it comes to American foreign policy, uh, the, the American media is, is fairly one note. Our politicians are one known on it too. They're bipartisan on that. That's like.

• 15:10Theo Von?

  So when you say that, you mean that they're all in on the same, it's all kind of the same ruse, do you mean?

• 15:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. They all, they all agree. It's always uniparty when it comes to American foreign policy. When it comes to giving money to Israel, when it comes to, uh, a lot of that stuff, like going to war with, with, uh, Iraq, right? You got the media also presenting that lie that they have, you know, chemical weapons, they have weapons of mass destruction and uncritically reporting on that to justify going to war, uh, with Iraq, going and invading a foreign nation that we had no business invading.

• 15:44Theo Von?

  Right.

• 15:44Speaker 01

  So that is, that happens all the time.

• 15:48Theo Von?

  Do you think that that's starting to get upset even by like podcasting, streaming, um? Do you think that that apple cart's starting to change? It feels like.

• 15:58Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure. I think that uh.

• 16:00Theo Von?

  Just because people have a voice.

• 16:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, the independent media sphere definitely is like dominating partially because of that reason. Sometimes for bad reasons, people have lost confidence in media when they just don't like what they're reporting, even if they're reporting the truth. And then there are plenty of major reasons like. Like Jeffrey Epstein's death, like you go to any outlet, most of them are going to rule it a suicide. No critical, no critical reporting on it whatsoever, just unconditionally saying like, no, no, no, it was definitely a suicide. Like, the average American doesn't feel that way. And also, there's very valid reasons as to why they don't feel that way. Israel is another great example of this where like, it was like 80% of Americans wanted a ceasefire.

• 16:42Speaker 01

  Uh, and, and yet, if you look at all the way from CNN to Fox News, every single outlet was just like, no, no, no, you don't understand. Israel has to kill these children. Like, please, no, you don't understand. Like, can you imagine? Uh, you got. Imagine a role reversal in that situation where like, you got, you got Osama bin Laden's best lads on CNN immediately after nine 11 being like, listen. Like, we, we had to blow up the twin towers. Like, you, you don't, the World Trade Center, it was, it was right there, it was asking for it.

• 17:19Theo Von?

  One of them was a little askew.

• 17:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, we had to fix it.

• 17:23Theo Von?

  Um, yeah, well, yeah, it's crazy. Well, there's that famous video that got shared a few years ago, like during COVID, when it was like, every channel was reporting the same, it was just the same script. It was almost just.

• 17:34Speaker 01

  Sinclair Broadcasting.

• 17:35Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  So that's actually, that's ironically, a lot of right wingers spread that one.

• 17:39Theo Von?

  Is that true or not?

• 17:40Speaker 01

  No, it is, but that, but that's right wing. That's Sinclair Broadcasting. It's like a right wing media company that basically bought out all the remaining, uh, local news broadcasters.

• 17:49Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  So it's like an umbrella. Right wing media is all over the place, actually, and a lot of people don't realize it. Like, whenever Fox News talks about like mainstream media lies, I'm like, "Bro, you are the most popular news network in the country. What do you mean mainstream media? Like, you're dominating everybody else."

• 18:07Theo Von?

  So you're saying that a lot of times mainstream media is also right wing media?

• 18:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, right wing media is so dominant. And in the independent side, right wing media is dominant as hell, too. But like, on the mainstream side, right wing media is incredibly dominant. They dominate the local news with Sinclair Broadcasting, and also all the way up to Fox News, which is the most famous, which is the most, like, successful network news broadcaster in the country.

• 18:36Theo Von?

  Is Fox News the most watched news network?

• 18:40Speaker 01

  By widest margins.

• 18:41Theo Von?

  Really?

• 18:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's not even close. CNN and MSNBC, Trump always talks about how CNN and NBC are, you know, in the pooper. Their ratings are awful. These guys love presenting themselves as vulnerable victims, and I really always get annoyed by that. Like, they say that about, they used to always say that about like Facebook, too. They're like, "Oh, they're banning stuff." And I'm sure they banned like vaccine denial or whatever, right? Because Facebook wanted to be woke and liberal until Mark Zuckerberg got hit with the Dominican Ray. But...

• 19:12Theo Von?

  So then, when people say mainstream media, then I guess, then what did it, because it always felt to me like, yeah, that every outlet was just always super liberal. That's what it felt like.

• 19:23Speaker 01

  They are. No, no, for sure. Like, a lot of, like, the New York Times, you got CNN, ABC, CBS, like NBC, these outlets are liberal. Now, obviously, I'm a little bit of a radical, I guess, so I'm definitely not fond of the Democratic Party either, even though my criticisms of the Democrats are because of their closeness to the Republicans in general. But, yeah, they are, I would say that they're definitely liberal, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're like on the side of the people or anything like that, or on even the progressive side of many of these issues. And that's why I said, there is this uniparty attitude, like liberals and Republicans, they basically come together and agree when it comes to giving

• 20:08Speaker 01

  more money to Israel.

• 20:10Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 20:10Speaker 01

  Not, not the voters. I'm talking like institutions. I'm talking politicians.

• 20:15Theo Von?

  Yeah, well, that's, yeah, that seems to be, I think, it feels so far away from being represented. Like, the, the people feel so far away from being represented, and I feel like that seems like it's gotten further and further in my lifetime. I can't tell if it's just because I'm getting older, and so you hear about more stuff like that, or if it's actually true. But I think people just feel like, you know, like, why are we having to audit our own government, you know, whether or not the means that they're going about it are good or not, but it's like, it's like, the, the fact that people are cheering to have our own government audited, the fact that it's like, yeah, that eighty percent of the people would, would say they don't support, um, what's happening in Gaza, but yet we would still send money to Israel. Like, I think it's-

• 20:59Speaker 01

  Trump has done that. Trump, the other day, Trump was like, yo, we gotta, we can't give any more money to Ukraine, right? Um, you're done. He's like, Zel Disney, you're out. And then he turns around and he's like, also, we're sending three billion dollars of weapons and bulldozers to Israel pronto.

• 21:13Theo Von?

  Did they really?

• 21:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:15Theo Von?

  Bring that up.

• 21:16Speaker 01

  Three point four billion, I believe, on the same day, yeah, Rubio bipo- bye- bypasses Congress to send Israel four billion dollars in arms. They were like, oh, we have to expeditiously send this out to Israel.

• 21:28Theo Von?

  Arms for what?

• 21:30Speaker 01

  What do you mean? To, to continue killing Palestinians.

• 21:33Theo Von?

  Is there anybody left there?

• 21:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. There's still, uh, there's still a million plus Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Um, they're basically just like, living in the rubble, trying to rebuild. I mean, these are some of the most resilient people on the planet, like, they just, they've been through hell a million times over, you know?

• 21:51Theo Von?

  Yeah, you still see a lot of great, like, there was a beautiful video, I'm not sure if it was AI or not, of them trying to celebrate Ramadan the other night in the rubble.

• 21:56Speaker 01

  Oh, the long table?

• 21:57Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that was real, though. I don't think that was AI. Cause I saw people take, uh, I saw people taking photos of that. Yeah, I mean, also, the other side of this is like, the Gaza Strip is, is like overwhelmingly children. Like, we're talking,

• 22:11Theo Von?

  I know.

• 22:11Speaker 01

  Like, the, the average age is fourteen. People are on, like, fifty plus percent. Or miners.

• 22:18Theo Von?

  Well, that's, I think.

• 22:19Speaker 01

  And that's before October 7.

• 22:21Theo Von?

  But like a year ago, people would be afraid to have, I think, this conference to, to, to, people be afraid.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure.

• 22:27Theo Von?

  Including us. Like, I'd be afraid, I'd be afraid that.

• 22:29Speaker 01

  No, I mean, look, I've been, I've been actively and openly pro-Palestine emancipation for the past decade. And I've seen a major attitude shift.

• 22:38Theo Von?

  You're like Turkish Macklemore, dude.

• 22:40Speaker 01

  Wait, what do you mean?

• 22:41Theo Von?

  Because he, yeah, he's been.

• 22:42Speaker 01

  When I was in third, third grade, I thought I was gay.

• 22:45Theo Von?

  No, did he do that?

• 22:47Speaker 01

  That's what his, it was his song.

• 22:49Theo Von?

  Oh, well, dude, you gotta be pretty, you have to have an open attitude even think that way in third grade.

• 22:55Theo Von?

  But no, he's just been, he's been unabashedly afraid to share about Palestine, you know?

• 23:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, he's, he's had his heart changed. I think his heart's in the right place. Like, I think he's, he's doing great.

• 23:06Theo Von?

  He was from the beginning about it. I mean, he was early on it.

• 23:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 23:09Theo Von?

  Not like 10, he hasn't been, but since it became like a hot, more of a hot button issue in the past three or four years, for sure.

• 23:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, look, I'll never, I'll never discard allies. I'm, you know, that's an amazing thing to, to look at the situation with clarity, with moral clarity and just be like, listen, I didn't know enough about this and now I've recognized the, the cruelty of, of what we are doing. Like, because that's the other thing, like, America, whether we agree to it or not, or whether we recognize it or not, is like participating in this in a pretty meaningful way. They're offering political cover at the UN. They, uh, you got the, the basically war crime cops out there at the ICC and ICJ, the International Court of Justice, which prosecutes state on state prosecutions. You have the International Criminal Court, which is a court that prosecutes war criminals, right?

• 23:58Theo Von?

  And both of them have issued for Netanyahu to be.

• 24:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:01Theo Von?

  Arrested, right?

• 24:02Speaker 01

  So, South Africa has a case against Israel for genocide. That's ongoing and at the ICJ and at the ICC. The, uh, the International Criminal Court has a prosecutor that has issued arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Galan, uh, for, for the crime of, of, you know, doing a genocide for, uh, being war criminals, intentional starvation of a civilian, captive civilian population. It's a pretty obvious war crime. So.

• 24:29Theo Von?

  Well, I just think it's, honestly, bro, some of it I think is kind of pussy, like, and I hate to say that because some people don't have pussies, they don't believe in them or whatever, but it's like. I think if you're all, if your military is so great, send in snipers and get the bad guys. That's how I feel. Do some covert opt shit, but just to be like-

• 24:47Speaker 01

  Their military's ass though, that's the problem. They just have like, they just have overwhelming firepower and air superiority. That's it.

• 24:55Theo Von?

  But, and, and, but, but that's the part to me, it's like, send in some, you know, if, if those are the bad guys, send in and get the, like, do some, it just felt like this, uh, I don't know. It just started to feel gross and then the great thing was, it feels like you couldn't hide it from a nation. You could not hide from the world that what they were doing was wrong. But going back to what you're saying, how much are we complicit in so many of these?

• 25:20Speaker 01

  I mean-

• 25:21Theo Von?

  Uh, types of things that happen in different countries and do we need to be?

• 25:26Speaker 01

  No, I think we are complicit. I mean, that's how I feel about it at least, but, um, that's why I actively urge people to protest and, and do everything in their power to, to try to put an end to this because I think we have a lot of, uh, power in this, in this regard in the United States of America. I, I don't think that America is like a true democracy by any means and this kind of stuff basically uh, puts that on display for everyone to recognize. Um, or, you know, whenever people go, hey, can we get healthcare and the government's like, fuck you? Then you're like, what? Like, this would be nice to have, you know, socialized medicine. Um, but, uh, but you still, you still gotta keep trying.

• 26:06Theo Von?

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• 27:17Theo Von?

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• 27:57Theo Von?

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• 28:38Speaker 01

  I wouldn't say it's like complicity in terms of like your hands are bloody individually, but the least you can do is not actively champion America doing this stuff and also go out and protest like and try to try to give a voice to voiceless people that are just being massacred for no reason.

• 29:03Theo Von?

  Um, why is there such a strong bond between America and Israel? I've heard Candace Owens saying that she thought it was blackmail. But what do you, why do you think there's really such a strong bond?

• 29:14Speaker 01

  Candace Owens has got a lot of thoughts on that stuff. I think, I think there's like two different camps here. You got people who critically analyze the relationship with Israel. And then you got people who are like, it's the Jews, you know? I am in the critically analyzing the situation camp rather than just being like, oh, it's Jews. Cause they got mind control powers or whatever the fuck people say. It's, it's because it is an unsinkable aircraft carrier in a resource rich region. And it has its own espionage facilities. And that is the reason like we, we basically carried over from the British. This, this settler colony in the region that we can just kinda use. Or have a collaborative relationship with.

• 29:59Speaker 01

  And it's incredibly valuable for us. So valuable that like, I mean, Israel's blown up USS Liberty like a, like an American Navy ship.

• 30:07Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 30:07Speaker 01

  And, and basically.

• 30:09Theo Von?

  That was in the 50s, I think.

• 30:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, in that process, like it was an incredibly valuable Cold War ally. Because we were terrified of Israel going in like collaborating with the USSR. You got Penn, Arabic nationalism happening all around the region. All these countries that are developing nation states are, are doing so on the boundaries of, of, you know, defeating their, their colonial occupiers, whether it be French colonialism or British colonialism. And simultaneously they're looking to the USSR, right? And they're like, you know, maybe you guys will help us out. This seems like a cool thing that you guys got going on over there. The socialism stuff ain't too bad. America goes, fuck that. And they basically hit the Israel button as hard as they could where they were just like,

• 30:54Speaker 01

  you guys are gonna be our, you guys are gonna be our, our extension.

• 30:58Theo Von?

  Right.

• 30:59Speaker 01

  It's like, um, um, some of my friends say, uh, there are favored client states. And then there are client states that America just discards. Ukraine is obviously a non-favored client state. And that's what happens when you're done with Ukraine, where you're like, I'm done with this. You know, pack it up, uh, give me all your minerals, even if you have any, who knows? I don't care, you know, know your place. America does this to the Kurds all the time as well, where they'll just like arm them and be like, "Yeah, you guys need to get, you guys need to develop a nation state. It'd be nice." Kurds are ethnic minority in the region.

• 31:33Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 31:34Speaker 01

  Um, thirty-five million people.

• 31:36Theo Von?

  In what region?

• 31:36Speaker 01

  In the, in the Middle East. Uh, thirty-five million people, uh, don't have a nation state. Uh, a lot of them live in Turkey.

• 31:42Theo Von?

  So kind of homeless.

• 31:43Speaker 01

  Iraq. Well, yeah, yes and no. And, and there's like varying degrees of cruelty that they're subjected to in these countries as like an ethnic minority, my country included, in Turkey.

• 31:53Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 31:53Speaker 01

  And, um, they wanna, they wanna build a nation state. They got an autonomous region in Iraq now. Uh, they're in Syria as well. Uh, they're in Iran as well.

• 32:03Theo Von?

  So they're trying to figure it out?

• 32:04Speaker 01

  And then they're also in Turkey. Yeah, so America will go up to them and be like, "We're gonna arm you guys. We're gonna train you guys. Go fuck shit up." And then as soon as they're done, they, they just discard them and they're like, "Okay, go." You can, they'll tell Turkey, "You can go and, you know, bomb these villages that they're in. Who cares? It doesn't matter anymore."

• 32:20Theo Von?

  So what you're saying, I think it's like, that, that's one of the things that makes it tougher. The more information you learn, I think, in the world, it's like...

• 32:28Speaker 01

  The shittier things seem?

• 32:29Theo Von?

  Yeah, in some ways. But the reality of things, you just see the reality. It's like, yeah, you need... And if you were playing a game of Risk and you were these dictators, you were these powerful people, how would you operate? And, yeah, it just gets to, it gets to be tough to find out, "Okay, well then what is being an American still mean to me?" And then also that things are so conflicting and dangerous out there amongst these like leaders and powers that you have to, you have to like kind of put a flag in something for yourself, you know? Um, just to kind of get, to, cause otherwise you'll just be sort of aimless, it feels like.

• 33:12Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, I think, I...

• 33:13Theo Von?

  I don't know if I'm even explaining that fully right, but...

• 33:15Speaker 01

  You gotta stand for something, is that what you're saying? If you don't stand for something, you fall for everything?

• 33:20Theo Von?

  Yeah, so here's what I think. It's like, the more we learn about, um, history, the more we learn about just like, um, the... They're like, "Well, America did these things and some of it, 9/11 could have been the result of some of that." Just as more as you start to learn that America hasn't always been this perfect partner and this, that it just starts to test like, "Okay, well, what does it mean to be an American to me?" But then, at the same time, you need to be an American because you live in a country that's safe and you're able to operate here within the country. So it's, I don't know, it just makes it kind of interesting. Does that make sense?

• 33:56Speaker 01

  No, I get it. What you're exhibiting is a very normal contradiction that a lot of Americans, when faced with the reality of American foreign policy, they come to terms with this. Like, they try to resolve this contradiction where on the one hand, you're saying, "Well, I'm an American. I like the security blanket that I exist under," right? But also simultaneously, you're like, "But damn, we're doing a lot of fucked up shit around the world." I mean, look, I'm a... People always yell at me and say, "Oh, Hassan, you only say America bad." But I don't just stop at that. Like, I want America to be good. I think America has incredible potential.

• 34:36Speaker 01

  It's the wealthiest nation on the planet. It should be doing so much more to help its own citizens and so much more to lead the way, pave the way for a new evolution of the way that we look at international relations than the way that we engage with conflict. But the reason why America is the way it is is because I see it as basically, you know, 50 corporations in a trench suit. Like, it's just a holdover to extract tax revenue from everyday Americans and then give it directly back to corporations in the form of subsidies without ever regulating them and, you know, demanding anything in return.

• 35:16Speaker 01

  I think one of the best examples of this was when, you know, Russia invaded Ukraine. And then Russia is also part of OPEC+, so they went back to Saudi Arabia.

• 35:26Theo Von?

  Okay, so take us back. Our listeners, if we get too much information, a lot of them don't...

• 35:31Speaker 01

  They're gonna tune it out?

• 35:32Theo Von?

  Well, I think if it's new information, for me, I shouldn't say them. If it's new information for me, it's hard for me to go along. So

• 35:38Speaker 01

  Why are you throwing it under the bus?

• 35:41Theo Von?

  I am, I am. My bad guys. I'm the, I am the problem. So, but OPEC is the oil.

• 35:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:48Theo Von?

  So OPEC is like an oil NATO.

• 35:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Basically, exactly. It's a cartel.

• 35:52Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 35:53Speaker 01

  That's what it is. It's a, it's a, it's a group of, of countries that have oil reserves that basically set the, the price of oil barrels.

• 36:04Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 36:04Speaker 01

  And Saudi Arabia is pretty dominant because like they have, um, you know, I mean, they, they are the oil gods.

• 36:10Theo Von?

  They're the big dogs. They're damn.

• 36:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. And yeah, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and Russia basically went back to OPEC and was like,

• 36:19Theo Von?

  Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Yeah. Okay.

• 36:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. At the time, Russia had a lot to, you know, a lot to gain from and all these other countries had a lot to also gain from basically limiting the price of, or limiting the supply of oil. Um, you know, we're in the post-COVID era too. And then like they're also,

• 36:39Speaker 01

  they were also making a lot of money and, or they had lost a lot of revenue. So they wanted to recoup because nobody was like flying around or using oil because everyone was like stuck at home.

• 36:48Theo Von?

  Oil's been down.

• 36:50Speaker 01

  So they, um, they were recouping on those losses by just basically saying, demand is on an all time high. We're not going to produce, uh, you know, we're not going to keep up with that demand to make sure that we stabilize the prices.

• 37:02Theo Von?

  Right. So they're saying, oh, there's only so much oil, even though there's as much as they're want, they, they kind of want there to be.

• 37:06Speaker 01

  They could have produced way more.

• 37:08Theo Von?

  Right.

• 37:08Speaker 01

  So the point I was going to make is, uh, Brandon went back to Saudi Arabia, you know, he shook hands with MBS and was like,

• 37:15Theo Von?

  Who did, Brandon?

• 37:16Speaker 01

  Brandon, Joe Brandon, Joe Biden.

• 37:18Theo Von?

  Oh, Joe Biden.

• 37:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. He went to, he, he went to Saudi Arabia. He was like, come on, Jack, you know, produce more oil. Come on, don't do it. And, and, uh, they were like, nope.

• 37:29Speaker 01

  The reason why I'm telling this convoluted story is because then we have American oil and gas industry providers, right? Like we have our own oil. Everybody always talks about how we, we have independence, like energy independence in America. So he went back to the American oil and gas industry and was like, alright, you guys have to, you know, produce more oil because you have to offset what like OPEC is doing. And you know what they said? Fuck you. That's what they said. They get, they rely, the oil and gas producers in this country, the fossil fuel industry gets 80% of our energy subsidies. It's like billions of dollars that they get.

• 38:07Theo Von?

  Subsidies means that they get kickbacks from the government.

• 38:10Speaker 01

  Not even a kickback, like government collects taxes and then government gives these companies, whether they're in agriculture or whether they're in the oil and gas industry, they give money to these companies to keep prices relatively low, to keep up with the cost of the production, right? They're like, hey, we're gonna give you this money so you keep prices low. But in a time.

• 38:30Theo Von?

  Oh, because the, because that company owns so much of the actual market of whatever that product is, that if they wanted to adjust it, they could do it.

• 38:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 38:39Theo Von?

  I didn't even know that.

• 38:39Speaker 01

  And they didn't, they didn't provide, they just didn't supply the federal government with more oil. Like they just did not, they did not produce more in the time to stabilize prices. And you got like the oil lobby guys going on CNBC and actively being like, we have a fiduciary responsibility to our shareholders to maximize profit. We don't care if the, you know, we don't care if the prices are high. You know, sucks to suck because our profits are great. And the reason why I explained all this is because I think that's a perfect demonstration of how America operates, like the American government operates rather, where it serves corporations, not the people.

• 39:22Speaker 01

  And then you got China on the other hand, where like it's, you know, they got billionaires too. They got massive corporations too, but those corporations serve the government. Now that can be bad, but if the government is, is, you know, interested in uplifting the great, the public good and doing like even development or whatever, then ultimately they just can force corporations hands to do whatever they want.

• 39:49Theo Von?

  Yeah, I mean, like, like you're saying, it's like, yeah, the more you learn, it's, um, you have to then decide, okay, you almost have to differentiate. Well, what does it mean to be an American to me? You know, because if I stay here and I sleep under this banner of America where I can make money and I can have, and there's a welfare system and albeit there, you know, people have ideas of whether they're good or bad and those, uh, but, but that I stay here, I continue to stay here, I keep myself here, this is where I choose to be, you know, in the safety of this place.

• 40:23Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 40:26Theo Von?

  You know, it's like, well, how complicit am I or am I just an American? And this is, this is the, I got blessed into this place and this is where I am. And if somebody else weren't born in this place and they were in a place that were, you know, more hostile and scary to live in and sleep in and try to survive in, wouldn't they be praying that they would be here or that they would have some of the same things?

• 40:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, everyone, everyone.

• 40:46Theo Von?

  Does that make any sense?

• 40:47Speaker 01

  No, it does. Yeah, no, you, what you're describing, like I said, is, is, uh, what leftists, what leftists call like living in the imperial core. Because if you're in the, if you're in the heart of empire, you at the very least don't suffer the repercussions of being the victims, right?

• 41:02Theo Von?

  Right.

• 41:02Speaker 01

  Like, you're not, you're not in Guatemala, so you're not getting destabilized by the American government in many instances, like, or at least throughout your history. So you haven't been kept down, uh, and, and therefore your situation in comparison to them is, is gonna be a lot better.

• 41:17Theo Von?

  And then what do I want my life to be like day to day? Do I want it to be this constant na, like, or do I wanna not think about those things and think that those are the government's, you know, some of that's the government's responsibility? I do my best to elect and vote in a way that I think is meaningful and vote for the best person, and then I try to enjoy my life and take care of my family and my neighbor, you know? I think it's like, I don't know, that's kinda how I, I think maybe I start to break it down in my head, you know?

• 41:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. So. Um, that ba- that, that, what you were describing right there is, is uh, basically the heart of, I wouldn't say the problem necessarily, but that, that is why a lot of people just like tune out, cause they feel just powerless at the end of the day, you know, you got your protests, you vote, and then these guys do whatever the fuck they wanna do. What am I supposed to do? Is like the, the attitude that the average citizen has in this country. And, you know, that's why things slowly but surely seemingly get worse year over year. Maybe not for you and I, cause like, I mean, we're relatively successful, but for like, average people, for everyday people, shit is fucked up. And they recognize it, but they don't know who is responsible for it. And

• 42:27Speaker 01

  they become so malleable and so open uh, to, to responding to anybody that will look at uh, anybody that will recognize their frustration and say, it's actually because of this and that. And I think Trump tapped into that so perfectly. And that's why he won. That's why he defeated the Democrats so handily. Because he was like, yes, you're angry. I'm angry too. Why are you angry? Cause woke lib tards, cause DEI, cause trans people, cause uh, you know, undocumented immigrants.

• 42:58Speaker 01

  Undocumented immigrants aren't your fucking landlord. They're not the one who's raising the price of rent. They don't own the, they don't own the mega corporations. They don't, they're not, they're not sitting at the Board of BlackRock, you know what I mean? It's not a Guatemalan migrant that's sitting at the Board of BlackRock, uh, purchasing all the fucking houses. Or they're not the real estate developers that refuse to, you know, uh, add to the like, much needed supply of housing.

• 43:22Theo Von?

  Yeah. And instead put a fucking rag and bone in every town, dude.

• 43:26Speaker 01

  I fucking hate rag and bone.

• 43:27Theo Von?

  Well, it's just like, dude, don't tear down cool areas and just put up a rag and bone, dude. It's not fucking cool. But no, I, man, it's interesting. I never really heard it put like that, like, and then of course, the other things, you say these other things to people, that doesn't feel, you gotta point, you have to approach people with something they can point a finger at, and it's, whatever they're pointing at is close enough where they feel like. It can be reached.

• 43:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:54Theo Von?

  Like, those are things that it's like, um, but also those are things like you, you, you label like in Trump talked about him last night on some of the congressional address. I think it was the party address last night.

• 44:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, he, he did a, he did like a fake state of the union. It was a joint congressional address.

• 44:10Theo Von?

  Joint congressional address.

• 44:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:11Theo Von?

  Cause he talked about some of those things like D E I, um.

• 44:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, bro. They, they cut D E I. Now planes are fucking falling out of the sky, man. We need to bring Pete Buttigieg back as the transportation secretary. He needs to fix the problem.

• 44:24Theo Von?

  Was he a dog in there?

• 44:25Speaker 01

  No.

• 44:26Theo Von?

  We need black pilots, dude. First of all, black people can jump better. So are you not gonna have a fucking black dude in a plane, bro?

• 44:33Speaker 01

  I don't know. I don't know about the jumping. I don't know.

• 44:37Speaker 01

  Factor into the, to the, to the pilot program.

• 44:41Theo Von?

  But still, dude, you, if I see, if I saw Michael Jordan in the cockpit, that bitch, we gonna stay up. That's how I'm feeling.

• 44:46Speaker 01

  Oh, 100%.

• 44:47Theo Von?

  Like, that's where I feel.

• 44:48Speaker 01

  Now I, now, now I, I think, you know, now we, if I get on a plane and I see a white man, that dude better be in a polyamorous relationship. Okay? I need that dude sucking dick. Okay?

• 45:02Theo Von?

  No, dude.

• 45:02Speaker 01

  I need something. I need, if he's straight and he's a, he's a straight white male, that plane is falling, dude. That's what's going on. Trump came in, he killed D E I. Every day, there's another fucking plane crash.

• 45:14Theo Von?

  But is it white dudes doing it? Here's the thing.

• 45:17Speaker 01

  I'm fucking around. I'm not being serious. Even though, even though Republicans do think that that is real, where they're like, oh, if there's a black woman pilot, that's why planes are falling. It's like, no dumbass, it's because of fucking capitalism. Like, they've, they've literally undercut every aspect of production to make more money. They constantly outsource. They constantly send certain aspects of manufacturing to, to other countries where there's like less regulation and less restrictions. That makes them more money. And that's why fucking planes are, you know, the doors are exploding and shit while they're flying in the.

• 45:49Theo Von?

  Is that one of the, is that one of the real reasons you think it's going on?

• 45:52Speaker 01

  That's 100% the reason why it's going on.

• 45:54Theo Von?

  Bring it up. See if we can, that's a good question. Why are, why, cause it, there seems to be these little times in history where it's like, okay, for this year. It's almost like they press a plane trouble button and it's like, oh, now there's plane trouble.

• 46:06Speaker 01

  Well, that's also because, uh, you know, minor incidents happen all the time. But the media hyper focuses on them when it becomes like a hot button topic. That's what it is. And, and there are obviously freak accidents as well, like they all freak accidents happen. But I think, um, there's never really like a, like a perfect example, like a perfect demonstration of why these things are happening more frequently.

• 46:31Theo Von?

  Yeah. Let me see what this even says. No, there were actually more plane crashes between January 1st, 2024 and February 1st, 2024. When you compare the same time period this year to last year.

• 46:44Theo Von?

  So there were more crashes.

• 46:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, but the difference is the, the, um, the, the severity of like one big crash and then people hyper focus on it. This happened with, uh, Palestine, Ohio. Uh, remember when the train derailment happened? And everybody's like, why aren't they covering this? Well, you know, I'm, I'm a little bit of a foamer. I love, I love trains. Maybe it's because of the autism, but like, you know how many train derailments happening every year? Every single year, a thousand. Some of them are minor, some of them are major, right? So every single person hyper focused on this understandably, because like they try to do a shitty ass cover up for it. And be like, oh no, everything is fine.

• 47:25Theo Von?

  And there was gas leaking. Yeah, there was death.

• 47:27Speaker 01

  They're like, oh, you just feel itchy. It's normal. Just keep drinking the water. It's fine. It is green, you know, shut up. But, uh, because of that, then everybody started focusing on all these derailments. And they were like, what the hell is going on? And it's like, there's a lot of that that happens all the time. It's just the media doesn't pay attention to it. Because if you paid attention to it all the time, you go crazy. It's like crime.

• 47:47Theo Von?

  Right.

• 47:48Speaker 01

  Crime in big cities. It's a constant.

• 47:51Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 47:51Speaker 01

  You know, that is, uh, a buddy of mine was staying with me and he's from like the suburbs of Portland, right? Just like a very white neighborhood. And I'm living, I live in the middle of West Hollywood and you know, LA is not like New York or whatever, but it's still a city, right? Every time he heard firecrackers or whatever, like fireworks or whatever, he would freak out. He's like, is that gunshots? I'm like, no, man. That's just fireworks. Like, what are you talking about? Uh, and then he would hear like, you know, ambulances or, or police sirens and he'd freak out. Cause like, if you live in a suburb and you hear police sirens, yeah, some, something crazy happened, right? But if you live in a city, you hear it all the time as background noise. Cause you know, there's always shit happening.

• 48:36Speaker 01

  There's, you know, tens of millions of people around.

• 48:38Theo Von?

  Um, so how you saying that relates to this?

• 48:40Speaker 01

  Um, the, what, what, what I mean by that is if you pay attention to it with apps like, you know, Nextdoor and Citizen and Ring and all this stuff, you start realizing that like, it's happening all the time. And it makes you go crazy. Uh, same with train derailments, same with plane, uh, you know, plane crashes and whatnot. They're a, they're a normal part of this process and you gotta look at the data and, and try to figure out if this is like, truly unique or not. And in terms of the plane crashes, uh, the, the deadly nature of some of them is unique. Uh, there, there's been some big ones, right? Like with the Ronald Reagan Airport one, but outside of that, like, you know, minor bumps at the Seattle Airport or whatever, like that's normal.

• 49:23Theo Von?

  He had a couple of them where it's like these planes almost hit each other and they would show you a video and I watched one of them two times. I'm like, I didn't, that shit didn't even look close to me. And they're like, but they just label it that way. Uh, it's definitely kind of fascinating. Then once something happens, you start to hyper-focus on it more. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. I've benefited from therapy. You know that, jeepers. Gosh, I, oh, I still, and I need more. I can't even wait to get online with my therapist later this week. Um, it's become a regular thing in my life, having somebody to talk to, especially as our world gets more disconnected at times. Think about your favorite leaders, mentors and idols.

• 50:06Theo Von?

  They don't have all the answers, but they do know when to ask questions or seek support from their community. In a society that glorifies hyper-independence, it's easy to forget that we're all better when we have a support system behind us. BetterHelp. Is there. BetterHelp is fully online, making therapy affordable and convenient, serving over 5 million people worldwide. You can build your support system with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com/ Theo to get 10% off your first month. That's better H E L P, betterhelp.com/ Theo. Would you consider yourself a Democrat?

• 50:50Theo Von?

  What do you consider yourself?

• 50:52Speaker 01

  No, I'm a leftist. That's what I say, where I'm very critical of both parties in general. I don't think that either party really represents my interests. Like, the Democrats sometimes will point to things that I care about, and they are, I guess, a little bit closer to the way I see the world than the Republicans are. But, you know, I'm actively critical of both parties.

• 51:15Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 51:16Speaker 01

  Because I don't care about party affiliation. I care about, like, doing right by people. I care about, you know, helping, putting the interests of people over the interests of profits for corporations.

• 51:27Theo Von?

  Yeah, you know, I hate it when somebody tries to leave, like, "Oh, you're MAG or you're this type of thing." It's like that. I've never wanted to be put in a box my whole life. I don't feel like there's enough parties, really, to represent the people. And I think the more information you get and learn, I think a lot of people start to feel that way, like, "I don't think this party really represents me," you know? But then there's such conglomerates of so many different little pieces, that they almost feel like, "Well, I like this person in this one. I like this person on the chess team, or this rook, so I'm gonna..." They will get my vote because they have that player, right?

• 52:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:02Theo Von?

  But yeah, I think that that's... I think as more people get more information and are able to look into things more, that that kind of evolves.

• 52:09Speaker 01

  Um, I think that there's one thing that transcends party boundaries, and I feel like you exhibit that tendency as well. And that is dissatisfaction with the government and the two-party system, anyway. And I think Trump also captured the attention of a lot of people by making it seem like he was totally outside of this dynamic. Where he was like, I'm an independent, I'm a billionaire, I'm rich, I don't give a fuck about either of these parties, you know, vote for me. And that's why you have a lot of people who love Bernie Sanders. Because he's, he's earnest, he's honest. And it's obvious that he's not like, you know, a Democratic Party dick rider. And he has a long track record of like constantly doing right by others, constantly advocating for things that like, you know, help people.

• 52:54Speaker 01

  Even if he doesn't have much success. That earnestly has, I think. Created this, this unique phenomenon of people that like Bernie and also Trump, people like yourself. Who, who think, well, these guys are anti-establishment.

• 53:10Theo Von?

  Yeah, I think, well, I think one thing about Trump was like, and I, I was like, fuck, it made you believe. Cause people, most people knew him like from rap songs, probably from being like a rich white guy, having rich guy hair. And then from being on The Apprentice, right?

• 53:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, which was a very, you wanna know something?

• 53:30Theo Von?

  Pretty monumental how that all shaped out.

• 53:32Speaker 01

  You wanna know something crazy about The Apprentice? It was one of the most diverse shows on network television at the time. It literally was one of the first shows that like prominently featured a bunch of black and brown people in it. Bunch of gay people in it too. He was woke as hell. That motherfucker was doing DEI before anybody else. Now he's switched up. You see this? He's switched up.

• 53:55Theo Von?

  Yeah, I remember he gave Flavor Flav a job working, doing it, working at a ice cream shop or something one day. I remember seeing that episode. So yeah, I mean, he was, like, I, I just thought there was a moment where it's like, oh, anybody. Cause you're right, he didn't seem like a political insider. He seemed like, you know, I think he's always been this. Or notoriously, it seemed like he's just been this. Kind of like real estate shady real estate executive guy, which I think at a certain point, some people are like, oh, I'll take that. I'll take a ruthless business guy as our president because politics has become a ruthless business. But I think, um, yeah, I think there was a thing like, oh, anybody could be president, right?

• 54:37Theo Von?

  So that in a way felt a little bit like the American dream, or at least a little piece of like anybody that was a feeling like, oh, he got it. There's because nobody thought he would win.

• 54:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's true.

• 54:48Theo Von?

  So I think there was that comeback piece to him, right?

• 54:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. But then he was president for four years and people were like, oh, okay, maybe this wasn't so good. And then what did the Democrats do? And who did the Democrats put forth? They put forth a cadaver who was like, no, we're going back to business as usual, baby. And Americans were so fatigued by Donald Trump, but they were just like, I don't want to, I don't want to pay attention to the television anymore. Like, sure, I'll vote for this guy instead. And then Brandon wins and then everyone's like, oh, my God, things are awful. Wars all over the place.

• 55:23Theo Von?

  Biden, you mean?

• 55:23Speaker 01

  Cost, yeah.

• 55:24Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 55:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, Biden. I just keep saying Brandon. I'm sorry. I'm so used to, I'm so used to calling him Brandon.

• 55:29Theo Von?

  Well, people say, let's go Brandon is like a Trump thing.

• 55:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 55:32Theo Von?

  But then I just don't want people to get confused.

• 55:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, my bad. So Biden comes in and, you know, wars everywhere, cost of living crisis, like a lot of the resentment and anger that people felt in 2016 towards Hillary Clinton because their situation wasn't so great that caused them to vote for Donald Trump never, it was left unexamined. Like it was never recognized. It was never fixed, right? So when all the stuff piles on, people are resentful again. And lo and behold, they want to put that mallet. They want to bring the mallet back in to just like hammer the federal government because there's like, we fucking hate this. We hate the, the way things are going. So we'll give this guy a shot again. Um, and that's how you arrive at Trump too.

• 56:18Speaker 01

  And now he is doing the mallet. He's, he's ripping over the administrative state. He's doing mass layoffs of the federal regulatory agencies. And it's crazy to me that people don't understand that like, these are the same. Problems that have persisted that he's basically worsening by also, you know, removing tens of thousands of people that work for the federal government with like decent paying jobs. I'm a big advocate for more government employees. I think we should have millions more, not less. Give everybody a fucking job.

• 56:51Theo Von?

  Oh, well, I think that we should have, I think women should get paid so that they can be at home with their children. And that that way, or a man, if one of them wants to work.

• 57:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, no.

• 57:04Theo Von?

  And then the other one can be at home to be a parent, you know? I wish that that was something that we did with our money.

• 57:11Speaker 01

  They would never do that, though. That's the problem. They hate.

• 57:14Theo Von?

  There was a case for it at one point.

• 57:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know, but I'm saying like Republicans especially, Democrats won't do either. Cause like both parties kinda like the austerity stuff, like they.

• 57:24Theo Von?

  What does austerity mean?

• 57:25Speaker 01

  Austerity is belt tightening, like fiscal belt tightening as in, you know, lowering expenditures and and cutting social safety nets, basically.

• 57:33Theo Von?

  Well, I think people are getting to their wits and where it's like, nobody believes that either one of these parties is doing anything, right? I think you've had the same problems, you've had the same things happen time over time. And maybe some of it at a certain point you realize, well, that's just the cost of business. It's just like, it's just become so bloated, it's become more about them, like you're saying, more about corporations and less about everyday people.

• 57:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it's never been.

• 57:55Theo Von?

  What it is.

• 57:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's never been about people, in my opinion. It's like, uh, New Deal with a lot of like socialist communist pressure at the time.

• 58:04Theo Von?

  FDR's New Deal, you mean?

• 58:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, FDR's New Deal, definitely.

• 58:07Theo Von?

  Bring it up.

• 58:08Speaker 01

  FDR's New Deal definitely, uh, brought forth a lot of prosperity to America, like got us out of, uh, the muck of the Great Depression.

• 58:16Theo Von?

  The New Deal was a series of domestic programs. Sorry to interrupt you. I just wanna, uh, was it a series of domestic programs? Public Works Projects and Financial Reforms and Regulations enacted by President FDR in US between thirty-three and thirty-eight, nineteen, the nineteen hundreds, with the aim of addressing the Great Depression, which began in nineteen twenty-nine. Wow, dude. So he had to be right on the back of the Great Depression.

• 58:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:35Theo Von?

  Cause people always, they always, um, like they'll quote him all the time, you know?

• 58:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, he, um, he did, he did a lot. Look, he dealt with the pressing bank crisis through the Emergency Banking Act, nineteen thirty-three Banking Act, Federal Emergency Relief Administration. We set up, uh, Social Security. I mean, there's so much, there's so much that they did in that era, cause like, Americans were, were, I mean, they, they were experiencing tremendous, tremendous hardship.

• 59:05Theo Von?

  So you're saying a lot of this felt like it was done for the people?

• 59:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was done for the people because it was a necessary, uh, it was, it was basically necessary for them to do this. At the time, because of all of the deregulation in the banking side, uh, with oil barons and, and all these like robber barons, basically like picking apart, uh, and, and dominating, uh, everyday American existence and, and the economic collapse that came with that. And then someone had to come in and fix this shit. And I think Donald Trump is, is basically not doing the FDR thing, but the reverse. He's fucking it up and taking it back to like a pre-new deal era.

• 59:42Theo Von?

  And giving it more towards corporations, you think?

• 59:44Speaker 01

  Oh, 100%. I mean, he got, he got Elon Musk right there. He's the richest guy on the planet. He's just putting his dick through his weird, ugly egg-shaped penis through every single, uh, regulatory agency.

• 59:55Theo Von?

  Have people seen his penis? I haven't seen that.

• 59:57Speaker 01

  I don't know, that's what.

• 59:58Theo Von?

  I don't see that kind of stuff.

• 59:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, they were, they were saying, they were saying he's got a weird dick. I, I believe it.

• 1:00:03Theo Von?

  First of all, yeah, if, if dude, if I'm Elon Musk, I'm definitely getting a crazy dick. I'm getting a fucking designer dick. I'm getting a.

• 1:00:10Speaker 01

  No, that's the, that's what they're.

• 1:00:11Theo Von?

  Two-seater. I'll get a damn three-seater cock.

• 1:00:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're saying.

• 1:00:14Theo Von?

  I'll put suicide doors on my [bleep], if I'm Elon Musk. But here's what I would say is to, to count, to counter the thing about Elon is like, or just to discuss it really.

• 1:00:26Theo Von?

  I think people are like, we don't give a fuck who's auditing this thing. And finally, there's like, oh, this is the person to audit, this is the person that's gonna audit? This is somebody we can blame if something fucks up? This is somebody that at least, they're saying that they're gonna audit the government, like, why, why do we even have to audit our own government?

• 1:00:45Speaker 01

  Well, we, we have, see, that's the problem. We already have an auditing agency. So these guys unironically created an additional agency, which is redundant, to eliminate redundancy. And.

• 1:00:56Theo Von?

  That's interesting.

• 1:00:57Speaker 01

  The, the unfortunate side of this is that, um, they don't know what the fuck they're doing. So they go in. And they just like pull data and they basically make these public declarations about, you know, a billion dollars is going to this or that.

• 1:01:13Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:01:13Speaker 01

  Like they, they straight up lied. They were like, oh yeah, we already cut like 200 billion dollars of funds. And then like the New York Times and all these other like actual investigative reporters went in, looked at the data and they were like, dude, that's a lot. Like there's one instance where they claimed that they cut eight billion dollars and they actually cut eight million dollars. Like, how do you carry over so many goddamn zeros? They're just like, ah, fuck it. Who cares? Um, no one will fact check it. No one will look it up.

• 1:01:38Theo Von?

  Well, the crazy thing is though, now you have, you have whoever our, our, our, our original auditing system was, and then you have this second, and now we have this second auditing system. But dude, it goes to like, it's so like, I'll have a, um, I'll have a financial, like an investment banker, right?

• 1:01:59Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:02:00Theo Von?

  But I, there's times and I probably should, I want to hire somebody to audit my financial advisor. Cause I'm like, is this guy stealing money from me? You know, cause you hear so many stories of people getting stolen from this like entertainment, different industries, whatever. But it starts to be like, I don't even know who to trust anymore. And I think that's where most people feel like it is. It's like, I don't know if most people necessarily feel like, um, that Elon or Doge is the best, but it's like, now it feels like, okay, well, there's a government system that's supposed to be doing this. And then there's a privatized system that's supposed to be doing this. Now, who's the crook? Who knows? But then I think people look to Elon and they say, well, at least he came

• 1:02:42Theo Von?

  when he bought Twitter, which was a brave thing to do. It felt like it, it opened up more opportunity for free speech. Like things you couldn't share on there six years ago, you could share on there now. I'm not saying all that's true.

• 1:02:55Speaker 01

  I think it sucks now. I used to love Twitter.

• 1:02:58Theo Von?

  Twitter's gotten bad. It's scary.

• 1:03:00Speaker 01

  It was already like kinda lame. Cause like, yeah, when it was owned by liberals, it was like also, it also wasn't, you know, the most fun platform, I will say. But at least there was like some semblance of regulation where it didn't feel like. You know, it it didn't feel like the the madhouse that it is now where I mean, I know that it's like my algorithm as well. I'm sure because I'm in politics. So I see a lot of political shit, but bro, there's like, I mean, here, I saw this this morning. There's a guy who straight up said, Adam Schiff raped a minor at Chateau Marmont. And it has 70,000 likes. And I'm like, what the fuck? It's like a QAnon thing.

• 1:03:43Theo Von?

  I know. I saw that.

• 1:03:43Speaker 01

  There's so many. No, it's not even this. There was a dude who like.

• 1:03:47Theo Von?

  No, this is, that's not even Adam. That is, that's fucking.

• 1:03:50Speaker 01

  If you look at, no, no, that's Anthony Bourdain. They're saying Anthony Bourdain saw him rape the minor. And that's why they actually killed Anthony Bourdain. That's their QAnon loves talking about how Anthony Bourdain saw like Hillary Clinton chop babies up or whatever. And he was right about to come out against them. But if you look up TruAnon, um, TruAnon actually, uh, no, no, TruAnon on Twitter.

• 1:04:12Theo Von?

  What is TruAnon? Is it a cool source?

• 1:04:14Speaker 01

  Uh, TruAnon is my, uh, my friend's podcast. It's the number one anti-pedophilia podcast out there.

• 1:04:20Theo Von?

  No way.

• 1:04:21Speaker 01

  And then keep scrolling. They posted it. Oh, here it is. Here it is. Awakened Outlaw. That's the one.

• 1:04:26Theo Von?

  The witnesses anonymous anonymously.

• 1:04:29Speaker 01

  One of the most persistent QAnon believers is a huge number of people think that, you know, some of us remember when you raped a dead child, 76,000 likes.

• 1:04:38Theo Von?

  Damn.

• 1:04:39Speaker 01

  Bro, that's crazy. Like I fucking hate Adam Schiff. Okay. Uh, yeah. Trump's funniest thing is when he calls him Adam shit. Okay. I hate him. He's my, he's my fucking congressperson. He sucks. All right. Massive pro-Israel guy. That's an insane thing. You, you are a fucking schizo. Like what the fuck?

• 1:04:59Theo Von?

  But that's the crazy thing. Now people will just, you see things and then you start to believe it. Oh dude, I realized Twitter starts to like, it'll start to rot my mind. I'll start to get, and then it feeds you something. It's like, that's a scary, and that's another scary thing just about social media. It's about where we're at. Things just feel so. You don't know what to, you'll open it up, you'll close it, now you're furious. All you were doing was looking for something on your phone.

• 1:05:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:22Theo Von?

  You're bored for 10 seconds, you opened it up, now you got two links to some shit. Now you're furious, now you close it, now you're back in the grocery store where you were a minute ago. You're on the fucking food aisle, but now you are.

• 1:05:33Speaker 01

  You're angry.

• 1:05:34Theo Von?

  You're ape shit insane that a kid, a deceased kid somewhere hypothetically got molested by a.

• 1:05:41Speaker 01

  By a sitting American repres- like an American congressperson, get, yeah.

• 1:05:45Theo Von?

  Yeah, and then it's like you wanna buy a pussy fart coin or whatever, and you're like, and then you don't even know what to do.

• 1:05:50Speaker 01

  Retardio.

• 1:05:51Theo Von?

  Yes, it's like, oh, retardio's going to the moon, and you have all these fucking Klan members or whatever trying to sell like just, it just, it's gotten, it's crazy.

• 1:06:01Speaker 01

  But that's what I mean, like they, it was like.

• 1:06:04Theo Von?

  It was different crazy before.

• 1:06:05Speaker 01

  But it was, it was definitely not whatever the fuck this is. And there's so much bottom of the barrel shit too, cuz of the monetization stuff, like people. One of my favorite funniest things that I experience all the time on Twitter is like, you got like, you know, Genoa Radio or like Saving the White Race or We Gotta Save the West accounts, right? Like they have all these fucking accounts. Every single motherfucker on those accounts is from India. Every single motherfucker that does the We Must Preserve the White Race. Every single one of them is, is operating those accounts out of India. Because.

• 1:06:39Theo Von?

  Why, I wonder?

• 1:06:40Speaker 01

  What, what do you mean? Cuz you make like 10, 15 dollars, that goes a long way in India as opposed to, as opposed to like, like a real racist in America.

• 1:06:48Theo Von?

  DEI at another level then, if you think about it.

• 1:06:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're using all of those accounts, like there's all of those big prominent like, you know, uh, white culture accounts.

• 1:06:58Theo Von?

  Honky shit, honkies do it better or whatever.

• 1:07:01Speaker 01

  Well, I don't know about the honkies one, but, uh, cuz honky seems like, uh, you know, I don't think a dude in India knows what a honky is, but, but I'm talking like the, the, um, the culture critique, uh, Save the White Race accounts and all those like Defend Europa accounts, like every single one of them is like, it's like a Malaysian dude, you know what I mean? And he's just like, yeah, I'm gonna make 15 dollars this month, that's a big, you know, that's good.

• 1:07:22Theo Von?

  The white race, yeah, he's just in there.

• 1:07:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, and, and you know, they post like the, the shittiest fucking videos as well.

• 1:07:29Theo Von?

  It's unbelievable, it's addicting.

• 1:07:31Speaker 01

  Too, fucking.

• 1:07:32Theo Von?

  Too much porn. It's too much porn because I'll be sure I'll be trying to take care of myself doing decently. I'll just see something an edge of a tit or something flies by. It's just. And then it just is like you get, you can just get stuck pretty easy jerking off or whatever gets. And then I get sad and then I get ashamed of myself and then I just, and then I don't even sleep in my bed on those like dude on nights like that. I will sleep on the couch. It's almost like I don't need, it's like.

• 1:07:56Speaker 01

  Damn.

• 1:07:57Theo Von?

  I know. It's like I'm a, it's like I'm divorced in my own fucking and I just live alone. It's like.

• 1:08:01Speaker 01

  Bro, there's.

• 1:08:02Theo Von?

  Like I. It's almost like I'm a husband that got caught jerking off. So now you're sleeping on the couch.

• 1:08:07Speaker 01

  You gotta resolve that, man. There's nothing wrong with jerking off, especially before you go to sleep. You know, it's like a nightcap.

• 1:08:12Theo Von?

  Yeah, kinda, but if you had so many nightcaps over like 20, 30 years, you're like, oh, I'm fucking. I'm an alcoholic at this point, you know?

• 1:08:20Speaker 01

  I don't know. I mean, I've never, I feel like, I feel like there's a time and place for that in my, in my regimen. You know what I mean? It's like, uh, uh, right before I go to sleep. That's the perfect time to do it. There's never been a moment where I like in the middle of the day, I'm like.

• 1:08:34Theo Von?

  Yeah, I've never been that guy.

• 1:08:35Speaker 01

  Shit, I gotta crank it. But I feel like a lot of those like porn addiction guys are like that. So I'm like, yeah, it's not. It's not for me, but maybe you should stop porn. That's how I feel when I, when I hear about some of their stories.

• 1:08:48Theo Von?

  Oh yeah. I had a buddy who had curtains put inside of his car and he would go and just close them up so he could sit in his car and masturbate without feeling like. You know, like people were gonna point at him or whatever.

• 1:08:57Speaker 01

  What the? Yo, that dude needs to be institutionalized. What do you mean? No, put a fucking stray jacket on that motherfucker. Stop. You, he, he's gotta, he's gotta be put in a room like, like Trainspotting. Like he's gotta quit cold turkey. Like he's quitting heroin.

• 1:09:13Theo Von?

  In Soho, that's considered off Broadway.

• 1:09:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, no way, dude. No, render him immobile for like a week. And oh my God, the amount of, the amount of energy that he probably has in there, trapped in there. If he doesn't jerk off for a week, he's gonna start levitating. He's gonna come out of there like. Like a god.

• 1:09:32Theo Von?

  His car to start running on his own, uh, on his own semen or whatever. I shouldn't have said that part, but um, you had Bernie Sanders on your show.

• 1:09:40Speaker 01

  I did, yeah.

• 1:09:41Theo Von?

  Pretty cool, man. How awesome was that?

• 1:09:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's, he's the man. I love Bernie.

• 1:09:45Theo Von?

  Did you find it interesting that people cheered so much against him when they said that he also took money during like, remember that a couple of months ago? Not a, not a judgment against him. I think all these people, I think when you get into politics, right? It's almost like being in a big family and if you want something done, it feels like you have to, there's, it's almost just like.

• 1:10:02Speaker 01

  Took money from what though?

• 1:10:04Theo Von?

  Well, what did they say that he took money from? Who? Oh, RFK said it.

• 1:10:06Speaker 01

  That was.

• 1:10:07Theo Von?

  During, is it during that, during, when he was interviewing RFK?

• 1:10:10Speaker 02

  During RFK's hearing, he claimed that Bernie was taking money from him.

• 1:10:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, that's not, yeah, that's not correct. He never got money from the pharmaceutical industry, like from the, from the big corporate lobbyists. He probably got, so the way this works on, uh, Open Secrets is like.

• 1:10:24Theo Von?

  And let me just read this way. So just like getting through what you're saying.

• 1:10:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, you can read it, yeah.

• 1:10:27Theo Von?

  The figure cited by Kennedy referred to the industry in which individual donors were employed. Uh.

• 1:10:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:31Theo Von?

  Okay. Oh, cause Kennedy said that he, of that, um, Bernie Sanders got a certain amount of money.

• 1:10:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:37Theo Von?

  And this is just a clip. This is, this is actually goes perfect example of what we've been talking about.

• 1:10:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:41Theo Von?

  We see a clip of something, right? Um, in 2020, this was the claim, Senator Bernie Sanders was the single largest receiver of pharmaceutical money in Congress. And, uh, the context was this figure cited by RFK Junior referred to the industry in which individual donors were employed.

• 1:10:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:57Theo Von?

  It did not refer to funds originating from or directed by pharmaceutical companies.

• 1:11:01Speaker 01

  So what, what that is, is the way that they, the way that when you make a donation to a politician as an individual, it gets filed with the FEC, right? And in that filing, you write what your job is, right? And if you work in the pharmaceutical industry, if you work for Johnson and Johnson as a janitor, that basically gets tracked as like Johnson and Johnson, uh, in the, in the. Uh, section of like whichever sector you're a part of. So like, uh, a lot of nurses gave donations to Bernie Sanders. So that's like technically still lobbed under like healthcare and, uh, it was not, yeah. It, it was never, it was never from like the executives. It wasn't like executives giving them millions of dollars. It's like the fucking janitor works there or like, you know, like an accountant that works for this company.

• 1:11:46Theo Von?

  But it gets filed.

• 1:11:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:47Theo Von?

  So that it looks like that in some sort of.

• 1:11:49Speaker 01

  Well, they just, it's good to have like, uh.

• 1:11:52Theo Von?

  Knowing what sectors are donating.

• 1:11:53Speaker 01

  Knowing what sectors are donating, but yeah, uh, there is room for nuance, of course, there. And, um, and RFK was falsely claiming that he was getting money from like CEOs and like the industry, uh, industry packs or whatever, when that wasn't the case. It was just like random people that work for these companies, you know?

• 1:12:13Theo Von?

  Yeah. I think it makes, I mean, it totally makes sense to me that that's the way that it could happen, you know?

• 1:12:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:18Theo Von?

  Um, but it's so funny. RFK probably saw a clip or heard, you know, it's just like, it's so, it's like.

• 1:12:23Speaker 01

  I think RFK knows better. I, I, I don't, I don't trust any of these guys. I'll be honest with you. Like whether it's RFK, Trump, or any number of these people, or you know, Democrats as well, like Kamala Harris, like, I think RFK definitely knows better. He's just saying that because it's a good line and people will believe him.

• 1:12:39Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:39Speaker 01

  And I mean, look, that's how it works. I know, cause like Joe Rogan talked about it too. Where they were talking about like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders getting money from like these, uh, you know, big pharmaceutical corporations. That wasn't the case, but it got a lot of mileage on that side of the internet. That's the other thing that I am frustrated by where there's like no consensus on this stuff anymore.

• 1:13:01Theo Von?

  Like what does a consensus mean? Like we all agree on one thing?

• 1:13:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. And you don't have to agree on one, like not everybody has a get together and agree on the same thing, but like, there's no, there's no established truth anymore where everybody's just like operating on whatever the fuck they think is the, is the truth and, and heavily leaning into their biases. And I feel like the internet has become way more echo chambered in that regard. And it's very frustrating to see, you know?

• 1:13:26Theo Von?

  There's no, there's no.

• 1:13:30Theo Von?

  What'd you say? Con- con-

• 1:13:31Speaker 01

  Consensus?

• 1:13:32Theo Von?

  Consensus. So there's no like regional place you can go to, except now almost your own gut, or if you're influenced by clips or whatever, right?

• 1:13:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, but we're dumbasses. You know what I mean? Like, we're fucking stu- I'm stupid. Like, I can't, I can't gut check everything.

• 1:13:46Theo Von?

  Dude, I can't even fucking keep up with you, dude. I fucking feel you. Well, what I'm saying is, is that better than us all being under the influence of some consensus? I'm not, I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just looking at it, right?

• 1:13:57Speaker 01

  I think it's, it's good to have a, a healthy diet of both, right? Like, you still need to have trusted resources that you can go to and rely on, uh, that will every now and then be like, that's wrong. You know what I mean? And, and I try to urge people to not get their media diet exclusively from me either, for that reason. And even my media diet itself is incredibly diverse. I probably watch more Fox News than I watch like CNN and shit, partially because they're more entertaining. Um, but, um, you know, I, I, I look at everything. I, I, so that I can develop a better understanding of like what people are saying and what people are believing in general.

• 1:14:32Theo Von?

  I need to do a better job of that. I think of finding my information diet. You know, and just where does it come from? It's not, I just don't get enough of it. A lot of times, a lot of times I operate mostly just like on my own feelings, kind of, which is in the end, kind of your instincts or whatever. But then I start to notice that things that I get influenced by and like my own algorithm and things. I was like, oh, I'm fucking getting influenced. You know, I'm up last night in the middle of the night and it's like, have I reposted too many TikToks about Gaza? You know, and I'm up for 40 minutes last night laying in my bed and my brain's calculating for the, but shit like that, you know, it's like, but it's just because I'll get to my, you know, it's like, none of it's bad stuff really, but it's, um, I'll notice if I get on my Twitter thing especially, I'll get angry, I get act.

• 1:15:17Theo Von?

  And then I'm like, if I'm at least aware of this is happening, people that aren't aware, that aren't even thinking like, oh, this is affecting me. They're just being affected. Then it's like, man.

• 1:15:28Speaker 01

  My, my, the way I see my goal, like the way I see my job is to basically get people to understand why they're angry and then get angry at the appropriate vectors, like where, who's actually causing harm in their immediate lives. That's why I actively urge people to unionize and, and work to organize in their communities and organize in their, in their workplaces in general. So they have a network of support with like, not necessarily even like-minded people, but like people that have the same interests, right? You don't have to like your coworkers all that much, but no matter what, your boss is still fucking you over in the exact same way, right? He wants you to work the most amount of hours for the least amount of pay. You want to work the least amount of hours for the most amount

• 1:16:09Speaker 01

  of pay. This is a contradiction, right? So how do you resolve that? The only way to, to overcome the unlimited amount of, of power that your boss has over you is by getting together and being like, hey, man, you gotta give us a better contract, right? Like, those are the things that I advocate for, so that people develop a better understanding of who's actually harming them and they improve their, uh, improve their lives immediately in the short term and then build on that momentum.

• 1:16:39Theo Von?

  With that said, do you think we should have like a higher minimum wage, you feel like?

• 1:16:42Speaker 01

  I mean, I think that's one part of this, uh, story, but it's not-

• 1:16:46Theo Von?

  I've thought about it a lot. I've listened to people talk about it.

• 1:16:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it's good, but that's still a Band-Aid solution. I think, like, there needs to be more, uh, labor back control in general.

• 1:16:56Theo Von?

  Like unions and stuff?

• 1:16:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, labor unions, yeah. We have, we have, uh, 10% union participation rate in this country is lower than other countries that we fucked up, like Chile. Like, we fucked up Chile. We did a coup there. We set up a dictatorship.

• 1:17:11Theo Von?

  And they still are able to unionize more than us?

• 1:17:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, and we wrote, we rewrote their constitution. And they still have a higher union participation rate than we do. They have 15% in Chile. We have 10%.

• 1:17:23Theo Von?

  Do you see, cause I, we had the, we had the Teamsters president of, one of the Teamsters Union Presidents on.

• 1:17:28Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, you're Sean O'Brien?

• 1:17:29Theo Von?

  Yeah, he was interesting.

• 1:17:30Speaker 01

  I've, I've, I've interviewed him before. I've like, some convos on him. He has a podcast now.

• 1:17:35Theo Von?

  Oh, he does?

• 1:17:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:36Theo Von?

  I didn't know that. I saw him at the inauguration. It's just interesting to, I'd never talked to a Teamsters Union President. I've heard of the Teamsters, you know, I watched Newsies or whatever, like when I was a kid a bunch, but, but it was just interesting to see that, you know, to learn about unions and see how they work. And then some people are like, well, once you get unionized, it's hard to, you don't have as much individuality. So if I'm super hardworking, I'm self motivated, then maybe I don't want to be a part of the union, you know?

• 1:18:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:03Theo Von?

  But I could see that as a safety net for people to have a union against corporations. Like, yeah, to me, it makes perfect sense. Like.

• 1:18:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, otherwise they're gonna clean out your pockets. They're gonna, that's, look, every union, every union member will tell you, like, the motto for unions is united we bargain, divided we beg, right? You can either go and, and be like, I'm such a good guy, please, like, look at how hard I'm working. And then in the off chance, maybe get recognized by your boss and maybe get a little bit of extra money on the side. Or you can get together with your, you know, you can get together and engage in the act of collective bargaining and force the company's hand into offering you better benefits and basically claw back the profits that you're generating for them. Because without the workforce, you got nothing.

• 1:18:49Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:18:50Speaker 01

  What do you think? The fucking CEO is gonna build the table? No.

• 1:18:52Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:52Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? He doesn't know the first thing about building tables, right? It's just gonna, all, all this is gonna be is, is a bunch of wood on the factory floor without you, right? Workers are the ones who add the value, who generate the value.

• 1:19:05Theo Von?

  Yeah, Bernie has a good, Bernie had a good thing about that. He said that, well, if we're gonna shorten people's work weeks, right? He, he, he was talking about having a shorter work week.

• 1:19:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:16Theo Von?

  And then that since companies' profits are going up.

• 1:19:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:19Theo Von?

  Then the employees, the amount that they should make should go up. It's like,

• 1:19:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:22Theo Von?

  it shouldn't just be the company at the top that has the increase.

• 1:19:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, I mean, AI is a perfect example of this, right? Like, it's very disruptive to the, to the environment. I don't like that. But more importantly, also on top of that, it's, it's used as a way to displace the existing labor force, right? Um, because now you can just get the machine to do the job of the person that was doing the job beforehand. I'm an advocate that like, no, you should still keep that person employed, pay him the same amount of money, make him work less. Why? I mean, why are you firing this person now? Cause AI is a tool, right?

• 1:20:00Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:20:00Speaker 01

  But the way that we, the way that companies work under capitalism is whenever there's a technological advancement like this, right? This has allowed us to be on 24/7. Now you can have so much more output as a worker, right? You can be, you, you can, you can be online at all times. Productivity rises in that process.

• 1:20:19Theo Von?

  Your boss can get a hold of you at all.

• 1:20:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, your boss can get a hold of you at all times. Uh, you're more tapped in, you're more, you're, you're more aware of what's going on in the world. And, uh, and, and you can be a better worker because of that. But in that process, bosses look at that and go, okay, now I can make one guy do the work of five. I'm gonna fire four fucking people and I'm gonna make the one guy do the work of, uh, the other four people. And that is how, uh, that is, under capitalism, that's how it works where they use technological advancements that increase productivity to displace the existing labor force, to just basically fire them. And instead of lowering the hours that the existing workforce worked and maybe even increasing their pay in the process. Cause they're still doing the same work. You know what I mean?

• 1:21:05Theo Von?

  And cause they're fucking human beings. Like, that's why at a certain point, it has to tip towards an actual revolution. Where people pick up, and I don't know if we can say this or not, but I'm.

• 1:21:15Speaker 01

  I mean, I say it all the time. People call me radical for that.

• 1:21:18Theo Von?

  Really? I'm a big revolution guy. I've always had little dreams of like semi revolutions or like regional or whatever, at least. I hope at least I can make it to the regional revolution. Like, I understand if I don't make it to the national, but I wanna be on a horseback or at least on a fucking standing next to a count or one of the, one of our, like, bosses or whatever. Like, I wanna.

• 1:21:39Speaker 01

  Why? See?

• 1:21:40Theo Von?

  Because that is fucking overthrowing the system.

• 1:21:42Speaker 01

  I know, but think about the way you presented that. You wanna count or a boss to, to be the leader of the revolution.

• 1:21:48Theo Von?

  Somebody's gonna have to have some sort of fucking leadership.

• 1:21:51Speaker 01

  But it should be people back revolution. That's what.

• 1:21:53Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah, people, but one of us gets mildly elected or something.

• 1:21:56Speaker 01

  But not a boss or a fucking politician, those guy or a count is gonna be, it's gonna be a, an organizer, an activist, someone with a, someone with a background. Uh, someone who understands the needs of the people.

• 1:22:09Theo Von?

  It's gonna be somebody also who works at a Renaissance fair full time, who can be on a horseback, who can handle the type of, when you think about it, I'm not even joking, it's on. It's kinda crazy, but you will need him, uh, dude who is fucking, I'm, I'm willing to ride through here with a spear. But yeah, I, at a certain point, if you let so many people go just to appease a company, to appease corporations. You're just gonna have more, those people have to at some point, there has to be a revolution. Isn't that how revolutions happen?

• 1:22:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, when, when conditions worsen to a certain degree, yeah, people go, all right, enough is enough. We're backed into a corner. And they start recognizing that like they're being fucked over. But that can also lead to a dangerous path where, uh, you know.

• 1:22:50Theo Von?

  Tell me about that.

• 1:22:51Speaker 01

  Well, the dangerous part about that is like, if they're, if the people are not steered in the right direction to, to recognize who's actually doing the harm to them. They can be deluded by misinformation and think it's, uh, the Jews or think it's, uh, fucking.

• 1:23:06Theo Von?

  Anthony Bourdain.

• 1:23:07Speaker 01

  Or, yeah, I think it's, uh, Adam Schiff, uh, uh, who's apparently having sex with dead children in their minds. Or think it's like the Guatemalan immigrant, you know what I mean? That motherfucker is not controlling your life. He is worse off than you and he has the exact same interests as you. He just wants to put food in his belly. And to have a roof over his head.

• 1:23:27Theo Von?

  Are you talking about Guatemalans that came over the border and stuff?

• 1:23:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, that's what I mean. Like a Guatemalan immigrant or a Honduran immigrant is not like, he's not dominating your life at all. They're not here to do evil. They're not here to do bad. They're here to just like work. They're fucking pick strawberries all goddamn day. So our asses can eat those strawberries cheap as hell. You know what I mean? And then we turn around and we're like, yeah, they're all rapists, drug dealer murderers. We gotta fucking purge the country of these people. And it's like, it's really fucked up.

• 1:23:54Theo Von?

  How would you, um, how do you successfully do something like that then? Because I think a lot of people's concern, I think here's what happens is you're like, I'm not safe anymore, right? And you start to feel, right, there's people that get, that were raped or killed. There was a couple of instances where they, that they put them on the news, right? They were on the congressional, you know, they had some of those people.

• 1:24:15Speaker 01

  Trump had them, Trump had them at the, at the victims at the congressional, joint congressional hearing.

• 1:24:19Theo Von?

  Right, so I think you hear about those things and you're like, well, yeah, you start to, you'll start to apply them to everyone.

• 1:24:27Speaker 01

  Which is crazy, think about that. We say there's 20 million undocumented migrants in this country. They come from every part of the planet.

• 1:24:34Theo Von?

  I agree, they do, no doubt.

• 1:24:35Speaker 01

  And to think that they're all, and to think that they're all one collective hive mind that's here to do like evil rapes and shit is psychotic. I'm like, bro, like they don't even speak each other's language. Like, what are you talking about? Like, they have no unified hive mind here, but you, you basically learn to think that way. You learn to hate in that regard. And I think the media plays a big role in this, like right wing media specifically.

• 1:24:56Theo Von?

  Is it hate though, you think? Cause it's like, I, I just feel. Okay, so, I, cause to me it's like, have a fucking organized system. If I go to a, dude, I, I go to, I went to Canada a couple of days ago. It was heck, it was heck getting in and out of there. It's heck getting out of there. It's super organized, you know, it's like, but we should, it just, cause here's the thing, if you don't know who's in your country, then you can't do a correct census. You can't allocate things correctly to people. You can't know who needs what in certain areas.

• 1:25:25Speaker 01

  That's why they also factor undocumented migrants into the census as well. But if they're fearful of the federal government, if they're fearful of the federal government, they're not gonna open the door for a census guy. That's part of the reason why sanctuary cities began to begin with. It was actually advocated for, this is something that, this is old lore. People don't even know this at this point, cause everybody thinks like, oh, sanctuary cities is woke, libtard bullshit. Bro, it was the fucking cops and the FBI that was advocating for sanctuary cities. Why? Because whenever a murder or, or some kind of like violence happened in an undocumented neighborhood, cops would come in and nobody would talk to them. So they were like, don't worry.

• 1:26:02Theo Von?

  Say that part one more time, so we can hear it, that's important. Important, I never knew that.

• 1:26:04Speaker 01

  Sanctuary cities initially were proposed by law enforcement because they realized that whenever there was violence or like, you know, drug dealing or a murder that took place in an area where the witnesses were undocumented migrants, they wouldn't talk to the cops because they were fearful that if they talked to the cops, they were going to get fucking deported. So in order to open up more collaboration and actually solve crimes like rape, murder, and all these other like violent crimes, they were like, we have to tell every undocumented migrant, like, we're not going to arrest you, we're not going to collaborate with ICE or INS at the time before ICE existed. We are, we are just here to serve you as public servants. And that was the reason why it was law enforcement

• 1:26:47Speaker 01

  that initially suggested sanctuary cities. It wasn't like woke activists or whatever. And it's so interesting that like now Republicans say, use that as a catchall term to be like, oh, you're letting, you're letting criminals go, basically. That's what they, that's what they make it seem like. That's what they imply.

• 1:27:03Theo Von?

  Bring that up. How did sanctuary cities get started? That's fascinating, man.

• 1:27:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:07Theo Von?

  Sanctuary city policies were not originally proposed by law enforcement.

• 1:27:11Speaker 01

  But they were, they've come to support them for public safety reasons.

• 1:27:15Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:27:15Speaker 01

  In the 1980s, when churches in the United States provided refuge for individuals escaping civil unrest in El Salvador, sanctuary cities specifically emerged from protests against federal immigration policies that denied asylum to refugees. However, many law enforcement officials, including police chiefs, have advocated for sanctuary policies. They argue that these policies help build trust.

• 1:27:32Theo Von?

  Between immigrant communities and local law enforcement. This trust is crucial for encouraging immigrants to report crimes and cooperate with police investigations. Sanctuary policies allow police to focus on local priorities and prevent crimes. Wow, that's interesting, man. I wonder though.

• 1:27:45Speaker 01

  Perplexity.

• 1:27:46Theo Von?

  What's that? I'm sorry?

• 1:27:47Speaker 01

  What is the AI search engine or some shit? What is this?

• 1:27:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is perplexity, but they have all the sources cited.

• 1:27:54Speaker 01

  Alright.

• 1:27:55Theo Von?

  I think it's interesting then, though, I wonder how many cities then jumped on it as a, even on the democratic side to say like, um, or left side, whatever you want to call it, but like, to say, oh, I better be a part of this now if I want my voters to then vote for me. You know what I'm saying? Like, so sometimes like, the political kickball gets created one way, but it also gets used in a field in another way.

• 1:28:16Speaker 01

  Well, it's not, I don't think it's a bad thing anyway. Like, I, because I'm, I'm a- I'm a active amnesty advocate. Like, I think if, first of all, this is a civil offense.

• 1:28:28Theo Von?

  Amnesty.

• 1:28:28Speaker 01

  Crossing, crossing the border is a civil offense.

• 1:28:31Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:28:31Speaker 01

  Right? And you have a five-year period where if you haven't done any crimes, like, the statute of limitation is over. Now, there's different legal, uh, there are different legal interpretations of this, and people go back and forth on it. But like, the way I think about it is like, if a dude is in here, and they're working, right? And they're not trying to do a, you know, they're not here to do evil shit. They're here to just simply work. Give him fucking, give him documentation. The difference between an undocumented migrant and a documented one is just a piece of paper. It's paperwork. Process these people, and allow them to contribute to our coffers, uh, in, in more meaningful ways. Cause they already pay taxes, but they could be paying more taxes as well.

• 1:29:11Theo Von?

  And they pay taxes if they're undocumented?

• 1:29:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. Cause they, they, uh, they still, they, I think they still pay into social security, cause they have to get a social security number, some sort of social security number. They pay for sales taxes, uh, things of that nature. You know what I mean? Like, there's, there's a bunch of, uh, different contributions that they make, and they can't take advantage of any of the, uh, the, the, uh, government programs anyway. That's why a lot of Republicans lie. They'll be like, "Oh, undocumented migrants are like stealing our, uh, you know, our social safety nets." And I'm over like, I'm over here like, "What the fu-" What social safety nets do we have? What are they, we, we don't have healthcare. Like, what are they, are they taking advantage of healthcare that we don't have?

• 1:29:47Speaker 01

  They don't have healthcare. Um, the thing is, uh, they will, Republicans will literally factor in their natural-born US citizen children into the equation, to be like, "See, they're sending their children to public schools." It's like, "Bro, that's an American citizen."

• 1:30:05Theo Von?

  Right, the child is an American citizen. Yeah.

• 1:30:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. One in fifteen households in this country is a mixed-status household. One in fifteen.

• 1:30:12Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah, you can't even, I mean, you fucking, everybody's mixed now, it feels like.

• 1:30:18Speaker 01

  Mixed-status, like, as in, one parent is, uh, undocumented, like, a non-citizen.

• 1:30:23Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:30:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. So-

• 1:30:24Theo Von?

  It's probably Mexican a lot of times, I would bet. And that's just even my Mexican friends, they're always like, you know, "My uncle's in the back," or whatever they'll say, you know? And I don't say anything. But it's like, I, you know, I think it's interesting, it's interesting, like, what things get- How things get framed, right? By the media, how things get used, how things like even programs like Sanctuary City? How does it then get manipulated? And used as like a negative thing? Or is a thing where one party feels like, well, I better declare as this or I'm gonna be out of the money? Whatever the next thing is like?

• 1:30:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, there's definitely an incentive structure among politicians to advocate for certain things. But ultimately, I don't really care what the incentive structure is. If the if the legislation is good, if it's a good thing. If Trump were to do a good thing, I would advocate for it as well. You know what I mean?

• 1:31:14Theo Von?

  Do you think that's true? Cause it seems like-

• 1:31:16Speaker 01

  I have in the past when Trump, when Trump, last time he was president. When he basically said, I'm gonna back away from this North Korea, South Korea shit. And I'm gonna let you guys handle it on your own. And in the process, he actually reduced the the military campaigns that were taking place around the Korean peninsula. To to allow these two countries to talk to one another. It's one country technically that we fucking cut in half. But that's a long history lesson I'm not gonna get into.

• 1:31:43Theo Von?

  North Korea and South Korea?

• 1:31:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. And and that was objectively good thing. Like I said it at the time, I was like, and Rachel Maddow was very mad. He was like, oh, you're doing this because you love Vladimir Putin or whatever the fuck. But like, no, that was not a bad thing. Like, let these guys hash it out and and let them let them rebuild their nation, you know? Why the fuck are we? Like, why do we have, you know, 80,000 to 100,000 troops stationed all the time? You know?

• 1:32:09Theo Von?

  Yeah, I mean, yeah, it feels alarming. It feels like you have to have this military thing. I think one thing that I noticed last night was like, the military has had a tough time getting recruits, right?

• 1:32:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:24Theo Von?

  Recruits recruitment has been down.

• 1:32:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:26Theo Von?

  And so part of me always wonders, well, like- Or the did the powers that be then want Republicans to be in office because they know that eventually if people are believing more in their country again, it will incite more recruitment. I'm not saying that that's the truth, but you just start to wonder what the fuck is really going on.

• 1:32:47Speaker 01

  I'll tell you what made recruitment numbers explode.

• 1:32:48Theo Von?

  Does that make sense to you, though?

• 1:32:50Speaker 01

  I mean, I know where you're coming from, but what made recruitment numbers explode initially was nine 11. That's it. People joined after nine 11 and after 20 years of just like going out there and guarding, guarding like poppy fields and getting your dick blown off by some fucking dude who's hated you because you invaded his country when he was like 14 and probably killed his cousin. You know, after 20 years of doing that, everyone was like, oh, this shit sucks. We kind of lost it here, huh? Like, we did a Vietnam in Afghanistan and we had to pull out. So, and that was a good thing objectively. I think it's good that we pulled out of Afghanistan. But I think that's the real reason why people are like, why the fuck would I join the military? I can't even get a fucking Charger anymore, you know? They,

• 1:33:35Speaker 01

  they-

• 1:33:36Theo Von?

  A Dodge Charger?

• 1:33:37Speaker 01

  The Dodge Chargers or was it, was it the Camaro?

• 1:33:38Theo Von?

  Were they giving those out?

• 1:33:39Speaker 01

  They were, that's the, is the common military car.

• 1:33:42Theo Von?

  Oh, that's true, huh?

• 1:33:44Speaker 01

  You sign off on one of those. The worst loan of all time.

• 1:33:48Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah, dude, I would-

• 1:33:50Speaker 01

  And then your, your high school sweetheart is fucking the neighbor while you're out there.

• 1:33:54Theo Von?

  Sometimes, I mean, yeah.

• 1:33:55Speaker 01

  While you're out there jerking off in a fucking bunker in Korengal.

• 1:33:59Theo Von?

  Some dude jerking off on you or whatever and you guys are changing each other's names after 8pm or whatever and shit. I think shit gets pretty melodic out there.

• 1:34:07Speaker 01

  That's what I mean. You're like, why the fuck are you doing that? And then you come back and the, the American government's like, alright, we'll give you healthcare. But now you're busted. You need it desperately. And they're like, alright, we'll pay for your college. Okay. You go to college.

• 1:34:21Speaker 01

  You get a communications degree. Now you're, you know, six years behind the rest of your, your counterparts. And you're in the same shit ass job market, working, sucking the man's dick every day. Uh, working a dead end job that you despise.

• 1:34:37Theo Von?

  Yeah, or maybe.

• 1:34:38Speaker 01

  And you're fucked up. And now every time you, you know, go to the grocery store to pick out cereal, you're having a crisis like a mental health episode. It's fucked up.

• 1:34:47Theo Von?

  Well, or a lot of people will also go into the military, learn some, uh, patterns that helped them to achieve well. My buddy Josh was in for a while, he got out and now he's able to be a good business owner. But just because he learned, you know, he got up in the morning, you know, it just, it helped him have some regiment.

• 1:35:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, for sure. I don't think that regiment is bad. I'm a very regimented person. I just think that the military's output overall is, is, you know, you're just sending poor people from, uh, different parts of the country overseas to go dominate some other poor people. So that rich people in fucking California can make more money. So the Raytheon can send more missiles and, and make more missiles and, and you gotta use those missiles when you make them, you know? If you don't use it, you lose it.

• 1:35:29Theo Von?

  Yeah, yeah. Oh, your missiles are going, yeah. There's, uh, somebody said there was an email one time that like, oh, your missiles are expiring soon. You should use them. It's like, what the fuck?

• 1:35:38Speaker 01

  But they do that. They, they, any, uh, if you got homies who, uh, were active duty, they'll tell you like, you just dump so much money. Because they know that like, it's gonna go bad.

• 1:35:50Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:50Speaker 01

  Like you just fucking shoot it out into the sea if you're in the Navy.

• 1:35:53Theo Von?

  You had to pop that bitch off, get out there after lunch today.

• 1:35:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:57Theo Von?

  We're gonna fire a couple of these off.

• 1:35:59Speaker 01

  And that's your, that's your salary too.

• 1:36:01Theo Von?

  That's an island, like nobody's there.

• 1:36:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're dumping payload into an island that is more than your salary times 10. Because it's gonna go bad. How is that not waste and fraud and abuse? Why the fuck are they not working on that? My argument always is this, the American military is a jobs program. That's what it is. It's, uh, the, I think it's the second largest, uh, hiring body in the country after Walmart. If I'm not mistaken, it might be the largest. And I think instead of making those guys, you know, making these corn fed boys from Arkansas, go out and, and, uh, you know, force them to eat MREs all goddamn day and, and be constipated for a fucking week.

• 1:36:44Speaker 01

  Make them build shit, you know, make them build shit in America. It's a jobs program. Who cares? Make the output be good rather than bad. That is what my argument is.

• 1:36:54Theo Von?

  The world's biggest employer is Ministry of Defense, US Department of Defense.

• 1:36:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, the Indian Ministry of Defense is the largest, and then the world's second largest employer, I guess the US Department of Defense is bigger than Walmart.

• 1:37:05Theo Von?

  Walmart and Amazon. That's a great point. I think, and maybe, and you know, I wish I knew more of what some of those groups did a lot of times.

• 1:37:13Speaker 01

  With the military?

• 1:37:14Theo Von?

  Yeah, but I agree with you. It's like, I agree the fact that why are, why does the voter, why does the gun carrier, the water carrier, you're always at this, it's a caste system really in a lot of ways. You're,

• 1:37:27Speaker 01

  It is.

• 1:37:28Theo Von?

  Those are the people having to do the bidding of these elites, you know, of these countries and stuff like that. But then at a certain point, it's like, do I decide this is my, what, what, what integrity or what do I want to have inside of myself when I'm doing that? I could be all day like, fuck, I don't want to be doing this. This country's a piece of shit or whatever. Or I can have pride in what I'm doing no matter what in the spot that I'm existing in, in this sort of strata, right? And, and I stand up for my country. And it's just, you know, as we get more information, it's just, uh, it's fascinating how things change.

• 1:38:02Speaker 01

  I just want, like, I,

• 1:38:04Theo Von?

  Or how things you learn more.

• 1:38:05Speaker 01

  I don't hate people. I just want them to, to have better lives. You know what I mean? Even people that I disagree with vehemently, like, I always stress this point where I say Medicare for all means for everybody, right? Even if you're a fucking Nazi, you're gonna get healthcare. Even if you don't want healthcare, I'm gonna fucking give you the healthcare. I don't give a shit. Okay, you can cry about it all day, every day. It's just, and I think that's the attitude that other people are supposed to have in this process too. Like, there's gotta be a universality to these proposals, cuz like, I think we gotta do right by others and we are not doing that right now. The American government is not doing that and every, at every step of the process. And that's why the, the military is a great example of this, you know?

• 1:38:45Speaker 01

  We're just using and abusing these dudes and making them do a whole lot of awful shit overseas. So that some rich asshole can make more money, you know?

• 1:38:56Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:57Speaker 01

  And then they're broken in that process. They come back, there's no, there's no way of like repairing them. And we basically lie to them too. We're like, oh yeah, you'll get a, you'll get a great job. You'll go to college, you'll be able to uplift yourself. And it's like, that should be available without you having to serve in the military.

• 1:39:13Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:14Speaker 01

  But if that was available, if free college existed, if free healthcare existed.

• 1:39:18Theo Von?

  You wouldn't go to the military.

• 1:39:19Speaker 01

  And no fucking buddy is going to the military. Why the fuck would you do that?

• 1:39:23Theo Von?

  Unless you have some real gunners, unless you have some cool Call of Duty Verdant, modern warfare dogs.

• 1:39:29Speaker 01

  But I mean, yeah, those guys are.

• 1:39:31Theo Von?

  But I'm saying you would still have some.

• 1:39:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, you would, but.

• 1:39:34Theo Von?

  But I agree.

• 1:39:34Speaker 01

  It would be significantly lower.

• 1:39:36Theo Von?

  It wouldn't be this, um, system that gets kind of manipulated and used.

• 1:39:41Speaker 01

  That's why they don't want to fix it though. That's why they don't want to get free healthcare.

• 1:39:44Theo Von?

  But that's why there's, they don't want to fix so many things like that. And that's what I'm saying, we learn more, as we learn more about it, you start to see some of the clarity. Or, or some of, you learn more, you have more information. But then how do I operate still when I have that more information? Like do, you know, it's tough because if I become a nihilist or, you know, so then I'm miserable. My, my day to day is miserable, you know? And I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just saying it's, how do we manage in those spaces as we learn more?

• 1:40:13Speaker 01

  I don't know, I'm, I'm fairly tapped into all of the, the shortcomings of the American government. And yet I, I enjoy myself. I mean, I still, I still jerk off before I go to sleep. I still watch anime, I play basketball, I focus on myself. I think like, there are certain things that you have control over. And that is your own body, right? Your, your immediate friends and your family. And you should actively work on those things to, to, to basically not lose sight.

• 1:40:44Speaker 01

  Of your own humanity because it's easy to get lost in the sauce.

• 1:40:48Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:48Speaker 01

  And the everyday cruelty that you that you recognize is happening all around. And it makes you go crazy. And in order to combat that, I always urge people to to engage in self improvement. Set goals for yourself and try to achieve them. That's at least how I've always managed this stuff. And also being around other people who aren't immediately agreeing to your your worldview. Like I, I love parks for that reason. I love third spaces. No, not like parks and recreation as in like the TV show. I mean, like literal public parks.

• 1:41:19Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah, dude. There's a fucking, there's a band, not a band, there's some homeless guys. Stole, I guess, a band's high school equipment during COVID over by the, there's a park behind my apartment. And you could hear them sometimes practicing in the like three or four AM. They get some, they get a couple dudes tuned up in a tent or whatever. And you could hear them, um, what song were they playing for a while? Oh.

• 1:41:45Theo Von?

  Love the way you lie. Just gonna stand there and watch you burn. I don't know what instruments they had, but it's pretty cool. You know, they got a whole sheet music and everything, you know? But it's like, yeah, just making the most of where you're at. Um, and also our military is there like it keeps us safe. If there's flooding, if they do a ton of stuff.

• 1:42:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, the Army Corps of Engineers, like I interviewed a guy.

• 1:42:06Theo Von?

  I don't want people to feel like their lives are in vain.

• 1:42:09Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 1:42:10Theo Von?

  I admire people that go and are willing to put their years of lives into anything.

• 1:42:14Speaker 01

  Those guys too, by the way, right now, like the Army Corps of Engineers is like what you just described. When there's a flooding happening, like they build the levees, they build the bridges, right? Trump literally is firing those people too. It's crazy. Why is he doing it? Is he because he hates the Army Corps of Engineers? No, because he doesn't give a shit. That's my point. He doesn't care. He's like, yeah, go Elon, do whatever you need to do. Fire these probationary employees. Nobody knows what probationary means. So they think like, oh, you know, it's good. It's good that we're like downsizing a little bit. It's like. No, dude, you're gonna start slowly but surely five years down the line. Notice it. You're gonna start noticing that things are just not working. Like air traffic control is a great example of this since the Reagan era.

• 1:42:55Speaker 01

  Like the numbers of air traffic controls, uh, controllers, even though, uh, air traffic has increased. The number of air traffic controllers have not kept up with the increase of air traffic. So you've got towers where there's like one dude. There's gotta be like thirty dudes in that tower. I don't want the fucking plane, uh, I don't want planes to crash, you know what I mean?

• 1:43:16Theo Von?

  Probably more of them have started to work in, if that's true, is there less FAA people?

• 1:43:22Speaker 01

  No, there's probably more FAA people, especially with like TSA and whatnot, but I'm saying that it hasn't matched up to the rate of air, like there's more planes in the sky is what I'm saying. When there's more planes in the sky, you need more air traffic controls.

• 1:43:37Theo Von?

  We're cut the FAA help supported air safety. Uh, President Donald Trump's administration has said no one at the federal FAA with a critical safety position has been fired as it cuts the federal workforce. Some FAA jobs were eliminated, had direct roles in supporting safety inspectors and airport operations, according to their union and foreigner, former employees.

• 1:43:56Speaker 01

  This is another way that they lie, by the way, and Karen Bass did this with the LA wildfires, where she was like, oh, we didn't actually cut the LA FD budget. They did. They cut the support budget. But when you cut the support budget, yeah, sure, you're not cutting the actual firefighters, right? But you're not reducing their numbers. But when you cut the support staff budget, you're cutting mechanics. When you cut the mechanics and your fucking fire engine is busted, you send it over and it just sits in a goddamn yard for months because now there's no fucking mechanics to fix the goddamn car. So all of a sudden you're down one fire engine. It's all, it all works together.

• 1:44:31Theo Von?

  I'm curious to see, cause Trump's making, you know, and there's so many like executive orders and things right out of the gate. And there's so much focus on him by the media too, but I'm curious to see if some of these things turn out, uh, to help long-term.

• 1:44:45Speaker 01

  There's no way.

• 1:44:46Theo Von?

  I'm hopeful that they are, you know, like I'm hopeful that, you know, if they're gonna cut Medicare or Medicaid, that it's also because they have the, they're gonna make price transparency from hospitals, right? And, and so then there won't be, the expenses won't be as high, right? Like I'm hoping that there's some long-term strategy to a lot of his ideas. Like the same thing with, um, Gaza and Israel, I don't know if there is, it seems, I don't like it, but I'm hopeful.

• 1:45:14Speaker 01

  Trump is a major Israel dick rider, he's not, he's not changing that at all.

• 1:45:17Theo Von?

  I think, I don't, I can't, you couldn't find thirty of these people that aren't, it feels like these days.

• 1:45:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, especially in the American government, it's, it's really, really awful, they.

• 1:45:26Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:27Speaker 01

  I, I want things to get better, and I hope it does, but the reason why I say I'm certain that it won't is because like of what you just mentioned, right? Eight hundred billion, eight hundred billion dollars of Medicare and Medicaid that I want to cut. Mike Johnson goes on stage, says, I, goes on Caitlin Collins on CNN and says, oh, there's a lot of fraud happening. There is not fraud happening in Medicare and Medicaid on the point of the recipient.

• 1:45:50Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:45:50Speaker 01

  It's happening on the point of the providers.

• 1:45:52Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:45:52Speaker 01

  And that's why I got banned recently on Twitch yesterday, because.

• 1:45:57Theo Von?

  I saw you got banned, and I saw you just got banned.

• 1:45:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, Libs of TikTok was like posting about how I said something, and they, they misconstrued it as though it was a call to action to assassinate a sitting US senator. Cause I said, um, to Mike Johnson, because I was listening to him back and forth, I, I said like, if Mike Johnson actually cared about Medicare fraud, he would tackle Medicare fraud happening at the point of the providers. But he's obvious that he doesn't care about Medicare fraud, because if he did care about Medicare fraud, he would [BLEEP] break Scott. Who is responsible for the, uh, historic, uh, uh, 1.7 billion dollars worth of Medicare fraud.

• 1:46:38Theo Von?

  And is he still working the, um?

• 1:46:40Speaker 01

  Bro, he's, he, he was a, he was a corporate executive at HCA at the time, in the nineties. The DOJ came after him, uh, and, and, uh, he basically quit his job. He got a 10 million dollar compensation package after doing 1.7 billion dollars of Medicare fraud.

• 1:46:58Theo Von?

  And then came and worked in public?

• 1:46:59Speaker 01

  In the private sector, he got 300 million dollars in stock options, didn't see a fucking moment of jail time for that, okay? And then now, and then he became Florida governor, and now he's a fucking Florida senator. And he's a prominent figure in the Republican Party, I think he was like their head of their fundraising or some shit, I forget what his, uh, position in the Trump campaign and the Republican Party is beyond the fact that he's a senator.

• 1:47:22Theo Von?

  I don't know if they should allow people to go from one to the other. From private to public, you know what I'm saying? Like, I just, uh, uh, cause it just be, obviously there's conflicts of interest when people do that sort of thing, you know?

• 1:47:33Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure. I mean, that's one aspect.

• 1:47:35Theo Von?

  But I agree with you. I agree. It's like.

• 1:47:38Speaker 01

  That guy should be in jail. Like, that's what I think. I think if you do 1.7 billion dollars in Medicare fraud, you should be in fucking jail. Like, what are we talking about? You shouldn't be a Republican Senator from Florida.

• 1:47:50Theo Von?

  Yeah, it says, um, right here, Rick Scott's role in the Columbia HCA scandal in 2003, Rick Scott's company Columbia HCA, the largest private hospital chain in the US, was found guilty of defrauding Medicare. The company was forced to pay 1.7 billion a settlement. That was the largest medical fraud fine in US history at the time. Scott, who was the CEO, left the company with a $10 million severance package after the scandal.

• 1:48:12Speaker 01

  300 million in stock options, too.

• 1:48:13Theo Von?

  Wow. So do you start to wonder, so this was when he was in the private sector, right?

• 1:48:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:19Theo Von?

  So it's, yeah, what's going to be different if a guy comes over from that private sector to the public sector? Should, it's this like.

• 1:48:25Speaker 01

  He's the richest congressperson, by the way.

• 1:48:27Theo Von?

  Is he really?

• 1:48:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:28Theo Von?

  Fuck that, man. Give us some fucking money. I think people should only be able to have a certain amount of money.

• 1:48:32Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, I mean, look, I don't, I don't necessarily care about how much money people have. Um, I care about how they make their money.

• 1:48:40Theo Von?

  But no, I agree. How does this guy, how do you keep from?

• 1:48:42Speaker 01

  Like LeBron James.

• 1:48:44Theo Von?

  Right?

• 1:48:44Speaker 01

  50,000 points. He crossed over that boundary. 20 plus years of dominance in the league. He gets paid a wage. He's a, uh, what is known as like, one of the few people is like a, like a wage billionaire, basically.

• 1:49:00Speaker 01

  If he makes that kind of money, that means he's making somebody else a fuck ton more money, right? And I don't mind that he's getting paid these big bucks, partially because he's my goat and I love him. And I think he deserves it. But also partially because. He's not making that by like hiring people and then forcing them to work to the bone. He does have businesses. He's also obviously an owner of capital as well. So he does capital accumulation as well. But ultimately, I just want people to be comfortable. And I think that if you are working a job, like you should be able to have a house. You should be able to live comfortably.

• 1:49:42Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:42Speaker 01

  And it doesn't matter what job it is. You could be picking up trash. I think that's still obviously valuable. It's worthwhile. Also, I guess sanitation is one of the worst examples because they do have pretty solid unions.

• 1:49:54Theo Von?

  Yeah, we had a garbage man on who was awesome, man. My buddy Wayne, he's got a podcast now called Trash Talk. But um, yeah, yeah, they do pretty well. But then what about LeBron's companies if they're buying shirts from another country?

• 1:50:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:50:06Theo Von?

  And that labor there and those people, that guy's sleeping on a tricycle seat at night because he has to be at work again in the morning.

• 1:50:11Speaker 01

  So that part I, that's what I'm saying. That part I don't agree with like, but I'm saying if he was just making, you know, all of his money from just balling and he's getting a wage, like who cares? You know, I don't have an issue with that. Especially if the, if the, hold on, I gotta open my door. Sorry. I got, I got FedEx at the door and it's raining. I feel bad.

• 1:50:30Theo Von?

  Oh, it's raining out there, huh?

• 1:50:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. All right. I got it. I did it. I did it. We brought him inside. Um.

• 1:50:38Theo Von?

  We know who sent the rain in probably too.

• 1:50:41Speaker 01

  What? The, the, the weather machine? The, oh, the Jews?

• 1:50:46Theo Von?

  Yo no say, yo no say. I'm illegal. That's what I say to when the Jews, when the Jews come for me, I'll be like, I'm illegal.

• 1:50:53Speaker 01

  So see, see like, it did. This is, uh, this is another example of like, you know, you could normal, under normal circumstances, you can make this joke, but then like, then there's motherfuckers who really believe it.

• 1:51:05Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:05Speaker 01

  When there's like dudes who are like, no, you're, Marjorie Taylor Greene was talking about how they have a weather machine. She wasn't saying Jews, but she was like, they have a weather machine.

• 1:51:14Theo Von?

  But imagine you're rich enough, say you were rich enough, like a Mike, uh, not Mike Jones or whatever, that's that rapper, but I'm thinking of, um. Uh, Bill Gates, right?

• 1:51:25Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 1:51:26Theo Von?

  If you had enough money, bro, you would fucking get it. And some guys like, look, for one bill, I'll get you a well, weather machine. We'll get you like, I'd get that bitch in a heartbeat, dude. Imagine you're sitting at home, you're having your coffee, you're like, alright, Detroit, fuck you guys, here's seven inches right now, dude. Here's seven white inches. It's really the only way that fricking a, a white guy can give seven to 10 white inches anymore. Is by pressing that weather button.

• 1:51:51Speaker 01

  It's Bill Gates pressing the weather button.

• 1:51:53Theo Von?

  Pressing the weather button. But no, man, I think it's, um, would you, would you have had, uh, Trump come on your show? But

• 1:51:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:00Theo Von?

  Thanks. First of all, thankfully, we can still joke around about stuff. And we can have a sense of humor. Imagine if we didn't as individuals have a sense of humor. If we, that would be.

• 1:52:11Speaker 01

  I, I agree with you.

• 1:52:12Theo Von?

  That would be the saddest.

• 1:52:13Speaker 01

  I, I agree with you. I love comedy. Um, you know, I, I, Bill Burr is my, is my goat.

• 1:52:18Theo Von?

  Yeah, dude.

• 1:52:19Speaker 01

  Uh, I think he is, you know, I mean, you're a comedian as well. I'm, I'm obviously very good friends with Stavi as well. I know you, uh, always link up with him. Uh, but the thing-

• 1:52:29Theo Von?

  He mailed me some cookies his mother made him.

• 1:52:31Speaker 01

  Oh dude, me too. Yeah. When he was out here, I ate all of it. Oh, you didn't like them?

• 1:52:35Theo Von?

  I know, I liked them. I'm just sad that they're bipartisan snacks he's sending out. But, um, no, I'm joking.

• 1:52:40Speaker 01

  Damn.

• 1:52:41Theo Von?

  No.

• 1:52:42Speaker 01

  Listen, he's been-

• 1:52:42Theo Von?

  It was so sweet of him. It was this only friend of mine that did that. Very sweet of him.

• 1:52:47Speaker 01

  He, did he also?

• 1:52:48Theo Von?

  He's like, my mother wants to say those things.

• 1:52:50Speaker 01

  Did he also shill his fucking calendars, his naked calendars, give me those two? Those mo-, those, those shits have been sitting on my desk every time. I'll have like, bro, I'll have like, you know, prominent figures like activists and shit at my, uh, at my house. And I'm interviewing them. Like there was Motaza Ziza, I'm interviewing him. He literally survived the genocide. He's a photojournalist from Gaza. And fucking Stavi's naked body is just sitting there on the fucking desk. I'm like, oh my God. Like, it's fucked up. It's fucked up. Being friends with Stavi is fucked up. That's why you can't trust the Greeks.

• 1:53:25Theo Von?

  Oh, now that look, finally something that we're both.

• 1:53:30Speaker 01

  Let me tell you.

• 1:53:30Theo Von?

  Both sided agreement on right there, dude.

• 1:53:33Speaker 01

  Bipartisanship on that front, for sure.

• 1:53:35Theo Von?

  You cannot trust these Greeks. Yeah, the third month of his calendar is Gorgonzola or whatever. I'm like, this seems like fucking. It was like January, February, March, April, Baklava, June, July. I'm like, that seems.

• 1:53:48Speaker 01

  That's the other thing, yeah. Stealing, stealing my people's food, saying it's his.

• 1:53:52Theo Von?

  Oh, that's right, the Turks and the Greeks.

• 1:53:53Speaker 01

  It's Turkish.

• 1:53:55Theo Von?

  We gotta, we'll have to talk about that next time. Would you have Trump on if he can't, if he would podcast with you? Do you feel like you're that far removed from getting to talk to guys like that? No.

• 1:54:03Speaker 01

  No, I mean, I've talked, well.

• 1:54:05Theo Von?

  I mean, you talked to Sanders. I don't even know why I said that.

• 1:54:08Speaker 01

  I talked to Bradley Martin multiple times after, like, I mean, he, like, I, I'm not above, like, going on, you know, right wing podcasts. I'm not above talking to people who've talked to Trump, because I think, like, I don't care about, like, the partisanship angle of this at all. I want to be able to communicate to people exactly where the problems are and why people like Trump, just like people like Kamala, are not the, the perfect solution to any of these issues. And I would talk to Trump. I just don't think he would come on my stream, like. Cause he is, at the end of the day, he wants to go on a, he wants to go on a show where they're not gonna like, you know, push back too much, right?

• 1:54:51Speaker 01

  He wants to come across as like, he wants to be humanized. And he wants to come across as like a personal, a personality that is, is not devoid of charisma. And he's very telejanic. It was actually my turning point when I listened to him and you talk about cocaine. When you were talking about doing coke and he was like genuinely expressing interest in it. I was like, oh, fuck, this motherfucker's gonna win, dude. This podcast shit is working so good. Cause first he did the Aiden Ross thing and that was like a bit of a dud.

• 1:55:22Theo Von?

  Yeah, I thought that was kinda weird.

• 1:55:23Speaker 01

  Cause that just like didn't work out at all, cause it wasn't like a normal conversation.

• 1:55:29Theo Von?

  Well, it didn't feel, it felt kind of planned.

• 1:55:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:55:31Theo Von?

  Like they wanted to do like a video, like something like, let's do some social video. And I was like, I don't want to do something like that.

• 1:55:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, like the whole dancing and stuff in front of the cyber truck, uh, the photo of him getting shot.

• 1:55:40Theo Von?

  I didn't love that either.

• 1:55:40Speaker 01

  That stuff, it didn't work at all. But then I saw your podcast and I was like, oh my God, this motherfucker, this motherfucker is going to win the, the goddamn presidency.

• 1:55:48Theo Von?

  But he didn't come, I mean, they didn't ask for any, they didn't ask for any edits, you know? That was the thing. They didn't say like, we need to see this. They didn't fucking have, you guys have a good day.

• 1:55:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, but that's also because like, you're not.

• 1:55:59Theo Von?

  But I'm also not a political guy. Like, I thought, this was a trap I fell into recently.

• 1:56:02Speaker 01

  Cause you, cause you talked to Bernie Sanders like a week before, no?

• 1:56:05Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:06Speaker 01

  That's what I mean. That's, that's what I mean. So it's like, uh, you're not, you're not going to like hit him on shit. You're not going to hit him on like, uh, stuff that he has no answer for.

• 1:56:16Theo Von?

  Well, cause I think my goal is to find, it's not a goal, but I just want to get to know people, kind of, right?

• 1:56:20Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:56:21Theo Von?

  And I realized, I, I, I fell in this trap recently. I thought that just because I had some polit- political people on last year that I knew about politics. I do not. That was a trap. Even my own ego was like, oh, maybe I know something about politics. I don't know shit. Now I have some ideas. I know what it feels like to be kind of like, I feel like a, just a pretty regular person. Um, and then, I don't know, I tried to find empathy here and there and figure things out, but, uh, but I'm, and I'm learning a lot. I've learned, definitely learned a lot more than I knew two years ago, for sure. But, um, but then to think that I, like, you know, I have to be careful not to like smoke my own nuts or whatever it's called, where it's like, you just, you know, just because I had some politics on, now I'm fucking, you know, Jim Rome or somebody or, you know, like a, you know, I'm like, uh, Malcolm X, uh.

• 1:57:05Speaker 01

  Malcolm X.

• 1:57:06Theo Von?

  Malcolm X, yeah. Malcolm X.

• 1:57:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:09Theo Von?

  So, yeah, but anyway, um, but no, dude, I like your attitude. I like your charisma. I like that. I, I, I wanted to talk a little bit more about, I know you have a, a program where you like try to co-op and put money back in a, uh, things that mean something to you.

• 1:57:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, my, my podcast is a cooperative corporation. So like everyone has equal say, equal pay.

• 1:57:29Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:29Speaker 01

  Um, and there are different formations of that. Like you don't have to make it equal pay, but I just thought it would be the best, uh, pay, uh, possible way to go about it. But it's most importantly, aside from the equal. The equal say part is really important. We get together and you know if someone has a obligation, they're not showing up is fine. You know, we, we, uh, we make do, we figure it out as we go along. And I think that's how you get, uh, that's how you get the most successful business, like for sure. That's, uh, that's something that I stand by and we still obviously have to hire contractors every now and then too.

• 1:58:01Theo Von?

  Yeah, for sure. And we could get together another time and talk about business strategy and things like that. I think it'd be interesting. But yeah, I just wanted to just, uh,

• 1:58:09Speaker 01

  Then yeah, we do a lot of fundraising, like the other, uh, the other day I had the, the no other land, the, the Palestinians who, who made a documentary about like their lives. Yeah, I had them.

• 1:58:19Theo Von?

  No, we tried to get them.

• 1:58:21Speaker 01

  I had them on my, I had them on my house. Like I, they, they rolled up deep. They had like 10 people, like the whole family was there.

• 1:58:27Theo Von?

  Dude, no other friends. That's what I said, dude. Fucking we invited two of you guys.

• 1:58:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, they, I mean, they also like straight up came from, you know, occupied Palestinian territory. Like they flew into America. And, uh, and you know, we were chilling. We were just like talking about, uh, talking about their experiences. And I interviewed them and then in the process, like the organization that actually brought them here, uh, who works with, uh, you know, a lot of Palestinians on the ground. Like they were like, oh, can you share this link, uh, to, to fundraise? So I did, and we, we, in the hour long interview that we did, we, we fundraised a hundred thousand dollars. Now it's sitting at a hundred and 35,000. But like, that's the type of stuff that I, uh, love being able to do. Cause like,

• 1:59:12Speaker 01

  I feel so powerless a lot of times when I see all of this death and destruction and I feel like it's, it's a meaningful way to be able to help, to, to, you know, actively fundraise, uh, gives myself and a lot of people that watch me the opportunity to say like, you know, at least we're trying to do something, anything, you know what I mean? So I, I try to do that to the best of my ability. We've fundraised for, uh, Palestinian, uh, aid organizations to the tune of, I think like almost more than $3 million at this point since, uh, since October 7.

• 1:59:44Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 1:59:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:45Theo Von?

  Dude, yeah, I appreciate even saying that because I think that's something I need to hear more about. It's on my brain and heart a lot. We started a foundation last year, but haven't started to figure out like what to do with the money or what exactly to do, you know?

• 1:59:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:57Theo Von?

  Like, I would like to create a business that like, like I thought about like water, like you're selling water, but the money goes towards uh rehab for people that have suffered from opioid addiction, you know, that sort of thing. Just so it's like using something that everybody needs, but the finally the proceeds, it only goes towards this thing. There's not even a profit, you know, it's like this is what it's for.

• 2:00:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:00:18Theo Von?

  Um, but I need to be more-

• 2:00:19Speaker 01

  I've done that in the past too, like uh my, my, like I have merch.

• 2:00:23Theo Von?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:00:24Speaker 01

  And it's US-made, union-made, uh and obviously the margins are incredibly slim for that reason.

• 2:00:29Theo Von?

  American Giant? Is that who does your merch or no, is it?

• 2:00:31Speaker 01

  No, it's uh Bayside, is my garment manufacturer, my garment provider. Is one of the only union shops that is garment manufacturer in the country that can like uh keep up with the demand that we have.

• 2:00:43Theo Von?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:00:44Speaker 01

  Cause there's a shit ton of people that are buying the t-shirts are like, and sometimes I'll just uh like I will fundraise like by, by saying all the proceeds, like every single point of profit is directly going to a labor union like we, uh I gave uh the Amazon Labor Union, uh I think it was like a hundred and seventy thousand dollars or something like that, off of just that. Um, we fundraised like I think around-

• 2:01:08Theo Von?

  For Amazon uh packaging?

• 2:01:09Speaker 01

  The Amazon Labor Union, yeah, like the people that work at the distribution uh facilities. Um, another thing I did like uh this past year was for uh, uh, I don't know how to say the name correctly, but Raisas. It's a, it's an organization that works on undocumented migrants in, in Texas specifically. And they give them uh, you know, uh translators and lawyers and you know, they pay for lawyer fees and stuff like that. So I'm, I'm actively working uh on fundraising initiatives like that. Uh, because I feel like there's a lot of stories that don't get told in mainstream media. That's why I uh interviewed the incarcerated firefighters uh that were combating the wildfires in LA.

• 2:01:52Speaker 01

  You know, there's prisoners that fight wildfires, right?

• 2:01:54Theo Von?

  Oh, they send prisoners out to fight them?

• 2:01:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's like a training program and stuff. I'm working with a, with an organization uh, to, to go and actually see them at their prison, their training camp.

• 2:02:06Theo Von?

  Fuck yeah, dude. It's so creative, man. Yeah, that's, um, yeah, I'm glad you say these things. Because yeah, it's just stuff that I can remember, try to focus more on or, um, yeah, cuz everybody, that's the crazy thing. It's like everybody at every point of something, most people need support, right? Or they need some type of support. They need an ear, they need a blanket, they need a mouthful of, they need a friend, you know, every, it's, um, there's a lot of ways to be a part of the world, you know?

• 2:02:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:41Theo Von?

  And always to try and find a, a corner, um, where you can express care. Um, Hasan Piker, thanks so much, dude. I'd love to chat again sometime. I know we didn't get to cover, uh, you know, some stuff we did, but I just appreciate it, man. I, I think, um, yeah, I just think it's important too, that, that, that people just get together and talk about stuff, you know? Uh, I wish I'd have been able to like, kind of like, have probably some stronger political conversation with you. Some of that stuff I don't have as strong of a knowledge base in. But, um, but I admire you, dude, and I admire, um, the way you operate and, uh, and I really appreciate your time today.

• 2:03:17Speaker 01

  All right. Thanks for having me, man. This was great.

• 2:03:20Theo Von?

  I'm sorry I have to go stream for so long too, dude.

• 2:03:21Speaker 01

  No, I love it. I, I, that's, the things that I just told you in the last three minutes is exactly why I love what I do. Cuz I have a, a, a giant community with a big heart.

• 2:03:32Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:33Speaker 01

  And I, and I think that that is what makes everything worth it. Cuz like I said, there's, there will, there will be people, uh, swearing up and down that I'm the worst person that you've ever, uh, that you've ever met, no matter where I go. Uh, there, it's just noise. It's mostly people that are online. That doesn't like translate to real world experiences at all. But, um, in spite of all of that, in spite of like people constantly working to actively smear me to say I'm anti-Semitic, or I love terrorism, or whatever the fuck, with clips out of context and all this shit. At the end of the day, I get to make an impact and that's how I see, uh, sleep soundly at night, you know?

• 2:04:14Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:14Speaker 01

  Where I, where I know that, uh, All of this is worth it.

• 2:04:19Theo Von?

  Why did Jewish friend recommend you to me?

• 2:04:22Speaker 01

  Who's the Jewish friend that recommended?

• 2:04:23Theo Von?

  About podcasting. They said do not name them.

• 2:04:25Speaker 01

  Oh damn.

• 2:04:26Theo Von?

  No, they didn't. That part I made up, but I would just protect their anonymity. But it just, you know what I'm saying? Like, just to say, it's like, people, I think people, I don't know. We're all trying. I think, yeah, I have a neat community too, that I feel like wants to do stuff that's important in the world. And we're all trying to figure out how, you know? But yeah, I, I, I just, I see that light in you, man. And I appreciate you coming and sharing your time with us today. I really do.

• 2:04:49Speaker 01

  Alright, thanks for having me.

• 2:04:51Theo Von?

  You bet, man.