Kind: captions
Language: en
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the best basis for determining whether a
certain argument is
true is to watch it challenged and
defended inflation is theft it is a tax
on the poor it's a tax on the working
class Trump and Biden did they created a
billionaire a day for 500 Days and
shifted $4.3 trillion dollar from the
American middle class are you going to
be on that debate stage you can't just
say the Democratic party and the
Republican Party get to choose you can't
do that because those are private clubs
it's it's a contribution that is
unlawful you look at president V I worry
I think all of us you know it's like
watching your 5-year-old play on a
jungle gym for the first time you're
you're like oh my God I hope you know he
doesn't fall Trump in four years he came
in and said he was going to balance the
budget he spent $8 trillion which is
more than every president from George
Washington to George W bush 283 years of
History
RFK Jr welcome to the show very good to
meet you thank you so much for having me
Tom it is wonderful as I was telling you
before we started rolling uh I've now
spent about 30 hours researching you
looking for The Smoking Gun where you
come across crazy uh and I haven't found
it so I'm really eager to sit down and
hear the vision for America but I want
to start with you so let me ask what
your your uncle JFK famously said that
the trait that made him um that was his
best trait wasn't courage it was
actually curiosity because it allowed
him to think from his opponent's
standpoint what do you think is your
best
trait yeah my uncle was actually met his
wife uh Jackie who was in Jackie bouier
um and she was a
reporter and she did a kind of a um man
in the street interviews but she would
interview people people in Washington DC
and her
first conversation with him she asked
him what his his his best quality was
and she expected him to say
courage because he you know he was the
only US president who he was just a he
was a congressman at that point but he
was the you know he'd been a war hero
and he was the only US president to get
the purple heart he had a lot of other
commendations um he had written a book
uh polit prizewinning book called
profiles and courage so he clearly
thought courage was a was the quality
that allowed all the other virtues to
function but he he surprised her when he
gave her that answer that he thought his
his greatest asset his greatest virtue
was curiosity and um you know if you
really if you if you study his life you
understand why that is he he um he
understood that if we're going to have
peace which was the critical outcome for
his presidency he told his best friend
Ben Bradley when Ben Bradley asked him
you know what do you want on your
gravestone he said he kept the peace
that um the the primary job of President
of the United States was to keep the
country out of
War he said that he didn't want African
kids when they Hur the United States of
America to think of a man with with a
gun and a uniform he wanted them think
of Peace score volunteer he wanted to
think them to think of the alliance for
Progress usaid these programs he created
to to endr run the oligarchies and the
military dictatorships and give money
funnel money directly to the poor and
Aid in ways that uh would uh would
Foster the growth of a middle class
which he thought was critical
to Dem Ry um so you know
hopefully uh I uh I have some of that
quality I you know I
um I I think it was important for him to
be able
to put
himself in in the shoes of his
adversaries and he thought that was
critical to to to the path to peace and
I think that quality is as critical now
as
ever I mean if you ask me kind
of what my um what the quality that's
kind of got me where I am
today I think I have I have
a I like to think that I have a rational
mind and that I have a lot of
Detachment um that I I I'm not um I'm
not
susceptible to Passion or Prejudice that
I try
to look at problems and understand kind
of The Logical the most logical way of
looking at them and then um and then
once um and then be will always willing
to change your mind about things if if
if the
data tells you otherwise but then I also
have kind of an imperviousness
to to pressure if I believe something is
right I'll stick with it and I'm not
going to change my
mind um based upon kind of social
punishment you know defamations or that
are applied to me or marginalization or
any of those but I will change my mind
always if um if somebody confronts me
with with facts that are that that are
contrary to my worldview do you think
that logical approach is the thing that
is going to make you effective at being
a president in this moment because the
other two candidates are all about
appealing to the
emotion I think that my sort of capacity
to not get Swept Away by emotions or by
ambition um
is uh you know I I think it's a quality
that has made me suitable for this
time because um I think we need somebody
right now I one of the big problems that
we have this a systemic problem is this
divisiveness and the
polarization and we've always had
polarization in our country but it's
aggravated by two things one one is the
stratification of our
society so we were the biggest middle
class country in the world and we had
the best social Mobility when I was a
kid it was if you were poor in America
you were more likely to make it into the
next Echelon or the the upper
classes and any other Western Country
any country in the world America was an
extremely mobile Society if you started
out poor you can make it anywhere today
we are the least mobile of any Western
democracy so if you're born poor in this
country you're more likely to stay stay
poor than somebody in Poland or France
or Ukraine or
wherever and
also um the we're seeing the D the
destruction of the middle class when I
was a
boy America had a middle class and
that's why our democracy worked right we
had this the middle class was the
greatest economic engine ever the
American middle class the greatest
economic engine ever devised and it had
given us all this wealth we owned when
my uncle was President half the wealth
on the face of the Earth and you had you
know all the Americans were in houses
and we had this just explosion middle
class and that stabilized the
country when you see the middle
class when a country loses its middle
class and it's and it's you have these
big gaps in in wealth gaps where you
have an oligarchy above which is what we
have now
and widespread spread poverty below
that's a
configuration that is too
unstable to S sustainably support a
democracy because you end up getting two
political parties and one of those
parties is representing the interest of
the upper class keeping their wealth and
getting
richer and that's not a good vessel for
populism so they're not telling people
that that's what they're up to but
they're using other techniques of
propaganda of lying of fixing votes or
whatever to make sure that people vote
or or division of say pointing out scape
codes um and uh and are you talking
about the right or the left right now it
doesn't matter if you're if you're in a
stratified
Society whether it's a communist or you
know whatever it is where there's
widespread property below and where
there's um where there's great wealth
above MH one of the parties its function
is going to be protecting the assets and
the perquisites and the Privileges of
the upper
class and then you'll have another party
or a lot of parties that are trying to
you know that are representing poor
people but the the the usually the upper
class gets the military and a lot of the
institutions on its side the Press
Etc and it can manipulate a lot of
levers and it has to kind of be honest
about what its objective is so you get
people widespread feeling that people
have been fooled and you get these
divisions and and that's happening in
our country right now so the the
polarization is partially a function of
the Str the economic
stratification but it's Amplified today
by social media because the algorithms
you know what the these algorithms which
are self-learning algorithms and and you
know the the uh uh the the engineers who
design those algorithms really don't
even understand a many case how they
work
anymore because they're learning
themselves and what they learned is the
objective of the algorithm is to keep
eyeballs on the site for as long as
possible because that's how revenues are
generated by that social
media it turns out that people like to
read things that they already believe in
so if you so if you're a Republican and
Democrat you're living next door to each
other and you ask the same question of
Google you you may get two different
answers because the algorithm is
steering to
you information that fortifies your
worldview your existing worldview it's
manipulating you to be sure I'm totally
on board with that the thing though that
I want to Anchor this back on is this
this started from me asking if you
having a rational mind is going to be
thing that that steers us from that so
you've painted a really good picture of
the division how it happens the you
didn't say gen coefficient but that idea
uh as the rich get richer uh and there's
a bigger divide between the Hales and
the Have Nots you're just you're headed
towards violence quite frankly a
historical perspective but what I what I
want to know is um how are you going to
deploy a
dispassionate um evidence-based
methodology to solve in those problems
when first you have to win the election
against people who are going to be able
to speak to the emotional side of people
well yeah I don't want to I don't want
to you know paint a picture of
myself as um as kind of a bloodless
technocrat you know I I feel like my
whole life has been about
um um empathy and uh you know and trying
to
understand people so but I think it's
important for particularly I what I
really was was saying is that's kind of
how I ended up where I am now I became
kind of a social critic of of
um of you know of a a bureaucracy that
is um that's corrupt and that you know
is twisting science and it's twisting
facts and distorting
facts and that I feel like I have a
clear view of what you know I I have a
rational mind so I'm I'm looking at
truth and I'm seeing how it's being
deliberately and systematically
distorted
by um by powerful entities whether it's
the press and that our country really is
not is no longer living up to its ideals
I mean we've been
promoting um regime change abroad and
undemocratic forces and suppressing
democracy and Bo Broad and the same
thing at the same time has been
happening here at
home we've really lost a lot of the
indish uh traditional indish of
democracy sure we have elections
still uh but Russia has elections Iran
has elections China has elections and
you know you look at our country and say
are we really a democracy
anymore or are we really an oligarchy or
even a plutocracy or corporate
kleptocracy
where you know the wealth and
corporations
are really have the power to dictate
policy and that you know regular
Americans have almost no say in the
political
process and uh you know and then
also we have a government now that's
doing things that the American you know
Constitution that are aboring to our
constitution uh it's doing censorship
it's doing surveillance it's doing uh um
you know it's doing uh sort of
compliance exercises that are very very
anti-democratic and I feel like um I
have for some one reason or another that
I have clarity about that and I'm
not it sounds kind of vain to say that I
have a rational mind and you know other
people are irrational and I'm not trying
to say that but I I think I have
I I I feel like I have a really Clear
Vision about what this country is
supposed to look like and what the
values that you know I was was raised
with and that we've departed from those
that vision and those values all right
that is very much what I want to map out
in this conversation um but I really do
want to get into this idea uh one I
would just say uh as somebody who is a
potential somebody who is a voter and
could potentially vote for you I don't I
I love that you're open-minded I love
that you don't overstep and get super
aggressive but if you believe that part
of what makes you worthy of this role is
that you can think through these
problems better than somebody else uh
make as bold of a claim as you want and
then just demonstrate to me that you can
back it up and so one of the things that
drives me mad uh as somebody on the
outside looking at your Canada toy and I
I am in search of the best ideas that's
it I just want to know what's true I
want to know what's effective
and when people are trying to dismiss
you because they they um think that
you're wrong but instead of debating the
ideas they just dismiss you that seems
it makes me distrust them in in a simple
sentence uh I want to see you be able to
debate these ideas the with the people
that are the recognized experts so that
every time I see you get into a debate
on a topic I can tell that there's
layers and layers and layers of um data
points assumptions that your conclusion
is built on I don't know if your
conclusions are right and that's why I
want to see you Collide With People um
but people won't collide with you so one
why is that and since we're filming this
before the presidential debate are you
going to be on that debate
stage well of course I'd like to be on
the debate stage um you know the the
debate commission if the traditional
commission that's been used for the past
30 years was running the debate I
believe I'd be on the debate stage um
but the both the Biden and Trump
campaign have said that they're not
going to use the debate the presidential
debating
commission and they made a side deal
with
CNN and we think the side deal is
illegal and we've we've asked the FEC to
uh take action and we've also filed our
law own lawsuit against
it I'm under FEC rules and and this you
know gets
into the weeds that you know it's not a
particularly great story but under Fe
FEC
rules if you if you don't have neutral
pre-existing criteria for dep for for
determining who will be on the debate
stage and you just choose the two people
that you want to debate and exclude
everybody else is an illegal campaign
contribution and it's the same thing
essentially that got Michael Cohen
locked in jail it's it's a contribution
that is
unlawful so the the FEC rules
specifically say you
cannot U make a
debating who you're you cannot base who
is going to participate in the
debate based upon party affiliation you
can't just say the Democratic party and
the Republican part get to choose you
can't do that because those are private
clubs they're not they're not in our
constitution they're not there just
private businesses and so that's an
illegal contribution and you you also
can't the the person who's staging the
debate if it's a network can't collude
with the with the two political parties
to exclude adversaries and that
apparently according to the Washington
Post is exactly what happen
at President Biden's team got on the
phone with CNN and said you got to have
rules that keep Kennedy off the
stage so now even if if um CNN relented
and said okay you can get on the stage
there's no guarantee that either
president Trump or President Biden would
show up for the debate so I don't have
any control over it I mean I you know I
think it's good for our
country if they include me I think it
will be good for CNN and it's
advertising revenues too because I think
more people will tune
in but I uh you know I I I can't say
whether that's going to happen or
whether it's not going to happen what do
you think about the general idea in
culture right now of um somebody is
undebatable that they're just so far off
the mark that we should completely
ignore their ideas do you think that
from U protecting our democracy
standpoint from moving science forward
standpoint from handling something like
covid better standpoint is that a wise
way to move
forward well I would say that I mean I
think that all ideas should be heard
there may be ideas that are you know so
crazy and so
obviously um
baseless that and
indefensible that uh you know there may
be some red line at some point where you
say you know that is just too
marginalized and and you know Bas us an
oce but generally speaking I'm you know
I I
think democracy functions and our
country is strong because of the free
flow of
information and that as you just pointed
out you don't really you know you don't
have any basis the best basis for
determining whether a certain argument
is
true is to watch it challeng alled and
defended and so I think that's the you
know the healthy way to um and and the
Democratic way to make a determination I
mean I don't think
I I people put me in that category that
you just describe they say my
ideas are so insane that the public
shouldn't even hear
them and um but then if you ask them
which of my ideas are so insane
they can't really name them except
they'll say things that they think I
believe that I never said because
there's so many distortions about what I
have said and what I haven't
said and um so uh but I I don't think
there's anything I say that you know
most 99% of Americans would say that
sounds pretty common
sense um you know but I I'm there's a
lot of pejoratives lied to me that I'm
antia not true I'm anti-science that I'm
racist and I'm anti-semitic and all of
these are you know inventions of people
who want to silence me and if you
actually ask them I'm a conspiracy
theorist what actual what is the
conspiracy that I said I actually said
that you think is a conspiracy that that
one's starting to become a compliment at
this point like the number the number of
conspiracies but people saying that
you're outright lying uh that's one that
I I've heard a lot when you start going
into and and I am not qualified to
debate on the um vaccines but as you
start to wait into those Waters to see
what people say about you it's just that
like it's very rare I'm lying but then
you know nobody really asked the next
question about what what show me the
statement that he
made that is actually untrue because you
know they had these we we found out they
have had these debates
quietly at Facebook
Etc and they had to make up a new
because they they realized like
Instagram took me down for
misinformation for
lying and um and you know I had almost a
million
followers and they said it was because I
was promoting misinformation and lies
and then when we asked them can you show
one post that I've made that is actually
faction
incorrect they are unable to do it
because everything I posted was
either um site it was cited or sourc to
either a peer-reviewed publication or a
government
database and
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apps that's one thing I've heard you say
a lot and what my PSA to the world would
be to hear that and say okay uh this
conversation even the way that it's
playing out now is just going to be
another round of bites the only way for
the American people to figure out what's
going on is to have these ideal ideas
battled out in a long form public debate
let's find out how much you really know
about this uh so that the general public
can get elected but the part that this
becomes a PSA from my perspective is we
are being treated like we are too dumb
to understand the information and
therefore um misinformation
disinformation and Mal information which
definitionally is it is true but we're
worried that it might cause a problem so
we still don't want it to get out to you
that that to me is so outrageous so what
I would love to see people do is say
once an idea hits a certain level of
cultural awareness it's time to be
debated even if the experts are like oh
this is junk this is throwaway um I
think that
they I'll say within my world they have
a moral obligation to do it I get that's
going to be very controversial and I
don't want to lose people just on that
but it for the public good somebody
needs to step up and spend the time
debating that and that if we don't do
that then we get these conversations
where one media Outlet just throws out
their quips you throw out yours and then
we we never find out like if what side
can withstand
scrutiny yeah I I agree with everything
he said and what I've said is I'll
debate anybody on any these issues I'm
you know I'm uh I just I think that's
absolutely critical that we have those
kind of debates and that again I think
it
it you know the idea of protecting the
public from dangerous ideas is not
something that is should be permissible
in a democracy and you know there's a
lot of stuff that I would characterize
as kind of borderline conspiracy
theories
um uh stuff about you know I I have no
idea whether UFOs exist right I don't
have any
idea I just don't have any information
on them but I don't think automatically
that we shouldn't be hearing about that
right or you know or whether
9911 was some there was something screwy
about that I think we should be talking
about it and even on the election you
know issues
um it's for boat to say that you know
the election was fixed well you know in
in 2001 almost every Democrat believed
that the election was
fixed that you know Gore was won the
presidency and that he was excluded in
2004 i w wrote
a prizewinning an award-winning article
for Rolling Stone saying that that
election that there had been six
counties that have been stolen in
Colorado and I gave chapter and verse
about why I believe that and you know
and a lot of people believed it then and
I still believe it
today I'm at
2016 uh people believe that that Bernie
Sanders got you know that the election
was fixed against them and in
2020 Hillary
Clinton publicly says that that election
was stolen from her so you know we have
I mean the the thing we should fix the
electoral system in this country so
nobody believes that at all we put a man
on the moon we have ATMs on
every block and you know and every city
in this country and they never make
mistakes we have an entire they never
give you too much money right we can
make a machine that can count you know
Las Vegas proves that you know there the
the slot machines never pay you too much
and then you can have a paper
ballot so that um so that if people have
doubts about the machines because
machines can get
hacked you ought to be able to do a hand
count if even a very very low threshold
so that we should be able to solve those
problems but I don't think that you know
we should be
making I believe that Biden won the
election and um but I don't believe that
we should be vilifying and making parias
and marginalizing and ridiculing the
people on the other side who say he
didn't they're not attacking
democracy um we ought to be able to to
their questions Point by point and you
know um and that those debates need to
take place in a democracy and hopefully
they need to take place in a way that's
congenial and respectful and not you
know filled with hatred and fit all and
poison you know we ought to be able to
just have a a you know we ought to have
a debate that's what democ that's what
gives democracy its
power is that you know the the policy
um that ultimately know Prevail in a
democracy are annealed first in the in a
furnace of debate and the idea is that
our our
um you know that they can Triumph in
that market place of ideas and they're
the ones that rise the top and become
policies and that's the big advantage
that um that democracy has on
totalitarian systems totalitarian system
is a much more efficient system in you
know you don't have a whole you got one
guy at the tops and do and you know from
being a business guy right that you
wouldn't want it to you could not have
made all the tons of money that you've
made if if if everything was done by a
by committee you know you um and so
totalitarian systems are much more
efficient they're much more streamlined
they're much quicker to
react and the framers of the
Constitution knew that but they thought
democracy over the long run would have
an advantage because the debates would
give us it's a
Marketplace the same reason China you
know China does great at home because it
can select this business you know it
selects winners and losers so it can
dominate its own Market but I'm not
scared of competing with China elsewhere
in the world because we have free market
system you know or at least we did in
the past
and that's going to eliminate the
efficiencies over long term much much
you know much more efficiently like the
government couldn't have created
Facebook the government couldn't have
alone created you know these other you
know billion dollar
companies you need people who are you
need a Marketplace and we need that
Marketplace for ideas too if our
democracy is going to continue to
function and I you know I'll debate
anybody on any statement I
made and you know we did this when I was
on Joe
Rogan he had Peter hotz who's this you
know what I would call a kind of a a
corrupt uh scientist who's in you know
an Insider in the we call him bi Utes
he's an Insider in the pharmaceutical
industry and he was sitting on the
sideline saying I was lying about all
these things and Joe Rogan said we
debate him and I said I'll debate him
anytime
anywhere and they Joe Rogan I think
offered him
$100,000 and and David Sachs oh the
total got up high I think it was 2.6
million in the end or something like
that bananas and he still passed and he
wouldn't do it so that tells you
something it tells you something that he
that he doesn't um feel confident enough
in his ideas that he can defend
them and you know I I can be wrong about
stuff but I mean I hope right and I and
I've I've
uh I've I have lots of a track record of
doing
this that if somebody calls me out
because I got something
wrong that my reaction to that is to go
back and fix it and say yeah I got that
wrong and here's the right thanks for
pointing that out
in this book the real Anthony
fouchy I say in the beginning there's
2200 footnotes in there and there's a
lot of factual
assertions and I invite people and and I
you know we put a um uh you know the
what do you call the QR code next to
each one so you can look up my source
while you're
reading and um that's really smart yeah
so that people can check me immediately
so and I invite people in the first page
of this book I say if you find an error
in this book please tell us about it
because we ended
up with like 30 editions to that book
and anytime there's a new edition I can
correct an error that's what you do with
errors when you're wrong you acknowledge
it you correct it and then you keep
going but uh you know so I think that is
the way that we're that it's supposed to
operate and that's the way I operate I'm
not going
to stand on a a fact that is that is
wrong that I've been shown that it's
wrong yeah here's an idea that I think
ends up leading people to weird places
is uh they are not recognizing the
utility of Truth and so truth is hard to
identify there's no question about that
but once you understand that your brain
is a prediction engine the beliefs that
you hold about what is true will allow
you to accurately predict the outcome of
your behaviors if your beliefs are close
to ground truth then you'll get the
outcome you expect and if you don't then
something about your belief system is
broken if you update it now you can get
closer to what you were trying to get
and once people understand the utility
of that if they can separate their ego
away from being right and moving it over
to being effective so hey I don't value
myself for um being right I value myself
for identifying the right answer and
putting that into my my thought process
so that I can be more effective in
something so this brings up the whole
idea of value system which I think is
incredibly important now I can't
remember if it and I I by the way I
can't improve on that explanation about
why we should be seeking truth yeah it
is literally just getting to effectively
the scientific method like you're just
trying to figure out I I expect to get
this result I'm going to try a thing did
I get the result no you validate it
exactly and uh
um and you know you if you believe in
empiricism if you believe in the
scientific me method if you believe in
objective
truths then you know life should be just
a search for existential truths that's
why we're here that's what God wants us
to be doing you know to to be looking
for truth and and um and uh uh you know
that right
now the the role of the government in so
many instances is to confuse people
about it and distort the truth and to um
in order to make way
for power and and corporate profits and
and to advance the Amile interests of
these you know the corporations that
they regulate and you have uh time and
again when I say when I talk about about
debating people and getting to the
truth he people say to me well is there
really any truth right and they ask that
question and you're like that's how
confused people are is that they don't
even believe that there's objective
truth anymore that you I will give them
that the truth is so hard to ascertain
that there there is a real thing so I
don't know if you know Ben Shapiro of
course you've been on his show so Ben
Shapiro has the very famous and very
funny statement that uh facts don't care
about your feelings but the reality is
your feelings don't care about fact and
most people are Guided by their feelings
and so if something feels right then
they just believe that it is true and so
they don't have any mechanism by which
they check it to see is this belief
helping me or not helping me and that's
where I think this breaks down because
so many again going back to values which
I really want to hear you speak on uh
people have built a value system that
says Be Right be better be faster be
stronger not be the learner don't worry
about being right worry about having the
right answer answer that you should be
driving towards goals that are honorable
and so now if we're trying to get goals
that are honorable that sort of sneaks
in the idea of well we should do that
efficiently and so now how do we
efficiently achieve goals that are
honorable which I imagine your platform
is going to be chalk full of them but to
set the stage for that I can't remember
if it was your dad or your uncle but one
of them said that uh physical courage is
amazing but there's nothing more
difficult or more important than moral
courage so uh your dad was assassinated
for his political beliefs your uncle was
assassinated for his political beliefs
your character has been assassinated
over and over uh since declaring that
you're running for president you've had
your house broken into I mean just like
on and on the list goes um what is
writing in your value system that makes
you keep marching forward
I mean I you know I think my my dad um
and his parents you know raised us in
this you know with
these um ideas of of
um you know part of it was just the
Catholicism that you know that uh you
know we read the lives of the Saints and
you know they that the
highest uh calling was uh was you know
people who you know the martyrs who
stood up for what they believed in and
died and that's you know en died for
that belief so and then you know my
father after my uncle's death
particularly became very enthralled with
the Greeks with um uh Edith Hamilton he
you know wrote the kind of the seminal
book on uh Greek mythology and he read
aalis he read uh Plato he he read you
know uh um all of
the uh the plays and the the poems of
Angel greed the stories and those are
all about this kind of the elevation of
the American of of the human character
through heroism through you know anying
for something that you believe in I told
I've told told this story on the Lex
Freeman's show that my dad um gave me a
a book a couple of weeks before he died
which was a a book by
C and it was the it's called the plague
and you know my dad had G gave me books
all the time and and poems and asked me
to read them when he gave me this book
he he told me that he wanted me to read
it with this kind of special
intensity and um and then after he died
I didn't read it um before he died but
after he died it became a important for
me to read it so I did and I've read it
a number of times to try to unlock you
know whatever it was that he was telling
those was the last thing that he sort of
request that he made of me oh it had you
know was imbued with kind of special
importance in my mind and the book is
about a a doctor in a plag gidden city
in North Africa it's like Algeria
Tunisia it never says and um and it
doesn't say what the disease is but the
the city is under quarantine nobody can
go in and
out and the plague has a very high
infection fatality rates a lot of people
are dying um there and it's the story
told through the perspective of a do of
a
doctor who is kind of terrified he's
sitting in his his
room and he knows that if he goes out
and treats people that there's probably
almost nothing he can do because nobody
knows how to treat the disease it's
highly contagious so the contact that he
has from treating people is likely to
infect him and he's likely to
die and you know he he's thinking if I
just sit this out
here I may be able to make it through
and then I can do good things with the
rest of my
life um but in the end he goes out and
he does his
duty and even consoling people and
comforting them in their you know in
their their last hours um
he he gets meaning in his life from that
and kamu was an existentialist and he
was kind of a legy of the um of the of
the
stoic tradition and the stoics were and
my father really embraced stoicism and
their hero was uh Copus he was the
iconic hero of stoicism and he's
you know Copus was a hero who was cursed
by the gods to push a boulder up a hill
he pushed up all all day long get to the
top of the
hill his D his his objective was to push
it over the other side but he never
quite makes it to the top when he gets
close to the summit it always rolls back
on him and it mangles him on the way
down and then he has a limp down the
hill all night long he gets to the
bottom and then he starts a new day
pushing it up again and the view of of
most people who hear that story he is a
a cursed man who must be miserable
because it's a miserable miserable
Eternal task to do this
forever but in the view of the snics
Copus was a happy man because he knew
what his duty was and he was performing
it and he was putting his shoulder to
the
stone and um you know I I think I picked
up a lot of that from my father that you
know the world is uh is supposed to be
about struggle that pain is the touched
on to spiritual
growth um that pain that hard work that
self-discipline is the is the objective
ultimately it's our path to truth to God
to you know to
Enlightenment and you know then I also
just had the example
that anybody everybody that I admire in
my life all the heroes that I had from
the past whether it was um you know it
was Charles Darwin
or Alexander the Great or St Francis
vesi or um St Augustine all of
them went through a period a Dark Night
of the Soul when the whole world turned
against them and they lost all their
friends they lost their respect to their
communities um they lost uh all of the
conventional
you know um uh acuts of
success um and and in the material
world and they had to be alone for a
period of time and you know the um uh
it's called The Dark Night of the
soul and when you know but that is
that's kind of
the um that is the the payment for a for
a meaningful life so it you know the
fact that I had a lot of
family um turn against me and Friends
turn against me and you know all and the
press and the media and all of these you
know great political contacts that I've
made through 40 years of life where I
could pick up the phone and call any
Congressman or even the president of the
United States and all of that
disappeared or any CEO in this
country and all of that went away um but
I don't
feel that I need to spend a lot of time
grieving or Mourning that because that's
just part of my path you know that is
you know I'm supposed to push this Stone
up this hill and I feel like I know what
I'm supposed to do I have a real Clarity
and
certainty that what I'm doing now is
what I'm supposed to be doing and that I
that was not getting very much
validation in the
beginning but I I get it that validation
from the places I needed from my wife
from my children and then from Little
voices that are talking all the time you
know it may be just a somebody a friend
that I haven't seen in 20 years who
calls me up and says you know I I love
what you're doing and I somebody you
know the other day said and me who
somebody I've SE haven't seen in in 40
years a person who was a friend of my um
of
my the the wife of a friend of my mom's
um who he was I was the coach the US SK
team and she sent me a picture of
herself I haven't seen this woman in 40
years sitting at a table with a Kennedy
sign on it right and um and then people
who come up and say you know I was I I'd
withdrawn from politics and you're
giving me hope young people come up to
me every day and say you know I had no
hope and now I got hope so now I'm
getting that kind of validation but um
uh um I think for a long time I was
cting almost no validation but it was I
felt but I had the internal Clarity that
I knew what I was doing was important
what exactly are you doing obviously
running for president but I mean when
you get the job what exactly do you want
to accomplish to feel like I got the
boulder up and over the
hill um you know I think I I will go
into office with a clear idea of what my
agenda is than any president
for
um you know probably since Richard Nixon
or uh you know my uncle I think they
probably probably glinton went in with
the with an idea a really clear idea but
I have a very clear idea of what I want
to do I know how to unravel the
corporate corruption the agencies so you
know how do I dismantle this corrupt
merger of state and corporate power and
make government start telling the truth
to people you know in my first day in
office I'm going to issue an executive
order saying any government official who
lies for any reason the American public
will immediately lose their job right
and just say if you're Lon you're
unemployed and or if we can't sue you
because or fire you because of civil
service you're going to get a posting
and Anchorage right and and just be
ruthless about a fishing
that making our country a moral a moral
entity again right and and and
dismantling the war
machine getting us out of Ukraine
getting
um uh and and and solve that you know
and and making peace there and making
and trying to then you know there's so
many issues now that are critical in
foreign
policy um we we need to deal with with
the rise of AI the threat that that that
makes sure that
AI makes the world more democratic that
it makes us more efficient that it makes
us healthier that it gives people
control of their government and not the
opposite you know that it makes us
sicker and gives government you know
allows government to make slaves of us
all it can go either way right I think
this is a great one to hear how your
logical mind is going to approach that
so well I I I can't tell you the details
about how I'm going to approach that I
can tell you that
I um that I that I know what the end
point has to be and that I understand
the huge Perils of AI and the huge
promise of it I also understand the
compl
it that you can't over regulate it in
this country because we can't afford to
drive it away so I want this country to
be the The Hub of AI I want us to be the
Hub of blockchain you know we have an
Administration right now that is making
war on
blockchain in the last two years there's
been 1,200 cryptocurrencies registered
in
Switzerland the capitalization of those
is $360
billion and all the entrepreneurs are
being driven to you know Geneva and to
Singapore and to China and to
Iran and you know and to um and to Dubai
and cutter and those we want those
entrepreneurs here in this country that
the only way out of the $34 trillion
debt you we cannot cut our way out of
that debt I'm going to make the cuts in
the military I'm going to make the cuts
in chronic disease but you cannot $34
trillion right
now we are uh we spend more last year we
spent $1.3 trillion servicing the debt
so that's the cost of paying the
interest on the debt it's more than our
total military budget including the
department of energy and you know
Veterans Affairs and uh and you know the
national security
agencies um and it's it's about eight 8%
of our
GDP so and it's accelerating it's gone
from you know the debt the additional
debt has gone from 2% to 8% of our
GDP within five years 50 cents out of
every dollar we we collect in taxes is
going to go to servicing the debt in 10
years 100% this is existential literally
and we're past the point where we can
cut our way out of
it what we need to do is we need to grow
our way out of it we need to grow our
economy me so that the debt gets
proportionately smaller and so they you
know we we need to do cuts enough to to
balance a budget but then we need to
take that money and invest it in things
that are going to grow our
economy you know if we for example every
every million dollars we
spend on on on
weapons creates two jobs
every million dollars that we spend on
Child Care creates 22 new jobs so where
every decision I make as
president is going to be if I'm going to
spend money how many jobs are GNA we
going to create how much wealth is it
going to create for our country that's
the only thing I'm focusing on how do we
rebuild the American middle class and
the the but we we can't just do it
through cutting and reinvesting we need
new Industries and we need industries
that are going to
explode the same way that Silicon Valley
exploded and got us out of that
jam and though the two most obvious
Industries for doing that are Ai and
blockchain so you know I know I can't
tell you how I'm going to do it I can
tell you I'm going to bring the smartest
people in the world together not big not
the big shots who are going to try to
you know manipulate it so they own
it um but people from every strata who
can come in and meet with me and talk
with me and figure out a way and and
also we need to be talking to president
X and China we need to be talking to I'm
an in in um in Iran we need to be
talking to Putin we you know we we need
to be talking to Israel and all these
other places
about how do we um how do we regulate
this is globally um because it's going
to happen and uh and we can no longer
afford to be you know at war with other
nations all the time we need to figure
out there there are greater threats now
to all of
humanity than one nation against another
there's there's existential threats to
humanity and you know AI is one of them
nuclear proliferation is another
bioweapons proliferation particularly
when it's married to AI is really
terrifying and the barriers for entry
are getting lower and lower every year
so you're going to be able to make you
know lethal bioweapons in your garage
that can wipe out a big part of humanity
um so all right you laid a lot of ideas
on the table I want to start um putting
like a real fine point on some of these
so uh the fact if I'm tracking your
logic well please tell me if I get
anything wrong but um you understand
that the debt is absolutely untenable
we're going to be spending basically
every tax Dollar in the not too distant
future is going to go just to servicing
the debt if interest rates go up get
worse it's 10
years if we stay on the current track
but if interest rates rise it's a lot
faster than that so you know and and and
the interest rates are going to R you
know yesterday two days ago the
Saudis um got off of the Petra dollar
yeah okay and you see the rise of bricks
and that that's going to drive a rise in
interest rates ultimately that we have
no control over so if people
start walking away from the US dollar as
a global Reserve currency as a global
Safe
Haven as a global trade currency if that
happens um that this will be accelerated
to you a very short amount of time if
you're tired of trying to find the real
truth you have to drive to tell whether
the news that you're getting is actual
real reporting bias narratives trolling
selective reporting whatever the case
may be then you need to be using ground
news ground news compil stories from
across the global political Spectrum
giving you every angle so that you can
get the full picture and aren't being
blindsided I especially like their
election page where you can learn more
about candidates sort news coverage by
key voting issues and get a specific
election related blind spot feed to make
sure you're not missing out on important
stories go to ground.
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code yeah so uh longtime listeners of my
show will know that my thoughts are
that's just a question of when it's not
if yeah it has happened every single
time an Empire has arisen throughout all
of human history um R alio does a
tremendous breakdown in this so that's
not a question of if it's a question of
when uh so so tracking that um I think
that's super smart you know that we're
going to have to innovate our way out of
this um the question is I know and it I
think would be
um it would be strange to expect you to
know exactly who you're going to put in
place and how you're going to pull it
off but do you have a hypothesis about
what it is that creates the environment
in which innovation can flourish because
the first thing you've said today that
made me nervous uh is that with
government spending you're going to ask
how many jobs do I create which then I
just hear government gets bigger bigger
bigger bigger bigger uh which is
certainly not the song I'm sing no
that's not what I'm saying I'm not
saying I'm going to
do I'm going to increase government
spending but I'm going to say every
dollar that the government spends is
about you know has to be about
um
um uh creating jobs and creating wealth
and um creating private jobs or yeah
private jobs but creating opportunity an
ecosystem that you know that is going to
make return the middle class and
reindustrialize our country what's the
most effective historical system that we
can look to that did that that you think
has a shot in some similar form to well
I mean you know the most the the
historic system was to have a base
currency that you couldn't you know
print fiat currency but fiat currency
had to be developed in order to pay for
Wars and you know there there's good
reasons to to do you know to to uh
there's some good reasons that you want
a limited fiat currency but like you say
every Empire this is the end of it right
the overextension of the military
abroad you know there's a historian
called um Paul Kennedy who's an iconic
historian at Yale and he's written This
brilliant analysis of uh it's called the
rise and fall of the great Empire
it looks at all the great Empires over
the past 500 years the Spanish Empire
the British Empire you know all of
them and every one of them died because
of the overextension of the military