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Speaker 1: Up next, The Truth with Lisa both part of the

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Speaker 1: game critical race theory. We've been hearing a lot about

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Speaker 1: the term these days, but what exactly is it? What

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Speaker 1: does it mean? And why should you be worried that

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Speaker 1: this poison is infecting American institutions from our education system

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Speaker 1: to the workplace. Today, I get you all the answers.

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Speaker 1: This is The Truth with Lisa Booth. Yea welcome back

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Speaker 1: to the Truth with Lisa Booth. I've got a really

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Speaker 1: really interesting show for you guys this week. My guest

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Speaker 1: is vivek Rama Swamy. He's an incredibly successful entrepreneur. He's

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Speaker 1: founded multibillion dollar enterprises, led a biotech company CEO, became

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Speaker 1: a hedge fund partner in his twenties, trained as a

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Speaker 1: scientist at Harvard and a lawyer at Yale. Needless to say,

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Speaker 1: he's not a dumb guy. The Vega is also the

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Speaker 1: author of the forthcoming book Woke, Inc. Which takes us

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Speaker 1: inside corporate America's social justice scam. It comes out this August,

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Speaker 1: and after talking to him, I can't wait to read it.

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Speaker 1: I think it's gonna be really interesting. The Vega has

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Speaker 1: lived the American dream. His parents came here from India

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Speaker 1: as immigrants, and he has built something for himself. He

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Speaker 1: knows how unique and amazing America is, and that's why

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Speaker 1: he is so concerned about critical race theory infecting America's institutions. Also,

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Speaker 1: as an entrepreneur, he knows a thing or two about

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Speaker 1: what's happening in corporate America today. The Vegue and I

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Speaker 1: discussed critical race theory, this cancer, cancer that is infecting

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Speaker 1: our country. Right now, we're going to discuss the dangers

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Speaker 1: of wokeness, his career in business, and so much more.

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Speaker 1: And with that, I want to welcome the Vague Ramaswami

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Speaker 1: to the show The Vegue. Thanks for coming on The

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Speaker 1: Truth with Lisa Booth. Thanks for having me. So your

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Speaker 1: parents immigrated from India. How did that shape your childhood

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Speaker 1: growing up? Look? Actually, I was in second grade in

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Speaker 1: ninety nine three when I actually watched Martin Luther King's

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Speaker 1: I Have a Dream speech for the first time. And

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Speaker 1: in a certain sense, when I watched that speech, it

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Speaker 1: actually made me think about my parents. That that was

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Speaker 1: the one where he said he wanted his kids to

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Speaker 1: grow up in a country where they'd be judged not

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Speaker 1: on the color of their skin, but on the content

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Speaker 1: of their character, and as I thought about it in

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Speaker 1: the years since then, that was that was really the

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Speaker 1: dream that allowed my own parents to succeed in the

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Speaker 1: way that they had. Right my dad came halfway across

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Speaker 1: the world in the late nineties seventies with a thickening accent,

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Speaker 1: no dollars in his pocket, and built a career as

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Speaker 1: an engineer at GE in Cincinnati over the course of

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Speaker 1: forty years. My mom was a geriatric psychiatrist who created

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Speaker 1: patients with Alzheimer's disease for her entire career, despite being

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Speaker 1: a forg medical graduate. And to me, it was something

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Speaker 1: that I took inspiration from and that I definitely couldn't

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Speaker 1: do that today. What they did, pack my bags and

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Speaker 1: go halfway around the world, go to a different country

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Speaker 1: with a different culture, a different surrounding. And by the way,

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Speaker 1: in an era where we didn't have an internet, they

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Speaker 1: had to have a loose phone connection. I wouldn't be

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Speaker 1: able to do that. So in a certain sense, I

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Speaker 1: took a lot of inspiration from the courage that my

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Speaker 1: parents had in voting with their feet to come to

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Speaker 1: a place where they wanted to build a new life.

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Speaker 1: But it was also a reminder of what the place

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Speaker 1: they came to America was all about, was a place

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Speaker 1: where they could live that dream that I learned about

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Speaker 1: even when I was a young kid, that no matter

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Speaker 1: who you are or what the color of your skin is,

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Speaker 1: we now live in a country where you'd be judged

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Speaker 1: on the content of your character and the content of

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Speaker 1: your accomplishments rather than the color of your skin or

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Speaker 1: where you were born. And and to me, that's part

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Speaker 1: of why I was always been partial to the American

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Speaker 1: dream is that it wasn't just something I studied in school.

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Speaker 1: It was something that my family and I had the

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Speaker 1: privilege of living. But at what point do you think

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Speaker 1: this focus at what point do you think that came

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Speaker 1: into focus? I mean, at what point was there a

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Speaker 1: shift or or or when do you think this happened

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Speaker 1: in the country in terms of just this intense identity

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Speaker 1: politics focus. Yeah. Look, I think that the one of

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Speaker 1: the beautiful things about the American dream is something that

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Speaker 1: it's something that we aspire to, right, It's not a

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Speaker 1: destination that we reach. It is a vision that we

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Speaker 1: aspire to, which means we're always gonna fall forward. And

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Speaker 1: so I think for as long as we've overcome the

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Speaker 1: civil rights the civil rights the civil rights movement overcame

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Speaker 1: a lot of historical injustices. You know, we were never

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Speaker 1: fully all the way there. And so in the nineties

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Speaker 1: began the birth of critical race theory, the idea that

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Speaker 1: there were these invisible power structures that governed the social universe,

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Speaker 1: kind of like Karl Mark said it in the he

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Speaker 1: thought there were these economic power relationships. There was the

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Speaker 1: emergence of this new academic movement in the nineties, critical

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Speaker 1: race theory and related woke ism that said that actually, no,

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Speaker 1: it's not just economic disempowerment's racial disempowerment and bigotry and

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Speaker 1: misogyny and racism that govern our social forces. And this

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Speaker 1: is a fringe theory in the academy, and it added

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Speaker 1: something to the marketplace of ideas. It wasn't something that

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Speaker 1: I personally subscribed to, but there's always something about a

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Speaker 1: person who wants to challenge the system that I respect,

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Speaker 1: whether or not I agree with them. When this really changed,

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Speaker 1: actually was an untold story that begins with the two

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Speaker 1: eight financial crisis, when this went from being about challenging

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Speaker 1: the system, when wokism actually became the new system itself,

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Speaker 1: and it was a tricky It was a tricky trade

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Speaker 1: underlying how that happened. But the way it worked was

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Speaker 1: after two corporations were the bad guys. Wall Street was

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Speaker 1: the enemy. Corporate power was the target for the old Left,

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Speaker 1: and what they wanted to do was take money from

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Speaker 1: wealthy corporations and redistributed to poor people. Agree or disagree,

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Speaker 1: that's what the old left wanted to do. And something

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Speaker 1: new happened in the post two thousand eight period where

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Speaker 1: there was this new left, this new woke left that

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Speaker 1: actually said that now it wasn't really about economic injustice

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Speaker 1: or poverty, No, it was about racial injustice and misogyny

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Speaker 1: and bigotry. And that actually presented the opportunity of a

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Speaker 1: generation for the most powerful companies in the United States,

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Speaker 1: presented an opportunity of generation for Wall Street. Because ocupy

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Speaker 1: wall Street's a tough pill to swallow, but this woke

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Speaker 1: stuff was actually pretty easy. And so basically Wall Street

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Speaker 1: jumped on the woke bandwagon, agreed to lend it not

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Speaker 1: only it's money, but it's legitimacy to this new racial

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Speaker 1: identity based movement, and together you've got a bunch of

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Speaker 1: big banks that got together with a bunch of woke

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Speaker 1: millennials together their birth woke capitalism, and then they put

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Speaker 1: Occupy Wall Street up for adoption, and that actually proved

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Speaker 1: to be a really convenient trade that took this nascent

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Speaker 1: idea of wokenness from the halls of the academy and

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Speaker 1: supercharged it with the potency of capitalism. And then once

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Speaker 1: wokeness got got in bed with capitalism, that's actually when

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Speaker 1: it became unstoppable. And so Silicon Valle did the same thing,

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Speaker 1: a backroom bargain where they say they're gonna censor content

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Speaker 1: online that the woke movement doesn't want to hear, and

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Speaker 1: in return, the woke movement agrees to work with the

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Speaker 1: Democratic Party to leave their monopoly power intact. The rest

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Speaker 1: of corporate America started following the same pattern. That's really

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Speaker 1: when wokeness became unstoppable, as when it merged with capitalism.

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Speaker 1: And capitalism is a powerful tool, usually to organize the

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Speaker 1: society's products, services, and economic affairs, but now it's being

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Speaker 1: used to organize society's social affairs to under this guise

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Speaker 1: of wokeness. So long story there, but but if you

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Speaker 1: wanted the redux version. That's kind of how it goes. No, I,

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Speaker 1: I think that's incredibly interesting. And so you've sort of

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Speaker 1: existed though in a lot of these structures where you know,

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Speaker 1: wokeisum is so prevalent. Right, So you graduated underground at Harvard,

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Speaker 1: you went to Yale law school, you're an entrepreneur, you've

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Speaker 1: existed in the biotech industry. I mean, how much indoctrination

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Speaker 1: did you find going on when you went to school

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Speaker 1: at Harvard and Yale. Well, I actually think it's changed

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Speaker 1: a lot over the last decade. So to be clear,

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Speaker 1: Harvard and Yale were definitely left leaning places at the

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Speaker 1: point at the point in time where I was there.

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Speaker 1: But I'll tell you this, Lisas, I actually benefited from it, right.

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Speaker 1: I think I got a better education than most of

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Speaker 1: my peers because I didn't necessarily subscribe to liberal dogma.

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Speaker 1: And that means you get your views challenge, and I

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Speaker 1: mean sometimes you change your view, and sometimes it means

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Speaker 1: that you've come out with your same view, but with

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Speaker 1: a better understanding of why it is you believe what

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Speaker 1: you do, rather than just knowing what it is that

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Speaker 1: you believe. So I was actually grateful for it and

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Speaker 1: when I went to Harvard I graduate two seven, I

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Speaker 1: still found it to be a place that was about

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Speaker 1: the intellectual meritocracy, in the marketplace of ideas, where the

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Speaker 1: best ideas and the best arguments when on their own terms,

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Speaker 1: irrespective of the background or the color of the skin

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Speaker 1: of the person who's making that argument. It was it

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Speaker 1: was definitely tilted in one direction. But I actually do

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Speaker 1: that is tilted in my favor in that by being

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Speaker 1: in the intellectual minority, actually got a better education out

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Speaker 1: of it. I think things changed dramatically over the decade.

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Speaker 1: Over the last decade, I do not think that's the

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Speaker 1: intellectual environment at Harvard today. It is definitely not the

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Speaker 1: intellectual environment at Yale today. And now what you say

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Speaker 1: is merged with your identity that somebody can't evaluate your

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Speaker 1: ideas without also evaluating the other inherited attributes that you

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Speaker 1: were born with, your race, your gender, your sexual orientation.

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Speaker 1: And there was this bizarre move intellectual move over the

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Speaker 1: worse of the last few years, where race actually meant

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Speaker 1: something that went even beyond the color of your skin.

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Speaker 1: Ianna Pressley, remember the Squad, summed it up actually pretty

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Speaker 1: well last year when she said we don't want any

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Speaker 1: more black faces that don't want to be black voices.

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Speaker 1: We don't want any more brown faces that don't want

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Speaker 1: to be brown voices. The side note, I definitely don't

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Speaker 1: fit her description of what counts as a brown voice,

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Speaker 1: despite the fact that I have brown skin. But to

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Speaker 1: be being brown or being black was always about a

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Speaker 1: skin color, not about a voice. And so now that

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Speaker 1: created the opportunity to say that actually, there's such a

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Speaker 1: thing as a black voice and a brown voice. And

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Speaker 1: now it's just one step further to say that if

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Speaker 1: you then disagree with any of those claims, that actually

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Speaker 1: means you're racist, not in the conventional sense that we

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Speaker 1: think of racism is discriminating on a basis skin color,

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Speaker 1: but now racism as disagreeing with a dogma, even in

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Speaker 1: good faith, in the spirit of open debate. And that's

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Speaker 1: really what chilled open debate in this country and set

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Speaker 1: set in this new era, righted in this new era

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Speaker 1: of fear that has supplanted our original culture of free

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Speaker 1: speech and open debate. And the irony and all of

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Speaker 1: this is that in the name of diversity, we've then

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Speaker 1: sacrificed true diversity of thought, including at our leading universities.

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Speaker 1: I've seen it firsthand. In the name of democracy, democracy

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Speaker 1: is not just about casting some valid every November. In

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Speaker 1: the name of democracy, we've actually sacrificed our most important

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Speaker 1: democratic ideals of free speech and open debate. And in

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Speaker 1: the name of inclusion, including in our educational institutions, we've

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Speaker 1: created this new exclusionary culture or certain points of view

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Speaker 1: just aren't welcome. And so you know, for me, I'm

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Speaker 1: writing this book I told you about, I'm not doing

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Speaker 1: it as a journalist that's reporting on my findings. I

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Speaker 1: consider myself actually to be something more of a whistleblower.

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Speaker 1: Having been in elite I releague institutions, having been in

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Speaker 1: elite hedge funds, and then started a Company's a number

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Speaker 1: of companies that have en venture backed and successful in

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Speaker 1: the worlds of New York finance to Silicon Valley to biotech.

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Speaker 1: I've had firsthand experiences that made me compel to say

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Speaker 1: that somebody needs to speak up, not from the outside

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Speaker 1: looking in, but from the inside looking out to really

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Speaker 1: reveal the heart of what's going on, because we're gonna

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Speaker 1: need a better way forward. But in order to for

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Speaker 1: you better way forward, we're gonna first need to understand

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Speaker 1: the essence of the problem that has really taken a

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Speaker 1: chokehold of all of our major institutions in the private sector,

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Speaker 1: not just corporate America, but nonprofits, museums, philanthropies, universities, educational institutions,

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Speaker 1: and then of course the government itself well. And as

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Speaker 1: you just laid out, and as I laid out in

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Speaker 1: the intro of the show, and as our listeners, no,

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Speaker 1: I mean, look, you've accomplished. I was telling you earlier

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Speaker 1: and we were talking. I was telling you about some

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Speaker 1: of the things I was working on. I feel lazy

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Speaker 1: in comparison. You've accomplished so much at your age. But

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Speaker 1: you know, as you've mentioned, you're a hedge fund partner

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Speaker 1: in your twenties, founded multibillion dollar enterprises. Let you lead

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Speaker 1: a biotech company. You're on Forbes America's Riches Entrepreneurs Under

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Speaker 1: forty list. I've not made the list. I'm thirty six,

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Speaker 1: so maybe I have a couple of years. But you've

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Speaker 1: accomplished a lot, and lately, you know, you've been vocal

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Speaker 1: about this topic. You're writing a book, Woking, which is

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Speaker 1: out auguste Why what what compelled you? Why did you

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Speaker 1: feel because obviously there's a level of risk. There's always

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Speaker 1: a level of risk in speaking out for you know,

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Speaker 1: particularly uh for you and you know, with companies and

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Speaker 1: with your work. Why why did you speak out? Yeah, Look,

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Speaker 1: I felt some sense of obligation to do it. I

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Speaker 1: actually consider this my form of public service, at least

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Speaker 1: in the near term, because I told you about it

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Speaker 1: at the very beginning. It's near and near to my heart,

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Speaker 1: the American dream, because I've lived it right. I've gone

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Speaker 1: in a single generation from being the kid of immigrant

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Speaker 1: who came to this country with literally no money forty

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Speaker 1: years ago to becoming the founder of multibillion dollar companies,

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Speaker 1: including one that's going public this year for over seven

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Speaker 1: billion dollars in a single generation. That was the dream

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Speaker 1: that I was able to live. And you know, as

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Speaker 1: I let a company a CEO for seven years, I

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Speaker 1: developed medicines for a number of diseases, probably the one

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Speaker 1: I'm most proud of as a drug for the treatment

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Speaker 1: of prostate cancer. But at the end of the day,

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Speaker 1: there was a new cancer that even the best of

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Speaker 1: science wasn't going to address. It was a cultural cancer,

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Speaker 1: not a biological cancer, and it was a cancer that

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Speaker 1: threatened to kill that dream that I really cared about,

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Speaker 1: and that was, of course the cancer that I that

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Speaker 1: we all call woke culture. And I basically think the

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Speaker 1: essence of woke culture is that it's about waking us

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Speaker 1: up from the American dream. And that's what happened over

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Speaker 1: the course of the last decade. We woke up. And

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Speaker 1: the problem when you wake up from a dream is

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Speaker 1: it pretty soon you forget what it was doing about.

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Speaker 1: You might remember how it felt to be in it,

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Speaker 1: and let enough time pass, you forget how how it

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Speaker 1: felt to be in the dream too, And that's the

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Speaker 1: phase that I think we're in. I don't think it's

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Speaker 1: irreversible quite yet. I think that if the tens were

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Speaker 1: about celebrating our diversity and our differences, at nauseum, in

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Speaker 1: my opinion, ought to be about reviving our shared sense

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Speaker 1: about who we are as a people. But like I said,

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Speaker 1: you only get a little bit of time once you've

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Speaker 1: woken up from a dream to go back to remembering

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Speaker 1: what it was all about. And I think that's the

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Speaker 1: period that we're in. So I felt some sense of

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Speaker 1: urgency to be able to speak out actually to make

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Speaker 1: a pretty tough decision earlier this year, when I stepped

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Speaker 1: down as CEO of my company to do it. I

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Speaker 1: do think that when a lot of left leaning ceo

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Speaker 1: is like Mark Benioff or whoever write books about their

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Speaker 1: own politics, it tends to help their businesses. But the

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Speaker 1: reality of the world we live in is that that

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Speaker 1: standard isn't applied evenly. And it was really important for

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Speaker 1: me to practice what I preached by the way I

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Speaker 1: think business and politics should be kept apart. I definitely

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Speaker 1: uh endeavored to never use the business to foist my

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Speaker 1: political views on anyone. I was always only speaking up

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Speaker 1: as a citizen, But as I really entered the public

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Speaker 1: sphere with the book and a lot of other initiatives

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Speaker 1: I'm working on, I wanted to practice what I preached,

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Speaker 1: and you know, in order to really protect the company's

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Speaker 1: voice as separate from my own, I stepped down as

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Speaker 1: from my role as CEO, so I could really speak

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Speaker 1: not as a CEO but as a citizen. But the

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Speaker 1: flip side of that is I'm going to speak with

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Speaker 1: candor in an unvarnished way, and I really lay out

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Speaker 1: a lot in the book that's probably gonna take a

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Speaker 1: lot of people by surprise that is going to leave

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Speaker 1: me with fewer friends at elite ski conferences and fancy

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Speaker 1: ski towns that I might have otherwise had. But I

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Speaker 1: do think that that's the kind of sacrifice that people

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Speaker 1: in my position are gonna have to be willing to

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Speaker 1: make if we're going to turn this cultural tide. So

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Speaker 1: it was the least that I could do. Can you

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Speaker 1: give us a highlight from that? I mean, now you

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Speaker 1: piqued my interest? Yeah, well, um, well, look it's it's

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Speaker 1: in the final stages of being touched up in a

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Speaker 1: books available for pre order now. It comes out mid August.

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Speaker 1: But you know, look I talked a little bit about

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Speaker 1: some of my experiences in in you know, seeing this firsthand,

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Speaker 1: and I guess, having been the CEO of a company,

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Speaker 1: actually am and really actually pretty sympathetic to the younger

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Speaker 1: generation of workers who want to join a company who

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Speaker 1: does more than just print a buck by making products

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Speaker 1: that matter. In fact, that was part of our pitch

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Speaker 1: as a biotech company, is that you don't want to

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Speaker 1: be part of a generation that's just looking at turning

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Speaker 1: you know, a lot of cash into a bigger wad

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Speaker 1: of cash by going to All Street. And I, by

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Speaker 1: the way, I've done that or tonangement for a while,

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Speaker 1: Or you don't really want to be programming an app

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Speaker 1: that allows you to click one millisecond faster on some

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Speaker 1: guy with a mustache, on an app that disappears via

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Speaker 1: text message. Whatever it is. You want to be applying

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Speaker 1: your talents to something that matters. Come do it at

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Speaker 1: a place that allows you to make medicines or patients

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Speaker 1: who need them by fixing a broken industry. So that

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Speaker 1: was actually one of the pitches for recruiting employees early

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Speaker 1: in the early days of when I even started my

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Speaker 1: company back. So I think that it's a good thing

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Speaker 1: when capitalism works by making products that matter for people

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Speaker 1: who really need them. Where I think it goes awry

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Speaker 1: is one of these businesses espouse social values that have

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Speaker 1: nothing to do with their businesses as a way of

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Speaker 1: signaling their virtue, but in ways that actually serve as

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Speaker 1: a distraction from the essence of what those businesses ought

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Speaker 1: to be about, not just for themselves, but a distraction

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Speaker 1: for our democracy. And I guess one of the things

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Speaker 1: that I talked about in the book is some of

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Speaker 1: my experiences in dealing with the next generation of talent.

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Speaker 1: Right if from a millennial, you know, the gen Z

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Speaker 1: talent pool, looking to enter the workforce. One of the

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Speaker 1: things I've learned is they're actually really hungry for a cause,

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Speaker 1: hungry for a sense of purpose, if I may say it,

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Speaker 1: hungry for identity. And I think we live in a

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Speaker 1: moment where we have to recognize that, you know, religion

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Speaker 1: has nearly disappeared, Patriotism is on the decline, and human beings,

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Speaker 1: especially young human beings, are hungry for a cause. And

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Speaker 1: that black hole, that vacuum for purpose and identity and meaning,

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Speaker 1: that's actually the void that wokeness is filling. It's become

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Speaker 1: the equivalent of the modern opioid for the masses. And

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Speaker 1: I think that that has our work cut out for

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Speaker 1: us in fighting this, not to not to just go superficially,

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Speaker 1: as many on the right seemed prone to do and

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Speaker 1: countering wokenness, but rather to do the harder work of

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Speaker 1: rebuilding a shared vision of not only what it means

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Speaker 1: to be a conservative, but what it means to be

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Speaker 1: an American, which we lack a good answer to that

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Speaker 1: question today. I think rebuilding that answer and revising a

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Speaker 1: new brand of Americanism as that same sense of shared

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Speaker 1: purpose could actually be the cultural cure that we need.

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Speaker 1: And one of the things I talked about in the

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Speaker 1: book and some of my first stand experience is the

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Speaker 1: first becoming really frustrated and sort of wringing my hands

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Speaker 1: in the air with what exactly happened over the last

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Speaker 1: ten years that allowed our private sector to become as

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Speaker 1: defeat as it has with respect to the pursuit of

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Speaker 1: these flimsy social causes and values, to really reflecting more

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Speaker 1: deeply on the fact that actually a lot of these people,

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Speaker 1: and I probably grew more sympathetic to it because many

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Speaker 1: of them have worked for me over time, are really

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Speaker 1: well motivated, talented if they're given the right mission, even

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Speaker 1: hard working people, but who need to have their hunger

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Speaker 1: for purpose and hunger for change, and hunger for identity

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Speaker 1: and hunger for a cause satisfied with the cause. That's

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Speaker 1: far more meaningful than the skin deep attributes that corporations

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Speaker 1: and elite institutions are selling them today. I think the

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Speaker 1: equivalent of Virginia Slims advertising the insecure teenagers back in

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Speaker 1: the that's effectively what war corporations are doing today to

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Speaker 1: the next generation of Americans. But what impact does it

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Speaker 1: have on companies in the sense, you know, one of

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Speaker 1: the biggest things I hear from a lot of people

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Speaker 1: in corporate America is there's just this intense, intense desire.

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Speaker 1: It's all about diversity. Diversity, you know, skin color, meeting quotas, etcetera.

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Speaker 1: What impact does it have on a company when that's

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Speaker 1: the focus versus just a meritocracy who's best for the

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Speaker 1: job regardless of their skin color? And and also that's

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Speaker 1: sort of belittling to think that someone can't the job

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Speaker 1: based off of you know, meritocracy and just based off

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Speaker 1: of you know, skill sets, and it has to be

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Speaker 1: focused purely on race. I agree with you. I mean,

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Speaker 1: if you just look at United Airlines in the last month,

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Speaker 1: for example, said that the pilots in the cockpit had

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Speaker 1: to be women or persons of color by the way,

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Speaker 1: an expression that I detest, taking a hundred fifty cultures

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Speaker 1: and lumping them into one new culture, which we call

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Speaker 1: of color. But anyway, so they said women are people

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Speaker 1: of color in the cockpit, had even if that meant

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Speaker 1: throwing out the tests that they used to use to

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Speaker 1: test for the competence of their pilots, and that reveals

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Speaker 1: the essence of what's going on is today, in the

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Speaker 1: name of diversity, we have actually sacrificed excellence itself, the

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Speaker 1: pursuit of excellence. And you know, make no mistake, I

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Speaker 1: think diversity is a good thing. Diversity of thought is

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Speaker 1: what it's supposed to be about. And I think diversity

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Speaker 1: of thought is a means to the end of achieving excellence.

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Speaker 1: But now, in the name of diversity, we have sacrificed

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Speaker 1: both diversity of thought as well as our pursuit of excellence.

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Speaker 1: And so I think that's how it impacts our companies.

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Speaker 1: I think that's how it impacts are our educational institutions.

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Speaker 1: But there's there's a separate impact to which is in

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Speaker 1: the other direction, which I think is maybe even more important.

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Speaker 1: Is not just the way in which these new political

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Speaker 1: values infect private enterprises to operate less efficiently than they

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Speaker 1: otherwise would, which is a real problem, but Milton Friedman

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Speaker 1: could have told you about that fifty years ago when

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Speaker 1: he wrote his first critique of stakehold capitalism. In No,

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Speaker 1: the problem today is actually perhaps even greater in the

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Speaker 1: other direction, the way in which woke businesses are actually

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Speaker 1: infecting American democracy. And that's actually what makes me even

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Speaker 1: more worried, not as a CEO or a leader of

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Speaker 1: former CEO, or a leader of a business, but as

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Speaker 1: an American citizen worried about corporate overreach where we're actually

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Speaker 1: creating a modern version of old world Europe, where a

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Speaker 1: small group of institutional elites get in the back room

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Speaker 1: deal determining what the common ideals for society ought to be,

432
00:20:54,600 --> 00:20:56,880
Speaker 1: when in fact, America was supposed to be a rejection

433
00:20:57,000 --> 00:21:00,679
Speaker 1: of corporatism, a rejection of corporate ocracy, to create a

434
00:21:00,680 --> 00:21:03,800
Speaker 1: world in which, on our most important moral questions we

435
00:21:03,840 --> 00:21:06,800
Speaker 1: decided on the basis of a one vote, one person,

436
00:21:06,920 --> 00:21:10,080
Speaker 1: one vote system rather than a one dollar, one vote system.

437
00:21:10,080 --> 00:21:12,359
Speaker 1: And I think that's actually the more most dangerous trend

438
00:21:12,440 --> 00:21:15,560
Speaker 1: of all, where corporations become the new moral arbiters. We

439
00:21:15,600 --> 00:21:19,439
Speaker 1: then effectively live in a one dollar, one vote system

440
00:21:19,480 --> 00:21:22,679
Speaker 1: where corporations use their market power to actually influence the

441
00:21:22,720 --> 00:21:25,679
Speaker 1: marketplace of ideas. And that's something that really concerns me

442
00:21:25,720 --> 00:21:27,719
Speaker 1: this year when you see you know, Major League Baseball

443
00:21:27,800 --> 00:21:31,360
Speaker 1: leaving Atlanta in protests over a new voting law in Georgia.

444
00:21:31,720 --> 00:21:34,080
Speaker 1: These used to be the a political institutions that brought

445
00:21:34,160 --> 00:21:37,399
Speaker 1: us together, irrespective of whether we were democratic republican, and

446
00:21:37,400 --> 00:21:39,520
Speaker 1: irrespective of whether we were black or white, we could

447
00:21:39,520 --> 00:21:42,199
Speaker 1: still get together in an a political space like a

448
00:21:42,200 --> 00:21:46,320
Speaker 1: baseball stadium and come together. And the foundation for democracy

449
00:21:46,600 --> 00:21:50,000
Speaker 1: depends on actually certain common spaces where we could all

450
00:21:50,000 --> 00:21:52,399
Speaker 1: come together that are a political And I'm worried that

451
00:21:52,400 --> 00:21:55,320
Speaker 1: we're actually, in the name of protecting democracy in the

452
00:21:55,359 --> 00:21:57,840
Speaker 1: case of Georgia voting law, we're actually eroting the true

453
00:21:57,880 --> 00:22:00,800
Speaker 1: foundation for democracy itself in terms of the real free

454
00:22:00,840 --> 00:22:04,080
Speaker 1: speech and open debate, where every citizen's always actually counts equally,

455
00:22:04,359 --> 00:22:08,320
Speaker 1: rather than some corporation having a special say. How do

456
00:22:08,359 --> 00:22:11,280
Speaker 1: you reign that in? Though? Yeah, So I talked about

457
00:22:11,280 --> 00:22:13,159
Speaker 1: some legal solutions in the book that I think, in

458
00:22:13,200 --> 00:22:17,000
Speaker 1: the short term are pretty important. Um, how technical do you?

459
00:22:17,040 --> 00:22:18,840
Speaker 1: How technical are you open to getting? Least because I

460
00:22:18,880 --> 00:22:20,960
Speaker 1: could I could lay a couple No, I mean, I'm

461
00:22:21,040 --> 00:22:24,600
Speaker 1: I'm a nerd. So I like it. Okay, so so,

462
00:22:24,600 --> 00:22:26,879
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna go on, and you're gonna have to

463
00:22:26,960 --> 00:22:28,680
Speaker 1: stop me. But but let me, let me, let me

464
00:22:28,720 --> 00:22:30,960
Speaker 1: give you a Let me give you a couple simple

465
00:22:31,119 --> 00:22:34,639
Speaker 1: legal solutions, all right. The simplest one is that I

466
00:22:34,680 --> 00:22:38,399
Speaker 1: think we need to add political belief as a protected

467
00:22:38,560 --> 00:22:43,600
Speaker 1: class right up next to race, sex, sexual orientation post

468
00:22:43,600 --> 00:22:45,880
Speaker 1: Bostock last year, the Supreme Court ruling in that case

469
00:22:45,880 --> 00:22:48,320
Speaker 1: in religion in the Title seven of the Civil Rights Act,

470
00:22:49,400 --> 00:22:52,120
Speaker 1: there's no good reason why a corporation should be able

471
00:22:52,160 --> 00:22:55,240
Speaker 1: to fire someone for their political belief when they can't

472
00:22:55,240 --> 00:22:57,119
Speaker 1: fire them for their religious belief, for their race, or

473
00:22:57,119 --> 00:22:59,480
Speaker 1: their sex. And my own view is that the last

474
00:22:59,480 --> 00:23:01,399
Speaker 1: thing we would want to do in general is to

475
00:23:01,480 --> 00:23:04,719
Speaker 1: apply another constraint to what private businesses can can't do.

476
00:23:05,040 --> 00:23:06,840
Speaker 1: That's the libertarian side of my brain says, that's what

477
00:23:06,840 --> 00:23:09,159
Speaker 1: I would have told you ten years ago. But my

478
00:23:09,280 --> 00:23:11,720
Speaker 1: general view today is in the legal code, you can't

479
00:23:11,760 --> 00:23:13,879
Speaker 1: have it both ways. Where we say we don't trust

480
00:23:13,880 --> 00:23:17,000
Speaker 1: the market to police certain forms of discrimination, but we

481
00:23:17,160 --> 00:23:20,760
Speaker 1: unquestioningly trust the market to police other forms of discrimination.

482
00:23:20,840 --> 00:23:23,399
Speaker 1: And the punchline is, if you can't fire somebody from

483
00:23:23,440 --> 00:23:26,280
Speaker 1: their job just because they're black or Muslim or gay,

484
00:23:26,640 --> 00:23:29,280
Speaker 1: or you can't d platform somebody because they're brown or Muslim,

485
00:23:29,280 --> 00:23:31,800
Speaker 1: are gay or whatever, then you shouldn't be able to

486
00:23:31,840 --> 00:23:34,119
Speaker 1: fire them or de platform them just because they're an

487
00:23:34,119 --> 00:23:37,359
Speaker 1: outspoken conservative either, and that's not a theoretical issue anymore.

488
00:23:37,600 --> 00:23:39,119
Speaker 1: If it can happen to the forty president of the

489
00:23:39,160 --> 00:23:41,920
Speaker 1: United States, it can happen to anybody. So so those

490
00:23:41,920 --> 00:23:43,600
Speaker 1: are the kinds of some of the kinds of solutions

491
00:23:43,600 --> 00:23:46,320
Speaker 1: I talked about in the book, generally of the of

492
00:23:46,400 --> 00:23:50,360
Speaker 1: the mold that you can't have it both ways. Political

493
00:23:50,400 --> 00:23:53,040
Speaker 1: belief as a as a protected class alongside the other

494
00:23:53,080 --> 00:23:56,560
Speaker 1: protected classes Section to thirty Reform by the way, which

495
00:23:56,600 --> 00:23:59,840
Speaker 1: says that actually normal private companies ought to be a

496
00:24:00,240 --> 00:24:03,320
Speaker 1: to determine what shows up on their websites and what doesn't.

497
00:24:03,359 --> 00:24:06,760
Speaker 1: I agree with that, But the private companies today that

498
00:24:06,800 --> 00:24:09,960
Speaker 1: are doing it in Silicon Valley are effectively acting as

499
00:24:10,040 --> 00:24:12,040
Speaker 1: instruments of the state. Because if you notice, this has

500
00:24:12,040 --> 00:24:13,879
Speaker 1: actually gone up a lot over the course of the

501
00:24:13,960 --> 00:24:16,920
Speaker 1: last year after Democrats took control of not only the House,

502
00:24:17,119 --> 00:24:19,080
Speaker 1: but then the Senate and then the White House, and

503
00:24:19,119 --> 00:24:21,360
Speaker 1: they call these companies up to testify every few months,

504
00:24:21,400 --> 00:24:23,800
Speaker 1: and they say, hey, if you don't take down hate speech,

505
00:24:23,960 --> 00:24:26,360
Speaker 1: and you don't take down misinformation, and you don't take

506
00:24:26,400 --> 00:24:28,399
Speaker 1: down content that we, by the way, disagree with, as

507
00:24:28,400 --> 00:24:31,000
Speaker 1: Democrats in Washington, d C. Then we're gonna come after you.

508
00:24:31,000 --> 00:24:32,840
Speaker 1: We're gonna regulate you, we're gonna break you up, we're

509
00:24:32,840 --> 00:24:35,000
Speaker 1: gonna make it swift, we're gonna make it punitive. And

510
00:24:35,040 --> 00:24:37,000
Speaker 1: so these guys get back on their private jets, fly

511
00:24:37,040 --> 00:24:39,280
Speaker 1: back to the other coast and do exactly what their

512
00:24:39,280 --> 00:24:41,919
Speaker 1: government overlords told them to do. But the problem with

513
00:24:41,960 --> 00:24:45,200
Speaker 1: that is it's just a reverse form of chrony capitalism,

514
00:24:45,200 --> 00:24:48,840
Speaker 1: where government agents today are doing indirectly through the back door,

515
00:24:49,040 --> 00:24:51,840
Speaker 1: using private companies to accomplish what they directly can't do

516
00:24:52,160 --> 00:24:54,359
Speaker 1: under the Constitution, namely under the First Amendment. And so

517
00:24:54,400 --> 00:24:56,879
Speaker 1: my view is, if you find yourself in a situation

518
00:24:56,960 --> 00:25:00,439
Speaker 1: today when private companies are being used as pawns, especially

519
00:25:00,440 --> 00:25:03,680
Speaker 1: by this new administration, to do indirectly what government could

520
00:25:03,680 --> 00:25:06,960
Speaker 1: not directly do through the front door, then those private companies,

521
00:25:07,000 --> 00:25:09,680
Speaker 1: when they're engaging in those narrow sets of activities, should

522
00:25:09,720 --> 00:25:12,520
Speaker 1: be bound by the same constraints as the federal government itself.

523
00:25:12,560 --> 00:25:15,240
Speaker 1: And guess what, in the case of big Tech and

524
00:25:15,359 --> 00:25:17,680
Speaker 1: and all internet companies, by the way, there's Section to

525
00:25:17,840 --> 00:25:21,399
Speaker 1: thirty immunity to give them live freedom from state liability

526
00:25:21,520 --> 00:25:23,320
Speaker 1: when they go out and do exactly that. So my

527
00:25:23,359 --> 00:25:25,800
Speaker 1: own view is that again, you can't have it both ways.

528
00:25:26,200 --> 00:25:28,639
Speaker 1: Either you're a private company that behaves as a private

529
00:25:28,640 --> 00:25:32,720
Speaker 1: company does, or if you're operating a behest of liberals

530
00:25:32,720 --> 00:25:35,679
Speaker 1: in control as the party in power, and by the way,

531
00:25:35,720 --> 00:25:37,840
Speaker 1: you're immunized by section to immunity to do it. Then

532
00:25:37,840 --> 00:25:40,159
Speaker 1: you can opt into getting that federal immunity, but if

533
00:25:40,200 --> 00:25:42,359
Speaker 1: you do, you're bound by the same constraints as the

534
00:25:42,359 --> 00:25:45,159
Speaker 1: federal government itself, namely the U. S Constitution and the

535
00:25:45,160 --> 00:25:48,520
Speaker 1: First Amendment. So those are some of the bigger picture ideas.

536
00:25:49,040 --> 00:25:51,760
Speaker 1: I can also get into some granular ideas relating to

537
00:25:51,760 --> 00:25:55,280
Speaker 1: the business Judgment rule relating to rollbacks unlimited less shareholder

538
00:25:55,280 --> 00:25:58,280
Speaker 1: liability for a lot of these woke capitalists or woke

539
00:25:58,320 --> 00:26:01,440
Speaker 1: investors that are using corporations as pawns to advance their

540
00:26:01,440 --> 00:26:03,800
Speaker 1: social agendas, that in my opinion, is actually an abuse

541
00:26:04,160 --> 00:26:07,040
Speaker 1: of the corporate form and abuse of limited liability that

542
00:26:07,080 --> 00:26:09,200
Speaker 1: we ought to police. On the flip side, I think

543
00:26:09,200 --> 00:26:11,399
Speaker 1: when their CEOs who are gone rogue and are are

544
00:26:11,480 --> 00:26:15,720
Speaker 1: ultimately using shareholder resources to advance social goals, there's right

545
00:26:15,760 --> 00:26:18,240
Speaker 1: now are legal doctrine that protects them called the Business

546
00:26:18,280 --> 00:26:20,600
Speaker 1: Judgment rule which says that executives can't be sued for

547
00:26:20,680 --> 00:26:23,720
Speaker 1: making good business judgments. That should only apply in so

548
00:26:23,840 --> 00:26:26,680
Speaker 1: far as they're actually making business judgments, not social judgments.

549
00:26:26,680 --> 00:26:29,879
Speaker 1: And shareholders should be able to ultimately bring suit against

550
00:26:29,880 --> 00:26:32,199
Speaker 1: executives who have gone rogue in using their seats of

551
00:26:32,200 --> 00:26:33,919
Speaker 1: power and a corporation to be able to push their

552
00:26:33,960 --> 00:26:36,439
Speaker 1: own personal values. So those are the kind of solutions

553
00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:38,639
Speaker 1: I talk about in the book that get uh severally

554
00:26:38,640 --> 00:26:41,080
Speaker 1: more and more technical, but I go from you know,

555
00:26:41,200 --> 00:26:42,800
Speaker 1: all the ways in the big picture ideas down to

556
00:26:42,840 --> 00:26:46,040
Speaker 1: some regular ideas that can I think, stop woke capitalism

557
00:26:46,119 --> 00:26:48,640
Speaker 1: as we know it in its tracks. But at least

558
00:26:48,640 --> 00:26:49,720
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, I will be the

559
00:26:49,720 --> 00:26:52,360
Speaker 1: first person to say that still these legal solutions are

560
00:26:52,400 --> 00:26:55,679
Speaker 1: really just a form of symptomatic therapy. As I said earlier,

561
00:26:55,760 --> 00:26:58,880
Speaker 1: what we really need is a cultural cure, a new

562
00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:01,439
Speaker 1: vision of what it actually the means to be an

563
00:27:01,480 --> 00:27:04,200
Speaker 1: American irrespective of the color of your skin, or your race,

564
00:27:04,280 --> 00:27:06,960
Speaker 1: or your gender, your sexual orientation, in a way that

565
00:27:07,600 --> 00:27:09,760
Speaker 1: you know, in a way that really dilutes woke ism

566
00:27:09,800 --> 00:27:12,200
Speaker 1: to irrelevance. And that's actually gonna be even harder work

567
00:27:12,440 --> 00:27:14,720
Speaker 1: than implementing some of these legal solutions. But in the

568
00:27:14,720 --> 00:27:15,960
Speaker 1: short term, I do think we're in a bit of

569
00:27:16,000 --> 00:27:18,399
Speaker 1: an emergency here. We do need some legal solutions to

570
00:27:18,440 --> 00:27:21,040
Speaker 1: at least serve as that symptomatic therapy the vehic. Let's

571
00:27:21,040 --> 00:27:22,879
Speaker 1: hold it right there. We got to take a quick break.

572
00:27:25,920 --> 00:27:29,719
Speaker 1: Let's say I get fired for being conservative? What can

573
00:27:29,760 --> 00:27:32,920
Speaker 1: I do now about it? From a legal perspective? So so, actually,

574
00:27:33,320 --> 00:27:35,639
Speaker 1: you bring up a really good point. My ideal fix

575
00:27:35,720 --> 00:27:38,960
Speaker 1: in most of these cases would be a statutory fix

576
00:27:39,320 --> 00:27:43,880
Speaker 1: amending Title seven a Civil Rights Act, amending section two thirds.

577
00:27:44,080 --> 00:27:46,520
Speaker 1: That would also take Yeah, I guess what I'm trying

578
00:27:46,520 --> 00:27:49,040
Speaker 1: to get at is what is available now under the

579
00:27:49,119 --> 00:27:51,720
Speaker 1: law for recourse. Actually, you bring up a really good point.

580
00:27:52,000 --> 00:27:55,440
Speaker 1: I think people can bring legal action now in federal court.

581
00:27:55,520 --> 00:27:57,399
Speaker 1: Let's take the big text censorship example first, and then

582
00:27:57,440 --> 00:28:00,320
Speaker 1: I'll go to the woke employee firings, uh, the world

583
00:28:00,320 --> 00:28:03,920
Speaker 1: corporations firing right wing employees in a second. So let's

584
00:28:03,960 --> 00:28:07,600
Speaker 1: talk about the big text censorship. Actually, there is good

585
00:28:07,680 --> 00:28:11,720
Speaker 1: Supreme Court case law today which actually says the obvious

586
00:28:11,800 --> 00:28:14,160
Speaker 1: what you would expect it to say, that the government

587
00:28:14,200 --> 00:28:18,200
Speaker 1: cannot deputize private actors to do indirectly what the government

588
00:28:18,240 --> 00:28:21,240
Speaker 1: is prohibited from doing under the Constitution. There's a great case,

589
00:28:21,520 --> 00:28:24,359
Speaker 1: it's called Bantam Books from from the nineties sixties, I believe,

590
00:28:24,760 --> 00:28:27,000
Speaker 1: where there was a bookstore owner that wanted to sell

591
00:28:27,560 --> 00:28:30,080
Speaker 1: a lot of books and there was a local prosecutor

592
00:28:30,240 --> 00:28:31,800
Speaker 1: that didn't want him. They didn't like one of the

593
00:28:31,840 --> 00:28:34,199
Speaker 1: books that he was selling, and so he came to

594
00:28:34,200 --> 00:28:36,080
Speaker 1: the bookstore owner and he said, you know what, if

595
00:28:36,080 --> 00:28:38,640
Speaker 1: you don't stop selling these books, I'm gonna come after

596
00:28:38,680 --> 00:28:41,320
Speaker 1: you and I'm gonna prosecute you so for some other

597
00:28:41,400 --> 00:28:44,680
Speaker 1: unrelated crime. So the books are owner, of course, came

598
00:28:44,760 --> 00:28:46,480
Speaker 1: to the pressure and stopped selling the book. Well, somebody

599
00:28:46,480 --> 00:28:47,880
Speaker 1: else wanted to buy the book, and they brought the

600
00:28:47,920 --> 00:28:50,320
Speaker 1: case and they said, hey, I know, you're a bookstore

601
00:28:50,320 --> 00:28:53,040
Speaker 1: owner and normally you can choose what book you sell

602
00:28:53,040 --> 00:28:55,800
Speaker 1: and what book you don't. But this wasn't a bookstore

603
00:28:55,840 --> 00:28:59,400
Speaker 1: owner making that decision as a proprietor. It was actually

604
00:28:59,520 --> 00:29:02,280
Speaker 1: state act in the guard of private enterprise. And you

605
00:29:02,280 --> 00:29:04,480
Speaker 1: know what, they won that case which said that actually,

606
00:29:04,520 --> 00:29:08,440
Speaker 1: if the bookstorer was just responding to a threat from

607
00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:11,760
Speaker 1: a prosecutor, who's really a public figure. Then actually the

608
00:29:11,760 --> 00:29:13,640
Speaker 1: thing that we have is state action that ought to

609
00:29:13,680 --> 00:29:16,560
Speaker 1: be governed by the First Amendment, and so that's actually

610
00:29:16,600 --> 00:29:19,360
Speaker 1: just one example among many, But there's good Supreme Court

611
00:29:19,440 --> 00:29:21,320
Speaker 1: doctrine on this. I actually made an argument to this

612
00:29:21,360 --> 00:29:23,960
Speaker 1: effect in the Wall Street Journal in January of this year,

613
00:29:24,000 --> 00:29:26,440
Speaker 1: and I'm proud to say that that argument was referenced

614
00:29:26,440 --> 00:29:28,920
Speaker 1: by Clarence Thomas in a recent opinion that he wrote.

615
00:29:28,960 --> 00:29:32,680
Speaker 1: I think he's actually thrown the gauntlet inviting the right

616
00:29:32,720 --> 00:29:35,320
Speaker 1: plaintiff to bring that case personally. I think one of

617
00:29:35,360 --> 00:29:38,880
Speaker 1: those planets could be President Donald Trump himself bringing potentially

618
00:29:38,880 --> 00:29:41,920
Speaker 1: the iconic case of our time, saying that actually what

619
00:29:41,960 --> 00:29:45,880
Speaker 1: Facebook and Twitter did in the platforming him was actually

620
00:29:45,920 --> 00:29:49,160
Speaker 1: a version of political censorship that might be allowed if

621
00:29:49,200 --> 00:29:51,720
Speaker 1: these were operating as normal private companies. But if they're

622
00:29:51,760 --> 00:29:54,160
Speaker 1: doing it as instruments of the state of the party

623
00:29:54,160 --> 00:29:57,280
Speaker 1: in power, responsive to their threats, and by the way,

624
00:29:57,320 --> 00:29:59,600
Speaker 1: immunized by the federal government in the former Section to

625
00:29:59,760 --> 00:30:02,560
Speaker 1: thirty to do it, then that's actually just a federal

626
00:30:02,640 --> 00:30:06,200
Speaker 1: carrot and stick that makes this state like action in

627
00:30:06,240 --> 00:30:08,880
Speaker 1: the mantle of private enterprise, which still means that the

628
00:30:08,920 --> 00:30:11,280
Speaker 1: First Amendment applies, and so I personally think at President

629
00:30:11,280 --> 00:30:13,640
Speaker 1: Trump could bring that case and take it all the

630
00:30:13,640 --> 00:30:16,120
Speaker 1: way to the real Supreme Court, not the fake sham

631
00:30:16,200 --> 00:30:18,720
Speaker 1: Facebook corporate Supreme Court thing that we heard about last week,

632
00:30:18,960 --> 00:30:21,880
Speaker 1: but the real US Supreme Court and have a pretty

633
00:30:21,880 --> 00:30:23,440
Speaker 1: good legal grounds to be able to win. And I

634
00:30:23,440 --> 00:30:25,960
Speaker 1: think Clarence Thomas has already you know, played his cards

635
00:30:25,960 --> 00:30:27,600
Speaker 1: a little bit about where he's coming out on that

636
00:30:27,600 --> 00:30:29,640
Speaker 1: set of issues. I'd be interesting seeing where the rest

637
00:30:29,640 --> 00:30:31,080
Speaker 1: of the justices come out as well. But I think

638
00:30:31,080 --> 00:30:33,800
Speaker 1: it could be the iconic defining case of our time

639
00:30:34,080 --> 00:30:37,920
Speaker 1: that's on big tech answorship. Think he hasn't well look,

640
00:30:37,960 --> 00:30:39,479
Speaker 1: I mean I don't. I don't know him, uh, and

641
00:30:39,560 --> 00:30:41,320
Speaker 1: I can't really speak to that, but I think that

642
00:30:41,400 --> 00:30:42,720
Speaker 1: if I were in his shoes, I would be bringing

643
00:30:42,760 --> 00:30:44,920
Speaker 1: that case absolutely, and I wouldn't be doing it for myself.

644
00:30:45,080 --> 00:30:47,480
Speaker 1: He could presumably start a media network of his own,

645
00:30:47,480 --> 00:30:48,920
Speaker 1: he has access to be able to get his opinions

646
00:30:48,920 --> 00:30:50,800
Speaker 1: out to the American people if he wants to. I

647
00:30:50,840 --> 00:30:53,240
Speaker 1: would do it on behalf of the people that don't

648
00:30:53,360 --> 00:30:57,080
Speaker 1: enjoy that position of authority that he might enjoy that

649
00:30:57,120 --> 00:31:00,239
Speaker 1: position of accessing the American people through other means. This

650
00:31:00,280 --> 00:31:02,040
Speaker 1: is happening every day where people who are being d

651
00:31:02,120 --> 00:31:04,760
Speaker 1: platformed aren't the people who actually have alternative networks that

652
00:31:04,800 --> 00:31:07,160
Speaker 1: they could go on. There are people whose voice has

653
00:31:07,200 --> 00:31:10,240
Speaker 1: literally been suppressed because they are forced to choose between

654
00:31:10,280 --> 00:31:13,000
Speaker 1: the First Amendment and the American Dream, between speaking up

655
00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:15,240
Speaker 1: and saying what they actually believe and keeping their job

656
00:31:15,240 --> 00:31:17,000
Speaker 1: and putting food on the dinner table. And to me,

657
00:31:17,080 --> 00:31:18,880
Speaker 1: America is not a place that makes you to choose

658
00:31:18,880 --> 00:31:21,080
Speaker 1: between the First Amendment and American Dream. You get to

659
00:31:21,120 --> 00:31:24,240
Speaker 1: have both. And so if I were President Trump, I

660
00:31:24,240 --> 00:31:25,920
Speaker 1: think that one of the most impactful things that he

661
00:31:25,920 --> 00:31:27,960
Speaker 1: could do is to bring that case in. If I

662
00:31:28,000 --> 00:31:30,040
Speaker 1: were him, I would say, you know what, once I

663
00:31:30,080 --> 00:31:32,239
Speaker 1: get my account restored, which should be the damages here,

664
00:31:32,240 --> 00:31:33,880
Speaker 1: I don't want to make any money off this. I'm

665
00:31:33,880 --> 00:31:36,520
Speaker 1: actually gonna leave the network voluntarily. But I'm doing this

666
00:31:36,600 --> 00:31:40,520
Speaker 1: on behalf of people who don't have the privilege and

667
00:31:40,560 --> 00:31:42,520
Speaker 1: position that I do to be able to reach people

668
00:31:42,560 --> 00:31:44,880
Speaker 1: in a different way because this is actually a defining

669
00:31:44,920 --> 00:31:47,239
Speaker 1: issue of free speech in our time. So whether it's

670
00:31:47,280 --> 00:31:49,160
Speaker 1: him or whether it's somebody else, has beend platform for

671
00:31:49,160 --> 00:31:52,840
Speaker 1: the wrong reason. I think that this theory of combining

672
00:31:52,960 --> 00:31:56,000
Speaker 1: state action with the actions of private companies is a

673
00:31:56,000 --> 00:31:58,239
Speaker 1: winning legal theory in my opinion that could go all

674
00:31:58,280 --> 00:31:59,680
Speaker 1: the way to the Supreme Court. So that's on big

675
00:31:59,680 --> 00:32:03,920
Speaker 1: text sworship. I can give you a separate one, Lisa,

676
00:32:04,040 --> 00:32:06,920
Speaker 1: where I think employees who are fired for their political

677
00:32:06,960 --> 00:32:09,600
Speaker 1: beliefs also have a legal theory that they could bring

678
00:32:09,920 --> 00:32:14,200
Speaker 1: under current existing legal doctorates too, which is again using

679
00:32:14,200 --> 00:32:18,720
Speaker 1: Supreme Court jurisprudence about religion. So, according to Title seven

680
00:32:18,720 --> 00:32:21,160
Speaker 1: and the Civil Rights Act, you can't discriminate on the

681
00:32:21,160 --> 00:32:24,200
Speaker 1: basis of religious beliefs. And usually people think about that

682
00:32:24,200 --> 00:32:27,800
Speaker 1: as meaning, correctly, you can't discriminate against an employee for

683
00:32:27,840 --> 00:32:30,000
Speaker 1: their religion, you can't fire an employee for belonging to

684
00:32:30,040 --> 00:32:33,800
Speaker 1: a certain religion. But often forgotten is that it equally

685
00:32:33,800 --> 00:32:37,800
Speaker 1: means that an employer can't enforce their religion and force

686
00:32:37,840 --> 00:32:40,640
Speaker 1: it down the throats of their employees. They can't force

687
00:32:40,680 --> 00:32:42,400
Speaker 1: them to bow down to a cross, they can't force

688
00:32:42,440 --> 00:32:44,800
Speaker 1: them to pray to the pray on behalf of the

689
00:32:44,880 --> 00:32:48,920
Speaker 1: Koran or whatever. And guess what. That then raises the

690
00:32:49,000 --> 00:32:53,840
Speaker 1: question of whether wokeness today meets the legal standard for

691
00:32:54,000 --> 00:32:56,040
Speaker 1: a religion, and I think if you look at the

692
00:32:56,080 --> 00:32:59,080
Speaker 1: core tenets of wokeness today in the United States, it

693
00:32:59,120 --> 00:33:02,680
Speaker 1: meets the Supreme Courts test in space. Supreme Courts actually

694
00:33:02,680 --> 00:33:05,240
Speaker 1: even said that's secular humanism counts as a religion. It

695
00:33:05,360 --> 00:33:07,440
Speaker 1: said that well in in a funny case a number

696
00:33:07,440 --> 00:33:10,600
Speaker 1: of years ago, a religion called Creativity, in my opinion,

697
00:33:10,680 --> 00:33:13,720
Speaker 1: a rather goofy religion which says that white supremacy is

698
00:33:13,760 --> 00:33:16,160
Speaker 1: its guiding principle, where what is good for white people

699
00:33:16,200 --> 00:33:19,080
Speaker 1: is ultimately what achieves you salvation, and what is bad

700
00:33:19,120 --> 00:33:21,000
Speaker 1: for white people is ultimately a form of sin. It's

701
00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:23,400
Speaker 1: not a religion I subscribe to, but it's definitely a

702
00:33:23,440 --> 00:33:25,320
Speaker 1: religion in the case of the Supreme Court, in a

703
00:33:25,320 --> 00:33:27,840
Speaker 1: case called Peterson that the Supreme Court heard, which said

704
00:33:27,840 --> 00:33:30,880
Speaker 1: that this religion, professing white supremacy is its coretenant, counted

705
00:33:30,960 --> 00:33:33,160
Speaker 1: as a religion for the purpose of Title seven. If

706
00:33:33,160 --> 00:33:35,640
Speaker 1: white supremacy counts as a religion, then anti white supremacy,

707
00:33:35,640 --> 00:33:38,240
Speaker 1: which is welcomes today, counts as a religion too. And

708
00:33:38,600 --> 00:33:41,040
Speaker 1: employers can't, like Disney for example, just see what we

709
00:33:41,080 --> 00:33:43,920
Speaker 1: saw last week, can't force that religion down the throats

710
00:33:43,920 --> 00:33:46,400
Speaker 1: of their employees any more than they could force any

711
00:33:46,440 --> 00:33:48,600
Speaker 1: other religion down the throats of their employees as well.

712
00:33:48,600 --> 00:33:51,160
Speaker 1: And so I too think that is a well grounded,

713
00:33:51,440 --> 00:33:54,400
Speaker 1: legally well founded case that any employee who's fired for

714
00:33:54,440 --> 00:33:56,680
Speaker 1: their political beliefs can really take all the way to

715
00:33:56,720 --> 00:33:59,280
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court. And I think the Supreme Court would

716
00:33:59,360 --> 00:34:01,960
Speaker 1: likely saw with this on the side of the correct plane,

717
00:34:01,960 --> 00:34:03,960
Speaker 1: if that the facts were correct, and that could be

718
00:34:03,960 --> 00:34:06,800
Speaker 1: done even without Republicans doing what I think Republicans ought

719
00:34:06,800 --> 00:34:08,839
Speaker 1: to do, which is step up and amend the Civil

720
00:34:08,920 --> 00:34:11,200
Speaker 1: Rights Act nineteen four by adding political belief as a

721
00:34:11,200 --> 00:34:13,759
Speaker 1: protected class. If they fall short of doing that, as

722
00:34:13,800 --> 00:34:15,920
Speaker 1: as I think Republicans are prone to do, you know,

723
00:34:15,960 --> 00:34:18,200
Speaker 1: there's still legal action available in the courts. But I

724
00:34:18,239 --> 00:34:22,400
Speaker 1: guess my concern is if conservatives are awake enough because

725
00:34:22,480 --> 00:34:24,759
Speaker 1: I look at, you know, as you're talking about with

726
00:34:24,760 --> 00:34:26,480
Speaker 1: some of this critical race theory and what's happening in

727
00:34:26,520 --> 00:34:28,839
Speaker 1: corporations and the rest of America that you know, time

728
00:34:28,920 --> 00:34:31,040
Speaker 1: is of the essence. You look at the past few

729
00:34:31,080 --> 00:34:34,239
Speaker 1: months with COVID lockdowns and the authoritarian nature of the

730
00:34:34,320 --> 00:34:37,200
Speaker 1: left just shutting down businesses, denying people the opportunity to

731
00:34:37,239 --> 00:34:40,360
Speaker 1: go to church to worship, deciding who gets to exercise

732
00:34:40,360 --> 00:34:42,320
Speaker 1: their First Amendment rights and who doesn't. It's fine to

733
00:34:42,360 --> 00:34:45,640
Speaker 1: go out in protest among thousands, but you can't go

734
00:34:45,719 --> 00:34:49,120
Speaker 1: to church, or there's limitations on how many people can go. Uh.

735
00:34:49,160 --> 00:34:51,239
Speaker 1: And then you know, on on top of it, you

736
00:34:51,360 --> 00:34:53,080
Speaker 1: look at some of these things that the left wants

737
00:34:53,080 --> 00:34:56,320
Speaker 1: to do with, you know, HR one, etcetera. Uh, And

738
00:34:56,560 --> 00:34:58,480
Speaker 1: then you look at what happened to President Trump, as

739
00:34:58,480 --> 00:35:01,360
Speaker 1: you pointed out, getting kicked off of social media, certain

740
00:35:01,400 --> 00:35:04,960
Speaker 1: banks not doing business with him, etcetera. But I guess

741
00:35:05,280 --> 00:35:08,000
Speaker 1: it doesn't feel to me that people are awake enough

742
00:35:08,200 --> 00:35:11,640
Speaker 1: looking at collectively all these different things I've mentioned, or

743
00:35:11,960 --> 00:35:15,080
Speaker 1: even looking the muted reaction to President Trump getting kicked

744
00:35:15,080 --> 00:35:18,480
Speaker 1: off Twitter, like, it doesn't seem like conservatives are as

745
00:35:18,520 --> 00:35:20,600
Speaker 1: weak as they need to for the fight that's ahead

746
00:35:20,600 --> 00:35:22,279
Speaker 1: of us. Well, I think the Republican Party is not

747
00:35:22,320 --> 00:35:24,120
Speaker 1: awake to it that much. I can say for sure

748
00:35:24,520 --> 00:35:27,080
Speaker 1: in that we are we I say we. I don't

749
00:35:27,120 --> 00:35:29,080
Speaker 1: I have self identified now as conservative. I don't even

750
00:35:29,160 --> 00:35:30,960
Speaker 1: really identify as a Republican. I don't know what I

751
00:35:31,080 --> 00:35:33,879
Speaker 1: always have. But you know, more But but I think

752
00:35:33,880 --> 00:35:37,840
Speaker 1: Republicans appeared to be not really well cut to that

753
00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:42,240
Speaker 1: task today because they're shackled by the dogmas of nineteen

754
00:35:42,280 --> 00:35:44,680
Speaker 1: eighty where Ronald Reagan, by the way, one of my heroes,

755
00:35:44,960 --> 00:35:47,919
Speaker 1: identified the real threat to liberty and prosperity in his era,

756
00:35:48,080 --> 00:35:51,120
Speaker 1: which was big government, and he came in and slashed regulations,

757
00:35:51,360 --> 00:35:53,840
Speaker 1: cut taxes, did what he needed to do to protect

758
00:35:53,880 --> 00:35:56,719
Speaker 1: American liberty and prosperity from the biggest threat of his

759
00:35:56,840 --> 00:35:59,600
Speaker 1: day in nineteen eighty. But as Dorothy might have said

760
00:35:59,640 --> 00:36:01,520
Speaker 1: to Tote in the Wizard of Us, we're not in

761
00:36:01,640 --> 00:36:05,560
Speaker 1: night anymore. And actually another great to quote another great

762
00:36:05,560 --> 00:36:07,279
Speaker 1: Republican from a hundred six years ago, if I may

763
00:36:07,400 --> 00:36:11,160
Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln, the dogmas of a quiet past, he's that

764
00:36:11,239 --> 00:36:13,960
Speaker 1: at the time are inadequate to the stormy present. I

765
00:36:14,000 --> 00:36:16,360
Speaker 1: think the dogmas of eight are inadequate to meet the

766
00:36:16,440 --> 00:36:20,960
Speaker 1: challenges of one. And the free market that we idealize

767
00:36:21,040 --> 00:36:24,040
Speaker 1: as conservatives, we have to recognized that that does not

768
00:36:24,200 --> 00:36:28,040
Speaker 1: exist today. The new market that exists is actually a

769
00:36:28,120 --> 00:36:31,920
Speaker 1: figment of other actors who are manipulating that market to

770
00:36:32,120 --> 00:36:34,640
Speaker 1: meet their own goals, including big government itself. In ways

771
00:36:34,640 --> 00:36:37,520
Speaker 1: that I described earlier, and so the solutions that we

772
00:36:37,560 --> 00:36:40,640
Speaker 1: need in the twenty one century in the year are

773
00:36:40,719 --> 00:36:43,600
Speaker 1: different than just reciting some slogan that we memorized in

774
00:36:43,680 --> 00:36:46,720
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty. We need actual solutions that meet the moment

775
00:36:46,719 --> 00:36:48,799
Speaker 1: of where we are today now. I don't think that

776
00:36:48,840 --> 00:36:51,040
Speaker 1: everyday conservatives are blind to that. I do think that

777
00:36:51,040 --> 00:36:53,560
Speaker 1: they're disempowered right now to be able to fight back

778
00:36:53,840 --> 00:36:57,240
Speaker 1: against this movement. Because the legal system is stacked certain

779
00:36:57,239 --> 00:37:00,480
Speaker 1: protect certain classes are protected. You can't discriminate the basis

780
00:37:00,520 --> 00:37:02,960
Speaker 1: of a whole range of criteria, but you can discriminate

781
00:37:02,960 --> 00:37:04,520
Speaker 1: on the basis of your political belief and today that

782
00:37:04,520 --> 00:37:06,880
Speaker 1: means if you're a conservative, you have to send your

783
00:37:07,200 --> 00:37:09,479
Speaker 1: kids to the public schools and accept a certain dogma

784
00:37:09,480 --> 00:37:11,000
Speaker 1: because that's where they got to be educated. But public

785
00:37:11,040 --> 00:37:15,000
Speaker 1: schools have been completely overrun by this new infectious religion.

786
00:37:15,080 --> 00:37:18,160
Speaker 1: It's a secular religion, but religion nonetheless that's been established

787
00:37:18,160 --> 00:37:21,239
Speaker 1: as the religion that's ultimately being indoctrinated. Think that our

788
00:37:21,280 --> 00:37:23,319
Speaker 1: kids are being indoctrinated by so I think that they're

789
00:37:23,320 --> 00:37:25,480
Speaker 1: disempowered to be able to address it. I think it

790
00:37:25,520 --> 00:37:28,080
Speaker 1: is the job of a leading political party in our

791
00:37:28,120 --> 00:37:31,080
Speaker 1: country to at least be at the forefront of that debate.

792
00:37:31,120 --> 00:37:32,919
Speaker 1: But I think the problem with the current Republican Party

793
00:37:33,000 --> 00:37:36,520
Speaker 1: is it doesn't really understand the issues, or if it

794
00:37:36,600 --> 00:37:39,880
Speaker 1: understands the issues, is dormant in dealing with them. And

795
00:37:40,080 --> 00:37:42,080
Speaker 1: what we really need is a new north star for

796
00:37:42,120 --> 00:37:45,520
Speaker 1: the conservative movement that recognizes that the real enemy to

797
00:37:45,560 --> 00:37:48,920
Speaker 1: liberty and prosperity today is not just big government that

798
00:37:49,080 --> 00:37:51,680
Speaker 1: is half the equation, but it is this new hybrid

799
00:37:51,760 --> 00:37:53,839
Speaker 1: of big government in big business. It's what I call

800
00:37:53,880 --> 00:37:56,920
Speaker 1: the Wolke industrial complex. That is the new leviathan that

801
00:37:57,040 --> 00:37:59,319
Speaker 1: is far more powerful than what Thomas Hobbs and vision

802
00:37:59,320 --> 00:38:01,759
Speaker 1: four centuries and it is far more powerful than what

803
00:38:01,840 --> 00:38:04,600
Speaker 1: either big government or big business could do alone. They've

804
00:38:04,680 --> 00:38:07,160
Speaker 1: entered into a marriage. It's an unholy alliance. It is

805
00:38:07,200 --> 00:38:08,680
Speaker 1: not a marriage of love, by the way, it's a

806
00:38:08,680 --> 00:38:11,600
Speaker 1: marriage of convenience. It is more like mutual prostitution. But

807
00:38:11,680 --> 00:38:14,640
Speaker 1: they have together birth this new, uniquely twenty one century

808
00:38:14,680 --> 00:38:17,040
Speaker 1: monster that's far more powerful than anything we've seen in

809
00:38:17,040 --> 00:38:18,840
Speaker 1: the course of American history. And it is up to

810
00:38:18,880 --> 00:38:21,040
Speaker 1: the conservative movement to step up and recognize that. And

811
00:38:21,280 --> 00:38:23,560
Speaker 1: I don't think the Republican Party has proven itself up

812
00:38:23,560 --> 00:38:25,400
Speaker 1: to that task. But I do think that that our

813
00:38:25,440 --> 00:38:27,640
Speaker 1: work is cut out for us in the next couple

814
00:38:27,640 --> 00:38:29,439
Speaker 1: of years, because I do think we're in an era,

815
00:38:29,440 --> 00:38:30,880
Speaker 1: as I said in the very beginning, where if we

816
00:38:30,920 --> 00:38:33,239
Speaker 1: don't take action pretty soon, the damage is going to

817
00:38:33,280 --> 00:38:36,640
Speaker 1: become irreversible. Well, and the arty is the stupidity of

818
00:38:36,680 --> 00:38:39,080
Speaker 1: the direction or country is heading in. And we're a

819
00:38:39,120 --> 00:38:42,320
Speaker 1: lot of these quote unquote anti racists are the racists themselves.

820
00:38:42,320 --> 00:38:45,920
Speaker 1: I mean, the idea is blatantly just disgusting, the concept

821
00:38:45,920 --> 00:38:49,480
Speaker 1: that somehow minority kids can't do math, so somehow you

822
00:38:49,520 --> 00:38:51,800
Speaker 1: have to dumb it down for them. That's inherently racist.

823
00:38:52,719 --> 00:38:56,040
Speaker 1: Or you've got companies like or you've got companies like Disney,

824
00:38:56,480 --> 00:39:01,200
Speaker 1: uh telling employees to recognize their white privilege. That's inherently racist.

825
00:39:01,520 --> 00:39:03,879
Speaker 1: And so the irony of where we've arrived is all

826
00:39:03,920 --> 00:39:06,359
Speaker 1: these people who are you know, quote unquote putting them

827
00:39:06,360 --> 00:39:09,359
Speaker 1: in the anti racist bucket, are actually just a bunch

828
00:39:09,360 --> 00:39:12,120
Speaker 1: of racists. Well, I think anti racism, LISA is the

829
00:39:12,320 --> 00:39:16,640
Speaker 1: single greatest form of institutionalized systemic racism now in the

830
00:39:16,680 --> 00:39:19,600
Speaker 1: United States has taken hold of every major institution as

831
00:39:19,640 --> 00:39:21,759
Speaker 1: we know it, and it starts as this form of

832
00:39:21,800 --> 00:39:24,040
Speaker 1: anti white racism. You put your finger on it where

833
00:39:24,200 --> 00:39:27,440
Speaker 1: you're if you're white, you're inherently stained with the guilt,

834
00:39:27,440 --> 00:39:30,919
Speaker 1: white guilt and white privilege at the point of your birth,

835
00:39:30,960 --> 00:39:33,360
Speaker 1: irrespective of who you are, what your attitudes are. But

836
00:39:33,400 --> 00:39:36,239
Speaker 1: it doesn't stop there, because once you engage in that

837
00:39:36,320 --> 00:39:39,799
Speaker 1: form of anti white racism, that actually triggers a new

838
00:39:39,840 --> 00:39:42,279
Speaker 1: wave of anti black racism in response, and then that

839
00:39:42,320 --> 00:39:44,640
Speaker 1: actually breaks us into tribes and ultimately sets us on

840
00:39:44,680 --> 00:39:46,200
Speaker 1: a spiral all the way to the bottom. And so

841
00:39:46,440 --> 00:39:49,640
Speaker 1: in the name of anti racism, we're actually becoming a

842
00:39:49,680 --> 00:39:52,040
Speaker 1: more racist country in a way that makes me makes

843
00:39:52,040 --> 00:39:54,960
Speaker 1: me sad. Actually, as I watched this every day pollute

844
00:39:54,960 --> 00:39:57,520
Speaker 1: the minds of our next generation. We say math is

845
00:39:57,600 --> 00:40:01,640
Speaker 1: racist because there's somehow racially unequal outcomes. Math isn't racist.

846
00:40:01,719 --> 00:40:04,040
Speaker 1: But I'll tell you what might be is failing to

847
00:40:04,040 --> 00:40:05,919
Speaker 1: open the schools for poor kids in the inner city

848
00:40:06,080 --> 00:40:07,920
Speaker 1: who may not be able to learn math in schools.

849
00:40:08,000 --> 00:40:09,920
Speaker 1: We can talk about whether that's racist, and that actually

850
00:40:09,920 --> 00:40:13,280
Speaker 1: reveals the heart of what's going on, which is using

851
00:40:13,360 --> 00:40:17,200
Speaker 1: this mantle of wokeness as a way to deflect accountability

852
00:40:17,280 --> 00:40:20,440
Speaker 1: for failed policies that were supposedly helping the very they

853
00:40:20,440 --> 00:40:23,600
Speaker 1: were supposed to help, the very people that they're failing today. Now,

854
00:40:23,680 --> 00:40:25,640
Speaker 1: I gotta you brought up Disney, and I would be

855
00:40:25,640 --> 00:40:27,600
Speaker 1: remiss if I didn't comment on this too, because I

856
00:40:27,640 --> 00:40:30,200
Speaker 1: think it's something that that a lot of us have missed,

857
00:40:30,600 --> 00:40:33,200
Speaker 1: which is that there's another actor on the scene in

858
00:40:33,280 --> 00:40:36,560
Speaker 1: recent years that took this unholy alliance right between big

859
00:40:36,560 --> 00:40:39,000
Speaker 1: business and big government, and if I may say, it

860
00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:42,000
Speaker 1: turned into a threesome. And that new actor is the

861
00:40:42,040 --> 00:40:46,760
Speaker 1: Communist Party of China. Right. They understand this game far

862
00:40:46,880 --> 00:40:50,080
Speaker 1: more deeply than any of us do. There's a there's

863
00:40:50,120 --> 00:40:53,520
Speaker 1: an even a Chinese word now for woke white people

864
00:40:53,560 --> 00:40:56,440
Speaker 1: in the United States. It's called bite school literally refers

865
00:40:56,440 --> 00:40:58,160
Speaker 1: to woke white people in the United States, and they

866
00:40:58,280 --> 00:41:00,640
Speaker 1: use it to laugh at us. And more than laughing

867
00:41:00,640 --> 00:41:03,600
Speaker 1: at us, they're now using wokeism as a geopolitical tool

868
00:41:03,880 --> 00:41:06,600
Speaker 1: to erode our moral standing on the global stage. And

869
00:41:06,600 --> 00:41:08,799
Speaker 1: if you have any doubt about that, I encourage you

870
00:41:08,800 --> 00:41:10,680
Speaker 1: to just look at what they are saying at every

871
00:41:10,719 --> 00:41:13,520
Speaker 1: diplomatic meeting over the last year. Last year, the EU

872
00:41:13,640 --> 00:41:16,919
Speaker 1: presses Jin Ping on the weaker human rights crisis, where

873
00:41:17,040 --> 00:41:19,279
Speaker 1: by the way, we're talking about a million weakers in

874
00:41:19,400 --> 00:41:22,319
Speaker 1: concentration camps, who, by the way, Apple uses a slave

875
00:41:22,360 --> 00:41:24,000
Speaker 1: labor to make their iPhones, and they don't tell you

876
00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:26,720
Speaker 1: that that's a separate point. The first thing that Jan

877
00:41:26,800 --> 00:41:29,680
Speaker 1: Think says in response is that black lives matter, so

878
00:41:29,880 --> 00:41:31,680
Speaker 1: that the United States is no better. And then you

879
00:41:31,680 --> 00:41:34,200
Speaker 1: look at his deputy, Yang jh their top diplomat, comes

880
00:41:34,200 --> 00:41:36,759
Speaker 1: to the Alaska summit last month and lectures us in

881
00:41:36,760 --> 00:41:39,400
Speaker 1: this opening statements of fifteen minutes on how the United

882
00:41:39,440 --> 00:41:42,880
Speaker 1: States is his word, slaughtering black Americans and that China

883
00:41:43,520 --> 00:41:46,680
Speaker 1: hey help with the China hopes that the United States

884
00:41:46,800 --> 00:41:49,520
Speaker 1: does better on human rights and that would be laughable.

885
00:41:49,800 --> 00:41:51,959
Speaker 1: But you ask yourself how they're able to get away

886
00:41:51,960 --> 00:41:55,400
Speaker 1: with this, and it comes back to companies like Disney. Actually, no,

887
00:41:55,440 --> 00:41:59,239
Speaker 1: I'll tell you how. Where Disney criticizes white privilege in

888
00:41:59,280 --> 00:42:01,319
Speaker 1: its training for him ways this month two years ago,

889
00:42:01,320 --> 00:42:03,880
Speaker 1: it says it can't film in the state of Georgia

890
00:42:04,239 --> 00:42:06,480
Speaker 1: if Georgia passes the equivalent of a heartbeat bill in

891
00:42:06,520 --> 00:42:10,080
Speaker 1: new anti abortion law. And yet last year, it films

892
00:42:10,120 --> 00:42:13,399
Speaker 1: Mulan in the Shanjang Province of China without saying a peep.

893
00:42:13,480 --> 00:42:15,799
Speaker 1: That is ground zero, the epicenter of the weaker human

894
00:42:15,880 --> 00:42:18,600
Speaker 1: rights crisis until the very end they decided to speak

895
00:42:18,680 --> 00:42:21,040
Speaker 1: up after they filmed it, when they said, we thank

896
00:42:21,080 --> 00:42:23,719
Speaker 1: you the CCP and the local authorities in shan Jang

897
00:42:23,800 --> 00:42:26,640
Speaker 1: for allowing us the privilege of filming here. And you know,

898
00:42:26,680 --> 00:42:29,720
Speaker 1: the NBA is even worse so when these corporations become

899
00:42:29,719 --> 00:42:34,759
Speaker 1: the new multinational moral arbiters, but apply their moral arbitration unevenly.

900
00:42:35,080 --> 00:42:38,040
Speaker 1: The guys who are known for criticizing injustice here in

901
00:42:38,080 --> 00:42:42,080
Speaker 1: the United States stay silent in China. That actually creates

902
00:42:42,080 --> 00:42:46,200
Speaker 1: a false moral equivalence between Chinese nihilism and American idealism,

903
00:42:46,320 --> 00:42:48,799
Speaker 1: between China and the United States. And in my view,

904
00:42:48,880 --> 00:42:50,879
Speaker 1: that's actually the real Chinese virus that we need to fight.

905
00:42:50,920 --> 00:42:53,520
Speaker 1: It is not a biological virus. It is a cultural

906
00:42:53,600 --> 00:42:57,959
Speaker 1: virus whose consequences could be far reaching, far beyond this year.

907
00:42:58,440 --> 00:43:00,000
Speaker 1: And I think few people on both sides of the

908
00:43:00,000 --> 00:43:02,320
Speaker 1: political aisle have actually put their finger on this pulse

909
00:43:02,680 --> 00:43:04,520
Speaker 1: in the way in which woke ism is now not

910
00:43:04,600 --> 00:43:08,600
Speaker 1: just infecting capitalism, it's infecting geopolitics in a way that

911
00:43:08,600 --> 00:43:11,480
Speaker 1: actually might erode our standing visa EA China and even

912
00:43:11,640 --> 00:43:14,640
Speaker 1: in more limited ways visa be Russia. You saw Navalny

913
00:43:14,800 --> 00:43:17,040
Speaker 1: being accused by Russia of being a racist, and that's

914
00:43:17,040 --> 00:43:19,480
Speaker 1: why he actually had to be silenced. They're catching onto

915
00:43:19,560 --> 00:43:22,239
Speaker 1: these new tools and playing it back against US China.

916
00:43:22,560 --> 00:43:24,359
Speaker 1: You know, they're playing us like a Chinese mandolin, if

917
00:43:24,360 --> 00:43:27,719
Speaker 1: I'm to say it, by using those woke values as

918
00:43:27,760 --> 00:43:30,280
Speaker 1: a way of advancing their own agenda at our expense.

919
00:43:30,520 --> 00:43:33,240
Speaker 1: So that thought quick break back on the other side.

920
00:43:35,200 --> 00:43:38,719
Speaker 1: My favorite line from if you remember the monologue that

921
00:43:39,080 --> 00:43:41,800
Speaker 1: Ricky Gervais did. I think it was a Golden Globes

922
00:43:41,800 --> 00:43:44,120
Speaker 1: and he was like, if Isis started a streaming service,

923
00:43:44,160 --> 00:43:47,000
Speaker 1: you would call your agents, which is really underscores what

924
00:43:47,080 --> 00:43:49,279
Speaker 1: hypocrites all these people are. As you just laid out

925
00:43:49,320 --> 00:43:52,640
Speaker 1: with corporate America, we saw with the NBA. You know,

926
00:43:52,680 --> 00:43:55,560
Speaker 1: the list goes on, movies, etcetera. You know, they're all

927
00:43:55,560 --> 00:43:58,080
Speaker 1: a bunch of hypocrites. But but I think you know,

928
00:43:58,080 --> 00:43:59,919
Speaker 1: and having this conversation with you, and I have every

929
00:44:00,000 --> 00:44:04,280
Speaker 1: only had conversations with Maximo Alvera is a Cuban exile,

930
00:44:04,680 --> 00:44:06,920
Speaker 1: and it seems to all come down to communism. And

931
00:44:06,960 --> 00:44:09,319
Speaker 1: you look at critical race theory, it's a Marxist idea

932
00:44:09,400 --> 00:44:12,200
Speaker 1: and it really all comes down to communism. And one

933
00:44:12,200 --> 00:44:14,239
Speaker 1: thing that you know, he was talking about is how

934
00:44:14,719 --> 00:44:16,960
Speaker 1: the you know, communist government. What they wanted to do

935
00:44:17,239 --> 00:44:20,400
Speaker 1: was to put you know, farmers against you know, people

936
00:44:20,400 --> 00:44:22,960
Speaker 1: that live in the city pitt the city city dwellers

937
00:44:23,040 --> 00:44:27,120
Speaker 1: against the farmers, rich first, poor poor verse, Uh, you know,

938
00:44:27,440 --> 00:44:30,120
Speaker 1: rich right first, but you know, I mean, the list

939
00:44:30,200 --> 00:44:33,200
Speaker 1: goes on, and it's all about creating these divisions in America.

940
00:44:33,280 --> 00:44:35,239
Speaker 1: It seems that's where we are right now. I think

941
00:44:35,239 --> 00:44:37,759
Speaker 1: there's a there's truth in what you say. If it's

942
00:44:37,800 --> 00:44:40,759
Speaker 1: even worse, I think this is worse than communism. And

943
00:44:40,760 --> 00:44:44,320
Speaker 1: the reason is communism was based in the intellectual heritage

944
00:44:44,400 --> 00:44:46,640
Speaker 1: of Marxism, where agree with it or not and I

945
00:44:46,680 --> 00:44:48,759
Speaker 1: don't but agree with it or not. At least it

946
00:44:48,840 --> 00:44:52,400
Speaker 1: was based on the foundation of economic injustice that you

947
00:44:52,480 --> 00:44:55,880
Speaker 1: if you were economically disempowered, that was the real injustice.

948
00:44:56,000 --> 00:44:57,799
Speaker 1: It wasn't so much about the color of your skin.

949
00:44:58,160 --> 00:45:01,240
Speaker 1: You could bring people together across different nationalities, across different

950
00:45:01,239 --> 00:45:04,080
Speaker 1: skin colors. If you remember the proletariat, you were oppressed

951
00:45:04,120 --> 00:45:07,280
Speaker 1: by the bourgeoisie, and it was a divide and conquered strategy.

952
00:45:07,320 --> 00:45:09,120
Speaker 1: To be sure, it was one that was based on

953
00:45:09,160 --> 00:45:12,120
Speaker 1: a lie of invisible social power structures that didn't really exist.

954
00:45:12,160 --> 00:45:14,680
Speaker 1: But we're used by communist dictators to be able to

955
00:45:14,800 --> 00:45:17,720
Speaker 1: use those so called invisible power structures to their own advantage.

956
00:45:17,800 --> 00:45:19,080
Speaker 1: There's a lot wrong with it, but we don't need

957
00:45:19,120 --> 00:45:21,920
Speaker 1: to relitigate that that was done in ninety eighty. I

958
00:45:21,960 --> 00:45:24,760
Speaker 1: think that and and ultimately culminating in the fallow, the fallow,

959
00:45:24,800 --> 00:45:27,800
Speaker 1: the wall in the early nineties. But this is worse

960
00:45:28,040 --> 00:45:31,920
Speaker 1: because now it's not really about even economic injustice, but

961
00:45:31,960 --> 00:45:36,080
Speaker 1: it's about this new conception of alleged racial injustice, which

962
00:45:36,080 --> 00:45:38,440
Speaker 1: says that irrespective of the amount of money you have,

963
00:45:38,600 --> 00:45:42,560
Speaker 1: irrespective of your upbringing, if you're black, you're inherently disadmanaged,

964
00:45:42,800 --> 00:45:45,600
Speaker 1: and irrespective of your upbringing, whether you were poor or not,

965
00:45:45,719 --> 00:45:48,359
Speaker 1: if you're white, you're inherently privileged. And to me, there's

966
00:45:48,400 --> 00:45:53,239
Speaker 1: something even more toxic about that philosophy, which says that

967
00:45:54,040 --> 00:45:55,920
Speaker 1: it is what you were born with. It it's a

968
00:45:55,920 --> 00:45:59,239
Speaker 1: combination of it's a mutant hybrid between communism and the

969
00:45:59,320 --> 00:46:04,080
Speaker 1: task syst which says that actually your economics, your long

970
00:46:04,200 --> 00:46:07,640
Speaker 1: run plight as an agent in the world, is determined

971
00:46:07,640 --> 00:46:11,440
Speaker 1: not even by your economics standings, but by your genetics,

972
00:46:11,480 --> 00:46:14,000
Speaker 1: by who you were on the date that you were born.

973
00:46:14,120 --> 00:46:17,160
Speaker 1: You are a per prisoner of the color of your skin.

974
00:46:17,480 --> 00:46:19,600
Speaker 1: That's really at the heart of modern critical race theory

975
00:46:19,840 --> 00:46:22,000
Speaker 1: and woke ism, which I think bears a lot of

976
00:46:22,000 --> 00:46:25,160
Speaker 1: similarities to Marxism, but I think it's even worse because

977
00:46:25,200 --> 00:46:28,120
Speaker 1: it combines it with this notion of inborn caste, where

978
00:46:28,160 --> 00:46:30,440
Speaker 1: at least in the Marxist world view, somebody who was

979
00:46:30,480 --> 00:46:32,600
Speaker 1: poor could go on to become a member of the

980
00:46:32,680 --> 00:46:35,920
Speaker 1: rich bourgeoisie class, and there was some notion of mobility,

981
00:46:35,960 --> 00:46:38,080
Speaker 1: even if it was divisive. Here, this says that no

982
00:46:38,120 --> 00:46:39,960
Speaker 1: matter how rich you are, you could be a black billionaire,

983
00:46:39,960 --> 00:46:44,319
Speaker 1: you're still ultimately you're ultimately stained with disadvantage versus poor

984
00:46:44,360 --> 00:46:47,160
Speaker 1: white working class in the opioid rust belt in Ohio.

985
00:46:47,400 --> 00:46:50,640
Speaker 1: That doesn't matter irrespective of economics. It's race that ultimately

986
00:46:50,640 --> 00:46:53,080
Speaker 1: governs whether you enjoy advantage or privilege. Well, I think

987
00:46:53,280 --> 00:46:56,480
Speaker 1: I probably misrepresented at Maximus point was that this is

988
00:46:56,480 --> 00:46:58,680
Speaker 1: in the same vein of what the communist did in

989
00:46:58,719 --> 00:47:01,160
Speaker 1: Cuba in terms of dividing people, but now it's along

990
00:47:01,320 --> 00:47:04,440
Speaker 1: racial lines in Americas, as you just laid out so eloquently.

991
00:47:04,920 --> 00:47:06,960
Speaker 1: And what's frustrating to me is a lot of these

992
00:47:07,000 --> 00:47:10,920
Speaker 1: people who are driving this divide, you know, on the left, primarily,

993
00:47:11,520 --> 00:47:15,120
Speaker 1: they're not providing solutions for people that would make individuals

994
00:47:15,200 --> 00:47:18,480
Speaker 1: lives better. You know, for instance, zip code determines a

995
00:47:18,640 --> 00:47:21,920
Speaker 1: child's future far too often in the sense of, obviously,

996
00:47:22,000 --> 00:47:25,200
Speaker 1: have better educational opportunities if you live in a wealthier neighborhood,

997
00:47:25,200 --> 00:47:26,759
Speaker 1: there's going to be a better school system, even a

998
00:47:26,800 --> 00:47:29,239
Speaker 1: better public school system. Or you see a lot of

999
00:47:29,239 --> 00:47:31,920
Speaker 1: people on the left being against school choice, or even

1000
00:47:31,960 --> 00:47:34,239
Speaker 1: someone like Senator Corey Booker actually used to be for

1001
00:47:34,360 --> 00:47:37,239
Speaker 1: school choice until he started speaking up you know, a

1002
00:47:37,360 --> 00:47:40,120
Speaker 1: higher a national profile, and then he turned on it.

1003
00:47:40,160 --> 00:47:42,640
Speaker 1: And he actually used to work with Betsy Divas and

1004
00:47:42,640 --> 00:47:46,799
Speaker 1: then gave a scathing speech against her confirmation. But all

1005
00:47:46,880 --> 00:47:50,080
Speaker 1: these people who purport to care about this issue actively

1006
00:47:50,160 --> 00:47:53,399
Speaker 1: work against things that could help minorities or could help

1007
00:47:53,560 --> 00:47:56,400
Speaker 1: children achieve better success in the future. And that's what

1008
00:47:56,480 --> 00:47:59,600
Speaker 1: infuriates me. Yeah. Absolutely, This is really just a way

1009
00:47:59,640 --> 00:48:02,759
Speaker 1: of of achieving greater power for the people who use

1010
00:48:02,840 --> 00:48:05,440
Speaker 1: the terms right. This isn't about I mean, and that's

1011
00:48:05,440 --> 00:48:07,120
Speaker 1: that's the one of the things that left is actually mastered,

1012
00:48:07,120 --> 00:48:10,799
Speaker 1: the use of terminology to pack in behind that terminology

1013
00:48:10,880 --> 00:48:13,080
Speaker 1: and agenda that has nothing to do with the term itself.

1014
00:48:13,239 --> 00:48:15,680
Speaker 1: Just take Black Lives Matter. It is a Marxist organization

1015
00:48:16,000 --> 00:48:18,280
Speaker 1: that calls for the decimation of the nuclear family structure,

1016
00:48:18,480 --> 00:48:20,600
Speaker 1: and yet I don't know what that has to do

1017
00:48:20,640 --> 00:48:22,960
Speaker 1: with actual protection of black lives and professors to care

1018
00:48:23,000 --> 00:48:26,280
Speaker 1: about black lives. In fact, it's about some completely orthogonal agenda.

1019
00:48:26,320 --> 00:48:28,520
Speaker 1: This is what we sort of see the Left having mastered,

1020
00:48:28,600 --> 00:48:30,440
Speaker 1: is you come up with the right label, but you

1021
00:48:30,480 --> 00:48:33,480
Speaker 1: pack a lot of a power driven agenda behind it

1022
00:48:33,640 --> 00:48:36,680
Speaker 1: that's actually about empowering and often even enriching the very

1023
00:48:36,680 --> 00:48:39,160
Speaker 1: people who are pushing that philosophy and allows them to

1024
00:48:39,200 --> 00:48:42,480
Speaker 1: evade accountability by creating this new woke smoke screen that

1025
00:48:42,600 --> 00:48:45,359
Speaker 1: ultimately distracts everyone by the things they say rather than

1026
00:48:45,400 --> 00:48:47,160
Speaker 1: the things that they actually do. And I think that

1027
00:48:47,160 --> 00:48:48,719
Speaker 1: that ought to be part of the calling card for

1028
00:48:48,760 --> 00:48:54,439
Speaker 1: the new conservative movement, too, is to actually counterintuitively recognize

1029
00:48:54,640 --> 00:48:58,200
Speaker 1: the very injustices that the left has monopolized as their

1030
00:48:58,280 --> 00:49:03,440
Speaker 1: causes of concern, economic disparities and access to capital, formation,

1031
00:49:03,520 --> 00:49:07,319
Speaker 1: access to education. We actually care about these solutions, makes

1032
00:49:07,320 --> 00:49:09,320
Speaker 1: you care about these problems in a way that actually

1033
00:49:09,320 --> 00:49:12,680
Speaker 1: makes us want to deliver actual solutions that address the problem,

1034
00:49:13,080 --> 00:49:16,080
Speaker 1: rather than one that just thrives on a new narrative

1035
00:49:16,200 --> 00:49:19,040
Speaker 1: of victimhood. And I think that victim the left US

1036
00:49:19,040 --> 00:49:23,040
Speaker 1: turned victimhood into this new cultural currency in the United States,

1037
00:49:23,080 --> 00:49:26,239
Speaker 1: and I personally think that that actually hurts the very

1038
00:49:26,320 --> 00:49:29,080
Speaker 1: people that it was supposed to help. Like all bubbles,

1039
00:49:29,080 --> 00:49:31,200
Speaker 1: and I think victimhood as a currency is now in

1040
00:49:31,200 --> 00:49:33,480
Speaker 1: a bubble of its own. When it bursts, it actually

1041
00:49:33,560 --> 00:49:35,560
Speaker 1: hurts the very people that was supposed to help. Well,

1042
00:49:35,560 --> 00:49:37,920
Speaker 1: I see the same thing with respect of the victimhood

1043
00:49:37,920 --> 00:49:42,120
Speaker 1: of culture that ultimately evades accountability for solving the actual

1044
00:49:42,160 --> 00:49:45,240
Speaker 1: problems that people might face in their in their everyday hardship.

1045
00:49:45,440 --> 00:49:48,640
Speaker 1: What's your vision for America? Well, look, I think that

1046
00:49:49,080 --> 00:49:50,920
Speaker 1: I think my vision for America is the vision for

1047
00:49:50,960 --> 00:49:53,239
Speaker 1: America that we began with two hundred fifty years ago,

1048
00:49:53,320 --> 00:49:56,560
Speaker 1: which is that America isn't even a place, It's just

1049
00:49:56,640 --> 00:49:58,680
Speaker 1: a vision of what a place can be. It is

1050
00:49:58,719 --> 00:50:02,879
Speaker 1: a set of ideas that brought an otherwise divided, polyglot

1051
00:50:02,880 --> 00:50:05,760
Speaker 1: group of people together. And more so than any nation

1052
00:50:05,960 --> 00:50:10,160
Speaker 1: in human history, America wasn't based on a single monarch,

1053
00:50:10,320 --> 00:50:13,400
Speaker 1: or a single religion, or a single ethnicity or a

1054
00:50:13,440 --> 00:50:17,279
Speaker 1: single language. No, it was based on a set of ideas.

1055
00:50:17,360 --> 00:50:19,960
Speaker 1: And I think that today I don't even have a

1056
00:50:19,960 --> 00:50:21,680
Speaker 1: good answer. We don't have a good answer to the

1057
00:50:21,800 --> 00:50:24,000
Speaker 1: question of what does it mean to be an American

1058
00:50:24,120 --> 00:50:27,200
Speaker 1: in the year one? And I think that absence of

1059
00:50:27,239 --> 00:50:30,040
Speaker 1: an answer to that question is actually the black hole

1060
00:50:30,080 --> 00:50:32,120
Speaker 1: at the center of our nation's soul. And so I

1061
00:50:32,160 --> 00:50:35,120
Speaker 1: think that we need to revive the basic ideals that

1062
00:50:35,160 --> 00:50:38,400
Speaker 1: brought us together in the first place. Idea like the

1063
00:50:38,440 --> 00:50:42,440
Speaker 1: American Dream eat pluribus from many one. And I think

1064
00:50:42,480 --> 00:50:45,120
Speaker 1: that these are the ideals that one the American Revolution.

1065
00:50:45,120 --> 00:50:47,520
Speaker 1: They're the ideals that reunited us after the Civil War.

1066
00:50:47,680 --> 00:50:49,439
Speaker 1: There the ideals that one World War one and World

1067
00:50:49,440 --> 00:50:52,440
Speaker 1: War two and the Cold War, And I personally think

1068
00:50:52,480 --> 00:50:55,200
Speaker 1: there's still the ideals that give hope to the free

1069
00:50:55,239 --> 00:50:57,440
Speaker 1: world as we know it. And if we can revive

1070
00:50:57,840 --> 00:51:01,320
Speaker 1: our sense of America as an idea deal, then I

1071
00:51:01,320 --> 00:51:03,400
Speaker 1: don't think anybody, not a nation, not a corporation, not

1072
00:51:03,440 --> 00:51:05,440
Speaker 1: a virus, is going to defeat us. But that is

1073
00:51:05,480 --> 00:51:07,560
Speaker 1: the hard work that we're going to have to do,

1074
00:51:07,680 --> 00:51:10,920
Speaker 1: is to look to our history to identify not perfection,

1075
00:51:11,120 --> 00:51:13,879
Speaker 1: because America has never been a perfect country, never will

1076
00:51:13,920 --> 00:51:17,920
Speaker 1: be a perfect country. Perfection doesn't exist. But more so

1077
00:51:18,040 --> 00:51:21,400
Speaker 1: than any nation in human history, America is the pursuit

1078
00:51:21,440 --> 00:51:23,480
Speaker 1: of perfection. We've said it since the day one, the

1079
00:51:23,560 --> 00:51:26,960
Speaker 1: pursuit of happiness, the pursuit of liberty, equality and justice

1080
00:51:27,000 --> 00:51:29,760
Speaker 1: for all. It's called the American dream for a reason.

1081
00:51:29,800 --> 00:51:32,160
Speaker 1: It's not a destination we reach. It's a vision that

1082
00:51:32,200 --> 00:51:35,840
Speaker 1: we aspire to. But reviving those basic ideas, the ideas

1083
00:51:36,080 --> 00:51:38,200
Speaker 1: that no matter who you are, who your parents who are,

1084
00:51:38,239 --> 00:51:40,520
Speaker 1: where you came from, you could achieve anything you want

1085
00:51:40,560 --> 00:51:43,560
Speaker 1: in this country with hard work, ingenuity in your own dedication.

1086
00:51:43,880 --> 00:51:46,640
Speaker 1: Reviving those ideas. That's part of my vision for America

1087
00:51:46,800 --> 00:51:51,239
Speaker 1: is taking the American idea to mean something more than

1088
00:51:51,280 --> 00:51:54,160
Speaker 1: just being a bunch of higher mammals occupying a common

1089
00:51:54,200 --> 00:51:56,120
Speaker 1: space doing what our iPhones tell us to do on

1090
00:51:56,160 --> 00:51:58,200
Speaker 1: a given day that is not America. America is the

1091
00:51:58,200 --> 00:52:00,200
Speaker 1: set of ideas that brought us together in the first ways,

1092
00:52:00,200 --> 00:52:02,560
Speaker 1: and I think that it begins with civic education. I

1093
00:52:02,560 --> 00:52:05,879
Speaker 1: think that we're overdue for a not for a conversation

1094
00:52:06,000 --> 00:52:09,680
Speaker 1: about civic service that we implement in the next generation

1095
00:52:09,680 --> 00:52:12,480
Speaker 1: of kids, to satisfy their hunger for a cause, their

1096
00:52:12,560 --> 00:52:15,240
Speaker 1: hunger for what it means to be an American, starting

1097
00:52:15,280 --> 00:52:18,799
Speaker 1: at a young age, starting to reconstruct our history rather

1098
00:52:18,880 --> 00:52:21,400
Speaker 1: than just criticize it and deconstructed, as we're doing in

1099
00:52:21,400 --> 00:52:23,880
Speaker 1: our schools today. So I think civic education plays a

1100
00:52:23,880 --> 00:52:25,880
Speaker 1: big role in that. I think there's a revival. A

1101
00:52:26,000 --> 00:52:29,480
Speaker 1: civic revival across all of our institutions is really important.

1102
00:52:29,680 --> 00:52:31,360
Speaker 1: I do think that there are some legal solutions that

1103
00:52:31,400 --> 00:52:33,479
Speaker 1: we need in the near term to hold the tide

1104
00:52:33,520 --> 00:52:36,600
Speaker 1: and ultimately hold back the woke epidemic that's infecting all

1105
00:52:36,640 --> 00:52:38,640
Speaker 1: of our institutions, But that's really just the first step.

1106
00:52:38,920 --> 00:52:41,520
Speaker 1: The longer run vision is is a civic revival in

1107
00:52:41,560 --> 00:52:44,120
Speaker 1: this country that reminds us of who we are as

1108
00:52:44,160 --> 00:52:47,000
Speaker 1: Americans in a way that brings us together across all

1109
00:52:47,040 --> 00:52:50,200
Speaker 1: of these divisive identity politic lines. What are you running

1110
00:52:50,200 --> 00:52:53,000
Speaker 1: for political office? You know, I was. I was in

1111
00:52:53,320 --> 00:52:55,240
Speaker 1: somebody encouraged me to a couple of people I respect,

1112
00:52:55,320 --> 00:52:57,000
Speaker 1: encouraged me to do that. Uh, you know at the

1113
00:52:57,000 --> 00:53:00,640
Speaker 1: start of this year. Actually, well, I thankue. So that

1114
00:53:00,640 --> 00:53:02,480
Speaker 1: means a lot to me. I love listening to you,

1115
00:53:02,600 --> 00:53:05,239
Speaker 1: so that that means a lot to me. I So

1116
00:53:05,320 --> 00:53:07,120
Speaker 1: I I needed to do something first, and that was

1117
00:53:07,120 --> 00:53:09,080
Speaker 1: actually writing this book that I was working on. The

1118
00:53:09,120 --> 00:53:11,920
Speaker 1: reason that was important is that, I think in the

1119
00:53:11,960 --> 00:53:15,799
Speaker 1: moment we live in today, As I said earlier, big

1120
00:53:15,800 --> 00:53:19,640
Speaker 1: government is a problem, but it's only part of the problem.

1121
00:53:19,680 --> 00:53:22,880
Speaker 1: I think the real cultural problem in America today spreads

1122
00:53:23,160 --> 00:53:26,840
Speaker 1: beyond big government to every institution in the private sector,

1123
00:53:26,880 --> 00:53:30,799
Speaker 1: from our museums to our schools, to our universities, to

1124
00:53:30,880 --> 00:53:33,560
Speaker 1: the companies where we work, to the community centers where

1125
00:53:33,560 --> 00:53:36,799
Speaker 1: we gather. That is really where the everyday threat to

1126
00:53:36,840 --> 00:53:39,319
Speaker 1: liberty and prosperities playing itself. That that is where the

1127
00:53:39,360 --> 00:53:42,920
Speaker 1: battle line is ultimately being forged, and one side is

1128
00:53:43,000 --> 00:53:45,960
Speaker 1: expanding that battle line further and further as it continues

1129
00:53:46,000 --> 00:53:48,920
Speaker 1: to win in this culture of fear. And so I've

1130
00:53:48,960 --> 00:53:51,719
Speaker 1: been a successful entrepreneur, right, I had been educated in

1131
00:53:51,760 --> 00:53:55,280
Speaker 1: the same elite institutions. I understand how to speak that language.

1132
00:53:55,280 --> 00:53:57,400
Speaker 1: I influent in that language. I have lived in that

1133
00:53:57,480 --> 00:54:01,040
Speaker 1: world and seen it firsthand for myself, and actually felt

1134
00:54:01,040 --> 00:54:04,239
Speaker 1: a sense of obligation to see through the project that

1135
00:54:04,280 --> 00:54:06,439
Speaker 1: I started over the last year and a half, which

1136
00:54:06,520 --> 00:54:08,920
Speaker 1: was exposing that for what it was, because I think

1137
00:54:08,920 --> 00:54:12,440
Speaker 1: it's important that every American see that game for what

1138
00:54:12,560 --> 00:54:14,759
Speaker 1: it is, so that we can use that as a

1139
00:54:14,800 --> 00:54:16,960
Speaker 1: first step to forging a better path forward. And so,

1140
00:54:17,120 --> 00:54:18,360
Speaker 1: you know, look, I mean, there was a lot of

1141
00:54:18,360 --> 00:54:20,439
Speaker 1: people were encouraging you to run for the Senate seat

1142
00:54:20,440 --> 00:54:23,440
Speaker 1: that opened up in Ohio. With Rob Portman announcing that

1143
00:54:23,480 --> 00:54:25,000
Speaker 1: he was going to step down. A lot of people

1144
00:54:25,000 --> 00:54:26,919
Speaker 1: have stepped in to do that. You know. I thought

1145
00:54:26,960 --> 00:54:29,480
Speaker 1: about it for for a hot second, but at the

1146
00:54:29,560 --> 00:54:31,399
Speaker 1: end of the day, I thought it was really more

1147
00:54:31,440 --> 00:54:35,080
Speaker 1: important to focus on this new national movement outside of government,

1148
00:54:35,160 --> 00:54:38,120
Speaker 1: in our culture, in our private sector first, and to

1149
00:54:38,200 --> 00:54:41,400
Speaker 1: really re energize our interest in answering the question of

1150
00:54:41,440 --> 00:54:43,480
Speaker 1: what it means to be American, even outside of government,

1151
00:54:43,719 --> 00:54:45,759
Speaker 1: in our place of work and in our communities. And

1152
00:54:45,960 --> 00:54:47,800
Speaker 1: that's what I'm focused on with the rollout of the

1153
00:54:47,800 --> 00:54:51,520
Speaker 1: book is building that new that new American movement, and

1154
00:54:51,520 --> 00:54:53,440
Speaker 1: we'll see where that goes. I do think that public

1155
00:54:53,440 --> 00:54:56,680
Speaker 1: service is important. It involves a lot of sacrifice, and

1156
00:54:56,719 --> 00:54:58,600
Speaker 1: it's something that I'm open to in my future. But

1157
00:54:58,640 --> 00:55:00,799
Speaker 1: I'm not going to really turn to the until after

1158
00:55:00,880 --> 00:55:03,880
Speaker 1: this book is out, after I've really seen to starting

1159
00:55:03,880 --> 00:55:05,879
Speaker 1: this new movement in the private sector, which I think

1160
00:55:05,920 --> 00:55:08,640
Speaker 1: maybe even more important than a movement in government today

1161
00:55:08,680 --> 00:55:11,920
Speaker 1: and everyone go out and get woke. Inc it's out auguste,

1162
00:55:14,080 --> 00:55:19,200
Speaker 1: which is this August obviously and uh wise words incredibly accomplished,

1163
00:55:19,200 --> 00:55:21,919
Speaker 1: man the Vigue. I really appreciate what you said today.

1164
00:55:22,000 --> 00:55:24,840
Speaker 1: This is a fascinating conversation. You're obviously welcome on anytime.

1165
00:55:25,040 --> 00:55:27,400
Speaker 1: I hope the book is a massive success, and I am.

1166
00:55:27,480 --> 00:55:29,840
Speaker 1: I know I'm looking forward to reading it thankfully. So

1167
00:55:29,840 --> 00:55:32,160
Speaker 1: I appreciate it, and really and with with respect of

1168
00:55:32,200 --> 00:55:34,799
Speaker 1: the book, this isn't a commercial venture for me really

1169
00:55:34,880 --> 00:55:36,719
Speaker 1: any if there's any net profit that comes out of

1170
00:55:36,760 --> 00:55:38,440
Speaker 1: it for me personally, I'm just putting it right back

1171
00:55:38,480 --> 00:55:40,759
Speaker 1: into the underlying agenda and what I really care about

1172
00:55:40,800 --> 00:55:43,160
Speaker 1: is starting that new American movement this fall. So thanks

1173
00:55:43,160 --> 00:55:45,640
Speaker 1: for having me and we'll keep the conversation going awesome.

1174
00:55:45,760 --> 00:55:51,400
Speaker 1: Take care, Thanks so much. I want to thank the

1175
00:55:51,560 --> 00:55:56,240
Speaker 1: vig Ramaswamy again for such a smart and interesting interview,

1176
00:55:56,560 --> 00:55:58,040
Speaker 1: and I want to thank all of you at home

1177
00:55:58,200 --> 00:56:01,680
Speaker 1: as well for listening. If you're joined today's podcast, please

1178
00:56:01,760 --> 00:56:04,319
Speaker 1: leave us a review and leave us a five star

1179
00:56:04,520 --> 00:56:07,320
Speaker 1: rating on Apple Podcast. You can also find me on

1180
00:56:07,400 --> 00:56:11,239
Speaker 1: Twitter and Instagram and at LESA Rebooth special thanks to

1181
00:56:11,320 --> 00:56:16,640
Speaker 1: our team producer John Cassio, writer Aaron Kleigman, researcher Margaret Smith,

1182
00:56:16,800 --> 00:56:20,560
Speaker 1: and executive producers Debbie Myers and speaker new Gingridge, who

1183
00:56:20,600 --> 00:56:23,640
Speaker 1: are all part of the network and team