Episode Transcript
Transcripts are displayed as originally observed. Some content, including advertisements may have changed.
Use Ctrl + F to search
0:02
Oh, should we start this show? Yeah, I'm down.
0:04
Just buying a car in Carvana first. Oh, for
0:06
real? Yeah, it's super convenient. I already got pre-qualified
0:08
in two minutes. All I had to do was
0:10
answer a few questions. Ooh, that's
0:12
helpful. And now just customizing my down-to-monthly
0:15
payments. Ooh, that's a very fair
0:17
deal. Yep. Boom. Just
0:20
bought a car. And you get to take me to the
0:22
Carvana vending machine in a couple days to pick it up.
0:24
Ooh. I'm kinda busy.
0:26
Visit carvana.com to finance your next car.
0:28
Financing subject to credit approval. This. Is
0:31
a big year. The Ohio
0:33
Lotteries Golden Anniversary. Fifty years
0:35
of excitement of growing jackpots
0:37
and crossed fingers. Fifty years
0:39
of funding for schools have
0:41
changed lives in Brighton Days.
0:43
Fifty years of fun and
0:46
that is worth celebrating so
0:48
watch for! Can't miss promotions,
0:50
huge events, and new gains
0:52
that will make the Ohio
0:54
Lotteries fiftieth year it's biggest
0:56
one yet! Learn more at
0:58
Contents Fifty. Com. This.
1:02
Episode is brought to you by patriot gold.
1:05
Public service should be about serving the public.
1:07
Not. Serving oneself And I think that's part of what
1:10
we need to bring back to American politics. Good
1:41
afternoon Michael malice year let that be are
1:43
working for the next hour we have with
1:45
us. a very special returning guess that make
1:47
Ramaswamy they they called me up earlier this
1:49
week. He goes Michael. I. Wanna be
1:51
on your show? I blew it with the campaign
1:53
on the Total Loser. He was crying there was
1:55
a tear down his face it was like a
1:57
p a sad for later. I got the bake.
2:00
You were the big winner of 2024. And
2:03
he goes, how? I go, look,
2:05
you out competed Mike Pence, former
2:07
vice president, governor of Indiana, you
2:10
out competed Tim Scott, first black
2:12
Republican Senator from the South in
2:14
contemporary times, a
2:16
fundraising powerhouse. You out competed
2:18
Republican heavyweights like Chris Christie,
2:21
and you out competed Doug. And he
2:23
goes, Doug, what do you mean Doug? I go, you
2:26
had no name recognition and
2:28
some money. Doug's a billionaire. Doug's
2:31
a sitting governor and no one knows
2:33
who Doug is, but everyone knows the name Vivek
2:35
Ramaswami in the Republican party and you go, please,
2:37
can I come on your show? And I go,
2:39
of course, this is a show for
2:41
winners. If it was a show for losers, it'd be
2:43
called the Tom Wood show. So
2:45
welcome back. And what
2:48
I want to ask you about, and please
2:50
get into some detail. The
2:52
fact that you went from zero
2:54
name recognition, a name, no one
2:56
can dispel to a powerhouse
2:59
in the Republican party, uh,
3:01
did not happen by accident. So
3:03
I would love to hear what
3:06
decisions you and your campaign made
3:08
that took you from zero to
3:10
being on the shortlist. Rumors has
3:12
it as a VP nominee. Well,
3:16
first of all, your introduction is hilarious, man. And I
3:18
don't know if you have a background instead of comedy,
3:20
but, uh, but you might have a future. So give
3:22
that a shot. I think, uh,
3:24
look, I think the decision, you could call
3:26
it that, that I approached the campaign with
3:28
was I didn't even think people were hungry
3:30
for this. But I think
3:32
that it actually really played out is
3:34
being completely unfiltered over the course of
3:37
the campaign. And that comes with risk,
3:39
right? But at the beginning of the
3:41
campaign, that was purely, you know,
3:43
there's, there's, you know, not really much
3:45
risk and purely only reward. And as
3:47
the campaign progressed, it ended up being an increasingly
3:50
risky strategy that got me into some, you
3:53
know, I would say hot water with the
3:55
establishment and effectively cut off the donor mega
3:58
donor pipes, you know, for much of the.
4:00
Republican establishment later in the campaign. So
4:02
for the later phase of the campaign,
4:04
we could debate its effectiveness. But it
4:06
was the strategy I stuck through from
4:08
the start to the very finish was being
4:11
completely unshackled in sharing what I actually
4:13
believe. And I know that's
4:15
a novel notion in American politics. But the
4:17
fact that it's a novel notion is
4:20
what made it the wide open lane that was
4:22
wide open to occupy. There's this thing
4:25
they call the Overton window, the window
4:27
of acceptable bounds of what you
4:29
can say. And that's actually quite
4:31
narrow in the realm of American politics. And
4:34
so the heart of my strategy was
4:36
run a truck through that Overton window
4:38
with my actual beliefs, take the
4:40
bed that would actually take me to the maximum
4:42
of what my success potential was in this campaign,
4:44
my assumption and hope was that was to be
4:46
the next president didn't play out
4:48
exactly that way. But I think it was nonetheless
4:51
a successful campaign, and hopefully one that
4:53
has a positive impact on the country. And that's the way
4:55
we did it. You had a
4:57
positive impact the Republican Party already and I can
4:59
give you one concrete example. I
5:02
think that Lane you're speaking of didn't exist
5:04
10 years ago because or maybe 15, because it's
5:07
a function of social media. 15 years
5:09
ago, if you're this loud mouth brash
5:11
candidate, people at home
5:13
would see you filtered through CBS, ABC, NBC
5:16
News, say we take the sound bite.
5:19
And then the anchor would immediately say,
5:21
this is controversial. This guy's, you know,
5:23
obnoxious or say some kind of pejorative
5:26
comment immediately. So everyone at
5:28
home is going to read it through the
5:30
filter of the corporate media. Thanks to social
5:32
media. Now, you could do podcasts, you could
5:34
speak at length, you can address the reporters
5:36
and do an end run around them. And
5:38
I think that gave you a place to
5:40
speak your mind without having it be filtered
5:42
through, you know, what you
5:45
and I both agree on is a very corrupt media
5:47
establishment. You're right. And now
5:49
there's an interesting dynamic there if we go one
5:51
layer deeper there, Michael, which is that the
5:55
legacy media hates the existence of
5:57
this alternative end around. And
5:59
so I actually. became something of
6:02
a chess piece in a battle between those
6:04
two media institutions. Okay, so here's what would
6:07
happen is I did probably
6:09
more podcasts and long form interviews than
6:11
probably all presidential candidates in history combined.
6:14
Okay, now that lends itself to saying
6:16
some things in the context of a one hour
6:18
discussion like you and I are having or even
6:20
a two hour discussion in some cases that
6:23
come with context. The legacy
6:25
media then made a profession out of airlifting things
6:27
that I would say in forums like this one,
6:30
putting that into their two minute retrofitted
6:32
context purposefully to create an
6:34
even more unfavorable depiction than the one
6:36
that they were already portraying. And so
6:38
that ended up being a game, sort
6:41
of a repeated game that was
6:43
almost in the campaign would seem like
6:45
it was about me, but I think it wasn't actually. It
6:48
was actually a game about what mode politicians
6:50
in the future would take in
6:52
accessing their voters. And what legacy media does
6:54
is they create a punishment
6:56
for candidates who choose to opt into forums
6:59
like this one. And so if they see
7:01
candidate who is actually punished for showing up
7:03
in a long form interview in
7:05
a way that real human beings might talk to each other,
7:07
but then to take them out of context that
7:10
actually explains why countless of those
7:12
other candidates didn't actually
7:15
avail themselves of forums like this one. And so
7:17
it was this repeated game theory that's pretty interesting.
7:19
So over the course of the next 10 years,
7:21
I have no doubt, let's call it
7:23
10 to 20 years. It may happen slower than we expect
7:26
that historical legacy corporate media is going to be
7:28
irrelevant and out the window. But
7:31
in this transitional phase, we're in an interesting
7:33
period where most of the GOP primary electorate,
7:35
the primary electorate tends to
7:38
skew older actually. And
7:40
so there's a disproportionate impact of the
7:42
GOP primary electorate on choosing the next
7:44
president, even relative to the
7:48
cultural influence of legacy versus
7:50
new media on the broader
7:52
population at large. And
7:54
so that was one of the more interesting dynamics in
7:56
this GOP primary is that even though I was really
7:58
reaching more people. human beings across
8:00
the United States via digital media, social
8:03
media, et cetera. And that
8:05
created, I think, a change in the cultural
8:07
tenor of the country's political
8:09
discourse as it relates
8:11
to the GOP primary, it's still
8:13
disproportionately via traditional print
8:15
and especially traditional cable media,
8:18
which is the game that certain other candidates mastered
8:20
playing better than I did. There
8:22
was one moment which I thought was
8:24
you hitting a home run, which exemplified
8:26
this perfectly, and I was delighted to
8:28
see it. There are questions people
8:31
ask you, which are legitimate questions, what your stance
8:33
on abortion, immigration, you know, these are issues that
8:35
every candidate has to grapple with. But then there
8:37
are gotcha questions, which are asked in completely bad
8:39
faith and are there to create a stand by
8:41
to make you look bad. So if I sit
8:43
here and ask you, oh, are you in favor
8:45
of people named the vague giving up the heroin
8:47
habit? That's not a legitimate question. That's me trying
8:49
to put oppression in someone's mind. So
8:51
you being Indian, when they're asking you,
8:54
do you denounce white nationalism? You know,
8:56
it's you laugh, but it's a question
8:58
absurd on its face. But it's meant
9:00
to then create the sound bite that
9:02
you refuse to do that. But the
9:04
fact is, thanks to social media, when
9:07
you put that reporter on blast in
9:09
her face, that went much wider than
9:11
the hatchet piece that she was trying to set you up
9:14
for. Can you walk us through that moment? Because I thought
9:16
I was just one of the great moments of the campaign.
9:19
Yeah, I appreciate it. We had many like that over the
9:21
course of the last year, but this was in the late
9:23
phase. So Steve King, a congressman
9:25
in Iowa, had just endorsed me. And that was
9:27
a bit of news because he was widely expected
9:29
to endorse Trump. This is in the run up
9:31
to the Iowa caucus. He was
9:34
in favor of a border wall before most of
9:36
the Republican Party was even talking about a border
9:38
wall, things like this. OK. And he was denounced
9:40
as racist. And that's a whole
9:42
separate chapter of a guy who is unfairly
9:44
tarred. Actually, people who had the
9:46
financial interest to get him out of office, but
9:48
used a lot of this fake reporting about what
9:50
he had said to tar him. So years ago,
9:53
that's Steve King. He came out
9:55
anyway, and he endorsed me. And in the wake
9:57
of that, there were these demands because he was
9:59
denounced. as a white supremacist
10:02
to ask me whether even in the face
10:04
of Steve King's endorsement I would
10:06
denounce white supremacy. And the thing
10:08
I asked the media to do was define for me
10:11
what white supremacy is. And once you define
10:13
for me what it is, I can tell you whether or not I denounce it. Because
10:15
the last time I checked, it turns
10:18
out you have even the Smithsonian Institute
10:20
or other organizations that have defined white
10:22
supremacists including concepts like being on time,
10:25
punctuality, the written word, mathematics. And so if
10:28
those things are encompassed in the realm of
10:30
white supremacy, then no, I'm not denouncing being
10:32
on time or the written word. No, if
10:34
you're going to call those vestiges of white
10:37
supremacy, then the term white supremacy has lost
10:39
its meaning. And really I
10:41
turned on her head, and I forget what
10:43
that specific exchange was, but there was a
10:45
series of reporter inquiries. I challenged them to
10:47
define white supremacy for me so
10:49
that I could respond to whether or not I could actually denounce the
10:51
thing they described, and they just had nothing more than a blank stare.
10:55
None of them could actually define what white
10:57
supremacy actually was, as distinct from
10:59
invidious discrimination on the basis of race. If
11:02
I tell you that you don't have an opportunity, I'm going
11:04
to turn you away from a polling booth at the ballot
11:06
box, or I'm going to turn you away from
11:08
some opportunity to get ahead on the basis of
11:10
your skin color, that's invidious discrimination
11:12
on the basis of race. I
11:15
condemn that. The irony is we are seeing
11:17
some of that crop up in the United States, but in
11:19
a very different form against certain races that
11:21
are different than the races against which they are. Invidious
11:24
racism was historically practiced, but
11:27
that's invidious racism, and I actually condemn it no matter what
11:29
form it takes. But if you
11:31
tell me as distinct from that what's white supremacy, tell me
11:33
what it is so I can let you
11:35
know whether I denounce it. We've got nothing other than silence
11:37
in response. And so what I – in
11:39
the cases that Washington Post reporter did was I predicted.
11:41
I told her, I know what your headline is going
11:44
to be. I said that tomorrow the headline that you're
11:46
going to write in this dishonest piece is going to
11:48
say that Vivek Ramaswamy, after endorsement from Steve King, refuses
11:50
to denounce white supremacy. Now
11:53
thankfully that was caught on camera, and social
11:55
media provided I think an ample opportunity for
11:57
tens of millions of people to see it.
12:00
The irony there was a lack of self-awareness of
12:02
that very reporter where 48 hours
12:04
later, she came out nonetheless in
12:06
the Washington Post with exactly the headline as
12:08
well as the lead to her story that
12:10
I had predicted, but at least at that
12:13
point people had been preconditioned to
12:15
understand what they were actually reading because the other
12:17
thing had gone megaviral in the last 48 hours.
12:19
It still didn't stop her from doing exactly what
12:21
her muscle memory taught her to do.
12:24
And so that's one of my lessons from the campaign and
12:26
one of the things that will inform how I approach whatever
12:28
I do in the future is whenever
12:31
you see a problem, a lurking problem
12:33
that other people don't see, the
12:35
best thing you can do is name it. Name
12:38
it unsparingly. Unsparingly expose that
12:41
problem. And half the time the
12:43
problem itself automatically disappears lurking back
12:45
in the shadows like a cockroach
12:48
running for shade from the sunlight.
12:50
If you're actually having somebody who has
12:53
the ability to unsparingly with a spine
12:55
in an uninhibited way, name
12:57
the problem. And I think that's something
12:59
that conservatives mostly have not been very good at,
13:02
professional politicians are awful at, but it's
13:04
one of the things I endeavored to do with this
13:06
campaign with respect to, you can just
13:08
go down the list, how our money is being
13:10
spent in Ukraine, the truth of what happened on
13:12
January 6th, the truth of where the COVID pandemic
13:14
actually began. You could go straight
13:17
down the list of actually government actors using
13:19
tech companies to do their dirty work through
13:21
the back door, the corruption in the Republican
13:23
Party and the Ronna McDaniel's failed leadership, Nikki
13:25
Haley or the military industrial complex's exploitation of
13:28
their own personal incentives to keep the war
13:30
machine humming at the expense of everyday Americans,
13:32
both taxpayers and people who serve on the
13:34
front lines, whatever the specific
13:36
topic area was, and those are just a subset
13:38
of those that I touched in the campaign,
13:41
name the problem, name it
13:44
unsparingly, and then it becomes a
13:46
lot more difficult for the people
13:48
perpetuating their plot to actually see
13:50
it through. And I think that's
13:52
something that we as a movement would probably
13:54
do a better job of in the future if we
13:56
have people who are willing to lead the way. The
14:00
temperature at night can have one the greatest
14:02
impact on your sleeve qualities of you wake
14:04
up too hot or too cold. I highly
14:06
recommend you check out Miracle Mates bedsheets. They're
14:08
inspired by Nasa, The You Silvers use fabrics
14:10
and big temperature regulating betting so you can
14:12
sleep at the perfect temperature all night long.
14:14
The seats aren't use a silver, the help
14:17
prevent up to ninety nine point seven percent
14:19
bacterial growth. Leeson cleaner, fresher, three times longer,
14:21
their seats no more gross odors and they're
14:23
very comfortable without the high price tag of
14:25
luxury brands at the last. Nice is not
14:27
nicer than sheets used by some five star
14:29
hotels. Stop sleeping bags. Uric acid
14:31
unclog your pores. it causes breakouts an
14:34
acme Sleep Clean with miracle that a
14:36
try merkel.com/malice to try the sheets today
14:38
and sneer. Whether. You're buying them for
14:40
yourself as a gift for loved one. If you are
14:42
today, you can save our forty percent as use promo
14:45
code malice a check out. You get three free towels
14:47
and save an extra twenty percent. They're. So
14:49
comfort in their product. It's back with
14:51
thirty money back. Guarantee you aren't Harper
14:53
Said South Side Full refund. Upgrade your
14:56
sleep of Miracle Made Go to trymerkel.com/malice
14:58
and you scored Malice to get your
15:00
free to three piece tell set save
15:02
a forty percent off. Again, let's trymerkel.com/mouse
15:04
to treat yourself. Thank you Miracle Made
15:06
for sponsoring this episode. Let's
15:08
get back to the show. You. Perfectly
15:10
segue into to such problems and I
15:13
I would love to discuss them. I
15:15
hung out last night was by Weinstein
15:17
who's a fan of yours. And
15:20
a got him a little
15:22
scared because the possibility that
15:24
Joe Biden won't be the
15:26
nominee in November is. Fairly.
15:29
High. It's certainly not a given that he will
15:31
be the nominee and there's a lot of buzz
15:33
about who the replacing would be and I told
15:35
him and I would love to hear your thoughts
15:38
on this that their plan b they're smart move
15:40
would be Hillary. She's. Gollum. she's
15:42
had the ring. she's not going to give up
15:44
on the ring. She got millions more votes for
15:46
Trump. it's been trumpets when he sixteen which might
15:48
not work for the electoral college, but assured good
15:51
starting point in terms of getting out the vote.
15:53
No one in the party has the capacity to
15:55
stop her because they be scared of her. She.
15:58
wouldn't have to run on any kind of
16:02
four years of mismanagement, Newsom is VP that
16:04
sets them up to be next and then
16:06
you don't have to defend California. And
16:09
she's recently publicly been taking shots
16:12
at President Biden, which is somewhat out
16:14
of character when the argument's supposed to
16:16
be let's fall in line. I would love
16:18
to hear your thoughts on that possibility. So
16:21
look, I think next to Michelle Obama, that one
16:24
is not implausible actually. And the reason why,
16:26
so let's get to the dynamic of what's
16:29
stopped them from sidelining Biden so far.
16:32
State of play right now, the managerial
16:34
class that wields Biden as a puppet
16:37
has lost its use for their puppet. Yes.
16:40
For a while, actually his cognitive deficits, they were
16:42
not a bug, they were actually a
16:44
feature, right? It lends himself to be more
16:46
effectively controlled. But
16:48
when the puppet itself literally starts malfunctioning as
16:51
poorly as the current puppet is functioning, then
16:53
it's time for a system overload or actually just
16:55
buying a new instrument. And
16:58
so that's where we are in the phase of this. And so
17:00
I've said actually since, I actually said
17:02
that the third Republican debate will over whatever, six months
17:04
ago or so, where I made clear what I said
17:06
in my closing statement, those closing statements and debates are
17:09
such a waste of time that I just decided to
17:11
use it for something more productive to call
17:13
in the Democratic party to be honest about who their nominee is
17:15
actually gonna be. Because I think part of the game they're
17:18
playing now is almost
17:20
lulling Republicans into a sense
17:22
of complacency, when in fact
17:24
the real game has not even begun, right?
17:26
So we think of ourselves as being in the third
17:29
inning of some sort of game that's soon to be
17:31
the fourth inning of the game, that's not even the
17:33
game. The real ball game, I worry,
17:36
has not even actually begun. The
17:39
main thing that stopped the Democrats from doing it, some
17:41
of this is, I would say,
17:43
scienter, is artfulness, is willful deceit. They
17:45
wanna wait a little bit, let
17:48
the trials progress, let the election cycle
17:50
mature, let the feigned retreat work, lead
17:52
them a little further in that direction.
17:56
But one of the things that constrains them from going
17:58
in the other direction anyway is this problem self-creating. the
18:00
problem they have. And it
18:02
is a problem known as Kamala Harris. So
18:04
that problem is that if
18:06
you sideline Biden, but
18:09
you don't replace him with the black
18:11
woman whose entire justification for occupying the
18:14
position she occupies is indeed
18:16
being those two things, a black woman. And
18:19
yet you put somebody in the front of
18:21
that ticket who is, let's say like a
18:23
Gavin Newsom, a white man, that
18:26
fails their own purity test.
18:28
And in that sense, might
18:30
have been the smartest thing Biden's ever done. And
18:32
by Biden, I don't mean Joe Biden, but Jill
18:34
Biden, who I think is actually probably
18:36
closer to in control than Joe Biden, one of
18:38
the smartest thing that that Biden actually did was
18:40
selecting, helping select Kamala Harris as the VP, because
18:43
it was an insurance policy against the puppet masters
18:45
moving their puppet Biden, Joe Biden out of the
18:47
way. And so they have a
18:49
Kamala Harris problem. Whoever they put
18:51
out in front has to at least help
18:53
solve their Kamala Harris problem. Criteria number one
18:55
is that being a woman
18:58
helps immensely. And criteria number two is
19:00
having a shade of melanin that is the generally
19:02
more acceptable shade of melanin in the Democratic Party
19:04
today is an additional feature that they would do
19:06
as a nice to have. Michelle Obama has both.
19:09
Now, if there are skeletons in that closet
19:11
or an utter refusal, my general view is
19:13
I don't think that Michelle Obama has a say in the
19:15
matter. I think it's going to be with managerial machine decides
19:17
for her. But short of her, I do
19:20
think that it's not crazy to think of a Hillary Clinton
19:22
like figure, because at least she's a woman and owned that
19:24
lane as, you know,
19:26
as effectively as any identitarian
19:29
can in the in the game of identity
19:31
politics. And then maybe supplement that
19:33
with something like a gay man, a Pete
19:35
Buttigieg. Yeah, yeah. You know, you can think
19:37
about the governor of Colorado, who's at least
19:39
widely viewed as a moderate, that could very
19:42
plausibly be a ticket. And so
19:44
this idea that it's going to be running
19:46
against Joe and Kamala ends up being a
19:49
total feigned retreat. And I
19:51
Think it's really important for Republicans to be well
19:53
ahead of that curve skate to where the puck
19:55
is going. Yes, own whatever message we're going to
19:57
have to own in order to defeat. You
20:00
know, Michelle Obama, Pete Budaj Edge, or.
20:03
Hillary. Clinton, people to judge or Hillary
20:05
Clinton? you know, Governor of Colorado or
20:07
whatever. That's what I think it's going
20:09
to take. In. Order to really
20:11
prepare for success this year. I think
20:13
this has to be. Not. A
20:15
small margin victory and you seem to
20:17
be a landslide of. Reagan. Nineteen
20:19
Eighty Four Proportion and Unknown do everything in my
20:22
power to make sure that happens. But. The
20:24
first way we do it. Is to.
20:26
Again, name the problem. Now.
20:29
The more we talk about this, the irony
20:31
is that think it has a Heisenberg kind
20:33
of affect your the we actually observe that
20:35
lurking phenomenon. The more we actually
20:37
affected and the less likely to to play out
20:39
that I've been. as unsparing
20:41
in my. Attempts
20:44
to expose at least the collective incentives that
20:46
create this possibility. And so you know we
20:48
were of the Eisenberg dilemma. Roughly
20:50
speaking, the you keep You know you
20:53
can't observe a phenomenal without actually affecting
20:55
it. Great. We. Can use that. In
20:57
our power here by repeatedly observing it
20:59
with hopeful sufficient quantity that the other
21:01
side has to then go in a
21:03
different direction like a cockroach running that
21:06
the dark. And. So that's what I
21:08
would hope to see happen here, but sort of that.
21:10
If the game continues to just be played
21:12
in our own merry little fantasy land. Is.
21:14
Actually biden. It's going to be
21:17
somebody else. probably the spring made even early in
21:19
the summer. As. Late as they can completely
21:21
change the game and that's really when the new start
21:23
line would begin. Unless. We
21:25
expose this sufficiently. That. It
21:27
changes their incentive structure to no longer wanted to the.
21:30
Yeah. The decide Republican idea that the
21:32
Democratic party or all idiots is completely
21:34
crazy To me. there's no without was
21:36
no read. Raven Twenty Twenty Two Bidens
21:38
in the Oval office right now So
21:40
you might consider these people's views moronic
21:42
and yard and will give you know
21:44
man or woman they're doing something right
21:46
because they have a significant amount of
21:48
power and as something that has to
21:51
be grappled with on the other side
21:53
the aisle my friend just see a.
21:55
Paraphrase. Something you said and I don't
21:57
want to to be game of telephone but his
21:59
point. Or his perception was
22:01
that Nikki Haley is running.
22:04
Or as of the votes don't matter
22:07
because on some level the sixes in
22:09
for exists. Any politician has an ego.
22:11
She lost to none of the above.
22:14
She's about to get destroyed in her
22:16
home state of South Carolina or it
22:18
later the couple of weeks and yet
22:20
she still plugging along I in the
22:22
face of everything. I would love to
22:24
hear your thoughts on what the you
22:26
know behind the scenes stuff is going
22:29
on with with the Or Gov. Haley.
22:31
Will. Look, as I've been saying this since late
22:34
last year, that's made many even in our
22:36
own America First movement, upset at first when
22:38
I said it. But I. It. Is
22:40
one of those situations that the more you expose
22:42
it. The less likely it is to app and
22:44
that's why I've been talking about it as much as I can.
22:46
Which. Is that I think that
22:49
there is effectively a game plan
22:51
that the establishment both parties as,
22:53
but particularly the establishment the Republican
22:55
Party. To have narrowed this down to
22:57
a two horse race between Donald Trump and a
22:59
puppet who they can control in the scared as
23:01
Nikki Haley. Eliminate from from
23:04
contention one way or another. And.
23:06
Then truck their puppet who they can control in
23:08
the White House. I think that's a game they've
23:10
been trying to play for a long time. This is part of
23:12
why I. Dropped out immediately after I got about
23:14
eight percent of the vote. In Iowa I was about
23:16
to get about a present. The New Hampshire. I
23:19
didn't want New Hampshire to be anything other
23:21
than a decisive victory. To. Effectively put
23:23
an end to this primary which at a
23:25
New Hampshire basically dead. And so
23:27
thankfully I think this risk has now
23:30
gone down. But if you wanna with the
23:32
intentions are there's no better way to know it then to
23:34
see that. Nikki Haley did not
23:36
even try to compete. For
23:38
any delegates in Nevada, some people
23:41
understand that Nevada has a caucus.
23:43
A hundred percent of the delegates that come
23:45
from the Nevada Geo Be Caucus go the
23:47
ones who get the delegates in deciding who
23:49
ultimately when the Geo Be national primary. Rhonda.
23:52
Sanders, myself, Donald Trump. We were all
23:54
competing in the caucus. Now. in
23:56
an effort to send us an eye to dropped out. We.
23:59
dropped out we want to me caucus, but we
24:01
were all registered for the Nevada caucus because
24:03
that's how you would ultimately win the GOP
24:06
primaries by collecting delegates. Nikki
24:08
Haley, bizarrely, did not
24:10
even participate in the Nevada
24:12
GOP caucus. So she's not even competing for delegates.
24:15
So she's not competing for delegates. It's
24:18
so obvious, she's going to collect so few delegates
24:20
through this process. But she and the people backing
24:23
her more importantly, are spending 10s, hundreds
24:26
of millions of dollars to keep her
24:28
in the race. What
24:30
exactly do you think their game plan is? Now, scratch the surface
24:32
a little bit more. What do you see? Many
24:35
of the very actors who are
24:37
paying for the lawsuits against Trump,
24:40
paying for the efforts to keep Donald Trump
24:42
off the ballot, the likes of
24:44
Reed Hoffman, the CEO of LinkedIn, George
24:47
Soros Jr. effectively for the Democratic Party. Those
24:51
people, who are they backing for US President? It's
24:53
not Joe Biden. It's actually
24:55
been Nikki Haley. And to
24:57
the very people paying to eliminate Donald Trump
24:59
from the ballot, are the ones
25:01
who are propping up Nikki Haley, despite the
25:03
fact that she is not remotely even collecting or
25:05
even attempting to collect delegates, which is the way
25:07
you win through the front door of Republican primary,
25:10
what do you think they're playing for? They're
25:12
absolutely playing for exactly what I said, four or
25:15
five months ago, they want to narrow this to a
25:17
two horse race between Donald Trump and a puppet who
25:19
they can control. The first instance that puppets name was
25:22
Nikki Haley. And the beauty is they claim to even
25:24
get to be not get to claim to be nonpartisan
25:26
about it. They claim to be,
25:28
you know, supporting a woman in the Republican
25:30
Party. And yet, they're not even
25:32
competing by winning through the front door. Now,
25:35
folks like myself and others, and Tucker has pointed this
25:37
out, a couple of others have also pointed this out,
25:39
the more you pointed out, the less plausible
25:41
that then becomes because the game is in
25:43
hiding. So that's why now that the primary
25:45
thankfully is for all intents and purposes over
25:47
as of New Hampshire, and I'm going
25:49
to continue to do my part to make sure that this primary is
25:51
over. Now, I Think
25:54
that game then shifts that uni party establishment
25:56
starts directing its same efforts to okay, we
25:58
couldn't get our puppet or Trojan horse. The
26:00
into the republican party. Let's. Shift our
26:02
efforts to at least get the puppet who
26:04
we can control through the Democratic Party. Biden
26:06
used to be that puppet. the pop. It
26:08
isn't functioning. it's having com system malfunctions. Now.
26:11
Move in a different puppet who they can
26:13
control. Kamala Harris doesn't work because nobody the
26:15
contract he likes are now it of try
26:17
to new puppet instead with Us Michelle Obama,
26:19
Hilary Clipper, somebody else. That's where this game
26:21
moves next. So. I know
26:23
it sounds the under some people
26:25
conspiratorial or whatever. Notices. That
26:27
plane description of the facts. Hiding
26:30
in plain sight, Found. The money with
26:32
start with that. The people who are paying for
26:34
efforts to get Donald Trump off the ballot who
26:36
were the first supporting Make A Hate Group is
26:38
Nikki Haley competing for delegates? Know she's not. You
26:40
know. Been trying to collect delegates in states like
26:42
Nevada. Down from myself, Rhonda
26:44
Santas Yes. All competing to collect delegates
26:47
the game without even competing. Zero delegates
26:49
in Nevada? By design, she
26:51
was even trying to get delegates in Nevada out.
26:53
Anything she's trying to win, it's by eliminating Trump.
26:56
Now. That we've exposed that enough. That's not actually
26:58
going to happen now. Moved to Democratic Party hats
27:00
or this game now plays out next as tried
27:02
their next puppet within the opposition parties. dead. Your
27:05
business men businessmen are going to spend tens
27:07
of millions of dollars without some or away
27:09
there's gonna be some expectation is it's they're
27:11
not patriots and even if they were patriots
27:13
at some point you like a rights you
27:15
know this startups not working. I'm not going
27:17
to for good money after bad to the
27:19
sack of the are supporting money to this
27:22
campaign. Speak to the fact that they have
27:24
some information that the layman does it because
27:26
these people who are very wealthy are not
27:28
all stupid. Even if someone the marks they're
27:30
not all stupid. So they're all investing this
27:32
much money they're expecting some kind of our
27:34
com that is commensurate. With their investment. And.
27:37
It's also good to have a puppet.
27:39
Cool is responsive to young. The.
27:42
Carrots you can dangle money. Kaylee, one of the. And.
27:45
When she left the Un in
27:47
debt. Then. becomes the military
27:49
contractor then joined the board of boeing
27:51
who's the company was backseat scratched for
27:53
years while governor of south carolina makes
27:55
million through all of that through sporting
27:58
speeches not dissimilar hillary clinton Deformed
28:00
actors whose speeches she still hasn't disclosed hasn't
28:02
disclosed her tax returns despite calling on Donald
28:04
Trump to do it when he ran And
28:07
now suddenly multi-millionaire. Well, how do
28:09
these people do it? They cut these guys in on
28:11
the rake and you know for them that's still
28:14
it's almost like the equivalent of It's
28:16
like the you know, you pay the bill at the restaurant and
28:18
there's a small amount that's a tip Okay, tax and tip it's
28:20
like the equivalent of that kind of slippage
28:22
in the process It's a bipartisan affair by
28:24
the way And so they love puppets who
28:27
actually are susceptible to Liking
28:29
money actually the people who are ideological
28:31
people actually even if they have ideologies that you
28:33
agree with or disagree with The people who
28:35
have independent ideologies don't make for good puppets
28:38
because they can't be controlled But
28:40
the people who are actually let's say in love
28:42
with enriching themselves from their time in public service
28:44
They actually make for excellent puppets because at least
28:46
the puppet masters who have billions are happy to
28:48
pay off You know somebody who even only wants
28:50
a mere couple single-digit millions That's
28:53
a small price to pay to know that you can actually
28:55
control and Operate that puppet as long
28:57
as it system malfunction hasn't begun as it has
28:59
in the case of Joe Biden So
29:01
in the case of Biden that's how you get to
29:03
hunter Biden collecting multi-million dollar bribes from places like Ukraine
29:06
To send 200 billion dollars back to Ukraine. You
29:09
got even the likes of Elizabeth Warren We all know what
29:11
her public salary has been for her and her family In
29:14
the low hundreds of thousands of dollars somehow her net
29:16
worth is in the high 60s of millions of dollars
29:18
over her career In public service that
29:20
math doesn't add up Nikki Haley's in
29:22
debt when she leaves her time at the
29:24
UN then ends up a multi-millionaire A few
29:27
years later after starting a military contractor and
29:29
after giving paid speeches to foreign actors that
29:31
math doesn't add up But these
29:33
are exactly the profile of people who make
29:35
the best puppets of all Because
29:37
you know at least they're responsive to money that makes
29:40
the game actually very easy And I
29:42
think it's what we need to change in American politics Public
29:44
service should be about serving the public radical
29:47
idea I know not serving oneself,
29:49
and I think that's part of what we need to
29:51
bring back to American politics Folks
29:53
I want to talk to you about bone charges
29:55
holistic wellness brand with a huge range of evidence-based
29:58
products to optimize your life It's
30:00
founded on science and it's inspired by
30:02
nature and all bone sharks products adopt
30:05
ancestral ways of living in our modern
30:07
day world. And one of their best
30:09
products is their infrared sauna blanket. How
30:12
it works, it raises your heart rate to
30:14
that of physical exercise so it burns calories
30:16
while you relax. You can burn up to
30:18
600 calories in just one session. It
30:20
helps to flush out heavy metals and other
30:22
toxins by sweating and infrared heat
30:25
and elevates your heart rate while releasing
30:27
endorphins so it can leave you feeling
30:29
euphoric after your session. It's easy
30:31
to set up, takes less than a
30:33
minute. You can enjoy a session for
30:35
30-40 minutes relaxing, reading, watching TV, meditating,
30:37
whatever. You'll feel less stressed
30:39
and it's a great addition to your wellness
30:42
routine. Bone shark ships worldwide in
30:44
rapid time. It's made from vegan leather, free
30:46
shipping on every sauna blanket. And here's the
30:48
thing, 30 day trial, easy returns
30:50
and exchanges with a 12 month
30:52
warranty. Here's all you got to do. Go
30:55
to bonecharts.com/welcome, use code welcome to save 50%
30:57
off. That's
30:59
boncharge.com/welcome and use code welcome
31:01
to save 15% off. Hey
31:06
folks, Michael Malice here, tolerated
31:08
author, Twitter asshole
31:10
and sheath underwear model. I
31:13
love wearing sheath. I wear it every
31:15
single day. They're the most comfortable briefs
31:18
you'll ever wear and I'm currently designing
31:20
a new pair of sheath based
31:22
on a certain type of fish, which you will
31:24
see in the coming months. Every time
31:26
you hear my voice, you should know I'm
31:29
wearing sheath and what makes sheath different is
31:31
that they have dual pouch technology. They have
31:33
one pouch for one part of your male
31:35
anatomy, another pouch for another part of your
31:37
male anatomy. Sounds weird, but when you
31:39
put them on, they're going to be super comfortable.
31:41
They keep you cool in the hot weather, keep
31:44
you nice and snug in an interview
31:46
on a date, doing a podcast, so
31:48
on and so forth. After you try sheath, you're
31:50
never going back to the other brands. Support
31:53
the underwear that supports you. Go to
31:55
sheathunderwear.com, use promo code Malice, you get
31:57
20% off. That's sheath
31:59
underwear. sheathunderwear.com, promo code M-A-L-I-C-E, 20% off. They've
32:03
got shirts, they've got hoodies, they've got
32:05
mesh ones. They have something for
32:07
you. They also have a girls line, but since women
32:09
aren't allowed to listen to the show, I can't help
32:11
you. sheathunderwear.com, promo code
32:13
Malice. Let's get back
32:16
to the show. Yeah. You mentioned
32:18
Hunter, and it's just fascinating to me
32:20
because the argument is,
32:22
well, this Ukrainian gas company, they can hire
32:24
whoever they want, and that's certainly true. When
32:27
you ask people, why do you think they
32:29
would want to hire Hunter Biden, crackhead
32:32
and Lothario, what does he bring to
32:34
the table? They just stare at
32:36
you blankly or bring up Donald
32:39
Trump Jr. or Eric Trump. What
32:42
other possible reason would there be to hire
32:44
him at that much money other
32:46
than as a backdoor lobbyist? There's
32:49
no other possibility. It's just bizarre to
32:51
me how they can take- It's
32:53
not unique to Democrats. Let's just take the Hunter
32:55
Biden example, which is, look,
32:58
I think that if
33:01
you take the Biden connection off the table,
33:04
I think you could take the average person
33:07
walking the sidewalk of New York City on
33:09
a given day and plop them
33:11
in to be a board member of an energy company
33:14
and get more valuable insight from that
33:16
person than you're going to get from
33:18
Hunter Biden. I don't think that's an exaggeration. I don't
33:20
think it's even close to an exaggeration. I think that
33:22
that's plainly obvious. And
33:25
so if you're going with Hunter Biden, it's for some reason other than his insight.
33:28
And it turns out it's his last name because he's the son of the US
33:30
vice president. And that's
33:32
the very country, and it works, this stuff
33:34
works, how do you know it works? That's the
33:36
very country to whom that president is
33:39
now sending $200 billion of our money without
33:41
once articulating what the justification is for the
33:43
interest of the United States to do so.
33:46
So do you think that the United States would
33:48
be sending $200 billion of money to the
33:50
very country that's one of those corrupt nations
33:52
on planet Earth, but for at
33:55
least the fact that they had paid that same
33:57
president's son $5 million in what appears
33:59
to be a very be a bribe, at
34:01
least lowercase B bribe of the highest
34:03
order. Of course they would be. And
34:05
yet that's exactly the reality that we see playing
34:08
out. Now the irony is many of the very
34:10
people who are the biggest advocates of this war,
34:12
the ones who actually stand to
34:14
benefit from it. This isn't just
34:16
a Democratic Party affair. It exists in
34:18
the Republican Party. This
34:20
kind of corruption is rife, alive and well. One
34:23
of the questions I ask is why should congressmen
34:26
be allowed to trade individual stocks? Most of them
34:28
are in favor of it, right? Well, how
34:30
does that advance the public interest? Why does it advance
34:32
the public interest for congressmen to be able to lobby
34:34
the government? You know, it
34:37
could be in the interest of a congressman to do that, I understand.
34:39
That could be a job attraction. But other
34:41
than that being a job attraction, how does
34:43
it affect the interests of the public for
34:46
that person to actually be able to lobby
34:49
the government? It does. Now, how
34:51
do we drive the change here? I
34:54
believe in using the incentives, even the broken incentives
34:56
of people who have these broken incentives in
34:58
our favor. We do it by at least
35:01
driving changes in the law. So I favor bans on
35:03
trading of individual stocks while you're in congress or while
35:05
you're a regulator. I favor 10 year
35:08
bans on lobbying. I don't think you should be
35:10
able to join the board of a company if
35:12
you're a regulator responsible for regulating that entity. Nobody
35:15
would agree to that right now. But
35:17
if you put that proposal up and then you
35:19
grandfather in the people who are already there and
35:21
say, OK, it doesn't apply to you, but
35:24
it applies to anybody who comes after you,
35:27
then they're going to vote for these policies in
35:29
a heartbeat because they're actually wildly popular policies. And
35:32
so on one hand, it's sad and you have to be a
35:34
little bit cynical to be able to drive positive change. On
35:37
the other hand, let the perfect not be the enemy of the
35:39
good. If we can do that in the long run by
35:41
at least exempting, sad and pathetic as it is,
35:44
the people who are already there who have
35:46
to vote for it in order for that to become the law of
35:48
the land, that's what I favor doing. I
35:50
think that does take an outsider, somebody's a businessman
35:52
who understands how basic human incentives work to be
35:55
able to at least marshal those in our favor
35:57
to make sure public service goes back to being about
35:59
service. of the public rather than the self. But
36:02
that is one of the criteria I'm using, for
36:04
example, in deciding who I'm going to
36:06
endorse. I mean, I
36:08
announced recently, we've been flooded
36:10
with inbound requests for endorsements of this candidate
36:13
or that. And one of the things I've done is I don't
36:15
want to make those decisions in a
36:17
one-off manner shooting from the hip. And most
36:19
of these endorsements are meaningless anyway. So
36:21
I've laid out what I call the
36:23
American truth pledge, but some basic prongs,
36:25
some basic principles, the people
36:27
we elect to run the government should run the
36:29
government. That's number one. Number two
36:32
is the first and sole moral duty
36:34
of every US leader is to US citizens. And number
36:36
three is the public service should be about serving the
36:39
public, not yourself. And the national pride is a worthy
36:41
thing worth of reviving in this country. And then we
36:43
need to fill the void. Great. Those
36:45
are not really Democrat or
36:47
Republican principles in a strict partisan
36:50
sense. They're basic American
36:52
ideals that we fought a revolution to
36:54
secure in this country. And
36:56
that's what I stand for over
36:58
the labels of black or white or
37:00
gay or straight, or even really Democrat
37:03
or Republican when most of
37:05
the problems we face in this country right
37:07
now are sometimes the worst policies that
37:09
we adopt are the bipartisan ones. Just look
37:11
at the current discussion around more
37:13
Ukraine funding. We got to go
37:15
move beyond the labels to actual
37:17
substantive principles that we stand for.
37:20
And that's what I'm trying to do in this next phase. It
37:23
takes a lot for me to get offended and
37:25
something that happened in the last few months regarding
37:27
you did offend me a lot. One of the
37:29
great privileges of great honors of my life was
37:31
when the Babylon B wrote an article about me.
37:34
The headline said anarchist runs for office with
37:36
zero point program. And they wrote
37:38
a piece about you that you know you got a job at
37:40
7-11. You're obviously Indian,
37:43
you're very wealthy. And
37:45
what offended me wasn't the article. I hate
37:48
the idea that caring about bigotry is
37:50
like a leftist concern. If
37:52
I learned that a friend of mine, she goes up to
37:54
a job interview and they take one look at him and
37:56
he's the wrong skin color and they go, we don't want
37:58
your kind here. That is outrageous. Then offensive to me
38:00
doesn't have to be a democrat or a left this
38:03
thing to think that that's beyond the pale so to
38:05
speak. Bad choice of words, perhaps? Point
38:07
being, when that piece was run about
38:10
you babylon be that that you were
38:12
get a job A seven eleven. All
38:14
these white people insinuate themselves. And
38:17
were offended on your behalf. And.
38:19
That to me is a kind of Loki
38:21
racism, this kind of white savior complex that
38:23
like you're. You're a person. You have
38:26
a. Now. See of a megaphone.
38:28
You did a very good job for
38:30
months advocating for yourself instead of looking
38:32
to you and being like does it
38:34
have set you? Are you offended? They
38:36
felt comfortable based be shoving other way.
38:39
And. Being upset for you when you
38:41
weren't upset. I would love to hear
38:43
your perspective on on that piece and
38:46
and or stance people suck on and
38:48
supposedly on your behalf. Yeah, I
38:50
mean minutes. Two different. Different questions
38:52
your what is. Was it a good
38:54
joke? On it's own terms, I like your opening I
38:57
honestly thought was pretty funny. I. Had a very
38:59
short lived Korea and stand up comedy myself. I did
39:01
about ten shows a New York City before I decided.
39:03
That the in I was never going to be
39:05
the best itself as it moved on a new
39:07
thing sir just as the realm of like was
39:09
at the funniest thing the Babylon Be is written
39:12
at and Syndicate was like that. Funny as a
39:14
former what he was the I was what it
39:16
wasn't that glover you and with me know if
39:18
you put not daily content. At. Some days
39:20
you get a big the bottom of the barrel so there's
39:22
that sort of one access. Monastic. A
39:24
different kind of criticism. Was. An offensive
39:26
no, actually what they're making fun of.
39:28
One the leftists who actually get overly
39:30
offended at pretty much it almost hunger
39:33
to be offended that needs to be
39:35
satiated every day. and we can fall
39:37
into that trap. And. So I
39:39
think I can remember what I said afterwards,
39:41
but I wanted to make clear I tweeted
39:43
something. You. Ceremonial. not again to patchy. I
39:45
yeah, that's right. That's right. That's right. Yeah, you
39:48
remember better than I do. I wanted to. actually.
39:50
ada. Like as I ever the
39:52
joke was like mediocre at best as a much
39:54
better counting coming up in the Babylon be than
39:56
that I've actually great whatever the bachelor be The
39:58
last week. Was. What have they stated
40:01
the truth? Man who is
40:03
deemed too senile to stand trial is
40:05
deemed fit to run the United States of America,
40:07
which is exactly hilarious, not because
40:09
it's false, but because it's true. That's great
40:12
work from the Babylon B, hilarious. Mine was
40:14
like, not that, the one about me was
40:16
not that funny, but I
40:18
felt it was important to nonetheless make light of
40:20
it and maybe say something a little funnier than
40:23
what they put up, but also
40:25
as a way of letting people
40:27
know that we got to move
40:29
on from this hunger to be
40:31
offended. And we're calling it hungry
40:33
for something. So we might as well look inside
40:35
and figure out what it is we're actually hungry
40:37
for, rather than satisfying that
40:40
hunger by the experience the serotonin hit
40:42
or whatever that we get from that
40:44
sanctimony of being offended. But
40:46
I think that that's an interesting entry
40:48
ramp into talking about what
40:50
it is that we're hungry for. I
40:52
do think we're lost right now. All
40:55
of us in some sense as a nation, as a people, we're
40:58
lost, starved for some sense
41:00
of purpose and meaning
41:02
and identity at
41:05
a time in our history when the
41:07
things that used to fill that void,
41:11
you could fill in the blank, patriotism,
41:13
belief in your country, belief
41:16
in God, hard work, family,
41:19
self-confidence, whatever it is, those things
41:21
have disappeared. And so that's
41:24
what I think is more interesting about what's going
41:26
on in the country is that we are all
41:28
starved for a sense of direction that
41:31
we're lacking. I think we conservatives,
41:34
people like myself, we love being
41:36
capitalists, individualists, successful, but we
41:38
also hunger to be part of
41:41
something bigger than ourselves. And
41:44
yet right now we can't even answer what
41:46
it means to be an American. And I
41:49
think it's a fixable problem, but I think that's the deeper
41:51
issue of what's going on in the country. And so I
41:54
guess the long way of saying Michael Is that
41:56
you had to get super lame when people are
41:58
just offended by any type of humor? That necessarily....
42:00
the has to bar borrow something that's a little
42:02
bit spicy or else it's not going to be
42:04
funny. But I also don't want
42:06
to form the trap of. Getting.
42:09
Too worked up about the people who are
42:11
actually being offended. Reverses getting to the root
42:14
cause of what the hell's actually go and
42:16
on, which is the steeper vacuum that I
42:18
think we need to fill and so. That's.
42:21
Certainly where my focus is. It's why
42:23
ran for president. I. Believe.
42:26
That every one of us has a role to play.
42:28
I was trying to play mine. I thought I could
42:30
have most effectively than it is the next President. But.
42:32
Regardless, the beauty of this country, that's up
42:34
to the people of this country and I'm
42:36
all in for from be in next president,
42:39
but I'm still looking at how I can
42:41
next most effectively still have that impact of
42:43
helping fill that void of national identity in
42:45
this country. and I think that's gonna go
42:47
a long way to making a lot of
42:49
these other. Strains. Superficial
42:51
in a calm woke recall what
42:53
you want behaviors. Melt.
42:56
Away, which is what we really needed
42:58
this country. Politicians.
43:01
Are notoriously different from the cameras vs
43:03
in person or behind the scenes. I
43:05
wanted to just ask your opinion quickly of
43:07
how the other major candidates were like
43:09
in person as opposed to how they
43:11
come off on camera. Sometimes are probably better
43:13
person sometimes the worst. So let's start
43:15
with you know, Mike Pence like how
43:17
was he like in real life as
43:19
opposed to how we see him on Tv.
43:23
So. I. Was I
43:25
would say so far as
43:27
to be shocked that. In.
43:29
His opening gambit in the
43:31
first debate. His sole
43:34
focus was going after me and
43:36
that shocked me because like. Actually,
43:38
in the saloon that I'm sitting in, I
43:40
could literally floppy find it free. If Doug
43:42
somewhere in this room I have a pile
43:44
of these. I mean, the guy was sending
43:46
me like cards like hand written cars for
43:48
years. like for a couple years leading up
43:51
to the presidential election and be like. You.
43:53
know he would know about some detail
43:55
of my wife for my family that
43:57
i can ask them from dinner and
43:59
like is now at once or twice.
44:01
I would get handwritten, personalized, and
44:03
they're not like things that you could have
44:06
written just as you were
44:08
writing to anybody. They were personalized to me
44:11
from him for years. Now, he invited
44:13
me to come to some of his donor events,
44:15
not to donate even, but to speak or to
44:17
actually even be seen there, just to attend. And
44:20
so this guy, when his press
44:22
people started bashing me in the weeks leading up
44:24
to the debate, and so I had these reporters,
44:27
because reporters are their whole separate breed, and
44:29
that's the discussion for later. But they would just sort
44:31
of prop up and try to get reactions from me
44:33
off the record sharing kind of what the color is
44:35
they were hearing from the Pence camp, and everybody
44:38
was saying that he was going to go after me on the debate stage.
44:40
I thought they were nuts. I was like, I don't
44:42
think this guy has it in him. First of all, I didn't
44:44
think he had it in him to go after anybody anyway,
44:47
even if his life depended on it. I didn't think
44:49
that he actually had the opportunity to throw a punch.
44:51
But second of all, he had been, I don't
44:55
want to say like licking my feet, but because
44:57
that sounds offensive, but I think he's probably been doing that to
44:59
a lot of people. But I
45:01
would say being going out of his
45:03
way to be extremely thoughtful over the
45:05
last couple of years. And
45:07
so I couldn't imagine coming after me on the debate stage. But
45:10
in his he did not waste any time in
45:12
that debate where his main focus in that first
45:14
debate was to throw a punch at me.
45:17
And honest to God,
45:19
Mike, my first reaction was, like
45:22
when I saw that happening was like
45:24
a sense of like, I'm proud of you, Mike. Yeah, I
45:26
did not know you had that in you. And I don't
45:28
know whether that
45:32
game across on stage or not. I can't remember how
45:34
I responded. But I remember how I felt. Right,
45:36
which was that the guy hasn't
45:38
actually good for him. I did not think like
45:40
he was he was I got a potted plant
45:43
sitting right next to me here. And you
45:45
know, it turns out he's not a potted plant. He actually
45:47
could he actually could throw a punch. I felt proud of
45:49
him. I can't remember exactly what I said, but I remember
45:52
having some fun with it. But that was maybe in his
45:54
case, what the difference was
45:56
between between backstage, you know,
45:59
offstage reality. versus what we saw
46:01
on stage. What about Ron
46:03
DeSantis? So
46:05
I have gotten to
46:07
know him a little bit in the lead up to
46:09
the presidential race. I will say that
46:11
I think
46:15
he's a guy who actually wants
46:17
to be a good governor. And I think
46:20
that he believes, and I think he's been largely a
46:22
good governor. I think he's a guy who wants to
46:24
execute. I think that he was
46:26
sort of, it's kind of sad forced
46:29
by the system to run. I
46:32
think that's what happened. I don't
46:34
think that left to his own devices. He was
46:36
passionate about running to be the next president of
46:38
the United States. He's passionate about being
46:40
the governor of Florida. He's very proud of what he's accomplished
46:42
there. I think there's a lot of things that he's done
46:44
there that he has good reason to be proud of. But
46:47
it's sort of what happens when somebody's put
46:49
into a position that they weren't organically called
46:51
to, but that the system props them
46:53
up to. And so my sense
46:56
towards him was a sense of sympathy, I
46:58
think, is I think
47:00
that he didn't have to go through or be put through
47:02
what he was put through. I think that
47:05
the system decided that they were going to put him up
47:07
before they chewed him up, spit him out, and decided to
47:09
go for the next puppet, Nikki Haley, who they then
47:11
got behind. And I think it's
47:14
just a sort of a sad feature of American
47:16
politics is what we saw happen there. But I
47:18
do think that Florida is going
47:20
to be better off for having him back as governor. There's
47:23
a reason why Florida and many states pass
47:25
laws that say you cannot actively be a
47:27
governor of a state while running
47:29
for US president. I know what it was
47:31
like. It was all consuming. I mean, I've
47:34
worked hard to build companies and done a
47:36
lot of, I've aimed to take on a lot of
47:38
challenges in my career. But nothing
47:40
even comes close to what this last year looks
47:42
like. I mean, I was all out for a
47:44
good portion of the last six months. I'm talking
47:46
6 AM to 11 PM without exaggeration. I mean,
47:48
that's what the day looks like constantly. Some
47:51
people who may not run
47:53
serious campaigns or whatever who are running for president,
47:55
many of them kind of got out in the
47:57
first eight months. But if you're seriously running
47:59
to be the next president, doing it coming from
48:02
literally 0.0 as a starting point. It's
48:05
the highest mountain to climb. It's 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. constantly. And
48:08
so I understand what that looks like
48:11
for me. You got to be passionate about it. Yeah,
48:13
of course. But if somebody else is just propping you
48:15
up and putting you up, I think it's a
48:17
little bit of a sad state of American
48:19
politics that you had a system that used
48:21
him in the way that they
48:23
did and chewed him up and spit him out
48:26
to double up the irony of
48:28
the whole thing. Folks,
48:30
gold has soared past $2,000 an ounce. The
48:33
wars in Israel and Ukraine, as well as
48:35
rate cuts that are on the table, are
48:37
fueling gold's meteoric rise. Deutsche Bank, UBS, Bank
48:40
of America, JP Morgan, they're all forecasting sizable
48:42
rate cuts in an election year. Jamie
48:44
Dimon of JP Morgan, Larry Fink of BlackRock, they
48:46
point out similarities to the 70s. In 1979, we
48:48
had the Iran hostage crisis, war
48:52
in the Middle East, and major cities in disarray
48:54
and stagflation. Gold went from $158
48:56
an ounce to $74 to $850 an ounce in 1980. Meanwhile,
49:02
our national debt is skyrocketing ever higher.
49:04
There's a direct correlation to the national
49:06
debt and the price of gold. In
49:08
2020, the US debt was $23 trillion
49:10
and gold was $1,500 an ounce. In
49:13
2023, the national debt is $33 trillion and gold is over $2,000
49:15
an ounce. Donald
49:19
Trump warned that the US dollar is no
49:21
longer being the world standard, and that will
49:23
be our greatest defeat in 200 years. Here's
49:27
what you can do. Call the proud Americans
49:29
of the Patriot Gold Group today before it's
49:31
too late. Mention my name, that's Michael Malice.
49:34
You'll always get best-in-class service from Patriots protecting
49:36
Patriots. Patriot Gold Group has the No Fee
49:38
for Life IRA, where your
49:40
IRA or 401K can be physical, gold and
49:42
silver, and you may be eligible for the
49:44
No Fee for Life IRA on qualifying rollovers.
49:47
All you have to do is call 888-505-9845 to get a free investor
49:50
guide today or
49:53
even easier, just go to malicegold.com.
49:56
Patriot Gold Group is Consumer Affairs
49:58
top-rated gold IRA deal. 7
50:01
years in a row. So just call 888-505-9845 or go to malicegold.com.
50:03
Protect your money against
50:09
the Fed and inflation. Some
50:17
time in the early 80s, Ario
50:19
Speedwagon's airplane made an unannounced
50:22
middle of a night landing. This is my
50:24
friend Kyle McLaughlin, the star of Twin Peaks.
50:26
And he's telling me about how he discovered
50:29
a real-life Twin Peaks in rural North Carolina,
50:31
not far from where he filmed Blue Velvet.
50:33
What was on the plane was copious amounts of drugs
50:36
coming in from South America. Supposedly
50:38
Pablo Escobar went looking for other spots?
50:40
Quiet, out of the way places to
50:42
bring in his cocaine. My
50:47
name is Joshua Davis and I'm an investigative
50:49
reporter. Kyle and I
50:51
talk all the time about the strange things we
50:53
come across, but nothing was quite as strange as
50:56
what we found in Varnam Town, North Carolina. There's
50:59
crooked cops, brother against brother. Everyone's got
51:01
a story to tell, but does the
51:03
truth even exist? Welcome
51:06
to Varnam Town. Varnam
51:09
Town is available wherever you listen to
51:11
podcasts. Let's
51:15
get back to the show. What about
51:17
Chris Christie and was it accurate that during the
51:19
commercial break he went up to complain to Megyn
51:21
Kelly that you were being mean to him and
51:23
hurting his feelings? I
51:26
didn't overhear that conversation. I'm
51:28
always grounded in fact. I can't tell
51:30
you whether that was. He was complaining about
51:32
something. You could just take a
51:34
look at that, but I did not care to interject
51:37
myself in that. I
51:41
think the thing with Chris Christie is
51:43
it's closer to an actor, actually, is
51:45
what you think. It's a bit of
51:47
a shtick, actually. It's not
51:49
surprising if you actually even just look at the publicly
51:51
available facts. In 2020, he
51:54
was Donald Trump's debate partner. After Donald
51:56
Trump's first term, he's preparing Donald Trump
51:58
by way of debates. In 2020,
52:00
he's licking Donald Trump's feet for
52:04
COVID dollars as a lobbyist. First
52:06
of all, if the first thing
52:08
you've done after being a public servant is to become
52:10
a lobbyist, you have no business being the president of
52:12
the United States. I think it should just be a
52:15
hard and fast rule. I'm not saying that you should
52:17
be in trouble for it. If the rules allow you
52:19
to become a lobbyist after you've been a public servant,
52:21
then I guess you're following the rules. So you're not
52:23
breaking the law. I think it should be illegal, but
52:25
it's not right now. So I'm not saying it is
52:27
something illegal. But I'm saying that
52:29
you did something dishonorable. If the first thing you're
52:31
going to do after becoming a governor is to
52:34
try to cash in as a lobbyist, which
52:36
he did, then I don't think you should be anywhere
52:39
near running for the presidency, but that's also what
52:41
he did. But the irony is he's licking Donald
52:44
Trump's feet, lobbying for COVID aid dollars for his
52:46
pharma clients and other clients in New Jersey, and
52:49
then switches on a dime to this new shtick
52:51
of having literally not like one iota of vision
52:53
for the country. You had no iota of vision
52:55
for the country coming from his mouth. The
52:57
only thing was a little bit of a shtick of like trying
52:59
to interview for
53:02
some sort of third tier commentatorship
53:04
at CNN in the form of
53:06
trite, tired, you know,
53:08
I would say, would
53:11
say, you know, the stuff you would hear on MSNBC
53:13
on a given day regurgitated through Chris Christie's mouth was
53:15
the entirety of his campaign. And so I would say
53:17
it was a more of a trite shtick than anything
53:20
else. I don't think he actually believes it. I
53:22
don't think that he has super
53:24
strong convictions. I think he's a pretty funny guy.
53:27
He might be a fun guy to have dinner with. I think
53:29
I probably would, you know,
53:31
enjoy having a dinner,
53:34
a Mexican dinner with him or something at some point
53:36
as a family. I would probably do
53:38
that. We'd probably joust and I would just recognize
53:40
the whole thing was just a comedy show because
53:43
that's what it was. It wasn't actually anything deeper
53:45
than that. Yeah, he's a prosecutor. And as a
53:47
prosecutor, it's your job to whoever's on the stand.
53:49
You have to make that jury believe that this
53:51
person is the worst human being on Earth and
53:53
cannot be allowed to walk the streets. So part
53:56
of that is performative and being an actor. And
53:59
I think he realized that he. that skill set. So how
54:01
was he going to best use that skill set
54:03
now that he Donald Trump's out of office, he couldn't
54:05
be a lobbyist anymore. He's like, Oh, there's this little
54:07
shtick. I can still play one on TV. And that's
54:10
what he did for a matter of months. And that
54:12
was the long and the short of that. Can you
54:14
can you describe from your perspective, how it felt or
54:16
the look on his face when you looked at him
54:18
and said your idea of foreign policy experience is closed
54:20
down a bridge to New York, New Jersey, while you
54:22
do us a favor, quit the
54:24
race and go have a meal somewhere and get
54:26
off the stage, you know, and you know, I meant
54:29
that in a friendly way. I think that that would
54:31
have been good for everybody. So and look, my rule
54:33
was I didn't attack anybody until they attacked me. Sure.
54:36
And so he came in, he didn't in
54:39
his attacks on me, they were like very
54:41
slapstick, just like name calling. There wasn't much
54:43
humor to it. There wasn't much creativity to
54:46
it. So when he when he tried to
54:48
take a swing, I decided to just swing
54:50
back with the obvious, which is that it
54:52
is true. I mean, the fullest extent of
54:54
his foreign policy experience was trying to close
54:56
that bridge from New Jersey to
54:58
New York. And so I invited him to,
55:01
you know, get the hell out of the
55:03
race and get off the stage and wished him well to you
55:05
know, whatever I said, enjoy a nice meal or whatever it was.
55:07
I think that he pretty much acknowledged
55:09
that that was true about his foreign policy experience.
55:11
He was spouting off about Ukraine. This was right
55:13
after he had jumped in. So what had happened
55:15
on the debate stage was Nikki
55:17
Haley has been one of the chief
55:20
proponents of more funding to
55:22
Ukraine. And over time, you do get to know
55:24
these people. It's clear to me that she, like
55:26
so many of her compatriots, doesn't have
55:28
the first clue of even what she's actually talking
55:30
about, right? Put aside the corruption put aside the
55:32
self interest. And that's a real issue in Nikki
55:35
Haley's case. But put it put all that
55:37
to one side. I don't think
55:39
she actually even understood the history
55:41
of what regions of Ukraine had
55:43
Russian histories versus not had an
55:45
understanding of which parts of Ukraine
55:47
had voted in parliamentary elections, the
55:49
US's role in Ukraine since 2014,
55:51
the recorded Victoria Nuland
55:53
call I don't think Nikki Haley has the first clue about
55:55
any of these things. In fact, if you look at her
55:57
own book, where she was touted as the queen of foreign
55:59
policy. She had no idea what the UN does,
56:01
and she was talking about in her own book how she was
56:03
looking up on Google before she answered back to Donald Trump to
56:06
say yes or not. So I don't think
56:08
that's her fault, but it's a bizarre thing if
56:10
you're making your foreign policy wisdom the
56:12
hallmark of your candidacy. And so I decided to just
56:14
call that out, and people said, oh, weren't you really
56:16
brave for taking that risk? Not really,
56:19
because I was basically 100% certain that
56:21
she wasn't going to know those three provinces in eastern
56:23
Ukraine. And so anyway, I said, look, can
56:25
you even name three of the provinces of eastern Ukraine
56:27
that you want us to be fighting for? And
56:30
she couldn't, and the blank stare on her face told the
56:32
story. So Chris Christie then jumped
56:34
into her defense and then started attacking me
56:37
as I think he's the biggest blowhard in
56:39
America or something like that was
56:41
what he called me. And so I responded to that by
56:43
saying now we have now learned that both
56:45
advocates for more Ukraine funding have no idea
56:47
what three provinces are in eastern Ukraine that
56:49
they want us fighting for. And for Chris's
56:51
part, since we were in a discussion about
56:53
foreign policy, I called out the fact that
56:55
his foreign policy experience was even thinner than
56:57
Nikki's because it consisted of closing that bridge.
56:59
And so I'm not a guy who I
57:01
think that people saw me as pugnacious or
57:03
whatever on the debate stage. I
57:06
don't look around for people to bully. I don't go around
57:08
bullying people. It's not my way, and I wouldn't teach
57:10
my kids to do it either. And people who know
57:12
me and the type of leader I am furthest
57:15
from the way that I would lead this
57:17
country or lead a company or lead any group of people. But
57:20
my rule of thumb is this. If you
57:23
hit me, I will hit you back 10 times harder,
57:25
period. And that's how I would lead
57:27
this country as well. And yes, that's how I
57:29
will raise my kids too. You don't go in
57:31
search of monsters to destroy, but you
57:33
don't let any monster, no matter how large,
57:35
staring you in the face take
57:37
an aim at destroying you either. That's the way I roll.
57:40
You know, you've said a lot of controversial things, but
57:42
I can't believe you used the word thinner in reference
57:44
to Chris Christie. So I think we've reached a new
57:46
kind of level. I got to tell you, so this
57:48
talk you being the VP, this talk you having cabinet
57:51
positions, if I had a genie lamp, I
57:53
would love to see you as head of the FDA because
57:56
you know that industry inside and out. There's
57:59
lots of people. whose lives are ruined because
58:01
how the FDA regulates things as you know, I
58:03
agree with that. I agree with that. But
58:05
where like if I have terminal cancer, and
58:07
I'm like, make me the guinea pig, at
58:09
least I'm going out fighting, we're going to
58:11
get information, I'm going to die anyway. And they're
58:13
like, No, too bad. You
58:15
know that industry so well, you'd
58:17
be so well positioned to immediately
58:21
help the lives of millions of people.
58:23
Is that a position you ever take? You
58:25
know, so I think it's a little narrow. And I
58:27
think that each of us just has to look ourselves
58:30
in the mirror and ask ourselves, how
58:32
are we going to use our own unique
58:35
God given gifts to achieve the maximum of
58:37
our potential. And I think every one of
58:40
us owes it to ourselves to ask our nose to this
58:42
country to ask ourselves that question. Now, I
58:45
know a lot about a lot, a number of these agencies,
58:47
the FDA is one of them. And so
58:49
do I want to play a role in help shaping
58:52
that for the better for this country for
58:54
human health for our economy, for
58:57
respect of our constitutional republic, most of
59:00
those FDA rules that are softly enacted,
59:02
I think are unconstitutional, and we're never
59:04
actually authorized many of those behaviors. Yes,
59:06
I care deeply about that. But
59:09
part of this comes from helping select the
59:11
right kinds of people to occupy, you
59:13
know, various positions in the government as well. And so if
59:15
I'm in a position to do that, I think
59:17
that's something where I might be in
59:19
a better suited role. But but you know, it's not
59:22
about me. And it's not about, you know, any one
59:24
individual, I think it's look, Donald Trump needs to be
59:26
elected as the next president. And I think that a
59:29
properly elected and run
59:31
presidency is won by one word of the
59:33
president is actually calling the shots. And so,
59:36
you know, I've been I've really enjoyed my
59:38
relationship with Donald Trump, especially in recent weeks, even
59:40
after I got out of the race, we've
59:42
had some really substantive and productive conversations about
59:44
the future direction of the country. And
59:46
I think that we can't put the cart before the horse.
59:48
He's got to win this year, he's got
59:50
to win not by a little bit, but by a lot. And
59:53
as I said earlier, in the earlier part of
59:55
our conversation, this is an
59:57
example of the kind of complacency that we can't afford.
1:00:01
Because I don't even think we're at the starting line, the game that
1:00:03
they're going to play. I don't think it's going to
1:00:05
be Biden. We've got to prepare for even,
1:00:07
I think we're still in the preseason, actually.
1:00:10
And so we've got to resist that urge
1:00:12
to say, oh, well, here's exactly how things are going to
1:00:14
go afterwards. And here's this person's position and that person's position.
1:00:17
Forget that. I think we're
1:00:19
a long ways from that. We need to stay
1:00:21
alert to what I think is going to be a
1:00:23
complicated year. I think there's a lot of traps laid
1:00:25
ahead this year that are still lurking. I
1:00:27
think we need to focus on avoiding those traps and
1:00:29
actually achieving success. And then we'll figure out what's next
1:00:31
for all of us after that. Folks,
1:00:33
head on over to malice.locals.com. Vivek will be
1:00:36
taking questions from supporters. Vivek, running out
1:00:38
of time, what has been your favorite part
1:00:40
of this interview? Oh,
1:00:42
this interview? I kind of liked your opening
1:00:44
in the way that we kind of warmed it up because I was having some, you
1:00:46
know, you and I, we had these camera issues. I
1:00:49
was kind of, you know, in a little bit
1:00:51
of superficially irritated head space. We
1:00:53
couldn't get the thing to work. Hopefully it
1:00:55
looked and sounded good, but I hate technical
1:00:57
issues. And, you know, I'm just kind
1:00:59
of winging it right here. But then you kind
1:01:02
of opened that up with, you know, brought me
1:01:04
right back into my head space of
1:01:06
not worrying about camera technology. So that was my favorite
1:01:08
part. You are welcome.
1:01:11
Thank you. On
1:01:42
live channels and on demand. Pluto
1:01:47
TV. Stream now. Pay
1:01:49
never. Luxury
1:02:00
is meant to be livable.
1:02:23
Luxury is meant to be livable.
1:02:25
Discover the new leather collection at
1:02:28
Ashley with premium quality leather sofas,
1:02:30
recliners, and more all built to
1:02:33
last. No matter how many spills, scuffs,
1:02:35
or pet related mishaps come its way,
Podchaser is the ultimate destination for podcast data, search, and discovery. Learn More