Transcript

Vivek Ramaswamy | Dave Smith | Part Of The Problem 1036

From Dave Smith · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 1 h 4 min · 13,021 words · 75 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Vivek Ramaswamy | Dave Smith | Part Of The Problem 1036", an episode of Dave Smith published September 12, 2023 (1 h 4 min, about 13,021 words). It mentions 35 people, works and ideas, including Donald Trump, New York City, New York, Patriot Act, Vice President Mike Pence, Julian Assange.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 10:00: Patriot Act, Declaration of Independence, Glenn Greenwald, Governors Comedy Club
  2. – 20:00: Christopher Hitchens, Jordan Peterson, MyBookie, New York City, New York
  3. – 30:00: Al Gore
  4. – 50:00: Donald Trump, Julian Assange, Vice President Mike Pence, BetterHelp
  5. – 1:00:00: Donald Trump, Adam Carolla, Black Lives Matter, Council of Foreign Relations
  6. – 1:04:23: Donald Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy

Notable quotes from "Vivek Ramaswamy | Dave Smith | Part Of The Problem 1036"

  • One in person yeah it's much better than the other way around yes it is so what brings you to New York City besides coming here and we're going to 911 memorial tonight as a…
    about New York City, New York · at
  • A Glenn Greenwald had this I think it was on Patrick David show and he was talking about how when the Patriot Act first was passed that it was even at the time even in Post 9…
    about Patriot Act · at
  • 1776 we're sitting in a you and I are sitting in this studio live in swivel chairs okay Thomas Jefferson at the age of 33 invented the swivel chair yeah the Prototype of what…
    about Thomas Jefferson · at
  • Brought this up when I was on Rogan a few times but even just that song by Oliver Anthony blowing up so much where you do feel like oh yeah there is this real like there's this…
    about Scott D. Anthony · at
  • Tool to stay in control of the action at my bookie to get started go to mybookie.ag now and register for an account for free when you're ready to make your first deposit just…
    about MyBookie · at
  • Which I'm not at all anymore but and then you kind of saw how like Jordan Peterson like became this huge phenomenon and it's almost like I think a lot of us were in a place and…
    about Jordan Peterson · at
  • Good on Ukraine and but I will say watching the debate watching the say like where Mike Pence is or where Nikki Haley is on Ukraine I listen to that and I am very convinced I go there's no chance that you can win the nomination yeah I don't.
    about Vice President Mike Pence · at
  • About the falsehoods of the climate change agenda what you can say about even pardoning Donald Trump or Julian Assange or anyone else I've got a day one list of Pardons that…
    about Donald Trump · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Donald Trump — Person · 8 mentions · first at
  • Vice President Mike Pence — Person · 2 mentions · first at
  • Julian Assange — Person · 2 mentions · first at
    About the falsehoods of the climate change agenda what you can say about even pardoning Donald Trump or Julian Assange or anyone else I've got a day one list of Pardons that…
  • Glenn Greenwald — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Happened to the country where we've gone as a country since then I saw there was a Glenn Greenwald had this I think it was on Patrick David show and he was talking about how…
  • Thomas Jefferson — Person · 1 mention · first at
  • Scott D. Anthony — Person · 1 mention · first at
  • Christopher Hitchens — Person · 1 mention · first at
    The early 2000s remember how popular the new atheist movement was like yeah Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris and a lot of these guys and I was at the time I was like a pretty militant atheist which I'm not at all anymore.
  • Sam Harris — Person · 1 mention · first at
    The early 2000s remember how popular the new atheist movement was like yeah Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris and a lot of these guys and I was at the time I was like a pretty militant atheist which I'm not at all anymore.
  • Jordan Peterson — Person · 1 mention · first at
  • Al Gore — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Sitting in the pews and engaging in a feeling that the pastor is giving you and the pastor might be named Al Gore or you know whoever it is gretathetenberg or whoever it is and…
  • Nikki Haley — Person · 1 mention · first at
    And but I will say watching the debate watching the say like where Mike Pence is or where Nikki Haley is on Ukraine I listen to that and I am very convinced I go there's no…
  • Ron Paul — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Pardoning Ross Albrecht which I've heard you say before and Julian Assange and talked about putting Ron Paul as the head of the Federal Reserve these are things that get me…
  • Tulsi Gabbard — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Fact that someone took a grant it's I remember they used to people used to say about Tulsi gabbard because I'm a fan of her I mean I didn't vote for her but I was a fan of her…
  • Ron DeSantis — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Dollar loan from George Soros as a full-grown adult business loan from George Source Ron DeSantis has had fundraisers like in June with I think like one of George source's…
  • Adam Carolla — Person · 1 mention · first at
    You get out of here you see the way they're coming after Donald Trump yeah I think Tucker Carlson was on Adam carolla's show it was recently and he said which I think something…
  • Tucker Carlson — Person · 1 mention · first at
    You get out of here you see the way they're coming after Donald Trump yeah I think Tucker Carlson was on Adam carolla's show it was recently and he said which I think something…
  • Vivek Ramaswamy — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Whole thing shakes out what's the website is it's a vivek2024.com viveek2024.com all right Vivek ramaswamy thank you very much sir thanks for listening everybody catch you next time peace.
  • Dave Smith — Person · 1 mention
  • Patrick Bet-David — Person · 1 mention
  • RFK Jr. / RK Jr. — Person · 1 mention
  • Ross Ulbricht — Person · 1 mention

Books & papers

  • Declaration of Independence — Book · 1 mention · first at
    Of 33 invented the swivel chair yeah the Prototype of what we're sitting in while writing the Declaration of Independence and you know the spirit of that country where is that…

Companies & orgs

  • Governors Comedy Club — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Go check that out if you haven't already also I'm coming all over the place Governors comedy club in Long Island is the next stop 22nd 23rd comicdavesmith.com go there for all…
  • Black Lives Matter — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Refused to bend the knee and make a corporate statement or contribution in favor of black lives matter and then specifically made it took a stand that companies should not be…
  • Council of Foreign Relations — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Someone being anti-war there and they'd be like yeah but she's a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and you're like yeah I know and the Council on Foreign Relations is…
  • Roivant Sciences — Company · 1 mention

Products & tech

  • Rumble — Product · 1 mention · first at
    Rise as an entrepreneur to Big Pharma or being part of big Pharma is like the equivalent of calling Rumble part of big Tech okay because just because you're doing the same…

Concepts & topics

  • Patriot Act — Concept · 2 mentions · first at
  • US Open — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    To campaign in New Hampshire on Sunday and so we're on our way back I went to the US Open last night so a bunch of things we took care of in New York nice yeah it is back…
  • 1776 — Concept · 1 mention
  • Pascal's Wager — Concept · 1 mention

Places & events

Sponsors

  • MyBookie — Sponsor · 1 mention · first at
  • BetterHelp — Sponsor · 1 mention · first at
    At no additional charge let therapy be your map with better help visit betterhelp.com problem today to get 10 off your first month that's b-e-t-t-e-r-h-e-l-p.com slash problem…

Full transcript with timestamps

fill her up you're listening to the gas we need to roll back the state we spy on all of our own citizens our prisons are flooded with non-violent drug offenders if you want to know who America's Next enemy is look at who we're funding right now every single one of these problems are a result of government being way too big

hello hello what's up everybody Welcome to a brand new episode of part of the problem very quickly before we get into the show today my brand new comedy special is available on YouTube for free go check that out if you haven't already also I'm coming all over the place Governors comedy club in Long Island is the next stop uh 22nd 23rd comicdavesmith.com go there for all my dates European tour coming up soon a lot of fun stuff Vivek Rama Swami how you doing man how are you sir welcome back I'm back I'm glad we could do uh this one in person yeah yeah it's much better than the other way around yes yes it is so what brings you to uh New York City besides coming here and we're going to 911 memorial tonight as a family we had a number of other events engagements we took on during the day my my kids and my family are all secure because we travel to campaign in New Hampshire on Sunday and so we're on our way back I went to

the US Open last night so a bunch of things we took care of in New York nice yeah it is back tomorrow as we are uh recording this it is September 11th it's uh me and you are both like around the same age and I think uh yeah how old are you I'm I'm 40. again 38 yeah 38 okay so we were kind of uh in that generation of yeah because we're teenagers when uh when 9 11 happened it's been interesting I've been thinking about it a lot uh over the last few days as you know as the anniversary of 9 11 is always kind of an opportunity to kind of think about it is this thing that happened to the country where we've gone as a country since then I saw there was a Glenn Greenwald had this uh I think it was on Patrick David show and he was talking about how when the Patriot Act first uh was passed that it was even at the time even in Post 9 11 kind of craziness it was still controversial and that one of the things they put into it

to get it over the line was that it would expire in six years and have to be reauthorized and they keep reauthorizing and it's it's just a bigger theme I've been thinking of that it's almost like since 9 11 we've been in like a state of emergency yes the entire time ever since and in every sense we live in an emergency country now it's a one-way ratchet and it's a bit the vestiges of that that created covid lockdown policies right that will create climate change emergency policies in the future and I do think it's good to take occasions to memorialize who we really are as a country I mean today is a day about as we're recording this on 9 11 and about commemorating the people who died their families the heroic people I know several of them you know one of them is is on my team who were involved and family members were involved in not running from Ground Zero but running two ground zero that's what

this day is about but I do think it provides an occasion to take a step back and ask what is it that we are protecting in the first place and just like in the wake of a tragedy right and you could think about in response to whatever the tragedy is you sometimes make policy decisions that you later in times of more careful reflection admit were wrong it's during times of peace that it's our responsibility to go back and undo a lot of that damage and so I do think that that's one of the occasions for us to reflect on today is honoring those who have served this country including his First Responders that day sure you know memorializing the victims and their family members who have suffered at the fate of something that should have never happened in this country but also reflect on how we can be a country that continually improves that we make mistakes I think we sometimes it's easy to fall in the Trap of just

flogging the people who made the mistakes as opposed to just saying okay we understand we made those mistakes but how do we build on that Foundation to be better yeah going forward to make sure something like that never happens again well I think that's right but I I and I would add I agree with all of that but I would also add that like if we truly want to like honor you know like the the victims and the heroes you know as you said firefighters who are running toward the buildings crashing rather than running away um and then the innocent people who died then it's also important to kind of like talk about some of the uncomfortable and inconvenient truths I know you got uh in trouble or whatever for for talking about how the the official you know 911 story was not exactly complete and that there were details that were not told to the American people things that would have been a huge deal at the time I mean

you know it's it's like as the years go by there's a different type of of emotion but I mean if you had told the American people on September 12th of 2001 that high levels of people within the Saudi government were in on 9 11 and and that the bush administration's response was to fly a whole bunch of them including members of Osama bin Laden's family out immediately while while there were no flights uh leaving this would have been like the outrage of the century and yet when that comes out you know 15 years later it's just kind of one of those things 20 20 years later yeah they Declassified it about two years ago and so look I'm a guy who doesn't like to wallow in retrospective grievance actually not once did I bring up 911 on the campaign Trail but when asked about it I will answer honestly that being said my question is how do we move forward from here not what are we running from but what are we running to and that's

what this whole campaign's about what does it mean to be an American I think we live in one of these 1776 moments and the positive version of that is what a time that would have been to be alive right in in 1775 the spring of 1776 we're sitting in a you and I are sitting in this studio live in swivel chairs okay Thomas Jefferson at the age of 33 invented the swivel chair yeah the Prototype of what we're sitting in while writing the Declaration of Independence and you know the spirit of that country where is that Spirit how do we revive that what would we say today you're not an expert you're supposed to be writing Declarations of independences not inventing swivel chairs you don't have training in that to do it the country that says no no we're the unafraid we're the Explorers we're the Pioneers we support Freedom we Embrace Freedom the freedom that is innate in us as human beings who have

been endowed with free will that's what this country is and I think that we can learn from countless mistakes we have made in our past I still think in the face of all of those mistakes and I like you I'm a Critic of many of them is a great personal cost and I'm sure you've encountered your version of it too but even still having been such a Critic I will say that I'm the person who will also admit happily that this is still the last best hope for prod the project of freedom on God's green earth and likely in human history that we will use that as a starting point to be better and that's I think the spirit we're trying to Marshal in this campaign rather than to just wallow in victimhood and grievance for past sins though I'm never going to sweep them under the rug yeah well I agree with I think also the fact is like we're both we're both guys who have uh little kids yeah we do how old are your kids my uh my oldest is uh

four my youngest is one and a half very similar yeah so uh um so and I think when you have little kids you kind of don't have the option to just wallow it's like well you don't have the option to not fight for a better country for our kids to to grow up and and to your point of where what we're running toward or what we ought to be running toward is and this is kind of what I was getting at with that is that what we need what we need to be is not an emergency Nation yeah more there is it's it's amazing to me watching this whole presidential campaign how um nobody in the political or media class even talks about radical islamist terrorism anymore it's it's just like this is God I think you're talking about it's just not even like a major concern and yet all of the things whether it's the TSA groping us or the Patriot Act or the department our vestiges they're they're all still there yeah we're it's it's an implicit

admission that the emergency is gone so we don't have a terrorism emergency we don't have a covet emergency we don't have a financial crisis emergency and what's what you know what I find myself like wanting is I we're of the age when I still have a memory of what America was like before all of this yeah and that and I think that's what we should be at least to some degree like that's what I'd like my kids to grow up in a country where we're not all pitted against each other on immutable characteristics we're not in this constant state of emergency where the government is is seizing all of these emergency powers where we could just be a relatively like I know America's maybe normal country isn't the right way to put it because America is not a normal country it never really has yeah I reject the normal scene but I mean we're supposed to be what America was supposed to be which is that we're supposed to be

a city on a hill we're supposed to be a beacon of Freedom an example for the rest of the world and I think like that's the kind of society we want to be you know I think I'm in an optimistic mood or something today Dave but I think that the way I look at it is or going through a version of adolescence okay so when you go through your adolescence I don't know about you but most of us we lose our way a little bit right lose your sense of who you are lose your self-confidence there's that sense of the small things that happen to you feeling like emergencies and reacting to them overreacting to them learning bruising yourself along the way but learning from it and being stronger for it on the other side when we get to our adulthood so I'd like to think of it this way I think there's a lot of truth to it I hope there's a lot of truth to it that yes we're going through a national identity crisis that's just evidence of

our national adolescence but we will be stronger for it on the other side when we get to our adulthood and when you view it that way you don't have to then accept this narrative That We're a nation in Decline we could still yet be a nation in our ascend but we're going through the identity crisis that you would expect in a form of national adolescence so on that framing of it even thinking about our kids sometimes you know I started this campaign saying I want to create the same country that you and I grew up in for our kids I don't even say it that way anymore I hope we can create a country greater than the one that you and I grew up in and I think that memory does do some favors whereas if we were going back and actually living as you know 40 year olds at that time there's probably a lot else we would have found sure that we would have complained about too and so you know I think we could think about a lot of the

the lying of the government to its people a lot of that is recent from weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to Saudi Arabia's role in 911 to the financial crisis and the basis for the bailouts the Trump Russia collusion hoax the covet origin I mean we could just go on 100 by the laptop Story how our money is being spent in Ukraine but you go back far enough even into the 80s even for presidents we like you know we could talk about Reagan you could talk about others that oh we don't like Reagan on this one oh really yes you're still fine to talk about anything the guy shipped uh cocaine into America while Prosecuting the War on Drugs so exactly but my point is in some ways this should encourage us so there's two things going on one is yes I do think that we're going through a definite identity crisis relative to even where we were in the late 80s and 90s the second thing though is even on

that account the lady these 90s are not really as idyllic as we remember them to be in contrast to the present when we're going through adolescence it really feels like an emergency if we if we create a false idyllic memory of what really never was but still was the last best Hope For Freedom right on God's grace and so that's according to where I'm coming from well I think there's kind of there's there's multiple things happening at once right as there always are especially with something as complex as a society of 300 plus million people there's lots of things happening I mean there's lots of things the you know the improvements in like Medical Technology from say the 80s and 90s to now are astounding I mean there are things they can do uh my my son had uh open heart surgery when he was a newborn baby um and there are so much better at it now than they were in the 80s like it's a surgery that would have been like a

step of a coin over whether he'd live or die is now like a 99 thing and he's doing great news so I overall that that cancels everything else you know what I mean in mind yeah in my view um but I do think that there's kind of this double-edged like thing going on today where I think the Republic is there is in greater risk probably than it's ever been in my lifetime um and at the same time we have this unbelievable opportunity kind of what you were talking about yeah 1776 moments yes where there's this massive realignment there does seem to be like uh um a huge Awakening yes from the American people not you know like I I brought this up when I was on Rogan a few times but even just that that song by Oliver Anthony blowing up so much where you do feel like oh yeah there is this real like um there's this electricity in the air there's electricity light the match and that's when it takes off so that's where I

think we are and now it's up to the leaders in their respective spheres of Our Lives to have the courage to light the match right and good things happen I think I predict very good things are going to happen if we have the courage to actually stand for it people substituted I think for the last five to ten years they're I mean I think what happened in this country you have the loss of faith and patriotism and hard work and family all at the same time you then have this moral vacuum and you start latching on to fast food covetism climatism wokism transgenderism whatever it is to fill that void but what I see happening in the country at least in certain parts of the country even amongst you know friends here in New York City and and I gave a speech up Midtown earlier and this is not exactly conservative Havens here in Manhattan sure we're sitting today but even here I think we're sensing a

tiring a weariness of saying that I've just got to fill that hunger with fast food whatever that fast food is right and I think that there's an openness to the real thing whatever the real thing is give me more substantial fare than racial and gender ideology and climate ideology and coveted ideology I mean all of these things are ideologies in their own right give me the real thing and maybe America is an ideology but that's okay that's an ideology grounded in truth that is compatible with our human nature that we are human beings endowed by our creator with the ability to pursue life liberty yeah I think and happiness all right guys let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show which is my bookie football is back and so is the winning season at my bookie NFL college football and a brand new cash out system give you the options to bet and win all season long first two legs of your parlay don't hit cash out

early and use the funds on another bed cut or let it ride for the chance at a bigger payday use early cashouts as a tool to stay in control of the action at my bookie to get started go to mybookie.ag now and register for an account for free when you're ready to make your first deposit just make sure to use the promo code problem to grab a welcome bonus on the house that's promo code problem to claim your deposit bonus and for a limited time a free chip to use in the my bookie Casino you can bet anything anytime anywhere only with my bookie all right let's get back into the show you know I think about how um you know if you remember like uh maybe like the early 2000s remember how popular the the new atheist movement was was like yeah Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris and a lot of these guys and I was at the time I was like a pretty militant atheist um which I'm not at all anymore um but uh and then you kind of saw how

like Jordan Peterson like became this huge phenomenon and it's almost like I think a lot of us were in a place and I certainly this was kind of my Evolution where there were a lot of people like around that time who were like well listen this is a more sound logical argument I mean the truth is you can't really prove the existence of a God and therefore if it were not required to prove a negative and therefore yeah and then there was almost something like it's almost like we lived with the results of an atheistic Society for a while and then a lot of people were like yeah you know what I actually think I am craving meaning yeah I'm craving some kind of bigger purpose and I've seen kind of to your point that almost the real flaw in atheism is that it doesn't exist because as soon as you become an atheist it's almost like something rushes into it's a new religion to fill that void you you could be an atheist

you don't believe in God you're gonna believe in something yeah right and so I mean that's that's one of the oldest Expressions you have a whole the size of God in your heart yeah and God does not fill it something else will instead and actually if I'm not mistaken I think it was actually Pascal who's a scientist and mathematician right who actually first said it and his in his own life had gone through his own phase of secular religion but I do think that that's what's happened and I I think there's a further danger in that where some of the most dangerous religions are the ones where you fail to acknowledge that it's actually a religion when you're practicing it that's what's going on with the climate religion in this country it pains me to watch oh it's absolutely it is absolutely a substitute for True Religion but it is more dangerous because you convince yourself that you're actually engaging in logic and

reason and capital S science when it's really to scientism and this is more dangerous because I mean take someone like me is I'm also religious you could have somebody who's you know traditionally Evangelical Christian or Catholic or whatever who in the Jew Hindu doesn't matter what are you well I'm Jewish uh I I wouldn't it doesn't matter you know I kind of like found God yes I'm looking at God since since having kids that really changed it it's interesting it was a similar time frame you know I came back to it I went through my own faith I grew up in a religious household left that for most of my 20s came back probably shortly before we had kids actually in some ways that may have been what led me to right actually having kids but anyway the the whole part of that Journey with what that means is I was still let's just take my example I was a drug developer right I oversaw the development of medicines five of them

are FDA approved one of them is a life-saving therapy in kids which 100 of kids die by the age of three with this genetic disease they're born with now one of the therapies that we worked on is a one that allows the majority of those kids to live lives of normal duration that's FDA approved so be it when we're engaging in different facets and spheres of Our Lives we know we can wear different hats right it's not that I hope and pray for a miracle cure you you analyze data you make probabilistic bets some work some failure rational about what that's going to be and you wear that hat because you're not practicing religion when you're doing that you're practicing science right right or you're practicing investment calculus or business practice okay and that's different when you go to the temple or you go to the church and you pray it's a different side of how you access truth it's not like you're

reasoning your way into that if you're listening to this many people sit in the pews listen to the pastor it's not like your logical brain is Computing even though you have that side of yourself the problem with the secular religions is that they combine these things into one exercise where you convince yourself that you're actually doing the thing that we're talking about about making a logical business decision or a scientific calculation when in fact the thing you're doing is you're just sitting in the pews and engaging in a feeling that the pastor is giving you and the pastor might be named Al Gore or you know whoever it is gretathetenberg or whoever it is and I think that it's just important there's nothing wrong with either mode of accessing truth but you got to know which one you're actually practicing or you lose track of what the heck you're doing and that's what's going on in the United States of

America with respect to this climate cult and the problem with that is not just that you're confused you make decisions that actually harm human beings in ways you never otherwise would have accepted yeah that was covet policy it's now climate policy and I think that it's at risk of repeating itself unless we actually have the courage not just through government preferably not through government as much as possible to fill that void of purpose and meaning with something that's real and Lasting and true and tied to our nature our innate nature as human beings so that we're it's like a it's like a spiritual vaccine against the kinds of spiritual poison that otherwise fill that void so my my perspective on it would be that it's not it it's like it's not even like that we need through government in any way I think that God at all government is the one who's in the way basically almost always like at the heart of the

destruction of kind of like the the pro family pro-god culture is government at every turn at every turn from from subsidizing the person using money taxpayer money to do the opposite of what's best for people it's almost like and and even just like the most basic you know functions that that government has taken for say most of the 20th century I mean even things like Social Security it was like before Social Security the old Social Security was you would rely on your children to take care of you when you were older and then the government comes in and like is like a way Edge between these familiar bonds and I mean I know you've done a lot you've probably been all over this topic more than anybody else but the fact that so much of this kind of woke ideology which is really anti- everything Traditional Values um is pumped in by number one by college universities which are basically a government programs government creatures

absolutely yes I mean the governments are the ones giving out the loans so kids can go to these schools whether they're private or public um and then also the fact that so many of these like uh um which I actually learned from you but that so many of these um like public sector pensions Yes actually demand of these Financial companies yes that they have these kind of woke agencies exactly if they're going to get the money would you pull the string up all the way it's actually a government actor not not even BlackRock go Upstream of BlackRock it goes to Calpers right which is a government creature so there's also some areas where on the on the woke thing while we're what we're pausing on that is it comes from the government in terms of hard laws from the government too the Civil Rights Acts okay so the Civil Rights Act say you can't discriminate on the basis of race gender sexual orientation now included religion

national origin and otherwise but combined with the administrative State like the equal employment opportunity commission the EEOC what that came to mean was through the law through regs regulations right which were never actually passed by elected representatives but by unelected bureaucrats came to mean that if you're an employer you're a private company you can't create a what they call hostile work environment for a member of a protected class so what began as a non-discrimination provision that you can't discriminate against hiring somebody now says you can't create a hostile work environment for that member of a protected class well how does one go about creating a hostile work environment turns out that allowing the expression of certain viewpoints in the workplace that itself is a civil rights violation because you have created a hostile work environment so there's a grandma who

wears a red sweater on Fridays to commemorate those who are serving in the military a guy who's a member of a protected class says that he considers that a microaggression she no longer has wearing it on Fridays and no longer has the the happy hour in the office she just brings the red sweater and puts it on the back of her chair he still asserts microaggression the company is now in a position to say if they don't tell her that she can't do that that they might be liable under the Civil Rights Acts themselves and so this is the government creating the conditions for rampant Viewpoint discrimination call it what capitalism rampant Viewpoint discrimination in the private sector while leaving political viewpoints unprotected so it's not the market or the culture that's giving us to us it's not the Invisible Hand of the market it is the Invisible Hand of government that's guiding us to what

looks like a cultural phenomenon of you know woke epidemics or whatever so yes I agree with you that many people especially in the conservative movement will offer and then turn to a government Solution by playing tug of war missed the point that it was actually first step what I said what I say is at least try it why don't we just try not paying people not to have yeah uh more money to be a single mother than to be a dual parent mother than to say we need a government program to subsidize some sort of pro-family creation just try removing yeah the thing that actually created the skewed incentives in the first place and let's see how that goes we've never done that in this country and that's where you have a you would say you have a fairly libertarian leaning audience here yeah I mean I'm I'm a hardcore libertarian I think the audience is well whatever the audience is but yeah but to your libertarian

friends and yeah I'm a former self-described libertarian and probably you know still have a lot I definitely have a lot of those instincts still deep in my bones so I call myself a conservative for reasons we can talk about I think there's more to life than just the relationship with the government but what I would say to our libertarian friends is just as I'll sort of speak to you know speak truth to my Camp of of conservatives or liberals who disagree with me to libertarian group is don't back off of your principles even when it's hard right standing up for the repeal of protected categories in the Civil Rights Acts that's a difficult thing to do in the current climate but when you're frustrated with conservatives who are then offering other stupid Solutions at times that are symptomatic therapies of how you should use government power to change wokism and we I hear the libertarian frustration with that

my only advice back is great but then have the courage to actually stand up for your own principles by repealing the protected categories in the Civil Rights Acts as opposed to hiding in a hole which is what many of them go on to do I don't know what I'm saying right 100 yeah so I'm completely with you on that I don't know if you uh um ever saw there was um the reason guys Nick Gillespie um and uh Nick and Zach had um Chris Ruffo I think his name is uh the guy is out there in uh Florida on and he basically pushed him on that good if he's like well if you're really a Libertarian yeah and your position is repeal the Civil Rights Act yes it's this culture of fear because that's right so that is actually the libertarian position I would say though that what's that has to be the libertarian it's the only coherent libertarian position here's the truth okay it's that this is the libertarian position and people want to run away

from it because it again it's uh you're worried that people will call you names but the truth is that and this is how look I'm Jewish I think you should have a right to say no Jews allowed outside of your business I think you have the right to discriminate and in fact I don't you probably will fail yes as a business yeah but we have a lot of capital so I don't know if you really want to discriminate against those Jews but uh but I'm just saying it's like look I don't the idea that if somebody actually hated me for being Jewish so much that if legally allowed to they would put up a no Jews allowed sign but instead what are you doing by forcing them now I'm going into this business and hate spending money on these people I would rather know who you are and I'm quite confident that this would the market would sort all of this yes but this is this is my only um this is there are two reasons I don't

call myself a Libertarian anymore this is one of them okay is that the people who don't think this is a winning time no no not because I actually because I actually am open to saying it right but what frustrates me is the the lower case you know or maybe it's been properly put the uppercase or whatever the political label version of it is mostly staffed by people who at least in my experience don't have the courage to actually go the full distance and stand for the principles and so you end up in this Halfway House in the Middle where you're going back to wallowing in grievance but without actually Having the courage and spine to see through something like a repeal of the Civil Rights Act which I think would be the principled position from a Libertarian the second reason is more philosophical we could talk about another time but unless you want to talk about now yeah no I'm curious second

reason first to your first reason that seems to me like I get your point I have that same frustration I talk about a lot on the show but that seems to me to be the reason why I'm saying these other people who identify as a Libertarian are not actually defending Libertarians exactly but that's more the reason to me why like some somebody got a double someone should be defending these principles well you sounds like you're down too so oh yeah so I'm into that I'm a pure libertarian so there so there were you know they were good right but you're a Libertarian who's a successful comedian and podcaster not somebody who's driving that through the front door of well I don't see I have a well that's true but no Libertarians believe me no one listens to us but I also um listen I guess I'm fortunate in the sense that number one I'm a True Believer and number two I don't I don't live in DC I'm not trying to get invited

to cocktail parties I don't have to worry about any of that like if there's there's a lot of these think tanks that are libertarian that are kind of in that orbit yeah and so you can never really go outside the lines of allowable opinion whereas like I'm like I I hope those people hate me I don't care so so an example of like kind of how I'm waging this particular battle is I've said that I would be very open to then seeing political expression be made a protected class if you can't discriminate for race gender religion national origin otherwise and the law created the very conditions for Viewpoint discrimination to it but that's the second best solution yes to what my still preferred first best solution is which is actually which is actually repeal the protected classes all together yes I I think it's important to say that if they don't get me to live if we're going to live within a civil rights framework applied it and

then it should be yes I understand that so you could too you could characterize my position as one that's aligned with a deeply principled libertarian the other piece of it is just the scope of the set of issues I care about which is I think that there is more to not only to life but even Civic life I won't call it political life but I'll call it Civic life then just the relationship between the individual and the government so the libertarian position is keep the government out of my hair and I pretty much generally agree deeply with that I have to think deeply if there was any exception to that so I'm pretty much there keep the government out of my hair I'm a medical Choice absolute right to try and one of the things that frustrates me is a guy who has had to raise and expend hundreds of millions of dollars to get drugs through the FDA approval process is the fact that there should be people in this country who are

allowed to take that yeah knowing the risks even after phase two which they have a pretty darn good idea of what the thing is going to do or not going to do but anyway put that to one side there are other questions that are interesting that are important like what do we do in that free country once the government is out of our hair okay what then and it's just that one way or another it's not the fault of libertarian political philosophy but it's just not something that libertarianism has anything to say about there are other things in life that have things to say about that sure virtue or faith and so I'm just interested in those questions as well and the only reason I bring that back politically Dave is this related to our opening conversation where yeah most of the time the problems get the government out of the way but I think in the role of the U.S presidency and this is part of what moves me into

this is there's more to the job than making policy part of the job I believe done well is just standing as an example of what our national character is yeah this is the way you live your life the way you speak the way interact with people the way you treat people and I think that this is not a policy making function at all it's neither Pro nor anti-libertarian it's just neither here nor there on that axis of government controllers individual but just a different thing where your dad I'm a dad I would love to have a president in office where I could just in my capacity as a father look my two sons in the eye and tell them I want you to grow up and be like him yeah not not having the government forcing you or not forcing or anything but just that element of it and I think it's been a long time since we've had a president who fits that description at least for me I think it's true for a lot of people

and I think that that's a big part of the impact that the next president of the United States can have on Reviving The National character of this country in a way that has nothing to do with policy making or restraints or relief of restraints on Liberty but that I still think is important and I guess that's why I guess I call myself conservative rather than libertarian even though the policy differences are actually much much smaller sure okay yeah I mean listen at the end I don't really care about it the labels as much as the underlying views right but I do agree with you I think libertarianism is a limited like worldview I the the analogy I use is it's kind of like um if you if you opposed slavery in 1840 you're like so I'm an abolitionist yeah and someone's like okay but being an abolitionist this doesn't tell you anything about how to raise your kids totally and you're like yes no that is outside the scope of that

and I also think you should be a good husband and father or whatever but yeah I will say I agree with your plan remember you know because we're both like 90s kids and I remember at the time in the 90s as a teenager feeling very much like oh this thing about Bill Clinton is no big deal and who cares who cares if the president got a [ __ ] in the Oval Office yeah and it's now as like an adult and a husband and a father I'm like yo you're getting a [ __ ] from a one-year-old the intern when you were the like whatever 50 year old president of the United States of America like that is so messed up dude and there is something I'm not saying it should be illegal or anything exactly that's so bad for us as a nation that we can't have a president who's a decent enough person like I'm a better person than that you if everyone I know is like a better person than that like what do we well maybe not everyone I know yeah

but uh I'm just saying like that is something there's an element of failure there and I think that you know this is this would be a disappointment for what a presidency should look like and this is not what I'm aspiring to but let's say we had a president who got in there and didn't fix a single thing or or worsen did not improve or worsen a single public policy relative to the status quo which would be a deep disappointment sure but still conducted himself or if it's a woman herself whoever it is with a level of decency that was becoming of what we want the leader of the United States to do that itself would be a net positive sure relative to where we are now for me I'm much more interested in driving course shutting down the administrative state things that I don't even require Congress to do I mean that's what I'm going in there to do those are I mean deeply libertarian commitments I mean they frighten many

people in the Republican party when I say we're not just going to incrementally reform these agencies because I think they can't be reformed we're going to get in there and shut them down on Wednesday this week I'm giving a first ever legal basis for exactly how we will shut them down in ways that the advisor class to Reagan and Trump each duped them into believing they couldn't but that's not all I want to do for this country and much of what I want to do isn't start some sort of aggressive family policy top-down agenda but maybe just be a president in the White House who values the importance of family and speaks to it in a first personal way that sets an example that might be a little bit different than the example that Bill Clinton said and I think that that too is just an important part of being a leader not I wouldn't say in all political roles if you're a senator or Congressman walk in the halls of

Congress that's a different point you have a very narrow job but for the presidency I think that that's an important element of it that I think goes beyond whatever the traditional labels of you can call it libertarian conservative I could care less for it either but it's probably about half the job of the next U.S president too and I think you and I probably care about reuniting this country I think that that's that's actually going to be our means of reuniting this country most more so than convincing people who deeply disagree with you on like abortion or yeah whatever yeah no I I get your point no I think I think there's a real point to that I wanted to ask you by the way before I want to get into there's two more topics we've got a little bit of time left um so what was it like there's a shift in topics but what the since last time you were on the show there was a presidential debate yes and one of the

things that I just thought was like really striking is you're at this presidential debate and you have the former Vice President of the United States of America you've got like the most popular Republican governor in in the country and you just became the entire focus of the debate it was unbelievable who everybody's going after like it was unbelievable it was really quite well what was that like for you it was kind of humorous actually I was having I mean I was probably having a little too much fun up there but it was it was interesting but then I think it was important to understand why right you know these are things I'm a threat to these people I'm rising in the polls all that that's fine I think all that's true the real reason is we have a deep ideological divide on the real third rail when it comes to the establishment in either party which is foreign policy right these people cannot abide the fact

that a serious Contender for the presidency would actually cut off Aid to Ukraine at this moment that we would actually State a clear position on Taiwan that defects from strategic ambiguity that's honest about where we will and won't draw our red lines so the idea of moving from ambiguity to Clarity let's just start that's like I think the philosophical premise that's a break from a lot of that neoconservative image and this isn't even the original neocon this is imitative cheap imitation versions is the idea that there's going to be a guy who comes in from the outside and actually offers Clarity and speaks the truth about what he will and won't do in a way that threatens the model of liberal hegemony for the last 40 years of this country's foreign policy that was really the third rail so if you see the stuff they come at me about okay everybody on that stage is anti-woke in some measure or other at least they'll

act like it they have like they'd rather have a virtual signaling pissing contest about who's more against you know women having to compete with men in the swimming pool okay we all agree on that stuff that's easy but when it comes to are you willing to end the Ukraine war or not you saw commitments were people didn't even want that to be a hand raise or answer question climate change agenda people do not want to be held to account to a Viewpoint of that cutting off Aid to Ukraine though is I think the basic third rail that I think is going to separate you know the the kids from the adults in this Republican primary race and I was the only person on that stage who I think has a Clear Vision of how to keep us out of World War III while still advancing American economic interests and it almost makes you wonder why some of the people on that stage whether or not they know it somewhere in their heart is deeply

rooted for World War III and I think that that is takes the guise of this debate about experience I said this guy's inexperienced there's a deeper philosophical point where what does experience led us to experience has led us to 25 years of pointless Wars that do not Advance American interests but it's taken the guise of this more personalized attack but what it really is about is something that's of philosophical divide in the GOP and this primary will be good because we will come out of it decisively with one answer or the other are we a budget are we doubling down on neocons or are we moving forward to a foreign policy that advances American interests while keeping us out of War but the Divide isn't even the Divide is between the voters and the donors it really is there's not a big divide amongst the Republican base over this they're all I'm not sure about that there's a lot of people who are who

don't know what they think yet Perhaps I think there's a lot of my sentences traveling Iowa New Hampshire Etc I was surprised and some of that's the donors right because they're they're ultimately controlled the means of production of what shows up on your advertisements on television and the candidates who they put up as their puppets but I do think that this is an interesting moment where this is something useful that will come out of this primary I am actively and I see it in rooms of you know 200 300 people in Iowa not 200 300 million 200 300 actual just like 300 individuals but I will have people who will walk into that event thinking that they're in support of continuing Aid to Ukraine that will walk out of that event saying no no ending this war with a peace deal and getting Russia out of China's hands is absolutely the right way to go and so I think this is one of those rare moments where

we get to do something that we don't do in our politics anymore we actually persuade people on the merits of an issue and the beauty of this issue is at least as it relates to Ukraine it's not so old yet that people have become entrenched in believing that it has to be either this way or the other way I think there's a lot of people in the Republican primary base at least that are curious open but still think that yeah isn't the right thing to support the guy who's like not the evil dictator man but the other guy who was taught to believe the good guys because that's what we do in the United States peace through strength all that stuff who I think are really open to being convinced and so that's a big part of why I'm doubling down my voice on this issue is I think it can actually make a change in what the GOP ends up becoming yeah well it does it's great that you're doing that it does seem like uh you uh out of the two major

parties I mean you Trump and RFK are like kind of the only people who are good on Ukraine um and but I I will say watching the debate watching the say like where Mike Pence is or where Nikki Haley is on Ukraine I listen to that and I I am very convinced I go there's no chance that you can win the nomination yeah I don't believe it in 2004 sure this was the key to winning in the Republican primary not anymore not after this and I I'm curious what your thoughts are on this I think DeSantis who uh is I've just think has been a complete flop as a presidential candidate um even though I think he did some very good things as Governor yeah in Florida I agree um he uh he is trying to walk this line where he goes he kind of knows he can't say what Mike Pence is saying because he knows that's a loser but he also I think doesn't want to alienate his donors it leaves for people like me uh I have no idea where he truly stands

on the issue where his heart is and I think this is kind of a cowardice on his uh so I'm going to be I'm going to be a little bit more charitable here because I think I'm closer to it and understand what's going on it's not even his fault it's the fault of a broken system right I mean you have a campaign effectively being run by a Super PAC I mean this whole thing's a charade right the distinction between Super Pac and campaign it's a joke it's a farce and we're playing this game where they're literally serving up binders of stuff to say this is what you should say like there was I don't know if you saw this before the first debate there was like a 400 page memo 17 pages of which are dedicated to one-liners to be directed against me which is which is remarkable and yet it's just the way the machine works and I feel badly actually for the people who are the puppets who then get propped up I mean these are people who

some of whom might not even run for president they're doing a good job in the role they're in they don't whoever they are I'm not talking about anybody specific here but I think this happens a lot don't enjoy people are doing a good job being an Executor when you're a president you need to actually have Vision but the donor class is decided no no no it can't be Trump but there must be an anointed one and we're gonna pour like literally hundreds of millions of dollars into we can't do that to the campaign so we're gonna create this far saying there's an independent Super PAC that then props that up runs the whole thing creates the one-liners you're supposed to say but that comes with strings attached because many of those donors are addicted to sort of the American hegemony self-esteem self-self-esteem that they derive from what America is in the global stage to say that that can't be your position on

Ukraine that tie your hands on what you can say about Ukraine what you can say about the falsehoods of the climate change agenda what you can say about even pardoning Donald Trump or Julian Assange or anyone else I've got a day one list of Pardons that costs me donors my Ukraine position costs me major donors we're here in New York City I'm very for my prior life well well connected in this city in these circles the number of people I lose because of my willingness to say that I would pardon Donald Trump for politicized persecutions through prosecution it comes at a real sacrifice like literally a I could not monetize it seems right now in the GOP Primary there is just this enormous Gulf between the donor class and totally odor Bush Scott Walker Donald Trump is a complete winner first off it's the right thing yeah it's an insane politicized hit job but even if you're one of these calculating British politicians exactly

it's really funny that they can't bring themselves to do it because mother's milk is their donor money yeah and so that's what's the problem with our politics and you know you've had puppets Super PAC puppets in Prior Cycles you've got them in this cycle so in some ways I don't blame the puppet right they're just being manipulated and deputized by the Puppet Master but it's a system that I think is badly broken and in need of dramatic overhaul right now the people who can overhaul that are Outsiders like me and who have also been capable enough that I'm self-funding this with eight figures of my own money rather than having to deny rely on eight figures of donor class money that come with strings attached all right so let me ask you um because I've seen so so I think Look A Lot the stuff you say about uh taking down the administrative State um you know ending these three letter agencies when you say things like

pardoning Ross Albrecht which I've heard you say before and Julian Assange and talked about putting Ron Paul as the head of the Federal Reserve these are things that that get me very sexually aroused I love all of them okay I'm completely on board with all of this this show is sponsored by better help guys I know life can be stressful and tough out there we've all got things that we're dealing with and sometimes therapy can really really help so why not go check out better help if you're thinking of starting therapy there's no easier way to do it than better help it's entirely online it's designed to be convenient flexible and suited to your schedule just fill out a brief question they are to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists anytime at no additional charge let therapy be your map with better help visit betterhelp.com problem today to get 10 off your first month that's

b-e-t-t-e-r-h-e-l-p.com slash problem for 10 off your first month take control of your life today with betterhelp.com all right let's get back into the show there's one of the things that I think a lot of people uh kind of dissident not just Libertarians but just kind of dissonance in general one of the things we have a lot of trouble with is even when people say all of the right things you then there's always a question of like can I trust this fair enough and I've seen there you know I saw your the interview you did with the anomaly um where he there's been some of these kind of uh things online about you know look you are a guy to a lot of us who it's kind of like came out of nowhere uh all of a sudden this guy seems like it made hundreds of millions of dollars in some industry that is known as being a pretty corrupt industry all of a sudden he's here he's saying all of the right things and we're like so what's going on

here and there's our I've seen a lot of things come out about like uh the your company and they're they're accusing you know you of like uh like some type of pump and dump type oh my goodness yeah where yeah your stock plummeted but you made tons of money failed drugs that people did so yeah like what it you know because listen so the first thing I would say is people should be skeptical of anybody yeah new not new anything be skeptical I think that's healthy but be skeptical 360 degrees right because everybody's I mean the manipulation is 360 degrees it may be happening through what's served up to you on your own social media algorithms by the people who you think you trust but actually have their own agenda for pushing what they do so as long as the skepticism goes 360 Degrees I think it's a good thing so look let's say how I how I succeeded first people say well is he a Pharma industry shill look at how the

people in the Pharma industry like big Pharma execs feel about me that answers your question comparing my company or my rise as an entrepreneur to Big Pharma or being part of big Pharma is like the equivalent of calling Rumble part of big Tech okay okay because just because you're doing the same things and offering a video sharing platform doesn't mean you're big Tech you're there for a reason and I say this as somebody who invested in Rumble back when it was a private company precisely because I wanted to back at the challenge of big Tech and we did the same thing with respect to Big Pharma which often coordinates softly to leave certain therapeutic areas undeveloped now there's the separate point oh no was this guy actually successful at being a biotech entrepreneur answers yes I mean I don't like to brag but let's just call the facts are what they are in seven years I oversaw the development of medicine's five of which

are FDA approved today most people who ever start a biotech startup never get to one product that makes it past that line we got five now the whole strategy is develop drugs in areas that Pharma abandons one of those was a failed drug for Alzheimer's disease whoop to do 99.7 percent of drugs ever tested for Alzheimer's disease failed about thousands of drugs mine was one of them what's unique about me is five of the medicines that I oversaw the development of one of them's life-saving in kids one of them is a drug for prostate cancer that's what created the value that allowed me to make money that's a 10 million dollar public company today that's the predominant source of my wealth now then there comes the falsehood they say that oh well the Vic company had a subsidiary it was you know accident that had this drug for Alzheimer's disease and that he sold shares and made money no like you could literally factually

track this stuff just not a dime I could have actually but I didn't in fact many people would call that may call that I would say honorable to not have done that because you actually are invested in the thing that you're actually doing and so the only thing I would say to people is be skeptical of what you're fed be skeptical of what you hear from me be skeptical what you hear from Dave be historical what year from everybody but get the truth in the end and you know politics is notorious for this but one of the things we've been doing is as the falsehoods come up actually there's a there's a page on our website we made it uh somebody's Scott Adams suggested we do this online and he was just like I'm I'm sick and tired of like you know these stories about you seem to be BS but don't make your other people do the work I said fine so we hit our team we put it together in 72 hours and I wrote

it myself I did the I didn't want somebody else writing this that stuff I wrote myself you could probably figure that out by reading it it's vivek2024.com is our website go to vivek2024.com what was it uh truth over myth a fake news vivek2024.com fake news and you know we just go through the hard facts and people should make the judgments for themselves the the litmus test I'd give you though is think about what somebody has given up for the decisions they make sure right so I stepped down from my job as a biotech CEO precisely because I refused to bend the knee and make a corporate statement or contribution in favor of black lives matter and then specifically made it took a stand that companies should not be engaging in political and politicized one-sided tilting of scales which you're seeing in most of corporate America and I wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that's a big tech companies should not listen

or should not be bound by government actors who pressured them to send their content I wrote that in the wake of January 6th three advisors to my company resign I'm sitting in a very good position as CEO of a multi-billion dollar company had to face a choice I could have done what everybody else did and chose instead to step down so I could speak my mind freely that comes at some sacrifice in this campaign it is obvious that most of the things that I am saying are not the things that allow me to raise the maximal donor money that I could especially with a base of you know connectivity and whatever in Elite wrong wealthy people or whatever many of whom are refusing to associate with or give to my campaign it comes at Great cost we've put in immense amounts of our families money instead to do that and so all I would ask is when people are getting the truth get the truth but think about it be a thinking person

don't just consume what you're fed and I'm confident that you know that's what this process is about people understand who I am and what I stand for yeah I mean I think there's um you know it's it's like one of the things people were uh trying to make a big deal out of was getting like the Soros grant for account yes think about it I just think about things like this where you're thinking because this isn't really evidence of anything like I'm not it's just like the fact that someone took a grant it's I remember they used to people used to say about Tulsi gabbard um because I I'm a fan of her I mean I didn't vote for her but I I was a fan of her running in the Democratic party and someone being anti-war there and they'd be like yeah but she's a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and you're like yeah I know and the Council on Foreign Relations is a messed up but that doesn't actually prove anything

because if you're a first-term congresswoman who's an active duty combat vet they're going to come thinking about it you're just like sure I'll come speak it yeah yeah it doesn't it doesn't like it doesn't prove what people think it does it doesn't necessarily think about it independently right the sort of thing I'm gonna have edges a million times but say say your kid's 24 years old back in 2010 yeah back in 2010 and they get the opportunity to have a 50 000 scholarship that's a generic scholarship that you submit something on a website and then they tell you where they get a scholarship or not and that's it and some guy who's now long Dead who made his money independently goes last same last name is this other guy who seems to support liberal causes though long before that guy went off the truly toxic deep end that he's gone in the last seven years and say okay that's the 24 year old like generically I mean I've

applied to probably 50 scholarships over the course of the different components of Education that being one of them forget about me being you know defending myself or whatever because I think this is a relatively stupid line of attack but put that to one side think for yourself independently about you're a parent of a kid or you're a kid in that same position does that make sense and if that's disqualifying to be US president then let's just go down the list yeah Donald Trump took 160 million dollar loan from George Soros as a full-grown adult business loan from George Source Ron DeSantis has had fundraisers like in June with I think like one of George source's Investment Partners and for my part I actually those aren't things that I think are disqualifying for those people either because I understand how just the game is played Donald Trump's a businessman I was a smart student Donald Trump funded

the clintons I mean he was given money I mean no no kidding right and people thought for a long time he was a Hillary Clinton plan which is a ridiculous idea then it was Russia he was a really bad really bad Hillary player the other side this is a Russia collusion hoax right right and so so I'm a big fan of I mean some of the stuff that's gotten me in trouble if you will with the mainstream press is comes from my own skepticism of prevailing government narrative so I will never fault somebody for being skeptical only for being skeptical and lazy right because I think that be skeptical but don't be lazy and combine the two and then get to actually real truth and I think good things are going to happen all right so final question and I'll let you get out of here you see the way they're coming after Donald Trump yeah I think Tucker Carlson was on uh on Adam carolla's show it was recently and he

said um which I think something that we've all kind of thought at least at one point whether we agree with it or not but he said look at where this thing is going like charted out I mean they tried they tried just slandering him they tried impeaching him like that didn't work they tried impeach him again that didn't work they've now indicted him his poll numbers are going up that didn't work and he was like we're moving dangerously close toward like assassination territory um but you're seeing even regardless of that just how much they're coming after the guy and trying to ruin him um you've got uh you kind of RFK and Donald Trump are the three candidates out there who are Making Waves who are really running in opposition to three-letter agencies and uh three letter agencies are not known for their kindness um do you worry about this at all like do you worry about like becoming an enemy of the state in the way it does

seem like they're working on taking Donald Trump out and then if he's out of the race you're now kind of the America First trumpist candidate in the Republican Party do you like as a person with a family and kids do you get worried about like being in the crosshairs of this you know the most powerful government in human history it doesn't make me I'm not at my best when I'm in fear mode right and so am I a human being and does that come up from time to time in my mind yes but that's not what's going to allow me to actually unleash the true potential of this country and unleash my own potential as a leader our family we made a serious decision I mean it is a sacrifice to this we're living a great life right you got two young kids live the full American Dream you know Air Force One won't be that much of an upgrade for me from our life that we've lived for the last three years we're happy with that and so this

comes at some sacrifice and I think that if you're living in constant fear you're never going to get the thing done that you wanted to get done in the first place and so I would say we're Guided by our purpose understanding as thinking people that there are risks right but you know what every plan you make in life is somewhat stupid too yeah at least it's been that way for me sure like all your plans are kind of dumb you think I mean I've been stages in my life maybe all of us have done this where you know even planning my career are going to do this and then and then and then it's gonna be the next thing that come up but if that doesn't happen then we're gonna do this and it's just like it never it never went according to plan anyway right and so I and this is actually part of where my faith comes back as well I do believe that it is not really in some true sense of the universe it's not being done by us it is

being done through us I believe God put us here for a purpose and we're here to do our part and realize that true purpose and so for me that's actually liberating that's the source of my freedom when I fall into sometimes the mental trap and model of thinking it's being done by me I'm the agent I am and I went through my 20s of you know thinking I'm the Howard Rourke it's it's actually for me at least each person might be different it's confining whereas when you remind yourself at least for me I think it was as a reminder that hey I'm an agent I'm an instrument I'm put here to achieve a unique purpose just because I'm running for the presidency that's not higher or lower than any other important job that needs to be done for the purposes that we're each here put on Earth to pursue but that's the one that I believe I've been given the skill set and the blessing to be able to make an impact

this way great that's what I'm going to do then I'm cool right and so I think that you know are there times where you get all wrapped up in your head yeah that's natural but that's not most of the time for me and I think I'm at my best when we're Guided by our purpose not overly attached to our plans I don't even relish I really don't relish the idea of being the next president it doesn't seem appealing to me right it really does yeah I mean honestly if you told me right now that you're God and you could tell me with certainty that somebody else was going to be the better person to lead this nation forward and reunite the country and lead a national Revival and shut down the administrative State and keep us out of Foreign Wars and grow the economy and actually have young people be proud again to be citizens of this country and somebody else is going to do all those things better than I am

and that they shall be the next president my first emotion in response to that is deep relief for sure because there are other ways to live alive that you know selfishly be I think a lot more fulfilling right right but when you're guided on the flip side when you're Guided by that purpose yeah are you taking some risks along the way sure but were you going to plot out everything of whether you're gonna walk out this car that's going to drive us to where we're going next isn't going to get T-boned at the next light I can't promise to myself that that's not gonna happen either yeah and so you do what's right and and you know you leave the rest too right you do your part and leave the rest of Fate I have been uh thinking that a lot lately that and a lot of us are just following our calling and it's it's maybe not as uh as much our choice as as we think well listen you are in the thick of what has got to

be the most fascinating presidential uh cycle that I've ever seen and we've seen some interesting ones but man is this one wild and I think you're also one of the things that's very interesting about your campaign is that I think you are you are proving in a way a thesis that a lot of us had that um Donald Trump was not Donald Trump was not uh the cause of kind of the populist America first movement he was more a result a product of it and I think seeing you kind of like at that debate where everyone's attacking you it kind of demonstrated that it's like look this thing this kind of like um anti-establishment um uh feeling this populism or whatever you want to call it you know um this is with us and it's here to stay and it's going to be very interesting to see where it all goes and America First it does not belong to one man I'll also remind people that's right it doesn't belong to me it doesn't belong to Trump

no it is bigger than one man it belongs to the people of this country yeah and that's the way I look at it absolutely well dude thank you so much for for coming on the show and uh hopefully we do it again and uh this is I'm really looking forward to following how this whole thing uh shakes out what's the the website is uh it's a vivek2024.com viveek2024.com all right Vivek ramaswamy thank you very much sir thanks for listening everybody catch you next time peace laughs

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Vivek Ramaswamy | Dave Smith | Part Of The Problem 1036"?

Dave Smith (Host), Vivek Ramaswamy (Guest).

What is discussed in "Vivek Ramaswamy | Dave Smith | Part Of The Problem 1036"?

In order: 0:00 Patriot Act, Declaration of Independence, Glenn Greenwald, Governors Comedy Club; 10:00 Christopher Hitchens, Jordan Peterson, MyBookie, New York City, New York; 20:00 Al Gore; 40:00 Donald Trump, Julian Assange, Vice President Mike Pence, BetterHelp; 50:00 Donald Trump, Adam Carolla, Black Lives Matter, Council of Foreign Relations; 1:00:00 Donald Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy.

What is mentioned in this Dave Smith episode?

35 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Donald Trump, New York City, New York, Patriot Act, Vice President Mike Pence, Julian Assange, Governors Comedy Club. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Vivek Ramaswamy | Dave Smith | Part Of The Problem 1036"?

The episode runs 1 h 4 min; the transcript is about 13,021 words in 75 timestamped sections.

More from Dave Smith

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated July 10, 2025.