Today Brian and Ed Krassenstein join the PBD Podcast. They are twin brothers who are writers, entrepreneurs, and social media personalities who became well-known as Resistance Twitter activists protesting the presidency of Donald Trump by frequently responding to Trump's tweets.
Get Your Tickets for The Vault 2023 NOW ⬇️⬇️ The BIGGEST EVENT in VT History!
*TOM BRADY, MIKE TYSON & PATRICK BET-DAVID on one stage!*
https://www.thevault2023.com/vault-conference-2023?el=YTPODHTEP
Subscribe to:
Adam Sosnick - @vtsoscast
Vincent Oshana - @ValuetainmentComedy
Tom Ellsworth - @bizdocpodcast
Want to get clear on your next 5 business moves? https://valuetainment.com/academy/
Join the channel to get exclusive access to perks: https://bit.ly/3Q9rSQL
Download the podcasts on all your favorite platforms https://bit.ly/3sFAW4N
Text: PODCAST to 310.340.1132 to get the latest updates in real-time!
Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller Your Next Five Moves (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
Why would you pet on Joliet when we got pet dated?
Value payment, giving values to Jesus.
This is where the entrepreneurs, we can't no value to hate it.
I didn't run, homie.
Look what I become.
I'm the uncle.
One of those days passed.
So listen, today's podcast is going to do one of two things to you.
Either your blood pressure is going to go super high.
They got to go around the doctor because these guys have a tendency of increasing blood pressure for people on the right.
That's what they, their business model, some would say, is that.
I'll read a couple of their tweets.
Or you're going to sit there and say, you know, I like these guys.
I like what they have to say.
But regardless, we're going to have a good show.
Brian and Ed Krassenstein.
Brian is the one in the yellow.
He's a righty, okay?
Ed is the one in the white.
He's a lefty, right?
I want to get these facts right.
We got it out there.
If they were to arm wrestle, who would win?
Who would arm wrestle?
I win all the time.
That's seriously.
Okay, so we don't know that this, we will, maybe we'll do it here live.
I think it's important for us to figure it out.
That's really the whole purpose of today's podcast.
But we did say if you said wrestling, you didn't even hesitate.
You just are like, I'm going to take him out, no problem.
Okay.
So we'll figure this part out.
Look, again, American twin brothers who are writers, entrepreneurs, and social media personalities.
They reside in Fort Myers, Florida.
Hopefully no one's affected because I know the whole hurricane is kind of coming that side 50 miles.
We'll see what happened there.
Graduated from Rutgers University.
I think you guys grew up in Jersey, right?
You guys, yeah, 2004 with degrees in economics.
I think that's the problem because you went to Rutgers.
I now understand why you guys believe in what you believe in.
Totally makes sense.
They gained fame during the presidency of Donald Trump by replying to Trump's Twitter account very often.
I think, did you guys ever get blocked by Trump?
We did.
We were actually on a lawsuit to get unblocked by the Knight Institute.
I think it was a Knight Institute, and he had to unblock us.
He had to unblock.
So now you're unblocked.
So the last tweet he put up, the moksha that he put up, you could actually see it and respond to it.
And then you guys were suspended from Twitter in 2019 for allegedly operating faked accounts.
You guys denied the allegations.
In December 2022, your accounts were reinstated by the great Elon Musk.
Fantastic.
Great to have you guys on the podcast.
Great to be here.
So if you don't mind, take a minute and kind of give a little bit about your backgrounds.
I mean, I read what's here, but there's obviously a little bit more to it.
How you guys came about, you know, how you all of a sudden, you know, through tactics of let me just read a couple of your tweets so the audience knows who you guys are.
This is a tweet, guys.
Just check your blood pressure for a second.
What year was this tweet?
Whatever this is, you can time it.
This is Trump being arrested Tuesday.
Okay, so this is going to be the last few months.
Former President Trump says he will be arrested on Tuesday.
Alvin Bragg will indict him.
Hillary Clinton was never arrested.
Hunter Biden was never arrested.
Is it fair to say lock him up?
Is it fair to say Trump indictment is justice?
Is it fair to say that Republicans are wrong?
Is it fair to say I told you so?
Is it fair to say that Trumpism is a cult if you still support this man?
Yes.
Exclamation.
Let me read another one for you.
Kai, let me read another one for you.
I love the passion.
Yeah, we go.
That was Ed.
That was Ed.
Okay, next.
Breaking.
The Secret Service is closing the White House cocaine investigation.
Don't get me wrong.
No one should have cocaine in the White House.
But I find it a bit ridiculous to hold a press conference about it as if Russia just nuked New York City.
Imagine if our presidents worried as much about homelessness, mental health, hate crimes, income inequality, and our national debt as they do this tiny bag of cocaine, right?
Now, you know, somebody may say, well, they got a point over there.
Anyways, I can read a bunch of your tweets here on what you say.
Tell us how you guys got started to get your fame that you have today on Twitter.
Yeah, so I mean, so we have a business background.
We ran several businesses, kind of jump back and forth between different technologies, 3D printing, AI, stuff like that.
2016, Trump decided he's going to run for president.
We didn't like what he is saying.
Actually, our father worked for Trump for 10 years in Atlantic City.
We knew his background.
We knew kind of how what happened.
Did he have a good experience or a bad experience?
Not good or bad.
I mean, just realist.
What did your father do for the he was in charge of marketing for the Taj Mahal?
Which went bankrupt.
Yep.
He worked there from 1990 to 2000, then left, and they went bankrupt several years after that.
But we had a first-hand look at how he ran his businesses and how it kind of devastated the area.
He screwed over a lot of contractors.
So when he decided he'd run, I thought he was probably going to be more on the liberal side.
And maybe it was kind of an act that he was just pretending to be more conservative.
A lot of the rhetoric I didn't like.
Why'd you think he was going to run as a liberal?
Just his background.
I mean, he's pushed for.
Because he ripped a lot of people off in real estate.
That's an interesting assessment.
Well, I kind of thought because he was so mean and ripped people off, he would run as a lefty.
No, no, no.
But like, I was having a son.
My wife was pregnant.
His wife was pregnant.
Just, by the way, just Pierre, forgive me.
Neither one of you guys are gay.
You're not that.
You're both strange.
Okay, I got it.
My apologies.
I thought one of you was.
I just want to make sure we get it out there.
I mean, nothing wrong with it nowadays.
LGBTQ, gay, all that stuff, but go ahead.
So it just pissed me off at the rhetoric he is using.
A lot of things he is saying, I thought it was divisive.
It just rubbed me the wrong way.
I started tweeting, fact-checking his tweets, and it kind of just snowballed from there.
People liked what we were saying, and we gained a following.
When was it when you're like, boom, was there a moment where you said something that was picked up or somebody retweeted it?
Because you guys have had some interesting followers.
You got a lot of people that follow you guys, a lot of influencers that follow you guys.
There was never a moment.
It wasn't a moment.
It was just like a gradual buildup over time.
We started replying to his tweets.
We kind of figured out the algorithm on Twitter to make it so our replies would show up at the top.
So over time, people would start liking our tweets and following us, and it's just kind of snowballed.
So when did you learn how to be annoying and like get under people's skin?
And I mean by trolling, because trolling is a skill nowadays, right?
For example, I think Jake Paul is a troll to Dana White, right?
I think there's a, you know, he was at least.
He's calmed down a little bit the last 12 months.
Certain people, there is a, like Takashi 6ix9ine, he's a troll, right?
I mean, if you go through some of these guys, these guys are.
You could argue that Elon Musk is one of the greatest trolls ever.
Donald Trump's one of the greatest trolls.
I think Trump is probably the GOAT of trolls.
There's a business model in trolling.
I think that's where you guys really reached fame.
Now, are you guys okay with being labeled as trolls, or does that kind of bother you, Lou?
I would say that the old Krassensteins before the ban, I think that was more trolling.
Those tweets you read, I don't think they're trolling.
They're asking questions, starting a conversation.
But if you go back to 2018, 17, 18, 19, I think that a lot of our replies to Trump that we could get to the top, I think you could definitely consider them to be able to.
Why change, though?
Why change it?
Why change the approach if it works?
So I don't know if it did work.
I mean, it worked in that people started following us.
So we were off of Twitter for like three and a half years or so.
What was the tweet that got you guys off of Twitter?
It wasn't a tweet.
They actually said that we bought our accounts.
So we renamed our accounts.
We built up these accounts.
We renamed them.
It was like to like impeach Donald Trump and something else like Donald Trump exposed.
More importantly.
And they thought we fought that.
What was the tweet that if you're if you were trolling Trump for years, you didn't get off Twitter until 2019.
He started in 15, 16, whenever Trump was running.
What was the one tweet that finally is like, enough of these two brother Yahoos?
What was the tweet that got him blocked?
Brian had an infamous Super Bowl tweet.
Yeah, so it was like, I don't know, it was a Rams and somebody playing.
You'll have to go back to 2019 or something like that, 18 maybe.
And I said, some of you are rooting for the Rams.
Some of you are rooting for the, I don't know, Giants.
I'm here rooting for Robert Mueller and the rule of law.
And it was totally a joke, you know, but it pissed off so many people and it went viral.
And I think that's how a lot of people define it.
So who were you guys in high school?
Like, if I was in high school with you, who were you guys?
Like, if we're in 10th, 11th grade, we're in class, we're sitting right next to each other.
Who are you guys?
I mean, I wouldn't, I think we were pretty much the average high school student.
Didn't do any sports.
I was kind of too small for that.
Yeah, I don't know.
I guess maybe like I'd make people laugh sometimes.
Because the reason why I asked that is, like, if I think about who Vinny was, I can visualize who Vinny was, right?
I can see how, you know, in high school, he was a 4.6 GPA, you know, staying close to the teacher.
You actually had a very good GPA.
I wasn't.
I was a high-honest.
But he's been a funny guy.
He's been a guy that's joked, made people laugh.
People want to be around.
When I think about Adam, I remember in sixth grade when he was teaching the principal of the school, she was 38 years old.
So Adam's had that reputation for minutes since he was in sixth grade.
So it is what it is.
But after class.
Were you guys like the ones that got under the teacher's skin?
Were you the one that got under the jock, the quarterback that was leading the way?
What dynamic?
Was there any glimpses that we can look back from 2019, go back to high school and say, now I see it?
You got to say there was something.
I don't think so.
Like, I really don't.
Really?
I mean, we joked around a lot.
Like, probably some teachers, we got under their skin a little bit, but other teachers, they probably loved us.
Did you get under your dad's skin?
Did you piss off your dad?
Did dad ever be like, you guys got to knock this off?
It's a little too much.
Did you piss him off?
I think just us fighting with each other as kids.
So that's what it was.
So I have two sons, and my two oldest sons are 11 and 9.
And they know how to get under each other's skin very well.
And in one video, I saw Andrew and Tristan say something publicly.
They said, we made a decision a long time ago that we no longer make fun of each other to get under each other's skin because it just doesn't work.
When was that moment for you guys?
Or does it still happen today, except it's just behind closed doors?
So our last fist fight was probably when we were like 23.
How long was that, like two years ago?
No, we're 41 now.
Holy shit.
That's right.
2004 Rutgers.
You're 41.
Good for you.
So 23 was the last fist fight.
I think that who won it?
He locked himself in the bathroom and I punched the hole.
There you go, Eddie.
Is that a true story?
Well, that's a soft moment.
No, it was a little more.
Same height, same size.
You're locking yourself in a bathroom or something?
Take this guy.
He's like a quarter an inch taller.
He's about two pounds heavier.
It's a fair fight, basically, when it comes down to it.
Why are you locking yourself in a bathroom?
I got the last hit and I'm like, you know, it's over with.
Tag you're it?
Yeah, pretty much.
Okay, so tell us your, your, how you came to your political ideology that you have, you know, how you believe in what you believe in.
Obviously, you know, university got a hold of you early on.
Rutgers, they're going to give you what they're going to give you.
Your dad probably working with Trump and marketing, Taj Mahal 10 years, and them shutting it down and a bunch of people losing jobs.
Those people who lost jobs are probably never going to have anything good to say about Trump, but that happens all the time where people have to make certain decisions.
That happens in the world of business.
But what were some of the influences on why you guys seem to not only dislike, but you can't stand a figure like Donald Trump?
So for me, I think half my family were Republicans.
Like my dad's side were Democrats.
My mom's side were all Republicans.
I really didn't care about politics.
I didn't vote until Trump Hillary.
I never voted before that.
And I really didn't care about politics.
Like Obama, McCain, Obama, Romney.
I didn't really have too much of a preference.
I probably supported Obama just because I thought he was a cool guy.
But I didn't really have too much of a political opinion on things.
And I think Trump kind of made me start focusing on politics, probably just because he was such a big character and somebody who, you know, had such strong opinions.
And I feel like he kind of took the party in a different direction.
And previously, I was like, okay, I'm kind of moderate.
I don't really care one way or the other.
I mean, his things didn't really affect me yet.
You know, I was just getting out of college, just moving down here to Florida.
So I think Trump kind of pushed me into politics and kind of made me more left-leaning, I would say.
Yeah, I mean, it's pretty much the same for me.
Like, like my wife was more into it than I was.
And like, I started paying attention.
I think I actually voted for Obama, but I was very indecisive.
I didn't, I mean, you were ready to vote for McCain?
Yeah, I mean, I easily could have seen myself voting for McCain.
I think from a business standpoint, I was more right-leaning from a social issues side.
I think more left.
How much of this is an act?
Like going after Trump?
How much of it is an act because it worked?
It's effective.
And you know how to say this stuff?
But behind closed doors, you're like, listen, man, the guy's a badass.
You know, he's doing what he's doing.
He's, you know, one in business, one in media, 15-year show, you know, apprentice.
He's become a president.
Who the hell has ever done that in the history of America?
Where, you know, maybe there's some kind of respect for it, but it's an easy target.
We go after him right now, and that's going to help us get our eyeballs for the business.
I'd say it's not an act.
Definitely not an actual act.
For sure, because a lot of people say even Kyle Kolinski, who we've had him on before, you guys know Kyle Kyle's.
Is it fair to say Kaiser like a left?
He's probably.
I would say he's left of being a liberal.
I would say he's a full-on social Democrat.
Yeah, I think so.
His autographs right there behind him.
Yeah, I think Kyle would be somebody that's left of left.
And he's pretty hardcore out there.
He's a progressive.
Even he doesn't know if this is an act because for him, he should sit there and kind of be more on your side, but he's not a fan.
And he's a guy on the left of left.
He thinks he's an act.
Some other people have said it's an act.
If it is an act, it's worked very well.
If it is real, then tell me why it is real.
Like, what do you really not like about this guy?
I just think that everything that comes out of his mouth is divisive.
And the politics aside, I get the politics.
I can understand a lot of the views from the right and how they relate to those on the left.
It's just his divisiveness.
I feel there's a lot of hatred that's being brewed under what he's saying.
I think that's the biggest thing.
If he was less divisive, I could see myself maybe not voting for another Republican, but I could definitely see myself understanding them and at least considering it, if that makes sense.
So based on what you're saying, it's less his policies.
It's more approach you don't like.
Got it.
So you like his policies.
You just don't like him as a person.
I don't like his votes.
You're a Republican.
Okay, folks, we just made an announcement to yourself.
Brian has changed the Wikipedia.
The Republican brothers, Krasenstein's.
But Brian, how much of that do you guys think was the media?
I mean, you guys are intelligent guys.
How much do you think that the media played a role?
Because I've seen it so much.
We were talking about earlier how my black friends now are turning, especially with all these indictments and the arrests that are telling me like, dude, literally a phone call two days ago with my friend was like, bro, I'm talking about Trump hater, drank the Kool-Aid.
He was selling the fucking Kool-Aid.
He was like, Vinny, now I get what you're saying.
How much of that do you guys think played a part?
Because the media, bro, they're gangsters.
They know what they're doing.
They made people.
media sucks like i'm i'm i think the media is just as bad and both sides of the media i think but i feel you know as president you're not supposed to play into that And that's, I mean, some would say that's Trump's flaws.
Other people would say that's Trump's strength.
But I think the fact that he came out basically the first day on the campaign trail, I think, calling the media the enemy of the state or the enemy of the people.
Enemy of the people.
But he also called Democrats that.
100%.
No, 100%.
But in all fantasy, he was right in the sense that not only were they fake news and the enemy of the people, which I think if you act the way that they act and you put out false stories and shit, 100% of the enemy of the people.
And then before he even got in, the whole media in collusion with FBI and Obama, Hillary, everybody, the DNC, they're all spying on the guy and they're all trying to get him out of office before he got in.
How pissed off would that make you?
Be honest.
You win fair and square.
Russian collusion.
I don't care when people are still like, but there was ads on Facebook.
Trump did not need Facebook and Russia to be Hillary, the most unlikable human being on the planet.
Wouldn't you be pissed off if you were him at everybody, including the media, before you even came in, that swamp was circled around you and everybody was coming at you?
Yeah, I mean, but I think it's kind of like the chicken or the egg, right?
Like who started it?
Who started throwing the food at each other, right?
Okay.
And I think as president or somebody running for president, I think you have to be bigger than that.
I mean, why do you say that?
Is it because we're just Americans just like, because we get screwed over, you guys know this.
Every presidency, every government, we're getting it.
But from what you guys are saying.
Yeah.
But people, Americans like to be coddled.
And, you know, even though they're getting screwed, you know, they want, you know, they want an appetizer, but they want to be taken out to, like, I would rather have somebody that just doesn't sugarcoat anything and it's just right in your face.
We're used to the nice while we're getting screwed.
Trump doesn't do the appetizers or anything.
Trump was just in your face and telling you the truth.
And I feel like that, like you said, we're used to nice, kind, tell us what we want to hear.
Trump didn't have time for any of that, bro.
He's a businessman and he was right in our faces.
Yeah, and I think that's why so much of the country likes Trump and so much of the country dislikes Trump because people have different ideals of what the president should be.
And Trump doesn't fit into that box for so many people, but he's that refreshing change for other people.
Yeah, I agree.
So would you guys consider yourself Trump haters?
Like, do you guys hate the guy?
No, I don't hate him.
And like, we made this, like, when we came back on Twitter, we said it didn't really accomplish anything.
When we were trolling him, if you want to call it that, I feel all it did was make a whole bunch of people on the right pissed off at us and a whole bunch of people on the left, it just reinforced their ideas.
So when we came back, we said, hey, let's at least create a dialogue and maybe do things a little bit differently.
If Trump comes back and starts tweeting or posting on X, whatever you want to call it, I don't think we're going to behave the same way as we did in 2019.
I don't think it's going to accomplish anything if we do.
Has your opinion about him at all changed since 2016 on how the media treated him, how they, you know, things they said about him, the Durham report, you know, even Jake Tapper coming.
If you can play the Jake Tapper clip, because, you know, a lot of times people will say, what about the Durham Port?
What about this?
And what about that?
And, you know, they just don't want to talk about it.
But then here's a clip from Jake Tapper, who is as face of the left for, you know, when it comes onto mainstream media.
He's got credibility with the left.
And here's what he said.
And even his panel's pissed off when he's saying this.
Go ahead and play this clip.
This first one is about the Durham report.
You can play this and then we'll go to the next one.
Go ahead.
Regardless, the report is now here.
It has dropped.
And it might not have produced everything of what some Republicans voted for.
It is regardless devastating to the FBI.
And to a degree, it does exonerate Donald Trump.
Regardless.
That's Jake Tapper saying that.
Devastates the FBI.
It's not like it hurts the FBI.
It devastates the FBI.
And then here's him talking about the deal with Biden.
Let's watch this one here.
I'm sure you guys have seen this.
Can we get the audio on this?
About Joe Biden from earlier this month, noting that Hunter Biden admitted in court in July that he was, in fact, paid substantial sums from Chinese companies.
Kessler wrote, Hunter Biden reported nearly $2.4 million in income in 2017 and $2.2 million in income in 2018, most of which came from Chinese or Ukrainian interests.
And this directly goes against what Joe Biden said in the debate in 2020 with Donald Trump.
Take a list.
My son has not made money in terms of this thing about, what are you talking about?
China.
What'd you mean about president?
He made a fortune in Ukraine, in China, in Moscow, simply in various other places.
So it's from two different debates, but I mean, Trump was right.
I mean, he did make a fortune from China, and Joe Biden was wrong.
I don't know that he was lying about it.
He might not have been told by Hunter, but this blind spot is a problem.
It's a problem, one, because Republicans aren't going to let it go.
That's true.
And by the way, so when you watch this and you see what's happened, for many years, a lot of people believe that something happened with Trump in Russia, including people on the right.
They're like, maybe something really did happen with Russia.
What do we know?
I don't know anything.
If FBI is investigating, these guys are credible sources.
We better believe these guys.
And then Durham, they have to say this.
And then Biden, he took the money and says, I never, he's never taken money from anybody.
And I know for your argument's going to be, well, what about the fact that Kushner did that deal with this?
I'm targeting specifically this argument here.
Has anything with you changed to say, shit, bro?
Like if you guys are talking with each other, brothers behind closed doors, we're kind of wrong about Russia and this guy.
And we were kind of wrong about the Biden and that.
And what position are we going to take now?
We have to kind of be careful on the approach we take moving forward because we could lose our credibility.
Or did you guys, and I didn't follow all the process, maybe you guys did, did you come out and say, look, we were kind of wrong about XYZ, and now we're going to move on to it.
So like Russia, so I mean, you could say that Trump was right and he was exonerated, which he was, right?
Like, I mean, there were no charges filed.
But to say there's nothing going on with Trump in Russia isn't entirely true either.
I mean, Paul Manafort, his campaign manager, literally handed campaign data to a Russian spy, and Roger Stone was working with Wikileaks to get Hillary's emails released.
And Trump specifically asked Russia to release the email.
So, I mean, there's definitely questions there, right?
Well, and I don't think Trump did himselves any favor by the way he acted and kind of kind of led those in the left on and kind of pushed this theory.
He was basically calling for WikiLeaks to release the emails.
He was firing James Comey in the midst of this investigation.
So like, I think it's a combination of, yeah, there were some links.
Mean like that gave more ammo to the other side to say, you see, you see okay, I got you okay and and I, I I mean like, so you, you had these actions where he was kind of taji Russia.
I mean, was it criminal?
Probably not, like I don't think it.
But yeah but brother there's, there's a.
There's a difference between you know something where we have inconclusive evidence that this guy's tied to Russia.
You know, shift comes, you know, and we have this and yeah, and then the dossier later on comes out is from Hillary.
Do you know how dark that is like look to, to say, the opponent to be that level of darkness?
Hillary, for the 35 million to find anything that was supporting, were on the back end.
Biden was the one that his kid was getting money from Ukraine and Russia, but it's almost as so.
The question a lot of people ask on the right is, whatever they do, they say you did to put it on you and it puts all the pressure, but the entire time they were doing it.
That gets people who like there's three camps right now in America.
Let's break down the camps.
What are the chances of you voting for Trump in 2024?
Zero, okay.
What are the chances of you know others voting for Biden in 2024?
Zero, right.
Then we have the camp put.
Put 40 40 on each side.
Put 45 45 on each side.
Put whatever number you want on each side 47, 44.
We've heard about the deplorable, you know.
We've heard about what.
All these comments have been made both sides.
Let's put them there.
There's a camp in the middle some, some of the center left thems okay libertarians, independents who are either gonna sit there who say things like my voice doesn't matter, like yeah, I have a guy here whom i've known for 20 something years.
He says, what matters if I vote?
Yeah, he is.
He doesn't have an audience to say anything, what he votes or not.
But if somebody who has a voice says, what does what difference?
Does it matter for me not to vote?
You actually have an.
You're influencing others not to vote, right.
But for the person that doesn't have any influence and says, what's the difference with me voting or not voting?
Or you know what, maybe i'm going to be voting.
I don't know if I like what Biden is doing.
I don't know what Trump is doing.
This is kind of weird to the people that are in the middle who maybe didn't vote for Trump who are not Trump people.
They're sitting there and they're saying, look man, like so.
So first you do what on this day it does this, then you do this the next day.
On this day, no man, you guys are targeting.
Like, even if you're from that camp, you're either supportive of the fact that they're targeting him or you're sitting there saying guys, this is, you're crossing the line a little bit.
You're almost making me want to like Trump.
I can't believe you're doing this, but you're almost getting a guy like me who would have never voted let's just say people are saying this who would have never voted for him, to say, i'm going to support this guy because I think you guys are shady.
Do you see part of that happen in America right now like, even with the whole the, the Muck Shot, where you know, different rappers are coming out in support of Trump and you're doing what they did to us, and you know some of the people are sitting there saying, you know names of rappers that would have never done anything like this, who are now coming up, millions of followers, Chief Keefe or, you know, Benny The Butcher.
These are not, like you know, rappers who claim they're thugs.
These are rappers who are came from Inglewood.
Keith is in Inglewood.
I had an office in Inglewood.
Every time I went to Inglewood, my office, not in LA, but Inglewood, Chicago, that was an interesting place to come out of it.
Like, no, we're back in him and we're doing this.
A bunch of guys, little pump, these are names that are coming out supporting him because they're saying we now relate to you because what they're doing to you, we've been going through with our justice system for years and we're feeling your pain and we're going to come back and support you.
Do you kind of see a little bit of a thing?
Let's see what happens.
Let's see if he gets convicted.
If he's found not guilty or if he's exonerated in any way, you know, the trials, you know, he gets off anyway.
I think, yeah, I mean, that definitely is going to play a huge factor.
But I mean, if he's found guilty in any of the trials, or at least half of them, right?
I think it was warranted.
But don't you feel it's a little weird, though, that not only the timing, they just announced that his trial, they made it go to the week before Super Tuesday.
The day before.
The day before.
Oh, I apologize.
The day before.
So like, it's, it's, it's scary to see how, because mind you, they're, they're going after him for talking about cheating, which I saw a clip yesterday of eight minutes of just Hillary and everybody in the media cheating.
Donald Trump cheated, cheated, it just goes on and on and on.
So he's basically saying that they cheated in 2020, which I mean, we've seen videos of ballot harvesting and all that stuff, which there was technically there was cheating.
Meanwhile, they're using the Department of Justice right now to actively cheat and go after a political opponent.
So if like you have to be blind to see what's happening, and I think people are waking up to the fact it's like they know that he is way too popular, he's gaining popularity by the day.
I just, we talked about this before you guys walked in.
I don't know what the left is up to, but I don't know if that's their main thing to not have him run because he's getting more popular.
Like, do you guys see how they're kind of using like the Department of Justice to go after this guy?
I mean, if you think that there's nothing in between there and Biden's just saying, hey, Merrick Garland and go after him, then yeah, but that's not how it works.
You can have this theory that there's all these discussions taking place behind the scenes.
But there are separations.
There's separations powers.
There's the courts have to decide, hey, a judge needs to sign off on a warrant, a subpoena.
There's a grand jury.
There's four independent grand juries.
And they've all indicted him.
And yeah, you can say it's easy to indict somebody.
Especially if they're all in the same.
I mean, the thing about it, they're all Democratic-run cities.
They're all Democratic.
They're all.
I think the better question is this.
So imagine you put four tweets, okay, and you target John Doe, or you target anybody.
Exactly 24 hours after those tweets, you all of a sudden get sued.
You think there's a pattern there?
Or you think that's accidental and coincidental?
If you think that's accidental and coincidental, you're really our man of faith.
You really believe in, you know, can you play this video I just sent you?
I just want you to watch this here.
I mean, this is just a clip for you to watch.
And I sincerely want your real reaction to this, to say, no, this was all a coincidence.
If he can just play this, Ellenchin's community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.
Then April 4th, the Manhattan DA, Alvin Bragg, indicts Trump in that hush money case.
So even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he's being really dumb to do this.
Then the very next day, look at this.
Jack Smith indicts Trump in the Mar-a-Lager document case.
July 27th, Jack Smith adds more charges in the 2016.
From what I am told, they are very upset with how he has treated them.
The very next day, Jack Smith indicts Trump for the January 6th case.
Later in the afternoon or that night or that evening, Fulton County DA, Bonnie Willis, charges Trump and 18 others in the Georgia 2020 election pros.
Yet another set of indictments.
And I feel great, just great profound sadness that we have a former president who has been indicted for so many charges that went right to the heart of whether or not our democracy would survive.
You take on the intelligence community.
They have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.
Of course they give actually very good counsel, right?
But here's the question.
Brother, I mean, Brian, five different times, the day something bad news comes about Biden's, the next day you have to say, brother, that is so bold.
Like you are no longer holding back and worried about average people and the public voters to say, hey guys, can you guys make it a little less obvious?
You're like, I don't want this Trump guy to win, but you're making it a little too obvious that my friends are saying this.
I don't really know what to tell these guys right now.
So like flip it around though.
Why are you saying that?
So you have the political side, which is going after Hunter Biden, right?
So they're conducting all these interviews.
They're conducting investigations.
They know about when any indictment is going to come.
We knew that the Fonnie Willis was going to come sometime in August.
You're saying that the judicial branch and the court systems are going after Trump because this Hunter Biden news is coming out.
It's much more likely that the political side, the House, is going after Hunter Biden around the same time to cover the media coverage of the Trump indictments.
I wouldn't say much more likely, but I'd say it could be either way.
Like if you're on the left, you lose credibility there because whoever comes last was intentional.
Hear me out.
Like for example, if I punch you first, okay, boom, you punch me back.
It's a reaction.
You're waiting.
If you, let's just say, all of a sudden get accused of, if you get accused of stealing money from me, and then the next day you say, but did you see what he did seven years ago?
And then it happens again, but did you see this?
And it happens again.
It's the next day.
They're not even waiting for a week or two weeks.
What if I said, I'm going to punch you tomorrow and you punch me first?
No, no, that's not what I'm saying.
So do you not think that Trump's attorneys are communicating with Kevin McCarthy in the House?
Stop it.
I mean, you don't know, right?
You don't know.
But what you're saying is it's so delusional.
For example, I'll give you an idea.
We can talk about NATO and BRICS and Ukraine and Russia next, right?
I have a hard time sitting there and being super supportive of allowing BRICS to do whatever they want to do.
And that's more democratic position I may have because it's kind of like, listen, man, there's three letters and BRICS that, you know, two letters and bricks I'm not comfortable with.
There's nobody in the EU I'm worried about or NATO I'm worried about, if that makes any sense.
Like, who am I worried about in the EU?
Germany?
They're going to attack us?
Am I worried about the UK today?
Not that things could change in the next four, 10, 15 years.
A new leader comes in, but I'm worried about China because they hate us.
I'm all worried about Russia.
Totally get that, right?
I'm being very reasonable with you for you guys to, you know, sit there and say, yeah, but turn it around.
It's delusional.
The next day, you're coming out with some lawsuit to target this guy.
It shows a lot of weakness.
What it does to me being raised in Iran, living there for 10 years, to a mother whose entire family were communists, pretty much, and my dad who were imperialists.
And I lived in Germany at a refugee camp for a couple of years.
I watched this and I'm like, yeah, America's becoming a banana republic like many other places and they're using it to eliminate an audience.
My friend called me from Ecuador, who was my groomsman at my wedding.
And he's telling me, did you hear about what happened here in Ecuador?
Well, what happened?
The candidate, the Republican candidate, two weeks away from election, he's leaving one of his campaigns.
He gets in the car.
Three guys shoot him.
They kill him.
The cops get a hold of one of the guys.
They take him back to the police station.
And in the police station, the guy somehow dies.
They shoot him and kill him.
Weird.
That's never happened in America before, right?
Of course, no one's ever, a guy named Jack Ruby takes out Lee Harvey Oswald before we find out what was really behind it.
And it's not like that was a big event that happened in the history of America.
It's just a president getting assassinated, right?
I mean, you can't say that when it's five times.
I don't know.
I can, though, because you know that Trump's lawyers.
I know you can't say that because you want to believe it, but it's truly a lot of people.
But I'd like to say the same thing about you, though.
So listen, are you saying that Trump's attorneys didn't have a good inclination of when he was going to be indicted or when these different things were coming down?
No.
He said he was tweeting about it.
He was tweeting, I'm going to be indicted tomorrow.
Do you know what a bold gangster does?
Do you know what a bold gangster?
How does a bold gangster kill somebody?
I don't know.
You tell me.
In a public daylight.
In front, like an American gangster.
You ever seen a movie, American Gangster?
Yeah, yeah.
Do you remember the scene he's at the coffee shop with his cousins?
And they're all sitting there.
And a guy he sees that's on the other side that didn't pay his money.
He goes up to him and it's played by the good-looking guy, Idris.
I don't know.
Elbow.
What's his last name?
Idris.
Elbow.
Yeah, good-looking guy.
And he goes up to him and says, hey, I thought you were going to pay me my tax, 10%.
I didn't get any of the money.
He starts laughing in his face.
In daylight, he grabs the gun, boom, shoots him, puts him cash, goes back and has breakfast and takes the sugar, puts it back.
The left, what they're doing today, the closest thing I can see to them is what Frank Lucas did in daylight.
They don't give a shit.
They want everybody to know you F with us, the intelligence community, sponsored by Chuck Schumer.
We're going to publicly, intentionally do it, and you can't say nothing about it.
But here's the problem.
There's a big problem with this, Brian.
And Ed, short term, Frank Lucas was a star.
Long term, Frank Lucas eventually gets caught and arrested.
But sometimes it takes a few years for Frank Lucas to have a lot of power in the streets.
And that's kind of what they got today.
They're not going to have this forever.
Life doesn't work this way.
God's a powerful God.
And men and women of faith who believe in the powerful organizations like the DOJ or the mob who try to bully regular people for a certain period, you can do it.
Eventually, the real people of value who don't like tolerating stuff like this stand up and say, yeah, it's too much.
You're bullying people.
We're not okay with it.
You can do this to this guy, Donald Trump.
He's going to come and go.
But America's bigger than just one person.
You cannot ever do something like this again to put the fear.
You know how many people, friends, that I know that I'd love them to run for office.
I had a conversation yesterday with a guy at 11.30 at night.
You know who this guy is.
And he's from the left.
And he can't stand Donald Trump.
We had a very good conversation together.
Very good.
You know how many people that love America who want to run for office, they're not running.
You know why they're not running?
Because all they're seeing is, man, I don't want them to do to us what they did to Trump.
I mean, that's fair, right?
But I mean, I feel like you're stating this as this is what's happening.
And I don't know.
Right, five times, not once or twice with playtime.
But if you listen to the left, they're saying the opposite, right?
You're saying the comers pushing out all this stuff.
Well, but I mean, is it possible?
Tell me, do you think it's possible that it's not?
It's not possible.
It's not possible.
No, because that's not how this works.
The way this works is what you do the day after.
Okay.
What should do the day?
Any kind of bad news that comes out against Hunter Biden the day after they target Trump, the day after, like it is so bold, it ain't even funny how bold they are.
Trump is such an expert at getting ahead of the media cycle.
Like he's done that his whole career.
Whether it was in business, whether it was when he's president.
Wait, you think Trump.
Trump wants Hunter Biden, the news about Hunter Biden, to be the top of the news cycle, and then his stuff comes on the bottom of the news cycle.
It's what he's done his entire life.
Wait, wait, go look at our last 20 podcasts.
Check to see how many times we talk about Hunter Biden.
I don't care to talk about Hunter Biden.
You know why I don't talk about Hunter Biden?
You're going to catch him?
How often do I talk about Hunter Biden?
How often in this podcast do we talk about Hunter Biden?
I don't think you don't.
The most often thing we talk about, not even top 10.
And he's a guy that voted for Biden publicly.
I gave $1,000 to this guy on a podcast.
I said he was going to win.
But you voted for him as well.
Correct.
So I took a lot of money because I played Vegas Hop.
But you also voted.
So there's money and you voted.
The point I'm making to you is this is a guy that was a Biden supporter.
He's not a Trump guy.
I would just say I voted for him.
I wouldn't say I was a supporter.
Just like if I voted for.
Voting is support.
Just like if I vote for Trump this time, I'm not a Trump supporter.
I mean, technically you are.
You're supporting the guy.
I'm not going to anybody.
You could be voting against another 10.
True, but you're still like, listen to me.
If you're putting a vote, you're supporting his president.
You've got a little sensitive background.
It's possible to think that most people suck, but you have to pick up.
Let me explain.
That is a form of supporting.
It's in English.
Like if I go to Starbucks over 7-Eleven, both suck.
I support Starbucks.
That's how this works.
Okay, so let me go back to the point.
The point I'm trying to make to you is, I don't care to talk about Hunter Biden.
I don't care if to talk about Hunter Biden.
If it's going to happen, it's going to happen.
Go on and talk about, you know, oh my God, look what happened over here.
That's not our show.
We're regular people who have families, have lives.
We have different lives that we live, all three of us.
But even Tom that's here, Tom's in a very different life that he lives than these guys live.
He's living a different life, way different than the life he's living, way different than the life Tom's living, way different than the life I'm living.
But for us, when you do that five times in a row, the average person sits there, even from your side, who voted for Biden.
Even those, they say, it's a little fishy, man.
It's a little fishy when you're doing this.
I mean, Schumer said, don't do it.
You did it.
Now they're coming after you.
They're ruining your life.
So going back to it.
So many guys that ought to consider running don't want to run because the spectacle of what they did the last six years, they stole the guy's life.
So when he became a president, he couldn't do anything for the first three years because it was Russia.
He couldn't do anything the last year because it was COVID.
Because the first three years, it was all Russia.
Nobody believed him.
The last year was COVID.
He's the worst president of all time.
You realize they literally stole four years of him being able to do anything.
Doesn't that happen with every president?
No, I mean, not like that.
Not at that level.
Yeah, I'd say it was a bit.
Go to Obama.
I'd say Biden.
They're doing it with Biden, right?
Go to Obama.
Go to Obama.
Every news station, Colbert, Obama, you know, Leno when he was still on.
Or you got Kemmel, Fallon, MSN, ABC.
This is the greatest president of all time.
The guy got a Nobel Prize that they, you know, for nothing.
They painted him as the greatest president of all time prior to even doing anything.
And everybody was supposed to just sit down, bow down to this guy being the greatest of all time.
And we took it.
Yeah.
So before Trump, that's how things were.
But apparently now things are changing.
Why?
Because, but ask the question, why?
Do you realize what was the most humiliating moment of Obama's presidential run?
What was the most embarrassing moment of Obama's run?
When he made the White House the flag?
No.
The LGBT flag?
That was pretty interesting.
That was pretty interesting.
I don't think that was the most, no, individually, not as a country.
We looked embarrassing as a country, but as an individual.
When did he go?
He wore khaki pants on that one time.
That's tan.
I actually wore a khaki suit.
How dare you, Obama?
Let me just say this.
I want to make this point.
Make the point.
Just so you ask me about this guy.
I think he's a guy I would be totally cool having dinner with.
I think we'd have fun talking sports.
I think we'd have fun talking politics.
I think I would like sitting down with this guy and enjoying a show with him.
Okay, Obama.
When I watched him on different shows, I liked watching him.
It wasn't like I don't like watching him.
What was the most embarrassing moment of his career when he was a president?
When he was doing the Fallon or the Kimmel show and is reading all the tweets and he reads this tweet and he says, you know, President Obama may go down as the single worst president in the history of America, something like that.
And then what does he do?
He grabs the phone.
He says, oh yeah, at least I will go down as the president.
And he drops his phone, right?
Okay.
And then what happens at the dinner where he's making fun of Donald Trump?
He'll never win.
Do you know how competition works?
This guy's from the streets of Chicago.
Obama's very competitive.
Do you think out of the 7.7 billion people around the world, if there was one person he was not okay with becoming president, you know who it was?
Only one guy.
And the guy he didn't want one.
And then later on, ObamaGate comes worse than Watergate, where Glenn Greenwald just a few days ago here explained how much worse ObamaGate was spying on Trump's campaign for Trump to win.
And then he has to live that for the rest of his life.
Yeah, no.
So what happens there?
Everybody in media that loved him and who were close to him, speculation, this is my speculation.
Hey, guys, he humiliated our favorite president of all time, Barack Obama.
We got to target this guy and ruin his life and ruin his life.
They did.
Now, he's Teflon, so he can handle it, but ruin his life.
They did.
And then four years later, COVID, excellent opportunity they used to kick him out.
And boom, now they're arresting the guy every other day.
What a great strategy these guys use.
Brilliant.
But all of it goes back to this guy named Barack Obama.
And Brian, Ed, just out of curiosity, and I hate now that we brought him up, I have to talk about it.
The Hunter laptop.
Okay, laptops because he left a couple at that place.
We found out this year with the Twitter files that, and this is, I don't care how you spin it, this is cheating.
That there was so much information on there about him, his father, the big guy, all these deals that the FBI in conjunction colluded with Twitter and all these social media places to stop that story, to suppress the story.
Anybody that tweeted about it, anybody that spoke about it, you were taken off all these platforms.
That is actively cheating to help one political party.
So no matter what anybody says, that 100% affected.
And they did a poll, Pat, of voters, and they said, if you knew what was on this laptop and all this shit that was with him and his father, would it have swayed your vote?
And what was it?
Like 40% were like, yeah, we probably would have, we wouldn't have voted for him.
So at the end of the day, from the Russia collusion to all this to the laptop, that system that he's talking about, oh, 53 of Americans made aware of the Hunter Biden laptop story would have changed their vote.
So guys, let's be men about this.
That isn't cheating for you.
Is that cheating?
So I disagreed with the fact that Twitter deleted that New York Post article.
I think that was wrong.
You call it cheating, but hold on.
You call it cheating.
I wouldn't say it's cheating because Twitter acted as a private company.
Twitter did not act at the behest of the FBI.
They may have been.
They were there.
Hold on.
They were actively going there telling them, we're with the FBI.
The White House sent us, don't put this story out because it'll help a political campaign.
But that's not what the FBI told Twitter.
Yes, they did.
Did you read the Twitter files?
Of course we did.
They said it was misinformation and Twitter decided based on what FBI.
How is it, Mrs. Holt?
So, if the FBI, a government, they said it had the characteristics of Russian information.
If they had the characteristics, so that's the FBI, the same FBI that said that dragons are losing Russian collusion bullshit.
If they say that, if there's characteristics, they know.
Come on, they know what they're doing.
The letter said there's characteristics of Russian disinformation, which arguably it could have been, right?
So, I mean, so are you joking right now?
You've been telling you what happened.
I actually want to leave you to speak, and I want to be and I want to hear you.
Are you sincerely being serious about what you said?
I'm just telling you what they said.
Although I'm done.
No, no, no, I understand that, but you're saying it in a way that's not the same thing.
I disagree 100% with the fact that Twitter removed that article.
Okay.
100%.
So then, if they would have kept it, 53% said that would have changed the way they would have voted.
That could have meant the difference of Trump being president versus Biden.
Yes?
Yes.
It could have, yes.
And I think what Twitter did was absolutely wrong.
I don't think it was.
I don't think they the idea that the FBI forced them to remove it, they didn't.
The FBI has Donald Trump himself asked Twitter to remove tweets from Twitter, right?
Is that so?
Is that election interference too?
Stay on this topic here.
Yeah.
Stay on this topic here.
So you just said yes.
It would have changed the I don't know if it would have changed the election.
You said yes to the future.
It may have, though.
No, I mean, you guys are, if there's, you guys are smart guys.
You know, you're not, you're not guys that are dumb guys.
You guys are smart guys.
So if you're smart, just be the smart guy that you are.
So if that is the case, so now watch this.
You know, when you think about in sports, when somebody wins with a method of cheating, okay, there was a guy, who was a guy that was fighting.
And at the end, this other guy ended up being paralyzed.
He ended up dying.
The guy had, at the end of the fight, the father, have you guys seen this video?
It's a very emotional video where the father comes in.
And at the end of the fight, the father, who's the trainer, grabs the opponent's hand and he starts doing this to the gloves.
He does this to the gloves because he saw what they did to his face.
And then he says, he calls it, and the guy's like, no, no, he starts.
Have you ever seen this clip or no?
You have to find this video, Ross.
And let me tell you, they find the gloves, they open it up.
No.
And in the gloves, there was metal and rock.
Damn.
The father, like, it is the most, my body just got to, I just got the chills all over my body.
You have to watch this video.
It's so freaking hard to watch.
I'll find it.
When I'll respond back to them, I'll find it.
I'll send it to you.
This kid, for the rest of his life, lived out of a wheelchair.
He was paralyzed for life.
I mean, that guy cheated, ruined his life.
So imagine the rage on half of America who were publicly humiliated for losing, who supported a guy that they wanted to go again, and COVID hurt him.
And not only that, that tweet hurt him.
In their eyes, he should be the president.
And now this guy deserves another four years in their eyes.
Now you're doing this again five times in a row the day after with knowing the fact that Hunter Biden's taking money, knowing the fact that in the history of the White House, if there's ever been cocaine, I don't know how much cocaine Lincoln did at the White House, but there's not a lot of research on him having cocaine back in the days.
So cocaine's only going to be linked to one guy.
Now we're supposed to say, nah, it's not going to be him.
It's probably somebody else.
Honestly, it's probably Donald Trump Jr. somehow snuffing, did cocaine and left.
That's probably him.
We have to.
You realize how the American people feel like, why do you talk to us like we're dumb and stupid?
At this point, I'm okay with buying some propagandas you want to sell.
But the moment you start looking at me as I'm stupid, the voters like, I'm sick of you treating me like I'm an idiot.
I'm not an idiot.
I know what you're doing.
And you can't win.
So that's the rage.
The fact that even a guy like yourself said that could have influenced it.
Yeah.
I mean, the left is probably outraged as well that the Republicans are talking about impeaching Joe Biden, right?
Like, and they feel the same way about that.
They feel like Republicans are, well, I mean, you have to look at it from that point of view as well.
Right?
But again, what you're saying is the left is also, by the way, I'm not supportive of either one of them impeaching anybody.
Just go do your thing.
Unless if it's like, so this impeaching game is not a game I support.
I don't even, I've not one time talked to you about them impeaching Biden.
Not one time on our podcast.
It's not an article I'm interested in.
I'm not interested in that kind of stuff.
That's going to make this country the greatest country in the world, the shittiest country in the world.
We're going to join a bunch of different people.
But this is a cause of they impeached Trump how many times?
Twice.
And what happened?
Nothing.
But they just wanted to.
Did anybody expect anything else to do?
But why did they do it?
I mean, I don't argue.
It's curious.
You humiliate the guy.
That's the only reason you do it.
Yeah, it's just a political tool.
Well, then guess what?
So if the right is sitting here right now, they're doing it.
It's caused.
It was stemmed by the left.
You started it like this whole thing.
Well, you could say the Clinton impeachment started it too.
The Clinton impeachment.
I'm also not supportive of that, with the Clinton impeachment.
What happened there?
If you impeached him, you want to go impeach all the other however many presidents that we got to go back and do that with?
No, I'm not supportive of that.
But this one, that one at least, there was a proof.
He came out and said, I did not have to.
And then he says, I have to apologize.
And then boom.
And then it is what it is.
Obviously, in today's climate, that would be a regular day on the Tuesdays.
That would get him on the Trump administration.
Well, can I, I guess, add to the conversation?
Maybe we'll, you know, by the way, if we were having this conversation one year from now, this is a cute conversation.
I would say, oh, you know, we're sort of getting along.
By the way, fast forward a year from now, you guys talked about fighting and armed wrestling.
Shit would be going down because the temperature in the room is at a very, you know, comfortable 72 right now.
Go to August, September of 2024.
It's about to be 98 degrees and about to be 104 degrees because shit's going to get very, very heated.
So, you know, we're having this conversation.
But, you know, Justin Timberlake used to say, he sang the song like, what goes around comes around.
What goes around?
That's exactly what's happening in politics.
And no matter what conversation we have, no matter what happens, here's what I can guarantee to everybody out there.
Every four to eight years, get ready for a new president.
Get ready for a Republican president.
Get ready for a Democratic president.
Why is that?
Just look at the proof.
The proof is in the pudding.
Every four to eight years, America basically has a bipolar episode and says, well, you know, those guys suck.
Let's try the other side.
Well, you know, those guys suck.
Let's try the other side.
You talk about Clinton in basically his term came up in 2000 and that, you know, Gore Bush, they flipped on Clinton.
They went to Gore.
They went to Bush.
And that was a whole election fraudulent Chad's ballots.
Everything's going on.
Then you have everything that happened with John Kerry.
And then it became Obama and then it became McCain and then it became the Bushes and then it became this.
And then we're just used to this by now.
We know this thing by now.
But it did get uglier under Trump.
Where am I going with all this?
Here's what we do know for a fact.
How many people live in America?
300 and 30 million.
How many people vote?
150 million.
It's almost half the country, let's say.
What if I were to tell you, how many people do you think run this country?
What's your number?
Like, how many people run this country?
And I don't mean like the oligarch social media tech.
How many people sway the votes of this country every four to eight years?
What's your number?
It's probably under 500, I think.
500 people?
No.
No, but you're not asking a question.
The right vote is saying out of the 150 million voters, what percentage of, or like the left, the right, independent, what percentage sways do you?
This isn't a trick question.
It's like small percentage.
I would say there's 50 to 100,000 people in this country that sway the entire electorate of this country.
Okay.
So who am I talking about?
The people in Fulton County, Georgia, in Arizona, everything that's going on there in Arizona, certain state counties in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio even, Pennsylvania, like the entire country is basically at the whims of the same people that voted for Obama, then voted for Trump, then voted for Biden, and we'll wait to be seen what they end up doing in 2024.
These people run the country.
So, you know, Pat hit the nail on the head that, you know, whether you call it 45 and 47 or 48 and 42, 90% of the country has their mind up.
Congratulations.
Good for you.
There's 0% chance that no matter what evidence anybody shows you, you're not voting for Trump.
Straight up.
Yes?
Yeah.
No matter what anybody shows Vinny, there's a very, very high likelihood there's no chance he's voting for Biden, correct?
100%.
There you go.
My vote is completely for sale at this point.
I am one of those 100,000 people being like, yeah, wasn't a Trump guy.
Biden's a mess.
Trump's indictment.
I don't know.
I can flip my vote.
I'm 1 million percent.
Would you vote third party, though?
No, because it's a wasted vote.
So I'm truly one of those people being like, don't Trump, don't like Trump's personality whatsoever, but policies kind of are better.
And then you have Biden.
It's like, yeah, these policies kind of suck, but at least it's not nails on a chocolate.
You say you're not a walking vegetable.
But he's also, my vote is important in Florida.
What's my point with all this kind of stuff like that?
You know, there's certain people on the left that have Trump derangement syndrome, straight up.
There's certain people on the right where you've proclaimed that these people are part of a cult.
No, for the record, I don't consider them a cult.
But you did tweet that.
No, it was a question.
It was a question.
Okay.
All right.
Sorry.
I really don't believe that they're a cult.
Maybe there's 10% of the country that are free thinkers.
Like you said that some of your family is Democrats, some of your family is Republican.
In my household, my mom, no matter what I tell this woman, there is a 0% chance she's voting for Trump.
Zero.
No matter, I'm like, it's Trump or a ham sandwich.
She's like, well, I don't really eat ham, but okay, I guess whatever I tell my sister, whatever she finds out, she's 100% voting for Trump.
Why?
Because she met him once.
Ultimately, what is happening in this country is just because someone votes for the other option, this binary option, we don't need to hate our neighbors or hate our family.
And that's where we're at in this country is that if you voted for the other side, you're the enemy.
And it's emblematic of where we are, and it's only getting worse.
So I guess, you know, Kyle Kalinske, I don't even know we have that clip.
He hates you guys because you're more left than him.
Okay.
And there's, you hate Trump because he's supposedly a liberal.
Now he's, you know, a conservative, what have you.
Ultimately, my thing is, do we really end up need to hating our neighbors because they vote for a different side of the aisle?
No, it's absurd.
Like half my friends, probably more than half my friends are Trump supporters.
So I mean, I think it's ridiculous that what the country has come to.
How many friends have you lost because you've been anti-Trump?
None that I'm aware of.
No, that's not true.
No, seriously, I don't think I've lost a single friend.
Well, then you're the anomaly because there's a lot of people out there that will not be friends with the other side.
And then just to Pat's point, the political motivation about like, all right, news comes out about that whole thing about May 5th, May 6th, May 7th.
Everything with that, how would you describe that?
Everything just basically the smoke and gun sort of analogy that anytime there's bad news, they'll basically indict Trump.
Guys, it's true.
Just look at the, like, sometimes it's right in front of your face.
So, are things politically motivated?
Yes.
So, are you department weaponized?
I'm willing to wait.
I'm willing to wait and see what the outcome of the trial is.
Like, I don't think I should be taking sides either way.
Like, you've already taken your side.
No, but what I'm saying is, I don't know if Trump's guilty.
I don't know.
Maybe it is politically motivated.
I don't know.
I can see both sides.
Like, you know, where Patrick here says that the DOJ is releasing these indictments because what are you waiting for?
You've already acknowledged that there's a 0% chance you're voting for.
So who gives a shit?
Yeah, even if they exonerate him, you're not voting for him.
So what does it matter?
Yeah, it doesn't matter in that sense.
No.
So you don't give a shit about evidence.
Neither does Benny.
But I do.
No, you don't.
Not for the election, I wouldn't change my vote.
Yeah.
So that's my point.
That's where we're at in this country.
You're just clinging to your beliefs.
There's no evidence, no facts that will help you sway your vote.
And that's fine.
That's on you.
Do your vote.
But to me, that's an emblematic of where we are.
If someone says, by the way, the Russia thing was all a fucking hoax.
By the way, it was all fraud.
By the way, the Justice Department was all weaponized.
By the way, all the information that you've used to surmise your opinion is all false.
Here's the actual evidence.
You're like, yeah, I don't care.
I'm still going to vote for Trump.
So you're voting for that.
That's not necessarily true.
You just said?
Yeah, but here.
Ed, you just said there was a 0% chance that you're voting for Trump.
Yeah, you're voting for Trump, but that doesn't necessarily mean I'll vote for Biden, though.
So I could just sit the election out or vote third party just to make a point.
That's weak, though.
Well, I mean, I'm not going to vote for somebody that I think is a bad president, right?
So just because he's found to be not guilty doesn't mean that that changes my mind on whether I think he should be president.
There's other reasons.
What are the other reasons?
I mean, just policies, his divisiveness.
I mean, before he was indicted, I wouldn't have voted for him.
But you did say at the beginning of the podcast.
I wrote it down.
You said, you know, approach versus policies.
You liked some of his policies.
Some of his policies.
It's his approach you don't like.
It's because of his approach that you're not going to vote for him.
That's a big part of it.
I prefer the liberal policies over the years.
Which kind of divisiveness do you like less, public or private divisiveness?
Define each.
I tell you to your face, I don't like you, versus I tell you to your face, I like you so much, but I go behind your back and tell everybody how much of a whatever you are.
Which one do you respect more?
I respect the public.
I do as well.
Yeah, that's what half the American people respect.
Half the American people kind of respect the fact that he's not telling you something publicly.
And, you know, if he doesn't like somebody, he's going to tell you.
We as Americans, for whatever reason, as an immigrant myself, who came here from another place, we're super skeptical.
Super skeptical.
And for me, I think Jay-Z said best in one of his songs, says, don't tell me what somebody said about me.
Tell me why that person was so comfortable to tell you what they said about me, right?
Okay.
I respect the guy.
You know, they used to say 10, 15 years ago, they said, no one from New York, America's not ready for a president from New York.
And this wasn't even with Trump.
This was pre-Trump.
Somebody from New York was running.
I don't know if it was Christy that ran before Trump.
There was somebody from New York running and saying, America's not ready for a New York president because the way people are in New York is just too much.
You know, you're from Jersey, so you kind of know the style of New York.
I mean, Giuliani, I guess.
You know what?
It could have been Giuliani.
It could have been Giuliani.
Yeah.
And then, but today, I think Americans with social media are kind of like, you know what, man, I must much rather prefer a straight-up guy that's going to tell me how he feels than the fake stuff.
Because what social media did is just 20 years ago, 30 years ago, a lot of this stuff would have gotten away.
And people like us, we couldn't have created content to just talk to regular people about our concerns.
We just had to listen to those five, six different channels, right?
Social media actually got some of the American people to say, I prefer a guy that's going to be straight up with me than the guy that's being deceiving me or divisive.
So, yeah, I mean, I can understand your point about being divisive, but man, we got to.
Yeah, no, no, I agree.
Like, I will say I respect him speaking his mind, right?
Like, that's fine.
I think that just some of the wording he uses and the things he says can divide us and he could say it in a different way.
I don't know if I disagree.
I don't know if I'm going to sit here and say, oh, you're wrong and all this stuff.
I totally get it.
That's his wiring.
You know how when Republicans say stuff like, you know, if he would only stop them, who are you to tell him he's going to change at 74, now 70?
What is he?
77 or 70?
How old is he right now?
I don't know how old he is.
77.
You think he's going to change now?
No.
You ain't changing this guy.
So either you have to take him for who he is, or you ain't changing no 77-year-old guy, right?
So I get what you're saying, that maybe some of his words he says could, you know, divide into all this stuff.
Let's transition to a different.
Can I bring up one little thing that you just said?
And I think it's very important because, you know, we are five dudes sitting around having a podcast.
Men are way more comfortable hearing the straight up facts.
Here's the fucking deal.
Vinny, you look like shit today.
Thanks, Adam.
All right, you're good.
I appreciate it.
If you tell a girl that, she will lose her mind.
Of course.
The truth hurts.
The truth hurts.
And that's why, you know, they say facts don't care about your feelings.
Men are a lot more comfortable hearing the tough news, the tough pill to swallow.
Like, would you, how'd you position the question?
Would you rather hear the tough news behind your back or in front of your face?
How'd you word it, Pat?
Okay.
So men are comfortable with that.
That's why, by an overwhelming margin, you know, men vote for Trump, right?
Whereas most women cannot take the cold, hard truth, right?
And they will, you know, not want to hear the bad news.
You know, the whole thing with Trump was, what do you, you know, the economy's going to shit, inflation's falling apart, gas prices, you know, Afghanistan, everything you want to put, Ukraine, everything, but no more mean tweets.
So the rhetoric is really the biggest problem, especially for women.
I don't know if that's the majority of the reason why women don't vote for him.
I think there's other reasons too, like abortion and Trump's comment about grabbing women.
And, you know, like, I think there's other things at play there too.
But most people vote for personality, not policies.
Yeah.
Most people.
Would you agree?
Yeah, I would.
And they just can't handle his personality.
And a lot of people can.
I get it.
I totally understand.
But I mean, Biden doesn't have a personality.
Zero.
He doesn't even know what the hell he is.
Would you acknowledge the only reason that Biden got elected was because he was not Trump?
Yeah, absolutely.
Nobody's rallying for Biden.
He's beatable.
He's vulnerable.
Nobody has Biden's side of the story.
Nobody's excited about Biden.
It's just, you've got 35% of the country that is obsessed with Trump.
Nobody has that candidacy.
Nobody has that.
And you have 50% of the country that's like, yeah, I hate that guy.
And it's a law of large numbers.
Trump brings people to the polls.
That's why he's called two record-breaking election, two record-breaking candidates.
It's all because of Trump.
Yeah, we went to the GOP debates and it was almost like, wait, the main fighter's not here?
We were just watching undercards.
And it was cool to watch, but I was just like, it missed.
That personality.
And Pat, you're going to go to someone.
I just wanted to ask, do you guys think we would be where we are today with all the, I mean, crime is ridiculous, the border, gun violence, inflation, recession.
And at the end of the day, do you guys think the Russia situation would be happening?
Because if Trump was this Russian asset, he's Putin's bitch.
We heard all that.
Does any of that happen?
Like, he waited for Biden to come in to Putin to do his attack and everything.
Do you guys think, would Trump's presidency have changed any of that?
You know, it's hard to say.
I don't know what Trump would have done.
Would he have just said, we're siding with Putin?
Like, we're not going to get involved and let Putin take more Ukrainian land.
I mean, he didn't really do much on Crimea, right?
So I don't know.
It could have gone many different ways.
Like, maybe there would be other concessions and maybe Putin wouldn't have invaded.
You know, it's hard to say.
It's hard, but it's weird, though, that nothing happened.
We didn't hear nothing about.
I mean, we heard Russia, obviously, but nothing happened while he was in.
And then once Biden was in, it was like, hey, it's attack time.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, but I mean, one could also argue that Trump was kind of siding with Putin on a lot of issues.
So why would Putin do it then?
Why not wait until another president came along?
Like, if Putin went into Ukraine, we don't know how Trump would have reacted.
And I don't think Putin would either, right?
I don't think, you know, it was, I think Trump had that indecisive.
I don't want to say indecisiveness.
Like volatility.
Yeah.
I think that scared a lot of people, a lot of other leaders.
Of course.
So what about everything else?
So what about the border and inflation?
I mean, we're a completely different country that we were.
So the border.
So the border.
I think a lot of Trump, again, it goes back to Trump's volatility and Trump's policies of kind of, you know, we had the separation of children from parents.
We had Trump basically threatening them with words.
I think that scared immigrants away.
I think, and now we have an influx of people.
Don't come.
Yeah.
So we have to come legally.
Come good.
Well, so what I'm saying is we don't have room for you.
I think he scared them by the Remain in Mexico policy.
I think that kept people down there.
Women were raped because of it, but it scared them.
They're like, we're not going to attempt to bring our kids here.
We might get separated from them.
We might get smuggled by other individuals in Mexico.
Don't come to the country legally.
I mean, I'm with Adam in the sense that my family came here legally.
Pat's family came here legally.
I understand we are a nation of open arms and everything, but I mean, there's a right way and there's a wrong way.
Just literally saying, just come.
Come on in.
We don't want to.
Yeah, it's not like that right now.
So the border is as secure as it was in Trump.
Under Trump, except for the fact that they don't have the Remain in Mexico policy.
Can you name one policy that's different or one initiative that's going on?
Well, all I know is I've been seeing all the hearings of Maorcus and all the charts and all the stats is that it's at record numbers right now.
And the people coming and dropping off kids, like the grown men that are bringing children to the border, they're doing DNA tests.
There's zero relation to these children that they're coming.
And it's in the like 30,000, 40,000 children that, and I mean, Trump was at least trying.
You know what I mean?
Everything was against them.
Everybody's like, no, the hell with you.
Leave it open, leave it open, leave it open.
I just saw another video.
I don't know if it was in Arizona, Pat, or Texas.
They've not only opened the border wall, they've like welders have gone there and they've opened it to where it's not even going too close.
Yeah, but at the same time, they're still building portions of the wall along the way.
Yeah, I mean, it's the issue with immigration isn't the fact that we have open borders because they're not technically more open than under Trump.
The issue is that people feel like they have a better opportunity to come here now, that they're not going to be turned down.
Their kids aren't going to be separated from them.
They're not going to have to remain in Mexico and worry about what could happen down there.
So I think that's a huge difference.
And that's why we're seeing what we're seeing right now.
Well, and like you said, you're an immigrant and you're like, my family's not.
Well, they're immigrants.
Yeah, their family's.
So like I know a lot of people who came here years ago and they're like, they're the same as you.
They're saying, I came here legally.
Like, why should we be letting these people in?
And I agree.
I think we definitely need to do something.
What that solution is, I don't think it's build a wall.
I think you have everybody on the right saying, build a wall and don't really have any other solutions.
And everybody on the left is saying, don't build the wall.
And then nobody's actually talking about the actual solutions that could happen that could actually stop some of this.
Yeah, I just, the common sense thing that a lot of people would ask is, who's more important?
America or a politician?
America.
Okay.
If Nancy Pelosi can have a wall around her house, I think we can have a board around our country that's bringing drugs in.
Isn't that a common sense question to ask?
Well, I mean, having a wall around your house is different than having a wall on public land.
How?
Are you afraid of people breaking into your house?
Why do you need to put a wall up?
It's comparing apples to oranges.
Tell me why apples and oranges.
I'm confused.
So it's a private versus public, first of all.
How can you build a wall?
America is a private country that you have to come here legally.
Yeah, it's a private country.
It's a private property to the United States of America.
But most of the, not most, but a good portion of the people that actually come here are just overseas.
But that's not how you don't sit there and you judge it and say good portion.
Where is fentanyl coming from?
Yeah, but the wall is not going to stop fentanyl.
The vast majority of fentanyl is coming through, right?
People are driving it through.
You don't build things.
A wall around your house doesn't necessarily protect a robber from coming into your house.
I can come with a drone and see what you're doing.
There's plenty of ways of doing.
But it minimizes the chances and it decreases.
You having a gun in your house and putting a sign outside saying there's a massive pit bull here and seven AK-47s.
If you walk into my house, that's going to minimize the chance of a robber coming in.
But maybe 1% of the guy is going to say, I don't give a shit.
I'm still coming in anyways.
I want to kill your dog.
And you're not going to have enough time to get your guns and I'm going to get the money.
It's about the people feeling safer and protecting our homeland when Fauci and others are being asked about who has to take the vaccine.
If illegal immigrants are coming here, are they expected to take the vaccine?
And the answer is no.
But we have to.
The military and all these guys working for the government.
Do you realize like how ludicrous that sounds when they do things like that?
That's when a person, again, like the same question with Ukraine.
You got all this stuff that's going on, and nothing I'm saying is out of the ordinary.
And I'm using like technical policies.
I'm just purely talking common sense.
We got Ukraine that we want to send more money to now, again, but Maui, 700 bucks a person, maybe a few million dollars.
These are things where the average, again, the average person, the average person, the average, not the person that studies every single thing there.
The average person says, why would you send more money to Ukraine than to Maui?
Why would we not protect our borders to take care of us?
Why would we protect the borders of Ukraine against Russia, but not our own borders?
Isn't that kind of stupid?
These are the basic objections that an average American is going to ask, and the argument is lost.
We don't need a border at Canada because we don't have a lot of stuff that's coming out from Canada.
We would.
I think so much of that's just a false equivalency.
I feel like people jump to these comparisons that really don't compare.
So Maui, $700 per person who lost their home.
Per household.
Yeah, but I mean, that's just what the FEMA maximum is.
That's what the FEMA maximum has been.
It's actually increased under Biden.
I think it went from 500 to 700.
So, I mean, it's the FEMA maximum for instant money.
They're going to get more money.
They just had to go through an application process.
The question then becomes, how soon do you need help?
Six months later, three months ago.
Yeah, and I personally think that the maximum should be higher.
But whose fault is that?
But let me ask you a question.
Instead of going to vacation where you're like, hey, you know, no comment.
A president says no comment about the biggest devastating event that took place in Hawaii.
And you say no comment.
And you show up two weeks later and people are flipping you off and saying, go back home, go get that.
But do you want, did you want him to go there sooner?
So I went through Ian last year, like direct hit, right?
And when Biden came in seven days later, it was chaos.
Everybody's running around getting supplies.
Everybody's trying to rebuild their homes and it shuts traffic down.
I understand.
I understand, like, you know, 100% defending that this guy, you know, everything you say, you're going to have to defend the position.
I get that position.
The more you take a position like that, the more you lose credit.
Like you said, no comment.
That was ridiculous.
He should have said something much more compassionate than that.
But I feel like people jump at every little thing.
And it happens on both.
Just like Trump, Democrats jumped at every little thing.
I'm pretty sure it is.
I don't think it is.
That's because you're coming from the right.
But you're coming from the right.
So that's your perspective.
But I'm coming from.
America is more important than Ukraine.
American borders are more important than other people's borders.
Yeah, but it doesn't mean we can't do both, right?
Okay, you're saying the Nikki Haley message, which you just gave her soundboard.
Yeah, exactly.
But we can do both.
I mean, America isn't just a third world country.
No, no, no.
No, I'm sorry.
No, no, it's not.
We can do both.
No.
How many kids do you have?
Two.
Who's more important to your kids or my kids?
They're both equally as important.
But who is my kids?
Then they should be.
If they were not, I would think you have mental issues.
Okay.
Now.
But if you zoom out, no, don't zoom out.
Stay on you.
Stay on you.
Trust me, for me, I am safer if your number one priority is your kids because your kids are going to be raised properly with the right attention by who?
Their father, which is you.
You're a very important man in their lives.
You know that.
That's how this works.
So when Nikki Haley says something like that, you know what that message says to a voter like me?
And by the way, just so you know how I put Nikki Haley, I thought she was going to be the worst in debate.
You know what I ranked her in the debate?
Number two.
I put her at number two.
I thought she crushed it.
To be honest, I was dumb.
I'm like, dude, she killed it.
I was not expecting to be like coming out supportive of Nikki.
I thought she did a great job, right?
Doesn't mean I, you know, I'm agreeing with everything she says.
But to say we can't do both, okay, let's unpack that a little bit.
Maybe we can do both.
Like, you know how one of the guys broke down things for me financially, which made a lot of sense.
It was this girl that wrote a book 20 years ago with a pig.
I forgot what the book.
I'd love to give her credit.
23 years ago.
And the way she taught kids about money, it was 70% your expenses, whatever you're doing.
10% savings, 10% investments, 10% fun.
Okay.
So guess what?
The fund account, do whatever you want to do with it.
It's kind of, I never thought about having a fun account, right?
So the way you run a business, same way, you know, you use a certain portion of your money to have a good time with your employees, with your salespeople, you're having fun, all that stuff.
We talked about it the other day.
We're kind of overdue to go to a top golf.
You know, I don't know where we were talking about because we were somewhere.
Yeah, the hard rock.
So group true.
So to me, let's use that money to support others when they're going through it after getting our house in order.
And by the way, Nikki Haley, our house is not in order.
Yeah, but do you just say, okay, Russia, take all of Ukraine, take whatever you want, do whatever you want.
And, you know, like, if that's going to help Putin gain power and maybe move on to another country after who cares?
I run 40, I run an insurance company with 45,000 insurance agents.
Okay.
Hear me out.
I'm coming up first.
I'm trying to be a good CEO.
Okay.
All of a sudden, we're like on year two, three, four, whatever, 2013, whatever, 13 is year four.
And there's divorces glore going on everywhere in my company.
Galore.
Two of our best guys, phenomenal guys.
They're both going through it.
Okay.
And their wives.
One of them, both a husband and a wife, ended up staying here.
They're both doing very well.
Both of them are happy.
Both of them are financially free.
One has got his own family.
She's got her own family.
Great.
And the other one is in a very, very good place.
Just had a kid.
Another one on the way.
They're having great life.
Somehow we made it work where everybody stuck around at the company.
It wasn't easy.
But in 2013, 2014, one day I'm at the hospital, okay, after a full-on exhaustion.
I'm thinking I'm dying.
Okay.
I just came back from a three-week trip.
I'm on the road.
I'm doing what I'm doing.
And at night, 12.30, 2 o'clock, I go to the hospital and I'm at the hospital at 2.30 in the morning.
And I'm like, Doc, what the hell is going on with me?
He says, dude, your heart is strong as heck.
You're good.
You're good.
He says, you're just foot.
What have you been doing?
Your body, you're dehydrated all this.
You're exhausted.
You need to just rest.
And I told him, he says, well, that's exactly what's been happening.
You've been going on three hours of sleep, four hours of sleep the last three weeks.
Every night, I'm on the phone until God knows one time trying to save these marriages.
Okay.
You know what happened when I try to save every one of these marriages with the amount of time I put into them?
One, they feel like you're intruding too much to get into their business between a husband and wife, which they almost were like, look, we appreciate the help, but we appreciate the help.
Great.
That's a lesson.
And number two, it's affecting your own life.
If you want to solve, if America wanted to solve everyone's problems worldwide, we would do it at the cost of going bankrupt and America being just like the other third world countries that are a shit show now.
We are leaders.
You know what leaders do?
We set the example.
We set the tone.
We do our part.
We don't get involved in every single conflict.
We do our best to get involved in certain conflicts.
But if we get involved in every single conflict out there, we don't have a life.
And America forgets about who?
You and I.
No, I agree.
We matter to America.
So when you say, what should we do with this?
But where do you draw that line?
Like, where do you draw the line?
Like, is it just America 100%?
Like, there has to be a line somewhere.
Where would you draw that line?
What if we didn't intervene in World War II?
Like, I mean, you could make the same argument.
We shouldn't have to do that.
I didn't say every one of them.
I didn't say anything.
So where's that line drawn, though?
I understand what you're saying.
But if you sit there as a leader, as a president of the United States, and you write out all the issues that's going on, okay, let's write out 50 issues that's going on outside of America.
Okay.
Some of them, you're going to have to say, hey, guess what, NATO?
This is your problem.
Without a doubt.
They're your neighbors.
They're not ours.
Okay.
You got to figure this thing out.
Okay.
Sorry that you guys are going through this.
You figured this thing out.
Then try to broker a deal with Putin, Mr. Biden, fly out to Russia or figure out a way to have a meeting with them and figure out a way to say, why are we doing this?
To do your part.
Aside from that, if I want to get involved in 100% of all issues, I'm not going to have a life and I'm ruining the country I'm supposed to lead.
Okay.
As a person that's a CEO of a company, if you're a CEO of a company, you're running, you guys are business owners, you know, the 3D printing company and different things that you guys have done in the past.
You got a CEO of the company that you're running.
Okay.
Then you have money in mutual funds and stocks.
Okay.
Should you be concerned about how Apple stock is doing?
Yeah, you got $100,000 in it.
Let's just say you got a million dollars.
You should be concerned.
Okay.
But let's just say your business is worth $50 million.
Okay.
Of your net worth is tied to the $50 million company.
You got a million dollars in Apple stock.
You got $300,000 in Tesla.
You got $200,000 here and there.
Should you be concerned about those companies?
Sure.
But more than a $50 million company that's taking care of your wife and kids and a family and your net worth?
No.
No, but I mean, we're not, though.
How many billions have we given to Ukraine?
How much have we spent on different infrastructure packages?
What have we given to Hawaii?
They're going to get everything they need, though.
They're going to get everything they need.
When?
It's a natural.
It's America, bro.
It's now.
So change those FEMA policies.
But I mean, that takes more than just Joe Biden snapping his fingers.
No, it does, though.
The president can make an executive order and come out and say Hawaii.
But the FEMA limits are set for the instant payments.
The instant payments.
Here's what I want to ask you, though.
How often does that happen to a state in America?
How often?
What happened in Hawaii?
How often does that happen?
As far as the instant FEMA payments or how often is that crisis, this disaster pretty frequently, not to that level, but pretty frequently.
So to that level, how often has it happened since 1776 in Hawaii?
How often?
The place where most people go for a honeymoon.
In Hawaii, it hasn't.
It's never happened.
Okay.
So imagine the president takes the lead and has a meeting with senators and congressmen and women, all of them.
Okay.
And he says, hey, I want to have an emergency meeting right off the bat.
And he gets up there and he says, I'd like your support for us for once go above whatever our FEMA standards are and get.
Yeah, but what about Fort Myers?
Why shouldn't we have gotten it?
Why shouldn't Kentucky have gotten it?
Why shouldn't Puerto Rico have gotten that same amount of money per household that lost their entire home?
I will tell you, I am more supportive of us taking care.
I think the American people would be more noble to say, I support that more than I support Ukraine.
But who are the ones who want to defund FEMA or reduce the funding in FEMA?
It's typically the conservatives.
They call that socialism.
Am I sitting here telling you about defunding FEMA?
We're not fucking defunding the FEMA.
No, but what I'm saying is that every single home that's lost because of natural disaster, whether it was under Biden, Trump, Obama, Bushes, they should get more than $500 to $700 instantly, right?
They should.
Why is a person losing their home in Hawaii any different than my neighbor in Fort Myers losing this?
I'm just deflecting and misdirecting.
You are.
No, no, no.
I'm really not.
I'm really not.
You're not.
You're going to bring it back how you're deflecting?
You want me to bring it back to tell you how you're deflecting?
Go ahead.
The comparisons is not Fort Myers and Hawaii.
You're deflecting.
My comparison is Hawaii and Ukraine.
Yeah, and absolutely.
I'm agreeing with you.
Hawaii should get more money.
But this isn't something that's new.
No, it is new, though.
Identify this, then go to the next one.
Okay.
Right after we're dealing with so much money, we're giving to Ukraine to protect their border.
yes we're giving money to ukraine to you said yes to protect their border Their border is Russia's invading them to take over their land.
Our border drug dealers are killing kids.
Kids.
It's not in the middle of the year.
How many kids died last year from fentanyl?
How many kids died last year from drugs that's coming through from there?
You're comparing.
I'm not comparing.
You compare an actual military incursion on another country to refugees and people coming here because they want to have a better life.
Wait, no, no, no, no.
Stop.
It's different.
Come do it legally.
Totally do it legally.
Yeah, that's good.
But the question becomes: what way of killing kids is more noble?
Okay.
Is it more noble for me to kill the kids with a bomb, with a nuclear bomb, or with drugs?
What's more noble?
A drug dealer coming to a country killing a kid isn't representative of the millions or hundreds of thousands of refugees that are just here to here to give their family a better life.
They categorize what's a noble way to kill kids and so no, we're not.
What is your solution to the fentanyl crisis?
Most of it's coming through ports of entry.
People are driving it through.
We should increase security around the ports of entry.
I think that's a good idea.
I think when you leave the gates as open as they have, how many people came last year?
What's the record-breaking number of people that came in last year?
No, it's not 100,000.
No, 109,000 were fentanyl.
Well, overdose or poisoning, however you want to.
That's horrible.
I mean, that's something that needs to be done, but just building a wall is not going to, it might eliminate 1% of that or 5% of it.
No, it's not 1%, bro.
It's not going to be awesome.
90% of the sentinel that's caught is coming through ports of entry.
Right.
So are there people walking over that?
109,680 overdose death in 2020 to a highest record in the calendar year.
This is last year, and the record was 2021, both under this guy named Joe that you guys like, right?
So if you say, well, Pat, what do you want to do about it?
The board is only going to protect, you know, a certain percentage of it.
If you said 10% of the borders, 10% of the kids it would protect.
What's 10% of 109,000?
11,000 kids would be here today.
But that's making the argument that if you put up a wall to prevent people from carrying it over, that is not going to be smuggled.
So that's a same amount will be smuggled.
It's a good start, though.
Yeah.
I mean, there's better.
Okay, let me ask you a question.
I think there's better.
Were you ever a playboy?
Were you ever a playboy when you were younger or no?
Who was the womanizer here?
Were either one of you guys womanizers or no?
Who was good with the ladies?
No comments.
You seem like you're a family.
No comments.
Okay.
By the way, let me ask you a question.
Okay.
I'm assuming it's you because you're saying you're straight.
You're not gay.
So you are the guy that's.
Okay.
All right.
So if that's you.
Okay.
So let's go with that.
When you're 22 years old and you meet a 19-year-old girl, what's a target for you to know that it's going to be easier for you to hook up with this girl?
What's the easiest target when you learn about her family?
Daddy issues tramp stamps.
Tattoos in the wrong places.
I'm not looking.
The fathers are not.
If there's no father there, it's on.
Okay, so now let me ask you this.
You go to his house.
You go to her house and she says, here's my dad.
And the dad shows up.
How you doing, Ed?
Good.
How you doing?
Doing good.
And wife comes in.
Oh, honey, just relax, babe.
My husband just got out of jail last month for, you know, and he's just.
She's murdering the last boyfriend.
What do you think you're going to do when you go with a date with that girl?
When you think about your typical move of putting your hands around her back and then the popcorn, you slip up, you miss the popcorn accidentally, and then you're like, oh, I'm so sorry.
Oops.
You're like, no, I'm going to target the popcorn, right?
What are you going to do?
You're going to be a little bit more selective, ain't you?
That's the point.
So what I'm saying to you here is as a guy who's been married 15 years, who prior to that, I was single, I understand what it is when I see opportunities.
So do you.
It's the natural instinct men we have.
Perfect.
So child molester says, who got arrested in good time, they said the number one target when we're targeting kids is if there's not a father there, if there's no faith there, I can molest that kid.
He's telling you in the interview.
I don't know if you've seen this interview.
He's saying how to do it.
You got to watch this since you got two kids.
You just got to watch it.
What's the point?
No, the board is not going to prevent 100% of it.
No, putting more security down there is going to prevent 100% of it.
No arresting, getting rid of these people in Sanctuary City that's causing what's going on in New York.
That New York is saying, no, we don't follow the government's laws when we arrest them.
We have to catch and release them.
We're going to do whatever we want to do.
But hey, can you guys send us some money, please?
I need some help.
I absolutely think you need more security there.
I just don't think the wall is the best answer.
I think there's technology you can use.
I don't think a wall from one sea to the other sea.
You're going to have to seize private land.
Like, I'm against the wall because I think that in certain areas, you could have fencing or walls, but there's other technologies you can use.
You can increase security around the ports of entry, maybe stop more drugs.
Bro, wall's been the oldest way of keeping people.
Yeah, 2023.
And your house, do you have your places open on the outside?
Like, what do you do?
I have cameras.
That's what I really like.
Guess what?
Let's get the walls.
Let's get the cameras.
Let's get the security.
Let's get all of it.
Let's make them combine.
Let's make them crime harder to protect these people from coming.
I absolutely agree with you.
All I'm saying to you is, all I'm saying to you is, if so many of our establishment, pro-military industrial complex politicians from the left and the right support protecting the borders of Ukraine, How about we start with protecting borders of America first?
It doesn't have to be first, though.
But it does, because we have to.
America is first.
We can't.
No, America is first.
Your family is first.
Protecting Ukraine is putting America first.
No, it's not.
Okay, so tell me this.
What happens if Putin decides to take a NATO nation?
What happens?
World War III.
What happened?
World War III.
Let me ask you this.
According to Article 5, one country, according to Article 5, they have to all attack them, right?
Okay, great.
But who caused that?
Who caused it?
Who caused it?
If Putin takes NATO?
Yeah, who caused that?
I would say it's Putin who caused it.
You're going to blame NATO?
Putin caused that.
Okay, so let me ask you a question.
When did NATO get started?
I don't know the year.
49.
Okay.
1949.
1949.
NATO got started.
First time they had 12 countries that were part of it, right?
And then every year they've recruited more and more and more.
I think recently they just had Finland that joined.
I think there are 31 right now, give or take.
I think if you can look at to see how many members it is, I think it is 31.
There you go, 31 members today.
Okay.
And have you noticed the original countries that joined NATO were more far west, and gradually they're getting closer and closer and closer to who?
To Russia.
What happened?
The whole purpose of NATO was to defend against who?
Soviet Union, the fear, communism, all of that stuff.
That's how it got started to protect because they were being aggressive.
When did Soviet Union fall?
91.
What are we doing with NATO?
France walked away from NATO, I think, in 1966, and then they came back in 2009.
I think they're the only ones that walked away and came back.
So Russia's kind of sitting there saying, hey, NATO, some would say NATO also gets credit for unifying China against Russia, against Iran, against potentially now Saudi, against all these, against India, against Brazil.
NATO gets credit for that as well.
Don't we give credit to NATO for that?
That credit goes to NATO, right?
If you're going to keep recruiting other countries, you think my ass is going to sit there and not.
Isn't that good for America, though?
To do what?
To help NATO grow?
Why?
Because it's their allies.
They're going to protect us and we're going to go to the world.
To the point of what, though?
To the point of what?
Because who's the enemy?
Who is the enemy if NATO grows?
Who's the enemy?
I mean, you could say China could be a potential enemy.
I wouldn't say we have a specific enemy now, but China, Russia, since you guys are about asking questions, is it fair to say that NATO growing is what caused China, Russia, and Iran to unite to get closer?
Yeah, I'm sure it has.
And which of those countries hate us the most?
Who hates us the most?
I would say China.
Who else?
You think Iran loves it?
You think Iran wakes up in the morning saying, we love Americans.
Yeah, but are you saying that if NATO didn't grow, Russia wouldn't be encroaching on other land?
I don't think, I don't think I would.
Say that again.
If NATO didn't grow, do you think that Russia would not be encroaching in Ukraine or elsewhere?
I don't think that would be a problem.
I think NATO growing is forcing him to do something.
I think NATO is pro-war.
I think NATO wants to see the way they've created their treaty and Article 5 forcing that if you attack one or more members, they have to attack.
Well, it makes every nation in NATO stronger that way.
I mean, why was NATO formed?
Because of Soviet Union.
And Soviet Union fell in 91.
And right after World War II, a few years after World War II.
Sure, yeah.
So, like, imagine going back then and telling whoever created NATO, the various countries, that another country invaded a country close to NATO, and this is what's happening.
What do you think they would say?
Do you want to go back and say 2,000 years ago who the enemy of the Assyrians were, and let's make sure the Assyrians don't know what's going on?
You're arguing that they're not going to be able to go play this thing.
On one side, you're arguing what's best for America, and what's best for America is that NATO gets stronger.
I mean, that's my view.
So, how many friends of yours are married?
Most of them.
Okay.
So, whose marriage is more important to work at?
Yours or theirs?
Do you see where I'm going when I keep going back to this?
So, what if all of a sudden all of your marriages, your friends start going through a divorce?
Do you drop your marriage to try to save every one of their marriages?
Is that what you're supposed to do?
No, but if their marriage impacts your marriage in some way, it's worth helping save it.
To what extent, though?
To what extent?
Exactly.
I guarantee you, I spent if you ask, no, it's not.
Trust me, I've spent more hours on trying to save marriages with my business because, you know, you just have to be in a model to see what I'm talking about.
Thousands and thousands of hours of going through this.
Yes, it's necessary, but not at the cost of what you're doing.
You should be healthy.
My priority should be to take care of my health and then to tell you.
Yesterday, I'm getting my suit, what do you call it, fit it, right?
And the guy that comes and does my suit, what happened to your waist?
You lost four inches on your waist.
Nice.
I'm like, damn, kind of looking at this.
That's pretty cool.
What's going on here?
Well, guess what?
July of 2019 is the last time I had soda.
And I stopped having breakfast five months ago.
I eat breakfast once a week.
And it's my favorite meal.
I have breakfast on Sundays.
I don't eat breakfast.
And my breakfast is now I start off with maybe a protein thing, but I don't eat the big breakfast I would eat in the morning and all this stuff.
It's changed.
Lost four inches.
I'm down to 235, 238.
I feel good.
That's what worked for me.
Now, me telling you that story and then showing you how to do it and encouraging you how to do it, then you go do it instead of me spending the last four months to try to get your waist to get smaller.
I mean, do you realize how ludicrous that argument is?
America first.
America comes first.
America's first.
Yes, sir.
America's first.
America's first.
Great.
Then if America's first, let's address.
Michael Jackson said this in a song.
See, that's where I think we differ.
Man in the mirror?
No, he says, if you want to make the world a better place.
Take a look at yourself.
Yeah, that's man in the mirror.
Is that what it is?
Yeah, of course.
America's interest.
Make that change.
America's interest is looking great.
Make that change.
America's interest in what's good for America isn't only what's within our borders.
You would agree, right?
Like trade with China.
Yeah, it's called foreign policy.
Totally get it.
But let me just get to the heart of the matter here, guys, because I feel like you guys both have actually valid points.
But you know how they say follow the money, FTM?
So one of the great things that we can learn from the past is not to repeat them.
To give kudos to Trump, he has not gotten us into any just endless spending wars, nonsensical wars.
So kudos to that.
But I understand, you know, I've said publicly the record, we can't just not do anything about Ukraine.
We are part of NATO.
But the question is how much?
So I have questions for you guys, and I'll let Pat answer as well.
How much money can we dedicate to Ukraine?
How much trillions did we give to Afghanistan for nothing?
So is the answer zero?
Is the answer trillions?
What's the answer?
Because you can go back and forth level involvement, but the actual substantive issue is how much?
So how much money and how much time should we spend in Ukraine?
Well, I think that's like an impossible question for any of us to answer.
I think that we should.
Adam's trying to be the voice of reasonable.
We should deeply take control.
As if I need Adam's help to really kind of bring this whole thing together.
I'm not asking for help.
I'm asking for.
Go ahead.
Are you saying that zero is the number?
Let's see.
This is actually a good question.
And I understand if you're saying we don't have a real answer to it.
You know, as a finance guy, he's coming from a place of what percentage of money should we have given towards what we do.
We gave $3 trillion.
Would it have been okay with 100 billion, 200 billion, what we did with Afghanistan or in Ukraine?
Go ahead.
So I'd say from my point of view, as long as we can keep American soldiers out of Ukraine.
Well, as long as we can do that without and out of Ukraine or out of war in general, like if we can prevent a World War III or we can prevent things from escalating to a point where we feel like we need to send U.S. soldiers overseas to fight in a war, I think that's the amount.
And I mean, of course, not like trillions a day.
No, not blank check, but I think within reason, I can't calculate what that is.
I don't know all the finances.
I would say like giving them money and trying to come up with some sort of treaty or agreement between the countries.
I feel that money is buying time so we can do that.
I hope that they're working on something.
Do I know if something's possible?
I don't know.
I don't know what's going through Putin's head.
I don't know what's going through Zelensky's head.
I think Pat's point, I think it's zero money.
I think what Pat said is having a leader that's strong enough and has the balls to go to open a dialogue and talk with a guy to not have something like this happen and have instead of having a guy that's just like, it's Putin.
He's evil.
Putin price like blaming everything on Putin, I say zero money, right?
I mean, they have enough money at this point.
We just need somebody to be able to like, think about where's the dialogue between Joe Biden and our administration, this administration with Putin.
There isn't.
It's just he's the evil batman.
You know, he wants to start a World War III, and that's it.
We have to support them.
Endless support to Ukraine.
Whatever they want, there needs to be a happy meeting.
I don't think you're saying zero.
I am more closer to zero than I am about this.
What about if China was to take Taiwan?
Do you feel the same?
Like we should completely stay out of it?
Well, let me give my argument for both, and then you can push back.
For me, you know, last month, July 11th of 2023, NATO members came out and voiced their opinions about expediting the process for Ukraine to be part of NATO.
You know what they're pretty much saying with that?
Well, you know what they're saying with that?
What they're saying is...
Article 5.
Yeah.
Like...
No, yeah, I agree.
I don't know if people understand.
Like, they're trying to say, like, that decision is trying to say, guys, that's a World War III.
So now, to the skeptical audience who is anti-establishment audience, to people that like the Kennedys of the world, the people that like the Trumps of the world, the people that like the RFKs of the world, some parts of it, the people that like these guys that are anti-establishment, they're sitting there saying, why would you guys want World War III?
Well, shit, a lot of military defense contracts and Raytheon and Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics and Boeing and all this stuff.
Okay, yeah.
All right, cool.
I got you.
There's a lot of money to be made there.
Perfect.
Now, the other side from the establishment could say, no, that's exactly how to protect Ukraine because if Ukraine becomes part of NATO, now Russia knows if they attack, that's Article 5.
Okay.
So now you got all these missiles pointing at Russia from all these different military bases.
Okay.
For them, there are missiles, but they're aiming at them, I think, from Poland, Germany, from getting some of these rights, Spain.
I don't know, some random, some countries.
And Russia's sitting there saying, do I look like an idiot to you?
Like, do I look like a moron to you?
What are you guys doing?
What do you want to do?
You guys claim you want peace?
This is your way of getting peace?
Yeah, I don't know about this.
So, you know, the other argument is Ukraine, the amount of natural resources they have and the political beliefs.
They're very important to the world.
They provide a lot of different things to everybody.
No one's really spending a lot of time talking about that.
That to me is a logical approach of an argument to take and say, hey, we need Ukraine because of XYZ.
Russia's argument's going to be Ukraine is Russia.
And this is what happened.
You know, the warsaw, whatever, he's going to take that angle.
China-Taiwan is, I almost feel China is watching this case study with what's going on with Russia and, you know, to see what's going to happen there.
I think Taiwan's a slightly different argument of our involvement to go there or not to go there.
If I would much rather do the follow-up, here's a much rather way for me to do business with you.
You know, this is how I work if you're an employee with me or a salesperson with me or a partner of mine and you leave and we're no longer together.
I say, look, in this relationship, I'm not going to do anything to hurt you.
The only one in charge here to hurt this relationship is you.
You know why?
Why?
Because I'm going to support whatever you want to do.
Go get them.
But if you steal clients, if you go do this, if you steal people from this, if you do any of this stuff, you're telling people publicly that you're against me.
Now you have a problem with me.
No problem.
And we'll let the lawyers and whoever needs to do their thing handle it.
I've been on both sides.
I'll trust that side.
And you're publicly saying, I don't value this relationship.
Okay?
Perfect.
What if we come up and we meet with Russia or we meet with China?
We keep them close in a relationship-wise.
Not a relationship where it's like we become best friends.
But look, we send you a lot of business.
You send us a lot of business.
Let's just be straight up.
You can't do anything with Taiwan.
Here's why.
Papa Pa-Papa.
If you do, you're going to force me to put these tariffs on you.
And it's going to hurt the business.
And you're going to force me to tell NATO to not do business with you.
It's really going to hurt a lot of things that you're doing.
I can take that approach with Russia and China.
Well, haven't we already kind of taken that approach with Russia?
And not sanctions.
Not Biden.
Trump did, and it worked.
There was no attacks under Ukraine.
Yeah, but there's still sanctions against Russia, right?
The approach Trump took was a different approach than the approach we're taking right now.
The approach Trump took is, let's sit down, let's talk, and let's figure out a way to make this work.
And it was a peaceful world for those four years.
Yeah, but the situation is different now with Russia.
Yeah, because Biden made it easy for Putin, Putin.
He said it at one point.
He said, I'll welcome a small incursion.
He actually invited them to attack, bro.
They want war.
They want war.
It's a money machine.
It's in your face.
I don't agree that they want war.
They definitely want war.
It's money.
We keep pushing it.
How many weapons are you going to sell if nuclear bombs start going off?
Well, if nuclear bombs are going off, 70% of the world is done.
Exactly.
Just so you know, 70% is done down immediately.
And it's not going to take a long time if this happens because it's going to be a reactionary thing.
So, you know, you're playing with fire.
NATO is playing with fire.
They are.
And some people could say, so you mean to tell us we leave Ukraine alone?
Is that the right thing to do?
If that means we can prevent a World War III from happening, the answer is actually yes.
Yeah, but I think others would argue that not getting involved in Ukraine could lead to World War III as well.
And maybe we'll never be able to debate it because if there's a nuclear war, there is no podcast.
We're doing a podcast with rocks and we're looking at each other.
I don't know if Florida might actually still be America.
I think we'd be spared in Ronaldo.
By the way, before there's time, guys, please subscribe to the podcast.
We're going to be here for a little while longer before anything happens.
Thank you.
What is this, Rob, you just put up?
I think that we are going to see is that Russia will be held accountable if it invades, and it depends on what it does.
If there's one thing, if it's a minor incursion, and then we end up having a fight about it.
That's when Biden came in.
He's like, well, it's basically a lot of people.
And then after this, they invaded.
You know what I mean?
Fellas, so what do you guys do for people to be able to find you?
What projects are you guys working on right now?
So we're on Twitter, Krassenstein, my last name.
He's Ed Krassen.
We have a podcast, Krassen Cast.
Everything's on Twitter, though.
So basically, if you want to find us, just go to Twitter.
It's not Twitter.
It's X. XX.
Yeah.
So, Rob, if you can put the links below for people to find.
Out of the debate, the GOP debate, who were you guys impressed with?
Was it, you know, I'd say Nikki Haley.
Number one.
Who's your two?
I think Haley did good.
Vivek, he disappointed me.
I was actually kind of getting behind him a little bit, at least from a GOP perspective.
I think Haley did good.
I also, I mean, I like Chris Christie.
I think he is funny, but those on the right aren't going to help.
Who was last?
Who was last on your list?
I mean, I'd say what was a governor of North Dakota.
It was a side picture.
Yeah, it was on the corner.
Robotic.
Yeah, he's robotic.
I really thought DeSantis was going to have a chance when he first announced, but I feel like he's going down.
As Floridians.
I think, I mean, Trump.
Trump brought him down.
And your guesstimation of who's going to be the president in 2024, you're thinking it's going to be Biden or you think somebody is going to be in the business?
I think it's going to be Biden.
I think it's going to be Biden.
I wish that Democrats would nominate someone younger, but that's not going to happen.
Ideal situation.
Who would you want?
Would you want like a newsletter or Michelle?
Michelle's not going to run.
You never know.
Sleeper.
No, no.
It's like the Hail Mary.
All right.
Well, gank, it's been great having you on tomorrow.
Appreciate you guys for coming out.
Thank you.
This was great.
Thank you.
It's always respect.
Anytime guys are willing to come and sit down and talk and, you know, respectful yet debate and do all of that, I salute you.
Not a lot of people want to do that.
It says a lot about the fact that you're willing to go out there and sit down and have these conversations.
Thanks for having us.
I got a lot of respect for people like that.
So I appreciate you guys for doing that.
Rob, tomorrow we have Michael Flynn.
General Michael Flynn.
Oh, really?
Tomorrow, General Michael Flynn.
Okay, so tune in tomorrow, 9 a.m. General Michael Flynn.
Take care, everybody.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Patrick Bay David here from Vietnam and MPD Podcast.
Look, once a year, we host a conference called the Vault Conference.
It's our Super Bowl, where 3,000 entrepreneurs, CEOs, executives, salespeople from around the world come together to spend three and a half days together from August 30th to September 2nd at the Diplomat Resort in Miami to learn how to scale their business, how to identify their next 5, 10, 15 moves, who to recruit next, who to go raise their money from, how to raise capital, how to properly scale, culture, retention, hire, fire, all of those things and much more.
And we do that over a span of three and a half days.
And the reason why it's a very important season to attend a conference like this, the following reason.
Today, there's three different types of people.
There's scared, there are those that are content, and the obsessed.
The scared, they don't want to do anything because they're worried about what's going to happen in the economy.
They're going to take a big hit.
The content, they're walking around saying, life is pretty okay.
I don't need to do anything else.
And then there's the obsessed because they see a massive opportunity today.
So imagine spending three and a half days with 3,000 obsessed people that want to go on a season like this.
Imagine how much you can learn from just those relationships and networks.
So on top of the people that are going to be attending at this event, there's probably the best lineup we'll ever have at a vault conference.
Tom Brady, seven-time champion.
I'll be interviewing him.
He'll be at the Vault conference.
Mike Tyson, Will Gudera, the gentleman who ran the restaurant 11 Madison, New York, that went from a regular restaurant to one Michelin star, two Michelin star, three Michelin star, and eventually the number one restaurant in the world.
He's going to talk about how they treat their customers.
So look, if you've not registered yet, this is my recommendation to you.
I never went to conferences when I was coming out by myself.
I always went with a spouse, with a business partner, or running mate because I only have a lens on what I see.
Every night afterwards, we would sit there and say, what was your biggest takeaway?
