Larry Sharpe joins Dave Smith to dissect the Libertarian Party's 2020 nomination race, weighing pragmatism against purist ideals amid Justin Amash's entry. Sharpe critiques the Federal Reserve as a private wealth engine demanding an audit and rejects Universal Basic Income, favoring Judge Jim Gray's negative income tax paired with drug war abolition and deficit reduction. While debating the risks of troop dismissals and veteran homelessness, Sharpe commits to supporting Gray's state-by-state strategy, advocating for a government role as a pandemic information hub rather than a behavior dictator to ensure libertarian principles enter mainstream discourse. [Automatically generated summary]
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Government Too Big00:10:15
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We need to roll back the state.
We spy on all of our own citizens.
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If you want to know who America's next enemy is, look at who we're funding right now.
Every single one of these problems are a result of government being way too big.
Hey, what's up, everybody?
Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
Thrilled to have our guest for today's show joining the show once again, although this time, of course, not in person.
We do record out of the same studio.
He does his podcast, or he's been doing his podcast, The Sharp Way, out of the Gas Digital Network studios.
But, you know, in these weird times, we're talking over Zoom.
He is also running for vice president on the Libertarian Party ticket.
Something that, by the way, I broke the news about this months ago on Twitter.
If everybody recalls, I did my stellar reporting.
I said, Larry Sharp leaves the door open.
At the time, you were saying you were not going to run, but he is now.
So, Larry, thank you so much for joining me to talk about everything that's going on.
How are you?
Yes.
So, if you don't like my sharp way show, you can blame Dave Smith.
It's his fault.
See, easy day, blame him.
And now I'm on part of a problem, which makes me part of the problem.
There you go.
So, yes.
No, in reality, I did leave the door open always for a possible VP slot.
I actually did.
If you remember, I was trying to let people know that I would not run for president in 2020.
That's true.
I could not do that.
That is simply too much.
What most people don't get is a VP run is different.
When you run for VP, even though in the Libertarian Party, you run a separate campaign.
But once you have the nomination, you basically become support staff, right?
The president is the one people are voting for, not the vice president, right?
The president is the one that people are looking at as to be the person who's going to get something done.
The vice president basically becomes support staff.
That's what Kane was for Hillary.
That's what Pence still is for Trump.
That's how it works, right?
So I'm running for support staff.
All right.
So what?
So what was it that made you decide to jump into this thing?
By the way, for people who don't know, Judge Jim Gray is running for president and you're running as his vice president, even though that's not exactly how it works in the Libertarian Party, but you're running as a ticket.
This was just announced a couple weeks ago, and there's more big news that we'll get into over here.
The LP race for president has changed dramatically in the last few weeks.
So what was it that made you decide to get in?
Yeah, as I said, I was open to the idea, but I assumed by the time it was so late that I wasn't going to get in, right?
No one had, no, the only way I would have gotten in, and you were there, Dave, when you saw when I ran for governor, it was brutal.
I took, I tease all the time.
I ran for governor.
All I got was his cool hoodie.
So it was a year and a half of brutality.
I mean, when you run for office, if you're serious, sadly, many libertarian candidates are not serious.
But if you're serious, it's a full-time job.
I literally was just doing it for a year and a half.
I took no salary for a year and a half.
I didn't work.
I was out of the market for a year and a half.
And I'm a consultant.
If I'm not in the market, that's painful for me, right?
And I have a wife and two kids.
I live in New York City.
My wife does not work.
So you can imagine what my finances were like at the end of that run.
So I didn't really want to be the presidential run again.
I just couldn't do it.
So I said, could I be someone's support staff?
Yes.
I basically was support staff in the past for other candidates.
I supported candidates in 2019.
So I was happy with the concept, but I wanted to only do it, which again would be a sacrifice for me if I thought I could make impact.
I didn't see any of the other candidates prior to Judge Jim Gray getting in, garnering the money, the establishment background, the gravity toss that would actually make it happen.
I didn't see anyone to blow anybody out of the water.
I was waiting for someone to just be like, this person's the clear frontrunner.
Everyone's behind them.
All the money's behind them.
The press is picking it up.
And why do I say that?
Because when I ran for governor, I ran seven or eight months before I got the nomination.
By the time I got to the convention, I already had a press reel, a 10-minute video of all the press I'd gotten.
I'd raised six figures already.
I had a statewide organization.
It was basically a coronation, not because I'm super smart or super handsome.
I am super handsome.
That's true.
But that's not the reason.
It was because I busted my ass for seven months and built out a campaign that no one could stop.
Because being in New York, as you know, there's a chance that a celebrity jumps in at the last minute.
That's happened before to take the governor's race.
So I was worried that some celebrity would jump in and be like, I'm Howard Stern.
I'm going to steal the nomination.
So I built up this empire within the state so that even if a celebrity jumped in, I could still beat them.
Luckily, no celebrity jumped in.
There was no one else to do it.
So I was able to walk away with it.
I was waiting for someone to copy me, if that makes any sense.
For someone to be like, it's so obvious, no one could beat them, right?
If Justin Amash jumped in, even they couldn't beat him.
That was what I was hoping to see.
If that person had emerged, I would have said, Do you want a BP?
That's what I would have said.
No one did.
I said nothing.
Judge Jim Gray said, I went in.
Judge Jim Gray was a big supporter of Lincoln Chafee.
Lincoln Chafee never caught fire either.
I mean, the opposite.
He never caught fire at all.
And when he finally dropped out, the judge was like, We need someone who can catch fire.
He thought he could catch fire because people went to him and said, We want you.
And all of a sudden, the establishment got behind him and said, We want you.
You're the guy who can catch fire.
He asked me.
When he asked me, I said, I want to do it.
Judge, I love you.
I'm loyal to the judge.
You know, I'm a big Gary Johnson, Judge Gray fan.
These are the first libertarians I voted for in 2012.
I'm sadly to a point sometimes I have a loyalty problem.
I'm very loyal to Gary Johnson, Judge Gray.
And when he asked me, I said, Okay, you know what?
Let me talk to the wife.
I love my wife.
I don't want to lose her.
Let me have a conversation with her before I say yes, but I want to, absolutely.
If you want me to go, I'll do it.
Within an hour, I got seven phone calls.
And some of those calls were my donors from when I ran for governor, saying, Larry, you got to do this.
We're behind you.
You got to do this.
And at that point, I was like, you know what?
This guy's going to catch fire.
We're going to get some press.
We're going to be the dominant ones.
And you saw it.
As soon as he came in, he became the frontrunner as soon as he came in.
That may have changed recently.
But when he came in, he was the frontrunner immediately.
And that's why I said yes.
Are you guys stuck in a little bit of a position?
Of course, if people don't know what you're referring to there, it was just announced just yesterday that Justin Amash is also seeking the libertarian presidential nomination.
And now, listen, I personally, as everybody knows, I want like a purist to be the libertarian nominee.
That's my angle.
But I understand the argument between there's kind of the argument between how much of a purist do you want up there and who can garner the most attention.
So I understand that argument, but aren't you guys now kind of caught in this weird position where if you're going to go with the purist, you're probably going to go with Hornberger or perhaps one of the others, but the most likely Kokashi is pretty pure.
No one can take that away from you.
So someone like that, or if you're going to go with the guy who can catch fire, well, doesn't it seem like a sitting member of Congress who's already getting these big televised?
I mean, I just saw he was on MSNBC today.
He can certainly get that type of stuff that Gary Johnson was able to get in 2016.
So does that undercut your ticket a little bit?
Yeah, no, you're totally correct.
It is a very tough spot to be in, right?
There's several things to understand, right?
You have to balance it.
The idea, and you brought this up before.
I mean, like, if I just want press, why don't I just, you know, bring in Jeb Bush, right?
Yeah, valid point.
I want to try to find the right balance.
And it's not an easy dance to make it all.
I talk often about my 80-20 rule, right?
And look, I don't agree with everything the judge says either.
I don't agree with anything Hornberger says, right?
I know you like Hornberger.
I don't know what Kokesh says.
But let me be very full with you.
If Hornberger or Kokesh or whomever is the nominee, I can guarantee you I'll be the guy here in New York City on TV going, what Hornberger meant was, I'll be that guy.
What Kokesh means is I will be that guy.
I was that guy for Garrett Johnson in 2016.
I will be that guy for whomever.
Because even though I will disagree with many of the candidates, all of them are better than Biden and Trump.
Hands down.
Not even close.
Not even close.
I would absolutely support any of them who won.
So I think it is a balance.
But you're right.
I mean, how do you find the right balance?
I guess my concern is time will tell.
Give it about two weeks.
We've got about four weeks before convention, assuming convention still goes.
So give it about two weeks.
I don't know if Amash is a flash and then goes away, or does he have staying power?
If he has staying power, it's a problem.
Totally correct.
It's a problem.
If he doesn't have staying power, I think a judge, while he's not the flash, I think he has staying power.
I mean, he has been in the, he's been a libertarian for 20 years.
He ran before.
He has a million people who did vote for him at one point on a ticket.
And he has the establishment behind him.
And he's been, he's been anti, you know, war on drugs, anti-war on terror, anti-all those things for decades.
So he does have enough street cred to be, in my view, at least, I know some people disagree.
He's libertarian enough.
In my view, he's libertarian enough.
Well, he certainly has street cred in the war on drugs.
Libertarian Street Cred00:03:29
And I really, you know, I really commend him for that.
I mean, he was a judge in the 90s, early 90s, I believe, who was speaking out against marijuana being criminalized.
And that, you know, people forget.
I'm just old enough to kind of remember, but that really did take some courage at the time.
Being for pot legalization now is a very easy position to take.
But in 1992 or 93, whenever it was for a sitting judge, that took some courage.
So I certainly give him credit for that.
And just in the same way, I gave Lincoln Chaffee a lot of credit for being against the war in Iraq in the Senate.
There were a lot of House Democrats who opposed it.
There were not too many in the Senate.
He was one of the few.
So, you know, they deserve credit on those issues.
But as you already alluded to, there are some people who have problems with him and other issues.
And I think one of the things that kind of, you know, raises a little bit of an alarm bell with me was his support for Lincoln Chaffee, who, again, as I say, I give him credit for being against the war in the Senate, but the guy simply is not a libertarian.
I mean, he's like a pretty cool Democrat who came over to the Libertarian Party.
And, you know, he's better than Bill Weld, I suppose.
He wasn't a lobbyist for Raytheon, but he was really bad on gun issues, really bad on a whole lot of issues libertarians care about.
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All right, let's get back into the show.
I understand your argument about balance.
You know, I wasn't a Chaffee fan.
I'm with you.
Yeah.
Look, I'm not, I don't agree with Jacob Hornberger on everything.
There's lots of issues I disagree with him about.
I disagree with him about borders.
I disagree with him about anarchy.
I don't know.
I'm sure there's other issues as well.
So there's always going to be somewhat of a balance.
However, it does strike me as a bit concerning that he was so supportive of Lincoln Chafee for the nomination.
Yeah, there are two sides to, you brought it up, already, right?
Purist vs Pragmatism00:10:42
How far do we go outside of libertarian purism to get people in to the party to grow the party?
I think he erred on what he thought was the best option at the time.
And if you're pragmatic, and clearly he's pragmatic, right?
Clearly.
If you're pragmatic, was there a better candidate?
If you're pragmatic, most of the pragmatic people in or who would sell who would self-identify as pragmatic.
Most of them were Chafee fans because he was the most pragmatic of the bunch, right?
So I think they looked at what they had and said, this is the best we got.
The odds of Chaffee going back to the Democrats, Republicans are slim to none.
I don't think he will.
I think he'll stay libertarian.
I do think Chaffee will stay libertarian.
So they believed he wasn't a Bill Weld and he's better than Bill Weld.
They believed.
I agree.
So they took him.
I get it.
Again, I wasn't a fan.
Yeah, no, I understand where you're coming from.
Although, of course, this is what everyone said about Bill Welds.
This was Nick Sarwak's selling point about Bill Welds.
No, I know, but it was, well, he'll never leave us.
He's a libertarian for life now.
And look, I got to say, the reason why I err on the side of wanting a purist up there is because I think that the truth is that there's something different about running for president than there is about running in any other position as a libertarian.
You become, whether you like it or not, whether I like it or not, you become in many people's minds, the standard bearer for libertarianism.
If you are the presidential candidate for the party called the Libertarian Party.
And we want that person to introduce people to our, and when I say our, I mean you're and mine.
I know your philosophy, our way of looking at the world.
And when you have somebody out there like Gary Johnson, which I know you're a fan, but it really just does not, I mean, look, he got some votes.
I think most of them protest votes, but it didn't draw more people into the Libertarian Party.
It didn't result in more membership.
My freaking podcast has done more for membership than Gary Johnson's campaign did.
And I mean, this is literally, I think, true.
And, you know, so I saw Justin Amash today.
He gave an interview, as I mentioned on MSNBC.
And it was just, I mean, from the perspective of introducing people to libertarianism, it was terrible.
It was just terrible.
Yeah.
I mean, it was basically an argument for UBI.
And then after that, there was nothing.
It's that it was just pure third partyism, if that makes sense.
Oh, you should have a different choice.
I criticize both parties.
Did you see the interview that I'm talking about?
Yes.
So, so what do you do?
Let me touch all of those things.
First, I agree.
I am the face of New York State when it comes to libertarianism, right?
Because I ran for the executive in New York State.
When people think I get phone calls, emails, literally every week, someone's saying, Larry, aren't you the head of the LP?
They all think I run the LP in New York State.
I don't.
Tony DeRazio does.
But they all think I do, because you're right.
I am the face.
New York State sees a libertarian.
They think about this guy.
You're totally correct.
I wasn't radical.
My entire piece was break the monopoly of government.
That was basically my campaign, right?
Because New York State, as you know, you live in it, is a very pro-government, anti-business state.
Very much so.
To the point where right now, the poll show, Cuomo, who is locking us down, our governor, those who aren't in New York State, our governor Cuomo is locking us down.
And 80% of New York thinks it's a good idea.
60-some odd percent of Republicans think we aren't spending enough money.
That's my state.
So in that world, I can't go radical.
I won't be heard.
I might as well say I would like a unicorn to fly out of a leprechaun's butt.
The same thing.
So I had to go to break the monopoly.
And with that, I was able to, as you probably saw, multiply our last vote total by six and get ballot access.
And the year after, get 103 libertarians elected from zero in one year.
I think it can be done with the right balance, right?
The balance is two different ways of balancing.
The one is, and you see this in business, you're trying to be radical enough to get the people to go, huh, that's different, but familiar enough to where they actually embrace the concept or the idea.
And when you go too far, either way, you fail.
You see it constantly.
Apple's been very good in general.
Apple's been more successful than not in being radical enough, but still familiar enough to get people to embrace it.
I try to do that.
And in some cases, I did a good job.
In some cases, I didn't.
In some cases, I was still too radical.
And in some cases, I was still too boring.
So I'm trying to still find that fine tune also.
So I think that's one way.
But the second way is multiple messages, right?
There's a, if you ever notice, I'm never, ever do I say, and so many people ask me to, they say, Larry, you're more of a pragmatic guy.
Don't you want to get rid of all the anarchists?
And I always say the same thing.
No, why would I want to get rid of all the anarchist appearists?
They're the heart of the party.
They're some of our most aggressive and forward activists.
There's other people who care the most about the movement of the party.
Why don't we get rid of them?
But not just that.
People hear the message at different points in their life.
I was having a conversation with someone about the shirt that says legalize recreational cocaine.
Now, that shirt for some people is like, oh my God, they're crazy.
And someone else is like, what party is that?
I'm in.
So we need multiple different messages.
And I know you're saying Gary Johnson didn't do much, but Gary Johnson got me in.
Because where I was in 2012, where I was emotionally, I thought Gary Johnson was a radical.
That's where I was.
I just wasn't ready to hear anybody else.
That was the message that I could hear at that time at my point in life, 2012 was Gary Johnson.
And that got me in.
And I would say in New York State, no one has done a better job of bringing people to the Libertarian Party than me.
Not any person on the planet for New York State.
And that's my state of Rann.
And that's what I did.
And that came.
Obviously it's two or three generations down.
That came from someone listening to Gary Johnson, while someone else came from you know, Ron Paul, or you know Mises, or whatever, or even Ann Rand.
I mean there was a time when And Rand was bringing tons of people in right back in the day.
So I, I think that we need multiple messages.
Yeah, I mean, I guess certainly I used to say uh, Gary Johnson uh, never converted anyone and you have proved me wrong, you are the one.
But the point is, for having such a huge platform, the returns on in terms of converting people were very, very small, very small, and I I would say that it.
It seems to me, and I think, a lot of other libertarians that um, we seem to be living through something pretty major.
This seems to be a major moment in history right now, unprecedented in so many different ways, where you actually have the government has criminalized in many different states, the majority of states going outside yes, I mean the amount of of government uh, authoritarianism all around the country, and this has resulted in putting tens of millions of people out of work.
They're also in the while they're doing that, they're robbing these people to give big corporate handouts and huge handouts to the big banks uh under uh, you know, from the federal reserve policy uh, from the monetary policy um it, it does kind of seem like now would be a time to really try to have a game changer, and so I I worry about going with the route of like well, let's be a pragmatist.
I I think uh as, as the Ron Paul campaign showed, which of course didn't get nearly as much media attention but converted way more people, sometimes the the pragmatic route is to run a purist, and it seems to me, if ever there was a time to run a purist, this this would be it.
I don't know to be full with you, I mean, you might be right and uh I I, what I care about, and I was very forward.
It sounds horrible, I guess, to some people.
Um, I want a candidate who, who motivates the libertarians of all you know stripes to get out there and get on board.
I want a candidate who can raise money.
I want a candidate who can get some press and when they get in the press doesn't put anybody to sleep or doesn't turn everybody off.
You know one of those two things.
And Chafey wasn't exciting, right?
Chafey, I think, was smart if you if you talk about his policies.
He could talk about things like he knew stuff.
He was a smart guy who had been in, but he didn't fire people up, people didn't go.
Oh my god Chafee, let's go.
No one was thinking that right.
So I think you need somebody to do that too, and my feeling has been that Judge Gray has the backing and that when we get our CNN uh uh, when we get our CNN Town hall, which you'll get one, because we always get one.
I think if it's me and Gray, we'll knock it out of the park.
We won't be boring.
We won't say that Hillary Clinton is a wonderful public servant.
We won't do that.
So we won't do that kind of thing.
And we'll get a second or third one.
I've been in this game.
You've watched me for over four years doing exactly this.
I ran for VP last time and almost beat Weld.
32 votes away from meeting Weld, and my campaign was three weeks long with my own money.
So my own money to do that, right?
And no one, as I would say, no one spent more time, money, and energy trying to stop well than I did, right?
Again, no one did.
So I took time out of my life, and I was calling delegates.
I went down to Orlando.
I bought a booth.
I had a team down there.
I had swagged the whole deal, made a website, made videos, everything on my own dime to try to make this happen.
So I'm not Mr. I want anybody from anywhere, right?
I want to try to find that balance.
I think if we get that town hall, we'll get a second and a third.
And if we get a second and a third, and people see that we're exciting and interesting, but also something else, compassionate, right?
Remember, the right wants to feel like we're going to protect them, but the left wants to feel like we care about them.
So if we're able to combine those two and people want to watch us, that's the only chance we have for getting debates.
Sheath Underwear Sponsor00:02:30
That's it.
There's no other chance at all of getting debates unless people want to see us because debates are only about one thing: ad revenue.
If the ad revenue is high and the eyeballs are high, we're the debates, regardless of whatever lawsuit we have.
It's irrelevant.
It doesn't matter.
What matters is ad revenue.
And if we can prove that, we can rock and roll.
My worries, we have the wrong person in place.
They fall asleep.
They don't talk about the right things.
No one cares.
Why bother?
I believe that I'm a good messenger.
If I can get somebody to get me on that goddamn stage, I think I can knock it out of the park.
Every time you see me in the media, I knock it out of the park.
I'll do it again.
Just need someone to get me on a goddamn stage.
Yeah.
Well, I certainly wish you had gotten 33 more votes for vice president last time around.
Bill Weld, of course, was trying to find the balance between being the least pure libertarian and also putting people to sleep, which was probably not a good combination.
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Auditing The Fed00:15:55
All right, let's get back into the show.
Do you, do you think, and you've been in the party longer than I have?
Do you think that just the disaster of the Bill Weld situation is part of what really hurt Lincoln Chafee?
Because that was the impression that I got that people felt like they had been burned by the former Republican and now the former Democrat, who's kind of an establishment type guy.
And it was like, yeah, we're not going that route again.
Yeah, I think that's also slowing down the coronation of Amash.
I think it is.
I think there's a lot of people who still remember: wow, do we really want to go down there?
And there's some fear.
There is some fear.
And some people are saying, you know, Amash is another Bill Weld, whatever.
He isn't.
That's not accurate.
But the emotion is still there, right?
We still have that.
Some people who were there four years ago still have the emotional scarring of what happened.
So I do think that is slowing things down, which is why I'm unsure.
If Amash stays on fire, that's going to be tough to beat.
If he peters out, then he may not be the nominee.
Yeah.
Well, I wonder how much, you know, because obviously he's in a situation where he can garner more national attention than anybody else in the race at this point.
But the thing that I think he's missing is he really doesn't have passionate on-the-ground support within the Libertarian Party.
There's some people I think at the top of the Libertarian Party who would very much like Justin Amash to be the nominee.
And by the way, I know I've given some of those people at the top, you know, some shit when I feel like they deserve it.
No, but you?
Well, you know, on occasion.
On occasion.
Okay, okay.
I have.
But I listen, I understand why someone would want Justin Amash.
I mean, I understand where they go.
It makes us look more serious if we have a sitting member of Congress who can get this national attention.
We don't look like a clown.
We're not risking as much.
I get that.
But I just think, again, that there are so many issues right now that need to be inserted into the mainstream.
And like, this is part of like what Ron Paul did is he, number one, converted a whole bunch of people to libertarianism in droves, not one or two people, just thousands and thousands of new people.
I still, I still literally, to this day, and you see me when I raise money, right?
I literally to this day will still auction off a Ron Paul bumper sticker for a hundred bucks.
Yeah, and people are that passionate about it.
And, you know, and I'm one of those people, so I can, I can understand why.
But he also forced issues into the conversation that would not have been there without him.
Nobody's talking about the Fed if it's not for Ron Paul.
It would just be something that doesn't get brought up.
Nobody's talking about, you know, like actually following the Constitution when it comes to fighting wars.
And there's probably 15 other issues that only he in 2008, 2012 would have inserted into the conversation.
And I really am nervous with either Judge Gray or Justin Amash that just none of these issues will end up getting inserted, where at least with Hornberger, I know they will.
And to me, the big one right now is the Federal Reserve.
Like we live in a populist moment.
We've lived in a populist moment for the last few years, but man, is it going to be a whole different level after we come out of this COVID nonsense?
And, you know, this is the perfect time to the Federal Reserve is this thing that everybody should hate.
I mean, it's got everything, and they don't even know about it.
They just don't even, because no one ever tells them that it's an important thing to care about, except for Ron.
When I was in classroom, I tell you my classroom story.
No, go.
This is an important story.
This is, and for your listeners, they should understand how what a bad spot we're in, how much work we have to do.
As I said, I teach city agencies and other people, corporations, is what I do when I make money.
I can't do it now, but when I actually make money, I teach a lot of agencies and I teach a lot of corporations, things like that.
Usually, I spend time either government, tech, finance, law.
In this case, I'm in a room, I'm teaching leadership, and I never bring up politics unless people ask, or during a break or something like that, I just teach my stuff.
So, it's during a break, and it's a room full of about 20 or so people, all professional, educated adults.
And one person says out loud as they're talking, this is probably three years ago, give or take, four years ago, maybe.
Someone says, I'm so glad we have the Fed.
Oh my God, if it wasn't for them in 2009, huh, they saved us.
That's what he actually said.
So, all I said was, Hey, guys, do you know that the Fed is a private bank?
And they went, No, everyone, no, it isn't.
No, it isn't.
Every one of them.
And I said, Do me a favor, Google it.
Oh, whatever.
They had their phones.
Oh, what?
Huh?
What?
Oh, oh, my God.
Yeah.
I said, it's kind of like a banking cartel.
It's basically that.
Oh, my God.
Really?
Yeah.
They're like, oh, my God.
Then I said, you know, something else, you know, just magically makes money.
No, it doesn't.
Now, I want to be clear.
I just showed them that I was right with the first question.
I then give them the second premise, and they still, all of them, no, it doesn't.
So this is what I'm lying on.
That is how ingrained in their head that this is not real.
So I said, no, no, Google it.
They google it.
Oh, my God.
He's right.
And then I said, you know, we have a central bank.
And I swear to your guy said, no, we don't.
That's why we have the Fed.
No one in the room of 20 educated licensed professionals knew this.
This is where we are.
We have a lot of work to do.
But then it seems like, but that just seems like all the more reason that we have to insert a conversation about the Federal Reserve into the discussion.
Because as I was saying, it is, if anyone does know what it is, it's got everything for the left and the right to hate about it.
I mean, whenever you hear me talk about it recently, what I've talked about is the reason for the wealth gap because the left hates the wealth gap and they will hear that in five seconds.
You say wealth gap, left goes, what?
And I said, the reason for the wealth gap is because the Fed creates bubbles every 10 years.
And that's when the wealthy people get out early, become liquid, and then they purchase all the assets of the middle class and the working poor as they try to pay off their bills when the bubble pops.
Then they grab all the assets.
That's why you have a wealth gap.
It's because of the Fed, not because of capitalism or because of left or right policies.
It's because the Fed creates these bubbles that every 10 years they suck it all up.
And I told people on my show, look, have you noticed all of a sudden, what are you seeing on TV?
I'll buy your house, debt consolidation.
Those are all funds of wealthy people who are now looking to pick up all your assets again.
So they can knock down all your small houses and build up big apartment complexes like you saw in 2011, 12, and 13 when they took all your money from 28 to 08 and 09.
Yeah.
And people in the left goes, yeah, they hear that.
I'm with you.
Well, does Judge Gray have a stance on the Federal Reserve?
I haven't heard him mention anything about it.
Does he support an audit?
I mean, I've literally never heard him bring it up.
I could be missing something.
He goes at it from a different level.
I go at it from that.
He goes at it from we're robbing our youth.
That's where he goes at it.
So he talks about deficit, robbing the youth, and then he goes into Fed.
Fed is step three in his piece.
It's step two in mine.
But does he support to Fed?
Does he support an audit or ending the Fed?
We both support auditing the Fed.
And the reason why I say I want to audit the Fed is because so many Americans don't even know what the Fed is.
If we, even to include, by the way, the press, the media also doesn't know.
The individual reporters also don't know.
I've asked them when I was being interviewed.
They actually don't know.
They think I'm crazy.
So if we actually do the audit, what will happen?
You can't audit the Fed.
It's a private bank.
You can't just randomly audit the Fed.
It's unfair.
And when that happens and someone goes, oh, wait, we can't just audit the Fed.
It's not a government agency.
You can't just audit it.
I can't just go, I'm auditing Dave Smith.
You can't do that.
There has to be a reason or random or something.
You can't just randomly audit people.
You've got to just, you have to have a policy or something to do it.
Otherwise, it's unfair.
And once that pops up, the press will go, oh, wait a minute.
It's not what?
And everything will be able to come up.
And there'll be some reporter who will be like, oh, I can make my bones doing a CNN special on the Fed that no one knew about.
Yes, they'll do some CNN hour special on the Fed that nobody knew about, even though we knew about it for 50 years, right?
That'll happen.
And then we can end the Fed.
We can't end the Fed, in my view, until we audit the Fed.
I'm fine with that.
I mean, I always supported Ron Paul's audit the Fed bills.
I also think that if we ever did successfully audit the Fed, the ending the Fed part would come pretty easily because as soon as people actually see what they're up to, they would, you know, if people realized how much they were just being robbed blind by this.
I mean, as you said, and I've talked about before, it's the worst of public and private combined because it is the government department of money.
I mean, that's really what it is in effect.
But they hide out behind saying they're private so they can profit off of it.
They can, you know what I mean?
They can avoid audits and things like that.
And also so there's no like political fallout.
You can't blame your elected officials because this is what the Fed's doing.
Well, the other problem you have is if you just decide to end the Fed, right?
Then where's our money?
And right now, our money is only backed by the power of the U.S. military, right?
That's where I'm, that's, that's what backs our money, right?
Our money is backed by the power of Marines and soldiers and sailors on the ground.
That's what backs our money.
So if we decide to just end the Fed tomorrow, literally we will have to have several proxy wars to show our muscle.
We'll have to be fighting civil wars in Libya, civil wars in Afghanistan.
We will have to to support our money because if we don't flex our muscle, people will stop using the dollar.
And they stop using the dollar.
It has no value.
So if you end the Fed, you have to have a plan to figure out, okay, what's our money?
Is it crypto?
Is it backed by gold?
Is it backed by insert thing here, right?
We have to have a plan to do that.
Otherwise, we are asking for World War III.
It's the only way to back our money.
Yeah, no, I agree.
There has to be some type of plan.
I mean, I liked Ron Paul's competing currency plan, but I'd settle for gold-backed money at this point.
Any type of commodity-based money, I think, would be a vast improvement.
What, because I wanted to ask you about this because it's something that I've seen Judge Gray getting some heat for is that he's been, I guess, a longtime UBI supporter.
What's your take on the UBI?
There's three different people are calling it UBI.
It's actually negative income tax, negative income tax, which is very close.
Don't get me wrong.
It's close.
It's very close.
There are three parts of this, right?
There's the negative income tax.
There's the UBI as someone like a Rothbard or Mises would have it, right?
That type of Hayek would have it.
And then there's the UBI that Yang wants, right?
The three separate pieces.
The one that Judge Gray talks about is basic negative income tax.
The only people who get the UBI are those who make less than $30,000 a year.
Nobody else gets it.
So only people who make less than $30,000.
And there is an incentive for you to work your way off of it.
Because as you make every dollar, you lose 50 cents of UBI.
So that you can eventually work your way off of UBI.
That's the goal.
You work your way off UBI.
There's an incentive to do so.
And it removes all other forms of welfare.
There is no other form of openness whatsoever.
WIC is gone, food stamps gone, SSI gone, disability gone.
If you make under 30 grand, that's what you get.
You can work your way off.
But hold on.
So just so I understand, so you get 30 grand a year for not working.
Correct.
So when you say there's an incentive to get off of it, why would anyone possibly take a job for 30 grand a year if you can make 30 grand a year for not working?
Yeah, only if you're planning to work your way off of it, right?
The issue is you never lose any money.
The way the system works now, once you make X dollars, you lose everything, which is why nobody would do it.
So compared to the system now, it might be marginally better.
It may not.
I'm not sure.
But wouldn't the incentive be?
There's a lot of people who work for $30,000, $40,000 a year.
Why would anyone be stupid enough to take that job if you're getting $30,000 a year to not work?
It's a valid point.
That's what's happening now.
There are over 60 million Americans getting public assistance from the government already.
It's happening already.
A lot of those people actually don't need it or they're scamming the system.
A lot of them are.
Once you have this very simple rule, will you still have fraud?
Yes.
Is it the right answer?
I'm sorry, is it the perfect answer?
No.
I'm not measuring it against perfection.
I'm measuring against our current system.
But not just that.
Immediately, we don't need the Social Security Administration.
All of that admin, all of that bureaucracy gone.
It's gone overnight.
So you literally shut a bunch of the government down, gone.
That's how, how, this is the, so I have, you know, philosophical problems with the UBI.
I think it's going to keep a whole bunch of people who are at that entry-level, you know, beginner-level job out of the world.
Hold on, let me just keep going.
Let me keep going.
But let me ask you, but I want to ask you about what you're saying there, because this is more the practical element, which I never understand.
It's a nice idea that all of that is gone.
But if we can just say all of that is gone, how about all of that is gone and no UBI?
Even if you were to pass UBI and get the votes, now you have to repeal the Social Security Administration.
You have to repeal everything else.
Let me keep going.
Okay.
I'm with you.
Next is the theoretical UBI.
Everyone gets a larger chunk, three or four grand a year, whatever it is, so that you can actually survive on the money.
You can survive on the money.
That's it.
Everybody gets it no matter what.
There's no incentive to get off at all.
No matter what money you make, you always get it no matter what.
In theory, that also gets rid of all the bureaucracy, right?
That's the more purest form of UBI, right?
And then there's the last type, which is the absolute worst type, which is the yang type, which is a thousand bucks a month and you keep all the bureaucracy.
Everybody gets it.
Everyone's still on everything.
That's the yang.
And we're looking right now, the new idea is 2,000 bucks a month.
Yang's not enough.
We're going to go more.
We're going to go to 2,000 bucks a month and keep all the bureaucracy, also EBT, also WIC, also Social Security, also everything.
Just add on top of it.
That's what's happening now.
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So, my comparison is what we're going to get now, which is a goddamn disaster, and that's literally being talked about right now: $2,000 to every American every month and retaining the entire horrible infrastructure or negative income tax.
Now, to be full with you, I'm not for any of them.
I've been against UBI for years.
I don't like, I agree with you completely on all of it.
I'm telling you forward.
I agree with you.
I don't like any of them.
But if I have an option of supporting Judge Jim Gray and that's his way, I'll take it.
That's my 80-20 rule.
If I was running for president, would I be having that?
No, but I'm not.
I'm running for vice president, which means I will support my president candidate and I will defend him and I will defend whoever it is.
Look, I don't like Hornberger's idea of bringing the troops home and dismissing them.
He's literally going to create thousands of suicides if he does that.
Literally, he is sentencing tens of thousands of Marine soldiers to death.
That is what that will do.
And I will still support him if he is our nominee.
And I will try my best, if he wins, to convince him to not do that.
But if Judge Jim Gray wins, I will try to convince him through exactly what you said.
Get rid of the whole thing.
But why?
Why would it be?
I mean, it seems to me that keeping the troops in the position they are is what's sentencing them to suicides.
Why is it a given that if we were to bring the troops home and dismiss them, that there would be suicides?
I don't know, Vietnam.
Yeah, but that was, I mean, that's that's brought them home on a jet after a year, came back and said, bye, good luck, and they started killing themselves in record numbers.
Yeah, but I don't think it's clear that the suicides were a result of them being dismissed when they came home.
I think the suicides were a result of the trauma they suffered in Vietnam.
Yes.
And when, and if you take people out of the military and bring them home and don't have a transition for both them and/or their families, I've worked with vets.
Ask anyone who's working with vets, they'll tell you the same thing.
They will be homeless in a year.
They'll have a shotgun in their mouth in three.
I'm not making this up.
Do your homework.
That's how it works.
I just, that's the data.
It's there.
Still to this day, there's 100 people who commit suicide every day.
22 are veterans, and veterans are less than 10% of our population.
And one of the biggest reasons is they have trouble getting back into the world.
And if you don't have a good transition, you are sentencing them to death.
That's what you're actually doing by default.
Now, I'm being forward.
I don't like that policy.
If he wins, I will support him because he's still better without Hornberger and I, and all of them, Kokesh and I, all of them, I agree to all of them, at least 80%, if not 995%.
I agree.
We're off maybe 5%.
If you're going to say, Larry, because Judge Jim Gray believes on NIT, you shouldn't support him?
No, I'm okay.
I'll deal with it.
It's still better than what we have, far better than what we're going to get.
What we're going to get is a disaster.
We're going to get 2,000 bucks a month and keep all the bureaucracy.
Nothing but bad.
At least NIT has something good.
I'll take it because he still wants to end the war on drugs.
He still wants to bring all the troops home.
He still wants to make sure we never go into war without an actual declaration of war.
I'll take it.
I'm in.
I will take it.
If he can get us on the stage to say those things, he still wants to focus on the deficit, which again, I know it isn't the Fed immediately for you.
But the third level to that is the Fed, right?
It's first deficit, then our children, then Fed.
Dave, I'll take it.
No, that's not perfect.
That's fine for me.
I mean, look, I don't look a couple points.
Number one, on the UBI stuff, I've said this for years, that this is what the UBI in reality will look like if it's implemented.
It will look like a UBI payment with all the bureaucracy.
Because you're never going to get, this is why I also think just from a practical legislative point of view, and I have no belief that libertarians are going to win that way.
That's why I'm all about inspiring more people, changing minds, changing the whole like, you know, paradigm.
That's, that's what I think we should focus on.
That's why I lean toward a purist.
But if you go in there with anything, you have just the way the legislative process works, you have to stake out the purest position possible because then you're going to compromise and get something that's still bad, but maybe better than the status quo.
The idea that we're not going to actually convince people that we need to abandon the welfare state, we'll say, no, we'll embrace partially the welfare state and give people these handouts.
Do you think there's going to be any real political will to abolish everything because you embraced the welfare state?
And then also, are people going to sit back?
What happens when they blow their negative income tax?
And there's a single mother of four who blows her $30,000 a year and is now hungry.
There's going to be some new program to subsidize that.
No, no, everything you've said is true, but there's one piece that I think is also true.
I think, yes, people like it.
I have literally brought the concept up in a different way.
Look, I live in New York City.
So do you.
You know, there's a lot of Democrats in this city, right?
Lots of them.
Most of my friends are Democrats, right?
Some of them actually voted for me.
Some didn't.
But some actually voted for me, right?
So my point is, I brought this concept up.
I said, what if we just had, what if we just had a fair tax, right?
A flat tax where, you know, if, and I use the number 30,000, if you just, no one paid tax for 30,000 and you only paid a flat amount for 30,000 up and you got rid of IRS.
And Democrats go, oh, that's not bad as long as the first 30,000 is taken care of.
Because what most Democrats care about is a feeling of fairness.
That is their number one issue.
A feeling of fairness.
Does it feel fair?
It doesn't feel fair.
I don't like it.
It feels fair.
I like it.
That's the majority of Democrats.
When we use the NIT, if you say, look, if you're under 30,000, you don't get hammered.
And you can work on, if you're that, and this is how we pitch it.
If you're that, you know, mom with two kids and you want to take a job, you don't lose all your benefits, which is what happens now.
You can actually begin your career again if you want to.
Democrats actually do hear that.
They really do.
They don't hear get rid of welfare.
They don't hear it.
That is a non-starter.
They just go, you're an evil asshole.
They don't hear it.
But they do hear when you say, well, if you're 30,000, you can work your way off and get a job.
They at least hear it.
So I do think there is a chance to have them hear the message if we go that route.
Again, it's not perfect, Dave.
I wish I could tell you it was.
It's not.
And if it's up to me, I'm with you.
But here's what we have.
And here's what I think can get can get that message forward.
Well, fair enough.
I mean, I appreciate your honesty as always.
I get some of the points that you're making.
So let me ask you this.
Going forward now, I've already started to hear the, oh my God, it's so tired.
But this is what they've been saying to Amazon.
They go, you're going to guarantee Donald Trump gets in.
I'm sure the Trump guys are saying you're going to guarantee Biden gets in.
Do you think, now Justin Amash did not have the courage to say this to MSNBC.
And I know this would blow all their minds, but if, you know, they kept saying this thing like, but this could help Trump get in.
And he, you know, the answer is obviously right there, which is like, so what?
You're running Biden.
How is this any better than having Trump?
Do you think there's like you and Judge Gray will be able to kind of sell that point that it's like, we don't care.
They're both as bad as the other one.
Well, to be forward, if you look at what we, another reason why I want impact is Judge Gray was the only one who came to me with an actual plan to make impact.
No one else did.
They were like, we can win this.
Larry, jump.
A lot of people asked me to be their VP and I said no.
But Judge Gray said, Larry, you said this in 2016, which was my plan in 2016 when I was planning to be the VP.
I told the Johnson campaign, I said, look, I'll be the VP.
I will literally pack up and move to whatever state or state you think we have a chance at winning.
And I will go for the next, the last two months, September, October, and I will go to every single diner, every single BFW, every single American Legion, every single church group.
And I will walk up and down that goddamn state until we win a state and have a gold state on that map.
I promise you, he can go do whatever he wants.
I will be in.
I don't care if it's Wyoming.
I don't care.
I'll live in Wyoming for two months.
I will do it.
Nah, nah, nah, nah.
We can get 5%, whatever.
We're going to get 5%.
We'll be off.
Judge Gray came to me and said, Larry, if we focus, we see what's happening around September, August, September, see what's going on, where the polls are.
Where do we have a chance at actually winning a state?
We're going to focus on those states.
Me and you are going to focus on those states.
And I was like, that's what I want to hear.
No one else told me that.
He did.
This is what I'm telling you, Dave.
I know, I get the odds of us winning are slim.
I get that.
I'm not fooling myself.
Could it happen?
Of course, lightning could strike.
Of course, you run to win.
And if we win, we're going to be ready for it.
I hope it happens.
But I also know what's probably going to happen.
If we can actually get one gold state, just imagine if you would.
They show that map all the time, the electoral map.
Now one state is gold.
I've just helped every single down state candidate in the entire country for the next four years because now we're real.
And you know me, Dave, I'm all about helping down ballot.
I'm all about that.
I want top of the ticket so I can help bottom of the ticket.
That's my whole purpose.
I don't think I'm going to win every time I run.
Of course not.
I hope I do and I run to win.
But if you saw what I did in New York, I ran my ass up in 2018.
Then the year after, when I wasn't running, I still crossed the state again, supporting all the down ticket people because the press came to me because I was the former gubernatorial candidate.
So all the local press came to me.
And local press matters tremendously in local races.
And that's why we got so many victories was because of that.
So what I want to do is if I get that, if we get that gold state or states, goddamn, I hope we get states.
That'd be amazing, right?
If we get enough states, one of two things happens.
One, again, the lightning strikes perfectly and neither of these two get 270 and this gets thrown into the Congress and they elect us president, vice president.
That's the hope lightning strike, right?
But we have no actual control over that.
Hopefully that happens.
That'd be amazing.
If it doesn't happen, no worries.
We still get one or two, maybe for lucky three, who knows?
I'll take it.
Gold states on that map that will help every single candidate who's libertarian in this party for the next four years.
That's what I want.
I'm in.
That's impact.
I want impact.
I don't want to run just to run.
I'll stay home.
I got a family.
I got friends.
Yeah, I get that.
If I can make impact, I'm in.
If I'm going to sacrifice for this shit, I want impact.
And that's impact for me.
All right.
Let me, I hear you on all that stuff.
What, what do you think?
And this is probably the most important question for libertarians running right now.
What is, have you thought about, have you and the judge talked about what is kind of the libertarian response from the Libertarian Party to the coronavirus, to the lockdowns?
Do we are, do we come out and have a bold end the lockdowns, no, never again kind of thing?
Do you, you know, like, have you kind of worked that out?
Because I think this is, this is going to be what the election is all about is what happened here.
I mean, the election is going to come in in November.
Who the hell knows?
We could be going through round two of this by the next cold season.
Now, let's all hope that that's not the case.
But either way, we are going to be in a state of wondering what the hell happened to us earlier this year.
What would you say, you know, if you had to, you know, you have America by the ear, what we all kind of want, and they say, what's the libertarian answer to a global pandemic?
What would you say?
Absolutely.
And the thing that I've said more than once, right?
I've said this on my show.
I've said it publicly all the time, right?
The judge is differently than I do, but the concepts are the same.
The judge is like, we as the government, our job is to plan for everybody to be able to function in an epidemic.
And we haven't, right?
We didn't plan.
That's what the government does to plan for how things to function and then let them function, not stop them from functioning, right?
And I've always said this, and I know some pure libertarians don't like this, but I understand the government culturally has always been a center for information or a hub, the 911 call.
I have no problem with government being the center where all the information comes, the repository.
Let's call the government up.
What's the policies?
What should we be doing?
What are the standards?
What does the CDC recommend?
What does the FDA recommend?
Awesome.
Thank you for giving us standards.
That's what I want the government to be doing.
Not dictating what we must do, but providing information and standards for how we can survive.
That I'm totally fine with, right?
What the government should have done, if I'm governor or president, right?
As soon as the virus crosses a border, right?
It goes now into South Korea.
That's my, whoa, what's going on?
This is bigger than just local.
At that point, I realized something.
The government can't fix this.
It never can.
Centralized control never works.
So what do I do?
Good leaders don't do this.
I got you.
Dave, sit in your house.
I got you covered.
That's not a good leader.
A good leader says, Dave, I need you, brother.
Come on, let's get, we got stuff to do.
Let's get going.
So what I do as governor is I immediately do several things, which if I was already governor, it would have been gone already.
But in theory, I would do this.
Immediately suspend all distillery laws, allowing people to make hand sanitizer wherever they want to.
Not just that, immediately ending all sales tax for hand sanitizers.
So local nonprofits don't have to apply for a sales tax ID.
They can just make some money locally selling hand sanitizer.
Centralized Control Fails00:03:43
Next, get what the CDC and the FDA say are the best ways to create masks and or ventilators and post them.
You guys will know how to do it.
Here's the way that we recommend you making masks and ventilators.
Next, I then said, you know what?
I'm going to suspend all Department of Building rules when it comes to sleeping accommodations, allowing local VFWs, local Knights of Columbus, local churches to allow to have places where people can sleep.
Why?
What happens if you're in a multi-generational household?
Grandma, grandpa, you can't afford to put them in a home.
So they're at home.
You have to work.
So you work and you sleep at the church and you don't go home, right?
That's what, and allow that to be true.
We can't do it right now.
I'm still not done.
Now I tell my DA, you are not to prosecute anybody for breaking any IP or 3D printing rules or laws if they're going to make ventilators, allowing people to make ventilators if they want to.
Now, what would have happened when I started that literally months ago?
Add on to that ventilator piece, testing.
Same thing.
Allow people to make it.
Again, ask the FDA and the CDC, here's what they recommend, guys.
Go have at it.
Most people would have ignored me, but there's always early adopters.
That's how it works.
There's early adopters, right?
So some people would have said, ooh, I can make some cash selling high in sanitizer.
And some local churches or VFWs would have done so.
Ooh, I could make some money making cool masks, but you know, Batman on it or the Joker on it or Yankees or whatever, right?
Somebody would have done that.
How do I know that?
They're doing it now.
But they would have been doing it if I was governor.
Three months ago, they would have been doing it.
So all those tests that failed, we know the ones that fail and the ones that are good.
We'd know three months ago, not now.
We would have testing, but not just that.
Some of the cool people would have run around with the Yankees mask or something.
Why does that matter?
Because masks aren't part of our culture.
Sorry, weren't part of our culture prior to COVID.
They were part of East Asian culture because they'd already had SARS.
They had had, you know, swine food.
They had all that stuff.
So they were already doing it.
Chinatown, you saw it.
They wore masks two years ago.
They were wearing masks.
Part of their culture.
We would have made it part of our culture already.
Once that began to happen, I would have then said, guys, you need to start thinking, how can we survive in this environment?
What's the rules?
CDC says six feet.
How do we fix that?
How do we make that happen?
You would have seen some restaurants and some stores, again, early adopters began already, saying we're safe.
Look at us.
We're safe.
Come to us.
Now, as the fear becomes the hit, others jump on board.
Now I don't have my health inspectors come down and start closing stores.
Instead, I give them government approval stamps.
If you follow the rules, the CDC says so.
You get a stamp.
I would then encourage the AMA.
I'd encourage anyone local group to have their own stamp.
You think that's correct?
Stamp it.
Now consumer chooses which stores and facilities to go into.
The ones who don't follow it, consumers won't go into.
Those stores will close.
Consumers decide.
Government doesn't have to.
But not just that.
Other stores start to shift.
Why do I say this?
The critical piece here is we're not ready for the next one.
If we do this now, we would have created protocols for the state.
How do you function in a contaminated environment?
I am a Marine.
You can see if you look, the picture right here, I still keep the photo of me.
I am Marine.
I was in the 80s and we started the USSR and we were worried about chemical attacks and biological attacks.
And they taught me the Marine Corps.
You must be prepared to fight in a contaminated environment.
It doesn't matter.
The war doesn't end because there's chemical weapons in the area.
You get decontaminated, you put your mask on, and you're back out in a fight.
You get back, decontaminate, you get back out into the fight.
They talk all day about war, then they tell us to surrender.
I'm saying war exists in this environment.
Fight Contaminated Environment00:02:25
This is not the last virus.
But of all these things, if you're Iran or you're China or you're Russia, you don't care about nuclear weapons anymore.
That's dangerous.
Make a biological weapon, you shut the entire economy down.
If I'm Iran, I got my guys that say, forget this nuclear shit.
Don't do that.
Make some biological stuff.
Get us the vaccine.
We'll give us our people the vaccine.
We release it every five years.
America will be finished in 10 years.
We can't have that.
We must be able to function in a horrible environment.
These viruses aren't going to go away.
There will be more of them.
Establish the protocols now.
Sweden is learning that.
South Korea already learned that.
We didn't.
That's the libertarian answer.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, I like all that stuff.
And I think that would certainly be a much better situation than what we had, than what we have.
And yeah, it says Sweden basically just issued guidelines, didn't enforce them with any punishment.
And it seems to be about the same as everywhere else.
It's really no worse.
And now we're starting to see evidence that the lockdown really may not have helped the virus at all.
And man, I got to say, if that is the case, and it's possible that a few months from now, we really know that that was the case, man, is that an opening for a libertarian to make an argument that the government just destroyed people's lives.
It didn't even help.
Didn't even help.
But if someone gets me on a stage where I can reach a million people and say what I just said, we will make impact.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, best of luck out on the campaign trail, which I assume for now is a virtual trail, much like everything else.
Yeah, there you are.
Live from the campaign trail.
I always enjoy talking to you, Larry.
I think you are one of the best spokesmen that the Libertarian Party has.
So keep up the good work.
And I hope to see you in person sometime soon after this is all over.
Thanks so much for joining us.
And thanks, everybody, for listening.
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