Nicole Shanahan details the brutal, "totalitarian" sabotage of her and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s third-party campaign by the DNC, which utilized fraudulent vendors and legal tactics to block ballot access despite 71% public support for a strong third party. She explains that media censorship of their health-focused message forced an endorsement of Donald Trump to keep childhood health issues on the agenda, revealing surprising compatibility between her liberal base and the grassroots MAGA movement. This alliance, dubbed "Make America Healthy Again," aims to unite diverse Americans against corruption and special interests, proving that maintaining pressure on the political class is essential regardless of election outcomes or geopolitical conflicts like Israel-Palestine. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Entitlement and Sabotage00:15:08
Hey, what's up, everybody?
Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
A quick note before we get started with the show.
I will be in Dallas on Friday and or Fort Worth and Dallas on Friday and Saturday.
There are still some tickets available to Hyenas Comedy Club.
If you want to grab those tickets, go to comicdave Smith.com and for all the my tour for the rest of the year.
You can get tickets there.
All right.
I am very thrilled to be joined once again by Nicole Shanahan.
How are you?
I'm doing well, Dave.
How are you?
Thanks for having me on again.
Of course, my pleasure.
I really enjoyed our last conversation and a lot has happened in the world and a lot has happened in your world since last we talked.
For everybody, I'm sure you know that Nicole Shanahan is Bobby Kennedy's running mate.
Although the campaign now has been suspended and Bobby came out and gave this really phenomenal speech the other day, I think it was, as I said on the show, I think it was one of the best political speeches I've ever seen in my life.
And I think it was, you know, it was delivered in, it was kind of his biggest speech and one of the best speeches I've ever seen.
So it was pretty incredible that he had it in that moment.
He, I had heard whispers for like a couple weeks before it happened that this was a possibility.
I didn't know whether or not they were, you know, it was, it was really going to happen.
As we all know now, this has happened.
So I'm curious, you know, like there's a lot of questions I could ask you about it.
I want to get your thoughts on this move, but what was it like on the campaign?
Like when was this decision made or when was it like beginning to be considered?
How did this kind of develop?
Yeah.
So, you know, so much of our campaign was dedicated to getting on the ballots.
We had 50 state ballots to get on.
No third party's really successfully gotten on all 50 since Ross Perot in the 90s.
It's incredibly hard.
It's probably a magnitude of, you know, 10x what I thought it was going to take, just both in perseverance challenge.
We were infiltrated.
I mean, can you imagine that one of the contractors, the vendors we hired to do signature collection, which is a very common thing in politics.
There's all kinds of vendors, but they were intentionally collecting signatures fraudulently.
And this was discovered in New York and we immediately moved to rectify it.
But, you know, we ended up having to collect an additional 50,000 signatures just to make sure we had enough properly collected signatures to submit.
And we did.
And now that is the subject of a lawsuit.
I actually testified and was cross-examined yesterday in that case.
And so, you know, Dave, when you ask what has it been like, it certainly hasn't felt normal.
It hasn't felt like a American democratic process where there's fairness and respect and sportsmanship.
It's been brutal to learn these lessons on where American democracy is today.
It's also been brutal to see how, and I hate, and I hate bringing this up because I don't want to, you know, just take this time to bash the Democrats, but they really do cross sacred lines, the things that make democracy democracy.
They've crossed them in ways that I could have never expected they would do.
And they do it in a way also that comes across with this sense of entitlement that they are entitled to sabotage our campaign.
They are entitled to put up websites proudly declaring they have a PAC designed to take out third-party candidates.
So I have to, you know, pause in this moment.
I mean, I could go on and on about the ways that I've been shocked by their behavior.
But I will say that many of us have had an education in the current state of American politics that we never anticipated having.
And that education, I think, is really important for the rest of the American public to understand because the foundations of democracy are so critical.
You know, all of the pieces that make us the country that we are, those are not where they ought to be right now.
And there is definitely a singular group of people dedicated to undermining it.
Yeah.
Well, there's, I mean, there's really no question about that.
It is.
It's it even for someone like me where what I do is I, you know, I do a show about this stuff and I'm constantly talking about it.
But as you zoom out and kind of try to get perspective, it is wild.
I mean, thinking about part, that was part of the speech that really stuck out to me.
That Bobby's speech I'm referring to, where he was just talking about how he, I mean, just like objectively speaking, he's the biggest third party candidate since Ross Perot.
And then he was comparing the amount of interviews that Ross Perot got to how the complete blackout of, I mean, if it wasn't for shows on the internet, you would have not known Bobby Kennedy was running, yet he was getting millions of supporters, raising tens of millions of dollars is obviously a huge name, was drawing big crowds.
And he's still treated as if he's not a candidate, as you said, with these active measures to undermine him.
And then, I mean, you just think about the fact that, I mean, the Biden administration tried to set up a ministry of truth.
I know they don't care for that name, but they really did try to set up a ministry of what information is allowed to be set up.
Yes.
And, you know, the stuff that Zuckerberg's letter to Congressman Jordan just kind of reminded a lot of us of like, oh, yeah, there is this massive censorship campaign and whatever you want to call a society where there is massive government censorship and you are not allowed to have other options running for office.
That's not a free society.
It's not a democracy.
I don't know what word, you know, we could argue over what word it should be called, but it certainly ain't a liberal democracy.
Yeah.
I mean, you say it so well.
What have we become?
And why is it so hard for such a large population of the American public to see that this is very problematic?
I, you know, during my testimony yesterday, I was being cross-examined by the DNC funded attorneys.
And you know how they do their thing, but they were, I mean, they made me feel like a criminal, like by running for office.
And we had plenty of good signatures in New York.
So that's not the issue.
It's not like we provided fraudulent paperwork.
We sifted through at all of them.
We had many double check, like we had so many redundancies to check their quality.
And I'm sitting there not campaigning.
And this was really where it got problematic for Bobby is he wasn't campaigning anymore.
All of our money was going towards fighting these frivolous lawsuits, one after another.
We just got another one in Illinois.
And they get more and more aggressive.
And the way that they're set, like signaling to us is that the more you keep trying, the harsher we will be on you and the harsher your punishment.
And that is the basis of this totalitarianism that the more exposed you get, the more resources we are going to put towards destroying your reputation.
The more progress you make on ballots, the more money we're going to put towards invalidating your ballot petitions.
So, you know, it wasn't something that we wanted.
We didn't want to have to align with one of the two big parties.
We are so committed to breaking the duopoly.
And we had a really good shot.
And I'm a data scientist at heart.
I have a background in econometrics.
I'm an AI developer who can do sentiment analysis.
I can do some of it in my head.
And before we decided to run or before I decided to even get involved with Bobby and support him, I did all of that modeling.
And people on the left told me, you know, he'll never win.
He has no shot.
And I looked at the numbers and I was like, actually, all of the preconditions are here for the strongest third party challenge ever in American history.
I mean, look at it.
71% of Americans want a strong third party.
At the time, more than 70% didn't want to vote for Biden or Trump.
We have the highest registrations of unaffiliated voters ever, over 50% ever in my lifetime.
I don't know how far back those statistics go, but, you know, so all of the preconditions were there.
I looked at all the ballot petition requirements, set aside a budget.
We came in under budget.
So every technicality of us succeeding was accomplished.
And the only thing we couldn't have anticipated was how brutal the Democrats were going to be and really how sinister they were going to be towards us.
And it continues.
It's not like once we endorsed Trump and suspended our campaign and ended.
They've actually since doubled down on us because we're trying to remain on some of the ballots.
Our agreement was we would bow out of battleground states.
And you want to hear something really crazy?
Sure.
They won't let us pull out now, withdraw from certain ballots because they think that us being in hurts Trump more now.
They finally caught up to the numbers.
That's really fun.
I read something about this and I was like, is this real?
They're actually fighting against you guys pulling off the ballots because they think that hurts them.
That is really something.
I mean, yeah.
So now we don't even have a choice on which ballots we're on, apparently.
That's not our call.
It's the Secretary of State's ability to decide if we're allowed to stay on or withdraw our names.
I mean, this is, you can't make this up.
This is out of, this is, I mean, mind blowing.
It's really mind blowing.
It is.
It's, you know, it's like, even for people, I think, who understand in some general abstract way that the system is corrupt, it is something to see the, it's a mix of how blatant they are with the corruption.
Like there's not even an attempt to like, so you can rationalize to yourself that you don't feel like a bad guy.
You wouldn't be this blatant about it.
And the other thing is just the viciousness.
I mean, I was playing yesterday on the show.
Forgive me, I can't remember.
It was either CNN or MSNBC.
It was one of the two.
I think it was MSNBC, but they're so similar.
It's hard to remember.
But they, so they, back to this speech of Bobby's that I'm referring to, they first off, they don't play it.
They let their viewers know that it's happening, but they don't play the speech.
They cut back to, and one of the guys there, again, it's either MSNBC or CNN.
I just played the clip on our last episode, literally starts mocking his voice.
They come by and he makes a comment.
It's pretty clear he's going, I mean, you can't even understand the guy when you listen to him.
So what's the point of listening to him?
And you're like, wait a minute, wait, what?
You guys, now that's acceptable?
Like, what?
I mean, just like the vicious, the levels of viciousness and nastiness.
And of course, I was making, no, I was pointing out these, they're the same people who got so offended when Donald Trump did the impression of that reporter back in 2016 or something.
It's like, you do the exact same thing.
The guy, like, I mean, take on one thing he's saying, but you're me, it's a neurological disorder.
You're making fun of it.
It's like, I could like, if I saw my five-year-old behaving that way, I would reprimand her.
Like, it's insane to see adults in suit and ties at supposedly legitimate, you know, like news outlets acting this way.
It's just wild, just wild to see.
Yeah.
And all of the bullying as well, too, and just outright harassment that happens.
It's, it's, it's like you can tell when they're coming because all of a sudden you'll get emails and calls from people you haven't spoken to in 10 years saying, hey, this Washington Post journalist wants to ask me about your take on gender identity.
And I'm like, okay, they're mounting another hit piece.
And so it comes in waves.
And the waves, it's almost like I know exactly what happened in their war room two days before.
I can tell you exactly, this is how we're going to frame Nicole.
This is what's going to go out to the press.
This is where we need the sleuth.
And, you know, the narrative has to be this this week.
And so they just kind of point and then they shoot.
And, you know, there's this journalist that was supposed to be on JD Vance.
She was on me before at the Washington Post and she just got put back on me.
So we, they thought they, they had us beat before this Trump endorsement.
And they've since now looked at us and they're like, oh, they're actually really effective in their messaging.
We got to take them out.
And again, the troubling part is how this is being condoned by their supporters as acceptable behavior.
And I will say what makes us unique, Bobby and I, is that we're very different characters than Trump and those around Trump.
We're California, New York liberals, and we are going to take our time to explain what's happening to the public.
And we're going to do so with, you know, caution, respect, and as much detail as we can.
And so we speak the language of the progressive left.
That allows us to communicate with them in a way that I don't think Republicans can.
And that's, I think this might be their greatest threat right now is that they have former insiders taking the time, living the experience and putting themselves out there for their persecution.
And they can't hold themselves back.
They can't, you know, there's no bit of them that says, oh, maybe this is not the right thing for our long-term cause.
Let's double down.
Sponsor Spotlight: Sheath Underwear00:03:34
Yeah.
Well, it is, it's, it's amazing in a way because, you know, they're obviously over, let's say the last few years, let's even an issue like vaccine skepticism, let's say, or something like that, has been the corporate media has tried to cast this as like a far right wing position.
But for people who are like older than five, you know, like it's who have a memory of like the before time, you're like, no, this was always something that left wingers were very concerned with.
Like this is, this is not a right-wing position.
Just like believing in free speech is not a right-wing position or believing in, you know, corporate corruption or being against corporate corporations colluding with government.
None of that is inherently a right-wing position.
Being anti-war is not inherently a right-wing position.
Like this is, it's just funny that they're almost and I think with you and Bobby, it's kind of, it's just very difficult to caricature you guys as like far right wingers.
You're like, wait, what?
Like, like, just everything about you guys is like, clearly, you're not of the right.
And so it is, it is interesting.
It's also obviously part of it's, you know, it's like this kind of bigger dynamic where you have people like Elon Musk, Tulsi Gabbard now, yourself and Bobby, where it's just like the, all of you guys are clearly, I mean, you're all former Democrats, but in a weird way, it's like you're supposed to still be Democrats.
Like it's, it's, it's just that you're going like, no, I mean, like, if the Democratic Party has become the party of war and censorship and government corruption, what's really left there for any traditional liberal to support?
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Yeah, it's such a siloed black box right now.
And it's so unclear who is running things.
I asked for years to engage with substance within the party.
And I can't tell you probably three dozen times the response is, do you want to take a car ride with Obama for $150,000?
I'm like, no, I don't.
I want to figure out what the long-term plan is for regenerative or farming.
Like we call it whatever kind of farming you want, but farming of real healthy food, like I really want to talk to somebody about that.
And then, you know, talking about chronic health issues.
And it's really interesting before I took the offer to do this job.
Truth for the Vulnerable00:15:19
I spoke with some of Bobby's family members.
They reached out to me.
One of them, we had a mutual friend and then the other reached out through a mutual friend.
And these are individuals that are in DC.
So they're part of, they're on the payroll.
And they reached out and, you know, they're like, what is it going to take for you to not take this offer?
And I said, and I'll be totally honest and let your viewers know, I said, look, we've, we've got to bring back liability, product liability for vaccine manufacturers.
We've got to bring that back.
He said, okay, let me see if I can get this done.
Reverts 15 hours later, I hear, yeah, I can't, no, never going to happen.
And I was like, really?
Like, who would I even talk to?
Like, who did you talk to to have that conversation?
Like, where does one go within the organization to have that conversation?
And he said, it's unclear to me, but from the people I talk to who claim that they know, it just can't happen.
And so it's there, there's, they're sheltering the individuals that are ultimately making the decisions.
And, you know, even Bobby's family, I would say, they don't really know who's making the decisions, but they acquiesce to the structure.
Yeah, there's a lot of that.
And it's, there's something in my limited time being in like on the cable news circuit.
Like I worked for CNN or for Turner for a little less than a year.
And I've done a lot of shows at Fox News and stuff like that.
And just from getting to know some of the people there, it is, and this isn't like at the highest level.
I mean, I was just on like regular shows.
But there is this thing about the status of all of it that people get so intoxicated with.
You know, you see like the show hosts and they're like, you know, I just got off the phone with Dick Cheney's chief of staff.
And yeah, he talked to me for 20 minutes about this.
And then I'm at a cocktail party with the former head of the Federal Reserve, you know, next week.
And like people really get into status.
I mean, we're all guilty of that to some degree.
You know what I mean?
It's a very like.
I think some of us are immune to it.
There's like a few people that are just immune to it because they tried to play and got burned.
And they're like, yes.
Yes.
I think there's some of that too.
But there is, and look, I mean, that's, I think it's, it's true about you.
And obviously it's very true for Bobby Kennedy that it's like what the most impressive thing about people like you guys, to me at least, is that you really didn't have to do any of this.
You know what I mean?
Like you guys, you guys were fine.
You know what I mean?
Like it's not like neither of you were like broke on the corner like and like, well, this is my only shot to make it.
It's like you had a, you had a very nice, much easier life in front of you if you didn't choose to do this.
I mean, Bobby, it's like a caricature.
It's like you're married to like a Hollywood darling.
You're a Kennedy.
You're going to, you're just in.
You're in.
You have, you have an easy life laid out right in front of you.
And there's always something compelling about people who choose a harder path because there's something they believe in.
It's something that seems more and more rare in our society today, but I really do think that examples like that are very powerful.
And even like even with the Zuckerberg letter to Jim Jordan, yes, some of that is because he's worried about getting in trouble and some of it is covering his own butt.
Okay.
But there's also something where it's just like, hey, Elon Musk stands up and says something brave and it's not the end of the world.
And then you're like another tech giant out there and you're like, well, I kind of want to say something brave.
You know what I mean?
Like it just like, and so there really is something great.
I, as I said on, uh, on Twitter or X, I really am, I'm grateful to both of you guys that you ran the campaign you did.
I think it, I think it really did.
I think what I just said in itself has an impact.
And also, I just think there are, there are certain issues that you guys are talking about that there's just, you know, we, we discussed this a little bit the last time you were on the show, but the fact that you guys made health the center of your campaign is unprecedented.
Nobody's ever done that ever.
I don't even think it's ever been number four or five on anyone's issue.
It was an untouchable topic.
Yes.
And just to be very clear, I'm not, there are people who have made health insurance the center of their campaign.
There are people, you know what I mean?
Like there are people who have made like, like, I'm not saying like, obviously, Medicare for all comes up.
Obamacare came up in 2008.
There are these, but it's always at the end of the discussion.
It's like, if it ever comes up, it's Kamala Harris or Joe Biden bragging about how the cost of insulin went down because of a bill they passed.
But it's never the question of like, why do we need so much insulin in this country?
Like, why is it that?
And the stuff Bobby was talking about, you know, I was watching, I watched the speech with my mother-in-law, who's a nurse.
And she was like, his whole health section, I mean, she was like yelling with him.
Like, she was like, thank you.
She's like, why does no one ever talk about this stuff?
How does it never come up that our kids are sick?
Like, it's just so insane.
Who could argue that like, who forget even you can argue with his what the culprits are or something?
Oh, I think he, he said this, but I don't think this is what's responsible for it.
I think this is what's okay.
I'm totally willing to hear those arguments out.
But how is this not at the center of every single presidential campaign?
Like our kids are sick.
What's more important than that?
You know, for, and, oh, God, am I going to go there?
All right.
I'll go there.
You know, when you have a kid, it changes your perspective on these statistics, right?
Versus when you are, you know, a bachelor or somebody who doesn't want to have kids and you're, everyone's entitled to their own decisions.
But if you've lived, and this is why our campaign resonated so well, this is why it was so important is that so many parents and people are afflicted and they're Democrats, they're Republicans and they're independents.
And that's why doing this as an independent candidate worked.
That's why sharing with everyone that we were an open umbrella and we would take anyone in who cared and wanted to sincerely work on this issue.
There's so many, I can't tell you how many hundreds of letters I've received.
Personal.
I mean, these are really personal letters that I'm getting describing what's going on in homes across America.
People struggling to keep their kids healthy.
They're kids that just won't eat.
Their stomachs don't work.
Kids that have behavioral challenges and self-harm.
Kids that the parents are just trying so hard to get through to and they can't get through to them.
And no one seems to be able to help them.
I've heard from grandparents who have grandchildren that are affected.
And, you know, these are people from every walk of life.
They're, you know, wealthy Wall Street people or they're veterans or they're farmers.
I mean, it's literally everybody.
This is, this is the thing that has no real social divide.
Just because you're wealthy doesn't mean you're saved from this by any measure.
So there's something in our environment we've got to figure out.
And, you know, I had already been talking to some of the censored scientists before this and getting some indications of what's causing all of this.
But to talk about it publicly, most people cannot actually afford the risk.
And that's where I think Bobby has come off as being incredibly brave, somewhat cavalier, in putting himself out there to just receive all of the attacks up front on behalf of these people that can't be platformed because they would be deplatformed if they, you know, were heard more publicly.
And they literally cannot afford to lose their licenses, their mortgages, et cetera.
Yeah, that's such a good point.
It's one I've tried to make myself several times, but I saw it and from people who are maybe like broadly speaking would be like on our side of some of these issues.
But I've seen like stuff on social media where people will be attacking people who got fooled into taking the vaccine or something like that.
And you're kind of like, hey, listen, like if there's a dad who's got three kids and he's making 70K a year and his job told him he has to take the vaccine, like that guy had to take the vaccine.
You're not like smarter than him or better than him because you were in a situation where you weren't like didn't have your back against the wall like that.
Like, I'm not better than that guy because I didn't take the jab.
It's like, I just happened to have a job where you couldn't force me into taking it.
And if it, if, if, if it was a choice between me having to take that or not being able to provide for my wife and kids, I would have taken it.
Like it's not.
And there's, there's something where like people who do have a little bit of money in the bank, people who are in a, in a less vulnerable situation, there really is an onus on us to step up and tell the truth because they're the vast majority of people simply are not in a situation like that.
Like they, they cannot risk, you know what I mean?
Like in today's America, particularly with the price inflation in today's America for like the average, say, like family, you know, and when I say average, I just mean like a working class family.
Like if the, you know, the a wife who's a waitress and a dad who's a truck driver or something like that, they're not in a position where they can do anything to risk their livelihood or risk those arrows coming at them.
And what we need is the people who are in a more comfortable position, even though, again, it's, it's very easy for those people to not want to do it because of course you're comfortable.
Who wants to give up that?
But there kind of is an onus on people in that situation because if they don't stand up, no one's going to be able to.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And trust me, it's been hard to stand up.
Like I had a pretty comfortable existence, you know, flying under the radar, doing my philanthropy, but the frustration I felt in my own life to be heard on behalf of my own child and living in an environment in which there are environmental toxins everywhere, going to the mall and seeing like every three child has some kind of issue.
Because, you know, being a mother of somebody with special needs, you start to become hyper aware of every other person's special needs.
And, you know, you can't in your right mind just say, all right, well, this is actually what they used to tell parents in the 70s, have another one.
Don't worry, move on.
You know, these things just happen.
You know, we live in a day and age where just having one kid is a huge deal, right?
It's, it's tough.
Having two, you're like extremely fortunate.
And if both are healthy, I mean, you're in this, you know, sliver of you lucked out in a really serious way.
But that's just not the case for many people our age, Dave.
And I think that had I not done anything, I would have lived a life of lies and I would have just lived a life within the silos of my own pains and frustrations.
So in many ways, for me, it's been very cathartic to do this.
And that's what drives me.
I mean, I laugh at some of the comments I get sometimes from the far left that like, I'm a billionaire and I'm doing, I'm aligning with Trump to protect my financial interests.
This has been so expensive.
I have made no money, nor am I aligned with any groups that have ever like promised to make me any money.
In fact, you know, this is, this is true.
I, you know, the way that I'm looking at this, it's true civil service.
And I think if you do it the right way, you do it four years, maybe eight, and then you kind of take up, you got to take a break.
Because when you do it the right way and you actually focus on getting the work done, it's super hard, exhausting, and kind of like, you know, it takes a lot out of you, both physically and financially and emotionally.
Yeah.
Well, on top of that, not to mention that like, as if like the progressive status quo is bad for billionaires or something like that.
Like as if like, you know, as if like the Biden administration is really hostile to the wealthy.
I mean, like, please, like, it's, you, you'd be, if you were just in it purely for financial interests, you're going about it all wrong.
This is not the way to protect yourself.
It literally just say something, say the same typical thing that every Democrat says about climate change and racism.
Cut Kamala Harris a check and you'll be, you'd be just fine.
You're protected for all of time.
Yeah, really.
Not all of time until you run against them.
Then you're not protected.
Well, that's right.
Exactly.
So, and even like the policies, like even the inflationary policies are very good for the wealthy.
Like that's, it doesn't really hurt you that assets are going up.
Inflate, like when you have a net worth over, you know, $15 million or so, inflation, you're untouchable.
Like either way, where interest rates are, either the market is up or interest rates are up and you benefit from the interest rates.
You're just sitting there and your funds are accruing wealth.
So the wealthy are truly immune to the economic issues and the toying around.
And, you know, you and I haven't had a chance to talk about military spending.
I know this is something you're super passionate about, something I'm passionate about too.
But it and Ron Paul said it best.
He said, effectively what we're doing is we're gutting our middle class to send money to wealthy people overseas.
And that is exactly how the system works.
And the wealthy are fully immune to it until there is some large correction in which the wealthy can no longer hide behind either the market or interest rates, right?
Because then you have to do the correction in both places at the same time, which is the kind of correction that actually addresses long-term inflationary issues and debt.
Yeah, no, that's exactly right.
And it's, it's look, not just like, say, the foreign aid, but just, as you mentioned, the entire military budget.
I mean, the whole thing.
Addressing National Debt00:05:14
And it's quite funny when I'll see people who kind of boast about this, but they're talking point and they're like, well, it creates all these American jobs or something like that.
And you're like, yeah, but jobs doing what?
Jobs, like running weapons companies?
Yes, you're right.
It creates a whole lot of wealth for them.
That's your wealth, American taxpayer, being given to these people.
So it's the whole thing is such a obvious racket.
Even venture capital, if you look at where a lot of the venture capital dollars have gone, even from my area here in Silicon Valley, it's gone into defense startups and defense intelligence and all these different kinds of AI, robotics, computational companies.
It's, I mean, the writing is on the wall.
Like these people that are invested are now over leveraged and they need to have their repayments or their payout.
And the only way they're going to get those payouts is if we're engaged in active war.
And that's that was that was something shocking because I hadn't, that's not an area that I've ever invested in.
But then I started looking at some of these other portfolios in the area and was shocked to see what a large percentage of venture capital even has gone into defense-related startups.
Yeah, it's unbelievable.
And of course, on top of that, it's by the way the system is designed in DC.
And specifically, I'm talking about just like how high government spending is, how high the military budget is, and the fiat currency and the money printing of the Federal Reserve between all of those.
It's like the biggest industries become the defense industry, like all the industries that are connected to government spending, whether it's big pharma or big defense companies.
And then you have all of the big banks, of course, which is just a casino based off fiat currency.
And what ends up happening is that now these are all of the industries where you can make a lot of money.
And then the result of that is there's this enormous like suction of talent.
So like everyone who's talented, who's very smart gets drawn into like, well, it's kind of like, hey, you want to go, you want to be a doctor and go like help, you know, you want to be a pediatrician and go help sick kids or something like that.
It's like, you're going to max out at 300K a year, or you could go over to Wall Street and be making 700K a year in five years.
You know what I mean?
And so like you get all the talent ends up getting pulled into these industries that don't produce anything for anyone.
They don't make anybody else actually wealthier.
They're in many cases just making people poorer and ripping them off.
But it's just this thing of like, you're in derivatives trading in something that doesn't exist, or you're making bombs that could maybe blow up a bridge that then will hire a contractor to rebuild in a year.
It's all so sick.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's, it's, um, it's a situation that I think gets righted when we address the debt, because the, the, you know, this idea that the buck stops here, like we're going to be forced to do that as, as this debt falls off a cliff, which we're close.
I mean, every major analyst I've talked to has said, we're really, really close.
We need to come up with either some new brilliant MMT approach or a new form of economics to look at the situation, or we're going to have to move to the gold standard, back to the gold standard, for which we've been intending to go back to for decades now, but we just seem to be pushing that off.
Or we try Bitcoin as a stand going to a Bitcoin standard.
But it's, you know, we're as we address the debt, many of these forms of money laundering that our government is set up to do, you know, can't won't exist anymore.
So I think when we talk about the economy, you've got to always start by addressing the debt because you can try to reduce spending in all of these, you know, interesting ways.
But if you start with we have to reduce the debt by, you know, 20% somehow.
And then you go down and you start nixing all of these government contractors immediately and all of these auxiliary programs that are underperforming.
And then you have to then look at government efficiency and say, well, is our spend actually translating into the goal?
These are questions not being asked today.
I mean, just look at Kamala Harris's recent policy pitch on $25,000 cash payments for first-time homebuyers.
Where does that money come from, Ms. Harris?
Really, where does it come from?
I'd like to know.
Questions on Government Spending00:02:51
I'd like to hear her articulate that.
It would be really fantastic for the American public to hear your incredible economic infrastructure that's going to transform and automatically produce billions of dollars out of thin air.
Yeah, right.
As if we haven't had enough of that.
I just saw before we started recording that she's they've announced that she will be doing her first interview on Thursday with Dana Bash from CNN, real hard-hitting journalist there.
And she's bringing Waltz with her.
She's still not doing a solo interview.
She wants to bring this guy with her, which is just, it's, I don't know, because I was getting ready to talk with you.
And I'm like, isn't it pretty funny that the media blacked out your campaign with Bobby?
And then at the same time, they're the other, the Democrats don't want the interviews.
They're trying to black themselves out as well.
There's just something, it's quite a funny contrast.
It's kind of reminiscent of how they're handling our ballot issue.
They're like, well, do we want them on that ballot or do we not want them on that ballot?
We don't actually know because we don't have critical thinkers here that are being proactive.
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All right, let's get back into the show.
So let me ask you this because, you know, obviously there's the threats that a Kamala Harris victory, you know, would result in are fairly obvious.
And there's no, there's no argument you're going to get from me on that.
What, did you have any reservations about supporting Trump?
I mean, I'd imagine like, I mean, I don't know, but I'd imagine like if I could speak to 2016 you, you would be like, there's no way I'm going to be supporting Donald Trump in 2024.
And obviously, and as Bobby alluded to in his speech, there's a lot of issues that there's disagreement on.
Obviously, the first and foremost, the one that comes to mind is COVID-related stuff and Operation Warp speed and lockdowns and things like that.
But so do you have any reservations supporting Donald Trump?
Or do you think it's just as clear as like the Democrats essentially just can't win this election?
MAGA Base and Future Role00:15:08
I mean, to go back to your earlier point, most of our supporters are Democrats, former Democrats, or they're progressives.
They're really thoughtful, nice.
I mean, our supporters, some of the sweetest supporters in the world, couldn't, don't have a mean bone in their body.
They roll out the reb curve.
They're just sweet and they love peace and they love to be idealistic and they are they speak with hopefulness and they're just bright, they're bright spirited individuals.
And many of them have looked at Trump for years, as have I, as this really dark, heavy, kind of old, you know, New York, Not the kind of character that matches our base, to say the least.
And um, you know, and he has all of these women around him in tight dresses and and that is something I keep hearing he's terrible for women and it's been, it's been culturally an awkward fit, I won't lie, but I will say that, in terms of the things that make democracy democracy, which is where we're at right now um, he is somebody that does,
I would say, respect the principles of democracy and I would say he's also somebody who genuinely cares about children.
He's a grandfather he um he I, I think he, he does intend to keep his word.
Um, for me, it was, you know, it was a perfect storm of things happening around our campaign, um, just these constant blitzes by the Democratic Party to take us out, to ruin our reputation, going after some of our supporters too, which I think is a huge no-no.
And um and, and it was, you know, it was drowning us out, and we and we said this since day one we're a movement.
What really makes independence brilliant uh, is this power of representing ideas and mobilizing it across different parties and partnerships.
Because we're agile, we can do that.
If the Green Party wanted to do that they could as well.
There's huge power in that.
You know, Cornell West is doing it in his own way right now.
I think he's just starting to gear up and understand what he has on his hands, um, really powerful UH, organization and and leverage, like that's where you get your leverage and that's why the Democratic Party wants to take us off the ballots, because once we're off the ballots, we lose a lot of that leverage.
So, you know, when I was told and this is something a lot of people don't know, and Bobby shared this with Tucker recently, Trump called Bobby hours after he was almost assassinated and the thing he wanted to talk about was childhood health and and you don't just call somebody, you know, think about the first calls you're going to make Dave,
after you're almost shot dead and someone behind you is dead.
Yeah, I mean, that's, that is life-changing.
And if you're, if your head goes to, I want to do the right thing with my remaining time on this earth, and amongst that is children's health.
We are, I mean, that is a powerful thing.
So I think Trump was moved to a place of of higher integrity and I and I want to believe this, like i've received also hundreds of letters from people saying that we've been duped.
But I've got to look at, I've got to look at the sequence of events as critically and clearly as possible.
And that's what we've done is we've looked at the totality of these interactions.
And our goal is to use the leverage that we have to make sure that health is center stage.
And I'll tell you, nobody could have expected the kind of reception Trump gave Bobby on Friday this past Friday.
No one.
That was pretty special.
Yeah, it was, it was, it was incredible.
And it's been, you know, in this, in this campaign, there's been so many things that are just like, you know, such a big deal that it's almost like it's hard to keep track of all of them.
But you're like, oh, yeah, no, this is a really big deal.
Like the first real like independent candidate since Ross Perot, you know what I mean?
To endorse the former president and then be embraced by him the way he is.
You know, one thing I just wanted to say, because you had mentioned it, and I will say, in terms of the character of your guys' supporters, it's something I've really noticed myself.
And as somebody who's been kind of not had a horse in the race in the presidential campaign, but as, you know, I try to criticize and compliment everybody where they deserve it.
Obviously, like I, you know, I had Bobby on the podcast a couple times.
And when we had our, you know, the second episode where we really got into a pretty intense argument over the war in Gaza, there was, there was no other like group of supporters who were cooler than yours.
I mean, like they were, even when we were having like really intense, you know, disagreements, which we did like end on a cordial note and stuff.
But there was, I mean, I remember when I was, when I was critical of Trump, having Trump supporters being furious at me, when I was critical of DeSantis, DeSantis' supporters online were like crazy.
Also really delusional.
They were all like, you have no idea he's going to win and you'll, you'll see whenever.
Didn't work out.
But Nikki Haley's supporters, Joe Biden supporters, Kamala Harris supporters.
But generally speaking, not saying there's no exceptions to this, but you guys did have a base that really appreciated the debate, really appreciated, many of whom agreed with me on it.
And they were like, yeah, listen, I agree with you on this one, but I still think Bobby's better than everybody else by far.
So we're still supporting him, you know, but there was something cool about that.
And it would be, it made me a little bit more optimistic about the country that like, okay, there's a lot of people who are like not crazy or nasty.
We may have, you know, and right.
And we may have lots of areas of disagreement, but we're still kind of generally on the same page of like, hey, this country is really on the wrong track.
We'd really like to get it back on the right track and at least aren't corrupt, you know, like at least they're like, we're not in on the corrupt system.
So that's at least a good starting place.
Yeah.
And the culture is so good within this group of people.
It's really about understanding where people's perspectives are coming from and trying to figure out how to meet them where they are and keep an open door and realizing there's probably going to be a lot of anger and hate and misinformation that they're influenced by.
I'll just say lies.
They've been lied to.
They've been programmed.
And it takes time to deprogram from the mainstream media narratives.
It really does.
It also just takes time to deprogram from groupthink.
Yeah.
And that's kind of the brilliant thing about our base is that they've all have arrived here because they were alone in their journey of finding the truth.
At some point, they found it and they found others who also were on similar journeys.
And it was very organic.
It just kind of grew out of this desire to find people that were qualifying their N of one lived experiences and creating a larger and larger data set.
So it was, it has been a blessing to see, you know, actually the best part of joining forces with Trump has been seeing MAGA, which I'm learning so much about.
I was completely misinformed about what MAGA is.
I don't know if you've taken any deep dives into MAGA world, but I was just under the impression that they were gun-toting radicals who wanted to come to my doorstep and rip my liberal family out of my house and do horrible things to liberals.
And that's how that's how MAGA has been sold to a huge portion of America by the mainstream media.
And I have to say that what I have learned about MAGA is that they're actually their own party.
They're their own grassroots organization that chose Donald Trump.
They have so much power in deciding where to point their energy and support.
And there are really, really smart, thoughtful, intellectual people within MAGA.
I've received beautifully written notes from MAGA supporters.
And they were, you know, our base didn't know how to engage with MAGA.
Our base was not, you know, MAGA oriented in the sense of even knowing who and what MAGA was and what their infrastructure was.
In many ways, it's an online viral movement.
And so the coming together of, and they gave us the name Maha, Make America Healthy Again.
Have you seen?
Yes, I've seen it.
Oh my gosh.
I mean, we didn't come up with that.
We're getting hats made, but the coming together of these two groups over the last week hasn't even been a full week yet.
But watching that happen has been really glorious because that was always the vision of this unity movement, this desire to heal the divide.
And even though these are just two pockets within a much larger group of the American demographic, they're two very powerful pockets.
And to find common ground has been one of the most motivating, optimistic things I've seen in recent political time.
Yeah.
Well, also because everybody gets kind of, it's like political brain that everybody kind of develops.
And I'm not, I'm certainly not saying politics aren't important.
I do a show on it four days a week because I think these things are important.
But it's not as if like the battle isn't over after election day.
It's like no matter what happens, whether Trump wins or Harris wins or whatever happens, it's like, that's not the end of it.
It's not as if even if Bobby Kennedy had won the presidency, it's not just like, all right, job done.
That's it.
He got in.
It's like, no, now is actually the beginning of all of this.
And there's going to be a lot of different, I think, elements that will be needed if we were to ever restore sanity in this country or just get us not headed off a cliff.
But no question.
I mean, like, I think there's going to have to be wealthy people who put their money where their mouth is and put, you know what I mean?
Like it doesn't work without that.
But also you're going to need pressure from the people on whoever the president is.
You know, like if we really do want to take on some of these incredibly entrenched, powerful special interests, you're going to need a citizenry that has like constant pressure on the political class.
So it's good.
It's not just even about this campaign.
It's about the future of the country.
And like, I do think that between like with the MAHA and the MAGA people, it's like if they can be like kind of laser focused on some of these important issues, we're going to need that and beyond just any presidential election cycle.
Yeah, most definitely.
And, you know, my next hope is that those people that are upset about Gaza, for which I am also upset about what's going on in Gaza, this is a big issue, that we can, and I think this is achieved best if we fix our role as America and what America's role is in all of this, define it.
I think Thomas Massey has done a really good job talking about how you can be pro-America and put America first and you don't have to pick a side between Israel and Palestine.
And that actually lends to great strength as an American, especially if you're an independent-minded American, there is a potential for a two-state solution.
You know, we're not the only mega players in this.
There is all of bricks at play too.
There's China with the Beijing Declaration.
I mean, there's there, this is a much more dynamic situation that we will best address if we do not pick a side between Israel and Palestine, but we bless, you know, all good faith two-state solutions.
But I really, I think that when Americans start flying one flag or another during a time of an active war, it's just going to cause such enormous pain and tension here.
And it's not going to allow us to think clearly into solving the issue at hand and understanding the very unique position we play as Americans.
Yeah, no, I think that's absolutely right.
And hopefully, yeah, hopefully Trump keeps some of these neocons away from him and listens to people like you because I would much prefer that.
Okay, so last question and I'll let you go.
What is your going forward for the rest of the election cycle?
What's your role going to be in all this?
Like, what's the next step for you?
So we're on ballots in states like California.
You'll still be able to vote for us.
We're still aiming to get 5% of the popular vote, which qualifies us as a party, which means in 2028, we don't have to do ballot petitions again, which would allow us to actually campaign in 2028.
So please vote for us if you are not in a swing state, although the Secretary of States in some swing states are forcing us to stay on.
Independent Campaign Path00:02:27
And in which case, stay tuned on how we would like to present that opportunity.
But I think right now I feel really good about our coalition with Donald Trump.
I think my role is to not necessarily endorse Donald Trump, but to endorse the partnership, to endorse this commitment to putting childhood health on center stage.
So I'll be out there campaigning as an independent who has not yet endorsed Donald Trump, but as somebody who cares very deeply about this country, who wants to be available for conversation with Democrats and Republicans and independents, like you, I want to be a source where people can go to just have a perspective.
If you want to see my perspective, I'd like to make that available.
And I think there's great value in that.
I'm not beholden to anybody.
I'm not beholden to a party.
I'm not beholden to Donald Trump.
I'm not beholden to Bobby, right?
But I choose to do these things after great consideration.
And I would love to make myself available to people who want to know why.
And so if I can remain center or even left of center and be a voice of reason for people who just instinctively know something is very wrong over there, I will feel very good about that contribution.
All right.
Well said.
And is there anywhere if people wanted to learn more about you and Bobby or any, you know, like, is there a site or anything like that that you want to plug?
Yeah, sure.
I mean, we're very active on X. That's our number one source.
I have a podcast, Back to the People, where we talk about some of these big issues and help explain some of the inconsistencies going on.
I have now an ongoing series called Council of the Canceled, for which the next one will be in Dallas, Texas in a few weeks.
So stay tuned for that.
And thanks for having me, Dave.
Absolutely.
Nicole Shanahan, thank you so much.
I really enjoyed both of our conversations and hopefully we do it again real soon.