Donald Trump Jr. critiques ABC's The View for hypocrisy regarding Joy Behar's past and Whoopi Goldberg's Roman Polanski support, labeling the show a Democratic marketing arm. He defends his father against racism charges, dismisses the whistleblower leak as media fabrication, and highlights low unemployment rates obscured by liberal narratives. Discussing tech censorship after his Instagram removal over Jussie Smollett comments, he urges Congress to regulate monopolies. Ultimately, Trump Jr. prioritizes his father's 2020 reelection while refusing to rule out a future run, framing the conflict as an elite struggle for power. [Automatically generated summary]
If they censor you, we can blow it up and make it go everywhere and then other people will watch, but it's a shame that we even have to have that conversation, right?
We're gonna get to that, and that actually has a lot to do with what you write about in the book here, about all the tech censorship and all that stuff.
But before we do any of that, I don't know if you remember, but a couple days you were on The View, that new program on ABC.
Yeah, but it does set a certain tone, and that's been consistent.
I mean, Rand Paul was on there a couple weeks ago, and the way they were treating him.
But then a few things happened in a row that I thought were pretty interesting.
So you started getting hit, and you apparently had done a little research, because you turned the question around and said to Joy, you know, Joy, you've been in blackface.
And now Joy has been in blackface.
She has admitted it on The View.
She immediately said she hasn't.
Whoopi then said, well, I'm a black woman, and I know what blackface is.
I mean, in the last couple of days, just doing these book signings, like, even these guys, you know, will come to the book signing, they'll be like, I love what you did on The View.
I'm like, what were you doing watching The View?
They're like, oh!
It was sort of funny turning around.
But, you know, I think what it is, honestly, Dave, so many people are used to going on those shows.
They have big viewerships.
They have big following.
They want to get invited back.
You know, they're there to pitch something.
And as was I. I mean, I didn't just go on there for fun.
Right.
You know, they're there to pitch something.
So they're so desperate about wanting to be invited back that even though it was their 5,000th episode, I don't think anyone's ever pushed back on them.
But it was like, they went at me so hard, I figured, you know, hey, if I'm on for three segments, Hey, we'll talk a little bit, and then they'll get rough.
But the opening salvo is just aggressive.
Even the conservatives sort of come at you.
So I was like, OK, game on.
I can play.
So I didn't prep, but I went on Google.
I was like, stupidest things ever said on The View.
This was not a well-researched counterattack measure.
It was good to have something in my back pocket that shows a lot of that hypocrisy.
Most people won't even go because most people are afraid of the confrontation on a live screen and stuff like that.
They're concerned.
The difference between me and so many people, I don't care.
you know what the media says i mean some of the guys that i you know i spent a
lot of time with now in politics and stuff i mean they've literally had
reporters call back like what is it with donji he just doesn't seem to mind when
we attack i'm like i don't like it means absolutely nothing where do you think
that do you think that's directly from your dad i i guess it's just listen i've been used to it uh
I think there's a genetic component.
You know, I sort of joke in the book, I say, you know, it took us probably 41 years to realize that we were much more like each other than you would have thought.
You know, with my hobbies, the outdoors, the this, like my, you know, sleeping on couches in the Midwest.
Like, that's not his thing.
He doesn't understand that.
And so I think if anyone would have asked us prior to sort of The viciousness of politics.
They would have been like, you know, Don's the one that probably least likely, and it was like, now it was like, oh, well, they kind of fight the same way.
You back us in a corner, you attack us for three years mercilessly.
We fight.
And I guess that's the difference.
It just doesn't bother me that much.
So I don't really care what other people think of me.
It's never been something that's phased me that much.
And so I'll get my part out.
And whatever they say, they say.
I don't freak out if I get a bad press.
I get bad press every day.
Anything I do and say can be used against me.
I mean, this is relevant because it's literally today Veterans Day.
In the book, I wrote, There's a chapter about sort of the victory.
And I say, you know, after two years of sort of that just fighting during the campaign, you know, when we won on election night, like, I was not at all, like, excited about it.
It wasn't like, you know, we won a hockey game, and it's like, yes, you know, two hours of... Yeah, you're more like, oh, shit.
It was so vicious.
So the ups and downs, the ebbs and flows, they're so intense, it wears you down, it beats you down.
So when we won, and they're like, we got it!
I'm pacing around like a caged animal, be like, no, no, no.
They're going to do something.
Take what Hillary said Trump supporters were going to do.
They're going to do exactly that.
It turned out I was right, right?
Meaning, they were going to protest in the streets.
That's what she's saying Trump supporters are going to do.
So when John Podesta got on stage and was like, well, I was like, I was happier about that, even though it meant we were still fighting and it wasn't over, than I was that we had won, which is a pretty warped reality.
I probably said something to the effect of, you know what, happy people are productive people.
It doesn't bother me at all.
By the way, I'm the same way, frankly, with the trans thing.
I spent a chapter on that.
But where I draw the line is when it's like, okay, well now, Dave, you can be a woman now and go compete against women.
You have that MMA fighter, something, Fox.
It was a man MMA fighter, a male.
Okay, transition to female, gets in the first fight as a female, breaks the orbital socket of a female opponent's skull.
I'm like, I mean, you're a great champion.
Come on, man, stop it.
They're breaking every woman's world weightlifting record, every bike, so I finally sort of been like, man, I can be as live and let live as you want, but there's a line that we gotta draw, and I sort of feel like today, if you're woke, Here?
By tomorrow, you're alt-right.
It's a never-ending goalpost.
I can't keep up.
I want to see the other side.
I want to hear the opinion, at least, and make up my own mind.
But now it's like, OK, I can buy into this.
It's like, well, now that you bought into this, it's all over!
I mean, they did it.
The example I use in the book is I talk about You know, Martina Navratilova, great LGBT activist for 40 years, like before it was cool, right?
She came out, one of the great female athletes of all time.
We knew her growing up.
You know, she had a similar story to my mother escaping Czechoslovakia and all that stuff.
And I was like, she said basically what I was saying.
And the left destroyed her.
So she could have, the LGBT crowd that she was an activist for, that she was one of the original leaders of, Yeah.
Like, destroys her as though 40 years of being the greatest supporter in the world for them meant nothing.
So, you know, she has to walk it back.
She's owned.
She's disgraced.
You know, three weeks later, she has to obviously come out against Trump for, like, something just because that's the penance you pay to get back into, like, the woke zone.
Yeah.
And I was like, that's weird.
Like, she never had anything to say about it before.
She grew up with us, obviously, you know.
That's how insane it's gotten.
And so, again, you know, everyone's like, oh, you're so... I'm like, I'm pretty live and let live, man.
But, like, we have to be able to delineate.
And I say it on Twitter and stuff.
And what's funny is, if I put up anything on Twitter, the hate, like, flows... I mean, honestly, before anyone could even read the tweet and respond, like, 40 tweets, like, ya-rah!
One day, I'm going to have to do a podcast and ask you, because as a gay man, what are your thoughts as it relates to, again, outspoken, activist, homosexual people getting owned by the
trans movement and like it's not enough after the years that you guys
fought to get the equality that you have. That people probably pretend doesn't exist.
They were going to whatever bathroom they wanted to, and it was fine.
And your dad even said, what was it, like two years ago, your dad said the thing about if a trans person comes into Trump Tower, they'll use whatever bathroom.
He's a humble public servant who's just trying to do what's right for the guy.
No, he's a CIA guy who was Biden's guest.
at a state dinner, who was good friends with Brennan, apparently, who was in the photograph,
as you mentioned, you know, the day my father is president-elect and going to the White
House, crying like a little child, you know, in that group picture where everyone's so
morose and they're all, you know, wearing black and, you know, there in mourning, because
it's the end of their world, as we know it, with Susan Rice or whoever else was in the
picture.
Like, they're like, yeah, that guy.
He's going to be super objective.
He's just a humble—you know, this didn't start—his lawyer doing tweets, you know, in January of 2017, right after the inauguration, the coup has started!
Impeachment is next!
You know, right along with the stuff that looks awfully like really weird child stuff.
You know, when he's an innocent public servant, He's beyond reproach.
He's just a nice guy.
When he's a CIA guy with ties to Biden, when he's in the photo crying, you see that this is not an objective, unbiased person.
This is the swamp at its finest.
This is a deep state guy that wants to help out his people, and they will do whatever they can to attack Trump because Trump is going in and breaking up their cabal, their system that they've built up for so long, that they know and love, that has made all their friends really rich.
So, like, something like this, where it's so everything that you just said is correct.
The picture is there, like, obviously all the connections, and no one wants anything bad to happen to this guy, but the reason they don't... No, but they pretend, hey, listen, I wish they would have shown the same...
I wish I would have seen 1%, just 1%, I don't need it all, of the same amount of outrage when my wife opened up an exploding white powder envelope of people that was a Warren volunteer.
None of that stuff comes out.
That's at my house.
My kids.
That doesn't deserve outrage, but this guy that's working in the deep state, he's a CIA guy, he needs our protections.
Like, give me a break.
Like, come on.
I'm not advocating for violence of anyone, but at least, at least balance this thing out in terms of that.
And so it's sort of, you know, that outrage cycle just shows exactly what we're up against.
And listen, no one knew how to play the media better than him, you know, when he was in his career.
And, you know, I talk about it in the book, you know, when we went down to launch the campaign and it was, I guess, you know, June 16th, 2015.
I mean, the last thing he said to us before he walked over to go to the elevator and we went down to go watch was, just look, now we find out who our real friends are.
And so he knows.
He understands the real world.
He understands how it works.
He understands how full of crap most people really are.
You know what I mean?
Everyone's looking for an angle.
And honestly, politics is no different.
If anything, it's probably worse in that effect, meaning you're great and you're useful until you're not.
And the thing that is missing so much is loyalty.
And you see it.
And so he's always known, and we've always known, that the media has been left leaning It's just now that they've given up the pretense of even objectivity.
I mean, you know, you see that.
The Washington Post, you know, the day after the inauguration, sorry, 19 minutes after the inauguration, 19 minutes, wrote the first article, The Case for Impeachment.
I mean, 19 minutes?
That's about the amount of time that Obama took to get nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, right?
That was 11 days, I believe.
But like, that's the difference, right?
So when people ask, what about the impeachment that started last week?
I go, it didn't start last week.
It started on November 9th, 2016.
Okay, the day they knew he had won.
That's when this thing started.
And again, if you weren't a believer in the deep state prior to his election, I get it.
You know, essentially manipulating the people's choice.
I mean, you know, Donald Trump was elected by the people of the country.
This is the unelected, uh, you know, self-appointed, uh, you know, leaders of this country.
You know, if they disagree with the president who was elected to do, you know, the things that he campaigned on, well, we're just going to do that because we know better.
Uh, and it, it's that class, it's that elite.
And honestly, you know, that's always existed, but I think You know, now that class has not only just existed, but they've become nefarious.
They are doing whatever they can to not only just do their little thing, but subvert the actual will of the people.
I mean, I think the reality is if you look at sort of some of the major examples of his presidency, I mean, you know, take Kavanaugh, right?
How long do you think, like, let's say, like a Jeb Bush character, you know, under fire, you know, unfounded, ridiculous allegations about gang rape magically appear, you know, You know, how long do you think Jeb would have lasted when the media took the soundbites that they wanted and were like, this definitely happened, 100%, like we're never gonna question it.
And so, you know, Donald Trump just isn't gonna You know, buy into the nonsense.
He isn't just going to cave to that kind of pressure.
And that's exactly what we need today, because we need to really reset, you know, this whole thing.
And so he is the perfect vessel for this.
And so that's why when people are like, well, you know, it's pretty aggressive, I'm like, you've been under attack for three years.
I mean, I see a lot of moderate, you know, Democrats be like, you know, honestly, like, I'm a Democrat, but like, I wish they just let him do his job.
I mean, he's accomplished things.
That prior president, you know, Obama, you know, had he gotten the job numbers where they are, had he done the things for the African-American community, like prison reform, opportunity zones, they would have knighted him, you know, emperor for life.
And I see that because I see it from the characters.
I mean, you know, Whoopi Goldberg.
We used that example.
She can't say his name.
Well, it didn't stop her from showing up at one of the finales of The Apprentice and hanging out with us at an afterparty five, six years ago, whenever that was.
She was there.
She didn't have a problem with us then.
That was another thing I could have brought up.
There's just so many examples of this.
It didn't stop Al Sharpton from saying all these complimentary things.
Reverend Jesse Jackson for saying, hey, he gave us space on a Wall Street building when we weren't anything.
I have pictures with half of the resistance at dinner.
He knew what he had done so much, and you know, that's the reality.
I mean, you know, when Al Sharpton needed a place to stay in New York, it was one of the stories in the book, like, he literally called me to set him up with a broker to help get him a place.
There wasn't this hatred.
So he'll joke, oh, we're frenemies.
It's all an act.
They got to play their role.
I get it.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
It's all sort of an act.
I mean, we see each other at a cigar club that I go to occasionally, and we'll sit there and joke around.
I know he's not on my side politically, but that we are somehow have been oppressing them for decades.
It's nonsense.
Uh, we had good relations.
He'd been up in my father's office dozens of times throughout his career.
Is part of that that if you were to look at your resume, like your lifestyle, you're the son of a billionaire, you grew up in New York, you're sort of supposed to be a Democrat in a certain way.
I mean, I always say, like, I'm an unlikely Republican, right?
I grew up in New York City.
I have a billionaire father.
I went to an Ivy League school, all these things.
And, you know, the big part I talk about that is sort of the lessons I've seen throughout life.
I mean, you know, I learned about sort of that socialist movement, especially as I see the Democrat Party going really towards, you know, welcoming, you know, sort of socialism, communist ideals.
It's no longer a fringe element of the party.
It's literally like, hey, the leading people are like, hey, we're vacationing in the Soviet Union.
Well, I mean, that was one of the big reasons to write the book, which is like, you know, I hate watching these people that talk about these great ideals of, you know, socialism.
I'm like, who have never actually lived under it.
And again, I got to caveat everything.
I'm the son of a rich guy from New York.
I get it.
But my mother escaped communist Czechoslovakia.
You know, I had a grandfather, a grandmother, you know, that lived under all of that nonsense.
And I had the good fortune of them recognizing the blessings that we have here in this country.
And so they, from a young age, I spoke Czech fluently, and my grandfather would be like, hey, he's got to see the other side.
You have it really good here.
Just to never take anything for granted.
Just to never have that.
So he would take me over there, starting at like the age of five, for four to six weeks every summer.
I had friends over there.
I've waited in those bread lines, Dave.
I can assure you, there's nothing less glamorous than an empty supermarket.
This wasn't like a helicopter generation.
I may have been five or six.
You're going to the corner store and waiting for bread.
I've done that.
I saw as a kid, I'd be like, why is my grandmother not in my parents' wedding picture?
It was like, my grandfather?
Well, they let him out of the country to walk his daughter down the aisle, but they wouldn't let the wife for fear that they would defect.
Like, what kind of system doesn't let people leave because they know they ain't coming back?
You know, so I've experienced these things and, you know, to see them pushed as mainstream thought now, it's really scary.
Like, I remember that my first memory of fear that I talk about in the book was going over there the first time I was wearing, like, it was pretty cool because it was the 80s.
I was wearing a blue jean jacket with the stars and stripes on it.
My two-and-a-half-year-old asked me about the, Dangers of nuclear proliferation on the Korean peninsula and its effect on macroeconomic... No, I was five.
This wasn't exactly the Medal of Honor, but the fact that they're fact checking it shows you the derangement, the filter.
You know, by which other people are seeing their news.
But I get that call from my grandmother because, you know, she's got CNN over there.
They don't have a conservative outlet or even a moderate outlet.
And, I mean, she's in tears.
You can't let that happen there.
It always sounds so good on paper.
It's always so great.
Everything's free.
Everything's wonderful.
It's not done.
I was like, no, no, no.
I remember.
I've been there.
But this is a woman who's been through a lot, who's calling me in tears for fear of her grandchildren, her great-grandchildren, and the life that she knows they could live in this country.
You know, that her daughter got to live that American dream.
She's worried about that, just going, by the wayside.
And I'm like, no, no, no, I get it.
I'm pushing back, I promise you.
You know, that it can take a woman like that who's been through it all, who's seen it, who's lived it, and drive her to tears, goes to show you, and I say, listen, you've watched the debates.
I mean, you can find a Democrat that will say anything.
I mean, there's some really loony shit there, you know, that they'll run with.
If they want to do it, it seems totally reasonable.
Elizabeth Warren thinks a $52 trillion bill, which is 90% of U.S.
government, is like a wonderful plan while eliminating private insurance.
AOC thinks that $93 trillion for the Green New Deal to prevent cows from farting and eliminate air travel, that that's going to magically pay for itself.
And it's also going to fund people who are just not willing to work, even if they're able to work, and that they don't find a problem with that distinction.
But what struck me about it isn't just that the things he was talking about then are the things that are still relevant now, but there's clearly a change in his demeanor now, right?
He's much more gruff now.
He's more, and what, do you think that's just 33 years of trying to get through the system and now, and that he kind of like, cause he's, he comes off as very soft, actually.
Do you think there's any risk in having a more business sense to the government, or do you think that that's like- I think there's, hey, just look at the proof.
I think there was incredible risk in not having any of it for the last 50 years.
Look at what it's gotten us.
You know, so now you see it every day.
My father will talk about these things like, well, they're building the new Air Force One.
So he calls Boeing and be like, how are you building a plane, you know, two planes for this much?
Take a billion dollars off.
OK.
He's like, what?
He's like, wait, what?
Like, well, why didn't you?
Well, no one had ever asked us before.
Yeah, we can do that.
You know, we want to we want to keep good.
Like no one had even thought about trying to save money.
You know, he talks about it with some other things that he's done with the aircraft carriers and the systems.
It's like, well, we upgraded the system.
It's not really better.
It costs a lot more.
It's harder to maintain.
And if something goes wrong when we're in the middle of the South China Sea, we got to bring in 15 engineers from MIT to try to fix the catapult.
You know, so no one's even thought to ask these questions.
For him, it was a five-minute phone call to save a billion dollars.
Like, that alone is more than pretty much all of these politicians have done in their entire careers, because no one's even bothered to ask the question.
It keeps going up because everyone wants more power.
More power is in having more money.
More power is in having a higher budget.
And so you fix things that don't need fixing.
You create problems that don't exist.
to justify an existence that is asinine.
It's why government keeps growing at the level that it is, and it's centralized around D.C., usually far away from the things that they're supposed to be managing and running with people that have no idea what's actually going on.
So, you know, I think Trump is the result of Americans being fed up and actually seeing that.
I mean, you know, Americans, despite the media's portrayal of them, they get it.
You know, they're so much more onto this system than anyone, and it's why you have Trump.
You know, they're sick of just being looked over, forgotten.
I mean, America's number one export, as far as I'm concerned, for the last 50 years has been the American dream.
We have sent that dream to countries that hate our guts, they hate our values, they hate our freedoms, they hate everything about us.
That's been our big export.
Because of stupid practices by guys that have no idea what they're doing, up against people that are literally experts in their fields, that have got PhDs in this stuff, and they're laughing their ass off for years, that America's just giving it up.
We're giving up 200 years of hegemony that we've had to appease people that hate our guts.
And Trump's the counter response to that.
It's why you see China straight up, oh yeah, we really want to negotiate against Trump.
Guys, maybe they're just saying that because they know you'll bite hook, line, and sinker.
Because, in all fairness, who else has even questioned the nonsense that they've been doing?
Like, they hate Trump because Trump's finally pushed back after decades of them sucking us dry, sucking our jobs out, sucking our money, destroying our middle class.
Is that the crazy part, that we're so trained not to think about how the system actually works over time, that then when someone comes in and says things, so like NATO for example, when your dad was like, well some of these countries are gonna have to pay their fair share, like... Oh my god, he's destroying NATO?
I'd love to get on the board of Boeing later on, so we're not going to question them.
We're not going to ask them to do better.
Maybe they'll give me a really lucrative position when I'm out of government.
You know, I watched last year the outrage that the media had.
You know, Germany's really upset that Trump is telling them they gotta pay or we're not gonna defend them.
I mean, they are literally upset that Trump is saying, pay up your fair share.
They're meanwhile complaining that we're not gonna defend them against Russians while they're giving them billions of dollars a year coming for Russian oil.
So you want us to defend you against Russia while you're giving them more money than God?
You know, in a pipeline, you know, natural gas deal.
Yeah, you could be taking that from us, too, guys.
Like, the hypocrisy of the thing is all... And I see Jeremy outraged about... It's nonsense.
I've gotten a big part where I said it on Hannity a couple times, and I didn't give the three-minute disclaimer the second time I was on there.
They're like, oh, he doesn't get that he's also benefited.
I go, no, no.
I've benefited from my father's last name.
I share his name.
I get that.
I'm not pretending that hasn't happened.
100%?
Well, but Dave, the difference between me and Hunter Biden is I did that through the business that he built up as a capitalist.
You know, if he wanted to give me a billion dollars, I could put it on a pile of floor, light it on fire and that's our prerogative.
I mean, that's sort of, you know, the difference is I didn't do it through my daddy's taxpayer funded office.
Right?
You know, magically become an international businessman.
When we won, before he even took the presidency, we said, we are not going to do new foreign deals.
And we had deals that, you know, buildings were building and then we can't just pull out.
We have a contractual obligation.
We said, we will not.
That was a big part of my business.
That's why I'm so involved in politics, because that's what I did.
I got, I have a lot more free time now.
So it's like, Hey, I'll get involved in this and fight for what I believe in.
That's why I wrote a book.
But the false equivalency of being like, well, how are you different than Hunter Biden?
How am I different?
I was an international businessman for the last 15 years.
We stopped doing those deals just so they could have no, you know, impropriety story.
Hunter Biden magically becomes an international businessman, you know, gets on a board of an energy company, he knows nothing about energy, had no track record, and is making $83,000 a month in the Ukraine where his father's in charge.
No, no, that's off limits.
I wasn't off-limits for two and a half years.
Kids are off-limits.
Barron Trump's not off-limits.
They hit him.
Tiffany Trump, who's in law school, did nothing.
Just a nice kid going to school.
She's not off-limits.
I wasn't off-limits when they spent two and a half years trying to throw me in jail for treason for taking a 20-minute unsolicited meeting.
Hunter Biden's off-limits for a shady board seat in a corrupt company.
He's off-limits when he takes $1.5 billion From the Chinese government.
Not like a Chinese investor.
From the Chinese government?
After traveling there on Air Force Two with his father?
Nothing to do with daddy controlling the purse strings.
No, no, no, that's off-limits.
I haven't talked much about it because, honestly, it's not even worth it, but, like, you get frustrated enough because they have to attack my personal life, everything about it, and go, you know, what would happen if Donald Trump Jr.
got thrown out of the Navy Reserve in two weeks, you know, for doing a little of the yayo?
You know, turning in a rental car with a crack pipe and all of these things, like, and the media would have a field day.
So much so, I almost should go do it because if, when they catch it, the aneurism that they would have, no, no, no, it would be good for us because it would solve the fake news media problem.
Their heads would explode with outrage that there'd be none left and we could get back to a reasonable discourse.
So they try to do this false equivalency of what's the difference?
I go, that's the difference.
Like, Hunter Biden made millions of dollars through his father's taxpayer-funded office, has all this other shade in the past, and he's totally off-limits, but you had no problem with half of Congress saying that I, you know, literally committed treason, a crime punishable by death, for taking a 20-minute unsolicited meeting, but Hillary Clinton can go out, pay foreign agents to go collect dirt.
Take that dirt through the DNC, leak it to the FBI.
The FBI then leaks it back to the press.
The press writes their outrage story, which the FBI then uses as the basis of an investigation of individuals on a campaign for the President of the United States, which started the whole Mueller hoax.
I mean, where's the outrage?
unidentified
By the way, not even the outrage, where's the story?
You have a couple guys, Sarah Carter, Sean Hannity, Greg Jarrett, a couple guys pointing
out, but like, where's like, you'd think that this would be big news.
I mean, if you're a journalist, like this is kind of a big deal.
I mean, this is a legitimate coup.
And they're just like, "No, wait, we have nothing to see here.
There's nothing going on here, guys.
We're just going to pretend this never happened."
Because it goes against what they would like to happen.
It goes against the DNC talkers.
It goes against that media narrative.
And since they've made that cognizant decision to be the marketing wing of the DNC, we should actually look into them, you know, for campaign finance violations, because they're just literally contributing millions and billions of free marketing to the DNC covering for their bullshit.
So who in the course of all of this, I hear you on all this, who in the course of all this do you, and I guess by extension your dad, actually take counsel from?
So I remember during the Michael Cohen testimony, it was one of the first moments when I was like, this Russia thing is complete nonsense.
But the reason wasn't because of anything he said, it was because you were live tweeting it.
And I was like, If this guy is guilty, meaning you, if you were guilty of anything, more lawyers or everyone you know would be locking you up and putting you in a room and taking your phone.
My lawyers, it was funny, like, my lawyers, numerous, like, it's like, you can't do that.
Like, anything you say, I was like, I don't care.
I'm right, like, I don't care.
This is bullshit, and I'm gonna say it.
Like, so, I mean, I literally had that conversation.
That sat down with my lawyers, numerous of them, like, you're in, I go, You guys are making one critical mistake.
If I sit down, if I just sit in the corner and curl up in a ball and die, or, you know, cry, sucking my thumb in the fetal position, that's what they want?
Like, you think they're gonna go any lighter on me?
They're not!
Adam Schiff was on TV every day saying I committed treason.
He's seen evidence!
To the entire country.
He's seen evidence of treason and collusion and all.
I still haven't seen it.
You know, I mean, you think if he's seen it, no one else has.
Like, you think, hey, maybe it's time to drop it by now.
Like, it wasn't in the Mueller report.
But, so I'm saying, I'm just not gonna do it, man.
Every time we took a bathroom break, CNN is breaking this stuff.
I mean, three of their big bombshells had to do with me.
Now, they were all wrong.
They were all false.
You know, one of them was the WikiLeaks.
Like, some random dude, like, literally DM'd me or sent me an email.
Like, have you seen this?
You know, it was like, whatever.
Like, let's call it June 14th, right?
Now, they leaked the stuff to CNN, and I'm looking at the dates.
They're like, do you have comments on that?
It was June 4th.
I was like, holy shit.
Like, they deleted the 1 in 14, right?
So the 14, you delete the 1, it becomes 4.
So the thing broke on, like, June 10th or whatever it was, right?
So it looks like I had this information from some random, it's a Trump donor, he donated like 25 bucks and somehow like spammed our email, so like, actually like hit my email, so it got there.
I didn't respond, I didn't, but it looked like that based on the leaked email, like I had it six days before rather than four days after the rest of the freaking world, no different than sort of, you know, me outing the whistleblower after it's been out there in the public for four days.
I'm just like, oh my God, no, bombshell, Donald Trump Jr.
Do you ever fear that that, or does your dad ever fear that that game, so I agree with you on the premise of that, like we had to break this thing so that we can start resetting the system in a sensible way, but the game of sort of constant destruction one way or another, that's dangerous.
By the way, I'd love I'd love to break that game, but they're not going to do it.
You know, I mean, they have to work with us a little bit on that.
I mean, the perfect example, I mean, the USMCA, the renegotiation of NAFTA.
Everyone said it couldn't be done.
It was the worst trade deal in the history of trade deals.
I think everyone will admit that.
My father, against all odds, renegotiated with Mexico and Canada this great trade deal that would bring over 100,000 jobs back to this country.
You know, manufacturing jobs where we need it.
It's been sitting on Nancy's desk for nine months.
This will pass with flying colors.
She won't even bring it to the vote.
Because although it would be good for Americans, it would give Trump another win.
He's already got the economic wins.
But it would give him another win, and we can't do that.
You could do this bill in 30 seconds.
Because there's probably not a Democrat that would vote against this thing.
It would pass with flying colors, but by giving Trump a win, it would be better for them to keep more jobs out of the country to do that so they can resist.
You need a little bit, but how about working, how about working on an infrastructure plan that would do the same and it's well needed?
You know, how about all those that, how come there was no outrage that Trump, you know, was the guy that got prison reform done?
Like where was Obama?
You know, I mean, they have no problem letting Joe Biden running around like his primary campaign thing is like, government has failed you.
I'm like, like, no shit, Joe.
Like, you know, I'm with you on this one.
But like, if I've been in the Senate for 30 years and in big government for 50 legit, not like hyperbole for actually 50 years, dude, maybe you're part of the problem.
Like, and that is, The game that is being played right now.
It's a shame.
Again, Trump is probably the only guy that can do that, but you need a little bit of give from the other side.
Hey, I think if anyone knows him, he's actually a pragmatist.
He'll work.
I mean, hey, prison reform ain't exactly a conservative talking point, right?
You know what it is, Dave?
It was the right thing to do.
It's not going to win him voters in his base.
He probably won't even get much credit from the people who are going to benefit much from it, because, I mean, the communities where they live, their general sentiment is to Democrat.
But it was the right thing to do, so he did it anyway.
I'd love to see some of that sentiment from the other side.
That doesn't exist there.
Certainly not today, and certainly not with Trump.
I haven't been following, I've been running around on the book.
But he's doing, I mean he's bringing You know, people to the White House, he's given them a platform.
He did things that were unprecedented, you know, for a lot of the minority communities.
I mean, you have all-time low, all-time low African-American unemployment, all-time low Hispanic unemployment, like all-time low female, all-time high business startups, African-American community, Hispanic community, female.
Again, if Obama did this, everyone would be like, give him the credit!
The problem is, I do think that people get it.
I do think that people see it.
But man, they are like even so many of the Trumpers.
They're like, well, we get it, we see it, but we can't say anything about it because we'll get destroyed.
I mean, getting the information down to the people is hard.
The DNC controls the churches.
They control the community leaders.
They control all of this thing.
You know, they've had a stranglehold on that.
So even if it's happening, getting the information down to the voter is hard because it's going through so many levels of nonsense.
And, you know, this didn't happen.
And you get so much outrage where they're still pushing that.
But I do think, you know, that American, you know, the American The voter, the regular guy, I give him so much more credit.
Whether that's a Trump supporter, whether it's the minority community, I give him so much more credit.
I mean, we saw it on, the example I love to use is, you know, back in June, we launched the 2020 campaign in Orlando in Florida.
And I remember, it was awesome, like 47,000 people or something showed up for an arena that holds 25.
They stood out in the rain for two days, thunderstorms.
I go, how many people are going to still be here after this thunderstorm?
I was a little worried.
Not one person left, Dave.
It was awesome.
I got to introduce the VP, who introduced the president.
Like, it was this big light.
It was right after the Mueller hoax was exposed, and it was like, you know, Robert Mueller testimony.
It was like, Mr. Mueller, I'm tweeting like, have you actually read the Mueller report?
Like, no clue what's going on.
I mean, they just used him because he was above reproach.
He was a former decorated Marine, and he was the leader of the FBI, so Trump can't attack him.
You spent $40 million in three years and you have no idea what it is?
You realize he was just a pawn, right?
You magically selected 19 leftist donors to be the objective arbiters of this thing?
Come on.
But we're there.
And it was this incredible rally.
It was so warm.
It was just insane.
It was awesome.
And I get back out, and 20 minutes later, I'm watching TV.
Did you see those people?
They're out there in their flip-flops.
That must be their formal attire.
It was disgusting, man.
And you saw the level of disdain.
The level of hatred that, you know, the liberal elite and the media, which, you know, largely one in the same for the most part, has for, like, just hardworking people who, you know, they think it's racist for those people, you know, to want to live their American dream.
They are terrible people, Dave, for wanting their tax dollars to be spent on them, maybe their children, again, rather than, you know, some country that hates your freedom, values your religion, every aspect about you, like, What civilization would never take care of their people first?
I'm all for helping the world.
Frankly, no country does more from a charity perspective than the United States of America.
But like...
Maybe we take care of our own problems.
You're not one of the ists, you know, misogynistic dude, terrorist, a racist, whatever it is, for maybe saying, why don't we take care of our veterans before some guy that can't stand us?
Why don't we take care of our education system when we're number 28 in the world behind a long list of third world countries that are crushing us and we're spending 10x per capita?
Why don't we fix those problems first with our tech?
You're not a bad person for wanting that.
And when I saw that disdain, it's just like, that's some of the stuff that triggers me.
I too am not above being triggered, even if I wrote the book about it.
It's that nonsense that you're just like, how do you get through that filter?
It's kind of funny.
If 93% of the media about Trump is negative despite unprecedented success, There's literally not an economic metric where we are not better off today than we were under Obama, but you don't hear about it.
The Democrat debate, how do we take Trump's Twitter away?
Why don't we address China?
They literally didn't talk about China.
Joe Biden says it's not a problem.
Now, I believe him because his son's on the payroll for a billion and five.
I get it, but the others don't believe it's a problem either?
So with all that in mind, and talking about the filter, because you're talking about the way the mainstream media operates, and then the filter, we're doing this on YouTube.
I know you've talked a lot about tech censorship.
Are we still on air?
I don't know if we're still on air.
I may have to say the guy's name at the end.
I've been debating it this whole time, because it seems like if we don't say it, in a way, I'm not gonna ask you to say it, but it sort of seems like if we don't, then it's doing the reverse of what you're saying there, right?
If that was my demeanor, I wouldn't, but there are times where you're like, No, I get it.
You're being respectful of me.
It's a Catch-22.
You don't even want to go there because you don't want to give that person the platform because you know what the media will do and manipulate it, you know?
So, you know, I use, I talk a lot about tech censorship in the book because, you know, I've been calling it out.
I mean, we've had this discussion three years ago, not even on air, just been like, what do you do about this?
You know, I use, the example I use in the book, although there's numerous, was, you know, I got taken down off of Instagram for a post I did that was hate speech.
When I was just like, I was one of the first sort of blue checkmark guys to be able to be like, Guys, I get that you're running with this Jussie Smollett thing, and if it happened, fry these guys.
There's no fucking place for that anywhere in this country.
Not even a little bit.
But within 30 seconds, it's on every mainstream talk show.
Oh my god, this obviously happened.
I go, guys, has anyone asked the question, Do you really think a really rich actor in Chicago on the coldest night of the year is going out at two in the morning to satisfy his craving for Subway?
I don't know.
It seems a bit odd.
Do you really think that two white supremacists walking around downtown Chicago again in MAGA hats with a bucket of bleach and a noose made of twine Like, you think they're really roaming the streets of downtown?
You think they'd live for more than 15 to 20 seconds without getting shot?
You really think they magically thought that this guy would be going out at that same time?
They just, I mean, they really had a premonition here.
I'm like...
Has anyone, like, asked this question of, like, it just sounds a little bit too obvious?
Like, you know, Jesse may be a good actor, but he ain't a good writer.
Well, by the way, do you really think that, like, these white supremacists were watching Empire?
I don't know, it doesn't seem like it really caters to that audience.
Like, you really know who this guy is?
So I asked the question.
I got taken down for hate speech and this and that and the other, and you too.
I put it right back.
I'd be like, what?
Am I not allowed to ask a question anymore?
And it was interesting, because I actually, I check my DMs.
Not the people I follow, but like, you know, I'll just scroll through and see what people are saying.
And the amount of people, Dave, that took time.
And I've done this a couple of times when I've called them out or been, you know, Deep platform where I see, I had 57 million impressions this week, zero new followers.
Kimberly, my girlfriend, like, she's like, I've had to follow you four times this week.
I'm like, was I that bad last night?
Did you unfollow me?
She got a little spicy.
Did you unfollow me because you're mad?
She's like, no, no.
But they're reaching out and saying, I've been locked out of my account for 24 hours for liking a post, which was your dad's post of him with his grandchildren.
You know, not even the political stuff.
And you see it, and it's like, one, after the, thousands and thousands.
I mean, these monopolies, again, What is the risk?
The problem is this.
The conservative side has always done the free market.
It's free market.
I go, no, it's not.
Because what they don't talk about is that those same platforms get so much protections from the government in terms of the hate speech.
They basically get an insurance policy from the government.
So once you're getting that policy, once you're getting those benefits from the government, you can no longer say, well, I'll listen to you, but no, not you.
And so they're doing it.
The reality is, I think until I started getting vocal and calling some of these guys, now there are guys doing it.
I mean, you know, Kevin McCarthy's calling it out in the House.
Josh Hawley's doing a good job calling it out in the Senate.
But the reality is, honestly, most conservatives didn't even realize that this is an issue.
And as I travel the country and talk to guys in the base, it's probably like a top three issue for them, because they're saying, Dude, if they can do it.
I mean, I used the example last week.
If they can do it to Donald Trump Jr.
with millions of followers.
If they can do it to the President of the United States.
I mean, you saw the example I used last week.
I was like, Donald Trump Jr.
searching my handle in Instagram.
Donald J. Trump Jr.
Pretty specific.
2 million followers and I share the name of the President.
Him and I did not show up in the first six pages of the scroll.
But is the fear that then you give the power to the government, and now, let's say your dad loses, and now, congratulations, you've handed the power to Elizabeth Warren, who would be more than happy to shut us all down.
Well, and that's the reality, and that's why so many think, I mean, that's why, you know, some of the gun control argument, like, you see, well, if someone believes red flag laws make sense, whether I agree with them or not, it's almost irrelevant.
You see within seconds, you know, Dave, Ben Shapiro put up the, you know, thing, well, if someone came to my door, I'd get, I mean, they had a sarcastic thing about, I'd bring a gun, you know, and Eric Swalwell at Congress.
This is why we need it, he shouldn't be able to have... I'm like, Jesus Christ, you take a pretty reasonable guy, not exactly an alt-right guy, even though he's been painted as a Nazi, even though he's, I guess, orthodox Jewish, like, you know.
You're going to say that that guy shouldn't be able to exercise his Second Amendment.
Like, you can't trust the left because you know immediately they will weaponize these things.
But there does need to be, you know, a dialogue.
There does need to be checks and balances because you see that censorship and you see, hey, Trump utilized social more effectively than any human being in history in 2016.
And you know what they're doing.
It's a dry run for 2020.
I'm not saying they're throwing him off the platform, but they're going to minimize his reach, they're going to minimize who gets to see it, who gets to follow.
Again, if I have people dozens a day saying, Don, I'm magically not following you, but I am following seven left-wing media sites that I didn't ever Try to follow that I've never even looked at.
They're just appearing in my feed, not as sponsored links, but you know, I'm looking, I'm saying, well, I never followed them, but now I am.
You can see it's a dry run to prevent them and for, to prevent him, to prevent the campaign, to prevent other conservatives, to be able to get their message to people who need it.
Donald Trump played monkey in the middle with the media.
He's like, I'm just going to write over your filter, you know, right over your heads and bring my message right to the people.
And they're like, how can we limit that?
We may not be able to limit it entirely, but how can we limit it?
There's one thing sort of talking to those people, but like, you know, talk is talk, action is action, and they're two very different things, so you sort of make it seem like there's action here, but you're not doing shit.
Like, I'll hold those guys to task even if they're theoretically on our side.
All right, I got one more for you because I know you've got a busy day today and we're already over.
But first off, I just want to quickly say, because I meant to say it at the beginning, that we did not discuss any of this beforehand, what we were going to do.
Your guys did not ask me, don't say this or talk about this or anything.
You literally walked in, you were like, let's roll.
You know, again, there are people I definitely don't want to give a platform to because, I know what the media will then do with that, so there's always a catch-22, but no, the reality is there's nothing off-limits.
Right now, the reality is this, my only focus for the next year
is getting my father reelected, my only.
I mean, again, unlike Hunter Biden, I'm walking away from a lot of our business.
We did that naturally, created an opening for me.
I see what's going on.
I'm the father of five young kids.
I see the results.
I want them to grow up in an America that we recognize.
Okay, a lot of people have done that, man.
I get that, like, Trump 2020, Trump 2024 too, man, in the book signings.
I mean, I heard that 2000 times yesterday, no exaggeration.
And honestly, there's no greater compliment from those people who believe that,
who like perhaps what I'm doing or saying.
The reality is this, I have no aspirations beyond 2020 right now.
That doesn't mean that doesn't change.
I'm certainly not gonna rule it out.
I do enjoy the game.
I do enjoy the game, but I like, I don't know that I'd like the day job right now.
I gotta know I want that aspect of it too.
Now, it is fascinating.
It is incredible to see these people.
And again, I'm probably much more comfortable, and you've seen that, in the Midwest, in the Rust Belt,
than I am in the New York City rubber chicken dinner charity
circuit BS.
I don't do it-- because I am a real hunter.
I am a competitive shooter.
But it sounds crazy, because again, I know where I'm from.
I know who I am.
I know I'm the-- yada, yada, yada, when they try to own me for that.
But the reality is I have so many of those--
That's where I choose to spend my time.
That's where my real friends are.
So I hear that a lot.
But my biggest thing is making sure you get four more years, because I think you can really change the course of this craziness.
And every day is yet another.
I mean, I could write literally the addendum to this book today in the amount of time that, since this went to print, the amount of bullshit that has happened.
I'm like, Jesus Christ, I could write like three books.
Whatever happens after that, you know, there's plenty of time for that conversation.
I would never rule it out.
But again, like I like The fight aspect of this game.
I don't know that I'd like the day job.
We'll see what happens.
But it has been an awesome ride.
It has been an awesome journey.
It was awesome to be able to put it in long form in the book, rather than just 280 characters or less, or the first half of that in 140 characters or less.
Because you could get your thought out.
However, that's manipulated in the press.
We'll leave it up to the readers to decide if I'm truly as terrible as everyone says I am.
But that never really mattered to me, as we've discussed.
One of the guys did that after my convention speech.
They're like, oh my god, Donald Trump Jr.
has got to run.
And I was like, yeah, I'm not going to rule it out.
They go, he's running.
I'm like, wait.
Because that's cancel culture.
I mean, if in 2016 I say, Yeah, I'm not going to do it.
And in 15 years, I changed my mind.
Oh, you're a liar!
I mean, you basically committed perjury.
I mean, you're obviously... You know, all this bullshit we've been hearing for the last couple... So I never want to rule it out because I know it can and will come back to be used against you in the court of public opinion.
So I'm never going to rule it out.
But that was also definitely not the affirmative.
You know, yes, it's obviously... It's in the works.