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July 16, 2024 - Stay Free - Russel Brand

01:25:24

LIVE AT RNC: Eric Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy, Marjorie Taylor Greene EXCLUSIVE! | TRUMP'S MAGA VP Pick - 408

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	So, so
	so so
	We all are going to see the future.
	We are going to see the future.
	Russell Brand, to be at the Republican National Convention just days after an assassination attempt on Donald Trump
	feels like being at the center of the world.
	Only in Milwaukee right now could you be taking a stroll down the street and run into JD Vance just moments after speaking to the
	editor-in-chief at the Atlanta Voice.
	Surely this is a moment of cataclysm, change, ascendancy and alteration across your great nation.
	I want to start by saying if you came here from the Bongino army, welcome.
	Thank you.
	Kick off your boots and your fatigues.
	Relax.
	Unwind.
	You'll find this an easier drill here.
	No assault courses and no martial work.
	Just genuine, gentle, languid, angley and relaxation.
	But still, as I said when I was with Dan just a moment ago, this is an opportunity for you.
	To disclose and be proud of your doubt and cynicism when it comes to establishment power.
	This is an opportunity for us to talk about what it means to be a patriot in 2024.
	What does it mean to look for unity and togetherness and genuine change at a time where we are seeing conspiracy theory abound?
	Not just in the alternative media spaces where we've become kind of accustomed to the rhetoric of conspiracy theory, here we have learned and have long time been cynical and suspicious of establishment mainstream narratives.
	We've long known that you can't trust institutions of power, whether that's the judiciary or the media, and increasingly every system of government has become less reliable, more and more an institution regarded as one of enmity rather than alliance.
	But guess what we're seeing now?
	If you go to another platform, and don't leave me for a second right now, you will see conspiracy theories being discussed on the left.
	People saying that, hmm, did Trump sack his entire security detail just a couple of weeks before?
	Spaces where if during the pandemic you'd said, I'm not sure about this vaccine, you would have been ultimately incarcerated, particularly if you were in Australia or Canada or New Zealand.
	Suddenly now, they are open to alternative narratives.
	You know me, or unless you're from the Bongino army, you may not.
	You know me.
	What my belief is, this is surely the time for us to transcend these institutions.
	This is the time for us to move beyond bipartisan politics.
	This is an opportunity for a great awakening.
	I felt it myself in all places today.
	The streets of Milwaukee.
	As I walk down the street and I've met the newly anointed VP, presumably, because there ain't been an election just yet.
	Fingers crossed that there will be one.
	And I saw in J.D.
	Vance the many facets of the man.
	The obvious and evident truth that this is the anointing of a MAGA candidate.
	The United States and the Republican Party, full MAGA jacket now.
	No VP choice to appeal to the Republican old guard.
	No VP choice about calling in potential Democrat voters.
	But which J.D.
	Vance will it ultimately be?
	Will it be the man who's a self-built autodidact From out of the middle of nowhere, grown up in a shack to Harvard, become a lawyer?
	Or will it be the J.D.
	Vance that was initially suspicious and cynical about the MAGA movement and Trump?
	Or will it be some new incarnation of J.D.
	Vance that might possibly participate in a new blooming of a new United States of America?
	Because you know elsewhere, in the adjacent silos where people have different political perspectives, this is seen as a kind of calcifying of the MAGA movement, and many people are deeply afraid.
	The inhabitants and denizens of the legacy media burrows are terrified.
	Whether that's Joe Scarborough, whether that's Joy Reid, all those that have long participated in incendiary rhetoric of vilification are beginning to sense that change is coming.
	You'll be familiar by now with this press memo, right?
	Where the legacy media were instructed how to report on this story.
	Don't call it an assassination attempt.
	Don't say a shooting targeting Trump at the rally.
	Wasn't that an extraordinary moment?
	Well, now there is an attempt to reassert the narratives that preceded this event.
	And I've got to tell you, to be at the RNC in the midst of all of this, is fascinating indeed.
	I've not watched this yet because one of the people I've been curious about and appreciating and understanding the perspective of and one of the sort of strong voices should we say of the liberal establishment has been Joy Reid and I've just wondered How someone that has so strongly embraced the hysteria and demonization of Donald Trump will have adjusted to this moment.
	We'll be talking about all of that a little later, but first we're being joined by Vivek Ramaswamy.
	Let's talk about Vivek Ramaswamy, long fancied as a potential VP himself.
	One of the significant orators and instigators of the rise of this movement.
	There's a quick message now from one of our sponsors.
	When we come back, I will be with Vivek Ramaswamy, right here, right now, live, streaming on Rumble.
	If you're a member of the Bongino Army, thank you very much for joining us.
	If you're one of our regulars, thank you for being here.
	Consider becoming an Awakened Wonder.
	We've got some amazing stuff going on there.
	You're not going to believe our interview with Candice.
	Quick message from our sponsors, and then we'll be here with Vivek Ramaswamy.
	See you in a second.
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	Okay, back to the content.
	Vivek Ramaswamy, who will be speaking tonight.
	Is it 8.30 you're speaking tonight, Vivek?
	Yeah, right after 8.30.
	Eastern time.
	Can you tell me what exactly is you're addressing?
	If you're able to concentrate, because some of you won't know that we're in the very same space as Dan Bongino.
	I think it's fun.
	Yeah, you're happy over there?
	Because he's rallying and marshalling his army continually.
	But Vivek, I want to talk to you about, firstly, the general climate of this convention during a time of extraordinary, if not crisis, then transition for the party.
	Can you tell me what... I'm an outsider here.
	I'm not from your country.
	I'm not a part of this political movement, even though much of your campaign was built on anti-establishment rhetoric.
	by sense now that you are becoming a very much a sort of cherished figure of the inner
	circle of the Republican Party. How does that alter your perspective on the establishment?
	And do you think that the appointment of J.D. Vance means that this party is now full MAGA
	and that you no longer have the same concerns about what you previously called the Republican
	Party establishment and your concerns about its funding?
	Yes, look, I think that the Republican Party, even as of right now, is certainly not the
	Republican Party of 20 years ago.
	It even wasn't the same.
	It quite literally isn't the Republican Party of last year.
	There's different people who are running it.
	There's different people who are in charge.
	And I think Donald Trump's confirmation, as it more formally happened yesterday as the nominee with J.D.
	Vance as the VP, but also even if you just think about the character of what this party has become, I think is aligned with what I think our policy vision should be for the future.
	Do I agree with every single aspect of what every other Republican says?
	No, of course not.
	But part of what, you know, I've tried to bring to the culture of this party, and I think J.D.
	Vance is actually really good in this regard too, is to say that we don't have to agree on everything, but what we do need to have is the space to at least be honest with each other, to actually openly share.
	Here's our beliefs, whether it's a particular question around aid to Ukraine, whether it's a particular domestic policy question.
	I'll actually tell you what I think one of the most interesting rifts is going to be going forward.
	But we need a culture within the Republican Party that provides that space for vigorous debate.
	And that's a good example for the rest of the country, too, because that's something we miss in America, is we used to have a country where you could disagree like hell at the dinner table and still have dinner at the end of it.
	We've missed that for about 20 years.
	I think Americans are hungry for it, and the best way for the Republican Party to lead the way is to demonstrate that even within the party, we have room for that.
	I miss that good faith discourse that you describe, where it was possible to disagree with people, but recognize that ultimately we have a kind of shared conviviality, but we are ultimately unified.
	Yes, I like that word, conviviality, because it's not that it's like, okay, we disagree a little bit, but we still kind of agree.
	No, no, no.
	I mean disagree vehemently.
	Disagree like hell.
	But still actually form some of our greatest friendships around that.
	For me, actually, they are.
	Some of my best friends from a long time ago are people who did not have the same views as me.
	But that's actually what caused us to be more deep in our friendship.
	I wonder, Vivek, if part of the toxicity of our culture is the way that it divides and almost forbids people from different political positions to form alliances.
	I sense that there's a real fear about that.
	If I may pivot slightly, mate, I wonder how you feel about The emergence in online spaces now of conspiracy theories from both sides around the assassination attempt on Donald Trump.
	A lot of people questioning the nature of the security and suggesting that the conditions were created for the shooter to have an advantageous position.
	But then on the other side, on the left, people are... Honestly, I've seen it myself, suggesting that this is a sort of an in-house false flag event.
	And when it happened, I thought, I bet we'll see people on the establishment left Now saying, aha, this is a conspiracy theory.
	What is the difference between the kind of healthy debate that you're describing, where people can sort of talk together about creating a unified country at a time when it's needed, and this ongoing absolute suspicion of everything, where some people think, oh, this is another CIA assassination, where people think, oh, Trump has done this as part of a political maneuver, and how do we ever bring about unity when there is such disparity?
	Yeah, so a couple different tracks here.
	One is, do I believe that Whether or not I agree with what you say, whether or not what you have to say is ridiculous, whether or not what you have to say is offensive, do I believe that you in the United States of America should have the right to say it?
	Let's just start with those basic table stakes.
	I do.
	I think that the beauty of free speech, people ask, well, people ask, what about yelling fire in a crowded theater?
	What about threatening somebody?
	Here's the basic litmus test I use.
	Because constitutional law can get very complicated.
	But if you want to make it really simple, here's how I distill it down.
	Free speech in America means that any opinion Can be expressed.
	So you can't sell somebody something that's poison and label it as a medicine that's going to cure them.
	That's fraud.
	You can't come in and say that I am going to kill you and brandish a gun at you while you're doing it and expect that not to be a crime.
	That's not the expression of an opinion.
	But any opinion gets to be expressed no matter how heinous or no matter how off base it is.
	Now, that's just table stakes.
	Now the question is, just because you have the right to express an opinion does not mean that you are doing good by expressing that opinion.
	It's a kind of pollution, right?
	People worry about carbon emissions.
	I worry sometimes about verbal emissions, right?
	I don't think that we should forcibly stop people from expressing their opinion, but it does a disservice to our discourse when people are discharging their own impulse rather than actually engaging in a truth-seeking behavior.
	So that's where I draw the line, I draw a fork in the road.
	Because I think there are people who are authentically going to go outside the Overton window because they want to seek truth.
	And then there are people who are really just engaging in a kind of personal impulse, like a discharge, right?
	The discharge of oral diarrhea or the equivalent of a disgusting, you know, Disgusting bodily fluid-like ejection of words, right, is not helpful.
	I understand.
	That's a distinction I draw.
	A kind of involuntary ejaculation of almost psychic trauma, because to watch what's happening in the space online now, and I'm fascinated and grateful, in fact, that in addition to the great platform we're on now, Rumble, there is a platform like X, because I think a pre-Elon X would have certainly censored much of what I've seen on X since the assassination attempt.
	People saying he shouldn't have been able to get to that building.
	Why has this kid got no social media footprint?
	Who's that woman in the black hat in the background?
	Why were the Secret Service moving people immediately prior to the event?
	But what we're sort of seeing now and what I think is extraordinary in this environment of mistrust and this impulsive discharge where people are almost incapable of addressing what their own alliances, their own bigotry and own biases contribute to the conversation is An inability to really discern what is true here.
	And I wonder what you feel, particularly with your great preemptive and predictive ability.
	You were the first person that said that Biden won't even be the candidate and I know that you maintain that.
	What do you think, how do you feel this conversation around the assassination attempt will unfold?
	Will people say secret services have been remiss in this instance?
	Will people ultimately conclude that there is ulterior involvement?
	Or will people start to question whether or not there was involvement of the Trump campaign?
	How do you think those narratives will unfold, Vivek?
	I don't think that that type of, I would say, Speculation for the sake of speculation is super helpful.
	I think if I'm to go where I see in the convention here, like I'm just here on the ground, right?
	So give you kind of the pulse of where I think people are at outside of the online sphere.
	Because I think there is a bifurcation here.
	And I think as there isn't so much a modern life between what we see as internet dialogue behind
	avatars of people who are not really Expressing their own opinion with the with the attached
	accountability of who they are versus people in the real world
	What I'm what I'm seeing here in the 3d real world is slightly different for what people are taking away from
	the last three days is I'll say what I think needs to be done
	We need to get transparency of how this kind of Secret Service failure could have happened,
	how this type of security failure could have happened.
	There needs to be accountability.
	There needs to be transparency around that.
	This is a moment for transparency, not for hiding the ball, because Americans are so jaded from having been lied to.
	But there's a separate thing going on, which I think is actually, personally, at least
	right now, from where my head space is, I find more interesting, which is there is a
	hunger right now more than I have seen in 20 years for national unity in the United
	States of America.
	Like, people actually want it.
	Now, do they have permission to admit it?
	That's a separate question.
	And there are a lot of complicated forces that actually might stop someone from being
	able to admit it.
	The media is eager to sort of write a paper-thin version of this.
	I'm not talking about some fake national unity.
	I don't want some fake, artificial, astroturf version of this.
	But I'm talking about the deeper, real thing, where if that had been literally one centimeter
	on a path that was different in a different direction, a hair's breadth of a difference,
	that would have been a seismic change for the worst, not only in U.S.
	national history, but in world history.
	And so if you're rare in one of these rare occasions, given this chance, 9-11 was a chance that many people said, okay, the United States of America was united on the back of 9-11.
	Well, that was a tragedy.
	This was a near tragedy.
	And I don't want to take away from the importance of the one family who did die, but this was a near national tragedy for the U.S.
	history.
	And so I think this is one of those moments where I hope people feel a civic sense of responsibility to take a step back and say, I think I care about the United States of America, but why?
	And understand that.
	And I think that that's what I'm most interested in right now is watching a little bit of the evolution of a lot of people here, I think I'm feeling it on the ground here, who are hungry for that kind of national unity but are a little bit constrained in the context of an election to actually be able to step up and say it.
	Which I find fascinating because I think there's a lot of psychological forces that constrain people from being able to admit it.
	But I think they're hungry too.
	I think you're right about that desire for unity, but when I think about how much fracture and conflict there's been in the last 4, 8, 12, 16 years...
	It seems difficult to imagine that that kind of unity can be achieved without decentralization, without acknowledging that there now appear to be several simultaneous Americas being run in silo.
	If you just take a few notable pundits, the kind of pundits that might have been considered to have contributed to the incendiary atmosphere that possibly could have fueled someone to think that an assassination attempt would be a positive contribution to American political life, Where does that rhetoric go now?
	Where does the kind of amplified hysteria of, and I'm just using one example, Joy Reid, but Joe Scarborough on Morning Joe, where is that going to go?
	How is that going to be alchemised into unity without significant decentralisation?
	What happens to liberal voices?
	What happens to the voices that you might regard as woke?
	How are those people afforded territory when it seems, let's be honest, that a Republican victory is likely, very likely in November now?
	Yeah, so I think that there is a fork in the road ahead for both parties, actually.
	The short term fork in the road for the Democrats is a tough one.
	Because Biden has built his entire message so far around the histrionics about Trump and the threat that he poses to the future of American democracy.
	Well, he's now said that he wants to tone down the rhetoric.
	That's fine.
	But then if he goes the other way, he doesn't have a campaign message left.
	Yes.
	So personally, I believe that's one more reason probably the most Compelling reason why it's not gonna be Biden people cited the debate and I've said this for a long time But people say that that on the back of the debate I think actually even more compelling reason is he does not have a campaign message left If he goes one way, he's violating his own message to tone down the rhetoric if he goes the other way He doesn't have a campaign message left now there's a fork in the road for the Republicans to the fork in the road for the Republicans is Do we want to?
	Co-opt the administrative state and the levers of power to advance our own agenda?
	Or do we want to shut down and dismantle that apparatus altogether?
	And I think that that's an interesting fork in the road ahead for the conservative movement.
	And I think there are a diversity of voices in the Republican Party, even in the America First movement, on that question.
	I come down in a more what I call national libertarian direction.
	That's different than a national protectionist direction.
	But I think the question is, do we want a muscular federal bureaucracy to achieve good for American workers and manufacturers?
	Or do we want actually a dismantling of the administrative state that I think was the source of that cancer in the first place?
	So I think both parties face our forks in the road.
	The Democrats' fork in the road plays out over the next four months.
	The Republican fork in the road, I think, plays out over the next four years.
	But the good news is I hope the Republican Party is now in a place where we can have those types of debates within the Republican Party in an earnest way, in a respectful way.
	You know, one of the things I like about J.D.
	Vance, for example, who was selected as Vice President, I've known him for...
	Over a decade, we went to law school together.
	I grew up in southwest Ohio, maybe 10 minutes from where he grew up.
	He and I don't agree on every particular policy, but we actually spend most of our time, we agree on 90% of things, but on 10% of things we don't, we actually spend most of our time talking about the areas where we disagree, and where there's daylight, at least sharpening what the other person thinks by actually pushing each other to be the best version of ourselves.
	I think that we live in a moment, both within the Republican Party and the country, where we could revive that part of our old culture.
	Now, as it relates to the Republican Party, I gave a speech on this recently and I am a strong proponent of keeping our eye on the ball of what I call the shut-it-down agenda.
	That fourth branch of government, the unelected bureaucrats, the kinds of things I talked about during the presidential campaign.
	I think there will be a temptation To say that we want to use those levers to achieve conservative ends or our own ends.
	And I think the original sin was the existence of that administrative managerial apparatus, that bureaucratic class in the first place.
	And so my own perspective is that we need to get in there and actually be laser focused and principled about actually shutting it down.
	And I think that's going to be a healthy discourse within the Republican Party going forward.
	Yes, I think that's an excellent diagnosis when you offer us those two fissures, the fissures within the Democrat Party movement and within the Republican Party, and therefore likely government.
	And it's interesting how you describe J.D.
	Vance's position within that.
	My particular interest... I think he's going to be a great vice president, as just a model of a leader that somebody who's...
	Forget about the content of the views, but somebody who's energetic, and somebody who is actually an original thinker, instead of somebody just reciting the slogans that somebody handed them to say.
	I think we need more of that in politics.
	Yeah, it's a pretty extraordinary story.
	As I wasn't aware until recently about the book he wrote, and how it made him a movie, and his humble origins.
	All of those things are pretty fascinating to me.
	But do you imagine that the same energy will be applied to the influence of corporatism and in particular the
	commercial power that I think you and I have discussed before as being sort of representative of kind of
	global forces or at least forces that are somehow transcendent of American national interests. Do
	you think that the same kind of opposition will be applied to confront that aspect of
	global power as will be applied to the, in your view at least it seems, the dismantling of
	government power?
	Well those two things go together, right. So as you know I am passionate about making sure that
	we end the culture of capture in frankly the government of not only the United States of
	America but many western democracies today as we know it.
	The node that they use to do it is that administrative state.
	So if you dismantle the administrative state, right, and by the administrative state, I mean the people who are never elected to their positions, but the bureaucrats who are actually setting policy, that's the lever that they use to capture the government in terms of outside interests, corrupting influences. And so once we get to that head of
	the snake, shut down what you call the deep state, the administrative
	state, the shadow government, the fourth branch of government, whatever you want to call
	it. The people who were never elected to run the government, who are actually running the
	government.
	They're talking about four million federal bureaucrats right there. People talk about
	the mass deportation of millions of illegals from the United States.
	Well, one of the mass deportations we really need to talk about is the mass deportation of millions of illegal federal bureaucrats out of Washington, D.C.
	That is actually the wedge, the entry point For corruption in the United States of America.
	So once we get rid of that, you stimulate the economy, you bring back the lifeblood of our constitutional republic, but you also end the most dangerous node of corruption in the first place.
	Now I favor other things too.
	I don't think congressmen should be allowed to be lobbyists for, I would say ever, but at least 10 years until after they've left office.
	So there's other changes that we need to make.
	It's not the only one.
	But go to the head of the snake, the root cause.
	It is the administrative state, the managerial class, the culture of bureaucracy, the unelecteds who are wielding power as though they were elected.
	Shut that down and we will have, I think, a A beautiful national revival in this country.
	And I know they're going to pull me out in a second to go to the next event, the convention.
	I did not want to miss meeting you in person.
	I'm so glad.
	I'm so glad that we had this opportunity.
	Please, obviously, leave whenever you have to.
	But while I still have you, sir...
	I might ask, when we talk about restrictions on Congress people becoming lobbyists, why would we not offer people in Congress should not be able to invest in stocks and shares of companies that they regulate, and that the profession of lobbying itself ought be, if not significantly curtailed, ended altogether?
	Why would we afford that?
	I don't know how close you were following the campaign.
	If you were following the campaign closely, you've heard me say exactly these kinds of things all the way through the course of the campaign.
	That's exactly where my heart is.
	Wow.
	Now, ending lobbying altogether at a certain point...
	I believe in free speech, right?
	So anybody should be able to talk to a legislator and express what their own opinions are without somebody saying, oh, well, you had some self-interest at stake or whatever.
	But what I, what I dislike is the massive influence of mega money on American politics.
	I think that's been a toxic force.
	And one of the ways they're able to do that is at least if you have, I mean, let's just start with what's going to be achievable.
	At least 10 years, 10 years is a long time.
	10 years between the time you were in office before you could go back and have those kinds of conversations on behalf of a third party.
	I think that would help a lot.
	So you and I both share a vision of the ideal state, and I think you're doing your job well by continuing to open up conversations that politicians are afraid to have.
	The lane that I'm occupying is one where I want to translate some of those visions into reality, so that these aren't just from the realms of conversation, but how do we actually translate that into reality?
	There's a role for both.
	Both are essential.
	But I just think that when I say, okay, yeah, I mean, I would want to end everything that could potentially have a corrupting influence altogether, but without having any adverse consequences or side effects of that, you know, ideally, that'd be the ideal state.
	But in the meantime, let's get to the next milestone of, you know what, if we had a law
	in this country that said nobody who served in elected office or in the federal government
	could lobby that same federal government for at least 10 years after they leave, that would
	be a step forward.
	If we fire millions of federal bureaucrats and thin down the administrative states so
	the people who we elect to run the government are the ones, whether they're Democrats or
	Republicans, at least the ones we elect are the ones actually making the laws, rather
	than unelected bureaucrats, that would be an improvement, a massive improvement.
	And so those are some of the areas, especially that latter one, where I'm going to be laser
	focused.
	And I think that if we do it, I think we're going to lay the groundwork for saving this
	Well, Vivek, thank you so much for your time, and thank you for your ongoing contributions to this conversation, and for your clarity of thought, and your ability to pull together all of these complex ideas, and I've found so much that I can learn from and benefit from in these conversations, and I appreciate you, and I wish you all of the best with the rest of this convention.
	I'm excited to see you tonight, just after 8.30, you'll be able to see Vivek speaking live, and If we are slightly more mature, I'll give you a few words to drop in.
	Vivek, thanks, man.
	Take it easy.
	See you later.
	Now then.
	Aha!
	You beautiful people.
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	I'll be back in a minute with a few reflections on my conversation with Vivek and indeed what's going on in this room.
	Because I can see Dan Bongino talking Marjorie Taylor Greene just over there.
	I'm just sort of having to just relax on a banquette.
	See you in a second.
	I leave pot everywhere.
	That's going to give humans the impression they're supposed to... Use it!
	Use it!
	Now I have to create Republicans.
	And God wept.
	Now I have to create Republicans.
	And God wept.
	They say that it's a common refrain to reflect on what would Bill Hicks say now?
	What would he be saying now?
	What would he be saying about the surveillance?
	What would he be saying about the censorship?
	What would he be saying about the corruption, the wars?
	What would he have said about COVID?
	I suppose that's what heroes are supposed to do, is they're supposed to not be a tool
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	stuff during COVID, but sort of go, hold on!
	So consider joining us over there in the midst of the Republican National Convention.
	Part circus, part trade fair, an extraordinary moment in American history where we have to for ourselves discern the difference between authenticity and spin continually.
	One of the things that's very strange to experience is the sort of changing dynamics within media.
	Because I can tell you one thing, you get the sense that independent media There's now significantly position for dominance just when you walk around the space.
	There's a place called, I think it's called the Media Mile or something.
	We're in the middle of a stadium right now.
	And over there are the booths of the Daily Wire and Benny Johnson.
	I've yet to see any of the kind of CNN booths or the various legacy media booths.
	It's so extraordinary to be in the midst of this.
	Because you know, is that, you know that in the midst of this, That we are just having that because I mean really what I could do is a live commentary on Marjorie Taylor Greene over there.
	I mean like Marjorie Taylor Greene's talking to Dan Bongino.
	It's just literally happening over there.
	I want to talk to her because do you know what I really liked about Marjorie Taylor Greene when she went like that and you felt she when she you little prick what did you do to those beagles?
	Do you remember that?
	I want to talk about that stuff.
	I hate that little bastard!
	And like, you feel like, you know, as I said at the time, if she was on the different side of the aisle, she'd be spoken of as a kind of feminist icon.
	But because she's sort of like a right-wing figure, she's sort of detested in legacy media circles.
	She fascinates me.
	I'm very interested to see her over there.
	Anyway, look, I guess what we're trying to understand culturally, what we're trying to diagnose as best we can is How is the Republican movement and the Republican National Convention in the immediate aftermath of an assassination attempt on Donald Trump?
	How do the various occupants, whether they're political figures or media figures, find their orientation?
	How do they reposition themselves in this weird new landscape that presumably is going to lead to election?
	I want to say hello to some of the members of our community.
	Someone said, hard hat Sam.
	What do you mean, get her?
	I mean, I can possibly politely invite her, but I can't very much lasso her when she's talking to Dan Bongino.
	I mean, look, there are probably areas where I might feel comfortable in some sort of conflict with Dan Bongino.
	Say, if we were doing a sudoku, or a crossword, or, you know, sort of maybe juggling.
	But I think hand-to-hand combat would be one of the areas where I might yield to Dan Bongino, just on the basis of, he looks like he was I ran into him in the bathrooms over there.
	I thought, how many urinals away from Dan Bongino is it polite to stand?
	I went for five urinals away from Dan Bongino.
	Now, please, someone says here, please stick to politics, religion is divisive.
	Oh man, politics is divisive though, isn't it?
	I mean, it's just such a...
	Extraordinarily divisive time, and that's one of the things that I want to talk to you lot about a little bit.
	Like, if you watch a lot of Alex Jones, and over the years I've watched a bunch of him, you'll be so aware of how often Alex Jones's extraordinary predictions, you're gonna have to at some point start calling them prophecies, come true.
	9-11.
	Assassination attempt now.
	Did you see that sort of pastor who went like, um, he's gonna get shot in the ear?
	I mean, It seems like something quasi-religious and mythic is happening in American politics.
	For some people it will be like an easy ride to go on because you will have lifelong affiliations with particular political movements.
	But if you're someone that's an outsider like me watching this...
	It's so extraordinary to watch something that seems archetypal unfold in real time.
	So sort of that image, the image of the flag and the blood, what is happening in this country right now?
	And where will it lead?
	And how will, as I mentioned to you before, and as I sort of approached with Vivek Ramaswamy, I feel bad for continually using Joy Reid as the example, it's just she's the sort of, in a way, the best example, along with perhaps Joe Scarborough.
	Of someone who constantly participated in the amplification and demonization of Trump as madman and proto-fascist, that has likely led to the conditions which have led to this assassination attempt, if you're not going to entertain conspiracy theories from either side.
	And how will they repo now?
	How will Joe Scarborough, for example, go, well, I don't know, it seems that I was wrong about this, or it seems that me continually comparing people to Hitler has had a negative effect?
	Or how will they campaign, as Vivek Ramaswamy said?
	That's the point.
	I'd heard Vivek make that point before.
	How...
	Can the Democrats, particularly under Biden, continue to campaign on the basis that if you don't vote for Joe Biden, you're voting for fascism?
	Now that this extraordinary event has taken place, they're going to have to dial down that rhetoric, and that rhetoric was all they had.
	One good thing that's come from this is that Bobby Kennedy finally has a security detail.
	That's one good thing.
	What I'm really interested in seeing now is how will the culture, in particular the legacy media culture, which is irrelevant in terms of its broadcasting and reporting, certainly to you and I, but it's still, I would say, a good way of taking the temperature of where the culture is.
	Let's have a look at the Let me see this.
	Let's start with Morning Joe, which has been pulled.
	They couldn't even put Morning Joe on anymore.
	It's like reality couldn't handle Morning Joe.
	We can't have that guy on the TV!
	Not after this!
	And you know why that is.
	Just to remind us for a minute, let's have a look at the kind of things that Joe Scarborough, that's his surname, isn't it?
	Let's have a look at the kind of things that Morning Joe Scarborough himself has been saying.
	for many a long month, and how that contributes to a climate of hysteria.
	Listen, if they voted for Trump in 16, whatever.
	They voted for Trump in 20, they knew exactly what they were doing.
	If they vote for Donald Trump in 2024, they're knowingly voting for a fascist.
	They're voting for a racist.
	They're voting for somebody that wants to put this country 200 years in the back.
	His supporters have no excuse anymore.
	There is no excuse.
	He is a racist.
	He is blatant about his racism.
	He is not using a dog whistle to send out his racist messages.
	He is using a foghorn.
	Denying that he knows who David Duke is, denying that he knows that the KKK was a malignant force in American history, equating neo-Nazis and white supremacists to democratic protesters, trying to undo democratic progress across Europe.
	You cannot support this man.
	You're attacking the media.
	You're employing the same language that Stalin used, calling the media enemies of the people.
	You're making outrageous racist comments in Charlottesville.
	You're making outrageous racist comments in the White House.
	You're denying those.
	And you just send out a flurry of outrageous tweets every day.
	It is what dictators use.
	I'm not calling Donald Trump a dictator, but it is what autocrats use.
	Dictators have done a long time.
	It's what Hitler and all of Hitler's people and I'm not comparing Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler just like Flake wasn't comparing him to Stalin.
	Donald Trump is continuing to tell us and with more rapidity That he is an autocrat, and if he takes power again, he will be an autocrat.
	And this worshipping of Hitler's power, just like this worshipping of President Xi, just like this worshipping of Kim Jong-un, just like this worshipping of Vladimir Putin, it all comes from the same disturbing place.
	He has an anti-American bent to authoritarianism.
	So, I think there's two lanes here.
	There's the number one, it's morning in America, it's never been better here.
	In contrast, Donald Trump, nighttime in America.
	And start to use the F-word, the fascist word.
	Don't just say democracy is hanging on a thread.
	Say, you will be a, we will be a fascist state.
	Start putting cutting commercials together with Mussolini in it, with Hitler in it.
	I know everybody's going, oh you can't do that, you can't do that.
	We will become a fascist state.
	Use the F-word for Donald Trump, morning in America for Joe Biden.
	The statement that the ex-president made, as I said, is part of a pattern.
	He was in favor of keeping up the Confederate monuments.
	He talked about, back in the day, when somebody said something to him about David Duke, but he didn't really know, but he took his hat.
	He talked about, in Charlottesville, there being both sides to that issue.
	This is a tip of the hat to white supremacy and white nationalism, which is unfortunately There's a difference between conservatism, radicalism, and fascism.
	This is fascism.
	to show you what in the world he's going to do if he gets elected again. He's
	already told you he's going to be a dictator for the day.
	He wants to make sure that as the president he could order seal team six to
	go shoot political opponents. There's a difference between conservatism,
	radicalism, and fascism. This is fascism. This is the Times quotes an
	expert on the topic. Fascism is generally understood and this is boilerplate
	stuff really for what fascism is.
	Fascism is generally understood as an authoritarian for right system of government in which hyper nationalism is a central component.
	Check.
	It also features a cult of personality around a strong man leader.
	Check.
	The justification of violence or retribution against opponents.
	Check.
	And the repeated denigration of the rule of law.
	Check.
	Said Peter Hayes, a historian who has studied the rights of fascism.
	Past fascist leaders appealed to a sense of victimhood to justify their actions.
	Check.
	We're entitled because we've been robbed.
	We've been victimized.
	We've been cheated and robbed.
	Robbed. Check. Check. Check.
	We're back.
	I'm here.
	Yeah, we live?
	Yep.
	We're with Marjorie Taylor Greene.
	Marjorie, I know you don't have very long.
	Thank you so much for joining us.
	I'm thrilled to be here.
	Absolutely.
	I want to go straight to the question I most wanted to ask you.
	It's this one, right?
	When I saw you taking down Anthony Fauci and showing him those pictures of the beagles and everything, I thought that if this was a woman who the narrative suited, you'd be held up as, oh look at this, a strong woman attacking the patriarchy, a woman having a confrontation with Antony Fauci.
	But because that's not the appropriate narrative, it seems that you're sort of attacked by the liberal establishment on the basis, and I've been watching it for a while, of a kind of assumption that someone with your accent, and I'm assuming background, shouldn't be allowed into a position of power.
	Is that sometimes how it feels to you?
	Do you feel that you're not afforded the credibility and kudos that women within different political movements would be given?
	Oh, I think you're dead on.
	So speaking of the patriarchy, let's talk about that for a minute.
	I see the patriarchy as the system in place that only allows certain voices.
	Because it's the voices that they want to be heard, the voices that they want to elevate.
	And these voices have basically destroyed all of our lives on a global level.
	These voices have hurt hard-working people.
	These voices have torn apart families.
	These voices have divided us, taught us to hate one another.
	And these voices are the powerful elites.
	These voices are the globalists.
	These voices are the governments.
	That literally are working together to control and hurt people all over the world.
	And yeah, so I don't know if I'm allowed to say this, I'll just say it like this.
	Say it.
	Can I say it?
	Yes.
	Fuck the patriarchy.
	Because that's honestly where we are today.
	Right?
	No, fuck them.
	Yeah.
	Fuck them, Marjorie, I say.
	No, absolutely.
	There are many differences between your country and my country, I reckon.
	But one of the things that I've noticed a lot is like liberal politics has clearly started to hate working class people.
	They've tried to find a variety of ways of masking that, amplifying their connection to particular causes that seem to be supportive of minorities.
	But what I sense is when they actually are confronted with a working class person, or a person from a normal background, they don't like them.
	They don't want them to have a voice.
	They don't want them to be open.
	Unless those people are participating in their narratives, they loathe them.
	What is this?
	And when did that happen?
	When in your country did, like, the politics of the, let's call it establishment left, neoliberal left, start to be hateful of ordinary working people?
	You've asked the perfect question.
	Let's get down to a granular level.
	Hardworking people actually accomplish things every single day that people in power are not capable of doing.
	Hardworking people are able to solve problems.
	They serve their customers.
	They keep their businesses going.
	They're able to keep a roof over their family's head and provide for their children.
	But people in power only receive that paycheck.
	They only have that power that they have based on that government position or the elevated
	position that they've been able to wiggle their way into, but they don't deserve it.
	And so they marginalize the hardworking people because they're honestly jealous of them,
	and they can't be them.
	The people I know in my district, my family, my friends, people that have worked in my
	construction company all my life because I grew up in it and it's my family business,
	These are people I respect far more than anyone serving in government.
	Anyone that receives that paycheck because they're an unelected bureaucrat, but yet they hold power and weld it over people and actually hurt hard-working Americans every single day.
	I think the answer to your question is the powerful elites could never be Be the hardworking people.
	They're not.
	They're not them.
	I think you're right about that.
	Marjorie, do you believe that the Republican movement, which will presumably now be elected in November under Trump and Vance, will be able to represent the interests of all working people, regardless of culture or class, well not class, but in particular working people, And of all cultures and classes, and of both sexes.
	Do you think that they will be able to represent them in the way that those people believe?
	Or do you think that the Republican Party movement will similarly be co-opted by the kind of commercial interests and financial interests that have dominated politics, institutional politics, for, you know, for many, many years, perhaps always?
	Well, you're asking someone who I repeatedly attack my own party because I ran for Congress because I was more angry at Republicans than I was at Democrats.
	I know what Democrats are.
	They tell us every day and they actually follow through and they get their job done for their policy positions.
	Republicans have failed over and over again.
	I was an angry Republican voter when I decided to run for Congress because I was sick and tired of the failures of my party.
	And I am here purely for one goal, to change the Republican Party to actually be a party for the people and serve the American people, to secure our borders, to protect the worker, to protect the family, to protect our God-given freedoms.
	And I'm telling you, I think people can expect more failure from the Republican Party, but we have to fight it, and we have to fight it to change it, and we have to continually push the problem people out until we're able to get it to a point where it's actually serving people.
	Marjorie, can I ask you this important question, I think?
	As well as the problem of border security and sovereignty because of the obvious impact that it has on a nation's infrastructure and the competition it creates for lower-wage jobs, I wonder if you are similarly concerned about the impact of global corporatism on the American economy.
	And let me just give you one off-the-top-of-my-head example.
	It seems that the Ukraine war particularly facilitates and benefits the military-industrial complex and that any post-war Ukraine situation might benefit BlackRock.
	Is that the kind of thing that a Republican Party ought be standing against?
	Ensuring that BlackRock, Vanguard, can't from behind the scenes run the world.
	And is it possible?
	And in a way, isn't that a greater threat than even something that I know that many,
	most of my audience care a lot about, and I know that you care about, immigration.
	Isn't that a bigger threat to American sovereignty and to the lives of ordinary Americans?
	It's a genuine question.
	It's truly one of the greatest threats to democracy.
	You know, I'm from a rural district, and all the small towns in my district,
	they have closed down factories that loom like skeletons over our small towns,
	almost like graveyards.
	And the heartbreaking effect on these small towns is, you know, the decades and decades of sending our manufacturing jobs overseas, really for corporate greed, so the people at the top could make all the money, and the people at the bottom lost their jobs.
	I'll tell you what the result was, Russell.
	It's heartbreaking, but I think this is probably, you know, all over the world, is in these small towns, when dad lost his job because the factory closed, he went home and was jobless.
	And then over time, what happened?
	Mom and dad start fighting.
	And then dad's an alcoholic because he can't find another job because there's no other opportunities in the small town that we live in.
	And then what happens next?
	Mom and dad are fighting, there's alcoholism, divorce happens, and then a family is ripped apart, and then you go on some more years.
	Maybe their son, maybe an uncle or a cousin has to go off and serve in some stupid fucking foreign war that completely radically changes them forever.
	And then they're addicted to drugs because of painkillers and they can't sleep at night because of the dreams that they have and the nightmares and they can't get rid of them.
	And then they come home changed back to that small town where there's not an opportunity, there's no more jobs because of the corporate bastards That basically sought higher profit margins.
	And I get that because I'm a business owner.
	Everybody wants higher profit margins.
	But they went over for slave labor and all these other countries so that they could increase their profit margins.
	But what they did is they destroyed our dollar.
	But in doing so, they really destroyed the heart of America.
	And that's these little small towns that are scattered everywhere, like the ones where I live.
	And it's heartbreaking.
	Marjorie, does America have to have a vision that goes beyond a kind of economic vision based sort of on America first, bringing back manufacturing and bringing back industry?
	Because when you describe that, you're describing a spiritual crisis, it sounds like to me.
	You're describing a country that has lost its way.
	Do you think it's part of the function of good leadership in America to provide that kind of spiritual vision, to ensure that there's a revivification and a re-sacralization?
	Of America, and American domestic life, and American public life.
	Because that's one of the things I've noticed.
	There's something somehow godless about America lately, and maybe even a point sort of demonic, I've almost sensed.
	But would you say that it is the role of government, when you continually discuss the reducing of government because of the corruption of bureaucracies, what then is the function of government?
	Is it simply managerial, and let people get on with their own bloody lives?
	Or does America have a responsibility to provide some kind of spiritual vision?
	Because what you're describing sounds like a spiritual crisis.
	I think it is a spiritual crisis.
	I think my role as a member of the House of Representatives is I don't need to pass any more legislation to create more government.
	My role as a member of Congress should be reducing government.
	We're a nation at $35 trillion in debt and shame on America.
	Shame on our government.
	What a horrific assault on the American people.
	And it has destroyed our country in ways that's unbelievable.
	It's destroyed our opportunities.
	Inflation has driven the cost of food to be unbearable.
	Senior citizens are choosing between rent and being able to pay for their medications.
	And then, you know, instead of being able to be a stay-at-home mom, many moms are working, and then moms and dads are working multiple jobs to afford just to be able to feed their kids.
	Yeah, this is the government's fault, and it is spiritual, though.
	It is spiritual.
	And here's why.
	Look at the ways of the federal government.
	Look at the things they sell to the world.
	In order to take our money, you know, foreign countries, if you want our money, if you want us to give it to you, You have to accept the fact that transgenders need to be elevated in your country.
	You need to accept the fact that we're going to push abortion on pregnant women in your country.
	You need to accept the fact that we're going to push an agenda on your people that you don't believe on.
	And that's because that's the agenda that has been promoted and pushed on the American people.
	And it's all completely evil.
	And the whole lie, this transgender lie, that you can be as many genders as you want when there's only two, and it's male and female because we're created in the image of God, is the worst lie because it's an absolute assault on God's creation.
	Which is in Genesis.
	So when you ask is it spiritual, it is 100% spiritual.
	And that's what is wrong here in America.
	And unfortunately, that is what the government and these people that are possessed with evil are selling to the entire world.
	Marjorie, I'll just say this.
	As a man new in Christ myself, I feel that my first priority is to be loving and open-hearted to all people.
	And I certainly don't believe that anyone should be subject to strong messaging.
	And I reckon that people that do believe in transgender stuff felt that they were obligated and pressurised into roles like, this is what you have to be to be a man, this is what you have to be to be a woman.
	It seems to me that there is a number of ways to be a human being, and my personal belief is in absolute freedom, even though I am a new convert to the Christian faith, and I believe in our Lord and Savior.
	My priority is love, love wherever possible, and non-judgment, for if judgment was going to be part of my deal, I'd be finished.
	Marjorie, I've been so happy to speak to you, because I watch you on the TV, and even as I became more open to different types of politics, you were one of my favourite people to watch, because I like the way you run your mouth.
	Thank you.
	I like the way you confront people, I like the way you shut people down, and I like the way you represent your constituency.
	Russell, I have to add one thing.
	Yes, ma'am.
	Just because I identify as tall, doesn't make me tall.
	I'm very short.
	And so, look... But if it made you happy to identify as tall, I would walk around on my knees, Marjorie.
	I love it.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	God bless you.
	Thank you so much.
	Thanks for coming on.
	You're bloody lovely.
	I appreciate it.
	Nice to see you.
	OK.
	I'd love to find more time.
	Can we get in touch with Marjorie's team and Brian and everything to make sure?
	Yeah.
	That would be great.
	I would talk to you forever, but it's just we're booked in with Eric Trump.
	He's arrived to speak with us.
	We love him.
	Yeah, here he is.
	There he is.
	Thank you.
	There is Eric Trump.
	We're meeting for the first time in my life.
	Marjorie, thank you so much.
	I'll stand up for you, man.
	Wait for us one second.
	I'm just going to get Eric Trump.
	Marjorie Taylor, thank you for agreeing to take the microphone.
	I'll take the microphone.
	Eric, I'll give you an intro while you're doing that.
	Alright, so Eric Trump's over there.
	He's just giving Marjorie Taylor Greene a cuddle.
	Eric, please join us!
	Big fan of yours.
	I'm so happy to meet you!
	You're my third Trump now on my journey through Trump.
	I met your brother, Don.
	I was lucky enough to go to his home and spend some time with him and Kimberly.
	It's astonishing and I'm most grateful to be finally meeting you.
	Thank you, it's good to be here.
	Big fan of you.
	Thank you, sir.
	Like everything you stand for.
	Well, I'm really, really trying my best to evolve and be as open-minded as I possibly can without, as they say, letting my mind fall out.
	Now, firstly, I'd like to say your family must be in a sort of really unusual and difficult moment.
	To be in the midst of the hysteria, hyperbole and excitement of a convention, having suffered such a very personal affront and assault, in which someone, of course, lost their lives, are you able even to assess how you feel on an emotional and personal level, mate?
	Yeah, listen, the pendulum swings in this world in crazy ways, and I've seen that my entire life, but I've never, I don't think I've ever had a 48-hour show like that, right?
	I mean, one second I'm watching my father go down, you know, blood on his face, blood on his hands, being tackled by Secret Service as gunshots ring out.
	Exactly 48 hours later, I'm voting for him as a delegate in the state of Florida to become the Republican nominee for President of the United States.
	I don't think you get a bigger dichotomy between You know, the feelings of not knowing if your father's dead and the feelings of making him the Republican nominee for president.
	And it's, um, listen, it's crazy.
	What happened should have never happened.
	It's disgusting.
	It was a breakdown of our system.
	Um, it was a breakdown, frankly, of our government.
	I mean, it's, it's disgusting to see that somebody with a rifle in modern day America could get within 130 yards of a guy, you know, who's running for president and was a former president.
	Um, you know, at the same time, you know, he walked out last night and there was kind of a humbleness to him.
	You could see it in his eyes.
	Probably grateful in a certain way to be alive, knowing that he had the support of the full country.
	The scene was beautiful.
	I mean, people were chanting, fight, fight, fight, which is what he did when he got up off the stage with blood on his face.
	Fight, fight, fight.
	He's a remarkable guy and so proud to be his son.
	Well, yeah, of course it must be a complex and extraordinary thing to be a child of Donald Trump.
	In particular at this moment where now it seems all but a foregone conclusion that the Republican Party will win in November unless, as some people on the periphery of the culture claim, there might yet be further events of this nature.
	Whilst it is sort of an extraordinary sort of celebration, and as you say, a kind of coming together of America, even though it would be naive of me not to acknowledge, because I go on the internet, that there are still sort of, it seems at least, because they might be small, they might be, maybe these are small vocal groups, I sometimes wonder that, constituencies of people that, people that before would never talk about conspiracy theories going, This is a staged event in which someone, of course, lost their life tragically defending and protecting their family.
	It must be astonishing, and as you said, the vicissitudes of the terror of thinking you're going to lose your father to the excitement and overwhelm of seeing him officially become the Republican candidate.
	Do you really believe that this party and this movement is capable of creating unity, or do you think that there might be an appetite for a kind of victorious admonishment of the vanquished?
	Yeah, well, listen, I certainly hope so.
	I was on CNN last night.
	For me, that's walking into enemy territory, right?
	Because every time I've ever gone on that network, they treat me like hell.
	I went on NBC.
	It was walking into enemy territory.
	Every time I've ever gone on the network, same thing.
	They treat me like hell.
	Last night, the respect I was showing on CNN was unbelievable.
	Really?
	The respect I was showing by Savannah Guthrie on NBC was incredible.
	And I actually said to both of them, Caitlyn Collins and Savannah, I go, wouldn't this be nice if this was a world where, like, you know, you could have real meaningful dialogue without the personal insults with it?
	Like, shouldn't this really be the recipe for politics in this country?
	I mean, isn't this, like, nice?
	Aren't you refreshed?
	I'm certainly refreshed.
	And they both commented, and that was, like, the nicest, you know, one of the nicer interactions that they had had.
	I would love to have that be the dialogue of this country.
	It's gone way too far.
	Politics has become too personal.
	It's become too rough.
	And hopefully this can be a reset.
	That's my hope.
	Now at the same time, I walked down to the floor of the convention yesterday and we get
	attacked by MSNBC.
	You probably saw some of those clips.
	I saw that.
	I mean, less than 48 hours, they're jumping down our throat talking about babies in cages
	or whatever their narrative was that day.
	And they couldn't help themselves.
	Can you guys just stop?
	Just stop for 72 hours.
	Just relax.
	Stop with the nonsense.
	Stop with the games.
	You know, it's very sad, but I hope this can truly be a turning point for this country.
	I really do.
	Yes, certainly the demonization of your father in the legacy media, but not only your father, because it of course in the end extended into all Americans that were supportive of your father and the MAGA movement more generally.
	Has led to a kind of an unaccountable hysteria, which will continue, and indeed has continued.
	Like, some people have made frivolous comments and jokes, and you would kind of expect that, and as a comedian, I would be sort of sympathetic to that.
	I guess you must have developed, Eric, a kind of a thick skin.
	Is that true, as to being your father's son?
	Incredible.
	Listen, they attacked us second.
	I've never gotten so much as a parking ticket, and I've gotten 110 subpoenas.
	They started attacking us relentlessly when he came down that escalator.
	Every hoax, every...
	Impeachment every slur you can possibly imagine they came after us with.
	They tried to bankrupt him.
	They tried to tear apart his family.
	They tried to separate us in so many ways, right?
	I mean, it's been all that war for the last eight years.
	So yeah, you do.
	You develop a callous to it.
	Emotionally, you develop a callous.
	And I'm not saying that's kind of a great thing, but I think the change is, you know, the media has tried to cover up so much.
	So much. I mean, everybody saw Biden on the debate stage last week. He was a mess, right?
	Yeah.
	Yet the media has been telling all America that, you know, he's phenomenal.
	That he's the greatest auditor since X, Y, and Z.
	That he may as well be the modern day Albert Einstein, right?
	And everybody knows this nonsense, right?
	I mean, I think America has seen their true colors.
	America has seen the media's true colors.
	Honestly, you know part of your success is the fact that people can trust you because they're not being told by corporate America as to what to say.
	You have your own voice with your own message being delivered the way you want to give that, and that's beautiful.
	It's why mainstream is dying.
	Mainstream media is dying.
	You know, guys like you are picking up that entire market share because people can actually have different, diverse voices, but voices that they trust, whereas they no longer trust the media soundbites that are giving them the same nonsense.
	You tune into Memphis, Tennessee, and you tune into California, and it's the exact same script being read by different people over and over and over.
	People don't want to be spoon-fed anymore.
	People want individual thought.
	That's the premise of the United States of America.
	That's the premise of our First Amendment.
	I think that's changed a lot of American society.
	I'm glad you brought that up, right, because it allows me to talk about myself, which really relaxes me when I can talk about myself.
	Because this is what I feel, right?
	I know for some time that the neoliberal establishment has been completely corrupt, that the only argument they've had is, we're going to be better than Trump, Trump is a lunatic, Trump is the new Hitler, right?
	That's all they've had.
	That's the only tune they've been able to play.
	And over time, I've witnessed their ongoing corruption, their hypocrisy, the way that they clearly operate on behalf of the military-industrial complex and Big Pharma.
	Now, what my concern is shifting to, now that I'm having more conversations, don't take this the wrong way, but like a member of the Trump family, or Marjorie Taylor Greene, or Vivek, or, you know, the very fact that I'm at the Republican National Convention is this.
	Do you believe that the Republican Party, under your father and J.D.
	Vance, second time round, will truly facilitate the growth of ordinary Americans of all colours, of all religions?
	I know there are certain things in the Constitution that have cultural biases that appear to be towards, you know, like Thomas Paine and the founding fathers.
	These are Christian people, so it's likely that as a nation it will bear that inflection, even as a secular project.
	But do you truly believe that This could be America that can lift up and be open and loving and can put behind it the vitriol and the combativeness of the last four years.
	Do you think it is possible?
	Or do you think the machinery of the state will not afford it?
	Or do you think that global corporate power will not allow it?
	Or do you think that no real human being is able to deliver that kind of result?
	I think that you've got a lot of factors, right?
	You and I can go into the intricacies of the industrial state, the military complex, which is seriously, seriously broken.
	They make a lot of money when America goes to war, and that is a real problem, right?
	My father's first president didn't have a war.
	He didn't.
	He took us out of all wars.
	And he keenly understands that game.
	It's no different than Big Pharma, right?
	Big Pharma.
	You think they make money if their hospital beds are empty?
	Of course.
	Listen, I'm in the hotel business.
	If I fill up our hotel rooms, I make a lot of money.
	I want to go from 70% occupancy to 80% occupancy, right?
	And you make all your money in that 10%, right?
	Because all your costs are expensed, so everything falls down.
	What do you think about Big Pharma?
	Big Pharma, they make all their money if hospital beds are filled.
	There are systematic problems in each of these where they want sick people, they want wars.
	That's how they want this.
	And there's incredible lobby machines that go on to this.
	Look what Donald Trump did.
	He pulled us out of all wars.
	Strongest military in the history of the country, right?
	But he wanted us out of the wars, right?
	He wanted to fix these problems.
	He also wanted to be the president that... America has a big hole in the roof right now.
	You're getting invaded on the southern border.
	You've got massive fentanyl problems.
	I've had four friends that have lost kids to fentanyl.
	You've got real problems in this country.
	Everything's unaffordable.
	Prices are out of control on everything.
	You know, interest rates are crazy.
	Inflation's been crazy.
	Yeah, you have a party right now.
	They want to put a little band-aid on the wall that needs to be painted in the basement when you have this big hole in the roof.
	My father wants to fix the problems that are really plaguing this country.
	Forget about all the other distractions.
	And it seems like you have a party in there right now that's worried about all the distractions.
	Should a six-foot-five female swim in men's sports?
	That's literally what the conversation has been for the last year and a half.
	How about the fact that 300,000 kids have died in this country based on fentanyl overdose?
	Isn't that a more important conversation than whether or not one man should be able to swim in women's sports?
	But there's no attention put on fentanyl.
	There's no attention put on people dying.
	Why is that, do you think?
	Because their priorities are screwed up.
	I mean, that's why it is.
	Why in particular with fentanyl?
	Why do you think the fentanyl aspect of the conversation is controlled?
	Because when you're describing this, Eric, I think that the requirement to, for example, curtail the power of big pharma would involve, for a start, like, shutting down the control of big food.
	You know, we know that Americans are eating badly.
	People across the world are eating badly.
	It would involve shutting down the ability of the lobbying industry, and maybe even the donor class.
	Like, aren't the problems, when you say America has a hole in the roof, this is not a Band-Aid fix, it's like, it's not just secure the border, it truly is drain the swamp, and whatever happened between 2016 and 2020, a swamp draining weren't it, because Biden, in 2020, was able to almost continue business as usual, which was one of his campaign messages to the financial industry, wasn't it?
	Nothing will fundamentally change.
	That's why I... This is part of my own awakening to the redundancy of that neoliberal movement.
	Do you think that your father will, in 2024, actually confront big pharma power?
	Honestly.
	Yes, I do.
	Why do you think that, mate?
	Isn't it a real problem?
	Listen, I spent a lot of time in your country.
	I know very, very well.
	I have a lot of properties over there.
	You look at the difference between the ingredients in a cereal in the United States versus the ingredients in a cereal in, call it the UK, or a lot of other countries around the world.
	It's the same thing, it's the same brand, but they have one-tenth the amount of ingredients.
	That's fantastic.
	You look at the way most of the rest of... I mean, we give out medication.
	We throw pill bottles at people like crazy.
	I mean, I've never seen them throw, you know, gym memberships at people like crazy.
	I mean, how about... how about we just start there?
	How about we start at the basics?
	How about we actually have a real conversation about how the food pyramid in this country is upside down?
	Yes, those are conversations that need to be had, and I think he's willing to have them, but we need to fix our border.
	We need to fix our economy.
	We need to actually make things affordable.
	We need to be energy independent again.
	We're the United States of America.
	We're the most strong, powerful country in the world with more resources under it, and we can do that smartly.
	Let's talk about how to do that smartly, but let's bring back our power.
	Let's bring back civility.
	Let's focus on the problems that are really plaguing this nation and get big government out of the way of people.
	No one can innovate the way America can.
	They just can't.
	We're a country that... Let me compare it to maybe the UK for a second.
	Don't be mean about my country, though.
	I'm not going to be mean about your country.
	Say nice stuff.
	Okay, I'm going to say very nice stuff.
	We've just lost our queen!
	Who, by the way, is an amazing woman.
	I was there at Buckingham Palace.
	Of course you were.
	I've never been to Buckingham Palace.
	Come on, we're going to bring you to Buckingham Palace.
	You've got to give me the invite.
	But you know, America was a culture that was really, during the Industrial Revolution, you know, followed the car, right?
	The automobile.
	Henry Ford.
	If you wanted to turn out of your driveway and go left and drive 300 miles and go pull into the middle of the woods and go camping, you could do that.
	If you wanted to go into the middle of a big city for dinner or to an opera, you could do that.
	That's how American society was created.
	You have so many other societies around the world that were really based on the train, where you got on at a certain time, at a certain location, you went one direction, you all got off together.
	And those societies became very monolithic.
	And I really do believe that created a unique way that Americans think.
	I mean, look at this culture.
	Look what we've created.
	Look at the Fortune 500 companies.
	Look at the innovation.
	Look at putting people into space.
	Look at the different programs.
	Look at the aircraft we've developed and the technological advances in just about everything that we've spearheaded.
	And so much of that is the innovation of kind of the American mind.
	And it's sad when you see that innovation get shut down.
	It's sad when you see somebody to try and, you know, put a cloth and smother kind of, you know, the best of who we are as a nation.
	And I think my father wants to expand that.
	You know, he wants to see those people set free.
	We need another 100 Elon Musk.
	You know, I mean, what they've done for society is tremendous.
	You know, and that's our goal.
	A hundred Elon Musks.
	Can you imagine?
	Can the world cope with a hundred of them?
	A whole battalion of Elon Musks, innovating, owning the social media platforms, allowing free speech.
	You don't think we can solve the problem of cancer?
	I'm on the board, I was on the board of St.
	Jude Children's Hospital for years.
	We can solve the problem of cancer, there's no question about it.
	You need incredible computing power, you need a lot of other things, but we can do it.
	And America should lead the world.
	Get government out of the way.
	Government does nothing well.
	Literally, protect our society, educate our society substantially better than they're educating our society, and get government out of the way and let people live their lives.
	And my father wants to do that.
	Bring this country together.
	I mean, we love red, white, and blue.
	We love patriotism.
	We love what this country stands for.
	We're the freest country in the world.
	We've got the best constitution.
	But get out of people's way.
	Let them live their lives.
	Let them live the American dream.
	Keep them safe.
	That's government's function.
	Safe.
	Thank you, Eric.
	Eric, I'm being told that you have to leave.
	It's not me.
	I can stay here all day.
	Come on, let's go a couple more minutes.
	I'm enjoying this.
	Why don't you and I just chew the facts?
	I really enjoyed your metaphor system, by the way.
	The difference between rail travel and automobile travel and how that would enter the sort of molecular psyche of a nation.
	A nation that's built on the idea of autonomy and independence will have different forms of expression than an older and arcane nation like ours.
	The oldest nation, might I say.
	It's going to have like a great language.
	You're welcome to that.
	Have that as well.
	I suppose what I feel is that ultimately we default to talking about economic and industrial and financial achievement when discussing the success of a nation because they are the easiest metrics to measure.
	As your father famously said, it's a good way of keeping score.
	But doesn't America at this time actually need a vision that is to some degree a spiritual one?
	really the role of government, certainly the role of leadership to provide people
	with a vision for America, to provide people with an idea of America that they
	can participate in and indeed it seems to me Eric that there's going to be an
	extraordinary task ahead because elsewhere on the peripheries of this
	convention beyond the sort of unimaginable boundaries of Milwaukee
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	There are still people that I saw a truck today, like, oh, J.D. Vance and Trump, it's
	going to be bad for women's rights, it's going to be bad for...
	Like, that kind of stuff's going to go on for a while.
	I have no respect for the establishment no more.
	None.
	I think it's a propagandist, filthy, corrupt set of institutions that are about tyrannizing
	and lying and bureaucratizing while telling people the only threat that they need to fear
	is essentially the head of your family.
	But I do wonder if a second Trump term is going to bring the kind of popular changes that we are discussing.
	Why are they trying to take Under God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?
	Why?
	Why are they trying to take In God We Trust off of all of our currency, right?
	That's on all our dollar bills, right?
	Why is there war on God?
	Why is there war on On family structure.
	Isn't family structure beautiful?
	I mean, isn't having a mother and father?
	And God bless.
	Sometimes that can't happen.
	For a whole lot of reasons.
	But when you can have that, isn't that a powerful combination, having a strong family structure?
	Why is there a war on that in modern society?
	That shouldn't happen.
	Why is so much funding trying to defund churches, trying to take away their tax-exempt status?
	Why is there so much of an effort to tell priests, religious figureheads, what they can and cannot say, what's protected by free speech and what's not?
	You know, why have they tried to strip my father off of Twitter and Instagram and Facebook?
	Remove his free speech from society.
	I mean, these are counterproductive.
	These are all counterproductive to a functioning society that, you know, we should live in the freest society.
	We should have massive expression of ideas.
	People should be able to live their lives and do so in the ways that they want.
	But for some reason, there's a lot of corporate money and there's a lot of institutions that have been weaponized against Everything.
	I mean, name an institution that's not weaponized right now in the United States.
	I mean, look at schools.
	They're teaching revisionist history based on some crazy teacher in the classroom.
	And a mom comes out and says, I don't want my kids learning that.
	And the FBI tries to arrest her.
	These are real problems.
	Parents don't get a choice of what their kids get taught in their schools.
	I mean, how about you just teach them the fundamentals?
	Teach them math.
	Teach them history.
	Teach them English.
	You know, teach them to be productive people.
	Teach them work ethic and the things that actually matter.
	And instead, they're getting spoon-fed nonsense.
	And we've got to go back to the basics.
	That's not the job of government.
	If somebody has a strong belief system in something and they want to go off on their own individual path, go for it.
	Do it.
	But teach our children the basics.
	Try and teach them values.
	Teach them work ethic.
	That is how America has always succeeded.
	Stop with the rest of the nonsense that's counterproductive for society.
	Eric, thank you so much for explaining so articulately and gently and kindly so many interesting ideas.
	I particularly like the metaphor of the train and the automobile, and I also like getting a little inside window into the running of hotels.
	And I'll level with you, at points during I was thinking, I bet I can get a good deal on a suite somewhere if I'm able to maintain this friendship.
	Well, how about Turnberry?
	We've got a great property on your side of the pond.
	Yes, is that where the golf course?
	Yeah, we're about the best in the world, so we're ours.
	So if you want to come over there, you're my guest, you know that.
	Oh, Eric, thank you so much.
	I'm working on my handicap, which appears to be self-centeredness.
	Eric, thank you so much, mate, for joining us today.
	It was a really, really lovely conversation with you.
	Thank you, sir, and thank you.
	All the best to your family and to all of you enjoying this campaign.
	Thank you.
	Thank you, sir.
	Thank you.
	Well, all of you, thank you so much for joining us today.
	Guess who's back tomorrow?
	Marjorie Taylor Greene.
	Remember, become an Awakened Wonder, join our locals community, we do a bunch of other stuff.
	I'm going to be broadcasting more from inside the Republican National Convention.
	Part circus, part fair, part trade fair.
	Extraordinary miraculous on Odd Resurrection.
	What a day, what a time to be alive.
	See you tomorrow.
	Not for more of the same, but for more of the different.
	And until then, if you can, stay free.
	Many switching, switching, switching.

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