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Oct. 18, 2023 - Truth Podcast - Vivek Ramaswamy
01:03:23
George Floyd, Mental Health & Being Blacklisted by the NBA | The TRUTH Podcast #41
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I was a kid that came up an only child, watched mom work and struggle.
We're in the middle of a mental health epidemic in this country that I personally believe is driven by the vacuum of national values.
Don't let anybody hold you back.
Amen.
Just do it.
Presidential candidate, Vivek Ramaswamy.
Vivek Ramaswamy, a Republican running for president.
We should not be apologetic to stand up and speak for the truth.
Let's talk truth.
I'm here in our home base in Columbus with somebody I've been really looking forward to talking to.
NBA star turned activist and freedom fighter, Royce White.
Yeah, thanks for having me, man.
I appreciate it.
I'm glad you're here.
Thank you.
First of all, you're a big guy from NBA. How tall are you?
You said...
6'8".
6'8"?
That's good.
Is that a chair comfortable for you?
It's great.
I got one.
Yeah, it's a size for, you know, 6' tall people, but...
I got one in my podcast studio, so they're great.
They're great.
Good to talk to you.
So, I'm excited about your story.
Some people are familiar with it, but I thought we'd dial at least a couple minutes, even to your pre-NBA days, and then we'll spend a lot of time...
In your experience of how you got drafted and what came after that.
But tell me a bit about your upbringing and what led you in the path that ultimately got you to the dream of many kids in this country joining the NBA. Well, I think my childhood and upbringing is a very important part of my story and helps people understand the uniqueness of my position now to be able to speak on the things that I speak about politically, culturally, societally.
I was an only child to a single mother, working class single mother.
She was an esthetician.
She did makeup, eyebrows, wax.
I come from a family of women that were In the beauty care industry, right?
So you're talking about a lot of women who are in a cash business and they pay bills with their tips, often have to make ends meet, live check to check.
My mom paid rent with her tips, right?
And to see your mother...
Did you ever meet your father?
My father wasn't really in my life until I was 13 years old.
Oh, really?
Okay.
That's your biological father?
Biological father, yeah.
But I was fortunate, although I was an only child, I was a part of an extended family that had multi-generational roots across the Twin Cities area.
And the Twin Cities is a unique metropolitan area.
If you know anything about the Twin Cities demographically or geographically, Minneapolis, which is the biggest city in our state, is only a 400,000 person population, right?
So it's not even...
It's not giant.
It's not giant.
But the metropolitan area is 15th in the country.
So we have suburbs that go on and on in neighborhoods and small cities, and I was fortunate enough, because of my extended family, to grow up in neighborhoods all across that place, which gave me a lot of cultural diversity in my perspective on a number of things.
So, you know, I was a kid that came up an only child, watched mom work and struggle to make ends meet, but I had an incredible group or community of men That also helped guide me through my journey in becoming a sportsman, but also a young man in general.
What did you think you were going to do when you were in junior high school?
NBA was always on your mind?
No.
Not at all?
No, I was a late bloomer basketball-wise.
I wasn't the best player on my team until I got to about the eighth grade.
Okay.
And then in the ninth grade, I really took off.
So you didn't do the whole AAU circuit?
No, I did it.
I did it.
Late, okay.
No, and I did it as a younger kid.
You weren't among the best.
No, my success came from hard work, dedication, and getting with the right coaches who helped me understand the importance of practice, right?
And so I was a guy who, once I started to really get the ball rolling athletically, I prided myself on my body, being in shape.
I used to do a lot of core conditioning work on my own, push-ups, sit-ups at home at night, toe-raisers, we call them, wall squats, things to help me be strong.
Driven by yourself?
By myself.
Not somebody, no trainer driving you or nothing like that.
Nobody needed to tell me.
I had a chip on my shoulder.
I wanted to succeed.
And once I realized I had the potential, once I was given the encouragement, you could say, from somebody who I respected that said to me, you could actually do this if you do ABC, I was self-motivated then.
Before that, I was just a regular kid with family and was enjoying being a kid, you know?
So then you get to high school, then you bloomed a little bit, found yourself.
I mean, it took off.
In the ninth grade, I was a top 25 player in the country in my class.
Good for you.
It took off quick.
What did that do for your self-confidence?
Well, you know, it...
Which one came first?
It was a gift and a curse.
Yeah?
It was a gift and a curse, right?
I mean, in one sense, you're getting notoriety from a national basketball community.
Yep.
And basketball coaches, colleges who are recruiting, people who you've grown up watching on television, coaching high-level...
At the age of 15?
Yeah.
Coming at you, yep.
At the age of 15. So you're getting to see Tom Izzo's meet these people.
So it was exciting.
But it was also anxiety-inspiring, right?
Because now, you know, the magnifying glass is on you to perform.
And then your own expectations to perform.
And am I good enough, but also will I be good enough at the right moment to succeed?
So a bit of both.
And we'll come back to that theme later on, but even early in your life, do you think that that early exposure to being in that spotlight Played a role in creating that anxiety that stayed with you later in life.
Well, anxiety is an interesting thing.
The human mind is an interesting thing.
The human psychology is a very interesting thing.
It's hard to say, did the chicken come before the egg?
I don't know.
It's hard to know, right?
It's hard to know.
You know, it's one of the places where exploration and research will still pay dividends for humanity.
But I can say I remember early struggles with anxiety well before the spotlight was ever on me.
It had to do with my own internal thinking, the way that I looked at the world and feeling that something wasn't right or that danger is ever present, which it was in the communities I came from.
It all starts from somewhere.
But it all starts from somewhere.
So that's, you know, hard to pinpoint.
But I will say this.
By the time I was 16, I had my first full-blown panic attack, which came from smoking marijuana for the first time.
It was when you smoked for the first time that you had your panic attack.
Yes, I was fortunate that in my household, my mother was adamant about not letting people in the household that did any form of drugs or alcohol.
She was not a drug or alcohol user herself, and she kept that out of the house.
So it wasn't until I was a little bit older and had the chance to move around on my own more that I encountered the opportunity even to smoke marijuana.
And when I did it for the first time, I had a full-blown massive panic attack.
That's interesting.
Do you think it was in any way the loss of control?
I mean, in the sense that your experience of going through an intoxication or a high, do you think that's...
Because you just described yourself as somebody who's been in control of your body.
You brought that up.
No train or nobody else driving you.
Do you think that might have been an element of it or do you think it's something else?
No.
Yeah, that was part of it.
I was somebody who had an acute awareness of society as a whole.
Very young.
I was fortunate enough to have my mother impress upon me the importance of reading, so I was very well read.
Read across a number of things, not just fiction, Harry Potter and whatnot, which was our era.
Not just what they gave me in school.
Not what they gave me in school, but I was...
In the know about societal things.
And one of the things that kind of was a thorn in my side was I realized that me and my mother didn't have good health care.
Or at least in my mind then, I thought that was a big deal at 16. And so when you get your first panic attack, well, we can discuss if it's a big deal, but when you get your first panic attack and it feels like you're having what many would describe as a heart attack, and you know you haven't necessarily had all the proper checkups, your mind goes to...
Is this a possibility, right?
And not only that, I had had a childhood friend who fainted in a fourth grade AAU basketball practice.
Really?
Yeah, and he fainted because all of us thought he had asthma.
They labeled it activity-induced asthma.
But really he had an artery that was being restricted by two valves that was causing him to not be able to have the proper flow of oxygen-rich blood.
And so it was effectively asthma of a sort, but it was from a birth defect, not normal asthma.
Activity induced, really.
Right.
And so he almost died.
At eight years old, they had to cut his chest open.
So that struck you.
So, you know, 16, you have your first panic attack, you're like, I had smoked weed.
Was there something in it?
Am I going to die?
And after that, I would have panic attacks for about four months straight, three times a day.
And so, for anybody who's ever had panic attacks, it's kind of laughable to those who don't really deal with it because they don't understand how physical it is.
But I tell people I've looked death in the face thousands of times because it actually feels like you're dying.
In fact, it's it's so much simulates dying that if you go to the ER with classic panic symptoms, they have to do a variety of tests to rule out that you're having a cardiac event, which speaks to how magnificent the human body is right in the mind.
It is interesting.
I mean, do you think you've taken something away from those experiences that's positive?
Absolutely.
Yeah, absolutely.
Number one, it's not always as bad as you think.
It's not always as good as you think, right?
To try and stay even in situations of crisis.
So I've somewhat perfected that, to hone that emotional evenness in times that seem critical to many others.
So that's one thing for sure.
And so, when did you get drafted out to the NBA? Was it...
2012, I'm sorry.
Two years in college?
I spent one year at the University of Minnesota, and then I had to sit a year at Iowa State.
That was back when you couldn't transfer for your penalty.
Yeah, red shirt.
Well, now you can transfer once without any penalty and play right away.
Back then, you had to sit.
Unless you got a waiver from the NCAA, which they denied me.
Okay.
Why did you transfer, if you don't mind me asking?
I was at the University of Minnesota and ran into a little bit of trouble.
Some cultural community issues there at the University of Minnesota.
Interesting things.
Long story short, I come from the neighborhood, right?
I come from the black neighborhood.
And, you know, I don't want to say anything that seems culturally...
You can say anything you want.
Misleading.
Well, no, I'm just careful because I come from a real neighborhood.
Okay.
Where...
Much of what black people who have a chance to talk on a platform like this would have real criticism about, right?
The crime.
Let's just say it.
The black-on-black crime.
I come from a place where black-on-black crime is serious.
It's a real thing.
It's horrifying.
It's sad.
But because I come from that place and because I was at the University of Minnesota, which was already then predominantly liberal, They didn't like that my childhood friends from the neighborhoods they claim they're trying to protect followed me and hung out on campus with me, which is very interesting.
That is fascinating.
Oh, yeah.
It's a little bit of hypocrisy.
It's a lot of hypocrisy.
It's why I'm running for Senate in Minnesota, because I saw it first.
I've seen the liberal hypocrisy up close.
That's interesting.
So you felt like because your childhood friends were showing up on campus because you were going to college close to where you grew up, You were also something of a star by then, I suppose, on the basketball team otherwise, right?
Yeah.
But they would hang out there that that was somehow unwelcome.
Completely unwelcome.
Why do you think that was?
Well, it's very simple.
Black men are accepted by liberals if they can be the symbol of white liberal resent and vendetta against white men, or Americanism, or Christianity, or any number of things.
It's an instrument that you can use.
It's an instrument, yeah.
We like black people.
We want to protect black people.
We want to include black people.
But only if you made it through the application process of our university.
Only if you have a student ID. It's funny that they don't want us to have voter ID, but in order for black people to come hang out on campus, you would need a student ID. Fascinating.
These are things I saw close.
So it puts you off and you're like, I'm getting the heck out of here.
Yeah, so I got in a little bit of trouble that was involved with that.
Like what?
So, for example, I was at the Mall of America.
It's a famous Minnesota Mall of America.
And me and my friends were playing a prank.
It wasn't really a prank.
It was more of a on the spur of the moment, spontaneous snatch and run kind of thing.
You know, that was...
We came up in the jackass era.
Okay.
So you're like fooling around.
It's not what it was today where guys are going into a store and I'm going to take a $1,000 bag and then go get cash for it.
Wasn't that kind of thing back then.
It was more genuine prankster stuff.
And so that situation happened.
I ended up getting in a little bit of trouble with that.
And then like a week later, two weeks later, three weeks later, there was a huge party on campus at the freshman dorm.
We had like a freshman dorm neighborhood where there were seven story freshman dorms all in one little area.
And a young girl had her laptop stolen.
They came to ask this young woman, were there anybody here that, you know, doesn't live here or doesn't live on your floor?
And because I had been in the air that night, I'm highly visible, obviously.
I'm 6'8", and I got seven black kids with me, right?
She said, oh, well, you know, Royce and his friends were here.
Huh.
And she never said that she thought I took it.
In fact, her laptop was returned on the following Monday.
This was a weekend party on a Saturday.
And her laptop had been returned to her already.
Well, the University of Minnesota Police Department thought it fair and wise to accuse me of doing it anyway or having something to do with it.
And then they drug this case out while they investigated me being a possible suspect.
Okay.
Possible suspect.
Over a long period of time.
Over three months.
Okay.
While the season basically finished.
Oh, so you didn't get to play?
Yes.
You didn't get to play?
I didn't get to play.
Oh, okay.
They held the investigation open until the season concluded, and our AD made the statement that I could not play until this was resolved publicly.
So they knew that if they kept it open, I wouldn't.
And at the end, they came back and they charged me with trespassing at a dorm I lived in.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And also a high crime of trespassing itself in another campus dorm, let alone it be the one you actually lived in.
Let alone it be the one you lived in.
It felt a little bit dishonest and alienating.
It was very dishonest.
You made the decision you're out.
Went to Iowa State.
Filed for a petition to be able to play right away.
Didn't get that granted, so I had to sit an entire year and watch my teammates play without me.
And then the next year, I played at Iowa State, and I was the only player in the country to lead my team in all five major statistical categories.
So the year off didn't hurt your skills?
No, it was great for me.
Good.
You practiced.
I got to see all the teams I was going to play against.
Oh, amazing.
Yeah, I got to scout all the teams I was going to play against.
Did you like being a Cyclone?
It was great.
Yeah.
It was great.
Nothing like Aims.
It seems like the spirit there is pretty high.
Hilton Magic.
Yeah, even better than Minnesota, if I had to guess.
Yeah, well, yeah, it's different.
I haven't been to the University of Minnesota, but I have been to Iowa State.
It's a different dynamic, right?
Because Minnesota has five professional sports teams.
Iowa has zero.
None, yep.
So to them, their college towns are professional sports.
Totally.
And they treat it that way.
Yeah, we get a little bit of that here in Columbus, Ohio.
Anyway, so that was good.
So then you get drafted after one year or two years?
First year I played.
First year you played and then you just get straight up drafted by the Rockets, was it?
Yes.
So tell me about that.
What that experience was like.
Well, let's go back.
First, I have to explain that during my time at Iowa State, in the year that I played, we were not expected to finish high.
We were not necessarily expected to have great success.
Fred Hoiberg was our coach.
This was his second year.
I was a part of his first class that he recruited himself.
He came in, he had somebody else's players.
Now I was a part of the first group of players he had himself recruited.
Okay.
But yet still, nobody in the Big 12 The other coaches, you know, they polled before the season.
We were picked to finish in the bottom three of the Big 12. Okay.
Now, these are the coaches who recruited me.
So, I took it personal, and I played with a chip on my shoulder, and we ended up finishing third in the Big 12. That helps you.
They did your favor.
It does.
And so, along the way, you know, the media is heavily, let's say, they place a lot of They place a lot on what the coaches predict.
Right.
So now as we start to have success, the media is like, oh, this is a Cinderella story.
That's right.
Right?
So it played in our favor.
Absolutely.
Okay, so while that's happening, I'm getting interviewed one day in Ames before a game, and it's just a regular ESPN, we're covering the Cyclone success, and I let slip that I was dealing with anxiety.
Totally by accident, you know, because the guy was asking me what my pregame ritual was, and I said, you know, this is what I do, boo, boo, boo.
I wake up, I go and watch the last game and try and reference things I want to do better, and go and watch a little bit of this team so I can scout them and see what they're going to do.
And he goes, what about, do you eat?
What kind of things do you like to eat?
And I go, I don't eat before games, you know, because of my anxiety.
And he was like, wait, wait, wait a second.
What did you say there?
And in that moment, I realized...
Whose report, which album was this?
This was ESPN. It was ESPN. Yeah, it was ESPN. And so, but at that moment, when I said anxiety and I caught his reaction, I realized that I had, that the anxiety thing...
Tripped it, yep.
Tripped the wire.
And so, it became one of the biggest and most covered stories of that college basketball season because no players had really talked about struggling with anxiety It's not one of these you're supposed to talk about.
Huge stigma.
Sweep under the rug.
Huge stigma around it still.
Right?
So by the time I had got to the draft, there were huge questions now with the GMs of the NBA. Unbelievable.
Where I would be drafted because the NBA had never had to draft a player.
Deal with that.
With anxiety.
Yes.
Right.
So this is the narrative.
It's amazing.
The parallels to politics, I will tell you.
If you're entering politics now, this is great training for you.
It was.
For a time such as this, right?
Your time in the corporate world as well.
Yeah, totally.
It prepares us.
We understand.
I get what that's like.
So then that happens between the time you're entering the draft, so then it's kind of in the bloodstream.
That's the narrative.
So I get drafted and the consensus on me is...
By the Rockets.
The consensus on me going into the draft is I'm one of the five most NBA-ready players in the draft.
And I had just come off of playing an NCAA game against Anthony Davis, who had three other projected first lottery picks on his team.
And I dominated that game.
I mean, people can go back and watch it on YouTube.
I had like 25. So it's like an automatic should-be first-round pick.
Well, yeah, but even close to the top.
But I'm just saying, table stakes would be first round pick.
No doubt.
So I'm sitting there on draft night.
First off, I go through this draft process, and everywhere I go in the draft process, we go to these cities and we have these individual workouts where you go against a set of other three or four other guys that they're comparing you to in the draft.
So I'm going city to city, and they're pulling me in the bag to do my individual interviews, and all they want to ask me about is anxiety, which I'm welcome, open.
But I'm like, hey, I'm 21 years old.
I'm sure you guys have doctors or something that could give you much better information than even I could.
Because they were asking general questions about anxiety, not really about my anxiety specifically.
And there were even things that I really didn't feel equipped to tell them, right?
Like to predict into the future.
Like one of them is, well, what if you have a panic attack before a game?
I don't know what to tell you.
Yeah, I mean, like, I don't know if I break my ankle in practice, too.
That happens, too, right?
I have no answer for you for that.
So, by the time the draft comes, this is a huge story.
I end up getting drafted 16th in a draft where many people thought I should have been a top three pick.
So the anxiety had already affected my draft position.
So you got drafted 16th?
Get drafted 16th.
I get to Houston.
16th in the first round.
In the first round, yes.
I get to Houston, and...
I was advised by my...
Who was the GM of the Rockets at the time?
Darryl Morey.
Was it Darryl Morey?
Okay.
Yes, he was.
All right, interesting.
I want to ask you about that in a second.
Please do.
I would love to dive into that rabbit hole, too.
So, a child, my family physician that first diagnosed me with anxiety disorder, we had conversations leading up to training camp, which is held October 1st, coming up here for the NBA. And...
She wanted me to reach out to the team and try and open up a dialogue to create the same type of Program, for lack of a better word, agreement, understanding that I had had with Iowa State.
And that agreement with Iowa State in regards to my anxiety, which she also helped build, was just to have a real direct line of communication with my coach and the team doctor and the team trainer about where I was on a daily basis.
Because sometimes with anxiety, for example, I have anxiety, free-floating anxiety.
I don't sleep all night.
So when I come in the morning to practice, I might need sugar pills.
I might need a pick-me-up.
Or I might need to...
My post-practice massage may need to focus on something different.
Integral health, right?
The whole comprehensive health model.
This was way before they were talking about it in sports at all.
We were doing it.
We had practiced it.
And it paid dividends because I played well and we had success.
So she told me to try and do the same thing with the Houston Rockets.
Well, there's all this red tape.
All this administrative red tape, much like we see in...
Every sphere of life, but government included.
In American government, right?
But this exists in every sphere of life.
It does.
The deep state is not just in the government.
That's exactly right.
The swamp doesn't just exist in the government.
And we'll talk politics, yeah.
But I'm just trying to give people the...
The swamp in the NBA, yeah.
I saw it.
These are the same people.
They're not different people.
They're the exact same people.
Absolutely right.
So anyway, I go to them and I say, hey, I read through my collective bargaining agreement.
There's not a single mention of mental health in the entire agreement.
Not a single mention.
They have a full banned substance list that, by the way, includes anti-anxiety medication, which I was prescribed for, benzodiazepines, Xanax, for flying, right?
For flying, specifically, is when you use it.
Or anytime you have anxiety.
Yeah, but you use it for flying.
Yes.
Which I tried not to use it for flying because I knew the dangers of it.
Yeah.
So my question to them was like, okay, somebody informed this banned substance list.
Probably doctors or, you know, drug specialists or whoever.
How did you come up with a whole banned substance list, but there's no mention of the domain of health that this list is informed by?
Yes.
Like, how is there the drug list at the end of the tunnel And penalty for being on those drugs, but there's no upstream attention to the thing that leads people to do drugs.
I heard crickets.
And then shortly after, you know, we got into a huge public standoff about the need for mental health policy in the NBA. And basically what they brought me behind closed doors and said is, you're right about mental health.
We're way behind on this issue.
They being the Rockets or the NBA? The whole NBA. Okay.
Including the Rock.
Yeah.
We're behind on this issue.
We don't know what we're doing.
But here's the thing.
If you don't agree to play, in about 15 minutes, who's going to listen to you?
Nobody's going to care.
If you play and do what we say, we'll help you do everything you want.
You know, they treated me like I was doing it as a gimmick.
Yeah.
Like, I wanted to become an advocate for mental health.
And you can do your gimmick and we'll give you the platform.
We'll give you everything you need.
Actually, they said, you know, you're handsome, you're charming, you're articulate.
You could do well with this.
You know, they had that gleam in their face like they saw the path for me.
We could use you.
Yeah, this could be great.
And I said, told him, I'm not doing it for that reason.
I have anxiety.
Me.
I'm dealing with this because I'm dealing with the situation we're talking about.
This isn't a gimmick.
As an individual.
As an individual.
Yeah.
Now, do I recognize the moment that this thing I deal with is also something...
And there can be good that comes to the center.
You recognize it.
Great.
But you are dealing with this now.
I'm dealing with it right now.
Mm-hmm.
Blackballed me.
They blackballed me, right?
I mean, after that year, they promised that they, they promised if I return to play and stop the standoff about mental health policy, which all their doctors, this is another interesting one.
I'm trying to paint a picture of why I came to where I am in this liberal edifice, this edifice of liberalism in American politics.
This is another interesting one.
All of their experts, medical experts, agreed that not only was a policy possible, but it was necessary and that it would be easy to create one and it would be very limited liability for them because everybody's worried about liability.
Of course, yeah.
We're in the most overly litigious society in human history.
No doubt about it.
Everybody's worried about getting sued.
So, you know, the doctors are saying, hey, we can create a policy that simply states mental health is equal to Physical health, right?
The two have to be managed next to each other.
And they told the experts, go take a hike.
Yeah.
Oh, unabashedly.
Oh, you're an expert when we tell you you're an expert.
Yeah, exactly.
Selective use.
Yes, yes.
And so, you know, I basically dug my heels in and went, you know, if you guys are going to play this game, then I was right.
Man.
So this is what, 2013?
This is 2013. 2013. So the standoff was, they want you to play.
You say, I'm not going to unless I get to do the things that you need to do to take care of yourself.
No, not really.
It wasn't even really specific at the end.
It was, can we have some mention of mental health policy put in the collective bargaining agreement?
Okay, that was what you said.
Yes, because the danger is...
So the basic disagreement was, they say, hey, you can play, you can use your story as a platform, educate people, etc.
And you're like, no, I'm dealing with something.
Here's the policies that govern the collective bargaining agreement.
I need a mention of mental health in there in order to play.
It was a policy argument.
It was a policy argument.
They wanted to make it a propaganda or commercial...
And we're now talking fall of?
Fall of 2013. Which would have been your first year to play.
Yes.
And then what happened?
Never got to play.
Okay, so they just said we're not going to do it.
Not doing it.
Despite the fact that they had plenty of basis to do it, their advisors, etc.
Oh, it gets better.
Yeah, okay.
Now I'm out of the league.
Can't get a tryout.
They won't even...
Remember now, I'm a top five talent, no physical injuries, no legal problems, never been to jail, never been convicted of a crime, no rape charges, allegations.
It's an undervalued asset right here.
Okay, right, yeah.
And so now I can't even get a tryout.
After you dropped from the Houston Rockets?
The behind-the-scenes part is David Stern and those guys basically sent their emissaries to come and talk to me in a room and say, look at all the money you're going to pass up on.
And I gave them the finger.
It's not about the money.
What was the size of your contract, if you don't mind me asking?
It was a rookie-scale contract.
It was like $1.1, $1.2 million.
But they're walking you through, hey, here's the...
15 years, $200, $300 million.
Easy.
This was before the TV deal inflated the contracts, right?
So it could be $700 million.
I mean, it could be five years for $300 million like guys are getting right now.
But I told them I didn't care about the money.
So that was what the pretense was for...
So they didn't have the lever they wanted to use.
Me being a free agency and them basically saying, you're not even going to get a shot because we told you.
We told you that if you played ball the right way, Then we would help you, but now we're gonna cut your water off.
We're gonna cut your microphone off.
And so, yeah, in 2016 now, Kevin Love starts to have panic attacks.
Oh, wow.
Of all places.
Was he on the Timberwolves still?
He was on the—no, he was now in Cleveland.
Oh, he's not in Cleveland.
Okay, okay, got it.
But he was—he had played in Minnesota.
Yeah, no, I know, I know.
Okay.
This is Cleveland days now.
He started to have panic attacks, and he spoke about— He talked about it.
I remember that, actually.
DeMar DeRozan first talked about dealing with depression.
Now, these are guys I come up with.
DeMar DeRozan's one year older than me.
We came up through the Nike circuit together.
You know these guys?
I know them.
Yeah.
Kevin, I don't really know personally, but we're in the same circles.
You guys still haven't met yet?
Kevin and I have never met.
We spoke a bunch of times, but we haven't met.
You spoke about similar issues.
Yes.
And it opened Pandora's box to where many players started to speak out.
Oh, now it's a much different environment today.
You helped create that.
And they even put a policy in place, and the policy they put in place was the one I wrote with one catch to it.
I'm going to explain it to you.
Let me show you how people pull the double-cross and triple-cross with policy and propaganda.
I said every team should have a mental health professional on staff.
It's obvious.
Now...
Well, you had a lot of physical health professionals on staff with every team, right?
So you said one.
Of course.
But also, players should be able to seek out their own independent mental health professionals, right?
because there is an obvious conflict of interest that you could point to if the professional is hired by the team.
So a player should have the ability to dispute that opinion and go get their own independent opinion or a couple of independent opinions that come to one consensus.
Democracy.
the protectors and progenitors of democracy of the great NBA woke alliance.
But they don't like democracy from the end of the worker.
Yeah, not in the home turf.
Yeah, somebody else's.
Right.
Not in my backyard.
So now they create the policy that basically mandates every team have a mental health professional.
But, and Adam Silver went on Bill Simmons' podcast back in 2017 when this whole crisis was popping off and said, we want players to use our mental health services, but I can't guarantee that if you use our mental health services, it won't come to be, it won't, it won't be held against you come free agency.
Mm-hmm.
This is how people who are in positions of leadership miss the very important role of leadership in governance.
The NBA office and Adam Silver as the commissioner is a governing body.
What Adam Silver should have used his pulpit to say is, we believe mental health is a very integral piece to the overall health of our players.
And we are making it a priority by ensuring that they have access to mental health professionals as players in their workplace.
But if they don't want to use it, that's fine.
However, If I, as the commissioner, find out that any of these teams in our NBA community are going to weaponize mental health against their players in free agency, I'm going to come down with the full power of my position.
What is the policy on this?
I'm always a fan of getting the best arguments on the table and then addressing them.
I don't know what the policy is on physical injury, but I suspect what he might say.
So it had been Stern before, but then now we're talking about Adam Silver having taken over as commissioner of the NBA. Just for people who aren't following the NBA to know.
So these are the guys.
David Stern was the commissioner when I was there.
Now Adam Silver is.
But now Adam Silver has taken over, so he's the NBA commissioner.
And he might say, let's say he were here, that, well, if you're suffering a knee injury or Achilles heel tear or whatever, that that would be held against you in free agency.
Yes.
why shouldn't that be allowed to be held against you as well?
Oh, and no, my point wasn't that it, that it shouldn't be held against.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
Like if you have panic attacks and you can't play because you have panic attacks, that's like having a knee that doesn't allow you to play.
I agree.
That's the same thing.
The point was none of these, none of these NBA GMs or, or, um, owners or scouts had any general basis of information about mental health to be able to determine whether a mental health issue is incapacitated.
Is the equivalent of your ACL. Yes.
Right.
Because I think that's a consistent position to say that You know, you're going to be valuable to a team based on whether or not you're able to play and perform.
But the irony is that for all of the emphasis put on protecting the physical health of a player as an asset for that team, there's a deep underinvestment of both resources and just basic knowledge to be able to do the same thing for somebody that can stop them from playing.
It's almost the self-interest of the team, right?
Here's the irony.
Here's the most ironic part.
The most ironic part is the individuals like you or I who are outspoken naturally, right?
We would be more likely in the pool of players to step forward and be honest about what we're dealing with to give them the data to be able to form their opinion and attitude and protocols around mental health.
Right.
Now, do most of these teams have sports psychologists?
Are they like a joke?
Not a joke, but no.
I mean, yeah, it's a joke.
Okay.
I mean, that's what I'm asking.
Yeah, no.
Actually, now that it occurs to me, my first think would be, let's say I'm an NBA owner.
To me, if the league is going this way, this is an opportunity as part of building a high-performance culture that protects its players to really double down here, right?
We're going to get down to it.
I'm going to show you how duplicitous this establishment is.
Okay.
And for everybody who's listening up to this point, this is not a boo-hoo story for Royce White about the NBA. These are your leaders.
These are the people who make policy decisions for your country.
These are the people who have undermined the value of your citizenship.
Almost hand to hand.
When they go to give $250 million for Raphael Warnock in a runoff, who do you think the money came from?
Corporations who have partnerships with you.
Have you read Woke Inc?
It's my first book.
You read it?
Yeah.
Oh, you did.
Okay, good.
This reminds me of that story.
This chapter is in there called The Managerial Class.
The Managerial Class.
I mean, it's a horizontal phenomenon from government to NBA to politics to non-profit sectors.
It's interesting.
It's the same Adam Silver progeny types that populate.
Who are coalesced in the legal sphere mainly.
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah, there's the professional realms that pull them together.
Yes.
Even though they're technically operating in different states of our lives.
The NBA is unique because the NBA office is ran by lawyers.
These people are all lawyers.
Adam Silver's a lawyer.
Oh, is that right?
David Stern was a lawyer.
It doesn't surprise me.
No, they're all lawyers.
Mark Tatum, he's a lawyer.
So let me tell you how this went down.
So, again, I wasn't saying, you know, Royce needs special treatment.
It's fine if people want to make the claim.
Mental health, physical health, if you can't mentally get out of bed to come to the gym, you can't.
Here's the irony.
You and I would be more likely out of the pool of players to step up and go, hey, this is what I'm really dealing with.
Proactively, I'd like to create a dialogue or an open conversation so you know what you're dealing with.
I know we can create a clear line of expectation.
They like that the line wasn't clear.
And so what they actually did was they weaponized the lack of knowledge around a topic like mental health to be able to weaponize it arbitrarily whenever they so choose.
So they didn't want to draw a hard line.
The blur helped them in their desire for corruption when necessary because...
Most of the players are dealing with mental health issues, but they would never say it.
So now you're actually going to end up penalizing the one guy who told you about the problem in free agency, and you're going to miss all the people who are dealing with the same issues.
Now they're going to resort to other things.
Like gambling.
Drugs.
Drugs and alcohol.
Sexual, you know, risky sexual behavior.
Thrill-seeking.
Ride the motorcycle.
Get injured in the off-season.
Happens.
Don't tell the team about it.
Hide it.
Guy comes back.
All of a sudden, he's running weird and his injury won't heal.
What had happened?
He's never going to tell you he was in a motorcycle injury.
Right?
So this is the problem.
This is the...
The moral hazard of that type of fast and loose governance.
Yep, yep.
It's very, very interesting.
So then you ended up, that was your out from the NBA? Yeah, done.
I mean, I've been fighting them for, I mean, I was, I'm 32 now, I was 22 then.
What was your experience in your time leaving the NBA watching the Daryl Morey incident that we're talking about now?
What was his tweet?
Fight for freedom, stand for Hong Kong.
Stand with Hong Kong.
Stand with Hong Kong and then seeing what played out in the aftermath of that.
I want to say this was maybe four years ago or so.
There was so much to it.
There's so much to pull apart.
But in short, because I want to get to more political stuff with you, I wouldn't.
But this relates to some of that.
This is the perfect segue.
This is the U.S. relationship to China.
And this is a great example.
I mean, probably one of the best examples of how somebody can say a thing that would be in alignment with some people on some side.
And their real position is not in alignment with some people on some side.
It's the wild, wild west of ideological warfare in our society.
I mean, just to set the stage, I mean, we've got protests in Hong Kong, pro-democracy protests.
China has an agreement that says that they're not going to have their tentacles invade Hong Kong's system.
Those are those pro-democracy protests.
I think this is around 2019 or so.
And Daryl Morey tweets, fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong.
And then he goes through his own version of, it's almost, maybe it's a version of karma, but he goes through a whole version of being cast as a pariah by LeBron James.
Right.
Somehow weighing into this, you know, who else was in this?
The owner, Nike, the NBA, Adam Silver.
Everybody.
Yeah.
James Harden.
But he apologized first.
Did he?
He walked his comments back first.
Oh, that's, that's, that's, that's, okay, I missed that part.
No, yeah, right away.
They brought the hammer on him.
He didn't realize.
See, here's the thing about Dillmore.
He just walked into a mess.
Look, when you put Twitter in everybody's hands, not everybody is their own PR manager.
That's right.
In the middle of the midnight whims, you think you're on the right side of a thing, which he theoretically would be.
He was speaking his mind.
Let's talk about it from a geopolitical standpoint.
Theoretically, he was on the right side of the people that he's over there getting political money with.
The NBA is a woke, pro-democracy, non-authoritarian, freedom anywhere is freedom everywhere, corporations.
So to him, he's thinking...
I'm standing under the party line here.
It may not even be his conviction.
That's actually a good point.
He thinks he is doing the thing that's part of the...
I'm just speaking what the NBA would expect you to say.
And he gets a call early in the morning like, buddy, not that though.
Not that one.
When we want it.
Just like back to...
So then he walks it back.
See, okay, that's interesting.
But see, I experienced that because it's just like back to the doctors where it's expert medical advice only when we want it.
That's right.
It's freedom-fighting political ideology only when we want it.
Right.
And right then is not the time.
China's off-limits.
Because we're expanding into the Chinese market and the CCP's about to tell us...
Oh, by the way, Daryl, you should know that because the inception of the NBA China movement was predicated on Yao Ming.
Yeah, Yao Ming.
You should know China's off-limits.
So he walks the comments back.
And then, yeah, the Piranhas descended.
Right.
Yeah.
And so what was your takeaway from watching all that happen?
Oh, these people are fucking sellouts.
What are you doing at this point in life?
I was in Canada.
I had just come back from Canada.
Okay.
I was played two years in London, Ontario.
Oh, so you played in Canada.
Okay.
Yeah, I played two years in London, Ontario.
Was there when Bill's 16th thing went down with Jordan Peterson.
Okay.
In the Ontario province.
And I was on my way back from Canada to come play in the Big Three.
Oh, you were?
Yes, in 2019, 18, yeah.
Oh, you were on your way to playing the Big Three, meaning?
The Ice Cube's Big Three.
Oh, you were?
Yeah.
Oh, that was in 2019?
I played it now.
Okay, but that was you on your way, and that's when the Daryl Morey thing broke?
That's when it broke.
Okay, okay.
So, you know, it was a...
I had already started to see this avalanche of fake woke politics.
I lived with it.
I came up...
Did you speak out on it at the time, or were you kind of just...
Of course, yeah, of course.
I mean, I said, you know, First of all, let's talk about the Hong Kong thing for a moment.
Hong Kong...
China is a convoluted problem that has many, many layers.
But effectively, Hong Kong is the left...
The pro-freedom democracy Hong Kong movement is the leftist BLM movement here in many senses, right?
And China, who I am vehemently opposed to, the CCP and their influence in our country, Their problem with Hong Kong is that it was a bastion to Western power in China.
The same way they had earlier gotten Shanghai, they had dealt with their Shanghai problem.
In many ways.
Because Shanghai used to be the epicenter of American Thai and American ambassadorship and power to China, the CCP. So Xi Jinping cut that off.
Right.
And then Hong Kong becomes his hotspot and he brings the hammer down on them.
Now, post-COVID, they double back to make sure that the Shanghai-Western Thais are...
Doesn't retake off again.
Which is why they had extensive lockdowns.
Yeah, the lockdowns had nothing to do with COVID. In Shanghai.
Of course.
It was a complete geopolitical move.
So, you know, watching it from that angle.
And that was also specifically in the moment where he was about to take over his unprecedented third term.
That's right.
As chairman of the CCP. That's right.
Right.
Yeah.
So when you watch it from that angle, you can tell that the average American citizen who's watching Twitter and NBA Twitter and the reactions that many times cross over in politics, They have no clue what to make of Hong Kong, let alone Daryl Morey making that comment.
So that's the political spectrum we're dealing with today, is many of these things have such deep roots that when these surface sparks pop up, people are pinballs.
They don't even really know how to...
Totally.
It's like, yeah, exactly.
I mean, I think, and I think the funny thing is you see the same thing in politics, too.
You'll experience this.
Most politicians are like, use pinball analogy, billiard balls, right?
They're just going to be rolling in whatever direction they're hit without actually asking who's doing the aiming.
Right.
And so don't be one of those billiard balls.
You're not one of those billiard balls.
But that's what I tell young people across this country, the same thing.
So that was in 2019. 2020 is when the George Floyd, post-George Floyd BLM issues come up.
You're familiar with my version of this in the corporate world, having read the book.
Tell me about what your reaction was at that time and what your journey was through that.
I'd already come through the NBA 10 years of fighting the landslide of liberalism that had corrupted the NBA. And would you call yourself at this point in time a conservative or not necessarily?
I was born and raised a Catholic.
You were, okay.
I was always a conservative.
So that was consistently?
I mean, well, let's say this.
I was believing God.
Yeah.
You weren't always practicing hard Catholic at every point in time, but you came back to it.
No, but I was baptized, born and raised at Catholic Church.
All the wakes and funerals were at the Catholic Church.
Are you practicing now?
Yes.
Okay, you came back to it.
Yes.
Well, I didn't really leave, but I'll just say in my own personal life, you know, there's a metric, a measure of what a practicing Catholic is supposed to be doing on a daily, weekly basis.
And then there's people who are still going to church, and then there are people who don't believe in God at all, right?
Yeah.
There's a huge spectrum there.
But anyway, I'll say that I'd already seen this landslide of woke politics and liberalism through my fight with the NBA. And I had a huge problem with it.
I had a huge chip on my shoulder against the entire mainstream liberal establishment because I saw mental health.
Which I don't like to even say mental health.
Mental health is another way to say the human condition.
Where mind, body, and spirit converge into our perceivable existence.
This is what mental health is.
And when you say we don't care enough to make policy about the human condition, what you're really saying is we don't really care about humanity, which is in alignment with their technocratic sort of post-human society movement, which is really what we're dealing with at the highest levels of globalism, right?
Is we have to find a way to live forever.
So I've spent 10 years dealing with that.
The George Floyd thing happens.
I grew up in the Twin Cities.
I grew up in Minneapolis.
I grew up in St. Paul.
I'm very familiar with many of the mishaps and misconduct of the police department.
I'm very familiar with the crime in the neighborhoods and some of the criminals.
I know the dynamic.
You of all people.
I know the dynamic, right?
And I thought watching the video, because the Black Lives Matter movement had This was a buildup.
George Floyd was the buildup after Trayvon Martin.
George Floyd was the climax of what began with Trayvon Martin.
And I had watched Black Lives Matter Do their political moves.
And I had watched the NBA players jump on board at different times, but then sell out when it mattered most, where the hard lines should have been.
So I'm already hawking this movement.
George Floyd is killed, and I feel the same sense of...
Sadness and outrage that every American citizen should have felt watching the video.
The government is too big and the police state is dangerous.
And they've been dangerous for a long time.
It's only now you get to see it on Facebook Live.
And it doesn't matter what that man did.
Within context, right, if you rob a bank woman at gunpoint and you're fleeing with the gun and you got it pointed at an officer, when you're handcuffed with your chest on the pavement and you have no chance to run, let alone be a harm or danger, am I an American citizen?
Am I a Roman citizen, as they would say in the Bible?
Do you have the right to beat and bind a Roman citizen without a fair trial?
And I know George Floyd was on fentanyl, and I know he had a previous criminal history, and so too may be the same circumstance for all of us, including yourself, if you continue to tell the truth the way you do.
The truth will be deemed illegal.
And when the truth becomes deemed illegal, you will want a person like me out there in the streets that looks at a situation where the police state reaches too far and goes, that's not right, I don't care what you say he did.
We've lost that in America.
But anyway, I'm watching this and I say, I gotta do something.
For a moment in time, my hometown, my home is going to be the center of global politics.
And it was.
Minneapolis during 2020 was the center of global politics all around the world.
So I went to go lead protests.
The city was on fire.
There was anarchy.
Antifa was definitely doing their thing.
There were other groups out there doing their thing as well at night and causing chaos.
And me and my other fellow athletes, some other young black men, didn't agree with the narrative around this situation.
So I led a bunch of protests, non-violent.
We did about 11 protests, I'd say, over that summer.
Maybe 150,000 to 160,000 people.
We didn't have one fight, one fire, or one arrest in an 11, 12 protest.
A more throwback to your standard traditional liberal protest, right?
The anti-war movement, which is a huge criticism I have of the conservative movement right now.
Oh, I share one with you.
He has a leading voice.
Yep.
We're on our way to nuclear war and you guys aren't in the streets.
Sleepwalking our way into it right now.
What are we doing?
So this was the precursor.
Yep.
George Floyd was the precursor to nuclear war.
Interesting.
Yeah.
Interesting framing.
So I'm watching this and I go, I'm not going to let them control the narrative.
I'm taking my protests to the Federal Reserve.
Because to me, the Fed and this sort of economic Ponzi scheme that's been run on both black people and white people a few neighborhoods away, but conjoined by economic policy, is the whole system is guilty that you guys are chanting at the rallies.
You just don't understand that the Fed should be a target because your Marxist liberal professors down the street the other way at the university have intentionally taught you not to look at the economic...
By design.
By design.
You look at the police departments.
I look at who pays them.
And I look at why they pay them.
I look at that as the incentive away from why police officers are not upholding their oath to the Constitution and the flag.
Interesting.
So what...
I mean, that's quite a...
I'm deeply sympathetic to this.
I think the Fed has been responsible for the lack of inflation-adjusted wage growth in this country over the last 25 years.
But that's quite a pivot for you to make, to say, okay, I'm protesting here.
We're doing peacefully really different than the way some of these other people are going about it.
What was the...
Aha moment for you to say, okay, now I'm going to actually focus on the Fed.
Oh, it wasn't an aha moment.
It was just obvious.
It was obvious to you.
Yeah.
I mean, because my thing was, okay, we have a corporatocracy.
We have a bunch of young, affluent, educated white liberals that are infatuated with this conversation about justice and freedom.
But somewhere in their education, There was a glass ceiling or a threshold placed on them venturing over the line of what many would call conspiracy theory or accepted narrative about the institutions that preside over us.
And the obvious one is the Fed.
Okay.
Central Banking.
So what did you do with that insight?
Um, I said, if we're going to talk about justice, if we're going to talk about the system, if you guys want to talk about the system, if you want to talk about policing, if you want to talk about the military industrial complex, because to me, policing is the lowest rung of the military industrial complex.
Not to say that police officers are doing the bidding of the military, knowingly, but the police are the lowest rung of the military industrial complex.
So you're saying let's ratchet this up one rung and go to the...
Three rungs.
Three rungs.
Police.
So you go to the Fed.
Military industrial complex.
Fed.
Fed, right?
Or let's go police.
Corporatocracy that makes money every time a police kills a guy.
They're out there with the cameras just...
Shaping the narrative.
Above them is the military-industrial complex that really sets the stage for much of what our modern society is.
That's the real third rail.
That's the real third rail.
And on top is the Fed.
They're the ones pointing the fingers, giving the directions.
Diversity, CEI, Corporate Equity Index, right?
Absolutely.
So, you know, and I did this.
So did you lead some protests at the Fed?
15,000 people.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
To the Fed.
In D.C.? In Minneapolis.
When was...
Okay, the Minneapolis at the...
The Minneapolis Fed.
U.S. Fed, yep.
The U.S. Fed Division in Minneapolis, yeah.
Yeah, and I was standing up there talking about the Fed and a lot of the...
This is in 2020?
Yes.
Okay.
Oh, this was six days after George Floyd was killed.
Fascinating.
See, I missed that.
I missed this part of it.
Not by accident.
Because the same corporate liberal media that protects the Fed, they somehow missed that 15,000 people showed up at the Federal Reserve.
I missed it.
I gotta tell you that too.
That's interesting.
So you led that.
This is summer 2020 we're talking.
This was June 6th.
How would you describe the composition of people who showed up there?
Oh, mostly, you know, 20-year-old white liberals.
Interesting.
This is common cause with, I think, what many libertarians in this country and I think what many conservatives in this country feel now, too.
That's interesting.
It's interesting how some of this doesn't track partisan boundaries.
There were black people out there.
Oh, let me be clear.
They didn't know why we were at the Fed or why we were going.
They weren't in the spirit of protesting at the Fed.
Oh, the 15,000 people.
No.
Oh, I see, I see, I see.
I unwillingly brought them...
To the Fed.
This is where we're going, guys.
In the height of George Floyd.
Yeah.
Oh, I see.
To show them the connection.
And did you speak and explain it?
Absolutely.
And what was the response?
They looked at me like I had three eyes.
Oh, really?
Yes.
Okay, okay, okay, okay.
I was waiting for the happy ending where they're all...
But the bright spot was...
Persuaded.
...there were individual people out there.
Who...
Yep, clicked.
You could see it click.
You could see it click.
And I mean, I held up a sign on July 4th.
This was a month later.
We went back to the Fed again.
Could have had Ron Paul there.
He would have loved it.
I love Ron Paul.
I love Rand, too.
He's one of the few patriots left in the Senate, which is why I'm running for Senate to come back him up.
But we kept the same route of our protests.
I got you.
For the whole summer.
And it always went by the Fed.
So we stopped at the Fed 12 times.
And on July 4th, the night, we did a silent protest on July 4th.
This was in the heart of the pandemic.
We're supposed to be locked down.
We're supposed to be social distancing.
And I said, Governor Walz says, sir, your authority is null and void at the moment, right?
We have some...
We're citizens.
You don't own us.
Damn sure don't own me.
Yep.
You want to come arrest me?
Fine.
But we're going to the Fed.
Okay.
So on July 4th, we're at the Fed and we have this huge 30 by 30 canvas and the word sovereignty is painted on it.
Oh, interesting.
In red ink.
Right?
And then I get a call from Bloomberg and they say, you mind telling us why you're leading protests to the Federal Reserve?
This is like six protests in.
Late to the party.
Bloomberg Financial was the only one that ever even covered it.
Interesting.
Yeah.
And so I'll tell you, just to wrap up George Floyd, is eventually the BLM and Antifa community leaders who are there to sort of stifle and shape and direct the anti-establishment spirit of common folk in the metropolitan areas.
Eventually, they got wise to it, and they hit me with the litmus question.
And the litmus question is, all across the country, the LGBTQ. So I want to talk about the Fed and economic tyranny.
They're like, no, no, no, no, you got to check the box here.
No, the thing is, how do you feel about transgenders?
And I say exactly what I feel about the LGBTQ. They're citizens.
They have rights.
But they, under no circumstances, should be the center of our political focus, especially juxtaposed to the Federal Reserve.
So I don't really have time to talk about who you want to have sex with.
The Fed is running an unconstitutional tax on the American working class.
We need to abolish this place.
Then we can figure out who you're having sex with if you really want to have that discussion at that point.
Well, you realize these things are deeply related to one another.
Of course.
One is smoke to deflect accountability from the other.
Of course.
Yeah.
Of course.
And that's what I was trying to tell people.
But anyway, the nonprofit leaders and the BLM activists, you know, they kind of, you know, discarded.
They were not going to let Royce lead any more protests or don't participate with him anymore.
And so I kind of backed off because I knew that the damage had been done.
I had poked the hole in the wall that needed to be poked.
And then the 2020 election in January 6th.
And when January 6th happened, I looked and I tweeted, I said, you all are just mad that you didn't do it.
And I'm not saying every aspect of it.
This is how the pendulum swings and you and I both know how sophisticated the security state is in the intelligence community in the deep state.
They're sophisticated.
And the one thing they are masters of is social engineering.
Not every aspect is direct.
Some they let grow and then flourish at an opportune time.
If they do and they'll come across the field and they'll go, oh, let's pick that flower and use it.
Great.
This is what we want.
Other times they are direct.
Yep.
But in general, you know, when you look at just the overall attitude towards protest, I thought it was abhorrent what the Congress and the Senate had to say in the wake of January 6th.
Because what they effectively said to American citizens everywhere is, under no circumstances should your frustration with us, under no circumstances should your frustration with us and our corruption, our crony capitalism, ever come to our front door.
Under no, and they even said it explicitly.
Who was the black guy who helped lead the January 6th ex post facto?
I know who you're talking about.
His name was, was it something Bernie?
It was, I forgot, Thompson?
That sounds about right.
I think it was something Thompson.
We'll have to check, but they know what I'm talking about.
He was the black guy who was leading the January 6th committee.
And he goes, protests should never endanger, never endanger congressmen, United States congressmen.
Back to the not in my backyard all over again.
It doesn't matter what we do.
There's a version of this that traces back to the very beginning of the story.
Back in your days at the University of Minnesota.
Interesting, right?
Yeah, we like that concept.
Not in my backyard.
Never under any circumstances should our betrayal of the American people bring penalty upon us.
And so, you know, after the January 6th thing, I was on my way to the Big Three season.
I met Steve, Steve Bannon, and the rest is history.
Hmm.
Hmm.
Yeah.
Fascinating.
I'm tip of the mag of spear.
Yeah.
I'm the hatchet man.
They call me the hatchet man in the War Room Posse.
Yeah, I like that.
Because I come from the belly of the beast.
So, you know, I'm really as bipartisan as they come because I actually, like you...
Forget the partisan BS. Yeah, we see the party as a scam.
It is.
Yeah.
Now, Washington Post and Mother Jones and The Guardian and New York Times...
We'll try and paint me as a far-right wing Republican.
Republican Party.
Irrelevant in this conversation.
There is no Republican Party.
That's interesting.
So post-Jan 6, you say that, and then what happens?
Again, they can't say anything to me at the time because I just led 15,000 people to the Fed.
What are we saying?
Either we're protesting or we can't.
That's right.
It's one side or another.
For the conservatives, too.
Either we're in the last hour of freedom or we're not.
Let's be clear about it and let's talk about what's next.
So then what led you from there to the doorstep of your Senate race now, which I am Certainly after this conversation, I'm going to be following much more closely.
I'm intrigued.
Tell me about that journey.
Tell me what that looks like.
So in 2021, we come back to the Big Three, and I go viral for wearing a t-shirt and doing a post-game interview about the Uyghurs.
Free the Uyghurs.
I put on a t-shirt with the backwards Nike symbol on CBS Live.
And that goes viral.
So I wear the backwards swoosh, free the Uyghurs.
Me and Steve have a...
So then now I'm on Steve's radar.
You know, me and Steve talk.
Jeff Quadnitz, who is the co-founder of the Big Three with Ice Cube.
He's his partner.
Used to be partners in a business venture with Steve Bannon in their Hollywood Entertainment Days.
And so I connect with Steve.
And Steve introduces me to the War Room Posse and the MAGA movement.
And I get over and I'm like, you know, it's time to go.
Exactly.
And look, it's time to go.
But it's not just this lukewarm conservatism.
Oh no, yeah, forget that.
And even in the MAGA movement, MAGA's the tip of the spear.
Totally.
But there is this sort of...
Milk toast.
Milk toast, laissez-faire, don't swear, use profanity.
No, this is smash-mouth populism.
We are faced with an enemy that has undermined every aspect of our Constitution, of what it means to be American, undermined the value of our citizenship.
There is no more pleasantries.
Well, you can't win a war if you don't know you're in one.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
So now, you know, I ran against Ilhan Omar in Congress.
I was railroaded by the GOP. Is that right?
Yeah, by the Minnesota GOP. Oh, really?
Oh, the Minnesota GOP is, we can't have any of these right-wing extremists.
So you didn't get the nomination?
I didn't get the endorsement.
You didn't get the endorsement, but you got the nomination.
I didn't.
I lost by 700 votes in the primary.
Oh, 700. Okay, all right.
So that was last cycle.
Fine.
It was a good noble task to take up.
You said, now screw it, I'm going for Senate.
Statewide.
Good.
Statewide, and now we're going against Claude Shaw.
It's less easily controlled, actually.
It is.
I think that that's actually a smart choice.
It becomes the bigger of a large scale.
Same thing at the presidential level, it's at that level.
The party apparatus starts to matter a lot less.
Right.
But the Senate, compared to a House race, that's going to be to your advantage.
Absolutely.
Well, I'm going to be watching that race very closely.
I am proud of you for having the courage to tell your story on such a Diverse range of issues over your career.
You don't need my advice on this, but I share this as a reflection, not as advice.
Don't shy away from the mental health element of this now.
We're in the middle of a mental health epidemic in this country that I personally believe is driven by the vacuum of national values, faith, patriotism, hard work, family.
And if you can play a role in helping to fill that void of purpose and meaning, but tie your own personal journey into it, I think there could be a really powerful conversation in this country, not just in Minnesota, but in this country that you can help spawn.
And I am happy to continue this one if this is helpful in elevating this, not just within Minnesota, but to a national stage about what's actually driving that mental health epidemic, not just amongst athletes or NBA players, but across this country today.
And I think there's something deeper going on at the heart.
Of our national soul.
There's a vacuum.
There's a void.
And I hope you can play an important role in helping us fill that void with your vision, man.
Well, you too, brother.
I appreciate the time.
Thank you for coming here.
Yeah, thank you, brother.
Godspeed.
I have a feeling we're going to be talking a lot more.
Thank you.
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