In conversation with Reid Hoffman & Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

27:42I think we don't want to forbid changes in the future. This is one of the problems we get with it blocks innovation when we do that, with blocks innovation and Hollywood, block innovation and music, block innovation. So you want to allow some new changing landscape. And I think this is a changing landscape that arguably is reading. So I think that both of those things are true in terms of what do we want to sort through. I think that one of the reasons why this is kind of like, you know, over like when I give advice to you know, various news organizations or say, look, don't try to hold out for money on the training side of things because you know, we're going to create synthetic data, we're going to do all kinds of other things that are going to mean that no one's particular data is really going to matter.

28:29What you should be is on freshness, on brand, on other things, and we should work out ongoing sustaining economic arrangements like that. That would be my two -sense suggestion for it. And I do think we want to design an ecosystem that includes that. And when I was involved in those conversations at OpenAI, they agree with that. Microsoft certainly agrees with that in terms of how do we make sure that economics are fairly apportioned and so forth for what we're doing for this phase of. And ongoing, but there's a current, tech new technological wave that's coming, and how do you do that? So that's a messy answer, but unfortunately, it's a messy subject.

29:07It's pretty messy subject, before we move to politics, I just wanted to actually ask you about inflection. So is it still running? Yeah. And so what basically happened? There was some transfer payment from Microsoft and a couple of the people, and then it seems like whatever that deal was, a little bit seems to have been copied by Google when they did this character AI thing. So just trying to get a sense from you, are these deals destructurally avoid FDC scrutiny in terms of the building blocks of it? Or how do you think about it and what is the pattern and the trend on these things? Well, the thing I think that's happened was, you know, a very early days, you had things like, you know, we're doing an agent.

29:49And if Pi had launched before JATGBT, it'd probably be in a different circumstance. but like chat GPT got the high is the inflection a hot inflection. Yeah, and so so by the time that high we got the the trend right and the and the interest of the market right but we got the timing you know too late happens with startups. So it's like okay we need to pivot we need to pivot from a B to C model to a B to B and we have a unique model but let's sell that to other people who are the audiences because we're not going to be able to easily grow our audience. And then once we had that as a conversation, there were employees like, well, we want to do the direct agent thing and that's what we want to do and maybe we'll go somewhere and do that.

30:28And we're like, okay, how do we fund this and how do we make that work and how do we make it work for investors? And we said, hey, there's a deal structure that could work, which is with a outside party, you can get paid enough in a non -exclusive IP license and an ability to selectively hire folks. And then you can do it and some of that out to investors who investors get back kind of a 1X and then kind of an ongoing position. So as investors, it's great to have a kind of optionality on its B2B business in order to play that out. And this is a structure that works for everybody in this pivot to B2B.

31:04And that's essentially the structure that we did. I see. Great pivot, Chimoff, into Lena Khan. I think one of the things that is quite paradoxical about your relationship with David Sacks is you both agree on something in politics, which is Lena Khan. And her concepts around future competition and maybe how she's running this issue for the United States is leading to basically a freeze on the market. We're seeing weird deal structures, like some of the ones we're talking about here that could have just been acquisitions. And I'm curious your thoughts on what she, you know, this sort of breakup of Google.

31:46Now we're seeing that emerge at the same time that they're facing the biggest existential crisis of their career, which is language models competing with them. And I would say half of my Google searches have already moved to, you know, you know, Chatchy PT like services. So what's your take on Lina Khan's approach to M &A and what impact if it's continued and sustained? Well, that have on capital allocation because I don't know what happened to the single and double M &A market, but it seems to be completely gone. Everything from Adobe and Figma to other mergers that could be happening are essentially frozen.

32:26So what's your take? So it was funny because I kind of made an off the cuff, you know, kind of remark about Lena Kong with turning it all news cycle. I saw you on CNN where they were like, are you telling Kamala and Biden what they have to do? And some like, no, because I don't believe in that kind of corruption of politics. The only way she's learned about it is she asked me or she watches the television show. And so she's done good job on the price part, she did a good job on the anti -compete, both of which I think are very good for competitive markets. The problem is I think she has a misunderstanding of these large tech companies.

33:04And for example, on the M &A thing, her theory is you gotta prevent the aggregation of power, so you gotta fight every acquisition of NOPE. And the problem of course is that actually equals venture capital investment, because it's like, okay, part of the returns is, if I'm going to invest in something that might be competing with one or more of the large tech companies, I need to have acquisition exits as part of being able to fund enough capital to really make that acquisition, that investment possible work. Because if it doesn't work, I want to be able to at least recover my capital by an investment.

33:42So the right way to look at it is, is there competition amongst the top tech companies? Because if one of them is squashing all the other ones, that's a problem. If we're five large tech companies heading to three, then I'm much more sympathetic to our point of view. But we're actually five heading to 10, right? Or five to seven heading to 12. Because like Nvidia is now in the mix. And others, I think, are coming in the mix. I think it's coming in the mix. Now over 500 billion years. Yes. And so you have this ability. So the thing is, is they're competing on the acquisitions, just like they're competing in the marketplace.

34:15And if you're trying to quell the whole thing, because your theory is like, like they should just, you know, the startup should just be able to grow up to compete, that actually means that those will never get the capital that they need in order to do that, which means you're actually having the opposite of your intent, right? What you're doing is you're actually making there to be less competition because,

34:39you know, and $500 million a billion into this company, I at least have a chance of getting my capital back or I can possibly create a competitor. And that's the reason I was speaking out against it as an expert. It was like Richard Stain's that's it. I saw you, I think it was a Jake Taper, Tapper who kind of grilled you on it. I thought you did an exceptional job of just saying, listen, I made a donation. This is how I feel about it, but obviously he's gonna do what she wants to do. And that's just how politics works. So I thought that was actually pretty well done and I actually appreciate you fighting for more M &A because it'd be great for the industry So actually you want to throw up a political topic here.

35:17You want me to just just just stick on Lena Confer a second So I agree that her approach has been overly broad and has had a chilling effect on M &A And so Jake, like you said, we've lost those base it Acquisitions that I think are important to the venture capital market that help you start to get funded I mean, if there are turns on risk capital go down, there's going to be less of it. That means it'll be less. That means less. That's going to be taken away from. Yeah, so I agree with Read on that. The area where I'm not sure we agree is and where I do agree with Lena Conn is I do think the big tech companies have too much power.

35:52I do think that they are monopolies or have monopolies and I do think they need to be controlled. I just think that, you know, I wouldn't prevent them from doing any M &A whatsoever. I'm curious if Read like agrees with that that the big tech companies have too much power or agrees with Lena Khan on that. And I guess specifically, do you think any big tech company should be broken up? If so, which ones? I mean, I would actually entertain that idea of of deaconglombrating or breaking up some of these big tech companies. Do you do you think do you agree that big tech is too much power or not? I think it's TBD.

36:30But the reason I'd say look, think the opposite point of view would say no. The thesis for no is that they are very strong American companies that get, you know, in the most cases, over half the revenue from overseas. They create technology platforms that beneficially differentiate the US versus, you know, many other countries in kind of global circumstances like the internet and other kinds of things. I think that they are competing ferociously with each other. I mean, Jason just mentioned that it was kind of like, well, we've already got chat GPT competing with Google search, and other kinds of things.

37:11And I think it's competitive pressure. This is what capitalism is about. It's competitive pressure that essentially creates the thing. And that's reason why I like if we were shrinking. Like it was Google Uralis. Or I actually frankly think that the, Can everyone likes to talk about Google? I think that the prime candidate is likely to be, and I'm speaking as an individual and as a venture capitalist here, is Apple with the App Store. Okay, so that brings up an interesting point. One of the things we've talked about in this pod is that we shouldn't shut down M &A, but the FTC should limit anti -competitive tactics by these big tech companies.

37:50Apple, really good example because they drive everything through the App Store. or you're not allowed to do side loading, they wanna take what is a 30 % piece of any sales, you're not even allowed to have a link inside an application to drive. Exactly, you're up now. These are to the website. Yeah, you're up now, you can. So which you would you at least wanna crack down on those anti -competitive tactics? Yeah, no, for sure. And look, especially when, you know, we all know it's nonsense. It's like, look, you could just give the consumers the option to allow side loading. You could just say it's technically very simple to do and you can say look we don't want you to side load because we view it to be safety and security but we're giving you the option.

38:35Right. Fine. Give people the option. Right. Read Reunue Surprise that then the first target where there was like some successful antitrust pushback was against Google versus Apple. and then second, do you think that there's a chance, like a meaningful chance that the government tries to break Google up, or do you think it looks something maybe more similar to what happened to Microsoft? So I think in mandating breakups, you know, like I think is a, look, I think we should operate through competitive networks and competitive ecosystems. I think it's part of what's smart about capitalism. I think mandating breakups is only when essentially like capitalism is failing on specific things.

39:17You want to do the least you can to get back to competitive networks in terms of how you're operating. So when you say, hey, look, iOS has this kind of an op -ing. You say there's no side loading. You have to use App Store. You have to use the payment mechanism, et cetera, et cetera. It's like, well, that quells a ton of startup innovation. We all know this as investors because we look at anyone who's prospectively doing a business like this and say, no chance. it's you know you're not going to succeed. And so so then you say well what's the least thing that we can do right and you know like a classic Andy Schruff's like well it's pretty clothed the app store from Apple as well right unclear that that would really fully work you know that's like socialism mandating how the things should work let's try to get it so that we allow competition to determine these things and like for example saying hey like you have to allow consumers the option of side loading.

40:09You have to allow consumers the option of installing an alternative app store. Right? Like that kind of stuff, I think, you know, what's the minimal stuff? I think that's the kind of intervention I want to have because I think there's all kinds of benefits that come from what but why do you think that the case against Apple has made less progress in the case against Google? I think it's kind of it's less politically easy. Right? Like it's kind of like everybody loves our iOS phone and you There's less of a blue and red combo tackle where the blue feet people are like, hate big companies. Apple's less offensive basically.

40:48Yes. More stylish. They're prettier. I like your approach with the App Store. If you were to think of least harm to the ecosystem, Epic Games has their own App Store for Games. they charge 88 % they give eight, I'm sorry, they give developers 88 % they only take 12 and forcing Apple to allow you know a startup to do an App Store would solve the entire problem and It seems like that's where it's gonna go and all five of us would invest instantly in an App Store that would say 0 % Take rate and it will advertise and based what a great idea that would be Yeah, great. I have a question a A few weeks ago, you said something to the effect very publicly that you had had a one -hour or multi -hour lunch with Biden.

41:35And he just stood like super on his game and then he was kind of dumped. Was that just a moment in time where he was really great with you or how do you reconcile that with Pelosi and all of these other folks and what happened to Biden? Well, like most of us, I was pretty dismayed by the debate performance because when I talked to them, like detailed, thoughtful, and halicist with no notes on Gaza, questions about AI, you know, and what kinds of things, you know, what did I think about what the progress, you know, the thing they were doing with the volunteer commitments, the executive order, and you know, what kinds of things should happen in the future, and all that kind to stop being on the game a little slower, right, than a 50 -year -old would be, but like cogent and totally worth it.

42:28And then you kind of looked at the debate, oh my gosh, this is a disaster. And so it was like, look, is the debate a one -off thing, is it where you will, like trying to reconcile the two and spend a little bit of time trying to figure that out to what was going on because it was the first time I'd seen something like that. And, you know, I'm not enough of a DC insider to know exactly what the set of conclusions were other than I plotted, you know, Biden for having the kind of integrity to go, look, maybe I'm ill, maybe I'm old, maybe I'm slower, but, you know, it's about the country more than and it's about me because I'm not, it's important to be about the country, not about yourself, I'll step aside.

43:19And ultimately, who's the decision? There's nothing that anyone can force, below sea couldn't force it, anyone else. It's ultimately a decision, he came to that decision. So, do you think that they should have run an open primary after that? And would Kamala have won an open primary? Well, it's hard to know, I mean, I think they were definitely leaning towards an open primary and then all the people who would be the most natural contenders all endorsed Kamala. So, and by the way, you say, well, kind of democratic process. It was like, well, there was a democratic process that picked the Biden -Harris ticket, which turned into the Harris Walls ticket.

43:51And so that's not anti -democratic. But I think if you look at the sequence of events, it was kind of like, well, we're going to short out what we're going to do. And then all of the key folks, Shapiro and Whitmer and everyone else all endorsed Kamala. I was like, okay, let's just let's get back to, you know, kind of the choice of two candidates. And so I, you know, he feel the voters help read. Do you think the voters felt left out? The democratic voters. Well, I mean, from post fact, it seems not right with the level of kind of energy and all the rest, it seems that the, you know, like with the pure polling, I'm kind of level energy and kind of what's going on.

44:40They're happy with what they got. Yeah, they're happy with what they got. I would have liked to hand that speed run. Do you think it sets a bad precedent that there were these back room conversations? Obviously, the staff of Whitmer, Moore, Shapiro, their office speaks with Democratic Party leadership speak with big donors and there was effectively a coalescing that took place over a period of time that said we should all stand behind an endorsed one person instead of infighting and creating a split in the party. And does that not set a bad precedent that there is a small group of people in either party that in a primary process effectively get to nominate their candidate, get their candidate to become the nominee.

45:22And therefore there's only two people for the country to choose from. And as we have seen recently with RFK Jr. in the lawsuit against him in being on the ballot in different states It makes it very difficult maybe for the people to have their choice And is that a bad way for democracy to work? And I just love your philosophical view on this unlike what's the best way for democracy in the United States to work? So We do live for the president for the president. Yes, we do live in a republic All right, and there is there is like you know some people have much more influence than others whether it's media platforms, whether it's economics and ability to spend, whether it's history and a brand and other things.

46:04And so, this melee and kind of whole integration set of things. Now ultimately, voters are going to decide in November. So people do have a, and I think that staying to our democratic process is what's really I think we should want to live in a country where everyone does, everyone who is legally allowed to vote does vote. And I think that that's ultimately a good thing. Now, are there things that I would like to change? Sure, I'd like to have ranked choice voting. I'd like to have open primaries. There's a set of things. Actually, my principal frustration and all of this stuff is, what's one of the fundamental things that the two parties agree on that shouldn't be?

46:52is that there should be only two parties. I think that's something you need to fix. You can't fix it. Unfortunately, I think with independent candidates, because the whole system is really set up for two parties and independent candidates are almost always spoiler as one way or the other. On the RFK stuff, I understand there was a bunch of Democrats who were trying to prevent them from getting on the ballot. I actually prefer him on the ballot because I actually think his his his anti -vax stance, well, you know, really fit very well with with Trump. And so I think you want to get more from Trump.

47:27You want to address that read because I think there is a rumor that you were funding some of these lawsuits to keep him off the ballot or whatever. Like have you spent any money to try to impact RFK one way or the other? I wouldn't be surprised if we look at all the money that goes all the different organizations of organization X kind of had some kind of ballot thing. Mine, my voice instruction was always like, no, no, don't do that. That's anti -democratic. But you can't control everything just like you invest in a company and see sometimes the dumb ass that you can't do anything about. Because you give money to folks that then execute their own strategy.

48:06So you can't control on the ground tactics, right? Yeah. So this **** that happens that you're like, no, don't do that. Well, okay, that's a good, that's a good segue. Right. Let's talk about the five cases against Trump. There are five lawsuits. No, hold on, Jake Allen, can we just stay on this talk for a second? Sure, of course you can, yeah. Okay, so in Michigan and Wisconsin, you had democratic groups, they fought RFK juniors bid to get on the ballot. Okay, they failed. Now he wants to get off the ballot, but they won't take him off. Now that they think that his presence hurts Trump. And at the same time, Michigan's trying to remove Cornell West and Wisconsin's trying to remove Jill Stein.

48:48So I'm curious, do you think there's any principle on display here besides naked partisan hackery? I mean, basically, the Democrats fought having third parties on the ballot when they thought it would hurt Biden. and now they want to keep them on the ballot when they think it's going to hurt Trump, except for those third party candidates who they still think will hurt Harris. So is there any principal year as this just partisan hackery? I think it's, you know, I frankly, you know, think that everyone who follows the legal process to get on the ballot should be on the ballot and, you know, we should follow the legal process.

49:25I'm very much of a legal process kind of person. What I'm opposed to is like, you know, calling Raffin's burger and asking for 11 ,000 votes, right, which is not legal. Right. So, so like, yeah, sure, is that is that bad? And, and do I advocate against the answers? Absolutely. Yes. But it's, you know, followed legal process. If the state of Colorado throws Trump off the ballot, for example, is that legal process? If it's that overruled by the Supreme Court, or could we just say, well, substantively, that states shouldn't be removing candidates from the ballot. That's anti -democratic. uh... will but you want them to remove our behave no that's not what I said i i okay i'm just trying to figure out the the rule is that the first of all i don't think that democratic groups should be suing rfk to keep it off the ballot and that's what he said is that democratic groups were soon to keep them off the ballot and they were trying to exhaust his resources so he couldn't mount an effective campaign and some of those groups you fund it right so maybe don't know what they're doing But in any event I can say that to be anti -democratic RFK is now trying to remove his name from the ballot I think as a candidate you're allowed to do that and those same groups that once fought To keep him off the ballot or trying to keep his name on the ballot because now they perceive yeah because now they perceive the Political calculation to be a little different So Mike so I don't see any of this is being democratic this to me is just partisan hackily isn't it so can't show that Look yes fundamentally from a viewpoint of Like, look, for example, my direct actions, and yes, there was, you fund a whole bunch of different groups and you have different groups doing different things, but you funded them to do this thing that you were thinking of and things happened.

51:07It's just like companies. You know, my thing was actually, in fact, making people aware of RFK's anti -vax, you know, statement, his anti -science stuff, because I thought that would be relevant in the polls in November. That was the actual strategy that I believe. And I think that would, differentially, hit Trump more. And so therefore, it would be a spoiler, right, as these independence are. I have no problem with drawing attention to issues, but I do think fundamentally it's anti -democratic to soothe third party candidates to the point where they can't be on the ballot. Okay, let me ask you directly, Cornell West.

51:45There's an effort right now to remove Cornell West from the ballot in Michigan. Do you support that or would you oppose that? I mean, is that democracy? By default, I would oppose it. I don't know any of the details. Okay, fair enough. Reed, I have a question for you. It's more of a statement actually, maybe I just love to get your reaction. One of the most divisive issues that we have right now is people's position on October 7th, Israel, Palestine. there is a sense that there's a growing kind of like virulent strain of anti -semitism in America. A lot of people point to the extreme left as where that's really gestating.

52:29There were thoughts that Josh Appiro would have been an exceptional candidate, but one of the large reasons why he was not really meaningfully considered was his religion. I just want you to comment on the broad issue and whether you see it in the Democratic Party, what do you see it in the Republican Party, what do you see it at all? Just give us a sense of where we stand culturally on this issue. Well, so like I know Josh Peer, I think he's great. I've broken bread with him, and he was meaningfully considered. I think that we should be so lucky that he would run for presidency someday, some year.

53:11I didn't actually do no waltz at all and was initially kind of surprised because I was like, oh, I thought I was probably going to be Shapiro. I was like, well, I think it was probably close call down to those two. It looks like in making decisions, I think Harris made a good decision of wants. So I think it's a, now on the anti -Semitism topic, I do worry that broadly we're seeing more rise of anti -Semitism, and that's extremely important to fight. And I think there are people in the, it's a weirdly, like there's some lefties who are doing it, and there's some righties are doing it's both a blue and a red issue in different different shape.

54:05And I think it's very important that we You know we stand against that as a country and so you know, I've been You know kind of mostly just trying to say hey look we've got to we got to be anti anti racism anti -semitism and also anti genocide and we got to figure that out What do you think of Kamala's handling of that issue in her speech? She basically seem to, I don't know, say both sides it, but she said, hey, you can believe that the people of Gaza should be treated more humanly and that Israel has a right to defend herself. Which I think of her hands on that. I think that's rational, right?

54:41Like you should be anti -genocide both of Palestinians and of Jews, right? And like, it's obviously a very, very thorny topic. Yes. Right? So, I think, you know, saying that I'm going to try to protect civilians on both sides anti -genocide. I think that's a human caring point placed to be looking out for people. Reid, do you think that generally speaking Marxist socialist principles are taking a firmer hold on the Democratic Party and kind of those principles are starting to showcase not just in the cultural phenomena that that Tomat is referencing, but also in some of the policymaking that's going on.

55:21and concepts of equity rooted in concepts of social justice, ultimately rooted in Marxist principles emerging from the industrial revolution. What about price fixed? So as an example, the price gouging, you know, price caps on food proposal, the concepts of a wealth tax, not necessarily the unrealized capital gains tax, but separately attacks on wealth. All of these concepts of the degradation of power structure through policy. and in part some have argued that the anti -Semitism arises from these principles and that the Jews are considered a privileged and powerful cultural class. Is that not being observed?

56:04Do you not think that there are some tendencies that are emerging in the Democratic Party and maybe influenced by a louder far left and that far left is becoming more loud and better represented in the party? Look, I think we should speak out against both the far left and the far right. I think it's important to do both. Since I'm playing the Democrat here on this conversation, I'll ask you guys to play the Republican or especially SACS to play the Republican and speak out against the far right too. But the short answer is yes, there are amongst the extreme left, that's not everybody in the Democratic Party.

56:43But the extreme left, there is some misunderstandings about why it's important to defend anti -genocide. From the river to the seas, that's a genocidal statement. Don't use that one. Understand what language you're using. To be like, look, we've had a great genocidal moment with World War II, and we're still trying to recover from it. Two, questions around what I think is a foolish wealth tax, even though it's by the way narrow to 80%. Then on the price gouging stuff, one of the things is I started scratching at it. It was interesting. I think this week, Krogerus said, yes, we did actually artificially raise prices to profit from the pandemic.

57:30Yes, you should stop price gouging. It's not quite the same thing as price capping. and apparently there's laws that affect even in Florida, right? Or in Texas, where some of, you know, you guys are living. So like it's kind of, you know, it's like, okay, I need to understand this issue in more depth, but I don't think it's as simplistic as the political headlines are having it. Well, but the reason why Kamala Harris proposed the price fixing proposal, price gouging whatever you want to call it, was in response to inflation. In other words, we've had 20 % erosion and purchasing power over the last four years.

58:03Harris needs a response to that, so she came forward with this new economic proposal. So it's in that context this came up. This wasn't some proposal by the far left of the party, unless you consider Kamala Harris to be far left, I actually do. But okay, fair enough, but my point is just this is her proposal. And it's in response to inflation. I mean, you don't, you understand what causes inflation, right? It's like the government printing too much money. It's not greedy corporations raising their prices too much. I mean, do you agree with that? Look, I agree that you have to have good monetary policy.

58:36And so I think we probably agree on that. And I think some printing of money is part of the normal functioning economy, but too much is bad. And I don't think, look, I think price it, look, part of the reason why we just talked about anti -trust stuff earlier. You do have to look at places where there's a possibility of kind of commanding stuff from your privileged position. And like, you know, the, like, we all agree that monopolies have to be controlled. No, no debate there. But that's not what's caused the inflation, right? Because we've had inflation of commodities, not just monopoly products, but commodities, like just food staples, eggs, you know, chicken, stuff like that.

59:14Drift it, drift it by fuel and labor and all the other inflationary, you know, underpinnings of those markets. And I think we tried to highlight that and if you saw Elizabeth Warren's interview on CNBC where she got taken apart because she made some claims about profit hearing by craft times. And the CNBC anchor has pointed out you are actually incorrect. Craft Hines has seen a reduction in profit over this period of time. And so like there were factual inaccuracies in these belief systems. But you know, for me, it feels a lot like the government setting prices in free markets is one of those steps towards socialist principles that worry me the most.

59:49Yeah. And look, I generally speaking as I was saying earlier, I'm like, like, make sure the network sets sorts it out versus centralized control. Totally. So it's kind of like you have to look at, is there a place where you're like going, okay, that's the reason I like focused, her words were price gouging. And if you're focused on the kind of gouging side of it is like, there might be a market in efficiency that you're essentially correcting, then that's I think the same kind of thing we were talking about with like the FTC and the Apple app store and so forth. If it's like, I'm just going to set a fixed price on eggs, right?

1:00:23That's a bad idea. And by the way, there's bad ideas like the wealth tax thing that I disagree with. Her economic thing also had housing, which I think is a good kind of thing to kind of lower costs for Americans and kind of make that kind of stable work. I think she's been good on immigration. I think that's the Langford cinema bill, which was from the Republican side with something they were fully prepared to endorse and Trump killed it because he wanted to campaign on it. It's like, look, we care about the actual running in the country. And so, you look, I think there's a bunch of good things.

1:01:00But if you said, do I defend price -capping? The answer is not as an independent principle by itself. And by the way, are there people lefties? Like, you know, a lot of what Elizabeth Warren says about capitalism, I disagree with. I mean, I could disagree with you on the border. I think, you know, Kamala Harris used to be considered the borders are that's gotten I don't think she's done a great job on that, but whatever. That, I want to go back to issues that affect Silicon Valley. 25 % of the realized gains tax. It seems like most of Silicon Valley, almost all of it, is either disagrees with this or is up in arms about this.

1:01:31I think, Jake Cal, you said that this is disqualified. It's a line in the same spot. It's just qualifying for me, for sure. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, do you agree that a large unrealized gains tax, 25 % would be a disaster for Silicon Valley and the whole startup ecosystem? or I mean, how do you come down on that? Well, as I understand it, on that tax as it's proposed, is you have to have 80 % of your net worth. That's right. Liquid. Yeah, if 80 % or more is ill -liquid, then you don't... You don't have to defer the tax, but there's a penalty. Yeah, you get to defer the tax. Yeah, that's a penalty.

1:02:07That's right. Look, I think it's definitely a quiling impact and it's definitely stupid and definitely shouldn't happen. Okay. You know, so it's a... Yeah, I think we got a position on it. It's stupid. Yeah, we all we all want to fit it. Then why isn't it just called why isn't it disqualifying the way that Jake Health says? Are we just supposed to hope that Kamala doesn't do what she is saying? I'm constantly I'll tell you why I think that both the Republicans and the Democrats have realized that there's actually a very little difference on a lot of the major things that they actually talk about.

1:02:42So what they're both being forced to do is realize that because the centrality of a bunch of the things they say are the same, they each have to go to their flanks to get the n plus 1 vote. And so Kamala goes to the left and spouts all this stuff that seems so short -sist or socialist or communist because she has to get those people to vote for her. Ultimately, I think what ends up happening is most of the stuff in the middle has a decent chance of happening. The stuff at the fringes, I think they get put up, sacks almost as like a sacrificial lamb. A good example, I think, is like all of this stuff that's happening with the student loan reform, a half a trillion dollar plan, it gets shot down by the Supreme Court.

1:03:25This new plan and other hundred billion dollars, not even being heard yet by the Supreme Court. So I think they know this. I mean, it's not like the Biden administration is dumb. The Trump administration is not them either. So I think what they're doing is 10 million people would be an example on the right and taking away a woman's right to choose would be the other one Yeah, and by the way, one of the things you keep bringing that up, but Trump has said that he would veto He would not support a national ban. I'm talking about I'm already doing it. He already he already over term movie. I'm talking about that Yeah, and by the way just returning issue to the states.

1:03:56It's not outlawing abortion And by the way at the people in Austin

1:04:03Well, but that's They can't make a choice. They have not a balance issue there. Just about everywhere there's been a balance initiative, the pro -choice forces have won. And besides, that's a state issue now, J .Kell, not federal. Yeah, no, it's a state issue and Trump succeeded and taken away a woman's right to choose in Texas. But one thing, by the way, look in the spirit of the all -in podcast, I wouldn't want it to be clear about like there's stuff on the dams and some of their economic policy for the far left people that, you know, kind of, you know, they're advocating for them, I'm opposed to, you know, Sacks, I'd love to hear from you.

1:04:34What parts of Trump's thing you're opposed to? Here we go. Okay. I mean, I have been consistent on this pod for years that I thought that the, let's call it the like extreme pro -life side was not good for the Republican Party and I've been opposed to it. I don't think it's what Jake House says. I think that overturning Roe v. Wade did not abolish abortion. It basically returned the issue to the States. And if you look at the referendum that have happened, and they've pretty much all gone the pro -choice direction. So I think that the overturning of Rovey Wade has actually allowed the country to sort out that issue, although it's not completely sorted out.

1:05:11But look, I would not support a national abortion, and I would not support re -federalizing the issue. I think there's a lot of issues about war and peace, where I do not support the, you could say the establishment, neo -constrand within the party. I do not support all of these interventions. I do not support these forever wars, and there is a big debate in the party about that. Now, one of the reasons why at the end of the day I support Trump is I know this will strike some people as counterintuitive, but I think he is the moderate within the Republican party. He's a moderate on abortion. I know Jake how you're still bitter about that extreme court case.

1:05:51However, he's been very, very clear that he will not support national abortion ban more over. he took the abortion language out of the Republican platform. I think he's the moderate on issues of war. He was the first Republican candidate to run opposing Bush's forever wars. So I give him credit on those things. On style, he may not come across as a moderate, but those are style points. I think on issues, he is the moderate. The issue I have with Kamala Harris is, I don't think she's a moderate, you know? So like just to take this 25 % unrealized gains tax first, when this issue came up, we were assured, well, she doesn't really believe that, even though it was in the Democratic platform and it was in the Biden and Harris budget.

1:06:36Then people said, well, maybe it's part of her platform, but it's not a priority for her. And we just had one of her like top economic advisors come out on, I think it was CNBC, defending it and her campaign confirmed that she supports it. Okay. So now the argument has become, well, she supports it. It is really part of the platform. She would do it if she could, but she's not going to be able to do it. I just don't think that's a ringing endorsement of a candidate. I don't think you want to support a candidate because they're not going to be able to do what they really want to do. Do you think she's a moderate or do you think she's a socialist, you know, going to take the country very far left.

1:07:15By the way, what's principle is? Yeah, but what SACs didn't address is Trump's tariff policy, which is also inflationary, almost equivalent to the price -catching, you know, food price caps. I think that they're both inflationary and they're both bad policy. That's my personal point of view. But that's where I thought it was going to go. But yeah, anyway. Yeah. Honestly, I'm not sure what I think of that proposal. You know, I guess it depends on the details. What do you think, Reedus? I'm not endorsing it. I'm not posting it. But just respect to this point that should we support Kamala Harris, even though we oppose all the policies that her campaign says she supports?

1:07:50Because it seems like that's the argument now is that Silicon Valley's expected to support Harris, even though she wants and her campaign is confirmed, she wants a 44 % capital gains tax. She wants a 25 % unrealized gains tax. These are things that I think the vast majority of Silicon of alley concerns be disastrous for the start of ecosystem should we support her in spite of those things well and what look the information did a an actual data polls post that us being talking head saying we say that so can valley does x or y and you know the information's poll showed that there was you know much broader support for the democratic ticket and the republican ticket is that is that the thing the wrong conway just tweeted I don't know if you just know that's different.

1:08:36That's different. That's different. That's a different group. That's a group to counteract you and Jamal throwing its fundraiser for Trump. I think we're that kind of problem. So, but the information, a news source that ran a poll, did it objectively ran the whole thing to try to answer the question, came out with more folks in favor of the Biden in Harris ticket then I believe that is. Why do you think that is? Why do you think that is? Well, because, because look taxes is an important issue. And I think if you ask any Silicon Valley business person they say, look, lower capital gains, promote long -term investment, ask me, that's what I would say too.

1:09:15But you know, you kind of go, well, what actually in fact you most need for business is stability, rule of law, not grifter capitalism, where it's like, you know, give me a ability to launch my own NFT, you know, et cetera, et cetera. You know, that's what they go. We want that. And by the way, we can navigate a higher tax rate. It'll be less fast on growth and everything else But we can still invest create businesses, you know, etc. etc. But we can't do it with you know kind of a Croding the rule of law, right? Like, you know, I think both David both you and Chimoff spoke out against the January 6th stuff.

1:09:51I'm curious where you're on that now I'd still top of mind for me That's the reason why the kind of the rule of law thing is my red line, not a tactiles. Well, let me ask you about that formally here. There are five cases against Trump. You have the insurrection case, you have the New York taxes case, you have the hush money case, you have the e -gene carol case, and put on my missing there. Oh, and the documents case. You fund it like Peter T .O. funded the Gawker case, the e -gene carol case, which Trump lost. and just to ask you why did you choose to fund that and do you believe Trump sexually assaulted E .G.

1:10:29and Carol? Well, it's kind of not relevant whether or not I did or not. What I funded was an ability to have, you know, kind of a woman who doesn't have power who's been threatened by a rich man with a lot of money and power to try to silence her to have her day in court were 12 everyday Americans, right, can come to a judgment. and their judgment was, there was an assault and there was slander about the assault and they did it twice. And so that was the reason I funded it. And I think that that's important. The law has applied more importantly to rich and powerful people than it does to poor people.

1:11:08That's the important thing I love about America is a rule of law system. And I think that's what's most important and that's what's really fundamental. That's my red line relative to the kind of lines in the sand that we're talking about. And, you know, that's, you know, that's a reason why in the various kind of lawsuits where they seem to be that that's what's being emphasized, then, you know, I'm happy to support them. I don't see how it's rule of law when you have a district attorney, Alvin Bragg, who's collected on a promise to get Trump. He then takes what are at most a bookkeeping misdemeanor that's passed the Statue of Elmitations that's expired.

1:11:51And he turns into 34 felony charges on a legal theory that was never explained to the jury. And then basically Trump is convicted in the sham trial by a hyperpartisan New York jury system. So that Democrats can then run. What do you think of that? On the branding, on the branding that he's a quote convicted felon. So there are four other trials. We got your first one. What do you think of that? Hold on. I don't think it's wrong. Feedback. I don't want to get reached feedback, too, but it means finish my point. I don't think it's rule of law when Trump is prosecuted on a document's charge that Biden himself is guilty of.

1:12:26He's got all these documents in his garage for decades, which the judge has thrown out. And we've seen a bunch of these law fair cases is where Trump has ultimately prevailed. The judges covered out or he's won on appeal. So I know that seems to me like abuse of the legal system for a partisan political goal, not rule of law. Okay, so Reed, there's four other cases. Two of them Trump's been convicted and two of them are outstanding. What's your take on the four cases? You've heard sacks is take. So, what's the two that he's been convicted, Jake Hal? What's the other one besides the? Oh, okay, this three, that's Alvin Bragg was convicted.

1:13:01and then the Trump organization with the CFO committing tax fraud. He was convicted in that one as well. Or the Trump organization was convicted. And people say that's law fair by Latisha James. So guilty, guilty, guilty in those three of five. So what's your take on the four that we haven't discussed yet in her opinion on? So look, I think it's, you know, it's definitely possible to have some versions of law fair. although I think most people use the term when it's the legal process and the law enforcement that they don't like. I think that in the bragg case you had indictment and 12 jurors, there's jurors, I think as I recall one of the jurors said that juror got their principal news from Truth Social, it was a unanimous conviction.

1:13:52I think that you have vice president Pence, you know, comes out and says, you know, Trump asked me to overturn the election illegally. Right? That's your own vice president. So I don't think that that kind of suggests that there's this rampant political persecution that there's a lot of fire where there's all this smoke. It doesn't mean that every single thing, you know, kind of... Democrats are trying to put Trump and jail for 700 years. These cases are still outstanding. They want to put him in jail. Read. Do you think Trump should go to jail? I think if he broke laws that says he should go to jail, I think the laws applied to powerful people as much as they applied to everyday people.

1:14:32Right. So I think that's why why were these cases? Why did they wait for two years or these cases so they could bring them in an election year? Actually, I don't think if you look at the like just look speaking factually, Trump's lawyers are always trying to delay the stuff, right? I think they were trying to follow every legal process and Trump's lawyers keep asking for the first campaign this year instead of being stuck in the courtroom. Look, after J .R .6. Well, no, but this was last year in the year before asking for deferrals, setting out trial time. Like, all of the stuff was from his side trying to delay it.

1:15:01If it got delayed into this year, that's a bad judgment on his part. Jack Smith just filed new charges and all the stems from January 6th and the wake of January 6th, Merrick Arland's Justice Department did an analysis of whether Trump could be prosecuted for incitement, whether he incited that mob. and the legal memo came back and they said no we don't have a case here it does not meet the legal bar for incitement then it was reported by the New York Times that Biden thought that that marijuana was basically being a wimp and they need to go after Trump. So the hyperpartisan DA or prosecutor Jack Smith was hired and he came up with a novel legal theory that somehow Trump had perpetrated a fraud in the American people, never been seen before.

1:15:43And since then he's been prosecuting Trump and seeking to put him in prison and when the Supreme Court just kicked the legs out from under his case, with a recent decision, he just refiled charges. I don't understand anyone can look at this and say, yeah, look what happened on January 6th wasn't great, but the DOJ looked at it. It wasn't criminal, but yet they've been pursuing this guy, seeking to put him away for the rest of his life, seeking to interfere with this election, seeking to deprive the American people of a choice. On a separate track, you've got Democrats in states like Colorado literally removing Trump from the ballot.

1:16:15Okay, read your thoughts. So, look, the first thing is January 6th, I think, is a red line. I think it's, you did in sight, or are you whether or not the legal thing is for it? Let's let read finish. Yeah, you know, I was sure enough to go ahead. Sorry. Right. So I think it was the, you know, there was an incitement of a riot. right? I think that the writers went in and killed police officers were looking to kill Vice President Pence from the court testimony. Court's the best proxy that we have for finding truth in the stuff. It's one of the reasons why, by the way, and when, for example, the Supreme Court says, no, that's right, that's legal process.

1:16:57I just had to fact check that no police officers were killed. Where are you going from? from. I think there was one died from his injuries and very soon after. No, no, there was one cop who had a seizure later. It wasn't part of the riot. No police officers were killed as a part of the riot. I just have to fact check that. It's not true. Well, then there's the one who committed suicide too, which is a question of, you know, I don't know how you got that. Yeah. So anyway, So you got the storming of the Capitol. He says these people are American heroes. He's going to pardon them. He's going to hire them into his administration.

1:17:38Right? And if that's not encouragement for other people doing similar things, you know. I don't hire January 6th writers. He's going to hire them. I've heard that. Well, we'll get you the Trump speeches. All kinds of wonderful things in Trump speeches. Let me give you a little something. Let me just move to one thing. So, Reed, I think this has been an amazingly robust conversation. And I think you, as always, as long as I've known you now for 20 years, have been really intellectually honest. I want to ask you a favor, which is, can you stay for 10 extra minutes and talk with us to Bobby Kennedy?

1:18:14And the reason I want you to do that is I think that there is a bunch of misinformation. I asked you about these things. I think it's important to hear maybe from Bobby and just for him to know what you said because I do think it's important to hear from the horse's mouth Can you just give us like five ten minutes so that we can do that because I think it would be an important thing to do So when is that no just right now just we're gonna yeah, we're rolling into an interview with rock It wasn't designed to hear the last day. It was on the last day. It's just the last minute art of kids junior who's on vacation Said that he would talk to us about what it was like to kind of withdraw and all this sort of stuff And so we booked it right after you, but he's in the waiting room.

1:18:50I'm fine to do it. I mean, it's totally your choice. It's one of the things I like about your all -in podcast is, you know, kind of like let's try to speak truth. Okay. Hey, Bobby Kennedy is here. Mr. Kennedy, it's great to have you on the all -in podcast for a second time. May I introduce you to Reed Hoffman, who you may know of, but I don't think you two have ever met. Well, you're not. The pleasure to meet you. Likewise, pleasure. Mr. Kennedy, you dropped out of the race. Perhaps you could tell us, and I was quite disappointed about it. I really wanted to see a third party candidate getting to double digits again.

1:19:30I just want to commend you on the effort that you put into it. Maybe you could tell the audience why you as a reporter never trumper join the Trump team and drop down. So Jason, I, you know, I'm not actually, I haven't actually terminated my campaign. I suspended it. We've taken ourselves, or we're trying to take ourselves off the ballot in about 11 states. So we'll remain on the ballot in 39 states. And all red, all blue states will be on the ballot in the states where we felt we were going to her president Trump with a polling show that were getting off their mainly the battleground stays ironically now the same people who've been trying to get me off the ballot or a year or since October are now fighting to keep me on the ballot in those days.

1:20:29So that's one of the sort of ironies. I you know it became clear about two months ago and it became clear that I was not going to be allowed on the debating stage. And I pretty much had a shut out in the mainstream media. So the mainstream media, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, in 60 or 17 months, I had only two live interviews. Ross Probe during his 10 month campaign had 34 interviews. And then all of them were very, very much aligned with the Democratic National Committee. And so when they did mention my name, which was pretty off and it was a company by a lot of defamation and perjured as and mischaracterizations, etc.

1:21:33I never really had a chance to reach those audiences. The audiences that I was reaching, I was dominating and I was beating all the candidates among independents, which is now the largest demographic. I was beating them among young people. So your audience was supporting me. The audience is that we're listening to long -form interviews. I was dominating. But in the older audiences, which is a critical baby boomer, some people who really should have been for me, because they are people from IJ generation, who remember the Kennedy administration, they are part of Camelod. They also, I was very, very popular with them for many years when I was the environmental champion alone.

1:22:23And I should have had good inroads, but I was never able to communicate with them because they watch, they get their news from the mainstream media. And if you're living in that information ecosystem, you're going to have a very, very low opinion of me. I mean, if I was getting my information from those networks, I wouldn't vote for myself.

1:22:48And President Trump reached out to me through this guy, Callie Mann, who's a food advocate, a safe food advocate, about three hours after the shooting and butler. I got a call from him. And he asked me if I was still interested in the specifically in the VP slide. And I said now, which I would not have taken the vice president slide. And he said, would I talk to the people like to talk the administration to President Trump brother. And at first I said, oh, and I talked with some of my family members and including my kids and I then and Kelly means an ode saying, you know, I'm interested in talking and I got a call almost immediately from President Trump.

1:23:58I spent about 30 minutes on the phone with them and we met the next day in manyapolis and then we met again more recently. We had continuing talks with them and we met again more recently for a very very intensive and long meeting at Marlago with some of his family members and during those meetings during the first meeting we talked about the idea of having a unity ticket where I would remain on the ballot where we would ally ourselves on certain critical issues, but we would be able to continue to criticize each other on the issues that we did not align on. And President Trump was very happy with that arrangement.

1:24:50And the issues, the critical issues on which we agreed and I was really starting to see the level of his commitment to those issues was one. And ending the three issues that really got me into the presidential campaign, one was ending the war in Ukraine. The second issue is ending the censorship. And the third issue, and most important to me, was addressing the childhood, chronic disease, epidemic, and these connected issues about soil health and the corruption in in our regulatory agencies, I am USDA, NAHHS, which have become sock puppets for the big pharmaceutical, big food processing industries that they're supposed to be regulating.

1:25:47He was very, very much aligned on those issues and it gave us essentially a beach hat in which to construct this an alliance. Bobby, let me ask you a question. I just wanna go back a little bit because I just wanna make sure I heard it properly. When Kelly called you, was it to be the VP on the Trump ticket? And did you, was that asked and did you consider it? And why did you say no to that, but then suggest to this? Well, I am no interest in being a vice president. If you're vice president, I grew up in politics and vice president is the worst job in Washington. You have no budget. You don't know staff except that your budget actually all comes with a white house.

1:26:38So if you do something that offends the president, he can literally, you know, he can take away your plane, he can take away your staff. And the only thing you really have is the naval observatory, which is the official residence of the vice president. And he essentially puts you under house arrest. And I have very strong views on issues. And I felt like if I took that job, I'd be on house arrest, probably on day three. So I was never interested in that. Reed had to run, but let's just thank him for appearing on the pod. We did a great job. A good conversation. I'm not a spirit, but I thought he approached it in good faith and put us to him for stepping into the lion's den.

1:27:26So it's good. Sorry, Bobby. Keep going. So Bobby, let me ask you a question. You are reportedly a never -trumper. There's massive fallout. You cited personally for you as a resident of Malibu, the extremely talented woman. and you're married to based on everything I can tell, maybe not a fan of Trump, so this is maybe causing some domestic and some local town issues for you. Tell me about your journey from a never -trumper. All your friends are, I think, never -trumpers to now joining with Trump. That's gotta be a hard decision, no? Yeah, I was very hard -wrenched to the city. But you know, my whole kind of journey was over the past 17 months was just was kind of a series of very, very difficult transitions, you know, away from the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party was, you know, the party, my family is one of the central pillars of the Democratic Party.

1:28:35My family has been in the Democratic party since 1848 since my great grandparents came over and my great grandfather, honey Fitz, was the first Irish Catholic mayor at Boston. His contemporary Patrick Joseph Kennedy was a state senator and political boss in Massachusetts. My grandfather Joseph Kennedy was an O. F. D. Harst treasurer. He was the first head of the SEC. He was the ambassador very hard to, the Court of St. James deeply, deeply immersed in democratic party politics. All of my uncle's Joe Kennedy was a delegate to the 1940 convention who spoke there with a featured speaker and then was killed in World War II.

1:29:22My uncle John Kennedy was the first Irish Catholic president of the United States. It's my other uncle, Ted Kennedy, who is one of the longest, I think the second or third longest serving member of the United States Senate is his name on more bills than any other Senate or the United States history. And then, of course, my father, who is a attorney general, and a sort of walk away from that party, was, you know, I guess it was very, very difficult for me. And now I was actually the last person in my campaign to see that to understand the necessity of that, that the Democratic Party was not going to allow me to compete fairly that they had rigged the system against us in ways that were really quite extraordinary.

1:30:18They had just walked away from democracy. They were canceling primaries they had. And they had chosen their candidate and it was going to be President Biden and I was really an oosence to them. And so my voice was not allowed out there. And so that was difficult. And then leaving, I declared independence in October. and joining Trump, President Trump was, I've heard a lot of bridges. I've heard my boats. Let me play that way. Clearly is definitely a challenging thing to go from your family, being the bedrock of the Democratic Party and Trump being obviously seen as an existential risk by the Democratic Party.

1:31:13So what should Americans know about the state of politics and fairness in America based on what you've learned? What do you want the American people to know about the process of selecting a president? Well, and I do want to say that I feel like I didn't really leave the Democratic Party, that the Democratic Party left me and left the ruins of the infrastructure that I think my uncle and father had that had made them Democrats. If you went to list all of the priorities that Robert Kennedy, that John Kennedy had, I would check every box. They were any war, they were any censorship. They were against the corporate control of our country.

1:32:09This corrupt merger of Satan, corporate power, that had now emerged as a dominant governing model in our country. The Democratic Party has changed demographically. When I grew up in a Democratic Party, that was the party of the working class in our country that was a party of small businesses. That was the party of the poor. In the last election, President Biden got roughly half of the country voting forum, but that had control 70 % of GDP. And President Trump got about half the country voting for him and that half represents about 30 % of GDP. So, we've had this inversion where the Democratic Party has become the party of wealth of elites.

1:33:07And I would say a very insular elites. And the Republican Party is now the party of the poor, the working class. and it's been, you know, for me to watch that, I'm on the front lines of watching it. And, you know, the values that held that Democratic Party together are no longer there, it's held together by a sense of tribalism, a sense of, and a great, great sense of what I would say orchestrated fear of Donald Trump, it's the only value that really dominates any discussion. If I talk about censorship to a Democrat, they'll say yes, but Donald Trump is going to become a dictator. If you talk about children's health, they'll say, never mind that.

1:33:59Donald Trump is the only thing we can worry about. If you talk about, you know, about the history of the Democratic Party's opposition to war, they'll say forget all that. The only thing we can focus on his Donald Trump. And that's a very, very dismaying. And I would say a dangerous form of orchestrated tribalism. And one of the other features of the Democratic Party is this this need to control this mistrust of the of the plebiscite mistrust of the demos. You know demos is a to be a Greek word for people, and the Democratic Party doesn't trust the people. That's why they have to get rid of elections.

1:34:42That's why they had to get me off the ballot. Oh, I got it. I did something everybody said, all the pundits said, could never be done. So I got on the ballot and every say, like a million people to sign their signature's petition on the ballot. And the Democratic Party strategy rather than to use the $3 billion it had, amplify a message and inspire people and talk about a vision and the virtues of its candidates and said use that money to try to get me off the ballot to get Cornel, off the Cornel, well, I'll ask Jill Stein to use the courts to use the enforcement agencies, including the Secret Service, the CIA, the FBI, to try to rig the election.

1:35:29And it ultimately comes down to this mistrust of the people, which we're seeing now all over. We're seeing the kind of too big forces emerge on as a populist force. And the other is a force of control of ironclad control. We saw Europe has already fallen. You saw the arrest of Pavel Durov last week, which was extraordinary. the rest of the guy who found it telegram because he was hosting political dissent. And the European Commission has already openly censoring content, so they did not need to arrest him. They can take off whatever they want. They went through the trouble of actually and probably with US encouragement, you know, catching him when he happened to land for refueling stop in France.

1:36:32France has this extraordinary tradition of free speech that, you know, began with the French Revolution. And then again in the 1880s, they passed all these incredible laws. They're commitment to free speech as robust as at the United States. and yet now, you know, and then two weeks before that, you had this crazy European commissioner, Diri Breton, saying that he, ordering, ordering Elon Musk and I interviewed Donald Trump, a former president of the United States, the nominee of one of the two major political parties, and the world is not allowed to hear his point of view. Yeah, it's extraordinary, but that is what's coming to this country and you can already and a democratic party Is that the party of control and it's sorry of not trusting the people?

1:37:26Let's let's talk about something then let's assume that this election goes in the direction of now your preferred direction, which is Donald Trump wins what role would you play and And what is your agenda? What is it that you want to accomplish and explain? Make America healthy again in that context maybe. I mean, I, it's the three issues ending censorship and that's pretty easy to know. You can do it with a series of executive orders ending the Ukraine war, which is complex, but I think done very, very quickly. And then the food issue now, if the food, it's Madison's description in that regulatory agencies.

1:38:12But would you be a secretary in that administration? Would you be a special advisor? There is no, there is no deal in terms of me getting a particular pose. There's just an understanding that there would be some kind of co -governance and the Trump people have already demonstrated their good faith in fighting me to be on the transition team as one of the co -chairs. And they've done something really wonderful, which is to bring Tulsi Gabbardin, who shares There's a lot of my views on this issue as the other coach air. And I think that's the signal that they're sending that they are sincere about, you know, making a commitment to these issues.

1:39:06What should parents know about your thoughts on how to raise kids in a healthy way, make America healthy again? Are there any vaccines that you would say you would advise parents to take for their kids and how should they look at the industrial food complex. If you were sitting with us as parents, just having lunch, what would you tell us we should do with our own kids? I mean, the big problem is you can't really trust the government to tell you the truth. The agencies are all compromised. They all have very, very bad conflicts. almost all the people, for example, on the food recommendation committees at FDA are people who are part of the food industry.

1:39:54And the same is true on the pharmaceutical side. The people are making decisions about what's good for you are actually people who are making huge amounts of profit on those recommendations. And so you can't really trust the recommendations or in your best interest. And you know, what we know is that there is no more profitable. There's no bigger profit center or industry in this country than a sick child. And a sick child is a lifetime customer, a lifetime consumer, a very, very expensive product. And you have these alliance between a food industry and the pharmaceutical industry. The keep our children sick.

1:40:43You got them addicted. You know, in the 70s and 80s, the tobacco industry was under attack and the two biggest tobacco companies. And out and bought all the big food companies. RJ are you referring to? Yeah. And craft. often, you know, you had philomores by craft. And they took a lot of the scientists from the tobacco industry who were experts on making products addictive. And they put them to work on making food addictive on making ultra -processes. So adding ingredients that make food the destroy that the satiability of food so the food doesn't fill you up so you're always craving more. And those products, many of them are products.

1:41:35You know, we have almost a thousand chemicals in our foods that are banned in Europe and banned in other countries. And those products are products that were have been introduced by by chemists that did not exist before in the body does not handle them well. And you know, we're seeing this explosion. And chronic disease when my uncle was president six percent of Americans had chronic disease, you know what the budget was for chronic disease. And when my uncle is president zero, there wasn't any drugs for it. There was no, there was no expenditures on chronic disease. Today is $4 .3 trillion dollars.

1:42:22It's five times our military budget. And the people who are making money are the pharmaceutical companies, the insurance companies, which actually you would think insurance companies would want people to be, well, they actually make more money if they're sick. The hospital is the medical cartel. The people we trust make advice to us about our health are actually compromised and that's the difficult part. You've got to unravel that corporate capture. Freeberg, when you hear this, some people might say, this sounds like a grand conspiracy theory. But much of it brings true to, I think, many of us who are parents watching kids, you know, and watching the prevalence of obesity, watching pharmaceutical drugs to counter that and all the money that's made from it.

1:43:10And then seeing when people eat clean and they're healthy, maybe there's less there. So, Freiber, when you hear Bobby's position here as a scientist who sold the company to Monsanto, climate .com and who's working on food today, what rings true about what Bobby is saying and what do you disagree with, if anything? Yeah, there are aspects of industrialized food and processed foods that are bad for people and I do agree it should be changed. I know a lot of people that work at the USDA, a lot of people that work in other government and organizations that don't make a lot of money, they may or may not have worked at other companies, but I think that there's no economic incentive for them to do harm or wrong.

1:43:55I think that the real, so I don't think that there's a constructive design on doing bad things by any individual. I think that there is an unfortunate circumstance where people eat bad stuff, stuff that tastes better, they like it more, it sells better, and the economic incentive and capitalism is to make more of that stuff and sell more of it, and as a result, the stuff that people like that isn't good for them. They buy more of and the companies make more money. And so they continue to invest in selling more and more of that stuff. And this goes in most processed foods. It's terrible. It's not good.

1:44:25And so I do agree that much of this processed food industry is very adverse to health. But I don't think that there's a grand design by individuals that are malicious and they're intent in trying to do it. I think that there are people that are doing their job on, hey, this is a market. You know, it's given more. Right. in the government and private industry. Yeah, I don't think people in private industry are trying to make a dictating votes. No, I think that, yeah, the point is, like if people buy more of it, they're like, like, so more of it, you know? Yeah, okay. And if that were illegal, if it was illegal to say, hey, this sort of food product should not be made, but look, alcohol fits the bill too, right?

1:44:59And we keep making alcohol and sugar fits the bill. The more sugar, Coca -Cola did a study years ago where they kept increasing the amount sugar in Coca -Cola until they maximally got sell -through. So some kids like 60 grams of sugar in 12 ounces of coke, some kids like 30, but the perfect level was at 42 grams. And so that study was done by the scientists that worked at Coca -Cola and then they said, that's the product, it sells, it'll sell the most. And that's the incentive inside of that company. That's how that company operates. Now you could ask yourself the question is that evil is that bad?

1:45:33We now know that sugar in general is bad. The executives at Coca -Cola at ABNB have other places are trying to make alcohol -free, sugar -free alternatives. So there's a lot of push by these people. Unilever has tried to make a big push towards good food. Nestleys tried to do the same. They've all made these stated commitments to improve the health of the food that they produce. But it is quite difficult to be successful in doing that and returning money to shareholders. The shareholders are like, where's the money? So I think this is the key point you're making. You're making and I took me a decade to unravel me eating everything inside and lose the 40 pounds.

1:46:07But, Shamaat, when you hear, you know, sort of this back and forth between Bobby and Freiburg, what's your take on it in terms of, and also the European lifestyle that you live for 10 weeks of the year, what's your take on what should happen here and how Bobby can be successful? I think what Bobby says brings true in the way that I live my life and I just see it demonstrated on my own body. You're right, Jason. You know, my wife's Italian. She runs an Italian company. We she works Italian and American hours for 10 months out of the year and for those 10 weeks We go there and we flip schedule, but when I'm there, I'm consuming Italian produce that is impact in plastic I go to a local fruit store.

1:46:49I go to the local fish vendor and My body changes and I know that because the people that see me when I get back They always comment, oh, did you lose weight? Oh, do you look thinner or this or that? And what's interesting is I actually do a body composition before I leave and after. I've done this for seven years now. And I can tell you that my weight doesn't change that much, but my body composition is completely different. And I don't know what it is except the things that I'm putting in my body that's different. And so I see it and I'm running an AB test every day. You know, what's the price of the food, Jamaf?

1:47:27Like is it more in Italy like do you pay more do you think? Well I've already commented on the fish and the fish is on the right. But there are ways to eat at a materially lower price than there is here. And the access to the ultra -process food is different there. You can't get the stuff and when you and when you do find that stuff, it doesn't have the same, you know, glycemic and metabolic load on your body. I'm curious what you think of, you know, OZAMPIC in this category of drugs, breaking the cycle. I think you've been against them, or they've certainly helped me with half of my weight loss.

1:48:05I know SACS had a good experience as well, and he's been public about it. What are your thoughts on that? Because it does seem, when people take the GLPs, which exist in your body, that they, I'm sure this more research that needs to be done, they do break this habit. I know anecdotally with me, I don't crave the foods I craved previously, and it did kind of rewire my brain and how I look at food, even when I'm off of it. So your thoughts on those and those potentially being a way to break the cycle? Yeah, so, and this goes to David's point, that, you know, we need to have cheap food. And that is kind of an outcome that is an admirable or virtuous outcome.

1:48:45The problem is the food isn't cheap. It's cheap on the sale of, on the shelf, but it imposes costs on the rest of us. That were the externalities that were paying elsewhere. So when I was a kid, the typical pediatrician would see one case of juvenile diabetes in his lifetime of a 40 or 50 year career, one case. It was essentially non -existent as it is today. One out of every three children who walks through his office store is diabetic or pre -diabetic. When I was a kid, the autism rates were between 1 ,500 to 1 ,000 and 1 ,000 Americans. And I still drew in my generation, 70 -year -old man. And my kids' generation, according to CDC, is one out of every 34 kids.

1:49:37Some states like California is one out of every 22. 77 % of Americans are now or 74 % adults or obese. Half of our kids obesity, when you know 100 years ago, if you were obese, you could get a job in the surface. It was so unusual. So we're now, and who's making profit now, is it an OZAMPIC's not going to, you can, obesity is absolutely, and diabetes are absolutely treatable by good food. That's the cause. Now, OZAMPIC is a good profit center for, for, for, for farm up. There's a bill now which has been paid for by the company that makes it, which is the biggest company in New York, you're up in oven, or this, that in, in Denmark, where that company is, they do not recommend it.

1:50:35The treatment of diabetes, the standard of care is diet and exercise. But that company's entire value is based upon the projections of what it's going to sell in the United States. And that company is pouring tens of millions dollars into lobbying the past is bill that will make Medicare pay for it for every American is obese. That could be 74 % of people are now eligible. I think it's $1 ,500 a week. Costs that will be three trillion a year. If you took three trillion a year, a tiny fraction of that, you could buy organic food three meals a day for every human being in the United States. So, wouldn't that be a better expenditure for money?

1:51:27And you know, what I would say is the food producers, it's not a conspiracy, it's just people following perverts and sanivs. And there are conspiracies. I mean, when I sued on Monsanto, we got emails that showed that he had the pesticide division and Jess Rollin for a decade at EPA was secretly working for Monsanto the entire time. Sabotaging studies, creating full science, hide the current sentient nature of Roundup. So there are those kinds of instances to throw out the federal government, but mainly it says perverse incentives. Almost almost close to 100 % of our foods, of agricultural subsidies go to processed food.

1:52:15I mean go to commodity agriculture, which is the feed stock process food. Oh, and then if you look mostly for me. If the industry controls through lobbying and through all these other mechanisms for corporate capture controls the expenditures in the food stamp program. So 70 % of the food stamp program goes for prices food. 10 % those for sugar drinks like Coca -Cola, which are just diabetes machines. So why are we poisoning poor kids in this country? The school lunch program, the same thing, almost 80 % I think 77 % of food. The lunch program is terrible foods that are actually poisoning our children.

1:53:02And you know, don't we, you know, don't we care enough about our kids to say, we need, You know, we want to care about them. We want to make sure that they're not sick. They are the most precious things in our country. Shouldn't that be the focus? And you know, whatever we're doing to make them so sick, when I was a kid, 6 % of American kids had chronic disease. Today, 60 % is not an alarm. Is that something that we should all be concerned about? I will agree on an important point, you know, the food stamp program, the SNAP program, provides food stamps to support 42 million Americans. 42 million people rely on food stamps.

1:53:48It costs $120 billion dollars of federal money per year. And as Bobby said, the number one product bought on the food stamp program is soda, cance soda. And there was an important debate a few years ago about whether or not can soda. By the way, Bob, you and I probably agree on a lot of things. It's definitely a lot of things we don't agree on. But like these aspects, I think, are just no brainers. There was a debate a few years ago about whether or not can soda should be allowed as a purchase on the food stamp program or whether it should be fresh fruits, investibles, and grains and other things.

1:54:23And ultimately, there was a food lobbying effort made that kept can soda on the food program that it is again $120 billion of annual federal spend with the biggest line item going to Cancota to feed 42 million Americans and the connection is completely direct. High sugar, high glycemic index, diabetes, and other chronic health conditions arise from that connection. So definitely aligned with you on the misincentives and the disincentives in these programs that have been created and they only expand every year. Bobby, can you comment on when people talk about revamping the food supply, one of the things that sometimes is not allowed to be said is that focusing on organic food and produce can exclude certain communities.

1:55:13And so there's like this DEI filter that's preferring that is almost racist in some way. Like, can you just comment on that whole vein of thinking and your thought on that? Yeah, I mean, I think feeding people poisonous food is racist. And by the way, the NAACP, it's huge amounts of money every year from the food industry. It may be one of the biggest, I think Coca -Cola is the biggest supporter of NAACP. So a lot of the NGOs that are supposed to be concerned about the disproportionate impact on minority communities of federal policies have actually been bought off and bought into the process.

1:55:53And, you know, a lot of times those are the voices you hear saying this is racist. What's really racist is poor is poisoning black Americans because these are communities that are food deserts. The school lunch program is the, you know, oftentimes those communities, the biggest access if they have to food and we're giving them poison food. We're getting out of the eight, many of these communities have no grocery stores. They're no big, like they definitely don't have Whole Foods. I don't have access to those kind of foods. Shouldn't we have national policies that make sure our people are healthy?

1:56:35And they use, of course, market dynamics, but also supports. We're giving billions of dollars in agricultural subsidies for farmers to a dick farmers to grow in commodity agriculture, which is bad food. It's low in nutrients, it's high in chemicals, it's high in pesticides. And, you know, we need to change these perverse incentives so that, and feed America, you know, how can anybody argue with this? How can anybody say that we should not have healthy children? that we should be giving people food that is hurting them. It's just, it doesn't make any sense. Sax, any questions for you for Bobby about democracy, what went down with Biden, the fairness of the Democratic Party, and I know you've got some strong feelings on it, so I just wanted to give you your red meat and your window here.

1:57:31I'm sure a lot of it's confirming for you what he's saying. And, you know, I'll be honest, I think what the Democratic Party did to you, Mr. Kennedy was absolutely apporant and discussing and it really is infuriating to me, especially what the mainstream media did. And I'm glad that we got to have you on early on our podcast, at least to let some of your ideas get out there. But let's give Sax's red meat here because you joining Trump is a wild card at the beginning of us saw coming. Let me pick up on those themes, Jake. First of all, I want to commend Bobby on running an upbeat and positive campaign.

1:58:08You know, you were, and I still are the most articulate and powerful champion of free speech over censorship, civil liberties over the surveillance state, peace over war. You've spoken about the issue of chronic health, which to be honest is an issue I didn't know that much about, but I think you've put it now on the political radar screen in a way that it's not going away. So I think you ran a very noble and effective campaign. And I think like you said, it was a campaign for the sole of the Democratic Party. You know, I think you represented issues that in the days of your father and President John F Kennedy, these would have been Democratic Party issues.

1:58:49How did the Democratic Party respond? They effectively ran you out. They did not give you the chance. They conducted law fair to keep you off the ballot. But they didn't let you debate. I heard your running mates say that you even tried to infiltrate your campaign. And all the while, this party was claiming to be the party of democracy. Find that incredibly hypocritical. I think that if they had given you the opportunity to debate, I think we now know what would have happened. I mean, we saw what happened when Biden actually debated Trump is there's a complete the seat implosion of Biden's campaign.

1:59:25We discovered that indeed the Democratic Party had been hiding his condition for a long time. And when he was finally forced to debate and have a teleprompter or a script, it became extremely obvious. What happened then? They basically put in a new nominee who's never been voted on. Cavalhe Harris has never received one primary vote. It was done through a process that was opaque. we still don't know how it went down. I have to disagree with Reed that Biden did it in a voluntary way. Biden went kicking and screaming. I mean, he basically said publicly over and over again, I'm not leaving the race.

2:00:02I'm in this race. He tweeted it. He said, it only got Almighty could get me out of the race. And then it was reported that Nancy Pelosi went to him and said, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. You said God Almighty. She said God Almighty. Yeah, you said God Almighty. But the point is there was nothing democratic about this. And now we have a new Democratic Party nominee who refuses to do press conferences, refuses to do so interviews, refuses to take questions from the press, who's hiding herself effectively. And yet this party again claims to be the party of democracy. I find it just almost manning or galling again in its hypocrisy.

2:00:42And I just, I don't see how everybody can't see through this. It's just not the way that democracy is supposed to work. And I certainly don't think that the people engaging these tactics can be cloaking themselves in all this high -fluding rhetoric of democracy. It's absurd. And so I feel like I'm in the place that you are, Bobby, as viewers of this poll, no, I did not start off supporting Trump. In the primaries, I supported you in the Democratic primary and I did fundraisers for DeSantis and Vivek. And that was in large part because I think of the job that the dentist is governor. But when it came to the general, the realization that I came to is that Trump is the indispensable figure in our current politics, for marshaling this populist energy to resist this hypocritical elite authoritarianism that wants to engage in censorship over debate that seems to want to protect and defend this surveillance state over anything it wants to do that wants to keep all these wars going.

2:01:46Even when they don't make sense, when we could have found a way to negotiate a diplomatic end to them. And so I'm kind of delighted that you've kind of come around to the screen too. I know you have your reservations about Trump. I'm not saying that Trump is perfect. I mean, I think he's a he's human. He's a flawed vessel, but at the end of the day, He is the choice that represents again these populist forces resisting authoritarianism. Sorry, this is more of a statement than a question, but I'll let you react all of that. Well, let me react the last thing you said about President Trump. I think if President Trump wins, that people are going to see a very different President Trump than they did during the first term.

2:02:25I think he's changed as a person and I've known him for 30 years. I've sued him, I've litigated against him and had a friendship with him even when I was litigating against him. And by the way, he's successfully against him. But I think he is, he's focused on his life. He said many interesting things to me about what he did wrong the last time and about how he filled. he had no idea he was going to win, he had no idea how to govern and people descended on him the day that he got elected and said, you got to appoint this guy and he said, you know, I appointed a lot of people, I shouldn't appoint him, I know who they are now.

2:03:09He also said something interesting to me, he said, the Democrats, one of the big sort of fulcrums of their terror of Trump is that he's He's going to implement this Heritage Foundation, you know, Blueprint, which is called Project 2025. And he brought this issue up to me and he said, you know, they're always telling me, I'm for Project 2025. I never read Project 2025 until they started accusing me of it. He said, I was written by a right -wing ass. That's what he said. He said, he said, there are left -wing ass. And there was a right -wing ass. And it was a right -wing ass. Who wrote that thing?

2:03:48and then he started going through it. So I think there is a lot, and I think he's interested in his legacy now. He wants to leave behind some accomplishments and he wants to make our country better. And I think he's listening to a wider range of voices and has he's preparing to cover right now. And I'm gonna be on the transition committee picking the people who are going to go up and a toll, he's going to be there. There's going to be a wide diversity of stakeholders, but he's listening to more than just that kind of narrow right wing ban that people are terrified of. That would be great if you could get to him because he really did present well on this podcast and had like a very good moment in that first half of the RNC.

2:04:38And then he started defaulting back to, and I know a lot of other, it's like myself, hate this about him. And it's a big part of why we don't like him is, He goes back to in cell comics, goes back to race, goes back to gender. And it's just like, dude, that Trump 1 .0 is what people don't want. They don't want chaotic Trump. They want post assassination attempt Trump. And it's just so infuriating. Well, a lot of people feel that way, Jake. And I think at the end of the day, you and others are going to have to decide, do you want to support the candidate who has the right policies, but maybe there's style points that you don't like about him?

2:05:14Because I think that the things you were talking about, the mean tweets and so forth, at the end of the day, I think they're stylistic things. I don't think they go deep to policy or how he would govern. Or do you want to support a campaign that is running on vibes and joy that has the superficiality that you like? But there's nothing underneath it. And when we do learn something underneath it, when we actually learn a policy, then all the people who are supporting or have to say, oh, well, she's not really going to do that. She's not going to do that. So the best thing you can say about her campaign is that she's not going to be able to accomplish the things that she says she wants to accomplish.

2:05:54Good news is on what you do for our president. Good news is I'm in Texas, so I can put in my Bobby Kennedy vote as a protest vote and it doesn't make a difference. I can't. Can I respond to the other part of David's question to make sure? And I think to me the most troubling thing about what's happening now, you've had two Democratic candidates who've not been able to give unscripted interviews, which is extraordinary. I mean, my father and uncle were so proud of the United States for our capacity to engage in debate, to defend who we were in the world, to defend a vision of our country, to articulate to the rest of the world to be the leaders of the free world and have a command of the facts and of knowledge and to be eloquent.

2:06:41And how can you be a leader in the world? What does the rest of the world think of us right now? I mean, what could they possibly think we have two Democratic Party candidates who are not able to explain themselves in an interview? Bill It's bonkers, and the other day something really, I think, point in, which is if you want the job of handling the nuclear code, you got to do an interview first. And you know, how can you go 30, 39 days without talking to the press without being able to defend your record, to explain who you are to the American people? And if you talk to Democrats about this and you can get past the anger and past the on this kind of wall of tribal resistance to any new knowledge coming in, what they were any contrary facts, what they'll say is, well, we're not really voting for a comma, we're voting for the apparatus.

2:07:45Any who has an S -question has that apparatus serve you. You know, has the open -porter -serve you, has a $35 trillion debt serve you, as all the endless wars or you as the destruction of the American middle class, I as inflation rate and the generation. As any of that actually, you know, as that apparatus produced something for the United States that you're so proud of, that you want to blindly vote without knowing who you're voting for. Anyway, that's what I mean. And Kamala and Waltz will do an interview with Dana Bash tonight. the night we're taping this on Thursday. So we'll see, maybe show miraculously do 10 podcasts and she'll be dynamic, but it certainly doesn't look good that they fill a buster with Biden and gave him only most favorite nation interviews.

2:08:36I do respect the fact that we've had so many great candidates come on this pod and have 90 minute, two hour discussions and very proud of the work we've done here. And Bobby, you were a key piece of that and we really appreciate you coming on early and having these debates and coming here today to talk about it just means the world for you to come back and talk about this. Wish you great success with Make America Healthy Again. I think it's incredibly noble. Independent of how I feel about Trump, January 6th, abortion, any of those issues. I respect the fact that you want to make America healthy again.

2:09:04And I wish you great continued success with that. And we will see you all next time on the Internet. Talk to us, Ben. We'll let your winners ride. Bring man David Saad. Go it all. And it said we open source it to the fans and they've just gone crazy with it. I'm the west, I'm the queen of kinwa! I'm going on a beach! What? What?

2:09:33Besties are gone! Go for it! That's my dog, take it away! It's your driveway! Sit next! Get it off! Oh man, my ham is the actual meat, the apple is the actual meat! We should all just get a room and just have one big huge or two because they're all... It's like this like sexual tension that we just need to release it out. What your, that beat beat. What your, your, your beat. Beat your, beat your, beat your, beat your, beat your. We need to get messages out of that. I'm going on leave.

2:10:05I'm going on leave. And now the plugs, the all in summit is taking place in Los Angeles September 8th, and 10th you can apply for a ticket. Sum it dot all in podcast dot co and you can subscribe to this show on YouTube. Yes, watch all the videos our YouTube channel has passed 500 ,000 subscribers. Shout out to Donnie from Queens. Follow the show x .com slash the all in pod, TikTok the all in pod, Instagram the all in pod, LinkedIn search for all in podcast and to follow chamophies x .com slash chamoph sign up for his weekly email. What I read this We at schema. That's up stack .com and sign up for a developer account at console .grock .com and see what all the excitement is about follow sex at x .com slash David Sacks and sign up for glue at glue .ai follow freedberg x .com slash freed bird and oh, hello is hiring click on the careers page at all hollow genetics .com.

2:11:05I am the world's greatest moderator, Jason Calcannis. If you are a founder and you want to come to my accelerators and my programs founder .university, lunch .close that supply to apply for funding from your boy J .K. out for your startup. And check out Athena Wow .com. This is the company I am most excited about at the moment. Athena Wow .com to get a virtual assistant for about $3 ,000 a month. I have two of them. Thanks for tuning into the world's number one podcast. You can help by telling just two friends. That's all I ask for it. This podcast to two friends and say, this is the world's greatest podcast.

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