#588 - Vice President JD Vance

27:11Yeah. Got it. That's my thing. Um, did any, was Doge helpful? It was. Yeah, it was. And I mean, look, Doge continues within the white house and within the executive of, of the country. I mean, look, there's a lot of ways in which we are wasting the American people's money. Yeah. Sometimes spending it on crazy stuff. Sometimes spending it on like actually counterproductive stuff. I think Doge has saved already at least$170, maybe$200 billion. Hopefully it's going to save more. But yeah, I think it was very worthwhile. That's a ton of money. How would you not even notice that? If that much money.

27:48There's so much I could tell you about this. Okay, so one of the crazy things we all figured out like first week or so we're in the White House. is there was a payment that should be stopped because the president signed an executive order to stop a payment. And this is like day one of the White House. We're like, okay, how do we stop this payment? Because somebody's trying to make this payment and nobody knew where like the computer was that actually wired the money from the US taxpayer to this entity. So dude, the amount of waste and the amount of just grift in the federal government was off the charts.

28:22It's still, it's getting better, but there's still a lot more I think we can find. Who was getting it? I don't know one person that was getting something extra, I don't think. Unless everybody was slurping. Yeah, I mean, a lot of people were slurping, man. You look at what, so for example, there are all these humanitarian programs that we have where we send money for people for medicine, for food. Oh, yeah. Okay, but like you think, I think, like what I thought before I got in the government, what most Americans think is, okay, so we send a hundred thousand dollars to this group to buy food for like poor kids in africa okay and what actually happens is it's not a hundred thousand dollars that go to the food for the poor kids in africa that the ngo the non-government organization that gets that money contracts it out to somebody else right and they subcontract it out something there's like three or four middlemen and what you know marco rubio who's a secretary of state he's a very good friend And what he told me is that his best estimate after he had his team look at it is that 88 cents of every dollar was actually being collected by middlemen.

29:27No way. So every dollar we were spending humanitarian assistance, 12 cents was actually making it to people who needed it. That's crazy. So there's a lot of waste, man. A lot of crazy stuff. So Elon was putting in a lot. Was Elon doing it for free all that time? He was doing it for free. Yeah. He was doing it for free. He was doing it for free. I mean, he doesn't need money, right? That's the one thing Elon does not need. So I wonder if he was expecting anything from Trump and they just couldn't figure it out. I don't know. I'm just curious about it. You know, I'm kind of like, you start to see how all this stuff kind of works, you know, and just like, it's like.

29:54Yeah, like I hear. I really do think he's disappointed about the bill. He's, you know, he disagrees with some of the things that were in there. He's an emotional guy. Look, it happens to everybody. I've flown off the handle way worse than Elon Musk did in the last 24 hours. Oh, yeah. But, you know, my hope is, comes back, says, look, made some mistakes, didn't mean to say everything. Let's smooth it out and let's all be friends. Because again, like I care about the country and I think the country's better off if the, under the president's leadership, Elon's helping us out as opposed to fighting the administration.

30:29I don't want him to fight the administration. I know the president doesn't want that, but here we are. Yeah. He just tweeted a little bit ago that he felt like 80 % of the, what was that? About a third party or something? He's tweeted like 300 times. Oh, sorry. Never mind. Okay. Just a regular day for Elon. So yeah. He's obviously, I mean, he's definitely he gets a bit rogue. Why don't we have... Oh, this is interesting. Let's see it. This post is from an account you muted. I'm curious. Who did you mute? Who is that guy? Is that yours? It's one of your producers. Ian Miole-Shong. Oh, it's like Trump should be impeached and J.D.

31:14Vince should replace him. Dude, that's one vote. Oh my God. See, this is what I'm talking about. This stuff is just - What are you talking about, campaigning? This stuff is just not helpful. Again - Yeah, oh, Twitter is definitely - Look, my first loyalty is to my family, obviously, to the Constitution, but politics is a place where people stab each other in the back yeah and you can't get anything done unless you're all on the same team and you're actually committed to getting stuff done together i just think like the idea that the president's the president should be impeached i'm sorry it's insane it's totally insane the president is doing a good job and you can look you're free to disagree with him right everybody's a first amendment right are you free to disagree with trump ever Of course, of course.

32:04I mean, the way that I put it is, if I have a disagreement with the president, then it is my job, obviously, to provide the president honest counsel. Like, he doesn't need me to be a doormat. He needs me to actually say what I think about an issue. But when the president makes a decision, man, he's the general. And when the general makes a decision, everybody's got to go and execute that order. And that's kind of how I think about my job, really, is to be a good ally and a good friend, provide honest counsel to the president, but also when a decision's made, you go out and get it done. Does he listen to many people or does he listen to just one or two?

32:37He listens to a ton of people. It's one of the more interesting things about his leadership style is if he's got a big decision to make, he talks to everybody. And I think it's why he's like in touch with normal people is because he doesn't just talk to like congressmen or people with a lot of money. He tries to talk to everybody. Like I've seen him ask the gardener at Mar-a-Lago what he thinks about a particular issue. I've seen him ask the people who work in the kitchen at the White House what they think about an issue. He's constantly trying to understand what other people are thinking. Oh, I saw him ask a Scottish terrier what kind of cakes they like, you know.

33:10So, yeah, I agree with you. He's definitely always absorbing kind of information. He is. Yeah. Nobody needs help spending money. Sometimes it feels like the whole world is trying to spend your money. Your whole social media feed is full of ads. Your mailbox is full of credit card offers and then there's all the hidden fees and extra costs and rising prices and blah, blah, blah. That's why there's Acorns. Acorns is a financial wellness app that makes it easy to start saving and investing for your future. You don't need to feel like financial wellness is impossible. Acorns gives you small, simple steps to get you and your money on track.

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34:38That's A-C-O-R-N-S dot com slash T-H-E-O to get your$20 bonus investment today. Paid non-client endorsement. Compensation provides incentive to positively promote Acorns. Tier 4, compensation provided. Investing involves risks. Acorn Advisors, LLC, an SEC registered investment advisor. View important disclosures at acorns.com. Man, you know, it's pretty obvious that the mainstream media is a big machine, right? They kind of contour, they team up, they have a strategy. So we're never really seeing the whole picture when it comes to news. That's why I love ground news. It lets you see how different news outlets cover the same story, left, right, and center.

35:15Yeah, I was on ground news this morning, and it shows on the, if you look at the left, regarding the Musk-Trump feud. It says, Musk hits back with Epstein theories. Trump hits back with threats. Elon has gone crazy. And then we go to a more centrist news feed and it says, Trump-Musk feud explodes with threats of cutting contracts, backing impeachment. And here we are with a right-leaning from the Daily Wire. White House responds to Elon Musk-Epstein claims an unfortunate episode from Elon. And I think you should go check this out yourself because I don't think we've ever seen anything like it.

35:52I think it's actually the only of its kind, and I think it's what we've all been wanting. Just go to groundnews.com slash theo. That's G-R-O-U-N-D-N-E-W-S dot com slash T-H-E-O to get 40 % off the Vantage plan and get access to the mobile app, website, and exclusive newsletters. Wow. One more time. groundnews.com slash T-H-E-O. You talked about the bill, the big, beautiful bill, you know, which is like kind of the most, it's the most Trumpian name you could ever have. It is. The big, beautiful bill. And why are these bills this whole mess of shit? Why is it a gumbo? Why isn't it just one fine soup each time and you vote on each certain thing?

36:42I know that's definitely gonna be a novice question, but. No, man, it's a fair question. I think there are a couple, excuse me. It depends on the kind of the Celsius is, it's got a lot of caffeine in it, man. Oh, dude, are you talking? I'm getting amped over here. What are you talking about? Yeah, that's what FDR was on. That's why he left his wife. That thing will definitely, that thing will remodel. FDR loves Celsius. As everybody knows, his favorite beverage was, what is this here? Sparkling orange Celsius. and that is the most fdr flavor too to be honest oh man okay sorry what did you ask me okay the big big i thought we're supposed to be reading the bible all right the bills okay but the bill why is it big okay because it's always you always hear every every congressman or senator not everyone but sometimes i'm like i just got it i don't know I couldn't read a thousand pages last night, you know?

37:42So there are different kinds of bills. Okay. And I think, so there are things called omnibuses. And omnibuses are like a million different things shoved into one bill. And oftentimes you don't have time to read them. The House of Representatives actually adopted a rule to where they have to get, I think, at least four days to actually read it, to change this because people weren't getting time to read the stuff before it got voted on. This particular bill, the way to think about it it's basically, if you look at a campaign speech I gave back in September of 2024, and I said, we're going to cut taxes on tips.

38:15We're going to have no taxes on overtime. We're going to cut taxes on social security. You know, we're going to secure the border. We're going to build more border wall. We're going to hire more border patrol agents, like all that stuff. All of those promises are in this bill. So like the way this particular piece of legislation was conceptualized is rather than, than take up floor time on a bunch of random different stuff, why don't we just do everything or at least most of the things that we campaigned on that can be done through legislation and put it into this bill now that's not saying that there aren't sometimes massive bills that are ridiculous and don't make a ton of sense uh there are but i i think this bill like you know there's a there's a political answer your question too okay so let's just say i'm not going to name names i don't embarrass anybody but let's say you've got some Republican congressmen who really love no taxes on tips, but they're a little squishy on the border stuff.

39:06They don't agree with what we're doing on the border. Okay. Let's say you got somebody who really loves what we're doing on the border, but they don't necessarily like, you know, they don't want to cut taxes for one reason or another. Right. If, if, if you take enough of this stuff of our promises again and put it together, you say, look, even if you disagree with parts of it, this is what we campaigned on writ large. And so we got to vote on this thing and make it happen. Sorry, there's a final answer to this question, which is stupid and parliamentary, but it matters. It's actually the most important answer is, okay, any bill that you do takes, you got to put it on the floor and you got to give people enough time to read it and you got to amend it.

39:42And then you got to do a committee process. And there's like a constant stream of things. There's a big process for it. And so if you went through that process for each individual item on a separate bill, it would take over a year to do all these bills. but we gotta like we gotta prevent taxes from going up we don't have that much time to do it we gotta secure the border we don't have that much time to do it we've got to do the the no tax on social security like if if we did that 18 months from now in a smaller bill then we would not be keeping our promises to the american people i see is there a way um that they can just prioritize those i wonder it just feels like it would make it would be so much easier to digest as a regular person if you weren't thinking like, well, heck, my guy's got to stay up all night for 600 nights to get all this information in, you know, and to get it in accurately and then to make fair choices on it.

40:35Yeah. I mean, I think the answer to your question is you could do that, but Congress would have to change its procedures. And could Congress do that if they voted to do it? They could. They could. But they would need to change their procedures. And, you know, the President's attitude is we're like, we're not going to tell you how to run Congress. We're working within the constraints that we have. We're just trying to get as much done. And look, I mean, people are frustrated with Congress. I get it. People are frustrated with certain things that Congress does. I agree with a lot of those criticisms.

41:03I mean, we do spend way too much money in this country. Like it is a reality that we spend too much money, but I don't think those criticisms apply to this particular legislation. Like one thing I'd ask everybody to say is, okay, so big, ugly spending bill, some people are calling it. What is the spending that is done here, the biggest single budgetary item, Theo, in this bill is the money to secure the border. Like that's not ugly spending. That's like the best kind of spending. Well, that's a great kind of spending. I think, well, um, no, I agree with that. Look, we've had, uh, two border officials on over the past four years and we've learned about, um, about all the, just the infrastructure issues that they face.

41:43Uh, we've learned about the fact that the executive branch doesn't process any of the, like they'll apprehend the guys, but then they're not processed. I think it's the executive branch. Yes. Cause we don't have the money to do it like that. That's okay. But they were saying for years, guys would come in and they'd have to catch them every other week because they would, and nobody would prosecute them. So it was just, then it made them feel like they didn't have any value. I know that we're signing like 5 ,000 new people to work at the border. So I know that we're giving a lot of new jobs. That's what we're trying to do, right?

42:08Is create enough resources so that you can actually do all the border enforcement that we promise. And like the part that the president got immediate action on, if you think about this, we came in, the president empowered border patrol to stop letting people come across the border illegally. That stopped pretty much immediately. You got like a 96 % drop in border crossings immediately. The thing is though, is you've got 21 million people in here illegally. You got to send them home. You got to process them. You got to actually, sometimes some of these people, are entitled to some kind of trial for one reason or another.

42:42So you've got to do that. That stuff all costs money. And that's where we don't have money to do it right now. So that's why this bill is necessary. Who was that? They just said that, did Congress have enough time to read this bill? Rep. Thomas Massey said, the House has a 72-hour rule, which requires the bill to be posted 72 hours before passage. What does that even mean? Yeah, that's, I'd never heard that before. And look, I mean, Thomas Massey and I get along, but my understanding is that the bill text was, people have had literally weeks to pass it or to read it. And the reason, okay, here's the criticism I'd give of what Thomas Massey's saying right here is what's going to happen is the Senate has to vote on this bill and then it has to go back to the house.

43:30And it may change like 1%. Like the Senate may change a sentence or a paragraph here or there, but it's going to fundamentally be the same bill. So the idea that people haven't had an opportunity to actually read it is ridiculous. They're in fact going to have to vote on it again before it even becomes law. So they'll have more time. They'll have more time. Got it. Like by necessity, by law, they have to. Understood. Part of the bill I know that people are, that's getting a lot of attention, right? Yeah. And I do want to say like, I recognize that like when you get into a place, you can't just get what you want, right?

44:01There's a lot of people in that place and everybody wants certain things. There's a give and take. That's why I'd say it's good, not perfect. There are criticisms to make of it. Yeah. There's a give and take, dude. You know, you can, yeah, it's like getting in-laws or whatever. That's right. Any good marriage has give or take. Any good relationship has give or take. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Oh yeah, for sure. You got to compromise a little bit. You got to accept some things you might not love. That's just, that's the nature of the beast? Part of the bill that people are talking about is there's like the AI stuff, right?

44:31Like the government, like there's a ban is that we're going to spend a lot of money with AI, like in order to advance, like bring our government technologies up to code, really. I know what you're talking about. And then also it says in there that there's a ban that at state levels, they couldn't prosecute some of these AI companies, right? That sounds This is really sketchy. I know what you're talking about. Yeah. And this is in USA Today. I'll just read it. The ban is tucked into a section of the bill that would allocate$500 million over the next 10 years to modernize government systems with the help of AI and automation technologies.

45:06The ban would not only prevent new state-led regulations of AI, but would also block dozens of states from enforcing pre-existing AI regulations and oversight structures. It feels scary. Yeah. So let me say a couple of things about this. So I actually was talking to a couple of senators on the way down here about this because they really hate this provision. And actually both, we brought them on because it's Bill Haggerty and Marsha Blackburn, great people. They represent the state of Tennessee. So they don't like this provision. And they brought up a really interesting point. It's because, so Tennessee obviously has a lot of musicians, right?

45:43And Tennessee wants to protect those musicians from having basically AI steal the production of their artists, right? Because one of the big problems with AI is you're going to be able to take somebody's voice and then Taylor Swift's voice or anybody else's voice and basically say, oh, okay, well, based on this one song that Robert Plant did 35 years ago, we're going to make a whole new Led Zeppelin song using artificial intelligence. Right? And they want to protect people from that kind of thing happening. So that's a totally reasonable point to me. The reason that provision is in there is because you think about like, think about how like woke the Google searches got.

46:28Remember when you like search, what does George Washington look like? And it'd show you like a picture of a black dude. Oh, yeah. Or like a little Japanese George Washington or something. So the idea is you use, you basically have a federal regulation that prevents, a federal regulation that prevents like California from having a super progressive set of regulations on artificial intelligence, right? That's the argument for it. The argument against it is that if the feds aren't protecting artists, then you're not going to be able to protect artists either. okay and so i honestly i don't think the provision to be honest with you i don't think that's going to make it in the final bill but i usually have a pretty strong view on most things i could kind of go both ways on this because i don't want california's progressive regulations to control artificial intelligence yeah i also agree with marsh and bill that you want to protect you know country artists in nashville from having their crap stolen by ai like i get that yeah yeah it's interesting i mean that kind of stuff it's like because they made a bunch of little babies of all like a lot of podcasters and now they're doing it with everybody.

47:36Like they got dang, uh, you know, Aaron Rogers, baby. They got left eye from, uh, that Millie Vanilli woman or whatever. They have everybody in there. And so, um, but a lot of Vanilli man too soon. Oh yeah. I'm still, I'm a Millie Vanilli truther by the way. Yeah, man. Oh, I think it was really them. I just think they were taken advantage of by you. Thank you, dude. You know, there's like seven of us left, don't you? oh man that was a catchy song so i was born 1984 that's one of the first songs i remember like playing in a radio dude remember that song i'm the one who wants to i do with you uh that was like mid 90s right i don't know it was good though trying to think of what trying to think of the band i think it was kind of a one-hit wonder big that's mr big okay that's kind of one-hit wonder right yeah oh yeah we're yeah that's too bad god they were good that was a good song remember the first song you ever heard?

48:32Um, I'm pretty sure the first song I ever heard was Layla by Eric Clapton. The, the original one, not the acoustic one, dude, my buddy, I used to live with my buddy's dad, right? Cause he was getting, I had like erectile dysfunction. So I was pretty young. And then, uh, I was living with him cause he was getting like an early script on, uh, on pill ED pills or whatever, you know, wiener pills. And so I stayed over there and I cop a little bit off of his. But anyway, he used to hook up with this lady and I was learning the guitar. He made me go play Tears in Heaven. Oh man. That's a sad, you know, that's about his son dying.

49:10And it was the only song I knew and they like play it again. Oh my God. This is one of those things where I hope to God you're joking. Cause if you're living in Steve's house, how old were you at the time? Oh, probably 27. Okay. So you're 27 stealing ED pills, playing Tears in Heaven. That's a bad situation. You got to get out of that situation, man. I'm going to assume that you're joking because I don't want to have nightmares about this, about this later on. What do you mean? Okay. Okay. That's the healthcare system. We have the healthcare system. All right. So on the way over. No, I'm just joking.

49:40That is a true story though. I hear you on the way down here, on the way down here, there's like an advertisement for some like med pack. It was, it was on, it was a TV commercial and I don't really watch like normal TV. So I don't see commercials that often anymore, but it's like MedPak and it's like order this thing and it costs$45 and it has these different drugs in it. And I only saw it briefly, but I could have sworn that two of the medications in this MedPak were, and it's advertised as like an emergency medicine are ivermectin and ozempic. And I'm like thinking to myself, what is the situation where you need emergency ozempic?

50:19And so like the second half of the flight down here, I'm thinking to myself, what is the emergency ozempic situation and then i thought like you know if you have a domer party situation yeah and it's like all right you know we we gotta we gotta suppress our appetites but i i don't know but maybe it was just ivermectin maybe it was an ozempic i but that's see stuff like that is kind of crazy to me well now they're combining it's just everything is combined now you know they even put i think it's pizza hut and baskin robbins are together now. It's like everything I think is mixed now. That kind of makes sense though.

50:54It kind of does. Pizza and then some ice cream. Yeah. That's true. You're right. So what I never understood was like what was it? Ivermectin. Taco Bell and KFC. Yeah. What is that? It's one of the other. That's called indigestion. That is the only way that combination mixes. It should be one or the other. One or the other. You do not need. If you're going to Taco Bell and KFC in the same stop, you got serious problems. Did you, let me think about something that's important, JD, or people are not even going to believe that we spent time together. Oh my God. This is fun though, man. This is good.

51:26It's good to. It is good, man. Dude, I just can't, I just can't even believe that that's your life. Is it what you thought it would be? Is it different once you got in there? Are things that different? It's about what I thought it would be. I mean, at this point, right, I know the president pretty well. And, you know, I knew that he would, I knew he had a lot of trust in me. And again, the role of the vice president is very derivative of what the president is doing. So if the president has trust in you, if he gives you a task and just lets you go and do it, that's kind of what your job is. And it's been a lot of fun.

51:58Like I've traveled all over the world. I think we've done a lot of good work for the American people, which of course is the most important part. I mean, there are little things that I, you know, will take some time getting used to. So like we got three little kids. Our son just turned eight yesterday, actually. uh and then we have a five-year-old son the three-year-old baby girl and our eight-year-old son is he's a little bit of an introvert i think and so he doesn't love the attention but then our like five-year-old son is is a little bit more like me so he'll like roll off the airplane wave and say hello to everybody and um having secret service around is is kind of a crazy experience like they're all good dudes and i love them but it's also kind of unusual to like just walk outside your house and there's always somebody you know walking with you that's kind of weird oh definitely i think i mean we went back to go chat for you know like five minutes just before this thing started and you know i was like don't worry guys theo doesn't have a gun yeah i hope you don't know they check so we're in deep shit man they checked me somebody kissed me on the way and i was like that's part of it one of the secret service no i'm joking i was like what's your secret buddy huh you know oh that's millie vanille right there is babies right there using that oh Wait, those are Grammys, right?

53:10I didn't know. Oh, they took their Grammys away. Well, didn't one of them - They took their Grammys away? Didn't one of them commit suicide? It's kind of a sad story, actually. Yeah. And one of them died a couple of years ago. I met one of them one night, I think. Maybe I didn't. I was out late one night. I'll say that. Sorry, that's crazy. What are we talking about? Let's talk about - Could have been Milli Vanilli. Could have been my uncle. Who knows? Who am I to say? i don't know i did i'll just say i met one of uh freddy's buddies one of frederick's buddies out there i'll say this man right now sir i will say it um so people have to like we all need like help whenever we're like and when you're politicianing right like you need help you need support you have sponsors and stuff right correct there's a lot of speculation and talk like one of your primary sponsors was is a guy peter teal right and he's in the tech world yeah and i never met him you know Sure.

54:05But, you know, there's like a lot of these tech kind of lords like they, you know, technology has grown so much in the past 20 years that it it controls a lot of our environment in our life. Right. It does. What do you owe somebody if you do like if you get into office, if somebody like donates a lot of money to your campaign, like how does that relationship work after that? I think the attitude is you don't owe them anything. And I think if you take the attitude of you owe somebody something, then you're fundamentally not going to do the job that you were meant to do. I mean, this is tough, right?

54:38So take my Senate race. First time I ever ran for office was 2022. I ran for the Ohio Senate race. I won. You did? That race, yeah. Fuck yeah. Thank you. That's good. Yeah. If I hadn't won, I wouldn't be sitting here. Oh, okay. Yeah. Because then I became the vice president nominee. So I basically have won. I've run two campaigns in my life. The first one, the Senate campaign, cost$45 million. The second one, presidential campaign, I think that we spent like$1.2 billion. Okay. So it costs a lot of money. Well, the president obviously is the leader of the campaign. But the total campaign. Got it.

55:16So it costs a lot of money to run for office. And you got to go and raise money. Yeah. But I think that if your attitude is, I owe something to these people who gave me money, then you're going to end up being corrupted. And you've got to kind of take the attitude of they're supporting me because they agree with me. And obviously like you have conversations with them. Like you mentioned Peter Thiel. I see a lot of crazy stuff on the internet about Peter Thiel. Like, you know, he's always been a friend of mine. He's always been one of the smartest people I've ever met. Just a very thoughtful dude.

55:47But he's literally never asked me once for anything. So he just believed in you? He believed in me. He agreed with me on a lot of issues. I mean, he definitely has like said, hey, I don't agree with you on this, but he's never said, I don't agree with you on this, therefore you should vote differently or act differently. But it's like, to be honest with you, it's one of the risks of our system. Now, if you think about it, right? Because if you are a super ambitious dude or girl and you really want to run for office, like you got to be able to separate yourself from that donor pressure. And think about it, like if you're going to do a fundraiser, okay everybody's going to go to fundraisers in politics well that's like an hour and a half you're not spending talking to the people you represent right so there is one of the problems in our system is the people spend so much time raising money i think sometimes not all cases but sometimes it can have a corrupting influence on the process now i was talking to a buddy of mine actually about this because his argument is yeah he's like a political consultant he's a political hack, but a good dude.

56:47He said, he said, he said, our system is better though. Cause in some places they have publicly financed campaigns. And he's like the problem with places where they have public publicly financed campaigns is that all, all of the control in the political system is with the media. Because like, if you, if you raise money, most of what you're spending your money on is TV, radio advertisements, it's reaching voters. So if you can't reach voters with TV advertisements and you got to go on the, like the corporate media to get your message out there. That's even worse. Right. So I kind of see both sides of it.

57:19I just think as a practical matter, what I try to do is remember that, you know, it's, it's an honor to serve, but it's also a sacrifice to serve. And if people are going to write me a check, great, but I don't owe them anything. That's, that's the attitude I try to have. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it just, it's interesting because I mean, we all have people that help us do certain things or are supportive. And then you get in spots where you're like, you know, I like I used to live with a family when I was growing up and there's always been this thing. I was like, what do I owe them? You know, not that they've ever said I owed them anything, but it's like, you know, there's always this feeling inside of you, you know, of like, uh, and so I'm sure a lot of people can relate to things like that.

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1:00:10More horsepower. Nuff said. Make life easier by getting harder and discover your options at bluechew.com. And we've got a special deal for our listeners. Try your first month of Blue Chew free when you use promo code T-H-E-O. Just pay$5 shipping. That's promo code Theo. Visit bluechew.com for more details and important safety information. And we thank Blue Chew for sponsoring the podcast. well recently they have like there's a lot of like trump picked out um that the there's the palantir company right yeah and that's about a surveillance thing so this thing is fucked this sounds crazy dude like this sounds like we're only gonna be human for like two more years right so they and this is the palantir company where they're going to build security databases that have all of our information in them, right?

1:01:12That's what they're saying. That's what they're saying. Yeah. And it's going to have like everything, it'll like look at you and know, like if you're good at tennis or if you've ever, you know, if you have, like, if you have$60 in your pocket or if you're, you know, it can tell if your kids are, you know, if your kids can have a limp or whatever, if he'll be in the Christmas play, you know what I'm saying? It can tell all of that. And then, and that feels real scary, man. Like to a regular down the street, that feels like we're going to give our society, like we're going to become these, like they're going to have know everything about us.

1:01:47It makes you feel like you won't be a person anymore. I hear you. Does that make sense to you? It definitely makes sense to me. I mean, let me try to explain. So to be clear, I'm not an expert on this particular deal. I actually just read about it earlier today or maybe yesterday, but the president did an executive order, I don't know, a couple of months ago. And the basic idea is you've got all this different information, but it's not accessible in one place. So like, let me give you an example where this might be useful. Let's say you catch an illegal immigrant, okay? And that person's using a social security number, but the Department of Homeland Security that arrests the person can't actually figure out what social security number that illegal immigrant is, what name it's attached to, okay?

1:02:30Or, you know, let's say you're like investigating some terrorist and the FBI arrests the person, but there are information about where the person lived a couple of years ago that you'd like to have, so you'd maybe like to go talk to their friends or associates or whatever. My understanding is that it does sound odd, but that what they're trying to do is take all the information that the Department of Homeland Security has, that the FBI has, and just make it so that it's actually not in some hyper-inefficient system. It's all sort of accessible. And here's the thing. modern technology is just crazy and weird and it affects our privacy.

1:03:09And I think we don't have to think that's a good thing. It is like a reality of the world that we live in. Right. Sometimes I get a little romantic about things. Well, I mean, look, and I think it's going to go back in time. I mean, look, everybody, I kind of agree with you. I think people are sort of going to rebel against technology a little bit in some ways they already are. But look, dude, if I, if I, this has happened to me so many times where I'm talking to my wife, like, oh, what are we gonna make for dinner for the kids tonight. Oh, let's just like do DoorDash or Grubhub. And then you go on like X or you go on, you know, Facebook or Instagram and there's like an advertisement for a DoorDash coupon.

1:03:44And it's like, well, I was just talking about this 10 minutes ago. So we know that big technology spies on us and harvests our data. I honestly worry more about that than about like connecting the DHS system to the FBI system. So that's all that this Palantir deal is part, Like a lot of that, it's just connecting information. So I'm hardly an expert, but that is my understanding is that it's just taking, okay, DHS has information, FBI has information, Secretary of the Treasury has information, and making it possible for that information to be searched by whoever is looking for it. That's my understanding.

1:04:20But again, I hear that story and my reaction is the same, which is, oh, I don't like the government having my information. the reality is the government already has my information and more importantly some of these private technology companies have way more information on me than the government does oh yeah i mean anywhere you shop has unbelievable information on you i mean let me tell you like yeah dude blockbuster two days ago blockbuster was like happy birthday they were wrong so i i gotta i gotta it's like you're out of business there's a there's a yeah when was the last time you were a blockbuster but some guy somewhere probably in another country nepal you and fdr somewhere you and fdr took your celsius and went down to blockbuster to get some get some vhs rentals

1:05:14that's that was fdr's favorite movies that makes sense um so all right what were we talking about technology okay so i was okay i i was getting a brief so because that's what people when i first became but no no they are and i get it and look like all i'll tell you is we try to be as oh yeah i did go to the last blockbuster i forgot about that how old was that is that 14 years ago that no that's freaking two years ago i didn't realize blockbuster out there it got stuck in the snow out there yeah so so um i got a brief from my national security guy i want to make sure i can It's not classified information.

1:05:51Okay, no, it's not classified as information. Okay, long story short, one of the guys who works in the national security team with the Trump administration gave me this brief about how, okay, when you're using an iPad and let's say, you know, you're reading a story from some random newspaper and you hover on a particular paragraph, like your iPad is collecting that information on you. Like it's actually trying to track what you're doing. Like that is the stuff that really freaks me out. Well, how do we stop that? I think it freaks everybody. I think it just makes people sick. It's like, you don't even feel like you exist for any purpose anymore other than to be advertised to or to be, I don't even know anything else.

1:06:36Well, you think about it like our, think about a hundred years ago, 50 years ago, the most brilliant scientists in the world, they're trying to figure out nuclear energy. They're trying to figure out how to cure cancer. now way too many of them are figuring out like how do i get a person to linger on a digital advertisement for a little bit longer so that we can increase the price of the ad that we sell them by three pennies yeah like there's something i think very that warps our entire economy about the digital advertisement world because too many smart people are focused on getting us addicted to these applications and i mean what do we do about it i mean one thing is is from a policy perspective, we've already looked into a lot of things we can do on data privacy and protection.

1:07:20So we're trying to make it harder for these firms to collect information on you. Well, it feels like with this, with Palantir, it's like they're going to collect all the information though. So that feels like. Yeah. I, yeah. I mean, look, my understanding again, so this is full disclosure. I think it's important. I think it's important. I think it's important to be open. So Palantir, you asked about Peter Thiel. Palantir is actually one of the companies that he invested in, right? So, you know - Oh, he doesn't run it. I would be fooled. My understanding is he doesn't run it. But I don't believe that Palantir is collecting any information.

1:07:51I believe it's purely building a database that's sort of combining the information. Is that, I might have some of my team that you guys get, is that right? Is that accurate? Okay, cool. No, I'm glad, yeah. Because yeah, we're just trying to figure it out. And I think, I mean, right now, I think Palantir has like, you know, there's a lot of conflict right now in Gaza. You know, everybody knows about that. Of course. And Palantir is like, um, been accused of being like complicit in a lot of the violence over there. Um, and so I think that's where it gets really scary for like regular person on the street.

1:08:21I'm like, well, if this is the company, um, you know, cause you see videos of like horrific stuff online. Sure. Very sad stuff. And, and you're like, well, if this is the company we're hiring, how do I know that I might not be walking down the street and just a sniper bullet could hit me from them, you know? So that, that is. To be really honest with you. Yeah, no, I hear what you're saying. And I think the answer to that question is the only real protection that we have against that is that we've got to, you know, elect the right people. And we've got to make sure that our government doesn't do crazy stuff.

1:08:56Because, I mean, look, any of this information can be misused. Like our government has your social security number. Okay. Using that information, the government could spy on you. the government could give your information over to an illegal alien to start a fake account in your name and that by the way happens i had a friend of mine who had an illegal alien steal his social security number and when he went to the irs to complain about it they wouldn't give him information on um the person on the person who was stealing his stuff and by the way that that's that's what we're trying to do is make it show the irs can talk to the department of homeland security um but the only real protection against this stuff i think is to have a government that actually protects the rights of its citizens.

1:09:38And, you know, if, I mean, we should all be worried about our privacy being invaded by the government. I think we should be just as worried about private corporations as we should be the government. I think, you know, everybody can invade our privacy. But I don't, let me put this away, I don't think that the solution to that problem is to like pretend that the government doesn't already have this information. It just does. You got to make sure it doesn't misuse it. And that's my view, at least, is we got to live in reality and the government's already got this information. We just need to make sure they don't misuse it.

1:10:11And on like the Gaza thing, just sort of, you know, chat about that for a little bit. I mean, I'm like a human being. So I look at this stuff, I see these videos, I see the pictures, and it's very heartbreaking. And, you know, just since you brought it up, like what we're trying to do here is try to solve two problems here. Okay, so on the one hand, you've got innocent people, innocent Palestinians, and innocent Israeli hostages, by the way, who are like caught up in this terrible violence that's happening as we speak. Okay, and we're trying to get as much aid and as much support into people as humanly possible.

1:10:50That's like one thing that's going on. The other side is Israel is attacked by this terrible terrorist organization. I think people sometimes forget that, right? They forget like the thing that kicked this off is that we had this terrible terrorist attack and you had a lot of innocent Israeli civilians die in that terrorist attack. And so I think what we're trying to do in the Trump administration with that situation is to get to a peaceful resolution. And I think the peaceful resolution looks something like this. You've got to give Israel confidence that Hamas is never going to attack them and kill a bunch of civilians.

1:11:22And then you've got to get as much aid and support into these innocent Palestinians as possible because in some ways they're caught in the middle of this thing too. One thing that I don't love about the whole Israel-Palestinian debate is I think it kind of degrades our humanity a little bit because I've seen people on the left, mostly on the left, who will say, well, they'll completely ignore that Israel, like all these innocent Israelis were killed in this terrorist attack. And you have some people usually on the right who will completely ignore that they're like kids who are caught up in this violence.

1:11:53And I think it's why the president has been, you know, I call him the president of peace. It's why he cares about solving this problem, because the longer this goes on, the more suffering, the more death. So we're trying to solve it as much as we can. It's not easy. Do you have a say in it? Yeah. I mean, well, the president's obviously the person who makes the final decision all the time. But yeah, I mean, we certainly I think I'm one of the few people that he's talking to constantly. We're constantly, you know, we're talking to the Israeli government. We're talking to people in the Arab world.

1:12:23We're talking to people in Palestinian territories. Like we're constantly engaging in diplomacy. I mean, one of the crazy things, dude, is this guy is a very dear friend of the president's. He's our special envoy of the Middle East. Steve Witkoff, he's a Jewish guy, very pro-Israel. He's done more to try to bring this conflict to a close than anybody. and you sometimes have people who say that they're pro-israel who attack steve for not being pro-israel enough and i think it's totally bogus like i see this guy operate every single day he actually is like he he's a jewish guy who believes in in in the purpose of the state of israel he also is a guy with a heart who's trying to prevent the killing yeah and i i think there's just like when i talk about we this whole debate has caused us to lose our humanity i think of the people who are constantly going after Steve because this is a guy, he's a father.

1:13:15He lost one of his own children because of an overdose. And he just, he loves people. He believes in the value of human life and he's doing a really good job. And he's one of the important people in the presidency or too. Yeah. It seems like I've heard of Mr. Whitcoff, but I never met him. But I'm like, dude, you should have him. I think the tough thing just as a regular person, right? It's like, we're seeing all these videos of people like picking up pieces of their children and like, course it's it's the it's the sickest thing i think it's ever been televised basically if you consider watching something on your phone it's a very sad man it's a mess it feels like a massacre and it feels like you know i've called it a genocide other people have different thoughts about it and that's fine right and i don't need anybody to share the same thoughts or you too um but i think where it gets scary is that we give you know we're complicit in it because we help fund like military stuff you know and that's where it's like a regular guy you're like well i'm paying these taxes and they're going towards this, like, but you can't do anything, you know, like you can, you can, you can talk, you know, but it's like, you can't, I don't understand how it becomes like tough for people.

1:14:21Like sometimes it feels like we look out for the interests of Israel before we look out for the interests of America. So let me say a couple of things. So, so number one, like, I think you're a great dude. So we almost have to agree on everything. Do I think it's a genocide? No. And here's, here's the reason why I don't think it's a genocide, because I don't think that the Israelis are purposely trying to go in and murder every Palestinian. I don't think that's what they're doing. I think they got hit hard. And I think they're trying to like, you know, sort of destroy this terrorist organization and war is hell.

1:14:54And that is true. I also think it's true, man. I mean, I've seen people on my side of the political aisle, I'm a Republican, you know that, but your audience may not, who like will see these videos of these innocent Palestinian kids and say, oh well they had it coming to them no no no no no like if if you have a soul your heart should break when you see a little kid who's suffering which is why we have the policy that we have which is we're trying to stop eliminate the conflict eliminate the source of the conflict so that we can actually bring some peace and some some humanitarian assistance into people and uh that's that's that's my basic view and the president's interesting he's he's a very is a pro-Israel guy.

1:15:33Yeah. And he also recognizes that to bring any conflict to a close, you've got to talk to everybody. And so, I mean, we've been attacked. I've been attacked. The president's been attacked for being too interested in diplomacy. And you ask like, what can I do? I think that what people should demand is that if our tax dollars are going to something, we should be actively trying to fix it. Okay. That's kind of the way that I think about it. and what happened with the Biden administration, man, it's crazy. They were spending so much money all over the world, they weren't engaged in diplomacy at all.

1:16:08So they'd sent, I mean, we sent$300 billion to Ukraine, for example, and you never had the president of the United States actually trying to force a diplomatic settlement. I mean, you talk about bodies all over the ground. Dude, the Russia-Ukraine thing is the most vicious. We see satellite images. We see classified images, man. It is vicious. And again, I will hear people who will say, well, you know, again, mostly on our side, we'll say, oh, the Russians got killed. That's a good thing. Look, I'm not defending the invasion. I'm not defending starting a war. But when human beings are getting blown to bits, your heart should feel sad about that.

1:16:48And you should try to do something to fix it. And that's what we're trying to do. And we get crap for it. But again, that's like the part that makes me feel the best about my job is whether it's in Israel or Russia, Ukraine, like we're actually trying to bring this stuff to some settlement and to some close. And if we do, we're going to save a lot of lives. And if we don't, it was worth the try. Yeah. Yeah, I just have one more question. And yeah, and I want to say, yeah, I recognize that it's like you can't expect people to do stuff immediately. You can't expect things to happen overnight. Sure.

1:17:16And that you get into a place and there's a lot of people that are already there and you have to figure out how do I make my way in this? how do I figure out to get some of the things I want and I have to give up some of the things that I also want right and so uh I just want to let you know that I recognize that you know and I think I learn to recognize that more I think the older that I get and learn a little bit more about politics it's not just like this guy got the job everything's going to be done immediately yeah um I do want to ask really quick this is important because um there's a lot like President Trump talked about uh this we we he signed this executive order to make price transparency for healthcare, right?

1:17:52And for hospital bills and medical billing. And we talked about it last time you were on, you said your wife was getting even birth and you didn't even know like how much it was costing. Like, what does this cost? And what if we get the amnesia? Your wife's like, I don't want any amnesia or whatever. And you're like, you should take it. And you're like, how much is it? But it's like, nobody knows. And then they're putting$30 ,000 of amnesia in your wife. You're like, well, shit. And so it's like, but what I'm saying is everybody at this point is, It's, you know, but it's a hundred trillion dollar, multi hundred trillion dollar industry.

1:18:22Yes. That's going to change. Will we actually see it take place? Like Biden administration tried to get price transparency. They couldn't, they were too caught up. They couldn't get it done. Trump signed the executive order. Do you think we will actually see this happen? So I do. I think it's going to take a little time, but we took the first big step when the president signed that executive order. And you asked this question about donors, right? So the pharmaceutical industry gives a ton of money to Republicans and Democrats. And I'll tell you, they were not happy when the president did that.

1:18:52And the president's attitude is, look, it's the right thing for the American people. So I think, again, it's an example of when you've got to tune out the financial pressures of politics to just do what's right. Well, people are afraid to get sick, not because they— Sorry, am I being loud to you? I'm sorry. No, you're fine. Here's something— No, I mean, your normal volume, I would say. Okay, sorry. I felt a little handy. It's not towards you. I'm thankful that you're spending time with me. No, no, you're good, man. So I'll tell you a crazy story. A buddy of mine was visiting recently. He's a friend from back home.

1:19:27And his wife told me this story that his kid, they thought he was special needs, maybe had sort of a neurological disorder just because he was sort of emotional, or not emotionally, educationally behind his peers. Turns out he was just deaf. He needed a cochlear implant. And it took my buddy's wife just fighting with the insurance companies for forever to get this kid the medicine that he needed, the treatment that he needed. And now the kid, I mean, he's happy, he's healthy. He's a beautiful child, smart child. Like, that's amazing, right? That's what we want medical science to do is to take a serious problem and make it better.

1:20:05Well, why do we have a medical system in this country where too many people can't get the treatment that they need? And it's a complicated answer to that question. But one of the big problems is, and I don't think most Americans realize this, we subsidize. When you go to the hospital or you go to the doctor and you pay out the rear end for a treatment, you are subsidizing all of the therapies all over the world. And tell us what subsidizing means because some people won't know. So basically, we pay more so that Europeans in other parts of the world pay less. So we fund all the innovation. We fund all the development of new drugs.

1:20:39And then Americans pay way more. That's why, you know, Americans, we spend 22 % of our economy on healthcare. The Europeans average out about 10 or 11%. So we spend way more on healthcare and they spend way less. So the president uses example all the time. You know, the Ozipic, as he calls it, the fat shot drug. He had a buddy who was on Ozipic and had to go to Canada to get it, even though it was invented in Europe. Yeah. And it was mass produced all over the world. it was like a tenth of the price in Canada that it was in the United States. And the way that it is, is the drug companies make money off Americans so they can offer discount drugs to everybody else.

1:21:20So what that executive order, the reason why I think that approach is going to work way better than anything the Biden administration is doing is it's going to say the Americans get to pay less and the Europeans are going to have to pay up a little bit. You'll know more about what you're spending on, but it also is more fair to Americans. And I think that's a win-win scenario because you can't expect Americans to pay 10 times for prescription drugs what other people pay. It's also, by the way, not that this is the main issue, but it's bankrupting people and it's bankrupting our country because we spend so much more on health care and that's a major driver of our budgetary problems.

1:21:56It's the number one cause of bankruptcy is medical debt. Yes, it is. People aren't afraid to get sick because they'll be sick. They're afraid to get sick because they can't afford to be sick. That's right. And the stress of it is going to kill them. That's right. But do you think, like, he made the executive order. Do you think, well, and I know it's, like, so hard to be like, you do you know you know but it's like do you really think we'll see this i mean it's like god give us give the people something i do now i do and we got a great secretary of health and human services bobby kennedy have you done has bobby been on the show before yeah okay he's a good dude he's we had bobby when everybody thought he was insane dude hell yeah dude he had to give him a ride home his all vehicle had been repossessed dude yeah oh man i'm joking so bobby bobby Congratulations, Bobby.

1:22:39Yeah, we should have known that for the Senate confirmation hearings. But yeah, I mean, Bobby's a good dude, and he really cares about this stuff. And this is what you need. You need the will. You need the good idea. But you also need the implementation. I think the president's got the good idea. He's got the executive order. Bobby's got the implementation. So, like, look, am I going to tell you sitting here that all of our health care problems are going to be fixed in 12 months? No. But do I think that this is going to make prescription drugs way more affordable over the long term? Absolutely.

1:23:07Okay. yeah, and I know a lot of people might be critical of this interview and stuff. It's like, I'm doing my best, right? I'm trying my best, and maybe I'm just too hard on myself sometimes. Why would it be critical to the interview? Because I'm a politician, and it's partisan. Yeah, I think people expect, I don't know. But you would have a Democrat on. Huh? You would have a Democrat on. We got Tim Walz coming on. Oh, nice. Okay. That'll be interesting. But no, I never met him. You know what I'm saying? We got him coming on. So it's like, yeah, I'm definitely trying to learn more about it. Honestly, he's a nice guy.

1:23:35But I think that's I'm not a, you know, I don't know the history of everything, right? So it's like, I feel like we're just trying to do our best and I'm trying to do my best with somebody who I consider a friend and yeah, and to learn in as we go. Anyway, anything else in particular that you wanted to say that you needed to get out to people? I don't think so, man. I think we've covered a lot. Hopefully I didn't get myself in too much trouble here, but. What are you talking about, dude? I think you're good. I'm trying to think of anything else, dude. But you think Trey Hendrickson will get signed?

1:24:05that's a million dollar question or i guess the 50 million dollar question are y 'all going to subsidize that is that part of the big that's actually unknown that's a big part of the big beautiful bill is 30 million dollars to the bingles to help a salary cap space i mean look so hendrickson is worth it dude dude he's he's a generational talent it's very hard to get a guy like that it's kind of crazy how like i'm a big football fan but edge rushers have become it's almost like where left tackles were 10 or 15 years ago where everybody just realized there's this really underpaid position that you got to have.

1:24:39And so, yeah, I think we're gonna have to pay Hendrickson. Uh, I hope so. If he's, here's what I'll say to Trey, if you're watching this show, if you're a Republican, I will show up to a Bengals game and take a photo with you. If you sign on with the Bengals and if you're a Democrat, I'll stay the hell away. Just sign with the Bengals because we got a chance, man. I keep, I say this every year, but with Burrow, with Jamar Chase, if we get our defense and our offensive line, we could have a true championship run. It's exciting. Well, I just appreciate you coming and spending time with me, man. Thank you very much to Bob Richie, Kit Rock, for having us here today.

1:25:13And dude, congratulations, man. Thank you, man. I know you've had a very interesting life and just really cool. It's inspiring. It's good to see you. Thanks for having me, dude. You too, brother. Now I'm just floating on the breeze and I feel I'm falling like these leaves I must be. cornerstone oh but when I reach that ground I'll share this peace of mind I found I can feel it in my bones but it's gonna tell you