#592 - Thomas Massie

24:29It's like interviews that are just to get the hype. And then they offstage, they're all in the, you know, in the locker room, like, you know, rubbing GHB on each other's backs and stuff like that and gramming out. Let me tell you something that probably will shock your listeners, whether they're Republican or Democrat. Mike Johnson, since he's been the speaker and he's only been the speaker for less than two years, has put 183 Democrat bills on the floor and pass them. What did he trade for that? Like, I thought we're breaking chairs over top of the Democrats' heads in the back room. No, that's not what's happening.

25:04Is that true? Yeah. How do I look that up? Go to congress.gov. Mike Johnson's out of Shreveport. Yep. He's the Speaker of the House. Oh, yeah. But you can see, I'm not sure how you look it up here at congress.gov, but if you spend enough time here and look at every bill that's passed since he's been speaker. And I'm not talking about the special bills that reassign committee members. I'm talking about bills that do something. 183 Democrat-sponsored bills. And you might say, Theo, well, the Democrats have good ideas, okay? We should put their bills on the floor. Well, if I had a good idea, what Speaker Johnson would do would take that bill from me, put somebody else's name on it, and put it on the floor.

25:50Like if there's something that needs to get done, why would you let a Democrat get credit for it? If you're in this mortal combat with the other party. But has he made a lot of Republican bills passed too? Yeah. But there've been, yeah, there's been way more Republican bills than Democrat bills, but why is he even passed one Democrat bill? Well, I think, don't you want to work with the other team? And it's like, isn't it, isn't there diplomacy and everything? Like, you know what I'm saying? Like you have to like, there's a give and take to everything. I feel like we got the majority like why are we putting their bills on the floor why would we go in that direction i understand in the senate you need 60 votes so you got to have a democrat but some of the bills are good right if thomas massey has a good bill they'll put another republican's name on it and pass it but but but i can't understand what you're saying here i guess i'm a little bit confused are you saying that um mr johnson who is the he's a speaker of the house that he because bills get brought to him, he puts them on the floor, right?

26:45He's the one who's like, okay, let's put this on the floor and take it to a vote, right? And you're saying that he's done that with more Democratic-led bills than Republican-led bills. No, he's done it with 183 Democratic bills. There's probably been several hundred Republican bills. My question, though, is why would you put one on if you're engaged in this kind of mortal combat for the soul of the country and he acts like that? It's because people aren't paying attention to what's going on there oh i agree that i i think people aren't paying attention i think it's there's so it's all so confusing i think to the regular person it is that it's that it feels like it it feels like it the ship sailed long ago from us being at the dock looking each other in the eyes with some sense of uh hope congress is this big giant black box and people can't see what's going on inside of that black box they know they're electing their congressman and two of their senators and the president and they're sending them to Washington, D.C.

27:42And then they don't understand what comes out of that box. I've been in that box for 12 years. OK. And that's I think that's sort of what my role has evolved to, which is to just try to tell people what's going on inside of the box so that they can do a better job of picking congressmen and senators. That's what I always think. I'm like, if somebody would just get elected to get in there and tell us what's we don't even fucking no we'll we'll buy you a volvo or whatever fucking you know what i'm saying we'll give you some uh taiwan semiconductor shares but just tell us what's happening in there somebody fucking look in there and just throw a note out and be like hey this is what's really going on now the problem we start to get into is there's so much like um uh pandering and everything and online i like the so much social media used to like try and uh disguise who the messenger is it really turns into a game.

28:34And I think that is one thing that's, that's the only joy of it is watching the, like the masters of this, um, just game of, uh, Thrones type of energy go on. But how do we, so the biggest, I'll tell you right now, it's, this is, this would be 50 % of solving the problem. If it's not a silver bullet, but it's a lot of it. Get rid of the giant bills. Okay. You, the omnibus bills, the continuing resolutions, and even the big, beautiful bill. Why not put that shit on the floor one at a time? I agree. And then that way, you can go to your representative or your senators and say, why did you vote for that?

29:13Right now, they can say, well, Theo, I had to vote for it. It had a pay raise for soldiers, right? They literally will put a pay raise for soldiers in every freaking bill, giant bill, so that if you vote against it, you have to go back home and watch TV ads that say, He voted against a pay raise for the soldiers. Right. Even though he may have voted for 90 other amazing things on the bill, right? Right. And that was one thing that was tied in there that if you went this way, you know. Yeah. It may have been like oxygen for grandmothers, right? Literally, there probably is that in there. But if you vote for oxygen for grandmothers and you cannot, they're not going to give.

29:51So I see what you're saying. I voted against oxygen for grandmothers so many times they can't even run that ad anymore. It doesn't even seem real. Hotels in Las Vegas may be booked solid this weekend, but there's one vacancy left to be filled. At UFC 317, a new lightweight champ will be crowned. Grab your own crown at DraftKings Sportsbook, the official sports betting partner of UFC. Topuria takes on Oliveira to fill the vacant men's lightweight title and Alessandre Pantoja defends his flyweight belt against Kai Cara France in the co-main event. Who am I taking? Wah! I'd love to see Oliveira win by submission.

30:40First time betting on UFC at DraftKings? Well, just pick something simple like a fighter to win and make your pick. It's that easy. And if you're new to DraftKings, check this out. New customers who bet$5 will get$150 in bonus bets instantly. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app now and use code THEO. That's code T-H-E-O for new customers to get$150 in bonus bets instantly when you bet just$5. Only on DraftKings, the crown is yours. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. In New York, call 877-8-HOPE-N-Y or text HOPE-N-Y-467-369. In Connecticut, help is available for problem gambling. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org.

31:27Please play responsibly. On behalf of Boot Hill Casino and Resort in Kansas, 21 and over, agent eligibility varies by jurisdiction. Void in Ontario, new customers only. Bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see dkng.co.audio. What happens when your health becomes the punchline? From seed oils to stress, toxins to pollutants, the modern world is screwing with our health at the cellular level, leading to exhaustion, brain fog, digestive issues, and more. But here's the thing. You don't have to settle for feeling like garbage 24-7. Armra Colostrum is nature's original health hack.

32:09packed with over 400 bioactive nutrients that fortify gut integrity, strengthen immunity, revitalize hair growth, fuel stamina, elevate focus, and help you function like a human again. I take Armour Colostrum. It's easy. I make my smoothie, open the packet, bam, put it in there, and I know it's going to help me. We've worked out a special offer for our audience. Receive 15 % off your first order. Go to tryarmra.com slash theo or enter theo to get 15 % off your first order. That's T-R-Y-A-R-M-R-A dot com slash T-H-E-O. It's an interesting time for business. Tariff and trade policies are dynamic, supply chains squeezed, and cash flow tighter than ever.

33:03If your business can't adapt in real time, you're in a world of hurt. You need visibility from global shipments to tariff impacts to real-time cash flow. That's NetSuite by Oracle, your AI-powered business management suite, trusted by over 41 ,000 businesses. NetSuite is the number one cloud ERP for many reasons. It brings accounting, financial management, inventory, HR into one suite. If I needed this product, it's what I would use. It's one system, full control, tame the chaos with NetSuite. If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, download the free ebook, Navigating Global Trade, Three Insights for Leaders at netsuite.com slash T-H-E-O.

33:54That's N-E-T-S-U-I-T-E dot com slash T-H-E-O NetSuite dot com slash Theo Has there ever been a bill that was like, okay, we want to stop these omnibus bills? And bring up omnibus bill. We looked it up the other day when Mr. Vance was here, but I just want to go over it again. An omnibus bill is proposed law that covers a number of diverse or unrelated topics. Omnibus is derived from Latin. It means to, for, by, with, or from everything. An omnibus bill is a single document that is accepted in a single vote by a legislator, but packages together several measures into one or combines diverse subjects.

34:34So it's not even really fair because you only get one vote on the bill? Correct. And so typically an omnibus bill, it includes at least 12 other bills. Because the 1974 Budget Control Act, there's a law that says we're supposed to do these bills separately. So we've already tried the law. We already tried that, Theo. They just suspend that rule, those budget rules, every year. Okay. So but take me through this moment so I don't stray from it so people can be – so I can understand it. So like give me two examples of things that would be on an omnibus bill that would be – that there's no way for a voter to win, that there's no way for a representative to vote and win on.

35:16Okay. Well, the easiest – let me just take something topical, the Big Beautiful Bill. Inside of that Big Beautiful Bill is a provision for artificial intelligence corporations that says no – Ten years. Yeah, for ten years, no state or locality can regulate them. And then it talks about zoning and routing, which if you – some of your listeners may have seen this. Like locally, somebody – some big corporation wants to put a data center in your backyard. Well, that's what Congress is trying to do. They're trying to say that these corporations can override local zoning laws, that the local zoning board should take a backseat and let this big information center show up in your backyard that uses all kinds of water and all kinds of power and puts out all kinds of RF and has – Oh, yeah, your fucking cousin is going to be walking down the street just fucking screaming out Amazon orders.

36:11It's going to be – the shit that's going to start happening is going to be crazy. You're literally going to be driving down the road with your windows open and an old gust of 5G remnants from blockbuster emails that never got uploaded are just going to pass through your fucking vehicle. Shit's going to get insane. You're going to have babies that are born with advertisements like birthmarks that show up. This is a set of twins with Nike logos on them. What is happening, man? So that's in the big, beautiful bill. And you can know that's evil. you can know that's bad. And Trump never campaigned on that.

36:47But also in that bill is to enforce our borders, okay, to finish the wall. So if you're a Republican and you vote for that bill, okay, you supported enforcing the border, but you also let AI basically take over your local and state governments, okay? And then if you vote against it, well, then you're against the AI provision, but oh my gosh, you're for open borders, you know? You don't want to support the military. There was$100 billion in there for the military. There was, oh, you want to tax seniors. There was a tax cut for seniors. There was an extension of the tax cuts from 2017. I voted for the 2017 tax cuts, but I voted against this 2025 bill because it's got a lot of crap in there that doesn't belong, and it's going to balloon our deficit.

37:35So you can't win for losing. and so I don't blame a lot of my colleagues like they they come to congress they have the best intentions and you get there and you're like oh my gosh this whole game is rigged how am I going to play it am I going to call it out will that get will that be the best for my constituents who elected me or should I play along and most of them choose to play along yeah and you can't can't really blame them. They feel like, oh, my fiduciary duty to the people who elected me is to get as much as I can up here. And if I piss off the Trump and I piss off Mike Johnson, I can't get any table scraps.

38:18But the reality is they're not even getting table scraps. They are trading. I say every week congressmen trade their votes for magic beans that never sprout. Like Jack and the Beanstalk. He trades the cow for magic beans. The difference is Jack got beans that sprouted. My congressmen, they're not getting gas vouchers they're not getting a cracker barrel gift certificate so so um explain to me how that part works so that's a part that i don't understand because you mentioned a little while ago you're like i could have a bill and i put it forward because mike johnson seems like a good guy he doesn't seem like somebody that would take something that was yours and make it somebody else's like i don't understand what you're so i don't understand what you're saying like how does that work and take me through like like how can you put a bill out and people would know it's your bill i mean obviously is there information online that says this is a bill that thomas massey made or that any person made like any representative made you the other thing they'll do with your bills is they'll stick them in another bill okay let's i'll give you an example yeah show me how you're saying that people aren't even getting the scraps or whatever you know what i'm saying right take me through some of that uh well they're not theo i tell people i joke with my colleagues up there they're like massey why uh you're not a sellout i'm just like i look at him in the eye i say i'm biggest sellout up here like i would sell out for snickers bar but you guys aren't even getting a Snickers bar.

39:35You're not getting a bridge in your district. You're not getting a new exit off the interstate. You're not getting anything for your vote. Like nobody's ever offered me anything up there of value. I don't even know myself. I could be the biggest sellout there is. There's just no trade up there that's worth taking. And so mostly people are trying to stay relevant and get reelected. Right, that makes perfect sense, right? Everybody's looking out for themselves in a sense. but you would think at some point that even that would lose its appeal when you look around your town or your community and you see that like oh man by not really benefiting the people it's everything it's all falling apart you know by not really benefiting the country it's falling apart and fuck i'm starting to sound like a downer again i don't want to do that it should but take me through take me through what you're talking about how you put a bill up and it doesn't get labeled yours that so it's plagiarism or i don't understand what you're saying well and then if you do get something done by working inside of the system they'll just you won't get any credit for it so for instance uh when ron paul left congress i came into congress and i introduced randy's daddy yep rand's dad i introduced a lot of ron paul's bills and one was the industrial hemp farming act because it was illegal they treated hemp just like marijuana it was illegal to grow it according to federal government.

40:56So I introduced that bill and I got a lot of co-sponsors and I figured out a way to work with Democrats and get it into the farm bill. Now it was a Republican farm bill that I got it into, but I needed Democrat and Republican votes to do it. And I got it in the farm bill, but now like people online say, oh, Congressman Massey, and it became law by the way, and people can grow industrial hemp in all 50 states. That's the end of the, you know, that's the rest of the story oh yeah a lot of chicks that don't wear deodorant are working on those working on those places and no offense ladies i don't mind it but yeah no i'm glad that we have another product in our country you know right um and so that became law that was one of my bills but nobody ever gives me credit for it because it wasn't a separate bill that said and by the way i voted for that crap sandwich the the farm bill which is a big giant bill and then i took crap for voting for that because it had my thing in it, but now I don't get credit for it.

41:55But I haven't particularly had bills where somebody took my name off them and put somebody else's name, but my colleagues have. Okay. So you haven't had that exact thing happen to you from Mike Johnson? No. But you've seen it happen, you're saying? Yeah. And if it did, I wouldn't care that much. I mean, if it's a good bill, make it happen. But a lot of people, they need to go back to their district and say, I got this done. Oh, I see. So a lot of times people don't know from the, um, from their Congress people or their representatives that they actually got this thing done. Right. Right. So there's a communication issue there.

42:29And then there's another thing that happens, like some Congressman gets to DC and they have this bill they wanted to pass even before he was a Congressman. And they say, we'll put your name on it and then you'll get credit for it. And then the congressman has no idea about the subject or anything so i had there was a bill that came to the floor it was about opioids okay and i voted against it and the sponsor of the bill comes up to me and says why did you vote against my bill and i said well i'm not against research or things like that at the federal level but this is basically a form of obamacare and i thought we were against that like because this had treatment and stuff which should be handled at the state level.

43:11And he looked at me, said, you're right. He said, I'd vote against this too if it weren't my bill. He said, the leadership gave it to me and told me to bring it to the floor and it would help me get reelected. Wow. I swear to the Lord above, that is an exact conversation I had on the floor. Yeah. Oh, I believe you did. Congressman from Wisconsin. He's still there. He is? Yeah. White guy, I bet, huh? Oh, yeah. that was a guess dude that was a guess by the way but not to pick on him because that year we passed like 38 opioid bills yeah they're all redundant they just gave everybody they were trying to get re-elected they give them an opioid bill oh yeah i mean they were renewing more prescriptions for opioid bills than they were opioids that's the craziest fucking part of it and the sackler family never even went to fucking jail and some people believe that the sackler family should be electrocuted allegedly i don't know him and i don't even know if electricity would work on their fucking sick evil bodies um is that slander for saying that can i go to jail for saying that it might be a death threat you can but i can't so maybe i should say it there's something in the constitution called the speech or debate clause and so i can go to the floor of the house of representatives and lie i can tell every lie i want and nobody can do anything about it.

44:29And it's called the speech or debate clause. Our staff, yeah, look this up. The speech or debate clause found in Article 1, Section 6 of the U.S. Constitution protects members of Congress from being questioned in any other place for their speech or debate in either house. So let me read it again. Protects members of Congress from being questioned in any other place. Which means you can't be questioned in a courtroom. You can't be sued. No way. You can't be. Now read the next sentence, though, because there's a good reason for it. This clause rooted in historical struggles for parliamentary independence aims to safeguard the independence and integrity of the legislative branch by preventing interference from the executive or judicial branches.

45:12So when people – even our founders – this is a hard pill to swallow. Okay. But even – I'm still a bit confused at this moment. Well, even our founders thought that there were some laws that shouldn't apply to congressmen because if they did, they would get abused. And like a Democrat president would arrest members of Congress for saying things on the floor of the House because that's what the king did back in England. The king would arrest members of parliament if he didn't like what they said. Ah, I see what you're saying. Or you could get a private individual to sue a member of Congress for something they said, and then that would basically freeze the debate and members of Congress would be afraid to speak.

45:56They would send their speeches to lawyers before they said them, you know, if this didn't exist. I see what you're saying. So this is kind of a fascinating little part of our Constitution, and even though it seems wrong to give members of Congress extra First Amendment protection, the founders thought this was the best way to do it. So you could go to court right now and lie on the stand? No. I can lie about anything, but I got to be on the floor of the House or it has to be attached to my official business. so I'm probably covered on social media and I could just say defamatory things about you I could release national secrets and this also covers my staff as well God interesting but am I going to go to Jeff for calling the Sackler saying they got electrocuted shit so what do I have to do to bleep it out no you need to run for congress Oh, that's hilarious, dude.

47:01And I only say, I don't really even say those words myself. I just say that on the, uh, this, it's the spirit of hundreds of thousands of opioid addicts who died channeling through me for just a brief second. Forgive me. I'm back. All right. Um, it starts to feel like neither party. wait wait so could i i'm thinking about this could we ask could mike johnson uh put a bill on the floor about the omnibus thing yeah and then we could see who would vote for it and vote against it yeah yeah okay he could but he's not going to right because it would be too dangerous it's it's way too dangerous i mean the lobbyists love it that way yeah they they love the opaqueness of that black box that Americans can't look into it and see what's going on.

47:51Yeah. Because they're inside the black box. Oh, for sure. They get to craft language and special provisions in those big giant bills. And they're so big and we're not given time to read them. But you got to remember, Theo, like a lot of my colleagues wouldn't read these bills even if they were given three months to read them. What they're doing by rushing these bills through is they're not who doing the congressman, they're who doing the public. Of course. No, I think it makes perfect sense. It's like because we just send one set of eyes and brain up there to handle something, you know, or a couple sets if you have a few reps.

48:23And then it's – but it's so much information at once. It's all the same thing. It's literally like a bus passing by. It's like with a car passing by, you can get an idea of what's on it. You can look at the wheels. You can check the exhaust. You might be able to see who's in there. But when a bus goes by, you're like, fuck, I don't know. Was a driver awake? That's kind of like – that's how it certainly starts to appear. appear my question and the windows are painted black on the bus yeah and somebody wrote just married to a trans man on the windows with chalk or whatever with window paint um here's my question is anybody representing the people anymore because it kind of feels like it used to feel like you at the parties were against each other and now it feels like it's the government versus the people.

49:07That's what it feels like. I think it is. I mean, I call it the uniparty. Last year, Marjorie Taylor Greene and I introduced a resolution to oust Mike Johnson. After Mike Johnson put a bill on the floor and was the tie-breaking vote to send more money to Ukraine, after he passed another omnibus, after he passed another bill to spy on Americans, using mostly Democrat votes because a lot of Republicans are waking up to that and didn't vote for it. After he did like three or four really bad things, Marjorie and I put a resolution on the floor. Which you think are bad things, right? I think they're bad things.

49:46Spying on Americans sending all the money to Ukraine. Yeah, I think they are. I think they're not Republican priorities. And so, and he's a Republican speaker. So we put a resolution on the floor to vacate the speaker's office. And what does that mean? To get a new speaker? Get a new speaker. Okay. And typically no Democrat will vote for that. And if he doesn't have enough Republicans to sustain that vote, he will lose and get a new speaker. Why would no Democrat vote for that? Well, for the first time in history, they did. Like they did vote to keep Mike Johnson because it was as good as they've ever had it.

50:24They were getting everything they wanted. You believe he was helping their party? Yeah, he was helping their party. So they kept him in power. So it is really hard to change things. You can occasionally get people to try, but the consequences of trying and losing can be great. Like they call up all the lobbyists and say, quit giving money to that member of Congress. They'll call up donors in your district. They'll call up constituents and have constituents call you up. Or the new thing recently is to fund social media campaigns, the NRCC, National Republican Congressional Committee. They spend money on Twitter influencers who then do things against who knows what.

51:08I mean they're directing them. That part isn't transparent. But it's directed toward me, for instance. Our own party is coordinating efforts against me. Well, then at that point, that's what I'm saying. it's there's a party that's it's them against you which is okay i've got a thick skin right but i'm just saying it feels like it's it feels like it's you guys are playing this game but it's all against the voter none of it is for the voter anymore it doesn't you know what i'm saying it's like yeah it feels like i don't know it just feels like it's it's it's the voter against the politicians and it's it just starts to feel really really scary for sure um have you thought about becoming an independent or is that not a is that too is that is that is that death i i've thought about it a lot and um one of the things that surprised me when i got to congress is there's two of everything so there's two cloakrooms there's a democrat croak room wait say that part again there's a democrat cloakroom and a republican cloakroom this is like when you show up to vote there's a little clubhouse two little clubhouses attached to congress you can go back there and get a hot dog and a hot ham and cheese and ice cream sandwich.

52:18Oh, yeah. Get a hot blonde, too, huh? That is our cloakroom right there on the right. Is that really? Yeah. You go back there, although there's some computers as well. That's looking in one direction. If you look in the other direction, there's a sandwich. They're not showing the sandwich bar. Oh, yeah. I'd love a look. Oh, there's a sandwich bar. Yeah, that's it. Oh, gosh. That's it? Yeah. Now, that's the Democrat cloakroom. The Republican one looks just the same. Okay. But here's the thing. Give you a little mortadella, huh? There's only two cloakrooms. So if you were truly independent and you came to Congress, there'd be nowhere to get a hot dog or to call.

52:57People go in there and call their lobbyist friends. Yeah. Like during votes, you'll get a call and they'll say, hey, don't dare vote for this. Or maybe they'll call up a member of Congress. They'll go to the cloakroom, call and ask for advice. Any case, there's also things called backrooms on every committee. You've heard of backroom deals? I couldn't believe it. When I got to Congress, people are using the word backroom because there are backrooms behind the committee rooms where you go back and do your huddle. But there's only two huddles. There's the Democrat huddle and the Republican huddle, and there's only two backrooms.

53:31So I say if you were an independent, you're going against the architecture. It's not just tradition. It's built into marble and oak. There can only be two parties. That's how strong they have put it in. And if you're bipartisan, that means you like both parties. I say that if you're – I'm not bipartisan. I'm transpartisan. Trans means you can't identify with either some days. I don't know which cloakroom to go into. Some days they don't want me in either cloakroom, so I feel like I'm a transpartisan. Well, at least you can just be out in the van outside. God, you know. That's right. Some days I have gone out to the camper and just like drink some raw milk and just be like, we're so screwed.

54:14Let's go back in and try it. But I think it is hard. It would be really hard to have an independent party or to get elected as an independent. I think. Yes, that's true. But never forget this. There's really like six parties up there in D.C. and they've been shoehorned into two different cloakrooms. Right. And so you got to pick, which – So either way, if you had a separate party, you're kind of still in one cloakroom or the other. You're kind of still in one huddle or the other. Yeah. So there's a guy from Maine. His name is Angus King. He's a senator, and he runs as an independent, and he gets elected as an independent.

54:53And then he goes in the Democrat cloakroom. So, yeah, that's him. Oh, yeah, he definitely looks like a Maine guy. So he gets elected. Undeniably wears a raincoat at night. You may have heard the term rhino, Republican in name only. I have a friend who calls him an I know, an independent in name only because he gets elected as an independent. And Bernie Sanders did this, too. And then caucuses with the Democrats. You know, I've been involved with different financial groups that sponsor the program over the years, but none has really piqued my interest as much as Acorns. Sometimes it feels like the whole world is trying to spend your money.

55:32Your social media is full of ads. Your mailbox is full of credit cards. 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. You don't need to be an expert. Acorns will recommend a diversified portfolio that matches you and your money goals. You just need to stick with it, and Acorns makes that easy too. You can create your Acorns account and start investing in just five minutes. Yep, I just got my nieces and nephews set up with Acorns, and I couldn't be happier to see them learning how to save.

56:13Sign up now and join the over 14 million all-time customers who have already saved and invested over$25 billion with Acorns. Plus, Acorns will boost your new account with a$20 bonus investment. Offer available at acorns.com slash theo. That's A-C-O-R-N-S dot com slash T-H-E-O to get your$20 bonus investment today.

56:49You're a startup founder. Finding product market fit is probably your number one priority. But to land bigger customers, you also need security compliance. And obtaining your SOC 2 or your ISO 27001 certification can open those big doors. But they take time and energy. pulling you away from building and shipping. That's where Vanta comes in. Vanta is the all in one compliance solution, helping startups like yours get audit ready and build a strong security foundation quickly and painlessly. How? Vanta automates the manual security tasks that slow you down, helping you streamline your audit. And the platform connects you with trusted experts to build your program, auditors to get you through audits quickly, and a marketplace for essentials like pen testing.

57:40So whether you're closing your first deal or gearing up for growth, Vanta makes compliance easy. Join over 9 ,000 companies, including Y Combinator and Tech Stars startups who trust Vanta. Simplify compliance and get$1 ,000 off at vanta.com slash T-H-E-O. That's V-A-N-T-A dot com slash Theo for$1 ,000 off. so one of the ways and I wrote some of my questions down today one of the big things that people talk about all the time these days are lobbyists right and lobbies and how much of an effect that they have on our elected officials how much is it I mean how much are these packs really controlling things things.

58:25Um, quite a bit. There's some aspects of lobbying that people don't think about. Like, for instance, I think there are just as many lobbyists over at the White House as they are in Congress. because a lot - So what do you mean that? Some people are almost just elected lobbyists? Well, no. They spend their time talking to White House officials because even though we're the legislators, the White House sends recommendations for bills. And if the same party is in power in the White House and in Congress, like the big, beautiful bill, for instance, the legislation can initiate over in the White House.

59:02And so lobbyists, I'm just saying, if you think of lobbyists talking to your senator and your congressman they're all over dc they're talking to bureaucrats they're talking to people cabinet secretaries because they know it's uh sometimes easier to get written into the budget if they're over there lobbying another thing to know about lobbyists i mean there's lobbyists for the alzheimer's uh you know victims or people who have alzheimer's there are lobbyists yeah there are lobbyists for people with rare blood disorders OK, there's lobbyists for the concrete association. If if there is a group of people, they have lobbyists.

59:42And so they're in some people's enemies, lobbyist enemies are other people's lobbying friends. Like there are pro-Second Amendment lobbyists who are up there fighting for the Second Amendment. And the Democrats hate those lobbyists, but those are lobbyists the Republicans kind of like. So the question is – and sometimes my constituents, they don't know how to get to D.C. and how to talk to all the congressmen from Kentucky and both senators. And so they hire lobbyists to come and do that. I don't know that I would outlaw lobbyists. lobbyists, sometimes they're actually helpful. Like, let's say the concrete lobbyist, you got the concrete lobbyist fighting with the asphalt lobbyist on what's going to be the road surface.

1:00:32Okay. Well, if all you hear is from the asphalt lobbyists, you would just buy asphalt. And then you hear from the concrete lobbyists. And so it's really to get to the truth, you need adversarial opinions. The problem is I wouldn't blame the lobbyists for advocating for their group of people. I would blame the congressman who basically put that crap in the bills. And again, I would go back to separating the votes. How do you know that your congressman is sold out to Big Pharma, for instance, if Big Pharma is only one-tenth of the bill. And there's pay raises for veterans in there. Ah, so they can hide the fact that they're selling out over here by buying in over here.

1:01:21Yeah. God! It almost sounds fun. Now, there's one group of lobbyists I don't think really should exist or should have access to U.S. offices, and those are foreign lobbyists. Yeah. Yeah, I've heard you talk about this before, and I've heard a lot of people are talking about it now. It's definitely become a hot topic. And AIPAC is one of the big ones. And that stands for American? American, Israeli, political. It's not a fund. It didn't start out as a super PAC. Political Action Committee? Public Affairs Committee. Public Affairs Committee. American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Now, a lot of times PAC stands for Political Action Committee, like you said.

1:02:05But these guys were started before there were political action committees. So it stands for public affairs committee. Got it. And they bragged that they've spent more on elections than any other lobbying group. In the world? In the United States. In the United States. In Congress. Okay. They now do have a political action committee. And I forget what the name of it is. So, AIPAC has a subsidiary that spends money to basically crack heads of congressmen. So, there's two kinds of, by the way, there are two kinds of lobbying groups. There's access lobbying. That's where they're all your friends. They're never mean to you.

1:02:51Even if they don't like you, they'll buy you a steak dinner, and they'll try to get you to hear out their point of view. and they figure as long as I can get in that person's office, I'm doing well for the people I'm lobbying for. But then there are confrontational lobbyists like AIPAC and AIPAC has transitioned into a confrontational lobbying group where if you don't do what they want, they come after you. Wow. What does it look like? They spent$400 ,000 against me in my last election and they are basically advertised themselves as just all things Israel. They are lobbying for more money to go to Israel, which all the money we give to Israel is military money.

1:03:35So they are basically lobbyists for the military industrial complex. Got it. Understood. So – and I'll ask you some questions about that, the military industrial complex in a few minutes. But do you feel like Israel is a fair ally? Are they a good ally for us? Well – Or is that too general of a question? Well, I think it doesn't matter. Like there's no big giant Great Britain lobby. There's no Australian lobby. There's no German lobby. Oh, the other countries don't have them. No, no, not like this. This is singular. This is unique. I mean, if you're an ally, why wouldn't we work with you? Why do you have to convince us that you're our ally?

1:04:12Why do you have to basically go into every congressional office and convince them? And it's because they want to keep the money flowing. And they've got a good return on their investment. I mean, we send more foreign aid to Israel than to any other country. Yeah. They're, you know, like 10 million people or something. Yeah, I think this year - I don't know this population in Tennessee, but it's probably about, you know, on that order. Yeah, I think this year they said we spent like$12 billion, but that's not actual dollars. It's in military aid, right? Yeah. It's, well, it's dollars that comes out of the treasury.

1:04:48Yeah. But it's not like we give them - It's a gift certificate that's redeemable at Lockheed Martin and your local Raytheon. Okay, got it. So that's kind of how that works. Yeah. Okay, got it. Why do they have this carve out that's just for them? Like what do we get from Israel do you feel like? We got a lot of countries that hate us. It's one of the things we get. Well, especially right now with this stuff in Gaza, I think it's Israel's – it's one of the worst PR campaigns I've ever seen in my life if they're even – it doesn't make any sense to me. It's like I just don't – it gives their government this extremely evil look to me and I think to a lot of people.

1:05:35Well, rough numbers. There are 2 million people in Gaza and 50 ,000 have been killed. That's 2.5 percent. Like they've killed 1 in 40 people in Gaza. If you did that in the United States, if you did 2.5 % of 350 million, it'd be almost 10 million people dead in the United States. Everybody in Gaza is at this point related to somebody who's been killed. Like at least the first cousin had killed. And then if you say how many have been maimed, it's probably three or four times that. So everybody in Gaza knows people who've been killed and maimed. And we're supporting it, right? Like that's also the part that makes it really tough sometimes to just be a person.

1:06:21It's like we – our tax money is going towards this. But I just hope that people in some of these other countries know that it's not regular everyday people who would want to do these things, that it's like governments making these choices and it's corporate interests that make these choices. How would we stop it? Do we need this connection with Israel? What is it? No one ever explains what it's for I feel like, right? That would help everybody have a much better understanding, you know, because it starts to feel like America is just a shell company, an LLC for Israel. That's what it starts to feel like a lot of times, you know.

1:06:57Do you feel like that that's realistic or do you feel like that that's off base? I wouldn't send them a dime. Like that's my position. I don't think whatever we're getting isn't worth it. And don't ask me to articulate the benefit because I think the cost is greater than the benefit. it you're gonna everybody in gaza is at this point has to hate israel right and by extension those bombs when they see american politicians go over there and like sign the freaking bombs that are going to kill women and children uh what do we actually there was just a clip with ted cruz that came up can you see if you can find that trevin where yeah where tucker carlson was interviewing ted cruz let me see this is a scary interview during the tucker carlson interview with Ted Cruz, it's confirmed.

1:07:41Israel's version of the CIA called Mossad spies. Oh, it's about spying. It's like what we get. Let's let's just watch it for a second. Yeah. Does Mossad share all of its intelligence with us? Oh, probably not. But they share a lot. We don't share all of our intelligence with them, but we share a lot. It's a close. Do they spy domestically in the United States? Oh, they probably do. And we do as well. And friends and allies spy on each other. And I assume why assume all of our allies spy on us. And it's OK with you. You know what? One of the things about being a conservative is that you're not naive and utopian.

1:08:12You don't think humans are all part of the reason socialism doesn't work is is the the mantra from each according to his abilities to each according to his needs doesn't work. As a conservative, I assume people act in their rational self-interest. So it's conservative to pay people to spy on you. It's conservative to recognize that human beings act in their own self-interest and every one of our friends spies on us. And I'm not. Do you like it? That's my question. I'm not asking whether they have motive to do it. Of course they do. I understand that. And I, and by the way, I'm not mad at that, but you're an American lawmaker.

1:08:43So I just want to know, hold on, I want to know your attitude. You said that your guiding principle, in fact, the only principle, the only criterion. I said guiding, the overwhelming, I wouldn't say only. Is it in America's interest? Is it in America's interest for Israel to spy on us, including on the president? It is in America's interest to be closely allied with Israel because we get here. What do we get? That's the thing. It's painful to watch that. So when I'm in a room with somebody and they say, can I talk to you, you know, just frankly, is anybody listening? I say, well, there's three nation states plus our own in my phone.

1:09:22Yeah. There's going to be Russia, China, and Israel. They're in our phone? No, not yours. Like, it's a lot of effort to—anybody can be hacked, okay? Oh, I thought one of the reasons—I got to go to Qatar recently, and I wonder if they hacked my phone. I thought they were good. I don't know if that's crazy. I think it's probably continuously hacked, okay? That's what I'm thinking. It just seems like everything's hacked now. I get scared, you know? But if you're not— I play the Israeli national anthem every 45 minutes. Look, Amazon and Facebook know what you're saying in your phone, right? Right, but probably Israel and Russia and China aren't devoting that effort and internet traffic, which can become detectable.

1:10:02To us. Yeah. Right. But you're probably, you know, why wouldn't you be trying to hear what the 535 people in Washington, D.C. who vote on bills, what they are thinking? and then you know also there there are allegedly some congressmen who indulge in insider trading but i would guess that there are probably some hackers who are also inside of congressman's phones trying to figure out what the sentiment is in washington dc and then trading on that wow so there's always this extra layer kind of going along going on it feels like yeah um but what do you think we get from Israel? I think it's just a big question.

1:10:45I think it's okay as a regular person and I might get killed or something by Masada or something, but what do we get from them as a country? Like, is there, I think there's just, that's a big question America has right now. Is there something we just don't see? And if there is, just tell us what it is so we can operate accordingly, you know? No, I think they're the best lobbying group in Washington, D.C. and the reason they can do it is you have dual citizens people who are american and israeli who are allowed to give money into american politics and because they're american and by virtue of that you're allowed to participate but if you're a foreign national you're not allowed to so they're one of the few countries that can donate money to what to super PACs to members of Congress.

1:11:34Other countries are not allowed to do that. Well, I mean, they could if you were dual citizens, but there's not so many dual citizens, as it were. But could somebody be a Russian and American dual citizen and serve in Congress? Sure, and donate to congressmen. By the way, I have introduced a bill that would require members of Congress to disclose if they are dual citizens. And I think that's only fair. Right, because right now you could have allegiance to another country, not just the USA. Correct. We swear an allegiance when you're a member of Congress to the constitution. I always like to point this out.

1:12:10We're not swearing it to the country. We're not swearing it to the president. We're not swearing it to our party. We swear it to the constitution and other countries have constitutions too. What if you've taken allegiance to two different constitutions? Like the American, I'm not, and I'm not even, my bill wouldn't even keep you from being a member of Congress. It would just say you have to disclose it if you are. And by the way, it wouldn't necessarily just be Israel members of Congress who are also citizens of Israel. It could be other countries as well. I just think it creates a conflict of interest.

1:12:46And I have to disclose yearly which stocks I own. I have to disclose all my personal financial information so that the voters can decide if I am unduly influenced by that conflict of interest. And so that's the structure of my bill. My bill just – it's an election disclosure. Okay, you're running for Congress. Bring it up. Tell us which countries you are a – Representative Thomas Massey announces the introduction of H.R. 2356, the Dual Loyalty Disclosure Act. Representative Massey's legislation amends a federal election campaign act to require candidates for federal office to disclose both their possession of dual citizenship and also the foreign country in which their dual citizenship is held.

1:13:35So right now, we don't have to – people don't have to disclose? Nope, they don't. What? You would have no idea. Have you seen spies like us, dude? It's also – by the way, it's a safety net, by the way. If something went really bad, you could just go live in your other country. I think you should be all in for this country. I agree. This ain't the fucking hokey pokey, dude. I think you got to have both feet in or both feet out. You know what I'm saying, dude? I just – but any country, this could happen. It could be – that's not just Israel. Correct. It could be any country. It could be. But Israel is the only one that has a big lobby.

1:14:17so for the russian like russia pack or whatever no there is not like i say there's not even australia pack or or great britain pack i mean because they're natural allies why would they have to lobby congress they're also not on our teat like asking for money yeah but i think it's also there's this it's a weird amalgamation of of combined interest there's a military industrial complex that is all in for everything APAC is for. And before I banned APAC from my office, we used to have conversations that would go something like this. Oh, you should be for the foreign aid that goes to Israel because it all comes back to the United States in the form of military spending.

1:15:05We're buying it all from American contractors. And I'd be like, no, that's not a convincing argument to me. Oh, yeah. I mean, I don't even know what it's about, but it seems like bullshit to me. How does America make money off of war, right? Like, I get that, you know, we sell things, this and that, but how is that such a business, right? You know, it's like, how do we let this happen? Well, the answer is America doesn't make money off of war. A few people in America do make money off of war and they make a lot of money off of war. So they want the music to keep going. They don't want the music to stop.

1:15:42Right. And as soon as Biden was serious about getting out of Afghanistan and did get us out of Afghanistan, and we were spending – by the way, we were still spending$50 billion a year in Afghanistan after 20 years. As soon as he got us out of there, guess what? We start spending an average of$50 billion a year in Ukraine. And now that that's winding down, guess what? This thing in Iran is heating up. And regardless of whether our troops engage directly, those are all American munitions. And those stocks are – the people who run those companies are excited that now as soon as we deplete our stockpiles, we're going to have to fill them back up.

1:16:30Like, it's not like they're holding a bunch of inventory, but the U.S. government does. Ostensibly, those are weapons that are supposed to defend us that are now being used. And so they know we'll buy them back. And I have this theory that there's about$50 billion a year of things that need to get blown up and replaced in order for that segment of the economy to stay healthy. and then there was a real push to get out of ukraine to quit spending money there and we almost succeeded like i said before the tie-breaking vote was mike johnson it would the bill passed by just one vote and a lot of times the speaker doesn't even vote but he voted in that case to make sure that ukraine got that money but isn't it i mean it's also i think it's admirable that a guy is willing to go against their own party's interests, right?

1:17:24Like that part to me seems like a part of like, you know what I'm saying? Like not just to be in line all the time with everything. Well, that could be me sometimes, right? Right. That's what I'm saying. Oh, totally. Yeah. So that's what I, I think that's a little bit of the thing I don't get about some of this stuff. Whenever we talk about Mike Johnson is like, if he, like there's, I think there's admiration in going against like, um, just what your party's going to do, right? If you're staying true to your party's principles, I think it's admirable. But when you're betraying your party's principles, I don't think it is because you've campaigned on one thing and now you're doing something different.

1:17:59Got it. And the reality is the speaker has so much power up there. He's entraining dozens of more people who rely on him to get reelected. and the by the way the lobbyists in addition to focusing on the executive branch they spend a lot of their effort on the um on just the speaker and the speaker's office what do you what do you think has kept us in our ukraine so long i mean obviously you know we want to be supportive of people that are struggling right we want to help out people you know it feels like as an american especially that's part of like our creed and what you feel in your heart is like if you can be helpful to another group, right?

1:18:37So I certainly see that as something that we want to keep involved in foreign conflicts, even though a lot of times I'm like, why are we involved in these conflicts over there? What is it I think that I don't understand maybe about Russia and Ukraine? Or do you think that that's part of just the military industrial tab that we have to fill? I think we have agitated Russia to the point by expanding NATO. We just keep adding countries closer and closer to their backyard that are in a military alliance with us. And the situation in Ukraine, we also toppled their government in 2014. The United States did.

1:19:18We did? Yeah. Bring that up. Yeah, bring that up. You can see that the government changed there, and we had our hands all over that. Let me see. In 2014, Ukraine experienced a period of intense political upheaval culminating in the removal of President Viktor Yanukovych. The event, often referred to as the Revolution of Dignity or Euromaidan, involved widespread protests against Yanukovych's policies, particularly his decision to reject a trade agreement with the European Union in favor of closer ties with Russia. So we didn't want him to have closer ties with Russia, so we overthrew them? Yeah, I mean, we went in and fomented those protests.

1:19:58Our CIA did, our State Department, Victoria Nuland was part of that. So this was just another thing. You think we started laying the seeds in advance to get to this point? Yeah, I don't think it would have ever happened if we weren't involved in fomenting this and then talking about bringing them into NATO after we poked Putin in the eye here. And the whole point was just to get to a war to help fill out the tab, you're saying? Yeah. And that's a part of it. Like that's sort of Massey's law. There has to be$50 billion of stuff that gets blown up that is made by American military industrial complex in order to keep them going.

1:20:41And if it's not, they'll just spend more effort in making that happen. Got it. Rather than go out of business. Yeah. Oh, I think once you get used to something, you get used to it. Oh, here's the thing I was going to say before. When we got close to not funding Ukraine under Mike Johnson, the Biden administration sent a letter to Congress, to each of us. Everybody in Congress got one of these letters listing all the states who had – they call it the defense industrial base now because military industrial complex has a bad connotation. You should rebranding. Yeah. So it's Dib, D-I-B. The Defense Industrial Base, they showed how almost every state in the union benefits from military spending and why you should – that was their argument.

1:21:32Not that there was some noble cause or to help out a struggling group of people like you said. the argument that the biden administration was making was it was in congressman's financial the financial best interests of their districts in order to vote for this bill so at least now they're just saying it's it's a business yeah give them an a for honesty yeah they're at least saying feed the machine yeah feed the machine but doesn't that also cost human lives like if our military has to get involved it does that's the um you know these now they're supposedly sanitary wars where our kids don't have to die.

1:22:09But I think it's disgusting when, you know, we've had members of the Senate at least say that this is great. We're grinding down Russia's military capability and we don't have to spill any of our blood. But I mean, how perverted is that? That you're grinding up Ukrainians' bodies in order to grind up Russian bodies and that somehow that's in the best interest of the United States. I'll give, I don't want to say his name, but I'll give that senator credit for being honest at least. But I think it's disgusting. Yeah. I mean, I think it's, we just have so much capability to manipulate so many situations, you know, and I don't understand, like, actually, it's silly to say I don't understand anymore if I believe that part of the military industrial complex or the defense.

1:23:00Industrial base. Industrial base needs to keep collecting. It makes sense. It's a business. Everything kind of – I mean that's one of the downsides of capitalism I guess in a weird way is that everything kind of can become a business. Even like the beauties of trying to be supportive of other countries or trying to help out people. And that's in addition to the trillion dollars a year we're now spending on the military in the United States. That's about what Congress allocates. And this is all catching up to us because now the interest that we're paying is about a trillion dollars a year. So because we've engaged for two or three decades in all of these overseas wars, we've racked up such a tab that we're paying more in interest than – there you go.

1:23:51And we are in the military-industrial complex. And on the screen there, it says$849 billion. And don't forget, there's another$100 billion in the big, beautiful bill that they snuck in there, and they sneak in another$50 billion somewhere else. So it's about a trillion, but look up the interest on the debt now, too. Oh, the interest on the debt, it matches our GDP right now. I think it's about$35 trillion a year is our— That's the debt, but the interest on the debt matches how much we spend on all of our defense. It's a trillion dollars if you look up interest. What's the interest on the debt last year?

1:24:30That's insane. Do you think that we should have a war with Iran? I know you and Ro Khanna, which is so crazy that he was here the other day, and then here you are because it was just like, what are the odds? Right. We didn't plan that because we didn't know Israel was going to bomb Iran. Oh, no. A month ago, I knew that you were probably going to come. We've been talking about it. But then Ro, he and I just decided like five days ago. It was just crazy. Before I even knew that the bill that you guys had put that together. He said that that made it so that there had to be a 15-day moratorium before you went to war.

1:25:03Is that correct? Can you explain it to me? No, that we can get a vote within 15 days of this bill being introduced unless Speaker Johnson does something sneaky. So there's a law that says if Ro Khanna and I, which we did, introduced this War Powers Resolution, the law says that Speaker Johnson needs to bring this to the floor for a vote if the committee doesn't act on it. And the committee's not going to act on it. By the way, I introduced this on Tuesday, and it's just been a few days. We have 37 co-sponsors already. Now, whether you think we should be engaged in a war with Iran or not, I would hope that your listeners understand that or agree that it's important that their members of Congress vote on whether that happens or not.

1:25:59And before – just to give you some historical perspective, before George Bush Sr. attacked Iraq, there was a vote of Congress to do that. It wasn't a declaration of war. It was the authorized use of military force. Before George Bush Jr. went into Afghanistan, there was a vote of Congress. And before we went into Iraq again, there was a vote of Congress. What's being discussed right now in the news is this notion that the president could just join in on the bombing of Iran without a vote of Congress. It's – the Constitution requires Congress to vote. Like that's our authority is to declare war.

1:26:43So why do you need this bill then if it's already a law? Well, this is prescribed by that law. Basically, somebody has to bring it to a vote. I see. And so I stepped up and I asked Ro Khanna if he wanted to join me on this, and he did. And we've been collecting like a dozen co-sponsors a day since then. So it's you guys just saying, hey, guys, we have to vote on this. We have to vote. They can't just say it and we have to do it. Correct. Right. And what's funny is whenever it's the other guy in the White House, like if a Democrat's in the White House, Republicans, and the Democrat wants to wage war, the Republicans agree with this principle that I'm saying.

1:27:21And if it's a Republican in the White House – It's the other way. It's the other way. The Democrats agree with the principle that Congress needs to vote on it. But we've got this interesting situation where there's a Republican in the White House and Republicans control Congress. And so it's – I don't have a single Republican co-sponsor for my bill yet for two reasons. Number one, they're afraid of AIPAC, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee. Because Israel wants it. Netanyahu's been wanting to fight over there forever. Yeah, for two decades. I know there's videos of him saying how he's been wanting to fight.

1:28:00I've seen it anyway. It could be AI. I have no idea. No, it's real. For two decades, he's been saying they're weeks away from a nuclear weapon. um so do you believe that by the way even if they are Pakistan's got a nuclear weapon India's got a nuclear weapon nobody's talking about bombing them yeah and the other reality is look South Africa people forget this used to have nuclear weapons a country of 30 million people developed nuclear capability on their own in the 70s like we need to be preparing to defend our own country I agree. I don't know what the fuck we're doing over there. I don't understand it.

1:28:37And we've almost dug so many holes over there. And it's like, it just feels so far away from people. Like, why is it over there starting all this shit? You know, when we have problems in our own country and they're basic problems and they never get told. It's the same thing. Instead, like Hollywood creates like, what about the Diddy trial? That'll keep you entertained for fucking three months, you know, or like some, here's some shit. Here's a pedophile. You know, it's always the same fucking thing. I call those weapons of mass distraction. Yeah. There's always a weapon of mass distraction that comes up.

1:29:09Do you think that Trump wants a war in Iran? No, I don't. I actually don't. And I've talked to him on the phone about this. When you remember there was a general from Iran called Soleimani who was basically taken out while he was in Iraq during the first Trump presidency. Bring up Soleimani. Yeah. There you go. Interesting looking guy. He almost looks like two different people put into one head. So they took him out when Trump was president. Was he a good guy or a bad guy? Bad guy. Okay. Okay. And then, and I, I'm not here to litigate that, but Trump was talking about attacking Iran after that.

1:29:48I think they shot down one of our drones. and so tensions were escalating and the democrats put a bill on the floor to say that uh you can't go basically like my bill this time says you can't go to war without a vote of congress and i vote i was one of three republicans who voted for that resolution but trump found out i was going to vote for it and he called me up and tried to talk me out of voting for it and in that conversation we talked about war with Iran, and he genuinely, I do believe he genuinely didn't want war with Iran. His argument to me was that if Congress gave him the authority to threaten them, that he could keep us out of a war with the threat.

1:30:32I see. So that's a strategy. It is a strategy. The problem with the strategy, I told him, was, okay, if I vote to give you that authority to declare war or on your own, you know, preemptively. How do I know it will happen? Well, what if they call your bluff? And then now we're in a war and I don't get a chance to vote on it because I just said we don't need to vote on it. And he was not happy with that reasoning, but. Well, because I guess I guess his thought would be, well, if I tell you I'm not going to do it no matter what, then why wouldn't you support me probably? Yeah. But you can't know that he won't.

1:31:13And by the way, he told me, he said, I'm more libertarian than you are.

1:31:20Oh, man. Donald Trump is an interesting guy, man. What an anomaly of a human being, I think. He is. There'll never be another person like him, particularly not one that becomes president. And I've been on his good side and I've been on his bad side. And it seems like every couple of years it flips. Yeah, I saw, didn't you get uninvited to the picnic or something? Was that a thing that, was that a real thing that happened? That was a real thing that happened. A meme about it or something that you got uninvited to the. At the last minute, I got re-invited. But this goes back to 2020 during COVID.

1:31:53I was the only one who said, you know, this CARES Act is going to bankrupt the country. Basically, it's going to cause massive inflation and shortages. So I opposed that. and the president called me he was upset with me that i would force congress to return during covet and vote and basically all i said was look this was during covet they wanted to spend two trillion dollars by by unanimous consent i said if truckers have to work and farmers have to work and nurses have to work why why doesn't congress show up and vote on this yeah so he at the time he called me a third-rate grandstander and said i should be thrown out of congress the media immediately like descended on me and said what did i have to say for myself because he was tweeting all of this and i said well i'm at least second rate come on uh yeah help me out here two years later he endorsed me for a re-election and then uh most recently bobby kendy you know joined a coalition with the president um for maha make america healthy again And, you know, you can do that through the National Institute of Health and FDA and CDC and all that.

1:33:05But also our food supply is a big important part of that. So Bobby Kennedy was advocating for me to be the secretary of agriculture. And he and I have been talking about it for weeks. This was before Trump won the election last fall. And there's a lot of agriculture out of Kentucky. That would have been great. It would have been great. Would it have been something you were interested in? I would, yes, definitely. Because I think there are a lot of things we could do to basically reinvigorate and empower small farmers to make healthy food and grow local economies, things like that. And so I was all in and Bobby Kennedy's team spent a lot of time on it.

1:33:42And I told him, this was like in October before the election. I said, I think there's one problem with your plan. And he said, what's that? And I said, I've not endorsed Trump. And he said, well, it sounds like you need to endorse Trump. Do you think that was a strategy or do you think that it was? No, he was genuine. Yeah, I would think so. And I agreed with him. So I said, well, how do we announce it? And he said, well, come out to Wisconsin Tuesday and Tulsi and I are doing this rally and just come up on stage and announce it there. And I'm thinking, man, I don't want to go to Wisconsin in October to do this because I had a lot of other things on my plate at that time.

1:34:17And so I put it off for a day. I did look at plane tickets to go to Wisconsin. I typed out an endorsement of Trump on my iPhone, read it back to myself. And I woke up the next morning and I thought, this is the day I got to do this. So Trump, when my wife passed away last summer, he had left a very nice message. I would have obviously taken his call, but I was inundated with calls, but he left a really nice message of condolences. That was thoughtful of him. And so it was, and that's a side people don't see. Right. I actually campaigned for Ron DeSantis and Trump felt compelled to leave that message, even though I hadn't endorsed him.

1:34:59It was very thoughtful message. So I sit down, I'm in a hotel in Orlando and I woke up and I went and I listened to that message. And I thought, all right, I'm going to talk to his staff about going to Wisconsin and doing this endorsement. so i dialed the number and on the second ring i hear hello this is donald and i was like oh shit that's his cell number and he's like two weeks from prison or president nobody knows and he's taking my call to america and i was taken off guard because i thought i was i was like how what do you do what do you freaking do thomas sitting here in my boxers in a marriott Oh, God.

1:35:39At least go outside and stand up. You weren't sitting down, were you? No. Because your audio, your volume's better if you walk around where you're talking to somebody. So the first thing I did was to thank him for leaving the message. Oh, that's good. About my wife. My whole time. Because I hadn't done that yet. And he said, that's a hard one. That's a very hard one. You know, Arnold Palmer, he played around a lot. But he did love his wife. And when she passed away, it almost killed Arnie. I mean, it was tough on Arnie, but he's a tough cookie. You're a tough cookie, too. And, you know, you're like Arnie.

1:36:17You'll get through this. And then he goes, I take it back. You're much tougher than Arnie ever was. So then he goes, you're a sharp cookie, too. You know, you went to MIT. My uncle, Professor John G. Trump, taught at MIT for 41 years. It's a record. he said oh what a what a god what he does i've got the best genetics yeah like i'm thinking wait this guy is two weeks away and he's got to be busy right this is the election of his life and so i thought you know at some point they're going to grab him and say look who are you talking to you got to get back to work yeah so i said well the reason i'm calling you is i i want to I've seen it's close in these purple states and a lot of independents and libertarians who could be influenced perhaps.

1:37:09And I'd like to endorse you. Oh, this is wonderful. This is great. This is tremendous. And I said, well, how do I, how do we get it out there? And he goes, oh, just tweet it. I'll retweet you. So I saved myself a trip to Wisconsin. Oh, that's nice, dude. I love going to Wisconsin. Was it in La Crosse? I don't know where it was. Oh, you missed out, I think. So he goes, you know, I spoke at the Libertarian National Convention. Yeah, there it is. There's, oh, yeah. There's a sentence in here I got to explain. Okay. So he goes, I spoke at the Libertarian Convention and they loved me. He said, when I mentioned I was going to free that kid that's been locked up 100 years, they all applauded.

1:37:53Who was that? Not Travis Scott or something? Ross Ulbrich. so I said oh yeah he's in for two life sentences plus 40 years for running a website and he said yeah put that in your endorsement the libertarians will love it so if you look like I'm like he will make America healthy he'll save America secure our liberties I said and he'll free Ross Albrecht wow and a lot of people are like we'll take it yeah Ross's mom called me and thanked me for that. And then - Is he out? Yeah. Wow. I took him to the State of the Union. Is he a cool guy? He's a super cool guy. And he never should have been in prison for as long as he was.

1:38:35Yeah, what did he get locked up for? Running a dark web website called Silk Road that allowed people to buy and sell things on the internet. Oh, yeah, and they started selling dope and shit on there and people were dying. Yeah. So that's what - He's holding for a year. But, I mean, that's the thing. But it's like you can't lock him up and not lock up. All the perpetrators on the website are free, right? No, I'm talking about you can't lock him up and not lock up the Sackler family, though. You keep going back to that. I don't know what you're talking about. Oh, they're the family that did the opioid epidemic or whatever.

1:39:11Oh, okay. They're the Purdue Pharma family. Oh, okay, okay. Sorry. So anyway, yeah, I'm sorry. They're just like mass murders or whatever. I mean, there are allegedly mass murderers that are still wandering around. So anyways, the thing is, so I said, all right, I'll put that sentence in. Let me, I want to run this by you. And he said, here, I'll give you to Dan Scavino. He's on the plane with me. And I'm like, oh my gosh, he's on a plane? He's talking to me. He said, we're going to go tape the Joe Rogan show. Really? Then he like, I can hear him hand the phone. Oh, that was right before the election, dude.

1:39:45Yeah. He hands the phone to Scavino and he's like, I don't think he knew I could hear him, but he goes, Dan, this is a tough cookie. It's Thomas Massey. Don't screw this up. Then we worked out the endorsement. That's pretty cool, huh? It was cool because instead of like a bunch of staff trying to figure out what to do, I just called him. And we got it done in like five minutes. Right. And I did endorse him. And then obviously I'm not the ag secretary, but that's okay. I'm happy where I'm at. I would have done it if he needed somebody to do it. But are you guys at odds, do you feel like? Or do you feel like there's so much going on in his world?

1:40:23Well, he came over to Congress a few weeks ago to whip us on the Big Beautiful Bill. And so when that happens, you guys all get together in a room and he gets to speak? Yeah, 200 people in the room. Okay, and so he's petitioning for the Big Beautiful Bill. Yeah, he's telling us how great it is. And then he says something about me. and then he realizes I might be in the room he said is Tom Massey in the room and I raised my hand and he said you know the thing about Tom Massey is he's very much like Rand Paul they're both from Kentucky you can never get him to vote for anything and they got the same hair that's pretty true then he goes actually I like Massey's hair better so all my colleagues they were approving of me that day.

1:41:13That's hilarious. I mean, some people hate Donald Trump. Some people love Donald Trump. I just think you cannot deny that he is a, there's nobody like him. There's two forms of Trump derangement syndrome, though. There's the kind where you hate him so much, it's irrational. And even if he's for something you support, you still be against him. And a lot of liberals have Trump derangement syndrome and some Republicans. Well, that's a general thing. I think that's just a political derangement syndrome too. I mean, I have friends that's like you could show them the same exact thing, but if it's a Republican saying it or a Democrat and they'll choose the other side, you know?

1:41:54Well, that's why there's the other version of Trump derangement syndrome, which is you love him so much that when he goes against something he said he would do or he does something that's against your principles, you change your own principles to support him. And I think that's just as dangerous. And I try not to have either of the Trump derangement syndromes. Just be for the people of Kentucky. Yeah, look, Kentucky derangement alone is pretty good. You know what I'm saying? That's not a bad, you know. I mean, that's its own special 150-proof derangement right there, you know. It's one of a kind.

1:42:34I'm a man of my people. It's one of a kind. You know what's one of the most beautiful places I've ever done a show was Pike. Pikeville? Pikeville, Kentucky. Yeah, Eastern Kentucky. It was a tough show. It was just, I don't know if it was the acoustics of the place we played, but it was a beautiful little city, great crowd. I mean, beautiful, big town. I mean, one of the most beautiful places I think I've ever been. It just blew my mind of what it even was. See if you can find a picture of Lewis County, Kentucky. That's where I'm from. That's the town I grew up in right there. What is that? I believe it's Vanceburg.

1:43:07That's Vanceburg? Yep. And the courthouse with the red roof on the left with the columns. Oh, yeah. There's two courthouses, but one on the left, my grandfather hauled the stones for that courthouse that were quarried locally. Dude, that is cool. How big is that place? It's about 2 ,000 people. Hell yeah. Perfect size. And it's the county seat. It's the biggest town in the county. So you go there to buy beer and to go to church and put your money in the bank or get a loan. Amen. Lewis County. Yeah. So that's the town is called Lewis County or the whole county is 12 ,000? The whole county is about 13 ,000 or 14 ,000 people, and Vanceburg used to be 2 ,000.

1:43:49It's probably 1 ,500 people now. But that's where I grew up, and this is a true story. When I went to MIT, which is in Cambridge, Massachusetts, across the river from Boston, you can see in Vanceburg, there's no crosswalks. We had one stoplight, and I lived there until I was 18. then I would go to Massachusetts, never visited in my life. And I landed on a plane. I'm going through a crosswalk, you know, with the signs that say walk and don't walk. And a car honked at me. And I thought, oh my gosh, I'd been here six hours and already run into somebody from Kentucky. And I waved at them because I thought the car honking knew me.

1:44:28No, they were, they were waving back with one finger because I was walking against a don't walk or something. out the street honking that's hilarious dude yeah man going from a small town to a big place is definitely fascinating man it's definitely that was and it was intimidating like to go from that little town where everybody says oh you're uneducated you're backwards you don't know anything i went to public school k through 12 there and then and then to go to mit with all these kids from private school and Bronx science. Were you just like a, were you just, I mean, people must have think you was a real nerd or whatever.

1:45:07Oh, I was a nerd. Oh yeah. I built little science projects in my room and, you know, that was, that was basically my ticket out of Appalachia. Yeah. And went to MIT and, and started a company there. It was actually a virtual reality interface that I invented that lets you touch three dimensional objects and raise$32 million of venture capital. from people like J.D. Vance. Yeah. Have you seen, well, and some of your story is similar to Mr. Vance's, I think, in some ways, you know? It's like, and you don't hear a lot of stories about, I mean, I think that they happen, but you don't hear that many of them, you know?

1:45:46And maybe it's just because we don't talk to as many politicians that are like, usually politicians were always like on C-SPAN or somewhere where you didn't really get to envelop much of their story. I think by J.D. having that movie that came out about him probably helped. Well, the book, I mean, he wrote the book and it rings true for me. Like he went to New England to school. I went to New England from school. I didn't know what to do with the place setting of silverware. I was waving at cars that honked. But I tell J.D., when he was a senator, we met a few times to talk about the Ukraine issue and things like that.

1:46:23But I told him, I said, J.D., you've appropriated my culture. Like, I'm from Vanceburg, Kentucky, literally Vanceburg. And you're from Ohio, and you're saying you're a hillbilly. Like, he's part of the hillbilly people that, like my people, that left and went to Ohio. So I have a brother and a sister. They both went to Ohio. It was a big migration. Why was it? Was it to work in the mills? It was. There were shoe factories. Some of them went to Detroit to work at car factories. But it was for employment. Employment. And this continued for generations as coal went down. But we said they teach you three R's in eastern Kentucky, reading, writing, and Route 23.

1:47:06Oh, yeah. Route 23 runs north, crosses the river, and goes up from Portsmouth to Columbus and on up that way. so um the difference between jd and i is my mamaw didn't drop f-bombs like he had i will say he probably had a rougher upbringing with you know his single mom and whatnot so he had to overcome a lot yeah i mean he's i mean i think jd's a great speaker he's an interesting guy you know i've enjoyed the opportunity even gets talked to him the simple fact that even somebody like me is even going to talk to him i think it's all kind of fascinating i think it's great i think he's over there biting his tongue so much though like because when you're the vice president oh it did feel different when i spoke with him the first time then the second time you you and he's a good guy like he's texted me oh i agree since he's been vice president and um he's a good guy but i'm sure he's biting his tongue on some of this stuff yeah i bet it's interesting you know i bet the plot thickens you know i bet the plot really really thickens um you talked about working in virtual reality how crazy i feel like now did you see iran did that uh there was a military video that they had pushing their military it was like um and we'll be done in a few minutes um see if you can bring that up it was uh yeah did you see now it's like there's like pr videos for war and shit now like what is even look at this shit

1:48:32zoom in

1:48:37I mean, this is all I ran. This looks like a video game.

1:48:46I mean, look at this.

1:48:53I feel like it's just getting really bizarre.

1:49:00Look at that. I mean, that's good. But I think it's like now – I feel like we're getting so close to – you're going to be able to subscribe online and watch a stream of a war. Like you're going to be able to have drones that are in the air watching war, right? Like probably Palantir drones or some company are in the air, and you can stream it from home. But wouldn't it be better if just like the drones killed the other drones and people didn't get killed? and maybe that's it's virtual reality and who can ever who can build the best army in vr that would be a lot better way than killing people i agree i think it's gotten i mean it's like you're going to be able to you know it's going to be like yeah shit is just like you said earlier everything is feels merging it doesn't even feel real anymore that's how unreal shit is it doesn't even you can barely tell as a regular semi-ignorant person the difference between what's real and what's not anymore and that's when things get bizarre it's like i feel like next week like i show speed is gonna like compete against netanyahu's son or whatever that lives i think in la or somewhere like but and they're gonna compete and like the winner gets to um live in like a one of those like congo cobalt mines where they're making iphone like parts it just you're just like what the fuck is happening anymore it happens on both sides though and truth is the first casualty of war and you saw like there was the ghost of kiev remember when that came out and there was supposedly this aviator in ukraine that was shooting down all these russian jets yeah oh it was a it was lore yeah it was it was all yeah it was all made up popular but ultimately mythical ukrainian fighter pilot an urban legend that emerged during the early days of the russian invasion of ukraine in 2022 said that a single mig-29 pilot was shooting down multiple russian aircraft becoming a similar resistance.

1:50:53Yes. So, and, and that was being reported as a real thing and congressmen were falling for that. And so I have tried to be very judicious in all the videos I watch of everything that is coming from all the countries, whether it's Iran or Israel or our own. And I actually caught the IDF, the Israeli defense forces, putting, using a, a clip that was from last year trying to make it look like that was uh israel being bombed this you know this week and i this is one of the fun things about being a congressman with 1.3 million followers like i pointed it out and people started looking at it and comparing it to the video from nine months ago and they got community noted the idf for putting out a fake video they didn't have to i mean there's plenty of live footage, but they fell for it.

1:51:48Like we're just, we're in a loop. We're consuming stuff on the internet. And you know, the loop has been completed when the Israeli government consumes YouTubes that aren't real and then puts them in their videos. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I could see them doing it just because, but yeah, I think it's definitely the loop is like, we're spinning the loop so long we're dizzy. That's where it feels like we are. If you can step out of it, like I haven't had a TV in 20 years because - You're not missing anything. It just reinforces the false. There we go. Breaking Bad was good. Did they? And - Oh, yeah. Who knows?

1:52:28See? Yeah, you can't tell what's really anymore. Raw footage, Iran. Yeah, there's the two videos. Look, that's the one they put out that said was happening in the past hours, right? Okay. Now look at the other one. The clouds are the same shape. The missiles are in the same formation. And that was a YouTube from eight months ago. Wow. But the reason I caught it and nobody else did was I was trying to verify everything before I took it as real. Yeah. And I saw that video from eight months ago and figured out it was fake. But the IDF didn't. Or maybe they did and it just was more dramatic than the footage they had.

1:53:05That could be more of that. That sounds slightly more possible. But what do I know? I don't know anything. I know this, dude. What can we do? Like, what can voters do anymore? Do we, does it matter anymore what we do or are we done? It does matter. You're going to. Does local level matter more than ever? Local level voting or what matters? Like, what do we, what do we, what can we do? So the congressman before me in my district got a call at home one night and this older lady was upset that her trash hadn't been picked up. And he's a U.S. Congressman. He said, man. Picked it up. he said no he said i'm your u.s congressman i don't i'm not involved with the trash pickup did you think about calling your county commissioner and she said i was going to do that but i didn't want to start that high up yeah so um it i think local is i started out in local politics and and the local officials have way more impact on your life than the than the federal government does.

1:54:07And so I would take time and pay attention and vote locally. And those are also people you can go find. When I was a local government official and we would stop at the grocery store to buy milk, my kids would beg my wife to go in to pick up the milk because I'd be in there two hours and somebody talked to me about a pothole and somebody talked to me about some weeds that need mowed at the intersection and I wouldn't get out of there. Now that I'm a congressman i can buy milk anywhere nobody cares they know congress can't get anything done right and so i think the people have figured it out definitely pay attention local when you do pay attention federal don't get distracted by the weapons of mass distraction um don't call nancy pelosi she's not you're not going to change her mind only call people you can vote for because the the people taking those calls know that and they'll discount everything you say unless you're constituent.

1:55:03So everybody has two state senators and one U.S. representative. So you only need to make three phone calls. I wouldn't write them a letter. I wouldn't waste time on email. I would make a phone call and a real, more likely than not, a real person in that office will pick up the phone and talk to you. And it'll be somebody who does talk to the congressman. Like we have a staff of about 12 to 24 people. And I say hi to those people that you are talking to every day. now I don't know that all congressmen are this diligent but I have them write down who called about what and how many calls we got some days I get one phone call and it's from the same guy that calls every day right Michael if Michael doesn't call we ask the local sheriff to go do you know wellness check oh yeah don't don't be a frequent flyer don't call up your congressman and say I'll never vote for him again if he votes this way because then they never have to take you seriously but i would call up i would only call people you can vote for and be polite be quick get off the phone the the next one your uh people i see people come up to lobby let's say for their for their grandma who has alzheimer's and they spend uh three hundred dollars on a plane ticket a couple hundred dollars on a hotel room uh they you know the food is expensive in dc and they finally get to their congressman's office and they talk to a staffer.

1:56:29Yeah. That, to me, is a waste of money. I would find that congressman locally and take half of what you would have spent on the trip to D.C. And if you could stomach that person's politics, make a donation. That's why the lobbyist has the ear. I'm not saying America has to compete with lobbyists for giving money, but I will tell you this. if you give a politician$500, you won't have to ask for his phone number. He'll be calling you every week. Thinking about what do I need next. Asking for more of it. Damn. But that's where we're at. That's where we're at. Because money has to compete with money, you think?

1:57:09Dark money? It doesn't have to compete, but you've got to figure out a way to get their attention. Whatever the minimum is to get in the door of that fund rate. If it's$50, don't give them$500. Give them 50 and go in and just talk to them like a human being if you can. But at a bigger level, like will we ever get – will the people – you know, will we ever get these lobbyists out? Is it just a wrap? What do we – just tell us if we all just – Here's the way you break free. No. Well, you should definitely go to the beach and only spend about no more than 10 percent of your life thinking about politics because it ain't healthy.

1:57:47Amen. And, and, um, but the 10 % that you do, you should, you should ask your congressman to, to advocate for separate bills on separate topics. Yeah, I agree. That seems way more pertinent because then you get, there's some, a level of accountability. Yeah. And they can't hide behind, well, it had a pay raise for soldiers. Right. Um, um, so advocate for that, uh, make phone calls. If you can be friendly and connect with them, maybe you don't agree with them on everything, but a broken clock is right twice a day. Yeah. Some diplomacy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a big thing I've been learning recently is that there's a give and take to everything, every single, everything that, you know, and that's the way that the world's built.

1:58:28There's like, you know, there's forces, there's a give and take, there's a yin and yang. And even when you have, you want this party or this thing, it's like, there has to be like, uh, um, you, you really need both forces a lot of times to get things done. Um, I think that's about it, man. I'm trying to think of anything else. Oh, I did want to say we were going to supposed to talk to Mr. Walls this week, Tim Walls, on Thursday because I have a show up there. But he can't. He is unable to go because of they're doing services and stuff for that. His constituents or his colleagues, maybe that were murdered up there.

1:59:05I, you know, it's pretty heartbreaking. It is heartbreaking. And he seems like a guy with a big heart, too. I get death threats. I mean, and the hard part is knowing which ones to take seriously and which ones not. I mean, it's definitely not the right way to do politics. It's just, there's no, there's no level of frustration that justifies violence. Yeah. I mean, that just seems really bizarre. There was, I remember there was rumors that whenever your wife passed away that there was like something bad had happened, like from a, like a, like a, not a deranged person or something like that. No, she died unexpectedly, but of natural causes.

1:59:45And I wasn't home. I was in D.C., which kills me to this day. But my son was home visiting. So we know exactly what happened. There's no conspiracy there. Sorry to even ask you about it. Well, no, I think it's good because people want to know that. I tell people she would get a kick out of it. She would. Everybody wants to be a part of – yeah, like anyway, that's a dark to say. There was a conspiracy, but I'm sure she's up there laughing at that one. Well, I know it's coming up on a year since she's been gone. And yeah, just sorry to kind of – maybe that was a little out of the box to say that.

2:00:25But yeah, I'm sorry you and your family had to go through that. So I appreciate you being brave and still being able to honor your constituents and your group even in the face of those types of things. and still be able to show up and do your best and be a maverick, I think, probably for her spirit and for the people of our country. I think that's one thing that's inspiring. Some people were like, well, this guy's nuts or this guy's great. But I'm like, at least this guy's his own fucking guy. You know what I'm saying? I'd rather talk to that guy any day of the week. Well, the other conspiracy that's interesting to me is people say, oh, he snapped.

2:01:02Like he's lost his marbles since he lost his wife. and he's off the chain, et cetera, et cetera. No, I'm actually honoring what she wanted. Like she worked at home on our farm and raised four kids. She also had an MIT degree. Wow. And she was watching me from afar every day. She would watch hearings and give me advice for questions to ask. And she wanted me to go up there and kick ass every week. And that's what I do. And I'm still going to do it. I remember one time I introduced a bill to legalize raw milk, like the kind I got out there in my camper truck. I'll take another swig off that thing as long as you leave the door open while we do it.

2:01:44Right. We had alarms going off in there. The gaydar in my camper was going off when you went in there. Two men got in that thing and suddenly an alarm went off. I was like, this is a little too Republican for me. It's a little too old school Republican for me if two men can't even casually drink raw milk together in the back of a truck camper. I know. So I introduced a raw milk bill to legalize raw milk. And, oh, yeah, there we go. Oh, this is in honor of her kind of? Well, this was – she was still alive, and I introduced this bill. And guess who came after me? The milk lobbyists came after me.

2:02:20They said there wouldn't be enough hospitals to take care of all the people who were going to get sick from raw milk. Is that true, do you think? Oh, hell no. I drink it every day. I know thousands of people that drink it every day. I'm going to catch a fucking batch of it. It always looks like it's a little warm. No. I pour mine in an ice-cold glass. But anyways, and it tastes like just liquid ice cream. It's so good. I'll come have a little bit more. All right. Well, so I did this bill, and the milk lobby comes after me, and my wife had Google alerts on or whatever alerts there were, and it's like all this negative press over milk.

2:03:01And she texted me, OMG, I didn't realize the lactose lobby was this intolerant. Well, I think even just the name of the lactose lobby was this intolerant. That's cute. What was her name, your wife? Rhonda. Rhonda. Yeah. Well, we miss you, Rhonda. Just a nice thought of you there and a nice story. I love the fact that that's called the Interstate Milk Freedom Act, which sounds insane, dude. Right? It sounds like something that happens at a rest area. That's the problem with it, I think. It's easier to get meth than it is to get raw milk. I'm not lying. And at least put birth control in the meth.

2:03:42When do we make that law? Like, is that too much to ask? Like, give us something. That's my motto these days. Thomas Massey, I just admire, I appreciate your time. That's what I really appreciate. and get out there and give them hell, man. Keep serving to the best of your ability and just thank you for your service. And I really just appreciate it. Thanks, Theo. Yep, you bet, man. Best of luck, dude. God. Yeah, keep an eye on the debt. Yeah, I will. It's about to go up. She will be, she'll call me every hour and she'll be like, oh my God. It's about to go up. It is? Yeah. I'm looking for the jump.

2:04:17I'll be there. 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 take R.