Show full transcript 1:11 That's why we have such a high housing prices like a lot of the things we're complaining about and dealing with it 1:17 Because the systems have been rigged on the inside. We all know that but the other way things get done is real public pressure 1:22 and real public shame on the political system and what Bobby Kennedy and President Trump did is showed there's a 1:26 lot of voters care that care about American health and I was optimistic we could use that coalition to bust through the 1:33 DC swamp to get some things done, and we did get some things done. 1:36 But all of them were through public shame, you know, the psychedelic thing. 1:41 That was being totally blocked, full directive from the top that we were going to slow that 1:47 down and not do it. 1:48 And your call to President Trump, you know, and President Trump, whenever there was an 1:53 issue which was on his radar, he's like, let's get it done, let's go hard. 1:56 He said we need to get this done, get this on my fucking desk in the next week. 2:00 And it busted through the system. 2:01 system. I was able to engender a coalition to get that same dynamic happening with things 2:06 like dietary guidelines, the food dyes, getting those out of the system. These were all just 2:11 the system of DC does not want any change to happen. The fact that we had a voter coalition 2:17 and could use that and say, this coalition, you other people are going to be pissed off 2:20 if we don't get things done. We were able to get things done. 2:22 But the simple reality in why I left is that there is a very concentrated group 2:29 of people in the Trump administration that are antagonistic to what people voted for and 2:35 are frankly, I think it's very clear, doing things for other reasons, particularly in many 2:42 cases to enrich their families. 2:46 So walk us through this. 2:49 So you get in there. 2:51 You have your first days on the job. 2:55 When did you realize it was going to be an issue? 2:57 and you were very hopeful at first right it's very exciting a lot of people were 3:02 very excited about the coalition they felt like this was one of the main 3:05 things that I was excited about with Trump getting into office was that Bobby 3:10 Kennedy was going to be in there and there was a there was a lot of these 3:13 things that you just discussed a lot of these problems things about peptides 3:17 and stem cells for sure the psychedelics and then just making 3:22 people aware of like additives and food that were completely unnecessary 3:26 They were ruining people's health. 3:29 So it's all this promise. 3:30 Everybody was very excited about it. 3:32 It was electric two years ago. 3:33 I mean, we remember it. 3:35 It was absolutely electric and that compared to what we felt this week, right? 3:38 That's the real issue. 3:39 There was a real sense. 3:41 Every single person in the first day of the Trump administration thought we were 3:44 working for a presidency that would be absolutely historic. 3:47 We thought Trump was going to be better than George Washington. 3:50 The energy was, we felt like we were in the most consequential moment in American 3:53 history. 3:54 We were going to go hard and we were going to be able to channel what voters voted for that 3:58 I cannot express to you how electric it felt in there in the early days 4:02 so 4:04 What was the process like where you felt like it was off the rails? Yeah, so I want to get into specifics 4:11 We all know things are corrupt and bad 4:13 But I'll just I'll just get right into specifics what I learned and I don't think anyone would dispute this the way the White House 4:20 this White House is set up is the most centralized control up to the Chief of Staff office of 4:27 any administration in American history. 4:29 So I'll just get into details about who runs the White House. 4:33 There's a picture I have of the key people, but the White House, Suzy Wiles is the most 4:39 powerful Chief of Staff in modern American history and she has taken a stranglehold 4:44 on any policy decision. 4:45 No policy decision gets done without her office giving it the okay. 4:49 and it's absolutely systematic. So every single cabinet secretary, they're spending meetings 4:56 constantly worrying about how to get on Susie's good side and how to win favor with her. She 5:03 has a couple deputies. The deputies are, it was James Blair, another guy named Walker Barrett, 5:12 and another guy who recently came in and named Richard Walters. These are the most 5:18 powerful people in the country. 5:19 All right. 5:19 We're back. 5:20 Yeah. 5:21 We had a glitch. 5:22 These are the most powerful people in the country. 5:24 And let me just go through, dispassionately, just factually who these people are. 5:29 Susie Wiles, the chief of staff, before she joined the Trump administration, was one 5:33 of the top lobbyists in the country. 5:35 She spent her career taking money from Benjamin Netanyahu, who she was a top consultant 5:40 for, the pharmaceutical industry, the pesticide industry. 5:44 industry. 5:44 So, just passionately, just as a statement of economic facts, Susie Wiles, her career 5:49 has been taking money from the industries and foreign governments who would pay her the 5:53 most money. 5:53 That's what she did. 5:54 Nobody disputes that. 5:57 James Blair, who was the head of political operations, is her friend from Florida. 6:04 And a long-term political consultant has taken a lot of money from industries like 6:09 the sugar industry, but that's been his career, running some campaigns, taking money 6:13 from special interests. 6:14 She brought him along and really propped him up with Trump. 6:17 Tony Fabrizio is one of the most powerful people in the country. 6:20 He's Trump's chief pollster, very good friends with Suzy. 6:24 He is on the outside the whole time and every single policy issue goes through him because 6:30 he tells the team whether it's politically appropriate to do or not based on his polling. 6:35 As he's been working in the Trump administration in this extremely powerful role where every 6:40 Every single cabinet secretary is trying to get on his good side. 6:43 He is, and this is actually on his website, he takes money from Pepsi. 6:47 He takes money from pharmaceutical companies. 6:50 He takes money from almost every single industry we're fighting against right now to this 6:53 day. 6:54 So he's taking money at the same time. 6:55 I don't even know if President Trump fully knows that. 6:57 But as we were fighting things like school lunch reform and getting an ultra-processed 7:03 food definition, 90% of the country wants this. 7:05 We're going to define ultra-processed food, 70% of a child's diet is ultra-processed 7:08 food. 7:08 we need to define it, we need to figure out what to do there. It's a widely popular promise 7:11 from the administration. He is getting paid by Pepsi and giving political analysis that 7:17 the juice isn't worth the squeeze on doing policies like that as simple as school lunch 7:20 reform. So that's Tony Fabrizio. Every single issue goes through him, goes through James. 7:26 Tony and James were also in charge of the midterm efforts. So James left the White 7:31 House to be in charge of the midterm efforts, but still very involved. And the key 7:35 things Susie did is from almost day one, we made the midterm strategy, the policy strategy. 7:41 So they would often say that we can't do certain things because that would hurt special interest 7:48 configurations for the midterms. 7:50 Walker Barrett is Susie's neighbor in Florida, junior guy, but extremely powerful. 7:56 He was a congressional staffer for a long time. 7:59 Richard Walters is a kind of mid-level fundraiser. His whole career has been 8:04 consulting and fundraising. He came from a lobbying firm in the past year that 8:09 lobbied for pesticides, lobbied for pharma. Richard was for a while the most 8:14 powerful person in the country because as Susie was out getting cancer 8:18 treatment, Richard was effectively chief of staff. And Chris Lesavita ran the 8:24 campaign with Susie's has been on the outside. He's a lobbyist consultant getting paid a 8:29 lot of money by special interests. And the other thing I know, Susie's daughter became 8:37 a lobbyist. And I don't know if you have the graph continental strategies, but this 8:44 is really interesting. Susie's daughter went to a lobbying firm and it was an open 8:49 discussion in the White House, if a company hired Susie's daughter, then that was getting 8:57 a high priority. 8:58 And there's this chart that shows continental strategies the group Susie's daughter worked 9:03 for had almost zero in revenue before the Trump administration shot up to 30-ish million 9:09 dollars a year in revenue. 9:10 So if you're a special interest and you want to get something done, the secret's out, 9:14 you pay Susie's daughter and it was openly discussed that when they had a client. 9:19 So this is what happened to Continental once Susie's daughter worked there. 9:26 Then Chris Lasavita's daughter, again the person who ran the Trump campaign, if you 9:30 go to Checkmate, the person who ran the Trump campaign and is highly influential in various 9:35 policy decisions, it's the same graph that Firm didn't exist before the Trump administration 9:41 shut up. And then Susie worked at a firm called Ballard Partners. Ballard 9:47 Partners has become the highest revenue-generating lobbying firm in 9:51 history. And when Ballard, it's just an open, everyone knows this, if you hire 9:58 Ballard, you get a meeting with Susie and you can get things done. And their 10:02 revenue went from middling to the highest revenue lobbying firm ever. So 10:06 I'm just just trying to state facts. That's who these people are. That's 10:11 their background. Everyone's, this is Ballard, just go to the 2026, $98 million. The key 10:21 thing I'd say here is, you talk to any lobbyist, that $98 million is what's reported. That's 10:28 the down payment. That's then Ballard advising people on how to shift money to other dark 10:33 money groups. You probably put a 10x multiple on that. Ballard basically helps then 10:38 pay other groups, pay other people to... 10:43 This episode is presented by Searchlight Pictures, Wild Horse Nine. 10:47 Shortly before Chile's 1973 coup, two CIA agents played by John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell 10:56 find their mission on Easter Island spiraling into a web of conspiracies, 11:01 unexpected alliances, and chaos. 11:04 Wild Horse Nine, now playing only in theaters, get tickets now. 11:08 All your favorite NBA players are back and DraftKingsports book an official sports betting partner of the NBA is the place to bet on 11:16 NBA stars this season follow your favorite NBA stars get excited about the biggest matchups and lock in on those 11:23 buzzer-beating moments plus new customers get three months of NBA league pass on us so you can catch more NBA action 11:32 in any time, anywhere. 11:34 Download the DraftKings Sports app today 11:36 and use code ROGON. 11:37 New DraftKings customers spend five 11:40 and get 200 in total bonuses 11:43 plus three months of NBA League Pass on us. 11:47 That's code ROGON in partnership with DraftKings. 11:50 The crown is yours. 11:51 If you or someone you know has a gambling problem 11:54 call 1-800-MY-RESET-21 and over, Virginia only. 11:57 Eligibility restrictions apply. 11:59 $50 and non-withdrawable bonus bets 12:00 issued every seven days via click-to-claim for 21 days. Bonus, bets expire seven days after 12:05 issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see sportsbook.draftkings.com 12:09 slash promos. NBA League Pass auto-renews until canceled. Limited time offer. 12:30 Like an AI-enhanced website builder, SEO optimization tools, and seamless checkouts with mobile 12:38 paylinks. 12:39 Head to squarespace.com slash Rogan for a free trial. 12:44 And when you are ready to launch, use the offer code Rogan to save 10% off your first 12:49 purchase of a website or domain. 12:51 To get things done. 12:54 And Ballard, again, the secret's out in D.C. You have to pay Ballard to get something 13:00 done, and they've generated more revenue than any other firm in American history. 13:04 That's who these people are. 13:06 Is this normal? 13:08 This is the key point I want to make, and I think it's very important as we decipher 13:13 the election. 13:14 I want to go into specifics to explain how this works. 13:18 This is how it works for 30 years. 13:20 It is a massive mistake. 13:22 I don't think President Trump knows about most of this. 13:25 He can't be everywhere at once. 13:27 It is absolutely true that his administration has been infiltrated by the very people that 13:33 he energized voters to say he would get out of D.C. 13:36 And what I'm going to talk about today and the specific things I'm going to talk about 13:40 are not idiosyncratic to the Trump administration. 13:44 This is how D.C. works. 13:46 It is impossible to describe to you how demonic this culture is. 13:49 Before I went on, I actually spoke to some of my friends who are top lobbyists. 13:53 I'm like is this is this right to you like like we are at a precipice in American history like this is like 13:59 Civilizational like like Americans are gonna have social unrest and rebell against that like we're robbing the American people like right and they're like 14:06 Yeah, yeah, I'm like why are you doing this? I don't have any trots the game 14:10 I have a good career good good life like everyone like this. This is how DC works, you know Chuck Schumer 14:17 Gave a speech to the hospital lobbyists two weeks ago saying, you know, I'm gonna have your back 14:22 He went around all the lobbyists saying, we're going to help you out. 14:26 Jeffries and Schumer, all their people became lobbying firms. 14:29 Their lobbying firms are going to get this type of money that's already happening. 14:32 Every company in D.C. is shifting to Schumer's former staffers or Jeffries former staffers. 14:39 This is how it works. 14:42 This is a core point. 14:44 We need to grasp as Americans, it's not one party of the net. 14:50 We're playing the shell game, right? 14:52 When Congress and the Senate, I don't think they've passed a bill in the past 20 years 14:55 that's significantly taken on special interests. 14:57 This is a game at the end of the day debating partisan politics or having the delusion 15:02 that this is a Trump problem or a Democratic problem. 15:04 This is a structural problem. 15:06 Americans did not vote for Trump or, frankly, the Democrats recently who are basically 15:11 copying Trump's messages against the swamp. 15:13 They didn't vote to have people like this that are accepting money from foreign 15:17 countries while they're running the midterm strategy have their kids working at lobbying 15:21 firms that are making tens of millions of dollars. 15:24 And really having the most populous president ever elected, Donald Trump, have a centralized 15:30 policy process that is entirely dictated, not by voters, but by who's paying a ballot. 15:39 At one point, I was arguing for, I think, school lunches or this no-brainer policy 15:45 to Tony Fabrizio. And I said to him, I said, you know, President Trump really galvanized 15:51 a lot of voters with Bobby Kennedy. I know, you know, Joe Rogan's listeners would really 15:55 love to see some, you know, getting healthier school meals, the processed food companies 15:59 might like that. And he said it's not a big part of our strategy. He said, you know, 16:04 those voters kind of dismissed me bringing up your listeners who I felt like I was advocating 16:09 for, he said, that's not really, and my house is not really a big part of our strategy. 16:15 So I, you know, how... 16:15 What did he say the strategy was? 16:18 They were obsessed with, they were obsessed with a highly kind of surgical strategy of 16:26 redistricting. 16:26 They were obsessed with redistricting. 16:31 And... 16:32 Do you explain that to people? 16:33 Yeah. 16:33 So James Blair and Tony Fabrizio and Susie, their entire strategy to win the midterms was 16:40 to gerrymander various states to change the congressional maps so they're more favorable 16:45 to Republicans and that's all they cared about with the midterm strategy. 16:53 And then, yeah, I can't speak to exactly what's in their head but everyone has their 16:59 own biases, right? When you come from this world where you're being paid at the current 17:03 moment by Pepsi and other companies, all your friends are lobbyists, everything, you kind 17:09 of convince yourself that politics all rests on money. And Susie and James and other people 17:15 said this a lot. Susie said to me many times, we need money for the midterms, Callie. 17:20 We need money for the midterms. So when you convince yourself that money is the 17:24 most important thing for the midterms and for the future political dynamics, 17:28 And this was the narrative in the Trump administration by Susie from the from almost the beginning 17:34 Then you can justify almost anything and what Tony for breezer did with this polling is that oh people don't really care about the food 17:40 It's just keep you don't really care about the pesticide issues people don't really care about the taking on farm or whatever 17:44 So so so so so that's the big show game 17:47 I think that happened is is everything in the political strategy was based on getting enough money for the midterms 17:54 Not actually doing the things that would then energize voters enough. Well, what do they think people do care about if they don't think people care 18:01 About the very things that they voted for that they were excited about with this whole coalition with maha 18:06 What do they think yeah James and the political team was really obsessed with these gimmicks 18:11 You know that they gave a presentation to the entire cabinet and Susie said Tony Fabrizio smarter than anyone in this room 18:19 Listen to him. He's driving our strategy and he talked about how you know 18:22 Yeah. 18:23 And he talked about how as a central campaign message in the midterms, we need to talk about 18:30 no tax on tips and affordability and the tax cut that we got from the one big beautiful 18:37 bill. 18:39 And my opinion is that you look at recent polls, and this is Pew, this is CNBC, this 18:45 is Fox News, they ask Americans what the biggest issue in the country was, and it's the 18:49 same in every poll. 18:50 It's corruption. 18:51 It's money and politics. 18:53 And I think Americans feel spiritually, and this is what helped get Trump elected, is 18:58 you know, American, you know, competitiveness does not rest on whether we pass no tax on 19:04 tips. 19:05 I don't think Trump got shot in the face, you know, and almost killed, and has gone 19:11 through everything he's gone through to run on these gimmicks. 19:15 It's because we have corruption. 19:17 It's because we have a broken system. 19:18 Like, it is a joke that we're going to actually address big issues without institutional reform, 19:25 which is really what Trump ran on, but they pushed these gimmicks. 19:28 They were obsessed with this, you know, the only thing on healthcare was that we lowered 19:34 drug prices. 19:34 We had some drug price negotiations. 19:36 So it was a very, like, targeted things instead of, you know, big, bold ideas. 19:41 Think DraftKings isn't available where you live? 19:43 Think again, DraftKings, an official partner of the NBA, is now available in all 50 states. 19:50 So wherever you live, follow your favorite NBA stars, get excited about the biggest 19:55 matchups, and lock in on those buzzer-beating moments. 19:59 And with DraftKings, it's all in one app. 20:02 Plus, new customers get three months of NBA league pass on us so you can catch 20:08 more NBA action anytime, anywhere. 20:11 Download the DraftKings Sports app today 20:13 and use code ROGAN. 20:15 New DraftKings customers spend five 20:17 and get 200 in total bonuses 20:20 plus three months of NBA League Pass on us. 20:24 That's code ROGAN in partnership with DraftKings. 20:27 The crown is yours. 20:28 Bet with DK Sports Book. 20:30 Gambling problem called 1-800-Gambler. 20:32 1-800-MyReset. 20:34 Connecticut called 888-789-7777. 20:36 Visit ccpg.org on behalf of Boothill Casino in Kansas. 20:40 Bet tax pass through may apply in Illinois, 20:42 21 and over, Void in Canada. 20:44 Event contract trading with DraftKings 20:45 predictions involves risk of loss. 20:47 Availability varies. 20:48 Predictions offer Void in New York. 20:50 Bet to get bonus bets that expire in seven days. 20:52 Trade to get predictions dollars that expire in one year. 20:55 $50 in rewards issued every seven days 20:57 via click to claim for 21 days. 20:59 One non-withdrawable reward redeemable. 21:00 NBA League Pass auto renews until canceled. 21:03 Terms at dkng.co.au, limited time offer. 21:06 nationwide based on sports book predictions and free-to-play sports 21:09 contest availability varies by state. So when he got into office how do these 21:14 people become a part of the cabinet is it simply that you have because I 21:19 understand like that first administration they have back in 2016 it was a 21:23 giant issue that he had brought it he thought he was draining the swamp he 21:26 was bringing in the swamp to try to drain the swamp right this time 21:30 supposedly he had learned from the mistakes from the first 21:34 administration and that things are going to be different. 21:37 Did he get duped? 21:39 What do you think it is? 21:40 Do you think there's 100-plus jobs to fill? 21:43 There's no way he can micromanage all of them and sit down with every individual person 21:47 and go in-depth on their resume, what their plans are, what financial ties do you have? 21:53 I think that he – first thing I'll say, there are a lot of good people in the administration, 21:59 like Bobby Shackinity is a hero. 22:01 There's a lot of other cabinet secretaries that want to go hard. 22:05 But those cabinet secretaries are often talking about how exasperated they are by these dynamics, 22:11 by these Ballard dynamics and by the absolutely centralized control and paralysis that Suzie 22:15 has driven. 22:16 So, you know, it's frustrating. 22:20 But Suzie, I mean, just the history is she ran Trump's campaign, then was chosen 22:28 as the chief of staff. 22:29 And then, I know she brought these other people in based on her word. 22:35 I think Trump was right to learn lessons from his first term, but I'm just saying what 22:42 the reality is right now. 22:43 Americans did not vote to have a group of lobbyists from Tallahassee be slowing down 22:50 every policy that people voted for. 22:54 Um, and often saying that's because we need to take, get special interest money. 23:00 I mean, that, that is not what people voted for. 23:02 And it's a real serious problem. 23:05 And when she was running his campaign, was it that the campaign was successful? 23:10 He became president. 23:11 So he said, okay, I'm just going to make you chief, chief of staff. 23:13 Yeah. 23:13 Her reputation has been that she's a steady hand that she's, you know, 23:17 um, an adult in the room. 23:19 That was kind of her reputation. 23:20 There was a big, uh, force to, to get her in as the chief of staff. 23:24 And I was really excited about that and you know, I worked, you know with her and with Bobby and work to get the Maha 23:32 Agenda through but 23:34 But you know, I think we're at a pretty consequential time in American history 23:38 I think frankly and I we can get into specific stories 23:41 But I think what's happening is a case study not just what's wrong with Trump 23:45 But what we need to exercise from the system in general so when so you you get in yeah 23:51 And when do you start realizing what these issues are and how does it unveil itself? 23:57 I mean, I can I can go into what happened with glyphosate. Oh, yes, please because that's a big one because I I mean 24:02 I really love Bobby. He's a great guy 24:05 But when he was on here, he seemed so dejected when he had to explain how they got blocked, right? 24:13 Tell me 24:15 Let's just set the table 24:18 Set the table about glad yeah 24:19 Yeah, yeah, let me set the table about glyphosate in general. 24:25 America, American children are the sickest children 24:27 in the developed world. 24:28 We're hitting puberty much younger than we did 50 years ago. 24:33 Two to three years. 24:35 The New York Times recently did an article 24:36 that said nobody knows why. 24:40 We have the highest rates of autoimmune conditions, 24:43 hormone conditions, cancer, pediatric cancer, 24:47 diabetes, every kind of disease you can think of, we have the highest rates among kids of 24:52 any society in human history. 24:54 So I definitely think that solving that was a major voter promise. 25:00 So obviously, what we're spraying on our food is very important. 25:04 And the United States, we're 4% of the world's population. 25:07 By some measures, we use 20% of the world's glyphosate and herbicides and pesticides. 25:14 size. So our system is addicted to these chemicals. It's also interesting to me, when you look 25:21 at us versus other countries, we actually spend half as much of our national income 25:25 on food than Europe. They spend double the relative amount on food, but we spend three 25:32 times more on healthcare. So we've got this real issue. We're eating. We have these 25:35 incentives for the cheapest possible food riddled with these chemicals. And that 25:42 That was a big issue. 25:44 You know, Tony Fabrizio did a poll, 92% of Republicans want to regulate pesticides. 25:49 I mean, this is a universal issue and a real mandate for the MAHA movement when Trump, 25:54 the President Trump, during the endorsement ceremony, he said specifically we are going 26:00 to look into pesticides, we're going to clean up the pesticides. 26:03 This is a top issue. 26:06 So kind of in the administration, the first thing we had was the MAHA report, which 26:11 which was just basically listing what President Trump said he wanted to look into such as pesticides. 26:16 And it was the greatest fight I've ever experienced up to that time in my life to have the word 26:21 glyphosate in that report. 26:24 And the amount of almost violent reaction against that from industry, calls to Susie, 26:31 calls to everyone, to have that were not even have it in the report, not even have 26:36 heavy government report, mentioned that this could potentially be a problem, was the biggest 26:41 policy battle I had seen up to that time, just a word. 26:45 Just a word. 26:46 Yeah. 26:46 But it's very clear the health dangers, of course, say. 26:50 There is no, I would say there is actually no medical disagreement on that. 26:56 But you have to understand the EPA hasn't reviewed glyphosate in close to 30 years. 27:02 And they currently say that it does not cause cancer. 27:05 Now, five years ago, it was up for review, and they were going to review it, and they 27:10 said, no cancer. 27:11 Then it came out in court that Bayer, the maker of glyphosate, ghost wrote research 27:16 for the EPA report and bribed EPA officials. 27:20 So Bayer right now is running PR campaigns saying, attacking Bobby, saying we can't 27:24 have a misinformation. 27:25 We're the pro-science company that literally the last review of glyphosate was thrown 27:29 out because they ghost wrote research. 27:31 The amount of pressure, and this is the first thing I realized, the pressure was not even 27:38 on policy, on glyphosate and pesticides. 27:42 They didn't want any inquiry. 27:44 And this is where bipartisan senators come in from agriculture states. 27:48 There's tremendous pressure on the NIH not to study it. 27:51 I'm saying like people are threatening appropriations if we even look into it. 27:55 The amount of aggression to not legitimize this topic, and it hasn't been legitimized, 28:00 The MAHA report literally saying that glyphosate might be a problem was the first time the US 28:06 government has actually ever recognized even that potential reality, but it was totally 28:10 watered down. 28:11 So that's the first step. 28:15 The industry is very concerned because there have been lawsuits that have been settled 28:23 for billions of dollars that prove that this chemical gives people, especially kids, in 28:31 many cases, cancer. Those lawsuits are threatening Bayer. And the top issue for them was getting 28:40 those lawsuits off their back. So they worked to go state by state and pass laws, jam laws 28:47 through, giving them legal immunity, basically enabling, making it the second product after 28:52 vaccines in America that you can't sue for. 28:55 And even in most deep red, very agriculture states, this was a step too far, so they had 29:01 trouble passing these bills in the states. 29:04 Then they tried to jam something into the farm bill in Congress. 29:08 And there was such a maha uprising, including from Republicans that this just doesn't make 29:13 any sense. 29:13 They were having trouble getting it through Congress. 29:16 So I knew, you know, being at the White House as the maha person, I knew that 29:22 this was a politically explosive issue because it's obviously bad politics if the administration 29:26 looks like they're putting their thumb on the scale to provide a product that has been 29:31 proven to give kids cancer legal immunity. Obviously, that's a massive political loser. 29:37 So I chatted with Susie's team. I chatted with the USDA leadership. I'm like, we agree. 29:45 The administration at the very least should not be weighing in on this. We should not 29:50 be putting, that's a political disaster. Time goes on, and I was called into a room, and 30:01 Susie's person, Walker Bear, is there, and he puts an executive order down on the desk, 30:09 and he says, please review. And it was the Glyphosate EO that says as a national security 30:17 issue, we need to have glyphosate and allude it to liability protection using national 30:21 defense reasons. 30:24 National security, to make sure that we have glyphosate use. 30:28 And I will tell you, the secretary of war, the major generals, they don't see our lack 30:36 of glyphosate on U.S. farms as a national security issue. 30:39 And the EO was all about farming, all about glyphosate. 30:42 Nobody in military leadership sees this as a national security issue. 30:45 So Walker put that on the table. 30:49 I read it. 30:50 I said, this is a political disaster. 30:53 You know, we need to talk about this. 30:56 And he said, this is final. 30:59 It's national security. 31:00 It's coming out tomorrow. 31:02 There are other people in the room. 31:04 And he said, please inform Bobby, 31:06 and this is not up for discussion. 31:08 And Bobby should not be calling the president or calling 31:11 anyone this is not up for discussion. 31:12 Suzy then called Bobby's office 31:14 and said, we're not discussing this. 31:17 I went and informed Bobby and it was announced the next day. 31:22 Around the same time, the Supreme Court was deciding whether to take a case that revolved 31:33 around liability protection for glyphosate. 31:36 I, again, over previous months had talked to many people and said this is a political 31:40 disaster because the Trump administration had a decision of whether to weigh in on that case. 31:46 So the Supreme Court probably wasn't going to take the case. And when the Trump Department 31:49 of Justice, when the President's Department of Justice weighs in, they can basically weigh in 31:52 and say, please take this case. And it was basically hinging on whether the administration 31:56 weighed in and said, please take this case. And the administration can weigh in on cases. 32:00 The Biden administration chose not to. So we just follow suit. This is a political disaster. 32:06 Heide Overton, who now is Susie's, you know, person, who's now up for the FDA commissioner, 32:18 worked with the Department of Justice to construct a legal argument about why this Supreme Court 32:27 could take the case and why they should be supporting liability protection for the 32:35 consult Bobby Kennedy on that. And the Department of Justice brought in a lawyer named Sarah 32:43 Harris to the Solicitor General's office. Sarah came from the law firm that is Bayer's 32:49 main law firm and she wrote an opinion saying that the Supreme Court should take the case 32:54 and give liability protection to Bayer. And that came out. So both of these things 33:02 things were completely done without Bobby Kennedy throughout any policy process. 33:08 So did they get the liability protection? 33:10 Yeah, the Supreme Court ended up siding with the case, which they wouldn't have taken 33:13 without that brief and urging from the administration to take it. 33:17 How is that possible that something that gives people cancer that's known to give 33:21 people cancer gets liability protection? 33:25 It's indefensible. 33:26 We've talked about it on the podcast before, but the idea that your food system in order 33:30 for a defunction, it relies on poison is really insane, especially when you realize that that's 33:36 not being used in other countries. 33:39 Well, here's what I'd say, Joe, it's even, you know, again, I'm not, I'm a realist. 33:45 You know, I wasn't in there to argue for unreasonable things. 33:50 We have a very complicated interconnected economy. 33:54 I even buy the argument, right, that we can't ban this stuff tomorrow. 33:58 You know 99% of corn is sprayed with that 98% of soybeans 34:02 It's used in other countries. It's a lot less 34:05 What's also used in wheat which is really crazy and they use it for post. Yeah. Yeah the desiccation 34:11 Yeah, which is really insane. Have you seen there's a 34:15 Case of a young man who had glyphosate spilled on him and his neck and everything 34:22 Swole up and he had like yeah shoot it this insane reaction that a lot of people saw online. They thought it was fake 34:29 They thought this was like oh, this is either AI or this is like, you know 34:34 Someone put prosthetics on this young guy, but no this guy 34:37 There was some sort of an accident and glyphosate spilled on one side of his face 34:43 So you could find it 34:46 Seeing it and meme someone try to find 34:48 and a non-meme source. 34:51 Okay. 34:51 What I was going to say is this wasn't a crazy stance to ban anything. 34:57 It was about whether people could sue if they get cancer. 35:02 In a free market, to me, that's a perfect dynamic. 35:06 We're not banning it, but there needs to be in a free market recourse if it's causing 35:12 harm for the externalities. 35:13 So it actually was a perfect situation that we had the legal system taking lawsuits and adjudicating and 35:21 By cutting that out 35:22 it's actually an assault on the market because I was actually happy with that's happening the mahas putting pressure on glyphosate there's 35:28 Lawsuits which is appropriate and they're gonna invest and they're gonna figure out something different and that's happening to a large degree 35:34 There's been a lot of success of the maha movement like every borderman America realizes that like people are pissed off 35:39 But but to take the legal recourse out to make it the second product after vaccines where I mean 35:44 What what does that say to moms whose kids have cancer? You can't even sue 35:48 So this is the young man Tennessee teen drenched in 35:54 Oops Tennessee teen drenched in glyphosate spent next seven years fighting massive alien tumor 36:01 Just months after being completely doused by glyphosate while working on a cell tower maintenance crew 36:06 Tennessee teenager Arden Allison developed one of the worst cases of Hodgkin 36:12 lymphoma his doctor had ever seen. Arden and his mother told CHD.tv how the 36:19 seven-year battle transformed them into outspoken advocates pushing to get this 36:24 disgusting poison out of our food supply. Look at him on the left, look at the 36:29 side of his face that is fucking insane. 36:35 We're hitting a precipice right now because the top issue in Iowa right now is that they 36:41 have the highest cancer rates in the world. 36:43 So this is happening. 36:45 Iowa has the highest cancer rates in the world. 36:48 Of any geographic location in the history of human civilization across the world, 36:54 Iowa, and Kentucky, and other U.S. farm states had the highest cancer rates of any location 36:59 in the world. 37:01 And this substance just got liability removed. 37:08 After paying Ballard a ton of money. 37:15 Wow. 37:16 If you pull up Courtney Nupp, K-N-U-P-P, Soybean. 37:22 Have you spoken to Trump about this? 37:24 This episode is brought to you by NOCO, your miles from home. 37:28 You turn the key, nothing, dead battery. 37:31 Normally that means finding another car, 37:33 someone willing to give you a jump 37:34 and dealing with old jumper cables. 37:37 But what if you didn't need any of that? 37:39 Keep a NOCO portable jump starter in your glove box 37:43 and jump start your car yourself. 37:45 No cables, no second vehicle, no waiting for help. 37:49 It also works as a power bank 37:51 and has a built-in LED flashlight. 37:53 NoCo, the end of Jumper Cables. 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This offer is for new customers only. 39:21 Well, this is what's really interesting. 39:25 I 39:26 seeing this workout 39:27 had a strong 39:31 suspicion that this was happening under his nose and 39:35 and we had a meeting with him and Bobby and some other folks and a farmer who 39:42 was there, a regenerative farmer, brought it up and President Trump reacted to the 39:50 Supreme Court decision saying it's a terrible idea how the hell did this 39:52 happen had no idea the Department of Justice and I think it's it's 39:58 problematic, and I will say certainly what I saw when President Trump heard about an issue, 40:04 his inclination was right. 40:07 And the people around him, I think, treat him horribly. 40:12 They treat him like they talk about him like a baby. 40:15 And they say it's because we're the political experts, but Trump wanted to go hard on investigating 40:21 vaccines. 40:22 Tony Fabrizio got paid by pharma and did a poll saying that it's not a popular issue, 40:25 and Susie and Tonya Fabriza in that world put a full halt for a year on any vaccine inquiry. 40:31 The president busted that up just like he did with the psychedelic thing. 40:34 The president did not know about the Department of Justice memo. 40:41 He didn't know about the Supreme Court ruling on glyphosate. 40:46 And he didn't know that the administration supported it. 40:48 His reaction was that that's a terrible decision. 40:51 Did he investigate and find out who was responsible for that? 40:53 I can't speak to that. 40:54 But I can listen the present I'm not making he has a lot going on. Yeah, and and and this is like 41:03 I've never seen him be presented an issue on the maha stuff and I'm gonna speak to maha stuff and not his inclination not to 41:09 Go hard. It is clear that 41:13 the glyphosate 41:15 example 41:16 Is a case study of what is happening throughout the maha agenda and the health agenda 41:22 Canada, but also throughout the entire government. 41:29 But did Americans vote for this extremely not transparent process where we have immunity 41:42 for pesticide makers be jammed down our throats with no public discussion? 41:47 At the very least, I think they voted for Bobby Kennedy with me and others at the 41:53 table with whoever's arguing for the liability to have a discussion for the chief's staff 41:58 office to level that up to the president if there was an impasse and a real discussion. 42:05 But what they frequently did is they tried to take Bobby out of the discussion. 42:10 I mean, again, Susie's person sat me down, put the EO on the table and said it's not 42:15 up for discussion. 42:17 Bobby was put in a really tough place. 42:20 It is just extraordinary to me that people who were not elected can have that kind of 42:29 power where they can push something through the Supreme Court where the president doesn't 42:33 even know about it. 42:34 And it's something that the mass percentage of our country that doesn't have a vested 42:39 financial interest would not want to happen. 42:41 Like that that is something especially the legal liability protection 42:47 There's there's a I don't if you had a vote just an if you we just had a wide-scale 42:55 Country vote I think would be like off the chart 95% we have polls we oppose and 43:02 the 5% like who the fuck are those people like 43:06 This is not something that is necessary. It's something that's necessary with the way the current system is structured 43:13 It doesn't mean that this is the only way to do it 43:16 It's not like this is the only way to grow food. People have been growing food throughout human history 43:21 The idea that the only way that we can grow food in the United States of America 43:26 The greatest country the world has ever known is we have to grow food with poison 43:30 Listen, because there's some corporations that profit off of this and that use this. 43:38 This system does not want us to know the truth and they don't want us to talk about this 43:45 stuff openly. 43:45 Again, the other massive pressure from the industry was just not studying the issue. 43:51 Like, like when you have, listen, in order, we, everyone agrees corruption's a problem. 44:01 Polling says it's the number one issue in America. 44:04 Like you have to identify what the problem is before solving it, and there's a lot of 44:07 forces that don't want us to identify it. 44:09 Like I feel like it is vital to identify what the problem is specifically and how this 44:15 works. 44:17 Well, I agree with that 100%. 44:20 But I just, I don't understand how this can be happening right under his nose. 44:26 There's so much going on. 44:28 This is, like I said, it's just one small... 44:30 But I'm getting it to the Supreme Court and how do the Supreme Court agree on this? 44:36 There's 15, there's 15, you know, the government's millions of people. 44:41 The DOJ is one part of it. 44:43 The DOJ, one bureaucrat, could write a memo saying that the Supreme Court could take 44:47 this case. 44:48 But why would they agree to that? 44:49 That's what I understand. 44:50 Why would they agree to removing? 44:53 It gets into legal complexity in a law that's rigged saying that the EPA should have pre-eminent 45:00 authority over regulation. 45:02 So they go by ... The Supreme Court went by the law, which mentions that EPA should 45:07 be the dominant force. 45:10 And it's not really the Supreme Court's job to note that the EPA is rigged to the 45:14 point that Glyphosate hasn't been reviewed in 30 years and last review was thrown 45:17 out for a ghost or in research and bribery to EPA officials. 45:20 So the law itself says stuff about EPA supremacy. 45:25 The case was kind of technical, and they went off what the laws are, but the administration 45:32 and the memo from the DOJ to take the case made them take the case, and we would not 45:36 have had it if they didn't. 45:38 Jamie, do me a favor and put this into perplexity, please. 45:42 Ask, what is the amount of money spent on glyphosate in this country annually? 45:52 What do you think that is? 45:53 You mean like by farmers, like in farms? 45:55 Yeah, farmers, you know, all that stuff. 45:57 All the roundup sales, all that shit. 46:00 I mean, because it's available commercially as well for consumers, right? 46:05 You can still buy roundup, can't you? 46:08 It's being limited more, but yes. 46:11 Let's guess. What do you think the amount of money we're talking about here is that's 46:15 in use by farmers? Callie, what do you think it is? 46:20 I don't know what the fraud numbers are. I know that our agriculture system is dependent 46:24 on it. It's 99% of U.S. corn. 46:27 And they're dependent upon it as an herbicide. 46:31 Yeah. 46:31 And the seeds are genetically modified for not to kill. So a corn farmer, a soybean 46:37 soybean farmer, puts the seeds down, gets in their tractors, sprays, and then it kills 46:42 everything but the seed. 46:43 Here we go. 46:44 Worldwide annual spending on glyphosate-based weed killers is roughly $7 to $12 billion. 46:51 Seems well. 46:53 Is one universally agreed total global market inside estimate $6.8 billion. 46:59 million. 46:59 Insight 8 estimates 9.3, transparency market research estimates 12.4. 47:07 These are commercial market estimates, not an audited tally of everyone's purchases. 47:12 So there's not a clear number. 47:16 But either way, we're talking about billions. 47:20 Yeah. 47:20 And what the industry does, first off, they're an aggressive lobby. 47:28 I mean, you talk about when you're looking at the firms I mentioned, they're backing 47:32 up the truck. 47:32 Richard Walters, who came in and de facto chief of staff for a while, his former firm, 47:39 FSG Global, was paid by CropLife right before he left. 47:43 So they're backing up the truck on traditional lobbying. 47:46 The other thing that they have is that the large agriculture companies feel like it's 47:53 existential to maintain their lead in low prices, to have copious amounts of unregulated 48:00 pesticides and herbicides. 48:02 So they've bought off the senators from farm states. 48:06 You have an interesting dynamic where each state gets two senators, the small agriculture 48:09 states are actually overrepresented. 48:11 And a lot of this strategy was highly coordinated with those agriculture senators. 48:19 It's changing though, and I think a positive sign is my friend Zach Lane, he lost, but 48:24 he ran as a Republican governor candidate in Iowa, and his chief message was, we're 48:29 going to figure out what the hell is going on with Iowa's cancer rates. 48:33 And the number one issue in Iowa for the election was water quality because their 48:37 water in Iowa is undrinkable with all the crap and the water from all the runoff. 48:41 It's the number one issue in the state. 48:43 And actually both the Republican, this guy really led on the issue and the Democrat who won, both ran on 48:50 opposing liability protection and really figuring out what the hell is going on with the cancer rate. 48:54 So even in Iowa, the epicenter of this, you've got people pissed off, you know, 48:59 which is a point I made to, you know, the political folks at the White House. 49:03 It's, you know, this is clearly a political loser to do. 49:08 And I don't even think it's right on the politics of the farmers. Like farmers don't like cancer. 49:13 And this is not banning anything, like again, I can't stress this enough. 49:16 This is literally whether there should be a legal recourse. 49:20 That's it, 95% issue, but it's one case study, but Joe, the problem, there's thousands of 49:31 these issues, there's thousands and thousands and thousands of these things. 49:37 And they're all very similar in that way. 49:39 I'll talk about more stories, but I can give stories from my... 49:42 And I think more people should have the courage to say what's going on. 49:46 I think there's way too much of a culture of just going along with the system. 49:51 Like, I mean, you tell me, are we at a time right now or it feels like we're just going 49:55 to be status quo for the next four years, I'm worried about socialists taking over 50:00 because I think unless the Republican Party actually has an anti-corruption plan to actually 50:04 fix this, Americans are going to vote for a different solution. 50:07 They're going to vote for something different than whatever's defending the current. 50:09 You know, Republicans are, you know, responding to social, oh, we, you know, we support free 50:14 markets. 50:14 It's like talking points from 20 years ago. 50:16 We don't have a free market in healthcare. 50:19 We don't have a free market in agriculture. 50:21 We don't have a free market in housing. 50:23 Like, we don't have that. 50:25 If the Republican party does not listen to what Trump said during the campaign, 50:30 stop trying to subvert him, but actually, you know, try to do what he said and 50:34 resonate with voters on, we're screwed. 50:36 Before you have a free market, you have to fix this structural problem. 50:42 It's actually what President Trump is saying is very similar to what the people on the 50:47 left are saying, to what AOC, LSA Ed is saying. 50:50 They're saying, there's mass uniformity here. 50:53 Americans don't want this, but it is absolutely how it works, and I'm happy to get into... 51:00 It's just amazing that a small handful of people in the White House can have this 51:04 kind of an impact on the entirety of the population. 51:07 I don't think anyone would dispute that Susie's created with her team a historic amount of 51:15 top-down control. 51:16 I don't think anyone would dispute that, and I don't think many would dispute what 51:23 I'm saying about the general culture that's engendered. 51:26 I'm speaking for many staff members and cabinet secretaries in the Trump administration 51:32 right now. 51:33 Now, what is the support like for her from the president? 51:38 Does he understand this? 51:40 I think he was caught off guard by the fact that Susie approved her two top deputies to 51:47 go collect hundreds of thousands of dollars from a foreign government. 51:50 I think he was caught off guard by that, and my intuition would be that information 51:58 information's been protected so much he doesn't fully understand all these micro stories, 52:03 nor could he. 52:04 I'm giving a couple of stories out of thousands, and this is the culture that has been created. 52:10 I mean, it's why we lost the midterms. 52:12 We have been discordant from what was run on two years ago that I believe President 52:17 Trump wants to be a great president. 52:19 I think actually there's a massive opportunity to correct the course and frankly take some 52:24 of the Democrats out there world that they want to, word that they want to fix 52:27 corruption and fix the swamp. 52:28 Like, I think there's huge opportunity. 52:29 We've got more time. 52:30 He's the president, you know, for longer, and I think his inclination is to go hard. 52:35 I think his inclination is to be a historic figure that he's suffered greatly and wants 52:39 to do that. 52:40 There's still time. 52:42 But Joe, like, you know, I don't think anyone would say that I wasn't one of the most 52:46 effective internal patient policy advocates in the White House. 52:50 I got a lot done. 52:52 I worked well with people. 52:53 You know, Susie sent me a text, you know, saying how much she admired me when I left 52:57 and asked me not to speak negatively of her. 53:01 You know, but, you know, I was praised by the USDA, praised by the White House, praised 53:05 by HHS. 53:06 Like, I tried and I feel like the most important thing we can do, again, it's either, they've 53:12 got the corporate money. 53:13 They've got the complete and utter stranglehold of the DC, you know, environment, which 53:19 is demonic. 53:20 It's demonic. 53:20 We have you we have truth getting out there like and shaming the system shame works 53:27 Like the truth getting out there actually works changes culture 53:30 We have to get the truth and have real conversations in America. We have to have some bravery 53:36 That's what I believe 53:38 Even if he removed the people that are responsible is are there people that could replace them that would change course? 53:45 Or is it... 53:48 No. 53:51 Americans need to understand that if they are getting whipped up and excited about policy 53:57 promises through our existing structure, they are being duped and gaslighted and lied to. 54:01 We need to have systemic reform. 54:03 We should not have it legal to have government advisors, influential government advisors 54:10 taking money from foreign governments. 54:13 I think 95% of people would agree that we need a constitutional amendment. 54:18 Why do we have this? 54:19 Why do we have corporations able to totally rig the system? 54:23 The founders, I've been reading the Federalist Papers, I don't see what I'm saying as a pessimistic 54:28 thing. 54:28 America wasn't founded on idealism. 54:30 The Federalist Papers are deeply skeptical of human nature. 54:34 The entire founding of our country and constitution was based on the premise that humans 54:38 are corrupt, humans are really bad. 54:40 like their motivations are bad and they created sets of checks and balances for 54:45 that. The administrative state and the kind of what's happened has gotten out 54:49 of control. I think the founders would be shocked that we have had so few 54:52 amendments and structural changes to our system as we've modernized and we have 54:56 to do simple things that 90% of people agree with. The hardest things to get 55:00 done actually are not the partisan issues but the things actually most 55:06 people agree with because the swamp doesn't want that and I cannot express 55:09 How broken the Senate and Congress are like they don't go against special interests 55:14 So why is that? 55:17 Senator spends 90% of their time fundraising 55:21 Senator spends 90% 90 yeah, and you know in the original 55:28 Founding the Constitution 55:30 Senators weren't directly elected. They were appointed by state legislators 55:33 So you voted for your state legislator and then they would appoint a senator 55:36 So, there was actually a little bit of a buffer and you had to rely on your state legislator. 55:43 During the populist era, the 17th Amendment Pass which did direct election, I think that's 55:48 a disaster. 55:49 I think we should go back because a senator's 90% of their time is not being spent with 55:54 voters. 55:55 It's being spent on this, and I think it's a little bit of a game where everyone 55:59 in D.C. convinces themselves that money is more important than voters. 56:02 Again, that's the Suzy Wiles premise. 56:05 Directly. 56:05 Callie, we can't do this, I need sugar money." Direct quote. I need the money from the sugar 56:10 people to win them at terms. So I think it's a lie. You know, Trump has won elections with 56:18 much less money. I think the message and actually what you're promising and what you're 56:21 doing matter a lot more. What gives me hope, we will get nothing out of Congress. Nothing. 56:29 You are deluding yourself if you think Congress is going to pass some major bill to constrain 56:33 themselves to structurally change. 56:34 There's an incentive for a presidential candidate to really run on reform because they are trying 56:38 to be popular to the mass space of people. 56:41 And I do think there's an effort for President Trump, for additional presidential candidates, 56:46 to run on actual structural reform to blow up D.C. Why do we have super PACs? 56:52 Can we pull that? 56:53 Do Americans want super PACs? 56:54 Do Americans want Bayer rigging the political system? 56:58 Can we have a conversation about just flat out corporate money and politics? 57:04 Other countries don't do that. 57:08 Why can't we have a one-page constitutional amendment to start structurally changing these 57:14 things? 57:15 What would that entail? 57:16 How would that be passed? 57:19 How would you get people on board that are already compromised? 57:22 You have to have the president run on it as a mandate, as a central campaign promise, 57:26 promise, and say, this is my central campaign promise. 57:29 We are going to have this simple document passed. 57:34 The document needs to be 100% bipartisan. 57:38 It has to go after corporate money versus the same amount they go after union money. 57:43 It needs to be totally up the fairway, 90% issue about corruption in politics and 57:49 structural reform of money and politics. 57:51 They pulled that. 57:52 It's the number one issue in America. 57:53 But how would you ... 57:55 win on that issue, and then they run, it's so important what a president runs on, right? 58:00 And that's, I think, the disconnect with the people being frustrated in the past two 58:03 years with the president. 58:03 The president has a lot of power on what they marshal the country's attention to and run 58:06 on. 58:07 This is no more an issue in America. 58:08 So they run on that. 58:09 They should say, this is going to Congress the day I get into office, and I'm not 58:14 signing a fucking bill until Congress passes this. 58:18 And if you vote for me, this is a mandate to actually pass structural reforms. 58:23 And they hold congresses and shame. It's shame. They shame 58:28 Congress to do it. That's the only way it will work Congress will never originated themselves 58:31 It needs to be a very popular president with a mandate to get this thing passed and it needs to be extremely simple one page 58:38 Starting to chip away at this. That's it. This episode is brought to you by onyx hunt 58:42 Do you hunt or recreate outside or are you in real estate or other fields where you need to know property boundaries? 58:49 reason or ownership? Listen up. Millions of hunters, including me, use the On X Hunt 58:55 app and here's why. It turns your phone into a GPS that works anywhere, even without cell 59:00 service. You'll see exactly where you are in relation to every property line as well 59:05 as who owns the land. No more second guessing boundaries or wondering what's over the 59:10 next ridge. Whether you're chasing elk out west or hunting whitetails in the 59:15 Back 40, ONNX Hunt delivers 3D and lidar mapping, 59:20 custom waypoints, and more. 59:22 And new this year in app location sharing, 59:25 so you know where your buddies are in real time. 59:29 The best hunters are prepared. 59:31 That's what this app does. 59:33 It turns guesswork into a plan. 59:34 I use it every time I hunt. 59:36 Before your next hunt, get on ONNX Hunt. 59:40 Download it today. 59:41 Use code JRE for 20% off your membership at onxhunt.com. 59:48 I think a part of the problem is most people are not aware of how significant all this is. 59:54 Most people are not aware of how deep this web goes. 59:59 Like what you're saying right now that you're so eloquently articulating, 60:03 most people do not have this information available to them. 60:06 And most people have very idealistic narratives as to what their party represents and what 60:15 their politicians represent. 60:17 And I don't think they really truly understand the extent of the influence that money has. 60:22 It's almost like a vague notion that we have to take money out of politics, right, sure. 60:28 But do they actually understand the extent of how intertwined it is and how difficult 60:35 it would be? 60:35 and just imagine the resistance a presidential campaign would receive from whether it's Congress 60:45 or whether it's lobbyists or whether it's all this money if they knew that this guy's 60:50 going to get in, this woman's going to get in office and kill the gravy train. 60:54 But it's hard to have that pressure when you're saying something that's demonstratively 60:58 obvious and everyone agrees with. 60:59 That's what I tried to do with MAHA, right? 61:01 I tried to focus on the big things first. 61:03 I tried to focus on issues which made people like Susie and Tony look stupid for disagreeing with. I mean, they were going to battle on school lunches 61:10 They were going to battle. What were they saying? 61:14 There was dozens of meetings and calls saying that taking junk food out of school lunches would hurt 61:21 The companies that sell junk food. Yeah, and and when I left today 61:26 I left the stocks of the major junk food companies were up 8%. Oh 61:29 Oh, that's so dirty. 61:36 So they know. 61:37 No, no, no. 61:38 But these... 61:39 And my... 61:40 I thought we were operating at a rational... 61:42 Again, I'm not a zealot, I'm not immune or I'm not blind to DC dynamics, right? 61:51 Having the right argument in DC doesn't matter, but it's... 61:55 We have Bobby Kennedy's coalition. 61:57 It's popular. 61:57 It polls well. 61:58 And we look really stupid for not improving the school lunches or getting the ultra 62:04 coalition is probably the only thing that's still supported. 62:08 It's the most popular part of domestic policy for Republicans. 62:11 Bobby Kennedy is the most popular figure by far in the Republican Party. 62:16 Yeah. 62:17 I think Democrats are stupid to be attacking, they're saying they want to impeach him. 62:21 Bobby Kennedy, you look at Ballard's money that they're paying for the special interests, 62:27 it's all against Bobby Kennedy. 62:28 Like he's fighting what everyone wants to fight and would gladly work with people across 62:35 the aisle and is the most popular, he's actually the most popular, according to Harvard Harris 62:39 poll, the most popular public official in America today. 62:44 So there was a tremendous energy to diminish his impact on the election, to diminish him. 62:55 I think based on some of these dynamics we're talking about, the Republican Party is not 63:01 going to exist unless we listen to what Trump said during the campaign and become a anti-corruption 63:07 party. 63:08 You cannot have a free market without fighting corruption first. 63:11 Do you think it's possible this deep in the administration, here we are, it's November 63:15 2026, just after the midterms, do you think it's possible to course correct now? 63:20 Now? 63:20 I think it's possible for President Trump to exercise the Tallahassee lobbyists from the 63:24 White House. 63:26 And replace them with who? 63:28 This is the point earlier. 63:29 Like, is it possible? 63:31 There's some good people in the White House. 63:32 There is a lot of people that are very frustrated. 63:34 There are people that would not sell him under the bus for a foreign government. 63:38 Okay. 63:38 But if he did remove these people that you highlighted, that you say are the issue, 63:44 you. Are there people that you could get into place that would not immediately be compromised? 63:51 You need ... We have to get to a moment in America where presidents are running on true 63:57 institutional reform. There's two ways that you can drive institutional reform in this 64:01 country. One is, as I mentioned, the president jams it down as their top priority. There's 64:06 actually a second route in the Constitution where states can create a constitutional 64:10 amendment without Congress at all. It's never happened, but if two-thirds of states actually 64:15 vote to have a constitutional convention, they can meet all 50 states and pass amendments without 64:23 the federal legislature. It's actually an issue that I think a lot of people should look into 64:28 that's very interesting. But those are the two routes we can have in institutional form. 64:32 My thesis is I think Trump, President Trump can save this presidency, can change staff and 64:38 get back on more of an America-first fighting position against the swamp and get a lot done 64:46 and maybe even get some things done with Democrats. 64:48 I believe that. 64:49 I think President Trump wants to be a historic figure and realizes that it's gone off course. 64:56 For true reform, my argument is we are deluding ourselves. 65:01 We're playing this game where we're just ping-pong back and forth between the parties 65:04 with an absolutely broken system in Congress. Again, can anyone name a bill that's really 65:11 taken on special interests that's actually been really populous in the past 20 years? 65:15 It doesn't happen. It will not happen. So, you know, we've got to bring this to the 65:22 top of the conversation, and I think that's primed because these are the most important 65:28 issues in America. To your point about Americans and what voters think, my intuition 65:33 The question is that actually Americans get what's going on. 65:36 I think we can all feel that we're entering a consequential moment in American history, 65:41 and things are really fucking broken. 65:44 And I think people can buy into this idea that we're not going to have some civil policy 65:49 solves without real institutional reform. 65:51 And the institutional reform, again, starts simple. 65:53 Should we have super PACs? 65:55 Should we have the ability for corporations to completely buy off the political process? 66:00 Should senators be spending 90% of time fundraising should 90% of generals leave and immediately go become military contractors 66:09 It's that appropriate 66:11 Is that really 90% we're talking about we're talking about war and yeah, we're talking about these bad incidents 66:16 Oh, why do we have such a health care cost? Because the 20 people I worked with at HHS the I did a late laid them out 66:24 19 out of 20 will be lobbyists for the interest that we're trying to fight 66:28 the day after they leave. 66:30 And they're aware of this, and this is the golden parachute. 66:32 100%. I mean, it's just, these are things we learn about in sixth grade civics class, 66:36 but, like, everyone has motivations. 66:40 Every single person that Bobby Kennedy works with on healthcare policy, 66:45 almost to the person, maybe one or two exceptions, 66:50 will be working for the industries that Bobby Kennedy's trying to fight the day they leave. 66:55 And do you think that there's direct communication with these people to try to stop things or 67:00 do you think there's an understanding that there's an incentive to do things that are 67:05 beneficial for the industry because you're going to be leaving and entering into the 67:09 private sector as soon as you get out of public office? 67:11 Oh, one of my first couple months in D.C. I was invited to a dinner with Dave Ricks, 67:17 the CEO of Eli Lilly. 67:20 He's in D.C. every week. 67:22 He's in D.C. all the time. 67:23 And he practically lives in D.C. And I'm like, this is interesting. 67:28 I don't know if he knows that he's dealing with all, I'll go to this dinner. 67:31 Another White House staffer was there, a mid-level staffer. 67:34 I can see very clearly, he comes to D.C., he invites the staffers to dinner. 67:41 I expressed to him the opinions of MAHA voters to pharmaceutical incentives and how we have 67:45 a real problem that Americans are lashing out about, which is that our healthcare system 67:50 is incentivized for Americans to be sick. He rolled his eyes, talked to the other person 67:56 we were having dinner with. She ended up leaving the White House and becoming a lobbyist. He 68:01 feels people out. These CEOs are having dinner all the time with the mid-level White House 68:07 staffers, all the time. 68:10 And they're just figuring out who's going to pay for all of them. 68:11 Dave Ricks, the CEO of the largest pharmacy who could come, is in DC all the time having 68:14 dinner with mid-level staffers. 68:15 You go to the Ned club in DC that the special club there. I mean, it's just it's just staffers having dinner with lobbyist and CEO's 68:23 Yeah 68:24 Courtney Nupp 68:25 Courtney Nupp. I sent you Courtney Nupp soybean 68:29 So so you know on the glyphosate thing 68:34 This wasn't generals or Pete Hegg says saying we need to do on glyphosate you had this woman in Courtney Nupp 68:42 who was a staffer at the National Security Council, this, you know, congressional staffer 68:48 who became, you know, national security for agriculture. 68:52 She with Suzy drove the EO. 68:55 She's a national security, she then left and became the CEO of the soybean board, 69:04 which is the soybean board is a glyphosate lobbying group. 69:09 This doesn't even get attention, but that's who I was dealing with. 69:13 She currently serves as the Director of Global Supply Chain at the National Security Council, 69:21 USB's Board of Farmer Leaders, representing more than 30 states, ratified the decision 69:28 at its July board meeting in Indianapolis. 69:30 Yeah. And, you know, I think at these meetings, right, with her and with Susie's people, 69:39 I think about all the advocates, all the people that come on this podcast. It's like 69:44 all the people that, like, care about, like, this issue, like, people dying of poisoning. 69:49 And it's like these are where it happens and people like her are really, really, really 69:53 powerful and they just don't give a shit about like what, you know, you know, so many people 70:02 have advocated, you know, left and right, you know, and they just, there's hatred, like, 70:09 I don't think it's in their brains fully in their hearts, but there's like a hatred 70:14 in the system to like voters. 70:17 It's crazy. 70:18 Like, like, like it's demonic. 70:19 Like, she got this fake national security argument through and then goes and probably 70:27 makes millions of dollars, right, lobbying for them. 70:30 But I don't even understand the national security argument. 70:33 There's not one. 70:34 But how do they write it? 70:36 How do they write it out? 70:38 It was written by ... I mean, I assume it was written by Bayer. 70:43 But did you see the language? 70:45 What is the language? 70:46 How do you ... 70:47 Oh, they argue that the phosphorus, like something about phosphorus, which is a component 70:52 to glyphosate, is needed for munitions. 70:56 But the EO is all about how... 70:58 The fuck does it have to do with using it on corn? 71:00 I know. 71:01 Promoting the national defense by ensuring an adequate supply of elemental, phosphorus 71:06 and glyphosate-based herbicides. 71:09 This is the presidential actions from WhiteHouse.gov. 71:13 of, wouldn't it be possible to have a supply chain of phosphorus outside of this mandate 71:20 of ... 71:20 This was lobbied to send a middle finger to Mahaa and Bobby. 71:26 They could have ... The Department of War could have easily issued a guidance to shore up 71:30 supply chains of phosphorus, but then you go down, there's all this stuff about glyphosate 71:36 too. 71:37 So it's not mutually exclusive. 71:38 So elemental phosphorus is also a critical precursor element for the production of glyphosate-based 71:43 herbicides, which play a critical role in maintaining America's agricultural advantage 71:48 by enabling farmers to efficiently and cost-effectively produce food and livestock feed. 71:55 But boy, the way this is phrased is so crazy. 72:01 This is so nuts. 72:02 Yeah, it starts to talk about weapons and then quickly moves on to farms. Yeah, I see 72:10 Yeah 72:12 So it's a critical component for manufacturing 72:17 Semiconductors that are central to numerous defense technologies radar solar cells sensors opto electronics 72:23 increasingly important modern lithium-ion battery chemistries 72:30 boy and 72:32 so 72:33 So, when Trump was passing this, did you discuss this with him? 72:39 No. 72:40 This was Suzy Wilde's person sitting me down saying that this is the final, do not have 72:44 Bobby push anyone, Suzy calling Bobby's office saying, don't litigate this and that this 72:49 was getting out the next day and it was signed, there was no public signing. 72:52 So I can't speak to whether Trump, President Trump knew about this. 72:55 But doesn't it seem like you can sufficiently supply phosphorus? 72:59 No, of course, of course. 73:01 So it's not even worth... It's a joke, to joke. That's a joke. This was ballard. 73:10 How many countries are using glyphosate for their agriculture? 73:16 So again, this gets to the cool point. We are not arguing to ban it tomorrow. 73:20 The system, unfortunately, over the past several decades has become addicted to this chemical. 73:25 And Europe is aggressively trying to, and uses much less of it and is trying to get it out of their system. 73:30 But it is on the process of phasing it out much higher than America. 73:34 Also other major regulatory authorities have recognized the cancer link. 73:44 It is so notable that the EPA, right, and the review's coming up. 73:50 And HHS, I just will say this again, was extremely pressured in the run up to the 73:56 EPA review, not to study glyphosate, like by senators and other people. 74:07 People talk about like pro-science, like trust the science, like I'm telling you, like leading 74:14 nutrition policy, like leading food policy in the United States government, like we 74:18 cannot trust what we're hearing. 74:22 Like we can't. 74:24 It's broken. 74:25 This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. 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It's the number one issue. So it's like Flint, Michigan. Yeah 77:41 Same sort of deal. It's a massive issue and Iowa has the it's the second highest cancer rates in the 77:47 country, which means the world 77:51 If you look at a map of where glyphosates used and then a map of cancer in the United States 77:56 It's almost identical 77:57 What has the first highest good Ducky and the same thing. Yeah, they're like the same formula. Yeah 78:03 Yeah, it's all, it's all the farm states. 78:05 God. 78:05 Yeah. 78:07 And is it a specific type of cancer or is it just? 78:11 I think it's nonchopkins lymphoma is a big one. 78:13 Just like that young man got on his neck. 78:16 Good Lord. 78:17 It's evil. 78:18 And again, like, and this is what farmers 78:22 are starting to realize, right? 78:23 We had this monolith of like, 78:25 farmers don't want any touching of pesticides. 78:27 It's like, we pulled it. 78:28 Like farmers want to know why they're getting cancer. 78:30 sure. You know, can't we just be honest? 78:33 Who is the regenerative farmer that you guys met with in the White House? 78:37 We brought several regenerative farmers. John Lundgren, Will Harris. 78:42 Will Harris. 78:42 Yeah. 78:43 Yeah, that's great. 78:44 You know, Casey and I met through after reaching them out on your show. Some of those guys. 78:48 That guy spent 20 years converting his family farm from an industrial-based farm to regenerative. 78:55 It's possible. 78:56 Yeah. 78:56 And, you know, our policy was, you know, let's not remove the, let's have the legal route 79:03 and let's really promote regenerative farming and try to incentivize it. 79:09 There was several billion dollars that moved from the USDA and I will say, you know, Brooke 79:14 at the USDA, you know, has been, she was game, she dug in with us and I'm trying 79:19 to get some of this done. 79:20 She has her constituency, but, you know, I would say there's a lot of people, 79:23 You know that kind of want to move harder on things, but feel kind of constrained right now 79:27 But you know we I don't I don't want to take away from this like I think maha and like a lot of what we've done is 79:34 Nudging this forward, but we're not getting real change without institutional reform. It's too much 79:42 So let me take you back to the cabinet 79:45 What would be like I want you to imagine that Trump hears this podcast and says I want to talk to you 79:53 Tell me what we should do. 79:55 What do you tell him? 79:58 I would recommend that he clears house, and I think he's getting there. 80:04 You do? 80:05 What makes you... 80:06 I would... 80:07 It's fully my intuition. 80:08 I hope he's getting there. 80:10 I would say, Mr. President, you have suffered, you've been shot to drive significant change. 80:20 You've been dealing with a lot of things. 80:22 A lot of great things have happened. 80:23 important. We have had crime go to an all-time low. We have secured the border. We have combated 80:29 the woke mind virus, which is very important. There's a lot of cultural accomplishments that 80:35 we've made, but he still has an opportunity to do what he wants to do, which is go down 80:40 as a great president by really combating special interests, combating the swamp, combating 80:46 the real institutions of DC that he knows is broken. He should not be trying to 80:50 make friends with John Thune anymore, who's a demon, like the majority leader of the Republicans. 80:55 He knows. 80:56 He knows these people are broken. 80:59 He needs to go to war with Congress, go to war with the Senate. 81:05 Take some of the new lefties at their word that they are not taking corporate money and 81:09 really want to drive institutional reform, meet with them. 81:12 I think the best chance the president has to get things done is meeting with Bernie, 81:15 meeting with El Sayed. 81:16 They ran on a Trump message. 81:18 Like, if you close your eyes and listen to what the socialists are saying, they're, oh, 81:22 no, we don't want to do social stuff, we don't want to do DEI stuff, we want to help the 81:26 middle class, we want to combat the swamp. 81:28 They are running as Trump. 81:31 So there's an opportunity for the president to get back to basics. 81:36 I'm not going to name names on this one, but there's people in that administration, 81:43 and people that have left that will come back that want to drive historic reform. 81:49 Like at the mid-level, like there's a lot of people that joined to drive historic reform. 81:54 So this is not over. 81:56 But it just seems like from your description that all of these elected officials are contacted 82:02 and most of them are in one way compromised. 82:06 The next president is going to win by running against the Senate and Congress and this 82:09 is why I'm optimistic. 82:10 The president is unique because they're the only person elected by everyone, so they have 82:15 an incentive to say what's widely popular. 82:17 They have an incentive to say what's widely popular, and the most widely popular thing 82:21 you can do right now is actually run on blowing up DC. 82:24 So I actually do, just from an incentive standpoint, I actually have a lot of optimism 82:30 that we're going to get there on a true reform agenda, and I'm trying to jam this 82:36 out of the ecosystem. 82:36 system, we all need to get together in America to realize people can complain about President 82:43 Trump, people can complain about the Democrats. 82:45 The foundational issues are structural, and I think we all can feel that. 82:50 And unless people are talking about real structural reforms, if the rules of the game 82:54 are rigged, we're just going to keep getting a rigged outcome, and the rules of the 82:56 game are rigged. 82:57 And this is not what the founders wanted. 82:59 Like we are not taking into account what the founding document said. 83:02 The founders would be shocked that we haven't reformed more. 83:05 So we've got to have structural reform and I think there's a serious incentive to have 83:14 that more in the conversation. 83:15 And I think the president could frankly inject that into the conversation. 83:19 I think that there's an opportunity for him to do great things in the next two years 83:23 and I think he wants to, I really do. 83:27 I think he wants to empower Bobby Moore, I think he wants to empower the change makers 83:33 in the administration more. 83:35 I believe just my intuition is that he wants that and I think that'd be a good thing. 83:39 And what is stomping him from doing that? 83:45 I think, like he's the president, he's got a lot going on. 83:50 I understand that, but obviously there's some things that have made his administration 83:55 deeply unpopular with some of the American people right now. 83:57 This isn't to make an excuse, but you know, I spent every day with Bobby Kennedy 84:01 who is my hero. 84:02 So I left with more respect for him than ever. 84:09 Just full integrity, never seen him do anything that wasn't in the best interest in his mind 84:17 for the American people. 84:18 But I spent a lot of time with him. 84:19 He's got a 90,000-person agency. 84:22 He's surrounded by demons who want him out and want him just destroyed. 84:28 That's his staff. 84:30 Really? 84:30 Yeah. 84:30 Yeah. 84:31 It's not bad. 84:31 Yeah. 84:32 And Trump's sitting at 2 million people. 84:33 So his staff is all completely compromised. 84:35 Yeah. 84:35 Like for the most, especially the whole infrastructure, they were sending around a memo, a CIA manual 84:40 about how to be a bad bureaucrat and it's subvert in institution from within. 84:44 That's like sent around by all the career officials. 84:47 That's CIA memo. 84:48 They hate President Trump. 84:49 Yeah. 84:49 About how to be a bad bureaucrat and subvert from within by being incompetent. 84:53 Wow. 84:54 So just like taking that what I know, it's like, it's kind of, I'm not making 85:00 excuses for anyone, but it's like, it's kind of crazy, right? 85:04 It's like, what the hell do I do? 85:07 This is an unruly government and the president has orders of magnitude more than that. 85:14 So yes, I do think it's possible for him to recognize that there's frustration over the 85:25 past two years of not aggressively moving on the policies that he ran on that are widely 85:30 popular, that there's been a severe consolidation of power using the fact that he's very busy 85:38 to slow mini-policies down, and I, speaking for mini-cabinet agencies when I say this, 85:44 I'm going to give my, I'm happy to give more specific stories. 85:47 But yes, he can make a change to his staff. 85:50 The president knows who the people are that are not going to sell him out to 85:54 foreign government. The president knows the people around him that will try to go hard 86:00 to really drive some compelling change to have an impact on the country that he wants 86:04 to have. And I think there's actually opportunity, there's opportunity in the fact that the 86:10 president ran on saying the same thing that people on the left are saying, which are 86:14 actually not partisan. There's actually, there is an opportunity to get some things 86:22 done that are not partisan but anti-institution, like reformed institution. 86:28 I believe that. 86:29 I know there's been an incredible amount of resistance from the people that I worked 86:33 with to meet with him at the White House about Ibogaine and psychedelic use for veterans, 86:41 for people with addictions and all the things that we talked about during that historic 86:44 meeting. 86:44 He signed the executive order and everyone that's involved on my side is saying it's 86:53 unbelievably bogged down. 86:55 Oh yeah. 86:57 I would say that the psychedelic is moving more positively than almost any other issue 87:04 because the president is very engaged on it. 87:06 But you have an infrastructure that is trying to wait us out and bog down everything. 87:11 But out of all the issues, I am optimistic. 87:14 We've got, I won't even name them now, but just to protect them, but we've got people 87:19 I think you know, people that are good people, that are still in there, I'm communicating 87:24 regularly with that are flagging issues and making sure this goes through. 87:30 But it is an interesting issue, right? 87:31 It's like one small issue. 87:33 It is a massive issue because it's an issue for you. 87:37 And it's just like we shouldn't need that. 87:40 We're using that. 87:41 But I was using that a ton, get this fucking done right now, like the president wants this. 87:46 The problem is most issues don't get to that level. 87:49 But like Al-Avisate didn't. 87:51 But I mean, to me, the fact that Heidi Overton is now going to be the FDA commissioner was 87:58 trying to block psychedelics without understanding what they were, it's just a representation 88:03 of the demonic nature of DC. 88:05 This is one of the great things the Trump administration is going to do. 88:08 I promise you that there's people in there and me still, we're going to do whatever possible 88:14 to make sure that gets out, which means that there's a path to have some of the drugs reviewed, 88:20 that there's fast-tracked on the research, that this stuff gets out of the box, it has 88:25 to happen. 88:25 It's going to be one of the greatest accomplishments of the Trump administration. 88:28 I think so as well because I think it's going to change mankind. 88:31 I really genuinely believe this. 88:33 So I know people think I'm naive or that I have some very idealistic and utopian view 88:39 of what this stuff can accomplish, but we have a gigantic problem with people who have 88:44 drug addictions in this country, and it's one of the most effective things that's 88:48 ever been studied by far. 88:50 And I don't understand what the resistance is, so can you give me some information 88:54 about that? 88:55 Like what and who is trying to slow this down and put the brakes on it and why? 89:00 Why? 89:02 Yeah, so this is what I've been dealing with, the chatter you're getting. 89:05 I would say I think this is moving pretty well right now. 89:10 It's been unblocked. 89:12 You always have to be vigilant for institutional blockages, but all I'm hearing until my last 89:17 day is that things are moving about as well as they can. 89:21 Psychedelics was interesting because it wasn't a widely lobbied issue. 89:26 I think there was a little bit from pharma, because I do think it's very disruptive to 89:31 have a substance that can be potentially one time and just transformative. 89:35 It's not the usual pharma business model. 89:37 But it was just institutional resistance to doing anything new. 89:44 The top people at the White House, Heidi Overton included, didn't have a full understanding 89:49 of what they were, no interest. 89:52 She talked about these in the same class as street drugs. 89:55 I'm like people aren't doing recreational Ibogaine like that's not how it works 89:59 And it was the conversation we should talked about in the same classes. Oh, that's how her and other people that oh the president's 90:06 Anti-drug this is just putting another drug like on the street 90:10 Referring to it like a street drug that there's gonna be some that that was a mass White House talking point that got out from Heidi 90:15 And this is after I'd contacted him. No, no, no, this is before those this is so when you contacted 90:21 This is something we ran on this is something the president said good 90:24 But this had a halt from Heidi, Susie, this had a halt, you know, Susie, Heidi at one 90:31 point, you know, got very frustrated with the FDA commissioner, me, saying that, you know, 90:35 this just was going to be stalled. 90:37 There's nothing we can do about it, you know, invoking, everyone invokes the president 90:41 actually when they invoke Susie, you know, invoking the president. 90:45 So it was being stalled, there was a huge, there was a huge just paralysis to getting 90:51 anything innovative or new done. 90:53 And to me, this was demonic, right? 90:55 This was something, I believe this would be one of the great accomplishments of our time 90:59 getting this out. 91:00 I mean, it's something that I think we don't understand how societally impactful it can 91:05 be if done right. 91:07 So you called, people were very pissed about that call, kind of the cadre of White House 91:13 people. 91:14 At one point, a person said to me, this is an end run. 91:18 This is an end run of the policy process. 91:22 And I said back that you calling the president is not an end run. You represent a lot of people 91:28 You have your friend in the polls you help the president you have every prerogative to call the 91:33 president and that is not an end run the process and the president doesn't only need to meet with Ballard lobbyists 91:39 He actually can't talk to people like Joe and the president can take that into account and make his own opinion 91:46 But they were very upset that an external force came in 91:51 To push that 91:54 Yeah, I felt that yeah 91:57 And 91:58 That's how I tried to operate throughout again. It's either money or shame 92:04 You know with the dietary guidelines 92:06 With taking soda off snap with you know, we've gotten a lot of major food policies 92:11 You know the top item on food stamps is soda. Isn't that crazy soda? We took that off. Yeah, 30 states 92:18 You know, we had landmark food safety reform. 92:21 So we've gotten a lot of that. 92:22 What are the 20 states that didn't go along with that? 92:23 California's one. 92:25 Wow. 92:26 California's one. 92:27 Texas did it. 92:28 Super healthy California. 92:30 Texas, Governor Abbott, they were flying private jets of food company stomp not until 92:35 he did it. 92:36 Wow. 92:37 Yeah, Florida, blue states did it, but mostly red. 92:41 But every state should do that. 92:43 I mean, if Democrats are running saying that they're going to be more maha than 92:46 Republican, that every single state should do that. I mean, that is un-excusable that 92:52 we're, you know, Coca-Cola is making, you know, $8 billion or whatever it is from taxpayer 92:58 money to give so that the kids who are then on Medicaid and bankrupt the system and like 93:03 38% of teens have free diabetes. I mean, it's like, so we got, say that number, 38% 93:10 of teens in the United States have pre-diabetes. 93:15 Holy shit. 93:17 I mean, it's dark. 93:19 Holy shit. 93:23 That's crazy. 93:25 But for each of those things- Oh my god, 38% of kids have pre-diabetes. 93:33 I mean, so you're talking type 2 diabetes that's sugar induced, correct? 93:36 Pre-diabetes, yeah. 93:37 Pre-type 2 diabetes. 93:38 Oh my god. 93:39 It's recent USDA statistics. 93:42 It's the biggest issue in the country, and it's directly from incentives. 93:48 This is what was so popular, this is what's still popular. 93:52 Republicans we believe in free choice, but when 38% of kids have free diabetes, 45% of 93:57 teens are overweight or obese, 20% of young adults have fatty liver disease, almost 80% 94:02 of American adults are obese or overweight, we're beyond a personal choice issue. 94:07 We have a systemic breakdown and it's obvious. 94:10 We have snap that's 15% of Americans depend on. 94:14 It's number one item is soda, number two, three item is candy, top item is potato chips. 94:19 No other country does that. 94:21 So we're first feeding, then they're lobbying and we got the snap through, but again, it's 94:27 public pressure that I used. 94:29 I would threaten a lot that various people would get mad that we get bad press. 94:34 Like that works and sometimes it had to happen, but that's all that moves me. Nobody gives a shit 94:41 Like nobody gives a shit about these things 94:44 Like like you don't have meetings in DC and talk about those statistics and people say we better do something 94:51 Nobody cares like I cannot express to you how strong that is nobody gives a shit 94:57 All that matters is special interest money or that they're gonna get a bad article about them. That's it 95:03 So, that's what Maha did. 95:05 We had this, you know, people were worried that, you know, we might disappoint the voters 95:12 or have influencers get upset, and I tried to use that as much as possible, and Bobby, 95:17 we got a lot done, but like the ecosystem wants to expel any of this, like expel. 95:27 And, you know, I wish Democrats and Republican everyone would just kind of see, it's what 95:35 Trump actually, you know, talked about during the campaign, like, this is wider than partisan. 95:39 It's just like a structural problem. 95:42 But there's, you know, you can get into another story or two that's just specific 95:47 because I think the specific stories are helpful. 95:50 Okay, sure. 95:53 Another issue that was very unsettling was childhood vaping. 95:59 Are you familiar with that issue? 96:02 Vaping with kids. 96:03 Yeah. 96:03 You might see it with, it's rampant in high schools. 96:08 There's a study from one of the leading groups that they asked kids how many of your 96:12 friends vape, you know, by all the best statistics, it was about 50%. 96:16 50? 96:16 Yeah. 96:17 Yeah. 96:19 Holy shit. 96:19 So this survey asked, this is actually pertinent, it asked, do you vape? 96:26 It's like kids answering a survey, they're like, you know, it was like 5%, like what 96:31 percentage of your friends vape, 50%. 96:33 So I think any parent with high schooler sees that it's a huge, huge issue and it's, 96:38 you know, disastrous health impacts. 96:40 Also on the surveys, it's clear that it's all about the flavored vapes. 96:46 So, flavored vapes are very appealing to kids and like 70% of the kids said that people 96:52 wouldn't vape if they weren't flavored vapes. 96:56 So some of these folks I put up earlier, there's significant money flowing around to some of 97:03 the folks that I mentioned from the vaping industry. 97:07 It's a massive, massive industry. 97:10 And it's also the big tobacco guys are really getting into this and funneling a lot of 97:15 money to Ballard. So it was well known at the White House. I don't know if I think it's 97:20 Ballard, but one of the top firms. But it was well known. This is a tagged issue that this 97:24 was a big one. These guys are donating to the various causes. They're hiring the right 97:31 people. It was the single, in my opinion, the single most prioritized issue at HHS 97:37 among any health issue for James Blair, who's really has a stranglehold on policy. 97:42 policy has to go through them. 97:43 I'm talking like Medicare, health access, food, anything at HHS. 97:50 This was the top issue for the White House and the issue was to get a better pathway 97:55 for fruit-flavored vapes and there's a law from Congress that says before any FDA approval 98:05 you need to have a study saying that this isn't harmful to kids. 98:10 And Marty McCary, who was fired, was pounded on this, pounded on this, like meeting after 98:17 meeting West Wing. 98:19 Like he wasn't getting called up to talk about our dietary guidelines reform or healthy 98:25 food or anything that Bobby Kennedy talked about. 98:28 And James and other people, they said, this is where these guys being kind of immersed 98:37 in this world and then being the gate on policy but also the midterm strategy, he would 98:42 argue that approving vapes was a core midterm issue, that young men that you're listeners 98:50 I guess really want their kids, you know, they really want their fruit flavored vapes. 98:54 And this was an emphatic argument. 98:56 So this is the problem, right, when you have these people in charge of the polling, 99:00 in charge of the policy and they're using the midterms as a reason to jam vaping. 99:04 And I'm like, I'm thinking, I'm like, well, geez, I, okay, I helped. 99:09 I have never heard that once. 99:12 D number one issue. 99:13 That's cool. 99:14 Like, I'm not, this is the top issue among these people for all of health. 99:20 So I remember, I'm like thinking, I'm like, huh, I was pretty involved in the campaign. 99:26 I connected Secretary Kennedy and President Trump and, you know, was a top advocate 99:31 and put together the whole policy plan for the MAHA and polling, and I don't remember 99:37 vapes being, approving vapes being a top issue, but that was their argument. 99:42 When I brought up how we really need to cater to your audience who I felt like I was fighting 99:46 for and the MAHA voters and fast-track some of these ultra-processed food definitions 99:52 and other things, James told me that we really got to be careful because these guys have 99:57 played by the rules of the food industry and we don't want to beat up on them 100:00 too much. 100:00 And then Tony Fabrizio and other meetings said the juice wasn't worth the squeeze on some of those policies 100:05 But I'm vaping. No, no, this was a very important midterm issue. So Marty stood his ground 100:10 and and worked with work to kind of 100:14 Create some solution, but but stood his ground 100:18 He was later fired and 100:21 when he was 100:22 When he was fired 100:23 to Heidi Overton, you know, who really, you know, just kind of did whatever, Susie, that's 100:29 how you get ahead in DC, did whatever Susie wanted. 100:34 She wrote up a policy to relax standards on fruit-flavored vapes. 100:39 They released that, got sued by various people of the American Heart Association, 100:44 noting the law that you need to have studies saying this isn't harmful for kids. 100:47 And still to this day, it is a top issue. 100:50 James left, still very involved in it. 100:52 I've heard I can't substantiate this. I have heard that he's currently taking money from the vaping industry. He can deny that 100:57 I don't know 100:58 That's what I've heard. I'm not making that statement factually. I'm trying to be very specific 101:02 But Richard Walter to replace them. It's a stop issue. I mean, he's he's pounding 101:07 Trying to find whatever possible way we can 101:10 approve more flute favorite fruit flavored base 101:13 For the specific and it's it's it's not defensible like this is this is so those are on the market and kids buy them 101:21 So I want to be in the room when that guy's pushing that as the number one thing the thing is it's like normal 101:27 It's like I and I think I think you know I 101:32 Won't name everyone but like there's people 101:35 One of the guys say these people just and I don't mean this like in a 101:39 Really dismissive way these aren't the best and brightest these staffers they have tremendous power though, but they're just like 101:47 DC you know they play the game and 101:49 And, yeah, it's crazy. 101:51 It is crazy. 101:52 But this is happening on every issue and it's so antagonistic to, you know, the sin for 101:59 me is it's not even good politics. 102:01 This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. 102:03 Believe it or not, the holiday season is here again and that means you might need to fill 102:08 some seasonal roles fast. 102:11 Maybe you need extra cashiers or stockers or maybe something more unique like a 102:17 Lead Elf, or an expert gift wrapper, or a Zamboni driver. 102:22 Whoever you're looking for, whatever skills you need 102:24 to power through the rest of the year, 102:26 ZipRecruiter is one of the best places 102:28 to start your search, because you can try it for free 102:32 at ziprecruiter.com slash rogan. 102:35 And because ZipRecruiter helps sort through thousands 102:38 of resumes and applications, 102:39 showing you the most qualified 102:41 and interesting ones first. 102:44 There's even an option for candidates 102:46 to explain why they want the job. 102:48 Let Zip Recruiter find the right people for your roles, 102:52 seasonal or otherwise. 102:54 Try it for free. 102:57 Today at ZipRecruiter.com slash Rogan. 103:00 That's ZipRecruiter.com slash Rogan. 103:04 Meet your match on Zip Recruiter. 103:06 This episode is brought to you by ShipStation. 103:08 Black Friday is madness if you're shopping. 103:11 But if you're the person trying to get all those orders 103:13 out the door, that's a whole different kind of crazy. 103:15 That's where ShipStation comes in. 103:18 It's an end-to-end order fulfillment platform 103:21 that brings all your orders into one place. 103:24 So when volume spikes, your team is in scrambling to keep up. 103:28 More than one million businesses have used ShipStation 103:32 to get through peak season, scaling fulfillment up to 40 times 103:36 while cutting costs up to 30%. 103:39 It's the kind of tool that helps businesses stay in control 103:43 when things get nuts and every order matters. Peak season doesn't wait and neither should 103:48 you. Get ahead of it today with ShipStation and get 60 days free at ShipStation.com with 103:57 the code JRE. That's ShipStation.com code JRE. Taxes and fees apply. 104:05 like it's just it's bad it's just it's just it's just total 104:10 co-option total co-option yeah I mean this is its personal benefit 100% there's no 104:15 way shape or form you could convince anybody in this country that vaping was 104:20 the number one thing in the midterms but this was there this is like like from 104:24 my perspective like this is the issue that that orbit was freedoms to vape 104:28 yeah so so so and and you know it has ramifications for millions of 104:34 children. Also around that time that Marty was in the hot seat, the FDA basically sent 104:46 an application back on the Moderna mRNA flu vaccine. Did you ever talk about that? Okay. 104:54 So this is a big uproar among some of the MAHA folks, but Moderna was using their mRNA 105:00 technology to create a flu vaccine. 105:04 They had a joint venture with, I believe Blackstone, hundreds of millions into this drug. 105:14 The FDA reviewed it, and there were two major issues. 105:18 One is that the study, you always want to compare the drug to whatever the best standard 105:23 of care is currently, so whatever the best flu vaccine is. 105:26 and they purposely used a antiquated old one to make it look better. 105:33 And they got a warning, basically a letter from the Biden administration saying this isn't a great study design, they've been warned on it. 105:39 So that was one issue. The second is it didn't work. 105:42 It had a 0.8% absolute risk reduction, which is almost nothing, and a significant side effect profile based on the clinical trials. 105:50 So they weren't even comparing it to the standard of care. 105:52 Even though they rigged the study, I want to be careful with my words. 105:56 In my opinion, rigged the study, but I think that's safe to say given that they purposely 106:00 use not the standard of care for what it would be compared to. 106:05 Very very low based on that study risk reduction, like almost negligible, and then massive 106:12 side effects. 106:13 And what were the side effects? 106:15 So, it can't be definitively said, but there were deaths from the trial, yeah. 106:23 There were deaths in the trial group. 106:28 There were deaths in the trial group and a host of other issues. 106:35 And they were still trying to push it through. 106:36 So Marty said, didn't even reject it, said push it back, we need to do another study. 106:45 Unrelenting, unrelenting pressure from the Ballard world and all that. 106:53 If any special interest is watching and you're trying to rig the system unless it changes, 106:59 pay Ballard, pay Continental, Suzy's daughter, pay Checkmate, Chris Lisaveta's son, that's 107:06 another one that shot up. 107:09 And, you know, pounds Susie with the Nations and Calls. 107:12 Everyone knows this playbook. 107:14 It's an open secret in DC. 107:16 But that's what they did. 107:17 They followed the playbook. 107:18 The playbook's out. 107:20 And I remember, yeah, the new FDA nominee, Heidi, who was basically like Marty's intern. 107:27 Like Marty mentored her. 107:28 Marty like helped her whole career at Johns Hopkins, you know, as her advisor. 107:35 I remember she was sitting with Marty and me and and she basically said you know 107:41 this corporate pressure is getting so much like I don't know what I can do for 107:44 you anymore and I'm like okay this place turns you into demons like this place 107:50 just turns you into a demon like she was breaking with Marty because he 107:55 refused to bend on something that clearly like scientifically he did the 108:01 thing. Heidi wasn't reading studies or like, you know, doing any side- 108:06 She's just responding to corporate pressure. 108:07 And this is a vaccine that's going to go out and be called safe and effective. 108:12 And kill people. 108:13 And Marty was fired. Heidi drove the jamming through of a re-review where they set up 108:22 a sham advisory committee of, you know, run by this guy, the head of the vaccine center, 108:28 Caslow, was the head of vaccine for Merck. 108:33 He has a license plate that says, Vaccinate, where's an N95 mask all the time? 108:47 Every day. 108:48 That guy must be fine. 108:50 What kind of cars are you driving? 108:51 I don't know. 108:52 It's nice. 108:52 He's very wealthy. 108:53 I bet he is. 108:55 So he's in charge of vaccine. 108:56 So, you know, his group puts together a sham advisory committee says, oh, this is perfect. 109:01 And now it's proved. 109:02 Now that vaccine is safe and effective. 109:07 And you know, I was attacked by some of the MAHA people for not like vaccines weren't 109:11 my issue. 109:13 I'll tell you, like, we need to grapple with this and I'll just speak to everybody, 109:17 right? 109:17 Like, this is how it worked. 109:19 Nobody was looking at studies. 109:21 Like, the study was not good. 109:24 And due to political pressure, and the former head of Merck Vaccines, who's running the 109:29 Vaccine Center, who's never seen a jab he doesn't like, waving it through, like we have 109:34 a vaccine in the market that the FDA did not think was appropriate, or at least needed 109:38 more studies. 109:38 Like, that's how it fucking works. 109:40 And we need to grapple with that. 109:42 Like the Democrats are saying they want to trot Bobby in and talk about his vaccine 109:46 decisions. 109:47 I would love that. 109:47 Like, we need to have a real conversation here, but, you know, it's damn right people 109:53 have questions about this stuff. 109:56 And I can tell you, I have very little confidence, again, from being very close to the center 110:01 of this. 110:02 Like, we can't say with a straight face, these processes are legitimate. 110:06 And it's a real problem in this country where the liability protection has coincided 110:12 with an ideology. 110:13 And that ideology is that vaccines, it's like if you just have a product and you call it 110:19 a vaccine, it immediately gets respected. 110:23 90% of Americans distrust the pharmaceutical industry, right? 110:27 But there used to be a vaccine that actually trusts us declining, but like vaccine, okay, 110:32 that pulls well. 110:33 There's a huge effort among pharma to label as many things as they can a vaccine. 110:38 It's this weird thing, right? 110:40 Because of liability protection. 110:41 For liability production and because vaccine sounds once you're labeled that right, you know, it's like you can't question it 110:47 So so it's this weird thing which is and I think the left is actually going to change on this and frankly 110:52 the left used to be leaders on this issue, but 110:55 you know 110:56 I think they've really kind of lost the vaccine debate 111:00 They tried to bully Bobby into not talking about it, but he kept doing it 111:04 The president has been amazing at this. 111:06 Again, Tony Fabrizio put a block on any study, 111:11 like anything on vaccines, block. 111:12 Direct White House order, block. 111:14 The president unblocked that. 111:16 That's crazy. 111:17 Tony Fabrizio put a block 111:19 and he takes money from pharma. 111:21 It's on his website, there's website. 111:23 I mean, Pfizer's on his website right now, today. 111:26 So. 111:28 Look at that. 111:29 Corporate public affairs, New York Post. 111:31 This is his website. 111:32 Penn National Game. 111:33 This is the most... 111:34 Pfizer Pharmaceutical, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturing of America, Philip Morris, 111:40 Procter & Gamble, R.J. Reynolds, Tobacco, Vaping, Heritage Foundation, wow. 111:46 Most powerful, one of the single most powerful people in the country. 111:50 Dow Chemical. 111:50 Full veto on any policy. 111:53 Every cabinet leader in the Trump administration is working to get his approval. 112:02 He's taking that money today. 112:03 I don't know if the president knows that 112:10 But uh, yeah, so um 112:15 That's the mRNA I've got another one give me another one you know about cratum. Yes. What do you think of? Well? 112:24 I'll I have a story. I've told the story if you've heard it before I apologize no listeners 112:29 There's this guy that I had on my podcast, nice guy, and he had Kratom, and he was telling 112:35 me how great it was. 112:36 He's had previous addictions, and I go, well, what does it do? 112:40 Oh, well, at low doses, it acts as like a mild stimulant, like coffee, at higher doses. 112:47 No, this guy's had problems with addictions. 112:50 And I go, okay, how much should I take? 112:52 Well, he says, well, when you're about to do a podcast or something, take two. 112:56 So I take two of these little capsules, and I'm like, hmm, it's kind of interesting. 113:00 All right. 113:01 There's something going on. 113:02 It does something, a little bit of a stimulant. 113:04 And then I tell him, I go, yeah, it's kind of cool. 113:06 I go, what do you take? 113:08 And he goes, when I work out, I take 10. 113:11 So I go, 10. 113:13 I go, you take 10? 113:14 I go, what does that do? 113:15 And he goes, oh, it's great. 113:16 I don't have any problem with it. 113:17 I go, really? 113:18 10. 113:20 So, you know, I'm a crash test dummy. 113:22 I'm like, I'll take 10. 113:23 So I took 10. 113:24 And I was like holy fuck dude. I'm like you're high and I talked to him and I said hey man 113:30 You're not sober. This is not sober. I'm like it was a weird high 113:34 It wasn't affecting my motor skills. It was really interesting. It wasn't affecting my which is I understand 113:40 I guess he lifts weights on it 113:42 It wasn't affecting my ability to like control my fine motor skills, but I was 113:48 100% in some way, shape, or form intoxicated. 113:53 I don't know what part of the opiate receptors it works with, but it's not that simple. 114:02 And then there was a bunch of these feel-free drinks that were going around the club, and 114:07 Duncan kept drinking them. 114:08 He was drinking them like incessantly, and I was like, I mean, I don't know about 114:11 these fucking things. 114:12 And then I started seeing all these lawsuits, and I started seeing all these people that 114:16 I got really addicted to him then we had a guy come in on and did an episode of the podcast and 114:21 Someone had sent us some cratum stuff, and it was sitting on the countertop next to the coffee machine 114:26 And he just immediately points he goes do not take that and I go really and he goes dude 114:32 I am so addicted to that shit. I can't get off of it and it's fucking horrible 114:36 He goes it's a horrible high, and I can't get off like I go real is I thought it was like a safe alternative to people 114:43 that were addicted to opiates and I have heard that from other people that are very functional 114:48 and they said they've had problems with oxycontin and oxycodone and all these pills in the past 114:53 but now they're taking cratum and they're fully functional and I'm like okay well I 114:57 get, I guess for them maybe but it seems like it's addictive at least for some people. 115:05 It's an opioid. 115:07 Just straight up. 115:08 It's a straight up opioid. 115:09 Okay. 115:10 Okay. 115:10 It's very... 115:11 It's called gas station heroin. 115:12 It is an opioid, period. 115:16 It is a legal gray zone, and I don't think many people know about this, but this is a 115:21 like $3 billion industry. 115:24 This is massive, billions of dollars. 115:28 Just in the United States? 115:29 Yeah. 115:30 Okay. 115:30 That's my understanding. 115:33 This is rampant right now in America. 115:36 Mark, many people probably do know about this, but this is an opioid and it comes from a 115:43 leaf. 115:43 You can concentrate the 7-O-H, which is the molecule, but it's through a legal gray area, 115:49 has been able to be put into products that are sold at gas stations, stores. 115:54 Juice shops. 115:55 Yeah, yeah. 115:55 That's where I first encountered it, was that a healthy juice shop in Los Angeles? 116:00 It's an opioid and it's causing devastation. 116:03 So people that have been coming off of drug addiction end up taking it, going right back 116:09 on the wagon. 116:10 It's causing deaths. 116:11 It's causing devastation. 116:12 It is an opioid. 116:14 This is a just black and white area we've been behind on, and there's no real discussion 116:23 among anybody in public health that this is a disaster. 116:26 So, this seemed like no-brainer, right? 116:31 The president is trying to push on opioids, it's devastating his voters. 116:38 And Marty had an amazing initiative and press conference where he was going to take this 116:46 on. 116:46 And he stood with moms who've lost sons and it was cross-government. 116:52 I mean, this is like, okay, great, this is early on, it's like, okay, this is no-brainer, 116:55 Let's just keep doing this stuff. 116:57 The amount of lobbying on this was unrelenting. 117:03 So you have these vape shop people and these companies that are, it's these guys that just 117:10 got in and just rode this wave. 117:11 I mean, when you're selling heroin, it's pretty addictive. 117:16 Well, not only that, this has been a long time going on. 117:19 This was before the pandemic because I saw it in Los Angeles. 117:22 Yeah, and I think I even bought it there before I think I even bought it 117:27 Not only that but those little bottles they're supposed to be two doses right and it's you can't see through the bottle 117:34 Of course, right? It's a dark glass 117:36 And so when you're drinking it like how do you what how you measure out two doses? 117:42 So this is the key. This is the key thing so what the FDA and DA and everyone did early on in the term was put a 117:50 extremely high 117:52 tolerance limit on the amount of the compound, a 0.05% concentration of the 708 of the core 118:01 opioid compound, because people still sometimes have drinks with the cratum leaf, which has 118:08 a trace amount and 0.05% is a very low amount. 118:11 You'd have to drink like 20 or 30 or 40, like a ton of the bottles to get a high, right? 118:18 So that went through as a big victory. 118:20 The unrelenting lobbying happened and this Susie world, huge pushing, huge, huge pushing 118:30 meetings, pushing from the West Wing to relax the standards. 118:36 And the administration, again, I don't think Trump even knows about this, they increased 118:42 the tolerance 20X. 118:45 So 20X versus what the recommendation was. 118:49 And that's clear then and everyone knows the game. That's that you know, maybe you have to buy two bottles 118:56 You know three and chug them to get the high but everyone knows the game there, right? 119:02 So then there's exactly why they lobby to do that and that that happened so we have vaping 119:09 You know 50% and you know 119:12 You know again, it's it's it's how big is the vaping industry like what is the massive? 119:18 So, it's becoming the whole tobacco industry. 119:20 They're all getting away from cigarettes and, you know, the Reynolds, you know, Altria, 119:25 the big players are now all in on the vaping, so they're, you know, hiring all the lobbyists 119:31 doing a lot. 119:32 So, nicotine is a very big business. 119:35 Yeah, but see, like, there's something uniquely addictive about, wow, well, e-cigarette 119:41 That vaping industry is estimated at 24 billion in 2026. 119:47 This is global. 119:50 Can we get it on the United States? 119:52 Is that available? 119:54 US tracked retail, 6 billion in 2025. 120:00 US electronic cigarettes and vape shots, 8 billion in 2026. 120:05 Fuck. 120:08 That's crazy. 120:09 easy. That's so much money. Wow. This cratum opiate effect, why is it so different than 120:21 I mean I haven't done oxycontins or anything like that but I did get an operation once 120:26 on my knee and they gave me a drip of morphine which is also an opiate and I remember thinking 120:32 this is crazy. This is all those nuts. It was so potent. It was so intense and 120:38 But I could totally understand why people get addicted to it. 120:41 It was one of those things like if you felt pain, you could press a button, so I was pressing 120:44 that fucking button. 120:46 I had a reconstruction on my knee, so it was like, who cares, let's get high. 120:52 But the cratum thing seems different, right? 120:56 Like what is the- 120:57 The high was different? 120:57 Yeah. 120:58 It's weird. 120:59 You're functional, which just felt so strange to me. 121:03 Maybe if you took more, I don't know. 121:05 Right. 121:05 I only took 10. 121:06 I don't even know. 121:08 I mean, these are capsules that this guy's company was making. 121:11 I don't even know, like, what the dosage was. 121:13 I can't speak to the impact of it or the differences, but it is an opioid. 121:19 I mean, that's under dispute. 121:22 It's a huge problem right now of people that have opioid addictions using this. 121:27 It's a massive problem. 121:29 The reports to authorities and incidents or skyrocketing in the past year, it's 121:37 It's a real societal issue. 121:38 You go into any of the blue collar states and this is a real problem. 121:44 So it's a multi-billion-dollar industry and it's a loophole for an opioid that you can 121:50 buy at gas stations and you have this 20x increase into what Marty solidified, which 122:02 is going to cause death. 122:03 I mean, it's going to cause nothing good. 122:05 And this is all obvious. 122:07 Oh, the unrelenting. 122:09 I mean, again, the playbook is out, right? 122:13 And I don't... 122:14 Again, I just... 122:15 I don't... 122:16 You shouldn't fault him for the... 122:17 I don't think the president fully understands... 122:21 I'm telling what I know and saw. 122:25 This is happening everywhere. 122:28 Like everywhere. 122:29 Like totally, totally unconnected parts of the government. 122:33 Like, this is what cabinet secretaries like complain deeply about. 122:40 It's a real, real problem. 122:46 Give me another one. 122:49 I sent you David Kessler's petition thing, the 60 minutes clip. 122:55 Do you have that? 123:00 This is a cool one or a cool policy. 123:03 You know, the whole promise of mahas that we build bridges and really solve, you 123:08 know, no brainer issues. 123:10 So I really worked to, you know, build bridges with Democrats and, you know, left-wing groups 123:15 because this is an issue, these issues have been talked about by everyone. 123:19 One guy that was a great ally was David Kessler, who is the FDA commissioner during Clinton, 123:25 who really took bravery and put his job at risk by taking on the cigarette industry. 123:31 This is the initiative, this is just a little bit about him. 123:34 I think it's ... 123:35 Where was commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration during the 1990s, when 123:41 he helped expose how the tobacco companies manipulated nicotine levels to hook consumers. 123:47 I am here to provide you with actual instances of nicotine control and manipulation in the 123:56 tobacco industry. 123:58 He was a driving force in bringing tobacco executives before Congress and turning 124:04 public attention to the industry. He's now aiming to do the same with the food industry. 124:10 In terms of a public health crisis, how does this compare with tobacco? 124:18 It's as large, if not larger. 124:20 It's that significant. 124:23 The scale of this, this affects everybody. Understand, not everybody smoked. Look at 124:30 the number of people who consume ultra-prostate food. 124:35 It touches all of us. 124:36 So this is a guy that's a Democrat. 124:40 He came to us, he came to Bobby. 124:43 He said on that 60 Minutes profile, 124:44 which also interviewed Bobby, 124:46 that Bobby Kennedy will be a historic figure 124:48 that he supports Bobby Kennedy in this issue. 124:49 Like it was real bridge building. 124:51 And what he did was he submitted a petition to the FDA 124:54 which would basically compel the FDA to ask 124:57 about the amounts of sugar and refined carbohydrates 124:59 in our diet from a real scientific area like kind of with the tobacco industry and actually 125:03 start investigating in a real scientific way whether this explosion of these simple things 125:07 like sugar and refined carbohydrates in our diet have had an impact on children's health. 125:10 Like the most no-brainer thing imaginable. 125:12 We would do an FDA initiative with him, potentially have some of these food companies do answer 125:20 some questions. 125:21 His mechanism that he found was really interesting because as you might know the FDA up until 125:26 we just closed it, did not know it's in our food, doesn't know. 125:30 It's been a full self-policing from the food industry where they are able to self-certify 125:34 both in the ingredients and, importantly, the amount of the ingredient having an impact 125:38 or not. 125:39 So you have all these things marketed to kids with high sugar. 125:42 They're actually legally responsible for having studies showing how the amount of 125:46 sugar that they're recommending for daily use for kids actually doesn't harm kids. 125:51 I would imagine they don't have that. 125:52 They're legally required to have that. 125:53 This would have opened up the door to start that conversation getting the truth out not not nothing regulatory 126:00 We did a 60 minutes. We got full White House approval 126:02 We went through the interagency process and we were going to do a big initiative on basic food safety 126:06 Asking whether the amount of sugar in a children's diet was appropriate 126:11 And that's where Susie told me we can't do that. I need the sugar industry money need the money for the midterms 126:21 Yeah, okay the midterms are over now. What? 126:25 Well, the point I would consciously make is why the hell aren't we doing these now? 126:28 Because these are the highest polling domestic policy issues that the administration has 126:32 in many cases. 126:33 I mean, these things pull off the charts, obviously. 126:37 And why would we be making deals for special interest and then stab the special interest 126:41 in the back right after the midterms and we don't have a political reason to do it? 126:45 That was my question. 126:47 Like there was a political reason to do it before the midterms. 126:50 We have no political reason to do it now. 126:52 Now, so I never understood the argument to wait after the midterms. 126:56 Well it doesn't make any sense anyway. 126:57 They would say sometimes, I think, but they would, I assume behind, that I don't understand 127:01 the political calculations they're having to measure. 127:04 These are core, core central campaign promises of Maha. 127:09 Not only that, but clearly it didn't work. 127:14 Like whatever they're thinking about you, how you don't understand how the political 127:18 system works, and we need to win the midterms, they got destroyed. 127:21 Yeah, historic yeah, and fully from this strategy of James Blair and Tony for reasons is he and the war and the war 127:34 Jesus 127:36 It sounds so 127:38 daunting, but the strategy like I'll just hit it again 127:43 When you buy into the belief that 127:47 Money for campaigns is more important is the most important thing you can excuse anything 127:52 And I don't even think it's true like I think I think there's kind of this lie around DC 127:58 Like it was clear to me that the money this this is not a money campaign 128:01 We're in a huge moment in America like a disruptive moment like 128:08 Trump the Trump campaign wasn't about money. It was about him going out there letting it rip. That's what that's what won the election 128:15 I was really surprised, you know 128:17 know, how kind of dismissive this world was to President Trump, you know, explained to 128:22 me that, you know, that your, you know, coalition that you brought in or maybe, you know, impacted 128:27 didn't matter, that MAHA didn't matter, you know, that the real populist messaging didn't 128:33 matter much. It was really about the micro-targeting. It was about getting the money for, you 128:38 know, the targeted ads. It was about the redistricting. Like, it felt very wrong 128:43 to me and very against what President Trump ran on and that construct, which I don't think 128:48 any cabinet secretary would really could possibly dispute this, that midterm kind of paralysis 128:57 impacted the administration about six months after the term started and it became the 129:04 dominant guiding force. 129:06 And I think it's based on a lie, politically it's based on a lie, but you have to go 129:12 into the motivations of people, right? And I don't want to assume what people are thinking. 129:16 I can just, you know, look at what they've done in their lives, look at where they're 129:21 probably going to work after, assume that they are motivated by getting money for their 129:25 family and, you know, look at where their children are working. 129:29 Well, clearly, and also if that's the narrative, the whole thing is just about 129:32 money. And that's the most important aspect of it. 129:35 Yeah, it's that's it's like you can't imagine how accepted that belief is you 129:44 know the 90% of senator time being fundraising it's just like this isn't 129:49 right like like can we step back and just ask do we think senators should be 129:53 spending 90% of their time fundraising from corporate donors like is that a 129:57 good thing like like like we kind of just have like honestly like I feel 130:03 There's gaslighting about preventing Americans from just having common sense discussions 130:08 that on things 90% of people care about. 130:12 If I was driving a strategy, it'd be like, we're actually going to take a hold on policy 130:19 for a year if we have a new administration. 130:21 We are going to take on Congress, take on the Senate, take on DC, and demand structural 130:31 reform. 130:32 So we actually have more of a terrain where we can actually get some things done 130:36 Like unless we fix that we're not getting anything done like like this place is demonic. It's demonic and and I'm not here 130:44 I'm not here to just beat up on Susie or James. These are 130:50 These are case studies, right? They're totally bipartisan. The Dems are doing the exact same thing right now 130:56 the Dems have done it before like 130:59 I'm trying to share specific stories from where I was leading to kind of color this. 131:05 We were talking a while ago, and you're like, how does this corruption actually work? 131:08 We need to identify what the problem is. 131:13 The president needs to exercise these people from the administration, but that's not the 131:18 root cause. 131:20 This episode is brought to you by Tacovas. 131:22 The holidays are coming up, and if you've got a pretty high bar for what's going 131:25 under the tree this year, check out Tacovas. 131:27 These guys make some of the best Western boots you can get. 131:31 They're made by hand, designed in Austin, Texas, 131:34 and they're incredibly durable. 131:36 Plus, they're super comfortable right out of the box. 131:39 No break-in required, and it's not just boots. 131:42 They've got hats, some great-looking apparel, 131:45 and gifts for the whole family. 131:46 From the moment you step into one of their stores, 131:48 you'll feel right at home with friendly folks, 131:51 true Western craftsmanship, free drinks while you shop, 131:54 and free holiday gift wrapping. 131:56 So whether it's your first pair or your 15th check out to Cova's in store or online at to Cova's comm 132:04 That's T E 132:05 C O V a s dot com and right now get 10% off at to Cova's 132:11 comm slash Rogan when you sign up for email and texts 132:16 This episode is brought to you by chime and I know people don't usually get excited about banking 132:22 But Chime is doing something different and it's worth paying attention to in a recent survey
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