Vivek Ramaswamy: The Corpulent Interview on Wokeness, Free Speech, detrimental ESG & the Native weather Cult.

I am announcing my run for president of the United States. Vivek Ramaswamy is making what he wrote about in this best seller the focusof his presidential campaign. He’s running really as the first properlyanti-woke president of the United States. Ramaswamy is obviously along shot, but his arguments,.

That America has become a nation of victims, and that some on Wall St. now collude with government to cripple capitalism, mademe want to learn more about him. You're doing surprisingly well. If I look at people who bet, which is not perfect, butthe most reliable guide, you're in fifth place among the Republicans, you're ahead of KristiNoem, ahead of Mike Pence.

We're looking to be number one. That's the goal. But it's a steady climb to get there. I mean, it's like it's like we're Donald Trump wasin 2015. That's about where we are in the polling nationally, Look, I'mnot a political scientist. My projections of who's going to do what over the course of a yearand a half, those predictions aren't worth much.

But what I am in this race to do is to speaktruth at every step. And my entire electoral strategy is I'm going to actually say whatI believe and we'll find out whether that's a winning strategy or not. My bet is thatit is. I just came here from New Hampshire, spent five days on a ten county bus tour there. If we're doing what we're doing.

In roomsof 100 or 200 people at a time, and we can take that nationally, I have full confidencewe win this election. But more importantly, it's not about who wins this election thatmatters. It's the fact of how we actually revive our missing national identity. That'swhy I'm in this race and I'd rather speak truth and lose the election.

Rather than to play somepolitical snakes and ladders and figure out how. That’s the number one issue, revive our national identity? I actually think it is. And explain what that means. So, look, if you ask people my age, I'm 37, I'ma millennial. What does it mean to be American?.

You get a blank stare in response. I think that is it moral vacuum. It is a vacuumat the heart of our national soul. What would you wish the response to be? I wish the response to be something thatwas grounded in the principles that set America into motion. It said we're a nationbuilt on basic ideas like the rule of law,.

Like free speech and open debate, thatwe embrace meritocracy over grievance, that we embrace the unapologetic pursuit ofexcellence that we live in a country where the people who we elect to run the government are the ones who actually run the government. Even if I disagree with them, let it be the peoplewe elect rather than a permanent managerial, bureaucratic,.

Permanent state class that actually runs the show today. That's what it means to be American. We fought a revolution to bring this bring ourselves together That we're, yes,may come from many different skin colors, that there's two different genders, thatthere are two different political parties. But what unites us.

Is a commitment to thosecommon set of ideals. That's what it means to be American. Yet now you get a, you know,dull, lobotomized stare. That's effectively what you get when you ask somebody whatit means to be American, if not an actual shameful response. Almost apologizing for theexistence of a nation founded on those ideals. And yes, I think that's the most important issue.

And why? Because our economic revival depends on a revival of self-confidence, because the revival ofour leadership on the global stage, the revival of American self-confidence on the global stage, starts with restoring self-confidence at home and in each of ourselves. And so that's why thispresidential campaign for me is more of a cultural campaign than a political campaign, thoughit's taken the form of a political campaign.

Fighting the woke message that we, peoplewho don't succeed are helpless victims, that America is a bad place becausewe kill people to get here, etc.. Exactly. I mean, that's part ofit. Wokeness is a symptom, though, of that deeper national identity crisis. Thesymptoms keep showing up. Racial wokeism, transgenderism, climateism.

This newand latest, most fabulous cult that's spreading across America, Covid-ism, fora couple of years. It keeps showing up. Covid-ism is the excessive fear of Covid? It's the religiosity around COVID policies, just like I described the religiosity around anticlimate change policies or anti carbon policies,.

Just like I described the religiosity aboutviewing one another through the color of our skin, the religiosity increasingly of the transgendermovement that has little tolerance for dissent. The reason we see the rise of these secular cults is that we're hungry for purpose and meaning. We want to be part of something bigger thanourselves. Yet we still can't even answer the basic question.

Of what it means to be American, what it means to be a citizen of this nation. I have a vision on what the answer to thatquestion can be. I think we can revive it in this country. And if we do, that's actually thekey to solving our other problems economically, to foreign policy, to domestic policy, on whichI have detailed thoughts on all of the above. But the revival of the national identity,.

That's actually what made me decide to enter this race. That's what gives me themotivation to actually go the distance. And that's the biggest issue? More than– Ican think of a couple other big ones. I could think of a couple of the big ones do. Crisis at the border. And our unsustainable debt. Both of those are failures of realizing ournational identity. So let's talk about the border.

Part of who we are is we're a nation built onthe rule of law. When you abandon the values that define who you are as a country, when everythingbecomes just relativistic, morally relativistic, including legally relativistic, thenwhat's wrong with an open border? Right? So that's a symptom of, again, that deeperloss of national identity.

And then they'll say you're racist or xenophobic. Whereas I say no. The reason that we say no to illegal immigration is not because the people who are crossing are somehow bad people. That's not the case. It's the case that while thepeople, drug cartels, you know, that have more cynical intentions, many ifnot most people are not bad human beings.

It's that we are a nation built onthe rule of law. We cannot tolerate somebody breaking the law as theirfirst act of entering this country. How'd your parents get in? Legally. Through the front door. My dad camehere to get an education. He got an educational visa. My mother married my father. She also camehere.

She's a physician who built a career as a successful geriatric psychiatrist. So that's howmy parents came here. And I think we should have. That was in the eighties. My understanding is now an Indian computer engineer with skills who applied legally would take 20, 50, a hundred years to get in.

Because we'reso tough on letting people in. Legally. What I'm a big fan of merit based immigration in this country. I think we should want more immigrants like my parents. Not all Republicanswill agree with me on that. That's fair. We can have a debate about this, but I believe in meritbased immigration.

To me, merit means A the contributions you're going to make to this country and B your civic commitment to the country. But I believe in merit based immigration. I don't believe in turning a blind eye to border security in the name of advancingimmigration policy. Border security and immigration are two separate questions.

We should deal with them differently. Merit based means, are you are you educated? Do you have money? How do you decide merit? It's a great question. So I think that thelikelihood of making a contribution to the country, specifically an economic contributionto the country, combined with civic allegiance to the country, passing a civic examthat you would have to at the time,.

You got to be citizenship, maybe even at thetime you get a visa. We should bring that up to make sure that we're bringing in and adding tothe civic lifeblood of the country rather than, frankly, many 18 year olds who earnedthe right to vote at the age of 18 but don't know the first thing about theConstitution or our country's history. I think we need to fix that.

Through oureducational system. But I also think that one of the ways to preserve that lifeblood of Americancivic identity is through making sure that the filters we apply to immigration to get intothis country, bring in people who are actually in love with this country, who actually badlythirst for the ideals that represent America.

How do you get the filter? You can't measure their love. Well, I think you measure theircompetence. And I think that it takes some level of commitment to beable to pass a civics exam. So do you have a job? Do you have money to invest? Yes. Do you have do you have a stable family?.

Doyou have basic knowledge of the Constitution? Do you have a basic knowledge of the history ofthe United States? And that addresses a lot of the concerns of even people who have a kneejerk reaction, even against legal immigration. Because I think you have a valid point thatwe don't have assimilation in this country, that we don't that we celebrate our diversity.

While forgetting the ideals that bind us together. I think we can tighten up immigrationpolicy, even legal immigration policy, to make sure that the people who enter thiscountry are indeed American or ready to be American in the truest sense of that word, meaning that they actually share a commitment, starting with at least having an awareness of the commitments that we make as Americans.

The unsustainable debt. Social security will go broke. Medicare willstop paying my medical bills. What would you do? Well, I would put pressure on that premise. Okay. They will. If we extrapolate the current GDP growth rate in this country right now, Isee a lot of small ball between Republicans and Democrats.

On national debt questions. Democrats say we need to increase taxes. The only problem with that is that reduces thesize of the pie and the size of your tax base. So that's a self-defeating proposition. It also wouldn't really solve— It also really wouldn't solve Medicare. Yeah, exactly.

The second issue is that the Republicans will say that, well, some of themthat you have to make cuts to Social Security, Medicare or else we're doomed. And it's financialArmageddon. I think there's a third way. The third way is restoring GDP growth inthis country, restoring economic growth. We've grown at more than 4%.

Formost of our national history. We're at one point somethingpercent now. That is a shame. How do you restore that? Drilling more, fracking more, burning coal unapologetically. Iknow coal is a four letter word. Coal is really polluting. Oh, there's other ways we should figureout how to deal with that.

But I don't think that it's nearly as pollutive asthe public narrative makes it out to be, especially with modern methods of burning coalas well, embracing nuclear energy. So the very people who are opposed to fossil fuels aremysteriously hostile to the best known form of carbon free energy production known tomankind, which tells you what's going on. The climate cult has nothingto do with the climate.

It has to do with global equity because they don't want America or even the West to get ahead. Nuclear energy might be toogood at doing that. They want to give China and other parts of the world a chanceto catch up. That's what this is about. Wait a second. These fools don'toppose nuclear energy because we might get ahead of China. They're just scared. They think of nuclear bombs.

I don'tthink that that's right. I think that I think that they're exploiting some set offears that some people have. I think the real problem with nuclear energy, they won'tsay it out loud, but I think the essence of what's going on is that it might be too good at addressing their made up climate crisis. And so if that's the case,.

Well, guesswhat? If you have nuclear energy, the US continues to get on its growth trajectory that it's always been on where part of this was about. They like the expression in a differentcontext, bending the curve so that other parts of the world can actually catch up. That'swhy they don't apply the same constraints, even when it comes to carbon emissions,.

To placeslike China as they do to the United States. So back to GDP growth, unshacklingUS energy is fundamental. Putting people back to work is fundamental. Stoppeople, stop paying people to stay at home. We give people an incentive in this country to belazy. That is an obstacle to GDP growth. It's a big part of why businesses today cannotfind adequate workers to get a job done.

That's an obstacle to GDP growth. And then athird one is reform of the Federal Reserve, an agency that has gotten so rogue inbelieving that it can hit two targets with one arrow inflation and unemployment, that wecan somehow balance that by playing financial god. It's a flawed premise. I would put the Fed backin its place.

To go back to stabilizing the dollar as a unit of measurement that actuallyhelps capital allocation in this country. You know, it's funny, you and I are sittingnow this interview, let's say the number of minutes in an hour varied from time to time. We wouldn't have showed up. You'd be sitting in one chair and then I'd show up later. You'dbe gone. I'd be sitting a different chair.

Same goes for capital allocation in an economy. When the dollar is as volatile as it is, that doesn't help efficiency of allocatingcapital to the highest returning projects and capital allocation and efficient allocationof capital is a precondition for GDP growth. And GDP growth is a fancy way of saying we all make more money. So again, I think that any economist would tell you.

Selfconfidence in psychology is an important part of an economy too. Revitalizing our national senseof self confidence, especially among workers, is also something that spurs confidence in theeconomy itself. So with those four things, I think we can get back to five plus percent GDP growth, let alone the one point something that we're in. But back to your original premise, evenfor growing it over three plus percent,.

The idea that we're going to run out ofSocial Security or Medicare actually goes away. We will grow our way out ofour problems. That's how we do it. You've said you would fire overhalf of the government's workers. That's correct. You would close the EducationDepartment, other departments? Yeah, I would shut down theUS Department of Education,.

Not because I'm anti education, butbecause I am pro education. And the federal government has no business ineducation that should be administered locally. And there's a lot of things wrong — Agreed. What other agencies? I'd shut down– If you’re gonna fire more thanhalf the government workers, Yeah.

That’s big cuts. So in the Federal Reserve, I wouldn't shut down the Federal Reserve. I'd just lay off over 90% of thepeople working there. There's over 22,000 people in the US Federal Reserve Systemnow. We need less than 2000 if its scope goes back to stabilizing the US dollars. Scope offocus. The FBI. A politicized government agency.

In that case, we do need federal law enforcement, but the culture of that agency has becomeso corrupt that you're not going to fix it top down. You have to do it bottom up, and youcan't do it bottom up without actually closing down the current FBI and creating somethingnew to take its place built from scratch. A new, smaller agency?.

Exactly. A leaner, fit for purpose agency that respects the Constitution and the law rather than making it up as it goesalong, which is what today's FBI does. What about the housing department? Agriculture Department? Labor department? Yeah, we're evaluating. I mean, a lot ofthose are on the potential chop block. We're seven, seven weeks into this campaign,.

But theagencies have identified that we would shut down and stay shut down, include the US Department ofEducation and then a long list of other agencies that will need to be shut down and possiblyhave something rebuilt to take their place. FBI, IRS, ATF, that's the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. I've also said similarthings about the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is fundamentally hostile to nuclearenergy in this country.

The culture of that agency is broken. We're going to haveto rebuild something to take its place. You've said you would pardonDonald Trump if you were elected. I said I would pardon Donald Trump and anybodyelse who's been the victim of a politicized prosecution in this country. We've had a lot ofthose. Douglas Mackey, maybe a less well-known name.

He's somebody facing up to ten yearsin prison right now, facing sentencing that could go up to ten years for making jokes onthe Internet about Hillary Clinton's voters. By the way, the same joke was made in returnabout Trump supporters. The person who made that joke continues to roam the American terrainperfectly free. And I think it's a good thing she shouldn't have been prosecuted, but DouglasMackey shouldn't have been prosecuted.

I think I’m pretty well informed, I don’tknow about this person. Really? Facing a prison term? He’s facing up to ten years in prison. Hewas just convicted. And I think this is sad. This is something that we see every dayin this country. Even many of the January six defendants who were denied due process.

To be ableto see potentially exculpatory evidence. That's a due process failure. And you know, John,I'll tell you this, I'm principled on this. I was one of the weird guys back inthe 2000s who was arguing for the importance of due process. Even in 911 relatedinvestigations and Gitmo and Guantanamo Bay. I think that these principles have to applyequally. And the thing that disappoints me is the people.

Who are with me back then are nowhereto be found today when it comes to those basicprinciples relating to misuses and abusesof the police state, abuses of due process. So on a backward looking basis, I would fixthat through the presidential pardon power, but a forward looking basis we're actually goingto shut down those toxic agencies and rebuild a truly lawful culture in law enforcementitself.

Who would have ever thought. Would you pardon Edward Snowden? I would pardon Julian Assange. I know. I know that for sure. I'm weighing Edward Snowden. It's atough question. The reason I would pardon Assange and the reason that one's a lot easier for me tosay is that he was just the guy who published it.

Think about this. Somebody in the governmentleaked you information. That happens all the time. It's normal practice of the press. There's evenformal procedures for how these leaks occur, but the government just picked on him. Now,there was somebody who worked with him, forget the name of this individual. It wasa transgender individual who Obama pardoned,.

I think wouldn't pardon this individual ifthey weren't transgender working with Julian Assange. It was Chelsea Manning. That was the name of the person. And so in Julian Assange's case, the personwho published the information got arrested. But then in Edward Snowden's case, it was theperson who leaked it. So I think that that we have a backwardssystem here.

Where the really federal law enforcement apparatus is just going crazywilly nilly against the people they don't like. And I think, you know, I think I'm thefirst person to say this. I absolutely would pardon Assange. And I thinkit stands for something that goes beyond political partisanship in thiscountry. It stands for who we really are. But Snowden? Snowden, I’m actually collecting the factson this.

I'm going to be very honest with you. Right. Assange, I think, is the easier case. Edward Snowden I need to understand what thespecifics were of the obligations that he made, that he violated and was he punished in a way that someone else, under similar circumstances would not have been? To me, that's thedefinition of a politicized prosecution. But if I find that he was,.

I'm keeping a veryopen mind to a potential pardon there, too. But studying this in depth, I believe incoming to these things with with nuance, I think pardoning Assangeis I think the easier case. You must be really smart. High schoolvaledictorian, Harvard, Yale Law School. Then you create this billion dollarbiotech firm. Are you really smart? I don't know if I'm really smart,.

But I havebeen fortunate to been given a good education by my parents that came to this country asimmigrants. And we tried to make the most of it at every step. So I'm more grateful forwhat I've been given than to proclaim that I'm some some genius from somewhere. But, you know, we've tried to do our best. You could have kept doing that instead of runningfor president. You've made half a billion dollars. You create good stuff in your biotech firm.

Kids who once died at age three no longer do? Yeah, Look, we worked on therapies forthis rare genetic disease affecting 20 kids a year to a drug for prostate cancer that I personally had an opportunity to help oversee developing. Endometriosis,uterine fibroids, overactive bladder in elderly people. Psoriasis. These are realproblems that you’re solving for people. So as a businessperson, you're saving lives.

Youdo more than politicians do. Why? Why politics? I'm proud of what I did in the private sector. If I'm being really honest about it, though, it only works if there's a culture willing to buy up what they're selling. And I don't think that I was going to be able tochange that culture through the market, through even just complaining about theproblem.

I think there is an opportunity to drive a national revival in our country, but I couldn't think of a better way to do it than to successfully actually get electedUS president and do for this country what Ronald Reagan did in 1980 when he led Americaout of the last national identity crisis. Let us begin an era of national renewal. I think we're in the middle of a nationalidentity crisis today. And I think that we can create that missing.

Nationalidentity again for the next generation. A story I’ve told a couple of timesover the last few years, which is there was a new cultural cancer really thatthreatened to kill the dream that allowed me to achieve everything I had in my life. That’s what you wrote this book about. That's exactly what that book was about. Yes. And you say the woke leftimposes psychological slavery. Meaning?.

Meaning they tell you thatyour identity is based on your race, your gender, your sexual orientation, that ifyou're in certain of those classes you're in, in an oppressed category, certain of thoseclasses, you're in an oppressor, a category. And yes, I think that's a form of psychologicalslavery. But while there were other talented people developing technology, developingmedicines for patients who needed them. There were very few of them at the time I stepped aside,.

Dare I say any of them that were willing to speak openly about this culturalcancer. And I worried that was going to prevent honestly kids like me born 20 years later frombeing able to live the American dream that I did. They don't want to criticizeit because they take a hit. Of course they do. And I saw thatfirsthand. There were advisers to my own company that resigned after Isaid something about.

The importance of protecting free speech and the importance ofactually governments not deputizing private companies to censor speech through the backdoor. Now, this was after January 6, 2021, when the country was in aparticularly charged environment. So why’d they resign? Well, they resigned because they felt like that was going to be a threat.

To the proverbial our democracy if peopleweren't actually able to control the spread of hate speech and misinformation andincitements to violence, as they called it. And then they took issue with my broader view that companies in their capacity as companies should not engage in thesesocial and political questions. So I think that that was I think, a twostepper for a lot of the people.

Who were prominent advisers to the company. And they saidthat they don't want to associate themselves with a CEO that had the beliefs that Idid. So, look, I had a choice to make. Black Lives Matter came to youand said issue a statement. Well, actually, it was my own employees in thecompany that was just what every firm in the country was doing, was issuing a statement thatended with “and capital B, Black Lives Matter.”.

Black lives matter! I support Black Lives Matter. But there are different ways of leading up to it. But it was a carbon copystatement. It's almost as though the same consultants sold it up, youknow, written. They wrote it up and… So what’s wrong with that? …sold it to every company. Well, I think that thething that's wrong with it.

Is that the capital BLM movement stood for values that A were antitheticalto my own beliefs, but B, I believe, demonstrably harmful even to the very black Americans who they proclaimed to stand for, such as dismantling the nuclear family structure. I reject the idea that we advanceblack empowerment by rejecting the nuclear family structure. Black Lives Matter rejected nuclear families?.

That was on their website as of the mid 2020. At the time that I was evaluating whether or not this was an organization that I couldin good conscience say something positive about to endorse. I couldn't do it and I didn'twant to be in the position– to be in leadership, even if you're leading a company meansbeing honest with the people you lead. So the convenient thing to do wouldhave been to say what literally every other CEO.

In corporate America was saying. Icouldn't in good conscience do that. I tried other ways. I talk to our employees abouthow our mission of developing medicines, including potentially life changing medicines forpatients who needed them. That was something that united us, whether we were black or white,.

Whether we were Democrat or Republican, that was uniting us in commoncause. I advised them to be safe. The company was based in New York City. Therewere indeed riots breaking out across the country in cities at that time, but said that look, I careabout you guys and I care about our mission. Let's be united.

And that's something we can be proudof. Sent a full team out of the company about it. The feedback I got is thatthat missed the moment, right? There was a specific demand in America atthat point in time for CEOs and other cultural leaders to stand in favor of very specificallyBlack Lives Matter. I couldn't do it. That led to a controversy, and I would say a series ofnot only escalation.

In my experience as a CEO, but self-reflection for me that if after havinglived the full arc of the American dream, if after having founded a multibillion dollarbiotech company that I was leading as CEO, that I had built from scratch, that even ifI wasn't free to speak my mind, what hope was there for other Americans that had to, manyof them make a decision about whether they want to even be able to put.

Food on thedinner table if they lost their job for saying the wrong thing at work. And I just started to see it. To me, it felt like there was this culture of fear, anepidemic, a pandemic in some ways of fear that had spread across the country that preventedpeople from expressing themselves in public. One of the experiences actually I had asCEO was that one of the employees who,.

After the town hall where these issues wereraised, privately emailed me to say that, hey, I actually agree with everything you're saying. I just don't feel comfortable saying it. Some of them came through H.R. Anonymous. They didn't evenwant me to know who it was, lest I say who it was. And to me, that opened my eyes to thefact that there was a gap in this country,.

A big gap between what people were willing tosay in public and what people were willing to say in private. And to me, that's a litmustest of our civic health, right? You want to measure how good America is doing. It's not thenumber of ballots that are cast every November. It's the percentage of people who feel freeto say what they actually think in public. Why is that so important? Well, I think that's important because that'sactually how.

We respect one another as citizens, because we don't I don't respect you if I don'tactually share with you what my beliefs are, as long as I give you the courtesy to state thesame in return, I just think it's a precondition for truth in this country. I think that we getto the wrong answers when we censor speech. We get to the right answers faster.

When we allowall ideas to be expressed. The scientific method itself depends on the free exchange of ideas. I say that as somebody who was trained as a scientist, what do we see now in the nameof capital S science? It's not science, it's scientism. It's a newreligion in this country. We actually censor misinformation. I don'tbelieve in that model.

And I think that that's also part of what makes Americaitself is that it is the quintessential place on the planet where you get to expressany opinion, no matter how heinous it is. And I think that that's part of whatpreserves peace in a diverse democracy. No matter how heinous? Howdoes that preserve peace? Yeah, it's counterintuitive, but we're the nationthat said that.

We're the ones who let the Nazis, the neo-Nazis, march in Skokie. That'swhat makes us different from the actual Nazis under Adolf Hitler. Is that we believethat no matter how heinous your opinions are, you still get to express them, because that'sone of the things that binds us together. And we also believe that many we also know history teaches us that many of our beliefs.

Will be proven false or will be modifiedin some way. Just ask Galileo. He didn't live to see the end of it himself. He wasn'tso fortunate. But history teaches us that we have to have humility. Peopleuse fancy words to describe that, right? Epistemic humility is the philosophical wordfor it. It's a long way of saying that more often than not, we're going to find out that we werewrong in some way.

We only figure out what the right answer is if we get there through freespeech and open debate. I don't think that we would have closed those schools during the COVID19 pandemic, not for nearly as long as we did if we had been allowed to debate themerits of doing it. Now, years later, it was just a report this, you know, hearingsgoing on. As we're speaking about the origin of COVID 19,.

It's increasingly obviousthat this began in the lab. We would have gotten to that answer sooner ifwe had been even allowed to say it, rather than being scrubbed from the Internet, which is exactly what it was a few years ago. And allowing people to say hatefulthings also must be allowed? Yes. Because?.

Because what is hateful to one person is still a different person's opinion. And we're a nation founded on the expressionof diverse opinions. It is who we are. It's in our nature. And look, I also think thatit's important for peace in a diverse democratic society, in any diverse republicor democracy, you need to let people speak. Because if you tell people they can't speak,.

Theyscream. If you tell people they can't scream, they tear things down. Or this is controversialto say, but I don't think January 6, 2021 happened because we had too much free speechin this country. I think in part it happened because we didn't have enough. And so Ithink that if we want to prepare for a world in which people settle theirconflicts.

Through physical force rather than through free speech and open debate, history has a lot to teach us about that. That is how you have a declining nation where people are left to just sort it out with sticks and stones. I'd rather sortit out through free speech and open debate, which is actually the vision that our foundingfathers had when they said the First Amendment came first for a reason. It was the onethat made all the other ones even matter.

Now you've come out with a new book, Capitalist Punishment: How Wall Street Uses Your Money to Create a Country You Didn't Vote For. What's that mean? In one way, it's a really narrow nicheissue, but another in another way, a really fundamental issue, which is the rise ofESG and stakeholder capitalism in capital markets.

ESG is environmental, social and governance. Yes, it's a non grammatical amalgamation. Sounds good. I mean, it sounds fine. Three lettersamalgamated together. It's designed to sound boring for a reason. So what'sgoing on is there are a range of agendas espoused by one end of the political spectrum saying that we need to cut.

Carbon emissions to fight climate change, that we needto use racial quotas in the boardrooms to make up for our past sins of slavery and systemic racism in the United States. But the public doesn't want to vote for a lotof those policies. Have to admit I'm part of the public that would not vote for those policies. So what the government realized is if we can't get it done through the front door,.

We'll justuse the private sector through the back door to advance those same objectives. So what's happened in this country is that the largest financial institutions let'sjust take the three largest asset managers, BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard, they'veaggregated the money of everyday citizens. Pension money… Pension money. 401K accounts, brokerageaccounts,.

The money of everyday citizens to advance these one sided progressivepolitical agendas, environmental agenda, social agendas. So they call them environmental, social and governance that most of those everyday Americans do not agree with and which crucially do not advance their best financial interests. That'sa breach of fiduciary duty. It's probably the–.

Most Americans agree that we should have a cleanenvironment and we should be socially kind. Well, I think that they agreewith that in our body politic, but we've got to sort that out where everyperson's voice and vote counts equally in deciding how we get there. What they don't wantis their retirement dollars.

To be used to tell a company to adopt an agenda that makes thatcompany less successful at delivering profit, which is why they were invested in the stockmarket or in those companies in the first place. So we have different mechanisms to do differentthings in our country. We have a beautiful system set up to say capitalism is a space wherewe make things.

We provide products and services for people who need them. It's the bestknown system to mankind to lift people up from poverty. That's great. And then we've got thisconstitutional republic where we have a system for sorting out our political differencesto decide how we the people, are governed. We set up as we the people, a system to do it.

But what this stakeholder capitalism trend says is that actually the work of the constitutionalrepublic is now done through the back door, through corporate boardrooms instead. And the dirty little dirty little trick at the heart of it is thatthey're using your money, our money to actually do it in manycases without people even knowing it. And so a big part of why I wrote that book.

Wasknowledge is the first step to empowerment. People ought to at least know how their moneyis being used. Then they can actually be free to make the choice of whetherthey actually want it used that way. And you started your own investmentfund. That won't do that. Yeah. An investment firm, Strive Asset Management. Strive Asset Management.

Launching a new indexfund today that you might call the anti-ESG. Founded it last year, centered in Ohio. SoI didn't think I was going to start another business, by the way. But after I stepped downfrom my biotech career, wrote these books, etc., But I decided I'm not I'm not a pundit. Right. I enjoy going on television from time to time.

Some companies are doing it because it allowsthem to make another buck. They blow woke smoke. I enjoy writing books and columns in the WallStreet Journal, which I've done plenty of, but I'm a man of action. I believe in driving solutions. And so I said, look, if I've observed this problem,.

Let's actually do something to fix it. SoI started this business Strive whose whole premise was to offer similar products to what the likesof BlackRock and State Street and Vanguard offer. But to do it with a different voice and votewhen you're voting on behalf of policies as a shareholder in those companies, to tellcompanies to go back to focusing.

On excellence over politics, on products and services foryour customers to maximize profit rather than any non-economic agenda social, cultural, political, environmental or otherwise. These companies will invest inthings that will help preserve people's retirement fund, not make them feel good. Yeah, well, I generally think the people feelgood.

When their retirement fund is doing well and when the economy is doing well. The keydifference is almost every major asset manager for the last several years not only buys sharesin those companies, they use their clients’ money. Probably even many peoplelistening to this program to then tell those companies that,.

Hey,we're the shareholder, we BlackRock are the shareholder of you Apple, who we'regoing to vote in favor of a racial equity audit at Apple. There's a true story in 2022 that Apple's board did not want to adopt but effectively was forced into adopting when amajority of Apple's own shareholders voted for that racial equity audit,.

Or Chevron, acompany that did not want to adopt a scope three emissions cap was effectively forcedto change its policies after BlackRock State Street and Vanguard all voted infavor of a scope three emissions cap. So what's wrong with fewer omissions? What's wrongwith having more minorities in the boardroom? Well, we could debate that.

Those are deepissues. I don't think there's inherently anything wrong with either of those things, but it's a misuse of somebody else's money to foist that agenda onto a companywhose board didn't even want to adopt it, because the job of an asset manager and the job of a corporate board.

Is to advance the financial interests oftheir clients and of their shareholders. Period. Full stop. Anything short of thatis a fiduciary breach. That's what's wrong with it. Now we can get into the merits ofthe climate debate. I think that most of the anti carbon agenda in the United States.

Isbased on a set of flawed premises. I think it is a it's a long discussion we could have, butthat's my opinion in my capacity as a citizen. It’s a climate cult. There is a climate cult in this country thattells you that you have to reduce your carbon emissions when in fact that's based on a.

Flawedset of premises that that has anything to do with advancing human prosperity. To the contrary, it's actually reigning in human prosperity. But that's my view as a citizen. However,whatever my view is or somebody else's view, let's sort that out throughthe democratic process. That's what we have.

That's what Americagives you. Our citizens. We the people, are empowered to answer those questions. That'swhat we said in 1776. That was what the American Revolution was fought to settle, that it'snot somebody in the back of some palace hall settling that question.

And yet today we havepalace halls down the street on Park Avenue that settle that question, usingyour money to do it instead. That's a betrayal. It's a kind of financialfraud, actually. It's a betrayal of trust. And the thing that's wrong with it is even thoughI have a different opinion.

Than many people who may advance these environmental agendas when it comes to climate change policy, we ought to have that debate as citizens rather thanthrough the Trojan horse of corporate boardrooms. That's what's happening today. I agree with you about these cowards on Park Avenue where BlackRock.

Just squandering people's retirement money. But acriticism your fund has higher expense fees, according to Forbes, fourtimes as much as other index– Oh, these are the these are the drivel that you see published. So we can go to the specifics of the fund details, butlargely speaking, okay.

At the time we launched a lot of those funds, they werecomparable to the BlackRock fees. Now, BlackRock actually has fees that are higher thanState Street's funds. And then in certain cases, our fees were, in one instance, lower than State Street fees. But you know what the system did notlike?.

They did not like that there was a new voice at the table. Okay. Soit's like an anaphylactic reaction they had when I showed up at this. So theystarted throwing all the spaghetti at the wall. If you actually go more than justa surface level look, it doesn't stick. But they can't take somebody.

Showing up atthe table with a different philosophy. That's really what this is about. It's an ideologicalcartel, okay? It's not a monopoly on product. It's a monopoly on ideas. And if you defectfrom that orthodoxy, they will punish the defector. That's really what's going on here. And, you know, I refuse to stand by silently. Right.

Like I said, if a guy like me can'tspeak up openly and in an unfiltered way, I think it's going to be a lot harder toexpect other people to do the same thing as well. I think the way we closethat gap between what people say in public and private is to start talkingopenly again. So for better or worse, I'm pretty unfiltered in calling out.

A lotof these hypocrisies and know I think that the system is, you know, mounted it's immunereaction against a lot of what I have to say. But the good news is I'm here ready to take it. Let's go back to the culture warstuff because it's easier.

You sell these beer koozies, Bud Light truthover relativism. What's that about? We're having some fun in the campaign. That's what this is about, too. What’s the message? The message is really simple. Budweiser and Bud Light made a disastrous decision.

To embrace Dylan Mulvaney I got some Bud Lights for us. Who I think belittles what it meansto be a woman in the state of this modern cult of transgenderism thatalienates a lot of its customer base. Well, that company deserves to be heldaccountable through the market. So we said It has been.

They lost billions. Yeah. Well, appropriately so. They should be held to account for making baddecisions. But we had some fun within the campaign so the day after instead of Bud Light. We said Bud Right. And if you took the, you know, the cost of a 24 pack, whatever that is,.

Andhelped us in our bottom up grassroots movement, that we would stand for truth over relativism. One of the things I often say, ifyou flip to the back side of that, I think it's I think I see it on there foryou. We say that courage is contagious in this country. Fear has been infectious in America. It spreads from one corridor to another, spreads faster than COVID 19,.

Fear does in America. But I think courage can be contagious, too. And that's the premise ofthis whole campaign. And, yes, you know, we're going to be unafraid tohave some fun along the way as well. People can get those koozies and hopefullyadvance this movement in the process. And you're saying people should have the courage to stand up to the transgender movement?.

Yes, I think that's right. To be able to speaktruth in the open. So here's the truth of the matter. When more often than not, especiallywhen a kid says they're born in the wrong body, that their gender does not match their biologicalsex, that means they suffer from a mental health disorder. And the compassionate thingto do.

Is not to affirm their confusion. It is to actually reach out and help them. Anything short of that is cruel. Actually, a couple of days ago. When was this? It was yesterday, actually. Time is, you know, losing my sense of time on thecampaign trail here was just yesterday I had a chance to meet with a youngwoman who wrongly had begun her gender transition.

When she was just going through somepsychologically difficult times at the age of 13. She's 18 now. She regrets her decision. She gota double mastectomy. I mean, she cut off both her breasts surgically. She went through chemicalintervention, puberty blockers.

She's never going to be the same. That's a permanent mistake we lether make. Instead of addressing what was a mental health challenge that she was going through atthe time. And I think that the fact that the trans movement says it is offensive to call it a mentalhealth disorder is itself offensive.

To the idea of something that might have a mental health disorderbecause we're all owed respect as human beings. But what I say is, you know what? You'rean adult. You want to dress how you want. If you want, when you want, marry who youwant. That's the country we live in. It's true. You can do that as an adult. But whatthe trans movement's done is.

In the name of standing up for trans rights has actually becomedownright oppressive on the rest of our culture. Changing our language, changed the way that weeven the labels and the words we use, the rest of everyone else use the changed, the languagethat is the fabric that holds society together,.

That now tells kids this is what we must teachyou to create more confusion amongst kids who are already confused. That is wrong. So I would saythat, you know, kids aren't the same as adults. I would ban genital mutilation and chemicalcastration in kids under the age of 18.

You're an adult, freely consenting, fullyinformed, do what you want. But if you're a kid, we have to draw the line and wealready share this intuition by the way, there isn't a state in this union, agree or not, I'm just saying a fact that allows you to get a tattoo before the age of18 because the premise.

Is you don't want to allow kids to make permanent life altering changes to their body that they might later regret. All states have that law? Causeall these kids are getting tattoos. Well, I think that, yeah, all 50 states, youcan't without going through a lot of consent and going through a lot of additional procedures. Yeah. You can't get a tattoo.

Under the age of 18. That's right. I don't think we should do thesame thing with respect to genital mutilation or chemical castration either. And that'sreally what this trans movement's about. Calling it mutilation and a mental illness. Aren't there people who just feel they're born in the wrong body and they have the treatments.

And they do better, they're happier in life? I think that's actually false on the data. Many of the people who are unhappy before remain unhappy after. And so the ironyis we're actually doing physical harm to their bodies while mentallythey're actually no better off. But I know people who have had work, had that work and they are happier.

Good. Let them be so, let them be so that's what Isay. If you're a fully consenting adult. You don't want to ban it? Yeah. No, if you're an adult, do what you want. I thinkit's different in kids, right? Kids go through difficult times. So I draw that distinction. I think it's a really important distinction.

And I started focusing on this issue moreonly after it started infiltrating children. I think protecting children is the line thatI draw. And here's the other thing. I mean, even if you want to think aboutsome of the contradictions here, like the gay rights movement said for thelongest time, that the sex of the person you're attracted to.

Is hardwired on the dayyou're born. It had to be to be a civil right. Yet now we say your own biological sex iscompletely fluid over your life. Think about how this fits in with the women's rights movement. What we said during the women's rights movement, gender equality, which of course I support.

In this country, is that there's many ways to be a woman. You can be a you can bea woman with short hair, with long hair. You can wear pants, you can wear askirt, you can do whatever you want. The core supposition of the trans movement is it fetishizes femininity a little bit, right? It says that, oh, you have to have.

Lips of a certain shape or else you can't actually have identified as a woman. Youhave to dress and sound a certain way. Your body type has to be a certain thing. It's its reductionist to femininity itself. And then I think that in a certain sense, iteven degrades our respect for one another. I actually did a recent podcast on my daily podcastthat we've started.

As part of the presidential campaign. We're lifting the curtain and everyday we're releasing a podcast with Riley Gaines, who's the best female swimmer in thecountry, or was at the collegiate level until a biological man showed up at the women'scompetition and actually took the top medal. For years in this country, we said thatwe needed Title Nine.

To create a space for women's sports to allow women who are biologically fundamentally different from men to still be able to compete at thehighest level and respect that. That was a liberal argument. And yet now knowback in the 1990s that was a big debate. And now we're saying that actually that.

Vision of women's sports doesn't matter. So I'm fine with you be you as long as youleave the rest of everybody else alone. That's a principle that everybody should, shouldwant to embrace, I think. But that’s a libertarian principle. You at one point in your life, considered yourself a libertarian. Mm hmm.

But no more. I still have strong libertarian instincts, there's two reasons I don't call myself a libertarian anymore. Okay? One relates to, Ithink, a fiction that many libertarians adopt that's politically convenient for them toavoid taking criticism, which is to say that.

They turn a blind eye to all of the governmentinterventions as they exist, but then stand against any policies that actually removethe effects of that government intervention. You want me to give an example? Yeah, because you kind of lost me. And I’ma libertarian so you can attack me here. Well I'm not attacking anybody.

I'm probably the person in this presidential race who has by the way thestrongest libertarian instincts. I used to be a self-described libertarian. Iwas a libertarian rapper in college actually. My stage name was Da Vek. Okay. So I youknow, we're cut from similar cloths here. You have pictures? Tapes? Thankfully not. But maybe they are maybethe oppo.

Research in this campaign. That is, they're going to dig up. So we'll givethem some homework to do for the other campaigns. But here's reallywhat I mean. So I've been an advocate for making political expression a civilright in country to say that you can't fire somebody.

For their political beliefs, for what they say on their own time, etc. Let me just pick on that. Libertarians do pick on that, right? Right. I mean, if I start a company, I don'thave a right to fire white supremacists? Right. So here's the thing. What I would sayis, in an ideal world, you should and this is why this gets to the.

Heart of why I stop callingmyself a libertarian, because in an ideal world, we wouldn't have these protected classesat all: race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, national origin. We have all ofthose protected classes. But here's the thing. I'll explain to that not alot of people understand. The existence of those protected classes.

Was anintervention in the market and was an intervention in the market that created the conditions forviewpoint based discrimination. Here's how. Courts started interpreting that verybroadly. They started to say that the prohibition on discriminating based on race includes not just nondiscrimination on race.

It means, and I'm quoting the law here, youcan't create a hostile work environment for a member of a protected class. Well, let's lookat the case law. What are some of the ways that you create a hostile work environment? Itturns out it's by wearing the hat of the wrong political candidate to work. Turns outit's by wearing a red sweater on a Friday,.

Which a grandmother used todo to stand with veterans. A member of a protected class found that tobe a microaggression. She was stopped from wearing it because that could create a hostilework environment. Saying something on your own time in social media. So what happened? Thelaw itself, the intervention in the market,.

The civil rights laws, as they wereinterpreted, created the very conditions for viewpoint based discrimination whileleaving political viewpoints unprotected. So I'm fine if you want to repeal all ofthose protected classes and actually let the market work. But here's my frustrationwith libertarians is nobody seems to have the spine.

To actually stand up and say thatpart. Yet, if you try to correct for the actual excesses of that by at least saying,all right, well, if all these are protected classes that let political beliefs notbe unprotected, when we've created the conditions for viewpoint based discrimination, we'll say, oh, it's about the free market.

So that's reason number one. I don't callmyself a libertarian is I actually would be the purest of them. I would say fine, let'sget rid of the protected classes altogether. But recognizing that that may not be politicallyfeasible, even though I'm not afraid to say it, I'll say I still want to do the next best thing.

To be able to apply our standards even handedly. But the second reason I don't call myself alibertarian anymore is that while I am a big fan, big fan of getting the government out of my hair and yours and everybody else's in our country too, there are still other things that matter to meafter that right? What do we do then?.

Well me too! What do we do? Exactly. Exactly. So what do we do in this world? So that'snot anti libertarian at all. It's just why I don't call myself a libertarian. It's likethe first thing I said wasn't So it's not I have I have nothing in me that'santi libertarian. All of that's in me.

But there's more that I care about too. I careabout the cultivation of virtue in a society. I cult. I care about Government can- the cultivation of how we live our lives. Government? Not government, not government through culture. So when it comes to government, I'm actually pretty much you and I.

Think you're going to find very little daylight betweenus. But I think that the scope of my interest and leading as a cultural leader issetting a tone where I don't think it's the government's job to force people to get married and form a nuclear family. But I still do believe that the nuclear familystructure is important. I don't think it's the government's job.

To foist religion onto anybody. But I do think the revival of faith in America is important. And so the reason I don't callmyself a libertarian is libertarianism is a subset of a broader worldview that you mightcall American conservatism or my brand of it. And so that's the reason I don'tuse that label anymore,.

Even though I would say firmly convicted in libertarianinstincts, I almost grew out of that label, even while many of the principles stayed with me. You don't want government promotingreligion or telling people to get married. No government should be doing that Thank you for your time. Thank you. I really enjoyed theconversation.

And it's a lot of fun to get beyond the usual talking points. Scratch deeper, and this is a lot of fun. I hope we could do it again. I hope you liked this longer video. What other presidential candidates should I interview? Please let me know in the comments.

Sharing is caring!