We live on a house of cards because, and

most people don't know this, and I don't

want to scare your audience, the scare

your audience if I tell too much.

>> Go ahead.

>> I voted to raise the age of social

security, but it's not going to be

around unless you raise the age to 70.

That's the only way that sticks around.

>> Do we really need American primacy?

>> He said, when you go back to Washington,

make sure they know that wars with China

is not inevitable. But I think it's

overstated how great AI is going to be.

the left, you know, has this uh modern

monetary theory and it and it sounds

ridiculous and it is except that it kind

of worked for 10 or 15 years.

>> If 40 to 50% of Americans are employed

directly or indirectly by a federal,

state, or local government or government

contractor or earn their income from a

government check, can we actually reduce

spending?

>> Here's the bottom line. I I voted

against the big beautiful bill because

of the debt ceiling, but also here's the

projections. What was at the heart of

the cover up?

>> There's never been a more extraordinary

cover up in the sense that these people

were saying in public the opposite of

what they were saying in private.

[Music]

>> All right, besties. I think that was

another epic discussion. People love the

interviews. I could hear him talk for

hours. Absolutely. We crushed your

questions in a minute. We are giving

people ground truth data to underwrite

your own opinion. What do you guys

think? That was fun. That was great.

going.

>> Senator, thanks for being here. Thanks

for having me in your office for the

conversation today. I'm I'm really

excited for this.

>> You grew up in Texas with a well-known

father, 12-term congressman, three-time

presidential candidate Ron Paul.

However, you became a doctor after

residency at Duke Medical. And I'd love

to hear a little bit about how you chose

that path instead of politics at the

beginning of your career.

>> Well, that was sort of following father

also. You know, my dad's a physician,

too. So, I went to medical school. in

fact went to the same medical school as

my dad. Um my dad is an OBGYn. He's

retired now. Uh we have a family of

several doctors. My little sister's an

OBGYn. My brother's a family doctor. I

got two nieces, three nieces that are

doctors. So, a lot of doctors. But as a

kid, uh you know, I have distinct

memories of laying on the shag carpet

because we have had shag carpet in the

70s and listening to him in uh I don't

know, Missoula, Montana on the radio.

I'd hear the one end of him answering

questions. Uh I went to lots and lots of

his speeches. I was interested in the

books he recommended other people to

read and I read many of those. Uh he

gave me a full set of Einran's novels

when I was 15 and said there's a lot of

good stuff in here but you know there's

some of the stuff we don't agree with

either. So, and uh but to be

open-minded, to take the good, the good

with the bad and uh to be able to filter

through, but that there was something

there about individualism and I still

believe that to this day, that there is

something uh you know, all the critics

hate Iron Rand. It's oh, she's, you

know, she's so simplistic, this and

that, but there is something that

connected with the American spirit, the

spirit of ingenuity, the spirit of uh

being heroes. You know, it's the idea

that, you know, uh, you know, it's I

think why people were fascinated with

Elon Musk and capturing those rockets

from space that it's like, wow, we can

have somebody who really does cool

things once again in our country.

>> Yeah. Einran's writing seemed to be

coming more preient than I think we

realized early on.

>> I think that's why the people thought it

was simplistic because the characters

were character types. Nobody believed

they could ever exist that there'd be be

there would be middle management. There

would be the Ellsworth Tui or the Peter

Keading in the middle of these

corporations and nobody believed that

their whole purpose would be mediocrity,

right? And they purposely would try to

choose people based on the color of

their skin or their ethnicity over their

merit. Nobody believed that could ever

happen. That was such a a dystopian sort

of Harrison Burggeron. That was all

farce. That was dystopian farce until

now. You're right. It looks a lot like

reality.

>> Here we are. Why did you make the career

shift into politics after being a doctor

for some time?

>> I practiced private practice for about

20 years. Was a physician for 20 25

years. In your life, it's a lot of work.

You go through an internship, medical

school, residency. I was about 30 when I

finished. And so

when my dad ran in 2008, really the

campaigns are a year in advance. So when

he ran in 2007 into 2008 for the

Republican nomination, I thought I'd go

and help. I sort of volunteered and

said, "Dad, I'll give some speeches."

And went out and gave a lot of speeches

on my own. Not really introductory

speeches, but actually my own thing and

kind of felt, wow, this is great to be

able to sort of express yourself and

have an opinion. I always had an

opinion, but now I could find somebody

to listen. And so I did that in 2008,

got the bug, and then some of being in

the right place at the right time. Jim

Bunning had been in the Senate two

terms. Uh he was a Hall of Fame pitcher,

but he wasn't raising any money. it

looked like he might not run. And so one

day I'm at the office and this guy I

knew from a property rights group, you

know, too many, you know, lower property

taxes kind of stuff, keep the government

off our land kind of stuff. He called me

up and he says, "Hey, I know this

reporter, this AP reporter, and we think

he leans kind of conservative and he's

from the Republican area of the state.

Why don't you just call him up and tell

him you're interested?" So I hadn't even

talked to my wife about it or anything.

I said, "What the hell?" So I called him

up and said, "Yeah, I'm thinking about

running." And uh I got a statewide

story. Then I got a national story. I

was like, "Wow, this is not that hard."

And so then I had a sort of a come to

Jesus moment. I had to talk to my wife

about this. And uh she wasn't very happy

that, you know, we'd been married 20some

years that I hadn't bothered to mention

it to her. I said, "Look, there's no way

I can get elected. I'm just going to be

honest. I'm going to tell them we're out

of money. I'm not going to offer him

something for nothing." I said, "I'm

never bringing home any bacon. We don't

have any bacon. nobody will ever vote

for that and uh she gradually got over

it. Now she's my biggest champion. We've

written a couple books together and we

you know we work together well but um

someone was being the right place at the

right time maybe having something to

say. The Tea Party movement which I

think my dad is responsible at least

partly for getting started that mo

movement was burgeoning in 2010. The big

radio talk hosts were Limbbo and Hannity

and Hannity still big on the radio.

These hosts were out there hosting

rallies. They were talking about the

Constitution and the debt and it was an

exciting time. I uh uh I don't know if I

had announced yet. I was thinking about

it. My town's fairly small, 50,000 at

the time and we have an old square built

in the 19th century. I went down to the

square. Somebody was having a tea party

rally. I didn't know what it was. And it

was open mic. I wasn't even invited to

speak really. And I spoke and there were

800 people there. I'd never been to a

political rally in my town, Republican

or otherwise, with 800 people. There was

a real movement. That's why it kind of

makes me sad now that it's a it's a

movement that came and you know

>> did it go

>> came conquered and nothing happened

because uh some of the people left and

some of the people decided that debts

were okay if you had a Republican in

charge and were bad if a Democrat was.

>> That's really interesting because I

wanted to get to your core philosophy

and identity. On Wikipedia it says

libertarian constitutional conservative

tea party movement Republican. How do

you describe yourself, your identity?

Senator,

>> all of those things are are true to a

certain extent. Um, I like to say that

I'm I'm part of the Leave Me Alone

coalition. And then sometimes I'll say,

you know, really I'm part of the Leave

Me the Hell alone coalition. And that

means in all sort of aspects, personal,

private, my contracts, my business, what

I do, my family, just leave just leave

me alone. And that encompasses a bigger

group than just conservatives, a bigger

group than just libertarians. Um, and I

would say there there was a long time

ago there was a guy named uh Frank

Meyers. And Frank Myers they called a

fusionist. He was a guy who was going to

be somewhere in between uh Buckley and

um Murray Rothmar. Murray Rothbart is

not as well known but he was a student

of Von Mises and he was a libertarian

writer and Buckley everybody knows who

Buckley is. And that became the more

traditional conservative movement. And

the libertarians sort of said, "Well, we

like all that capitalism, everything,

but we're worried if so much money goes

into the military that maybe the

military will become the state also."

And they were really against the state

in all facets. We want a small state.

We're for defending the country, don't

get us wrong, but and so, but somewhere

in between those two, some of the

libertarians would have no military,

some of them would have open borders,

and then there was the conservatives

that somewhere in the middle was a

fusion. and Frank Meyers uh was a part

of that. Was one of the cool things when

I first come up here, they invited me to

the Frank Meyers Society, like eight

guys that were like 80 and 90 years old.

It was such a great dinner club. Uh but

anyway,

>> does that make it hard to operate in DC

to to be fusion? Because the the the the

kind of mechanism the operating model in

DC seems to be policy by party.

>> Uh you have to be a member of a party

and then leadership sets the agenda and

everyone falls in line.

Yeah. And I think that's really

disappointing about it. And I think a

lot of the public doesn't necessarily

like that and that's why a lot of the

public says they don't like either

party. Um I'm of the the belief that

like right now there's a great danger in

our country to losing a movement that

represents the free market, trade and

capitalism and all of those things

because I think we're moving towards a

movement that backs a person. And I I

feel the wrath all the time. I don't

back Donald Trump enough and so I'm to

be, you know, uh, I get along with

Donald Trump actually on a personal

level better than some of his supporters

who've gone crazy and they don't seem to

remember. I've supported a lot of

supported his nominees. I voted against

his impeachments. I was one of the

loudest voices against them and yet they

can't stand if I oppose him on one

thing. That's not good. And also there

is something trade is not an incidental

issue. The trade is sort of a

fundamental aspect of capitalism and

Adam Smith wrote about it. In fact, one

of Adam Smith's u sort of great nuggets

that he gave to the world was the idea

that the division of labor makes us

richer. So if you don't have to sit

around making your shoes, your clothes

or your tie, you can do something out,

you have time to think and your

innovation is going to create more more

great things. But he also said that the

division of labor and the prosperity

that it creates is only limited by its

ex how far it extends. And I think what

he meant by that is by trade. So we, you

know, I I'm richer in my town because I

don't make my shoes. Maybe somebody else

in the town makes them. Then I'm even

richer when somebody in another state

makes them. But guess what? I got even

richer when they were made in Vietnam.

We all did. And that is being now uh the

fallacy is being promoted that trade is

bad, which really essentially means

capitalism is bad. Then we got people

promoting that we should own the

companies and the government should be

involved with ownership of the

companies. All that stuff. It worries me

that people are going to forget what we

once were for and what really is

important to be for, what made America

great, and that is capitalism. Some

would argue that this idea of what they

call the globalist agenda, which is to

outsource our jobs versus reducing our

cost and increasing availability of

goods and services that we can benefit

from, has hollowed out America and has

caused a great economic depression for

many Americans and they can't seem to

find their way out of it unless we

create a more protectionist trade

environment.

>> There's a lot to dislike about globalism

and what that represents. And to many

people and to many even libertarians, if

it means a big huge treaty organizations

that have labor rules and environmental

rules and all these anti- capitalist

rules in them, that's not really free

trade or free market. But I will say

that there is a fallacy and it's

repeated adnauseium and it just is

absolutely tr untrue and the facts will

bear this out. Uh most people for the

protectionism say the middle class is

being hollowed out and we're being

ripped off. They're both absolutely and

unequivocally untrue. So if you look at

household income, and there's a good

website that does this,

humanprogress.org

will look at this. Steve Lindsey at KO

is great on this. Look at household

income for the last 70 or 80 years. And

you look at what percentage is middle

class, what are lower class, and what is

upper class. The middle class 50 years

ago, about 54% of the people in the

middle class, and now it's 51.

Everybody's like, "Aha, the middle class

is shrinking." Well, the lower class was

like 37%. It's now 33%. It's like, where

did they go? They're being hollowed out.

Yes, they're becoming rich. They're in

the they're in the upper class. The

upper class has grown. It's the one

segment and you have to constant dollars

and call the upper class above $100,000

and the middle class 50 to 100. But

really, there's been a grace increase in

wealth. If you look further at things

like clothing, you can buy, you know,

people, oh, hey, we lost the textile

industry. Well, I think that's sad in a

way, but you can get 10 times as many

clothes as a person in 1900 could. We

live twice as long. We uh by historical

standards, one of the best charts is u

prosperity per unit of GDP or something.

And you look at it and people have

called it, I think Jonathan height

called it the greatest, you know, graph

in the history of the world.

>> Steven Pikner highlights this well.

>> Same thing. Pikner does he's he's Pinker

does it as well and he's great. His book

Enlightenment Now is an amazing book.

But anyway, this chart is for all of

human history. If this is prosperity and

this is time for all of human history,

we lived on the x- axis. It's just an

amazing chart. In about 1820, when the

division of labor allowed the industrial

revolution and people to think about

doing other stuff, you just had this it

it really is this curve that that just

is extraordinary. That's the history,

but nobody wants to hear this like, oh,

we're being hollowed out and trade's

bad. But then the second fallacy is

we're being ripped off on trade. And

this one, I think, is pretty easy to

debunk. A million people go to Walmart

last week, next week, and they all buy

TVs. At the end of the year, you say,

"They all bought Chinese TVs."

Let's put a circle around all of these

trades and the country they came for.

The Chinese didn't buy crap from us. We

bought all these TVs. But a million

people went in and made a voluntary

trade where when they left their 600

bucks, they wanted less than the TV. And

Walmart wanted their $600. Every

volunteer voluntary trade ever made it

in humanity, every second of the day is

all mutually beneficial or it doesn't

occur. It's not even an equal trade.

It's mutually beneficial. We both think

we got it. So, how can a million people

all think they got a great deal and make

a trade and then I draw a circle around

them and have this false accounting that

says, "Oh, we all got ripped off by

China." It's just not true.

>> So, what is the origin of the fallacy?

Is it a political tactic

>> to drive votes?

>> It's it's pride. And that's why I have

such difficulty counteracting this. Now

what amazes me is though for 100 years

economist right left and center all

decided that trade was making everybody

wealthy. It's more visible if you look

at the trade of the people who are poor.

So the poor people got astronomically

they got uh their their their multiple

is much bigger because they were much

poor to start with. But if you look at

China and us from 1975 on we both got

richer. But China was so poor that their

richness is more available. They didn't

rip us off. You know, this isn't Love of

China. I wrote a book called The Case

Against Socialism. I hate socialism. I

hate communism. I I wish the people

there didn't have to live under that

that authoritarianism. But they didn't

rip us off. And it's it's it's it's easy

to sell because nationalism is easy to

sell. Patriotism is easy to sell. We

hate the other country. We're good.

They're bad. And also anybody down their

luck. And I'm not saying well while the

historical trend is great for for the

society middle lower and and upper it's

not great for everybody. So there's

always pe being people aren't doing

well. Those people are attracted by

nationalism and they're protected by

blame somebody don't blame don't blame

myself or don't blame anybody else. It's

somebody else's fault.

>> So walk me through the consequences of

tariffs. Where do they take us? Where do

they take the economy? Where do they

take us from an inflation perspective?

from a job creation perspective

onshoring which has been argued as

another piece like what's your view on

where this is going

>> you know um one of my favorite sort of

people complain I get a lot of

complainers right now about the tariffs

because they love the president and they

don't love my position so much and

really 75 80% of Republicans he's sold

on this issue that tariffs are good but

there's a I guess I'd start at the I'd

start at the macro level so you have uh

seven billion in spending for our

federal government five billion in

revenue so we're $2 billion short

>> two trillion two trillion. It used to it

used to differentiate conservatives and

Republicans and Democrats. We as

Republicans would say, "Yeah, deficits

are bad and let's close it by lowering

spending." Democrats will say, "We'll

just tax the rich people." You know,

rich people don't pay enough in taxes,

which is also untrue. But then we'll do

it that way. And that was how what

differentiated us. But now everybody's

like, "Oh gosh, tariffs are so good.

We're going to balance the budget. We're

bringing in revenue." One, it's a it's

really a pittance. It's a it's a I think

it's about a h 100red billion 150

billion more than last year is what's

going to come in this year and that over

10 years might be $1.52 trillion but

we're going to borrow like $15 trillion

over the next 10 years but the when you

when you look at it and you say uh from

a global point of view is it good to

raise taxes most Republicans always said

we didn't like more taxes we we were

taxed that was part of the Tea Party

acronym is taxed enough already we

didn't want more taxes now everybody

wants more taxes it's inconsistent with

who we are. But it also, the other one I

love is that we're going to do it and

we're going to eliminate the income tax.

And I say, "Come to me with that. I

don't like tariffs very much, but I'll

vote for a 20% tariff." You know, I take

a sale, it's a sales tax. I'll take a

sales tax over an income tax. This is

being presented in addition. So,

everybody needs to forget what they

think they're saying and understand the

tariffs are in addition. But there's

also an argument on the separation of

powers. One of the things our our

founders really struggled with was they

worried about tyranny of one person and

tyranny of the majority. And so the way

our government is structured is to try

to, as Madison said, pit ambition

against ambition. And but I think they

never imagined that we'd have a Congress

without any ambition. We just basically

said, "Oh, did President Trump go ahead

just do what you want." And there's a

problem with that. He's declared an

emergency to raise taxes. I don't pay

the taxes. We pay the taxes,

but you know, there are people analyzed

as a little bit done by the foreigners,

a little bit done by the importer, a

little bit. Yes, but it is a tax. It's a

fee and we collect it here in our

country. It is a tax. The constitution

says taxes originate in the house. And

uh you know, this one just originated

with the president with not even a

confirmation by the House or the Senate.

when we get an AOC as a president, which

I hope never happens, she's going to

declare an emergency and we'll she'll

say no more gasoline powered cars or

lawnmowers or whatever else and they'll

send police to your house. So say I'm

just doing an emergency just like your

president did. So there is the danger

and people need to think about it and

this is where

>> the president

>> the president

>> well this is the problem with only being

tribal and only being for your tribe

when your tribe is in power. You have to

think beyond this. So, for example, when

Biden was in power, there were two dozen

Republicans, and I was one of them, who

had a reform of the emergency power that

said when a president declares an

emergency, it expires in 30 days unless

affirmed. Right now, it's the opposite.

The president's declared an emergency on

tariffs. If we wanted to stop him, we

could vote by simple majority. He would

then veto it, and then it would take

twothirds. So, right now, the way the

law is set up is presidential

emergencies can only be stopped by

twothirds of Congress. Well, I mean,

that's so dramatic it almost never

happens. We'd like to reverse it. But

all those Republicans who supported

reform of the emergency under Biden have

all bailed on me. And so when we

recently had a vote directly on whether

or not there was emergency with Canada,

I was one of four Republicans. And most

of the people who had signed on to

emergency reform all of a sudden didn't

care that there was an emergency under a

Republican president. And none of this

is to say I dislike Donald Trump. I

actually like him very much as a person.

Play golf with him. support probably 80%

of what he's doing. Do I think he's

better than Harris? Oh gosh, just a

million times. I mean, I'm going do

anything to stop socialism and the

redistributionist, but doesn't mean I

should just roll over and no longer have

a thought, you know.

>> Have you tried to align with the

Democrats to try and get this emergency?

>> It's not trying to align with them, but

when they're right, I vote with them. Uh

they had an emergency to overturn the

emergency and I voted with them. It's a

privileged vote and very rarely can

people who object to the majority will

of either party get votes. The only way

you get votes is by using special

procedures. So the emergency vote to

overturn an emergency has a privilege,

meaning that it has to come to the

floor. So I voted with them and there

were four of us, four Republicans that

voted with them.

>> You were also pretty well known recently

for being one of three Republicans to

vote against the big beautiful bill,

>> right?

>> Maybe you can just share the parts of

the bill that you were opposed to.

>> Increase the debt ceiling by 5 trillion.

This is not only extraordinary but

unheard of. No conservative in their

right mind would ever vote for this

under Biden. In fact, when Biden did

propose stuff like this, all the

conservatives voted no. So, we sort of

lose who we are if we don't keep the

same standard under the same presidents

$5 trillion. But a lot of people don't

know this, but up until the last moment,

my vote was still in play because I told

him I don't like a lot about it. It's

also going to add to the debt. And I

think that is true. And I we can go

through that in a minute. But up until

that morning, I met with Vance that

morning. Lisa Marowski was demanding

more stuff for Alaska. I didn't want

anything for me or for my state in a

proial way. I wanted something for the

country was not not add so much debt. So

I said I'll vote to increase it 500

billion. And even that's like sticking a

dagger in my heart. 500 billion used to

be a year or two years. Now that's three

months. And they said they didn't want

it. I had long conversations with the

president. I spoke with him for 59

minutes the week before. I noted I

looked at my phone. my wife standing in

the kitchen and he spoke for 58 minutes

and 45 seconds and he just didn't the

debt ceiling. The Democrats will never

vote for it. I don't want to do it

again. It's inconvenient. You know, I

don't want to talk about the debt

ceiling. But I won't talk about it. I'd

vote on it every three months. Um not

that I want us to default, but because

every three months we need to talk about

how we're out of whack. We need to talk

about why, you know, why are these

credit agencies downgrading the dollar?

what happens if there is a dramatic

flight from the dollar. Um the thing

about economics and I don't claim to

know even a tenth of what smart people

know but things don't always happen

gradually. You know, if you think in

your lifetime or my lifetime of the

different corrections in the market,

they came in one or two days. You know,

2007208 came in like a day or two,

right? Um there was one in the '9s,

there was 1929. I think somebody told me

almost all the losses in the stock

market, if you take like seven days of

the last century, it's like 95% of all

the losses are in like seven days. But

it could be worse. If there's ever a

flight from the dollar and people are

talking about that they have bond sales,

you know, they talk about how many

people show up. There's some kind of

ratio and it usually it's like I don't

know 2.5 to one or something. It was in

the low twos, 2:1 of not many people

showing up. Interest rates are still,

you know, pretty pretty high. But what

I've always fascinated by is people say,

"Well, the interest rates are so high."

But I was always taught historically

that the interest rates are inflation or

expectations of inflation plus the

historic rate, which is about two or

three points. If I take money from you

for 30 years, you're not giving it to me

for less than two or three points. But

you also want inflation, too. So you

want three points for inflation and two.

Well, that's about what interest rates

are. So I don't think anybody knows

whether interest rates are too high or

too low. I think that's a silly

question, but if you looked at it in

historic terms, they're about probably,

you know, the market's judging them to

be expected inflation plus about three

points,

>> right?

>> But just going back to the big beautiful

bill and your vote against it,

>> right?

>> I just want to understand how we got

here or your view on how we got here.

So, you've read a lot of history, a lot

of philosophy. I've interviewed Ray

Dalio twice.

>> I've met him. He's a fascinating guy.

talking about his cycle of empires and

you know we're it his kind of thesis is

we're one of six cycles

>> right

>> over the last 500 years and we're kind

of at the the tipping point here and

there's a a set of trends that are very

common he says

>> you know different characters same act

you know like it happens over and over

again and we take on too much debt when

we the country gets wealthy it grows it

the economy expands

>> we start to get offered free money we

take it we spend it all of a sudden

>> and one of the things you we we had a

dinner bipartisan in dinner with him

recently and one of the things he's

saying is the way to get out of this

what we have to do is we have to get and

his isn't even dra I think draconian we

have to get 3% our debt our annual

deficit needs to be 3% of GDP well it's

6% now so it'd have to be cut in half

and uh I think it's very reasonable and

a lot of people nodding their heads but

it takes a tough vote like I voted to

raise the age of social security and

people say god do you hate old people I

say no I aspire to be an old person I

want my social security and I want the

system to be around for ordinary people,

but it's not going to be around unless

you raise the age to 70. That's the only

way it sticks around.

>> Is it that in order to get reelected,

you have to offer your voters something

that they don't have today. And

therefore, every election cycle, you

have to show up with something else. No

one ever gets elected by saying, "I'm

going to cut back half or cut back a

quarter or 10% of what you're getting

today." You might, but is what is that

the dynamic or is this

>> I'm pretty positive that you don't have

to say, "I'm going to bring on the

bacon. I'm going to bring you your

freedom. I'm going to keep the

government out of your lives and I'm

going to uh allow you to become richer

because freedom and capitalism makes us

all richer and I'm going to allow you

and it's going to be most mostly on

merit which is better than the

government deciding that. So I think you

can say that and I've said it

explicitly. I will never go home with a

check saying we brought you this to your

community because we don't have it and

it has to be borrowed that makes us all

poorer through inflation. It is that

fear though and the president has bought

into this. The president says social

security we can't talk about. Medicare

we can't talk about. And really on

Medicaid he severely limited what could

be talked about. Food stamps. They they

nibbled at it. They talked about some

good things but most of it's in the

distant future. And and here's the

bottom line. I I voted against the big

beautiful bill because of the debt

ceiling. But also here's the

projections. The CBO had a projection

that was going to add three trillion.

All the Republicans said, "Oh, CBO has

too low a grade throat. we can't re we

can't believe the CBO. Well, the authors

of the bill did something I agreed with.

They said, "We're doing it based on

policy and this is what we project that

the taxes will go on and that they

aren't really we're not giving a tax

cut. Most of that is just keeping the

same policy." I said, "I accept that.

So, what are your numbers?" The authors

of the bill, the Republican supporters

of it said, "Well, the first 10 years,

no, the first five years it's going to

lose 500 billion. So, we'll be more 500

billion more in the hole. the second

five years we'll make that up and we'll

go a trillion positive so we'll be plus

500 I believe the first five years I

don't believe the second five years and

this is from the authors admitting and

the reason you know it's going to lose

500 billion is this many tax cuts will

pay for themselves over time but almost

all of them have a little bit of dip in

revenue in the beginning it's not a

reason to be opposed to tax cuts it's a

reason to at least be wary even if you

don't count the tax cuts that we already

had that we continued and you count the

new ones there's going to be a little

dip in revenue and maybe some of these

weren't that growth growth related tips

and things like that may not be that

growth laid to reduce tax on tips. So

that's going to be a dip down. But the

other reason why you know the deficit's

getting better, they they put $500

billion of new spending. So from the

very beginning, this was this was

Lindsey Graham and the

military-industrial complex. They wanted

more money for the military. They

already got an increase in the military

last time. This is 150 billion for the

military and 150 billion for the border,

which I'm for controlling the border. I

applaud the president for controlling

the border. He didn't need the 150

billion. who may, you know, 20 billion

would have probably been enough to

secure the border, but nobody's

conservative when it comes to this.

>> I saw your hearing where I think you

challenged the the bill the amount.

Yeah. The wall because you kind of went

through the numbers and it was uh

>> pretty pretty striking that

>> it was on their website. The next week

they changed their website because they

didn't like me reciting their website

back to them.

>> Right. So, where are we headed? 37

trillion of debt. If the debt gets

financed at five, six% which is kind of

where interest rates are trending, we're

talking about an incremental trillion

dollars a year of incest expense.

Interest expense will probably become

two trillion a year,

>> right?

>> We don't seem to be cutting the budget

much. Everyone wants more. Everyone

wants more budget for their particular

interests and their states and whatnot.

What's your view on where we're headed

over the next 10 years? Barring a lot of

Rand Paul's getting elected to

>> Yeah, the the the left, you know, has

this u modern monetary theory and it and

it sounds ridiculous and it is except

that it kind of worked for 10 or 15

years. So Bush doubled the debt from 5

trillion to 10 trillion, but the

interest rates went in half. So his

interest payments the same. You know, we

went we went from five to 10 trillion

with the same interest rate. We played a

lot of games to do something similar. So

for the last 10 years or so or maybe

eight years, we averaged our payment was

like one and a half uh% for the debt.

That's what we were paying. Now it's

three and a half. That's a pretty

significant jump. But I think if they

stay where they are, it's going to be

even more. So we're at a trillion in

interest now. Could we go to two? And

what happens? All of these things are

fixable. America is a great place

because of capitalism. We just need to

start fixing them. And it's not even

draconian. just a little bit at a time.

You know, for 12 years, I've been saying

just raise the age three months a year

for the next 20 years and and you'll be

at 70. You may eventually have to go

higher depending on longevity. The other

thing you have to do is the age doesn't

fix social security anymore. You got to

means test it. And the only difference

we have with the Democrats on the means

testing, well, on all of it, if they

would agree to any reform, they just

want to tax rich people in the

beginning. So, there's a limit. your

social security taxes go up to about

160,000 and they're indexed to kind of

keep creeping up a little bit. Um, which

I can live with that. But if there's a

choice whether rich people get less

social security in the end or we tax

them up to $10 million, I'd rather do it

in the end because somebody making $10

million is investing in creating a lot

of jobs and I'd rather not stop that.

But I don't care if rich people have

including me and I'm not that rich but

I'm upper middle class and I would get

less social security also. You can fix

the system that way. And I think we are

so dependent on it that uh it's hard to

go back to a pure system where we devel

it would be worked on charity and

private pensions. Um but we got to get

started on it. The longer you wait the

more difficult it is to fix.

>> Is there a point of no return that you

view? Is there a year or a debt amount

to GDP a debt ratio

>> that becomes a reversal?

>> There's never Well, there is a point of

return of no return for a catastrophe

and I don't know that. If I would, I'd

be predicting the day and then I'd be

fine and everybody else would get, you

know, killed by the calamity. I don't

know. You got to be really smart or

lucky to predict those calamities. Like

the people who saw the housing crisis

were really smart, you know, and they

they figured that happening. Um, so I

don't know that it is going to happen.

But I think what's important, and I tell

people this all the time, you will

always get your social security check.

You will always get your Medicare. It

will never end. But it just may not be

worth anything. So there will be a point

in time when we cut you your check and

there are colas but um what happens when

if you're if you're in 1923 in Germany

and you get annual colas didn't work so

well because the money was losing 30% an

hour you know there were times when the

German workers and was in 22 or 23 they

wanted to be paid at noon because they

didn't wait till the end of the day

because it was depreciating so fast

colas work for a while but that cost of

living increases but they are somewhat

of a game. You have a problem. You're

creating this inflation. You You hate to

punish people, so you give them a cola.

But the cola comes once a year. Part of

the breaking point for all this stuff

that has colas on is when you need to do

it every month. So that's much higher

inflation. And we've been

extraordinarily lucky. And I've never

really seen anybody write this as accur

as as um I think um detailed as that

could be. I think we've exported our

inflation. I think we've created so much

more inflation than we have. But because

we import more than we export, we pay

them in the dollars. Some of them find

their way back into our stock market,

put our stock market up. But you can go

to two dozen countries around the world

and they're trading in your dollars. So

the actual physical dollar never comes

back on some of these trades. And so I

think if you took what the M1's going up

and what the money's going up, and I

think you looked at it, some of it

disappeared. Then they play the games

with paying interest to keep it in the

Fed, which I've got a bill to eliminate

that right now. Um, and that bill is

co-sponsored by Bernie Sanders. Um, we

paid 188 billion, the Fed did, in

interest to banks, not to loan money.

Most of it went to five banks in New

York, the big five, but 40% of it went

to foreign banks. So, the Fed's buying

our interest with fake money. The

taxpayer still has to pay the interest

back to the Fed. The Fed used to use it

as profit and give it back to the

Treasury, and it's a a weird game. But

now, instead of at least playing the

weird game, they're giving it to rich

people. So this is something reminiscent

of the u occupy wall street movement

where you got right and left coming

together.

>> The free market is not dumb to this it

seems right. So the the global free

market dollar reserves according to the

IMF report on central bank holdings have

declined in the last decade. So it's

been shown the dollar reserves have

declined from 60% to 40% in the last 10

years. Meanwhile, gold has doubled from

10 to 20% of central bank holdings. And

as a result, we're seeing gold prices, I

think, 3,600 bucks an ounce as of

yesterday. What do you think is the path

here for the dollar? Like maybe we can

just kind of talk to the average person

listening. Where's this taking us?

Because the market wakes up to this and

they're saying these dollars aren't

really, you know, what they used to be.

>> I think there are two scenarios. One is

the one we're used to and that's the

gradual scenario. then the Fed tries to

intervene to try to control uh

inflation. I think they can, but I've

always asked this question to very smart

bankers and things. Is there a point in

time at which the Fed doesn't control

interest rates? And many times they'll

say, well, the Fed doesn't really

control the long-term interest rates

after the daily stuff that it's really

controlled by the marketplace, but when

is there a time in which um it just

becomes out of control? So you have the

the government shows up and says they

want to sell $20 billion of the debt.

Nobody shows up and the Fed has to buy

all of it. I think right now of our $36

trillion debt, the Fed has about a third

of it. Uh what foreign governments have

about a third and then the marketplace

has about a third. Uh what happens when

when when the private marketplace

doesn't show up? Is there a time in

which you have a Friday, they do this on

Fridays, I think you do a Friday sale

and nobody shows up. the Fed buys the

whole thing. What do you think happens

to that Monday? Do you think you'd be

trying to prepare to sell sell some

stock, you know, overnight before Monday

opens? Um, and then I think you could

have a calamity and some of it can be

fixed and some of it we we live on a

house of cards because and most people

don't know this and I don't want to

scare your audience. Will this scare

your audience if I tell too much?

>> It's great. It's going to get clicks and

views.

>> Yeah. Okay. This is this is this is very

scary. So, you have $1,000 in your

checking account and you go to the bank

and you want all of it. That only works

if a few of you go because the bank, I

think, only holds 10% of your checking

account. Now, I want the bank to loan

money. So, I give them $1,000 in a CD.

They pay me 2% and they loan it out for

3%. That's how banks traditionally make

it money. But they they have a game. I

have a a racket. This it's called

fractional reserve system. And it works

until it doesn't work. And once a bunch

of people go crazy, a bank run. We've

had bank runs even back in the 19th

century.

>> We nearly had one with Silicon Valley

Bank two years ago.

>> Exactly. Exactly. But it's really based

on that and I haven't been as involved

exactly with what the rate should be.

But I I think lo loaning out 90% of your

checking account is a recipe for a bank

run. We don't have it because we just

print more and we flood the system with

liquidity when when people get get

skittish. But there's a time at which

they can't control that and it's coming.

But I try to get back to simple things

because I don't know when that's going

to happen. Maybe it's not going to

happen. The simple thing is you spend

what comes in. Most people do. You

borrow if you have an asset that the

bank can hold like your house or

something. This is what normal people do

and they spend what comes in. Your

government should behave that way. In

the same way there are ramifications to

you personally. If you overspend, you'll

ultimately be punished. It's going to

happen to us. And so the first thing we

do, we don't even need to think about

the 36 trillion. We need to think about

the two trillion we're borrowing next.

And that number needs to be smaller. But

I can tell you people aren't getting it.

I I went, you know, I asked the

secretary treas the treasury secretary

basent about this. I said, um, you guys

are spouting all these numbers, the big

beautiful bill, and it's going to be

great, and there'll be no more debt, and

all the Saudis are going to invest 20

trillion dollars in our country, and

we'll all be rich. And I said, but the

number I'm concerned about is will the

deficit be bigger or smaller next year?

And he said, well, um, in terms of the

GDP, it will. But even that's not going

to be true. The deficit next year's uh

this year the one we're in that's going

to end in about three weeks is going to

be about 1.9 something trillion and

that's going to be about 150 160 billion

worse than last year and as a percentage

of GDP I think it's going from six to

about 6.2. So we are getting worse and

it isn't I don't say this because I you

know want to be mean and get the wrath

of Donald Trump. I say this because as

Republicans we need to be for balanced

budgets, less spending no matter who's

in the White House. And it's going to

take some some back and forth with the

president to get there.

>> Well, I want to introduce another kind

of frightening metric and statistic. So,

by my estimate, and this is not reported

by anyone, this is just me doing some

addition in an Excel spreadsheet,

somewhere around 40 to 50% of the

American workforce age population

earn their income from directly from a

government or a government contractor.

If 40 to 50% of Americans are

employed directly or indirectly by a

federal, state or local government or

government contractor

>> or earn their income from a government

check,

>> can we actually reduce spending?

>> And this is a real problem when you look

at our spending as a percentage of GDP,

the spending part, the 7 trillion, the

average over the last 5 years is about

26%. Right now we're at 23 or 24% of

GDP. And I love it because the people

say, "Well, we'll just have tariffs and

we'll run the government off tariffs."

And I said, "Well, when they did that in

the 19th century, government was 3% of

GDP." I'm for that. You bring me

spending bills and I'll vote for all of

them to make us a 19th century

government of 3% of GDP and I'll vote

for all your tariffs. But that's a

that's a big change and it is a problem

and it's sort of a two-fold problem. The

people actually working for government.

You got to make government smaller so we

don't have as many government jobs. But

the other segment is is worrisome if not

more and that is the people not

participating in the workforce. They're

getting money but they're not

participating and it's like 38 40% 42%

depending on the state. So 40% of the

people eligible to work able to work and

not working. And this is um you know

libertarians had this debate like what

do you do? They don't some of them don't

want any border controls. And they say

and my dad used to say this and I kind

of agree with this part. You need to

build a wall around the welfare state

and don't give any people coming into

the country illegal any access to your

welfare state. And I still agree with

that part. I think you still have to

have border security too and you have to

push back on millions of people coming

all at once. But there is a problem if

you had like for example and people will

tell you this in that have tomatoes or

anything else the things that uh require

handpicking you won't have enough

people. But you would have enough people

if Americans work. But a whole chunk 40%

of them aren't working who should. But

if you want to if you if you want to

expel 20 million people from the country

and do that, you have to simultaneously

quit paying the people not to work or

you won't have enough workers. There is

also this argument. There was an

economist by the name of Julian Simon

who was a big promoter of this.

Population is actually proportional to

wealth.

>> So is trade. You look at big large

charts over decades and decades. The

more trade you have, the wealthier you

have. The more people you have, the

wealthier you have. And um there was a

famous bet between Paul Erlick and

Julian Simon about five different

commodities and whether they'd be uh

more more rare after like a 10-year

period. Julian Simon, the libertarian

economist, uh wins his bet because

basically the real he said the real

resource, the real ultimate resource is

the mind. It's ingenuity. Nobody would

have imagined even in my lifetime the

whole concept of AI. We didn't imagine

smartphones or cell phones. We didn't

imagine all of these things. Um and

we're going to have these big debates

maybe bigger than everything we've

discussed is whether or not we're going

to succumb to the lite philosophy or

whether we're going to believe that we

will over not only overcome but

technology we will succeed in

technology. It doesn't mean you can just

sit there and do nothing. You have to

adapt with the times and move forward.

But we've, you know, the people breaking

the looms were wrong. Do

>> you think this transition with AI in our

economy and our society will actually

create such significant productivity

gains that jobs will proliferate that we

can get people off of the welfare, off

of government jobs and into the private

workforce because they're

>> I don't know if it fixes that problem,

but I am of the opinion that I don't

fear technology in general. And I was

having this conversation really with one

of the world's richest men and he told

me, "Yeah, that's fine." and I' I've

been with you and I'm not for the lites

except for and I said well humans you

got to have humans to make the robots he

says the first generation the second

generation of robots will be made by the

robots and I guess it doesn't it doesn't

resonate with me because I have such a

profound uh belief in in the ingenuity

of of mankind that I think it is

limitless and um I don't think that we

need to uh smash the computers I don't

think we have to break you know somehow

shut down the chip companies and say

we're all going to be out of work. I do

think though there'll be a time that we

will have such great leisure that we

will we will actually choose to work.

And I always tell people this anyway. I

want everybody in America to work not as

punishment but as reward. There is a

reward to working. And I think even if

all jobs were eliminated, you'd have

sort of like secret societies where you

can go someplace and it'll be

underground and you have to do it under

threat of death, but you can go and

work.

>> Yeah. You know, even if we have no work,

there will be want people have

>> used to have yoga classes and Pilates

classes and massage therapists and many

of the luxuries that we take for granted

today that simply didn't exist a 100

years ago when the industrial

revolution, the second industrial

revolution was underway.

>> And as we fast forward the next few

decades, I think our life, and this is

one of Pinker's points, is just labor

per capita, like labor hours has gone

down steadily. We've given ourselves

more free time with the leverage we've

created on on human time.

>> He he does this and so does uh Marian

Tupi at uh human progress. They talk

about time hours and so did William

Nordhouse the was the famous example

maybe one of the first from Yale. He was

the economist who wrote about how many

hours of work it takes to get light for

a year to read by. And it was like in

the 19th century because you had to have

candles. It was like 10,000 hours of

work or no maybe it's a thousand hours

of work to have nighttime light to read

by.

>> It's 10 seconds of work gives you an

entire year's worth of light. That

productivity increase nobody could

fathom and all the loites, you know,

hate that kind of stuff and it's like

it's not going to happen and we need to

take the pitchfork and the axe to the

computers. Uh, no, we'll we'll figure it

out. Um, I do think though that the the

the AI people and once again I'm not a

genius on AI. I don't write code. I

don't know any of that. But I think it's

overstated that uh how great AI is going

to be. I think it's going to be a lot of

cool things. And I think some people are

going to get caught. We're going to have

too many data centers at one point. And

I don't care how much electricity

they're sucking. But at the same time, I

think we're going to have too many of

them because people will say what the

one thing I see they do really well now

is they they uh are great adjacent to

things. uh you know I've looked up

political questions even today on what

happens if we hand the reverse repos you

know at the Federal Reserve and it gives

a a pretty good explanation it's a

faster it isn't smarter than humans it's

much faster at doing the search that I

could have done manually by using the

Google search engine but these things

just kill and I wonder whether that's

you know everybody oh we got to break up

Google because they have a monopoly on

search engines I wonder how long it will

take until maybe it's already happening

that AI I will make Google less of a

dominant search engine.

>> This was actually in the court ruling

yesterday, the judge that decided to not

break up Google. There was a write up on

the rise of AI showing a a point

>> and that I'm in favor of on multiple

levels, but I think it's also cool.

Nobody would have predicted, oh, oh,

Google's going to have everything and

they'll the whole world market all of a

sudden something comes in new, you know,

>> right? AI, like any other technology

prior, provides leverage on human time

and therefore leverage on human capital.

And when you get a higher ROI on

capital, you generally have more capital

flow in, not less. So people will invest

more in people. They will pay more to

people. They will hire more people as AI

tools are utilized. They're just going

to increase productivity for every

person.

>> That's a great way of putting it. And I

hadn't thought of that because that fits

with my sort of Adam Smith model that

the extent of our prosperity is the

extent of the division of labor. And so

if AI gives me four more free time, you

know, then I'm I'm going to be smarter

and I'm going to think of other ideas

and maybe we will get to Mars. You know,

>> I just want to ask your point on Doge.

There was a lot of proclamations at the

start of this administration about the

importance of Doge, Elon Musk's role in

the administration. The president and

others in the administration declared

Doge such an important part of the

efforts and all the cabinet members were

incorporating Doge team members into

their work. Today, is Doge dead? No, I

still met meet with people in government

who I think are part of Doge were uh

probably colleagues and friends of Elon

Musk and brought into the situation. I

think they've been a great addition

because one, they're people who know

about profit and loss and they're people

who have been successful in business and

the fact that they've been selected by

the marketplace as being successful

people means they're good people to have

in government. Is it everything I'd

wished? No. But that's not the Doge

people's fault. That's people resisting

Doge and resisting the cuts. I like the

fact that the president pushed on with

another round of the foreign aid cuts

and he's doing this pocket resision and

you know I am a stickler for the rules

and for the constitution. The

constitution is very explicit on how you

spend it but it's pretty silent on not

spending it. And I think the best way

for people have their doubts about

whether they should do it is imagine we

need an aircraft carrier and we hire

somebody who looks at every nut and bolt

like Elon Musk and his rockets. All

right, we hire Elon Musk and we give him

a billion dollars and he says, "This is

crazy. I can do this for $800 million

like this." And he probably can. And

that's probably true of every aircraft

carrier we have. So he does it for 800

million.

>> Should we be forced to spend the 200

million that this this person found in

savings? Should we go to Las Vegas and

have a big convention for all the GSA

people with champagne and everything?

No. It's ridiculous. The money should go

back to the Treasury. Now, the

appropriators on both sides of the aisle

say, "No, it's been appropriate. It

should be spent." but sort of ignores

the fact that we're $2 trillion over

budget. If you had a balanced budget,

you could argue, well, we want it to be

spent. If you have $2 trillion in the

hole, if you don't spend it, we should

be applauding the savings and the money

should go back to the Treasury. So, I'm

with them on the recision stuff. I want

more of the Doge cuts. I'm all for it,

but the push back, and it's bipartisan,

the push back, it's the spenders, it's

the big spenders in both parties that

have pushed back on Doge, but I still

wish them success and still am for them.

I was struck by how many Senate

confirmation hearings I watched where

senators blatantly spoke on camera about

the need to keep dollars flowing to

their state and that was the motivation.

It just drove me nuts. Anyway, we'll

move on. I want to talk about your new

book, Deception, The Great COVID

Coverup. What was at the heart of the

coverup from your point of view?

>> Some people get nervous when you talk

about cover up or conspiracy. They're

like, "Oh, you're one of those crazy

people." And I think the best way to

think of a conspiracy is the way George

Carlin put it. George Carlin said that

it's not necessary to have a cabal of

people, you know, that are all evil that

get together in a room to have a

conspiracy. All that's necessary is to

have a convergence of interest. The

convergence of interest in COVID was

holy crap, we funded this. And so if you

are Anthony Fouchy and you know that

you've made a deal to do very dangerous

research in China, one because there's

less oversight in China and there's

complaints beginning to circulate in

America. Let's outsource this to China.

What's your first thought? We got to

cover this up. And that's exactly what

he was doing. The phone calls went on in

our in my book. My wife helped me write

it. We go on in vivid detail of the

minuteby minute of him going till 3 in

the morning that first night. Emails

going back and forth and back and forth.

Jeremy Ferrar is his counterpart at

Welcome Trust in England.

He is saying, "I didn't know what a

burner phone was. I had to buy a burner

phone. My wife said I should talk to my

uh brother, bring him in in case

something happens to me." And then he

goes on to say, "It was no big deal. It

turns out it just came from animals."

It's like, well, you think the animals

are going to kill you? Why are you

getting a burner phone? Why are you

giving your last rights to your brother?

These people were very concerned.

Maybe not that they were going to be

killed by foreign agents, but that the

public was going to find out that they

had been funding this very dangerous

research and that millions of people die

because of lack of oversight. But I go

through the emails. There's never been a

more extraordinary cover up in the sense

that these people were saying in public

the opposite of what they were saying in

private. So freedom of information

became the the the tool that uncovered a

lot of this and thousands of people, you

know, helped to get this done. But in

private, Anthony Fouchi is saying I'm

50/50 whether this came from the lab or

animals. in publicly saying you're a

conspiracy theorist and should be

treated as crazy and that we should uh

expune you or we should expose you. We

should bring you down. Him and Francis

Collins are talking back and forth about

bringing down Jay Badacharia and uh all

of the others that were exposing this

stuff.

This is just extraordinary. We have the

we have the proof. You're saying they

knew that their funded research which

was done in China because there was less

oversight is what ultimately led to the

development of SARS KV2 and it escaped

from the lab.

>> They knew there was a high everything's

a a proportion. Everything is a

percentage. They knew there was a high

chance it was and they they chose to

cover it up because in the book I say

this is about the business of science.

This isn't about science. It's about the

business of science. And people have to

realize there are some good people in

this world. There are good scientists

who want to cure cancer. But there are

many people getting millions of dollars

and there's nothing against money. I'm

all for money and good people should be

paid for important discoveries. But they

shouldn't shouldn't be paid not to tell

us the truth and it should be exposed. I

think all the scientists should have to

reveal their royalties. Not one

scientist in government reveals their

royalties.

>> Some of them are now getting millions of

of dollars in this stuff. Fizer paid 800

million and Madna paid 400 million and

they've taken that money and now they

put it in a foundation that I have no

oversight in government over. Government

has no oversight of there's an NIH

foundation that has $1.2 trillion in it

given from big pharma for their share of

the COVID vaccine. So no, it's an

extraordinary thing where in private

they were very open to the fact leaning

towards and in favor of the fact that

the virus came from a lab. In public

they were disdainful. They got Facebook

to take all our crap down. They got

Facebook to take down the discussion of

it as a conspiracy. That's an evil thing

to do. And it's it's dishonest. It's not

just you're a bad person. If you were in

the government and you were leading

people astray as to the cause of

something because you find it you

deserve to be punished really in a

criminal way.

>> I saw your heated exchange with Fouchy.

There was a a video. It's about nine

minutes long. It went viral. you and uh

questioning uh Fouchy

um about gain of function research and I

just want to talk about the origin of

gain of function research because it's a

term of art that's got different

definitions right depending on who you

ask Fouchy obviously disagreed with the

definition what's your view as a doctor

as someone who's worked in science and

as a political leader about the role

that government should play in

researching ahead of the curve so that

understanding what may come next which I

think is part of the argument for some

of this research that we need to

understand how viruses can evolve so

that we can prepare for the next

pandemic because if we don't there will

be a congressional hearing saying why

didn't you prepare enough

>> so there's different aspects to this

should we know how viruses evolve

absolutely should we test viruses and

infections from different natural

sources yes gain of function is

different than that gain of function is

forcing evolution in a direction so gain

of function is I take a rat and I put

human lungs in it. Not literally human

lungs, but I have a they will express

receptors that make cells think that

they're invading a human. So, I give it

a virus and I run it through and nine

nine rats survive and one's sick as

What I do is I take the really

sick one, I culture the virus out and I

do it again. And every time I just keep

culturing it till I get a virus that

really attaches to human cells. We

believe COVID is that because most

animal viruses, the aven flu right now,

if the aven flu is not manipulated in a

lab, it can infect a human but doesn't

go human to human. It has trouble.

That's the way animal viruses are. When

CO started, it hit humans and went

everywhere. It just there was nothing

stopping it, which made us think it was

pre-addapted. There are many other

reasons why we think this happens. But

as far as gain of function, what should

be regulated and what shouldn't? One,

it's very dangerous. Viruses are more

dangerous than bacteria if they're

aerosolized. something that can spread

through the air can be incredibly

dangerous. Um, lethality. Should you

increase the lethality of it? Um, some

of these viruses start with 50%

lethality. And if you want to know what

that's like, read Barbara Tukman's about

the 14th century calamity and the black

plague. When a third of Europe died, I

mean, we're talking about setting back

civilization hundreds of year. We're

talking about entering the stone age. We

we some people think we could lose 10%

of our population and we wouldn't get

chlorine in the water. we'd no longer

have portable water and we would have

riots like you've never seen in just a

disaster. So aerosolization, increasing

the lethality, increasing the

transmissibility are all dangerous

things. They did all of that and yet he

argued, oh well, you can't have gain of

function unless it was intentional. And

it's like, well, if you're running it

through human humanized mice or rats,

you're pushing it you're pushing its

evolution to be infectious in humans.

And uh you know he he basically lied.

One day he came and they had actually

changed the the definition on his

website the day before. So they knew I'd

been arguing that it was gain of

function. They actually literally

changed the definition on the website to

say it doesn't match the definition.

>> You would still support research into

where viruses are headed and protecting

the population and doing this this

research but not in this directed

engineered way.

>> Right. So there's a there's a big

difference and even many some of the

people support Fouchy actually support

me on this. Identifying viruses

mostly a good idea but still you have to

think about it. A lot of these viruses

are 300 feet underground in these

enormous bat caves in South China. So

should you go down 300 feet underground

and just randomly get as many as you can

and take them back to a lab in Wuhan.

Well, there's the danger that one you

got is the one that's going to kill all

of mankind. Maybe it was never getting

up and other viruses would dominate it

and never was getting up to service. You

should check the humans who live around

the cave. You should check viruses that

get up into our world. I'm not sure you

should bring viruses from very remote

areas to big cities. But then it's worse

than that. The big virus identification,

which sounds benign. They were taking

the corona viruses. They were taking a

backbone of it and they have a new one

they found in a cave. They were taking

the S- protein off a new one and

sticking it on a backbone. the backbone

is infectious and they're wanting to

know does it make it more or less

infectious. Well, that's really a recipe

for discovering something that maybe is

a disaster. It isn't helping and and

most most of the people who follow this

that oppose gain of function say no gain

of function research has developed any

vaccines. But here's further I think a

compromise and a moderation of this. I

don't want to ban it. I want to set up a

presidential commission of scientists

who are not currently employed by NIH,

don't have grants that I can give them

bigger grants if they agree with me. And

I want them to evaluate this. But not

only do they need to evaluate the

civilian side of this, they need to

evaluate the classified side because

here's what happens in our government.

And I only know this much because they

won't tell me either. They say, "Well,

the Chinese are doing this." Well, then

we need to do it. You have to, oh, the

Chinese are doing this. They're working

with Norberg virus. I'm just making this

part up of which virus they're dealing

with this very dangerous virus. Well, we

should too. That is the basically the

logic and what it takes to get a

research grant in the classified area

that the Chinese are doing it. Well, you

know, we might have an accident doing

something the Chinese are doing that the

Chinese shouldn't be doing and we should

be trying to stop them from doing, but

we could kill the world also through an

accident.

>> Uh even the safest labs in our country

have dozens of accidents every year.

>> Fair enough. Do you feel like there's

been an erosion of public trust in

science and scientific institutions in

this country? And importantly,

when people lose faith in science, which

is meant to be the source for objective

truth, a process by which we discover

the truth through testing and

experimentation, hypothesizing, testing

and experimentation, and looking at the

results objectively,

>> does it not create space for people to

come in with untruths and convince the

public of untruths being true?

>> Right. Absolutely. And so, the biggest

one they're talking about now is vaccine

hesitancy. So, and people say, "Oh, it's

all the right wing. It's people crazy on

the right wing that are creating this

vaccine hesitency." And I say, "Well, if

you tell people things that aren't true,

they become distrustful of all science."

So, I'll I'll tell you one right now.

I've had this back and forth with C Bill

Cassidy, the senator from Louisiana, and

with other members of the establishment

medical community. Does your two-day old

need a hepatitis B vaccine? I just went

through this personally.

>> Yeah.

>> And we we opted not to and we have to

deal with it in the schools and we've

been having this debate about how

>> we did the same thing. We did it later

on in school. But here's the thing. Does

your two-day old need There's one

indication for your two-day old get it.

Mom has hepatitis B and you have to

within 12 hours give them the vaccine

and you have to give them imunoglobulin

which is like a a monoconal antibbody

against hepatitis. But they test it

already. So if the mom does not have

hepatitis B, is there any indication

with hepatitis B? No. In fact, you know

what the honest people will tell you?

They'll say, "Oh, no, but we have you

there and we can get much better

compliance by forcing it and pushing it

in the hospital." The other problem is

this. There's so many problems on so

many levels. The hepatitis B vaccine

wears off. When does it wear off? About

10 to 12 years. When might you want to

inoculate your kid for hepatitis B? If

you are worried about your teenager

getting involved in sex, drugs, and rock

and roll, and IV drugs. That's when it's

going to happen. You might consider the

hepatitis B vaccine. Plus, he's 12 years

old at that point and much bigger,

stronger, and able to take whatever you

give them. But they are creating vaccine

hesitancy on this because they're lying

to us. They're absolutely lying to us.

COVID vaccine the same. People think I'm

antivaccine. Uh my age, I'm 62. I

probably would have taken it. I'm still

a little iffy on some of the details,

but I the reason I didn't take it is I

got infected in March of 2020. I had it

and I didn't take the vaccine. But would

I give it to my 5-year-old right now?

Hell no, I wouldn't have. Would I have

given it to him in March of 2020? No,

because all of the initial evidence out

of uh China was children. They weren't

even sure if they were getting sick. But

when they started doing the testing,

they found out they were all getting it

and they weren't getting sick.

>> It's like a lot of social discourse and

politics. It's become so binary. There's

no nuance and there's no gray area for

conversation about some of these make

sense, some of them do not. Why can't we

agree that we can each have a different

point of view on that? And

>> most of Europe doesn't do the COVID

vaccine or push it on goods. So, I think

I blame them and actually do want people

to believe in science. I come from a

scientific background. And I've had uh

papers published in scientific journals.

You know, I come from that background.

But uh you have to be honest with

people. And I also believe people are

smarter. You don't have to have a PhD to

know people are lying to you about the

FB vaccine.

>> Just today, Putin Xi and Kim Jong-un

stood together in Beijing. Very dramatic

show of strength and unity as a group.

What does it mean for America to be in

competition with China? Is this going to

evolve into a conflict from your point

of view? Or is there a way to carry the

world forward where we all have

prosperity where we all progress, where

all societies succeed, where they

cooperate, and we have a multipolar

world that doesn't dictate a winner and

a loser. Do we really need American

primacy?

>> The shorter answer is yes. The longer

answer is more complicated. Um Graham

Allison wrote a book, The Thusidities

Trap, and

>> we interviewed him at our show last

night.

>> He's amazing guy. Really, really bright

guy and a guy I'm fond of. He you know

talks about up and cominging powers and

is is war inevitable and interesting and

I don't know if this commander but I met

with one of the Pacific fleet managers I

don't want to name him because I don't

want him conversation but he said when

you go back to Washington make sure they

know that war with China is not

inevitable and I thought it's a profound

statement from a guy who's going to be

in charge of the war and out there

fighting on the front lines and uh I

think it is very possible and I think it

but it gets back to fallacies um can you

trade with China where you both get rich

and it's not they're ripping us off. Uh

I think yes and I think that is the

truth of the matter. Since 1975 on,

we've had a trade deficit every year and

we got richer and so do they are there

problems and dislocations in industry?

Yeah. But I would actually argue what

killed the steel industry or hurt the

steel industry the most in this in this

country was actually protectionism. Um

they've been protected for long one

antitrust killed them first when they

broke up US steel and that became them

less competitive with foreigners because

they were smaller. But then the second

thing that went after them is we did try

to protect them. This isn't the first

time we tried to protect steel. We've

been trying to protect steel. As we

protected steel, what did it do? Did it

breed uh better and more uh profound

market decisions or worse decisions? So,

if you're selling me chairs and I tell

you, you sell them for $50, I can say,

well, we'll put a tariff on you, sell

them for $100. Are you going to be more

efficient or less? You know, you won't

make as wise a decision because you're

being protected from the competition.

And so, all of that happened with with

steel industry. But I think we can we

have to get through the fallacy part,

but we also have have to understand that

I think we're pushing in the wrong

direction. There's a possibility. People

think we're going to defeat them and

we're going to come out on top because

we're so, you know, great and

protectionism is going to show how great

we are. But them all meeting together to

me shows one other possibility. And I

don't know what will happen. Nobody

does. But there's one possibility that

finally unites them enough that they do

everything in their power not to use the

dollar and maybe they can displace the

dollar. They already try in their

transactions. And so I think we we we

use the the stick in foreign policy and

you have to have it, but we should have

a carrot offered as well. Um I just met

with some Syrian Americans today,

physicians mostly and uh uh

intellectuals and u engineers and things

and they want to get rid of the

sanctions on Syria. And I say finally,

now they did like that. I think this

group liked the sanctions before, but

they want to get rid of them. Finally,

somebody wants to get rid of sanctions

because there has to be a reward. And so

even with countries we find distasteful

and often are distasteful. Iran, there

has to be an offer somehow to get rid of

the sanctions. I would send my diplomats

to China. I'll give you a great example.

Blinken and Yellen went to China and

they were screaming, pitching a fit and

and telling the Chinese how bad they

were. One that's not very good

diplomacy, but they wanted them to stop

selling dual use parts to Ukraine. I

mean to Russia in the Ukraine war. And