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It's funny. In the moment, I wasn't nervous, but watching this now, I'm nervous because I realized this is a bad idea. Ever have a moment where you were actually scared? Oh, all the time. What was that? What's the scariest one? I mean, personally, probably getting arrested by War Patrol. So you didn't pay the $5,000 to the coyote, but you paid the $10,000 to the guy with the fire? I probably should pay the coyote. Oh,

I'm thinking, holy shit, they stole this car. And then I look around. I look in the rear view mirror and there's a cop trailing us. That was a classic example of just me taking it too far in the field with the documentaries. Even when you put this up, cops never got a hold of you. No, they might after this podcast, though. I'm more scared of Scientology than any other subgroup in the world. Really? Do you have any interest? I have some friends I can introduce you to. I have an extreme interest in Scientology, but I also have an interest in being alive. You ever seen this? Is it a breakdown of it?

Oh, dude, I love the fact that you're seeing this for the first time. Let's make a Channel 5 video. I would do it. Oh, I would love to see it. A lot of people would be upset with that. The handshake is better than anything I ever saw. It's right here.

You are a one-on-one? My son's right there. I don't think I've ever said this before. Ha ha ha!

How you doing? I'm good. Thanks for having me. It's great to be back in the country's greatest state. Greatest state? I think so. Really? Florida. And you're saying it's living in L.A.? Yeah. I want to live in L.A. for a year and a half, but I think I might have a Floridian future. You do? You may have it. I like it. I like Key Biscayne. I like Orlando, Tallahassee, Jacksonville. But not South. It's okay. I like Fort Lauderdale. Miami's a little bit overwhelming. Yeah, for me too. I don't know if I could do Miami, but the right place is Fort Lauderdale, in my opinion, because

Because if you want to go to Miami to do something, you're 45 minutes away. You want to go to Palm Beach, 45 minutes away. Orlando, three minutes.

You can have lifestyle here, water, all the good stuff that comes with it, but that's interesting. We'll talk about the L.A. stuff. But let me tell you how I feel about you, okay? And it's very important because I have a 13-year-old son, okay, Patrick, who has your personality, okay? And he is extremely curious. He loves politics for whatever reason. He's a jujitsu guy.

And I think you're one of the most important voices for the younger audience. And here's why. Because I think you're going through a journey which you kind of, you know, you have your own opinions and they're strong, but also you're developing it as you're going through the process of,

By actually going to the place instead of seeing what the news is telling us, you're like, nah, I want to go see what you guys are doing. And you've been to what? You've been to Miami Beach during COVID. Definitely. Old Block, Chicago. Yep. Philly Street, Kensington, the whole fentanyl place that you went to. San Francisco, George Floyd protest in Minneapolis. Chaz, which became this special thing during COVID and, you know, in Seattle.

You swam across the Rio Grande. Yeah. Phenomenal. Very impressive. Yeah. Bad choice. Anti-vaccine protest. You went to Israel and Tel Aviv for the protest. Cockfighting in Mexico. Connecticut, Kia. You were in the car with the Kia boys. Yes. While they're stealing, you have a mask on. You're going with them. Yeah. And that's some crazy stuff you've done. And it's one of those shows that if you watch one episode, guys, you could get stuck watching two hours worth of content. You do such a good job.

And you don't put your opinion in it. You just ask, what do you think? What do you think? How do you feel about this? I just want to say, great job on what you've done with Channel 5. I think prior to that, it was what? All gas, no brakes, right? And I have some good news. I'm actually reacquiring All Gas, No Brakes. Oh, no shit. Yeah, we used a quarter of the proceed from our new film, Dear Kelly, to make the acquisition of our first child, All Gas. So I'm going to make that announcement probably in the coming days. But I'm going to be in control of both Channel 5 and All Gas and the entire catalog.

I love that. So, you know, for the audience that maybe doesn't know, backstory. How did you say, I'm going to go out there and do this? How did this happen? Well, I had a really great teacher back in the day. I had a journalism course in high school. I had a teacher named Cal Shaw, Calvin Shaw. And he just inspired me to, you know, pursue journalism as a career path.

For me, the coolest thing about being a journalist is you get to be in the front row seats for all the things that you want to witness in the world, whether it be a political event. You get to dive into a subculture because everybody wants coverage. Everybody wants to be heard. And if you can be a medium for them to get their message out there, you can go wherever you'd like.

Yeah, and today's marketplace as a citizen journalist, it's almost you have more credibility than the actual journalist that's sitting in front of the camera speaking. You're like, no, I'm going to the street. I'm going to go see what's exactly going on versus what you're seeing out there. And I think that's been a game changer, right? Definitely. For a lot of people that have been doing this. Yeah.

Was there anybody else that was an inspiration for you? Are you a 97 baby? Yeah, I was born in 1997, four years before 9-11, right when the internet first came around, the first iPod. So who was that person? Like 97, YouTube starts in...

in 03, 04. So when did you start consuming YouTube content? - Oh man, YouTube content. Well, probably as soon as I got on the internet, but I came online during like the chocolate rain, Charlie bit my finger 4chan era. So the online subculture is still being formed. But as far as like the first citizen journalists that I was into, I was mostly into comedians at first, like Sacha Baron Cohen, even early stuff like Kassim G was really good. There was really fringe.

show called Shams to Baron or Brushstrokes with Norman Van Amy that was like a graffiti adjacent interview show where this guy would go to art shows dressed as like a break dancer and kind of like pretend to be a high art customer. Yeah. You know, high end art customer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And some of that stuff was just hilarious to me. I didn't put the journalism pieces together until I went to college for it and I had that professor. Interesting. I mean, Sacha Baron Cohen to me is a dude. What he did with

What was that, HBO? Was it HBO or Max where he goes to a couple rallies? He has this guy teaching him. He's an Israeli. He's going to train him how to fight off gay men. Do you know which one I'm talking about? Some of the stuff the guy did that he was able to convince. He sits there. He says, so what was it, the Ali G one? That's my favorite one. When he says, so I want to talk to you about euthanasia.

He says, yes, have you seen this one where he says, yeah, what about it? He says, why is it always the youth in Asia?

He says, no, it's about euthanasia. He says, but what I know, but why is it not other people? Why is the target only youth in Asia? This guy is freaking hilarious when he does that. My favorite part of that show is when he goes to a city council meeting in Kingman, Arizona, which is a very hardcore biker town, and he proposes the construction of the largest mosque in North America, and they're screaming, they're like, we don't want any fucking terrorists here. That, to me, was like, the fact that he was able to keep a straight face during that character performance. Gotta love it. Okay, so...

- For you, with the places that you visit, we got a lot of stuff that's going on right now that it's kind of timely with Luigi Mangione, the protest for that and Tesla, Elon and United. There's a bunch of stuff that's going on. But let's start off with something very important that you and I were talking about. I think it's probably the most important issue that most people are not aware of.

And that is your favorite movie. Your favorite movie of all time is? The Dark Knight, the second film in the Christopher Nolan Batman series. And why is it the second one? Well, everyone expects me to say that I'm into really cutting-edge documentaries like by Adam Curtis and Errol Morris and stuff like that, but I actually just love Batman. And I loved it so much when it first came out in 2012. I saw it five times in a row in Ocean City, New Jersey.

every matinee for a week straight, just trying to really digest all the different subplots and narratives. Which character, though? I mean, there's the Joker. There's Commissioner Gordon. There's Christian Bale's Batman character was amazing. There's just so much. Batman Begins was a great segue to The Dark Knight. Dark Knight Rises didn't really do it for me. A little bit too political.

Too political for you. Well, you know, Dark Knight Rises was like a metaphor for the Occupy Wall Street movement going too far. When they start, you know, when Bane is supposed to be like the commander of Antifa and they roll up in this New York Stock Exchange and start shooting people and stuff. Too divisive. Well, it was literally like, I feel like it was subsidized in some way by Wall Street. Yeah. So, but character wise, like who do you relate? Because for me, for the longest time, my podcast set had three characters behind me, Batman, Joker, and the Incredible Hulk. And it's like the...

three personalities I relate to, right? But which one was it where you said, I kind of feel like I'm this guy in this movie? Well, this is a hard one to answer because if I say I'm like the Joker, that makes me feel like I'm a dark sort of sinister... But I have a Joker side to me as well. You have a lot of vengeance in you where you get Joker brand? It's not though. It's when you see somebody that...

you know, when you're sick and tired of being taken advantage of and you can't let go of the, you choose a wrong enemy can really destroy your life. And I think that's what happened to him. He couldn't let it go. But

But he's a hero to a lot of people as well. A lot of people followed his fire and the pain that he had. Yeah. I would say that I'm somewhere in between Batman and the Joker. Okay. But I think that the Joker is definitely a relatable character, more so in The Dark Knight than he was in the Joaquin Phoenix movie a couple years ago, which I know you said you were not a fan of. Dude, I walked that 43 minutes into the movie. I go and I look at my wife. We have 20 people at the movies. Rob, were you with us or no when we watched the Joker? No. So we're in a movie theater. I'm like, yeah, I'm out. Why? Why?

This is divisive, man. You're pinning America against America. We don't need more of this. And it's interesting because that movie, what ends up happening at the end of that movie? He kills...

He ends up killing, is it Robert De Niro, who is that, like the Johnny Carson character of the movie? Yeah, he kills, he says, how about another joke, Murray? And he kills him. And that was after he killed a couple bankers on the subway. After he kills a couple bankers on the subway. And then that leads to one of the stories, the Luigi Mangione story. Yeah, wow. Here's a guy, you got Luigi Mangione, you look at his background, stud of a guy,

student, good grades, everything's looking good, minus the last 90 minutes he disappears, 90 days he disappears, but you can't really see what's happening then. The people he followed on X, I was one of them. He followed some 74 people who were libertarian type of guys that he followed. So it's not like he followed only right or only left or only middle. He was open-minded is what he seemed like. And then all of a sudden the rage gets there to want to take out

the UnitedHealthcare CEO, how much when you hear that story, you went to the rally by the way, right? What did you hear people saying? Like what were you noticing that caused people to go rally for this guy? Well, I mean, if the...

Manifesto was legitimate, the one that was leaked, that was published by an independent reporter named Ken Klippenstein. If that's real, it seemed like Luigi Mangione had a lot of grievances against the health insurance claim denial system, particularly how UnitedHealthcare had implemented AI to automatically deny people's health care claims. So people needed treatment, they were paying customers, and there was a machine that had one of the highest insurance claim denial rates of any other company.

major health insurance company. - 32, 33%. - Something that was ridiculously high. - Can you pull up that number, Rob? - People were trying to appeal the robots decision and it was almost impossible. You were stuck with someone on the phone for days. And a lot of times during that window where people were waiting to get care, they would pass away. So I'm not sure if he had someone in his family who was affected by the healthcare policies, but I felt like a lot of people in my generation are kind of fed up with things not changing.

you know, the cost of living being ridiculously high, the wages being really low. And they felt like Luigi Mangione was something like a martyr who spoke for the rage of the collective public who feels like nothing is changing.

So how should, what do you think is the level to go to? Because some people, what's the one girl lately that's been talking about Luigi Mangione in a very complimentary way? Tracy, is it Lauren? Taylor Lorenz. Taylor Lorenz. Have you heard about Taylor Lorenz? Yeah, she helped us whenever we lost all gas during a contractual dispute. She leaked all the information, which kind of like segued millions of fans to Channel 5. So shout out to her for that. I'm not sure what she was saying about...

Luigi, but I think that basically probably what I'm assuming she was saying is that many people felt like he represented

the call for direct action. And there's a generational shift to the idea that awareness culture and raising awareness doesn't actually create change. So there's a lot of people... Say that one more time. There's kind of an idea that has persisted over the course of the past couple years, especially with the progressive left in the U.S., that raising awareness doesn't do much to actually create change. And so for someone to break out of the mold of making people aware and actually take things a step further made people feel some type of revolutionary spirit. Wow. So even if it means killing the CEO...

Well, because their logic is, you know, how many people have died as a result of their health care claims being denied. Yeah. Health insurance claims, you know. So to you, to somebody that is going through this and you're touching and you're talking to people and you're hearing the arguments at the protest, walking away, what argument got for you to say it's a little too much and what argument was like?

You know what? These guys may have a point in this area. Which one was it? Well, I mean, the reality is that regardless of how I felt about the opinions, killing a bunch of CEOs is not going to change any of that infrastructure in the health insurance industry. You know what I mean? That's not like... For sure. I agree with that. See, that was my concern with the movie Joker. So here's your chance for me to be a hero.

But the fact that it spurred conversations I thought was interesting. I mean, just it was fascinating to see such an, you know, the instant valorization of Luigi that happened overnight. Everyone's like, oh, my God, this guy is so hot. We love him. He's our hero. It was interesting because that was very much poisoned by the social media algorithms of the time, you know, where, like, Luigi Mangione becomes a hero to so many. And in general, I think that it did spark some good conversations. But I think you can acknowledge that while still saying it's not good to shoot people in the back of the head in the street. Wow.

Rob, what's that clip, by the way, you just had? Because I think that's the one where she breaks down her argument, right? Can you play this clip? I think she does a good job explaining why she's for Luigi Mangione. And I don't think she's alone. I think there's a lot of people that are probably on her side as well. Go ahead, Rob.

It's hilarious to see these millionaire media pundits on TV clutching their pearls about someone standing a murderer when this is the United States of America, as if we don't lionize criminals, as if we don't have, you know, we don't stand...

murderers of all sorts, and we give them Netflix shows. There's a huge disconnect between the narratives and angles that mainstream media pushes and what the American public feels. And you see that in moments like this. And I can tell you, I saw the biggest audience growth that I've ever seen.

because people were like, oh, somebody, some journalist is actually speaking to the anger that we feel. The women who got her outside court in New York. So you're going to see women especially that feel like, oh, my God, right? Like, here's this man who...

who's revolutionary, who's famous, who's handsome, who's young, who's smart. He's a person that seems like this morally good man, which is hard to find. Yeah, I just realized, women will literally date an assassin before they swipe right on me. That's where we are.

I'm sure you wouldn't like to be compared. But he's doing a pretty good job. I've been seeing his stuff last two weeks, and I think he's actually doing a pretty good job. I don't know who he is. Yeah, I think she broke it down quite well in terms of the romantic appeal as well. I mean, you hear the stories. Who are some of the people that ladies would be lined up in prison just to kind of see him? Was it Charles Manson? Who else was it, Rob? Ted Bundy?

He had the Menendez brothers who killed their parents in California. One of them got married while they were behind bars. Wow. I mean, every serial killer has typically had like dozens, if not hundreds of women writing them in prison. Why do you think that is? I don't know. I think people are just fascinated by the allure of it when people's names are in the headlines, like just someone's sort of profile being that large. Just fame attracts a certain kind of person regardless. And, you know, she said something here, which is very interesting. I was having this conversation with us, Rob. One day you and I, seven of us were at Casa D'Angelo.

And you even said this once when you were interviewed with Vice, I believe. And I don't know what the guy asked you. He said something about, did you ever catch yourself, you know, creating content that the audience was reacting to or something like that? I don't know what the context of it was, but we're kind of explaining that where she says, I've never had this many followers. That's not necessarily a good thing. Yeah. Because who is following you? Who is agreeing with you? You

You know, who is saying, man, I like what you have to say. And all of a sudden you're like, you're in the room with them. You're like, whoa, I don't relate to you guys. Where did you guys show up? Yeah.

And that's the thing about social media nowadays in particular is like people kind of become, it's a very fine line to walk when you exist online is doing things that you believe in and doing things that you know your fans will appreciate and kind of want you to do. Because once you pigeonhole yourself as a certain type of person, you know your audience quite well. You know that if you say a certain thing to the audience you've built up that they disagree with, a lot of them are going to walk away. You know, for example, like there's a lot of people, both conservative and progressive, who might have opinions about different things like abortion, homelessness, drug, you know, gay marriage, marriage.

Israel-Palestine, that they know that if they speak their opinion on it, they might lose a significant percentage of their audience. And so I think that keeps a lot of people going in line with what they see as the majority consensus narrative, as opposed to finding a middle ground and having conversations. Because at the end of the day, everyone's trying to survive too. Imagine if someone like Alex Jones went on TV and said, I support a Palestinian two-state solution. A lot of people would be upset with that.

But Alex has also not been the most agreeable guy in the Republican side. Every president has had a little bit on the conservative side. Nobody outside of Trump has been very close to him. Most of the Republican presidents can't stand Alex Jones. Really? Yeah.

You think George Bush likes Alex Jones? What is George Bush doing nowadays? No, but seriously, do you think George Bush likes Alex Jones? I mean, I don't know if George Bush knows who Alex Jones is. No, I guarantee you he knows who Alex Jones is. I guarantee you he knows who Alex Jones is. Wasn't Alex like the first one that came out saying 9-11 is going to be happening and they're going to blame this and they're going to blame that? Isn't that

Didn't he do something like that? Yeah, I mean, he was warning of an impending terrorist attack, I think specifically on the World Trade Center, like years and years before it happened. Bear in mind, that was after there were bombs detonated in the parking garage of the World Trade Center. I think it was in 1997 or 99. So it makes sense. It wasn't like he was conjuring up that image from scratch. But it makes sense as to why George W. Bush doesn't like Alex Jones. So I guess what I'm trying to say is when you use the example of Alex Jones,

I don't know if Republicans side with Alex Jones. Yeah. Outside of Trump. I guess what I'm kind of trying to say is when you become a social media influencer on a different political side, on one political side of the aisle, it can disrupt your business and income if you decide to deviate from the norm of the consensus. So for you, when I watch you, you say, you know, I have left this, but I'm not really, I don't want to be tied to a political side and I don't want to do this and that, but I'm, you know, I'm kind of this, as you're going through all of these places and, you know, you

you're living your life and you're developing your own opinion. You're only 28. You're growing. 27. 27. I'm 97. I'm doing a math. So you're going to be 28. What month are you born? I'm actually, I was born on April 23rd. So it's coming right up. Well, that's right. We made a note of that. Your birthday's coming up. That's right. But happy early birthday to you, by the way. Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah. As you're going through this,

You know, would you consider yourself more of an anti-establishment person? Yeah, anti-establishment, like socially progressive. You know, I think people should be able to do whatever they want to do within reason. But yeah, socially progressive, anti-establishment. Definitely don't find any identity in either of the major political parties today. Yeah. And to you and Alex Jones...

would be a guy that is, would you put him as an establishment guy or anti-establishment? Anti-establishment for sure, 100%. Yeah, so I think you and Alex are, obviously he claims, he makes claims, he says things. You don't do that. You just go get the content and say, hey, what do you think, audience? Make up your mind. This is up to you, right? You don't get up there and say, let me tell you what I think is going to be going on. That's not your brand. You're more going out there doing the journalism. But to me, he is...

It's almost like whenever somebody isn't invited to the White House too often by president, they don't trust the guy fully. The only guy that's given this guy the opportunity to come in is Trump. All the other guys weren't comfortable with him. As a young guy yourself, how do you feel about Trump? I mean, in what sense? I mean, OK, so you're in the streets. You're talking to everybody.

Did you think he was going to win or did you think, oh, there's no way this guy's going to win? I definitely did not think that he was going to win. Even to the last minute? I mean, I think I'm kind of in a bubble to a certain extent. I'm mostly in like progressive major cities. So I didn't even realize that he was going to win. But then after the assassination attempt, I knew he would win.

You know, specifically when he pumped his fist and said fight, I was like, it's done. There's nothing the Democrats could possibly do to take the trophy away from this guy. But yeah, I would say in general, like I'm not really like a Trump guy. Mostly I don't like the way that that political movement makes people treat each other.

Just on a day-to-day human level. Interpersonal interactions get really dark between the Trump crowd and their opposition. Who do you think created that? I just think that the showmanship of politics that's happened in the last probably six to eight years, it's kind of like two football teams, and it gets pretty gnarly out there. I don't think people were fighting in the streets during the Obama and Romney election. I don't think there was a Romney Proud Boys.

You don't think it was Romney proud boys? Okay, so let me ask you this. Do you think for a guy that's anti-establishment, do you view Romney as an establishment guy or an anti-establishment guy? I mean, I know he's part of the Utah establishment because he is a Mormon, which is no disrespect to Mormons. They're actually really nice. But I think so, yeah, for sure. He's like an RNC guy. Did you do something with Mormons or no? No, I want to. But it's kind of hard because if you portray them negatively, it's kind of like Scientologists. The Mormons have a lot of money to sue you.

Yeah, but Scientology will come after you in different ways. I'm more scared of Scientology than any other subgroup in the world. Really? Yeah, you know about Fair Gaming, right? Their policy where they can stalk you and harass you for years. Of course, I'm very familiar with that. UCIA technology to make you think you're having a schizophrenic break. For sure. They are incredible at what they do. I mean, the guy's wife's been missing for how long? David Miscavige's wife's been missing for how many years now?

Shirley? Is it Shelly or Shirley? Shelly. Shelly. Yeah, and there was like an LAPD checkup where they reported that nothing was wrong. I was like, what do you mean? Did you talk to her? They're like, we're not going to say, but everything's fine. There's a guy in Los Angeles right now. He's one of those Second Amendment...

First Amendment audit, like a cop watcher guys. Yeah. His name is, I think it's like stop Scientology LA. He stands outside of the Church of Scientology on Hollywood Boulevard every single day, live streaming for hours, physically like blocking the entryway, getting people to not go inside and get a free auditing session. So he's single-handedly shut down the recruitment operation in Hollywood. One man. Yeah. She's apparently been missing since 07. Okay. Since 2007, she's been missing.

Well, I think we know what happened. What's that? She's dead. You think so? Yeah, dude. Leah Remini. Did you ever see the Leah, am I saying her last name correctly? Shelly Miscavige. No, no. Leah Remini. Do you know who she is? Is she dead? No, no. Oh, she made a, she was in Going Clear, right? That big Netflix documentary about Scientology. Yeah. And she went on and she says, well, one time I went and I said, so how's Shelly doing? And everybody looked at me saying, hey, you don't ask a question like that.

And it's like, well, I'm just asking a basic question. She's a friend of mine. You don't ask a question like that. And then she's like, that's when I realized something's weird over here. Yeah. So you think she's been dead in 07. So let me ask you, if that's the case, what is the protocol? What are they supposed to do? Is the government supposed to investigate? Are we one day going to sit there and say, Shelly Miscavige is 173 years old, been missing since 2007. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, is she going to get a funeral? When does it get to a point that the government says, I want to investigate what really happened to her? Has there ever been one, Rob?

Has the U.S. government or the PD ever investigated to find out what happened to her? You just went after Scientology. Another crazy fact, too, is that David Miscavige, their leader, has never done an interview. He's only ever been documented. Wait, with who? One interview he did. You've never seen this? No, I got to find it. You have to watch this. You're saying you're in the space, so maybe...

I've only seen him portrayed by Scientology Media. He's done one interview his entire life. Yeah, I'm right, with Ted Koppel. By the way, if you've never seen this. Okay, thank you for the fact check on this. You have to watch this. So it's been over 30 years since his last appearance. It has been. And let me tell you, the way he interviews, the way this guy interviews with Ted Koppel is unbelievable.

And if you watch him, you know whose mannerisms you'll pick up? Okay, I want you to watch this and tell me what actor's mannerism do you pick up? Go ahead, Rob. Just press play. Watch this. I feel perfectly comfortable with my life. I like my job. I'm happy with my family. I love my wife. I'm healthy. I'm perfectly content. That's why I'm asking you, what is it you can do for me?

Well, number one, I would never try to talk you into that Scientology is for you. You see, that's the funny thing about this, is if I'm now going to give a sales pitch to you on Scientology, believe me, Scientology is valuable enough that it doesn't require any sales pitch. But let's look at it this way, then, what Scientology does. Oh, man.

If you look out across the world today, only interviewers ever done since 92. You take a person who's healthy. Whatever you do, watch this when you're out of here. Yeah, I can't wait. You will be blown away by this guy's interview. We've tried to have him on many, many times. I'd love to talk to the guy. Have you gotten to the stage of like him considering doing an interview? No, but we spoke to his camp because we've had a few people on one guy who left the organization and we had a couple other guys. Uh, uh, Mike Rinder, who, uh,

what is his relation to David Miscavige? He was one of the highest ranking guys there, right? The senior executive of the church.

and he ran the Sea Organization, which is like the place to be. Yes. For those unfamiliar, that's the top organization in the hierarchy of Scientology. And if you buy your way into the Sea Org, there's an annual cruise that you get to go on, and that is sort of the top tier. I don't know how much you have to spend to get into Sea Org, but once you're there, you're in. I don't know what the benefits are of that. Do you have any interest? I have some friends I can introduce you to. I have an extreme interest in Scientology, but I also have an interest in being alive. Okay.

So you don't want to be a member? No. I mean, holy shit. Can you imagine having those guys against you? Yeah, but imagine if you have them with you.

That's even if I'm going to lose all credibility. It would be like Andrew Callahan. Imagine if you were part of an organization and we had your back. You would never have to worry about anything. Does that sound appealing to you? It does, but what sounds more appealing is staying away from them or being a liaison between Scientology and the public. Like David Miscavige is like, you know what? Shelly's actually at my apartment here in Florida. Come meet her. Come meet her. Do an interview. Let's make a Channel 5 video. I would do it.

Oh, I would love to see it. I'd love to see it. I'd love for you to go and just talk to it. You know what else would be interesting for you to do? If many, many years ago when I was an atheist, I would go to churches in L.A. and I would just go on to talk to everybody about whatever they believed in. I'd go to LDS. So tell me about this Gordon B. Hinckley. Tell me about this Joseph Smith. Tell me what happened with Vermont when he found these plates and he moved to...

you know, these States. And every time you guys moved, you got kicked out until you got to Utah. What happened there? Tell me about this. I would go to Scientology church and I would say, what do you believe in? Who's God? Who's this? Whoever you believe in, who do you believe in? And it was always such an incredible method of communicating with you, which is so impressive. If you notice one thing about Scientologists, you know what they definitely can do better than mostly other religions.

They're incredible communicators. John Travolta, Scientology. Yeah. Tom Cruise, Scientology. Just look at the way David Miscavige speaks. He speaks better than most preachers speak. The way they teach their guys. I had an office one time where 70 agents in the office were all Scientologists. I loved working with them. Yeah.

- They're kind of like Toastmasters, intergalactic Toastmasters. - On steroids and growth hormone, and they hang out with Gary Brekaw all the time type of health. - Yeah. - Like they're at that level. - But one thing I know they do is whenever they do the auditing sessions and they ask you to recall a traumatic memory or something that's sitting in your subconscious, I know that they record that session so they can hold whatever you're saying as blackmail to leverage against you in the future. I do believe that Scientology is sort of a massive for-profit blackmail operation that has, it's deeply entrenched in Hollywood and the police departments of Southern California.

Interesting. Because, I mean, what is the purpose? Because they're not atheists. They believe in an ascendant spiritual plane where the thetan, which is your soul, will live there and occupy its own planet after you pass away for eternity, which sounds fantastic in theory. So I hope it's true. So if you're a Scientologist watching this, I hope you're right. But imagine you die, you get to heaven, and you're a Christian, and God is like, Scientology was right. You're going to hell. Yeah.

So what are you? What do you believe in? Me? Man, that's the thing, man. Like you said, I'm 27. I'm still trying to figure things out. It's like my opinions sort of change as I'm learning more stuff about life. I would like to think that there's an afterlife. When I was a kid, my grandma told me that there was and that all my great-grandparents were there watching the Phillies games, and the Phillies always win in heaven. That sounded nice. I was like, oh, that sounds great because they're losing right now. But as I'm getting older, man, I don't know. Sometimes I watch a

a bug die or a dog, you know, we just had to put down a puppy. Nevermind. Anyways, uh, I think to myself like, man, what, what makes me different from all these animals and wildlife that's passing away? Is there something special about the human spirit that allows us to occupy the kingdom of heaven? Are we more than animal?

Well, listen, I don't know if you ever watched Charlie, All Dogs Go to Heaven. You ever saw the movie All Dogs Go to Heaven? I believe all dogs go to heaven. So you think, are they... I don't know about cats, but I think all dogs go to heaven. But do they get their own specific heaven? Or are they with us? I think they're hanging out with us. I can't imagine going to heaven not seeing dogs. So dogs are the only species in heaven or all other domesticated pet breeds? I don't know. That's a pay grade that I haven't reached that...

level 32 or 33 to know if they're going to be there or not. I'm kind of going based on faith. I'm hoping they're going to be there because we love animals.

But if my dad's version of faith, to him, he is hoping animals don't go to heaven because my dad can't stand dogs. Because they poo everywhere. Because my dad is a clean freak, and God forbid an animal touches him, he loses his mind. Until today, his mother, my grandmother, had 12 cats, 2 dogs, 2 parrots, 12 birds, 2 snakes,

All her kids love dogs and animals except for my dad. She had four kids. They all love animals. My dad can't stand them. So my dad's depiction of heaven, it's just human beings. So mine, I'm hoping there's some animals, but we'll see. So you don't have a faith. You don't have something you believe in right now. No, I'd like to, though. I'd like to have some sort of ecstatic religious experience. Well, you know, you're 27. You're going through it. The way, the journey you're going on

is so awesome that I'm really curious to know who you are three years from now, six years from now. Sincerely, I want to know where you're going to be 10 years from now. You know, there are certain people you watch who are coming up and you're like, I think this guy's going to change a lot of times. And I can't wait to meet the next guy. You know what I'm saying? Like, look, 10 years ago, Rogan was a Sanders guy. And then all of a sudden, wait, what?

he was one of the reasons why trump got elected they hug each other at ufc as if they're best friends what this this is not the same guy when i was on rogan's podcast he's like i'll never have you know yeah you know he was thinking about it but at one point he told lex i'll never have him on he called me all this other stuff what happened to him what evolution did he go through i think last week rogan just said i'm no longer drinking alcohol yeah or two weeks ago i stopped about 39 days ago really yeah how was it so far for you it's just fantastic man like you know i used to spend so much time socializing it became like a second job

You know what I mean? I'm like, I get off work. It felt like partying was a job. And I just have much more time on my hands, much more emotional regulation. That's why I'm putting out three videos a week now as opposed to one. I wake up at 5 o'clock in the morning, I've been running, get to work, edit, put something out. And you edit your own stuff out here. Yeah. One thing I wanted to ask you, what did you say? I hear you edit your own videos. I edit my own videos mostly, but I have a new team of editors. Shout out to Charlie, Nate, Gabe, and Ethan.

Those are my first four editors, my first four Channel 5 employees of history. Charlie. Charlie Brady. He edited the video about West Virginia Greyhound racing. Oh, very cool. I want to ask you, though, what religion was your father? Mom and dad, both Christians. They're from? Iran. Iran. Yeah. Is that the dominant religion there? No, but remember, my dad's a Syrian and my mother's Armenian. So I speak Armenian, I speak Aramaic.

But I lived in Iran for almost 11 years, went to Germany, then we came here. Were Christians expelled under the Shah? Not under the Shah. The Shah was like open. Oh, I mean Khomeini. Sorry. Yeah, under Khomeini, you do not want to... You're walking on eggshells under Khomeini when you were a Christian at my time. It was uncomfortable. It was...

you couldn't go out and be too public about it. See, there's a couple things when, you know, you talk about Iran and you talk about America. And for me, when you grow up as a kid, you're like, whoa, why can't I be a Christian here? Why can't I be public about it? Why is this so judgmental and unsafe? And you got to be careful and all this other stuff. And

Then you come to America, you're like, yeah, you're a Muslim? Great. Go to Detroit. Take over Detroit. Take over Dearborn. Do what you want to do. You want to be a Scientologist? Go to L.A. Build it up. Go to Tampa. No problem. You want to be a Mormon? Go to Utah. Do your thing. You want to be Jehovah? So it's like, you know, it allows you to do it. This country being a great one. But going back to it, establishment as the anti-establishment, we're talking about Trump. And your industry is talking to

You would be a what? Are you a Gen Z? I think I'm on like the very late Gen Z. Right. Yeah, I'm like the last, I'm like the oldest Gen Z person. Wow, you're old. You know how there's like the Aries Taurus cusp, which is today? Yeah. I'm like that for Gen Z. I'm not a millennial, but I'm definitely not Gen Alpha.

Like, when I was a kid, I was, like, playing with sticks and kicking rocks around and stuff. So you experienced that? Yeah. The internet came around when I was, like, seven or eight, at least home computer. So I was out there, you know what I mean, just doing my thing. The good old days. The good old days. I wasn't watching people on livestream typing in, like, W chat or L chat. Like, I was really experiencing that. How old is Mr. Bees? Is he older than you? Yeah, Mr. Bees is, I would estimate 31. How old is Logan? Logan Paul's, what, like, 28? Yeah.

Oh, shit. Is he really 26? He's not 26. Oh, Mr. Beast was born in 1998. Wow. I got to get my hustle on. Holy shit. He's 26? Dude, I thought he was 30. How old is Logan Paul? Can you pull that up? Rob, how old is he? He's got to be like 28-ish. Oh, I've got Logan Paul by three years. All right, we're good. And Jake is what, 29? Jake like a year younger? 28. 28. So this is like the 26, 27, 28, 30 age.

Think the way you're going if you if you continue the way you're going you'll be a 20 million plus sub channel I hope so No, I think you will be I think your only reason you won't is because you're gonna be your own enemy and get you know in your own way if you kind of buckle down and stay disciplined I think you're gonna get there and I think definitely you'll be a very very influential voice in citizen journalism in America Thanks and help a lot of us that maybe we don't have the time to go there. We'll be like, okay, where's yet now? Oh shit I don't know that it's what it looks like but going back to it. You're not you're not a Trump guy. Mm-hmm

But you said when I asked you about Romney, somehow we went to Scientology. Yeah. Right. Which was a very weird left turn we took. Well, I think it was the Mormon Scientology. Establishment Mormon. However that happened. Yeah. But would you put him more like do you think Romney is more with President Bush or do you think Romney is more friends with Trump? I mean, as far as Trump, he's not part of the RNC establishment, but there's a new establishment forming around Trump.

You know what I mean? Like, I think that he ran on the platform of being against the DNC establishment, who obviously are entrenched in like the mainstream press, late night television. Most cable news networks, except for Fox, do are kind of obedient to the Democratic Party. You saw that when they disenfranchised Bernie Sanders during the primaries. Yeah, for sure. So I think that he was for a long time, but I think there's a new establishment forming. But hang on. Forming?

But prior to being established, they were anti-establishment before they got established. Well, there's multiple establishments. It's kind of the thing. I totally get it. But establishment is what? Those who are the majority, they have the control, they're established, and this is our way. You have to come ask our permission to run, right? Kind of like, hey—

I'm Obama. I'm Clinton. I'm this. You're going to come through us before you run. Yeah, Trump is totally an outsider anti-establishment. So check this out. This is kind of where I'm going with this because I'm trying to see positioning. So Obama, would you put Obama as establishment or anti-establishment? For sure. Would you put Bush as establishment or anti-establishment? How about Clinton? Yeah. How about senior? Yeah. How about Reagan? Yeah. How about Carter? Yeah.

Every president ever before Trump was a part of a major political establishment. How about Kennedy? Kennedy, I believe, was assassinated by the government because he went against the agenda. What that agenda is, I'm not sure. I'm going to have to do some research. So I would say the last two anti-establishment presidents we've had are Kennedy and Trump. I think that the Democratic Party...

wanted Trump to run in 2016 because I think they believed that he had no chance. And I think that the Democrats actually propped him up. It's called the Pied Piper strategy. I think they did that in 2016, Hillary in particular in the DNC camp, because they thought this guy's ridiculous. After he went down the elevator, they were like, no way is the birth certificate guy going to possibly win. So I think that they purposely propped up an anti-establishment candidate

in 2016, anti-political establishment, not financial or corporate establishment, with the idea that he'd be so easy to beat. But he was so good at speaking and having a genuine connection with the people and the way that he talked casually off script, pulling no punches, that people resonated with Trump a lot.

Why do you think even from the younger males, Gen Zs, why do you think there's such a big growth and attraction to Trump today?

Like never before, because it's more your your generation, your age, guys, 18 to 27 ish, 28 ish. They're seeing themselves like, man, I kind of want a guy like Trump instead of what's going on. Why do you think that number is increasing the most that demo? I think has a lot to do with the sort of like you pull that up, Rob, because we've talked about this before. A lot of the culture war identity stuff being pushed a lot by the Democratic establishment has is backfiring in a way that makes a lot of young white dudes feel like, why are people hating on me all the time?

feeling kind of disenfranchised. They're being told their voice isn't important and that it's not about what your ideas are, but it's about what you look like and what your background is. And if you're from a high place of privilege, then you shouldn't be able to have as much of a role in the conversation as someone else who's been given less in life.

And so I think that especially in academia where you're seeing a lot of people kind of feel disillusioned with the discourse there because it's so generally one-sided on college campuses, I think there's a lot of young people who are also seeing Trump go on podcasts like The Yovan, Nelk Boys, this one, a lot of podcasts where you're having a regular conversation that you wouldn't be able to have with most establishment candidates. And they think, all right, you know what? I might not love everything about this guy, but I'll tell you that he's able to have a conversation here or with someone who's just willing to talk and they feel like if he can –

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Yeah, that's interesting. You said, I'm kind of in a progressive bubble. That's what you said a few minutes ago, right? To a certain extent, yeah. Okay, so in the progressive bubble that you're in, what is that progressive bubble believe in?

Well, in the progressive bubble that I'm in, which would be like more leftist oriented late Gen Zers, there's not much Kamala Harris or Biden support. You know, I think that's the big thing that conservatives missed is that nobody in my age demographic was excited about the Harris campaign except for a select few. Most people I know didn't even vote for the Democrats who would be considered very anti-conservative because they felt like we didn't have a candidate that would speak for –

the interest of the more progressive youth. And I think that we still don't. And that's why I kind of look for 2028 as the great equalizer year. Because after the Harris loss, I think the DNC establishment is going to be in obscurity. And I think that with Trump taking over the conservative side, the traditional Bush RNC is also

not as important. So I think we're going to have fresh primaries in four years with, you know, great voices from both sides of the aisle. I think that's going to be one of the most fair and free elections ever. Okay. So what I want to hear is values, progressive bubble. What are the values you believe in your top three values, socially progressive, probably, uh, socially progressive. I believe in like the complete legalization of gay marriage. Okay. Pretty pro-choice. Um, I think that, um,

The richest people in the country should be taxed a little bit more, and I think that the working class people should be paid a little bit more as well. I think that there's a wide gap that you're seeing, especially when you have the richest cities in the country have the most inequality. You have a state or a city like Los Angeles, which has the highest corporate tax rate and the highest homelessness rate in the country. So the fact that these two things are existing in tandem shows that the money from taxation is not being spent effectively.

People are not able to afford to live a normal life. I think that even 30 or 40 years ago, it was normal to get a college degree, go straight into the workforce in the white-collar sector and be able to buy a home for yourself and start a family at 30. Most people that I know are so overwhelmed by student debt at this point in their life and that they can't even think about anything except for clearing that debt by any means necessary. People are so overworked they have no time to pursue their creative interests. There's no politician they feel like speaks for the working people of the country.

And I think that I'm more in line with that way of thinking. But I don't sit around hating on Trump or getting upset about that because I think all this stuff is just a symptom of the dysfunction in our country that at some point will work itself out if we can come together. Would you say you're a pretty reasonable guy? I think so, yeah. Okay. I think so as well. You give me the vibes too. The conversation of allowing men to compete in women's sports, how do you as a young Gen Z progressive think

view that argument? I mean, I just wonder how much of an issue that really is. It seems like the kind of thing that is really small, that doesn't affect that many people's lives, that's being blown out of proportion by different news organizations to distract people from the real

you know, growing income inequality that's happening. I mean, evidently, if there's like a buff person who identifies as non-binary who is competing in women's sports, but they were born as biologically male, obviously that's an unfair situation. Okay. So you say that? Yeah. I mean, by the way, so that's logic to us as well. Right. But when, again, to me, this is, this is, this is where a couple of things are happening. That's one thing that I'm curious to know your thoughts. So when I look at the democratic party,

And their approval rating was higher pre, what do you want to call it? Pre-Obama was higher. And even made legislature during Obama as well was higher. To where it's at today, I don't know if you've seen the rating or not, where they're at. Have you seen that lately, what they've been reporting? I didn't even know they did approval ratings for people who aren't in power. Oh, no, you got to see this. It's done by CNN, which is the one I trust the most because CNN-

Yeah, they do not. They want that number to be as high as possible. That's exactly. So Fox did it. I would be like, yeah. Yeah, Fox is like, turns out everyone's fucking hates him. Rob, do you have the video where the guy, Hinton, what's his name? Hinton? Harry, yes. Harry, that does it. He does a very good job. We have that clip. But when you watch this, you know, you ask yourself, okay, why is that idea not as popular as it used to be? What happened all of a sudden, right? The numbers are staggering on how much it's dropped, right?

What's it at now? Like what? 30, 35%. No, listen to that. You got to see this. Rob, did you find it or? I'm looking for the video now. I did find the article that you. No, it's a video. What's the guy's name? Harry Enten. Yeah. Okay. So if you go on X, just type in hair Enten democratic rating. There you go. Is that the most recent one? This is from February. There is another one that he did. That's more recent.

November, March. March 12th. Okay, go with that one. Watch this. No, that's old. Hold on, sorry. While he finds it, I just want to say, I think that the trans women in sports thing is like a classic divide and conquer, overblown, culture war, distraction, divide the public thing. Because realistically, they know that what they're doing now by creating that issue is that it's taking precedence over things that are far more important that affect society.

millions and millions of people, and they know that there's going to be a push on the progressive side to vehemently defend that, you know, because that's what they do, and there's going to be a conservative push to make that the main issue. And so it's creating this, like, matrix. It's almost like filibustering public conversation. But also...

let's say you're right and let's give credence to 20% of the argument of that being a part of it. Let's put that there, that I think there's a part of it that the opposing side's like, hey, show this clip, look at what just happened. So I get that. I get a little bit of that, you know, that's happening where they're showing. Okay, like, hey, look at what's going on with, you know, the economy, stock market drop. New job reports came up. It's higher than expected. No, no, don't show this report, CNN. Mm-hmm.

Show what's going on with the stock market here in tariffs, right? I get that part. However, maybe some of it is also the bad policies cost a lot of people to leave the Democratic Party. Yeah. More than ever before. Rob, if you want to play this clip, watch this one here. This is how long ago, Rob? This is March 17th. There's an updated one, but let's just watch it. Close enough. Yeah.

Yeah, wait a second. Is he...

Wow. Damn. The guy to the left is uncomfortable. Yeah, probably because he can't match the guy's energy on the right. The guy's going full, like, sports announcer mode. He's talking like Trump. Nice. Nice.

Yeah, what about congressional Democrats? Why does he look so uncomfortable? You think these numbers are low? How about this one? Holy Toledo. Voters' views of the Democrats in Congress among all voters disapprove 68%. And look at the approved number. Just 21%. Even lower than the Democrats. I want to hire this guy. Look at Bernie Sanders-Trump crossover. He looks like the dad from Modern Family. So, if you're positive, watch this one. Watch this Dems on Dems. Go.

Keep playing. Democratic voters feel, get this, the plurality of Democratic voters disapprove of Democrats in Congress at 49% and just 40% approve. So data is data, right? Data is data. So when you look at that, this is not good. So then the question becomes, how did you guys get here? What ideas were bad ideas? You said something very interesting. And where you're like, you're for gay marriage. And then you said you're for...

higher taxes for the guys that are making more money. Not, okay. Just to clarify, I'm talking about like the genuine, like billionaires, like for example, California, the tax system is ridiculous. Like I got, they took, I think 45% of my income in total when you add up,

state and federal taxes last year and I would have used that money to hire more people. So the logic is like we're gonna take this money and distribute it to those who need it but I actually would have used that money to hire like five more of my friends and pumped it back into the economy. I don't believe that entrepreneurs who are entrepreneurs who are like around that like million, two million to ten million level should even be taxed. But I'm talking about when people are hoarding such absurd amounts of wealth, multi-billion dollars, I just think that it should to a certain extent be distributed

Not necessarily in the way of like the government seizes all of their assets and gives it to the poorest people, but there has to be a way to bridge the extreme divide in income inequality in the country. Okay, so check this out. You just answered a very important question that took me a while to figure out.

When I was making $30,000, $40,000, $50,000, I'm like, dude, these rich people are greedy. They suck. They should pay more taxes. It's not fair. Then when I started working my ass off and I built a business and the money came in, I'm like, dude, if I had the money, I would hire five more people right now. If I had that money, I would hire 10 more people right now. You're thinking about it for a moment, and you literally would. And if you don't, you go buy a car, you're creating jobs.

If you don't, you put in a bank, the bank's going to lend it to somebody. If you don't, you put in a mutual fund that company is working, someone's getting paid. No matter where the money flows, it's creating jobs, right? So the question on raising of the taxes, do you think you're more capable of doing good with your money or the government can? That's a really, really good question in terms of like personal financial liberty.

I mean, as far as that question goes, obviously you would be better at spending your own money than the government if you're managing a business. But the fact is that once you get past a certain threshold of wealth, a lot of people are just hoarding it and not pumping it back into the economy. Like back in the day with Reagan when he installed supply-side economics, the idea was, oh my god, it's going to stimulate the economy so much if we give no taxes to billionaires who run corporations.

But what happened is they ended up just kind of hoarding the money, buying more estates, jets, vacations, living a lavish lifestyle because there's a human tendency to just want to be as much of a baller as possible when you have a billion dollars. It's just how people are. Everybody wants to flex, get the nicest car, get a helicopter, do things that you can't do, things that you've dreamed of when you were playing like Grand Theft Auto as a child. But go there. Go there with that. Let's say you're the greedy billionaire. What's a greedy billionaire buy?

Oh, damn. You're asking me what would I buy if I was a green billionaire? What network do you want to do? You want to do 100 million, you want to do a billion, or you want to stick to billionaires?

Yeah, let's stick to people who are making, you know, multi-billion dollars every year. How about let's say billionaires and up? What does a rich billionaire buy? What things do they buy? Well, the first thing that comes to mind for me is a pool, like an infinity pool that bleeds directly into the Pacific Ocean. Beautiful. A fleet of jet skis for all of my friends. Okay. So we can kind of travel that way. I love it. Keep going, bro. Corporate real estate on the water so we can jet ski from the house to work. Okay.

I love it. This is like Larry Ellison. You ever seen Larry Ellison's headquarters? No, I haven't. So this guy's from Oracle. This is the kind of shit that you're talking about. Type in Larry Ellison headquarter, parks his yacht. Parks his yacht. Something like that. And then go to images if you could. So this guy builds his headquarters. Oracle. Put in Oracle Ellison headquarters ship. Maybe type in ship. Type in if that comes. Maybe go to Oracle's headquarters.

Just take out the yacht. This guy built his headquarters. I don't know which one this is. He builds a place to put his yacht. I'll find it. I'll text it to you here in a minute. He literally parks his boat in front of the property that he has. Whether it's Intel or Oracle, it's one of the two. But okay. So far we got pool, infinity pool on the water at the Pacific Ocean.

you know, ocean, you got jet skis and then you have a corporate real estate on the water to jet ski from office to the house. Yeah. Personal trainer, a private chef, personal trainer, nutritionist, private chef, dermatologist to live on scene to help me with my skin. Dermatologists love it. We need these dermatologists. Who else? Uh,

I can't even think about it. I just know that once you pass a certain amount of money, it becomes a competition as to who can get the most. Give me more, bro. Go greedy. What else is this billionaire going to buy? I want more. Get creative. Okay. Well, I'm trying to think what kind of billionaire. Am I a tech billionaire or am I like a Saudi royal family member? Give me both of them. Okay. I can't even think of anything else. Okay. Let's just say.

Private jet. Is that fair? Yeah. You for sure have a private jet. Let's just say yacht. Do you have a vacation home? Yeah. In Santa Fe. In Santa Fe. Oh, no, that's what Jeffrey Epstein had. I got to pick somewhere else. I got to pick Santa Fe. I scratched that. I scratched that. That's tough. I have a vacation home. Gene Hackman. On the west coast of Jamaica, Westmoreland Parish. Holy shit. Good taste. Yeah. What else? What else do you do to hoard the money? Where do you hoard your money? You can just sit on it. But what do you sit on? Like a

Well, what a lot of billionaires do is they use their money to kind of like use the legal system, civil court in particular, to bully people who talk badly about them. Yeah, but that's like... It's happening to me right now. Yeah, I get that part, but I'm saying what do they buy? But let's even say that. So that means they hire a PR firm and lawyers, right? So they hire PR firms and lawyers. Okay. Do they buy expensive watches?

Yeah, I think so. I mean, I personally wouldn't buy a watch. But they probably do it. Yeah. Crazy. I don't know why they do this kind of stuff. What else? What else are these guys doing? I feel like I'm being set up right now. Where does this end? This is where I'm going with this. If there's something that I don't know about billionaires, I want you to tell me. I'll tell you what it is. Here's how I process it. So if they have an infinity pool, does it have to be maintained?

Yeah, but okay, I see what you're saying. There is pool staff that needs to make sure the water goes. There's not too much chlorine going into the ocean. It would have to be maintained, though. Somebody has to take care of it on a weekly basis to build an infinity pool. Rob, put average price of building an infinity pool in Malibu. Okay, let's just average price of infinity pool building in Malibu, California. Yeah, California. Let's just say what it says, price point. $250, $500, $200. I don't know what the number is going to be.

Give us a price point on infinity pool estimated cost 65 to 150,000. That's actually a lot less expensive than I thought it would be. And watch what it says. In luxury infinity pool, 150 can exceed to $500,000. That's a lot of jobs that people are going to get paid. Okay. If you buy jet skis, let's say it's $25,000 for a good jet ski. That's a lot. That's a lot. But you're right. For a good jet ski. You're creating a job. And you need to get six to eight so that you and your core employees can commute to work together like some kind of fleet. That's right. We got to do it the right way. You can't screw on with this one here.

Headquarters, corporate headquarters on the water. Expensive. Construction workers, plumbers, electrician. That's a lot of jobs being created, right?

If you have a private personal trainer, that's a job you're creating. If you have a chef, that's a job you're creating. I get the point you're trying to make. People should be able to get nice things for themselves if they work super hard. I'm not the kind of guy who's like, if you work hard, you should give all your money to people who are on the lower income. I'm just saying that the specific tax rate should be a little bit higher. Not ridiculously higher, but higher enough to where they can have substantial social welfare programs. My biggest challenge with that is even the greediest of the greediest...

who goes and is like flaunting a big-ass platinum gold chain that they're putting around their neck that they bought for whatever that somebody took three months to build. No matter what it is, the money is flowing.

Even if they put the money in the bank and they're sitting on it, the bank is lending it back to somebody. So money's always working. Chase is not going to let money stay in the bank. The moment you put money in Chase, guess what Chase is doing? Chase is lending it to somebody ASAP. They don't want the money to stay in the bank. They're not making money like that. So no matter what you do, the basis of this question for me goes, who's going to do better with the money? Giving it to the government because you said what right after when I said taxes, right?

You said in California, what did you say? Let me go back to it. You said in California, you know, the taxes that you're paying 45 percent, but then at the same time, taxes are not being used effectively. Right. How much of that are we going through right now? Well, I mean, on the inverse, what do you think will solve the problem of the extreme poverty and wealth inequality in the country? Well, let's see. California has been trying to do it.

Well, the thing is they tried – that's the thing is everyone sees Gavin Newsom as like an enabler for all these destructive democratic policies, but he still makes concessions to conservatives who are like bullying him into not carrying it out. For example, let's take the Tenderloin in San Francisco, which is the biggest – it's still the biggest open-air drug zone in the city. It's been that way for decades. Mm-hmm.

He, you know, obviously during the Biden administration and when Newsom was in control, he still is, it was a crazy scene out there. It was people smoking fentanyl in the streets, people defecating and sleeping in the streets. In San Francisco? Yeah, in this particular area. Is there a clip you want him to show? No, I think we can just overlay it or something. But I mean, in general...

Governor Newsom was being kind of like shit on for letting that happen. But the reality is, and people on the ground know this, there was supposed to be a safe injection site that was two blocks long, two blocks wide, that was supposed to be maintained by the state and the city. So it made it so people wouldn't be able to use heroin, fentanyl, and meth on the streets. They would have to go to a controlled environment where the public and children and people who were living in that community wouldn't have to interact with them and they could have the access to the services they need. At the last minute, Governor Newsom

didn't build it because he was too scared of getting another media smear campaign and being made to seem like someone who lets people do drugs in the open, but he still does drugs in the open. So with the Democratic establishment in California, there's a lot of hypocrisy, and there's a lot of we don't know where the money's going. There's not much transparency as far as what's happening with all these taxes that are being taken away from people who worked hard to make that money. We do know that a trillion dollars of wealth have left California in the past decade.

four years. We do know that cities like San Francisco and LA that are still generating a ton of money, much of that money isn't even being given, pumped back into the city because so many workers have gone remote. There's a lot of people working in California that decide not to live there because they can do their work for tech companies remotely elsewhere in a more affordable state like Montana. You know, so I think that

When you look at progressive policies and you look at poverty and it's not changing and then you look at the tax rate going up and down, it can be easy to say, you know what, nothing's ever going to change. And that's why there's so much like a sense of apathy and nihilism when it comes to the billionaire thing. That's why people are saying, oh, billionaires are the worst. Kill them all on the internet.

because they've seen nothing change and they're seeing, okay, the cost of living is high. There's homeless people everywhere. There's so much poverty, yet there's this class of people who are unaffected by it. So the question is then if we don't raise the taxes, what can be done to change that situation on the ground? The taxes? No, I mean the situation with inequality and poverty. Yeah, but that's not how it works though because to me here's how it works. Okay, let's just say you got three sons and they're all 25 years old, okay? Okay.

and you're 60 years old at this time. Could you be? Yeah, 60. Yeah, 25, 60. Let's just say you're 65 years old. You got three sons, 25, 26, 27. They're all out of college. You give each of them $100,000. First one to give $100,000, he goes to Singapore. He parties, he comes back, has a lot of stories. He says, Dad, I tried an opportunity. I met with this businessman in Singapore. It didn't work out. I need another quarter million dollars. I'm up to something big.

Second son comes up, you give him $100,000. He takes $100,000, go buys a small condo, gets a nice little job, makes 120 grand a year, doesn't need any money from you anymore. He's doing okay. He's happy. He's got a girlfriend. They're pretty serious.

Third one, you give $100,000, takes $100,000, starts a little real estate shop, turns it into $3.2 million. Okay? Two years later. Now they're all two years older. The first son, you give $100,000, went to Singapore, comes back, says he wants a quarter. The second one wants a quarter. The third one wants a quarter. Which of those three...

Are you more comfortable giving more money to knowing you're going to get a rate of return on your money? The first, the second, or the third? Probably the first, right? The first? Yeah. The guy that went to Singapore? Oh, no, not that guy. My bad. I kind of got lost in the metaphor here because I was just thinking about Singapore. So the first guy is Singapore. The second guy is a stable guy, good citizen, gets a job. Oh, second guy. Number two. Or the third one that starts a business and makes the money grow for you. I mean, probably the three because it would be a bigger investment. But I mean, aside from a business standpoint, like if we obviously, you recognize that there's a big problem with homelessness, poverty, unaffordable.

Well, why do you think that is, though? What do you think? I'm asking you. You're in the streets. Why do you think that is? I mean, I would just assume that because the social safety net is so small here and there's such little being provided for people in terms of mental health services, the broken Veterans Administration, so many different things, unaffordability, like there's just not enough resources to set up people who are to help people who are at rock bottom here. You think we haven't given enough money? So to me, when you ask the question, if we don't raise the taxes, then how are we going to fix this?

To me, the question becomes the last 30 times we agreed to give you more money, you wasted it. Why should we trust you to give you more money? Because if I give money to Amazon, if I give money in a company like NVIDIA, if I give money to Tesla, if I give money to Ford or Disney and I buy the stock and I'm like a believer, here's what's going to be happening.

I kind of can track publicly. There's accountability. There's accounting. There's quarterly earning. There's calls to get on. If I give more money to the government, what is the quarterly earnings? Where's the accountability? No, I totally agree with you. Where's accounting? Why am I giving money to that? There's no way logically one would give money to a company or a business that I don't get to see what you did with my money. There's no tracking to it. I agree. I do think that we can both agree that throwing money at things doesn't always fix the problem.

But you've been around for longer than me. Like if it's not that, if it's not funding programs to provide for people who are down and out, like what do we do? Because the problem is already here. Like it's not in theory. Like there's 100,000 people who are homeless in L.A. alone and San Francisco combined. So it's like what do we do? What's the solution? Do you have any like wisdom as to what you think would happen? Do you think long term you'll live in L.A.? You said earlier you're considering leaving, right?

Well, that's the thing, as I love the landscape and the people of California so much where I live now, I'm an hour and a half from the beach, hour and a half from the Mojave Desert can drive to Vegas or Tijuana and get to the bay in Florida, kind of just in Florida.

So would you see yourself living there long term? Because we're going to document this because we're going to come back when you come to Florida. How does it feel being a Floridian? I like being in Florida because you can feel like it's kind of like Texas right now where things are moving. You can feel people are excited about new projects and it doesn't have this air of bygone greatness LA has. I have an office in Universal City. It's my first ever Channel 5 office that I opened four years ago.

four months ago, and there's a cafe that's abandoned in the lobby. It looks like I moved into like a Ford Motor Company factory in Detroit. There's only four people working in this giant building. And like, I remember the janitor came by, he was mopping the floor and he like pointed at some derelict office and he goes, that's where Michael Jackson recorded Beat It. And I was just like, Jesus Christ, you really feel like you're in like a post Rust Belt decline society. Where are you? What's the address? Where are you at? I don't want to say it exactly. Is it like what part of Universal? Like close to... Across from Universal Studios.

Oh, shit. Okay. Yeah. So it's like literally there's this like bygone. In the air, you can feel that the place has seen better days. Like by Disney and where Forest Lawn is, give or take. Yeah, exactly. Okay. I had a makeup artist come by when I was having a lot of breakouts or whatever. And so she came by and she was so happy. And I was like, why are you so happy? She goes, I haven't had work in two months. She said before COVID, every single day I was on set for a different awesome director getting to do makeup for the stars. And she says, now I have to travel to Poland.

or Taiwan to find work because Hollywood is moving their productions to different continents just to save money on staff. So why do you think? Why are people leaving? Taxes. Okay. Money. So why else? Why else do you think they're leaving? You think it's just taxes? Well, there's a couple different, like, okay, so there's Hollywood leaving, they're leaving to save money. Comedy leaving is because of the culture of the coastal cities. Tech,

Left for a little bit because remote work was more profitable, but tech is returning to Silicon Valley So I think tech is still still going for California But those three big industries Hollywood tech and then comedy all left for different reasons But comedies for sure because of the culture of California so long-term you kind of open to leaving to Austin or Florida or something Yeah at some point in my life, but I mean I also just love California. I also believe in it I could see California having a second wind. I mean, it's obviously how did he get it? How did he get a second one? I mean new leadership

So like such as who is there anyone that you think that could turn things around? No, not right now, but maybe like maybe a rising star could emerge from the ashes. And that rising star that emerges from the ashes. What would you want that person's policies to be on? Like,

Take the money that you're taking. Use all of that tax money to provide for people who are sleeping on the streets and dying on the streets. Provide robust mental health services, shelter options, opportunities to people who have been basically dejected by society. Clean up the street. Like, make...

For the amount that we're being taxed in California, it should be a utopian society. And when you talk about homelessness, another problem is that people say, oh, there's so many homeless people in California because of the progressive policies. But it also has to do with the fact that homelessness has been criminalized so heavily in red states and counties that people are leaving those counties to California so they don't go to jail.

I don't know if you're familiar with the Grants Pass, Oregon ruling. It's a rural county in Oregon, which is a blue state. And it ruled that if you're a homeless person because of vagrancy laws, you can be taken to jail and cited even if there's no shelter beds available for sleeping in the street. And if you get your third vagrancy citation, it's a mandatory 90 days in county jail.

So a lot of people who are homeless, suffering from different mental disorders and substance abuse issues, they're like, all right, I don't want to go to jail. I'm going to go to LA. So then you have all of these mental health and support services being overwhelmed by people who are migrating from red counties and states. So I think that the solution is, I wish this was viewed as an America problem as opposed to a Dems versus Republican problem. Because when you politicize people who are going through hardcore suffering, it can be easy to overlook their suffering and use them as political cannon fodder.

if you're Republican or Democratic. Yeah, and I think you're coming from a very sincere place that you want to improve. This is why I said I can't wait to watch your journey. It's exciting to watch you go through what you're going through right now because in the business world, here's how it works. If you have a billion dollars, your name is Bill Ackman, and my name is John Doe, I come to you and I say, hey, Bill,

My I need 20 million dollars from you really tell me what your background looks like first deal I Put $20,000 of my own money. My dad gave me a hundred thousand my uncle and family gave me half a million dollars I sold the business for 32 million dollars second company. I put two million dollars of my own money It failed moved on didn't work out for a year, but I didn't take money from anybody else third company I took 20 million dollars turned into 180 million dollars and I sold the business fourth one is the one I'm doing right now And I want 20 million dollars from you. Yeah, will you consider giving me money? I?

Yes. Right. Okay. So number one is a guy like Newsom has credibility issue. We want to give you more money for what? I'm not comfortable with this. So liberal policies have lost credibility to get more money. Number two, reputation. If your policies are so good,

Why are 27 out of 30 cities in America that are the most unsafe of cities in America ran by Democratic mayors? That's data. 27 out of 30, right? So you have all these years to fix the issues. How come you haven't? Third one for me is the following. Had a friend of mine,

who if you ever went to dinner with them he wouldn't order dessert once he would eat more dessert than steak like to him it's like let me try this ice cream and bring this one out and bring the carrot cake and bring this this and bring the tres leches and he's just eating it right

And he says, you know, I'm about to do the stomach stapling here coming up. I said, really? Yeah. I said, shit. And he says, really? You're going to say, yeah. He goes and staples his stomach, loses 50 pounds. Literally, he loses 50 pounds. Okay. So now he can't keep anything down. But guess what he still eats? Dessert. Same exact thing. Key lime pie. Key lime pie. The whole night. All of it, right? Strawberry sorbet. Give me all of it, right? So his habits didn't change. So even though we stapled the stomach,

He still kept doing the same thing. So when he asked the question, how do we fix this homelessness problem? Money to me is bandaid. Money to me is staple in the stomach. Money to me is not changing the habits. Money to me is not getting rid of the bad behavior that they have. It's not going to do that. It's standard and protocols. So if somebody feels safer, it's like a kid,

who wants to come and hang out with you and your dad and your dad smokes weed. Yeah. But you don't want to be with me because I'm a tougher dad that I don't smoke weed. You're like, man, that dad is cool. You're not cool. California is the cool that smokes weed with you. Yeah. Texas is like, no, you come to my house to smoke weed. You can't get your ass kicked out of the house. Yeah. But you can bring your gun to my house. But that's okay because I feel safer. Yeah.

But I will feel safer for some of the people because we're a Second Amendment country. That's the part where it's the back and forth for me, where if your ideas have credibility that you've done well, let's give you more. But they've lost so much credibility where people don't want to raise taxes because you don't have credibility right now to ask for more. Yeah, and that's what I was saying about the safe injection site in San Francisco. That would have solved the problem of open air drug use in the area.

You think so? Oh, definitely. Tell me why. Because people aren't going to get cited. They're not going to get... I mean, most of the open-air drug... Is that a band-aid, or is that permanently fixing something? I mean, if the safe injection site also had harm reduction services, had mental health treatment options, had people working there day in, day out, trying to help people get back on their feet, it would not fix the problem. There's still going to be drug use and homelessness no matter what, but it would allow for an exit ramp for those who want to make that choice, as opposed to living literally on...

outside of people's apartments shooting up and passing out. - You ever heard of Jared Klickstein? - No. - Do you know who he is? So can you pull him up, Rob? Jared Klickstein, I had him on the podcast three months ago. So this guy was in Skid Row for seven years, okay? He lived there, homeless guy, heroin addict. His mother, Rob, if I'm not mistaken,

died from heroin right at 14 years old when he was 14 and in his dad was a heroin addict he eventually got off of it this guy becomes an addict he starts selling he goes to skid row every day he's stealing a thousand dollars on the streets cvs stores and he's selling it for 300 that was the rate and he comes in and he talks about he wrote a book i don't know what the crooked smile can you can you uh is there a picture of what he did to himself why he calls it crooked smile

So he explains, I said, tell me what happened there with L.A. Okay, what was the problem with you being homeless? And then he breaks down the incentive program of him constantly going through it. This guy burned his own lip that he had to do surgery. He was so high on drugs that he burned his own lip. I mean, he's got a mustache now, but he openly talks about it, where he titled a video, Crooked Smile. Oh, wow. Yeah, I think this guy would be a very interesting guy for you in L.A. to go to Skid Row.

to document stuff with him because he can give you a different perspective because he was there for seven years. That would be a very interesting thing. But can you go to the $24 billion number, Rob? I don't know if you follow this number or not. California state audit revealed that a substantial amount of money allocated for homelessness program, roughly $24 billion over the past five years, was not consistently tracked or evaluated to determine if it was effectively addressing a crisis or

The lack of tracking and valuation led to a lack of transparency in how the funds were spent. Right. So they were actually helping or not. And guess what? Homelessness from five years ago was lower than it is now, but they lost $24 billion. Nowadays, more than ever, the brand you wear reflects and represents who you are. So for us...

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There was money, but it wasn't being funded to the right places. So in theory, there's probably a world in which the money isn't being embezzled or given to the wrong people. Why? Well, obviously the Democrats... Who embezzled it? Newsom's administration. Yeah. So then, but what side of the political aisle is that? I would not describe the Democrats who control California as leftists or progressives. What would you call them? Liberals, Democrats. Liberals and Democrats? I think it's different. So what's the difference?

I think liberals are more oriented in maintaining power for themselves, dominating the political landscape of the state. You don't think leftists are? I don't think leftists have any semblance of political power in the U.S. Why do you think? I just think they've been disenfranchised by the liberal establishment, the democratic establishment. I think progressive people's movements – also if you look at – there's been over –

half a century plus of infiltration of these organizations by the FBI, breaking them down. And we're not just talking about like, you know, communists and far left stuff here. We're talking about people's organizations, Black Panthers, Brown Berets, American Indian Movement, farm workers unions, environmental groups. They were all infiltrated and taken down by the government. And so you have the Democratic establishment claiming to be a progressive organization, but I do not think that they are.

So, you know, it makes me think. Anthony Scaramucci said something very interesting the other day.

Actually, very interesting. He said a guy, the way the U.S. system is set up is guy said, I'm going to go be Congress because I think I can make some changes. And you realize you can't do shit. I'm going to go be a senator because that's where the power is. I can make some changes and you can't do shit. I'm going to go be president because, you know, you can't do shit. So the American system is built that somebody can. So even if the leftists that you think could change something, if they get in.

they still have to go through the other people that if you give the money to them, it's not like they're going to personally go count the money and do something good with it. The money is still going to go to these institutions that's ran by people that have been there for decades that you can't do nothing about them. Yeah, it's kind of depressing. It goes back to the Luigi Maggioni thing. When you talk about this deeply entrenched bureaucracy that's halting change...

That kind of thing makes sense. You know what it makes me think about, though? It makes me think about what would you trust more, a bigger government or a smaller government? Small. Yeah. Small but effective in actually working for the people. So a small government means more money stays with you and I.

Leave it in the market. I trust you knowing better what to do with the money with a million dollars than the government. Yeah. I trust you instead of paying 45% of, let's just say you made a million bucks last year, 45% went to taxes. You kept 550. How many more jobs would you have had if that was only 20%? Yeah. And you would have kept that $250,000. Realistically, let's just say you had an additional 250 last year. Okay.

Of tax saving, what would you have done with the $2.50 in California last year? Hired more employees, been able to expand the newsroom at a quicker pace. We expanded to the Middle East and Mexico and elsewhere as well, the UK and New Zealand. Would have been able to do that a little bit faster. I was still able to do it, but definitely there's not quite a sting like getting an invoice from the IRS after working your ass off for an entire year.

And like I said, that sting wouldn't be as bad if they were using the money well. I mean, if I was living in a world where there was no traffic, where people were happy and there wasn't this massive working class despair taking over, you could feel it in the air in California and elsewhere in the entire country. If that didn't exist, I would probably be okay with a higher tax rate because I would say, okay, well, I don't have to. People at large, the community, this American experiment is progressing in a mutually beneficial way. Yeah, but if they were efficient, they wouldn't need to tax us more.

You get what I'm saying? Like if there wasn't such bureaucracy in the government and the IRS. Yeah. And so bless you. But to me, it's also deeper than that. Think about it. Let's just say I got five C-suites that are working for me. A CMO, chief marketing officer, CFO, CTO technology, chief strategy officer, and chief compliance officer. And we have a meeting at the end of the year. What's your budget? My budget is $5 million. My budget is $4 million. My budget is $3 million. My budget is $10 million. Great. Great.

If a guy at the end of the year had a $5 million budget, but ended up hitting his budget for the year and a BHAG, but they did it on 80% of the budget. So they didn't spend 5 million. He spent 4 million. You're like, dude, good job, right? You saved the company 20% of your budget. But if a guy that had a $10 million budget doesn't hit his goal, but asks for 15 million and spends 50 million, you don't have credibility. So it's that simple that for me, I would much rather take more power away from them than

Because they don't have a track record of getting good things done. Yeah. They keep making it bigger and bigger and bigger at what expense. So that's the part where I think a part of why Kennedy and Trump's are so hated is because the one thing those two have in common is the establishment couldn't stand these guys because they couldn't control them. What do they have in common? They both have money. Mm hmm.

and they both had the ears of who? Some of the most powerful people in Hollywood, and they liked them. Trump on the right, Kennedy on the left. So it's kind of like that relationship where they were both hated. CIA, FBI, the Fed, who the hell are these guys? Trump's not getting along with the Fed. Kennedy didn't get along with the Fed. There's some of those commonalities where, now, the flip side of it, guess what Trump and his camp have to do?

If they don't produce results, guess what happens? What? Oh, the other side's going to come on and say, you had them. What do they do? Nothing. And that's kind of where I'm at as well. Like I'm obviously not a really a big Trump guy, but if positive things happen for the country during the Trump term in these next four years, I'm going to report on that.

I'm not dedicated to making Trump look bad. I know you are. I know you are, yeah. If great things start happening, it's not like I'm going to look for an alternate angle that undermines the success. I'm just looking at how average people are living every day, happiness and fulfillment. Very cool. Chicago. You went to Chicago, right? Yeah, back in the day. I covered a music festival called Lyrical Lemonade or Summer Smash. Then I went to Oblock the next day. And somehow that became my most watched video of all time. $15 million.

views. Yeah, that was sick. I love it. It's sick. Why do you think it was so special? Why do you think it did so well? Well, Oblock is like the genesis of drill music. You mind if we play it? Yeah, sure. Rob, go ahead and play it. Go ahead. You're saying Oblock is the genesis? Oblock is the genesis of drill music, which is a subgenre, like a

of rap, which is hyper violent and focuses on like real life violence. It's actually been a pretty destructive cultural force to be honest with you, but you know, Oblock is where it started. So it's kind of like, you know how people would go to Mississippi to document the origin story of blues or they go to new Orleans for jazz or they go to Nashville for country, Chicago and South Chicago is like that for drill music.

I think that in 100 years, there's going to be like drill tours in the same way that there's like a Kentucky bourbon trail where people will like drink the whole way and go say, this is where pot Pappy Van Winkle put his 15-year barrel up for sale in 1798. They're going to do this in Oblock and be like, this is where Chief Keef was born in the year 1995. And there's going to be people in 2150 like, oh, my God, that's so crazy.

What is that peak? Rob, go back on the video. At the beginning, there was a peak all the way to about first. First part. First two minutes. Oh, sorry. What is that? What is that peak? What happens here? Press play. GDK, GDK, GDK, GDK, GDK, GDK. Come on. GDK, GDK, GDK, GDK. Folks came out. Folks, the youngest GDK, he invented that shit. To you, like, what is drill music? We started the word drill with our music. Like, let's do a drill. We started that shit. Like, how would you explain drill music to someone who doesn't know?

Music that make you want to kind of get outside of it and go just be outside. You know what I mean? Make sense? So, so means what? Meaning you can go outside and cause mayhem? Kill somebody. That's literally what he's saying. It's pretty dark, but I mean, drill has now become like the, one of rap's mainstream sounds.

How safe did you feel? Pretty safe, honestly, only because people don't understand this now.

All hoods in America, all like, you know, poor neighborhoods that have music in them and have like micro influencers, they recognize content as a viable avenue for income. You know, back in the day, if this was 2005 pre YouTube, you could never go to somebody's hood just as a, as a voyeur and, and film with them. But now there's kind of an informal agreement that is, that's why there's so many hood vlogs now is they recognize that being featured on a predominant product, like a major YouTube channel could be their take it out. People are going to see them. It could be their, uh,

It could be their moment for more exposure and attention. And especially Oblock is probably the most famous housing project in the U.S. And I had a big YouTube channel, so it just happened really fast. One of the craziest things you did is when you went to – who's the – what was it, Kia's? I'll break it down. So the Kia boys are a car theft ring in the beautiful coastal town of Bridgeport, Connecticut. That's right. And they're in high school.

For an update, I heard the Kia boys aren't stealing cars anymore. Part of that has to do with the security update that was installed in the push-to-start system. They can't do it anymore? Yeah, you can't do it anymore. Unless somebody hasn't gotten the software update. But one of them's in jail. One of them just disappeared. And the third guy is working at a factory, and he bought his own car. And it's not a Kia.

He bought an American-made car. That's the real message of this documentary. Can you put the video of him being in the car, Rob? When you're in the car, where is it where you're in the car? Well, I should have put two and two together. But yeah, they picked me up in a car and they're like, yo, let's hang out. And I got in the car and I'm sitting in the back seat. And I thought about it. And I'm like, wait a second. This is a Kia. Holy shit. I'm in the back of a stolen car with three juveniles. A little bit before. Back up a little bit. So this is a crazy scene.

So back up like maybe

This shows what they were doing. So they picked me up at the McDonald's in Bridgeport. I'm riding with them in the back of this car. Sometimes I don't realize what's happening until it's too late, for example, and I don't want to jump ahead too much. But when I hopped the border, I didn't realize that I had to hop it with the Coyotes until I was at the Rio Grande. I'm sitting in the back of this stolen – I think it was a Mazda, actually, not a Kia. And I'm thinking, holy shit, they stole this car. And then I look around. I look in the rearview mirror, and there's a cop trailing us. And so I say to these Kia boys, I say, hey, guys –

Pull over. I got to hop out. Because I'm thinking, like, I'm 25. These kids are 16. I don't know what they're going to charge me with. And so. She planted, Rob. And the kid sitting in shotgun named Swervo, he looks at me and he goes, homie, you shouldn't have hopped in the car if you weren't ready to do the dash. Meaning, you know, go on a high-speed chase. And so they turn the lights off and they just go 105 miles an hour. And the cop stops following them. I want to see this, Rob. I'm going to go back 30 seconds.

Press play. Let me hear the audio. That's 105 miles an hour? No, no, no, not yet. This is before the cops roll in. Perhaps naively, I assumed the Kia boys would just pull over and try to talk their way out of it, but no. Swervo dipped onto a service road and hit the gas, approaching 110 miles per hour.

You're sitting outside or you're inside? I'm sitting in the backseat. By some stroke of luck, the cops stopped pursuing us. I'm not sure why. Now I know why. The cops don't pursue high-speed chases with stolen cars because they figure it's such a public safety risk. You know what I mean? If it's a residential street, they don't want two cars going 105 miles an hour because that could kill a pedestrian or something. So the cops...

They abandoned us. Not abandoned us. They stopped following us. And then I told them to drop me back off at the McDonald's. And then so my plan was like, I want to document these guys, but I don't want to be in this situation again. So I gave them my camcorder for the night. And I said, I know you guys are going to go steal cars. I don't want to come with you. I don't condone that. But just do me a favor and take this camcorder from Best Buy.

and just film yourself. What a great concept. Literally. And were they honest enough that they brought it back to you? Yeah, you want to watch the footage? Do you have it? Yeah, it's in this video. Where's it at? At the end? If you skip ahead 10, 15 seconds, right there. Press play. Let's see what they... This is them. Then goes to put a cheap USB cord into the ignition. Let's watch this. I think it's got the update.

He says the car is a dud. The driver recently installed the anti-theft software update. So this is all filmed by his homie. Just a few cars down, he locates a 2010 Kia Forte and starts all over. McDonald's meets the Minecraft universe with one of six collectibles and your choice of a Big Mac or ten-piece McNuggets with spicy Netherflame sauce. Now available with a Minecraft movie meal. And participating McDonald's for a limited time. A Minecraft movie only in theaters.

Are you still quoting 30-year-old movies? Have you said cool beans in the past 90 days? Do you think Discover isn't widely accepted? If this sounds like you, you're stuck in the past. Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide. And every time you make a purchase with your card, you automatically earn cash back. Welcome to the now. It pays to discover. Learn more at discover.com slash credit card. Based on the February 2024 Nielsen Report.

- Cut himself. - After successfully activating the engine with a USB cord, Swervo's on the move. - That's me watching him. - And I'm following close behind, genuinely curious as to what his plan is. Swervo begins driving as fast as he possibly can, then comes to a stop and tells me it's time to turn up. - All right, let's turn up. - Lower the audio, brother.

Yeah. So yeah, that's their plan. They just start swerving. They're really like 16 years old. Like they swerve for like 20 minutes and then they just abandon the car. You're joking. So they don't go sell the car. They just... Well, apparently like they sell it to their like older brothers for I think $250. Then they go to the mall and get shoes and the weed socks. And what do the older brothers do? Crime. Real crime. Well, not this... I'm not saying this isn't a real crime, but like, you know, robbing people. This is low level stuff. They sell drugs and stuff. I don't know.

What was your experience? When you're on the flight coming back, what are you saying to yourself? Well, I didn't even put this in the documentary, but I guess the cops had still been following us. So I go back to the Red Roof Inn in Bridgeport, and the cops knock on the door, and they're like, do you see anybody with a stolen car around here? And I was like, dude, I don't know what you're talking about.

I don't know what you. Yeah, I was. Wow. I flew home. So you didn't get arrested. Even when you put this up, cops never got a hold of you. No, they might after this podcast, though. Thankfully, the Kia boys are no longer stealing Kias. But yeah, after that, that was a classic example of just me taking it too far in the field with the documentaries. Like if I was to look back or looking forward to my own life, I'm not going to get in the back of any stolen cars with 16 year olds in Connecticut or any other state for that matter.

Maybe in Fort Lauderdale. Maybe. Oh, Broward County's got some pretty good drill music. I don't know if you know about that. Does it really? Yeah, it's called 954 Fast Pitch. It's like Broward's kind of version of drill. They take rap songs and they speed them up 1.25 times, so it kind of sounds like Alvin and the Chipmunks, but that's like the Pompano Beach, like Lauder Hill sound.

Oh, shit. You got to get one of those guys on the podcast. You ever listen to Ben Shapiro? I used to, yeah, for sure. When I listen to him, he sounds like he talks in 1.5. Ben Shapiro talks fast. His speed is so fast. Like, you know, when you watch a podcast on Spotify, you can listen on 3.5. And I can handle it. The only person I can't listen to 3.5 is him. Yeah, he really spins. I have to put it at 1.5 because he's like, I can't slow it down. You got to go to .75 with him because he's so fast. In a different world, he could be a rapper.

He tried to be a rapper. Did you hear his rap song? Yeah, I heard it. The guy he did it with is actually good. What's his name? The guy he actually did it with is good. He's actually got good stuff.

But what is the guy's name? He is really good. The guy right there, bottom second line. Oh, Tom McDonald. Tom McDonald. He's actually good. Yeah, Tom McDonald. My favorite Trump rappers are Forgiato Blow, Bez Believe, and Bryson Gray. Those are the top three Trump MCs. Bez Believe. Yeah, Bez Believe. I met him at HempFest. He used to sell those weed lollipops that are like medicated with CBD. He became a hardcore Trump rapper, but he's still like thugged out Florida style. Bez Believe, B-E-Z-Z Believe. He's a cool dude.

And yeah, he's my favorite right wing MC right now. Right wing MC. You like Lil Pump? Yeah, but I wouldn't call Lil Pump a conservative MC. Lil Pump is just kind of a product of the bygone SoundCloud rap era. If that scene was still continuing, I don't think he would have done the Trump appearance. Got it. OK, let's go to the next one, Rob. Next one I want to go is the Tesla rally. Yeah. What was that like going to the Tesla protesting the rally? What was that like?

I actually sent correspondence there. I sent my friend Albie here to the Tesla boycott in Palo Alto. I was in Jamaica for like an anniversary trip at the time when this was going down. Then I sent another friend of mine to the one in Burbank. But yeah, it was kind of interesting like with the Tesla boycott movement. I see it as a broader offshoot of the anti-Elon stop the coup movement. But then at some point after that began, they started targeting Tesla factories directly. And their idea was that if they lower –

you know, Tesla stock price that will in turn take away from Elon's economic power, which would disempower Trump in some capacity. Right. And again, this goes back to the Joker to me because in the movie Joker, Elon would be Batman and Joker would be the guys that are going after him. Right. It's funny. We're in, we're in DC, uh,

Is it January 20th? Is it inauguration, Rob? Yes. So we go to this party. Oh, CPAC. It was actually CPAC. Was it CPAC or inauguration? No, because CPAC, because we went after CPAC. We had the invite. Okay, so we're in D.C., and there's this Doge party.

And a guy invites us to go to this Doge party. And apparently Ilan's going to be showing up. So we go to this party. I take my 13-year-old son. They're upstairs watching. If you pull up one of the clips, Rob, of someone else who reported, it was reported all over the place. There's a couple of them. So we're there. We're walking. Pause it. Pause it, Rob, so we can hear it. So we're walking. We get outside. There's the protesting across the street. Mm-hmm.

I decide to walk up to these guys to just talk to them with my 13-year-old son. Pretty bad call, I think. Pretty bad call. I don't think you're wrong. Well, watch this. This is my curiosity here. Go ahead and play the clip. Go ahead, Rob.

This is the wrong clip, Rob, because the one is you got to show the clip.

So that one I can show you guys, but we can't show because it's copyrighted content. Didn't we record it or no? I can look for the best version is this one right here. We can't show this? Well, why don't you show it so he can see it. And the audience, you know, you guys can tweet this and see. This is me talking to the guy just to kind of see where it's at. The guy in the ball to the right is a federal agent. Look what he does to him. Look at this spit coming up. Look at this.

Oh, that was a real loogie, damn. It gives me real nostalgic flashbacks seeing somebody with a MAGA hat next to somebody with an N95 mask on. Those are the two real genders. Here's a question for you. Do you, when you're out there, wow, you've not been out there. Maybe you're guys that came back. There's always, you know, numbers that show up.

that some of these guys are paid agitators and paid protesters. When you've been out there, whether it's the Luigi Mangione or any of the other stuff, do you ever ask them the question, or did you guys get paid to do this? Yeah, it's typically not true.

Typically not true. Yeah, I don't think I've ever seen a paid protester. I mean, it's a narrative that gets pushed a lot, which makes sense because there is NGOs that organize protests, but they're making that decision to do the protest. Like, okay, there are groups that receive funding who decide themselves to protest, and they use some of that funding to do stuff like make signs, but they're still making the decision most of the time. It's not like someone like George Soros is like, hey, go over there.

and have a sign that says Elon sucks. It's them being genuinely upset and thinking, okay, cool, let's use some of this funding to do something. On the other hand, I have actually seen, though, paid protest groups –

go into places that are more radical like Portland and Seattle and disrupt, you know, more direct action movements. Like, for example, I remember in Portland, Oregon during the crazy summer of 2020, there were organizations, I'm not going to say the name, that were basically paid by the city of Portland and the state itself to go into the protest groups and encourage nonviolence. So all the protest groups that I've seen that are paid are mostly like peacemakers that are represented by the state. I wouldn't say that. I think the paid protester thing is like super overblown. Have you asked them?

Yeah, for sure. I just know a lot of them, you know what I mean? So let me tell you what came up. This came out with the AOC rally. During the AOC rally, they were like, hey, we had 34,000 people there. But GPS data analysis revealed that the number was closer to 20,000. Still big, but not record-breaking. And it continues saying a whopping 84% of the devices had shown up at at least nine other protests

including Antifa, BLM events, pro-Hamas, pro-Palestinian demonstrations, the Kamala Harris campaign. So 84% of them and over 30% of them had attended 20 or more. That makes sense to me. I feel like people who protest for a living and go to rallies is kind of their lifestyle. But watch the rest of it. Data analysts say the crowd was anything but organic. The majority were tied organically.

to activist networks like Disruption Project, Indivisible, Democratic Socialists of America, Rise and Resist, and Troublemakers, all reportedly funded by ActBlue and some receiving backing by Via USAID.

optics over authenticity. The playbook hasn't changed just the targets. This is from Zero Hedge. Yeah, I was at the Bernie Sanders AOC rally doing some interviews three days ago in Bakersfield, California. And I just think there's a big difference between NGOs and political groups and parties that receive some level of funding and then decide to go to the events as opposed to like direct orders. The people who are showing up

They may be receiving some level of funding in a nebulous way, but they believe what they're doing. It's not as if – when you say paid protester, it kind of suggests that they don't actually feel that way, that they're just showing up simply because they received orders from the person that's cutting them a check.

I think there's a mix, and it's easy to cast them. It's easy, especially when you disagree with someone, to think they can't actually think that. They must be paid to show up. But the Democratic Socialists of America, they are there with their clipboards asking people to donate and volunteer and sign up. But I think there's some element to organization. But a lot of people just – the protest crowd is relatively –

small and they show up to everything. You think it's small? Well, the same people that went to 2020 protests for George Floyd are the same people that were protesting Israel on college campuses are the same people who vote for AOC and Bernie. It's kind of like a, it's a demographic, you know, it's kind of like, I'm willing to bet that a solid percentage of the people that showed up to, um,

A Trump rally here in Florida probably also have been to five or more Trump events in the past five years. Yeah, but that's different because what it says is if somebody's been to 20 or more, you don't have a life to go to 20 or more. It's impossible to go to 20 or more unless if you don't have a job. And if 34% have been to 20 or more, so maybe not majority.

Let's say 50% is real. Let's say 60% is real. Let's say 70% is real. But the 33% that's showing up who has been to 20 or more, you have to kind of speculate and say, who's paying these guys to be over here? Well, I think when you say real, 100% of them believe what they're saying. The question is... I don't know if we know that. I mean...

I've been to a bunch of rallies. I can't think of a single rally where I've interviewed a protester where they're just straight up lying. You think those guys that stepped up to us and they spat on us, do you think they fully believe in what they're talking about? Oh, yeah, dude, for sure. I think you don't spend enough time around internet leftists, man. They really think that. I don't disagree with you, but also at the same time, when you see the funding, the paper trail of Soros and what he's done with his money,

There's plenty of track into what he's doing as well. What about people on the other hand who are like funding the Trump campaign? What about his top donors? But to me, the way I would look at that, your counter argument to that would be, what about the fact that Elon Musk spent $250 million to win Pennsylvania? Right? Guess what? The answer to that is what? It's open. But the money is what? If you do this, here's what it is. I just think Citizens United should be repealed.

It's crazy that corporations can be so powerful that they can speak more than a human being possibly could, even though, I mean, how much, what's the, how many, before Citizens United, what was the maximum amount of money that a person could donate to a political campaign? Oh, by the way, I would love that. It would never happen. Yeah. I would also love to get the lobbyists out, but it will never happen.

It would never happen. One of the first steps to it is if they're able to get big pharma from not advertising, that's a first step. Because out of all the countries, only two countries are allowed to advertise big pharma. Us and New Zealand. Oh, shit. Really? In Europe, they don't have commercials for OxyCog? You cannot. Yeah.

You cannot. Yeah, so it says that individual contributions to candidates could only be as much as $2,400 per election to a federal candidate. So $4,800 total per cycle. And then after the Citizens United is passed, you have corporations who are donating millions and millions, if not hundreds of millions, to political campaigns. They use that money to then subsidize large-scale advertising campaigns and different programs.

PR optics to put themselves in front. So go this. Who do you think gives more money? You think the bigger companies give more to the left or the right? It depends what you're talking about. Because back then, of course, it would have been the left or not the left, the liberals, the progressives, the Democrats. What do you think it is today? I would assume, well, there's so much. That's the thing is there's a second sort of deep state, I believe, forming around Trump. This may not help you, by the way, because a lot of money. Okay. So do you know by company?

How much leftist companies, big Fortune 500 companies give to the Democratic Party versus the Republican? Do you know the dollars? Yeah, how much? You ever seen this? Is it a breakdown of it? Oh, dude, I love the fact that you're seeing this for the first time. But I mean, Elon, Zuckerberg, Bezos, they all support Trump, right? No, no, but watch. Watch what happens here. You're going to see where this goes. This isn't it, Rob. Nope, there's one that says...

Brandon, Humberto, if you guys can send this to Rob, there's one that shows, it's not this one. There's another one that shows 98%, 97%, 96%. You have it. We've shown that once before, maybe eight months ago.

And we have that chart, but it breaks down by company on what they gave 2024, 2020, 2016. You will be blown away by this number. So even if we get rid of that. I'm curious to see it just because that's just all wasted money. Well, but watch it. I mean, watch it here. Watch to see what happens. It's that one right there, Rob. The second lane, third one. Yeah. Zoom in. Okay, watch this.

This is blue, left, red, Republican. But I mean, even those top companies, like if the top blue donor is Facebook, we know that Mark Zuckerberg is now partial to Trump. He's not running against him. That's not about being partial to Trump. That's where the money is going. So you think that as political power... No, but just watch this. Stay on this for a second. No, no. Your argument was the fact that citizens, if they get rid of companies being able to give to big super PACs,

And this number is even further opposite side today. That's 2017. It's worse today for 2024, Rob, if you do have it. Just stay on that one right now to just kind of show that until we go to the next one. And these guys will send it.

You will see the numbers. Look at that. Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Intel, Oracle, BlackRock, Charles Schwab, IBM, Cisco. This is Trump. If you go down, there's also a significant amount of money being given to political campaigns. Exxon, Las Vegas Sands, Morgan Stanley, Lockheed Martin, Goldman Sachs, Delta, Johnson & Johnson. Those are all giving equal amounts, if not more, to conservative campaigns. It's more to the goal. Okay, just look at the chart here. You have to be able to see it. Can you tell me where 50% is?

I see what you're saying. Go to where 50% is right there. So go up. You're right. The bottom what? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Give more to the right than the left. But now let's count. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21. 21 is left. Only 9 is right. So the control, if they stop doing that,

Liberals get their money from the wealthy. Billionaires support more liberals than they do conservatives. As weird as it is. No, I actually agree with that 100%. And just to clarify, I mostly agree with you. Like, I'm not a supporter of the Democratic Party either. So, I mean, I just... No, I get that. But I also see that as you're going through this process, when you're going to it, the one thing that is phenomenal to see is the data to show that

What's going on with it? Eventually, Zuck realized he effed up because I think Zuck's play. Rob, when did Zuck come out and talk about the fact when he put that tweet out about Joe Biden and his camp, forced them to take down some content and a $400 million? I regret it. When was that tweet?

Do you remember when that tweet was? August 27th, 2024. Can you put that tweet and pull it up? Do you remember this tweet? This, I'm assuming, goes back to his Joe Rogan podcast where he wore the gray T-shirt and he was kind of admitting that the Biden administration was pressuring him to take down posts on Facebook related to what he saw as COVID-19 misinformation. So you see the timing of it, though. You know when the timing of that tweet was? The timing of that tweet, if you can find the tweet, just go to the tweet if you can. The timing of it was, it's important to see the dates, right?

the president's office. I think this is the part where. I think this is the part where. So he wrote a letter I think this is the part where. So he wrote a letter I have what's the date August 26 So he wrote a letter I have what's the date August 26 2024 to Jim Jordan that's have what's the date August 26 2024 to Jim Jordan that's right and he says what I 2024 to Jim Jordan that's right and he says what I appreciate the committee's right and he says what I appreciate the committee's there's another there's a lot appreciate the committee's there's another there's a lot of talk right on us and there's another there's a lot of talk right on us and the Russian medal though I want of talk right on us and the Russian medal though I want to be clear about our position the Russian medal though I want to be clear about our position our platform is for everyone to be clear about our position our platform is for everyone out or about promoting speech our platform is for everyone out or about promoting speech and helping people connect in out or about promoting speech and helping people connect in a safe and secure way. And helping people connect in a safe and secure way. As part of this we regularly hear a safe and secure way. As part of this we regularly hear the governments around the As part of this we regularly hear the governments around the world that are in 2021 senior the governments around the world that are in 2021 senior officials from the Biden world that are in 2021 senior officials from the Biden administration including the officials from the Biden administration including the White House repeatedly pressured

Mm-hmm.

In the wake of this pressure, I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it. I also think we made some choices that with the benefit of hindsight and new information we wouldn't have made today. Like I said to our teams at the time, I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any administration in either direction.

and we're ready to push back if something like this happens again. In a separate situation, the FBI warned us about a potential Russia disinformation operation about the Biden family and Burisma in light of 2020 election that fall when we thought on a New York Post. So he's explaining that they effed up, right? You know what? But what's the date? Go for it. I don't think that Zuckerberg would have done that.

if he thought Trump was going to lose. I agree. Yeah, because realistically, he's doing that as a concession because he's worried about retribution with the new Trump presidency. And he's seeing power shift, right? And he wants to be on the right side of history because he knows that he's going to lose his financial backing to go against. Or could it be that he realized he was wrong? Well, I think that if you...

Yeah.

Not I'm banned because I'm propagating misinformation that's going to be harmful to people. You think if the establishment, if a large social media company takes little old me's page down for expressing my First Amendment right and saying my opinion about the Moderna vaccine or something like that, whether it's right or wrong, you feel that you're on the – you are an anti-establishment person who is inherently telling the truth that's being censored by the greater machine.

And so someone like Trump comes along and he's seen by them as being like the arbiter of truth and justice. And so Mark Zuckerberg and all those people during 2020 who colluded to deplatform people are paying for their mistakes big time. So they were wrong.

Deplatforming people is wrong. No, but they were wrong about the position they took that they didn't allow any argument about vaccine or that the lab leak came from China that, you know, forcing military personnel to take the vaccine or else you got to get out or other doctors who are licensed from major institutions who practice medicine, who had an opposing position towards the vaccine. Those videos were taken down by Channel 5, like literally millions.

KKLA or KTLA Channel 5 in California they were taken on because of this and today White House comes out with this

the lab leak origin. Rob, if you can go a little bit lower. I think this is today or yesterday. - Today. - The proximal origin of COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, COVID-2 publication, which was used repeatedly by public health officials and the media to distract the lab leak, was prompted by Dr. Anthony Fauci to push the preferred narrative that COVID-19 was originated naturally

The virus possesses a biological characteristic that is not found in nature. Two, data shows that all COVID-19 cases stem from a single introduction to humans. This runs contrary to previous pandemics where there were multiple spillover agents. Three, Wuhan is the home of China's foremost SARS research lab, which has a history of conducting gain-of-function research

gene altering and organism supercharging and inadequate biosafety levels. Four, Wuhan Institute of Virology, researchers were sick with COVID-like symptoms in the fall of 2019, months before COVID-19 was discovered at the wet market. Number five, by nearly all measures of science, if there was evidence of a natural origin, it would have already surfaced, but it hasn't. Rob, is there something to go lower to it?

This is it. That's the Wuhan Institute of Virology. That's the Huanan Seafood Market. That's where the pangolin bat sandwich was allegedly. That's exactly what the story was. Yes, go a little bit lower. And then what does it say here? The gain of function, they broke all of it down. A current government comes over, it's not a dangerous gain of function. Go a little bit lower, Rob, to see what that one is saying. Is there anything with data? So this is now coming out today. So think about it. While we're sitting here,

And you think about Anthony Fauci, who was... We were supposed to be told he was the sexiest man on earth, according to Guardian. Who said that? You see this? Type in Guardian. Type in Guardian. Guardian. Guardian. Anthony Fauci, sexiest man on earth. Maybe he is. Maybe our taste is bad. Maybe...

We got to get our act together. I mean, you got to look him up when he's younger to see if he's got some more. I mean, he's got a handsome, he's got a symmetrical figure. Don't question it. Listen, I understand you're like, don't question the integrity of mainstream media that says sexy. If they say he's the sexiest man alive, just receive it, bro. I don't understand this with Gen Z's. You guys challenge this a little bit too much. So anyways, but the part is, this is where America, because you...

Sorry. I don't know. Can the audience see this headshot of Fauci right here? That's his Zoolander blue steel face right here. That's a good look, though, bro. That's like, listen, Brad Pitt's got nothing on Anthony Fauci. Look at that. Ryan Gosling, forget about it. Right? Robert Redford, young, hell no. Right? McQueen, you got James Dean, Anthony Fauci, damn, dog. Look at that. Sexy. Sexy.

I wanted to back up just a little bit to a miscalculation that Zuckerberg, Susan Wojcicki, and others made during that time. They forgot that the internet itself is actually free. A lot of people, when they talk about censorship, they're existing within the big four. Back then it was Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and I guess it was TikTok. But the reality is you can still make a website and say pretty much whatever you want within the confines of free speech protections. I can start andrewsopinions.com and I can say anything. It's just a matter of getting traffic to the website.

And what happened after they removed people from Facebook is in shutting down that discourse, people created alternative platforms that had a huge resurgence and actually emergence during that time as well. Gab, Parler, Rumble, BitChute. And so what you did is you took them away from the public discourse and the marketplace of ideas and you put them into a tighter echo chamber amongst each other to where more fringe beliefs like the QAnon stuff were able to incubate in a smaller focus group and they just kind of exploded.

And that wouldn't have happened if the surface net was existent as it is. Now, you might say that, okay, this may have stopped some of the Q stuff from spreading and infecting the brains of hundreds of millions of people and was maybe focused on seven or eight. But those seven or eight million of people who were under absolute political hypnosis during the 2020 election are still suffering from that to this day. Listen –

It's so funny when you say that. We forget up until 2024, when did, when was, when did, no, up until October of 2022. It's not a long time ago, two and a half years ago. Mainstream media had a chokehold on influence, period. Yeah. Period. There was a guy named Dr. Mike who was like the YouTuber and he would always have Anthony Fauci on.

He agreed to come to our podcast three times and he was going to talk to this lady who used to work with Anthony Fauci. Last minute he bailed. I would never do this and I never agreed. You agreed to it. We have the text documentation of immigrant to come to it. I would never come to all this other stuff. Okay. We were supposed to think he knew where he knew it all. And that was the way to go. We can't question anything with the vaccine stuff. No, no, no. Fauci's God. And we got to go with the lead.

And then Musk buys Twitter in October 27, 2022. Then what happens? Trump is back on X, which he rarely uses. Trump comes back on YouTube. Trump comes back on Facebook and Instagram. Then everybody follows lead. Then content creators can go back to sharing their opinions. Then content creators, a lot of them,

We're kind of like, hey, here's what I believe. For us, we got a lot of strikes. I don't know how many strikes you've gotten, but we got a lot of strikes. You got one? In the era of 2019 to 2022, we got many strikes. Our channel would be like, hey, you're one away, you're two away, you're one away, you're two away. And once you get three, they can do a lot of things to you if they choose to. Yeah.

So what happened in October of 2022 when you're saying, when you're saying, hey, you know, they kind of got it wrong and they kind of did this. We didn't have a market. They didn't have a choice. You couldn't speak about the opinions that you had. Then when they could, when they realized they effed up, then the populace realized, ah, shit, we were right. We were right about the stuff. Trump wasn't going to start World War III.

Never did in the first term. The economy was doing good until COVID happened. Oh, shit. Russia and Ukraine happened under, I thought, you know, Biden was peace. Multiple major wars on a guy that's supposed to be peace. So that's when the markets find like, look, dude, I've had it. You win seven battleground states and every state becomes more Republican than they were before. And the two states that became more Republican are the two states that lost a trillion dollars of what that left. So even after they left, they became even more Republican than

That's like a landslide type of a victory that Reagan had back when he won against Mandela or whoever it was. Yeah. It's a very interesting time of what happened to it. So to me, I think a part of it is also, you know, it's a different social media now the last 20 and a half years than what it was 2019 to 2022. Those were dark times for a lot of people. Yeah, definitely. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, absolutely. And I think that right now is a pretty good time for social media comparatively to then. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, it is. What was the anti-vax when you went to? What was that like? Oh, man. So, I mean, the anti-vax rally, the one that I went to, obviously it was taken down by YouTube. But that was the first major anti-lockdown rally. Why was it taken down? You know. Same thing? Just like bots. What was the craziest thing that somebody said? I mean, this is a pre-vaccine era. This is before the vaccine rollout happened. What year was that? This is in April 2020. Oh, my God. So peak 2020.

Oh no, that Hollywood anti-vaxxer is like a year later. If you look up Corona virus lockdown protest, all gas, no brakes, you will find the video that was removed by YouTube, um,

Yeah, but that was like at the California State Capitol in Sacramento. Is that the one? Right after it popped off. Is this it? Yeah. Is this the one they took down? This is the one that was taken down. So it starts with this clip? Yeah. I want to hear what the first thing is to see what upsets you two. Go ahead. I got every problem with the government saying we can't go out. That's a prohibition. It's illegal. It's against the Constitution. I'm immune compromised. I'll put that at risk today. I'll put that at risk today because I've got to be here. Are you scared to die?

No more scared than I am for anything else.

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Yeah, so that was when it first popped off. Exactly.

That's the idea. I don't have a badge. This shit was crazy, man. I'm giving some flashbacks. This is April of 2020, the peak. And this is in L.A. or this is... This is in Sacramento at the California State Capitol. And as you can see, we were... I was... I don't know if you were right, how you felt when the thing first happened, but I was definitely nervous, you know, pre-vaccine, you know, all that. It was pretty...

It's unsure time for people. And I think that that caused many to gravitate toward extreme directions. You had people who were like, I'm never going to wear a mask. One guy here had a shirt that said, cough in my face. And he was saying, everybody cough in my face. I don't care who you are. Young, sick, old, cough in my face. I will show you. And then you had people who were literally like refusing to go outside of their house. I remember in Seattle,

with the community that I grew up with, right? Like if you had a picnic at a public park and you didn't have a mask on and there was five or more people, somebody would walk by you with their phone, take a picture of you, and it would circulate all on social media and it would say, this is a super spreader and you could lose your job because of that. So there was like a mutual polarization. And I would argue that we're still living in 2020. You think? People's brains have never recovered, man.

I think the 5%, you're probably right. I know. Think about it, man. Okay, so I would actually argue we're still living in the 1960s. But if you think 60s, you know, the divisions that were planted there, you know what I mean, as far as like Red Scare and then people's movements being anti... It's kind of we're still living... If you're breaking it down like that, yeah. But I think...

I think the level of fear that you had in 2020 in April, you probably don't have today with COVID. Oh, not the level of fear, but I mean, the way people perceive politicians in reality is very 2020 coded still to this day, even if people don't. But they divided America. Oh, yeah. The mainstream media divided America in a major way. They convinced Americans that Trump was with Russia until they realized Hillary Clinton funded that whole thing. And I think Trump convinced Americans to look at people with masks as like these moronic sheep that are worthy of...

you know, harassment. Well, some of them are. Yeah. I mean, I just, you don't like, for example, when, when I remember one time, Rob, can you put up the picture I posted of a, the lady that was in the car driving? Um, I don't know if you have this or not. So during COVID, I used to love watching people. Oh, let me see if I can find this. Where? No. Let me see if I can find this. This is so funny. If I can find it. Uh,

But, yeah, when I would see guys wearing a freaking mask while they're driving in the car by themselves. Is this me, Rob? Yep. Do it again. Go back to it. Yeah, this is it. That's it. I can tell it's going to be a good one. What are you doing? So this person's not a – you weren't a mask in the car by yourself. You think that's normal? The level of responsibility is at the highest level. They don't even want to get themselves sick. Probably went to Harvard, quite frankly.

Part of you, doesn't part of you kind of feel bad for this? No, I don't. You know why? Let me explain to you why. I don't feel bad because if, yeah, that's the second picture, Rob. If you can put the second picture, I think it's the second one to the left, top left. That's the one I think. Click on it. Driving alone. Yeah, this is it. Driving alone with a mask on is like going to bed alone with a condom on. Mm-hmm.

Like, what are you afraid of? You're not going to get an STD. But you got to think like they're under algorithmic hypnosis, like the other half of the country. And they're being told every single day that there's a new variant. They're glued to their phone. Six hours of screen time is like the national average in 2020. So they're constantly being fed this fear information.

stuff, much like people on the far right were also being fed a similar type of fear content, outrage machine. Like what? Like what? Give me the fear on the right. Probably, oh my gosh, the QAnon stuff? No, not QAnon. Give it to me from conservative media, like mainstream versus liberal media mainstream. Not QAnon people. Oh, I mean, that was the dominant thread in 2020. No, no. I'm just going to stick to mainstream media, what the conservative right was saying, and

that was selling fear porn versus what the liberal left was saying, selling fear porn. They both sold fear porn, but what was it? - I think that the democratic censorship on major social media platforms pushed people in the conservative activist movement into small fringe platforms where they were being fed, queuing on stuff more so than they were mainstream press. And that was a direct blowback. I mean, obviously mainstream liberal media at the time was telling people not to go outside to social distance and to be wary of anybody without a mask on.

And also there was a – the right-wing machine was telling people that we're going to turn into a communist country and all your freedoms are going to be taken away. There's a cabal of baby-eating pedophiles that are connected to Epstein Island who are controlling the entire world. So there was just mass exaggerations on both sides. That's a lot of things, right? But on the podcast, yes.

On the podcast world, when it's coming to, what are you saying, the baby eating, what was that? What is the thing called that you drink and you age backwards? Adrenochrome. Adrenochrome, right. And so for me, yeah, for sure. Some people say that. That's kind of weird when they say that. I get it. But I'm saying mainstream, mainstream. On mainstream, if they said, if you give up too much control, this could be a step away from communism, it's partly not wrong if you give up too much control.

We were told that our kids can't go to school and you're telling us to stay home for a year and a half and people left California, New York. Yeah, that's crazy shit. You and I don't know what that is. When you went to school, you didn't have to stay home for a year and a half. Imagine how hard it is on the wife and the mother and mom and the father trying to make the marriage work and pay bills and get the job and you lose the job and you lose the restaurant and you lose the business. That's policies from the left that destroyed all these things. So they destroyed America for a year and a half.

But what did the right do? The right was telling you, don't believe it. Question it. Even libertarians said, don't believe it. Even libertarians became incited with Trump. Some of them did die, though, like Herman Cain.

Well, some of them did die. Herman Cain. Yeah, there are some that died. There's more than just Herman Cain that died. There was a lot more than that. But that's not the point. The point is you have a choice. If you drive a car on the freeway, somebody hits you, you're going 100 miles an hour. It's your choice. You kill yourself. You're dead. You're going to your death. There's choices that you got to make. But if it's all control. Yeah. You want me to sit you and give you that. By the way, right now, like one of the conversations that's coming up here in the office was about what do you call it?

The personal ID. Are you calling this the real ID? Oh, yeah. That's like when you go to the airport now, you can't just give them your driver's license. You got to have this real ID with like the star on the top. Is that what it has to do with like the face scanner thing? Right. Like we're going in that direction. Some people are not comfortable with that. And these are people that are conservative that are not comfortable with that. With Trump, that voted for Trump. So this isn't like just...

A community that's all in. Like even if I voted for Trump, I'm 100% in now. Yeah. I think that one of the ways that my logic is thinking is kind of flawed sometimes is that I always have the impression that the conservative side is really united and that everyone's kind of rallying together with their support of Trump and Elon. That's not. Like what are the major points of division right now within the conservative movement? Oh, dude, are you kidding me? Like, holy shit. Do you know who Steve Bannon is? Yeah. Yeah.

So do you know who Howard Lutnick is? Is he connected to Steve? No. Howard Lutnick is – what's Howard Lutnick's job, Rob? What's Howard Lutnick's job? The United States Secretary of Commerce. So he's the Secretary of Commerce. That's a heavy job. Okay. Steve Bannon, who was a guy that helped Trump at the beginning when he's coming up. Old school. Old school. Like he's a strategy guy, right?

Have you seen what Steve Bannon has said about Howard Lutnick? I've only seen what Steve said about Elon, which he's like a foreigner or something. Yeah, so the point is there is something going on on the conservative side. What's this about, Rob? This is Steve Bannon. He calls, in this clip, he calls Howard Lutnick an unmitigated disaster as the Secretary of Commerce. Go for it. Play the clip. It's a way to have a trading order that puts America first and puts American citizens first and most importantly starts to bring back high value-added goods.

manufacturing to the United States and know Howard Lutnick is not going to all be done by robots. We're not doing this so we can set up so robots have a better life. In fact, I don't know why Lutnick's still doing media. Let me be blunt. Lutnick, who is Elon's pick for Secretary of Treasury, I think he's close to being an unmitigated disaster.

We should see a lot less of Lutnik on TV. Hassett, Navarro, Jameson Greer, the trade rep, and particularly Scott Besson. And I think Besson's being very smart in choosing and being very selective on the media. We have to have a clear message and people understand what the process is. And we have a process.

It's a very well thought through. And this is about, oh, by the way, Miller should be, Stephen Miller should be doing more about trade and about this new economic order that we're trying to hammer through. This guy's got a big following, by the way. Steve Bannon? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Do you know, CPAC after CPAC, who was number one for presidency for 2028? Was who, Rob? Trump? Or no, J.D. Vance. I'm sorry. J.D. Vance was one. Yeah, yeah.

You know who was 231%? Him. Really? Damn. So there's kind of like different factional leaders within the conservative thought. Oh, for sure. There is not 100% unity. No, no, there's not. Which, by the way, that's good. But which issue is most divisive, not just in terms of people they look up to? Well, I mean, the issue that's divisive, there's the America first, right? Which is like the people that hate. The policies that makes us first. America first globalist.

Right. Nationalist. We're about America versus globalist. There's there's that part. There's a debate on some of these guys that are more. They're kind of like part of the establishment side versus the anti-establishment. Like, hey, we voted you in to do these things. How come you're not doing that? How come you're not going after these three or four or five issues that we voted for you for?

So, and then the tariffs, there is a camp in Republican party. That's not for the way tariffs are going. Yeah. I was, I was at the Bernie Sanders rally. I told you in Bakersfield, there was a guy there in a MAGA hat and he was like, I just want to hear what Bernie has to say. Cause these tariffs are destroying my business. He said that. Yeah. Well, that would qualify for paid agitator. Yeah.

to kind of throw it off. That's just because you disagree with it, man. No, but that is the perfect way to confuse the hell out of somebody to come in. You know how much it costs to do something like that? Hey, I'll give you $200 worth of MAGA hat and just go say this to the guy on the camera. He'll use it. To be fair, I was confused. So mission success. Yeah, so what I'm saying to you is that's that effective.

that a guy that gets billions of views, I don't know how many total views you got. I'm assuming you got hundreds of social media views, if not over a billion total social media views. I got 600 million. On YouTube? Yeah. Actually, no, in total, I probably have around a billion. No, you got over a billion, bro. Don't count YouTube. You're TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, X everywhere. So you got over a billion views.

That worked with a guy like you. So these are the things that we got to be thinking about on the Republican side. No, no, it's not. It's not what you think it is. So, but all I'm saying is during that time with COVID, dude, they gaslit the,

they gaslit the hell out of a lot of us, mainstream media. Did you ever do anything where you actually ever have a moment where you were actually scared? Like, holy shit, we got to be careful with this. Where your camera guys were hit at the ward? Oh, all the time. Where was that? What's the scariest one? I mean, personally, probably getting arrested by border patrol. Oh, Rob, we have to do this. Probably like,

Can you break down what you did here? Because this is absolutely edgy. Okay, so the video is called Border Patrol Arrest. So let me first, before you watch this, let me tell you the purpose. This is when the border was wide open and there was a big migrant crisis happening. So I wanted to see what it was like on the Mexican side as far as the final step of actually meeting up with a coyote who was connected to the cartel and crossing the border, specifically over the river, because I wanted to get in the water as opposed to being in the hot desert.

And so, yeah, we did that. I didn't actually, I didn't realize that we were going to cross the river until we got there. But then I kind of put two and two together. And there was a guy that was collecting tacks with a machete that he was like hitting against this tree in the distance. And I was like, all right, fuck, why? I got to get out of Mexico. I'm looking at America like, oh, home free finally. So, you know, I link arms with the coyote. We cross the river. I get to the American side.

And I think that I'm good to go. The coyote is like, man, stay down. Like, you know, you can still get arrested. Like, even if you're an American citizen, you can't just hop your own border. And I was like, dude, I can hop my own border. I've been here my whole life. It's fine. So I walk up and then I get up and then the border patrol agent is like, you know, stand up. I stand up like I've done nothing wrong.

And he's like, you know, that's a felony, right? And I was like, what do you mean? He's like, you have to go through a port of entry. And I was like, oh, shit, my bad. Can I get a ticket or something? And he was like, no, bro. So he took me to a processing center for migrants. And, yeah, it was like hundreds of them wearing space blankets in this freezing room. They make it really cold. Did you record it or they didn't let you record it? I couldn't record this. So we had a designer do like a 3D animation rendering of it. So I go into the room after being processed and like –

All the migrants, like, it was the worst day of their life, obviously, because they've just gotten caught trying to come into the U.S. Robert, we can hear the audio if you want to mute it because we hear it. But it made their life. Seeing a white guy walk into the holding tank. All these guys were having the worst day, and they just stand up, they're just laughing. They're like, what the hell did you do? What are you doing? And I speak Spanish. Do you have the clip of speaking to the coyotes? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go to the front ramp? I think speaking to the coyotes is where? Earlier? Yeah. Okay. Well, I would say around the seven-minute mark.

Yeah. Or right there. So that's the coyote who I blurred out and he was... Go back a little bit, Robson. Go back a little bit, because he starts talking... Okay, right there. Right there. Right there. Out of wire at all. It's a non-issue and a distraction designed to create controversy from afar. He says this is the perfect place to cross, but he's worried it's too deep. Yeah, Mexico.

You can see my face. I'm like, this may sound like amateur, but I didn't realize up until this point that we were actually going to cross the river ourselves. I was expecting just like a tour of their route, but obviously they had other plans.

And then we went to the US. Yes. Ah, yes, like $5,000. God damn it. It was also going to cost us $5,000 a piece. Did you have it? This was not discussed, but I wasn't sure what to do. So that's the first part. The first part is this. Okay. And then we need to get someone to lift us up. It's a car.

At this point, it became quite obvious that I was in far too deep. The coyote told me that after crossing the river, we had to walk from Eagle Pass to Uvalde, Texas, which is over 67 miles on foot. How would this be possible?

According to Apple Maps, it said it would take over 24 hours. We had no water. Plus, we apparently owe these guys $5,000. Looking back, I would have asked to turn around, but we were in far too deep. And while they're being pretty cool, you never know when a switch could flip or something. Abruptly, the younger coyote asked me to duck down because a border patrol boat was speeding by. Bye. Bye.

How are you getting this footage? We got that from just YouTube. They do these sweeps every 30 minutes. Okay. How are you feeling at this moment? Anxiety or no? You look pretty calm. Yeah, the thing is I don't really feel anxiety until I'm looking at the footage. It's funny.

In the moment, I wasn't nervous, but watching this now, I'm nervous because I realize this is a bad idea. So what's about to happen next to you? I'm about to cross the border and get arrested by Border Patrol. Go to the Border Patrol part when he's talking. Do you record when you're talking to Border Patrol? Yeah, right there. Go back a little bit. Is this it? Okay, press play. Yeah, this is now in the U.S. Coyote's telling me to be quiet. Let's be right there. Roly-poly for him.

You haven't paid the five grand yet.

I couldn't believe it. Border Patrol had been watching us the entire time since we entered the forest. And set up an ambush on the American side to apprehend us. Immediately, my coyotes jumped back into the water, swimming back to Mexico. This left us alone in Border Patrol custody.

There was one guy here, he obviously ran back and then the two USC's right there. And watch, he grabs the camera and it's still rolling, he doesn't even realize it's rolling. That's a Border Patrol agent. No shit. That's perfect footage. That's golden. Dude, right?

Wow, look at this. He's doing a great job. You should be a camera guy. Honestly, this is pretty much a commercial for the U.S. border. Dude, this is like, these guys are great shooters, literally. Yeah, look at the cinematography. He's holding it like at a perfect eye level here, or hip level. And we're sitting in the back of the car there. You can't see us, but...

Come on, bro. Good for you. You should have given him the $5,000. It doesn't get better than that. No, wow. So now what happens? You go to jail? Yeah. Well, I went to a processing center and they just helped me. This is the one you were with a couple hundred other guys that got caught as well? Yeah, and then they put me in a solitary confinement cell for like three days.

Did somebody say like, what were you thinking? Yeah, they understood. But like the immigration court system was so bloated because of the crisis that I couldn't get heard by a judge for like three days. As soon as she heard that I was an American citizen, they just gave me a $10,000 fine and dropped me off at a gas station. You paid the fine? Yeah, I paid it. So you didn't pay the $5,000 to the coyote, but you paid the $10,000 to the government. I probably should pay the coyote. Okay.

I never thought that I would cartel some money. Well, listen, man, that guy's probably upset. He's like, look, dude, I did my job. Yeah. Well, to be fair, I mean, I got arrested. They were supposed to help me get into the U.S. You're not arrested. No. So he didn't fulfill his commitment. No, not at all. That's disappointing. That's a good point. Mm-hmm.

You're a businessman. You want things to get done, and then I'll pay you. Definitely. I'll think about paying you. Dude, it was horrible in there. It was the most depressing place I've ever seen in my life. What's the worst part about it? Just seeing little kids covered in water from the Rio Grande with sticks in their hair, crying hysterically with their moms as they're being detained by Border Patrol and put into freezing rooms where they're just screaming all night. And in my cell, they had a TV, and the movie The Matrix was playing, but it was just the loading screen, and I couldn't.

adjust it so it was like play special features and it was the same song over and over again and I finally got the jailer to change it to a different movie and they played the movie Marley and Me the Owen Wilson film about the dog who passes away spoiler alert over and over again so I had to watch Marley and Me for three fucking days at least it's a decent movie but I don't know for three days I know every scene by heart and so I get out and my mom calls me and she was like you're taking years off my life you can never do that again

So when are you going to Iran? Should I go? Well, I mean, listen, if you really want to give your mom three years back, years back to her, you know, go back to Iran, one of the safest places. Are you a fan of Iran? I would love to go back. But if we go to Iran, you would be arrested by guilty of association with me. Oh, they don't like you? No, they don't like me. But they would entertain you. Your family grew up there? I grew up there. I lived there 11 years. After 79? Yeah.

78 through 89. So do you have a memory of that transition? Vivid. Geez. Yeah. I mean, I remember the war, maybe not the transition, but I remember the war. I remember what it was like. You think that condition you're thinking as an adult a lot? Do you think that condition, like your way of thinking a lot, just experiencing such a drastic regime change? I value freedom and I'm extremely paranoid with the government having too much power. And you know who I had here on the podcast three months ago,

I had the Islamic Revolutionary Guard founder. I had him here. This is a guy whose direct report, while they're in a building together, he's on the fourth floor. His direct report's on the first floor of the building in Iran. The direct report goes and puts a bomb, kills the president of Iran and the prime minister, and then claims he's dead. This guy claims that his ashes are everywhere. The entire country mourns for the president and the prime minister.

You know, who's the people that they killed? It was the president and... Anyways, they killed the two leaders that they have. Two weeks later, they find that the killer's not dead. So the ceremony... Anyways, this guy, when I have it in our podcast, we're having a conversation together with him. I said, what's the first thing you guys did when Khomeini took over Iran? He said, we have to confiscate everyone's weapons. I said, why is that? He said, well, it's the natural thing. We have to make Iran safer.

I said, so you take the guns away from citizens, scare the crap out of them. Now you have the guns. Yeah.

That's the part where for a person like me that lived there, where I saw what happened with a beautiful country that fell all of a sudden like this because Iranians never thought this was gonna happen, ever thought this was gonna happen. And what's happened to the Middle East since then? It's been a shit show. - What were the main promises that Khamenei promised to keep as far as like transforming Iran into a different society? - You ready? Free food, free rice, free phones, free gas, free housing,

Sound like Bernie Sanders. So is the promise of free services without having to work for them? Everything was given. Take the money from the rich and give it to the poor. And I've heard that message here many, many times. You know how many times that's been tried? Many times. It always fails. Why? Because a person eventually gets so much power, that power they start abusing...

And when they start abusing, it's not like, yeah, I can do whatever I want to do. The rest is history. So, you know, for me, I come from a different life that I witnessed what happened. And they got rid of this guy, Shah, who made Iran an incredible place to be at where, you

Frank Sinatra performed a concert in Iran in 1975. You probably don't even believe that. No, I do. I mean, the same thing in Havana. It was Vegas 2.0. Bingo. That's right. So similar stories. Iran and Havana is actually a good combination. Good comparison, Cuba and Iran. So do you think there's something about human nature that just, you know, once people hoard a tremendous amount of power, they just naturally gravitate toward corruption and human rights abuses? You planning on having kids one day?

Yeah. Okay. It's one of the greatest gifts in life. There's no love like how a kid loves you. Nothing. Not mom, dad, brother, sister, cousin, girlfriend, husband, nothing. Nothing like a kid liking you. And you like girls or you like guys? What? Oh, girls.

Oh, girl. Are you gay or straight? I think girls. I mean, you're pro-gay. I thought maybe you were. No, no, no, no, no. Are you fully? You're a girl. I've got a girlfriend. She's a girl. Real human woman. But is she like a girl that, a guy that identifies as a girl? No, no, no. She's a straight up lady. Hair and everything. Fantastic. Yeah. Congrats, bro. Thanks, bro. I appreciate it. I'm proud of you.

I appreciate the respect with which you asked that question. You're like, wait, you support game. Listen, you can't assume nowadays, man. That was your number two point. Imagine if you were like, what's her name? And I got really offended. She's probably watching. Yeah. But when you have a kid, let me tell you what happened. The way you're going, you're going to make a lot of money. Yeah. You're going to make a lot of money again, if you don't screw it up, but the way you're going, you're going to have a lot of great opportunities for you.

Because you're likable. You have that it factor. You've got the charm, charisma. You're very interesting as well. So when money comes, probably by the time you're 45, you're going to be worth anywhere between $20 to $200 million. Okay? That's going to be your net worth, whether you like it or not. That's going to be your net worth. It could be higher, but that's a number that you're going to have, right? You're not going to just say, hey, kids, when you turn 18 years old, mommy and daddy is going to give you all the money. You're going to put some controls in place.

Right. I want to make them work a regular job. Thank you. Yeah. So that's the part. You're going to have to earn a way to go. Well, daddy worked that he put his life on the line, went to Mexico and fricking try to swim over and almost got killed. That's work. That's not easy. You risk a lot of things, right? To me, um, a part of that with here where we are, um, I think we gotta be, uh, you know, the, the system of socialism and some of the ideas that they had, uh,

It's tough if we don't expect people to have to earn it themselves and kind of give things out away to them without having to earn it. It's a troubling place to be. It's a challenging place to be. And I'm overly paranoid if we do end up getting there one day. That's very reasonable given your life experience. Yeah. And that's the part, you know, and I kind of wanted to know what your family life was when

You said your parents used to be conservatives? Your father was conservative, right? Oh, no, no. My parents were never. I mean, so I grew up in Philadelphia. I moved to Seattle when I was 12. But my grandparents were, you know, fiscally conservative. Grandparents. Reagan era. But you got to think, too, their parents were, you know, World War II veterans who, after the GI Bill, were able to build homes in suburbia. And so the baby boomers were the first suburban generation who got to experience that life with no wars until Vietnam.

but there was a solid 15, 20 years of real American prosperity for them where everybody with a good job was able to afford a house and live a fulfilling life. My parents were probably a little bit more conservative-oriented when I was really young, but I think that the war in Iraq really transformed that perception. The war on terror post-9-11, I think the early war on drugs, and U.S. intervention in Latin America as well really changed their perspective on things. So they were big-time Al Gore vegetarians,

Even today, they're not very political, but my early political thinking was definitely more progressive. When I moved to Seattle, I started hanging out with a bunch of anarchists and more left-wing circles in high school. I went to school in the South. I went to New Orleans for college, and I got to know a lot more conservative-leaning people, learned about the Second Amendment and stuff like that, and got more exposure. And now I've lived on the road and between different cities for a long time. So I'm definitely, like I said, more left-leaning, but I'm very –

open to all perspectives. And also, I think that most people are generally well-intentioned. And I think that also as a country, what we need to be able to do is let some of the stubbornness go a little bit. You know, when you've committed to a certain way of thinking for a long time, it's very, it's kind of an ego blow to change your mind. And I think that's kind of where we're at, where a lot of people don't want to accept new information or different ideas because they've committed and they have so much emotion and passion behind this way of thinking that they've kind of nursed for a long time. And so, like I said, if something positive happens in the next four years,

I'll report on it. I just know that maybe communism, socialism isn't the way to go. Probably not. I don't know. I just know that what's happening right now isn't really functioning that well. And so I think that's why there's so many different political ideas happening right now. In my opinion, there's more diversity of political thought now than there's been ever. And guess what? I love that. Yeah. That's why I say I'm excited about what you're going to be doing. I think you're very important. And I think

you're going to inspire a lot of younger guys that are going to want to do what you're doing as well that are interested. My 13 year old son would be fascinated by you. Literally my 13 year old son would have a 30 minute conversation with you and enjoy it because of where you're at. There's a lot of guys nowadays are going to look up to you. 12 year old kids that are looking up to what you're doing because it's entertaining. It sounds fun. It's a little edgy, but also you're in pursuit of something. Let me see what they're going through. Anyways,

Do you want to tell us about the documentary before we wrap up, Dear Kelly?

Not so much now. It's an interesting angle though. Yeah. If you want to tell the audience who the individual that influenced you at a time that you need it,

Yeah, so Kelly J. Patriot, Kelly Johnson is the protagonist of the film, and he's someone that I documented over the course of three and a half or four years. I first met him at a White Lives Matter rally in 2021, and I just, his instantly, his story resonated with me because he was kind of spouting off the typical talking points of that time, you know, like Fauci's evil, Jeffrey Epstein, Suez Canal's block, child trafficking, all the 2021 flashpoint stuff. Right.

And then the second part of our conversation was all about a personal vendetta that he had against a guy who gave him a loan named Bill Joyner, who was like this guy who he took a loan from. And Kelly felt like he got his home stolen because of the situation. And I felt it was so interesting seeing how his personal vendetta and the collapse of his core needs bled into a greater spiritual political battle in the country. And so the documentary itself is documenting his journey throughout the course of these four years, as well as his family's intervention attempts to get him to turn the page.

What a timing to follow for three and a half years. Yeah, I think the best documentaries, in my opinion, are the ones that are shot over a long period of time. It's very hard to create an amazing, compelling piece of documentary work when you only have three and a half months with a subject. I mean, you can make it entertaining. You can add music and supplemental media to make it pop. But time is the true essence of a great film. I agree. And that's why I'm excited to follow your journey. Yeah, I'm excited too. And I look forward to having you on next time to see what you're going through

And by the way, for those of you that are not watching, you're listening, we're going to put the link below in the description. But those listening, it's DearKellyFilm.com. Again, Dear, like D-E-A-R, Kelly, as in K-E-L-L-Y, Film.com. DearKellyFilm.com. Rob, put the link below as well for them to go watch. Oh, we just hit 3 million subscribers. Oh, congratulations, buddy. That's sick.

He just said it right before the podcast. We're 50 away. Boom. Three million subscribers. Three million subscribers on 149 videos. That's a good feeling. Sick. Congratulations to you. And happy early birthday. So again, go to the site, support him. Andrew, it's been a pleasure having you on. This was amazing. Thanks for having me, man. I appreciate it. Appreciate you for coming on and I look forward to doing this again in the future. Yeah, I'll see you when I'm 35. I look forward to it. Take care, buddy. Thanks, man. Take care.

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