← Hold These Truths with Dan Crenshaw
Hold These Truths with Dan Crenshaw
Addressing the 'Controversies' — Dan Crenshaw on Andy Stumpf's Podcast
02:45:54
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- [00:01]
A
Okay, got the red smoke.
- [00:04]
B
Sun runs north and south. West of the smoke. West of the smoke.
- [00:09]
A
Okay, copy. West of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now.
- [00:13]
B
Come on with it, baby.
- [00:14]
A
Give it to me. I mean, it hurt.
- [00:17]
B
Camp cleared out. I was just thinking about it, like, driving over here. You've been giving me for almost 20 years. Yeah. That's a long. That's a long relationship, and it's a little. It was abusive at a time, as you well know. Granted, it was institutional. Institutionally supposed to be that way. Yeah. But, yeah, you know, as our. As our second phase proctor, that was a lot of fun. That was. Isn't that great? I was like, 23, and you were. God, I don't even know how old are you?
- [00:54]
A
I am 48. So, yeah, if that was 20 years ago, I was in my late, late 20s. It doesn't seem like 20 years, man. That time seems to have just.
- [01:04]
B
It literally is so. Okay, but. Okay, serious topics. Ukraine, Trump, Zelensky.
- [01:11]
A
I'm just curious your thoughts on. I think that plays out from an outsider. I watch people talk about peace. They have meetings. He talks to people. Ceasefire followed immediately by notifications of drone strikes and bombings. It seems to be the. You know, the record going around. I'm just curious your thoughts on how you think that'll play out.
- [01:29]
B
Yeah. And I remember having you on my podcast. It's been a few years, and we talked a lot about Ukraine and the reasoning behind why we even bother with this issue. And so, you know, years go by. As usual, the American people get tired of whatever it is we're doing, and, you know, we're not losing anybody. There's a. I would note that there's a. The cost is just over 100 billion, but most of that actually comes back to our own defense industry, our own American economy. And, you know, when you're really talking about percentages, you're talking about, I used to say 5% of defense spending per year, but over the years, that number can't be 5%. It's got to be, like, between 3 and 5%. Okay. So the perspective is important. Trump comes in, rightfully in a difficult situation because he's got a situation where he cannot let his legacy be losing to Putin. He knows that. He doesn't want that. He has never said he's going to abandon Ukraine. All right. I think there's a. There's a segment of the. Of the. Especially the populist. Right. That of course, wants to, but he never said that. He was very careful with his words. Throughout the campaign trail, he always said, I'm going to broker a deal. And obviously he meant it. And it was a perfect timing, too, because a deal could not have been brokered by Kamala Harris. I used to say Kamala. And then I'd get. People would say, you said her name wrong. Who cares? She's irrelevant. And it couldn't have been brokered by her because it would just be Biden 2.0. And you can't just change the paradigm of the geopolitics. And so it was really important for Trump to become president for this to even be an option. And also, his personality is one of deal making. He's hard on his friends. He's nice to Putin in public, which is, you know, he knows that's what you need to do. And he knows because of his own internal politics that he needs to be kind of like, hard on Zelensky, which he was. This last meeting was very much. Was very much different. But we all remember the Oval Office meeting. Now, that was, I think, Zelensky's fault completely. I mean, he was just litigating the history of Russia for, you know, when all he had to do was sign the minerals deal, because the minerals deal that we wanted to sign with them is their security guarantee. Right. When you're economically tied, it's an implicit security guarantee. That's always been the unspoken reality. Well, that's pretty spoken, I would say. And so, you know, moving forward, I think Ukrainians understand they're going to have to give something here. They definitely understand they can't fight forever. And what Trump has done also is put a little bit more oomph behind the peace through strength slogan. And it's a great slogan, but it's only great if you remember the strength part. And what I love about President Trump is he actually does. I mean, we're seeing a lot of pretty hard, calculated strikes recently, are we not? Or there's the Caribbean or embargo around Venezuela or. Or. Or bombing Iranian nuclear facilities. He's obviously not this dovish isolationist that I think many of his base want him to be is much more along the lines of what I want him to be, which is a more rational American leadership. Right. Doesn't mean occupy countries necessarily. And we can always talk about the history of why we did that and why you and me were over there. But. And that's worth talking about always, I think, because I think a lot of people get it wrong. But that's really not. That's not Trump style. And Ukraine isn't asking us to be involved on boots on the ground. We're not involved. Boots on the ground. And so Trump has done a masterful game here, where he is, he's pushing the diplomacy as far as possible while also still arming Ukrainians. I mean, there's presidential drawdowns in this year have still been between 6 and $10 billion. Now, it's a lot cheaper to fund this war than it used to be because of the way it's being fought. The Ukrainians are picking up most of that slack. Europeans are picking up a lot more, and it's mostly drones. So also what Trump has done is really actually tightened and enforced those sanctions. This was a constant complaint, like, why are we spending all this money? But we're not even doing the easiest thing, which is the sanctions on Russia. Not just that, but also third parties that might be aiding Russia. So he's done that. Trump has also taken some of the, has given more flexibility to the Ukrainians for what they can use those weapons for. So that's where the strength part comes in. Because if you're dealing with somebody like Putin, you cannot get a deal by being nice. Right. Like, it's good. It's, it's, it's, it's still a good idea publicly. And Trump gets so much crap for it. But I sell people. You've got to look at the actions, and the actions are actually ones of gaining more leverage, not the opposite. And so where does this go? I mean, it's, it's, it's very, it's much more so in Russia's hands at this point. I think Zelensky is where we need him to be almost. You know, they're going to have some disagreements over borders and all that, which land to, like, call, you can call it a demilitarized, whatever you want to call it. They've got to work that stuff out. Putin, Putin is a tricky one and a bit unpredictable and also just highly irrational. I mean, they're, they're, they're spending thousands of lives for a few meters at a time. It's nuts. And it, so it's, and he's a little harder to predict and a little bit less rational than I think people realize. Kind of leave it there, but that's the, that's the basics.
- [07:23]
A
Yeah, I'm, no, I'm not going to claim to be. And it's actually pretty good to put this up front. I don't claim to be a student of or a scholar of our golem government or geopolitical politics, specifically the conflict in Ukraine and Russia and the history of the region and back and forth and the, you know, the Donbas and all of that. It's. It's interesting to hear you say that Trump is doing all of those things. I think depending on where you get your information from publicly, you're going to hear an opposite narrative of that. And I think, or I suspect that today when we're talking, that might be a little bit more of a common theme. Like, you're hearing one thing where perhaps the. The reality of it is something else.
- [08:07]
B
Well, give me an example. I mean, because I'm definitely stating facts, but I'm curious. I mean, there's so much stuff said about Ukraine, I can't even keep track of it.
- [08:16]
A
I mean, there. I mean, there is a. There is a hallway of people that would say that Trump is just Putin's bitch.
- [08:23]
B
Yeah, and that's what I was referring to. Like, those are Democrats saying that. Like, and it's because of how Trump acts in public. And I would always. And I always tell them, I'll defend Trump here. I'll say, look. Look at his action. This is. This is. Remember the first term, right. Russia gate. And he loves Putin. Well, I remember listing, like, six or seven things that were, like, so counter to Russia from act, from an action perspective. You know, this guy is not. I want to give Trump a little credit here. So anyway, so, yeah, that is definitely one. You were correct.
- [08:52]
A
Well, that's what I'm saying. It's. It's. Most people are busy enough in their day that they miss most headlines, and some of them are stickier than others, and they will stick. It doesn't mean that they're true. It can always mean that. There's a difference between what you're hearing and what you're seeing in real life. And that's a litmus test that I use for myself where I see these. Whatever, you know, a social media wave of something coming along. I'll put my phone down and say, okay, am I actually seeing this in my real life? Am I engaging with people like this? Is there reality to this, or is this being pushed hard and fast? It's. I don't know. And again, I am. I'm a fan of a lot of Trump's policies. Full disclosure, I'm not a fan of the way he conducts himself at times, not writ large, but at times, nobody's perfect. Trust me, looking in the mirror, I'm not a fan of the way I act sometimes. So I'm certainly not casting a lens of perfection. Oh, I trust. Do you want to go alphabetically or numerically? For the mistakes I've made in my life and the dumb stuff I've done. So I get it. So. So perfect is impossible. I just. I don't know how to make a recommendation to people of where they can go to truly separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to almost every topic in the modern era. Because it becomes difficult again. I'm not a student of politics in the US From a depth and breadth understanding, paying attention to it later in my adult life, the tribalism that I see that is on display, which actually is. Creates like this force field of actually being able to see past a lot of things. There's plenty of people who want to accept a narrative of it aligns with their team and what they believe with. Even when they can be shown actions that don't align with that. There's no ability for them to believe or no willingness to. And I don't know where we. I don't. First of all, I don't know how we got to that, but I also don't know where we go from that.
- [10:46]
B
Yeah.
- [10:46]
A
Because then it's just two teams smashing each other from across the field. And at the end of the day, the country suffers for it. We're not getting any better because of that. Tribalism.
- [10:55]
B
Yeah. And that tribalism. You know, people kind of. I always. I speak to a lot of high schools and I teach civics courses and you know, I lament the fact that kids these days do feel the pressure to choose a side very early in their life, which is really odd. I don't think you and I had that experience. You're not that much.
- [11:16]
A
I didn't pay attention to politics into my 20s or 30s. I definitely wasn't being told I needed to take a side.
- [11:21]
B
Same. And even though. And I went to Tufts, I went to a pretty liberal school. I never felt like liberalism or progressivism was shoved down my throat. And maybe it wasn't just wasn't paying attention. All I cared about was being a SEAL and that's it. So, you know. But I was also pretty academic and I studied international relations as a major. So it easily could have creeped in. Right. I mean, I was doing political classes and it's still. I never felt that way. It never felt. And this is on the cusp of, you know, we're starting the Iraq war. I mean, don't get me wrong, there's talk about that, but it was nothing like it is today. Kids really have it bad today. And So I have to tell kids. I'm like, look, I hope you choose my side, but for God's sakes, just wait. Just wait before you choose, because you don't know anything and there's a plethora of information out there, but your brain is the same brain from 2000 years ago, you know, cheering in the Roman Coliseum as people get eaten by lions. You can only imbibe so much information, right? And you can only digest it. And you got to use your experiences to frame that information correctly. So just be patient and humble and you know, and that will make you a better thinker. And as far as to your question as to she's where to go, I mean, I'll give people a quick list. I mean, first of all, my podcast hold these Truths. I'm not really joking. I always have experts on who. Now it's from a conservative point of view. Okay, so just flat out it's a conservative point of view, but I think that's pretty transparent. And in 300 plus episodes, you can find an episode with where I'm interviewing an expert on literally every single policy issue. By now, I think every single thing has been covered. I mean, my most recent one was the history of Christmas. So it's not always political. And I did. I had a Catholic priest on who did exorcisms. That one is worth a watch, Andy, if you haven't seen that. Well, so.
- [13:12]
A
But did you just say he did exorcisms?
- [13:15]
B
Yeah, yeah, there's. There's like a Catholic American Catholic priest who's allowed to. Who's given permission by the Vatican to speak more publicly and start. Because they've always kept this stuff really close hold. And he was given permission to speak publicly about, like, what really is an exorcism. And super interesting, but, you know, I have whole episodes on FDA reform. I mean, and, you know, an agriculture and like, how to train policy. Like, I mean, I just. Everything. So that's for, like, policy nerds. My podcast is where to go for your general news, though I don't. And we. We do. I have started doing something I call the Sit Wrap, which is, of course, a situation report, something most of your audience probably knows. And that's the. My goal there is to just give you the news in like 15 minutes. And I'll do my best, too, to not actually add a conservative flavor to that. Just try and like, here's the facts of what's happening. Okay? Now your mainstream stuff. I mean, look, from a conservative perspective. National Review, the Daily Wire, Wall Street Journal, These are all decent places to get the conservative perspective. If you want the liberal perspective and you want to see how they compare, just go to your table. Typical big magazines, honestly. I mean, the New York Times and whatever, you're going to get a more liberal perspective. Sometimes the reporting is highly accurate, sometimes it's not. You know, and I think that the people. People make this mistake of, like, okay, well, they were proven wrong this time, so I can't ever listen to anything else ever. That's a logical fallacy. And so people have been pushed into getting their news on social media from influencers, from podcasters, and there's way less accountability there, obviously. I just recommended my own podcast, but my accountability is at least political. It's an official podcast. You know, I don't make. I don't. I don't sell ads on it. It's not a campaign podcast. I do it right here in my office. So, you know, it's like anything we do, we have an interest in not lying because we will get called out for it very quickly in public life. But that's a quick rundown of, like, I think some good sources that people can generally go to. But if you want more specifics, like, all the stuff I just told you about, like what Trump has done, that I have to get my, you know, that's. It's not obvious where to find that. My staff is. Look, knows where to look this stuff up and so we can put it out there. And I wish reporters framed it better and did that kind of thing, but they don't.
- [15:57]
A
So I don't know if it would matter if they did, because for better or worse, for right or wrong, there's a segment of society that I believe, at least from what I am seeing, it won't really matter what his actions are. The disdain they have for the person will override any of those particular actions.
- [16:17]
B
Sure, yeah, yeah. What if you're neutral, you know, and you want to know where to go? Your question is, right on. Like, it would be nice if there was just kind of a place. And the reality is you've got to use your own critical thinking, and you should be able to read something and say, this sounds like it's spin. Right. They haven't cited anything. There's no real facts. It's a problem. I can spot that really quickly because I do this all the time. It's not always obvious to people.
- [16:42]
A
Neutral is an interesting term. It almost is pejorative in a sense. People don't want you to be neutral. And I'm Curious your thoughts on this? Do you think conservatism and liberalism have moved to both the left and right respectively? And I asked that because I talked to my dad, who I would put more along the lens or the lines probably of maybe leans a little bit more left. Born and raised in Santa Cruz, like myself, he was in the military as well. He describes the Liberal party or the Democratic party today in the terms essentially of they have moved away from what I thought liberalism was when I was growing up. I'm curious when you think that shift started. I've heard the same thing from conservatism as well. I mean, there's certainly fringes of course, to either belief system or ideology. And the farther you get out towards the fringe, it gets a little bit Wild West. I'm curious though, how much do you think conservatism and liberalism have moved from perhaps their original definition?
- [17:36]
B
Short answer real quick. Conservatism is in a civil war right now between, you know, keeping it as traditional conservatism and moving it towards what I would describe as liberalism. But it hasn't moved nearly as much as liberalism has moved. Liberalism has changed to progressivism. And there's a difference. Conservatives could easily classify themselves as classical liberals based on the classical liberal ideas of John Locke and our founders. This idea that you have God given rights, this idea that you have any kind of negative rights at all, negative rights and positive rights, important distinction. Negative rights being basically our Bill of Rights are all negative rights, right. You cannot have an undue search and seizure. You shall not be infringed on. Your firearms shall not be infringed upon. You have the right to free speech. You have right to, you know, our laws are based on that right. Like you have the right not to be murdered, we can take away. You have the right to life, liberty and property until you infringe on somebody else's life, liberty and property. And then your life, liberty and property are now up for grabs. That's what jail is. So those are classical liberal principles and we could talk about that forever. Liberals sort of used to defend that, but I would say the modern progressive actually started back in Woodrow Wilson's days. The modern progressive is progressivism. Towards what end? Who knows? It's progress, keep progressing and this is why it changes so easily. Traditional conservatism by definition is based on limiting principles. And so it's kept in a box. Now again, people are trying to take it out of that box. That's the Civil War you're seeing right now online. But ideally it Never really changes. And honestly, if we're just going by policy in Congress and it really hasn't changed very much. What Trump has changed is mostly the personality of it in politics in general. You can't blame Trump for this. It's everybody, everybody's just meaner. That's the change. It's more of a personality thing than policy. Now on the left, there is vast policy changes. I mean, let's just look at Bill Clinton's presidency versus now. Let's look at Obama's statements and Biden's statements on things like abortion and gay marriage and the border. Complete opposite, Completely opposite. You could, you could, you would, you would. I mean, we play those clips all the time as Republicans just to show people like how far they've come. You know, they're just like radically opposite. I mean, we could play those clips now and say, and this is a, this is a MAGA conservative. And so I would agree with your dad wholeheartedly. Like the progressive party, well, the liberal party, the Democrat party has become a progressive party as opposed to this sort of Democrat working class, unionized, like, you know, supportive unions kind of party. And we could go down a million different policy issues to prove that. But I think it's well understood by most people. I just listed a few, right? Like the border, the welfare. God, I mean like a big welfare reform. Is what occurred under, under Bill Clinton actually managing our debt or the only time we ever balanced the budget was under Bill Clinton. Now it was a, it was because Republicans actually took Congress for the first time in like 40 years. So you can't just give that win to Clinton. But he did sign off on it. He didn't fight it. I mean, it was just a very different era. If the Democrat party was still in that era, they would be winning right now because they would just be conservatives. And I do think America is a middle right country. And I think when you want to chop 12 year olds, genitals off because they just come to a doctor and say they're a boy or whatever, a different gender one day, I think you've lost track of what's real. And that's how progressive it's like. It'll always surprise you because you don't know what it's progressing toward real quick on the right. What is this civil war about? I mean, to me it's about populism versus traditional conservatism. Traditional conservatism is based on these, these limiting principles, right? Like the best way to describe limiting principles is like the way we do Policy is we ask questions, okay, if we do this policy, what are the trade offs? You know, should this, should this policy even be enacted by government or should this problem be solved to the local, like by the community itself? Should people just solve this? And if government should step in, which government? Like local, state, federal? These are conservative questions to ask in the Democrat Party it's always like federal every time. And so we ask those kind of questions if we enact this policy, let's say on gun control or red flag laws. Right. Which I'm tainted with. But even though I literally introduce a bill every single term, they call the Stopping unjust Red Flag Laws act because I don't believe.
- [22:27]
A
I thought you were the founder of that clause.
- [22:29]
B
I thought the founder. I literally made the entire policy up. No, real quick, the actual story there is, I tweeted when I my first year and I was so foolish as to think that like there was still like nuanced discussions in public life and there's not. El Paso shooting had just happened and President Trump at the time was like, yeah, we gotta do red flag loss. I mean he was just straight upset. It kind of freaked out the 2A community. And so I tweeted after that I was like, yeah, maybe consider them at the state level. That was it. That's all I said. Then I got just destroyed for it for years. And so I do introduce that bill as like just to clarify my position. But it's a good example, right? So if we do this thing that makes you feel safer, it's not even necessarily true that it will make you safer. It makes you feel. Feel safer. Does it infringe on the rights of others? To an extent that is unbearable. And when the, when we're talking about something like the second Amendment, I mean you're talking about the second Amendment to the Constitution. So it's like, yeah, it's kind of unbearable if you're infringing on that. Right. Okay.
- [23:40]
A
Do you really think that nuanced conversation is dead in person? I find it to be online, but I've had a lot of conversations. The term red flat. Yeah, the term red flag scared national.
- [23:49]
B
I mean, national conversation.
- [23:52]
A
Yeah. But I mean nationally we're. We're a collection of individuals, you know what I mean? Like, I get the national conversation, but the reality is in my day to day, when I sit down and I talk with people, the word red flag scares them. But the concept of figuring out a way, and maybe it is a self reporting or just, you know, in some way shape or form facilitating an ability for somebody, if they recognize that they are in a place where they are at a danger to themselves and potentially others, where they can do something about it, where they're not going to lose their second amendment rights. I actually haven't encountered anybody who's like, that's a horrible idea. They're like, let's think about that online, a different story.
- [24:31]
B
Online is very different. Right, and yeah, but it's online. And you can't even have that discussion online. I mean, you just can't. Like, because how are you defining red flag law? So the way, first of all, the way it's understood in the two way community is like your ex girlfriend or your neighbor can make a complaint and boom, your guns are gone. That would be really bad. I mean, that would be wrong, you know, and so it would do a fractional amount.
- [24:54]
A
Yeah, it might have a fractional amount of positive impact and a gigantic amount of negative impact, for sure.
- [25:00]
B
Yeah, yeah. And so, and that's why it's understood, obviously there's a lot of circumstances under which someone's property can be taken away, and that includes guns, but they have to go through some kind of due process. And so it's definitely not a red flag law. We have to define our terms. And so if a red flag law is just as I described it, which is basically a complaint, then no, just no. Right, Agreed. You have to have some kind of due process. And most states already have these laws also. So. And it's, I mean, if you're a domestic abuser, for instance, I mean, there's, there's, but you have gone through due process, you have been judged accordingly. And then now we're talking about, we're talking about a totally different conversation. Let me get back to limiting principles. So like, we'll ask if somebody's rights are being infringed upon. It's like, it's like, hey, healthcare for all. Sounds great, wonderful. Okay. But do you have a right to healthcare? No. I mean, it's nice to have and we do want everyone to have it. But if you have a right to healthcare, that means you have a right to somebody else's labor and time. So that's kind of an insane thing to say. So you're infringing on their rights. That doctor's right to say, I want to take the break right now. I don't want to see the 20 patients today, I want to see 10. So even the concept of a right to somebody else's labor and time is just unacceptable to conservatives, but very acceptable. To liberals. And so, you know, we could go on and on and on. We ask if it's. If it's too much, too quickly, we ask. These are all limiting principle ideals. That's what keeps us in a box as conservatives. Adherence to certain cultural markers, like, you know, traditional. This idea that we were founded upon a Judeo Christian moral framework is very important. It doesn't make us anti any other. You know, we still have freedom of religion, but we were still founded upon this certain moral framework. That's important to conservatives. It's the idea of a meritocracy. I would also add into the cultural pillar. I'm gonna give you three pillars. I was on such a roll. So, yeah, three pillars of conservatives.
- [27:01]
A
Three pillars.
- [27:01]
B
This is kind of going to the Russell Kirk. Kirk. Russell Kirk is a classical conservative thinker and philosopher. Worth the read if you're interested in conservative, true conservative thought. Thomas Sowell, Russell Kirk. You know, the list goes on anyway. Three pillars that he recognizes. And I like categorizing our conservative beliefs this way. The cultural, the political and the economics. I've said a couple of the cultural things and you could just kind of keep going down that list. Hard work pays off, meritocracies are important, et cetera. These are very basic stuff. You might have a hard time distinguishing that from what you would consider normal American values, but that's kind of the point. What are we conserving? The founding normal American values. That's the idea. That's what we're conserving. Political. What do we mean? Well, I like to actually point people to the name of the Democrat Party and the Republican Party. We are for a republic. They are for a pure democracy. And I can make that claim. And they would disagree. Right. But I'd say, well, you kind of. It was under the Progressive era that we changed the rules so that you have a popular vote to elect senators, as opposed to the way the founders wrote it, which was that senators were elected by the legislatures because the Senate was supposed to be representative of state governments and the people's house is supposed to be representative of the people. And then we have a bicameral legislature just to make everything hard. That was the whole point. Make everything hard. That's the kind of the. You know what a republic is? It's a representative. It's still democracy, but there's tons of checks and balances to it. And Democrats want to get rid of those. Right. They want to pack the Supreme Court. Right. They get rid of the. They want to get rid of the filibuster in the Senate. And some Republicans do too, which is why I point at them and say, what are you doing? Because the shoe will be on the other foot. And you have to think ahead. You know, you can't, you can't, you know, idealize these short term gains for longer term pain. And so a republic is what we have. Whereas it seems to me that Democrats more and more want a pure democracy. If you look at the UK for instance, or most other countries, frankly, it's a winner takes all. The party that wins, wins everything. They appoint the cabinet, they have the majority, it's just winner takes all. We just don't have that. We have federalism. So states have their rights to fight back. We're kind of always in split government, even now because Republicans don't have 60 votes in the Senate. So it's, that's, that's the political side that's important. Lastly, the economic side, free market economics, I like to say a small business economics. We're for policies that make it easier for you to have a small business. Right? Lower taxes, less regulation. Simple. Because you know who likes a lot of regulation? Big companies, because they have armies of lawyers to deal with it. Small businesses, not so much. So the economics I think is pretty straightforward. Less straightforward these days is the idea of tariffs. And so I think Trump is accused often of not being conservative because he's imposing tariffs, which are just attacks. And yes, they are just attacks. But I would remind everyone of a few things. It doesn't mean the tariffs are perfect, but let's say a few things about them. One, that was actually how our founders founded the country. The only taxation was indeed tariffs. Now we've come a long way since then cause we tax everything else now. So when you're taxing, when you have another tax which is tariffs, that does just add to it. But to say it's like not conservative isn't really true. Conservatives maybe. And liberals I think with both parties did become overly enamored with this idea of unhindered free trade for a long time. And you know, in the aggregate that is definitely positive. But you have to take into account the, these specific negatives and specific negatives happen in places like, you know, the Rust Belt and certain factories in certain towns like. And so there's, there's a backlash there. Right. And so that's why what Trump is doing is it's really more centered around fair trade. We want free market kind of libertarian style economies here in our own country because everyone's playing by the same rules. More or less depends on what state you're from, but more or less playing by the same rules. But we in China aren't playing by the same rules. So how can you have just total free trade? And so that debate is ongoing, and that's a healthy debate. I think there's some silly debates on the populist right that are like, they just remind me of Bernie Sanders. I mean, you're talking about, oh, big corporations are behind everything and the mergers are bad. I mean, like, when you're, when you're praising, you know, Biden, you know, cabinet members over there, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, like, I'll call Tucker Carlson out. Tucker Carlson famously has always said he's more in line with Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren on economic policy than he is the Republican Party. So I would put him as sort of the, the spokesperson for this kind of new movement on the right, which is definitely not conservative and far more based in populism. And populism, to me, I'm just going to define it real quick. It's the art of telling you, the art of expressing to you your own feelings so as to make you feel happy as opposed to telling you the truth. And that's, to me, that's what liberals do, right? Hey, we can give you all this free stuff if you just vote for us. That's the basic Democrat message, right? Your health care is going up because mean Republicans won't just spend more money on you and give it to you. Like, it's always their message. And so when I see conservatives start to, like, mimic that message, it's like, dude, stop. You know, I get that maybe it's just bribing voters for their vote and it's anti conservative. And so that's why I think that's the civil. There's a lot more to the civil war going on right now. Everyone wants to make it about Israel, and Israel may have been a flashpoint, but this thing's been going on for a long time and has been going on for a long time ever since the William F. Buckley days. William F. Buckley, a big conservative philosopher and thinker of the 50s, 60s. You know, his, his huge battle with the John Birch Society, very similar to today. You might argue Buckley is one of the founders of modern conservatism. National. When I said National Review is a good magazine and podcast, and they put out a lot to. That is very much classical conservatism. And I think you can tell that you're, you can trust that you're getting truth from them in many Ways. Nothing has changed. Our civil war on the right remains in full force. And although it's more about personality, it seems to me oftentimes than it is about serious policy issues. Because I look at the policy issues that have changed on the left and there's just a massive swings. Massive. Long answer. Sorry, but that's the answer.
- [33:53]
A
So you brought up health care and the government shut down. Did it actually achieve the long. It did, right? It exceeded the longest shutdown in history.
- [34:00]
B
Yeah.
- [34:01]
A
How close are we to that again? Because wasn't the vote to push it down the. The road here 45, 60 days? Aren't you guys butting up against that? Against shortly?
- [34:09]
B
Yep.
- [34:11]
A
How do you foresee that going?
- [34:13]
B
Well, I haven't. I mean, I know how I want it to go. I'm actually meeting with Senator Cassidy tomorrow, so I will have already had that meeting by the time this podcast airs. I do. Look, when you come to Congress, you kind of major. It's like going to school. You have freshman orientation and then you pick your majors. Mine is energy policy, Energy environment policy and healthcare, and then all things national security and foreign affairs, because I'm on the Intelligence Committee and I'm on energy and Commerce, so I do healthcare a lot. I did a lot. We talked Medicaid reform, where we saved almost a trillion dollars in the big beautiful bill in order to make sure that your taxes didn't go up. You know, I can speak in great detail on that because I helped make that. So I do know the healthcare debate pretty well. We do need a. We need a deal that that timeline is late January. These extended premium tax credits that the Democrats keep complaining about, they expire in a couple days. Bear in mind they never existed before COVID And. And they want to blame us for Republicans for letting them expire and thus the. The increase in premiums that people are seeing on the individual market. Now, that's a very, very dishonest claim. Every single report, including the cbo, you know, it's a very small percentage of premium increases are due to these. To the lack of extension of these tax credits, like 4%. So premiums are going up, and they've gone up like 80% since the start of Obamacare because Obamacare destroyed the market. And it did so in the dumbest way possible. I mean, first of all, it made it impossible for insurance companies to be flexible with how they give insurance. Like, one of the bills we just passed last week, we passed a series of healthcare bills because we wanted to do that before we left. We still have More to do, obviously, because we got to get a deal. But one of them we passed was, hey, let's allow people to build associations and pool themselves together. Like so, like a bunch of small businesses. And just like a corporation can self insure. So like you know how people, so there's Obamacare, there's Medicare and Medicaid and there's what most people get their health care from is their work. Because your company buys health insurance and that's usually just, it's better. Why not allow people to, if you're not part of a big corporation, why not allow people to come together and do that? It's very simple things. These things were like executive orders under the first Trump administration and of course reversed by Biden. So there's a lot of overregulation that prevents any kind of innovation when it comes to the financing of health care. That's number one. Number two is like, okay, so you're going to subsidize it because you think people need it. So I'll argue with Bernie, I'll say no, it's not a right. But I do agree people need it. So we can agree there. And I want people to have access to health care. And we've already, that's already a law. Basic. I mean, if you show up in an emergency room, they have to treat you. It's not like, so it's all, it's, we've already decided this as a country. People need it. Doesn't mean it's a right. But you know, I don't want to split hairs here. But we agree you need it. So, but the way, and like anything, it's a, it's an expensive good that cannot be afforded by everyone. So there's a few things like we, we think you, there's certain needs, you know, healthcare, water, shelter, food. So how do we help people get those things? Usually, well, we usually use a voucher system with a means testing. And so if you're below a certain threshold of poverty or, you know, whatever, it's, you get a voucher, you get a food stamps, you get a housing voucher and then you go on the free market and then you purchase as you need to. What's weird about the way they do healthcare is it's, there's no voucher at all. It's like the subsidies go to the insurance companies, not the people. And so it's like you're, it's like you're subs. It's like you're giving a grocery store a bunch of money, then you're telling the grocery store, you don't have to put prices on anything. But also figure out why is it that way?
- [38:17]
A
How did they, why did they set it up that the subsidy went directly to the insurance company? Because another thing that happened with Obamacare.
- [38:23]
B
To get them on par from roughly.
- [38:25]
A
Yeah, 15 major insurance companies down to about three. The market drastically reduced in size, scope and scale, and it allows them to verticalize PBMs 100%. And you know, again, I'm not a huge fan of government regulation, but I would be willing to have the conversation about having the government crack open that curtain a little bit and take a look into that system.
- [38:48]
B
Well, many insurance companies just went out of business because of some of the reasons I just stated. It was just an impossible market. It was, it was too stupid of a bunch of regulations to deal with, hence the consolidation. And so the ones that are left.
- [39:01]
A
Very profitable, very profitable.
- [39:04]
B
So why are we subsidizing them?
- [39:06]
A
You know, that's my question to you. You're the one who writes these laws personally.
- [39:10]
B
No, I didn't write this one, that's for sure. This one, this one was written back when, when, when you and I were serving a team three together, actually.
- [39:19]
A
So the Affordable Care Act. Yeah, the Affordable Care act passed with zero Republican votes. I mean, that, that's demonstrably true.
- [39:26]
B
Having said that, we have not been able to do is offer the American public a solid solution. Everyone remembers.
- [39:31]
A
Correct.
- [39:31]
B
And I don't because I wasn't in politics at the time, but it was right before I got here. You know, think 2017. Right? What have Republicans been running on for eight years of Obama repeal and replace, get rid of Obamacare. Okay, so make good on the promise. They come up with the, I think the American health care plan, which is like, I don't know what that means to this day. I'm not even sure exactly what.
- [39:53]
A
Here's a question for you though. So you guys are going to butt heads again, right? I have no reason to believe that the end state isn't going to be the same. Who benefits when the government shuts down, though?
- [40:02]
B
Well, definitely no one. I want to give some optimism and tell you, I think because I've had some Democrats agree to this basic philosophy because while we're sticking to this concept of who to subsidize, because you got to subsidize somebody because it's a good that we know people need, okay, just like food, just like shelter, so the government has to step in some way. How well, we should do it the same Way we do everything else, which is through a voucher. So how would we do that? Well, through existing structures. Health savings accounts. Many of you listening might have a health savings account. It depends on your plan. My plan would be everyone has a health savings account just like you have a Social Security number. What's a health savings account? Well, it's just another account where you can put money into and it's tax deductible. Everyone should have one. It should be normal. Just like your Social Security number. That's number one. You do that. You've just. We're on our way. Why did Democrats make this dumb thing? I don't think they knew what they were doing. I think they needed to get the votes. They need to appease insurance companies. Companies. I think people like Bernie Sanders versus my cynical self speaking. I think they want the system to collapse. I can give proof of some of the votes he's taken against price transparency. Things that we voted out of the House with huge majorities, Democrats, Republicans, lower cost, more transparency act, which would force hospitals and pharmacy benefit managers to actually list their prices. Imagine that. You can't have a market if you don't have price knowledge. So that was another thing we actually passed just last week too. So we, we, we took off some of the restrictions on how to deliver insurance. Like, I mean like you don't need insurance for going into labor. Right, but that's like, that's like what you're forced to buy. A 25 year old doesn't need the same insurance as a 50 year old. You know, we should be allowed to have different kinds of things and like Obamacare destroyed that ability. Okay. The next thing you need is price transparency. For some reason Bernie has killed this. In 2023, we passed that out of the House. Bernie Sanders, remember senators, the Democrats were in charge of the Senate at the time he killed that bill. To this day he'll, he has no explanation. But that was a huge.
- [42:13]
A
I would love to hear, Yeah, I would love to hear the argument for removing price transparency.
- [42:18]
B
It's insane because here's, well, here's. I know what, I know what the actual argument is. He wants the system to fail so he can get Medicare for all. Because if the system fails, it's like, see, look, the only way to do this is the simplest way possible, which is there's single insurer and it's the government. Now of course there's problems and that sounds great to people. It does because it's so simple.
- [42:40]
A
Well, the end state sounds great. Allowing the system to Fail in the irrevocable harm that could happen to people's lives while that system is failing is. I mean, it's like, at what cost? Yeah, at what cost?
- [42:53]
B
Not good. And I'll tell you, the end state doesn't. It sounds good, but it's not actually good either because it. I mean, you would just look like the UK and Canada. Those are. Those are the two. I can't hear you all of a sudden.
- [43:07]
A
I'm not talking.
- [43:08]
B
Oh, I thought you. Remove your mouth.
- [43:10]
A
I'm listening to you. Oh, okay.
- [43:12]
B
So you can't see my mouth.
- [43:13]
A
You're blind as a bat.
- [43:16]
B
I think that might be it too. Maybe like your side is just freezing a little bit. Okay, don't worry then.
- [43:21]
A
We're on riverside. It. It. Yeah, it records locally and then it uploads it blind.
- [43:24]
B
Like, why. Why do we always label bats as. I mean, are they blind? I mean, they have sonar and stuff. Yeah.
- [43:32]
A
Sonar is for underwater, Dan.
- [43:35]
B
No, it's just sonar. This refers to sound waves underwater. Not necessarily.
- [43:41]
A
I think so.
- [43:42]
B
I don't know. I don't know this for sure. And you don't know it for sure. And we're both like, how. Like, hard to go in on this.
- [43:50]
A
Oh, yeah. It's like, damn it. I'm actually at the limit of my knowledge. Like.
- [43:54]
B
Or is it so I think I'm right, but I'm not sure. Whatever. Let's talk about healthcare. I do know.
- [43:59]
A
Here's. Here's. Here's a.
- [44:01]
B
About bat sonar, but I don't either.
- [44:03]
A
Here's what I'd like to see. I would like to see that if the government shuts down again, every member of Congress in the Senate is no longer eligible for reelection.
- [44:14]
B
Yeah.
- [44:14]
A
Yeah.
- [44:14]
B
I wouldn't solve anything now because, I mean, I'm still. I'd be like, you don't think you.
- [44:18]
A
Would have additional motivation.
- [44:20]
B
Counter argument would be, I never voted to shut the government down. Right. And I. Not even when it suited me. I've never voted to shut the government down. This last government shut down, literally, Democrats voted to shut the government down. Like, there's. There's no.
- [44:33]
A
Was there a vote to shut it down or. They refused to. They refused to participate. I don't think anybody has a vote that says, hey, should we shut it down?
- [44:40]
B
No, it is. It's a vote. It's because. Because we give them a clean. What's called a clean cr, which means a continuing resolution, which just says, look, we're not changing anything. Nothing has changed about the budget because we need to have a budget. And this budget, by the way, we've been operating off the same budget, the same CR since the Biden days. So, like Democrats really don't have any good reason not to vote for it. The only reason they have is because they want this other thing, which is the extended premium tax credits that they put into law without any Republican votes and also set them to expire. Let's be clear about why these things are expiring because the Democrats wrote the law that way without any Republican votes. That's important to remember. This is back when they had all the nail at all three branches and they did a reconciliation. So yes, there literally is a vote that it's like it really is shut the government down or not. Because that clean CR was only seven weeks. So if it was a year long cr, they could make the argument that we're not ready to negotiate because it's a year long. Now that's a, that's a signal. But it's seven weeks. So it's very obvious that we're making this. We're giving them, we're not putting any more conservative policies at riders in it or no poison pills. It's just a seven week extension so that TSA workers can actually get paid, so that the military can actually get paid. The American people may have noticed or may not have noticed the government was shut down. Right? It depends on what you do for.
- [46:07]
A
Yeah, it depends on. Yeah, it depends on how much you interface with it.
- [46:10]
B
But it definitely mattered. I mean, you know what, really, we had senators here because, I mean, really, because it's really the Senate Democrats. I mean, in the House we passed it. So you know, you're always voting against the opposing party. So I'm not even really blaming the Democrats in the House. Like, of course they're going to vote against it because it's just like we always, you're. When you're in the minority, you just always vote against it. The Senate's a different place, though. They know you need 60 votes. They know that a simple majority doesn't pass it. So they did vote to shut down the government. Like it is. That is plain as day. And we had this battle over and over again on the TV screens and somehow, you know, in the Democrat media, liberal media was just trying to spin it and spin it and spin it. It's like, dude, it was just a clean CR continuing resolution. So. And they claimed that it was all because of this. In the end, they gave in because they say they finally, finally the optics were looking bad. On them finally. But no, nobody wins. It's dumb. And if you're, and if you're going to do it, just own it. What I hated about that era, 40 days, right? And the Democrats were like, we're doing this because we need to save people's health care. But also we're not the ones doing it. The Republican shut down. It's like, wait, what? You can't have it both ways because Trump shut down the government too, remember? And it was a long time, but that was, it was. He at least owned it. It was like, I'm doing it because I want the border wall paid for. That's it. That's my thing. Okay. That's an honest debate. That is what it is. I hated the way Democrats did this because it was very dishonest. You can't say you're not shutting the government down, then also say you're shutting the government down for a really good noble reason. Sorry. No. And so we're facing that again. I do, again, on the optimistic side, I'm here in D.C. working on this and there's a lot of plans that we have. But there even are some Democrats who do agree with this concept. Let's go back to who gets paid, who do agree with this concept that that money shouldn't be going to insurer making record profits. That money should be going into that HSA account, that health savings account that should just be universal and everyone should have one. Just like. And you could make that happen pretty quickly. Well, not super quickly, maybe like a year and a half. And there's going to be some, there's going to be deals that need to be made. Democrats are going to want things, they're going to want an extension on those extra premium tax credits. Right. Just to like which is not a crazy thing to want if you're going to change the system. But I would love the opportunity to actually change the system because if you do these three things, basically you create price knowledge with price transparency. You have to do that. You remove a lot of the regulatory strangles on the market, which they. In defense of insurance companies, I don't want to defend them too much because they're again, record profits. But the reason it has happened the way it has happened is because of government regulation fundamentally. And also going back to how Obamacare was even created, the insurance companies just helped them write it and helped help them. They're like, this is, look, you know, they convinced them and they were on their side and they, they, they helped lobby for it. You change all that with an hsa. And so that'll take care. And you can pay for your primary care doctor that way. Should be able to pay for your gym memberships that way. Because we care about preventative medicine too. And going to the gym is the best preventative of medicine. Once you go there and just hang out on your phone and do nothing like you do. But for.
- [49:27]
A
For everybody else, gym and diet.
- [49:29]
B
Just had to just take a st. I just couldn't.
- [49:31]
A
You should. But you're the one who has video of you, you know, attacking a heavy bag and working out like a child. You know what I mean? So be cautious. I'll just insert that right into this video.
- [49:40]
B
Jeez, I don't know. I'll find we must watch everything I do. I love it.
- [49:45]
A
Well, given the modern era, AI if it doesn't exist, I'll be happy to create it and I'll make it look exactly like you.
- [49:51]
B
Okay, well, just make me though, like.
- [49:54]
A
Well, that might be a stretch. There are limits to what I can do.
- [49:57]
B
Shut the. So, so real quick, like in my ideal health care policy. And I do think I can get some down. I'm praying we can get some Democrats on board with this general idea. Kind of see what they want in exchange. But like price. Price transparency is already bipartisan. That. That should be easy. Second thing, HSAs, universal HSAs. That's where the money goes. Stop subsidizing insurance company companies. Subsidize the patients. That's what Trump has put out as his basic concept as well. So we're in line with that, what the White House wants. And I've, I've talked to Democrats that are like, yeah, that makes a lot more sense because they're not. They're not ideologically connected to Obamacare.
- [50:37]
A
Will they say that publicly?
- [50:39]
B
I'm Matt. The difficult part we're going to. That's why I want to get. That's why we need this month to. To make this happen. The third thing you need to make a market complete is reinsurance. Okay. So because insurance premiums are also super high because we're all. Because we're concentrating on the super stick. And that's hard. That's why the logic of Obamacare was originally forcing people to be on it. Like, remember there was a big tax if you weren't on it. And the one thing Republicans were able to do is take that tax down to zero. But the reason that there was some, like, academic reasoning for doing that, because if everyone's not on it, then only the sick will be on it like your average 25 year old's like, I don't really need health insurance, forget it. You know, so, so they're like, I'm not even going to pay into it. And so the less. So you have less healthy people paying into the system, more sick people, more costs, insurance premiums keep going up. It's this death spiral is what it's called. So you have to have reinsurance or risk pools is another way to put that. And we were we at the state level, you can do that and the states that have done that because. And you have to get a waiver and all that. But the states that have done that have reduced their premiums quite a bit in each state. And the reason you have to do that is because look like maybe it's million dollar, maybe it's a million dollars is the threshold. If you, if insurance companies know that they're not on the hook for that million million plus kind of treatment, like that person who has an acute sort of cancer or something catastrophic, they can lower overall premiums quite a bit. So reinsurance is huge. And that's really where government steps in. And again, this already exists. It's again these mechanics, all of these mechanisms already exist. You do those three basic things and you've got a really good deal. And you've kind of made Obamacare remade Obamacare in what I would consider in a conservative way, I wouldn't even call it Obamacare anymore. I mean so it's. And then you're not, you're also not doing this dirty dance of repeal and replace which has drove everyone crazy because it wasn't well messaged and people didn't really know what it meant. They just thought heard they were losing their health care so it freaked everyone out. I didn't matter what political party you were from, I'm glad I wasn't in politics at the time. But the people who were, the congressmen who were like never again, never again are we trying that crap. Because it was just hell yeah, because your messaging sucked this time the messaging is way easier stopped. Here's a simple concept. Stop subsidizing big insurance and subsidized patients. We finally have a good message.
- [53:11]
A
Like when the messaging is great, that's one thing right now, but the policy.
- [53:15]
B
Is very good too. So the policy needs to get that through and a deal made that would stop a shutdown on January 30th.
- [53:22]
A
Yeah. And hopefully it could impact currently the number one cause of bankruptcy in the US which are health care costs.
- [53:30]
B
Yeah, I mean it would Overall drive costs down the, you know, over the long term. Like you can't lie to people and tell them immediately like the premiums are going down. There's a lot of reasons healthcare is more expensive in the U.S. you know, you don't go to Canada because you have a rare form of cancer. Certainly don't go to the uk. You come to Houston. So what we need to think about when we broadly think about healthcare and why I say a single payer system is bad, even though it sounds good to people, it sounds simple. So Canada would be the most obvious example for a single payer system and UK would be the obvious example for. They have nhs. So that's the. It's basically the entire country has the va. That's effectively what the UK is. That's how their health system works. Everybody who's a doctor or nurse actually works for the government, just like the va. Okay, so those are your. That's your. And then a lot of other European countries maybe do a mix and you know, we could probably learn a thing or two from them but in the end we're a different country. We got to do it our way for our population. So the problem with UK and Canada, well, it's pretty obvious, you know, you're talking about wait times or are six months for an mri. I can get one tomorrow and I could probably get one pretty cheap too if I just, if I can stay away from a hospital, you know, you're not going to need any innovation. There's no reason to innovate. There's no reason to invest billions of dollars into that new therapy or drug because, you know you're not going to make money off of it. That's why Republicans have fought against Democrats propositions to often like, you know, basically force negotiation. Negotiation is not even the right word based on the policies they put in place. But it really deters pharmaceutical companies from even taking those risks on issues like Alzheimer's, the really risky stuff. And don't get me wrong, they'll still make a bunch of money.
- [55:26]
A
Pharmaceutical companies are doing okay, Dan.
- [55:28]
B
No, they will be doing okay all the time because I think they're. All they have to do is they're not the good guys, don't get me wrong. But they're also like people need to realize who the bad guys are. Everybody's kind of the bad guy here. That's the truth. The pharmacy benefit managers are the middlemen. We try to get price transparency on them. That's also bipartisan. And that was killed the story behind how that was killed. It was Elon Musk, like, smashing it. I don't even know why. We almost had, we had that, like, almost in law pharmacy benefit managers, like the middleman between the pharmaceutical manufacturers and the, like, actual people.
- [56:07]
A
I've done an episode, I've done an episode on it, and I had somebody sit down who worked in that world. And he basically creates private, private insurance pools for small businesses. Yeah.
- [56:16]
B
And we were talking very difficult to understand and, and very murky. And so our first step as congressmen, as legislators, this is bipartisan, can't blame. Except for Bernie Sanders, is bipartisan. Except for Bernie Sanders, again, because he wants the system to fail. But bipartisan legislation, we've put it out of our committee and it would force price transparency on how they do rebates, how, how, how they do all of their things. Because we can't really fix anything until we even know what's going on under the hood. So they don't even make anything. At least pharma, at least pharmaceutical companies make something, you know, and they, and they, and they're the ones who invest billions of dollars to actually make the thing. And so there's not going to be an incentive to invest it if you're not going to get your money back there. That's just normal, that's just normal marketplace behavior. And I still want them to make things. And not only do I want them to make things, I want them to make the things that we need the most. Because you're right, they still do okay. And they'll do okay because once they're under these new rules of like, well, you're going to have to negotiate this price and you'll lose your, basically, you're losing your patent. That's, that's, you know, we're not, we're going to tell it. The government's going to tell you what price you can charge. Doesn't matter that you spent $10 billion making it. We're still going to say you can only charge this price, at least for Medicare and that, you know, so they're not making their money back. And so what are they going to do? Well, they're still going to make money. They're just going to reinvent old drugs. They're going to stick to very safe bets where they know what the profit margins are. They're not going to invest in this super crazy idea that on fixing Alzheimer's or this rare form of cancer that they're not going to invest in that. We've already seen it. We can prove this now because after the Democrats passed that legislation back in the ira, the Inflation Reduction Act. So this is a couple years, we've had a few years of data now we, we can see how, how much research and development investment has dropped, especially in pediatric cancer of all places. So yeah, screw the kids. That's, that's, that's what happens when you don't have a true market. So you do need to have a true market in healthcare, but you also have to have a market that gives people what they need. That's hard. You could consider healthcare like a luxury good that you want people to have doesn't make it a right because we have to be very specific and particular with our terms, but it is something we agree they need. And so how do you have both? How do you have a system that delivers it to people but also still has that innovative edge? Because we are the last country innovating and we have access to like, I think like there's a stats out there. I mean England, you, all these western countries have access to like 60% of the stuff we have access to. If you're a Canadian or Brit. And I'm just using those countries because they're close to our country, right. From many perspectives. If they have a rare form of cancer, they're coming to Houston. We're not going there. If we want to buy like random drug X for cheaper, yeah, we'll go to Mexico or Canada. But when it comes to like true care, you still come into the US So you have balance.
- [59:12]
A
Type of true care depends on the type of true care. You know, it's interesting like for those.
- [59:16]
B
Those like really rare diseases. I mean like you're going to Houston for like MD Anderson. I mean, like.
- [59:20]
A
Sure.
- [59:21]
B
Even an mri, even an MRI that you need, you're going to come across the border here.
- [59:27]
A
Depends. I mean is. Let's look at stem cell treatment, things of that nature. You know, I'm good friends with a guy named Scotty who owns Chips down in Tijuana. You know, an MRI down there is running them. 100 bucks, something like that.
- [59:40]
B
Yeah, Mexico, definitely. Well, Mexico is a free market though. And they also have no right to healthcare in Mexico. You got to pay in cash before you get treated in Mexico. So that's why they also.
- [59:50]
A
Yeah, but they also have access down there too, to some treatments in the U.S. i mean, I'm not saying that we're not innovative, but in a lot.
- [59:55]
B
Of ways it was like the opposite end of the spectrum. So it's interesting to bring Mexico up because it's like, there's no rules, right? So it's a true free market. And they don't even.
- [60:04]
A
I don't know if there's no rules, but there's certainly, I know people whose lives have been changed by the treatment. They were able to get along the lines of stem cells because, you know, it's not approved in the U.S. and also, you know, to see a divestment from child cancer, from Big Pharma, but yet they're posting record profits. You know, it's tough to square that one.
- [60:24]
B
Can. Can you make them do it? I mean, I got to pass. It's like, I'm not trying.
- [60:28]
A
What I'm saying is it's. It's hard for me to square. It's like, okay, they'll divest in children's cancer, but then how are they still posting record profits if there's no innovation? How are they able to consistently, year over, year over year, increase their bottom line?
- [60:40]
B
First of all, keep in mind, it's not necessarily Big Pharma. It's all biomedical startups. The true innovation comes from these smaller biomedical startups, like taking a risk and then a bunch of other rich people pushing money into it. That's where the investment has dried up. Big Pharma is going to keep doing what Big Pharma does, putting out their basic stuff and just making sure that, like you said, they keep their profits. What has taken the hit is our innovative capacity for startups. What happens is the startups happen, right? They get their investments and then Big Pharma maybe buys them up. That's always their hope, right? That kind of stuff is drying up because investors are like, well, you can't even make your money back even if you're successful. And also what you talked about with our inability to get things like stem cells or psychedelic stuff, obviously, you know, I've been a champion of that. And stem cells actually have a bill that would tell the FDA to create a separate approval pathway for regenerative medicine that is stem cells. So we are working on that. One of the reasons the FDA has been so slow to approve stem cells is because it's hard for whoever's asking for that approval to say what it's for. Because there's sort of this general idea that stem cells are good for longevity and all sorts of things, but when you seek FDA approval, you have to be saying, this therapy is for this. And so it's run into issues that way. And it's kind of dumb, honestly. I mean, I've been arguing with the FDA over This for years. I agree with you. But again, like what's the problem? What's the actual problem here? It's more, it's over regulation. That's the problem. That's why we don't have the easy stem cell treatments which by all, by all estimates seem harmless. You know, they might not. I don't think they're, I don't think they're end all, be all.
- [62:36]
A
Yeah, I don't think that the panacea.
- [62:38]
B
That they're pitched at, but yeah, I think they're harmless. And you know, the FDA has a mandate of safe and effective. And so I could argue that the effective part should be up to doctors and frankly insurers like Medicare. So CMS should really be talking about the effectiveness. And so when a drug gets approved, let's say some cells, if it makes it through the fda, it's like, hey man, it's not over. You got to make it onto the list of approved items of cms. CMS is Medicare or Medicaid. And because that's what most other insurance companies take their cues off of, if Medicare and Medicaid aren't covering it, then we're not going to either because that's just sort of how they. It's not always true, but there tends to be a relationship there. And so yeah, the problem again is this sort of overleafs like overregulation because you have to prove stem cells are effective for this thing. And that's been hard to prove. I think psychedelics, I think there's going to be a lot more evidence. That's why I put that bill forward a couple years ago. It took years for me to get that done and we finally got it done and now it's opened it up the floodgates. We took the stigma off by getting my bill signed into law. My bill was simply a bill to force the Department of Defense. Not just give them a chance to, but force them to do clinical trials and allow active duty service members to engage in those clinical trials on psychedelics. MDMA, psilocybin 5, MeO, DMT and ibogaine, those are what we gave them. But I have to fight every year to make sure it gets more money again appropriated. But then you see what Texas just did, put $50 million behind it. So like it's amazing and I think our leadership here created that. That's why I wanted to start with the DoD on that particular issue because it's the biggest institution in the world and if we can destigmatize this treatment, there It'll trickle down. And I think I've been proven right. So we're going to continue to fight that.
- [64:46]
A
I like it. Yeah, I would love to see people be able to see that treatment without having to go across border. I mean, specifically, we both have mutual friends that have had life changing, life altering results from that.
- [64:56]
B
At the very least, that's what got me on.
- [64:58]
A
Yeah, let's take a look at it.
- [64:59]
B
I had a really weird night where it was like 2021, because I started. I started on this journey. Maybe 2021 sounds right. And I was having dinner at my buddy's house who lives near Annapolis. He's a former Marine. I know him from San Diego and actually grew up with my wife. And you know, we're talking and I was like, all right, we're having dinner. And I'm like, are we having a beer? And he's like, I'm not drinking. I'm like, what do you mean you're not drinking? And. And so he tells me, yes, I just, I've never heard of ibogaine before or anything, anything about it. He tells me the whole story. I'm like, holy crap, that's insane. Wow. I wonder who else I know. Turns out I end up knowing a lot of people. But that same night, I get in the elevator and I literally get an elevator pitch. And yes, I'm using the word literally correctly. Unlike everybody else who uses it. I literally get elevator pitched by Jonathan Lubecki, who's an activist for psychedelics. Anyone in the space might know him. He's like, hey, I know who you are. So I'm going back to my apartment in D.C. just to be clear, I'm in the elevator going back to my apartment in D.C. at the end of this night and he's like, I know you are. I've tried to kill myself five times. I did this psychedelics treatment. He was talking about MDMA and saved my life. That's why my kids have a father. Like, you got to look into this. I'm like, what is going on? It was like, it was like, okay, like that, that was a. Is this a God thing? Is somebody just telling me what to do? So for years I battled it and, you know, learned the hard learned. Had to learn how to get things through legislatively to really make it happen. And we could talk about a civics course if you'd like on that. But eventually, finally got it through a couple years ago, but. But again, self defied appropriations every year. So yeah, that's what we'll continue to do.
- [66:41]
A
Well, we better fast forward to modern day because people are going to be so pissed at us. For the last hour we've been talking.
- [66:47]
B
About policies, nerdy health care stuff.
- [66:49]
A
Well, they want to know. People want to know. How did you become the most hated congressman currently serving? Who is somebody who is anti free speech, pro lobbying, funded by Israel and is internationally going out having alcohol related incidents. I think I caught them all.
- [67:13]
B
And you catch all.
- [67:15]
A
No, of course.
- [67:17]
B
I mean we should trading.
- [67:19]
A
Oh, well, I just assumed that we would. Yeah, we would of course open that and. Oh, and you also threaten journalists with their lives. So we should probably so today kind of regret.
- [67:29]
B
I mean, I, you know, you should.
- [67:31]
A
You look like an on that.
- [67:32]
B
I mean it was a private. You know, I thought I was in private. I was just like you.
- [67:36]
A
I don't know if you have an expectation.
- [67:38]
B
I was a SEAL longer than I've been a congressman, I'll say that. But yeah, I was dumb. I regret it. Should have. Should never trust.
- [67:44]
A
There's something. There's something that. That actually describes what you just said. Oh, it's an excuse. Yeah. We're not going to use. Oh, no, I'm just going to say I'm a dumbass.
- [67:53]
B
I said I'm sorry. Jeez.
- [67:55]
A
Who did you say you were sorry to? Was that caught on hot mic?
- [67:59]
B
No, saying it to you. I'm not going to apologize to Tucker. Not.
- [68:03]
A
Okay, so hold on. So. So today is the 29th. This episode is going to come out on Friday. Just because that's my release date on Friday. You are going to be traveling to. I think he lives in Nashville, right? You're going to go on Sean show in Nashville. I. I don't know his release schedule, when he'll put it out. I'm assuming pretty timely.
- [68:20]
B
But actually you and I, as people are watching this, we will. Me and Sean will be sitting down ideally. I think probably figured out the things by now.
- [68:29]
A
So you reached out because you saw me talking on Mic Drop and Ritland's podcast and so we reconnected. You're like, hey, we talk all the time. I'm like, no, we've texted a few times.
- [68:40]
B
Well, I invited you to do these cool inauguration events and you didn't over.
- [68:45]
A
Text and I just simply said there's a difference.
- [68:47]
B
What's wrong with texting?
- [68:49]
A
No, I am just saying when I was answering to Mike, I was just trying to set. I believe in transparency as well. I'm like, listen, I know Dan. I was his buzz instructor. We served together. Team three. We hadn't talked like we are now. We had texted a few times, and I said that. And I said, hey, I've met Sean one time in person. Shook his hand and said, just want to be able to put a face to a name. I'm Andy. And that was. That was actually at your best friend's Christmas party, also known as Tucker, who I actually didn't meet while I was there. Have never said a word to. How I ended up getting an invite to that is still beyond me. What I'm like. I put that into an experience. I'm like, whatever, man. I went there with my wife. We got to go see Nashville. Was pretty cool.
- [69:26]
B
Yeah.
- [69:27]
A
But that's it. He and I have texted Nashville.
- [69:29]
B
That's so random. Yeah, it was.
- [69:31]
A
Well, it was an alp, which I think is a nicotine. Yeah, it's a Zinn competitor.
- [69:35]
B
Oh, that's right. He has, like, this whole. Yeah. Thing. Okay.
- [69:39]
A
And I've texted with Sean a few times, and again. And I just lay that out. You reached out directly, which I thought was awesome. So here we are chatting after talking.
- [69:48]
B
Directly texted you, which apparently you're not a fan of. I'll try.
- [69:51]
A
No, I just think there's a difference between talking and texting. I think everybody would agree. Plus, text texting in the written word. And actually, this kind of ties in to what's going on, and I'm sure what you and Sean will discuss. Text. The written word is far too easy for me to miscontrue. Misconstrue somebody's intent or tone.
- [70:09]
B
Yeah, fair enough. Although you missed out on an inauguration. It was. Even though they canceled it, you know, it was a good time. I wish you'd come. That was the last time I texted you.
- [70:20]
A
Dude, I'm not a big fan of. Yeah, of course I have the text. I'm not a big fan of. I didn't mean to ignore you. If I did, I apologize. And to anybody else I haven't texted back, I apologize. It is not.
- [70:31]
B
I apologize to everyone.
- [70:34]
A
That's a good blanket one. Like, listen, I didn't mean to not get back to you. I'm just an. And sometimes don't manage my time well. Yeah, I. I had no interest in going to the inauguration, and it has nothing to do with who was going to be leaving or going into office. It's just not my thing to be around that stuff, man.
- [70:50]
B
It wouldn't be. Yeah, I totally get that. Okay, so where do we begin on this? You know, I actually want to begin with the I mean, I know you say it as a joke, but people say it very seriously. Why are you the most hated congressman? And I'm like, maybe in the online troll world, but I can. Like, I've been doing this for seven years, and I've been very noticeable since I was on Saturday Night Live. Okay, so it's not.
- [71:14]
A
Which was a great way to handle that whole situation, by the way. Props.
- [71:18]
B
Yeah, it was. It was a perfect storm. We can talk about, like, how that. I think we have talked about this, but, you know, I was, like, one of the first people on your podcast, I think. Right. Like, we probably talked about this at length. It was kind of a perfect storm of, like, how we were able to handle it because of the way SNL did it. And, you know, there was a lot of things that I wish you could reproduce, but you can't. It was nice. But my point is, like, I'm noticeable, and in seven years, two people. I can think of two times where someone is as. Has just come up to me while I'm out in public to have anything negative to say. I can think of a bazillion times because it happens any. Any time I go, it's not going. There is. There is no case where I won't be recognized. It's always positive. So there is ground truth, and there is Internet truth. I'll say that. And those two times, I mean, I remember both of them because, like, there's only twice. Now, there's other times that were, like, planned. You know, like a planned activist is like. Like cornering me at an event or something like that. But I don't even. That's only a handful, but that's kind of a different thing. That's not like a citizen being like, you know what? I see him down. He's on aisle 10. I need to. I don't like that guy. No, they come up to me, but they're not. They're. It's never negative. One kid came out to me. I was in the bathroom and started yelling at me about the Jews. Okay, so that was. That was interesting. And then another guy was just at the gym. Like, I was just at the gym. And he's like, I don't, like, Literally was like, I don't like what you said about Tucker, you know, and you should. You shouldn't speak that way. And I just said, like, well, technically, I didn't mean to say it publicly. And that was that. And so that's literally it. So I'll just. That one. I want to say that first, because, I mean, I do live in the real world. The, the media. Media people. And they actually don't. You know, when I go see Sean, he's going to be. He's got a huge security detail and I'm going to be alone. Like, I.
- [73:16]
A
Does he have a security detail?
- [73:17]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [73:19]
A
I don't know. Like I said, I met the guy at that party. I have no idea.
- [73:22]
B
Yeah, I've heard about it. I'm sure I'll see it now.
- [73:28]
A
So.
- [73:28]
B
So does he. Is he, Is he going out? Like, I go out in the regular public. He's doing town halls. Like, I mean, I do. I, I am in the public. And so I, I have a good thumb on the, like the pulse. So, no, I don't think I'm actually hated. And also, if that were true, then how do I keep winning reelection? So that is what it is. That doesn't take away from the fact that, yeah, I am like clickbait for people online of hatred. And I think what frustrates me about it is that it's often for things that aren't even true. Not even often. It's like almost always for things that aren't even true. Real quick, like you mentioned this Mexico City thing. It's like, wow, the headline from this crap liberal journalist right here on the Hill, Jake Sherman, was so unbelievably dishonest. It was such a perfect example for people of why you can't trust some of these people in the media. The headline is, top Republicans banned Crenshaw from international travel for 90 days due to alcohol related incident in Mexico. And then it's a paywall, so you can't even access the story until you subscribe to their stupid. Punchbowl News is what they call it. Punchbowl News. Super reputable. This particular reporter is just famous for just trying to dig up dirt on everybody around here and try and just give you this locker room gossip. That's his job. Now, the story wasn't all that inaccurate. There's some inaccuracies to it, but it literally says what the incident was. I laughed at a toast, like an afternoon toast, because at the end of meetings with Mexican generals, in this case the Secretary of Defense, we're talking about military aid, we're talking about the cartels. Again, I'm like, that's my thing. I focus a lot of energy on the cartels. I'm the ones writing legislation on the cartels to kind of back up what the President's doing. I've been doing this for years. This is my fourth trip to Mexico. And so we always have discussions about US Military cooperation and what that should look like. And they're often tense because Mexicans are very much like, no, our sovereignty is our sovereignty. You can never come here ever. And sometimes they say that this administration's a lot different. We can talk cartel's policy all you want, but for this story, it's like, okay, at the end of that meeting, like they often do, because I've done this a bunch down in Mexico. They always bring shots of tequila out as a farewell. It's like 3pm And. Yeah. And then the military guys give an inappropriate toast that apparently offended some woman staffer who. Who knows? I mean, but me and the other. There's another Democrat congressman with me. He's like, that went great. Like, he's Mexican. This is Luke. I'm Representative Luke Correa from California, of Mexican descent, you know, has family in Mexico. Like, he knows how to do diplomacy in Mexico. We're a good team. We speak in. We both speak Spanish. So this entire meeting's in Spanish. And. And by the way, that's in the story. And so, like, I'm like, jake, you were so dishonest. So I just. I just, like, posted up, like, headline versus the actual story. I'm like, how are these two things the same? How the hell is that an alcohol related incident? And I'm like, 90 day travel ban. Well, then how was I approved to go to Lebanon? Like. Like back in October, which I was. The only reason I didn't go is because the damn Democrats shut the government down so we can't travel. But, you know, it was just untrue. Then they came out with another total fabricated story that it was. It was the CIA complaining about my behavior. They don't complain like that. And, like, we're gonna show. Hopefully by the time this airs, we've got that story out, which debunks it, but it was just. It's just people just trying to stir things up. And there is something about my name which is just clickbait. I should go to tattoo clickbait. Hashtag clickbait. It's. None of it's true. CIA never wrote a cable about me. I mean, they do. They do routine cables, but I talked to John Radcliffe, the director of the CIA, about it. I talked to the chief of station who wrote the cable. So they're like, none of this was. None of these complaints were ever in there. We literally just say it's two paragraphs, and we literally just say so. And so met with so and so, like these, this is what happened. Five W's type of stuff. We would never, like in 30, like chief of station, say in 30 years, we've never seen anything like what is being reported because it doesn't make sense for us to do that. Like imagine, imagine the CIA was just writing and then leaking derogatory information on members of Congress. It doesn't happen. And this stupid reporter and whoever is working with him, who I know who is working with him and will hopefully reveal that one day is a discredit to the CIA as well, because it makes people think that's what they do. So that's just a couple of the things you mentioned. Where else do we go from there?
- [78:21]
A
I mean, let's talk about the Tucker thing, because that one, I don't know if you're ever going to escape that one. And it does tie into. And so when it comes to your conversation with Sean, I am, I'm an observer like everybody else in this. I have no insider spit. I don't have any insider beta. I actually, you know, thinking about what was asked of me by Mike, I think I actually said that. Well, the term I was looking for was the Streisand effect. In the moment, sitting down with Mike, I couldn't remember it in the moment. But what I essentially said was by you bringing it public, that it brought more attention to it. And when we spoke, you were, you know, you said that you sent a cease and desist letter and Sean made the decision to actually be public about that cease and desist letter. So I think I had that one backwards because I actually did hear about this through the video that Sean put out. And then looking at it and taking a little bit more time, I guess that would be his choice to put that out. Or he could have, I'm assuming, handled that directly with you without, I mean, nobody, I guess, would have known unless they would have said something about that.
- [79:25]
B
So whether that's timeline, just for clarity, because I think there's a lot of opaqueness about this whole thing because it's like his version. My. His version is definitely glides over a lot of facts. But do you want to talk about the Tucker thing's very. I don't think there's much. I don't want to spend too much time on that, but it ties it.
- [79:43]
A
We don't have to talk about that much. You're an idiot for saying that. You're an elected member of Congress. Don't talk like that in the future.
- [79:49]
B
You're right. You're right. I said like. I said, like, I regret that one as a hot mic. No, no journalist in the US Would actually ever post that. Even the worst ones that I was just talking about. But, yeah, let's not blame it on the journalist.
- [80:01]
A
How about Congressman should ever talk.
- [80:03]
B
Telling you what happened, though? And, you know, it's like, I was just speaking. Look at. Like, I'm back in the team room. And I shouldn't have done that. I shouldn't have done it, right. Because it just. It just created this dumb firestorm. I will, to Tucker's credit, like, you know, and Tucker and I are not friends at all. At all. And he's just gotten worse and worse. But, you know, were you guys ever friends? No. I mean, look, he's been trashing me since 2022 for no reason.
- [80:28]
A
I'm just curious. I don't know the full back.
- [80:30]
B
Trashing me, like, on a monthly basis starting in 2022 to. And, you know, I never really. I never even responded about it. Never said it. Until he got fired from Fox because it was too much like, I mean, you just can't fight that battle. He's got the primetime show on Fox. You just got to let it happen. And so he's been slandering me for years. People would ask, well, why doesn't he like you? I'm like, well, why doesn't he say why he doesn't like me? How come he never says, you know, how come he never says what he disagrees with me on? He just says, I'm a stupid idiot or I patch McCain, like, or I'm evil. He's literally said like. Like, I'm listing words like sinister. He's called me sinister. A liberal. He's a liberal. It's kind of. He just kind of throws it out there and then leaves it there. Never says why. And people are like, why does he not. I'm like, maybe the fact that you have to ask why is an indication that there is no why and that it's.
- [81:18]
A
Have you guys ever talked.
- [81:20]
B
No, I won't talk to him.
- [81:23]
A
You wouldn't sit down and talk with him over a cup of coffee?
- [81:26]
B
No. We don't respect each other. There has to be some kind of mutual respect.
- [81:32]
A
It might have to be built.
- [81:33]
B
This is the one thing I'll give him. I'll give him this. He never took that thing as an actual threat. He knew he wasn't being threatened, and he didn't even take it that way. I'll give him credit on that. One thing. He said, why don't you. Why don't you do an interview with me? And I was like, because we don't respect each other. That's why. And there's, like, I'm not even sure what you want to debate or have a debate on, you know? And let's look at the Ted Cruz interview with Tucker Carlson. How'd that go? I mean, it wasn't good for either of them. Tucker will drag you in. He's going to drag. He's going to drag me down to a point where I'm going to have to start fighting at that level, and it's not a good look. Why do it? So that's why. Okay. Because he's going to drag me into the mud and force me to be like, okay, well, you know what? You're the one who's texting or, sorry, emailing Hunter Biden asking for your help to get your son into Georgetown. Why are you doing that? That's kind of weird. And what kind of help are you hoping for? Because that kind of help was putting Hollywood actors in jail not too long ago, if I recall. So why are you friends with Hunter Biden? I thought you were against the DC Elite. Turns out you are the DC elite. Right. See, you know, that's how that. The conversation would get so ugly. And so with Sean, like, I don't think it has to get that ugly. I hope so. I hope not. Again, I'm not gonna predict anything because this show will be coming out as we're doing the show with Sean. But my. Certainly, it's not the goal to make it ugly. Want to go over the timeline real quick? So we just clarify the Sean Ryan saga for everybody?
- [83:02]
A
Yeah.
- [83:02]
B
Okay. So about a year and a half ago, it's got. Yeah, it sounds about right. For some reason, on his show, he's interviewing Tulsi Gabbard at the time, and he just kind of just makes his comments about how congressmen get really rich and, you know, they're not accountable and. And look like, how. How can they hire Steve Aoki at their birthday party to play a private party? I mean, that's crazy. I mean, he never said my name. And my friends showed it to me. Like, my friends from. Yes, my friends from six showed it to me. It just happened to be true. A lot of my friends.
- [83:37]
A
Hold on. We're gonna address your vernacular.
- [83:41]
B
You can make fun of me. You can make fun of me all you want. That's fine because it's you. But, like, whatever talks like that.
- [83:47]
A
Like, first off, my Boys from six. Are you a child?
- [83:54]
B
My, that's my. It's a private message to my, to another.
- [83:57]
A
It's not private. You have no expectation of privacy on Instagram.
- [84:01]
B
Well, that's fine. But like, I, I also stand by it. It's, there's, it's a completely, it's not a threatening message in the least, which is the whole point here. Okay. Be better than how it's working than.
- [84:11]
A
Your boys from six. Oh, I'm going to.
- [84:14]
B
Whatever. You don't see your boys. I say my boys. Why don't you, why don't you say. Look, because I don't talk like a child. You just don't have any friends. I think, I think that's, I mean, fair enough.
- [84:27]
A
I, I wouldn't blame people for not like, I mean, trust me, I look at myself in the mirror every day.
- [84:32]
B
May maybe funny for how it's worded, but what you cannot deny is that there was nothing threatening about it. Right. And so anyway, I don't have the.
- [84:37]
A
Ability to do that. But here's the thing. I have to be clear.
- [84:40]
B
Let's stick to the time because I. Let's get, we got to get.
- [84:42]
A
Let's stick to the timeline. But I have to be clear about this too. I don't have the ability to determine the way that somebody should or shouldn't take a message. Right. Because the lesson wasn't directed. I can have an opinion on it, but I can't have an opinion for him. Right.
- [84:57]
B
Legally speaking, is, is. It's just from a legal.
- [84:59]
A
Legally speaking, I'm going to leave it to the. Well, I'm going to leave it to the legal exper. I am not one. And I'm just, I am not interested in playing a game of like. Well, you know, you probably think that he didn't. It's like I, I, I can't engage in that because I wasn't the recipient of the message. I'm going to.
- [85:17]
B
Let's, let's clarify the timeline so that. Yeah. And then I think you might be able to judge. So he says that he doesn't say my name, but he's obviously talking about me because I just had my 40th birthday party and it was a campaign event and we did go to Steve Aoki show with a bunch of. It was like 15 seals. There was a bunch of supporters, donors, like so we advertised it and I think he was assuming like, I don't, I don't know that he thinks he's lying or I don't know still to this day, because he never responded to this. It was a private message. You know, for what it's worth, it is.
- [85:44]
A
Do you know when he saw it, though? I mean, is. Again, I get a lot of private messages that I don't see. And I might. I've had some where I'd see him years later.
- [85:51]
B
I mean, we can see that it says seen. So I mean, we know he saw it because he talks about it a year later. So. Okay. In any case, he's never responded to it.
- [86:00]
A
Yeah. But it's just time to make the assumption.
- [86:02]
B
Let's say what the message is real quick. Okay. Because I have it basically memorized at this point.
- [86:07]
A
It says, boys from six. That was it. They're coming for you.
- [86:10]
B
That's not what it says. Not even a little bit what it says. Okay.
- [86:14]
A
That's what I saw online.
- [86:15]
B
It says something like, hey, Sean, you don't have the ability to reach out to your fellow team guy if you've got questions about how I'm, quote, getting rich. My boys at six told me you took an indirect swipe at me. It sounds like you're going off trendy narratives instead of facts. That's the message. Okay. Never responded to. He never responded to it. A year later, he's got Mike Bissonnette or Matt Bissonnette on his show. And for some reason, Bissonnette brings my name up about books. You know, that's a. Who knows why I don't want to address it? And then Sean takes the opportunity to be like, yeah, Dan Crenshaw is just one of that. And he just a lot of swear words about me. Obviously, he doesn't like me. We've never spoken. He's never responded to, you know, to. To my offer because, look, I sent him three sentences. The first sentence says, why don't you just reach out to me if you have a problem with me? That's what the first sentence says. The second sentence is, my boys at 6 told me about this. I'm just. What I'm. What I'm doing with that message is I'm saying, look, we do have something in common, right? We're both seals. Like, I've told you that twice. That's two sentences of saying that like it was. And to take that as a threat is nonsense. And we all know it. Like, especially if you're a seal. Like, I'm just saying, these guys told me about it. That's. It's not even close to being a threat. And then the third sentence is, you've got Your facts wrong.
- [87:35]
A
That's it.
- [87:36]
B
That's the message. And so to come out a year later and be like. And to say, oh, yeah, you know, he messaged me. And I. He says I had the courtesy of not using his name, which he did not use my name, which is also why I never publicized anything. Just sent him a private message. And so this time, though, he's like, yeah, I was dead. And. And then he sent me a message right after I said that, you know, because he has. Because again. So he repeats the claim of Steve Aoki me hiring it, which I never did. Just let's make that clear. Never hired Steve Aoki. We went to the show. That's it. So he makes the claim again and then says, yeah, he was so mad about it, he said he would have his boys from six come in and kick my ass. And I was like, you're using very specific language, which was never said. And you can't say it was misconstrued. Like, in a conversation, you might be like, well, I thought that's what he meant from the conversation. This wasn't a conversation. This was one text and a very, very clear one that certainly did not say anything about kicking ass or whooping ass, which is what this word Sean used. So I have a few choices now, right? Like I do every single day when someone lies about me publicly. Choice one is do nothing. Okay? That's the vast majority of the time. That's the choice I make because I can't throw a rock at every barking dog nipping at my ankles. But you can't. Sometimes I have to because it has a lot of engagement or it's on a ginormous platform like Sean Ryan has built to his credit. Good job. He got a huge, huge podcast. And so I can't have, like two things. You know, I got a two year old daughter who's not old enough to read or understand this stuff, but she will one day, and I don't want. The reason I fight all of these lies is because one day she will know how to research that. And I will fight for my own reputation. But also, I represent people. You can't have my. You can't have people thinking their representative is literally threatening to conspire to get a bunch of guys from. From an elite unit in the military and go assault another person, which is a crime. So keep.
- [89:42]
A
That's the legal threshold that was crossed for me.
- [89:45]
B
Yes. When you're accusing me of a crime, things change, right? You can. You can say I suck at health care. You could Say you could say so much crap about me. I mean, and it's all protected speech, but you can't accuse people of crimes. And get it. There's. There's an accountability there. That's why people get sued for libel and for defamation. And so. And also, we're in a case here where I can actually prove that, you know, what you were saying was a lie. Usually a cease and desist is designed. And I've sent a few of these because. Because, look, here's my second option. Once the first option can't be done because it's too big. Right. So then I have two more options. Respond on social media and correct it that way. That's not great because that just creates a whole, you know, that's. That's not a fun option. Or just send a. Send them a letter. Hey, lawyers, take care of it. Which is what I did.
- [90:36]
A
You have a third option, which is plugging your laptop in because it's telling me you're less than 20%.
- [90:43]
B
We might. Yeah. So you got two options. And yeah, you really only use the lawyer option, letter option if there actually is a defamation issue. And so that's only been used when people lie about me doing insider trading or lie about, like in this case, lie about me conspiring to assault them. Those are both illegal things. You're calling me a federal, like, criminal, so I have to fight back. And I've already debunked the insider trading thing a hundred times. But of course, not everyone has seen it. And so they can say, this was Sean's argument. He's like, I can just say, well, I mean, I've read it. You know, I don't know. I don't know what I'm saying. I just read it. I don't think what he didn't understand is I wasn't really going after him about insider trading. I was. I was. We were. The letter was all about the fact that you. You're claiming I threatened to assault you, and it's just not true. Like, we have all the evidence to show that. And no reasonable person would think that, that that message even comes close to an actual threat. I don't. And you know, the. Tucker, is that the legal standard? So unrelated, is it legal standards different for public figures? You might even consider, like, you probably fall into the public figure standard. It is higher. And so as a public figure, you have to prove that they knew what they were saying was false. You don't have to prove that as a regular citizen. It can just be defamatory. And you can have damages. That's for regular citizens, for people in public, any public figure. And I'm not sure what the legal definition of public figure is. I know I'm one. You're probably one. Like, you know, I don't know. Sean definitely is our.
- [92:16]
A
What was the result you were trying to get from the letter?
- [92:19]
B
I wanted him to go on his show. I mean, the demand letter. The letter says what the result we want is, which is, hey, go on your show and correct this. Say, hey, you know what? Dan never actually threatened me that. Here's the. Like, the text isn't threatening. I don't know why I said that. It was dumb. Let's move on. That's what I want.
- [92:32]
A
What if he. What if he doesn't feel that way?
- [92:35]
B
Well, that's why we're going to have the podcast, right? Like, I mean, that's why we're going to do it. Because I want to. I want to. I want to. I want to understand that, so. Well, obviously, he already made it pretty clear he doesn't feel that way, right, because he took that letter and made it seem like he was the victim. It's an interesting tactic. We call it wound gathering. Sort of a social psychology trait. And you see it a lot in leftist propaganda, like, you know, Black Lives Matter will burn down cities, but then say, like, well, no, my actions are justified and they were provocative. But, you know, but I'm part of this group that everyone likes, you know, and I'm just. It's a. Not blm. Not everyone likes blm, but, you know, I'm part of a minority group, so you can't. You can't attack me. That's kind of what Sean's doing. And, like, the group he's hiding behind is literally the people. He's acting like he's just this, like, poor little guy. It's like, no, dude, you're top 10 podcaster. You do have accountability. You have to have some level of accountability for what you say. This isn't the big government coming after the little guy. It's not even close to that. Again, I'm going to be showing up there surrounded by his security and his lawyers, and I won't have any of that with me. I will have one little guy who's filming it from our end so that we can ensure that no crazy edits get made. That's the deal we made. So this. This. This playing victim narrative was a little strange, to be honest, especially when, like, this entire situation was literally manufactured by Sean, like, make he's making up things, like maybe assuming things, whatever, but it's not true. Making up that I got rich. That's not true at all. You know, is inferring that I got rich illegally. That's not true because I didn't get rich in the first place, and I never did anything illegal. So you've calling me a criminal or inferring that I'm a criminal? At least you're saying I hired Steve Aoki at my birthday party, so there's no signal.
- [94:35]
A
All right, so you were talking about how wound collecting and how you were trying to portray yourself as a victim in this situation.
- [94:42]
B
Not me, Sean.
- [94:43]
A
No, you. That's. I heard you. You were saying that you, as the Congressman, are portraying yourself as the victim.
- [94:49]
B
No, that's not what happened at all.
- [94:51]
A
Yeah. So on the wound collecting front, do you think. Do you think that Sean honestly is legitimately playing a victim or he took the. The demand letter that he received in a way that you didn't intend it to? I mean, and again, I'm just, I'm trying to view this. I was exposed to this over the Internet just like everybody else was. You think there's any chance of that?
- [95:14]
B
It seems to me there's a. There's a strategy behind his response, very clearly, and the strategy is kind of easy. We've seen done this before because there was some other case, because we were looking at past history where it used very similar tactic of kind of playing, but like, like, like acting like this is like a David versus Goliath type fight. Like, I'm here to fight for free speech. I won't be silenced. It's like, whoa, no one is silencing you. Like, you just can't. You just can't call me a criminal. Like, that's not protected speech. Like, I don't want to have to give you, like, a First Amendment course here, but that's just not. And, you know, you can criticize me. You can say I suck. You can say I'm stupid. You can say every. You can say so many things, but I can take action when you're accusing me of criminal activity.
- [96:01]
A
Yeah, that's.
- [96:02]
B
You know, that's about the only time I can. I mean, I mean, if you also, like, I don't know, like, there's other defamatory claims, too, but, like, for. For my purposes, the one. The only ones I've ever. I've actually had my lawyers go after people for is the ones that are criminal, and that's really just insider trading. And then this.
- [96:19]
A
So let's dig into the insider trading.
- [96:21]
B
Yeah.
- [96:22]
A
What?
- [96:22]
B
Because it does. It does. That is important because it some. For some reason Sean believes all that and that's what's caused all this in the first place. Him just like he keeps upping the ante, you know, and that's why we're as people watching this. That's why me and Sean are sitting down in Tennessee at this very moment. I hope.
- [96:40]
A
Do you think people who are in elected office should be able to trade?
- [96:43]
B
I'm co sponsoring the bill that says you can't trade individual stocks.
- [96:48]
A
That's not an answer, but.
- [96:50]
B
Well, yeah. Well, it is. It's a yes. It's a yes. Individual stocks, you should.
- [96:55]
A
You think they should be able to trade or should not?
- [96:57]
B
No. I could sponsor the bill. That would eliminate it.
- [96:59]
A
Okay.
- [97:00]
B
Because I don't care. Because what people don't understand is like, I've had. If I pull out my brokerage account on my app right now, I have about around $30,000 in it. And I just had the numbers pulled. I basically pulled every single statement from my entire time in Congress. And just so that we could really get the math right, because as I think we spoke privately about this, so I'll say it publicly. Everyone knows about my finances all the time because I disclose them by law. By law, I have to tell you every time I've made a trade above $1,000. And then you pick. And then. And when you. And when you, when you make that disclosure, you have to say what you traded and the, the value of it.
- [97:47]
A
Now, the value value part was interesting to me. I was not aware that they allowed you to report in a range. And this range is a wide swath.
- [97:55]
B
And that's the problem. Like it's. It. I wish. Yeah, that's what we should change. Honestly, it's like it's. I'd rather just report what my actual value was. Why not? I mean, because here's the thing. That range is 1,000 to 15,000. That's the first range. And then it goes like 15 to 30 and etc. Etc. Okay, well, I, I'm in that range of like. Well, a lot of. Yeah. So if I'm in that range 1,000, 15,000. The truth is, pretty much everything I bought and I've done two major, like times. There's only like two times I've really purchased a group of stocks. It was when the market crashed after Covid. Seemed like a good time because I've been really just haven't been in the stock market before. That I'd been out for a while. You know, I was just kind of. I would. It's never been a big thing for me. So it's just this. This whole attack on me is so strange to me because, like, I've never really been in the business of trading. You have to be a trader to inside trade. Like, you have to be trading pretty often, I would think. So that's, That's.
- [98:53]
A
I know where it comes from. Yeah, it comes from. It comes from the percentage rate of return. It comes from the percentage gains.
- [99:00]
B
And then people assume the 15,000 end of the range, too. And so that's how they come up with these assumptions of like, hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars made. Dude, I can. I will tell you my ex. After we did our calculations in my entire time in college, Congress. My entire time in Congress, my actual realized gains since January 3, 2019, which is when I came into Congress. $18,900.
- [99:29]
A
That's what you've made.
- [99:29]
B
That's what I've. That's what I've realized. Unrealized gains. So stocks I just still own, and I sold them right now, less than that. $16,000. That's it.
- [99:41]
A
Yeah.
- [99:42]
B
But when you're, like, buying very little and it like, triples, you know, because you're smart, you buy during COVID Yeah. People like, oh, 300% gain at $15,000 per, you know, and so there's a lot of assumptions. There's a lot of false reporting and assumptions that are happening. Are you hearing those?
- [99:55]
A
There's also a lot. There's a lot of distrust, man. It's. It's for sure.
- [99:59]
B
For sure. Because people see. I mean, there was a senator was in. Senator Menendez was. Was Googling how to sell gold bars that he got from the government of Egypt.
- [100:08]
A
Very strong. Very strong. Let's just be on the nose with terrible.
- [100:11]
B
That's terrible. Opposite. First of all, like, like, what are you doing?
- [100:14]
A
Like, you know, right on the nose.
- [100:17]
B
His son. His son serves on the energy. He's a Dem. They're all Democrats. They serve. He serves on energy and commerce with me. Every time he says he's. And he's an. He's a jerk. Every time he talks, I'm just like, how can you even be here? Like, your dad was like, like caught red handed. There was another case recently. So, yeah, I mean, there's. There's cases of corruption. Right. And that's why I signed on to that bill, because I'm like, why not? Let's just remove all doubt. Let's Just remove all doubt. Why not? Who cares?
- [100:45]
A
Which I think would help. And, and that's the issue. That key word there is doubt. And it's easy to come to that doubt when you see rates of return, when it's not explained that. And again, I'm not saying that this removes fault from people that may be trading on information not available to the public, but there is a difference between the rate of return and the amount of money for somebody to claim that you have made millions, where you have the statements to show that it's 18,000 or 16,000. I mean, that's a tough bridge for somebody to jump across. But it's the. Unfortunately the government and those people that work for the government. And I say this as a citizen who consumes the same information everybody else does. It seems that as most people are in lockstep to reduce the amount of faith and trust in those people. I mean, I understand where it comes from. It seems to be rules for thee, but not.
- [101:36]
B
It doesn't have to be logical. But if it, but if it's a, you know, like we say in buds, like perception is reality, that's kind of what this is. That.
- [101:43]
A
And I think by removing that perception. Yeah, removing that ability.
- [101:47]
B
That's why I sign on to it. I'm like, I don't care. Just like it. I got, I went viral because I answered this question because it was. Again, it actually does get to me personally because it's so untrue. And so I got caught off guard by a reporter asking it and I was like, what am I? You know? And my answer was like, look, I'm not allowed to invest. I'm not allowed to save my own money and invest it for my family's future. Like, that's what you're saying. And they're like, well, would you ban. I was like, yeah, sure, ban it. Because I don't even barely do it. I barely have any money in it. So I, I said yes back then too. Even though everyone took it as me saying, like, defending it. Because both, both things can be true. Like, I can, I can defend my integrity and say, look, I, I don't even have insider info, little into a trade on it. The last time I even bought a stock was March 2023. So like, you have to be trading to be an inside trader. That's, that's my general opinion on the logic of it. But yeah, it's just, it's just so untrue. And like these numbers speak for themselves. And it's just like I wish I was as rich as people think I am, but I'm not.
- [102:49]
A
Yeah.
- [102:49]
B
No, it's like the memes are not true.
- [102:52]
A
Restricting, you know, active political figures from trading doesn't solve issues. And I'll use Ms. Pelosi as an example. Her husband is a prolific trader.
- [103:02]
B
Yeah.
- [103:02]
A
And again, that's. Yeah, he does it for a living, but also he has direct access to somebody. And this. I was thinking about this one. I mean, I think what it comes down to is she has some.
- [103:13]
B
She has some suspicious traits, like people. I can't remember what people point to, but there's, like, there's. There's some suspicious ones. For sure. For sure. It's not like people are totally crazy when it comes to Pelosi.
- [103:24]
A
Yeah. And you can go into AI. And I did. I looked up. I. I asked AI because I know you used GROK one time, you know, is there any evidence of Dan Crenshaw insider trading? And it spit out an answer. There's no direct evidence. I use the same thing for Nancy Pelosi. I said, is there any direct evidence of Nancy Pelosi insider trading? And it actually spit out the same answer. And that's the issue. Right. Like, there's no way to really restrict this. And people's loss of faith comes from. They want. They want to believe that the world is fair and equality of opportunity exists. But the reality is, you guys, elected officials have access to information that the rest of us don't.
- [104:01]
B
A lot less than you think.
- [104:02]
A
But perceptions, reality, you have more than the average person. Yeah. And that's what I'm saying. And so.
- [104:06]
B
Yeah, nearly as much as Wall Street, I'll tell you that.
- [104:10]
A
Yeah. And I would agree with that. It's. And like I said, restricting your ability to trade doesn't restrict, you know, it doesn't mean you don't have a cousin or. You know what I mean? I'm not saying you. I'm just talking about in general. There's no real way to cut all of this off. But I do think it would be a step at least to level what people consider the playing field to be, whether it's in reality or not.
- [104:30]
B
I agree. Just because, like, take it off the table so we can do our work. I mean, because it's just like, it's one of the most mistrusted institutions in America, Congress. I mean, people hate Congress. People tend to like their congressmen. That's sort of a civic truth. But, I mean, why do you think.
- [104:46]
A
It'S the most mistrusted organizations on Earth?
- [104:50]
B
Well, well, there was a lot of corruption before a lot of these ethics rules came into play. I mean, it wasn't always the case that we had to report all of our finances and all this stuff. It wasn't always the case that we couldn't take gifts. It wasn't always. None of this stuff was like, I mean, the old days, 80s, 90s, like, yeah, I think there was a lot more of these things happening. And obviously people still sleep. Like, I just gave an example of a recent one, that Senator taking gold. Taking literal gold. You know that's illegal, dude. Like, you know it is. We all, I mean, we have.
- [105:22]
A
Frowned upon. Are we sure it's illegal? It's frowned upon.
- [105:25]
B
Thousand percent illegal. We have to take. You know, remember, remember, remember how we had to take. What do we call. How am I forgetting the term in the military when we take those stupid online courses, like every five minutes?
- [105:38]
A
Oh, man.
- [105:39]
B
What are they called? How are we both?
- [105:41]
A
If you would not. If you had not just asked me that directly, I would have. I would have been able to answer that in a heart. I know what you're talking about. It's PowerPoints that people go like this.
- [105:52]
B
And then they're done. General GMTs, maybe general military training. Anyway.
- [105:55]
A
No, they're not GMTs.
- [105:57]
B
Well, whatever. They're things that we have to do in the military.
- [106:00]
A
It's like Navy knowledge. Online, it's a waste.
- [106:02]
B
Everybody hates them. They're a waste of our time. It's like teaching us things like you're not supposed to put the thumb drive in the computer and it tells you that for like an hour. We have to do the same kind of thing in Congress over, you know.
- [106:15]
A
A better way around that is to give people computers without thumb drive ports.
- [106:19]
B
Totally. But let's move on from that.
- [106:22]
A
I'm just providing real world solutions to everyday problems. All right.
- [106:27]
B
And so we have to do the same thing. So, yes, you know it's illegal. You know it's. You know it's illegal and what's not, or at least what's against our rules. But, but this was like very clearly illegal. I mean, I also point out to people like, take like the FBI Corruption division, like, it would. It's a career maker if you can get a politician on corruption. You think they're not looking at this? They're absolutely looking at it. It's why we're like. The vast majority of congressmen are actually scared to death of doing anything. The vast majority. Not all of them, clearly.
- [106:58]
A
I think a lot of people unfortunately would say that the reason the FBI is not doing anything is they're equally as corrupt.
- [107:03]
B
No, I'm telling you it's a career maker. It's a career maker.
- [107:07]
A
Yeah but I think faith in government politician maybe you know unless they're all in it together. I think faith in government and political figures is at an all time low. And I don't.
- [107:16]
B
FBI is not the best example because there's less faith in the FBI than there used to be. I would hope that people have more faith in it with Cash Patel as, as the guy leading it. I like Cash is actually where of a very close like mutual friend from the teams. That's kind of how we know each other. He's eminently qualified for it. Contrary to I think a lot what a Democrats say. So you know there was some really bad apples in the FBI that really screwed up the FBI's reputation. Right. This whole Russia gate, the, the Crossfire hurricane, all of that. So understandably. Right. Like there's people would have that perception. The reality remains it's a career maker. If you take down a politician for insider trading for. Well, there's no way around that. Of course it is. And. Well let's talk about the legal power.
- [108:08]
A
Well let's talk about the legal influence. Lobbying oftentimes described as legal bribery. What are your thoughts?
- [108:18]
B
Yeah, so you're represented by a lobbyist. Everyone is represented by a lobbyist. I don't care what industry you're in. Yep, whatever. Because. Yeah, because you're is you media, you're connected with.
- [108:27]
A
I don't know this person.
- [108:29]
B
Right.
- [108:29]
A
Who is representing me.
- [108:30]
B
You don't. But there's people who represent you whether it's an association or something. First of all, let's talk about the financing that, that lobbyists can donate. So they. So, so an organization, let's say that like an oil company has the right under their first amendment rights to, to ask the people who work at the oil company to and they usually ask their executives, you know the people actually make some money. Hey contribute to our pac, a political action committee so that we can pay somebody to live in Washington and make sure that congressmen and senators know what our issues are and we use that money to donate to them. Now the max donation is $5,000. So there is no single pack at all that can even come close to buying you off. Because 5,000 is nothing when it comes to like your actual what you need in a campaign. It's nothing. So and the other thing I've found, and this is just my experience is the Ones who are donating to you are donating to you because they already agree with you, and you already agree with them. I don't get donations from pro choice people trying to change my mind. You know, they don't even try because they know it's a waste of time. Because in the end, I need to get reelected. And the only way I get reelected is if I stick to my. The principles that I said I was running on. And so when people are trying to kick me out of office, what are they doing back home? They're trying to tell people that I'm not voting a certain way. It's all a lie. I mean, the lies that are being said about me right now by my opponents are pretty extraordinary.
- [110:06]
A
They'll certainly look up how you voted, though. I mean, people.
- [110:09]
B
People could look it up, but they don't. And so that's why you need a lot of money in a campaign, because you got to send people mail and TV ads that actually show them, like, hey, this is actually what the truth is. That's why. That's why campaigns are expensive. Because I'm like, I always. I always make this joke. It's not really a joke, but I'm like, campaigns could cost us nothing if everybody just went to my website and, like, just looked up, you know, what. What your question is. But. But people don't do that. And for. You know what? Like, a lot of people just have a lot of other things going on. So I get it. You know, your. Your job is not to, like, know everything about politics, you know, and so I have to. Then, as when I'm campaigning, I have to make sure I'm. I'm communicating with you a ton, which costs a lot of money. So anyway. But back to lobbyists. What do they do? I mean, when you're meeting with them, they're really talking specifics. This bill is good because it does this, or this bill is bad because it does this, and this is how it affects our industry. Okay, well, these are good things for us to know. I don't care what industry it is. It's good for us to know how the law ends up actually manifesting in reality. And so it's not that. It's just not as crazy now. In the past, this is what people think about in the past. Why are they called lobbyists? Because they would wait in the lobby and they would have. And they did have too much power, and there weren't limits on that, on that, on that contribution. And they could give gifts, they could give all sorts of Things and it was all legal. They can't do that anymore. I would say the new form of lobbying that is truly corrupt is the online influencer lobbying. So let me tell you a story. From what I've heard, I don't want to get sued by the pharmacy benefit managers. Remember we talked about them?
- [111:56]
A
Yep.
- [111:56]
B
Okay. But what I heard from pretty good sources is this is how you protect yourself from legal liability. Okay. You don't state it as a fact.
- [112:04]
A
That's, that's thrown allegedly at the end of your sentence.
- [112:07]
B
Allegedly. I heard from pretty good sources that millions were spent by PBMs on a specific bill. This is last December. So about a year ago, people might recall Trump's about to take office and we need to keep the government open. We need to vote on a cr, another cr, a continuing resolution, because we can't seem to get it. We can never get budgets done in Congress. That's all federal budgeting, if you want to get into that, it's a whole other thing. But they're very hard to get done because we never have super majorities. So you always have to make a deal and nobody wants to make a deal. So we end up doing crs. Now, attached to that CR was PBM Price Transparency Reform. Bipartisan passed out of my committee. It was good to go. It made that CR like 1500 pages. Because that's complicated legislation, but it's legislation we should all want. Everybody wants that except PBMs. And. But Elon Musk got all like, started bashing it for some reason. To this day, I don't know why. And then again, this is the allegedly part of. I heard from good sources that, that PBMs are paying a lot of money to these intermediaries like these, these, these companies. Like one is called like Influenceable, for instance, is the name of one company. I'm not saying they're the ones who did this. I don't actually know. But like ad brokers kind of, they're like media companies. So they take money in and then they, they text message all of these influencers, in this case on the right, like right wing influencers, and say, hey, post, post this. Like the CR is against Trump. Post this stuff about how, how bad this thing is. And, and we'll pay $800 per ad. And they don't have to just. And then no one has to disclose anything. No one has to disclose they're being paid. This happens with super PACs, with candidates all the time. And they, so every time I put an ad out, I have to Disclose that this ad is paid for by Dan Crunchover Congress. Every single thing I put out has to say that. Right?
- [114:07]
A
I think on social media you are required to say it is an ad. I have never participated in this, but I'm pretty sure you're.
- [114:14]
B
You are, you are not. I, I mean, you are not.
- [114:18]
A
I am 100% open to being wrong. Yeah, yeah.
- [114:23]
B
If one of these companies wants to pay you to, like, say bad things about me, you don't have to disclose that somebody paid you.
- [114:29]
A
Well, I would do it for free.
- [114:31]
B
I know that, but you know what I mean. Like, you know, you are not, you are not legally obligated. If you were a pack, you are legally.
- [114:38]
A
I thought you were required to on social media. And again, I could be wrong. And I don't participate in that.
- [114:43]
B
You're not. You're not. You're just not. And, and, but, and lobbyists are right. They, they, everything has to be because it's an actual legal entity. It's a pack. So they actually do have to disclose if it's spent by this super PAC or that super pack. And then you can look up who donated to that super PAC. I mean, the super PACs and there's packs. Sorry, we're like using a lot of terms right now. Super PAC is a bunch of rich people who get together for a cause or a person. Happens all the time. But you can also, again, you can. It has to be disclosed it's paid for by this super pac. And then you can look up who, who donates to that super pac.
- [115:19]
A
So why not make it easier and just put all reelections on a same, same budget?
- [115:24]
B
Well, that's what some countries do. The reason you can't is because of. Our First Amendment will never allow that. It'll die. The Supreme Court will shut that down. Unless Congress literally. Unless we literally change the Constitution.
- [115:39]
A
Is this because of the Citizens United ruling where.
- [115:43]
B
That's the big landmark one. Yes. And so it was a lot more corrupt back in the day because there was no limits. And so Congress put limits on there. And so that's the kind of reality we live in now. It's just so, it's just not, it's just, it's just not exactly what people think. They just don't have the influence that nobody can influence. There's no lobbyist that could influence me except by logic. Right. Like if they tell me, like, dude, there's like 500 people in your district going to lose jobs for this. I'm listening now. I mean, that, that I'll listen to. And that's, that's, that's helpful knowledge. Like I wouldn't know that if they didn't have representation coming and talking to us. But as far as the money, like the money is just, it's just, it's, it's really not, it's not even close enough to influence you. So let's go back to that example real quick. You don't have to disclose if you're an influencer, just a guy who runs a social media page or a podcast, you don't have to disclose anything. And because you're being paid by this intermediary company. And that's how they took down the cr because like there was conservative outrage over it. Nobody ever mentioned PBMs. They were just mad about the CR. Then you had Elon Musk going up and saying, oh look, victory. It was a 1500 page bill and now it's 100 page bill. Yeah, because you took out all the good stuff that we actually wanted and agreed upon. And you still, by the way, still.
- [117:05]
A
Have a CR1,500 page bill, by the way.
- [117:09]
B
Well, okay. Why are bills so long? That's a great question. Great civics question. Okay. If we started pulling up, then you can easily just look up whatever bill, look up something complicated like PBM reform or immigration law. That language is written by lawyers. Okay. Because you're changing US Code every time you write a new law. So it's long because one, the margins are like this thick and there's like, there's just not a lot of words per page. So that's, that's one reason they're like triple spaced Any, any piece of legislation. And it's, there's a lot of language in there that's like defining terms. There could be 30 pages of defining terms. And then there's, and then there's, and then there's another line. It's like, well, we're replacing us code 12B with, with this under clause and replacing the word A with the. It's literally, that's how it's written.
- [118:02]
A
So then how, given that the language is like that and the length that it is, what is the expectation of the people voting on it and their understanding exactly and precisely of what it is they're voting for?
- [118:13]
B
We are supposed to know because. Okay, so let's go back to like the Schoolhouse Rock video. Like how does a bill get made? Well, there's that video and that kind of goes through the mechanics of it. Right? Like, but I'll tell you as a practitioner, this is how it works. I have a policy idea that I want to get done. All right? I talk to my staff. This is. We start to craft that policy idea. I want the law to do these things. We craft it further. We work with experts all over the place to try and get it. Get it right where it needs to be. Make sure that we're not just, like, throwing some things out there. Because, look, you can. You can write a piece of legislation on the back of a napkin if you want, and throw it in the hopper. The hopper is that little. It's a little box down at the House floor. That's how you introduce legislation. Still very old school. And so legislation can be simple. Don't get me wrong. Like, the legislation I just got passed to ban federal funding for transgender. Any transgender affirmation care on minors. No federal funding shall go to that. I passed that bill a couple weeks ago. I've been working on that for years. Finally got a House vote on it. Even had some Democrats vote on it. There's a chance that we maybe could get it through the Senate and make history, because minors should not be getting any transgender affirmation care. No way. No puberty blockers, hormone therapy, or surgical interventions anyway. How did that happen? Well, that's a simple bill, because you could read that one and it'd be pretty simple. But. But even that one, if you started reading it, well, it would start talking about amendment to the Social Security Act of 19. Whatever. It would be automatically confusing. It's not like it just. It's not like the law just says what I just said. What I just said is in layman's terms, what it does.
- [119:58]
A
Does.
- [119:58]
B
Yeah. And that's basically. That's how we do this. We get technical assistance from. From the agencies that have to then regulate the law. Because anytime you put a law into place, well, that the agency. The executive branch, is the executor of laws. So then they write thousands of pages of regulations to get that just right, like you asked. So we. So we'll pass a law that says, like. Like we have to disclose our stocks, but we don't exactly say how to do it. We don't get into that level of detail. We could, but we usually don't. And so the regulatory agency then decides, like, this might not be a perfect example, because I don't know exactly how we got to those weird ranges we were talking about, but in general, this is how it works. Whether it's the EPA or HHS or whatever, they go into extreme detail on, like, okay, how are we actually going to do this and execute this? Because I might say, hey, Everybody gets universal HSAs like we talked about. Okay? The way that is written might be simple in law. Really not that simple because that would be pretty complicated language. But it's way more complicated when HHS actually tries to do it. And the treasury also has a play in that because you're talking about bank accounts. So it gets complicated. And so we get to the level of detail, the greatest level of detail possible from a policy perspective that's basically in layman's terms. And then you send it to the lawyers who work in this building, they're called legislative counsel, and they're the ones who turn that into actual legal language. And that's why it sounds like that. That's why it's 1500 pages. That particular bill, PBM reform wasn't the only thing in there. There was a couple other really good things that we all agreed on and it was a real shame and it was frustrating because Elon's cheering, he's like, wow, we went from 1500 pages to 100 pages. I'm like, we. By the way, there's money, the same amount of money being spent and we're not getting the reforms we need on health care. Like, the metric of a good bill should not be the number of pages it is. That's not the metric of a good bill, it's what's in the bill. And so, you know, that was a very frustrating time. And that's an example of what I think is the new corrupt lobbying. Because it scared a ton of members into voting. Well, into basically trashing that version of the CR and making it less pages. It scared everybody.
- [122:16]
A
Is there a possibility where you guys could go to single issue bills as opposed to omnibus bills?
- [122:22]
B
Well, we do. I mean, like the bill I passed last week was a single issue bill. So sometimes we do it that way. I like doing it that way. Of course, the reason an omnibus happens is because it has to be an agreement. And so there's this idea of 12 appropriations bills passed separately. Right. Like that's. But let's not forget where that came from. It didn't come from the Constitution. You know what it came from? It came from the Budget act of 1972. So it was written by Democrats that we should have 12 appropriations bills and this will be our new federal budgeting system. And it's been that way ever since. And it never works. Because in the end, even if you're. Even if. Even if we happen to pass all 12 appropriations bills, just Republicans in the House, which hasn't even happened because even because of the internal disagreements. Even if you did that, we could still have. You still wouldn't have 60 votes in the Senate to pass it. So you got to make a deal and the deal involves all of it. Right. You're like horse trading here and there. And that's, that's why it ends up being omnibus every time. A CR is also technically an omnibus because it's just a continuing budget from the last budget. So that's why it doesn't mean it get right. I, I'm. We're all open to ideas on how better to do a federal budget. There aren't easy answers to it, to be perfectly honest.
- [123:40]
A
I don't see how it could be given the size of the, not only the nation itself, but the bureaucracy behind it.
- [123:46]
B
It's huge. I mean, it's a huge undertaking. You know, we could talk about a million different ideas, especially with the military, because that's like the one part of the budget that does get passed. Because I have an idea.
- [123:57]
A
You ready for this?
- [123:58]
B
Yeah. Yeah.
- [124:00]
A
If you don't pass and balance the budget, every member of Congress in the Senate is no longer eligible for election.
- [124:08]
B
You could do that. Then the next batch of senators and Republic and congressmen would have the same problem because they would still disagree because they're, because their voters are still putting them are still electing the same kind of people. See, it would, it wouldn't. I just tell you the reality. It wouldn't work. It's.
- [124:26]
A
Well, is it working now?
- [124:29]
B
Well, we're a divided country, which is actually how our founders intended it. So you could argue it is working because our founders.
- [124:36]
A
Not when it comes to balancing a budget.
- [124:38]
B
Now our founders did not intend for us to, to, to make it easy to pass national law. They didn't want it.
- [124:45]
A
There's a difference between, there's a difference between being easy and it being.
- [124:50]
B
Okay, well, you're talking about balancing the budget. Let's talk about. That's a different issue. Okay. There's, there's, there's the difficulty of passing legislation which again like that, that you could fire everybody all you want, doesn't matter, because their voters are still going to put in the same people.
- [125:02]
A
No, no, I'm talking about balancing the budget.
- [125:03]
B
Okay, so balancing the budget. Why doesn't that happen?
- [125:05]
A
All of you should be fired.
- [125:06]
B
We should talk about that. Well, you can tell us all we should be fired, but like some of us are actually trying to fix it. Don't fire all of Us.
- [125:17]
A
Nope. That is not how my, that is not how Andy stumps Bill 001 works. It's really, it's more of a black or white thing.
- [125:25]
B
Okay, but here's, but first, let's, let's talk about the problem. You got to understand the problem before you know the solutions. Right? So the problem is that why is our debt climbing? It's climbing because of an aging population. Because back in, you know, the FDR days and the Great Society, they put in Medicare and Social Security because we didn't want our, our old people to retire and then, and then just be living on the streets and we wanted them to have health care. So you have something called mandatory spending. Mandatory spending is not in that cr. It's not in our appropriations because it's mandatory. So VA benefits, for instance, your retirement is mandatory. It gets paid. We don't appropriate that. We don't debate that every year. It just happens. Medicare just happens. Social Security checks go out to old people. They just have. It's mandatory spending. What percentage of the budget do you think accounts for mandatory spending? Interest on the debt is also mandatory. We have to pay the interest.
- [126:23]
A
62%.
- [126:25]
B
It's higher. It's getting closer to like 75.
- [126:28]
A
So, okay, I'm actually closer than I thought I was going to be because that was a wild.
- [126:32]
B
It is a huge, huge amount of the budget. And so for that to change, so we can argue about. And okay, so. And then what's the rest of the 25%? About half of it's the military. We're going to spend the money on that. And a lot of it's VA stuff too. We're going to spend the money on that. Yeah. And like when we did the math on this when we were, when we were, when we were like, we actually did a really good job when we were in the minority on, under McCarthy's leadership. We, we were playing chicken with the, the debt ceiling, if you recall, the debt ceiling is a lot more dangerous to play chicken with than, than just shutting down the government. You shut down the government, people are like, okay, well, the government shut down. You know, it's, it happens a lot. It's not a big deal. We've never defaulted on our debt. And the only. And so you have to raise the debt ceiling. So as Republicans, we're always like, look, if we're going to raise the debt ceiling, we want something for it. And we did get something for it. We got trillion dollars less in spending, some deregulatory things, some permitting issues that make it Easier on our energy sector to build what they need to build. We cut that deal.
- [127:41]
A
Is it even possible to pay off our debt at this point?
- [127:44]
B
Yeah. I mean, look, if you want to have a responsible debt trajectory, your GDP just needs to be higher than your annual deficits and then it's a totally sustainable problem. You don't have to go to zero deficits, you just have to. Your growth just has to outpace your deficits. That's the math. Yeah, because the math would, I mean, everybody. I don't. Do you have debt? I have debt. Everybody has, yeah. I mean the wealthiest people in the world have tons of debt. In fact, that's how they live. I mean, it's, it's, you know, it's the games they play. But like, and so the US Government's no different. You know, issuing debt isn't the problem. Problem. The problem. And the reason the problem is the politics of that 75% of spending. Because what did I say it is? It's the stuff people want, especially older voters. So that's why we call it the third rail of politics. So we can, I can say all day long, and I do, that we have to tackle that and we have to tell people the truth about where, about why it's the way it is and what we need to do to fix it. And we shouldn't look at it as a left versus right problem. It should be. The ultimate solution is eventually a deal between younger generations and older generations. You both have to give something because what's changed? Well, people are living a lot longer and they didn't have enough babies. So when Social Security first began, I'm going to get these numbers kind of wrong because I don't have them off the top of my head. But you were looking at like.
- [129:08]
A
I.
- [129:08]
B
Don'T know, I think a one to six ratio for like seniors and workers now it's like one to three. Okay, so, and, and seniors are living longer. Your average life expectancy is like 78. Back then it was like 62. Okay, so that's why Ronald Reagan, you know, again, good conservative, made the deal with Democrats to start raising the retirement age slowly. So, I mean, that's what my generation and your generation should have to give. Well, you're really old. I don't, you know, maybe, maybe not. Like, but like me as a 41 year old, I shouldn't be retiring at 67. Like have me retire at 75. I don't care. That's what I'll give and I don't.
- [129:47]
A
Think I ever will. Retire. So for. I'm not a good data point on this because I don't like idle time. I actually like figuring stuff out. Right. I like that I am reverse necessarily.
- [129:57]
B
Right. But it's about. It's about like. That's the general concept, though. And so people have to be told the truth about the fact that this is a demographics problem and the voters won't let us. Like we could. If Republicans had 60 votes in the Senate, I do think that we would. We would actually try and change this. And the second we did, we'd be voted out of office and the Democrats would put it right back the way it was. That's. That's a really hard problem to solve it. So the American people have to be told.
- [130:25]
A
So where does that leave us? Yeah, I mean, where does that leave us?
- [130:27]
B
I mean, we still just got to keep fighting for the truth. I mean, George Bush had a really good plan to actually solve this, but it was, you know, remember, he took. This was right after the Iraq war, you know, so lose a lot of political capital on that already. 2004, they had the Social Security reform plan that would have worked wonderfully. It was designed by a former Reagan economics chief. He actually taught at Harvard. I actually took his class at Harvard in 2017. Harvard does have Republicans teaching, as it turns out. And Marty Feldstein, fantastic mind. I can speak Social Security pretty well because I took his class. I've written essays about it. There was a plan that would have worked, and it involved privatizing our benefits to a degree, which would be a good idea. Let the market help us. We should have, like, the retirement plan should mirror, you know, your 401ks. In some ways, that's kind of what the plan was. It wouldn't work. The math wouldn't work anymore because it's too far gone. So you'd have to have an even more severe plan at this point. And if we try and if Republicans wanted to take the reins and do it well, a lot of our voters would turn on us because a lot of our voters are older voters. And I've had this. I've had this conversation in so many town halls. It was wild. And recently, too, like.
- [131:44]
A
I mean, what it sounds like you're describing, though, is that all we're really doing is pushing out the timeline. It seems like the tracks for the train are coming to an end. We can push it out beyond the horizon that your generation and my generation can see. But it doesn't seem like there's a.
- [131:56]
B
Oh, it's not an Actual way sooner than that. I mean these things are going bankrupt in 2000-30s. So we're gonna have to confront this problem. Thank, thank God we have to confront the problem because that's the only thing that's going to make us confront the problem is when the trust funds actually go broke. So Social Security and Medicare operate off of a trust fund. And like when you pay your taxes, you see that it's fica. Like you see that part of your taxes, that's money that goes directly from you straight to your grandparents bank accounts. That's what happens. And so there's a trust fund that it goes into. And that trust fund is being depleted at a rate that's unsustainable. People say, well the government raided the trust fund, that's why it's being depleted. That's often used. It's often said it's not true. The trust fund buys government bonds. So it is like, like we're kind of like, like using our own money in a way. So there is something weird about that on the surface, but in the reality is it actually makes the trust fund stronger because when you buy bonds with it, you're getting an interest rate. So it's actually, that's actually making the trust fund money. So that part is not why these trust funds are going bankrupt. They're going bankrupt because of demographics where an aging population didn't have enough kids. It truly is as simple as that. You need more workers paying into the system and you also have to change the system. I mean again, we're living longer. Like there's just, there's, I think like there's a stat out there, like 80% of Medicare costs are in the last few weeks of life. You know, I mean this is, this is where the money's going. And it's like, what are you going to do? Well, we have a moral obligation not to let them. It's, this is, these are tough issues so you can't make them that simple. And so. Oh, the reason I even forgot why I was bringing up that debt ceiling thing because when we were doing the calculations, we realized what we were arguing about was 11% of the budget. So 11% of the budget, more or less, is literally every agency you can think of except for the DOD and va. Every other agency, government wise you can think of, from EPA to HHS to FBI, all of it is about 11%. So that should tell you something. You can only cut so much in appropriations, right? You can like, you can nibble around the edges. We can cut billions here and there. And we have. Right. We. One of the big accomplishments we did when we, when we did this last reconciliation bill, the Working Families Tax Cut act, was, was the fact that we didn't raise your tax. We made sure your taxes didn't increase. Surprise. Surprisingly in December, which is what would have happened. Everybody's taxes would have gone up because the tax cuts expired from 2017. So we prevented that from happening. But we also wanted to find savings. And so that's why we made all these changes to Medicaid. And they were good changes. I worked a lot on those changes and we could talk about them in detail if we want. But like we're going on quite a bit of time here and it's honestly just too nerdy for people. But just know the Democrats claiming that we're kicking 12 million people off Medicaid, just not true. We're getting illegals off Medicaid. People who are falsely enrolled. People didn't even know they were enrolled because there's a, unfortunately there's incentive structures in place for states to enroll people even without their knowledge, even though they might have a job and have health coverage that way. Because HMOs, the Health Management organizations and you might think, well they're not using the Medicaid, so why does it matter? It matters because HMOs do get a fee from organizing that state's Medicaid plan and they get a fee per enrollee. Some people are double enrolled in different states. We made it illegal so illegals can't enroll. And then we put the biggest thing was work requirements which is actually my bill from like January. So we got that into there where if you're an adult, an able bodied adult with no dependents, you should have to work if you're Getting Medicaid made 80 of Americans agree on that. So like we have done things to try and roll it back. You know that saved the sub to. Well, that bill saved well over a trillion dollars over ten years that we, we work within ten year budget windows. That's just. Yeah, that's just because of that 1972 law. And so a lot of gimmicks happen with that. But this really did save that money. Now Democrats will say we actually spent a lot of money because we didn't let the taxes increase. I would argue that letting you keep more of your money is a good thing and doesn't cost. It should not be. Philosophically, I don't think that it costs the taxpayer money when we let the taxpayers keep their money. You know what I Mean, I mean, so that's a philosophical disagreement between us and Democrats.
- [136:11]
A
Yeah. I think one of the talking points you'd get to is that the deficit increased, whereas current administration ran on decreasing the deficit.
- [136:18]
B
Yeah, but like, again, on the, on the, on the, on the programs that matter, like Medicaid, that's, that's what we've done. Trump didn't run on that. Also, to be fair, he's never been a debt guy. You know, I am, I, I talk about it very plainly to you what I would do if I had the magic wands. And I don't care what kind of grief I get for it. Like, it's, it needs to be done. I'm fighting for my generation because my generation will not have these programs. Your generation will not have these programs. Yeah. And it's not fair to us. And like I was mentioning, the town halls are down. I was so surprised because these town halls are coming off after, like right after we passed this bill which actually, actually removed taxation for Social Security checks. And you'd be surprised how many people are still complaining about the fact that they have to pay, you know, that their Social Security isn't high enough. And by the way, we didn't do it for rich people. It only applies if you make $150,000 a year. So it really, truly was like a middle class tax cut. And I'd ask voters sometimes, like, well, have you run this idea by your grandkids that they should be taxed more so that your Social Security check should be bigger because your kids are starting their families, they're starting their businesses, they're just starting life, and they're starting a life in an era where at least three things are objectively more expensive and those things are housing, health care and education. So why are we going to tax those people more, those people being young people, just to deliver it to people who've had their whole lives to save and thrive. It's not fair. And so you want to know why the debt is. Because that conversation is really hard to have politically. There's not that many people willing to say what I just said.
- [138:09]
A
That is a difficult, nuanced conversation. And like you said earlier, both sides are going to have to give something that's not going to be one, where it's going to be all just one side.
- [138:17]
B
It has to be a compromise. Because again, why did George Bush's fail? Because famously, remember, everybody said he's throwing granny off a cliff. And there's all these commercials of granny going off a cliff because. But what he was, what that plan was going to do is save was just. It's so frustrating how the politics of this work because it was, it was just all politics back then. Yeah, and it still is.
- [138:40]
A
All right, three, three more questions for you because we are going on three hours. You mentioned town halls. Explain to me what happened with the 10 year old that you.
- [138:50]
B
The 10 year old. The 10 year old that was never. Sometimes she's a 12 year old, sometimes he's 10. The reality is she was an adult, well over 18, and she was either dating or worked for my camp. My opponent at the time, that's the, that's pretty much the end of that story. So like that was a. I wouldn't even call that a town hall. That was like a meeting with like a Montgomery County Tea Party. So everybody was just kind of laying into me with a bunch of questions and I'm there to take it. It's my job. Right. I'll take the questions and. But she was a campaign operative and she was not a child. She was, she just looked like the Internet just said she was. There was a whole story written about, like it's been debunked. I mean, we can look it up. Like, is the whole story written about it debunking this? Like now this is, this person worked for the campaign.
- [139:34]
A
That doesn't trend as well as the video.
- [139:37]
B
No, unfortunately. Well, the video, I'm not even sure. I mean, you know, the video is you. Like you're saying, you're saying I don't believe in Jesus and you're using this like you're taking out of context an interview I did with Jocko like years ago or I was making, making a point about archetypes and I'm like, I was like, don't question my faith. Like that's, that's out of line, you know, like, of course I believe Jesus was real. And yeah, I mean, you know, sometimes I come off strong. What can I say? But it's, it's, it makes the story. The story wouldn't have, wouldn't land if it was, if it was an actual campaign operative asking it. Right. But it lands if you'd make it a 12 year old girl because it's just this poor little girl asking the question. But that's not what happened.
- [140:17]
A
It was a 10 year old, Dan, according to your sources, term limits.
- [140:26]
B
Oh, I think, yeah. You said these aren't easy questions. So I'll say I'm in favor of term limits because the people are in favor of term limits. We'd have to figure out, like, what the right number is, you know. But I also tell people the truth about term limits and what the actual outcomes will be. I would note that for all my listeners in Texas, you have no term limits on any of your politicians, and you seem to like the way your government works. Governor Abbott is running on a fourth term, and he can keep going if he wants because people like him. So we don't have term limits in Congress. Here's what would happen. So here's the. Here's the problems with it, right? Like the. The pros are simply that majority of Americans want it, so we're in favor of it. You would need a constitutional amendment to get it done. So it's a pretty dang high bar, which is why it doesn't just get done. And then there'd be a huge argument over, like, well, like, what's the right amount of years? Well, what's the right amount of years in the SEAL teams? I mean, do you want a platoon full of new guys? No. You know, I mean, so it's not that dissimilar of an analogy. So here's the cons to it. You're institutionalizing inexperience. And there's this idea that, like, there's a citizen legislator and, you know, we just come here and we should just be a temporary job. And that was a. That was fine when we were in an agrarian society and we just didn't have very complicated issues to deal with. I would say we have extremely complicated issues to deal with now. You know, my psychedelics bill took me years to kind of figure out how to actually work that system and get the bill in there into the. Into the military spending bill, the ndaa. So that would actually become law. I got bulldozed like, multiple times, being like, what the heck? I got to pass out of the House. Takes you some time to realize, like, wait a second. The Senate doesn't even vote on our amendments that we pass out of the House. It has to be in the base text. To get in the base text, you have to start the process earlier. So there's a whole lot of things you learn as you pick up. We specialize. Like I said before, my majors are in environment and energy and, you know, the cartels and national security, intelligence, kind of a lot of majors. There's others who are very focused on ag. Right. The Agricultural Committee. I don't know much. I don't know much about that. You got to trust your fellow members sometimes to be like, this is what's good policy. And this is what's not. You still got to look into it yourself. You asked how we even like read those big bills that make no sense. I mean, it's our job to figure it out. And we figure it out because it is a team effort. And there's basically policy explanations behind every single bill. That sounds like legal jargon, right? So. And then it's kind of translated back into normal policy. Okay, this is what it does. We need to know that. But term limits would empower who they empower the bureaucracy, the administrative state, so the executive branch, because they can just wait you out. And they empower Capitol Hill staff, especially on the committees. If you're not a seasoned member who's like, been like, you know what, I saw this trick 10 years ago, I know what they're doing. You're not very useful to the people anymore. So it really does not empower the people. The way I think is largely thought it empowers staff. And you could say, well, turn. Limit the staff too. Well, now you've just got a very inexperienced group of people running the show and that's not good either. You need members who know how to stand up to staff and know when staff is full of crap. And you only know that after actually having some experiences yourself and getting to know the policies. It doesn't mean I don't want citizen. I want people to have a background in something when they run for Congress, whether it's the military or business or something. There's these kind of lifelong politicians that were in politics before they were chief of staff and they ran for Congress, became a congressman. Then again, I look at those and they're actually some of our better members. So it's hard to say that that's a really bad route either because at least they understand the place and it's up to their voters, it's up to their voters in their district whether they're still trusted or not.
- [144:35]
A
And that's the thing. I think a lot of the conversation around this comes either through trust or faith. And I think we're at a place right now where faith and trust is at an all time low. So an easy thing to say is if they are corrupt beforehand or they are corrupted by the ecosystem, let's limit exposure. I've even said this myself, right? Like most medications, ibuprofen, even water has a maximum lethal dosage, even though we never found it. As a BUDS instructor, I did try with your class. Got yelled at, not a big deal. But, you know, so what can you do you know, don't take more than eight aspirin a day. Like, I get it. And perhaps it's overly simplifying something, but I can also understand where people are coming from from that perspective when I.
- [145:14]
B
Explain, I explain this in town halls all the time and, and minds get changed because I, I, I, I'm just pointing out the reality. And, and I don't think everyone has thought about it that way. And so it's, look, being honest gets you in a lot of trouble. I've noticed. Like, that's why I suppose hated Congressman, because I just tell you, I'm going to tell you how it is. I haven't changed. The biggest, the biggest compliment I get from my, my team guy friends is like, wow, you haven't changed. You're still a jerk. Yeah, I have.
- [145:41]
A
Like your boys at 6.
- [145:42]
B
My boy's at 6 and ass.
- [145:44]
A
Never write that down again. Think that. Don't even, yeah, don't even think it.
- [145:49]
B
With me not even knowing about my friends. Would I say my friends? What do you want me to say?
- [145:54]
A
Just like, hey, I heard from some team guys.
- [145:56]
B
Okay, next time I will. Good. But yeah, I mean, that's next time.
- [146:01]
A
Get, that's the next time. Get his phone number. Not Instagram. We're not children.
- [146:05]
B
Well, I don't know what the difference. You see a big difference between Instagram and, and, and phone numbers, but I, I don't. And the reality is, like, I would have liked to had him just call me and reach out to me, but he never did.
- [146:16]
A
So, so, well, actually goes. Yeah, well, it goes to my final question for you because again, when this episode comes out, hopefully you guys are sitting down talking. What is, what's your hopeful end state at the end of that conversation? Like, if you could wave a magic wand and have the end state that you were looking for, what would it be?
- [146:34]
B
Buddies? Just like, just water on the bridge and move on. I don't need it. I got work to do. Like this, this, that's not my work, you know, so I'm going in there with just like, not, not going in there to fight him. This is not the goal. I'm going in there for truth. You know, like, we've, we've discussed a lot of things that have been said, and I've kind of, you know, had the chance to debunk a lot of them. We didn't even get to, like, some of the big ones, like McGetty, Gallagher. Jeez. But, like, I know he'll ask about a lot of that stuff and I want to. I want to be. I wanted the chance to debunk a lot of it on his platform, you know, So I just hope we just have a truthful conversation and I'm gonna bring everything he needs to see it so that he knows, like, okay, like this stuff just isn't true. Whether it's insider trading or this or that, whatever the accusation, the 12 year old girl, 10 year old girl, whatever, like none of it, it's just not true. And so I just hope for a civil conversation where we end up being like, all right, you know what? I think we understand each other a little bit better. That would be nice. It's unclear to me how they're thinking about it.
- [147:46]
A
Well, you can only control your aspect of the conversation, so who knows?
- [147:50]
B
Yeah, well, we will shortly.
- [147:53]
A
Yeah. What do you want to close out with? 3 hour remote episode.
- [147:59]
B
I want to close out with what my real job is. We've talked about a lot of it, about a lot of the policy issues again. I got a meeting tomorrow morning with Senator about health care issues. It's going after the cartels again. These slanderous lies about me in Mexico City. That really hurts my ability to do my actual job. My actual job is doing things for my district. What did I run on? I ran on two major things. One, flood mitigation. Because my district flooded like crazy after Hurricane Harvey, and that's right after Hurricane Harvey is when I ran. And I've been very successful in that, bringing about $200 million worth of federal funding for flood mitigation, not for crap projects. Like, that's another thing. Earmarks is another question. People have a lot. Earmarks are bad, right? It's like, yeah, they're bad if there's no guardrails and if you're using for just dumb crap, totally bad. But also they're the one way that we can help our district because that money's getting spent no matter what. So it's either spent by a bureaucra in Washington or it's spent by your congressman who actually knows what needs to be done. And I only spend that on infrastructure. Like if, you know, I will. I only. There's a process to it. Like you apply for certain projects, you work with local government. I'm like, hey, this is the project we want to do. In our case, flood mitigation. It's things like, honestly, just like clearing out a ditch a lot of times, which actually costs a lot of money. It's improving a road because that's like the Ford road project in my District. It's like the, it's one of three ways out of a flood prone area. So it needs to be better. That road needs to be widened and done better. It's big stuff like dredging Lake Houston. That costs a lot of money. We got that done. It's reinforcing the spillway of Lake Houston dam and then eventually getting gates put in it so you can let the water be released. I mean we can get into detail. That's my job. That's what I signed up for, you know, constituent services. God, we have an amazing constituent services office back in the district that does like, you know, we're basically your customer service representative for the federal government. So your VA claims, if you have FEMA claims, like, whatever, like we're there to help you with that. And we do a, that's like a huge part of what we actually do.
- [150:17]
A
Passports.
- [150:18]
B
A lot of people forget that their passport needs to be renewed before they go on a trip. And we've become really good at getting to emergency meetings and passports appointments down, down downtown Houston. So I mean the destructing, destroying the cartels, stopping flooding, you know, fixing health care, making sure that we're energy dominant. I mean, these, that's my real job. That's my real job. And I have been doing my real job and I have a lot more to do. And so, you know, that's, that's why I even keep running. Because there's a lot of, there's a lot of cons to doing this job right. I tell people, quick civics lesson, like till high schoolers, I'm like, you can get into if you want to be involved. Because I always get that question, how do I get more involved? And I say, well, depends on what you want to do and what kind of cost you're willing to bear. Because you get into policy. Policy, maybe work at a think tank, maybe you work for a congressman, maybe you stick to like, you stay out of the public eye. Yeah, you're not going to be as influential. It could be at some point, but you know, you're, you're avoiding the public eye or you can run for political office. And of course these two things are intertwined. But if you're in politics, politics, well now you're in the public eye and you're dealing with all the crap that I deal with while you're also trying to do your job. And there's a cost to that, but the benefit is you actually get a vote and you can actually do more of the job. I've listed a ton of different policy issues that really have nothing to do with each other. I couldn't do all that if I just went the policy route. I'd be. I'd be doing something very specific as an elected member or an elected official of anything that's. The benefit is you can actually affect more for the good of your constituents. And if your constituents feel like you haven't done that, then they can throw you right out every two years. We just got done with an election, but yet my next election is in two months. Like, just barely over two months. I mean, it's always right around the corner, so the opportunity to throw your. Throw your member out is always there for you.
- [152:25]
A
Is it true congressmen and senators spend about 60% of their time getting reelected?
- [152:30]
B
It's hard to put a number on that. That seems. I don't. That's way too much. But over the next couple months, I'm going to be forced to do a lot of just reelection stuff. So we're up in D.C. we're doing work. Work. It's kind of going. Coming up to D.C. is like. It feels like you're going on deployment. Like, our schedule is, like, insane. All day long, all night. Like, it's. It's. It's intense.
- [152:53]
A
Is it worth it to you still with the additional scrutiny?
- [152:56]
B
Well, for now, because. Because I'm able to do, like. I'm chairman of the Subcommittee on Intelligence Committee. I'm chairman of the Subcommittee for Defense Intelligence. That's a huge part of our entire, like, national security apparatus that I get to have a huge effect on and use my background to do it. So, yeah, that's worth it. Even though I take all this crap. I just passed a bill to stop federal funding for. For transgender Affirmation. Yeah, that's worth it. All the stuff I've done for Flooding. Yeah, that's worth it because it helps it save people's lives and property. You know, I can point to things that have saved people's lives and property. Yeah, I'm okay with that. Psychedelics. Legislation that will save lives. I mean. Well, you know what's interesting about the Sean Ryan thing is, like, he. He credits that with saving his life. The whole Abigail thing. I'm like, I wonder if he even knows that I'm the guy who pioneered it legally. Like, I don't even. I don't even knows that. We'll find out. I guess. So, Yeah. I mean, it's worth it. And, you know, the family issues is important to talk about. Morgan Luttrell, for instance. Marcus Stoll's twin brother. I was a big supporter of his and got help, you know, but, you know, he has three kids in school. He never gets to see him. So the reality is you're really, definitely not back home campaigning 60% of the time because we're here. Like, I wish I had a percentage for you because, I mean, I could show you my calendar, but, yeah, you know, maybe it's like 40% of the time.
- [154:22]
A
It's a common. Yeah, it's a common thing, but it's really.
- [154:25]
B
This job is not possible with young kids because you have to move them to DC if you're going to ever see them. And that's why Morgan's retired. Bring up Morgan, because I don't even have to. I never even had to ask him why he's, like, decided not to run again. I know why. It's because he's got three young kids. I have one daughter who's not in school yet, and she. I can travel with her. You know, I just take her with me so I get to see my family. When that's not the case anymore. Yeah, the calculation will change. That's why you don't see a lot of members who are young with kids. Like, you just. You're not seeing a lot of that. And that's. There's a good reason for it. In the past, everybody did move to D.C. like, in the past being, like, up until, like, the mid-90s. And for whatever reason, like, it just became this political liability. Even though the voters voted for you to work for them in D.C. the idea of you living in D.C. became impo. Just wrong. So, yeah, you definitely need to live in the district, otherwise voters hate you. Still, some members still move to D.C. very few again, and it's 100% because of their kids. You can't. You just won't see them. You just won't. Because even when you're not in D.C. well, you've got other things, too. There's events, there's. There's congressional delegations, especially on the Intelligence Committee. Like, we're supposed to be traveling a lot. I won't be traveling at all because my election's right around the corner. But then after that, I'll be traveling a ton. There's a lot of places I have to go for my job. You learn a lot about. Especially when it comes to intelligence, when you're actually on the ground talking to station, talking to whatever do dow entity is there. Actually, I'll be taking a trip very shortly to southcom for that reason. So I Am doing one more trip. So there's. So that. My point being is, if you look at my calendar, it might be 40% of the time in D.C. maybe. But in reality, it's not that at all. You're still at. Your home is like. Like a. Barely a percentage, it seems like. And, man, I'm one of the lucky ones. Like, I have four flights a day from D.C. to Houston, and I live 15 minutes from the airport, from both airports. Like, your Montana folks, like, they're always on a la. Who's your. Who's your. Who's your rep?
- [156:42]
A
She.
- [156:43]
B
Well, that's your senator, but who's your. You know, you only have two reps in Montana, so. Ryan. Ryan Zinke. Yeah. So you just. You just love seals. Like, that's why you wanted to be in Montana, because you wanted SEAL representation.
- [156:54]
A
I was here before them.
- [156:56]
B
They came for you. I don't think.
- [156:58]
A
I don't think what I just said is true. I'm just saying it.
- [157:01]
B
Yeah, well, it's either. There's only two congressmen in Montana.
- [157:04]
A
Yeah.
- [157:06]
B
So I don't even know where you live. What's your address? Can you say it on your podcast?
- [157:11]
A
Sure. It's P.O. box.
- [157:14]
B
Yeah. So, you know, they're definitely taking. Like, I don't even know what Zinke's like.
- [157:21]
A
Oh, I know what it is because I fly out of here all the time. You gotta Salt Lake. It's. Delta's the best choices. You're going Salt Lake or Minneapolis first, and then you're connecting through the hell.
- [157:29]
B
It's a connection. I mean, it's a lot like. But, you know, his kids are grown. Like, it's. It's. I see his wife here a lot. So, you know, it's sustainable for definitely your older members, for sure. Yeah, it's. It's very different. It's a very different life for your younger members. And a lot, you know, there's more and more young members. The other thing I'll say about training term, just so everyone knows, like, the. The average term is actually seven years. And in the House is a little higher in the Senate, but not by much. Seven years. And that was an old statistic. I'm willing to bet that if we did that new statistic now, it would be less just because we've seen mass retirements over the last couple years, new faces everywhere. So I would argue it's probably closer to five or six years. So, like, going back to the term limit, conversation like, don't worry, guys, the job kills you. There's very few that stay. And here's the other thing about it. What we notice when we talk to voters is they like their congressmen because they voted for them and they continue to vote for them. They just want everybody else's congressmen to be, to be thrown out. Well, what you're really saying is you want to disempower other people's ability to pick their member. You got to think about it that way because it's true. And I also point. Oh, and like, well, Nancy Pelosi's been there forever. Yeah, but who's going to replace her? By the way? It's San Francisco. You're going to get replaced. You're going to replace Nancy Pelosi with a, with a younger, crazier, like purple hair, purple haired person who identifies as a dolphin on Thursdays. Like that's who's going to replace Nancy for sure. Right. She is retiring maybe, actually. So it'll be.
- [159:05]
A
That's her choice though.
- [159:06]
B
Yeah, it could be an interesting choice.
- [159:08]
A
The stock tracking world is gonna, is up in arms. They don't know what to do with themselves because her tracker, stock tracker does well. And obviously at the end of 2026, that's the end of that.
- [159:18]
B
Yeah. I only had one time when it really did well and I would still get slandered with this. I'd be like, number like way down the list. And people are like, see Dan Crenshaw. I was like, I'm not even at this. Like, what the hell?
- [159:28]
A
I think you hit number five once.
- [159:30]
B
Yeah, yeah, once. It was like there was one time I was way up there again percentage wise because I was like, oh, okay, it's the market crash. I'll just buy at the dip in my mind. I'm like, I'm like one, it's legal. I have to report it. I'm saving for like this is for my family. And in the end I only put like 20,000 bucks in. Like that's literally what I invested it. Not maybe less. I have the numbers here somewhere. Anyway, we're going to go over that in more detail with Sean because that's what he's very interested in. But like I've had, I literally had my bank account statements pulled. And I'm like, I even had the, I just had it pulled because I got it in the mail. And I was like, huh? Is my appraisal value for my home in Houston? Well, it's not Houston technically. I live in Humble, but you know, the Houston, Greater Houston area, it's $407,000 for just so everyone knows that is what my house appraises for. It's $407,000. Okay, I. If I'm hiding a bunch of money, I don't know where it is.
- [160:28]
A
I just.
- [160:28]
B
I just don't. I just don't know where it is.
- [160:31]
A
Extended family, clearly. That's the clear.
- [160:33]
B
Yeah, well, you could easily look at them rich extended family either. Like. Yeah, I don't even have. That would make running for Congress a lot easier if I did. I didn't raise hardly any money. The fact that I'm even a congressman is a miracle. That's a whole other story.
- [160:51]
A
Well, it'll have to be a story for another time because I assume you probably have something to go pick up my daughter.
- [160:56]
B
Yeah, yeah. But this is important to me because it's you and you're my friend and, you know, I think we had a good conversation and three hours goes by quick.
- [161:04]
A
It does. I'm curious to see how it goes on Friday. I'll be watching the episode for sure. And I honestly, I hope. Well, I. I think that there's. I would like to believe that there's a better than not opportunity that you guys will find common ground. I mean, I have made the mistake so many times in my life of saying something or doing something based off of an assumption. And when I was confronted with that, it sucks. It sucks for everybody, right, Regardless of who you are. But, like, if you know better, you can do better. You know, that's what it comes down to.
- [161:35]
B
It's not a big deal to be like, okay, I got that one wrong. I've had to do that with like, you know, I got into fights with members or something, or yelling at 10 year olds. I don't. You know, anyway, threatening. The one thing you'll. The one. The one you'll. One thing you'll get me to say I regret is definitely the Tucker Carlson thing I do.
- [161:55]
A
As much as I hate people's lives, Dan, you shouldn't threaten people.
- [161:58]
B
That's not really a threat. It was more of a dumbass. It was just dumb.
- [162:01]
A
It was just dumb that he might have taken it as a legitimate threat. You are an ex Navy seal. Granted, you can't see for. But you're still dangerous.
- [162:09]
B
Perhaps I would still challenge you in shooting.
- [162:11]
A
To what?
- [162:13]
B
Well, because you can't beat me at it. Like, if we do like six SEAL plates, you can't beat me.
- [162:18]
A
Where are you getting that from?
- [162:19]
B
Well, because if you did beat me, I'd be like, wow, you'd be a Blind guy who shoots with his. Like I have to shoot with my left eye. I'm right eye dominant, so good job. And if I beat you, which is possible, it's not like I'm that bad of a shot, then I get to talk about. So it's really the winning. As you know, Andy, the winning is about the. The talking. And that's where I could. Because you can't. It's a win win for me.
- [162:44]
A
I would use the term right eye dominant in the past tense. I don't know what that looks like, but you need to start doing that.
- [162:50]
B
Clearly not my dominant eye, but I still shoot. I shoot rifle left handed. Yeah. And I shoot, but I still shoot my pistol right handed.
- [163:00]
A
Yeah. Because you can just drive it over to your partially functioning.
- [163:03]
B
So. But the, the. My big disadvantage on any pistol shooting is really just I can't front sight focus because this eye is super messed up. I mean, it's not really an eye. It's not like I lost an eye. I lost my vision. And then we barely saved my good eye. And so to see, you're blurry as hell right now because I can't see up close, which. And I can't focus because I don't have a lens. So. It's called aphakia. It's like when you get a cataract, except you can't really replace my cataract because it's trauma induced and it just screwed up all the tissue. So that's my one thing. I can't front side focus.
- [163:40]
A
Yeah, makes it tough.
- [163:42]
B
It's a little harder. But I don't know. You're probably really old too, so you probably can't front sight see anything either, so. Yeah, I don't know.
- [163:48]
A
I have surgically corrected vision. I was. I had.
- [163:52]
B
You don't need like reading glasses or anything?
- [163:54]
A
No, no. Due to my ability and superior, you know, technique and form as a seal, I didn't lose my vision.
- [164:00]
B
Well, then, see, you'll be in an advantage. So when I beat you, it'll be even more embarrassing for you. But if you beat me, I have to let you. You win. But if you beat me, good job. You beat the guy who can't even front side focus. Wow.
- [164:12]
A
I'll let you win so you feel good about yourself. I want to make another Trend video.
- [164:17]
B
I will come to Montana just to do that. All right. That would be fantastic. It would be good to honestly Montana.
- [164:23]
A
We'll do six plates at 50 yards and you can just blast them outside.
- [164:27]
B
Because you can't see 50 yards. What are we shooting with?
- [164:31]
A
Six shooter.
- [164:32]
B
Okay. Actually, you know, I mean, I have one of those. You know, it's fascinating how accurate they are. There's like the ergonomics of like. Yeah. Cowboy gun basically are fantastic. I'm like. I'm like amazed by how accurate I can be with one of those. It's. I have a.38 special. It takes 38 special rounds. It's just like a cowboy gun I just randomly got and it's like fun to shoot. And there's a reason that in the movies I think they were so good because those things are actually ridiculously accurate and easier to shoot than our modern semi automatic pistol. Would you agree?
- [165:07]
A
I would agree. And I stopped carrying a pistol anyway because you just.
- [165:12]
B
Yeah, you don't.
- [165:15]
A
I do. Here. Yeah. You get a ticket to Montana if you don't.
- [165:20]
B
I like that. I just, I just turned in all my paperwork to finally have my carry license in dc. It was a lot. In Texas you can do whatever, you know, it's constitutional. But things are getting a little bit hairy here. So it was definitely time to actually put in the work and get the license.
- [165:38]
A
Yeah, fair enough.
- [165:40]
B
My everyday would be a SIG365, in case you're wondering.
- [165:43]
A
Yeah, you have slightly smaller hands. That makes sense.
- [165:46]
B
All right. All right. Well, that's a great place.
- [165:50]
A
Yeah. Go pick up your daughter, man.
- [165:53]
B
All right.