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The Tucker Carlson Show
Anson Frericks: Bud Light’s Fall & Comeback Attempt, Zyn’s DEI Agenda, & Why Big Business Hates You
01:31:31
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- [00:01]
Tucker Carlson
It's tourney time and with FanDuel's Dog of the day you could get a daily profit boost during the college conference championships to bet on any underdog. So get ready to celebrate some upsets. No one saw that coming except for me, baby.
- [00:15]
Dan McLaughlin
21 plus in President select states opt.
- [00:17]
Tucker Carlson
In required minimum plus 100 eyes required bonus issued is non withdrawable profit boost tokens restriction supply including token expiration and max wager amount. See terms@sportsbook.fanduel.com gambling problem. Call 1-800-G GAMBLER so what happened to Anheuser Busch? Like what is. If you don't mind, since you've thought about this probably more than any living person, how exactly did a company, an American company like that that you felt like had a sense of the country that it served go off in a direction that was so obviously crazy and self destructive? Like how could that.
- [01:17]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah, you know Tucker, there's a short story to it and there's a long story. I mean I'll give you the short version, then we can get in the longer version of what happened. But you know, I mean the short version is this used to be a great American, you know company. This was owned by the Bush family. The Bush family had started this thing in the 1850s. You know, this is the same time you had the Carnegies, the Vanderbilts, the Rockefellers. You didn't have any of those folks still in the, I know 20 years ago. But the Bush family is actually still running an busch 20 years ago which is crazy. I think they actually have houses right around here as a matter of fact.
- [01:41]
Tucker Carlson
So I know them.
- [01:42]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah, you probably know them well. And so the short story, very nice people, very nice.
- [01:45]
Tucker Carlson
I'm not everyone in the family but some of the people.
- [01:48]
Dan McLaughlin
It's a big family.
- [01:49]
Tucker Carlson
One of the former presidents, great man.
- [01:51]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah, it's a, it's, it's a big family. So in, in long story short, I mean the company got so big and at some point it's owned SeaWorld, it owned Busch Gardens, it owned eight helicopters, 10 private jets and it got a little bit bloated. So it got taken over by this Belgian company, European company called InBev. InBev came in and bought it in 2008 and the culture's really changed. Whereas Anheuser Busch was all about growing the brands, understood the US consumer, Budweiser, Bud Light, all these things. InBev was, had a different mentality. They were much more of a. They called the world's largest private equity from the happen to sell beer A lot of cost cutting that went on brought a lot of European people into the United States, changed the headquarters from St. Louis, Missouri, which is almost the geographical center of the. Of the country.
- [02:27]
Tucker Carlson
And a wonderful town, wonderful town.
- [02:29]
Dan McLaughlin
And they moved it to New York City. And then when they moved it to New York City, what a wonderful town. Very, very different town, different mentality. And then all of a sudden they had bought a bunch of different beer companies. After buying Anhe Bush, they got group bought Group Modelo, scb Miller took on too much debt. All of a sudden, the company in 2017, you're saying a private equity firm.
- [02:45]
Tucker Carlson
Took on too much debt.
- [02:46]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah, wouldn't be the first time. So, you know, never happened before. Right, Never happened before. And I think the bigger problem was is that in 2018, 19, for a bunch of different reasons, the company to try and grow, they adopted a lot of the ESG DEI philosophies that we've heard a lot about. Stakeholder capitalism, which European concept that businesses are supposed to serve all types of purposes. That pops up. And then two or three years later, all of a sudden, the company has really changed. It changed from sort of a great American company based in the Midwest, based off meritocracy values. And then all of a sudden, in the kind of post Covid, post George Floyd era, Anheuser Bush, they start moving away from being a meritocracy, moving more towards diversity, equity, inclusion, moving more towards getting more involved in political issues. And unfortunately, with what happened with Dylan Mullaney and Bud Light, that was the product of maybe 10 years of mistakes. The. And now all of a sudden you have a company that's lost 50% of its sales of the biggest beer in America, Bud Light, and they still haven't turned it around. So that's the short story. Now we get to the longer story about maybe more broadly what happened.
- [03:45]
Tucker Carlson
Okay, so, I mean, you're describing so many American companies, by the way. Yeah, that, that trajectory downward. But at the end of the story, there was this revealing moment where Anheuser Busch executives or one of them basically just admitted, I hate our consumers. And you wonder, like, where does that mindset. I mean, people have all kinds of dumb ideas about business and dumb ideas about everything else. But if you're in the retail business, if you're selling products to consumers and you find yourself in a place where you're like, let's piss them off and humiliate them, like, that's so obviously insane. Like, how could that. How could anybody say something like that?
- [04:24]
Dan McLaughlin
No, totally insane. And I think let's back up because I mean really, I think this story starts almost 40 years beforehand where you really are starting to talk about what is the purpose of a corporation. Like what are businesses in the business of doing. And in the United states at the 1970s you had this sort of, this view of Milton Friedman. Milton Friedman, famous economist, said the purpose of a corporation was to serve its shareholders. The people actually own the business. How do you do that? Well, you focus on your customers, focus on creating great products and services. When you do that, you create, generate more revenue, you can hire more people and business continue to grow and do all the great things businesses do. There was this other philosophy that was more this European view of the world that says the purpose of a corporation is serve all stakeholders. That was served by Klaus Schwab. This is the World Economic Forum, Davos type of elite that over in Europe, what's a stakeholder? So that's the problem. There are thousands of stakeholders. You know, it's almost the idea of like when you have this shareholder capitalism model that Milton Friedman says you must have like one God. The God is the shareholder, that's who you have to take a look at. But this stakeholder capitalism model, you have thousands of gods. Those can be activists, government employees, they can be suppliers, they can be employee, they can be, they can be social activists. I mean, you name it, there's thousands of them.
- [05:31]
Tucker Carlson
Anyone that has nothing to do with.
- [05:33]
Dan McLaughlin
Your company, has nothing to do with the company. But you're supposed to be in the business of maximizing value for all so called stakeholders for the greater good of society. Sounds very European socialism. And that's effectively what it was. And both of these systems, they purported to do the same thing 40 years ago. They said we're going to make people more money and lead to better societal outcomes. Problem is over the last 40 years, I mean if you just take a look at sort of the US economic model versus Europe, since the 1970s, US has trounced Europe on both of those premises. If you take a look at our stock market returns in the US take an S&P 500. Over the last 40 years we've generated 10% a year on average. Europe broad based indices are like 6 to 7%. Put that in perspective. You had $100,000 invest in the U.S. in 1970 and 100,000 in Europe. In the U.S. would be worth 4 1/2 million dollars today. It'd be worth 1 1/2 million dollars in Europe. So that's a huge difference. Based on the Time, the compounding interest of money. And then separately, if you take a look at the U.S. you know, Europe might say, okay, well we didn't make as much money, but do we lead to better societal outcomes? And I would say no. I mean, if you take a look at the US Almost every broad based prosperity metric, GDP growth, per capita income, interest rates, unemployment rates, the US Trounces Europe on all of those. I mean, like our poorest countries in the United States are generally wealthier than most of the European countries on a per capita basis. And so over the last sort of 40 years, you kind of had these two systems that were developing. And the US model to me is just the superior model. I mean, I believe in American exceptionalism. I think our American model works. The problem is with the American model, every once in a while they're kind of bumps in the system, bumps in the road. And the last time we had kind of a real economic bump in the road, let's call it was 2008, 2009. You had sort of the great financial crisis that happens. And after the great financial crisis, there's sort of a lot of people that were upset that banks got bailed out. It seemed like Main street was the one that sort of, that lost out, people lost houses. And so all of a sudden business and capitalism kind of has to repair itself and repair its image. And the way that it did that is especially if you remember that Occupy Wall street movement. You know, Occupy Wall street and everyone else says, okay, well banks and financiers and companies, they need to be a bigger part of the system and making sure that everybody can succeed at the same time. Then you had Obama was the president and he came up with diversity, equity, inclusion mandates that were happening within sort of the broader base government. And for the next three or four or five years you see a lot of companies that are trying to repair the image of so called business and capitalism in the United States. McKinsey came out with a favorite famous study that says diversity wins, where they said we're going to have let's force sort of diversity initiatives on a lot of companies and those ones would do better. This study has been thoroughly debunked. You had a lot of asset management companies, the blackrock state streets vanguards of the world. They started really talking more about environmental, social, governance issues, which is a term that was coined in 2005. Really never went anywhere. The United nations originally coined it. If the United nations coins something, usually be skeptical of it didn't go anywhere for the first five or 10 years. But after the Occupy Wall street movement, a lot of big asset managers kind of picked up this term, started talking about environmental, social, governance issues. And really a lot of these picked up tons of steam when Trump was first elected. And when Trump was first elected and he pulled out of these supranational organizations, the Paris climate Accords, pulled out of the human rights sort of campaign coalitions, all of a sudden a lot of these more progressive institutions that said, wait a minute, we thought government was going to solve these existential crises of climate change and banking systems and systemic racism, and you kind of name it. Now all of a sudden they're not. And we need business to do this. And by the way, a lot of progressive pension funds, state of California, state of European sovereign wealth funds like Norway and others, they have collectively trillions of dollars of assets. And they said, okay, now if these, a lot of these banks that had all of a sudden started talking more about environmental, social, governance issues, we're going to manage money on our behalf. We wanted them to solve a lot of the existential crises in this country that Trump was not going to do in 2016. And at that time period, you had a really interesting thing that happened. We've been with BlackRock, quite the largest asset management company in the world, managed about over $10 trillion worth of capital. And what was interesting is BlackRock was really one of the leaders of this movement. Along with State street, Vanguard, those three largest asset managers in this entire country managed about $20 trillion worth of assets. They're the single largest shareholder in 95% of the S&P 500. And they wield a lot of influence in terms of telling companies kind of what to do. And the problem with a lot of these big asset managers is that it's not their own money that they're managing. You know, this is like George Soros type money, or, you know, Bill Gates, like it's their own money. And they, you know, ask companies do all types of crazy things. But the problem was with BlackRock, State street and Vanguard is they were managing, I mean, a lot of times, like your money, my money, through 401ks or pension funds or others. And because of their largest sort of clients, which again, are more the progressive pension funds and others are telling them that they want business to get more involved in politics and social issues. Then all of a sudden they're starting to force a new agenda on corporations, telling companies that, we want you guys to get more involved in environmental, social and governance issues. And they even changed the purpose of A corporation in the 2018, 2019 time period. There was a famous letter that Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock, wrote in 2018, essentially telling companies that we want them to now earn their social license. And you're going to do that because we have evolved the purpose of a corporation with a group known as the Business Roundtable in the United States to be more focused on your stakeholders. So you're no longer focused on shareholders. We want you to focus on stakeholders. And that is now who you are now going to focus on for maximizing value without defining again who those stakeholders are. And so this becomes very, very problematic in this sort of 2018, 2019 timeframe because companies are frankly confused. And it set up really a lot of, I'll call it kindling for an event that happened in 2020, which was Covid. And all of a sudden companies are being told they need to earn their social license. They're being told that now no longer shareholders, your kind of primary person that you're serving, but you're now serving all stakeholders without defining what that is. And in the 2020 time period, now all of a sudden you have this event of COVID And when Covid happens musical, this crazy time period, we don't need to go through all of it. But companies frankly, like lost their sense of direction about who were they serving, what their mission is. You remember, we all had to flatten the curve and the so called flatten the curve in early 2020. And companies were essentially, except for the.
- [11:53]
Tucker Carlson
George Floyd rioters who. Well, we're under no such obligation, I notice.
- [11:57]
Dan McLaughlin
Correct. But you know, that's obviously after the. After this. But you know, in March of 2020, I mean, almost every company lost what its mission was. And what do I mean by that? Well, let's, let's go back to what at Anheuser Busch, we were making hand sanitizer in 2020 all of a sudden, because we need to flatten this curve. And we're all in this existential crisis of COVID You had Delta Airlines no longer flying passengers, was now flying medical supplies all around. You had General Motors, which is now making ventilators for, for the country, Walmart setting up facilities. So all of these companies all of a sudden were told to focus on a lot of different initiatives besides just their typical products and services. And frankly, a lot of these efforts, you think about the curve was flattened very quickly. There was no real existential crisis like we thought there was. But the problem was that since all these companies had kind of been pushed off their mission. Then we had this next issue which was the George Floyd issue that pops up in May of 2020 and George Floyd dies. And now so the next existential crisis that every single company in the United States is looking to sol systemic racism because their largest so called shareholders in the blackrock state streets vanguards of the world who had told them that now we want you focused on solving more of these stakeholder and societal issues. We need you to now solve these issues. I mean you went down the list. I mean it was crazy. After George Floyd was, was murdered, you had 70 different companies in the United States here donated over $200 billion to Black Lives Matter in the United States. That's like more than the GDP of Portugal, which is crazy in terms of the amount of money that was donated to these causes. And banking donations just wasn't enough. Even you know, Zuckerberg at Facebook at the time donated some eight figure sum to it. But then when that summer Trump had the famous tweet about when the looting starts, the shooting starts, then everybody wanted him to now all of a sudden take Trump off of Facebook because it just wasn't enough just to donate. You actually had to silence folks as well. On top of that, in 2020, 20, 2020 21, you had the Blackrocks and State streets vanguards, the world as well. Not only are they, this is where the, where the big problem comes in is because they are control the largest percentage of companies in the United States, they have disproportionate power to advocate for policies at companies and then most importantly to vote for shareholder proposals at companies where if you own $25,000 of stock in any company in the United States, you can put up what's known as a shareholder proposal that the so called shareholders of the company, they can vote on. And what was crazy is in 2020, 2021 you had a lot of these activists that, because the purpose of this corporation had changed in the United States away from shareholder value to this European stakeholder model, said okay, now businesses again, they have to maximize value for me. So you saw there's a group called Color of Change and they're, they're, it's a nonprofit group and their mission is to stamp out systemic racism in the country. You know, okay, fine, like you know, you can do that, you're whatever. But like they went to Apple, they bought $25,000 of the shares at Apple, you know, and they put up this shareholder proposal that said, hey you Apple, we want you guys to do a racial equity audit to figure out how you've contributed to systemic racism and white supremacy in the country. And Apple, which is, you know, pretty liberal, leftist board, you know, company Tim Cook is a CEO and very liberal board. They said, guys like, thanks, but no thanks, because Apple's mission is to make magical devices at unbelievable prices. Like, that's what we just do. You know, that's our thing. Like, these are important issues. But we're going to recommend against this proposal because we don't want to spend tens of millions of dollars hiding hiring, you know, Eric Holder and Loretta lynch to go and do a racial equity audit. But this passed by 52 to 48% because you had firms like BlackRock, which is the second largest shareholder of the company, voted for it. You know, Vanguard, State street, everyone else are voting for these issues, enforcing corporate America to now get involved in social and political issues. And this went the same thing for election integrity law issues that people were asking companies to get involved in. Defund the police initiatives, help PETA people for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. They put up a proposal, tell Starbucks we don't use cow milk anymore because we don't think you should use cow milk at Starbucks. I mean, it's crazy, all these proposals that popped up in this post. In this post, sort of COVID George Floyd era. And companies were essentially forced by these large asset managers to get involved in a lot of political and social issues. So that was for the backdrop.
- [16:12]
Tucker Carlson
So can I just give you my theory on this?
- [16:14]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah.
- [16:15]
Tucker Carlson
Here there's a. There's a backdrop to all of this, which is the movement of the economic center of gravity upward in the United States. So Obama becomes President 2008. Middle class is the majority in the United States. He leaves in 2016. The middle class is no longer the majority for the first time, maybe ever. And at the same time, we've got free money, we're down to zero interest rates, and that money is being pumped way disproportionately into a certain sector of the economy, the banking sector. And so basically, most people are getting poorer, but a small number of people are getting way richer. I mean, it's measurable. I live among them. Everyone's got a plane now. That was not true in 2008. There just created a lot of wealth. The Fed created a lot of wealth. And so in a certain sense that's like immoral or it's certainly hard to defend. And so rather than defend it, it wasn't the companies that wanted this stuff. It was the debt holders, it was the finance people who wanted it. Because it was a cover for what they were doing, which is getting really rich. Larry Fink got super, super rich. A lot of like manufacturing concerns, family businesses went under or did not get rich at the same scale. And so you just like throw out like race war, you know, hate people because of their, you know, whatever immutable characteristics. Hey, let's throw the trans stuff in there too, by the way. We're all going to die from global warming. You basically just freak everybody out, throw the entire society off balance so they don't notice the looting.
- [17:42]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah, I mean, that's essentially, that's my view. But it is, it's all about, it's control and money. I mean, it's control and it's money. I mean you think about.
- [17:49]
Tucker Carlson
But all these socialist issues were always a cover for what was actually going on, which is like Larry Fink getting richer 100%.
- [17:55]
Dan McLaughlin
And it's so funny. So when he started talking a lot about ESG, environmental, social, governments in 2018, 2019, all of a sudden they started a scoring system. It's almost like a social credit system you'd have in China or somewhere else. Scoring companies on how little carbon that they used, or scoring companies on did they do gender affirmation, care for their employees. And these scores were used to essentially, you know, pick and choose companies that could be included in indices that Larry Fink and BlackRock and others, they could charge investors three to four times the amount of money for these ESG funds versus the regular funds. And the funny thing was these ESG funds underperformed their broad based counterparts. So you ended up paid less money but you were charged more for doing it, which is crazy. And you know, it's really funny that.
- [18:40]
Tucker Carlson
So do you think it would, since you studied this much more than I have, do you think it would be a mistake to think that there was any sincerity behind this? Like, do you think there was ever a moment where like Larry Finker, for that matter, Tim Cook or anybody at State street or Vanguard thought, you know, we're going to solve systemic racism by attacking the white working class, like we're actually going to solve this problem? Do you think they really thought that?
- [19:00]
Dan McLaughlin
I mean, there might have been one or two people there, they're just, you know. But no, I mean, I don't really think, I think this was all just sort of a money grab and a feel good and being able to go to the right parties in New York City.
- [19:09]
Tucker Carlson
That's the way it seems to me. But you know, I mean, it really.
- [19:11]
Dan McLaughlin
Is because it just doesn't, doesn't pass any of the first principle test whatsoever. And you know, it's funny, the, the companies that were the, the worst man, this tend to be more of a, of a New York City, you know, kind of ideology, also a European ideology as well. I mean there is some sincerity to it. I mean this is, this is funny. You'll appreciate this because I think the, where we're going with all of this because you've seen obviously retreat with a lot of companies have backed away from DEI over the last couple of months. There's other companies that are holding on to some vestige of it, but there's others that are like really all in on diversity, equal inclusion to this day. You're going to love this. And the worst of the Europeans because they really, I think believe in this sort of European stakeholder capitalist model. So you have, I'll give you a plug for ALP right now. So if you talk about one of the worst companies that's out there, America's.
- [19:59]
Tucker Carlson
Greatest nicotine pouch, America's lip pillow.
- [20:01]
Dan McLaughlin
But who is your biggest competitor?
- [20:04]
Tucker Carlson
That would be the Zinn Corporation.
- [20:06]
Dan McLaughlin
Zinn. Do you know who owns Zinn?
- [20:07]
Tucker Carlson
I do.
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Dan McLaughlin
So it's Philip Morris International.
- [20:10]
Tucker Carlson
Yep.
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Dan McLaughlin
They are operationally headquartered in Switzerland. On their website to this day. I mean, you go to their website today, they have a massive diversity equity inclusion piece that is on their website they have the, and I would say it's the, the, I'll call it the, the worst aspects of di. Which can be quota systems, race based systems. And on their website today they say we're going to hire 20% of our people. We want to be Asian. Put it on their website. Just 20%. They want 40% women. I mean literally, quota systems they have on their website today, it should be.
- [20:40]
Tucker Carlson
100% African, by the way, if they're really going to make a dent. But they're racist, so they wouldn't do that.
- [20:44]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah. So I mean, but the other piece is that on their website this is a company that makes Marlboro cigarettes and Zinn and other things is. So they are like one of their big, one of their big partners for Pride month that's coming up is the Stonewall Org. And Stonewall. Org is one of these LGBTQ+ organizations. And you know, fine, you can do that. But like they are advocating for biological men to compete against women in sports. They're.
- [21:08]
Tucker Carlson
Zinn is all in on the gay thing.
- [21:10]
Dan McLaughlin
I mean, but like this is what's crazy is that like. And I think this is the problem about where we're going is what does.
- [21:15]
Tucker Carlson
That have to keep that out of my mouth. I mean, this is like, come on.
- [21:18]
Dan McLaughlin
So. But like, this is the problem of, I think like where you're seeing trying to serve multiple masters. I'm not making this up. You can literally go on their website, literally today and see all of this. And I think this is the problem we're seeing is that you have these more like European based companies that I think might sincerely probably believe a lot of this. Or the European mindset, which is very distinct from sort of the American capitalist.
- [21:37]
Tucker Carlson
Model crippled by war guilt, bent on suicide. Yes.
- [21:40]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah. And I mean, at least here in the United States and others, we have a democracy. We can throw people out if we don't like them. But corporations, I mean, they're transnational organizations.
- [21:48]
Tucker Carlson
They operated with an emphasis on the trans.
- [21:51]
Dan McLaughlin
With an emphasis on that. But they go across borders. And if you are sort of operation philosophically sort of a European based company, but you have operations in another country and you're imposing those values in another country, I think that's problematic.
- [22:06]
Tucker Carlson
You probably have no idea where your meat comes from. You probably should. The likelihood is that the meat you're eating passed through a massive industrial processing plant, probably owned by a foreign corporation. Foreign meat. Did you sign up for that? We don't think you did. So you probably have no idea of knowing where the animal grew up, what that animal ate, or what chemicals big food pumped into that animal to increase profits. That's all kept secret, meaning you can never really know what you're putting in your mouth and in your body. That's disgusting if you think about it. And it's easy to fix. Meriwether Farms, a farm owned by friends of ours, is a great option. We use their meat. We eat their meat for every meal. Unlike corporate farmers, Meriwether Farms controls the entire thing. From the pasture the cattle graze on to the facility where the beef is packaged. In Wyoming and across the mountain west, the cattle rage without hormones, without antibiotics or any other additive. Clean American beef you can trust every single time. And they will ship it straight to your door. Go to merriweatherfarms.com Tucker use the code tucker2025 for 10% off your first order. You can also save at a monthly subscription if you sign up today. That's meriwetherfarms.com Tucker. We eat it and vouch for Don Jr here.
- [23:24]
Dan McLaughlin
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- [23:44]
Tucker Carlson
Solve your tax problems today.
- [23:46]
Dan McLaughlin
Call 1-800-780-8888 or visit tnusa.com that's 1-800-780-888.
- [23:53]
Roger Marshall
Tucker says it best. The credit card companies are ripping Americans off, and enough is enough. This is Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas. Our legislation, the Credit Card Competition act, would help end the Grip Visa and MasterCard have on us. Every time you use your credit card, they charge you a hidden fee called a swipe fee, and they've been raising it without even telling you. This hurts consumers and every small business owner. In fact, American families are paying $1,100 in hidden sweeps white fees each year. The Fees Visa and MasterCard charge Americans are the highest in the world. Double Canadas and eight times more than Europe's. That's why I've taken action. But I need your help to help get this passed. I'm asking you to call your senator today and demand they pass the Credit Card Competition act, paid for by the.
- [24:46]
Dan McLaughlin
Merchants Payments Coalition, not authorized by any.
- [24:48]
Tucker Carlson
Candidate or candidates committee. Www.merrestancespaymentscoalition.com it does feel like one of these. Like, in 10 years, we're gonna look back and be like, you know, they were major consumer products companies that felt empowered to talk about your sex life and the sex lives of your children.
- [25:04]
Dan McLaughlin
I agree.
- [25:04]
Tucker Carlson
Back off with the gay stuff, by the way. Just stop. No one hates gays. Like, stop that. Stop that. Get out of my face with that stuff.
- [25:11]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah. Like, I don't care how people dress. I don't care.
- [25:13]
Tucker Carlson
Sick of it, actually. But, like, it's just insane that, like, nicotine pouch company would be lecturing me about people's sex lives. Like, stop.
- [25:21]
Dan McLaughlin
I agree. And this is the other thing about, like, authentic. Authentically, what is a. Whatever. Nicotine pout. Cigarette company, Marble. Like, what are they doing working with organizations? I mean, another thing is Stonewall is like, hey, we want to do youth sex education if we're lgbt.
- [25:36]
Tucker Carlson
How about I get my gun when you do that? Like, stay away from my kids. How's that again?
- [25:40]
Dan McLaughlin
Just stand.
- [25:40]
Tucker Carlson
I don't understand that. Like, why any society we put up with it, why Zen would pay for it, right? And it's not. And of course, it's not just Philip Morris International. It's like so many of these companies.
- [25:48]
Dan McLaughlin
No, it is. And like, here's the other thing. It's like, I don't want Philip Morris to the others. I don't want them advocating for the Second Amendment either. It's like, you're a cigarette company. Just do that. Yeah, just, just do that.
- [25:55]
Tucker Carlson
They don't even sell cigarettes. Well, they don't even believe in what they do.
- [25:58]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah. So I, I, I think where, what's interesting about where we're going is that you're going to have sort of these companies. You're seeing the same with China. I mean, why, why is TikTok being asked to be sold in the United States? Well, because it's technically owned by Chinese company and the Chinese values. They're collecting data and information that's not going to work for the United States. So they might need to sell it.
- [26:17]
Tucker Carlson
That's not why. So they got involved in some, you know, they were considered a vector for unapproved foreign policy positions, and that's why the Congress did that. And they pretended it was about collecting data. These are, you know, people who are all in on, you know, warrantless searches of Americans and spying on Americans, and they have no problem with violating your civil liberties at all. They don't think you have civil liberties. But they, they were under pressure to ban TikTok because it was considered radicalizing in ways that, that their donors wouldn't accept. So that's the truth. Sorry, got it.
- [26:54]
Dan McLaughlin
Well, you know, it's, so it's never what they say.
- [26:56]
Tucker Carlson
It is never what they say.
- [26:57]
Dan McLaughlin
But, but I think the, the broader piece is, though, is that whether it's TikTok, whether it's, you know, Zinn in the United States, whether, or Anheuser Busch, which used to be American owned, I think you're gonna have a lot of these companies need to have choices about what they're gonna make moving forward. If I think it'd be very difficult to operate in the US if the US Is leaning more in towards these radical ideas of free speech and religion and open dialogue and, and those things. Whereas we've always kind of been a city on the Hill in the United States, we've always been this exceptional difference.
- [27:24]
Tucker Carlson
Now more than ever, really.
- [27:25]
Dan McLaughlin
Probably now more than ever. I mean, we're almost more isolated than probably we've ever been. I think that's the last four or five years. Yes, we were going more towards this quasi European socialism, government intervention and free speech and everything else. And we have now rejected that as a country. But I think what's difficult is that yes, we've rejected it politically. But again, corporately there's all these tethers from around the world because of the effects of globalization over the last 20 years that you have a lot of these companies that, that frankly might not hold sort of those same American values. Yes, talk Philip Morris, you know, Anheuser Busch, InBev based in Europe. In Europe they have quota systems or how many board members have to look this way or be that way over in Europe. And one of the reasons that I think again going back to the original question, like how did this happen in the United States where like Bud Light, the biggest beer brand in the United States, how do they have a partnership with Dylan Mulvaney? Well, they I think have a lot of these European type values now. Diversity, equity, inclusion.
- [28:17]
Tucker Carlson
I'm so grateful for that scandal, for the effects on the company of that scandal and for your writing this book because. And for what you just told me. Because I think most Americans, I'll put my, I'll say myself, I have no idea. Like you know, you just use Crest toothpaste. You have no idea what they're sending money to. I use Zinn for years I finally realized it was a left wing company. I didn't get that at first but most Americans just don't know what's happening to their money.
- [28:42]
Dan McLaughlin
No, they don't. And then really I think the eye opening moment even for me where how companies have been co opt is I don't know if you meant to have the Black Rifle Coffee company cup on your.
- [28:51]
Tucker Carlson
Yeah, yeah. I love Evan.
- [28:53]
Dan McLaughlin
So yeah. So I mean you'll appreciate this story. And I write about this in, in my book Last Call for Bud Light. But one of the opening chapters I have is so I was president of Anheuser Busch in the US and I tried to do a distribution agreement with Black Rifle Coffee company because a lot of times the same people that were drinking a six pack Bud Light, you know, Budweiser at night were drinking six Black Rifle coffees in the morning. And so we were going to put the Black Rifle coffee, their, their kind of 16 ounce drinks on the same trucks that carry Bud and Bud Light to Walmart, Kroger and 7 11, this whole deal. And we were going to make a bunch of money on ship and our legal team which was now based in New York City and our external affairs team based in New York City, this is in, this is in 2021 killed the deal, said you can't do it. I was like, what do you mean? Like, here's all the financials. This makes tons of sense. Like, this is a great company. They're growing like gangbusters. I said, can't do it. Company's too controversial. I was like, what do you mean controversial? I was like, you know, the company, like, their mission is to serve coffee and culture to firefighters, police officers, law enforcement, people who love them.
- [29:50]
Tucker Carlson
And the coffee drop, just in point of fact, is excellent. Yeah. Great content every day. It's great.
- [29:55]
Dan McLaughlin
This, this is my thing. I mean, you know, this is, that's, that's their mission. That's what they do. And you know, Budweiser, we had partnerships with Folds of Honor and other military, but in 2021, because of the whole DEI movement, which said, like, ooh, you know, they fund the police and like, you know, defund the police was a big thing, you know, kind of going on at the time. And, ooh, military, you know, I don't know about that. That seems a little bit too controversial. I'm like, guys, like, we sell like, like King Cobra 40 ounce bottles, you know, like all over the place.
- [30:21]
Tucker Carlson
Like America's favorite malt liquor, you know.
- [30:24]
Dan McLaughlin
Like, what are we talking about?
- [30:25]
Tucker Carlson
You guys make Old English 800?
- [30:26]
Dan McLaughlin
No, we didn't make Old English 800.
- [30:28]
Tucker Carlson
No, that was a brand. I drank that as a kid.
- [30:30]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah.
- [30:30]
Tucker Carlson
That's one of the reasons I no longer drink.
- [30:31]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah. Did you ever do like the Edward 40 hands with that one?
- [30:34]
Tucker Carlson
No, no, that was a.
- [30:36]
Dan McLaughlin
Did you miss the Edward for. I did.
- [30:37]
Tucker Carlson
And it just, you know, everyone beats up on kids for being dumb, but actually the newer generations are way more brilliant than we ever were. Edward 40 Hands is like the funniest thing that ever happened.
- [30:46]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah, Edward forty Hands was amazing. Amazing.
- [30:47]
Tucker Carlson
So duct tape. I'm against drinking. I don't know why I'm laughing. I don't drink. I hate alcohol. But that is hilarious. Duct tape. 240 ounce malt liquors to kids hands.
- [30:59]
Dan McLaughlin
That's it. You know, you couldn't, you couldn't untape them until you, until you finish both of them.
- [31:03]
Tucker Carlson
So I feel guilty for laughing.
- [31:05]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah, there were too many bad stories. Like, you know, someone gets a one or half of them. Like, you know, you're rumbling around and you fall and it's like, you know, you get glass over. But anyway, so. No, not, not oe. There were other ones. Sorry, sorry for the digression, but I can't remember where we were going with that.
- [31:20]
Tucker Carlson
Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.
- [31:21]
Dan McLaughlin
No, we were talking black rifle and. Yeah. So the deal gets killed and that exact same. Because it was too controversial of a brand. Yet a year later, that exact same department, based in New York City now that killed the Black Rifle coffee deal. They greenlit the Dylan Mulvaney partnership. And the Dylan Mulvaney partnership, like, it was incredibly puzzling if you're a Bud Light drinker. And, you know, again, like, man, I don't care how people identify or what they want to do with their. But, like, one of the reasons that Bud Light became the biggest, most popular beer brand in the United States is because it was remarkably apolitical. Like, it was a brand that was enjoyed by Democrats, Republicans alike, because it was about, like, fun and it was humor. It was sort of this, like, you know, somewhat, you know, countercultural, you know, type of brand. It was about sports and music and, you know, backyard barbecues. And all of a sudden, the Bud Light had just hired its first, you know, female head of Bud Light in the history of the brand. You know, no problem with that. I. You know, I'm sure to be. There are a lot of. There are a lot of people that. A lot of girls I know, they'd be great. VP of Marketers of Bud Light. The problem with it was the person they hired was a lady who had grown up in New York City, went to Harvard for undergrad, Wharton for grad school, had only lived in basically the Northeast her entire life. I don't know if she'd ever drank a Bud Light in her life, and I don't know if she ever knew anybody who had as well. And she was very.
- [32:33]
Tucker Carlson
Why would she make her the head of the brand?
- [32:35]
Dan McLaughlin
Well, because the DI movement basically said that you need to essentially put different people in different roles. Yeah. Based off immutable characteristics. And even the 21, 22 times.
- [32:44]
Tucker Carlson
What was her name?
- [32:45]
Dan McLaughlin
Alyssa Heiner Schneider. And I know Alyssa. I mean, this Alyssa, she's, you know, nice girl. And. And I worked with her when I was at the company for a while, but she probably wasn't the right person for. For Bud Light.
- [32:55]
Tucker Carlson
But, yeah, probably she was.
- [32:57]
Dan McLaughlin
She obviously wasn't the right person. Almost 50%. So obviously wasn't the. Was the right person for the. For the. The company. But in this broader kind of narrative, in 2120. 2120 2, this is when I was deciding to kind of like, leave Anheuser Busch. I'd mentioned the. The black rifle final sort of last straw for me. But even before that, the principles. The company changed. My joint was a meritocracy. It was like, we want to hire the best and brightest. And we want to reward them based off their results and you know, pay them accordingly. Great. But in 21, 22, all of a sudden that principle, there were 10 principles of the company that went around really high in the best price changed towards. We now reward people based off the quality and diversity which was bolded by the company and diversity of your teams. And then all of a sudden the company starts putting in these, you know, diversity dashboards. We can see what the diversity makeup of your, of your team.
- [33:48]
Tucker Carlson
White men did a pretty good job making beer. I think whatever you say about white men, like they created the company, they made the beer. Like what? Why we hate them all of a sudden.
- [33:56]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah.
- [33:56]
Tucker Carlson
Created Budweiser.
- [33:57]
Dan McLaughlin
Well, I think it was just more so that the head scratching piece of like, you know, it doesn't matter if you're again, like white or black or gay. Like don't care. I just want the best people.
- [34:05]
Tucker Carlson
Right. But the, you know, the only people discriminate against in DEI are white men. Obviously straight white men. So like, like, I don't understand.
- [34:12]
Dan McLaughlin
There are probably some Asians in there too, so.
- [34:14]
Tucker Carlson
Well, they definitely have.
- [34:16]
Dan McLaughlin
Well, they have been a lot of Indians and a lot of other folks as well.
- [34:18]
Tucker Carlson
100% Asian, South Asians. But the point of it was to reduce the percentage of white men in positions of leadership or with paying jobs. And I just, I felt like nobody had the balls to say that out loud. Like that was considered controversial.
- [34:32]
Dan McLaughlin
You would get fired if you said that out loud. This was in the 21, 2022 time frame. But that's the problem with where we were. I mean, you remember this is a censorship regime. I mean, heck, you had the Biden administration. Ye. So thank God.
- [34:47]
Tucker Carlson
But no, yes, I did get fired. So actually it's kind of.
- [34:50]
Dan McLaughlin
So you remember this?
- [34:50]
Tucker Carlson
I mean, I do, yeah, I guess I do.
- [34:52]
Dan McLaughlin
More, more so than anybody. But yeah, I mean you, you couldn't speak up during this time frame and that was the problem. And, and then at the same time you had all these companies that made all these pledges. I mean the chief diversity officers, like this really wasn't even a position before 2020.
- [35:06]
Tucker Carlson
Chief diversity. What do you make? I make diversity.
- [35:09]
Dan McLaughlin
Well, I mean, but this is crazy. Like, you know, and then all of a sudden there was like a 400% increase in chief diversity officer position. Six figure salary positions, all the executives.
- [35:18]
Tucker Carlson
What do you do if you're a diversity officer?
- [35:19]
Dan McLaughlin
This is the problem. You find things to do and this was the problem. So the first thing was the whole pronoun police comes in. Well, let's be more inclusive. All the pronoun piece. And then, hey, let's put in quota systems that we're going to put in place. So we hire a certain number of people with this immutable characteristic or that a characteristic.
- [35:33]
Tucker Carlson
Did everyone buy into the pronoun thing? Did anyone say, I'm not doing that?
- [35:36]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah, a lot of people did, but this is the problem as well. A lot of people just went along with it because they felt if you didn't, then you could be called out by your HR team.
- [35:44]
Tucker Carlson
Cowards.
- [35:45]
Dan McLaughlin
And I think that's what's part of the problem now. What's nice is that I think people have the ability to see. I'm not going to do that. But three years ago you couldn't. Three years ago was.
- [35:52]
Tucker Carlson
The whole thing is designed to degrade you.
- [35:54]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah. And the point.
- [35:55]
Tucker Carlson
What are you really saying, by the way? If when you announce your pronouns, what you're saying is it's not evident to people watching what your sex is. Yeah. Like you're pat or something from Saturday Night Live. Like, you may not know this, but I'm a man. Like, you can't tell by looking at me, but I'm actually a man. It's like the most degrading thing I can imagine.
- [36:13]
Dan McLaughlin
I. I completely agree. And I don't know. And if you're unsure, just ask. How are you doing? That's it. You don't have to use a pronoun if you're unsure. But I think for 99% of the time, you're pretty sure. And that's the problem. It's forcing these sort of agenda on. 99% of the population says, wait a minute, what is this? The people who work there.
- [36:29]
Tucker Carlson
I mean, now I'm being mean, but I've lived it, so I feel it. There were so few noble, honest, brave people in American corporate culture that I was shocked. I was shocked by what sheep they were. You'd think at least 20% and be like, buzz off. I'm not giving you my. That's disgusting. This is insane. And by the way, you're discriminating against white men, which is illegal and immoral. And we've got this monument on the mall from Martin Luther King telling us, you can't do that, but you're doing it anyway in his name. You know, why don't you go screw yourself? Actually, yeah, I don't think anybody said that.
- [37:01]
Dan McLaughlin
There were a couple brave people.
- [37:03]
Tucker Carlson
Disappointing.
- [37:04]
Dan McLaughlin
But the brave people who stuck their neck out. I mean, they were eviscerated in the media. The first guy actually was Brian Armstrong. Armstrong, he was the CEO of Coinbase. I don't know if remember very well, and this is at the end of 2020, I mean, right after all the BLM and everything. And Brian Armstrong said, listen, like, I'm not going to tithe to the BLM movement. I'm not going to make a statement that we're in support of blm. I'm not going to do that either, he said, because the mission of our company, Coinbase, is to bring crypto to the masses. That's what we're doing. And if there's something related to crypto regulation or policy, sure, we'll have a view on that. But am I going to have a view on climate change or. Or BLM issues or transgender policy? No, I'm not. And by the way, if you, as an employee don't, don't want to be here, then go work somewhere else. And I think they had, I don't know, 50 employees or something, walked out. But then he had 5,000 people that applied to work there. Oh, yeah, but in the media, though, he was called bigoted and he was called racist and he was called, you name it all in the media because of him just having a view that says, I'm just not going to do this because that's not important to the company. And if I want people to come here and work for our mission, not necessarily for all these orthogonal things that have nothing to do with we go to the masses.
- [38:10]
Tucker Carlson
It's funny how much just telling the story would. I mean, of course I remember when it happened. I defended him when it happened. But it seems like you're talking about a different country. Like, things have changed so much.
- [38:19]
Dan McLaughlin
So much.
- [38:20]
Tucker Carlson
Is that. That's my perception. Is it yours?
- [38:23]
Dan McLaughlin
It is. Things. Things have definitely swung back, but as I mentioned earlier, it's almost as if we're going into, I would say it's almost three camps with the purpose of business in this country. And in business, getting involved in social, political, ESGDI topics, you have the people that have backed off because they've said, you know what, getting involved in a lot of these political and social. It wasn't good for my company from the stock standpoint. And it wasn't because I lost money or divided my customer base. And it wasn't really good for the country either. You've seen meta and, and McDonald's and Walmart and Apple or not Apple, sorry, Google. A lot of people have rolled back a lot of those policies. You have a second group of companies that are trying to kind of rebrand the whole sort of DEI narrative. They haven't realized it's become a pejorative term to the majority of Americans. They're calling it inclusivity. Inclusivity and belonging or I don't know, all these other words they're trying to mash together. I would put probably more the JP Morgan's and I don't know those folks in that boat. But then you have the real adherence. And these are the people that Philip Morris internationals even today. I mean, Anheuser Busch InBev on their website for the UK, big DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion piece. Because I think you do have these real adherence. And then even certain companies in the United States, I mean, Costco is doubling down big time. I think partly because they're based in Seattle and because I think Costco, Costco has doubled down big time.
- [39:39]
Tucker Carlson
That's like a warehouse store where you buy stuff by the pallet kind of thing.
- [39:42]
Dan McLaughlin
That's it. That place has doubled down massively. Talking about that, we're going to continue to have quota systems about who we actually give preferential treatment to to who gets their products in store based off race or sex or gender.
- [39:51]
Tucker Carlson
Seriously?
- [39:52]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah, they've been doubling down on this. So they're one of the companies that has kind of dug their heels.
- [39:55]
Tucker Carlson
I hope they go out of business soon.
- [39:57]
Dan McLaughlin
So. But it's really interesting. So I, and the way that I think about, I think the companies that have just moved on, I think we need to get some more to. I'll go back to a corporate pluralism of whatever your mission is as a company, just do that. And however you need to recruit people, you know, the best and brightest to your industry, figure out how to do that. I would say probably move on from the dei.
- [40:17]
Tucker Carlson
Yeah. And I, and I don't think we can say that the United States has civil rights law at that point. If you're openly discriminating against people on the basis of their race, then all the Civil Rights act, it's all, none of that means anything. And so like, let's just stop pretending. Okay, so if Costco wants to continue with racist policies, then I guess everyone gets to have racist policies if they want, on whatever basis of any race they want. Like, you know what I mean? It's, it's a principle. So either you're against and in fact banning through federal law, discrimination on the basis of race, or you're not.
- [40:47]
Dan McLaughlin
No, that's it. And the Civil Rights Act 1964. It literally says, like you cannot discriminate based of race, gender, national origin, etc.
- [40:54]
Tucker Carlson
A thousand subsequent laws and regulations.
- [40:57]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah.
- [40:57]
Tucker Carlson
Underscore that point.
- [40:58]
Dan McLaughlin
So, and you know, this is funny. So the, the, actually the Senate, the floor manager at the time was Hubert Humphreys who became Lyndon Johnson's vp. He was one who was ushering through the Civil Rights Act 1964. He said, this is his quote, says if this leads to quota systems, I will eat my hat. This was his quote. And that's exactly what we got.
- [41:16]
Tucker Carlson
He's been dead too long to do it. But yeah, no, it, it kind of wrecked the country. Bruno Washington is terrified and distraught by the Trump, Trump revolution now in progress. And it is a revolution and it's unfolding along very familiar lines. The White House is now giving voters what they actually want and what they've wanted for a long time. And that's the one thing that permanent Washington doesn't want to give them. They are working to stop it. Fortunately, our friends at Heritage, the Heritage foundation in D.C. are fighting back. They've spent years thinking this through. How do you dismantle permanent dc the deep struck structures underneath everything. How do you train replacements for the bureaucrats getting canned? How do you enact policies that voters actually voted for? Well, now that Biden is gone, Heritage's vision is finally becoming reality. And you can help push it forward by going to heritage.orgtucker and making a tax deductible donation. Your gift fuels their American Rescue plan and helps stop permanent Washington from crushing it from strangling in the cradle. Heritage has been doing this a long time. They've been successful and they're more aggressive now than ever. Ever. Their work is worth supporting. Go to heritage.orgtucker to make your gift today. We hope you. I've got to say, almost everyone on our team looks suspiciously well rested every morning. It turns out most of them are using a product called Sambrosa. Sambrosa blends antihistamine with a syrup of herbs and honey and is designed to help you sleep well, waking up feeling refreshed and revitalized. And based on the sunny, cheerful faces the people I work with with, it works. It's inexpensive, it's less than 50 cents a night and we know the people who own the company and they are great people. They are faithful people and they are about the happiest family we've ever run. Across the product, Sam Brosa has a ton of five star reviews. You can check it out on their website. Sambrosa.com well, so just back to Anheuser Busch. This disaster happens. And. And it seems to be, I mean, according to the video that everybody saw it, really a product of this one decision. Well, it's the end of a chain of a lot of decisions, as you.
- [43:17]
Dan McLaughlin
Said, a lot of bad decisions.
- [43:18]
Tucker Carlson
Ably described. But the key decision in the fall of Bud Light was by this Alyssa Schneinhauser, whatever her name was, who went to Harvard. And there's this famous video where she's saying, basically, I think the old white guys who drink our beer could use to be shaken up a little bit.
- [43:38]
Dan McLaughlin
The fratty and out of touch. That Bud Light's been fratty and out of touch.
- [43:42]
Tucker Carlson
Fratty and out of touch, Yep. And I just have to say, I mean, she didn't run the company. She's head of the brand. She has supervisors. If someone who worked for me, well, we. We sell alp, and if someone's, like, in a meeting with me, like, the problem with ALP is its users suck, and they've got, like, antique retrograde attitudes, and we just need to give them the finger, I would say, you're fired because you don't love our people.
- [44:05]
Dan McLaughlin
That's it. Exactly.
- [44:06]
Tucker Carlson
Why did no one say that?
- [44:08]
Dan McLaughlin
But that's what's crazy is that she literally called the customer base, you know, the fratty out of touch. Like, you know, immediately lost trust with the whole entire customer base saying, what are you guys talking about? And. And.
- [44:18]
Tucker Carlson
And do people like to be lectured by a Steinhauser from Harvard?
- [44:26]
Dan McLaughlin
And what's crazy about this? So the timeline of events was. Was so. Because we're coming up on actually two years when this happened. So this partnership with. That Bud Light did with Dylan Mulvaney and controversial transgender activists happened on April Fool's Day of 2023. So. And a lot of people originally thought this was a joke of, like, oh, this is like, Bud Light must be joking about this, because there's no way that they would ever do a partnership with somebody who was literally just at Joe Biden's White House advocating for gender affirmation care and biological men to compete against women in sports. But this is all a sudden, Bud Lights to a partner partnership with this. Like, I don't understand this. Then two or three days later, that video comes out of Alyssa essentially being like, bud Light is fratting out of touch.
- [45:02]
Tucker Carlson
We're going to be muddy and out.
- [45:03]
Dan McLaughlin
Of touch, and we're talking.
- [45:05]
Tucker Carlson
What?
- [45:06]
Dan McLaughlin
That's the problem. Alyssa was out of touch. I mean, this is who's out of touch?
- [45:10]
Tucker Carlson
Some self awareness, honey.
- [45:12]
Dan McLaughlin
I mean, it's crazy with what's going on. I mean, this is what. This is how out of touch I think a lot of the people in New York became, where all of a sudden they're saying, you know, no, no, no, our customers out touch. We need new customers. And the new customers are going to be whoever follows. Dylan Mulvaney on Instagram was actually like, mostly like underage girls, because there were literally all of these now investigations going on, saying, wait a minute, you guys sponsor the millennium who just has a bunch of underage followers, like, what are you guys doing? This makes no sense.
- [45:40]
Tucker Carlson
Dress like a child? Some dude dressed like a little girl. First of all, who's looking into that guy's personal life? You know, like, that's dark.
- [45:49]
Dan McLaughlin
But, yeah, so, so, so the partnership itself was. It was obviously incredibly flawed.
- [45:53]
Tucker Carlson
Is it true that Della Mulvania is like a huge Zen Zinn user? Someone told me that he loves Zinn.
- [45:58]
Dan McLaughlin
I don't know. I've never met Dylan.
- [45:59]
Tucker Carlson
I don't know if that's true or not.
- [46:00]
Dan McLaughlin
Do you think you should have Dylan on the show so you can figure it out?
- [46:03]
Tucker Carlson
You know what?
- [46:04]
Dan McLaughlin
You should.
- [46:05]
Tucker Carlson
I keep hearing, and I have no idea if it's true. I'm not endorsing this, but that Philip Morris and Zinn are hiring Dylan Mulvaney. I don't know if that's true.
- [46:12]
Dan McLaughlin
I don't know. I mean, based off what I saw, their website, it would make perfect sense. I mean, they're almost becoming the Ben and Jerry's of 100. I mean, that's what it is. And actually, you know, that's fine.
- [46:20]
Tucker Carlson
I don't want that in my mouth. Mouth. Okay. I just don't.
- [46:23]
Dan McLaughlin
You know what? I actually, I actually respect Ben and Jerry's as a brand because they at least stand. They're very clear about what they stand.
- [46:28]
Tucker Carlson
I completely agree.
- [46:28]
Dan McLaughlin
They say, we're going to use ice cream to advance a socially progressive mission. Great. Hey, in this country, you can do that. If there's a customer base for that, go do that.
- [46:35]
Tucker Carlson
I agree more. I find their ideas repugnant, but I respect their bravery and their principle. Their ice cream's like, unbelievable. I'm going to get diabetes if I eat it again. But it's. It's really good. And. And they're consistent in their views. And I. They're consistent in their views, but like, a company like Zinn or ab, like, you had no idea that they were, you know, spending money on causes that were like, you know, in direct conflict with your own family. These people hate your family and you're buying their products.
- [47:03]
Dan McLaughlin
And this was the whole deal. So, like, obviously, the partnership itself made no sense, but the response to it was just as harmful, and that was just as problematic, really, because if you recall that there was so, you know, listed goes on the. On the. On the TV where she's fratty out of touch. Kid Rock then lights up a pack of Bud light with an AR15, which was a big deal. So then all of a sudden, you have all of these sort of people saying, you know, screw Bud Light. People posting videos of them not buying it. And then the. The company said, hey, they. There was a quick press release saying, yes, we do partnerships with influencers to celebrate milestones. In this case, we did this milestone of 365 days of womanhood. Everyone was like, what are you talking about, Bud Light, dude? By the way, it's not.
- [47:44]
Tucker Carlson
These are not women. These are men dressed as women. Is so insulting.
- [47:48]
Dan McLaughlin
And in the same way, you probably wouldn't at that time have sent a camera, demanded Donald Trump to celebrate his coming, because Bud Light was not a political brand. And so everyone's really confused. And so the sales just tumbled. What's really. What's really.
- [48:00]
Tucker Carlson
Is that obvious right away?
- [48:01]
Dan McLaughlin
So, yeah. So this is what's really interesting. So, like, boycotts tend to work for. For two reasons. And they actually had never worked almost in history. Everyone talks about. I hated when the NFL had the whole kneeling thing going on, but NFL ratings were super high. Other people have called a boycott company. Almost never worked. But in this case, it worked for two reasons. One, if there's a easily accessible substitute. So if you think about it, everywhere, you could buy Bud Light, you have Coors Light, you have Miller Lite. I mean, you go to a gas station, you have Coors Light, six packs. Miller Light, six packs. Bud Light, six packs.
- [48:26]
Tucker Carlson
Yeah.
- [48:27]
Dan McLaughlin
And then you also go to bar. You have Miller Light on tap. You have Bud Light on tap. And for 95% of Americans, I mean, Bud Light is indistinguishable from Coors Light and from Miller Lite. So the substitutes are easily there.
- [48:35]
Tucker Carlson
Do you know, I quit drinking before light beer was a thing. I never have had a light beer in my life. Men just did not drink light beer when I. I quit drinking. Is it good? Yeah, I've never had a. I mean.
- [48:46]
Dan McLaughlin
Like, yeah, I mean, if you like. If you like light beer, I mean, it's. It's a great light beer. It's very consistent. They have great brew masters. They have. So it's very good as a, as a product. But so also is Coors and Miller Lights. But it's almost, it's almost like a, a commodity of a, of a, of.
- [48:59]
Tucker Carlson
A, of a brand.
- [49:00]
Dan McLaughlin
So therefore the only thing you actually did have was your brand itself, which Bud Lights was funny, humorous and, and apolitical. The other reason that boycotts work is that if you actually feel like you're having an impact and having an effect. And the other thing that happens, which is interesting, the beer industry, is every week you get data that's reported by Walmart and Kroger and 7 11. And you're big retailers, all these big retailers about what sales look like. And that's just reported every week. Usually people don't care about that at all. I mean, you know, no one ever cares what the real sales are. But in this, in, in this instance, all of a sudden the media was reporting every single week that Bud Light sales were down 10%, 20%, 30%. So it snowballs, so it starts snowballing and, and they, and an Busch, they can't starve the media of information and data. And so all of a sudden, like anhe Bush is watching their sales decline a lot and they realize, wow, we gotta, we gotta do something. The problem was they always say they're, they're, they're stuck between this, you know, the black rock and a hard place. You know, it's BlackRock who's saying, hey, you guys need more DEI and inclusivity. And that's the agenda we're pushing. There are corporations like the Human Rights Campaign that scores Anheuser Busch every single year on there.
- [50:05]
Tucker Carlson
Why would a beer company. I mean, the human rights companies are freaks. I mean, they're literally freaks. And they're evil. Completely evil, in my opinion. It's not about equality, it's about crushing families and Christianity, obviously. So why would a beer company care what they think?
- [50:20]
Dan McLaughlin
Well, because the problem was again, BlackRock, State Street Vanguard, who are technically these large shareholders of your business, they have adopted ESG and di. And they're saying if you want to get included in our ESG indexes or. Mike Bloomberg. Bloomberg has a gender equality index. If you want to get included in these, you guys need to have a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign.
- [50:39]
Tucker Carlson
Man, if I'm the Chinese, I'm encouraging this a lot.
- [50:42]
Dan McLaughlin
100% wreck.
- [50:43]
Tucker Carlson
Wreck your opponent with this.
- [50:44]
Dan McLaughlin
I mean, it's insane. Like, it made no sense. And when the Human Rights Came. It started, I don't know, 20 years ago. Like the whole thing was like, okay, like, I don't know, don't make fun of like, I don't know, LGBTQ +. Okay, fine.
- [50:54]
Tucker Carlson
I was never against Human Rights Campaign. Just further, I worked like a block from them for 15 years in downtown D.C. on 17th Street. I was never against, against them at all. I was like, okay, I'm for civil liberties, including for gays. I'm not, yeah, I'm not against that at all. I'm for it.
- [51:08]
Dan McLaughlin
But it became incredibly rigid.
- [51:10]
Tucker Carlson
It wasn't about that at all. It was about destroying American society, which they have done a lot to achieve.
- [51:15]
Dan McLaughlin
And now to get these perfect scores, then you had to have so many commercials that advertised, you know, to lgbtq. You have to do the, all the gender affirmation stuff in your health.
- [51:22]
Tucker Carlson
You gotta have, you gotta sell gay beer.
- [51:24]
Dan McLaughlin
I mean that was essentially like, like what it was becoming. And even the company itself, I mean they were trying to win these like Con lion awards over in Europe. And so we, so we used always think like our advertisement was, did you win the USA Today's Super Bowl Ad Meter award that showed like you were in touch with the kind of American consumer and for, I mean from like 2003 to 2013. Answer Bush won it every single year. Then when they brought in new European ownership and new marketers, all of a sudden they didn't win it for 10 plus years. And but they tried now start winning and showing. They won these Con Lion Awards which over in Europe they had these awards in Cannes, France. And to win the Con Lion Advertising awards, you have to have, have your DEI and your ESG policies and you have to do all of the advertisements that are essentially sell beer.
- [52:06]
Tucker Carlson
Why do you care about it? That's an award can France.
- [52:08]
Dan McLaughlin
You shouldn't. But again, to get included in the Black Rock State Street Vanguard indexes for esgdi, you can highlight your awards that you won from Con Lion. You can highlight your perfect score from the Human Rights campaign. You can highlight.
- [52:20]
Tucker Carlson
These are just all control mechanisms run by people like Larry Fink. Like the worst.
- [52:25]
Dan McLaughlin
I mean there, there was a whole I call the Stakeholder Capital industrial complex and everybody was just trying to make money. McKinsey, they were the big consulting firm. I mean they had this again, this diversity matters. Diversity wins report to sell consulting services for DEI. BlackRock had a whole DEI component to put people into certain funds to charge investors more money. You had a lot of activists that they wanted to show that they were could get more money from Soros or whoever else that they're making progress by putting up actually activist proposals at companies that shareholders would then vote on. So it was this big, almost like, industrial complex just kept feeding on itself.
- [52:59]
Tucker Carlson
To destroy the meritocracy and destroy United States.
- [53:01]
Dan McLaughlin
I mean, essentially, like, that's where. Like, where we were.
- [53:03]
Tucker Carlson
Well, it destroys the country. If you don't have a meritocracy. If the best people can't rise because of the wrong color or the wrong sex.
- [53:09]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah.
- [53:09]
Tucker Carlson
Then your country collapses.
- [53:10]
Dan McLaughlin
And almost mean Bud Light was essentially holding the pin when this whole, I mean, bubble popped. They were. This is the first time that people saw, like, wait a minute. You know, okay, I didn't like when Disney got involved in the parental rights issues down in Florida. But, you know, Disney's always kind of a little. A little out there and didn't make any sense that Disney was getting involved in this year.
- [53:27]
Tucker Carlson
Well, it's the same attitude.
- [53:28]
Dan McLaughlin
Same, but kind of same attitude. But the problem, even with Disney, is that, okay, you know, I don't like Disney, but there's only one Disney World. I don't really have a lot of other places to go, so I'm still gonna go Disney World. But with Bud Light, people easily went to Coors Light. And so going back to this whole story about why the response was so damaging. So can I ask. Yeah.
- [53:46]
Tucker Carlson
Since you work there and you've written a book on it.
- [53:48]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah. And I left by this point, so.
- [53:50]
Tucker Carlson
Right, of course. But, I mean, you know the business.
- [53:52]
Dan McLaughlin
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
- [53:53]
Tucker Carlson
What's the right? Before you explain what they do. Did. What's the right answer? So you're running Anheuser Busch right now. This happens. It's a huge threat to your core business, which is selling beer.
- [54:03]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah.
- [54:04]
Tucker Carlson
How do you. What do you do?
- [54:05]
Dan McLaughlin
I mean, like, the answer is so simple. The first thing you do is that you fire the VP of marketing, who just called your entire customer base fratting, out of touch. And then you. So you say we fired her because that was obviously not. Not empathetic to our customers and not core business.
- [54:18]
Tucker Carlson
You hate our customers. You can't work here.
- [54:19]
Dan McLaughlin
You can't work here. Like, just like. Like, fair done, like, out. And then separately, like, the biggest piece is, like. Then you just apologize. You know, I always say it's like the. Like, the path.
- [54:28]
Tucker Carlson
Apologize. You know, Are you crazy?
- [54:30]
Dan McLaughlin
But it's like, it's like the path to, like, I always say, like, redemption. It goes through forgiveness.
- [54:34]
Tucker Carlson
Amen.
- [54:34]
Dan McLaughlin
But the only way you're going to be forgiven is if you admit you had made a mistake. Exactly. And then what you say is like, hey, this was obviously a mistake that this person made. And so we've moved on from this person because we've made a mistake hiring this person, putting them in. And then separately also, we made a mistake as Buddha Light. We made a mistake because Bud Light was never supposed to be involved in controversial political issues. And Dylan Mulvaney was not the right choice of a person to get involved with because there are things, I mean, you know, if you recall as well, the week this partnership happened, this was during the time when a lot of legislation is in session. So there were, I think, 25 bills across the country to ban biological men from playing its women in sports. There was a bunch of bills banning gender affirmation care. And also leading up to this week, that was the week that you had the. The transgender shooter in the. In the Christian school in Tennessee. Yeah.
- [55:20]
Tucker Carlson
Whose manifesto we weren't allowed to see.
- [55:21]
Dan McLaughlin
Right, exactly. So, I mean, this was like, a very big issue across the entire country right now.
- [55:25]
Tucker Carlson
It's a violent group.
- [55:27]
Dan McLaughlin
So. So this is why there was a lot of, of, of problems with Dylan Mulvaney, who'd become kind of the face of really, the. The very progressive transgender movement. Why Bud Light never should have done the partnership in the first place. And say, like, because Bud Light was always about fun and music and sports is like, we should have never had this person as a sponsorship game. They shouldn't have Donald Trump as a sponsor either. Just, just. So that's so Bud Light.
- [55:47]
Tucker Carlson
Now you sell beer. Just sell.
- [55:48]
Dan McLaughlin
You're going to. We're going to get back to selling beer. Guys, we screwed up. We apologize. We want our customers back. We're selling beer. End of story. The problem is they couldn't do that because they'd made all these other commitments to the Human Rights Campaign, who they tried it, who they highlighted every single year in their annual ESG report that they had a perfect score on it, they had made.
- [56:06]
Tucker Carlson
But the Human Rights Campaign is like, they're not big shareholders of AB Nobody. But they have no right to run a beer company.
- [56:12]
Dan McLaughlin
But they're a stakeholder of ab, and that becomes the problem. You have all.
- [56:16]
Tucker Carlson
They have no, like, moral legitimacy. What are. Even if you love the Human Rights Campaign, which is totally evil, just. That's my opinion, having, you know, known them, but even if you love them, why do they get a veto over the behavior of, like, a huge publicly traded company? It's just, like, crazy.
- [56:34]
Dan McLaughlin
Again, it all just feeds on itself with. It's called the stakeholder capitalism industrial complex.
- [56:38]
Tucker Carlson
But the stakeholder really the beer drinkers.
- [56:40]
Dan McLaughlin
But that's the problem that became the least. We can insult, that your customer became sort of the lowest priority, which is the problem. This makes no sense. It made zero sense. And then so, so again, this partnership really happened on April 1st. On April 15th, that's when you have the CEO for the first time, guy named Brendan Whitworth, who I know, you know very well, he made a first public essentially response. And it's almost this comical letter. I think it was called, like our letter to America or something, where he never acknowledged the situation they were in. They never acknowledged the controversy, never mentioned Dylan by name. It was just a, hey, we're going to get back to brewing beer. And here's a video of Clydesdale riding across America. And I mean, as you can imagine, the outrage was palpable, both on the right from their loyal customers that were like, wait a minute, we wanted that exact kind of apology. And hey, we fired the person I just gave. But then now you have all these people on the left that saying, wait a minute, I wanted you guys to see. You're going to be. Become like Ben and Jerry's. You know, I want you guys to be doing more of the, of the, of the Dylan campaign. And so all of a sudden, the company, actually, its sales declined even more. And funny enough, is he still there? He's still there, which is crazy. Everyone is still there. There's been zero accountability for this.
- [57:47]
Tucker Carlson
Despite that, I don't want to say so. I'm, you know, I don't know the guy. I've met him and talked to him. Former CIA guy.
- [57:53]
Dan McLaughlin
Former CIA guy.
- [57:54]
Tucker Carlson
He told me, right. Extremely physically fit as big CrossFit guys. Most CEOs I've met, and particularly the more disconnected from manufacturing they are, the more finance oriented they are, the better physical condition they're in. Just cut jawlines. They all play lacrosse and Middlebury. They're always on.
- [58:12]
Dan McLaughlin
The guy looks like GI Joe. I mean, 100%.
- [58:14]
Tucker Carlson
I'm not against physical fitness. I could use a little more myself, but that doesn't seem like a relevant criterion if you're choosing a CEO. And yet every Larry Fink is kind of pudgy, so I'm on his side for that. But it feels like whoever's doing the hiring here is doing it based on appearance. And these are white people mostly. So it's not DEI exactly, but it is a form of DEI. Like, why? Like that guy seemed like every other CEO I've met in the last 10 years. Vapid, afraid, completely terrified. You could smell the fear on the guy. Obsessed with his physical appearance and totally lacking creativity. Are those fair descriptions? That was just my reaction from spending an evening with him.
- [58:58]
Dan McLaughlin
That's amazing. I mean, you, You. You spent one evening with him. I spent. I don't know. I've known Brendan for 10 years.
- [59:02]
Tucker Carlson
I'm not saying he's like a terrible person. I. I'm.
- [59:04]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah.
- [59:04]
Tucker Carlson
You know, I don't know that. But I. But he is definitely. And I hate to single him out, though. He is a former CIA guy. Yeah, it should be disqualifying right there, but. Oh, I'm sorry. But like, like, he seemed emblematic of an entire class of people who, in my pretty extensive experience around them, are deeply unimpressive. Like, not like I would not hire any of them to do anything in my life.
- [59:27]
Dan McLaughlin
I mean, I think the bigger it's the lack of courage. And I think we saw this with a lot of CEOs, and I think especially with Brendan Ware. So he reported into a global CEO, which is this guy, Michelle Ducharis, who's European and kind of.
- [59:41]
Tucker Carlson
I'm sure he's a good guy.
- [59:43]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah. Yeah. So. And I think this is.
- [59:45]
Tucker Carlson
This is again, some like, French mastermind. I mean, but.
- [59:49]
Dan McLaughlin
But it's a little bit of that where, where Brendan all of a sudden, like, and he need to take a hard stand and say, you know what? We screwed up. We're firing this person. We apologize. We're gonna get back to doing Bud Light commercials that are, you know, fun and humorous, whatever else. And he didn't do it. And he didn't do it that first time in April, there was another. Really?
- [60:04]
Tucker Carlson
So how does job.
- [60:06]
Dan McLaughlin
Well, I'll get back to that in a second. But then, like, this was really telling. There was. Going into July, fourth weekend of 2023, this is the biggest beer selling weekend of the year. Bud Light sales had tanked down 30, 40%. The stocks lost $40 billion in market cap. The. The business had gone from making $6 billion.
- [60:22]
Tucker Carlson
They lost how much?
- [60:23]
Dan McLaughlin
Market cap lost $40 billion of market cap. 40 billion of market cap. I mean, the stock was around $70 a share when this happened. It went down to 40 billion.
- [60:30]
Tucker Carlson
So how can this Alyssa chick and the CIA dude still. I mean, how could they ever work again in American business? $40 billion.
- [60:36]
Dan McLaughlin
You love this. Alyssa was placed on leave at some point along this. She's actually now working for Liv in the Live tour, the Saudi Golf Tour, which is like, really, I swear to God, I feel like you can't make this up, actually. I swear to God. Yeah, I swear to God. So it's, it's at least on our LinkedIn, it's working for the live Saudi Golf Tour. So anyway, that's. We can get to that in a second. So we'll get to that in a second. But the. So going to July 4th week of 2023, for the first time, Brendan goes on national TV and he goes on CBS and he has this live interview where he's going to try and get this back on track because he's now missed twice with a response and it's only antagonized people. Things have gotten worse. So he goes on CBS and one of the hosts, first off, says, hey, thank you for being here, because most people in your seat, they would have run for the hills. I mean, after what we've seen with millions of customers losing, leaving you billions of dollars being lost. But they say, hey, the question everyone wants to know is, was this partnership a mistake and would you do it again? And he gives some real wishy washy, mealy mouth answer. Well, there's a lot of things going on in the world and culture and this and that. And after 30 seconds of kind of wavering around, the host comes back and says, to be clear, like, you do realize the answer you just gave is the reason why millions of people left, billions of has been raised. Let me ask again, was this campaign a mistake and would you do it again? And again, he gives a completely evasive $40 billion loss.
- [61:54]
Tucker Carlson
$40 billion. Can't say it's a bad idea.
- [61:56]
Dan McLaughlin
Can't say it's a bad idea. And what's crazy is that literally that exact same week, Dylan and I only I can't. I feel bad for Dylan in this whole thing because Dylan essentially comes out and says, hey, if you can't stand by, like a transgender, you know, person, then don't do the campaign. Don't do it. You know, that's worse than not hiring somebody at all. But, like, just don't do it. And so Dylan essentially said it was a mistake because they couldn't stand by it. Larry Fink, that week at the Aspen Ideas Festival, says, I'm not using the term ESG anymore because it's become too controversial and it's lost its meaning. And you have this now CEO of one of the most iconic companies in the United States, Anheuser Busch, can't make a direct response about a Campaign that has cost this company, company billions of dollars, millions of customers. They had to fire thousands of employees after this supplier shut down.
- [62:42]
Tucker Carlson
But not the CIA guy.
- [62:43]
Dan McLaughlin
He kept his job, but he's kept his job still. I mean, he's still kept.
- [62:45]
Tucker Carlson
You don't understand that. Like, where's. Does the company have a board?
- [62:49]
Dan McLaughlin
Well, this is the problem. But it's a European based board. So it's based over in Europe, it's based in Belgium. They still abide by a lot of these different philosophy. And this is where we're coming into an issue.
- [62:59]
Tucker Carlson
So what's the point of having a head of the company, a president of.
- [63:02]
Dan McLaughlin
The company, if you're just going to be a puppet? That's the problem. And that's where I almost think that for a lot of companies, I think Anis specifically, I think the company's actually better off probably selling its US Business unit at this point, because I don't think you can serve this European system.
- [63:15]
Tucker Carlson
It's damaged.
- [63:16]
Dan McLaughlin
Well, it is, but I think people love a great American comeback story. I agree, they do. And. But to make that story, you have to admit again that there was a mistake and that you screwed up and that you've taken accountability for it and that we now have a different plan. It doesn't matter how much money the company has subsequently spent on. I mean, it's $100 million for Dana White in the UFC. They've hired Shane Gillis, they've hired Peyton Manning. They've done all these things to try and get their customer back, but all the customer wants is like, guys, I say screwed up.
- [63:43]
Tucker Carlson
One of the greatest changes of the past six months is you can finally say loud and proud, without the threat of going to jail for it, that you're for babies, you're for the unborn. And that's great news for preborn, our partner, which operates a clinical clinic network across the United States. Preborn is the single greatest threat to the abortion industry. It's rescued over 67,000 babies last year alone. These abortions still claim thousands of lives every year. It's one of the great tragedies, unspoken. Most of the time it's not a right, it is a tragedy. So the goal is to rescue all these babies. They need your help to do that. Assisting in providing ultrasounds is a great place to start. More knowledge, more information. For expecting mothers, it really makes a huge difference. Once a mother realizes that the lump in her belly is a baby, as a child, she becomes twice as likely to choose life, to let that child live one ultrasound costs only 28 bucks, meaning that five are just $140. So $5,000 is good for enough devices to cover Preborn's entire network for a full day. Day. It really, really helps. We hope you'll join this cause. Dial pound 250. Say the keyword baby. That's pound 250. The word baby. Or you can visit preborn.comtucker to make a secure donation. Preborn.comtucker but all of it is so far from the core mission. I mean, I knew former head of that company pretty well. Wonderful man. And it's probably still was true. As of last year, he doesn't run the company anymore as August Bush.
- [65:17]
Dan McLaughlin
August Bush iii.
- [65:18]
Tucker Carlson
Yeah.
- [65:19]
Dan McLaughlin
The third what the best meanings have ever been in my entire life. This guy's unbelievable.
- [65:22]
Tucker Carlson
He's. He's unbelievable. I could tell stories, but yeah, he's an unbelievable person. But he. And this may be true today, you know, he's. He's an older man, mid-80s anyway, but he was still tasting Budweiser beer every single week that they send him, every single US Product. And he tastes it. He's one of six or seven. You know this because he worked there and the people who founded that company, that family. And you could say a lot of things about the family and this big fractious family with all kinds of stories, but they all love beer.
- [65:51]
Dan McLaughlin
Oh, yeah.
- [65:51]
Tucker Carlson
Like, they truly love beer. They drink their beers. Like, they think that Bud Light's an amazing beer. And they think, you know, Bud Heavy's a great beer. Like, they're into the product. It feels like that's a prerequisite. Like, I use Alp from the second I wake up till the second I go to bed. That's why we own the company, because I love it. And I think, think if you don't have that spirit, if the head of Philip Morris doesn't even smoke Marlboro Reds, get out.
- [66:17]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah, I. I totally.
- [66:17]
Tucker Carlson
If you're embarrassed of what you do, don't do it.
- [66:19]
Dan McLaughlin
I completely agree. I mean, the, the Budweiser, they said they almost had Budweiser in their veins. I think there was a whole story that when you're, when you're born, they. L give you a thimble of. Seriously, the first thing I think you drink, and if you've got a problem.
- [66:29]
Tucker Carlson
With it, don't work there.
- [66:30]
Dan McLaughlin
That's it.
- [66:31]
Tucker Carlson
I don't. Why is that hard?
- [66:32]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah.
- [66:33]
Tucker Carlson
If you go to church and like, the priest is like, well, actually, I'm an atheist.
- [66:35]
Dan McLaughlin
It's like okay.
- [66:36]
Tucker Carlson
I'm not saying you go to jail for atheism, but I don't think you should be preaching in a church.
- [66:40]
Dan McLaughlin
Shouldn't be here.
- [66:41]
Tucker Carlson
Yeah.
- [66:41]
Dan McLaughlin
So I so, so completely agree. And I think that's one of the problems that we have is that even here. And there's a bunch of other brands as well. I mean, like Jeep's another great one. Jeep's own by now, Stellantis, which is based over in the Netherlands. And you're talking about, man, if you're going to have American brand like Jeep, should that really be owned by the Europeans? If they just have a completely different philosophical system and they just have. The European mindset is very different.
- [67:01]
Tucker Carlson
Like tiny little electric cars, gay cars. It's so weird.
- [67:05]
Dan McLaughlin
You might be seeing a little mini Jeep. Yes, I guess I have an eight year old daughter, she's have one of those Barbie Jeeps. That's fine.
- [67:16]
Tucker Carlson
I mean, I'm not like, go make a Stonewall Jeep if you want. But like there should be just like a regular Jeep too.
- [67:21]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah. And that's okay. And give that customer that regular Jeep as well. And so I don't know, this is, this is where I think also these companies also need to go to actually another company that's like a pretty good job of navigating a lot of the cultural wars. They actually have Netflix. A lot of credit, if you remember. Remember there was two or three years ago Netflix getting a lot of pressure to cancel Dave Chappelle. Remember when there was this Dave Chappelle special?
- [67:42]
Tucker Carlson
Well, they wanted to cancel Dave Chappelle.
- [67:43]
Dan McLaughlin
Well, a lot of other people wanted to cancel Chappelle because he had jokes about the LGBTQ and a million other communities, by the way. I mean, Dave Chappelle doesn't leave anybody unscathed. And there was a lot of pressure.
- [67:54]
Tucker Carlson
He was tough on the trans thing, though. He's like, this is, this is not right. I mean, he, he like, yeah, he, he was tough. He wasn't just mocking. He was like, men cannot become women, period. Sorry, I'm a Muslim, I'm not doing this.
- [68:05]
Dan McLaughlin
But you know, his, that's. Hey, it's freedom of speech in the country.
- [68:07]
Tucker Carlson
No, I'm on Dave Chappelle's side. I'm just saying he was, it was more than just a joke. Like he, he was serious about it, I think.
- [68:14]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah. And, but, and the thing I at least get Netflix credit for is when all this was going on, they were told to cancel Chappelle. They came out with this culture of excellence document and this culture of excellence document essentially said like, we are not going to censor artists at Netflix. We're going to put out content for liberals, conservatives, whatever, you kind of name it. And people watch whatever they want to watch. But we are not going to censor it at Netflix. And if you have an issue with that, then go work somewhere else and actually give Netflix a lot of credit for that because they're based in California. Everything else. And that's great.
- [68:42]
Tucker Carlson
They play the Obamas.
- [68:43]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah, yeah, that's it. No, but play that. But then also, well, I guess it was Amazon that picked up the Melania Trump deal. But great, like put it all out there. I mean, who cares? America's watch whatever they want. And so I give them a lot of credit for that. I think that that's also where Anheuser Busch kind of needs to go as well is to say, listen, we have a whole portfolio of beers. I mean, hell, we have King Cobra 40 ounce bottles, but. But then we also have craft breweries like Goose Island.
- [69:06]
Tucker Carlson
So they make King Cobra 40s. And again, I don't drink. I'm opposed to alcohol. But I love that I live in a country that still makes King Cobra 40s. I do, I do. I can't help it. And I assume that is, I assume they weren't pushing Dylan Mulvaney on King Cobra drinkers.
- [69:21]
Dan McLaughlin
No, they were not putting on. That's the one they were not doing. Now that would be hilarious. So that would be. Maybe, maybe they should. Maybe. That would be amazing. That'd be amazing. Bring that back.
- [69:29]
Tucker Carlson
That would be a pin up.
- [69:30]
Dan McLaughlin
A pin up of Dylan Mulvaney on a King Cobra.
- [69:33]
Tucker Carlson
If Alyssa Schopenhauer or whatever her name is, like, I think King Cobra drinkers are out of touch. That would take some balls.
- [69:40]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah, that would. That'd be amazing. That would take some balls. That takes the balls. So yeah. But they also have Goose island and Goose island in Chicago. They have a. Sounds queer. I'm in IPA and fine, you're in Chicago and. And that's what people want. Great. Give them to those folks for your as well. I've never had it. I don't know. There's a beer advocate thing that just one of these websites that weight rates beers, they say it's great. So great. They can do that as well.
- [70:01]
Tucker Carlson
By the way, I haven't had a beer in almost 25 years. But someone, the head of the athletic brewing company, which is not a sponsor of the show, by the way, he just sent me a couple cases of it. Have you ever had that?
- [70:12]
Dan McLaughlin
Oh yeah, I have it. I have it in my. My. I actually traded email.
- [70:15]
Tucker Carlson
Best thing I've ever had.
- [70:16]
Dan McLaughlin
It's. It's great. So I like it a lot. I actually traded emails with. With Bill Shufeld who's the.
- [70:20]
Tucker Carlson
That's exactly like what a good guy.
- [70:21]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah, great guy. So it's funny because I. He's did an amazing job and I respect the company.
- [70:26]
Tucker Carlson
The product is just.
- [70:27]
Dan McLaughlin
Product is very good. Great product. Product. I. I wrote a post. I was. He got almost a billion dollar valuation for this company. His latest round and I just disagreed with the valuation. I do some consumer investing so I wrote a post about like, hey, great job, kudos, congratulations. Here's why I don't think it's going to be a $3 billion company. He had some issues with my post but you know, but I said, hey, I respect what you've done and I just, you know, don't think you're going to be a $3 billion company.
- [70:51]
Tucker Carlson
Well, get me wrong, I don't know anything about. I like him. Nice guy. Again, they are not sponsors of this show. But um, he's totally focused on the product.
- [71:00]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah, that's it.
- [71:00]
Tucker Carlson
Like he just thinks it's the best product ever. He just thinks it's amazing. And he's right. It is.
- [71:04]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah. It's great product. It tastes just like regular beer.
- [71:07]
Tucker Carlson
I think it's better than why I had a beer in a while. But it's really good. He's done four at dinner the other night.
- [71:12]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah, they're great for me.
- [71:15]
Tucker Carlson
I don't know. He sent me. I don't know. He sent me a. All kinds of different. One was called Tucker actually.
- [71:20]
Dan McLaughlin
Oh really?
- [71:21]
Tucker Carlson
Yeah, it was. I think it was a wheat beer. It was the least good. But they were all. They were amazing.
- [71:25]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah. And it's opened up what he's. His non alcoholic beer used to. I mean it was terrible. And they're really.
- [71:30]
Tucker Carlson
They never had one.
- [71:31]
Dan McLaughlin
It was so bad.
- [71:31]
Tucker Carlson
It felt so.
- [71:32]
Dan McLaughlin
It was kind of a joke.
- [71:33]
Tucker Carlson
Now that feels like a Dylan Mulvaney segment. You know what I mean?
- [71:37]
Dan McLaughlin
That's what it was. That was essentially what not alcohol beer was. And he totally just reframed what it can be where it can be good. Cool. You have it after a run, you feel better.
- [71:46]
Tucker Carlson
Like actually delicious.
- [71:48]
Dan McLaughlin
Actually delicious. And there's this whole movement now. I mean it's crazy. My. I. Even though I'm categorized a millennial, I like to identify as the greatest generation here. Tucker. But I think I'm categorized As a millennial, but my cohort, 80% of us used to drink alcohol when we were in our 20s. And now that Gen Z is in their 20s, only 60% of them is drinking alcohol at this point. Yes. I mean, there's been a massive drop off in the number of people drinking alcohol. And then across all cohorts, Gen Z, millennial, Gen X boomers, everyone's generally drinking less also, because people are just becoming more health conscious. So he's doing a great job of picking up a lot of those people that still like the taste of beer or the occasion of be. Just don't want to drink the six pack of beer and feel like trash.
- [72:26]
Tucker Carlson
Forget how good hops are. Yeah, hops are amazing. And hops exist for a lot of reasons, but one is to counterbalance the taste of alcohol, because alcohol does not taste good.
- [72:35]
Dan McLaughlin
Right.
- [72:36]
Tucker Carlson
If you take the alcohol out the hops, just. Pardon the pun, Flour. Yeah, into this. Amazing. Now I'm getting very out of control, but like this bouquet of flavor. Yeah, I'm getting very dull Mulvany now, but like.
- [72:49]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah. And actually, beer compliments food a lot better than wine does because it's so diverse, because you have loggers and porters and stouts and IPAs. Usually with wines, you kind of red and white and that's about it. But there, it actually does a much better job with food.
- [73:01]
Tucker Carlson
Have you ever seen Alyssa Schopenhauer or whatever her name is? Alyssa, German name from Harvard. And then CIA guy, CEO. Have you ever seen them drink beer at lunch?
- [73:11]
Dan McLaughlin
Probably not at lunch. I don't know. I feel Bren was more of like a, you know, he would drink Budweiser, like here and there, maybe one or so. But I think he was much more into the, you know, muscle milk. And that was kind of his, you know, his thing.
- [73:23]
Tucker Carlson
So come on now.
- [73:24]
Dan McLaughlin
But I. I don't know, man. And again, it's. It's. Brendan should have been more courageous. I don't know. Like the guy, he took a company was doing $6 billion of profits, now doing 4 billion of profits. I mean, just there, you've lost $2 billion. You're still here. That's a problem.
- [73:39]
Tucker Carlson
I. What is. What is that?
- [73:41]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah, it's just.
- [73:42]
Tucker Carlson
Oh, you say, like, okay, he's a puppet. He's clearly a puppet, and he's terrified. And I. Again, I don't mean to attack him personally, though of course I am him. But I'm sure he's not a bad guy. I'm sure his wife and kids like him. But it does seem like the people pulling his puppet strings. That's obviously true. Yeah, they have an interest in making money. Like, I don't understand the total lack of accountability in corporate America.
- [74:03]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah, no one's ever fired it.
- [74:05]
Tucker Carlson
It's like the US Military.
- [74:06]
Dan McLaughlin
Well, but I think this is this perfect again, when you're controlling this European corporation, they think they're doing a good thing by trying to get involved in pushing more of the political issues. Also, also, I think there's something to be said is that when you. I don't reach a certain level of wealth and money and you're, you know, billionaire type class.
- [74:19]
Tucker Carlson
Well, that's it.
- [74:20]
Dan McLaughlin
You want to be part of the right social matter scene. That's it. And I think that's part of it because the whole company is more controlled by these Belgian families and a couple Brazilian families as well. And now their kids are on the board. And I think it's just being in the right place.
- [74:32]
Tucker Carlson
I bet their kids are pretty great, right?
- [74:33]
Dan McLaughlin
You know, I, I've never met them.
- [74:35]
Tucker Carlson
But, but, but billionaire kids. Let's put some billionaire kids on the board. Yeah, let's get James Murdoch on the board.
- [74:40]
Dan McLaughlin
That's it.
- [74:41]
Tucker Carlson
He's a genius.
- [74:43]
Dan McLaughlin
So this is the bigger issue. And then what's even funny about Brendan, you almost feel bad for Dilma. You almost feel bad for Brendan because Kid Rock actually went on Rogan show and essentially he had a big conversation with Brendan as well. And he was talking about how he's, you know, Kid Rock was making fun of him for the whole CBS interview he did. He's like, I don't get it, man. Like, why did you just get up there and you were like a puppet? And essentially this Kid Rock's words and telling the story was like, Brendan said he was coached. He was like, yeah, I was coached. I have to say what I have to say. Say, like, that's what's problematic. And again, this is where you come back to this fundamental just like disconnect between the American sort of way in American business and the European way he coached by the board.
- [75:18]
Tucker Carlson
But no one is served. So you have to ask, like, what actually is this? So the company's not served, Its employees are not served, its consumers are not served. Poor Brendan, who's just like a hapless bystander to his own life, guzzling muzzle milk and hitting the elliptical. He's humiliated. And then the shareholders lose $2 billion a year. So, like, who is winning here? And you gotta think that maybe this is part of a Bigger play to destroy the West. I mean, I think throwing that out there.
- [75:44]
Dan McLaughlin
I mean who, who, who's winning? It's again, I think a lot of the, the board members who.
- [75:48]
Tucker Carlson
China's winning.
- [75:49]
Dan McLaughlin
China's probably winning in this thing. I don't know if this, this is like as much of a China is winning. I know they have much to do with this. I think this is more of this. Again, out of touch.
- [75:56]
Tucker Carlson
Black Lives Matter. Help zero black people. Except the ones who stole the money from Apple.
- [76:01]
Dan McLaughlin
Except the, the big lavish mansions.
- [76:02]
Tucker Carlson
Exactly.
- [76:03]
Dan McLaughlin
Nobody did.
- [76:03]
Tucker Carlson
Black people. I'm all for helping, I'm all for help helping everybody, okay? But it didn't help black people. It didn't help, you know, Kenosha, Wisconsin, which is destroyed, never will be rebuilt. Didn't help all the Hispanic families who live in Kenosha. It didn't help anybody actually. It didn't help anybody. Trans. How many happy trans people are there? Zero. That does not help actually. It just denies people grandchildren. It's, I don't know, it's hard to see who the winners are. Like in an armed robbery, robbery, there's the victim, there's a liquor store owner, okay, he gets shot, but then the guy who takes his money gets the money.
- [76:39]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah.
- [76:39]
Tucker Carlson
So he wins. So like, I'm not endorsing that of course, but there's a logic to it. But some of the biggest social trends in the United States don't seem to have any winners. And that freaks me out.
- [76:50]
Dan McLaughlin
Well, but again, but, but I think the winners are more the, the Chinas. Well, yeah, big picture, et cetera. Because I mean, if you almost think about it, I, I mentioned this earlier, but the US was always, always exceptional. It's always been the city upon a hill, that people are good. It's always been unique and distinct and different. And there have been, you know, it's always been radical ideas in the United States that have free speech and American capitalism and freedom of religion. These have all been radical ideas for a long time. And that's allowed us to become the most successful prosperous unit country. And I think that there's been ways that sort of the, the Europeans, the Chinese, others, they've been able to infiltrate that and try and rebalance. I mean going into a, you know, the so called like oppressor versus oppressed framework. Like for the rest of the world, this US was always this, you know, oppressor type country. We're always oppressed. How do you rebalance? Well, you try and social engineer and you try and you get the country to kill itself. Yeah. I mean, that's the way that. That's essentially the way that you do it.
- [77:40]
Tucker Carlson
It doesn't seem that way if you're thinking long term. And by the way, I don't mean to blame China. I don't hate China. I respect China. And they're acting in what they think is their own interest, which I think is what countries ought to do. But I'm not blaming them for. For, you know, Melissa Schopenhauer or whatever her name is.
- [77:59]
Dan McLaughlin
Alyssa, I was gonna let you just keep going because I love everyone. Everyone's great.
- [78:03]
Tucker Carlson
Yeah.
- [78:04]
Dan McLaughlin
I'm not gonna correct it all.
- [78:06]
Tucker Carlson
The German lady from Harvard, the CIA guy who drinks Muscle milk. I'm not blaming China for their personal inadequacy, adequacies, their mediocrity, whatever. That's their fault. But big picture, like, it's just like, what is going on here?
- [78:18]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah. I mean, so I think that is, what's. What's going on is that you have, obviously, governments that are, that are antagonists to states, are trying to China, Europe, et cetera, trying to kind of pull us back, tear us down. But even a lot of these other, you know, companies as well, unfortunately, just have a different view of what business should be. And I don't think it's going to be good for the business units in the US for everybody.
- [78:42]
Tucker Carlson
I was with someone the other day who knows Larry Fink really well. And I said, boy, I. I think Larry Fink has really been damaging to the country, to the world. And this person said, you know, I feel sorry for Larry Fink. Why? Why did you feel sorry for Larry? Because he's the single unhappiest person I've ever met.
- [78:58]
Dan McLaughlin
I'm not surprised by that.
- [78:59]
Tucker Carlson
It's so weird. Like, what, billions of dollars if you're miserable.
- [79:03]
Dan McLaughlin
But here's. Because he doesn't have any principles. Because if you take a look at blackrock, it's just been blowing in the wind over the last couple of years when it was all about the ESG and stakeholder capitalism. We're going to hold that flag and we're going to carry it. But then as soon as people just with first principles think about saying, guys, you're violating your fiduciary obligation because I just asked you to make money for me, not do social engineering policies that are losing money for me. And so, and so when all of a sudden people started pulling their money from them, they got pulled in front of Congress by a bunch of politicians. Now all of a sudden, Larry Fink is backing away, says, I don't say ESG anymore. He pulled DEI off their website.
- [79:35]
Tucker Carlson
Why do all these people hate the United States? Like, the hostility you feel from someone like Larry Fink toward the US is like, unmistakable. It's like you're mad at the United States, but you're American and you can only have done what you did in this country with all of our legal protections and all the freedoms that you have have. Like, why declare war on your own country? And they all have.
- [79:54]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah, I don't know. It's just because he's lines his own pockets along the way, I guess. But there are lots.
- [79:59]
Tucker Carlson
And patriotic, too. You could even, I don't know, be unscrupulous in business and be patriotic.
- [80:04]
Dan McLaughlin
You know, you used to work at Fox in, in. In, you know, New York. A lot of people that literally say, like, I wouldn't say I worked in Fox. Who's Kat Timf? She's got. She's been doing. She used to tell people she worked in the porn industry instead of saying Fox News in New York City.
- [80:18]
Tucker Carlson
She said, I'm not going to comment.
- [80:20]
Dan McLaughlin
I mean, but I think especially when you're in New York, if you want to go to the right schools and go to the right parties and get your kids into this and that, like, you can't be patriotic in a lot of cases. I know you can't stand up. And that's the problem.
- [80:30]
Tucker Carlson
I don't need to single out Larry Fink. It sounds like he needs our prayers, not our scorn. But it's that whole leadership class which is so angry. Going back to, you know, Melissa Hindenburg or whatever her name is. Sorry, whatever. German girl from Harvard.
- [80:49]
Dan McLaughlin
I can't believe that hasn't been picked up. The Hindenburg ones. I haven't heard that one.
- [80:53]
Tucker Carlson
No, I was thinking of Paul von Hindenburg. Not, not the blimp, whatever. The last president of Germany. The one who handed it to the Nazis. Actually, no people like that. And it's not just her, of course. It's an entire class of people who I. I've lived around my whole life. I know them and I know their attitudes. And they're all like, they just hate the country. There's like a gut level contempt for the United States and it's like, what did America ever do to you? Actually gave you a ton of opportunity. You made way more than you deserve preserved. Your life is a lot easier than it would have been in any other place. What are you mad about? But they all feel that way.
- [81:28]
Dan McLaughlin
No, I agree it's almost. You have to be. It's apologetic about being here, but they.
- [81:33]
Tucker Carlson
Work to undermine it. They want to wreck it. Like, what's America? It's a meritocracy. It's like, that's the whole promise of immigration, by the way. Immigration only works in a meritocracy. It's like, yeah, the smartest, most ambitious, fairest, most decent people around the world get to move here and just kick it gas. Okay. Everyone's for that. We're not going to, like, move hundreds of thousands of Haitians into your neighborhood just to wreck it. Like, you can't do that.
- [81:56]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah. You know, I mean, the, The. The greatest sort of asset that we have in this country. It is the American dream. I mean, that is. That is the greatest asset. Why people want to move here, why people want to invest here, why people want to be here. And there's a lot of other people that want to tear down that American dream. They want to make you feel like.
- [82:10]
Tucker Carlson
It'S all Americans who want to. I just find it so strange. If they took that destructive energy and focused it on our actual enemies, whoever those might be, you know, they could. We could get a lot done. That stuff is more dangerous than nuclear weapons.
- [82:23]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah. Well, I think that the pendulum's swinging back. So we got a lot of people that have finally.
- [82:27]
Tucker Carlson
That's right.
- [82:27]
Dan McLaughlin
You know, I think a lot of brave people. It's been amazing to see what's happened in Silicon Valley over the last year or two.
- [82:32]
Tucker Carlson
I agree.
- [82:32]
Dan McLaughlin
These are a lot of smart, bright people that were afraid to stick their neck out there. I mean, thank God for Elon that all of a sudden came around and he gave people the. The ability to put their neck out there also.
- [82:43]
Tucker Carlson
And the fact that he represents or owns or runs or whatever, his relationship is companies that make things, physical things.
- [82:49]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah.
- [82:50]
Tucker Carlson
That's why it's so sad to see it happen to AB because it's like they actually make a product. You're holding your hand and this thing.
- [82:55]
Dan McLaughlin
And it's a great product. And whether you like alcohol or not like alcohol, I mean, Budweiser to some degree was the American treatment of bottle.
- [83:01]
Tucker Carlson
This is the famous Budweiser beer. We know of no other beer that costs so much to brew and age. Our exclusive Beechwood Aging produces a taste, drinkability you will find at no other beer, at any price.
- [83:09]
Dan McLaughlin
You gotta be the only person who hasn't drank a beer in 25 years that can recite that.
- [83:12]
Tucker Carlson
That's how much beer I drank.
- [83:13]
Dan McLaughlin
How did you. Is that what it was for me.
- [83:16]
Tucker Carlson
It was always a breakfast. Breakfast beverage.
- [83:17]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah.
- [83:18]
Tucker Carlson
I was never, you know, I probably should have worked there because I was never embarrassed. I mean, I think, Kevin, I quit drinking, but I was never embarrassed to drink in the morning, ever. It never even occurred to me. I just grew up in a different world. And I always have felt my whole life.
- [83:31]
Dan McLaughlin
Breakfast of champions back in the day.
- [83:32]
Tucker Carlson
If you're embarrassed to do something, don't do it.
- [83:34]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah.
- [83:34]
Tucker Carlson
And so I was never embarrassed. Like, I'd like a beer, please. I'd like a Bud Tall Boy. Like a Bud Tall Boy for breakfast with French toast. You know what I mean? Just kind of get you an even keel. And I, I've never had a Bud Light in my life, but I did think that Budweiser was like a pretty serviceable beer.
- [83:48]
Dan McLaughlin
It was a great beer. Very serviceable beer. Great sort of Americana beer. And again, the history of the company is amazing. It's almost intertwined with the history of the United States. It really started before the Civil War, which is crazy.
- [83:58]
Tucker Carlson
Oh, I know.
- [83:59]
Dan McLaughlin
And then was a huge supporter In World War I, World War II have folds of honor Foundation. I mean, hires thousands of veterans. And so more long term, I want the company to get back. I want.
- [84:09]
Tucker Carlson
Intertwined with American political and labor history. I mean, August Bush iii, who is still alive, knew Jimmy Hoffa.
- [84:17]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah.
- [84:18]
Tucker Carlson
Not like post prison get murdered Jimmy Hoffa, but like labor leader Jimmy Hoffa.
- [84:23]
Dan McLaughlin
Oh yeah, definitely.
- [84:24]
Tucker Carlson
I mean this was at the center. It was a huge employer. It was a builder of the middle class in this country.
- [84:29]
Dan McLaughlin
They built this distribution network of 500 independent family owned wholesalers across the country, which are amazing.
- [84:34]
Tucker Carlson
And they. All those families got rich.
- [84:36]
Dan McLaughlin
Like everyone did incredibly well. And so, I mean more broadly. And I know a lot of the wholesalers and they're all upset about what happened the last couple years because they lost tons of their business. They had to fire the CIA guy.
- [84:46]
Tucker Carlson
Still is his job.
- [84:47]
Dan McLaughlin
Yes. Which is crazy. And it's. I mean, it's even funny as well. So this year he tried to. You know how beer on menus usually says domestic or import?
- [84:54]
Tucker Carlson
Yeah.
- [84:54]
Dan McLaughlin
And so he tried to reframe domestic beer as American beer, which sounds like a great idea. But if you're not an American owned company, then where do you put an Ezra Busch? Do you put them on the American beer or on the import beer? A lot of times import. I think that's one of the reasons they should actually either sell it back to the Bush family or sell it back to Warren Buffet, you know, I don't think it was.
- [85:13]
Tucker Carlson
I don't have any special knowledge beyond what's obvious. But I think the problem with these family held companies like a family summer house, there are just too many stakeholders, as you say, too many family members who want the money. And it's hard to keep them going for that reason.
- [85:28]
Dan McLaughlin
No, I mean it is now, I mean, even in the Bush family, to their credit. I mean they got through four generations.
- [85:32]
Tucker Carlson
It's. No, I'm not criticizing them at all. I'm just saying at a certain point the family gets really big.
- [85:36]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah, they didn't own it anymore.
- [85:37]
Tucker Carlson
And there are certain members who want to run it and own it because it's their family legacy, it's their history. And there are certain members just like I live in Aspen, send me the money.
- [85:44]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah, no, you're right. So I mean, you got to find that right person at some point. Just nepotism just doesn't work. And there's going to be somebody outside better. But I think that you can have actually US ownership again of the business. And whereas Anheuser Bush InBev, it's a global company, they have operations in China and Africa and South America and everywhere the US is, this point is only about, I think 20% of their revenue and maybe a quarter of their profits. So it actually, to my, to me it makes tons of sense and the company will, this year will do, I don't know, four and a half billion of, call it profits. So I think there's somebody like Warren Buffett could come and maybe he buys the thing for 30 to 40 billion dollars and he's sitting on 300 billion dollars of cash. And maybe all of a sudden you put, actually you give actual real authority.
- [86:23]
Tucker Carlson
To US leadership and move it back to St Louis.
- [86:25]
Dan McLaughlin
Move back to St Louis. Move back to where it was.
- [86:27]
Tucker Carlson
Great town. Yeah.
- [86:28]
Dan McLaughlin
I mean, put its whole corporate headquarters back there. Put it back in the Midwest somewhere. I think that's gonna, that would make a lot of sense because otherwise you're going to continue to have a lot of competitors coming in and taking jobs and who knows, or give opportunities to folks like yourself. I mean, you're already going after the Zen folks with alp.
- [86:43]
Tucker Carlson
So yeah, the, the Stonewall brand, this is the non Stonewall brand. It's just out American lip pillow you.
- [86:49]
Dan McLaughlin
Put in your mouth.
- [86:50]
Tucker Carlson
You don't have to worry about where it's been.
- [86:52]
Dan McLaughlin
It's good.
- [86:53]
Tucker Carlson
Thank you. That was absolutely fascinating.
- [86:55]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah, thank you very much. And then if you don't mind, just plug it at the end. But talk about all this in Last Call for Bud Light, which is the book that we just released on this this past month. So I love people to go check it out.
- [87:05]
Tucker Carlson
I know your editor, Paul Schwa, one of my favorite people.
- [87:08]
Dan McLaughlin
Oh, he's great. Love.
- [87:09]
Tucker Carlson
Paul's the best.
- [87:09]
Dan McLaughlin
You probably know Keith at Javelin as well.
- [87:11]
Tucker Carlson
Certainly do, yeah. Great to see you.
- [87:13]
Dan McLaughlin
Yeah, thanks, Tucker. Thank you.
- [87:18]
Tucker Carlson
We want to thank you for watching us on Spotify, a company that we use every day. We know the people who run it, good people. While you're here, do us a favor. Hit, follow and tap the bell so you never miss an episode. We have real conversations, news things that actually matter. Telling the truth always. You will not miss it if you follow us on Spotify and hit the bell. We appreciate it. Thanks for watching.