#588 - Vice President JD Vance

Hi, I'm Dustin, your friend and jeweler at Shane Company.

If you're shopping for an engagement ring, we want you to feel like a kid in a candy store.

All of our diamonds are in stock, in store and online, so you get to use your eyes, not your imagination.

Come in and look at marquee-shaped diamonds right next to ovals and pairs.

As your friend and jeweler, you can trust you'll get your dream diamond at an everyday competitive price.

We have the widest selection in store and at Shaneco.com because a friend knows choosing a diamond is personal.

Shane Company, your friend and jeweler.

I've got some tour dates to tell you about.

I'll be in Cedar Rapids, St.

Paul, Minnesota, Fargo, North Dakota, Rapid City, South Dakota, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Rochester, New York, and Detroit, Michigan, all in June and July.

Tickets available now at theovon.com slash T-O-U-R.

Thank you so much for your support.

Today's guest is the Vice President of the United States of America.

He was previously a senator from the state of Ohio before winning the presidency with Donald Trump in 2024.

We are coming to you from Nashville, Tennessee, from the Detroit Cowboy, a new restaurant here.

I'm grateful for his return to our podcast.

Today's guest is Vice President J.D.

Thanks.

To be clear.

No, I'm not.

I don't care at all.

Look, we believe in the First Amendment.

If the Secret Service has to hit me, hit me hard, brother.

You know what I'm saying?

And hit two other people.

I want a class action suit.

Oh, holy shit.

Look,

there's a literal lion right there.

Like a lion skin.

I hadn't seen...

Have you noticed that before?

No-uh.

I think it's, is that a lion or it's a...

Sorry, I know we're supposed to start this.

No, it's okay.

No, you're good.

I'm just, there's hand signals and stuff going on on my group.

I'm just trying to get everybody to chill out so I can.

Okay.

Yeah, I just said, no, my bad.

Fuck, now I ruined everything, dude.

We had a really good vibe going, Theo, just totally.

It's like my childhood, dude.

I was just, something I said right out of the gate ruined it.

That's what my mom said to me when I was.

She's like, something you said to me right when I met you really ruined our relationship.

And I'm like, when I was what, 11 months old?

Your mom said that to you?

Yeah, she's just kind of a,

she's a mid-you know, she's just a good grudge holder, you know, and she's Midwestern, so she's got a good grip on it.

Yeah.

My mom's a good grudge holder, too.

But yeah, I don't think that she's ever held anything that I said in 11 months against her, though.

That's pretty, I mean, that's tough, man.

Your mom is the champion.

Oh, she wins, man.

She definitely wins.

Yeah, this is Kid Rock's place, dude.

Yeah, it's cool.

There's a line over there that I don't think people can see.

There's two foxes over there.

You know who would love this place is my kids.

Oh, dude, Kid Rock is one of the freaking...

He is definitely a damn piss lizard.

He is a beautiful guy.

He's a good dude.

He's definitely the kind of guy.

I feel like he would sing at like a...

I'm trying to think, what would you have Kid Rock sing at?

I know like a concert, but I'm trying to think of a different type of event or something.

I mean, he could sing in the orchestra or not orchestra, no opera.

Okay.

Dude, he would.

My wife now because i'm the vice president she's on the board of the kennedy center oh we could bring kid rock to sing in the opera really yeah oh wow that's going to be interesting oh you got to fumigate you got to fumigate that place after that's all i'm saying dude just because

so so my my cousin uh her one request from the campaign is that she wanted to party with kid rock And I feel kind of bad I didn't bring her.

I brought her.

You remember the first time we did your podcast, my cousin was with me.

Oh, yeah, I met her.

She's blonde, right?

Yeah, yeah.

She's good people.

And she said, I really want to party with Kid Rock.

She said she wanted to party with Kid Rock and Hunter Biden.

And unfortunately, I haven't made either one of those happen yet, but we'll see.

There's a lot of time left.

Wow.

I don't know if there's that much time left for either one of those guys, though.

That's really what I would.

What were we talking about before we started, dude?

Oh, yeah.

You saw that hand thing.

Remember about Huberman?

I did see this.

Yeah, who was that?

What's his name?

Huberman?

Andrew Huberman, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

He's,

and the problem was, though, another doctor told me we might have had our hand backwards.

So there's like a millions of people in America

doing like a potentially like homoerotic test on themselves based on.

Okay.

So

it's your index finger is supposed to be longer than your ring finger, right?

I think I'm not sure.

Yes.

That's how mine is.

Okay.

Is my

like my pointer finger is longer than my ring finger.

Oh, look, I'm just saying there's a lot of guys afraid to get out of their truck at work today, probably, you know?

That's all I'm just saying.

I mean,

there are, because I mean, millions of people watch your podcast.

There are probably hundreds of thousands of dudes, maybe more, who stared at their hand and were like, oh, no.

Oh, I saw one guy pulled his finger out of socket just to lie to his wife again.

Oh, God.

I mean, these are the steps people are going to, especially with this healthcare.

Yeah.

I mean, you got to do what you can.

I'm like, dude, you're going to have to put that back in yourself, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't think it works like that, though, right?

The causality.

I think if you like jerk your finger out of the socket, it doesn't really change anything.

Oh, then you have a broken finger.

i don't look man not that i'm judging of course all

every you know live and let live that's look dude if you're a gay guy i think if you can put you've you've put more than your finger back in socket you know i'm saying you can handle that that's all i'm saying so that right there i think is a good test i think my great great grandfather not sure if he was gay but people thought he was gay or whatever just from the pictures of him

Your great great grandfather.

Yeah.

Man.

I don't think I know anything about my great, great, great grandfather.

He probably fought in the Civil War.

He did?

Probably.

For both sides, I bet, huh?

You know what I'm talking about?

Okay, so there's a database.

There's actually, there's a website.

I think it's like an American history or Smithsonian.

Somebody keeps up a database where you can go in and type your name and you can see how many people with your last name fought in the Civil War.

Hell yeah.

And I did that on both sides of my family, mom and dad's side.

And it was kind of crazy how many answers or how many people with the same name at least fought in the Civil War.

Oh, I'm sure.

But on, but on, I mean, like on both sides.

There were some Confederates, there was some union yeah who would you have fought for you thing

sorry i'm joking diddy we're not going to start there i'm a big fan of abraham lincoln i would have i would have fought i would have fought for the union

um

it's it's interesting man so the

you you go back in time to like even so when i grew up right

the story that we told so i grew up in southern ohio and the story that sort of we took learned in ohio history and american history was basically the union was the union side was right but you know we're all part of the same team after the Civil War we all came together shook hands and you know kumbaya and you could even like respect the other side even if you didn't necessarily agree with what they were fighting for yeah and I feel like something happened like 10 years ago where every it's like you have to think that every single person who fought for the Confederate side was an evil person I just think that's so stupid yeah well I think you know I know there was a time when they tore down all the statues and stuff and erased like a lot of the history I think a lot of people would debate about the value of erasing history.

Because it feels like it's there for a purpose and it feels like it deserves to be there, even though like later on in life you might be, or later on in time, people might be like ashamed of it or think of it differently.

Yeah, that's right.

It feels like it at least earned its place in existence.

Yeah.

So did you ever see this?

There's this documentary on the Civil War by Ken Burns.

It was on PBS.

He was like the really sad violin music.

And I actually met the couple that composed that song from the Ken Burns documentary.

It's a beautiful song, honestly.

Yeah, but it seems sad as hell to sitting around with your wife all day listening to that shit.

Good God.

Let's just, let's sit here and listen to all five minutes of it in total silence.

Me and you and all these producers.

Look,

so my wife, who, you know, her family came from South India and then immigrated and then she was born in San Diego.

Like I watched that documentary with my wife.

Actually, I think when we were still dating, we weren't even married yet.

And it's like such a good summary of everything that happened in the Civil War.

And you get this sense it's sad and it's heartbreaking.

You know, they read letters from some guy home to his family.

It's just, it's, it captures the tragedy of the Civil War.

And my wife made this point actually a few years ago.

She was like, if you show that documentary, maybe not now, but like at the height of the woke thing, so call it 2021.

You show that documentary in 2021, there are a lot of things they would try to cancel Ken Burns over because, you know, like a Confederate soldier

wrote a letter home and it's sad and it's tragic.

And you try to empathize with that person.

And that was, that's like, that wasn't okay in 2021.

And I think that's actually one of the best things that's happened in the country the last few years is people are just done filtering themselves.

Right.

And they're done like being canceled or being afraid to say what's on their mind.

Like, that's a good thing.

Yeah, that's a great point, man.

Dude, I'll tell you this.

I heard that Frederick Douglass,

I heard Frederick Douglass was gay.

And I'll tell you, I saw it.

Who told you?

I've heard it from almost probably almost 15, not 15 people.

I've heard it from four people.

Where do you go to find the people who tell you that Frederick Douglass is gay?

Look, I'll tell you this.

You must hang out in more interesting places than I do.

It wasn't white people that told me.

Really?

So out of the gate, I've given a little bit more credibility.

And that's why he wanted to free all those men because he was having trouble meeting anybody.

Is that right?

Because everybody was at work.

You know, I'm going to talk.

I'm going to talk to

J.D.

vance congratulations dude congratulations we're gonna talk to the smithsonian about putting up an exhibit on that and theo vaughn you can be the narrator for this new

this new understanding of the history of frederick douglas dude no uh congratulations you dude you have such a dry sense of humor that sometimes you say something to me and i'm like was he was he screwing with me or was he actually being serious but when you think about it though he seemed awfully particular about getting them fellas off off work early i yeah i think so

Probably not for the reasons you're suggesting.

I'm just saying, I don't know.

And if he was, then more power to him, dude.

I think we need,

I don't know.

I'm not getting it.

This is, it's just getting worse for me.

You're still good.

Congratulations, man, on being vice president.

Thanks, man.

It's awesome.

That's so crazy, man.

It's just like,

I just can't even, like, I can believe it, but it's just like,

I can't.

You can't?

No, man.

It's crazy.

What about that first night?

The first night you won, what did y'all do?

Y'all get high.

Y'all didn't get high.

If I did, I wouldn't say it for public consumption.

No.

I did not get high.

I did not get high.

I mean, I did have a fair amount to drink that night.

Hell yeah, dude.

Dude, the first time I stayed at a Hampton Inn, it had two beds.

There was double beds in one room.

Yeah.

We fucking hated it.

You got to find an excuse to celebrate whenever one arises.

But I

take us down there.

Okay, all right.

Here's what happens.

So we're in Mar-a-Lago.

Okay, so first of all.

We had a puppy about 18 months ago.

Okay.

And I wouldn't even think about it, but the puppy's birthday is November the 5th, which happens to be the day of the election.

So our puppy's first birthday is November the 5th.

So we're at Mar-a-Lago with Donald Trump, and Donald Trump has his chef send our dog a birthday cake.

And I'm, you know, it's, I'm so nervous.

You know, I'm thinking about the election results and I'm trying to get, you know, I'm calling my guys up and saying, oh, do we have any early returns?

Like, what's going on?

And this like rice dog, a birthday cake shows up at Mar-a-Lago, and I'm like, what the hell is going on?

You know, the president, it's interesting.

He, he compartmentalizes things very well.

So he just doesn't get like really stressed out.

He's very stoic about everything.

Right.

Whereas I was a little bit more nervous.

So anyway, so polls close.

I'm sitting there with like my wife and all my best friends from back home come down to Mar-a-Lago to watch, except for my one buddy Nate.

I still give him crap because Nate, Nate couldn't make the trip.

Why?

He couldn't make the trip, man.

He had, you know, he had to take care of his kid or something like that.

He's a good dude.

He's a good dude.

Love him.

Put his kid in a van, dude.

You have to go to that

and do what with her?

Huh?

Pay the valet to help out i don't know anyway sorry nate so we're fine i don't know i'm going to trust me nate's a good dude

he's a fan of yours actually oh give me a hug for me so we're watching

we're watching the election returns and i'm getting updates because there it's crazy dude there's a whole data apparatus that is feeding information into the central campaign so like whatever the media is reporting on we're like 15 minutes ahead of time and we're asking questions like oh there's this i'll never forget this there's this one little county in Indiana that produced election results early.

And we were like, oh my God, we did so much better in that county than we did in 2020 or even 2016.

And so that's a pretty good sign.

And what happened is as these counties trickle in, you realize we're doing way better than we did even in 2016.

Like, oh my God, Donald Trump's going to be the president and I'm going to be the vice president of the United States.

And that was nuts.

And I was there, I was actually with

my wife.

So we go.

So once you- What did you do?

Did you put your hands in your pockets or what'd you even do

i don't know what i did with my hands man i was it was like it was like you know uh talladega nights right i'm just not sure what to do with my hands all night so we go over to the hotel where they're doing like the victory celebration and i'm there with like don jr and tucker carlson and a few other people who's sort of in the world of politics and they called pennsylvania and i didn't realize that like the the tv called pennsylvania and i didn't realize it i was just talking to my wife and the crowd goes wild So you hear people cheering.

And I'm like, what the hell happened?

And I look over at the TV.

I'm like, oh, my God, it's official.

And that was one, that was one of the craziest moments.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The feeling at that moment, one, it was incredible, but then you, you have this overwhelming sense of like, oh my God, we're the dog that caught the car.

Right.

And now you have to do a good job.

Yeah.

And it's not, you know, it's not like some random job.

It's like a really important job.

And so I just have this kind of sense of, oh my God, this is real now.

Well, Well, you're moving into another class of society.

I mean, shit, you're having your dog used to get cakes for his birthday now.

You know what I'm saying?

Like, things are changing, man.

Do you stay?

Where do you stay at?

Because if Trump stays, if the president stays in the White House, where do you stay at?

Yeah, so you should come to you.

You have an open invitation.

The president actually gives me crap about this because he says, sometimes I think you have a nicer house than I do.

We stay at a place we call it the VPR, the vice president's residence, but it's in the Naval Observatory.

So we've got like probably 40 or so acres of completely private space.

In an observatory?

Yeah, and

across the street.

That's right.

No, no.

Bring me in, dude.

Peeping Tom on stars.

Dude, I got a small ladder.

I'll set that whole neighborhood.

That's a picture of our house.

Dude, nobody will buy a new bra in that neighborhood without me knowing it, dude.

I swear to God, brother.

The telescopes are pointed towards the stars.

But anyway, so we live there.

So we got three little kids and, like I said, a dog.

And it's very cool.

But we did actually, so a couple of weeks ago,

the president invited me and my wife.

We had a,

I think, I think it was my stepmom was in town and the president invited me and my wife to stay in the Lincoln bedroom.

And I was like, oh, that's like really cool.

Of course I want to go stay at the Lincoln bedroom.

So apparently, though, a vice president had never stayed at the White House with the president before.

And so the Secret Service wasn't totally sure what to do because they didn't have like the processes.

But yeah, we went to the White House.

We stayed at the Lincoln bedroom.

Did y'all stay up late?

We did actually, but because it was kind of scary, right?

I mean, you're like laying in the room.

There's a desk where, you know, the president's like, that's the desk where Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation.

Like, I thought it would be cooler and more fun, but you're kind of just laying in there.

I was like, you know, there are ghosts.

It feels like there's ghosts everywhere.

It's just a kind of a creepy feeling to be in the literal bedroom of Abraham Lincoln.

I mean, think about it.

That dude went to the Ford's theater to go see a play, left that room, but never came back.

Right.

That's pretty, that's, that's creepy stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Dang, dude.

Speaking of Frederick Douglass.

Yeah, and yeah.

We've come full circle.

Look, I'll just say this.

There's photos.

When he was signing that, you saw Frederick in the distance.

Just biggest smile.

That's really biggest smile.

Biggest smile in the joint.

So, damn, you slept.

So you might be the first vice president that ever slept in the White House?

That's what they told us.

I don't, you know, that's maybe it had happened like 30 years ago, but.

Did y'all stay up late with the Trumps and watch a movie or anything?

Like, what did you got?

Play a game or anything?

So the the White House is a movie theater The president was busy, but my wife and I wouldn't watch Gladiator 2 in the White House movie theater.

Hell yeah.

Yeah

It wasn't as good as Gladiator 1.

I think that's just one man's opinion.

Yeah, but it's way better when you're the vice president watching.

Yeah, that's right.

In the

White House movie theater.

Oh, dude.

It's shitty, but if you're the vice president watching it, when you get to the end of the movie, you're still the vice president.

You're still the vice president.

That's pretty dope, dude.

That's right.

So yeah, we stayed up late, watched the movie.

The food's really good.

So there's like a fancy chef at the White House.

I mean, it's the White House.

And he stays up all night?

Well, I don't know how late he stays, but if you order anything at any time of night, they will just bring it to you.

Oh, my.

So

I'm going to get there.

Thankfully, at least we're at Kid Rock's bars.

So I was like, that's right.

I'm headed in a good direction.

We are at Kid Rock's restaurant.

I do want to say that.

It's a new restaurant.

Well, it's a reaffinement of Joe Muir Seafood, which is a famous restaurant in Nashville.

And he graced us by letting us have this room here to do this.

Okay.

So I want to thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Bob Richie, also known as Kid Rock, for letting us have this beautiful space.

He told me it had only been open for two days.

Really?

I didn't realize that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, I was here at a freaking welcoming party or something.

I was here last night.

Nice.

What the?

Dude, I was freaking in here last night.

The welcoming party, which is last night because it's only been open for two days.

It's good.

So how was the food?

The food, I will say this, actually.

There's steaks that they have these little bitty mushrooms, and I feel like they were, I don't want to say this out loud, but they were too young to be picked or whatever.

But it was really good.

It's good.

Really, really good.

I had expectations.

Okay.

We have you here.

Elon just hit the airwaves today.

Bring it on.

Dude.

Oh, man.

The fucking shit missile is in the cannon.

Okay.

Wow.

Elon Musk, time to drop the really big bomb, right?

And I thought this was going to be on iReview.

This one I haven't even seen, right?

I haven't even seen this one but he goes at real real Donald Trump is in the Epstein files this is the real reason they have not been made public have a nice day nice signature from a South African DJT man

well

so just so your audience is aware when was this when is this gonna air like tomorrow or two days 45 it's airing now dude no joking

I'm just saying like no presumably when this comes out people are gonna know more about this than I will because I just learned about this this kind of happened on the plane when I was coming on down here

Here's my basic reaction to like all this stuff is look.

First of all,

absolutely not.

Donald Trump didn't do anything wrong with Jeffrey Epstein.

Like there's the guy is

whatever the Democrats and the media says about him, that's totally BS.

Here's

my basic read on it.

First of all, I'm the vice president to President Trump.

My loyalties are always going to be with the president.

And I think that Elon, he's an incredible entrepreneur.

He's He's actually done a lot.

I think Doge was really good.

The sort of effort to root out waste, fraud, and abuse in our country was really good.

And look, man, I'm always going to be loyal to the president.

And I hope that eventually Elon kind of comes back into the fold.

Maybe that's not possible now because he's gone so nuclear.

Well, it's feeling.

And I hope it is, man.

It's beginning to hurt.

Why, though?

Do you know why?

Yeah, I mean,

so look, I think number one, so

Elon's new to politics, right?

So

his businesses are being attacked nonstop.

They're literally like firebombing some of his cars.

And by the way, we're looking into a lot of this stuff.

I mean, some of that stuff we're looking into is an act of terrorism at the Department of Justice because I think it is an act of terrorism.

So I think part of it is this guy got into politics and has suffered a lot for it.

But I mean, and I get the frustration there and I get the frustration that, I mean, look, Congress got the spending bill.

But the main purpose of the bill is not actually spending or cutting spending, though it does cut a lot of spending.

The main purpose of the bill is to prevent the biggest tax increase.

But I understand like it's a good bill.

It's not a perfect bill.

Like the process in DC, if you're a business leader, you probably get frustrated with that process because it's more, you know, bureaucratic.

It's more slow moving.

So I think there's just some frustrations there.

But I really, man, I think it's a huge mistake for him to go after the president like that.

And I think that if he and the president are in some blood feud, most importantly, it's going to be bad for the country.

But I think it's going to be, I don't think it's going to be good for Elon either.

But Elon, like, did Doge, first of all, my first thought was that it's a ruse, right?

Because there's a lot of times there's where the media will put out a ruse or they'll use somebody like, I think the Diddy thing is a ruse.

Like, it's like, hey, like, diverse community, stay busy with this shit while we like move all these chess pieces, right?

Sometimes that's what I feel like it is.

And maybe I'm like a pervert or whatever, sorry, or weird guy.

Sorry.

But this has nothing to do with that, huh?

But I'm not a pervert.

Maybe you're a weird guy.

You're not a pervert.

I think you're a good dude.

I appreciate that, dude.

But anyway, what I was saying was.

Though that Diddy thing, man, is it true they found like...

Sorry.

No, go ahead.

I'll have to play into this, but I read somewhere that they found like bottles and bottles and bottles.

Maybe you told me this.

I don't know.

Somebody told me bottles and bottles of like baby oil, but that had like drugs.

Drugs in it.

Bring that up.

Was they doping up the broader data?

Is that real or is that just something I heard on the internet?

Because sometimes you hear stuff on the internet.

It's not true.

Well, here's what defense.

Most of it is.

Most of the stuff you hear on the internet.

What defense would you have?

Like babies that are addicted to dirty oil?

Yeah, I mean, you don't normally have GHB in baby oil.

Like, I'm not a doctor, but I don't think that's a normal ingredient in GHB.

Anyway, sorry.

I don't know, dude.

There's some babies these days that fucking want to get to the club, homie.

No.

But no, but so do you think it was...

So obviously it was the bill.

This is where it's happened.

Something about the bill made him upset.

Yeah, so yeah, that's right.

That's right.

I mean, again, I think he looked at the bill.

He didn't like it.

And I think it's a good bill.

But again, there are things you can criticize about it.

Like the president would be very open and say, this is not a perfect bill.

But Donald Trump doesn't get to write the bills, right?

Congress has to write the bills.

And you got to work with them to try to get something that is as good as possible.

So here's what I'll say about the bill.

Number one, prevents the biggest tax increase in American history.

It prevents it?

Prevents it.

Because taxes are going to go up on everybody in a really big way at the end of 2025 because the old tax law expires at the end of 2025.

So you're going to to hit a big tax increase.

We're trying to prevent that from happening.

We're also trying to do stuff.

Okay, so you got a lot of people working long overtime hours in this economy.

You know, we inherited bad inflation from Joe Biden.

So no tax on overtime.

No tax on tips, right?

We're in Bob Ritchie.

We're in Kid Rock's great restaurant.

His servers would not have to pay taxes on the hard-earned tips that they get when they're busting their ass doing a good job.

So when working for Kid Rock, man, that's hard, that's hard work, right?

So I think that it's a good bill and it does a a lot of good for the American people.

But like, look, Elon's entitled to his opinion.

I'm not saying he has to agree with the bill or agree with everything that I'm saying.

I just think it's a huge mistake for the world's wealthiest man, I think one of the most transformational entrepreneurs ever, that's Elon, to be

at this war with the world's most powerful man, who I think is doing more to save the country than anybody.

I mean, I'm 40 years old, anybody in my lifetime.

Think about it.

It's a guy who, not even a year ago, nearly took a bullet in the process of campaigning, went back on the horse the next day.

And if you look, obviously, I'm biased, but you look at what we've done on the border, you look at what we've done with trade, fighting back against a generation of theft of the American dream, which is what the president's trade policies are starting to do.

I just think you got to have some respect for him and say, look, yeah, we don't have to agree on every issue.

I'm talking about if you're Elon Musk, you don't have to agree with us on every issue.

But is this war actually in the interest of the country?

I don't think so.

So hopefully Elon figures it out, comes back into the fold.

I know the president, you know, for a couple days, I'll tell you, just, you know, I don't want to reveal too many confidences, but it was getting a little frustrated, feeling like some of the criticisms were unfair coming from Elon.

But I think it's been very restrained because the president doesn't think that he needs to be in a blood feud with Elon Musk.

And I actually think if Elon...

chilled out a little bit, everything would be fine.

It would help.

Well, Elon also tweeted that he thought that in the second half of this year, that there would be a

the Trump tariffs will cause a recession in the second half of this year.

Now, who knows what could cause a recession in the second half this year?

It could be a buildup of our entire just history of being alive.

But he's saying this.

So it seems like.

And this is just me guessing.

And I don't know Mr.

Musk.

I never met Mr.

Musk.

One time he fed my buddy spaghetti at a party, though, dude, that my buddy,

people were raging and shit.

Your buddy couldn't feed himself a spaghetti.

Well, my buddy said he offered my buddy some spaghetti, and my buddy said, Yeah, I'd like to have some.

And then it's only if you feed it to me.

But instead of getting him a plate of spaghetti, he made him some and put it in his mouth, dude.

Does your buddy know Frederick Douglass?

My buddy, I'll say this.

My buddy actually is a friend of FPR.

That's a terrible.

Sorry, of uh

shit.

Frederick,

God, dude.

I'll fucking ruin this shit, dude.

Fuck, dude.

Civics, man.

Chill out.

No,

but he said that he thinks we did.

But do you think that he just thinks that there's too many, that it's not a fair bill for the people?

Do you think Elon Musk is for the people?

I mean, I think that he's making a mistake and going after the president.

I think his heart is

in the right place, man.

I do.

Like, I think he got into this for the right reasons.

I think he's frustrated.

I think he's an emotional guy.

Honestly, I'm a very emotional guy.

Yeah.

Like, it's the president is

it's interesting because if you read the media reports, you wouldn't necessarily see this.

He's not like quick to temper.

He's not one of these guys who flies off the handle.

That's a little bit more what I'm like, honestly.

Oh, he's

smooth, man.

He's stoic.

That's fucking 007, dude.

That motherfucker is.

I don't know if that's good, but it's.

Yeah, I get what you're saying.

But it is where it is.

But I think, so yeah, I think Elon means the best, but I think he's making a mistake.

Yeah.

Got it.

That's my view.

Did any, was Doge helpful?

It was.

Yeah, it was.

And I mean, look, Doge continues within the White House and within the executive of the country.

I mean, look,

there's a lot of ways in which we are wasting the American people's money.

Yeah.

Sometimes spending it on crazy stuff, sometimes spending it on like actually counterproductive stuff.

I think Doge has saved already at least $170, maybe $200 billion.

Hopefully it's going to save more.

But yeah, I think it was very worth it.

It's too much money.

That's a ton of money.

How do they not, how would you not even notice that if that much money like there's so much I could tell you about this okay, so one of the crazy things we all figured out like first week or so we're in the White House, okay, is

there was a payment that should be stopped because the president signed an executive order to stop a payment.

And this is like day one of the White House.

We're like, okay, how do we stop this payment?

Because somebody's trying to make this payment and nobody knew where like the computer was that actually wired the money from the U.S.

taxpayer to this entity.

So, dude, the amount of waste and the amount of just grift in the federal government was off the charts.

It's still, it's getting better, but there's still a lot more I think we can find.

Who was getting it?

I don't know one person that was getting something extra, I don't think.

Well, unless everybody was slurping.

Yeah, I mean, a lot of people were slurping, man.

You look at what...

So, for example, there are all these humanitarian programs that we have where we send money for people for medicine, for food.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

But like, you think, I think like what I thought before I got in the government, what most Americans think is, okay, so we send $100,000 to this group to buy food for like poor kids in Africa.

Okay.

And what actually happens is it's not $100,000 that go to the food for the poor kids in Africa.

That the NGO, the non-government organization that gets that money, contracts it out to somebody else.

Right.

And then they subcontract it out to somebody else.

There's like three or four middlemen.

And what, you you know, Marco Rubio, who's a secretary of state, he's a very good friend.

What he told me is that his best estimate after he had his team look at it is that 88 cents of every dollar was actually being collected by middlemen.

No way.

So every dollar we were spending humanitarian assistance, 12 cents was actually making it to people who needed it.

That's crazy.

So there's a lot of waste, man.

A lot of crazy stuff.

So Elon was putting in a lot.

Was Elon doing it for free all that time?

He was doing it for free.

Yeah.

He was doing it for free.

He was doing it for free.

I mean, he doesn't need money, right?

That's the one thing Elon right?

He does not need.

So, was he, I wonder if he was expecting anything from Trump and they just couldn't figure it out.

I don't know.

I'm just curious about it.

You know, I'm kind of like, you start to see how all this stuff kind of works, you know, and just like it's like, yeah, like I hear.

I really do think he's disappointed about the bill.

He's, you know, he disagrees with some of the things that were in there.

He's an emotional guy.

Look, it happens to everybody.

I've, I've flown off the handle way worse than Elon Musk did in the last 24 hours.

Oh, yeah.

But, you know, my hope is comes back, says, look, made some mistakes.

Didn't mean to say everything.

Let's smooth it out and let's all be friends.

Because, again, like, I care about the country.

And I think the country's better off if

under the president's leadership, Elon's helping us out as opposed to fighting the administration.

I don't want him to fight the administration.

I know the president doesn't want that, but here we are.

Yeah.

He just tweeted a little bit ago that he felt like 80% of the,

what was that?

About a third party or something?

He's tweeted like 300 times.

Oh, sorry.

Never mind.

Okay, that's just a regular day of tweets today.

Just a regular day for Elon.

So, yeah, he's obviously young.

I mean, he's definitely, uh, he gets a bit rogue.

Um,

uh,

why don't we have oh, wow, this is interesting.

Hold it up.

Let's see it.

Just from an account, you muted.

I'm curious.

Who did you mute?

Who is that guy?

Is that yours?

It's one of your producers.

Ian

Miolis Shong.

Oh, it's a Trump should be impeached and J.D.

Vince should should replace him.

Dude, that's one vote.

Oh, my God.

See, this is what I'm talking about.

This stuff is.

What are you talking about, campaigns?

This stuff is just not helpful.

Again,

there's definitely.

And here's, look, look, my first loyalty is to my family, obviously, to the Constitution.

Politics is a place where people stab each other in the back.

Yeah.

And you can't get anything done unless you're all on the same team and you're actually committed to getting stuff done together.

just think like the idea that the president,

the president should be impeached, I'm sorry, it's insane.

It's totally insane.

The president is doing a good job and you can look, you're free to disagree with him, right?

Everybody's a First Amendment right.

Are you free to disagree with Trump ever?

Do you feel like you can?

Of course, of course.

I mean, the way that I put it is, if I have a disagreement with the president, then

It is my job, obviously, to provide the president honest counsel.

Like, he doesn't need me to be a doormat.

He needs me to actually say what I think about an issue.

But when the president makes a decision, man, he's the general.

And when the general makes a decision, everybody's got to go and execute that order.

And that's kind of how I think about my job, really, is to be a good ally and a good friend, provide honest counsel to the president.

But also when a decision's made, you go out and get it done.

Does he listen to many people or does he listen to just one or two?

He listens to a ton of people.

It's one of the more interesting things about his leadership style is if he's got a big decision to make, he talks to everybody.

And I think it's why he's like in touch with normal people is because he doesn't just talk to like congressmen or people with a lot of money.

He tries to talk to everybody.

Like I've seen him ask the gardener at Mar-a-Lago what he thinks about a particular issue.

I've seen him ask the other people who work in the kitchen at the White House what they think about an issue.

He's constantly trying to understand what other people are thinking.

Oh, I saw him ask a Scottish Terrier what kind of cakes they like, you know.

So, yeah, I agree with you.

He's definitely always absorbing kind of information.

he is yeah um

nobody needs help spending money sometimes it feels like the whole world is trying to spend your money your whole social media feed is full of ads your mailbox is full of credit card offers and then there's all the hidden fees and extra costs and rising prices and blah blah blah

That's why there's Acorns.

Acorns is a financial wellness app that makes it easy to start saving and investing for your future.

You don't need to feel like financial wellness is impossible.

Acorns gives you small, simple steps to get you and your money on track.

You don't need to be an expert.

Acorns will recommend a diversified portfolio that matches you and your money goals, and you just need to stick with it.

And Acorns makes that easy too.

Acorns automatically invest your money, giving it a chance to grow with time.

I recently got Acorns account set up for my nieces and nephews to help them learn about financial wellness.

I think it's important.

Sign up now and join the over 14 million all-time customers who have already saved and invested over $25 billion.

Yikes, with Acorns.

Plus, Acorns will boost your new account with a $20 bonus investment.

Offer available at any time at acorns.com/slash T-H-E-O.

That's A-C-O-R-N-S dot com/slash T-H-E-O to get your $20 bonus investment today.

Pay non-client endorsement.

Compensation provides incentive to positively promote Acorns.

Tier 4, compensation provided.

Investing involves risk.

Acorn advisors LLC and SEC Red Street Investment Advisor.

The important disclosure at Acorns.com slash the O.

Man, you know, it's pretty obvious that the mainstream media is a big machine, right?

They kind of contour, they team up, they have a strategy.

So we're never really seeing the whole picture when it comes to news.

That's why I love ground news.

It lets you see how different news outlets cover the same story, left, right, and center.

Yeah, I was on ground news this morning, and it shows on the, if you look at the left regarding the Musk-Trump feud, it says Musk hits back with Epstein theories.

Trump hits back with threats.

Elon has gone crazy.

And then we go to a more centrist news feed and it says Trump-Musk feud explodes with threats of cutting contracts, backing impeachment.

And here we are with a right leaning from the Daily Wire.

White House responds to Elon Musk-Epstein claims, an unfortunate episode from Elon.

And I think you should go check this out yourself because I don't think we've ever seen anything like it.

I think it's actually the only of its kind, and I think it's what we've all been wanting.

Just go to groundnews.com slash Theo.

That's G-R-O-U-N-D, N-E-W-S dot com slash T-H-E-O to get 40%

off the vantage plan and get access to the mobile app, website, and exclusive newsletters.

Wow.

One more time, groundnews.com slash T-H-E-O.

You talked about the bill, the big, beautiful bill, you know, which is like kind of the most perf, it's the most Trumpian name you could ever have.

It is.

The big beautiful bill.

And

why do, why are, why are these bills this whole mess of shit?

Why is it a gumbo?

Why isn't it just one fine soup each time and you vote on each certain thing?

I know that's definitely going to be a novice question, but no, man, it's a fair question.

I think there are a couple,

excuse me, it depends on the kind of the Celsius is

got a lot of caffeine in it, man.

Are you talking about an amped over here?

What are you talking about?

Yeah, that's what FDR was on.

That's why he left his wife.

That thing will get, that thing will definitely

remop.

FDR loves Celsius.

As everybody knows, his favorite beverage was,

what is this here?

Sparkling orange Celsius.

And that is the most FDR flavor to be honest.

Oh, man.

Okay, sorry.

What did you ask me?

Okay, the big

bill.

I thought we were supposed to be reading the Bible.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right, the bills.

Okay, but the bill, why is it?

So the big, okay.

Because it's always, you always hear every, every congressman or senator, not everyone, but some of you hear him like, I just got it.

I don't know what happened.

I couldn't read a thousand pages last night, you know?

So there are different kinds of bills.

Okay.

And I think, so there are things called omnibuses, and omnibuses are like a million different things shoved into one bill.

And oftentimes you don't have time to read them.

The house, the house of representatives actually adopted a rule to where they have to get, I think, at least four days to actually read it to change this because people weren't getting time to read the stuff before it got voted on.

This particular bill, the way to think about it, it's basically If you looked, look at a campaign speech I gave back in September of 2024, and I said, we're going to cut taxes on tips we're going to have no taxes on overtime we're going to cut taxes on social security you know we're going to secure the border we're going to build more border wall we're going to hire more border patrol agents like all that stuff all of those promises are in this bill so like the way this particular piece of legislation was conceptualized is rather than then take up floor time on a bunch of random different stuff why don't we just do everything or at least most of the things that we campaigned on that can be done through legislation and put it into this bill now that's not saying that there aren't sometimes massive bills that are ridiculous and don't make a ton of sense.

There are, but I think this bill, like

you know, there's a there's a political answer to your question, too.

Okay, so

let's just say, I'm not going to name names, I don't embarrass anybody, but let's say you've got some Republican congressmen who really love no taxes on tips, but they're a little squishy on the border stuff.

They don't agree with what we're doing on the border, okay?

Or let's say you got somebody who really loves what we're doing on the border, but they don't necessarily like, you know, they don't want to cut taxes for one reason or another.

Right.

If, if, if you take enough of this stuff of our promises again and put it together, you say, look, even if you disagree with parts of it, this is what we campaigned on writ large.

And so we got to vote on this thing and make it happen.

Sorry, there's a final answer to this question, which is stupid and parliamentary, but it matters.

It's actually the most important answer is, okay, any bill that you do.

takes, you got to put it on the floor and you got to give people enough time to read it and you got to amend it and then you got to do a committee process.

And there's like a constant stream of things there's a big process for it and so if you went through that process for each individual item as a put on a separate bill cost per year it would take over a year to do all these bills but we gotta like we gotta prevent taxes from going up and we don't have that much time to do it we got to secure the border we don't have that much time to do it we've got to do the the no tax on social security like if if if we did that 18 months from now in a smaller bill, then we would not be keeping our promises to the American people.

I see.

Is there a way that they can just prioritize this?

I wonder.

It just feels like it would make it would be so much easier to digest as a regular person if you weren't thinking like,

well, heck, my guy's got to stay up all night for 600 nights to get all this information in, you know, and to get it in accurately and then to make fair choices on it.

Yeah, I mean, I think the answer to your question is you could do that, but Congress would have to change its procedures.

And could Congress do that if they voted to do it?

They could.

They could.

They could.

But they would need to change their procedures.

And, you know, the President I's attitude is, we're like, we're not going to tell you how to run Congress.

Right.

We're working within the constraints that we have.

Understood.

And we're just trying to get as much done.

And look, I mean, people are frustrated with Congress.

I get it.

People are frustrated with certain things that Congress does.

I agree with a lot of those criticisms.

I mean, we do spend way too much money in this country.

Like, it is a reality that we spend too much money.

But I don't think those criticisms apply to this particular legislation.

Like, one thing I'd ask everybody to say is, okay, so, so big ugly spending bill, some people are calling it.

What is the spending that is done here?

The biggest single budgetary item, Theo, in this bill is the money to secure the border.

Like, that's not ugly spending.

That's like the best kind of spending.

Well, that's a great kind of spending.

I think, well,

no, I agree with that.

Look, we've had two border officials on over the past four years, and we've learned about

all the just the infrastructure issues that they face.

We've learned about the fact that the executive branch doesn't process any of the

like they'll apprehend the guys, but then they're not processed.

I think it's the executive branch.

Yes, because we don't have the money to do it.

Like that, that's okay.

Here's they were saying for years guys would come in and they'd have to catch them every other week because they would, and nobody would prosecute them.

So it was just, then it made them feel like they didn't have any value.

I know that we're signing like 5,000 new people to work at the border.

So I know that we're giving a lot of new jobs there.

That's what we're trying to do, right?

Is create enough resources so that you can actually do all the border enforcement that we promised.

And like

the part part that the president got immediate action on.

If you think about this, we came in, the president empowered Border Patrol to stop letting people come across the border illegally.

That stopped pretty much immediately.

You got like a 96% drop in border crossings immediately.

Yeah.

The thing is, though, is you've got 21 million people in here illegally.

You got to send them home.

You got to process them.

You got to actually, sometimes some of these people, you know, are entitled to some kind of trial for one reason or another.

So you've got to like do that.

That stuff all costs money.

And that's where we don't have money to do it right now.

So that's why this bill is necessary.

Did, who was that?

They just said that

did Congress have enough time to read this bill?

Thomas Rep Thomas Massey said the House has a 72-hour rule which requires the bill to be posted 72 hours before passage.

What does that even mean?

Yeah, that's that's I had never heard that before.

And look, I mean, Thomas Massey and I get along,

but my

understanding is that the bill text was people have had literally weeks to pass it or to read it.

And the reason, okay, here's the criticism I'd give of what Thomas Massey is saying right here is what's going to happen is the Senate has to vote on this bill and then it has to go back to the House.

And it may change like 1%, like the Senate may change a sentence or a paragraph here or there, but it's going to fundamentally be the same bill.

So the idea that people haven't had an opportunity to actually read it is ridiculous.

They're in fact going to have to vote on it again before it even becomes law.

So they'll have more time.

They'll have more time.

Got it.

Like by necessity, by law, they have to.

Understood.

Part of the bill I know that people are, that's getting a lot of attention, right?

Yeah.

And I do want to say, like, I recognize that, like, when you get into a place, you can't just get what you want, right?

There's a lot of people in that place, and everybody wants certain things.

There's a give and take.

That's why I'd say it's good, not perfect.

There are criticisms to make of it.

Yeah.

There's a give and take, dude.

You know, that's why you can, yeah, it's like getting in-laws or whatever.

That's right.

Any good marriage has give or take any good relationship has give or take yeah right yeah oh yeah you gotta you gotta compromise a little bit you gotta accept some things you might not love uh that's just that's the nature of the beast um part of the bill that people are talking about is there's um like the ai stuff right like the government like um there's a ban uh is that we're gonna spend a lot of money with ai like in order to advance like bring our government at technologies up to code really i know what you're talking about and then also it says in there that there's a ban that at state levels they couldn't prosecute some of these AI companies.

So that sounds really sketchy.

I know what you're talking about.

Yeah.

And this is in USATA.

I'll just read it.

The ban is tucked into a section of the bill that would allocate $500 million over the next 10 years to modernize government systems with the help of AI and automation technologies.

The ban would not only prevent new state-led regulations of AI, but would also block dozens of states from enforcing pre-existing AI regulations and oversight structures.

It feels scary.

Yeah, so let me say a couple of things about this.

So I actually was talking to a couple of senators

on the way down here about this because they really hate this provision.

And they actually both.

We brought them on because it's Bill Haggerty and Marsha Blackburn, great people.

They represent the state of Tennessee.

So they don't like this provision.

And they brought up a really interesting point.

It's because, so Tennessee obviously has a lot of musicians, right?

And Tennessee wants to protect those musicians from having basically AI steal the the production of their artists right because one of the big problems with AI right is you're going to be able to take somebody's voice and then like you know Taylor Swift's voice or you know anybody else's voice

and and basically say oh okay well based on this one song that you know Robert Plant did 35 years ago, we're going to like make a whole new Led Zeppelin song using artificial intelligence, Right.

And they want to protect people from that kind of thing happening.

So that's a totally reasonable point to me.

The reason that provision is in there is because you think about like, think about how like woke the Google searches got.

Remember when you'd like to search, what does George Washington look like?

And it'd show you like a picture of a black dude.

Oh, yeah.

And, and, and like a little Japanese George Washington or something.

So, so the idea is you use, you basically have a federal regulation that prevents

a federal regulation that prevents like California from having a super progressive set of regulations on artificial intelligence.

That's the argument for it.

The argument against it is that if the feds aren't protecting artists, then you're not going to be able to protect artists either.

And so honestly, I don't think the provision, to be honest with you, I don't think that's going to make it in the final bill, but I usually have a pretty strong view on most things.

I could kind of go both ways on this because I don't want California's progressive regulations to control artificial intelligence.

Yeah, I also agree with Marsha and Bill that you want to protect, you know, country artists in Nashville from having their crap stolen by AI.

Like, I get that.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's interesting.

I mean, that kind of stuff, it's like, because they made a bunch of little babies of all the, like, a lot of podcasters, and now they're doing it with everybody.

Like, they got dang, uh, you know, Aaron Rodgers' baby.

They got left eye from

that Millie Vanilli woman or whatever.

They have everybody in there.

And so,

but I'm Millie Vanilli, man.

Too soon.

Oh, yeah.

I'm a Millie Vanilli truther, by the way.

Yeah, man.

Oh.

I think it was really them.

I just think they were taken advantage of.

Thank you.

Thank you, dude.

You know, there's like seven of us left, don't you?

Oh, man.

And that was a catchy song.

So I was born in 1984.

That's one of the first songs I remember playing in a radio.

Dude, remember that song?

I'm the one who wants to.

I do remember that song.

with you.

That was like mid-90s, right?

I don't know.

It was good, though.

Trying to think of what.

I'm trying to think of the band.

I think it was kind of a one-hit wonder.

Mr.

Big.

That was Mr.

Big, okay.

That's kind of one-hit wonder, right?

Yeah, they were.

Yeah, that's too bad.

Oh, they were good.

That was a good song.

Remember the first song you ever heard?

I'm pretty sure the first song I ever heard was Layla by Eric Clapton,

the original one, not the acoustic one.

Dude, my buddy, I used to live with my buddy's dad, right?

Because he was getting, I had like erectile dysfunction since I was pretty young.

and then uh i was living with him because he was getting like an early script on

uh

on pill ed pills or whatever you know wiener pills and so i stayed over there and i i cop a little bit off of his but um anyway he used to hook up with this lady and i was learning the guitar he made me go play layla no

tears of heaven oh man that's a sad you know that's about his son dying and it was the only song i knew and they like play it again oh my god

this is one of those things where I hope to God you're joking.

Because if you're living in Sude's house, how old were you at the time?

I was probably 27.

Okay.

So you're 27 stealing ED pills, playing tears in heaven.

That's a bad situation.

You got to get out of that situation, man.

I'm going to assume that you're joking because I don't want to have nightmares about this.

Brother about this later on.

What do you mean?

Okay, okay.

That's the healthcare system.

We have to talk about it.

The healthcare system.

All right.

So on the way over here.

No, I'm just joking.

That is a true story, though.

I hear you.

On the way down here,

on the way down here, there's like an advertisement for some like med pack.

It was, it was on, it was a TV commercial.

And I don't really watch like normal TV, so I don't see commercials that often anymore.

But it's like med pack, and it's like, order this thing, and it costs $45, and it has these different drugs in it.

And I only saw it briefly, but I could have sworn that two of the medications in this med pack were, and it's advertised as like an emergency medicine, are ivermectin and ozimpic.

And I'm like thinking to to myself, what is the situation where you need emergency Ozimpic?

And

so like the second half of the flight down here, I'm thinking to myself, what is the emergency Ozimpic situation?

And then I thought like, you know, if you have a Dahmer party situation and it's like, all right, you know, we got to, we're going to suppress our appetites here.

But I...

I don't know.

But maybe it was just ivermectin.

Maybe it was an ozimpic.

But that's, see, stuff like that is kind of crazy to me.

Well, now they're combining.

It's just everything is combined now.

You know, they even put, I think it's Pizza Hut and Baskin-Robbins are together now.

It's like everything I think is mixed now.

But yeah,

that kind of makes sense, though.

Yeah, it kind of does.

You're a pizza and then some ice cream.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's true.

You're right.

So what I never understood was like, what was

it?

Taco Bell and KFC.

Yeah.

It's one of that.

It's one or the other.

That's called indigestion, right?

That is the only way that combination mixes.

It should be one or the other.

It should be one or the other.

You do not need, if you're going to talk about Bell and KFC in the same stop, you got serious problems.

Did you?

Let me think about something that's important, JD, or people are not even going to believe that we spent time there.

Oh, my God.

This is fun, though, man.

This is good.

It's good to.

It is good, man.

Dude,

I just can't even believe that that's your life.

Is it what you thought it would be?

Is it different once you got in there?

Are things that different?

It's about what I thought it would be.

I mean, at this point, right, I know the president pretty well.

And, you know, I knew that he would, I knew he had a lot of trust in me.

And again, the role of the vice president is very derivative of what the president is doing.

So if the president has trust in you, if he gives you a task and just lets you go and do it, that's kind of what your, that's kind of what your job is.

And it's been a lot of fun.

Like I've traveled all over the world.

I think we've done a lot of good work for the American people, which of course is the most important, most important part.

I mean, there are little things that I, you know, will take some time getting used to.

So like we got three little kids.

Our son just turned eight yesterday, actually.

And then we have a five-year-old son and a three-year-old baby girl.

And our eight-year-old son is, he's a little bit of an introvert, I think.

And so he doesn't love the attention.

But then our like five-year-old son is a little bit more like me.

So he'll like roll off the airplane, waving, saying hello to everybody.

And having secret service around is kind of a crazy experience.

Like they're all good dudes and I love them, but it's also kind of unusual to like just walk outside your house and there's always somebody, you know, walking with you.

That's kind of weird.

Oh, definitely.

I think.

I mean, we went back to go chat for, you know, like five minutes just before this thing started.

And, you know, I was like, don't worry, guys.

Theo doesn't have a gun.

I hope you don't.

No, they checked us.

We're in deep shit, man.

They checked me.

Somebody kissed me on the way, and I was like, that's part of it.

One of the secret services.

No, I'm joking.

But I was like, what's your secret, buddy?

Huh?

You know?

Oh, that's Millie Vanilli right there.

His babies right there using it.

Oh, my God.

Wait, those are Grammys, right?

I didn't know that.

Oh, they took their Grammys away.

Well, didn't one of them took took their Grammys away?

Didn't one of them commit suicide?

It's kind of a sad story, actually.

Yeah.

And one of them died a couple of years ago.

I met one of them one night, I think.

Maybe I didn't.

I was out late one night.

I'll say that.

Sorry, that's like crazy.

What are we talking about?

Let's talk about...

Could have been Millie Vanilli.

Could have been my uncle.

Who knows?

Who am I to say?

I don't know.

I'll just say I met one of Freddie's buddies, one of Frederick's buddies out there.

I'll say this, man, right now, sir.

I will say it.

So people have to, like, we all need help whenever we're, like, and when you're politicianing, right?

Like, you need help, you need support, you have sponsors and stuff, right?

Correct.

There's a lot of speculation and talk.

Like, one of your primary sponsors is a guy, Peter Thiel, right?

And he's in the tech world.

Yeah.

And I never met him, you know?

Sure.

But, you know, there's like a lot of these tech kind of lords, like they,

you know, technology has grown so much in the past 20 years that it controls a lot of our environment and our life right it does

what do you owe somebody if you do like if you get into office if somebody like donates a lot of money to your campaign like how does that relationship work after that i think the attitude is you don't owe them anything and i think if the if you take the attitude of you owe somebody something then you're fundamentally not going to do the job that you you were meant to do I mean, this is always, this is tough, right?

Because so, so take my, my Senate race, first time I ever ran for office was 22, 2022.

i i i uh ran for the ohio senate race i won you did that race yeah yeah thank you that's good yeah

if i hadn't won i wouldn't be sitting here oh okay yeah yeah because then i became the vice president of the army and now here so i so i basically have won i've run two campaigns in my life the first one the senate campaign costs 45 million dollars the second one presidential campaign i think that we spent like 1.2 billion dollars okay so it costs a lot of money well the president obviously is the leading campaign but

the total campaign.

Got it.

So it costs a lot of money to run for office and you got to go and raise money.

Yeah.

But I think that if your attitude is, I owe something, these people gave me money, then you're going to end up being corrupted.

And you've got to kind of take the attitude of.

they're supporting me because they agree with me.

And obviously, like you have conversations with him, like you mentioned Peter Thiel.

I see a lot of crazy stuff on the internet about Peter Thiel.

Like, you know, he's always been a friend of mine.

He's always been one of the smartest people I've ever met.

Like just a very, just a very thoughtful dude.

But he's, he's literally never asked me once for anything.

So he just believed in you?

He believed in me.

He agreed with me on a lot of issues.

I mean, he definitely has like said, hey, I don't agree with you on this, but he's never said, I don't agree with you on this.

Therefore, you should vote differently or act differently.

But it's like, to be honest with you, it's one of the risks of our system.

Now, if you think about it, right?

Because if you are a super ambitious dude or girl and you really want to run for office, like you got to be able to separate yourself from that donor pressure.

And think about it.

Like if you're going to a fundraiser, okay, everybody's going to go to fundraisers in politics.

Well, that's like an hour and a half you're not spending talking to the people you represent.

Right.

So there is one of the problems in our system is the people spend so much time raising money.

I think sometimes, not all cases, but sometimes it can have a corrupting influence on the process.

Now, I was talking to a buddy of mine actually about this because his argument is, yeah, he's like a political consultant.

He's a political hack, but a good dude.

He said, he said, he said, our system is better though, because in some places they have publicly financed campaigns.

And he's like, the problem with places where they have publicly financed campaigns is that

all of the control in the political system is with the media.

Like if you, if you raise money, most of what you're spending your money on is TV, radio advertisements.

It's reaching voters.

So if you can't reach voters with TV advertisements and you got to go on the corporate media to get your message out there, that's even worse.

So I kind of see both sides of it.

I just think as a practical matter, what I try to do is remember that, you know, it's an honor to serve, but it's also a sacrifice to serve.

And if people are going to write me a check, great, but I don't owe them anything.

That's, that's the attitude I try to have.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, it just, it's interesting because, I mean, we all have people that help us do certain things or are supportive.

And then you get in spots where you're like, you know, I like, I used to live with a family when I was growing up and there's always been this thing like, what do I owe them?

You know, not that they've ever said I owe them anything, of course.

But it's like, you know, there's always this feeling inside of you, you know, of like, and so I'm sure a lot of people can relate to things like that.

This episode is brought to you by Masa Chips.

It's time to get those processed seed oils out of our lives.

And Masa Chips is at the forefront.

Did you know all chips and fries used to be cooked in tallow up until the 1990s when big corporations switched to cheap processed seed oils, MASA decided to do something about it.

They created a tasty and delicious, delicios, tortilla chip with just three ingredients and no seed oils.

These chips don't only avoid all the bad stuff, they taste great too.

I got about four or five flavors here at the house, and I think cabanero is one of them.

And I'm digging them, baby.

And they don't break.

That's what I like.

These chips are sturdy, baby.

They don't crack off in your guac and get the job half done, baby.

These things are, they're not just a worker, they're a dang contractor.

These things will get that guap to your face.

Masa Chips is beloved by tens of thousands of customers and has been endorsed by the industry leading health and nutrition experts like Ben Greenfield and Gary Brecca.

Ready to give Masa a try?

Go to masachips.com slash T-H-E-O and use code Theo for 25% off your first order.

Bang, that's some chips.

That's masachips.com/slash T-H-E-O and code Theo for 25% off your first order.

I really enjoy them.

I'm curious to see what you think.

It's time to have better sex.

Yep,

with Blue Chew.

Blue Chew is the original brand offering chewable tablets, yum, for better sex.

And starting now, Blue Chew is offering a combo so strong it'll knock your socks off and your neighbor's socks off.

You'll have to all buy new socks.

Blue Chew Max has arrived and it combines the active ingredients of Viagra and Sy Alice into one chewable.

This combo acts fast and lasts.

So guys, be ready when she needs it and get your first month of Blue Chew free.

Yep.

Everyone could use an extra hand.

With Blue Chew, you've got an extra leg.

More horsepower.

Nuff said.

Make life easier by getting harder and discover your options at bluechew.com.

And we've got a special deal for our listeners.

Try your first month of Blue Chew free when you use promo code T-H-E-O.

Just pay $5 shipping.

That's promo code Theo.

Visit bluechew.com for more details and important safety information.

And we thank Blue Chew

for sponsoring the podcast.

Well, recently they have like, there's a lot of like Trump picked out

that the, there's the Palantir company, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's about a surveillance thing.

So this thing is fucked.

This sounds crazy, dude.

Like this sounds like we're only going to be human for like two more years, right?

So they, and this is the Palantir company where they're going to build security databases that have all of our information in them, right?

That's what they're saying.

That's what they're saying.

Yeah.

And it's going have like everything it'll like look at you and know like if you're good at tennis or if you've ever you know if you have like if you have sixty dollars in your pocket or if you're you know it can tell if your kids are you know if your kids can have a limp or whatever if they'll be in the christmas play yeah you know what i'm saying it can tell all of that

and then and that feels real scary man like to i get it to a regular street that feels like we're gonna give our our society like

like we're gonna become these

like they're going to have know everything about us.

It makes you feel like you won't be a person anymore.

I hear you.

Does that make sense to you?

It definitely makes sense to me.

I mean, let me try to explain.

So to be clear, I'm not an expert on this particular deal.

I actually just read about it earlier today or maybe yesterday.

But the president did an executive order, I don't know, a couple months ago.

And the basic idea is you've got all this different information, but it's not accessible in one place.

So like, let me give you an example where this might be useful.

Okay.

Let's say you catch an illegal immigrant, okay?

And that person's using a social security number, but the Department of Homeland Security that arrests the person can't actually figure out what social security number that illegal immigrant is, what name it's attached to.

Okay.

Or, you know, let's say you're like investigating some terrorist and the FBI arrests the person, but their information about like where the person lived a couple of years ago that you'd like to have.

So you'd maybe like to go, you know, talk to their friends or associates or whatever.

Yeah.

My understanding is that it does sound odd, but that what they're trying to do is take all the information the Department of Homeland Security has, that the FBI has, and just make it so that it's actually not in some hyper-inefficient system.

It's all sort of accessible.

And here's the thing.

Modern technology is just crazy and weird, and it affects our privacy.

And I think we don't have to think that's a good thing.

It is like a reality of the world that we live in.

Right.

That's how we get a little romantic about things.

Well, I mean, look.

And I think it's going to go back in time.

I mean, look, everybody, I kind of agree with you.

I think people are sort of going to rebel against technology a little bit.

In some ways, they already are.

But I mean, look, dude, if I, if I, this has happened to me so many times where I'm talking to my wife like, oh, what are we going to make for dinner for the kids tonight?

Oh, let's just like do DoorDash or Grubhub.

And then you go on like X or you go on, you know, Facebook or Instagram, and there's like an advertisement for a DoorDash coupon.

And it's like, well, I was just talking about this 10 minutes ago so we know that big technology spies on us and harvests our data i honestly worry more about that than about like connecting the dhs system to the fbi system so that's all that this palantir deal is part like a lot of that it's just it's just connecting information

so i'm partly an expert but that is my understanding is that it's just taking okay dhs has information fbi has information secretary of the treasury has information and making it possible for that information information to be searched by whoever is looking for it.

That's my understanding.

But again, like

I hear that same, that story, and my reaction is the same, which is, oh, I don't like the government having my information.

The reality is the government already has my information.

And more importantly, some of these private technology companies have way more information on me than the government does.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, anywhere you shop.

has unbelievable information on you.

I mean, let me tell you, like, right, crazy.

Blockbuster, two days ago, Blockbuster was like, happy happy birthday.

They were wrong.

So I got to, I got to.

It's like,

you're out of business.

There's a, there's a, yeah, when was the last time you were at a blockbuster?

But some guy somewhere, probably in another country, Nepal, you and FDR.

You and FDR took your Celsius and went down to Blockbuster to get some, get some VHS rentals.

Okay.

A little bit of boogie,

boogie nights for the fellas.

That was FDR's favorite movie, so that makes sense.

So, all right.

What were we talking about?

Technology.

Okay.

So

I was, okay, I was getting a brief.

So,

when I first became, no, no, they are.

And I get it.

And look, like, all I'll tell you is we try to be as.

Oh, yeah, I did go to the last Blockbuster.

I forgot about that.

How old was Oregon?

Is that 14 years ago?

That?

No, that's freaking two years ago.

I didn't realize Blockbuster was.

Max Little out there.

He got stuck in the snow out there.

Yeah.

So, so, so, so, um, I got a brief from my national security guy.

I gotta make sure I can, it's not classified information.

Okay, no, it's not classified information.

Okay, basically, long story short,

one of the guys who works in the national security team of the Trump administration

gave me this brief about how, okay, when you're using an iPad, and let's say you know, you're reading a story from some random newspaper and you hover on a particular paragraph, like your iPad is collecting that information on you.

Like it's actually trying to track what you're doing.

Like that is the stuff that really freaks me out.

Well, how do we stop that?

I think it freaks everybody out.

I think it just makes people sick.

It's like you don't even feel like you exist for any purpose anymore other than to be advertised to or to be,

I don't even know anything else.

Well, you think about it, like our, think about it.

100 years ago, 50 years ago, the most brilliant scientists in the world, they're trying to figure out nuclear energy.

They're trying to figure out how to cure cancer.

Now,

way too many of them are figuring out, like, how do I get a person to linger on a digital advertisement for a little bit longer so that we can increase the price of the ad that we sell them by three pennies?

Yeah.

Like there's something, I think, very, that warps our entire economy about the digital advertisement world because too many smart people are focused on getting us addicted to these applications.

And I mean, what do we do about it?

I mean, one thing is, is from a policy perspective, we've already looked into a lot of things we can do on data privacy and protection.

So we're trying to make it harder for these firms to collect information on you.

Well, it feels like with this, with Palantir, it's like they're going to collect all the information, though.

So that feels like.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, look, my understanding again.

So this is full disclosure because

I think I would know more about you.

I think it's important.

I think it's important to be open.

So Palantir, you asked about Peter Thiel.

Palantir is actually one of the companies that he invested in, right?

So, you know, he doesn't run it.

My understanding is he doesn't run it.

But

I don't believe that Palantir is collecting any information.

I believe it's purely building a database that's sort of combining information.

I might have some of my team that you guys can, is that right?

Is that accurate?

Okay.

Cool.

No, I'm glad.

Yeah.

Because we're just trying to figure it out.

And I think, I mean, right now, I think Palantir has like...

you know, there's a lot of conflict right now in Gaza.

You know, everybody knows about that.

Of course.

And Palantir has like

been accused of being like complicit in a lot of the the violence over there.

And so I think that's where it gets really scary for like a regular person on the street.

I'm like, well, if this is the company,

you know, because you see videos of like horrific stuff online.

Sure.

Very sad stuff.

And you're like, well, if this is the company we're hiring, how do I know that I might not be walking down the street and just a sniper bullet could hit me from them?

You know, so that is to be really honest with you.

Yeah, no, I hear what you're saying.

And I think the answer to that question is the only real protection that we have against that is that we've got to

elect the right people and we've got to make sure that our government doesn't do crazy stuff.

Because, I mean, look, any of this information can be misused.

Like our government has your social security number.

Using that information, the government could spy on you.

The government could give your information over to an illegal alien to start a fake account in your name.

And that, by the way, happens.

I had a friend of mine who had an illegal alien steal his social security number.

And when he went to the IRS to complain about it, they wouldn't give him information on

the person who was stealing his stuff.

And by the way, that's what we're trying to do is make it so the IRS can talk to the Department of Homeland Security.

But the only real protection against this stuff, I think, is to have a government that actually protects the rights of its citizens.

And, you know, if, I mean, we should all be worried about our privacy being invaded by the government.

I think we should be just as worried about private corporations as we should be the government.

I think everybody could invade our privacy.

But I don't, let me put it this way.

I don't think that the solution to that problem

is

to

pretend that the government doesn't already have this information.

It just does.

You got to make sure it doesn't misuse it.

And that's my view, at least, is we got to live in reality, and the government's already got this information.

We just need to make sure they don't misuse it.

And on like the Gaza thing, just sort of chat about that for a little bit i mean

i'm i'm like a human being so i look at this stuff i see these videos i see the pictures and it's very heartbreaking and you know just since you brought it up like what what we're trying to do here is

try to solve two problems here okay so on the one hand you've got innocent people

innocent Palestinians and innocent Israeli hostages, by the way, who are like caught up in this terrible violence that's happening as as we speak.

Okay.

And we're trying to get as much aid and as much support into people as humanly possible.

That's like one thing that's going on.

The other side is Israel is attacked by this terrible terrorist organization.

I think people sometimes forget that, right?

They forget like the thing that kicked this off is that we had this terrible terrorist attack and you had a lot of innocent Israeli civilians die in that terrorist attack.

And so I think what we're trying to do in the Trump administration with that situation is to get to a peaceful resolution.

And I think the peaceful resolution looks something like this.

You've got to give Israel confidence that Hamas is never going to attack them and kill a bunch of civilians.

And then you've got to get as much aid and support into these innocent Palestinians as possible, because in some ways they're caught in the middle of this thing too.

One thing that

I don't love about the whole Israel-Palestinian debate is I think it kind of degrades our humanity a little bit because I've seen people on the left, mostly on the left, who will say, well, you know, they'll completely ignore that Israel, like all these innocent Israelis were killed in this terrorist attack.

And you have some people usually on the right who will completely ignore that they're like kids who are caught up in this violence.

And I think it's why the president has been, you know, I call him the president of peace.

It's why he cares about solving this problem because the longer this goes on, the more suffering, the more death.

So we're trying to solve it as much as we can.

It's not easy.

Do you have a say in it?

Yeah, I mean, well, the president's obviously the person who makes the final decision all the time.

But yeah, I mean, certainly, I think I'm one of the few people that he's talking to constantly.

We're constantly, you know, we're talking to the Israeli government.

We're talking to people in the Arab world.

We're talking to people in the Palestinian territories.

Like we're constantly engaging in diplomacy.

I mean, one of the crazy things, dude, is this guy is a very dear friend of the president's.

He's our special envoy of the Middle East.

Steve Witkoff, he's a Jewish guy, very pro-Israel.

He's done more.

to try to bring this conflict to a close than anybody.

And you sometimes have people who say that they're pro-Israel who attack Steve for not being pro-Israel enough.

And I think it's totally bogus.

Like I see this guy operate every single day.

He actually is.

Like

he's the Jewish guy who believes in

the purpose of the state of Israel.

He also is a guy with a heart who's trying to prevent the killing.

Yeah.

And I think there's just...

Like when I talk about this whole debate has caused us to lose our humanity, I think of the people who are constantly going after Steve, because this is a guy, he's a father.

He lost one of his own children because of a, because of an overdose.

And he just, he, he loves people.

He believes in the value of human life.

And he's doing a really good job.

And he's one of the important people in the presidency or two.

Yeah, it seems like

I've heard of Mr.

Witkoff, but I never met him.

You should have him.

I think the tough thing, just as a regular person, right?

It's like we're seeing all these videos of people like picking up pieces of their children.

Of course.

It's the sickest thing I think it's ever been televised basically if you consider watching something on your phone being televised it's a mass it feels like a massacre and it feels like you know i've called it a genocide other people have different thoughts about it and that's fine right and i don't need anybody to share the same thoughts or you two um but i think where it gets scary is that we give you know we're complicit in it because we help fund like military stuff you know and that's where as like a regular guy you're like well i'm paying these taxes and they're going towards this like

but you can't do anything you know like you can you can you can talk, you know, but it's like, you can't, I don't understand how it becomes like tough for people.

Like sometimes it feels like we look out for the interests of Israel before we look out for the interests of America.

So let me say a couple of things.

So number one, like, I think you're a great dude.

So we don't almost have to agree on everything.

Do I think it's holding?

Do I think it's a genocide?

No.

And here's, here's the reason why I don't think it's a genocide, because I don't think that the Israelis are purposely trying to go in and murder every Palestinian.

I don't think that's what they're doing.

I think they got hit hard.

And I think they're trying to like, you know, sort of destroy this terrorist organization and war is hell.

And that is true.

I also think it's true, man.

I mean, I've seen people on my side of the political aisle.

I'm a Republican.

You know that, but your audience may not.

Who like will see these videos of these innocent Palestinian kids and say, oh, well, they had it coming to them.

No, no, no, no, no.

No, like if you have a soul, your heart should break when you see a little kid who's suffering, which is why we have the policy that we have, which is we're trying to stop, eliminate the conflict, eliminate the source of the conflict, so that we can actually bring some peace and some humanitarian assistance into people.

And that's my basic view.

And the president's interesting.

He's a pro-Israel guy.

Yeah.

And he also recognizes that to bring any conflict to a close, you've got to talk to everybody.

And so, I mean, we've been attacked.

I've been attacked.

The president's been attacked for being too interested interested in diplomacy.

And you ask, like, what can I do?

I think that what people should demand is that if our tax dollars are going to something, we should be actively trying to fix it.

Okay.

That's kind of the way that I think about it.

And what happened with the Biden administration, man, it's crazy.

They were spending so much money all over the world, they weren't engaged in diplomacy at all.

So they'd sent, I mean, we sent $300 billion to Ukraine, for example, and you never had the president of the United States actually trying to force a diplomatic settlement.

I mean, you talk about bodies all over the ground, dude, the Russia-Ukraine thing is the most vicious.

We see satellite images.

We see classified images.

It is vicious.

And again,

I will hear people who will say, well, you know,

again, mostly on our side will say, oh, the Russians got killed.

That's a good thing.

Look.

I'm not defending the invasion.

I'm not defending starting a war.

But when human beings are getting blown to bits, your heart should feel sad about that and you should try to do something to fix it.

And that's what we're trying to do.

And we get crap for it.

But again, that's like the part that makes me feel the best about my job is whether it's in Israel or Russia-Ukraine, like we're actually trying to bring this stuff to some settlement and to some close.

And if we do, we're going to save a lot of lives.

And if we don't, it was worth the try.

Yeah.

Yeah, I just have one more question.

And yeah, and I want to say, yeah, I recognize that it's like, you can't expect people to do stuff immediately.

You can't can't expect things to happen overnight.

Sure.

And that you get into a place and there's a lot of people that are already there and you have to figure out how do I make my way in this?

How do I figure out to get some of the things I want?

And I have to give up some of the things that I also want.

Right.

And so I just want to let you know that I recognize that, you know, and I think I learned to recognize that more.

I think the older that I get and learn a little bit more about politics.

It's not just like this guy got the job, everything's going to be done immediately.

I do want to ask really quick: this is important because there's a lot, like President Trump talked about this.

He signed this executive order to make price transparency for health care, right?

And for hospital bills and medical billing.

And we talked about it last time you were on.

You said your wife is giving birth and you didn't even know how much it was costing.

Like, what does this cost?

And what if we get to amnesia?

Your wife's like, I don't want any amnesia or whatever.

And you're like, you should take it.

You're like, how much is it?

You know?

But it's like, nobody knows, you know?

And then they're putting $30,000 of amnesia in your wife.

You're like, well, shit.

And so it's like, but what I'm saying saying is everybody at this point is it's,

you know, but it's a $100 trillion, multi-hundred trillion dollar industry that's going to change.

Will we actually see it take place?

Like the Biden administration tried to get price transparency.

They couldn't, they were too caught up.

They couldn't get it done.

Trump signed the executive order.

Do you think we will actually see this happen?

So I do.

I think it's going to take a little time, but we took the first big step when the president signed that executive order.

And you asked this question about donors, right?

So the pharmaceutical industry gives a ton of money to Republicans and Democrats.

And I'll tell you, they were not happy when the president did that.

And the president's attitude is: look, it's the right thing for the American people.

So I think, again, it's an example of when you've got to tune out the financial pressures of politics and just do what's right.

Well, people are afraid to get people to get sick, not because they dude.

Let me tell you.

Sorry, am I being loud to you?

I'm sorry, Jim.

No, you're, you're fine.

Here's some of the.

No, I mean, you're normal volume, I would say.

Okay, sorry.

I felt a little handy.

It's not towards you.

I'm thankful that you're spending time with me.

No, no, you're good, man.

So

I'll tell you a crazy story.

A buddy of mine was visiting recently, a friend from back home.

And his wife told me this story that his kid, they thought he was special needs, maybe had sort of a neurological disorder just because he was sort of emotional.

not emotionally, educationally behind his peers.

Turns out he was just deaf.

He needed a cochlear implant.

And it took

this, you know, my buddy's wife just fighting with the insurance companies for forever to get this kid the medicine that he needed, the treatment that he needed.

And now the kid, he's happy, he's healthy.

It's a beautiful child, smart child.

Like, that's amazing, right?

That's what we want medical science to do is to take a serious problem and make it better.

Well,

why do we have a medical system in this country where too many people can't get the treatment that they need?

And it's a complicated answer to that question, but But one of the big problems is, and I don't think most Americans realize this, we subsidize.

When you go to the hospital or you go to the doctor and you pay out the rear end for a treatment, you are subsidizing all of the therapies all the time.

And tell us what subsidizing means because some people won't know.

So basically, we pay more so that Europeans in other parts of the world pay less.

So we fund all the innovation.

We fund all the development of new drugs.

And then Americans pay way more.

That's why, you know, Americans, we spend 22% of our economy on healthcare.

The Europeans average out about 10 or 11%.

So we spend way more on healthcare and they spend way less.

So the president uses this example all the time.

You know, the Ozipic,

as he calls it, the fat shot drug.

He had a buddy who was on Ozipic and had to go to Canada to get it, even though it was invented.

in Europe and it was mass produced all over the world.

It was like a tenth of the price in Canada that it was in the United States.

States.

And the way that it is, is the drug companies make money off Americans so they can offer discount drugs to everybody else.

So what that executive order, the reason why I think that approach is going to work way better than anything the Biden administration is doing is it's going to say the Americans get to pay less and the Europeans are going to have to pay up a little bit.

You'll know more about what you're spending on, but it also is more fair to Americans.

And I think that's, I think that's a win-win scenario because you can't expect Americans to pay 10 times for prescription drugs, what other people pay.

It's also, by the way, not that this is the main issue, but it's bankrupting people and it's bankrupting our country.

Because we spend so much more on health care and that's a major driver of our budgetary problem.

It's the number one cause of bankruptcy is medical debt.

Like people aren't afraid to get sick because they'll be sick.

They're afraid to get sick because they can't afford to be sick.

That's right.

And the stress of it is going to kill them.

That's right.

But do you think, like he made the executive order, do you think we'll, and I know it's like so hard to be like, you, do you know, you know, but it's like, do you really think we'll see this?

I mean, it's like, God, give us, give the people something.

I do.

I do.

And we got a great Secretary of Health and Human Services, Bobby Kennedy.

Have you done?

Has Bobby been on the show before?

Yeah.

Okay.

He's a good dude.

He's a good one.

We had a Bobby when everybody thought he was insane, dude.

Hell yeah, dude.

He had to give him a ride home.

His vehicle had been repossessed, dude.

Yeah.

Oh, man.

I'm joking.

So, Bobby, Bobby.

Congratulations, Bobby.

Yeah, we should have known that for the Senate confirmation hearings.

But yeah, man, Bobby's a good dude, and he really cares about this stuff.

And this is what you need.

You need the will, you need the good idea, but you also need the implementation.

I think the president's got the good idea.

He's got the executive order.

Bobby's got the implementation.

So like, look, am I going to tell you sitting here that all of our health care problems are going to be fixed in 12 months?

No.

Right.

But do I think that this is going to make prescription drugs way more affordable over the long term?

Absolutely.

Okay.

Yeah.

And I know a lot of people might be critical of this interview and stuff.

It's like, I'm doing my best, right?

I'm trying my best.

And maybe I'm just too hard on myself sometimes.

Why would critical interview?

Cause I'm a politician.

I like

partisan.

Yeah, I think people expect.

I don't know.

But you would have a Democrat on, huh?

You would have a Democrat on.

We got Tim Wallace coming on.

Oh, nice.

Okay.

That'll be interesting.

But no, I never met him.

You know what I'm saying?

We got him coming on.

So it's like, yeah, I'm definitely trying to learn more about it.

Honestly, he's a nice, he's a nice guy, but I, but I think I'm not a, um,

you know, I don't know the history of everything, right?

So it's like, I feel like we're just trying to do our best and I'm trying to do my best with somebody who I consider a friend.

And

yeah, and to learn in as we go.

Anyway, anything else particular that you wanted to say that you needed to get out to people?

I don't think so, man.

I think we've covered a lot.

Hopefully, I didn't get myself in too much trouble here.

But what are you talking about, dude?

I think you're good.

I'm trying to think of anything else, dude.

But you think Trey Hendrickson will get signed?

That's the million-dollar question, or I guess the $50 million question.

Are y'all going to subsidize that?

Is that part of the big?

That's actually an unknown.

That's a big part of the big, beautiful book.

bowl.

His $30 million to the Bengals to help with salary cap space.

I mean, look, so Hendrickson is-

Dude, he's a generational talent.

It's very hard to get a guy like that.

It's kind of crazy how, like, I'm a big football fan, but edge rushers have become, it's almost like where left tackles were 10 or 15 years ago, where everybody just realized there's this really underpaid position that you got to have.

And so, yeah, I think we're going to have to pay Hendrickson.

I hope so.

If he's, here's what I'll say to Trey, if you're watching this show, if you're a Republican, I will show up to a Bingles game and take a photo with you.

If you sign on with the Bengal, and if you're a Democrat, I'll stay the hell away.

Just sign with the Bingles because we got a chance, man.

I keep, I say this every year, but with Burrow, with Jamar Chase, if we get our defense and our offensive line, we could have a true championship run.

It's exciting.

Well, I just appreciate you coming and spending time with me, man.

Thank you very much to Bob Richie, Kid Rock, for having us here today.

And dude, congratulations, man.

I know you've had a very interesting life and

just really cool.

It's inspiring.

It's good to see you.

Thanks for having me, dude.

You too, brother.

Now, I'm just floating on the breeze, and I feel I'm falling like these leaves.

I must be

cornerstone.

Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this peace of mind.

I found I can feel it

in my bones.

But it's gonna take

a little