RFK Jr. Suspends Campaign and Endorses Trump – Impact on the Election, Important Issues and What happens next?

[00:00:02] [SPEAKER_01]: This isn't your average business podcast and he's not your average host. This is the James

[00:00:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Altucher Show. So an amazing thing happened yesterday and I see a lot of different cross

[00:00:20] [SPEAKER_01]: opinions, of course on the worldwide web about it. And I wanted to just set the facts straight

[00:00:27] [SPEAKER_01]: and try to make some sense of what happened. So independent presidential candidate Robert

[00:00:32] [SPEAKER_01]: F. Kennedy Jr. suspended his campaign and decided to endorse Donald Trump for president. So a

[00:00:42] [SPEAKER_01]: couple questions. A, how does this affect the election? Does this help Donald Trump?

[00:00:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Does this help Kamala Harris since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was a Democrat? Why did Robert

[00:00:54] [SPEAKER_01]: F. Kennedy do this? What other ways this will affect the election like will this

[00:00:58] [SPEAKER_01]: affect fundraising and so on? Have my views on our Robert F. Kennedy change? So Robert F.

[00:01:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Kennedy Jr. has been on my podcast in the past. And I'll just kind of set the record straight.

[00:01:10] [SPEAKER_01]: I wasn't going to release that podcast because it was so much about vaccines and I felt like

[00:01:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I wasn't qualified to fact check what he was saying about vaccines. I feel, I don't want to

[00:01:28] [SPEAKER_01]: say that I didn't have a vaccine. But I did have a vaccine. I had polio when she was a young

[00:01:30] [SPEAKER_01]: girl. I wish the polio vaccine had been invented just a few years earlier. And for her sake,

[00:01:36] [SPEAKER_01]: she would not, she probably would not have had polio. And so I remember one time having this

[00:01:42] [SPEAKER_01]: thread started on my own Facebook page about vaccine versus antivacine. And so many people

[00:01:47] [SPEAKER_01]: were saying just ridiculous things about vaccines that it really confused me and I

[00:01:53] [SPEAKER_01]: didn't know how to respond to it. It was like thousands of comments. And you know, I was really

[00:01:58] [SPEAKER_01]: unsure like RFK Jr. in my podcast was saying he wasn't, he wasn't anti-vax but then he was

[00:02:03] [SPEAKER_01]: saying all these things that I just didn't understand and I couldn't fact check properly

[00:02:08] [SPEAKER_01]: at the time. But when he did start running for president, we more recently released that

[00:02:13] [SPEAKER_01]: podcast episode and Jay, how did that podcast do just in relative to other podcasts that

[00:02:18] [SPEAKER_00]: we've done?

[00:02:19] [SPEAKER_00]: It did pretty well. I would say like we have, you know, feedback from both sides because

[00:02:23] [SPEAKER_00]: one side is like, Hey, why are we talking about anti-vax because RFK Jr. and one side is like,

[00:02:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, why shouldn't we release sooner? But I think we released it at the right time

[00:02:32] [SPEAKER_00]: if I were to be honest.

[00:02:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. I mean, look, whether we agreed with him or not, because he was running for

[00:02:37] [SPEAKER_01]: president and I'll get to more about his polling at a second, it was worthwhile

[00:02:42] [SPEAKER_01]: letting people form an opinion one way or the other.

[00:02:44] [SPEAKER_01]: That's why we released it at the right time.

[00:02:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. We released it at the right time, but that all said, I've done a bit more research

[00:02:52] [SPEAKER_01]: since he's been on the podcast and also since yesterday and I want to fact check

[00:02:56] [SPEAKER_01]: RFK gave a very good speech yesterday and to some extent his speech yesterday

[00:03:02] [SPEAKER_01]: changed a lot of my opinion of him and I'm willing to admit that.

[00:03:06] [SPEAKER_01]: And I also wanted to fact check some of the things he was saying.

[00:03:08] [SPEAKER_01]: He was saying some pretty amazing statistics that I didn't know about

[00:03:12] [SPEAKER_01]: the rates of obesity and the rates of chronic diseases for children.

[00:03:15] [SPEAKER_01]: And I just wanted to research this a little bit more.

[00:03:18] [SPEAKER_01]: I also want to kind of just mention some other random issues about the election

[00:03:23] [SPEAKER_01]: like people are saying, oh, Trump trashed RFK a few months ago,

[00:03:27] [SPEAKER_01]: RFK trashed Trump. I want to address this as well.

[00:03:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Let's start. What happened?

[00:03:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, several things have happened in the past few months that ultimately

[00:03:36] [SPEAKER_01]: led to RFK more or less bowing out of the race.

[00:03:40] [SPEAKER_01]: There's some subtleties in there, but that's not so interesting.

[00:03:43] [SPEAKER_01]: So he basically bowed out of the race, but he's going to stay on the ballot

[00:03:47] [SPEAKER_01]: in states where he's not going to be a spoiler,

[00:03:50] [SPEAKER_01]: where voting for RFK won't really make a difference in that state's outcome.

[00:03:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, for instance, in California, it doesn't matter if you vote for RFK.

[00:04:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Kamala Harris is going to win it no matter what.

[00:04:05] [SPEAKER_01]: In Texas, it doesn't matter if you vote for RFK.

[00:04:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Trump is going to win it no matter what.

[00:04:09] [SPEAKER_01]: But there are some states where a vote for RFK

[00:04:14] [SPEAKER_01]: might be preventing a Trump win or a Kamala win.

[00:04:18] [SPEAKER_01]: And this has happened before.

[00:04:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Let's just discuss the US for better or for worse is a two party system.

[00:04:24] [SPEAKER_01]: I do not agree with this.

[00:04:26] [SPEAKER_01]: That is the reason, for instance, I went to the FEC.gov

[00:04:30] [SPEAKER_01]: and signed up to run for president.

[00:04:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Anybody could do it.

[00:04:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Anybody could be a third party candidate.

[00:04:36] [SPEAKER_01]: Of course, I don't have any buddy voting for me.

[00:04:38] [SPEAKER_01]: But I just wanted to make the point that anybody could do it.

[00:04:41] [SPEAKER_01]: So I do not believe that this should be a two party system

[00:04:44] [SPEAKER_01]: because on a typical menu, you have more than two choices.

[00:04:48] [SPEAKER_01]: It seems like if you're a Democrat, you have to agree with every single issue

[00:04:54] [SPEAKER_01]: that Democrats believe in or else people think you're a Republican and vice versa.

[00:04:57] [SPEAKER_01]: For instance, I might be pro-choice, but also pro-cutting taxes.

[00:05:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Cutting taxes is a Republican issue.

[00:05:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Pro-choice is a Democrat issue.

[00:05:09] [SPEAKER_01]: But it seems like the country has become so polarized

[00:05:12] [SPEAKER_01]: that you either have to believe in all of one party or all of another party,

[00:05:15] [SPEAKER_01]: or it doesn't make sense.

[00:05:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't believe this is true.

[00:05:19] [SPEAKER_01]: There's room for third parties.

[00:05:21] [SPEAKER_01]: But for the past, I would say 130 years or more,

[00:05:27] [SPEAKER_01]: we've been largely a two party system.

[00:05:28] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm going to talk about some exceptions in a second.

[00:05:31] [SPEAKER_01]: So in Robert F. Kennedy's speech last night, he mentioned he did not want to be a spoiler.

[00:05:36] [SPEAKER_01]: So what's a spoiler?

[00:05:38] [SPEAKER_01]: A spoiler is a third party candidate who draws enough votes from a similar candidate,

[00:05:45] [SPEAKER_01]: either Democrat or Republican, that similar candidate loses.

[00:05:49] [SPEAKER_01]: So what ends up happening is if you have three candidates,

[00:05:53] [SPEAKER_01]: the two candidates who are similar lose,

[00:05:57] [SPEAKER_01]: and the candidate who they both disagree with ends up winning.

[00:06:00] [SPEAKER_01]: So that's a spoiler.

[00:06:02] [SPEAKER_01]: I would say this has happened.

[00:06:04] [SPEAKER_01]: It's very hard to determine if it happens

[00:06:05] [SPEAKER_01]: because you don't usually know.

[00:06:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Like in Robert F. Kennedy's case, is he taking more votes from Kamala Harris,

[00:06:13] [SPEAKER_01]: who was a fellow Democrat?

[00:06:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Don't forget our Robert F. Kennedy started off running

[00:06:19] [SPEAKER_01]: in the Democratic primaries in this election, and then he switched to independent.

[00:06:24] [SPEAKER_01]: So the argument can be made he's drawing votes from Kamala Harris.

[00:06:28] [SPEAKER_01]: An argument can also be made for that he's drawing votes from Donald Trump

[00:06:34] [SPEAKER_01]: for reasons I'll get to in a few minutes.

[00:06:36] [SPEAKER_01]: But he didn't want to be a spoiler and has a spoiler election happened

[00:06:40] [SPEAKER_01]: in history or in recent times.

[00:06:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And again, it's hard to know who you're spoiling in many cases,

[00:06:46] [SPEAKER_01]: but I'm going to get to two definite cases that were spoiled

[00:06:49] [SPEAKER_01]: that were a third party in some cases, a second party, spoiled things.

[00:06:53] [SPEAKER_01]: So in 2000, Bush versus Gore, it was a notoriously close election.

[00:07:00] [SPEAKER_01]: It was George W. Bush had 50 million, four hundred and fifty six thousand votes.

[00:07:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Al Gore beat him in the popular vote with fifty million, nine hundred ninety nine

[00:07:09] [SPEAKER_01]: thousand votes. And the electoral vote was George Bush had two hundred seventy

[00:07:14] [SPEAKER_01]: one to Al Gore's two hundred and sixty six, just five votes.

[00:07:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, guess what?

[00:07:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Florida was twenty five electoral votes.

[00:07:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And the Florida election was decided by just five hundred and thirty seven votes.

[00:07:30] [SPEAKER_01]: All together, Florida had about six million votes cast.

[00:07:35] [SPEAKER_01]: So imagine six million votes cast.

[00:07:37] [SPEAKER_01]: You lost by only five hundred thirty seven.

[00:07:40] [SPEAKER_01]: What happened? Why did Al Gore lose by five hundred thirty seven?

[00:07:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, Ralph Nader, who for his entire life,

[00:07:48] [SPEAKER_01]: had been a very liberal, progressive Democrat,

[00:07:52] [SPEAKER_01]: but was mostly concerned about environmental issues and so on.

[00:07:56] [SPEAKER_01]: He called himself the Green Party and imagine this is a guy who's worried

[00:07:59] [SPEAKER_01]: about the environment. Al Gore also is famously worried about climate change

[00:08:03] [SPEAKER_01]: in the environment. So they were very closely aligned.

[00:08:06] [SPEAKER_01]: People who were going to vote for Ralph Nader were not saying,

[00:08:10] [SPEAKER_01]: should I vote for George Bush or should I vote for the extreme

[00:08:14] [SPEAKER_01]: progressive left guy, Ralph Nader?

[00:08:17] [SPEAKER_01]: No, they were deciding between Al Gore and Ralph Nader.

[00:08:20] [SPEAKER_01]: So Ralph Nader, he pulled ninety seven thousand votes from Florida.

[00:08:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Only one percent of the votes, one point six percent of the votes.

[00:08:31] [SPEAKER_01]: But since Florida's was twenty five electoral votes

[00:08:35] [SPEAKER_01]: and since Florida was decided by only five hundred thirty seven votes

[00:08:39] [SPEAKER_01]: difference between Bush and Al Gore, definitely Ralph Nader's

[00:08:44] [SPEAKER_01]: ninety seven thousand votes pulled more than five hundred thirty seven

[00:08:48] [SPEAKER_01]: votes away from Al Gore.

[00:08:50] [SPEAKER_01]: So Ralph Nader just by a few votes singlehandedly

[00:08:56] [SPEAKER_01]: just completely flipped the result of the 2000 election,

[00:09:00] [SPEAKER_01]: which who knows how history would have changed.

[00:09:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe there would not have been an Iraq war in Afghanistan war.

[00:09:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe there wouldn't have been a financial crisis.

[00:09:09] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not saying W did good or bad.

[00:09:12] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm just these were all events that happened during his presidency.

[00:09:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe Al Gore would have done much worse.

[00:09:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know. But Ralph Nader with only one percent of the total vote

[00:09:21] [SPEAKER_01]: across the United States, he definitely spoiled it for Al Gore,

[00:09:26] [SPEAKER_01]: who was most closely aligned with his own policies like Al Gore and Ralph

[00:09:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Nader both believe mostly in the same things.

[00:09:33] [SPEAKER_01]: And so everyone was upset at Ralph Nader because, quote,

[00:09:37] [SPEAKER_01]: unquote, he spoiled the election for Al Gore.

[00:09:40] [SPEAKER_01]: And Ralph Nader makes the point that, look,

[00:09:43] [SPEAKER_01]: maybe he wouldn't have gotten ninety seven thousand votes in Florida

[00:09:46] [SPEAKER_01]: if people were confused about where Al Gore stood on some of these issues.

[00:09:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Like Al Gore Ralph Nader says, maybe this is a lesson for the Democratic Party.

[00:09:55] [SPEAKER_01]: You have to campaign a little bit.

[00:09:56] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know. He made some excuses for spoiling.

[00:09:59] [SPEAKER_01]: There's another example that's a clear example of spoiling.

[00:10:02] [SPEAKER_01]: And this is a much more dramatic example.

[00:10:05] [SPEAKER_01]: But 1912, so just to set the context,

[00:10:09] [SPEAKER_01]: in 1908, Theodore Roosevelt had been a very successful president.

[00:10:14] [SPEAKER_01]: He became president after being William McKinley's vice president in 1900.

[00:10:19] [SPEAKER_01]: William McKinley died early in office.

[00:10:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Theodore Roosevelt was a very progressive candidate.

[00:10:24] [SPEAKER_01]: He basically busted a lot of monopolies and so on.

[00:10:28] [SPEAKER_01]: And then in 1904 he ran again.

[00:10:30] [SPEAKER_01]: He was wildly reelected, a very popular guy.

[00:10:32] [SPEAKER_01]: And then in 1908 he didn't want to run.

[00:10:34] [SPEAKER_01]: So he said to his buddy, William Howard Taft, hey, William Howard Taft,

[00:10:39] [SPEAKER_01]: why don't you run and I'm going to take off and travel the world.

[00:10:43] [SPEAKER_01]: So he did that.

[00:10:44] [SPEAKER_01]: But he was a little upset that William Howard Taft wasn't progressive enough.

[00:10:49] [SPEAKER_01]: So he decided to run again.

[00:10:51] [SPEAKER_01]: But William Howard Taft wanted to run again.

[00:10:53] [SPEAKER_01]: And so William Howard Taft ran under the Republican Party

[00:10:58] [SPEAKER_01]: and Theodore Roosevelt created his own party called the Progressive Party.

[00:11:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Later called the Bull Moose Party.

[00:11:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And Woodrow Wilson, who was the governor of New Jersey and the former president

[00:11:07] [SPEAKER_01]: of Princeton University, he became the Democratic candidate and he won.

[00:11:14] [SPEAKER_01]: And what happened was Woodrow Wilson got 6.2 million votes.

[00:11:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Theodore Roosevelt got over four million votes.

[00:11:21] [SPEAKER_01]: And William Howard Taft, who was the president of the United States at the time,

[00:11:25] [SPEAKER_01]: came in third with three and a half million votes.

[00:11:27] [SPEAKER_01]: So Theodore Roosevelt combined with William Howard Taft.

[00:11:30] [SPEAKER_01]: And again, they were very similar on the issues.

[00:11:32] [SPEAKER_01]: They got a combined seven and a half million votes compared to Woodrow Wilson's

[00:11:37] [SPEAKER_01]: 6.2 million votes.

[00:11:39] [SPEAKER_01]: So if there was only one candidate, like if it was only William Howard Taft

[00:11:43] [SPEAKER_01]: or if it was only Theodore Roosevelt, then Woodrow Wilson would not have won.

[00:11:47] [SPEAKER_01]: And whoever the Republican candidate was would have won.

[00:11:50] [SPEAKER_01]: So definitely Theodore Roosevelt by being a third party candidate.

[00:11:55] [SPEAKER_01]: And by the way, he came in second in the race.

[00:11:56] [SPEAKER_01]: So it's the last time a third party candidate came in second.

[00:11:58] [SPEAKER_01]: But they spoiled the election for each other.

[00:12:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Now Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, was a very popular guy.

[00:12:06] [SPEAKER_01]: But I believe he was the first Democrat elected in about 30 years at that point.

[00:12:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Remember, the Democrats weren't so popular then because of just the

[00:12:15] [SPEAKER_01]: aftermath of the Civil War.

[00:12:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Lincoln was Republican.

[00:12:18] [SPEAKER_01]: The Confederate States were mostly, you know, considered Democrat at that time.

[00:12:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And obviously the problems between the parties were pretty significant back then.

[00:12:28] [SPEAKER_01]: And in fact, Woodrow Wilson, who initially was considered a great president,

[00:12:33] [SPEAKER_01]: a lot of issues about him have sort of been rewritten.

[00:12:35] [SPEAKER_01]: He wasn't so great for civil rights.

[00:12:38] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, civil rights wasn't as much an issue then, but reconstruction in the South.

[00:12:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Woodrow Wilson rolled back a lot of the reconstruction laws made shortly after the Civil War.

[00:12:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Woodrow Wilson also unknown at the time, but now known.

[00:12:52] [SPEAKER_01]: He in 1919 had a stroke and nobody knew how severe the stroke had been.

[00:12:58] [SPEAKER_01]: And for the last 18 months of his presidency, his wife, Edith Wilson, basically ran the country

[00:13:06] [SPEAKER_01]: without anyone realizing it.

[00:13:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Like no one realized how sick Woodrow Wilson was.

[00:13:10] [SPEAKER_01]: He was completely incapacitated from his stroke.

[00:13:12] [SPEAKER_01]: So without this spoiler, Woodrow Wilson would not have been president.

[00:13:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Probably the outcome of World War One would have been very different.

[00:13:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Possibly the League of Nations, which Woodrow Wilson was very much in favor of.

[00:13:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe that would have been passed.

[00:13:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe not passed.

[00:13:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Who knows?

[00:13:29] [SPEAKER_01]: So there might have been an equivalent of a United Nations much earlier.

[00:13:31] [SPEAKER_01]: So spoiler candidates have a big impact on an election, particularly 1912 and 2000.

[00:13:38] [SPEAKER_01]: RFK Jr. did not want to be a spoiler.

[00:13:42] [SPEAKER_01]: I'll mention just a couple other cases.

[00:13:44] [SPEAKER_01]: 1968 or 1992, H. Ross Perot.

[00:13:47] [SPEAKER_01]: He was probably a spoiler.

[00:13:48] [SPEAKER_01]: So it was George H.W. Bush, the father versus Bill Clinton and H.

[00:13:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Ross Perot.

[00:13:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Now Bush and Perot were basically Republican businessmen from Texas.

[00:14:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Now, Perot had no experience in public office.

[00:14:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Bush had been the head of the CIA.

[00:14:06] [SPEAKER_01]: He had, of course, been the vice president.

[00:14:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Prior to that, he was the ambassador to the UN.

[00:14:11] [SPEAKER_01]: I think he had been a congressman.

[00:14:13] [SPEAKER_01]: So Bush had a lot of government experience, but they were essentially

[00:14:15] [SPEAKER_01]: both Texan Republicans.

[00:14:17] [SPEAKER_01]: So they were drawing votes from each other.

[00:14:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, guess what?

[00:14:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Bill Clinton got 44 million votes.

[00:14:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Clearly won the election.

[00:14:24] [SPEAKER_01]: George H.W.

[00:14:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Bush got 39 million votes, but Ross Perot got 19 million votes.

[00:14:30] [SPEAKER_01]: So assuming if an even five million of those votes had gone more for Bush,

[00:14:37] [SPEAKER_01]: if Perot never ran, then Bush would have won reelection in 1992.

[00:14:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Don't forget Bush was an incumbent.

[00:14:43] [SPEAKER_01]: It's very rare for an incumbent to lose and Clinton would not have been elected.

[00:14:48] [SPEAKER_01]: So Clinton benefited very much from H.

[00:14:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Ross Perot.

[00:14:50] [SPEAKER_01]: H.

[00:14:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Ross Perot did not like George Bush.

[00:14:52] [SPEAKER_01]: So I would say that was a spoiler election, too.

[00:14:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Another close election was 1968.

[00:14:58] [SPEAKER_01]: George Wallace split off.

[00:14:59] [SPEAKER_01]: So it was Nixon, the Republican versus the H.

[00:15:01] [SPEAKER_01]: U.

[00:15:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Burnt Humphrey, the Democrat.

[00:15:03] [SPEAKER_01]: George Wallace was a Southern Democrat governor from Alabama who split off

[00:15:08] [SPEAKER_01]: from the Democratic Party when he did not win the nomination, much like RFK this year.

[00:15:13] [SPEAKER_01]: And George Wallace was the last third party candidate to actually win some states.

[00:15:18] [SPEAKER_01]: He won all of the Southern states, got a bunch of electoral votes,

[00:15:20] [SPEAKER_01]: but he didn't really spoil the election.

[00:15:23] [SPEAKER_01]: It's unclear if he drew votes from the Democrats or the Republicans,

[00:15:26] [SPEAKER_01]: because he was such a conservative Democrat.

[00:15:28] [SPEAKER_01]: He probably drew a lot of votes from the Republicans.

[00:15:31] [SPEAKER_01]: And it was at this point that the South sort of switched from being steadily Democrat

[00:15:37] [SPEAKER_01]: ever since the Civil War to being 100 percent at that time Republican.

[00:15:41] [SPEAKER_01]: It's probably because of George Wallace.

[00:15:43] [SPEAKER_01]: But so Nixon probably would have won either way.

[00:15:46] [SPEAKER_01]: But I would say the big spoilers were 2000, where Bush won, Bush two, 1992,

[00:15:54] [SPEAKER_01]: where Clinton won and 1912, where Woodrow Wilson won.

[00:15:59] [SPEAKER_01]: So RFK Jr. was worried.

[00:16:02] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'll tell you specifically, he was worried he was going to draw

[00:16:05] [SPEAKER_01]: more votes from Trump.

[00:16:07] [SPEAKER_01]: He hated Kamala Harris.

[00:16:10] [SPEAKER_01]: That's not an opinion.

[00:16:11] [SPEAKER_01]: That's according to his speech in his speech yesterday.

[00:16:14] [SPEAKER_01]: And also I'll mention Nicole Shanahan, his vice presidential running mate,

[00:16:19] [SPEAKER_01]: was on the Impact Theory podcast run by my friend Tom Billu.

[00:16:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And she basically expressed the problems that she and RFK Jr.

[00:16:31] [SPEAKER_01]: were having with the Democratic Party.

[00:16:32] [SPEAKER_01]: The Democratic Party was basically suing to make sure RFK is very hard

[00:16:37] [SPEAKER_01]: to appear on the actual ballot like anybody.

[00:16:40] [SPEAKER_01]: As I mentioned earlier, anybody could run for president.

[00:16:42] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm running for president.

[00:16:43] [SPEAKER_01]: But I can't get on the ballot unless I get an enormous number of signatures

[00:16:46] [SPEAKER_01]: in every state.

[00:16:47] [SPEAKER_01]: The Democrats were basically contesting and suing him in every state

[00:16:51] [SPEAKER_01]: to try to keep him off the ballot.

[00:16:53] [SPEAKER_01]: This was costing a lot of money.

[00:16:54] [SPEAKER_01]: It was making it very difficult for him to fundraise.

[00:16:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Now, yes, RFK Jr. is a very wealthy man.

[00:17:00] [SPEAKER_01]: The Kennedys as a family, they are worth more than a trillion dollars.

[00:17:04] [SPEAKER_01]: I wrote about this in my book, Choose Yourself.

[00:17:07] [SPEAKER_01]: But it's not like RFK Jr.

[00:17:08] [SPEAKER_01]: He has an ATM card where you can pull a trillion dollars out.

[00:17:11] [SPEAKER_01]: He has a trust fund where you get a certain amount of money per month

[00:17:13] [SPEAKER_01]: and he cannot live beyond his means.

[00:17:16] [SPEAKER_01]: By the way, the Kennedys family more or less hates him and came out with an ad

[00:17:21] [SPEAKER_01]: where all the Kennedys appeared and said, we don't like Robert F.

[00:17:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Kennedy Jr.

[00:17:26] [SPEAKER_01]: And we don't believe in his policies.

[00:17:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Again, further stressing that RFK Jr.

[00:17:30] [SPEAKER_01]: was not a traditional Democrat.

[00:17:33] [SPEAKER_01]: But Nicole Shanahan was mentioning how the Democratic Party was

[00:17:37] [SPEAKER_01]: making a big effort to censor them, to keep them off the ballot.

[00:17:41] [SPEAKER_01]: And it was affecting their fundraising.

[00:17:43] [SPEAKER_01]: She was very wealthy too.

[00:17:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Nicole Shanahan is the ex-wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin.

[00:17:51] [SPEAKER_01]: She's worth over a billion dollars.

[00:17:53] [SPEAKER_01]: But it's very important to note

[00:17:55] [SPEAKER_01]: it even if she gave all her money to a campaign,

[00:17:59] [SPEAKER_01]: it costs on average slightly more than a billion dollars now

[00:18:03] [SPEAKER_01]: per candidate to even run for president, let alone win the presidency.

[00:18:07] [SPEAKER_01]: I think last election, three billion dollars was spent on the election.

[00:18:12] [SPEAKER_01]: So even if you've got a billion dollars, OK, let's say you use 50 million,

[00:18:17] [SPEAKER_01]: 100 million in the election, it's still not good enough to win the presidency.

[00:18:22] [SPEAKER_01]: So she's RFK Jr.'s running mate.

[00:18:25] [SPEAKER_01]: And so she was saying several things.

[00:18:27] [SPEAKER_01]: One is the Democrats were trying to sue them to keep them off the ballot.

[00:18:31] [SPEAKER_01]: The other was that the Democrats were censoring them

[00:18:34] [SPEAKER_01]: on various social media platforms and also an RFK Jr.

[00:18:39] [SPEAKER_01]: mentions this in his speech as opposed to the major candidates.

[00:18:42] [SPEAKER_01]: The media was not interviewing him.

[00:18:45] [SPEAKER_01]: And he believes it's because the Democrats have a large influence

[00:18:48] [SPEAKER_01]: over the big newspapers like The New York Times and The Washington Post

[00:18:52] [SPEAKER_01]: and also the big TV stations like ABC, CNN, MSNBC, NBC and so on.

[00:18:58] [SPEAKER_01]: So I don't know if that's true or not.

[00:19:00] [SPEAKER_01]: That's a hard thing to fact check.

[00:19:02] [SPEAKER_01]: They really took it personally and disliked the Democratic Party,

[00:19:07] [SPEAKER_01]: even though some of their stances like on the environment and so on

[00:19:11] [SPEAKER_01]: are closer to the Democrat side.

[00:19:13] [SPEAKER_01]: And also let's not forget RFK Jr.

[00:19:15] [SPEAKER_01]: comes from a family which has almost defined the Democratic Party.

[00:19:20] [SPEAKER_01]: John F. Kennedy was obviously Democrat president in 1960.

[00:19:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Robert F. Kennedy, the father of RFK Jr.

[00:19:28] [SPEAKER_01]: was winning the Democratic nomination in 1968 when he was assassinated.

[00:19:34] [SPEAKER_01]: So he was a strong inspiration in the Democratic Party.

[00:19:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Ted Kennedy ran for president several times, but also was a Democratic

[00:19:44] [SPEAKER_01]: senator from Massachusetts for something like 30 years until until he died.

[00:19:48] [SPEAKER_01]: And many of the Kennedy cousins, you know, the people of RFK Jr.'s

[00:19:53] [SPEAKER_01]: generation work had been congressmen or governors or senators.

[00:19:57] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, there was his brother Joe Kennedy the second was a congressman.

[00:20:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Joe Kennedy the third was a congressman.

[00:20:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Patrick Kennedy, the son of Ted Kennedy, was in the House of Representatives

[00:20:08] [SPEAKER_01]: for Rhode Island.

[00:20:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And then there's his brother and law sergeant Shriver was a Republican

[00:20:14] [SPEAKER_01]: vice presidential candidate under McGovern in 1972.

[00:20:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Incidentally, it's interesting Maria Shriver, who is that same generation.

[00:20:23] [SPEAKER_01]: She was married to Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was the Republican governor of

[00:20:28] [SPEAKER_01]: California. So it's not always Democrat, but the Kennedys have largely been

[00:20:32] [SPEAKER_01]: synonymous with the Democratic Party.

[00:20:34] [SPEAKER_01]: So it's a big deal that RFK Jr. hates the Kennedy so much, even though

[00:20:39] [SPEAKER_01]: his family and his policies sort of align a little bit more with the Democrats.

[00:20:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Or do they? I'll tell you one anecdote.

[00:20:50] [SPEAKER_01]: I was giving a talk about a year ago to a group of people who

[00:20:56] [SPEAKER_01]: subscribe to one of my financial newsletters.

[00:20:59] [SPEAKER_01]: So I have all sorts of different audiences and I have a, you know, let's say

[00:21:03] [SPEAKER_01]: if you count all my social media followers on different platforms, about two million

[00:21:08] [SPEAKER_01]: hundreds of thousands of people subscribe to this podcast.

[00:21:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And but I also have a lot of people who subscribe to financial newsletters

[00:21:16] [SPEAKER_01]: that I write.

[00:21:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And I would say each group of people I communicate with is different demographics,

[00:21:22] [SPEAKER_01]: but the financial ones are largely conservatives.

[00:21:26] [SPEAKER_01]: And I would say Republican.

[00:21:28] [SPEAKER_01]: So I was giving a talk and I just spur of the moment I asked,

[00:21:32] [SPEAKER_01]: who's everybody voting for?

[00:21:33] [SPEAKER_01]: And a big chunk of people said Trump, but then very few people said Democrat.

[00:21:38] [SPEAKER_01]: And another big chunk of people though, almost as much as the Trump people

[00:21:41] [SPEAKER_01]: said RFK Jr.

[00:21:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And so this told me that people who I knew were largely conservative

[00:21:48] [SPEAKER_01]: slash Republican, a good chunk of them were voting for or interested

[00:21:54] [SPEAKER_01]: in RFK Jr.'s policies.

[00:21:56] [SPEAKER_01]: So why does he come across as more conservative?

[00:21:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, one is he hated the Democratic Party and he left the Democratic Party.

[00:22:01] [SPEAKER_01]: People were Republican like that.

[00:22:03] [SPEAKER_01]: The other is I don't know if there were a lot of Republicans care

[00:22:06] [SPEAKER_01]: about the environment, maybe they do.

[00:22:07] [SPEAKER_01]: The anti-vaccine stance that RFK Jr.

[00:22:11] [SPEAKER_01]: has. And again, he claims not to be anti-vaccine, but his stance

[00:22:15] [SPEAKER_01]: on vaccines, I think resonates with a lot of Republicans.

[00:22:18] [SPEAKER_01]: The idea of not trusting the government resonates more with Republicans.

[00:22:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And

[00:22:26] [SPEAKER_01]: whatever reason it is, honestly, I don't even really know.

[00:22:30] [SPEAKER_01]: RFK Jr. was definitely drawing more votes from Trump.

[00:22:34] [SPEAKER_01]: And we saw that recently.

[00:22:35] [SPEAKER_01]: So when he was at his peak a few months ago or maybe it was about

[00:22:40] [SPEAKER_01]: a year ago, even, I mean, he announced in April of 2023

[00:22:43] [SPEAKER_01]: at his peak, he was polling around 22%,

[00:22:47] [SPEAKER_01]: which is as high as H. Rusparow was polling in 1992.

[00:22:50] [SPEAKER_01]: So it's basically 30 years.

[00:22:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Nobody has pulled as high as RFK Jr.

[00:22:55] [SPEAKER_01]: In the past as a third party candidate except for H. Rusparow in 1992.

[00:23:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Third party candidates tend to pull high early on and then they decline

[00:23:03] [SPEAKER_01]: because people realize they're not going to win.

[00:23:05] [SPEAKER_01]: So they make more serious decisions about how they're going to vote.

[00:23:08] [SPEAKER_01]: So more recently, RFK Jr. was polling around 10%.

[00:23:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And then suddenly Biden dropped out

[00:23:16] [SPEAKER_01]: and Harris replaced Biden.

[00:23:20] [SPEAKER_01]: And what's interesting is Harris's polling numbers went up and RFK Jr.'s

[00:23:24] [SPEAKER_01]: polling numbers went down.

[00:23:25] [SPEAKER_01]: So I think anybody who was voting for RFK Jr., because they thought Biden was too

[00:23:30] [SPEAKER_01]: old or had maybe issues with dementia or whatever, all those people said,

[00:23:35] [SPEAKER_01]: well, problem solved, I'm going back to Kamala and RFK Jr.'s numbers went down.

[00:23:41] [SPEAKER_01]: From like 11% to 6 or 7%.

[00:23:44] [SPEAKER_01]: And so you could see then that, OK, maybe

[00:23:48] [SPEAKER_01]: some percentage of his voters did come from the Democrats,

[00:23:51] [SPEAKER_01]: but he still had a good 6 or 7% in polling left.

[00:23:54] [SPEAKER_01]: And so those he was drawing from possibly Trump.

[00:23:57] [SPEAKER_01]: So now the new polls were reflecting this change from Biden to Harris and all

[00:24:02] [SPEAKER_01]: of RFK Jr.'s voters who were just voting for him because of Biden,

[00:24:06] [SPEAKER_01]: they left and suddenly Harris got up to the polls to the point where

[00:24:12] [SPEAKER_01]: the election was becoming very unpredictable.

[00:24:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Like after the debate between Biden and Trump, it looked like Trump was going to

[00:24:19] [SPEAKER_01]: win in a landslide, but then it became about even and even on the polly markets,

[00:24:24] [SPEAKER_01]: the prediction market, Kamala Harris was winning.

[00:24:27] [SPEAKER_01]: People were betting more on Kamala than Trump that she would win the presidency.

[00:24:31] [SPEAKER_01]: And Nate Silver said something interesting.

[00:24:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Nate Silver runs 538.com.

[00:24:36] [SPEAKER_01]: He's been a very good election analyst and polling expert for many years.

[00:24:41] [SPEAKER_01]: And he said that this was going to be a very narrow election and it was all

[00:24:46] [SPEAKER_01]: going to boil down to Pennsylvania.

[00:24:48] [SPEAKER_01]: So Pennsylvania has 25 electoral votes.

[00:24:51] [SPEAKER_01]: And he said if Kamala Harris doesn't win Pennsylvania, she has less than

[00:24:55] [SPEAKER_01]: a 3% chance of winning the election.

[00:24:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, when she became the nominee, Trump had been previously winning Pennsylvania

[00:25:02] [SPEAKER_01]: according to the polls, but now Kamala Harris was narrowly pulling ahead.

[00:25:06] [SPEAKER_01]: But it was still very it was still within 1%.

[00:25:08] [SPEAKER_01]: So it could still go either way.

[00:25:10] [SPEAKER_01]: So nobody really knew where Pennsylvania was going to go.

[00:25:14] [SPEAKER_01]: But RFK Jr., even if he throws, let's say, let's say some people just are

[00:25:19] [SPEAKER_01]: never Trumpers, so they were going to vote for RFK Jr.

[00:25:23] [SPEAKER_01]: So that takes out a bunch of percentage points from his 5, 6, 7% that he's

[00:25:27] [SPEAKER_01]: pulling, even if 2% or 1% of his voter net switched to Trump.

[00:25:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Trump suddenly wins all these battleground states like Pennsylvania right now.

[00:25:40] [SPEAKER_01]: These are polls from two days ago.

[00:25:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Pennsylvania is 48% Harris, 47% Trump.

[00:25:50] [SPEAKER_01]: So 1% difference.

[00:25:51] [SPEAKER_01]: So again, if just 1.1% of RFK's 5% switches to Trump, Trump wins Pennsylvania.

[00:26:00] [SPEAKER_01]: So now people are predicting Pennsylvania for Trump.

[00:26:04] [SPEAKER_01]: I'll take another state.

[00:26:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Michigan, 48% Kamala Harris, 46% Trump.

[00:26:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Again, an RFK Jr.

[00:26:14] [SPEAKER_01]: historically is a friend of labor.

[00:26:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Michigan is a big labor state.

[00:26:18] [SPEAKER_01]: If just 2% of the 6% or 7% that he controls switches to Trump, then boom,

[00:26:27] [SPEAKER_01]: he wins Michigan.

[00:26:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Let's see. Another close one is Georgia.

[00:26:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Georgia is one that is like dead even.

[00:26:35] [SPEAKER_01]: And again, I would say RFK Jr.

[00:26:39] [SPEAKER_01]: voters, Georgia voters are more likely to be anti-vax.

[00:26:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, Georgia was the first state to open up after COVID.

[00:26:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Governor Brian Kemp just really did not believe in lockdowns during COVID.

[00:26:53] [SPEAKER_01]: So presumably people in Georgia are also a little bit more anti-vax.

[00:26:57] [SPEAKER_01]: If just 1 or 2% of RFK Jr.'s voters switch over to Trump, then it will

[00:27:03] [SPEAKER_01]: solidly be a Trump state.

[00:27:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Because of this, Trump could potentially win by an election.

[00:27:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Now Kamala Harris's team, they're obviously worried.

[00:27:12] [SPEAKER_01]: They say, no, nobody was voting for RFK Jr.

[00:27:15] [SPEAKER_01]: anyway because they knew third party candidates can't win.

[00:27:18] [SPEAKER_01]: So the polls were already reflecting as if RFK Jr.

[00:27:21] [SPEAKER_01]: had dropped out.

[00:27:22] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think this is the case.

[00:27:24] [SPEAKER_01]: I think there is an argument that there are people who want RFK Jr.'s policies

[00:27:31] [SPEAKER_01]: executed and they knew it wasn't going to be executed with Kamala Harris.

[00:27:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe they knew, don't think it was going to be executed with Trump either.

[00:27:38] [SPEAKER_01]: So they were sticking with RFK Jr.

[00:27:40] [SPEAKER_01]: And again, that's why I'm being very conservative.

[00:27:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not saying that all 100% of RFK Jr.

[00:27:47] [SPEAKER_01]: voters are switching over to Trump.

[00:27:50] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm saying just take a fraction of them and net.

[00:27:54] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, if you subtract out the Kamala Harris voters net,

[00:27:57] [SPEAKER_01]: if just 1 or 2% fall into the Trump camp more than fall into the Kamala camp,

[00:28:04] [SPEAKER_01]: then Trump looks like he's going to win by a landslide.

[00:28:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Here's the other interesting thing about RFK Jr.

[00:28:11] [SPEAKER_01]: speech, he said a couple of things that were very interesting.

[00:28:14] [SPEAKER_01]: One is he talked to Trump and Trump and him shared some strong opinions,

[00:28:20] [SPEAKER_01]: particularly about chronic disease among our children, obesity in the US,

[00:28:26] [SPEAKER_01]: other health issues, some war related and foreign policy issues.

[00:28:32] [SPEAKER_01]: And he said, RFK Jr.

[00:28:32] [SPEAKER_01]: said, I disagree with President Trump on many, many things.

[00:28:36] [SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes strongly disagree.

[00:28:38] [SPEAKER_01]: He didn't say what those things were, but I can imagine there were things like

[00:28:41] [SPEAKER_01]: pro-choice and other traditional democratic values.

[00:28:44] [SPEAKER_01]: But he did say on these issues that were so important to him,

[00:28:47] [SPEAKER_01]: chronic disease that our children have and I'll describe what he means in a second

[00:28:50] [SPEAKER_01]: and issues like obesity and corporate capture of the FDA, which I'll describe

[00:28:58] [SPEAKER_01]: in a second, he did say that these were important enough that all other

[00:29:01] [SPEAKER_01]: issues dwarf them, that our country was going to be ruined.

[00:29:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And he specifically said, if there's eight years of Kamala Harris,

[00:29:06] [SPEAKER_01]: he said our country is over because of these issues and no other issues

[00:29:10] [SPEAKER_01]: count other than these issues.

[00:29:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And so normally, OK, that's fine.

[00:29:14] [SPEAKER_01]: And he could say in an endorsement, hey, I think Trump will will do these

[00:29:19] [SPEAKER_01]: things so I'm dropping out.

[00:29:20] [SPEAKER_01]: But he goes two steps further.

[00:29:22] [SPEAKER_01]: One is he said he tried to talk to Kamala Harris about the same thing.

[00:29:26] [SPEAKER_01]: And she refused to meet with him.

[00:29:28] [SPEAKER_01]: And then when he talked to Trump,

[00:29:29] [SPEAKER_01]: they both strongly implied that Robert F. Kennedy is going to have a strong

[00:29:36] [SPEAKER_01]: role in a potential Trump administration on dealing with these issues.

[00:29:40] [SPEAKER_01]: Perhaps Trump is going to make Kennedy the secretary of health and human services.

[00:29:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Perhaps Trump is going to put Kennedy in charge of the FDA or the USDA or the NIH.

[00:29:51] [SPEAKER_01]: I happen to think it's all of the above.

[00:29:54] [SPEAKER_01]: I think all presidents like to make czars.

[00:29:56] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think Kennedy, RFK Jr.

[00:29:59] [SPEAKER_01]: is going to end up being sort of the health cares are he's going to combine all

[00:30:03] [SPEAKER_01]: these food and drug three letter agencies like the FDA and the NIH and the USDA

[00:30:10] [SPEAKER_01]: and combine that with being secretary of health.

[00:30:13] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think he's going to be the health czar of the US is my guess.

[00:30:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And he is going to, as he said in the speech, he is going to eliminate

[00:30:21] [SPEAKER_01]: these problems from the US.

[00:30:23] [SPEAKER_01]: So now what are these problems?

[00:30:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Let's fact check them a little bit.

[00:30:26] [SPEAKER_01]: So one of the things he said is that

[00:30:28] [SPEAKER_01]: chronic disease has gone from 6% in 1960 to 60% of all Americans.

[00:30:35] [SPEAKER_01]: So chronic disease means a condition that you basically have to deal with or

[00:30:39] [SPEAKER_01]: take medicine for every single day.

[00:30:42] [SPEAKER_01]: So if you have cancer, that's a chronic disease as an example.

[00:30:45] [SPEAKER_01]: If you have asthma, that's a chronic disease.

[00:30:48] [SPEAKER_01]: If you have even a mental health issue is usually considered a chronic disease.

[00:30:51] [SPEAKER_01]: So there are lots of chronic diseases.

[00:30:53] [SPEAKER_01]: The problem with that statistic is that they weren't really measuring

[00:30:59] [SPEAKER_01]: chronic diseases the same way in 1960.

[00:31:02] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, nobody even talked about ADHD.

[00:31:04] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't even know if that existed in 1960.

[00:31:06] [SPEAKER_01]: So you can't really compare it's like comparing apples and oranges.

[00:31:10] [SPEAKER_01]: But I will say this is that the trend is bad.

[00:31:14] [SPEAKER_01]: I think this is the important thing about fact checking.

[00:31:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes these candidates don't always say the correct statistics.

[00:31:21] [SPEAKER_01]: But it's the issue that's important.

[00:31:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Is the trend dangerous?

[00:31:27] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I will talk about a few of these trends.

[00:31:32] [SPEAKER_01]: So in 1960, what we do know is that 2% of children in 1960 had a health condition

[00:31:38] [SPEAKER_01]: that was severe enough to interfere with their daily activities.

[00:31:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I mentioned my mother earlier.

[00:31:45] [SPEAKER_01]: She had polio.

[00:31:45] [SPEAKER_01]: She was part of this 2%.

[00:31:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Her daily activities were affected by polio because she had

[00:31:50] [SPEAKER_01]: trouble walking and right now about 10% of children have a condition

[00:31:56] [SPEAKER_01]: that affects their daily life.

[00:31:58] [SPEAKER_01]: So it's not 60%, but look, 2 to 10% is a bad trend.

[00:32:03] [SPEAKER_01]: That's one out of our 10 children have some chronic issue that affects their daily life.

[00:32:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Now if you then throw in all other chronic issues and I believe

[00:32:12] [SPEAKER_01]: RFK Junior was also including obesity and so on, maybe it does rise to 60%.

[00:32:17] [SPEAKER_01]: So in the country, about 41% of individuals are overweight and another 30%

[00:32:27] [SPEAKER_01]: are considered obese.

[00:32:29] [SPEAKER_01]: So the trend is your friend here.

[00:32:31] [SPEAKER_01]: The trend is really what I want to understand.

[00:32:33] [SPEAKER_01]: So let's say right now 70% of adults in the US are either overweight or obese.

[00:32:39] [SPEAKER_01]: And this number, there's different reports, but it's roughly 70%.

[00:32:42] [SPEAKER_01]: It's like what I said before.

[00:32:44] [SPEAKER_01]: What was the case in 1960?

[00:32:48] [SPEAKER_01]: It was about 13% were considered obese or overweight.

[00:32:55] [SPEAKER_01]: And the number continued to rise.

[00:32:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Like in 2001, the number was about 30%.

[00:33:00] [SPEAKER_01]: In 2010, the number was 35% of obesity.

[00:33:05] [SPEAKER_01]: And so just obese alone right now it's a little over 40%.

[00:33:09] [SPEAKER_01]: So we've gone from 10% or 13% to a little over 40% on obesity.

[00:33:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Obesity is a chronic condition.

[00:33:18] [SPEAKER_01]: It could lead to heart disease, it could lead to Alzheimer's.

[00:33:20] [SPEAKER_01]: In fact, Alzheimer's is often now considered type 3 diabetes.

[00:33:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Obesity can lead to diabetes.

[00:33:27] [SPEAKER_01]: It can lead to many chronic and terminal diseases.

[00:33:31] [SPEAKER_01]: This is the thing I'm wondering as I fact check this.

[00:33:34] [SPEAKER_01]: If everything's so bad, why is everything so good?

[00:33:37] [SPEAKER_01]: And by good, I mean life expectancy.

[00:33:40] [SPEAKER_01]: So if you were born in 1950, the average life expectancy was 65 years old or 66 years old.

[00:33:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Now it's about 80 years old.

[00:33:52] [SPEAKER_01]: So why has life expectancy gone up so much if suddenly all of our children

[00:33:57] [SPEAKER_01]: have all these chronic conditions?

[00:33:59] [SPEAKER_01]: And again, chronic condition, oh, it's a condition that affects your daily activity.

[00:34:03] [SPEAKER_01]: But it really extends more to that.

[00:34:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Like it extends to obesity and so on.

[00:34:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Things that don't necessarily affect daily activity and it could be as high as 50%

[00:34:10] [SPEAKER_01]: right now of children have chronic conditions.

[00:34:13] [SPEAKER_01]: How could all this chronic disease stuff be happening and obesity stuff we have?

[00:34:18] [SPEAKER_01]: And yet our life expectancy has gone in the past 70 years from 66 to 79.

[00:34:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, a couple of things that I want to point out and RFK Junior didn't talk

[00:34:30] [SPEAKER_01]: about this, but this is kind of all important to understand.

[00:34:33] [SPEAKER_01]: One thing I was thinking was, well, RFK Junior is always against big pharma.

[00:34:38] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'll fact check some of this stuff in a second.

[00:34:41] [SPEAKER_01]: But big pharma makes all this medicines that cure all these diseases.

[00:34:44] [SPEAKER_01]: So maybe that's the reason for the high life expectancy.

[00:34:47] [SPEAKER_01]: So is big pharma bad or is big pharma good?

[00:34:50] [SPEAKER_01]: But let's look at things a little more closely.

[00:34:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Cigarette smoking has declined since 1950 from basically half

[00:34:59] [SPEAKER_01]: the US would smoke a pack of cigarettes a day in 1950.

[00:35:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Now it's about 10%.

[00:35:05] [SPEAKER_01]: So cigarette smoking as a heavy habit has almost been wiped out in the US.

[00:35:13] [SPEAKER_01]: And the average cigarette smoker lives 10 to 15 years less than a non-cigarette

[00:35:20] [SPEAKER_01]: smoker, at least 10 years less on average than a non-smoker.

[00:35:24] [SPEAKER_01]: So and that's just an average.

[00:35:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Some cigarette smokers lived 110 and some non-smokers died at the age of 20.

[00:35:32] [SPEAKER_01]: But on average, a cigarette smoker lives, I believe the actual number is 11 years

[00:35:37] [SPEAKER_01]: less than a non-cigarette smoker.

[00:35:39] [SPEAKER_01]: So that's almost the entire change in life expectancy of the United States since

[00:35:44] [SPEAKER_01]: 1950 was not due to the rise of pharmaceutical companies.

[00:35:49] [SPEAKER_01]: It was not due to anything else other than the fact that people simply stop smoking.

[00:35:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Now, the other thing is where the US has gone down in life expectancy is that many

[00:35:59] [SPEAKER_01]: other countries exceed the US in life expectancy.

[00:36:04] [SPEAKER_01]: So the US, the average life expectancy, if you're born right now, is 79.25 years.

[00:36:10] [SPEAKER_01]: But and the US used to be by far number one in the world.

[00:36:13] [SPEAKER_01]: But right now, the US is about 20th.

[00:36:17] [SPEAKER_01]: So I'll give you some examples.

[00:36:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Monaco, 90 years is the average life expectancy.

[00:36:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Singapore, 84.7 years.

[00:36:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Japan, 84.7 years.

[00:36:28] [SPEAKER_01]: France, I can't believe it because there are a bunch of smokers,

[00:36:32] [SPEAKER_01]: but 81.8 percent life expectancy in France.

[00:36:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Germany, 80.6.

[00:36:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Taiwan, 80 years.

[00:36:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Spain, 81.6.

[00:36:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Let's find some non-European countries.

[00:36:45] [SPEAKER_00]: That's right. My grandparents live until 90 something.

[00:36:48] [SPEAKER_00]: They both passed away at like 97.

[00:36:51] [SPEAKER_01]: OK, well, let's see.

[00:36:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Malaysia, 74.8.

[00:36:54] [SPEAKER_01]: So Jay, your grandparents are very lucky.

[00:36:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes. But normally Malaysians don't live as long as US people.

[00:37:01] [SPEAKER_01]: So it's good you moved to the US.

[00:37:03] [SPEAKER_01]: South Korea, 80 year life expectancy.

[00:37:05] [SPEAKER_01]: By the way, North Korea, 70 year life expectancy.

[00:37:07] [SPEAKER_01]: So that's capitalism versus communism right there.

[00:37:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Israel, 81.4.

[00:37:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Italy, 82.1.

[00:37:14] [SPEAKER_01]: So the life expectancies of other countries now exceed the US.

[00:37:17] [SPEAKER_01]: This is about 20th again.

[00:37:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And why is that?

[00:37:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's because of the other thing RFK Junior mentioned, which is that

[00:37:25] [SPEAKER_01]: US citizens are the biggest consumers of ultra-processed foods.

[00:37:29] [SPEAKER_01]: So there's a saying that if you go into a grocery store,

[00:37:33] [SPEAKER_01]: just shop on the outer aisles because that's where kind of the organic

[00:37:37] [SPEAKER_01]: foods are and the vegetables and the fruits and the deli and so on.

[00:37:40] [SPEAKER_01]: And the aisles in the middle, that's where the snacks are and all the processed foods.

[00:37:44] [SPEAKER_01]: So processed foods means ultra-processed sugar, ultra-processed

[00:37:49] [SPEAKER_01]: carbs, chemicals that are used to make the food more addictive.

[00:37:53] [SPEAKER_01]: So RFK Junior mentioned in his speech how as the cigarette industries were

[00:37:56] [SPEAKER_01]: declining, which we've seen from 50% of the country was smoking

[00:38:02] [SPEAKER_01]: addictively to around 10%, the companies like Philip Morris and so on

[00:38:08] [SPEAKER_01]: bought all the packaged foods companies.

[00:38:12] [SPEAKER_01]: So like Philip Morris bought Kraft Foods as an example, which makes Jell-O

[00:38:16] [SPEAKER_01]: and I don't know some weird cheese products and whatever.

[00:38:20] [SPEAKER_01]: I remember, by the way, in the 90s,

[00:38:21] [SPEAKER_01]: I was pitching to do Philip Morris's website and I get there,

[00:38:26] [SPEAKER_01]: I get to the conference room and there's like packs of cigarettes in a bowl

[00:38:30] [SPEAKER_01]: in the center of the conference room was Jell-O and cheese-its or cheese

[00:38:35] [SPEAKER_01]: whip or whatever and the packs of cigarettes so that we could

[00:38:38] [SPEAKER_01]: we could all smoke if we wanted.

[00:38:40] [SPEAKER_01]: But I didn't get that job because I don't smoke or eat cheese.

[00:38:43] [SPEAKER_01]: So it turns out 54% of the calories that the average US citizen eats every day,

[00:38:50] [SPEAKER_01]: 54% comes from ultra-high processed foods.

[00:38:55] [SPEAKER_01]: And again, those are the things it's all linked to

[00:38:59] [SPEAKER_01]: chronic obesity, chronic disease and all these other bad conditions.

[00:39:03] [SPEAKER_01]: So that could be why just relative to other countries,

[00:39:06] [SPEAKER_01]: the US has declined in longevity.

[00:39:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And this is a serious issue because if your citizens aren't living longer

[00:39:14] [SPEAKER_01]: and are not being productive longer and not paying taxes longer,

[00:39:17] [SPEAKER_01]: your country will decline.

[00:39:20] [SPEAKER_01]: And particularly when this is happening among children.

[00:39:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And again,

[00:39:25] [SPEAKER_01]: just like with all these other trends,

[00:39:27] [SPEAKER_01]: children's obesity is rising faster here than in any other country.

[00:39:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Children's consumption of ultra-high processed foods.

[00:39:33] [SPEAKER_01]: So RFK Junior makes the point that the people who decide on what lunches

[00:39:38] [SPEAKER_01]: service at schools are all decided by government agencies and there's no vegetables.

[00:39:45] [SPEAKER_01]: It's all ultra-high processed foods.

[00:39:46] [SPEAKER_01]: So this is where the kids are getting their obesity.

[00:39:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Again, I don't know if all his statistics are accurate,

[00:39:53] [SPEAKER_01]: but the trend is definitely there.

[00:39:55] [SPEAKER_01]: So that part is accurate.

[00:39:57] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'll tell the reason why I was skeptical of RFK Junior is that

[00:40:01] [SPEAKER_01]: he's a conspiracy theorist.

[00:40:03] [SPEAKER_01]: So, for instance, a lot of the anti-vaccine stuff he's wrong about.

[00:40:09] [SPEAKER_01]: For instance, he told me in our podcast that vaccines are the only

[00:40:12] [SPEAKER_01]: drug that are not tested for safety.

[00:40:15] [SPEAKER_01]: This is just simply not true.

[00:40:18] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they're not tested for safety against a placebo like water,

[00:40:21] [SPEAKER_01]: but they are tested against other alternative care methods.

[00:40:25] [SPEAKER_01]: And they've proven to be just as safe as alternative care methods.

[00:40:30] [SPEAKER_01]: There's more safety standards around vaccines

[00:40:32] [SPEAKER_01]: than there are around other drugs.

[00:40:35] [SPEAKER_01]: So he is not always accurate on his vaccine stuff.

[00:40:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Also, there's a good study where American Samoa, which is the territory of the US,

[00:40:45] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, in part due to some misinformation spread by Robert F. Kennedy,

[00:40:50] [SPEAKER_01]: when American Samoa went off the measles vaccine for a while,

[00:40:53] [SPEAKER_01]: there was a measles outbreak and many people died.

[00:40:56] [SPEAKER_01]: So I don't have the exact numbers in front of me.

[00:40:58] [SPEAKER_01]: You could look it up, but he's anti-vax.

[00:41:00] [SPEAKER_01]: He's very conspiracy there is when it comes to the assassinations of both his

[00:41:05] [SPEAKER_01]: father and and John F. Kennedy, which I suppose I would be too if I was in this

[00:41:09] [SPEAKER_01]: situation, but I got worried just hearing about all the conspiracies that he believed

[00:41:14] [SPEAKER_01]: in, it made me a little nervous about what you can trust from him.

[00:41:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And again, researching these vaccines,

[00:41:21] [SPEAKER_01]: a lot of the stuff he was saying was just factually incorrect.

[00:41:25] [SPEAKER_01]: But when it comes to this issue,

[00:41:26] [SPEAKER_01]: very important issue that he brings up about the increase in chronic disease,

[00:41:32] [SPEAKER_01]: the increase in obesity among our children,

[00:41:35] [SPEAKER_01]: the overall rise in our life expectancy, but the decline versus the other countries.

[00:41:40] [SPEAKER_01]: It does suggest that we're in a bad situation if 70% of our kids are either

[00:41:47] [SPEAKER_01]: overweight or obese and that's the highest in the world.

[00:41:50] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's because in part all the ultra high process foods are a big part

[00:41:55] [SPEAKER_01]: of our diet more than in any other country.

[00:41:58] [SPEAKER_01]: School lunches are being served mostly with ultra high process foods.

[00:42:01] [SPEAKER_01]: This is a big problem.

[00:42:03] [SPEAKER_01]: If this is the only thing he focuses on and Trump puts him in charge of that,

[00:42:07] [SPEAKER_01]: that seems like a good thing for me.

[00:42:08] [SPEAKER_01]: And his consistency to whether he should run for president or whether he

[00:42:14] [SPEAKER_01]: should pursue his policies that he cares about, that impressed me.

[00:42:20] [SPEAKER_01]: It's the only third party candidate I've known that has ever

[00:42:24] [SPEAKER_01]: resigned from a third party candidacy in order to potentially take a role

[00:42:28] [SPEAKER_01]: in his competitors' administration.

[00:42:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Of course, there's other reasons he drops out.

[00:42:33] [SPEAKER_01]: One is his decline in polling numbers after Kamala became the candidate

[00:42:37] [SPEAKER_01]: means his fundraising efforts are basically dead.

[00:42:40] [SPEAKER_01]: And also the Democrats suing him in every state has taken a toll.

[00:42:44] [SPEAKER_01]: For instance, New York State now,

[00:42:46] [SPEAKER_01]: the court system just prevented Robert F. Kennedy from appearing on the New

[00:42:50] [SPEAKER_01]: York State ballot. If you're not on the ballot, you can't win the

[00:42:52] [SPEAKER_01]: presidency. That's just the reality.

[00:42:54] [SPEAKER_01]: So he knew he was going to lose.

[00:42:55] [SPEAKER_01]: He was losing the fundraising race as well.

[00:42:58] [SPEAKER_01]: And so he had to make some decisions somewhere.

[00:43:00] [SPEAKER_01]: He, by the way, he tried to talk to Kamala Harris.

[00:43:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe he would have ended up with the Democratic Party.

[00:43:05] [SPEAKER_01]: But Trump spoke to him and was very responsive.

[00:43:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And it looks like he's going to be working in Trump's administration.

[00:43:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Kamala refused to meet him.

[00:43:13] [SPEAKER_01]: I think that was a mistake on her part.

[00:43:15] [SPEAKER_01]: I think she should have tried to win him back to the Democratic Party if she

[00:43:18] [SPEAKER_01]: wanted to guarantee winning the election.

[00:43:20] [SPEAKER_01]: If she got RFK Junior, she would have guaranteed winning the election.

[00:43:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Just like I think Trump has probably guaranteed winning the election for himself.

[00:43:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Another issue that RFK Junior spoke about is Ukraine.

[00:43:34] [SPEAKER_01]: And he made a couple of comments in his speech, which I fact checked.

[00:43:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Look, he said Putin was ready to back out if only we'd agreed to that Ukraine

[00:43:43] [SPEAKER_01]: wouldn't be a NATO.

[00:43:45] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't really think this is true.

[00:43:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Who knows behind the scenes what was going on?

[00:43:49] [SPEAKER_01]: But I don't know.

[00:43:50] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I'm not necessarily for any war either.

[00:43:54] [SPEAKER_01]: And I like in general his anti-war stance and that seems more aligned with Trump,

[00:44:00] [SPEAKER_01]: which again suggests that even though he won't be actively working on this in

[00:44:04] [SPEAKER_01]: the Trump administration, it does suggest to me that more of his voters

[00:44:09] [SPEAKER_01]: will go over to Trump than will go over to Kamala.

[00:44:13] [SPEAKER_01]: So I think overall we can say this was an interesting move that he made

[00:44:19] [SPEAKER_01]: to continue being a force in American politics and perhaps give himself

[00:44:23] [SPEAKER_01]: another chance at life in terms of making sure his policies happen.

[00:44:28] [SPEAKER_01]: I do think this will affect the election quite a bit, as opposed to what

[00:44:31] [SPEAKER_01]: the Democrat pollsters say.

[00:44:33] [SPEAKER_01]: It looks clear to me that if the election were held today,

[00:44:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Trump would win probably by a good 50 or 60 electoral votes, maybe more.

[00:44:43] [SPEAKER_01]: That doesn't mean Trump's going to win.

[00:44:45] [SPEAKER_01]: And let's look at what the poly market odds are.

[00:44:47] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, one thing about elections is that things could switch at a moment's notice

[00:44:52] [SPEAKER_01]: like they've been doing.

[00:44:53] [SPEAKER_01]: We had the Biden debate problem.

[00:44:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Then we had Kamala as the nominee and everything switched.

[00:45:00] [SPEAKER_01]: And now we have RFK Jr.

[00:45:02] [SPEAKER_01]: dropping out everything switches again.

[00:45:04] [SPEAKER_01]: And right now on poly market, if the betting between Donald Trump

[00:45:08] [SPEAKER_01]: and Kamala Harris is dead even so people don't know if I was going to bet

[00:45:14] [SPEAKER_01]: right now and I probably will.

[00:45:16] [SPEAKER_01]: I would bet on Trump winning because

[00:45:19] [SPEAKER_01]: the poly market results were almost the same right before RFK Jr.

[00:45:23] [SPEAKER_01]: dropped out. So I don't think poly market is really considering the enormous

[00:45:27] [SPEAKER_01]: effect RFK Jr. will have.

[00:45:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Also, I want to address like

[00:45:35] [SPEAKER_01]: depending on what TV show you're watching,

[00:45:37] [SPEAKER_01]: people are saying, oh, Trump said some nasty thing about RFK a few months ago.

[00:45:43] [SPEAKER_01]: RFK says some nasty thing about Trump a few months ago.

[00:45:46] [SPEAKER_01]: This is just like when people were saying, J.D.

[00:45:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Vance, compare Trump to Hitler a few months ago or vice versa.

[00:45:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Like all this stuff is ridiculous.

[00:45:56] [SPEAKER_00]: It's all just politics.

[00:45:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so I just want to bring up even Kamala say something nasty about Joe Biden

[00:46:02] [SPEAKER_00]: in 2020. Yeah.

[00:46:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Kamala in the debates in 2020 is called Biden Erases.

[00:46:07] [SPEAKER_01]: By the way, Biden in 2008 said Obama was a very

[00:46:12] [SPEAKER_01]: articulate black man in 2008 and literally Biden had to drop out because of that

[00:46:18] [SPEAKER_01]: because that's considered a racist euphemism.

[00:46:21] [SPEAKER_01]: And then Obama miraculously saved Biden's political career by making him vice president.

[00:46:27] [SPEAKER_01]: So what we've learned about in politics is the past is the past.

[00:46:30] [SPEAKER_01]: So stop trying to find quotes.

[00:46:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Look, in 1980 Bush said Reagan's policies were voodoo economics.

[00:46:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Then Reagan picks Bush as his vice president.

[00:46:41] [SPEAKER_01]: By the way, Bush was pro-choice.

[00:46:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Reagan was pro-life and Reagan specifically asked Bush if he could just

[00:46:50] [SPEAKER_01]: slow down on being pro-choice if he's going to be vice president.

[00:46:54] [SPEAKER_01]: And Bush said, of course, because he wanted to be vice president and then

[00:46:57] [SPEAKER_01]: president. So things change all the time in politics.

[00:47:02] [SPEAKER_01]: The past is the past.

[00:47:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, there's one other thing that RFK Jr.

[00:47:05] [SPEAKER_01]: mentioned, which is called corporate capture at the FDA.

[00:47:09] [SPEAKER_01]: So what's corporate capture?

[00:47:10] [SPEAKER_01]: It's when let's say I work at the Securities and Exchange Commission

[00:47:13] [SPEAKER_01]: and my job is to find criminals who are manipulating the stock market

[00:47:19] [SPEAKER_01]: and throw them in jail.

[00:47:20] [SPEAKER_01]: And let's say Goldman Sachs, I'm investigating Goldman Sachs.

[00:47:25] [SPEAKER_01]: And Goldman Sachs says, hey,

[00:47:28] [SPEAKER_01]: we're pretty good, don't worry about us.

[00:47:30] [SPEAKER_01]: And by the way, we think you're pretty good too.

[00:47:33] [SPEAKER_01]: And then I quit the SEC and I joined Goldman Sachs and go from making

[00:47:38] [SPEAKER_01]: 100,000 a year at the SEC to five million a year at Goldman Sachs.

[00:47:42] [SPEAKER_01]: That's called corporate capture where people in the government who are

[00:47:46] [SPEAKER_01]: have all the best of intentions are enticed by the great amounts of money

[00:47:52] [SPEAKER_01]: at in the companies that they should be investigating and they ultimately

[00:47:56] [SPEAKER_01]: leave the government and make a lot more money at the companies that they

[00:47:59] [SPEAKER_01]: should have been investigating.

[00:48:01] [SPEAKER_01]: So there's like a conflict of interest.

[00:48:02] [SPEAKER_01]: So this happens a lot in the SEC and it also happens in the FDA.

[00:48:06] [SPEAKER_01]: So I'll give some examples.

[00:48:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Jeffrey Siegel was an FDA regulator who saw

[00:48:12] [SPEAKER_01]: oversaw a review of new drug applications for Genentech's drugs.

[00:48:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, guess where he is now?

[00:48:18] [SPEAKER_01]: He's Genentech's global head of rheumatology and rare diseases.

[00:48:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Another FDA commissioner, Scott Gottlieb,

[00:48:24] [SPEAKER_01]: joined the board of directors of Pfizer within four months of announcing

[00:48:29] [SPEAKER_01]: his resignation as FDA commissioner in March of 2019.

[00:48:33] [SPEAKER_01]: And one of Gottlieb's achievements at the FDA was to promote the development

[00:48:37] [SPEAKER_01]: of follow on versions of what are called biologic products.

[00:48:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Pfizer is the leading maker of biologic products.

[00:48:47] [SPEAKER_01]: So this happens and R.F.K.

[00:48:51] [SPEAKER_01]: juniors makes one other point, which I fact checked and this was a subtle fact

[00:48:55] [SPEAKER_01]: check. He said that 50 percent of the FDA is funded by the US government.

[00:48:59] [SPEAKER_01]: I thought 100 percent of it was funded,

[00:49:00] [SPEAKER_01]: but 50 percent is funded by the pharmaceutical companies.

[00:49:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Why do the pharmaceutical companies fund the FDA?

[00:49:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's a great thing for government because it means less money spent on the

[00:49:12] [SPEAKER_01]: FDA. It's a way of saving on the budget and the money is supposed to be very

[00:49:18] [SPEAKER_01]: earmarked like you can't manipulate this money.

[00:49:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Congress directs how the corporate funding of the FDA is spent.

[00:49:27] [SPEAKER_01]: But this funding is called user fees.

[00:49:30] [SPEAKER_01]: And basically for every drug that you submit for FDA review,

[00:49:35] [SPEAKER_01]: you have to submit fees to help pay for this review.

[00:49:39] [SPEAKER_01]: The more drugs you have that are approved, the more money you have to give

[00:49:45] [SPEAKER_01]: the FDA, but the more money the FDA makes.

[00:49:48] [SPEAKER_01]: So the FDA is very much encouraged to review lots of pharmaceutical drugs

[00:49:53] [SPEAKER_01]: because they make more money that the FDA itself has a higher budget that way.

[00:49:57] [SPEAKER_01]: There is a bit of a conflict of interest when the company that's supposed to be

[00:50:03] [SPEAKER_01]: potentially rejecting your drugs, if they're not good or safe,

[00:50:06] [SPEAKER_01]: is actually getting billions of dollars from you.

[00:50:09] [SPEAKER_01]: RFK Junior brought it up.

[00:50:11] [SPEAKER_01]: It's not cut and dry because again, it's not like Pfizer says, here's this

[00:50:16] [SPEAKER_01]: money now you have to approve my drug, but it gets into a shady area.

[00:50:20] [SPEAKER_01]: This plus the corporate capture, which I wasn't aware until today researching

[00:50:25] [SPEAKER_01]: it how extensive this was and how many examples I could find of situations

[00:50:29] [SPEAKER_01]: where FDA commissioners became high up executives at pharmaceutical companies.

[00:50:34] [SPEAKER_01]: So that is a troubling thing.

[00:50:36] [SPEAKER_01]: And these are the agencies like the USDA, the FDA, the NIH.

[00:50:41] [SPEAKER_01]: These make the food pyramids.

[00:50:42] [SPEAKER_01]: These decide what students are served in school lunches.

[00:50:46] [SPEAKER_01]: If there's this kind of corporate capture

[00:50:48] [SPEAKER_01]: and at the same time we're seeing obesity skyrocket over every other country.

[00:50:53] [SPEAKER_01]: And at the same time, we're seeing kids have higher levels of chronic disease

[00:50:57] [SPEAKER_01]: than in any other country and also the US.

[00:51:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Fifty four percent of the calories we consume every day on average come from

[00:51:05] [SPEAKER_01]: ultra high processed foods.

[00:51:06] [SPEAKER_01]: It does make you concerned that this could lead to a decline in the country.

[00:51:13] [SPEAKER_01]: If we're the least healthy country, we're now 20th in life expectancy

[00:51:17] [SPEAKER_01]: when we used to be first, there's an issue.

[00:51:21] [SPEAKER_01]: And if all he does is not pursue any conspiracy theories, not

[00:51:28] [SPEAKER_01]: mess his hands up with any foreign policy stuff where I don't know if he's

[00:51:32] [SPEAKER_01]: accurate or not, he seems a little bit off there.

[00:51:34] [SPEAKER_01]: But if he just focuses on something which is very simple, fixing the health

[00:51:39] [SPEAKER_01]: of our kids, getting rid of the corporate capture in some of these

[00:51:42] [SPEAKER_01]: government agencies, so making things like the food pyramid more

[00:51:46] [SPEAKER_01]: healthy, fixing school lunches for kids.

[00:51:49] [SPEAKER_01]: This seems to me a very positive thing.

[00:51:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And I wish Kamala Harris had also spoken to him just at the very least so she

[00:51:59] [SPEAKER_01]: could be understand these issues.

[00:52:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Right now I'm going to go to Kamala Harris's campaign site.

[00:52:05] [SPEAKER_01]: There's no policy page.

[00:52:06] [SPEAKER_01]: It's still we did this a couple of weeks ago.

[00:52:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Same thing, donate weekly to like Kamala Harris and support Democrats

[00:52:12] [SPEAKER_01]: nation one. Fine, I understand very important to have a donation page.

[00:52:17] [SPEAKER_01]: But fundraising is critical to becoming president.

[00:52:19] [SPEAKER_01]: But how do we know what her policies are?

[00:52:22] [SPEAKER_01]: She's mentioned a couple of policies like

[00:52:25] [SPEAKER_01]: proud scouting at groceries.

[00:52:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Now, I just want to address that for a small second.

[00:52:30] [SPEAKER_01]: The implication is, is that grocery companies are getting like a loaf of bread

[00:52:34] [SPEAKER_01]: and let's say they buy a wholesale for two dollars and then they're charging

[00:52:38] [SPEAKER_01]: three dollars for it and she's saying there's price gouging.

[00:52:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Grocery companies have one or two percent margins,

[00:52:45] [SPEAKER_01]: profit margins, which is why many grocery businesses go out of business.

[00:52:49] [SPEAKER_01]: And Walmart takes over as the grocery provider for that part of the country.

[00:52:55] [SPEAKER_01]: And grocery companies and even Walmart, they do not control their costs.

[00:53:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Grocery companies have lots of employees.

[00:53:01] [SPEAKER_01]: They've got to pay the health care costs.

[00:53:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, health care costs have been going up.

[00:53:04] [SPEAKER_01]: They can't control that.

[00:53:05] [SPEAKER_01]: That's coming from insurance companies and health care companies.

[00:53:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Trucking costs.

[00:53:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Trucking costs have been going up because oil prices have been going up.

[00:53:13] [SPEAKER_01]: So gasoline prices have been going up.

[00:53:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Grocery companies have trucks bring them their goods.

[00:53:17] [SPEAKER_01]: If you put a price cap on groceries,

[00:53:20] [SPEAKER_01]: not taking to an account all of the inputs that go into those prices,

[00:53:26] [SPEAKER_01]: all the prices, all the cost they pay, you go out of business.

[00:53:30] [SPEAKER_01]: And the net result is fewer products are sold because more companies

[00:53:36] [SPEAKER_01]: are out of business.

[00:53:37] [SPEAKER_01]: So prices go up because prices depends on supply and demand.

[00:53:40] [SPEAKER_01]: And there's fewer people with jobs.

[00:53:42] [SPEAKER_01]: So you end up with inflation and a recession.

[00:53:44] [SPEAKER_01]: So this is like a basic economic principle.

[00:53:47] [SPEAKER_01]: I hope if Kamala Harris wins, she brings someone in who's

[00:53:52] [SPEAKER_01]: a real professional to be her economics advisor and secretary of treasury and so on.

[00:53:57] [SPEAKER_01]: These are not that complicated issues.

[00:53:59] [SPEAKER_01]: If I could explain it in just two sentences.

[00:54:01] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm sure everybody understood what I just said about the input prices versus

[00:54:06] [SPEAKER_01]: what you charge for something price caps don't work.

[00:54:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Price caps in China in the 1960s resulted in 60 million people being starved to death.

[00:54:15] [SPEAKER_01]: One government official, whether they're the president or not,

[00:54:18] [SPEAKER_01]: cannot predict what the correct price of an item should be.

[00:54:22] [SPEAKER_01]: The market has done a very good job for hundreds of years at predicting

[00:54:26] [SPEAKER_01]: what the prices of different things should be.

[00:54:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Inflation is the result of too much money in the money supply.

[00:54:34] [SPEAKER_01]: If everybody who used to have one dollar suddenly has two dollars,

[00:54:37] [SPEAKER_01]: then prices will double.

[00:54:39] [SPEAKER_01]: That's just the way it works.

[00:54:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Milton Friedman, who won the Nobel Prize in economics, developed this theory.

[00:54:46] [SPEAKER_01]: I would highly encourage people to read Thomas Sowell's book, Basic Economics.

[00:54:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Thomas Sowell was a student of Milton Friedman's and he's

[00:54:55] [SPEAKER_01]: one of the smartest economists to ever live next to his former teacher,

[00:55:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Milton Friedman.

[00:55:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, this is not about RFK Junior, but I am just mentioning these things that

[00:55:04] [SPEAKER_01]: it is important to have strong policy beliefs.

[00:55:09] [SPEAKER_01]: So we know now what RFK Junior's policy beliefs are.

[00:55:12] [SPEAKER_01]: I have changed my mind a little on him in that, OK, he's a conspiracy theorist.

[00:55:17] [SPEAKER_01]: He's a little wacky in some places.

[00:55:19] [SPEAKER_01]: But I really like this idea of focusing on our children and the health

[00:55:24] [SPEAKER_01]: of our children.

[00:55:25] [SPEAKER_01]: This is a policy that I have not heard from anyone else, and it sounds like it's

[00:55:29] [SPEAKER_01]: going to be an important agenda for him, regardless of what administration he was

[00:55:33] [SPEAKER_01]: in. So, you know, fortunately for him and fortunately for Trump,

[00:55:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Trump spoke to him.

[00:55:39] [SPEAKER_01]: I wished Kamala Harris had spoken to him as well, but they hated him because

[00:55:43] [SPEAKER_01]: he left the Democratic Party.

[00:55:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, the only other thing I want to say is I noticed also

[00:55:49] [SPEAKER_01]: the Atlantic today published a article by Kurt Anderson.

[00:55:54] [SPEAKER_01]: So Kurt Anderson, great writer back in the year 1999.

[00:55:58] [SPEAKER_01]: I read a novel by him called Turn of the Century, really great novel.

[00:56:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And he just continues to be a great writer all along.

[00:56:06] [SPEAKER_01]: And he wrote an article for the Atlantic that came out today, the day after

[00:56:10] [SPEAKER_01]: the RFK Junior stuff saying and the article is titled, if I remember correctly,

[00:56:14] [SPEAKER_01]: RFK Junior was my drug dealer.

[00:56:16] [SPEAKER_01]: And so he talks about an event that happened when they were both freshmen in

[00:56:20] [SPEAKER_01]: college. So I guess they were both freshmen at Harvard and RFK Junior

[00:56:25] [SPEAKER_01]: sold Kurt Anderson some drugs.

[00:56:27] [SPEAKER_01]: So why today did that article come out?

[00:56:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, RFK Junior has been running for the past year and a half for president.

[00:56:36] [SPEAKER_01]: Kurt Anderson couldn't have told us before.

[00:56:40] [SPEAKER_01]: And by the way, this is an event that, you know,

[00:56:41] [SPEAKER_01]: RFK Junior is 70 years old.

[00:56:43] [SPEAKER_01]: So he's talking about an event that happened 50 years ago.

[00:56:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And by the way, we know RFK Junior has been very public about how until the age

[00:56:51] [SPEAKER_01]: of 29 he was a drug addict.

[00:56:53] [SPEAKER_01]: This is mentioned in his, you know, autobiography.

[00:56:56] [SPEAKER_01]: This is mentioned. Everyone knows it's not a secret.

[00:56:58] [SPEAKER_01]: So RFK Junior sold Kurt Anderson a tiny bit of cocaine, which by the way,

[00:57:05] [SPEAKER_01]: I just, I, you know, Kurt Anderson shouldn't have bought it.

[00:57:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. shouldn't have sold it.

[00:57:12] [SPEAKER_01]: It's illegal, but they were 18 years old.

[00:57:14] [SPEAKER_01]: This happens now.

[00:57:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Kurt Anderson makes the point that it's relevant now because Trump has called

[00:57:19] [SPEAKER_01]: for the death penalty for drug dealers.

[00:57:22] [SPEAKER_01]: I doubt Trump is saying 18 year olds should be executed for selling a tiny bit

[00:57:28] [SPEAKER_01]: of marijuana or whatever.

[00:57:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Trump is really more referring to people bringing in enormous amounts of drugs

[00:57:34] [SPEAKER_01]: through the border. So what Kurt Anderson uses this point.

[00:57:38] [SPEAKER_01]: And I just feel like why now it's because now RFK Junior is benefiting Trump.

[00:57:44] [SPEAKER_01]: If RFK Junior was benefiting Kamala Harris, would Kurt Anderson have felt the same

[00:57:49] [SPEAKER_01]: moral obligation to write this article?

[00:57:52] [SPEAKER_01]: I really just dislike on either side the hypocrisy.

[00:57:56] [SPEAKER_01]: But again, it's politics.

[00:57:58] [SPEAKER_01]: This happens.

[00:57:59] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm just encouraging people.

[00:58:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Not everything is black and white.

[00:58:03] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't agree with RFK Junior's craziness and conspiracy theories on some of these

[00:58:09] [SPEAKER_01]: issues, but I do agree with this focus on children.

[00:58:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And if that's what he's going to be working on the health of our children,

[00:58:15] [SPEAKER_01]: that is important for the United States of America.

[00:58:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Again, regardless of what presidency he works for, I hope that even

[00:58:22] [SPEAKER_01]: regardless of Kamala wins, I hope she appoints RFK Junior to deal

[00:58:26] [SPEAKER_01]: with these issues of corporate capture and so on.

[00:58:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Here's the other issue, the final issue.

[00:58:31] [SPEAKER_01]: I do think Kamala Harris is going to have problems

[00:58:33] [SPEAKER_01]: fundraising with RFK Junior now on Trump's side because people will be more

[00:58:40] [SPEAKER_01]: inclined to think that their money is being wasted and so they will be less

[00:58:44] [SPEAKER_01]: inclined to give her money.

[00:58:46] [SPEAKER_01]: That said, if they're truly equal in poly market, then maybe it's all good.

[00:58:51] [SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, who knows?

[00:58:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Can I ask a couple of questions, James?

[00:58:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Sure. And by the way, if anybody listening to this asks me questions on Twitter,

[00:58:58] [SPEAKER_01]: I will answer those questions and also do another podcast answering those questions.

[00:59:01] [SPEAKER_01]: You also wrote like a seven million views now,

[00:59:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Tread on Twitter.

[00:59:06] [SPEAKER_01]: I wrote a thread on the conversation just summarizing the conversation between

[00:59:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Musk and Trump. And again, not because, oh my God, I love this,

[00:59:15] [SPEAKER_01]: but it's because I saw so many headlines the next day saying the interview was

[00:59:20] [SPEAKER_01]: incoherent, but I listened to the whole thing.

[00:59:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Nothing was incoherent.

[00:59:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And I very clearly wrote a thread about what the issues were and something like

[00:59:29] [SPEAKER_01]: 10 million people have liked that thread.

[00:59:31] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I've been I've been a follower and a commentator on elections for,

[00:59:36] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, I'm not known for it, but I've talked about and written about

[00:59:39] [SPEAKER_01]: elections for the past 20 years.

[00:59:41] [SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, this is an interesting topic to me.

[00:59:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. Heck, in 1980, I was 12 years old.

[00:59:46] [SPEAKER_01]: I went to the Democratic National Convention and interviewed a bunch of

[00:59:48] [SPEAKER_01]: people there. The interviews were published in the South Brunswick Central

[00:59:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Post and I got paid $75.

[00:59:55] [SPEAKER_01]: $75 is probably like what, 500 bucks now?

[00:59:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe. Yeah, I was rich.

[00:59:59] [SPEAKER_01]: My parents took it though to pay for all the phone bills because I was calling

[01:00:02] [SPEAKER_01]: so many politicians and making the phone bills big.

[01:00:06] [SPEAKER_01]: But that's so I've been commentating on politics for 45 of my 56 years.

[01:00:11] [SPEAKER_00]: That's great. OK, so a couple of questions.

[01:00:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Crypto, everyone, you know, not everyone love, I mean, I love crypto.

[01:00:18] [SPEAKER_00]: A lot of people love crypto.

[01:00:19] [SPEAKER_00]: So when RFK Jr.

[01:00:21] [SPEAKER_00]: announced to endorse Trump, you know, I was just checking my portfolio.

[01:00:26] [SPEAKER_00]: I saw that Bitcoin went up go to as much as 63,000.

[01:00:30] [SPEAKER_00]: It's just 63,000.

[01:00:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, really great question.

[01:00:33] [SPEAKER_01]: So RFK Jr. actually in his speech yesterday did not mention anything about crypto,

[01:00:37] [SPEAKER_01]: but he did mention how because of what he viewed as the weakness in the current

[01:00:43] [SPEAKER_01]: administration, the BRICS countries, meaning Brazil, Russia,

[01:00:48] [SPEAKER_01]: India, China, but also countries that they're a lot allied with are developing

[01:00:53] [SPEAKER_01]: their own alternative global reserve currency.

[01:00:56] [SPEAKER_01]: So right now, if a country wants to buy oil, they do it in US dollars.

[01:00:59] [SPEAKER_01]: The US dollar is the strongest currency on the planet by far.

[01:01:03] [SPEAKER_01]: But if all these countries combine together to try to form reserve currency,

[01:01:08] [SPEAKER_01]: that could drastically affect the US dollar.

[01:01:10] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's it's not necessarily a bad thing.

[01:01:13] [SPEAKER_01]: But let's just for the second say it's a bad thing and could cause more inflation.

[01:01:17] [SPEAKER_01]: If less people want the dollar, then the value of the dollar will weaken and that

[01:01:20] [SPEAKER_01]: causes inflation. A Robert Kennedy brought this up.

[01:01:23] [SPEAKER_01]: That doesn't mean he's pro crypto.

[01:01:25] [SPEAKER_01]: It actually means he's pro US dollar.

[01:01:27] [SPEAKER_01]: So you would think that would be an anti-crypto thing.

[01:01:30] [SPEAKER_01]: But the reason crypto went up is because

[01:01:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Trump in the Republican Convention said that he would put Bitcoin

[01:01:38] [SPEAKER_01]: in our strategic supply, not our strategic reserves, which is slightly

[01:01:42] [SPEAKER_01]: different. I won't go over the subtleties.

[01:01:44] [SPEAKER_01]: But he basically implied he's 100% pro crypto.

[01:01:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Gary Gensler, who's anti-crypto, the head of the SEC would get fired.

[01:01:51] [SPEAKER_01]: Trump is very pro crypto.

[01:01:52] [SPEAKER_01]: The Democrats in general are not pro crypto.

[01:01:55] [SPEAKER_01]: And so RFK Jr.

[01:01:57] [SPEAKER_01]: switching over to Trump makes it more likely Trump's going to win,

[01:02:01] [SPEAKER_01]: which is good for Bitcoin.

[01:02:03] [SPEAKER_01]: That's why the price of Bitcoin is going up.

[01:02:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Second questions.

[01:02:07] [SPEAKER_00]: I think during the DNC, I could be wrong.

[01:02:09] [SPEAKER_00]: I was obviously reading your article in the headlines.

[01:02:12] [SPEAKER_00]: I think they mentioned about tax on unrealized capital gains.

[01:02:17] [SPEAKER_01]: So Kamala Harris has suggested that for people and by the way,

[01:02:22] [SPEAKER_01]: this is important to fact check too.

[01:02:23] [SPEAKER_01]: She didn't just say I want to do a tax on unrealized gains.

[01:02:27] [SPEAKER_01]: So here's what an unrealized gain is.

[01:02:29] [SPEAKER_01]: If I own McDonald's stock and it goes from 50 to 100,

[01:02:34] [SPEAKER_01]: I have made a profit and I'll go to my brokerage account.

[01:02:38] [SPEAKER_01]: And oh, my brokerage account has doubled in value.

[01:02:41] [SPEAKER_01]: But it's unrealized.

[01:02:43] [SPEAKER_01]: It's only realized when it turns into dollars.

[01:02:47] [SPEAKER_01]: So when I sell my McDonald's shares, then I have actually doubly amount of dollars

[01:02:52] [SPEAKER_01]: that I had before I bought McDonald's shares.

[01:02:54] [SPEAKER_01]: I have a gain.

[01:02:55] [SPEAKER_01]: So let's say I invested $1,000 in McDonald's.

[01:02:59] [SPEAKER_01]: It doubled.

[01:03:00] [SPEAKER_01]: I sell my McDonald's stock and now I have $2,000.

[01:03:03] [SPEAKER_01]: So at that point, it's a taxable event.

[01:03:06] [SPEAKER_01]: So when I went from $1,000 McDonald's stock to $2,000,

[01:03:09] [SPEAKER_01]: now it's taxable.

[01:03:11] [SPEAKER_01]: So I made a $1,000 profit and I get taxed on that.

[01:03:14] [SPEAKER_01]: But unrealized gains are if I don't sell the McDonald's stock,

[01:03:19] [SPEAKER_01]: but my initial thousand dollars is now worth $2,000 worth of McDonald's stock.

[01:03:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Kamala Harris was saying maybe I should be taxed on those gains even

[01:03:29] [SPEAKER_01]: though I haven't realized them yet.

[01:03:30] [SPEAKER_01]: I haven't sold the stock.

[01:03:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Now, the problem with that first off,

[01:03:35] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to fact check in a second.

[01:03:36] [SPEAKER_01]: I'll just tell the problem with it.

[01:03:37] [SPEAKER_01]: The problem with this is that what if I pay taxes and then McDonald's stock goes

[01:03:42] [SPEAKER_01]: down, let's say it goes down to below where I bought it.

[01:03:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Now I've lost money, but I don't get my money back from the IRS, even though I've

[01:03:49] [SPEAKER_01]: been taxed on it. So that's not fair.

[01:03:51] [SPEAKER_01]: So what would have to happen is every time I'm taxed on unrealized gains,

[01:03:56] [SPEAKER_01]: I would have to sell stock and the stock market would essentially go to zero

[01:04:01] [SPEAKER_01]: because everybody every year would be selling all of the stocks they made

[01:04:04] [SPEAKER_01]: a profit on. So every time the stock market goes up,

[01:04:08] [SPEAKER_01]: it would have to go back down all the way to where it started.

[01:04:11] [SPEAKER_01]: There will be no incentive to buy stocks and people talk about all the stock

[01:04:16] [SPEAKER_01]: markets just for the wealthy know the stock market is 100 percent the way

[01:04:22] [SPEAKER_01]: companies raise money to make new technologies,

[01:04:25] [SPEAKER_01]: make new health care cures, make new cars,

[01:04:30] [SPEAKER_01]: make new planes, make new rockets, make new bridges and on and on.

[01:04:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Like this like the stock market is the funding mechanism of the US economy.

[01:04:39] [SPEAKER_01]: So yes, people make money in the stock market,

[01:04:41] [SPEAKER_01]: but that's not the purpose for the stock market.

[01:04:43] [SPEAKER_01]: The purpose is for companies to raise money from public investors and it's

[01:04:48] [SPEAKER_01]: heavily regulated so public investors hopefully avoid getting defrauded and so on.

[01:04:53] [SPEAKER_01]: So taxing unrealized gains would be the worst thing in the world for

[01:04:58] [SPEAKER_01]: the US economy, I think in his own way,

[01:05:01] [SPEAKER_01]: David Rubenstein, who was on the podcast,

[01:05:03] [SPEAKER_01]: agrees with that and he's the head of the Carlisle Group and one of the biggest

[01:05:06] [SPEAKER_01]: funding companies in the world.

[01:05:08] [SPEAKER_01]: But I do want to say Kamala Harris did not say that.

[01:05:10] [SPEAKER_01]: She only said to do it for people worth over a hundred million dollars.

[01:05:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Now, I will say that's just as bad because it's the people who are who

[01:05:18] [SPEAKER_01]: like the Jeff Bezos of the world.

[01:05:20] [SPEAKER_01]: If Jeff Bezos had to get taxed on his unrealized gains,

[01:05:25] [SPEAKER_01]: he would have to sell almost all of his Amazon stock or like 50 percent of

[01:05:29] [SPEAKER_01]: his Amazon stock.

[01:05:30] [SPEAKER_01]: That will cause Amazon stock to crash,

[01:05:32] [SPEAKER_01]: which means Amazon would be in a worse position for funding new projects,

[01:05:37] [SPEAKER_01]: new technologies that have to fire employees.

[01:05:40] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, everything is connected.

[01:05:42] [SPEAKER_01]: It's not just about let's screw the rich people.

[01:05:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, look, I'd love to have billions of dollars like Jeff Bezos.

[01:05:48] [SPEAKER_01]: I wish he could give me some.

[01:05:50] [SPEAKER_01]: But the reality is all connected to

[01:05:53] [SPEAKER_01]: funding innovation, hiring more people, paying higher salaries to the middle

[01:05:58] [SPEAKER_01]: class. So what she's suggesting when actually destroy the middle class,

[01:06:01] [SPEAKER_01]: it seems like would hurt the billionaires.

[01:06:03] [SPEAKER_01]: There's only a couple hundred billionaires,

[01:06:06] [SPEAKER_01]: but there's tens of millions of people in the middle class.

[01:06:08] [SPEAKER_01]: She would destroy the middle class whose 401 Ks and pension funds depend on

[01:06:13] [SPEAKER_01]: the stock market. Fortunately, I think she will back down on that proposal.

[01:06:18] [SPEAKER_01]: I think she's sort of floating out proposals now to see what hits,

[01:06:21] [SPEAKER_01]: but that one is not going to hit anybody who is versed in economics

[01:06:24] [SPEAKER_01]: will understand. And it's also not going to get passed by Congress

[01:06:27] [SPEAKER_01]: because it's a ridiculous policy.

[01:06:30] [SPEAKER_01]: This has nothing to do with RFK junior.

[01:06:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Cool. That answer my question.

[01:06:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, this is my summary of what RFK junior did yesterday.

[01:06:40] [SPEAKER_01]: I fact checked his various statistics.

[01:06:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I talked about a third party candidates in history who have been spoilers

[01:06:47] [SPEAKER_01]: and how RFK junior is trying to avoid that.

[01:06:49] [SPEAKER_01]: I talked about the polls in various states where it was close enough.

[01:06:53] [SPEAKER_01]: I think RFK junior I'm convinced RFK junior is going to be the swing

[01:06:56] [SPEAKER_01]: vote in those states. If the polls remain the same,

[01:06:59] [SPEAKER_01]: I will say anything can happen or something that's always called the October

[01:07:03] [SPEAKER_01]: surprise, which something happens in October that usually affects the election.

[01:07:08] [SPEAKER_01]: And we'll see what happens.

[01:07:09] [SPEAKER_01]: So thanks everyone for listening.

[01:07:11] [SPEAKER_01]: If you have any questions at all about the election,

[01:07:14] [SPEAKER_01]: subscribe to this podcast, tag me on Twitter at Jay Altucher.

[01:07:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Ask me a question and I'll do more podcasts on this.

[01:07:20] [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to do politics podcast every week.

[01:07:22] [SPEAKER_01]: So until the election.

[01:07:24] [SPEAKER_01]: So thanks everyone and thank you Jay and talk to you soon.

[01:07:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Talk to you soon.