American Thought Leaders - Rob Schneider: Here’s What’s Wrong With Our Culture Today

Episode Date: December 20, 2025

“COVID was a really dark time for me and for a lot of people,” said Rob Schneider.For the famous comedian and actor, the years of the pandemic were a time to take stock of what had become of America, speak up about it—and even write a book. “You Can Do it! Speak Your Mind, America” was published in September 2024.“If we’re going to continue to have a free society, it’s going to require people to step up and be courageous,” Schneider said.Schneider, who is also a screenwriter and director, rose to prominence as a cast member and writer of NBC’s Saturday Night Live. He earned three Primetime Emmy Award nominations for his writing on the show.In this episode, he reflected on our current political and cultural moment.What really happened when Rob bumped into Robert De Niro at the SNL reunion? What is the role of comedy in an age of outrage? And how do we turn around the tribalism he sees gripping America?Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

I'm there to celebrate the 50 years of Saturday Night Live, so we all make our way onto the stage. I find myself being jostled, and I'm right behind the Nero, and I bump into him, and he turns around, and he has that particular expression, which it was just like, How can you support that schmuck? And I just said, I love you. In this episode, I sit down with comedian and actor Rob Schneider,

author of You Can Do It, Speak Your Mind, America. We are appealing to people's fears and their desires more than their logic of what's best for them. Sony lot, the Fox lot, Warner Brothers lot, those places in five years will just be real estate. And I think it's their own decline. He explains why free speech is vital to a divided society. We're not China, and China to give you one party. They tell you who to vote for. That's it. We're America. We've got freedom. We get two parties.

Can we at least vote for the other party? Behind his humor and sharp observations, Rob reminds us of what truly matters. Sometimes in our worst moments, we must remember there's a human being inside there. Every human being is deserving of being treated with dignity. This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Yankee Kellogg. Rob Schneider, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders. Thank you. Thank you for having me. During COVID was a really dark time for me and for a lot of people.

And one of my escape valves, it was two pillars that I clung to at that time, Joe Rogan and the Epoch Times. So every morning, I want it, what's Joe Rogan saying? And what can I read at the Epoch Times? That was my escape valve from tyranny. And thank you for that, because the Epoch Times is important. And it is journalism, and it is a potentiality for what all journalists should strive for, be it, tell the truth as best as you can. No one could be 100% purely objective. But just tell the news and let us decide for ourselves. Don't tell us what to think. And you guys do that. So thank you. Rob, you made a huge impression on me the other night. And apparently you had talked.

talked about this earlier and it was covered in the Daily Mail. You gave this anecdote. And the anecdote was your experience at a Saturday Night Live reunion bumping into Robert De Niro. And I want to get you to reprise that here because, and then I'll explain why. He's obviously like the heir apparent to Marlon Brando. He's an incredible, an actor of great power. And, and, and and esteem and all this. However, I think that, like a lot of people, I think there's whatever's going on in their life, you could decide to focus all of that, if you want to use the term negativity, anger, or what have you, in a particular avenue. And I think for some people, I think it has a name, and that's President Donald J. Trump. So knowing that, and see,

seeing that like a lot of people have, but also knowing that he's a good man. I mean, I know him outside of that. And he was very helpful with the movie called Vax to put it into Tribeca Film Festival. And that wasn't an easy thing to do. And the pressure that he received from that, which I don't think he was used to. He just used to being, you know, this is a two-time Academy Award winner everywhere he goes. I'm sure he gets a table at a restaurant pretty easily. So, but he got so much flack for that that he ended up pulling the film out of the film festival, which, you know, we who were involved with the movie Vax totally understood. And the attention that that brought to us was a great advertisement for the film.

I mean, at the end of the day, you know, as the old adage is, there's no such thing as bad publicity. When I saw him there, I instantly want to not have conflict. I don't want to have, he was two rows. in front of me and I went like, well, that's a person. I don't want to, I don't want to ruin his evening because I'm sure he knows I'm a Trump supporter and I don't want to, I don't want him to ruin mine. And so we'll just, we'll just avoid it.

I'm there to celebrate the 50 years of Saturday Night Live. I'm part of their history. They're part of mine. And so they were kind enough to include me into these festivities and we're all there in our tuxitos. But then towards the end of the night, we get into a cramped area where we have to all walk on stage. It's very nice thing.

They invite everybody for one, final bow, as it were, and anyone has ever been a cast member, anyone who's ever hosted the show. Unfortunately, the show's been on, well, fortunately, it's been on for 50 years, but unfortunately, everybody in the audience was actually a cast member or host of the show. So we all make our way onto the stage. And I find myself being jostled, and I'm right behind the Nero,

and I, you know, finally, you know, I'm trying to stay away, and I bump into him, and he turns around, and he has that, you know, that particular expression, which is, I think everybody knows, it's just like, how can you support that schmuck he gave me that look like and and it was about to really go at me and uh you know and i just literally this is an interesting thing you can just you can just um choose to not have conflict and i just said i love you and he said he gave me that look like no no no no i really love you and i touched him and i said no i love you and i touched him and i said no i love

you, man. And you go, okay, okay. And I think it diffused that situation. You know, I'm not always going to be at my best, but at that moment I was. And that was what needed to happen. You know, the cancel culture, we're not going to win. And I want to say we, I mean, we as a society, we're not going to get anywhere by just this, the battle, you know, we're going to be. We're going to have to find some common ground. And we're going to have to, you know, we're going to have to have people who are willing to take responsibility for their own actions and how they, how they're willing to treat other people. And I, at that moment, I was in a, you know, in a good place. I'm not always going to be in that good place, but it was what was needed at

that time. And I hope I can channel that more often. Well, I mean, it was beautiful. You gave that anecdote at a, you know, fundraiser in Irvine that you, you know, were helping us out with. I thought it comports very well with our ethos at Epoch Times, how we approach, you know, basically doing journalism. Like, we're always, you know, trying to reach people, basically, with ideas that, in many cases, they may not even, may not be ready for. And that's very difficult to this day and age. Especially the way the press is viewed now. I mean, look at today's news, news. You wake up to the New York Times piece about, you know, Donald Trump having the royal Saudi prince,

who's, according to an intelligence report, said that he was responsible for the murder of a journalist, Kishoggi. And who actually also was also working for Qatar being paid by Qatar, which, just complicates it. But nevertheless, that's a real something that, a question that should be asked. However, my question is, and they also asked about the business dealings of the Trump administration, the Trump family with the Royal Saudi family, and if they think that's appropriate. These are all good questions, and whether good or bad, they're questions that need to be asked by a free press. However, my comment. is why wasn't that asked, or why aren't these same questions asked under the previous

administration? Where is the objectivity for the press? You have to be able to ask difficult questions of every administration. And the administration, anybody in power, must take that and must take that in. And so we do have a lack of belief and faith in today's media and institutions in general. And, you know, case in point, actually, I saw Matt or Phila, I don't know if I might be butchering his name right now, but he has this habit of putting together these kind of incredible montages of media malfeasance, basically, which I really appreciate him for. And today he published something earlier, which was basically how the media explained the whole Kyle Rittenhouse situation. Of course, Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted. of murder. In fact, he had come to help people and, and, and, you know, basically defend. And it was, but the way he was portrayed in the media, I actually think of it as one of the most

terrible examples of media, Malpheus and again, Orf, as he goes on, on, on acts, you know, just kind of laid to show exactly what people said. And they, you know, there's people and here's the problem, right? To this day, there's people that believe that it was unfair. I mean, the case is meticulously documented, and you can see what the reality was. But there's a whole lot of people in society today that kind of believe that he got away with murder or something like this, right? Don't trust your eyes and ears. Just trust what the Big Brother tells you. The media really made black, white, white, black in that situation. It's in a very, I mean, this happens often, but this is in a very extreme way where it really was the situation was kind of the opposite of what was being portrayed.

and it was kind of obviously opposite if you were to look at the video, you know, evidence and so forth. But the evidence doesn't change the opinion because it's tribal in nature. And I'll just go to say, like with Noam Shomsky and the manufacturer of consent, he describes the mainstream media

or media in general as a giant wrecking ball, just going through, just crushing and just destroying things and moving forward. And it never stops. But also, more importantly or as importantly, It never goes back to look at the wreckage in its wake.

It just continues to move forward. And so you have this extreme form of tribalism now, whereas the tribe is illogical because it has no empathy or no, and we saw it into the murder, the brutal murder of Charlie Kirk, where the assassin was somehow so wrapped up into this tribal, tribalism. for his particular side, that he just had no empathy. He cared more about the gun that was missing, that he was going to upset his grandfather by not being able to recover the gun. Then he cared about the murder of this young, this incredible young man,

a young father and a young husband. And so there's a complete lack of empathy on one side for anybody outside your particular tribe. And then there's an insane amount, on too much, I would say, pathological empathy for people in your tribe. I mean, the idea that, like, you know, it's for somebody who is a criminal and someone who's, you would have, like, for someone who's in the country illegally has been trafficked people, like this Garcia guy,

and the idea that he is his father and he's been stolen. It's like, we need to look at things as best as we can. we need to have a press that is going to attempt, and it's impossible to be completely objective, but they must try. Truth seeking, right? Genuine truth seeking with the knowledge that you can't necessarily get all of it every time. And in fact, in some cases, it's very hard to get it. But the question is, are you trying?

My friend had dinner with the editor-in-chief of the New York Times a few years back, and he said, his objectivity, something that you're concerned about. And his answer was, I believe it is my moral imperative. to make sure that Donald Trump does not become president of the United States again. So what does that mean? And then it just kind of goes to show the difference. And you could see it in the headlines, the same situation of the former administration,

the Biden administration, and the same situation. And the headlines are much more jarringly tribal in favor of the previous administration. So that's a, I think that's very telling of where we, we're at now to where, I mean, it's almost, I would say not almost, but it is approaching what the former Soviet Union had. And that's why, like, my friend, like Ilya Baskin, who was from the Soviet Union and knew what it was like. I don't know why your country,

why you guys would go and want that, but you are approaching it and that you can't see it's communism, that that is what's happening, that you can't see that. It's an incredible, a horrible thing that you are approaching. So what happened was that he would tell you that Noam Shamski would tell you that the Soviet Union, people knew the Pravda and Tass, the, you know, the government mouthpieces. No one believed it. They knew it was just, you know, garbage that what the government wanted. And so where did they go for truth?

Where did they find out what's really happening in their society? And it was, he was person to person. What did you hear? What do you know? And that's exactly what happened. And I think exponentially, it happened during COVID. When you knew you couldn't believe in New York Times in the Washington Post anymore.

And who did you know? You had to go, so you went to who's saying what? And that's where podcast exploded. Because, well, Joe Rogan's saying something. And I believe that, more than I believe in New York Times. And when the CNN colored his face to make him look really sick. I mean, who, how come nobody got fired over that? When Gupta went on Joe Rogan.

He would not admit and wouldn't give in to the fact that this actually happened. He just seemed slightly disappointed, which is not what needs to happen. If we're going to have this system of just two political parties, we need two normal, sane political parties. But for the Democratic Party to not come out and admit that the Biden administration, in fact, did day one with Facebook, with Google, with Instagram, with the tech companies, censor Americans day one, and within the first 24 hours of the Biden administration, that they don't come out and say that that is egregious and that is government censorship and that is wrong. For not one Democratic senator or congressman to come out and admit that that's wrong is a stunning indictment of where we're at, whereas the tribal

party system seems to be the only thing. it's important. And maintaining that and returning that to power is more important than any objectivity or truth or what's best for society. And I think that's a dangerous place that's setting up something approaching authoritarian dictatorship or some version of a Chinese-style social credit system. It's definitely an encroachment on that. And I think that Donald Trump, better or worse in all his piccadillos was a resounding rejection of wanting continuation of a system that was just lying about everything. You know, it's interesting that you say there was this, you know, people didn't, people understood that Pravda was, you know, not the truth. And I've always assumed that. And of course, you know, but I also realize the thing that

To me, the biggest lesson of COVID in a way was kind of the opposite, was that actually a lot of people do believe it. Yes. And I didn't, because I generally, at least, I think in many ways, I was a bit immune to that. Not everything, but I'm always just have this natural, skeptical sort of disposition, right? Well, the people, that's the difference. And Nolm Shamschowski talks about that, is that that's how much more insidious propaganda is, in a so-called, when our, in a free society because people do believe in New York Times. They're likely, more likely to believe the Chicago Tribune, New York Times, Washington Post,

and they'll take that as truth. Whereas I think COVID helped melt that, or at least got people, a lot of people to question it. And that was the breakdown in people who, you know, the 80 million Americans who said, we're not taking that shot. That was a, I mean, for the pressure that people were under, I mean, firing, you know, front, workers and nurses and doctors who refused to administer or refuse to take that shot. These are people who risk their lives during COVID. For them to be fired was a stunning indictment on the Biden administration.

And thankfully, that those workers, a lot of them have been rehired, have been compensated. And, you know, if you don't have a choice, that's how I got into. this attack was was pretty basic. I mean, if you, the last refuge of your own freedom is your own body, your body autonomy. If the government can make you take any, an inject something, an experimental gene therapy or anything into your body against your will, then the government is now able to do any form of atrocity. Once they break that barrier, there's nothing they can't do. So that was a delineating line between abject authoritarianism and tyranny. And the United States and enough people said, no, we're not doing it.

And that's what I think of that. It collapsed. So was there some specific moment? I mean, you know, you've been very successful comedian, actor. Thank you. Now author. But there's a number of people in Hollywood who think of you perhaps like Robert De Niro did. I was thinking of you that day.

maybe maybe even many i don't know but but was there some i mean you you had to make some decision at some point yeah you you you're either you're either with the liberal party and you like you know you take a like a mark ruffalo he could say whatever he wants against trump and he'll still get work as an actor but if you if an actor like me or says anything or even questions or dares question the uh the tribe of uh of democrats uh that's it you're out you were out of of hollywood did you know that before you started you opened your big mouth um well not to this extent i mean when hillary clinton lost the election and um and i tweeted i haven't seen the Democrats

this angry since we freed the slaves that was a something that went everywhere and then yeah they didn't like that

I remember my old boss at Saturday Night Lives Lauren Michaels would say that the Democrats are more sensitive and they don't have quite the sense of humor to take the last at themselves as Republicans.

And I think he was right. But I didn't take that advice. I will say that objective truth, I was naive. I believed that when I met people, parents, who knew that their kids were fine. And actually, as young children, they were actually meeting the markers or exceeding them.

And then they got a series of shots that was required to go to school, and then the kids were never the same again. Never. This thing about autism, people don't talk about, like, severe autism. I'm talking about headbanging, where they have to wear helmets, where they're still in diapers at 18. This is something you don't see. The idea that they're just these cute, you know, really eccentric children, that is not

what I witnessed. What I saw was headbanging. I saw 19-year-old kids who had lifelong problems and, you know, we're still in diapers with horrible gut issues and violent. And so, and they, parents, I chose to believe them, and I still believe them, that their kids were fine, and then all of a sudden we're not fine. So this, the idea that you can just go back and not know that and ignore it, I felt, Basically, you had people close to you that this, a family that this happened to or several. I met them. I saw them. I mean, I was, I mean, so I got involved in this many, many years ago because what happened was the pharmaceutical industry actually works with, like Merck,

GlaxoSmithKline. They have their publicists and they have their people. And they literally write the, um, what they want for legislation and give it to the medical boards of different states like the state of California. And then that goes right to the legislation. And here's the thing about pharma. Farma, I mean, you take a look at that one drug, vaccines. It's the only drug. It's never, ever green. It never becomes generic. It's the one drug, the only drug made where if there's something wrong with it, you can't sue. If you get injured by it, you can't sue for damages. It is, and it's in a class of its own, almost like it's sacrilegious. You can sue the company. You can sue HHS. You can't sue them either.

You can't sue them in a court of law. You have to go to what they call a special magistrate. And then there's no reporters allowed. And then it takes maybe 10 years for them for any sort of financial recoupment of what these lifelong illnesses for these families who have to deal with. And then it affects their income. They have to have at least one parent stay home. And it's lifelong.

And then a lot of those get kicked out, get kicked out. But there's been over $5 billion paid out by this system. They call the vaccine adverse effects reporting system, which goes into the special magistrate. So it is a system and it was given out under the Reagan administration in 1986 called the Child Vaccine Safety Act, which Reagan did not want to sign, but didn't feel comfortable with signing, did. And what the manufacturers of these drugs were supposed to do was every six months report to

Congress and make sure that the safety standards were there, which they've never done. And so you have a system of an incredible amount of wealth made by a small group of companies that are fleecing the American public. And if you go now to a statistic from 2013, and this is by the National Institutes of Health, 54% of American children suffer from at least one chronic illness, whether it's asthma, childhood diabetes, childhood obesity, rheumatoid arthritis, peanut allergies. These are something unheard of just a few short decades ago. This experience, right, of knowing, understanding something different than the grand narrative was, right?

um is that what i guess you know made you vocal during well i mean they asked me i mean the people asked me um to testify on their behalf and if you're famous you're just you know more eyeballs go to you and so i did and that was it boom i mean that was it for me starring in movies um and uh the the the idea of telling the truth um in an age of telling a truth um in an of authoritarianism and an age of lies is a courageous act and you know I'm not saying that I'm courageous I'm thinking me when I think of real courage I think of the just driving by the in any major city the cemeteries of people who gave their what Lincoln describes the last full measure of devotion for this great

land and that is a sacrifice I mean the fact that I'll never make do Spigolo four five and six I think it's fine but it is I mean it's a bummer it does happen and um you know show business wrong or right they don't want any controversy you know that they don't want you being mouthy or anything and and that that makes sense but i do think that at a certain point if we're going to have um a society and if we're going to have uh continue to have a free society it's going to require people to step up and be courageous and you know this country still allows that uh it is our First Amendment right? Does it make you free of consequences? No. You just, you know, you can

ask Jimmy Kimmel, who was temporarily fired, and, or, you know, you can ask people who speak up. I mean, it's a, it's going to cost you. But the thing about it's really depressing was I knew Charlton Heston. Now, Charlton Heston was a conservative and a gun rights advocate, and I thought that was, I thought the gun rights part was kind of crazy. Now I realize, it's not crazy that's the only thing kept us out of tyranny the fact that you know americans have at least 400 million guns at least so um but i remember him being a really good really good american loving america and i remember him that this is a guy who marched with martin luther king early like 1961 before it was you know cause celebrity i mean with marlin brando

I mean, these guys were realized where the country needed to go. He said we need to have equal rights. We needed to have a society that didn't, you know, didn't judge people based on the color of their skin. And he was there. And then years later, just rejected by the liberal intelligentsia because he just happened to be a conservative. And I think that's shameful.

I think that's a rot in the soul of Hollywood. And I think today's blacklisting of conservatives is the same thing. I think it's, at its core, it is adding to its destruction. And I think we are seeing Hollywood completely dismantle itself. You will not see these studios. Those lots, Sony lot, the Fox lot, Warner Brothers lot, those places in five years, in five years, will just be real estate. You will not have those stages anymore. And I think it's their own decline. I think the Actors Guild didn't help and the Writers Guild didn't help after the pandemic having a strike.

I thought that was just completely irresponsible and stupid. And then people realize, hey, we'll find entertainment something else. There'll be more entertainment on Instagram. As a matter of fact, I think more people watch Instagram and they're like, do this. That's funny. that, you know, or this, I don't know which way it goes. So I think you're going to see, you're seeing right now a rejection of Hollywood. And you're seeing it's an implosion of it. What will replace it? I don't know. I mean, I think what replaced the news, individual people talking like Joe Rogan, the biggest

of those independent media and everybody else. I mean, when they talk about the print, you know, the press, the free press, the founding fathers. They didn't want to talk about media. No media existed. They meant just the idea that you could print something. I mean, a physical press that made a newspaper. That's what they meant by it. It wasn't like CBS News or ABC or any of that. And that, in essence, what was got out during the pandemic, during the squelching of voices. And you had individual people. What do you think? What do you say. And I think that was, I think that's continued. You know, I mean, Teo Vaughn has a bigger audience in the New York Times. He's just a guy talking, a comedian on a mic. Joe Rogan, a comedian,

a really amazing wrestler and an expert on MMA. He's the biggest, he's our Walter Cronkite. How did that happen? Well, because of the, just like the legislator, the legislation that we have, the senators and congressmen, they no longer write laws anymore. They've abdicated their lawmaking abilities, and they just would rather not do it and let the president rule by executive order because it's safer for them. In the same way the media now has abdicated their objectivity and their willingness to just tell news as it is, and they're sucked into this tribalness. And that is a detriment. And that's why, you know, the ever-shrinking CNN audience. the ever-shrinking New York Times audience.

Who is it for? Owned by a billionaire who doesn't have the same laws as the average American. It doesn't pay taxes. So you have the very, very top, not paying any taxes. They're just borrowing money,

very little low interest rates on all their stock, and they live off that. Very much like Getty. Same thing. You never kept buying art and art and art and art. Get buying all this.

Never, didn't have to pay taxes. So who pays taxes? The donkeys, the middle class, 42% of Americans. You pay nothing, and then there's the super rich, and then there's all of us in the middle. And how long is that going to last? How long are they continue to fleece these tax don't want to play this game anymore? That's an interesting one. I don't know. I don't have the answer to that. But I would say it's not going to be indefinite. Spanking your mind does come out of price. When you step out and risk yourself, I mean, Oprah Winfrey will tell you, when she's supporter Obama. She knew that was going to cost her millions of dollars. But I do think there does come a time where you have to put your head above out of the foxhole. I think there's a time for courage. And there's a time when you know that your society is under attack. And that's the thing. You know, people use the term nationalism very loosely. Like, nah, it's very nationalist. Well, there's a necessity for nationalism if your nation is under attack. If it's if it's letting in 10 million people over the border, at least. That's an invasion. If you're, you know,

your government is censoring journalists and outspoken people questioning the government policy, that is, you need to be a nationalist to stand up for your nation. The idea of nationalism when it, you know, my opinion, when it's dangerous and not just my opinion, is when it's an expansion, when it expands its borders in the name of nationalism, then I think that's dangerous. But I think it was important to be a pro-American nationalist last election, for sure. You know, you talk about this actually in your book a little bit, that, you know, people sometimes assume that you're the character, the characters that you play. If you're an actor and you're prominent, a lot of people see you, they assume. And I think that I actually, I wasn't, to be perfectly honest, I wasn't a Deuce Bigelow fan.

I can understand that. And just, no, no. If you accidentally watch it. But I would have, but I, but I, no, no, but I, I mean, I had no idea, for starters, that you have such a depth to you. I do, because I didn't sit down and think about it either, right? But, I mean, it's interesting how we assume that. Comedy is, I mean, I find the comedians to be pretty smart, but the idea is not to appear smarter than everybody else. Here's what you never hear.

Let's go see that comedian this weekend. he's really smart you know is he funny or not i mean but you can use comedy to subvert people to your point of view when i can say you know to an audience during the pandemic like you know hey this is a scary time because you know the government's telling you what's happening like oh no there's another announcement here this guy's parachute didn't open and he died of covid people are going to see and hopefully they'll laugh and if you can laugh at it that is when authority authoritarianism collapses is when it's no longer frightening to people, COVID. It got to the point where you could laugh at it. When Governor Gavin Newsom said mask up between bites, if you didn't laugh at that or see the ridiculousness of it, then you're captured. And there's nothing I can say to help you. And there's going to be a large people, a large section of society that's going to be captured by that. You saw that that was. garbage and enough americans we don't need all americans to get healthy there's some they're not

going to do it they don't care but we need enough of them to get healthy so that we don't collapse as a nation also we need enough to realize the government's lying to us to make some changes and whether i mean believe me you know i say this in my stand-up act god is a terrible casting agent he doesn't in a but if you look at king david he's a murder an adulter a man who coveted another man's wife but god said that's my guy that's who i want And so you can go down the line. And, like, truthfully, if we're going to get, we're not China. And China, they give you one party.

They tell you who to vote for. That's it. We're America. We get freedom. We get two parties. Can we at least vote for the other party? You know, keep the other one in check. And so there was enough people who said had enough of it.

And if you go back to the founding of our great nation, we didn't get 100% of the colonist support. Basically, a third. No, I don't think more than 5% ever showed up on the battle line with Washington. And his biggest problem really wasn't really the Germans who were fighting, you know, the mercenary Germans that were fighting for the British. His problem was keeping them there, colonists, farmers, turkey hunters to keep them there. And I don't think you ever had more than 5%, 3% to 5%. So you have 30% who were with, roughly 30% that were with for the revolution.

You have 30% who were loyalists to the crown and in England. And then you had a third that were ambivalent. But a third at the height, we never had more than the third. A third was enough to defeat the greatest superpower of the world had ever known up until that point. Now that is astounding. And so roughly we had a third of Americans who said, called bullshit on COVID. And said, we're not going along with it. And that was enough to make this whole thing collapse.

that was enough to get people you know like I would perform and go travel around America and you know certain states were open certain states you were closed like in California you know Gavin Newsom he would close churches but kept open strip clubs which I appreciated and he kept open the liquor stores

and the weed stores it's like what and then closed private businesses he said like if you had more than a thousand people performed then you had to they had to bring their vaccine cards so I said okay just sell 9909 99 tickets. I'm not going to force anybody to do anything. And so it's like Bruce Springsteen's new movie. I'd love to go see it, but I'm not vaccinated. On Broadway, you couldn't go see Bruce Springsteen, who's a great guy and a really an amazing American and musician who I'll never

not like. I'll always like him. However, I didn't go see a show on Broadway because you had to be vaccinated. You have to have your vaccine card. That is a form of coercion that, you know, I mean, you got to go back to like, that's something out of the 1940s where, you know, the Japanese internment. An American citizen, all of a sudden you weren't. So we always have to be aware historically that you're an American citizen until you're not because these Japanese people had everything taken away from them and they were thrown into camps. These were American citizens. So that's something we need to be aware of. And I think, you know, under COVID, we're able to see your business, you're a small business, your rest of, your rest of, you're

restaurant, shut, shuddered. Your ability to make money, your ability to take care of your family was stopped. Yes, they did go up and print money and all this stuff, but at the same time, it was at the taxpayer's expense to devaluating all of our money. So where do we go from here? What's next? Enough Americans are awake and aware of the potentiality for this country to become authoritarian. And I think that that's something that they should be aware of. I mean, while I support the deportation of people who have committed crimes or here illegally, but there are people here that are illegal

that are working that are part of the economy. And I think there needs to be, if you've been here for five years, seven years working a job, there needs to be some accommodation made for you. I think that's just me, taking away somebody's nanny is not something that Americans want or like. And I think that even the president mentioned that six months ago. And I hope that we, while I abhor what ICE being attacked, these are just government people. They're doing their job.

I think also we have to be aware of what's actually happening in society. And that's not a popular decision. I was booed for saying that. I mean, the big issue, right, people have is when you have people that are participating in the system and not making a lot of money and paying their taxes, basically having a large population that's outside the system, making, you know, less and need the, you know, employers needing to pay less. That drives everything down. That is not good for our economy. And where is our economy going to go? I mean, the replacement of workers now with robotics, with AI. I mean, okay, that's going to happen, but who's going to be able to afford to buy those products? You know, this is made in China. There's 150 million workers who know how to make incredible products that, okay, but if we don't have made in America, who's going to buy the Apple phone?

And are we going to head towards, you know, what most of humanity has been? Very few rich people and a lot of poor people. So the United States, you know, if you look at 1955, was the peak of, I think the peak of American power worldwide and also, you know, you're also dealing with the fact that, you know, Europe was destroyed and Germany was rebuilding and by the Marshall Plan and Japan was rebuilding by the Marshall Plan. And you had about 55% unionization, over 50% in 1955. So you had a real working class, and literally half of Americans were really, you know, kicking butt and participating in the system at a high level. And then you see, you know, now both parents have to work. And you're seeing a tougher America, a less prosperous America. You drive through, like I did, through West Texas, and you see town after town after town are shuttered businesses, and these places are struggling.

Now, AI coming in, is that going to give enough jobs for people? We need to, we at some point in America decided to stop making stuff, stop being some sort of manufacturer base, and those jobs were gone. But what replaced it? I mean, it's just, we can't just be a financial system, or we also can't just be a system that takes care of, sick people. I mean, the healthcare jobs are very plentiful because we have a population that's very sick. So, I mean, where are we going? If we don't get enough Americans healthy, it doesn't matter Democrat, Republican. We will collapse. Our health care system is at a breaking point. If we continue to go the direction we're going, in 10 years, I believe it will be unsustainable. And you just have to

look at the numbers. I mean, you know, Robert Kennedy, who's a very good man, you know, talks about like, well, they want to give OZMPIC as a way for every American. Well, it's $1,500. So if you give you it to every person who is obese, and unfortunately, it's around 40% in America, that, it's a trillion dollars. We can't afford to do that. So how are we going to break this system? We have to get, just like the 30% of Americans that supported the revolution, we need to get 30% of Americans at least to get healthy, to get as healthy as possible, to not become part of the medical industrial complex of illness, of just treating symptoms. If we don't do that, then it doesn't matter who you vote for. We're just going to have to continue to print money, and it's going to be completely siphoned off to the medical industrial complex and also. with the insurance. So that's, okay, that's super interesting because I know that, you know,

free speech has been a center point of your, let's say, advocacy, right? And, you know, I explored that extensively on this show. But for you, it's like, it's like you're making a point of saying, I need to help Americans, 30% of Americans figure out those basic health realities, health care as opposed to medical care or disease care some guests have said yeah yeah exactly how do you think it's going i think it's we're in a really tough place because congress can't legislate now because the senate you need um unless it's a money bill you need 60 senators to go along with it you're not going to get 60 senators to vote for anything so what what hHS is doing is the only thing they can do. They can cajole these giant food conglomerates to stop making stuff, making people

sick. And they're coming, they're going to be coming out with the new food guidelines. I remember Bobby Kennedy Jr.'s, the HHS charity was just talking about that. So that seems like a very positive... If you go by the food pyramid, you were going to be obese. Absolutely. And, you know, we've been lied to since the early 70s when the shirt... It's easy to do the Edward Bernays, who's the godfather of propaganda. Wrote the book. I wrote the book on it. And it was able to figure out how to manipulate the public into doing things against their best interest

by appealing to their desires as opposed to what good for them. But he said it was for the good of society. Well, he believed capitalism required consumerism that was kind of a quiet, consumer. You just keep him buying stuff and in the capitalist society, they'll be happy. And he didn't mean that. I mean, he genuinely believed that. However, the manipulation by approaching things by people's desires is exactly what's happening in our political sphere. We are appealing to people's fears and their desires more than they're feeling to their logic of what's best for them. And if you look at Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President Roosevelt really believed that an informed populace

that the American people are good people, and if they just get unfiltered, correct information, they're going to make the right choice. And I believe him exactly. And yet what we've gone now is we have our political leaders don't really believe that, and they feel like they have to give them tailored information so that they're going to do what they want or do what, and so it's just the term was the 19th century Englishman, I forget his name, and said, it could just describe people and citizens as the herd, bewildered herd. Our leaders see us as cattle. Bewildered herd.

Not a smart herd. Not a smart herd of cattle. They're trying to figure out an end of bewildered. Confused. Not knowing what's happening. Scared. And that's how we're treated and, you know, spoon-fed information. What I believe, you need to be honest with the American.

population. You need to be the American citizen. You're going to tell them what's really happening. This cannot continue. We can't stay $37 trillion in debt. We either going to blow up the system, which Dr. David Martin talks about, how they're just going to zap the system and blame China, Iran, Russia, or somebody, and just start over, which is going to cause mayhem. Who knows what that's going to be like for a long period of time. But we cannot continue to just print money forever and just and pass those the debt on to our great grandchildren that's an unsustainable system to continue to have our our population unhealthy i mean the chinese must love it their greatest enemy the biggest superpower the world has ever known the united states of america now has a

sick population we had more people higher percentage of people die in america of covid because they were unhealthy and overweight than any other country in the world. And if that's not a wake-up call, if people don't come to their senses and take personal responsibility, and that's what needs to happen. We must take personal responsibility for our own bodies, for our own freedom, for our own, we must be courageous about that, or we're not going to continue. And that's what, when I went to Berkeley, which there was a riot last week, and I was supposed to go with Charlie Kirk, and I asked him over the summer, I said, let's do another university. It was so fun, you know. And it was fun because you had people

challenging us. To be a vibrant society, we must be able to be challenged. We've got to challenge ourselves. And as the great Andrew Doyle says, we must challenge our certainties. We must. Because we must, we can't have a firm foundational belief system that's unchallenged. Then it'll be static. I mean, to continue to be creative, to continue to innovate, to continue to be a vibrant culture. We must allow these challenges. So when I said, Charlie, let's go, let me, I'm going to go to the craziest place. And he said, well, let's go to Berkeley. And so we went, I mean, he was murdered in front of his children. And I'm not quite sure how to filter that. There seems to be such a culture and a lack of the most basic human dignity, compassion for this man in what happened

after it exposed so much ugliness in our culture that I don't think it's always been there. I think we're at a point where somehow that is accepted by a large group of the populace. So I went alone after his murder and I went with his mentor, Frank Turek, and there was a group of people at Berkeley who rioted outside and set off tear gas and devices that sounded like gunfire through things, spitted people. And the police and the Berkeley, the University of Cal Berkeley, to their great shame, did not prevent those people from interfering and they include the berkeley police in that they did not allow a corridor to get everybody in there and that's very shameful because that is

in 1964 that was the free speech movement and universities and it wasn't for just one side it was all sides so for them to fall so deeply off that precipice against um and and to fall into a abyss of censorship is shameful and unfortunate but it exposes where we're at least and I think I'd rather have it out in the open that's why free speech is so important and the idea of censoring I mean the Democrats you know during the election Tim Wall said you know that doesn't free speech doesn't include hate speech okay well then who gets to decide what hate speech is and then and then the government's always going to decide hate speech that or to limit speech

that helps and supports what the government is trying to accomplish, which is to squelch dissent of people who are not going along with their policies, Democrat or Republican. It's the same. So it was disappointing, but at the same time, I was buoyed and encouraged by the Turning Point USA students at Berkeley chapter, who showed up, over a thousand. You know, to come kind of full circle here in our conversation, The thing that I've, when I've been discussing the Charlie Kirk's murder and the whole situation,

he personified this kind of person that would try to reach out with love even to people that clearly didn't disagree. It didn't mean he would agree. It didn't mean he would validate. But he had this particular approach of not treating that other person as an enemy, but just someone that was perhaps mistaken. And it reminds me of, of, you know, again, this anecdote you have with Robert De Niro, how to approach things. When you have extremes, you know, there's this concept, the principle of mutual inhibition and mutual, mutual generation and mutual inhibition. You have one extreme, it reads another extreme.

Yeah. We're seeing a lot of this kind of thing in a society. Yeah. I wonder if the only way through it, because I believe, as you do, that most people are actually good and there's a lot more good. than evil or bad out there. It's just that you can kind of forget that. And you can kind of imagine that it's not like that. And you can forget that the person who's, you know,

furious right now about something or got caught up in a, some sort of social contagion or whatever is actually probably, in most cases, sometimes they might be that really bad person. But in most cases, they're not. They're just kind of mistaken. I agree. There's a humanity there we need to appeal to. And it's just like when you're driving.

But you did, like you, my point is your example is you did it. Like it worked. It's just, it was instinctive at that moment. And I was like at a place in my life and I really, I think you have to come from, I mean, it has to be, what does this person need right now? And at that moment that person needed some love and some reassurance.

And humanity. You know, you're driving in your car. It's an interesting thing that happens. Sometimes, no, you want to merge, you know, you know there's a big line of guy they won't let you in it's like eh just because they just see the blanker like but if you put your hand out people realize something oh that's right there's a human being inside there and so sometimes in our worst moments we must remember there's a human being inside there and never forget that because every human being is deserving of

being treated with dignity by the very virtue of them being human. And that is something we must never forget. Or all sorts of depravity can fall to our society. And whereas, you know, there's always going to be the potential for abuse. There's always going to be a potential for a society to do these drastic measures, whether it's during COVID and closing of businesses and churches, or whether it's the Japanese internment, internment or, you know, or whether it's the drinking fountains of, and, you know, the National Guard

having to come out to let this one black student attend the University of Alabama. There's always going to be that potentiality. But in this great country, and it's an amazing experiment in freedom, which is unique in world history. Like the United States and the, you know, our first amendment, whereas you take a look at the French and the difference between the French and the, is it the rights of man and the citizen, which is I think 1787 and then it went to, by 1791, it was over. They went back to cutting off people's heads again. Whereas the American Revolution was very particular and very special because we didn't just abolish everything that happened before.

We kept property rights. We kept basically everything good stuff about England. And that's an incredible system here. That it would be that this is not an accident that the United States, you know, people all over the world look to our free speech as a beacon for freedom all over the world. People look to this.

So it is not just important for the United States, but in all its imperfections. And it'll always have the potentiality to do something. But because of that free speech, which was, I love that they put that before guns. They could have easily, the confining fathers, guns first. But they said, they realized in George Washington specifically realized there's something way that was more important than guns was something. There was another weapon, the weapon of our words, to enshrine and to continue our freedom, to question our government without.

the government being able to imprison you or murder you. But even deeper than words, you know, freedom of your soul, right? The freedom of conscience. I mean, that's me embellishing a tiny bit here. Well, yes, but also, because freedom works both ways, freedom of speech. Like the other day when I was last week at the University of Cal Berkeley, the thing about freedom of speech is it works, it's has, it's bookended. It's not only the ability to someone to speak their mind.

It's also the freedom of someone to listen to it, for someone to can hear that. And they can take that information and that speech, and then they can interpret that how they want. And that's why hearing bad ideas is just as important as hearing good ideas. Because then you could decide, I don't want that. And the idea that the government's going to be their, you know, the citizen's nanny to protect them from some sort of speech that could could, endanger them. I think that's something that is abhorrent and something that goes against what Franklin Roosevelt thought of Americans. These are good people. Give them the information and they're going to make the right choice always. And Americans are really good people. And yes, we could be

inflamed and we could be tribal. But we can also meet people in the middle and we can move away from that tribalness. And in that moment with Robert De Niro, it was just a simple gesture of saying, of appealing to somebody and saying, look, whatever you're feeling about it is not going to interfere and I'm not going to feel that way about you. I love you. And that's powerful. And I think at the end of the day, if we can really take that Christian ethic of, um, of showing that light it will always it'll always um overpower darkness well rob schneider it's such a pleasure to have had you on thank you yon thanks for having me