Digital Social Hour - The Truth About DEI & Why It’s Failing in America | Matt Dearden DSH #1214

Episode Date: March 2, 2025

🔥 Matt Dearden on DEI, History, and Debunking Internet Lies 🚀 In this thought-provoking episode, we sit down with Matt Dearden, a historian, constitutional law expert, and viral TikTok creator, to discuss DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion), modern education, political biases, and the misinformation spreading online. Topics Covered: ✅ The evolution of DEI & its impact on education and hiring ✅ How history is often misrepresented on social media ✅ The Founding Fathers, U.S. Constitution, and presentism ✅ Debunking common political and historical misconceptions ✅ Why critical thinking is more important than ever This insightful conversation will challenge the way you think about history, education, and media narratives! 📲 Follow Matt Dearden & Learn More: 🔗 TikTok: @MattDearden49 🔗 Instagram: @MattDeardenShow ⏱ CHAPTERS ⏳ 00:00 – The Truth About DEI & Its Origins ⏳ 03:15 – How TikTok Misinforms People About History ⏳ 07:30 – The Founding Fathers & Why Presentism Is Dangerous ⏳ 12:10 – Political Bias in Public Schools & College Education ⏳ 17:40 – How Misinformation Spreads & The Role of Social Media ⏳ 23:50 – Why Matt Dearden Started Debunking Viral Videos ⏳ 30:25 – The Problem With Mainstream News & Political Narratives ⏳ 36:10 – The Power of Critical Thinking in Today’s Society ⏳ 42:00 – Why History Is Taught Poorly in Public Schools ⏳ 50:15 – Is America Being Undermined From Within? ⏳ 55:30 – Final Thoughts & Where to Follow Matt Dearden 🎙 Sponsored by Lumati Red Boost your health, energy, and recovery with Lumati Red – the ultimate turmeric formula for pain relief and inflammation support. No pills, no hassle – just powerful, fast-acting results! 💪 Get yours now at Lumati.com and feel the difference! 🚀 🔥 Apply to Be on the Podcast & Business Inquiries: 🎙 APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://www.digitalsocialhour.com/application 📩 BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail]

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Must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. The civil rights movement said, hey, look at these people that have been marginalized in our country for,

and their ancestors have been enslaved in the country. So we should make some pathways to bring them to the table. Okay? But that's very different than what DEI has become in a lot of places, which is to say, we need to reserve these 10 spots for them. Yeah, that I'm not a fan of. Regardless of what they think,

regardless of, like, these 10 spots are reserved for people just because of their skin color. Right. And I don't think that's bad. I think that's very, very damaging. And I think it leads to people saying, hey, the only reason that person got their position was because of their skin color. And that's bad. Like that's bad for everyone.

All right guys, Matt Deardin here today. Someone I found on TikTok, believe it or not. Thanks for coming on, man. Yeah. And with all the young people on there. Yeah. What made you want to get on that platform? I think for me it was, I'd been toying with it for a while, but then it got to the summer of this past year in 2024. And I noticed that there was just really bad history and con law content on there.

So no one knew what they were talking about. And so I come from kind of the academic world originally. I teach history and some constitutional law. And I noticed that that level of discussion is probably too much for TikTok as far as the academia side. But then what was being presented on TikTok was so surface level and often just completely off that I decided, I feel like there's a middle ground here

where we could talk about some really interesting things, but not make it too much. Almost like public facing good history. I love your debunking videos. Yeah. Those are hilarious, the way you edit history. I love your debunking videos. Yeah. Those are hilarious, the way you edit those. Yeah, I feel bad on those, honestly, because I like to think of myself

as a pretty empathetic guy. So when I debunk a 21-year-old, I feel like I'm being mean, but then I'm like, well, they posted this publicly, so clearly they wanted people to interact with it, and I'm just interacting with it. Yeah, they put themselves out there. Whenever you debunk Destiny, I love those.

Yeah, so me, I really want to have a conversation with Destiny, seriously. I think we'd actually agree on more than people would think. Because they think that Destiny is super progressive, which he is. He labels himself that. But I think he's a really interesting thinker. I won't comment on his private life,

because I know that's been the topic of some debate and discussion. But he's a really interesting guy, really interesting thinker. And I think a lot of his criticisms of the right are very fair. And so I align with a lot of that. Yeah. Do you stay pretty much out of politics? On TikTok? No, I go into politics. You do? I think, but I like to think that my point of launch to go into politics There's always based in more hard history or hard con law

Like I don't like the accounts that all they ever do is just respond and do like political Hacky sack, but I just don't think that that's very interesting I think it gets some views because obviously you're working the algorithm based on whatever's important that day But I think that overall it's just a bad conversation. That's how Piers Morgan built his brand. You think so? I mean look at all his recent podcasts. It's just four people, two on one side, two on another.

They just yell at each other. Yeah, but a lot of those people that he has on, and I don't follow him every day, but a lot of people, I don't think they even know what they're talking about. So it's like they can touch upon like a centimeter deep of the political space and have some interesting sound bites, but they don't have any formal training in them. They don't have any ability to actually deconstruct an issue or provide even framework for the particular issue.

Yeah, you have that lawyer point of view, right? I think so, yeah. Because you get down to the actual laws and you're not hypothetical with it. Yeah, so my undergrad was in history. I focused on American history and then obviously went to law school and then I do a lot of business law now. So I think it does give me kind of a unique platform that kind of crosses a few different sections of what people are interested in on TikTok right now.

And so, yeah, I think I don't talk about what I don't know, though. So people, as you probably get all the time, people get messages saying, can you comment on this? And can you comment on this? And I try to stay within the lane of what I know. That's respect. And so sometimes I probably go a little bit outside of that, and then I try to come back to the center and see.

That's respect, though, because that's when you start looking silly, right? Yeah, I think so. You try to be an expert on everything. Yeah, and I've gotten things wrong before, don't get me wrong. But I try to stay pretty straightforward. So you had to make a video and be like, yo, I got that wrong, my bad? Yeah, I mean, it's more of like little corrections here and there.

I've never made like a full on correction video. But I will comment on things that I've said in the past from time to time that I feel like I need a little bit of tweaking. Well, that's respect. Most people would not admit that if we're being honest. And it's funny because like a lot of the videos that I correct on TikTok, they, I become friends with those people. Oh, really? Yeah. So they reach out via DM or whatever it is and we stay connected and we do, I think, I think we keep the conversation going pretty well. Oh wow, you think those people would be pissed

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The one of two things that they do do is they typically either reach out to me directly, in which case it's always been a positive interaction. It's never been negative. Or they just ignore it, which is totally fine too. You know, that's their prerogative. Yeah. No one needs to respond to it. I guess, yeah, some people take it personally and then they block you or they ignore it or whatever. Right, right, right. But your videos are actually productive. You're not attacking their personal lives. I try not to. I've probably thrown some barbs from time to time. Yeah. Where people have gotten a little bit frustrated, but I feel like they've brought it upon themselves a little bit. I feel that.

What was your first viral video? What was it about? Man, so I think it was a video this past summer, honestly, related to the Founding Fathers and people saying, there's a couple of them I did, where there's this whole thing where, why are we listening to the Founding F fathers in America? They were just a bunch of 21 year old kids who didn't know what they were doing. And so it's such a poor understanding of who the founding fathers were that I felt like I had to debunk it. And I only had like a

few thousand followers at the time. But a couple of those videos, you know, got to a couple million or whatever. I just watched the Hamilton and I have newfound respect for our founding fathers. I'm not going to lie. Yeah. Yeah. They were a really interesting group of people. And I think that as much credit as a lot of people in America give them, we actually don't

even give them enough credit. Because if you think about it, so pretend you are a subject in the British Empire in the 1770s or whatever, 1760s, 1770s, the British Empire is the most powerful empire to ever exist in the world. We think that the Roman Empire is powerful, it had more land, but the British Empire was insanely powerful. Sorry, the British Empire had more land. And so you're sitting there and you're like, we don't like what they're doing. They are trying to control us without giving us representation in parliament.

And we wanna break away, but like, how do we do it? How do we do it? It had never, there had never been a country that had broken away from the British empire in the 1770s ever. And so you had these group of men in America, including people like Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, et cetera, who were like, how do we make John Adams, how do we make this work?

And what they settled upon was, we're just going to declare independence. And that's where we got, of course, our Declaration of Independence in 1776. And of course, it had to be backed up by us fighting a war. But the amount of gall it took from a few people who were mostly between the ages of 20 and 45 to do something like that and then hope it all worked out while establishing a brand new government under principles that had not been used.

So there were separation of powers out there. There was checks and balances. But they had never been congealed together for a country prior to when the United States did it for the Constitution. And so those things like the separation from Britain, which had never been done before, plus the creation of a government that was a limited government combined with checks and balances, separation of powers,

these types of things, those two were both firsts in the history of the world. Wow. History of the world. And so you can criticize a lot about them and a lot of it's fair. A lot of them were slave owners, which is obviously a horrible evil. A lot of these things were awful. But certainly what you can't criticize them for is the monstrosity in a good way of what they accomplished. It was truly insane. And probably half the people at the time, if not more than half, thought it wouldn't work. Yeah. No, it's unreal. When I saw Hamilton, I was like I did I wish they taught that in history class

You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah history is not Not taught very well. Yeah How do you feel about the history that was taught in public school? Yes, so I went to public school for for high school and then went to a private school for Undergrad and then a public school for law school So I've been around a few times and And I don't think it's taught well, because it's taught a lot of times from the perspective of the 21st century.

Right. And I call that presentism, which is this idea that we should view the past from the current lens, specifically the current moral lens. So our morality today, in 2025, we should superimpose upon people in the past. And that's not to say we engage in,

like we don't need to engage in moral relativism, but what we do need to do is look at things as those people would have seen them. And so today, you talked about the founders, right? This is a good example. And the first, so if I do a video on the founders, right? Which is a good example. And the first. So if I do a video on the founders, one of the first comments that will be made every single time is why are we listening to slave owners or some iteration of that?

Right. And first of all, not nearly all the founders were slave owners, but there were a good few that were. And that's an example of presentism. Mm hmm. Like you do not have to accept everything about a person or think that everything about a person is perfect in order to think that they did things that were incredibly valuable

and moved our country forward. I mean, if the standard is perfection, none of us could ever meet it. No one. And so like you and me, if we fast forwarded 50, 100, God forbid, 150 years from now, what that we believe now would be considered morally abhorrent? We wouldn't know.

We wouldn't know. It's a good point. We would have no way of knowing. And so we have to, I think, engage the past with some level of empathy while recognizing there are bad things, but also putting people in the light that they would have been seen at the time, which is hard to do, admittedly. Yeah, it'd be hard to teach history like kind of in that tone, right? It's hard.

Like most of history, as I like to say, is lost to history. We don't know most of what happened. But what we do know, we have to reconstruct in a light that is fair to the people of that time period. And we need to tell everyone's story. I'm fully behind that. We need to do a better job in history at telling the story of some of these groups, including slaves, but many others as well that have been marginalized

in the past for sure. But we also need to tell the founder's story fairly. And it was a crazy story. It was. It should be told as, like, it should be a little awe-inspiring. Should be told. Also history, I feel like, when it should be a little on-spiring. Should be told. Also, history, I feel like, when it's taught in public school, has a little bias to it.

Yeah. You know what I mean? 100%. Yeah, I mean, now especially. Not every public school, but the bias is certainly there. And it's a biased, like, weirdly against America. Which is like, America is one of the first countries ever where it's like, it's seen as a positive thing to be against your country. Yeah, like haven't you seen that? Yeah

Yeah, and it's like why what is the benefit of that? Yeah I remember learning about the world wars and they made me feel like shit in class. Yeah, I know I know 100% yeah, and so I think we can be super I mean everyone said this but I think we can be super proud of our country and what we've done while recognizing some of the things that were bad. But welcome to every country on Earth. You talk about the United States' human rights violations,

of which there have been a lot. But you name a country, and I could show you at least as bad, if not sometimes a million times worse, many of which are still going on today. Yeah, there's still slavery in some countries, I found out. There's still slavery. There's mass genocides going on. I mean, there's almost anything that you

can imagine going on right now. And a lot of times, it's not in the news, obviously, but it's happening. And so we should fight that wherever it occurs. And many times times we are. Like one of the United States' biggest, I'd say one of the ways that it is acting in a way that gives credence to the founding is the way

that it's advancing these amazing principles abroad, things like democracy. And it's not always right. We shouldn't have been involved in certain things, most likely. But we have been involved in many incredible peacekeeping missions abroad that have kept dictators at bay or have prevented human rights violations and so Yeah, I don't hate. I don't I don't get this America hatred. I truly don't I see that It's like why are we getting involved with so many other countries shouldn't we fix ourselves first?

I see that argument all the time. What do you think about that? I mean, that's tough to unpack. Yeah, I think it's case by case. It's case by case, yeah. So obviously, a lot of the heat has been coming from this Ukraine situation. And I'm not an international politics expert.

So I do get this idea of prioritization. We do need to prioritize what we are spending our resources on. And theoretically, the prioritization should be on American citizens. I get that aspect of it. But I do not go as far as people at the Daily Wire Go or a Matt Walsh who will say, hey, we should never be giving foreign aid to anybody, including Israel.

That's dumb. We're in an international world. We are in a very global economy. So things that go awry one place will definitely affect the United States one way or the other. And so a lot of these things, we have to be involved. We have to be present. We have to be engaging with other countries. I think conservatism has gone off the rails a little bit there.

You think so? I do. Wow. Yeah. Because they become too isolationist. Right. I think that's a temptation gone off the rails a little bit there. You think so? I do. Wow. Because they've become too isolationist. Right. I think that's a temptation for Trump in his second term. Yeah. He's making a lot of moves, man. Yeah.

Signed like 50 executive orders already. Yeah, I think more. Jeez. So. How do you keep up with that? That's crazy. I can't keep up with all of it. I don't even know if Trump can keep up with all of it.

I mean, that's why Elon's kind of there to help out. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I mean, that's why Elon's kind of there to help out. Yeah, I think so. I have a lot of respect for Elon. I think he's done some amazing things, obviously, and with his businesses, but also has brought some things to light within the administration. But I do think a lot of what Elon is doing,

he's kind of making stuff up as he goes. Yeah, I mean. There's no way he can. I mean, he has his little minions, but there's no way he can be I mean, he has his little minions, but there's no way he can be the one personally going through all this stuff, kind of as he acts on Twitter or on X. You know, it's like it's as if he's

going into the Treasury vaults in the crowd, or like he's going into Fort Knox. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he won't be going into Fort Knox. We'll see if anyone's allowed in there. Yeah. You know? Yeah, exactly. So I posted a video on this.

Have you heard about how the gold got into Fort Knox? I haven't, actually. So it's a pretty crazy story. In the 1930s, FDR, Roosevelt in his first term, said, hey, we need more gold as a country. And I'm paraphrasing here. You can just say, hey, we need more gold. But he made it illegal for United States citizens

to own pretty much all of the gold in America. Made it illegal, just kind of like by fiat. And so what ended up happening is the United States government bought essentially all the gold in America for like, I think it was what, 20 cents an ounce or something like that. So it was either $0.20 or $0.20. I forget. Whatever it was, it was for a relatively low that. So it was either 20 cents or $20 an ounce, I forget. Whatever it was, it was for a relatively low amount. And it was the 1930s.

So then they collected all of this gold. And there was starting to be some global unrest. All of a sudden, they had just tons of gold that they needed to store. So they decided to store it at a few different places among those, which was Fort Knox. So they took it by armored train to Fort Knox over a period of years and stored it underneath the fort. And then with that, they immediately declared

that all the gold was now worth 35 cents an ounce or $35. Again, it's one of those two. And so the government unilaterally took all of America's gold and then declared that it was worth twice what it was when they bought it from the citizens. And then that's the last we've basically heard of it. So the gold under Fort Knox has never been fully audited. We do not know, at least officially, we do not know how much is down there.

It was audited one time in the 1950s, but that was a partial audit. So we do not know how much gold is under Fort Knox. There's some other places where gold is kept as well. So that's why you hear these calls for, hey, can we figure out how much gold the United States government has? Because truly no one really knows.

I've heard people say if all the gold got called, there wouldn't be enough. Have you seen that? What do you mean? People own the gold ETF or whatever. I don't know how it works exactly But apparently you're able to claim it. Yeah, so so

We don't have as much gold as people think that we have for sure So regardless of how much is under for Knox, which is allegedly about 60% of our nation's gold that the government holds We don't have and that's why we went off the gold standard One of the main reasons is there was not enough gold to cover what it theoretically was worth, so the money. So we were on the gold standard for quite a while. By the 1970s, people just kind of, I'm overstating this, but hear my point, people just kind of were like, oh, well,

clearly the United States doesn't have the amount of gold that relates to the paper currency that it has. So by 1970, whatever, one, the gold standard was gone. And so ever since then, we've been a fiat country where we have, and that means you have a central bank, in our case, the Federal Reserve, that sits there and determines things like interest rate, how do we combat inflation, all of those kinds of things.

And so the gold that we have is a nice hedge in case there's ever a global economic collapse, but it certainly is not really economically important right now. It wouldn't impact anything. Some people want to go back to the gold standard. That wouldn't make sense, son. It wouldn't impact anything. People want to go back. Some people want to go back to the gold standard. That wouldn't make sense. It wouldn't make sense. Like you could theoretically do it, but it would destroy your economy and it would really destroy your ability to fight in case there was a depression. So that's what happened in the Great Depression in the 1920s and 30s

was we were still under a gold standard, and people like you and me had gold, and they hoarded it. And so it massively handicaps a country's ability to fight massive inflation, for example, and to fight depression. And it also doesn't give the government any flexibility to print money, which some people like. But a government needs to do that sometimes in times of war or in times of global economic depression.

And there's very little flexibility with the gold standard and it likely wouldn't work in the modern world. I'm not an expert in this area, but I know enough from history to know that that's not very smart. Do you think history repeats itself? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. In broad swaths, usually not in specifics. Right. So for sure. Yeah. For sure. Do you think during the pandemic too much money was printed?

That's a deep one. That's a million dollar question. That's a deep one. That's a million dollar question. No pun intended. I think, man, there's all these conspiracies right now related to the Federal Reserve. What it's doing, how it's doing it, how it sets certain

rates for certain things, particularly interest rates. And I tend to think none of those matter. I think the Federal Reserve does about as well as it can do for a central bank of a country. So my initial answer is probably no. I don't think there's a way of saying for sure that we printed too much money, as I guess I should say. Yeah, time will tell, right?

Time will tell. I think there's a lot of smart people that work there, and world-renowned economists that work there. And so I don't think it's my job to say three, four years post-pandemic that we definitely got it wrong. Yeah, a lot of people were concerned. I think the value of the dollar did drop for a bit. Yeah, but the dollar, a lot of people were concerned. I think the value of the dollar did drop for a bit. Yeah, yeah. But the

dollar, like usually the same people that are saying that the that we printed way too much money during COVID are the same people saying that the dollar is not going to be the world reserve currency in five years, just like that, which they don't know what they're talking about. The dollar is by far the strongest currency in the world It's what it's how the world does business. Yeah everywhere It is a I know you have bricks and those things but like the dollar is in no danger whatsoever

From not for not being the world's reserve currency. Do you see any other currency that could challenge it in the future? No, not even bricks? No. No. I think it's all much to do about nothing. Yeah. Well, we're probably biased too. We live here. We're biased, but like the dollar is how the world does business still.

And there's no, there's countries that want to challenge. So here's a good demonstration of that. Okay. So when, when Russia invaded Ukraine, right? And again, this is not really my area, but when Russia invaded Ukraine you the world started putting sanctions on Russia, okay, and what happened is Russia started running to Chinese banks and saying like hey

Can you help us out here because we know that you're not gonna place sanctions on us, right? But the whole point of all of that was if the United States is not involved in those sanctions against Russia, the sanctions will not work. The United States is so powerful and the dollar is so powerful on the world stage that they have to be involved in any actual sanctions against countries, whether it's Iraq back in the day, whether it's whoever it is, whether it's Russia, that they won't work otherwise. They just won't work. And

so I think that that shows more than anything when the rubber meets the road that the dollar is, it's far and away, the most powerful currency, far and away. There's not even a close second. Yeah. I know you've done a lot of video on tariffs. This is a fun topic. Whenever I have on liberals, they seem to be opposed to them. Conservatives seem to like them. What's been your take on tariffs? Yeah. So I think that's a weird dichotomy, honestly. And it's because of Trump's support for tariffs that they've become a left right issue. But traditionally they weren't a left right issue at all. So the discussion about tariffs on social media right now is so elementary.

It's so mind numbingly dumb half the time that that it drives me insane. So right now, this is a discussion. If you're on the left, you're like, I got you. Tariffs are paid by the company that's in the United States that imports products. And then those are passed along to consumers. And the answer to that is obvious. Like that's elementary tariffs. That's tariffs 101. That's what they teach you in an economics class

or a global business class. That's obvious. Most of the time, the cost is passed along to the consumer. So the left is thinking they've played a gotcha game by explaining literally just how tariffs work. We understand that. But then the right, who's also never studied or heard about tariffs many times, they're like, oh, all of Trump's tariffs are great.

They're awesome. They're going to replace the income tax, which is also awful. You would never want tariffs to generate revenue like they did 100 years ago. And we've tried extensive tariffs many times in our nation's history. Most recently was during the Great Depression when the tariffs exacerbated the Great Depression and made it much worse Oh, so we don't want to do that again, but here's the thing tariffs are a super important part of a country's Economic policy they need to be there like in an ideal world There would be no tariffs every country in the world would export the

things that they're really good at, whether that's labor, whether that's steel, whatever it is, they would export, and then they'd import the things that they can't produce or they aren't very good at. But countries in a global economy don't want to grow at a slow rate. They want to grow as fast as possible. So what they do is they start tariffs, and they use those as a domestic protectionism measure for their own internal industries or manufacturers. And so when one country does that,

particularly if they're a power player, other countries have to respond globally in order to stay in the game. So again, there's this ideal world where everyone's engaging in free trade, which is not reality. So countries have to tariff. And everyone knows, like everyone knows this in politics.

Let me tell you this. So people don't talk about this. So Trump's first term, he instituted a good number of tariffs, right? Most notably on China, but also on some other countries. He did that while other Western countries were also doing that. The European Union, for example, was also instituting tariffs on China during Trump's first term. During Biden's first term, so Trump was an officer for four years during Biden's first term, he kept almost every

single tariff in place and in many cases increased tariffs on China. Hmm so Let me tell you this the revenue that the Biden administration during Biden's four years brought in from tariffs Was double what Trump's first term brought in for tariffs Wow that like no one tells no one talks about that I never heard that and so you might as well say well the Biden administration Supported tariffs more than Trump did now what people got really off the rockers about was when Trump said he's going to do like universal across-the-board tariffs, which I don't agree with.

I don't know almost any economist that would agree with that. But I don't think Trump agrees with it. That's the thing. Like, he will never institute across-the-board tariffs. He's saying that to kind of like he loves to stir the pot. Scare people. He loves to create leverage.

We saw that with Canada and Mexico recently. He would never institute across the board tariffs. Certainly not indefinitely. It would be a suicide mission. And he knows that Trump's smarter than people give him credit for, but he loves to say things that will bring people to the table to discuss. Do you believe Trump's actually conservative? Yeah. I think it depends on what you mean by conservative. Right.

OK, so I don't know. I think that's an open. When I say Sean, what is a conservative, what do you say? I think of Charlie Kirk, I'd say, people like that. OK. Has he been on this podcast? He has been. Oh, cool.

Yeah. So people like that, I'd say, like that. OK. Has he been on this podcast? He has been. Oh, cool. Yeah. So people like that, I'd say, conservative. Yeah. I think that Trump, I don't think is a traditional conservative. And this highlights the difference between what a political party is compared to a political candidate compared

to a political ideology. I think conservatism is a political ideology. And I can, I think conservatism is a political ideology. And I think Trump fits some of that, but he's using conservatism to advance more himself as a candidate and his own like ambitions within the Republican Party. Right. I agree. He's not an ideologue. He doesn't have firmly held conservative principles or beliefs. So there were two, there were two huge speeches that were given that I think launched both the progressive and the conservative movement in the past, let's just say, 75 years.

The first was FDR's State of the Union address in 1944. He was getting to be very late in his life at that point, because he would die soon thereafter. But he outlined what I would call and what he called the economic bill of rights or the new bill of rights. And it basically said, no one will be free in this country. We cannot have liberty unless people have economic security. What does that mean?

That means everyone should be entitled as a right to have free housing. Everyone should be entitled to have free education. Everyone should be entitled to free healthcare, social security. There should be all these social safety nets to allow for human expansion and human freedom. So that was the whole point of that State of the Union address, right? Twenty years later, Ronald Reagan, early in his political career, because he had not even become the governor of California yet, much less a presidential candidate, he spoke at Barry Goldwater's, the national convention where they were nominating Barry Goldwater

to become president. And he gave a speech there, I think it was what, 1964, where he said, we have a time for choosing as a country. And he said, we cannot trade security for freedom. He says, we're the last bastion of freedom on Earth here in America. And we've instituted all these social programs since FDR. There's a lot of these social programs started under FDR,

is one of his four terms. We've instituted all these, and we haven't even seen the scorecard for them yet. And so the idea that we are a nation that has to depend on all of these features of security in order to get our freedom, it doesn't make any sense. So you take those two prongs, you take FDR's idea for equality,

and his idea for we need to establish these social programs in order for people to be free. And you compare that with Reagan's idea in the 1960s, which he ultimately brought into his presidency, of no, we need to start with freedom and then we will flourish economically. I view those as kind of the two pillars of both sides. So I think from the Reagan perspective,

the 1964 perspective, Trump holds a lot of that. But what I don't think he holds is probably the underpinnings of traditional values. I don't think he holds necessarily a lot of the underpinnings of what it means ideologically to have a limited government, like maybe Barry Goldwater, for example, would have believed in the 1960s. So he has aspects of it, but he's not

a traditional conservative at all. And we've seen that in his first few weeks of office. I agree. I mean, he came into it with so much money, too. I don't know if that affects it at all. We've seen Trump approach a lot of things with a hammer in his first few weeks of office. And you can appreciate the end goals of that.

I do, actually. I think a lot of what he's trying to do is very good as an end game. I don't know that I agree with all the means that he's doing it, because he's wielded the executive power super heavy handed in his first few weeks. Yeah, I can't remember any president that's done it like this right off the bat.

No. No, it's a crazy use of executive power. And again, you can appreciate the ends without appreciating some of the means that he's using. Yeah. I think that's hard. Yeah, I've agreed with most of the things I've seen. The DEI stuff I agreed with.

I'd love to hear your take on that. Yeah, so what do you mean specifically? He pretty much eliminated it, right? I agree. I agreed with that. Yeah, yeah. And there's been some states that have kind of followed suit. I think Florida did something, maybe Texas. Yeah, the DEI there's been some states that have kind of followed suit. I think Florida did something maybe Texas

Yeah, the DEI stuff is interesting. So the first major DEI Federal program if you want to call it that was affirmative action And that started in the 60s 70s and obviously has has gone through today where it's like hey in public universities We can give a plus factor to minorities, right? And sometimes it's very specific minorities, right? And there was a lot of Supreme Court cases

over affirmative action, and in the early 2000s in Michigan, there were two where the Supreme Court upheld one affirmative action program and pushed down another, and they said, look, you can have affirmative action for public universities, but it can only be like a plus factor. So it can only give you like a nudge, and you can't have a quota system. Does that make sense? Yeah.

So like, if you have a, I'm trying to think of a good example. So if you have a black person applying to the University of Texas, which is a public university, the fact that they are black can give them a plus. Like it can give them maybe a few extra points on their application to something. But it can't be like the be all and end all. They still need to be considered holistically for the thing. And that's what the Supreme Court has said is OK in affirmative action. So I think that Trump's response to that, not just affirmative

action, but DEI programs in general, is probably a good thing ideologically. But I think that Trump needs to be careful in advance, and whoever else is pushing this needs to be careful that they don't say that all diversity is bad. Because when you say DEI, I think there's almost two ways you can mean it. One way is like, oh yeah, we think we should bring in people that are diverse. And not just racially, but like who think different ways and who are from different

backgrounds even at times from different countries to help push things forward because that's generally a really positive thing, right? And that's what I think the original affirmative action was, by the way. The civil rights movement said, hey, look at these people that have been marginalized in our country and their ancestors have been enslaved in the country. So we should make some pathways to bring them to the table. But that's very different than what DEI has become in a lot of places, which is to say, we need to reserve these 10 spots for that word.

Yeah, that I'm not a fan of. Regardless of what they think, regardless of, like, these 10 spots are reserved for people just because of their skin color. And I don't think that's bad. I think that's very, very damaging. And I think it leads to people saying, hey, the only reason that person got their position was because of their skin color. And that's bad. I think that's very, very damaging. And I think it leads to people saying, hey, the only reason that person got their position

was because of their skin color. And that's bad. That's bad for everyone. And so I think the push is probably good, but I think they need to be very careful not to go too far in the other direction and say diversity is inherently bad. Because it's obviously not.

For me, it worked against me, because I'm Asian. So when I was applying to colleges, you know how they make you- Well, there was the big Supreme Court case on that. Oh, there was? I didn't know that. Yeah. So I think it's like students versus students.

It's the SAFE group. I forget the acronym. But it was Asian students at Harvard, or Asian students who didn't get into Harvard, I should say, who basically said Harvard's affirmative action program discriminated against Asians and whites. I think it did. And well, there's actually really good evidence

that's the case, because what they do is they look at test scores and GPAs for different races as they apply to Harvard. And Asians had to have such a higher test score to get into Harvard than other groups. They had to have a perfect score. They're not getting in. Yeah. Which is like there's something going on there. So that's why I think it was a really interesting strategy

in that case to bring to have those specific plaintiffs. Because it highlighted like it's just not it's not just like a white black thing, which it never was. But like that's what it became. And it's like, oh, there's also people who from from other races that are being discriminated against because of these policies. Yeah.

Luckily, I was half white. So I said I was white when I applied to Rutgers. But I literally think I wouldn't have gotten in if I said Asian. Yeah. Did you go to Rutgers then? For a year, yeah. That's awesome. Did you like it there?

I didn't mind it. Super liberal, but yeah, it was fine. Is that in New Jersey? Yeah, Jersey. I think it's like the state school in Jersey or something. Yeah. Where did you grow up? In Jersey.

Oh, in Jersey. Yeah. So I grew up. Yeah, you're in a very different. I know. I grew up super liberal, believe it or not. Yeah, where did you grow up? In Jersey. Oh, in Jersey. Yeah. So I grew up. You're in a very different. I know. I grew up super liberal, believe it or not. Oh, really? Yeah.

What changed for you? I'm sure you told this story. Ah, Trump. Trump in 16. Yeah. Yeah. He was the first one that opened my eyes. Yeah.

But prior to that, yeah, always lean Democrat. Yeah. Yeah, that's really it. Is your family still that way? No. My mom took some more time than me, I'll say that. She watches every episode. Shout out to my mom.

She probably switched in 2024. OK, so pretty recently. I think she voted Trump this recent one. What about you? Yeah, that's always the million dollar question. People want to know. Yeah, so people accuse me of being far left at times and far right.

Now, I'd say 65%, 70% of my followers are more conservative, just because of kind of the videos that have blown up. Same with mine, yeah. Yeah. But yeah, so I did vote for Trump in 2024 very hesitantly, because I don't see myself as mega. I think that Trump was a better option than Kamala Harris

in this past election, particularly because Kamala Harris, like no one voted for her. She was just like, fousted upon the American people, right? As president, I should say. But I think people call me a centrist, and I call myself that just to kind of use common vernacular. But there's two different ways, two different things you can mean when you say centrist, right?

One thing is you just take the sender position on every issue. So like abortion, you might say like, oh, yeah, women should have the right to choose, but it should be safe and rare. We shouldn't have that many abortions, right? And so that might be the central position to take. That's not what I mean when I say centrist. I don't just take the sender position on every issue.

I actually have very extreme views on certain issues. What I mean when I say centrist? I don't just take the center position on every issue. I actually have very extreme views on certain issues. What I mean when I say centrist is I just take every issue and every candidate and every election individually. And I come to a decision on each issue as they come. And so that means some of my issues would place me in a right camp, some in a far right camp, some of my issues would place me in a left camp. so I'm in a far right camp, so my issues would place me in a left camp. And so it's like a mixed bag.

Now if you were to line up all of my views on every issue, I probably would lean conservative, because I just have more on that side. But it's not because I started with that and said, let me grab this minion and put him in this bag. It was because I was like, OK, let's figure out what I actually believe. I like that.

The starting point. I think more people should view it that way. I'm not a fan of the two-party system, to be honest. No, absolutely not. I think it's unproductive. I think it's such a low-level IQ argument. Yeah, 100%. And I think that I think my biggest fear for conservatives

in the next, let's just say, 10 to 20 years, next couple decades, is it's increasingly become a party that is so anti-government that they automatically assume everything the government does is bad or wrong. And I think that that's never been what conservatism is. Yeah, certainly I think that they think that the government should stay within its defined limits. But it's never been the anti-government argument.

We're not anarchists. But I feel like, or like our narco-capitalists, which is like the next level from libertarian. We are essentially, I think, people that believe in the efficacy of government within certain limits. And I think that that's really important. And so OK, so do you have a lot of squirrels here?

Squirrels, not really. In Jersey we did, though. Yeah, so we have so many in Ohio. You need squirrel hunters to keep. No, seriously, it's not bad. Damn. Like in some parks, it's truly they're just menaces. Holy crap.

But I bring up squirrels to demonstrate this. So have you heard of the social contract theory of government? No. Maybe in government class you did way back in the day. I didn't take any government class. So Thomas Hobbes was this political theorist, right? He became that at least. And he advocated this idea of social contract

theory of government, where essentially in a state of nature, humans were in a hypothetical state of nature. Humans were wandering around. there was no law, life was brutal, it was short, so like if I stole something from you, nothing would stop me from doing that, except you killing me or something.

Or stop, like it was truly frontier justice. Everything was like wild and crazy, like whatever. And his idea was that humans gave up some of their freedoms in a state of nature to establish a government that would then give them other benefits, such as like safety. Okay? So we're giving up our total freedom for some benefit, which is safety. So the reason I bring up squirrels, so if you go to a park in Ohio, there are squirrels

everywhere. And they're living in effect in a state of nature where they're hiding their nuts wherever they want They're roaming around doing whatever they want throughout the day. No one's like governing them Yeah, and that seems attractive, but there's no law or justice connected to the squirrels Mmm like you could steal another squirrel's nuts and The only consequence of that would be if that other squirrel was stronger than you and like tried to kill you because you steal There you stole their nuts. Yeah, right. That makes sense. Yeah, it does

was stronger than you and tried to kill you because you stole their nuts. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. So the social contract theory would be like if there was a squirrel lord that rose up to power and basically said, hey, we're all killing each other. It's wild and crazy out there. Let's establish a government where

there's some rule and order for our common benefit. We're going to live longer. We're going to be able to protect our personal property. Hey, this is your tree. This is my tree. You know that type of thing. And that's exactly what this social contract theory of government is.

And John Locke expanded upon that idea. And he said that the thing that a government should do is protect people's life, liberty, and property. And if a government does not do that, the people have the right to overthrow that government and create a new one. Jefferson then borrowed from that idea for our Declaration of Independence.

So to bring it back to the conservative side of things, the whole point of government is super positive. It's this idea of law and order and structure within a society that benefits the people within the government. Otherwise, they never would have given up their rights to do it. Squirrels never would have given up their rights to do whatever they wanted unless they

thought it helped them. And in our nation's history, in 1776, we said that it is the duty of the people now to revolt against the British Empire because they are no longer protecting us like they thought, like they should do, under that theory of government. And so when I evaluate anything from a governmental

perspective, it's like, and I know this sounds super simple, but it actually is a very effective thought experiment. If I were alone in a state of nature, would I give up certain freedoms in order to get this from the government? And there's some things that are super obvious. Like, I can't create highways on my own. It's nice to be able to have highways, drive on,

infrastructure. Or like, I can't defend against other countries if they attacked me. Yeah, military. It's nice to have some level of defense. So those are the super obvious ones. But other ones, like, so all conservatives are super against a one payerpayer health system, health care

system. I don't know that that's necessarily a bad thing. I don't think that's anti-conservative to support that, per se. It's like, would you think that government providing health care, at least a very basic health care, for all of its citizens in an easy, efficient way would be helpful to you?

If so, that's not a bad thing. And so I think this whole argument of left, right, whatever, I think the conservatives run the risk of painting themselves into a really bland, ugly corner. I could see that. Does that make sense? No, it does.

Principally, I'm much more aligned with conservatives if you actually follow the conservative principles of ideology. But where they stand in 2025, I worry. Yeah, I agree. Does that make sense? No, it does, because the conspiracies are getting crazy these days.

They are. And I'm a conspiracy guy. I am, too. There have been a lot that have been proven correct. That's true. That's true. And we'll see what the document release is coming up, how many more are going to be proven correct.

So I think you had, did you have Owen Benjamin? Yes, I just had him on. So he's crazy. He's had some wild ones. But in the best way. So I think that a lot of what he does, I don't know, I think he touches upon, like he says things for shock value sometimes.

I think so, yeah. But also he does just a lot of thought experiments, which I think is very, very healthy. So Owen will say something like, I don't know, I don't even wanna touch on some of the topics sometimes, because I'm gonna get in trouble. But like, he'll say know. I don't even want to touch on some of the topics. Sometimes I'm going to get in trouble. But he'll say something about space, because he's all on the moon landing being fake,

and all the space stuff. He'll say something about that model that is probably not true based on all the data that we have. But it is a really valuable thought experiment. So it gets people to the table. It gets them thinking. It gets them talking. It gets them exploring.

Plus, he's a comedian, so it's just funny, and I think that's a really good place to be I think there should as weird as it sounds I think there should be conspiracy theorists out there I mean Candice Owens said it famously if you're not a conspiracy theorist at this point, you're not intelligent Yeah, what do you think of her? I like her. She's coming on this year. I like her a lot to be honest so So she she was on the daily wire for a while right and she left yeah, and like what do you like about her? I like her a lot, to be honest. So she was on the daily wire for a while, right? And then she left. And what do you like about her? I like that she incites people to critical think.

So for me, that's important, because I did not do that a majority of my life. I just followed the system. I don't think almost anyone does. Right, with public education, yeah. So I really like that she brings out that side of people. Yeah. I think she does too.

So she gets a lot of crap, obviously, from a lot of people. But I think she's an effective communicator. I really liked she kind of deep-hanced the whole Black Lives Matter movement, which I think was really valuable for the public in general. Again, not that there's all bad actors in BLM. That's not what I'm saying. But she deep-hanced kind of like the cornerstones

of the movement, which I think was good and overall a positive. Sometimes she goes a little crazy with I think some of her ideas and thoughts, but again, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing unless you are not able to think critically for yourself at all. Agreed. Now there's another level, Alex Jones. What do you think about him? Yeah, so I don't listen to Alex Jones a lot, except just for the clips I see of him over social media sometimes. I think he's an entertainer. I think that he doesn't add a lot to the substantive dialogue, but I think that he's funny and at times interesting. What really pushed me away from him

as an actual critical thinker was the Sandy Hook stuff. Yeah, he lost a lot of people with that one. I think he lost a lot of credibility because he pushed some pretty insane theories the Sandy Hook stuff. Yeah, he lost a lot of people with that one. I think he lost a lot of credibility because he pushed some pretty insane theories with Sandy Hook. And unfortunately, he was very influential. Still is, but was for sure at the time when he was pushing those.

And it birthed many other conspiracy theories about that type of thing that I don't think are helpful, like crisis actors and all that type of stuff. Yeah, I agree. So you made a video on federal agencies if they're corrupt or not, right? Yeah. I want to learn about that because when I asked Charlie Kirk what the biggest threat to America is, he actually said this, that the federal agencies have corruption.

So I'm curious what you took away from that. So I think first we need to understand what federal agencies are. So federal agencies are part of the executive branch of the government. So our government has three branches, the legislative, the executive, which is where the president is, and then the judicial branch. There's three parts.

And the part that has grown the most in power influence and just pure numbers by far since the foundation of our country is the executive. Over two million people are employed by the executive. Damn, that's a lot. And not only that, they are literally all unelected except for two, the president and vice president. So here's what, does this sound common sense to you that we have two million people making

laws which is essentially what they do. So the Code of Federal Regulations are not statutes. They are laws created by the executive branch, by different agencies from the executive branch, the Environmental Protection Agency, the IRS, all these different things. Those 2 million people are making laws that you and I have to live our lives by,

and they've never been elected by anyone. So if you just take that on its face, like obviously that's going to be corrupt. Obviously. Like I'm a business attorney by trade. So I run my own law firm. I represent businesses all over the country. The level of corruption just from my clients is absolutely insane. I have a client based in Georgia,

obviously not sure their name, they're being investigated by the OIG, which is a part of the DHHS, the Department of Health and Human Services, for allegedly doing certain things, okay? They run a bunch of medical clinics. They received a subpoena to produce all of these documents and different information back in May of last year,

May of 2024. It is currently February of 2025. They do not know what they're being investigated for yet. Literally, and you think I'm pulling your leg. They do not know what they're being investigated for. It has bankrupted their business. Employees have left because they know they're under investigation.

It's bankrupted them. It's done all this stuff. They paid $200,000 in legal fees, $200,000 in 10 months in legal fees. Employees have left because they know they're under investigation. Wow. It's bankrupted them. It's done all this stuff. They paid $200,000 in legal fees. $200,000 in 10 months in legal fees. And if the OIG, which again is part of the DHHS, comes back and says, oh, you guys didn't do anything wrong, which could very well happen three months from now, there is nothing those clinics can do to claw back a dollar.

Wow. So if that is not tyranny, I don't know what is. That's my stop. You have unelected people in a federal agency, which was not even there when the country was founded. I never even heard of that one. Oh, I do. Exactly.

And it's part of the Office of Inspector General that is doing it on behalf of the Department of Health and Human Services. OK. You have unelected people hounding businesses, in many cases destroying businesses, life's work of people. They worked their entire lives for this.

For maybe nothing they did wrong. Like if that's not tyranny, like people are concerned about Trump's authoritarianism tendencies, which he probably is, to be honest with you. But like, people are concerned about, why are those same people not concerned about what these federal agencies are doing?

The IRS. And I don't like anti-taxes. I think taxes, you need taxes to keep a country going. But the level of power that the IRS has to ruin someone's life for a mistake, for example, to ruin someone's life work as a business as a mistake is insane. Yeah, it's not like we're intentionally

trying to cheap out. 100%, yeah. And meanwhile, there are these big, and don't let anyone ever tell you It's insane. Yeah, it's not like we're intentionally trying to cheap out. 100%. And meanwhile, there are these big, and don't let anyone ever tell you that the Democratic Party is against big corporations. They act like they're against them, like for the common man. But most of the big corporations out there, by and large, support Democrat candidates,

support Democrat causes, those things. Google, Amazon, you know. Look at the donations. The donations are public. You can see who people are. Used to be Facebook, and now Mark Chainsaw. Which we need to talk. That's a whole new thing.

That's crazy. Let's just say roller coaster. But what I'm trying to say is those big corporations have armies of attorneys and accountants that can take advantage of every tax loophole and then by the way if they happen to do Something wrong they can go and advocate for themselves They're in the pockets of many of these politicians. They can they can do what needs to be done X Y & Z to Paper things over correctly the average citizen the average small business owner doesn't have any of that ability any of that power

So they can be destroyed by these federal agencies without very much due process at all. And I think it's one of the things that we'll look back on 20 years from now and be like, why was everything so darn complicated? Why didn't we strip it back a little bit? Why did we create an economy and a system where everything had to be governed by these unelected bureaucrats? And so I'm hoping that that's what Doge does. I'm hoping that at the end of the day, Doge is able to strip that back a little bit. As much as, yeah, there's probably some self-interest there,

yeah, there's some things probably going on there. I do think that overall, Doge's mission is very positive. Yeah, I'm positive about it. So far it looks good, right? I think so. Yeah, I think there's questions about, you know, maybe legally what they're able to do or not do within certain spheres.

But I think the creation of it was completely legal. It was within Trump's power and authority. And I think that Elon is generally a good guy. And I'm probably going to get flack for saying that, because he's hated now by so many people. But come on, he doesn't have to be doing this. Yeah, he's already a billionaire. He's already a billionaire, which most people don't

understand what that means. But he has the ability to just focus on his businesses and his private life. And he doesn't. And even if there is some self-interest there, which I'm sure there is, because people are attracted to power and prestige. Yeah, naturally, there's always going

to be some level of it, right? Yeah, I think overall, yeah, there's going to be some growing pains. But it's probably a positive thing. I mean, what are we going to do? Just keep growing the bureaucracy? No. And another 200,000 people a year?

They wanted 80,000 IRS agents, right? That's one department. And they wanted them armed, too. Did you see that? Yeah. They wanted them armed. Showing up to your houses with a gun. Yeah.

And I don't know what the plan was for all that. But yeah, that's one department. Yeah. Think about it. There's hundreds of federal departments agencies things like that There's only about 15 cabinet level ones But like there's hundreds out there and there's no reason that it needs to be as inflated as it has been Yeah, yeah, that was sorry. I get passionate about no, that's important man

Zuck change sides. Did you see that coming? Yeah, I think ever since he started doing like BJJ or he started doing. When you're around Dana White too much. I think that's kind of like a Republican light. And then once you start seeing the different things going on. So yeah, I guess you could kind of see it coming. But so he was taking a ton of flack though. So I think part of that change a little bit was self-interested, which again, we're all self-interested,

so I don't blame him for that. But he was taking a ton of flack for what he allowed, particularly on Facebook, during the last election. I mean, and during the pandemic. Or for what he tried to not allow, I guess. What he censored. Which he probably should have. I mean, I think, so I'm again in the minority on this,

and I don't know Zach personally, which probably never will, but I think he's actually genuinely a pretty good guy. And I thought that way before he turned conservative. I think that he was thrust because of his technological ability and because of his creation of Facebook, he was thrust into a position that no one would have been successful in.

Imagine creating Facebook and all of a sudden you are the center for everything. So it's not just the tech anymore, it's not just the platform anymore, it's everything that the platform does, everything it's responsible for and you are the lightning rod for all of that. What person could stand up to that type of, so he was just making it up as he goes. He was a kid, making it up as he goes. And so here comes Trump the first time. Here comes a international pandemic.

And he has whole teams under him that are just making decisions left and right. And if someone from the government emailed you and said, take down this information, x, y, and z, I don't know. Like, probably a lot of us would have done it. I probably would have. I mean, as much as it probably would have. Not that Zach was necessarily getting those emails.

Obviously, he had a team underneath. But a lot of that's public now. A lot of that information was coming out. And so I think that he was under so much flak for how that situation developed and evolved over time. Right or wrong, he was under a lot of flak for that. He now has kind of gone the other way and been like, oh, I didn't like it at the time. It was all happening.

And you might believe him or you might not. But my point is, I think that that new path was going to open up at some point for him. It just kind of did. Yeah, that censorship was one of its kind. He probably had no one to talk to about that sort of stuff. That never happened before. But it kind of birthed the new X, right?

Now X is the number one platform, I believe, in terms of traffic. Yeah, and certainly in terms of news. That never happened before. But it kind of birthed the new X, right? Now X is the number one platform, I believe, in terms of traffic. Yeah, and certainly in terms of news. It's the number one news source in the world right now. Yeah, I mean, it's very convenient, to be honest.

You can find real-time news, confirmations in real time. Yeah, if something happens and I hear about something, I don't go to a news source. I don't know about you. I don't go to TV. No, I don't. I just go on X. And see what's happening.

You have people on the field. Yeah. Let me ask you this, though. So one of my concerns about that, it's been kind of the rise of citizen journalism, right? Where people, you or me, we could go out and report on anything. We have a cell phone.

We could even get together a little news crew and report on it. Do you think that there's still a place, or should there be a place for kind of traditional media where there can be more investigative, formal reporting in journalism? Yeah, good question. I think so, because there's still that older audience that

watches traditional media. Yeah, but even for young people. Let's pretend the old people died. OK. The baby boomers, RIP. I mean, I don't want that. But I think there's still some importance in that. Because citizen journalists get a ton wrong.

They do a lot of good stuff, too. But they also, there's not any journalistic standards in what they report. That's true. So they can go out there and say whatever they want. They can promote baseless conspiracy theories. And they'll get a lot of traction. Yeah, no one's gonna sue them for the most part Yeah, like they're not worried about like defamation really. They're not worried about any of that stuff Which can be good by the way, I support that but then you have maybe some of the legacy media where I want to be careful

That that role doesn't get completely obscured. Yeah, I think there's a place for it But they just got so exposed with Trump about reporting. I know and kind of walked into that out their own Yeah, but if they can like take it back and how it used to be I feel like it was pretty honest news Right when I were growing up. I don't know when the infiltration kind of started, but yeah, I think there's a place for it Yeah, yeah, and so you brought up destiny earlier. He I for it. Yeah. Yeah. And so you brought up destiny earlier. He I don't know on I think it was speaking on a podcast or something, but I just saw a clip on TikTok or something where he was saying how he really doesn't like the rise of who has become front and center for the conservative movement anymore because they don't have any ideology backing them. Like you can't discuss policy with them because they're just like everything Trump

does is great. And's a good point. And he brought up this idea of how in the old days, and by old days he meant like probably 20 years ago, you had these figureheads like Rush Limbaugh or like Michael Savage. You love them or hate them, but they had very ideologically backed opinions. And so you could actually discuss

as a liberal policy with them because they had like depth to what they were saying. And again, you can disagree with the depth that they were talking from, but you can discuss the policy with them. And I actually a hundred percent agree with destiny on that. I can agree with that to be honest. I think that's a problem. And I think it's something that the left has, let me put it this way, the left has a deeper bench ideologically than

the right right now. And that doesn't mean they're more effective communicators, it just means the bench is deeper and the ideological strains go a little bit deeper because I think people have given up too much ground in the last 8, 10, 12 years on the right. And so there is a little bit of an imbalance there. I could see that. Yeah, Dean Withers is pretty impressive, even though I don't agree with most of the stuff he says, it's like, wow, he knows his stuff.

For his age, yeah. How old is he? He's like 21 or something. Yeah, he's a young guy. I will say he's more impressive than Harry. Oh, way more. That's not even close. And who's that other guy?

Well, Harry got exposed for getting paid indirectly by DNC. It's Harry, Dean, and- Oh, Parker. Parker, yeah. I'm not impressed with Parker. Yeah, so Dean is, like Dean's willing to go on that. What's that show where they get surrounded on Jubilee?

Whatever show? No, no, no, whatever. Oh, Jubilee. Jubilee. Yeah, one on 25. Yeah, yeah, I just saw that with Michael Nowles on the 25. Yeah, yeah, which was interesting. And I know a lot of people have done that.

But I think that it takes a lot of guts for someone like Dean to do that. I don't think Harry could do that. No, Harry. He might try, but he wouldn't be able to hold 25 at the end. I think you could do it. Well, thank you. I've not been asked, but.

I'll try to arrange it. I've been on Jubilee before. Oh, you have. They didn't air it though. Like as a participant or as the guy in the middle? It was the middle ground, top 1% in commanders versus homeless, middle ground. Oh, yeah.

I've seen some of those. Yeah, they didn't air it because the homeless person, a knife fell out of her pocket, and YouTube is pretty strict on webcasts. Oh, really? Yeah. Wow, that's crazy. Yeah, I think it's an interesting concept for a show.

And it actually is very effective because the person in the middle, obviously, is usually much more learned than the people around them. Because they just have a broader swath of things that they can discuss and deeper. But with the 25 people, they're going to get a lot of different views and inputs that that person normally would not run into.

And so it allows kind of that really cool back and forth. It's a great concept. And it's relatable. Like you said, the 25 people are like ordinary people. So the people watching can relate to those 25 people. Did you see the one with Alex O'Connor? I think that's 25 Christians. Yeah I like that guy's debates actually I think I saw that one. I think he's one of if not the best just interviewers. He's one of the best debaters I've ever seen too. Yeah he's just really he's just obviously a smart

guy but I think he has a really good way of respecting who he's talking to, but also being very clear about why his opinions are. I've never seen him raise his voice, which is impressive. Because Destiny is raising his voice every other sentence. You know? But again, yeah. But Alex O'Connor, that's one guy I'd love to talk to. Because we would probably disagree on a lot.

Well, yeah, a lot. I've never seen him talk politics. He's touched on it. Like he'll have. So he was on like Good Morning Britain or something. Really? One point touching on some political issues. Oh, wow. OK. Like short little things. But I would probably disagree with him on a lot of the religious stuff because I'm personally a Christian and I know he's not. But I love the way he approaches things, and I do agree with him on a lot of things. So I think he's an interesting guy. Well, if you're watching this, Alex. You need to bring him.

I've invited one day in one day. Yeah, I guess I'm not big enough for him yet. No, you are. You're a great interviewer. And I don't say that just as a glaze, but you honestly are really good at asking questions. Thank you. Because it's not just the questions you ask,

it's how you connect with the guests. Yeah. And make them comfortable. It's a dance. I've watched so many Rogan episodes. I think subconsciously I picked up a little bit on his talent. Who's your favorite? Rogan's hard to beat.

There's a lot of good ones right now. Chris Williamson's really good. Tom Billy is pretty good. There's so many good shows right now. Is that the next theory one? Yeah. Patrick Bette David. Yeah.

He's got a great show right now. Chris Williamson's great for podcast. Yeah, he has a phenomenal Set up but also just a great voice for it. Good. Absolutely. Yeah, there's some good ones, but dude It's been awesome. Where can people find you and keep up with you man? I think ticktock is probably the biggest one. So I think I'm at year in 49. I have a lot of fake accounts out there I constantly try to get tick tock to take him down But yeah, there was one that got like a hundred thousand damn and they I think they finally took that one down I have a lot of fake accounts out there. I constantly try to get TikTok to take them down. There was one that got like 100,000.

And I think they finally took that one down. Yeah, so TikTok. I'm also on Instagram. I think it's Matt Dearden Show on Instagram. But I'm hoping to release a podcast soon. I want to do more long form stuff. You definitely did, man. You got the energy for it.

Thanks, man. I appreciate it. Well, we'll link your stuff below, and we'll get some root You definitely did man. You got the energy for it. Thanks man. Well we'll link your stuff below and we'll get some root beer tonight man. Absolutely. Alright guys check them out. See you next time. Bet MGM is an official sports betting partner of the National Hockey League and has your back all season long. From puck drop to the final shot, you're always taken care of with the sportsbook Born in Vegas. That's a feeling you can only get with Bet MGM, and no matter your team, your favorite skater or your style, there's something every NHL fan is going to love about Bet MGM. Download the app today and discover why Bet MGM is your hockey home for the season.

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