PBD Podcast - Did Iraq have WMD's? w/ Ari Fleischer | PBD Podcast | Ep. 210

Episode Date: December 1, 2022

In this episode, Patrick Bet-David is joined by Ari Fleisher and Adam Sosnick, to discuss the Iraq war, mainstream media's role in politics, election fraud and much more... Lawrence Ari Fleischeris an American media consultant and political aide who served as the 23rd White House Press Secretary, for President George W. Bush, from January 2001 to July 2003. As press secretary in the Bush administration, Fleischer was a prominent advocate for the invasion of Iraq. Since leaving the White House, he has worked as a media consultant and commentator. He joined Fox News as a contributor in July 2017. FaceTime or Ask Patrick any questions on https://minnect.com/ Want to get clear on your next 5 business moves? https://valuetainment.com/academy/ PBD Podcast Episode 210.   Get Ari Fleischer's latest book Suppression, Deception, Snobbery, and Bias: http://bit.ly/3Usp5mq Follow Ari Flesicher on Twitter: http://bit.ly/3Fis2BR For more on Ari Fleishcer: http://bit.ly/3XRxEtR Text: PODCAST to 310.340.1132 to get added to the distribution list Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller Your Next Five Moves (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pbdpodcast/support

Okay, so we have a special guest here today. Let me tell you who it is. So think about the following imagine You're having a intense conversation with your spouse. She's asking you questions. You don't know how to answer them Your your parents are interrogating you you're going through all these series of questions Acclint is asking you questions about a product you're getting stuck on Imagine being this is a job. I really want you to think about this for a second before you know, you know We get right into it. Imagine being the former press secretary for the White House for President George W. Bush. From, listen to the dates, January of 01 to July of 03.

We're talking 9.11. And every day you're looking at this person on the big screen being questioned on every single small move being made and that is your job. That's how you make a living. That person is on the podcast today. Ari Fleischer, thank you so much for making the time for being here today. Thanks for having me. That's it. That's a tough job man. How do you do what you do? That's not an easy job. Yeah, it was easy. Reporters throw softball questions at you. They love Republicans. They love Bush easy job Of course if Joe Bush was loved, you know the Republicans will always love the press is fair to the Republican

So but we I'm actually curious because I watch it and by the way our buddy Adam is not here right now Let me tell you guys why Adam lives in this retirement community called Miami and That's why Adam lives in this retirement community called Miami. And you know, this retirement community in Miami, they go on at different times sometimes. And he still is living the lifestyle of the anti-retirement community, which I'm sure, you know, you may be a little bit familiar with. And so he had some other appointments late night last night, but he's on his way. He should be here with us. Any moment when he does, Tyler, he can open a door, he'll come in, he'll join us.

And I hope there's no video of those Appointments. No, he keeps that private. He's pretty discreet about it. He uses signal to communicate with them So the message disappears. So are are going into Obviously we're gonna cover a lot of different issues. You just wrote a book called Deception, Snobbery and Bias We got a lot of things to cover Trump the Santis Musk, I don't know if you're following the Sandbankman free. There's a lot of things going on right now in America. A lot of complexities, the vice and the last thing I'm having dinner with David Solomon,

CEO of Goldman Sachs and they're having dinner and we're in Miami and questions are being brought up. What about this and what about that and what about even his savings? I've never seen a this divisive before, on how America is, it's pretty intense. What are your opinions about divisiveness where we are today? Is this the worst you've ever seen

or is this pretty normal? Ha ha ha ha ha. Oh boy, it's a yes to all the above, really. Yeah, this is the worst I've ever seen in my lifetime, but it's been worse in America's lifetime. If you ask historians, election of 1800 between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams was way worse than this, much more acrimonious, the accusations they launched against judges. Way worse than this.

Correct. I mean, back then, you used to call people, hormones, you would attack their wives. I mean, it was personal nasty. Can you give us specific stories, examples? Well, Andrew Jackson, 1828, I believe it was. He, when he ran for president, he was accused of bigamy because the divorce that his wife Rachel had had gone through it. The pony expressed hadn't dropped off the papers in essence. Wow. And so he married Rachel before the divorce went through. And so he was called a bigamist.

Rachel was called a bigamist. She died during the transition before he took office in 1829. And people said that she died of a heartache. Politics in America has always been a noisy sport. And back in the old days, it was all done through pamphleteers with the nastiest, most personal things said about each other. We went through a much longer phase where it kind of got cleaned up. I remember George H. W. Bush in the 1992 race against Bill Clinton. At the end of their race under all the pressure

in late October, George H. W. Bush called Bill Clinton a clown. And the press went nuts. How can you call him that? How can you use such language over the word clown? And look what we are today. Yeah, clown today is a soft, it's a compliment today versus what, you know, some things that are being said today. So, but, but let me, let me, let me ask this question in a different way. So now election wise What has changed like what? You know how we go back and look at if I talk to Rudy Giuliani, he'll say well Let me tell you what we did back in the days the recall laws we changed to go after the mob. Okay, great Well, let me tell you what happened in America right after 9-11, you know

TSA going into the airport That was a dramatic thing November of 01 when we change it and you go into TSA You should be able to go in there, and now you have to do this, and you gotta get your TSA pretty and clear out. It's a lot of things have changed, right? So certain laws changed, or pay tree attack. We're gonna get into some of that stuff,

but election wise, what's changed with election over the years? Yeah, but I trace it back to the end of Bush's administration, the one I work for, George W. Bush. And as a result of Bush's administration, the one I work for, George W. Bush. And as a result of the war in Iraq and how this divisive, the war became and the opposition to Bush over the war became, the Democrats started to call him war criminal. Now I never previously heard, I was just referring to George H. W. Bush calling somebody

a clown and being criticized. All of a sudden out, you're a work criminal. Turdy General, Al Gonzalez, you're a work criminal. The language, the tone, things just started to change. Social media is now invented. It didn't exist when I was in office. It came at the end of the Bush years and then to the Obama years.

That allowed people just to let it rip with no filter. And people said the meanest, nastiest things on social media, that just became part of the parlance that enveloped us as opposed to the older decorum where people said, show some respect. Don't say those things. Keep your thoughts to yourself. Those old-fashioned notions, sticks and stones. And then it got worse. Obama comes into office, and certainly he was a divisive president. He had very low regard for Republicans, Republicans had low regard for him. Donald Trump, of course, said he wasn't born here, which was wrong, said he was born in Kenya, which was wrong.

It just starts the continued, it's snowballed. And again, social media piles on top of it where people agree to these things. And then it just continued on. And then Trump's win. Trump wins in 2016 and half of America becomes unhinged and says it's because of Russia collusion and the whole Trump illegitimate for all the criticism of Republicans being election deniers, which is valid criticism. It was started by the Democrats in 2016 when they never accepted Donald Trump's election.

So all of this is made a pitted America, pitted camps. I'm a believer though, Pat, in a pendulum swings in this country, and it always swings back toward the center, always back to reasonableness and moderation, because that's the temperament of the American people. We're going through a phase. We're going through a swinging phase.

You think we're gonna go back to being diplomatic? Like you think? Because the one thing, is there anything that's not going to change? Is there anything that's going to change? I think like what I think is going to change, we're going to go left, oh my god, we're going too far. We're going to go right, oh, we're going too far. Oh, we're going to go left.

I think that part may be right. But are we at a point where, you know how they say, well, the first time you have sex and you lose your origin and you're like, they're in the second, third, nobody. And then it's like, oh, let it rip. You're single, you're not even thinking about it. And what's a complete different story. But the first time is the first time.

Then it becomes normal. Are we living in the trolling era where this Jake Paul, this Dana White, this Conor McGregor Trump, Elon Musk, where trolls are winning. So it's becoming a playbook to say, I have to learn how to troll. Not that these folks are trolls. They're learning how to troll. They're learning how to poke.

And schools, and, you know, if you go to regular debates, a class you take, they don't teach you on how to handle trolls. They don't teach you on those kinds of things. They say, well, when you debate, you have to regular debates, a class you take, they don't teach you on how to handle trolls. They don't teach you on those kinds of things. They say, well, when you debate, you have to respect your opponent and you have to go based on this. And then all of a sudden, boom, a troll shows up. You don't know how to address that.

Do you think the trolling is here? That's not going away. And a name calling and all of that. Or are we gradually going to go back to being extremely diplomatic to each other? We are living through a very vatuprative era, trolls and just breakdown of old-fashioned treat people with dignity and respect, even if you disagree with their opinions. The solution to that is easy. One day, a leader will run for president who actually means it and can rise up and unite

people. We have politicians who run now saying, I'm a uniter, I won't do this, or I won't do that, then they get to office and right away get divisive. We're going to get sick of this. And one day a president is going to tap into that. And a president who is genuinely somebody who people respect, he treats people with dignity, he looks at the other party and says, I disagree with your ideas. I'm going to defeat you on your ideas, but I respect the fact that you love this country, too. And that is the hallmark of America. We have always had a level of unity, acceptance, tolerance that unites us as Americans, makes us the envy of the world.

And a Ronald Reagan-style candidate who comes out and reminds people about what this country, the city on a hill, can be like, is going to have a huge following by temperament, not necessarily by ideology, but temperament, because we're going to get tired of the Tupor de Vera and the pendulum will swing. I think so. You think it's going to... I do. So give me...

I know everybody says, you know, we need another Ronald Reagan to show up, right? And we need another, you know, John F. Kennedy, Democrats will say, we need another round of Reagan to show up, right? And we need another, you know, John F. Kennedy, Democrats will say, we need a Clinton temperament to show up because how he was, well, the Obama showed up. But do you think a person like that can show up and take all the constant criticism and get the media to turn around and be kind

and gentle and soft to them? Not about the media, it's about soft to them? Not about the media. It's about the country. It's about the people. Yes. I believe that the thing about the presidency and whoever emerges to run for president, they single handedly have the ability to set an example. This is what presidents do.

When the example a president sets is to be little, is to continue the the interpretive streak that our nation is in the middle of. People follow. When a president actually rises up and people read it and see it and believe that this guy actually does focus on unity, even if he ideologically he's different from you or me. That president has a chance. That's leadership. It's about leadership.

I don't disagree. So let me, let me, like when I watch you, you know, you're taking all those questions, right? And I, I went back and watched some of the old stuff. I even watched you with Chris Matthews back in the days, you know, the Christmas is back and forth and, hey, you know, you're doing this and you're doing all this and you're like, that's an answer question. Would you also ask that question that happened on the Robama's watch? You're going to blame him as well and it says that's fair and it

takes a back and kind of moves on. But for somebody to do what you do and to sit there and get the constant criticism to tough questions, is that duplicatable or is that just purely in the individuals DNA, that maybe somebody can get a little bit better in the area of answering the tough questions, but there's gotta be a part of it that's your personality, your temperament to do that, because that's not an easy job, specifically during the time that you did it.

That's a very, very difficult time to do that. Do you think someone can learn how to do that or some of that is natural? I think a lot of it is temperament. You have to one enjoy the press. You really do. You have to look at that briefing room as a fun place to stand your ground. And you have to respect the fact that under our first amendment, the press can ask whatever a damn well pleases. And that's their job. And just because you get asked a hard question, doesn't mean you have to struggle. You can give a hard answer

in return. Sometimes you can give a hard answer in return. Sometimes you can give a fun answer in return and poke fun at reporters. It's just how you do it, but what it comes down to is enjoying it, respecting the process, respecting the press, but standing your ground on behalf of what you believe in and what the president is advocating for. That's what makes the job really fun. How much of it do you, is it like anticipation you take out, you see the current one, it's a whole folder,

and Sackie, and many of these, they have these, okay, what question are you asking? Okay, I got eight seconds to go to the page on what it is, and then they just read it. Oh, what's your asking, can you go on to it over here? Oh, let me see what he said. How much of it is preparation to say, like, are you sitting with a group of people saying,

okay, guys, what do you think they're gonna be asking us? Are they gonna ask about this? Okay, let's role play. If they ask you this, what's your answer gonna be? I'm probably gonna say something this. Avoid that word, say this. I wouldn't say that. They'll attack you if you say this.

And then, which ones are we working on? Well, you're looking at all these, but you know those three can't stand you. You know those three ask softball questions. You know those three you like, but they ask tough questions. I'm assuming all of it, you're a sports guy. I'm assuming there's strategy to the madness as well. No? There is, but there's also fundamentals.

Go back to sports. If your swing's no good, it doesn't matter how much time you take BP. If your mechanics are wrong, you're not going to be able to improve that much. The single, the most important way to handle that job, you can't speak for the president if you don't listen to the president. So the way to prep is you got to be in the Oval Office all the time. I was in almost all the president's meetings. I'd spend a third, a quarter of my day in the Oval listening to what he listened to, hearing

what he said. And then you take that, so now you've the oval, listening to what he listened to, hearing what he said. And then you take that, so now you've got knowledge, you know what the president's doing, then you take that, and yeah, you do get your staff before you go out and prep, before you brief, and you say, fire away, what are they gonna ask me today? And sometimes you go, okay, I got that one, I got it, I got it, got it.

All right, whoa, let's talk about that one. That one's a curve ball, what are we going to say on that one? Call the Secretary of Defense. I need to answer on this. Call the pure spokesman, the spokesperson of the Department of Transportation. Get me more info. So it all goes into it. But again, the sensual ingredient to surviving that room is having fun. You know, I looked at it like it was intellectual chess. I'd go in there going if I say, hey, I can make them ask question B, and I was already thinking of answer C, no, I could take them to question B. And I thrived on that. Go back to sports. That room was my field, and I was never going to let the press beat me on my field.

And so I looked at it like a sport, like competition. No one will questions they were going to ask because you try to anticipate it. So my hardest days, frankly, were slow news days. If there was a major crisis, if something was terrible going on on September 11th, I knew every question was going to be out what it was to do, what it was to that September 11th. Frankly, from a just a briefing point of view, those days were simpler and easy because I knew

every question coming and I knew the answers. The slow news days, nothing's really big, nothing's going on. I do know what they're going to ask. 25 topics. That's the hardest. What a great perspective to think about. So it is more predictable, the more crisis there is because you know what the 80% of questions are going to be and the less crisis there is, you don't know what's going to be out Adam, thanks for joining us. I'm glad you made it. Thank you so much.

How are your point of drive tonight? I, the retirement community sends their love, especially to you, Mr. Fleischer, from love from, down in Miami. But of the two of us, I guarantee you had a more wild night than I did. I guarantee that. Really?

I say it all when you say that, the way you say that, some people are going to say, Pats married, how wild of a night did he have? You had dinner at amazing place. I had a good dinner. I came home and I even text you and I'm like, this place is wild. I got to leave. Yes.

But going back to it, what you said, very important question. So you said, I was never going to let them beat me, right, at their game, you know, give me your biggest victory during that time and a day that they maybe whipped your bottle a little bit. What would be the two? You know, the biggest quote unquote victory was after September 11th in the lead up to the war in Afghanistan, I'll never forget this.

There was a front page story in USA today saying special forces deployed to Afghanistan. Now this is before the first shot was fired before anything took place and Your special forces and the army your army. I almost went into special. I thought you were a ranger I was a hunter first airborne air is what I was. Okay. Well, I interviewed you're very close If special forces I was found to street from them. Yes That's what if I would have reenenlisted I would have gone into special forces. So the story was special forces. Yes. Rangers deployed to Afghanistan and live at the briefing and this briefing is

covered on live TV everywhere Al Jazeera is covering it live. I get asked to confirm whether or not we sent special forces. We have the ground troops before the before the war began and I looked at the reporter and I said, you know, under our system, you have the right to ask me, anything you want, I have the responsibility not to answer. Next question. And I kind of feel America cheering for me when I said that answer.

Because yeah, the press is gonna ask for deployment information. They wanna know about the movement of our ships and our troops in advance of a war. As if I'm gonna tell them anything, of course I'm not gonna tell them anything. But it's such a funny dichotomy because every reporter in the room was pissed at me. How come you won't answer that question? But I knew everybody in America was cheering for me because they didn't want me to answer that question. And that's when it was just so crystal clear to me that my job sometimes is to speak over the heads of reporters and say what the president wanted me to say to the people. And that's that was in many ways my you know called the victory. So

so a follow up with this next question is when you're you know let's just say you have a you have a two or three kids, you got four kids and your personality. Okay, you go to school and you're somebody that's a powerful person and people have opinions about your father. Okay, you go to say, well, your dad, oh, did you see your dad is all of this? All he cares about is money. Did you see what he did to these immigrants? Did you see what they did to that? And did you see what, and as a kid, let you say your brain is still at a point where you're kind of like,

maybe that teacher was right, maybe that kid was right, is my dad really a bad person, is my mom really a bad person, they kind of mess them with you. And you come at home, you're like, well, he's good to me, I see how he is with me, I see how he treats my mind,

I see how he treats things are good, but man, why are they saying all these bad things about him, right? Okay, so if you're working with President Bush, see how he treats things are good but man why are they saying all these bad things about them right okay so if you're working with president bush or if you're working with president trump or anybody you're working with president bush Michael Moore comes out with Fahrenheit 11 okay you're working with Obama the niche dissosa comes up with Obama's America 4000 $4,000 meals? $2,000 meals? No, no. What was the one about Obama's America

or something like that? He was a winner in the industry. Yeah. Not the one about Hillary, because that was a different one. But he did one about Obama's dream or Obama's America. Yeah, Obama's America, 2016.

You know, and then, hey, Richard Gage, who we had a mall, let me tell you, 9-11 was an inside job. You know, the BBC reported that the building's going down and before any of this stuff and they knew about it and look at the reaction when he's reading the book and they're talking to the kids and he knew what was going on. Look at the way he reacted to it and the camera's on and everybody's watching.

And let me tell you how Trump is. Did you guys see how Trump is doing this? And did you see Trump's documentary and all the bankruptcies? And this is one of the worst businessmen of all time. And it doesn't matter what side you're on, right? I'm just saying, this is your nobomas on the inside. Your bushes on the inside, your Trumps on the inside.

How do you working with him and your in the meetings, you're seeing things that's going on, and you're seeing all of that? How are you balancing it out to know that you're, when you go into a restaurant, I'm assuming during that time, if it's 2001, 2002, 2003, I'm just willing to bet if you go into a restaurant and you're there with your wife, I'm sure not everybody comes up and says, are you awesome man, what's up? Dude, you killed it today.

That was amazing, right? I'm sure there's some of it that's coming up and saying, you know, how dare you, you know, representing a president like that. How do you not crack and break when others are trying to get you to pin you against a person you're working with? How do you manage that?

It's easy, frankly. Number one, Bush had really thick skin, so it didn't bother him. And when it doesn't bother the boss, it tends not to bother the staff. Now if it bothers the boss, if your boss is thin skin, throws stuff, how do they do that? Why they report that? The man you're under pressure on a lot of sense. He wasn't.

Yeah. So I didn't have to be. Secondly, I believe when the most beautiful thing about the White House and I don't care what part of you are, is when you believe it is so easy to fight and stand your ground and you take the incoming, you try to pay attention, maybe you learn something from the incoming, you can rebut it stronger, learn you got a vulnerability, maybe we should address this, but you take the incoming and you turn it around because you believe. And that's how democracy should work.

If I can't stand there and explain what the president is doing and why he's doing it, and if I can't do it articulately and we take the incoming, then maybe we deserve it. But if I can explain it and say it articulately and drive more support for it, that's the job. I love that. How different was he? I had the opportunity to invite him to an event, which was... I saw the picture. Right. I had the opportunity to invite him to the event, and that was in 2019. Same event we had Kobe Bryant, the late Kobe Bryant, and I had President Bush there, and he, I'm coming out of the bathroom. He's coming to the bathroom. It's the first time we make the interconnections. Like, hey, Patrick Patrick, I'm gonna wait for you over there. Okay, great. He goes to the bathroom comes back

A bunch of people there with a secret service sticker and you know And then we had a nice 45 minute conversation in the back talking to him and in on stage when I interviewed him Telling the stories opening up and when we announced him being a keynote speaker It was not like I'll remember we're at a Hotel in Dallas and I announce our two keynote speakers. And the first one, I'm just watching, and I said, guys, I want to find out the reaction.

So put the camera on them. There's about 1,500 people there. And we're announcing it that's going to be at Maraj, there's going to be 6,000 people there. So I said, OK, first speaker, we're going to have at the event. Everybody's the camera's ready, they're live. President George W. Bush. What?

The reactions were priceless, dumbfounded. And some were like, oh my God, a president's coming, but it was a very different. And then I said, they called me Brian, they lost their mind, right? And they were so excited. Anyways, President Bush comes up and I interview him, and he talks personal life, what things he did, what things he changed, just being very open

about the whole thing, and then we're doing pictures, a session with pictures. And I cannot tell you how many people who were, you know, not supportive and send me messages, you shouldn't have brought them, you shouldn't have done this. They're like, look, I don't know if I agree with policies, but I like the guy, I kind of like him on how he is. You know, wow, I like this guy.

This would be a guy I would wanna have dinner with. What a, I like and then so, every time everybody was taking a picture, half of them were happy to take the picture. The other half were like, I gotta tell you, I thought, look, one girl said, I thought you were the antichrist, but I like talking to you.

This was amazing listening to you. Thank you so much for coming out. How was he off camera behind closed doors? Was he funny? Was he a storyteller? Was he a prankster? Was he always serious? Was there a topic he always wanted to study?

Like is he a guy that studied Andrew Jackson? Did he have a favorite president that he would always read about? Is there a certain book he would, would he play backgammon? Is he a dominoes guy? Is he a chess guy? What was he like? You know the clip on the last dance?

You know, you see the security guy coming. Go on, Michael. Go on the dice. One more time. Roll on the dice. Twenty bucks. Boom. He beats Michael and he goes like this.

And he does the Michael thing back at him and Michael's pissed off. What was he like off stage off camera? I've heard what you said so many times when people who have seen him in his post presidency. He is gregarious. He's engaging. He's self deprecating. He's witty as can be and funny and fun. He was a great boss. I don't care what you industry you're in or what ideology you have. You want a boss like George W. Bush. He was inspiring, he was tough, you were going to work, your tail off for him, you never want to let him down. But boy, was he a good guy who was loyal and

took care of you. And you in exchange gave him your loyalty because that's the kind of relationship of boss should engender in any industry. But yeah, he was a, he was a towel snapper, witty, lots of jokes. You know, he would keep things light. Now, after September 11th, that went away for quite a while. But that's his nature and, and it came back. Um, he has a marvelous touch that inspires people through seriousness and humor. And in his post presidency, and I've done many of these events and speeches with him, where you know, to moderate a Q&A, people get to see his humor. And you saw it there,

I'm sure. You know, and most of itself deprecating. Most of himself. Yeah, it's very hard for some people to do that. You can't do that. I got to tell you, for me, I love comedy. I think comedy is amazing. If I have to say, when you say 128 months of economic expansion during whatever era, with it, Obama and Trump era, economy was the best when it was growing. It was so awesome. Interest rates this. I think the longest standing economic expansion for comedy was under President Bush. I have to tell you.

Well, Farrell. Well, Farrell to me is like, Hello, hello, America. This is your commander in chief on the world. I'm here in Crawford, Texas, trying to grow soul patch and hanging out with Kanye and Dick. We're here to talk about something

that really matters, like keeping steroids out of T-Ball and you're just watching this. I've seen that thing. I don't know how many times. And you know what I like about him? He would say this one guy. He's my favorite comedian and impersonator

because at some point, you have to laugh at yourself. And if you can't laugh at yourself, these guys are not gonna slow down. But if you look at this picture right here of a Will Ferrell in person, Bush, I mean, this guy crushed it just a couple days ago. I watched Will Ferrell's first S&M audition. You and Vinnie were showing it to me.

But for comedy, I think during my ear at least, I think he's the goat when it comes on to comedy and people impersonating him. Did you guys watch that? Did you talk about that? Would he joke about that? Would he say, so Ari, what did you think about that? He wouldn't watch it, but he was aware of it.

Okay. And he would laugh. God. When somebody would say to him, here's what they said about you last night. He would laugh, you know, the whole thing where he used the word, strategy and strategy. Yeah. As soon as he said that,

we as a staff start calling our meeting, strategy meetings. Yeah. And he liked it. Because again, the guys got thick skin and a sense of humor, so you can do that to him. I have a question, Hyory.

You know, we have a lot of conversations about legacy, whether you can create your own legacy or whether you can do your best or whether the world gives you your legacy. You know, when George W. Bush came into office, just side story, I was in Tallahassee, Florida, senior year of college, 2000, 2001. I was in Tallahassee, Florida, senior year of college, 2000, 2001.

I hope your Chad's didn't hang. No, I was working as an intern at the Capitol. This was during the election. This was right during 9-11. And I, who was the governor of Florida at the time? Jeb Bush. So I was very familiar with, but I wasn't a big political person at the time.

And I was there. I was very familiar with the book. I wasn't a big political person at the time and I was there. I was seeing all this and especially during 9-11, his approval ratings went up to 80 something percent, the highest we've seen in forever. But to my question about legacy, these days, you don't see a lot of them. Like when you do see them as far as being a nice guy, like that exchange you had with Mochella Bama

when he gave her a piece of candy. And like they're kind of, they're being nice and friendly. And you know, he still hangs out with even the Clintons and he hangs out, you know, he kind of has that. Obviously the Bush legacy and Trump start and not exactly seeing eye to eye.

But at the end of the day, where do you think the Bush family legacy will end up living? I mean, his father was a president, his brother ran for president, governor. This is a legacy family. And he essentially was the pinnacle of it, right? Last president. Where do you see the Bush family legacy and specifically his legacy? Well, since he left office, he's become more popular.

He left office. I'm sad to say, as one of the most unpopular presidents we've ever had as approval rating was in the low 30s. Yeah, I mean, yeah, and that was Iraq. And it's now people have really appreciated the way he has handled himself, how he doesn't criticize the incumbent president, Trump, or Obama, or Biden, because as he puts it, the job's hard enough enough and I'm not going to add to their burdens He wants to put the country first now and people appreciate that His legacy will still come down to Iraq in many ways and the history the future of Iraq is still being written I do think it is one of the it is the only Arab democracy in existence right now and

one of the, it is the only Arab democracy in existence right now. And it's a rough democracy. It certainly is not a Western style, United States, France, Germany, democracy yet. But it is on the path unlike any other Arab, Middle East nation. And this is tremendously important. So I think it's gonna come down to that. And this is where people are gonna say, was it worth it?

But there's one in Inescapable fact and that was we turned out to be wrong about WMD and the information that the president had Which was the world's conclusion that Saddam had WMD turned out to be wrong and we acted on wrong information and That is still going to be something that historians write about. I believe to this day that if the CIA had set to George Bush, we're not sure. He may have WMD, he may not.

We really don't know. I don't think he would have gone to war with Iraq. He wanted to done it unless he was convinced they had WMD. He was convinced because that was what the intelligence information said. Right. As far as blame goes, I mean, I think we look back at 9-11, what a tragic day, the warning rock, Afghanistan, Biden just pulled us out. If, you know, not trying to like shift blame or put blame on anyone, but are you saying that it's essentially the intelligence community's fault that Bush believed them or what percentage does he have to own up to it what percentage is he made the decision he made the decision

to go to war based on the belief that sedam had w md as i said i think if he had gotten other information he would not have a war um... but there's no question about it was the world's intelligence communities that all reach that same conclusion it wasn't just the c i a was the jim it was Egyptian intelligence, French intelligence, Israeli intelligence, all of them believed that Saddam had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons,

not nuclear, but chemical and biological. Amazingly, Saddam throughout the weapons inspectors destroyed the stockpiles that he did indeed have and hit it. And one of the reasons we were so wrong about this was to not put up a fake front to deceive Iran. He wanted Iran to believe that he had WMD as a deterrence to Iran and nation that's in Iraq and Iran for wars.

And so he created this whole web of delusion, of illusion, of clandestine activities, moving things, secret communications, which of course are intelligence services pick up on. And we reached the conclusion, aha, see, he's got it. It was a bluff to Iran after he actually did get rid of his WMD, which he would not tell anybody that he got rid of it. So that's why the world intelligence communities

reached that conclusion. Ari Kushev for you. So at the time, George Tennett was the director of CIA, right? But he was not nominated by President Bush he was nominated by Clinton he was Clinton CIA so why would he keep him though is it why would he not fire okay so let me kind of play a little bit of a devil's advocate so this is a game of legacy game okay so if you're playing the legacy and it's a very competitive game very very competitive game in the darkest way and There is no leaders Bulletin. The only leaders Bulletin you have is who has a worse reputation?

Who has a bigger legacy? Who has a better victory? That's how you compete in football Touchdown super balls Brady's got seven you don't he's the gold, you know Jordan's got seven. You don't. He's the goat. You know, Jordan's got six. LeBron, you got four. You know, he played thousand 89 games in average, 32 points a game, 30 points a game. You did not. You were 1500 games the other day. I watch a statistic comparing John Stockton's legacy of a consistency to LeBron James. Do you know how many 82 season games LeBron's had? One. Do you know how many John Stockton's hat? It was like 18. Of see, it's just some ludicrous number on what he did. Like, oh my God. So we can track legacy based on stats.

Okay, now LeBron's got championship, Stockton's got zero so he can't brag about that part. But why the, the, the, George Tenets loyalty isn't to Bush, yes, you may say, well, no, he's an American. His loyalty is to the country and it's to America. And it's this. So part of it's like it's inside.

So you're given intel. The rest of us are watching the movie vice. And you know, you watch the movie vice. You watch all these movies, the W. There's so many movies that you read about. And I've read the decision points. I've read the book on the family, what Bush's family stands for, Prescott and what they did.

And I gave him a gift from his grandfather, Prescott's one of the buttons. And I bought a bunch of different things and I give him as a gift, the legacy that you first go make your money and then you take care of your family and kids and then you give back to the country and you run for office or something like that. It's a very, a lot of things I pull from that family's legacy to want to apply to my own family. But one, why keep the same director of CIA who was nominated and chosen by a Democrat, you're Republican, why not replace them with some others?

Nobody would say anything to you if you pick some ideals. And two, you know, when you see a lot of the things that happen with vice and how, well, you know, they went to war because this was a great business decision. There's a lot of money to be made when you go to war, you know, look at Dick Cheney, look at Donald's Rumsfeld and look at some of the darkest people in America, who they are and et cetera, et cetera. And that's what the story is told, right? So one, why keep 10 or two, you know, the legacy that we read about

where the motive behind it was money. He kept 10 it because he viewed the CIA as a non-political position. It wasn't the type of thing he needed a loyalist. He wanted somebody who was good in intelligence and who had a steady hand over the CIA. You think, like would you advise, let's just say I become a president.

It depends on who the person is. If, and he hit it off with Tenet during the transition. He liked Tenet, got it to a meshed personality wise. And so George Tenet was a Democrat. He worked for Senator David Borin, who was the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He was the chief of staff on Capitol Hill to David Borin. President Clinton nominated George to be the CIA director and

Bush kept him. And again, it was because he thought continuity was important and it was not a political position and he liked the guy. So again, the CIA's conclusions about WMD didn't begin on George Bush's watch. They had said the same thing to the previous president, to president Clinton about Saddam. As for legacy, et cetera, Bush never did anything for legacy. And I don't care if people believe that or not. He didn't, he did it because he thought

it was the right reason to protect America. And he knew some of the things he did with controversial, but he did them anyway because he thought it was the right thing to do for America. Any of this nonsense about money or oil or any of that, I mean, doesn't that fall into the same trolling, the operative, war criminal stuff we started talking about earlier? It's the same junk, it's the same excess. It's the same extremes speaking out in a fashion that just they let it rip.

And Bush's instructions to me and the way Bush conducted himself was to rise above it. He wouldn't let me go to the podium and fight back on a lot of these things because he didn't want to engage at that level. And you know, one of the biggest criticisms I hear from President Trump supporters, Sean Hannity included, and I've talked to Sean about this a lot, is Trump fought back. You Bushes, McCain's, Romney's. You guys didn't know how to fight back, and you didn't fight back. Trump counter-punches. And this is a legitimate difference

inside the modern Republican Party. How far do you go? How much punching should you do? How tough should you get? And they said Bush didn't fight back. Is there a better balance? Like do you think Bush should have fought more? Do you think Trump fights too much?

Is there a more moderate approach? Yeah, I think there's a balance. I wrote a hot bet in the Wall Street Journal when the midterms for Donald Trump were using a football analogy. I said, the problem with Donald Trump is every time he gains yards going down the field, he gets a flag for unnecessary roughness or a late hit. So if he gains 100 yards, he's knocked back 65 yards from all these penalties. And I said, you can't win a game that way.

Yeah, I think there's more of a balance. I think what happened in the Bush years, particularly through the end of the Bush era, the White House staff got tired. Everything was just so tough. Things in Iraq were so bad. Bush lied, people died. They were too tired to fight back, and they thought we're not going to get our message across. And I want to remind you back in that era, especially 2006 or so, we only had the mainstream

media. We didn't have Twitter. We didn't have YouTube. We didn't have social media. We couldn't go around the press. Bush didn't have followers online. That didn't have you to we didn't have social media. We can go around the press Bush didn't have followers online That didn't exist yet So we had to fight through the New York Times the Washington Post ABC NBC

Fox was a very different Fox back then So I just think the White House staff said it doesn't matter what we say the press won't cover us and So all these criticisms of Bush matching his low-job approval stuck. So could he have fought back more? Should he have fought back more? I was outside the White House at this point. I had fresher legs at that point. I would have loved to have fought more at that point, but for the people inside, they just thought it won't work. I want to show something. Can you pull this up? I still want to go back to the questions. Director of Central CIA. Go all the way to the bottom.

Go all the way to the bottom. All the way to the bottom. Bottom, bottom, bottom. Go up a little bit. So George W. Bush, stay right there. Go a little lower on the bush side. So if you look at this, he had three directors of CIA. Okay, one of which was George,

and he kept them till 04, specifically during that era, which was the issue, and then he replaced them with John, okay? But that's not his guy. But if you look at Clinton, he had five on, he had five directors of CIA,

I interviewed James Wolsey, he says, I don't even know why he put me in the job because he never talked to me, we only talked twice. So he, his director of CIA, January 21st, 1993, he picked them, right? Stutterman, uh, uh, uh, Stutterman. Stutterman. So go up a little bit to the next one, if you keep doing the same exact exercise, uh, that we're doing George H. W. Bush, it's his guy, right? William Webster. Keep going up, keep going up, keep going up Reagan, his guy, Jimmy Carter, his guy, General

Gerald Ford, his guy. If you go to Nixon, his guy, if you go to Lyndon Johnson, his guy, the only person that didn't have the same director of CIA as the prior president is John F. Kennedy. John F. Kennedy kept it because it was the same as go up a little bit as Dwight Eisenhower. So he says I'm just gonna keep it. But I don't know. You know you you're Elon Musk, you buy Twitter. You don't keep the same you know exact guys that you have because they don't trust you. They probably don't even like you because in the business, the people at Twitter how it was ran before

can't stand what Elon stands for. So Elon, let's go of how many people, 3,750 people, 50% of Salesforce, the workforce, what happens to that 3,750? They recruit the other guys to quit. You got another 12, 50 that resign. You're like, did I don't trust these guys? I gotta get somebody that trust, you know,

that aligns with what I'm doing. So I think that, my opinion, I'm not on the inside to say whether it's the right move or not. I don't know if I would have done it that way. That's my opinion. Second, I had a couple of Brazilian people here that I had on the podcast, because I'm really curious on what's going on with Brazil.

One of them is the son of the former president of Brazil, Paolo Figuera de Do. I'm not even sure if I'm telling the last name right or wrong. And the other one was Rodrigo Constantine. And I'm talking about Brazil was taking place. And I had a friend here, Marvin, who's from Honduras, who follows politics very closely. And we compared Bolsonaro against Lula. Okay. So Bolsonaro

against Lula, Lula has been in the political world for a long time. Bolsonaro is more a doer. He's a guy that's going to go out there and compete. He's louder, both loud. One is louder than the other. That's what they compete for. But who's more street smart? Probably Lula is more street smart than Bolsonaro's, meaning his wise, because he's been playing dirty for a long time, 50 years. He can do laps around Bolsonaro on how to play politics. So to the people that say, Bush could have been behind it.

I don't know if the credibility is if Bush was behind, you know, like 9-11 for money and all this other stuff. But it, it, can I say a little bit for my own level of skepticism that maybe there are somebody on the inside that they could care less about legacy. They want to figure out a way how to maximize their job at the White House to make money. And we have a president today that's done that. You've seen it. You've read it.

It's been all over the place, that you used that last time in the job and Clinton's been criticized for that. He's been criticized for that, but a lot of people have been criticized for that. So do some people get in and use their ability to persuade, and I can only imagine like if there's a meeting and everybody sitting there saying,

President Bush, I'm, we have very strong data that there's weapons or mass destruction and you ask the question, what do you think we should do? I think we should attack and, you know, defend our country because if we don't, we seem like we're weak and we're not doing our part and we have to do something about it right now.

And boom, you come out and you give the message, you know, it's like, oh my God, this is crazy, this is amazing. And later on, like, there was no weapons of mass destruction. So maybe somebody manipulated a way to get somebody to make a decision that they would have never supported themselves. I don't know if I'm making sense,

it's a long-winded question I'm asking. But you don't think somebody that gets inside has negative motives that will use it in a way to monetize and make money, because that's what a lot of people in politics have been criticized for doing. No, you don't think so. First of all, George Tannet didn't come to the conclusion that Saddam had WMD.

The CIA did. His agency did. His experts, his analysts. I don't know who the head of Egyptian intelligence is, but he didn't come to the conclusion. His analysts did. Same thing with Israel, same thing with France, et cetera. He's the guy, no?

Yeah, but it's not like they make up the facts. They have their teams of experts who go and find the facts, find, well, find the allegations, find the beliefs, the conclusions that they can put together. But let me talk to you about intelligence, generally speaking. One of the things that I learned at the White House is intelligence is maddening.

You know, on the TV shows, people make it look like, oh my God, the envelope just came in. We opened it up and here's the report from the agent in the field. We got the goods, holy take action and income the paratroopers. Most intelligence reports are mindlessly frustrated because they're, we have reasons to believe X, but then there's also Y, and then we have people who tell us Z. Our analysis shows it could be X, Y, or Z. This is what you get for most intelligence reports. They'll put a probability on it. They say, oh, our assessment is the probability leans in the direction more of X, but we don't discount Y. You read one of these things and you're, what's your conclusion?

Give me a conclusion. That is way most intelligence reports work. It's like a consultant from the UK. It's like a McKinsey or Gardner, you hired him and they say, you know, our assessment is 62% chance. This is where you're losing your money and is it kind of like that? Well, it's more because the other side north Korea Iran Russia China gets to hide things And it's not like we can just walk in and say give me your stuff. You can't hide it anymore. I need to know

Well, that's the whole game is to be a better intelligence, but yes, but my point is it doesn't always lead itself to a hundred percent declarative Knowledge it leads itself to surmising believing taking things and trying to piece it together. In the case of WMD, they put it together and with the exception of the State Department intelligence, one of 17 different intelligence agencies in the United States, with the exception of state, every single American intelligence community concluded. It wasn't that it was likely, it wasn't that it was probable, they concluded Saddam had stockpiles biological and chemical. Does that mean 100% what is the conclusion? I like like what you said there's a 60% 80% chance.

That's why you're Z what number did they give? See I would never put a number on it. Okay. There's smart enough bureaucrats not to do that. But in the famous quote was when George Tenet said to George Bush it's a slam dunk that he has WMD. OK, so now, so slam dunk that he's given that, that's coming from a guy, George Tennett, who was the director of CIA since 96, 96 to 01 September. That's five years of experience being there. You have enough time to know who's on your team, who's capable, who's not, who you have to fire, who you have to keep. It's not like you don't have that experience to do that, right? So I don't know. All I think about is like a President

Trump. Okay, Guy becomes a president. You know how some people yesterday were debating to say who's going to be on the Republican stage to debate, right? And we're at this dinner, everyone's kind of throwing their names. Well, let me tell you, you know, we know obviously Trump's going to be there. Well, what do you think about the Santa's? Well, I think he has to do it because he's got a perfect resume right now. Why wouldn't you do it? You know he's gonna do it. And the other person I think that's gonna be there

is from Georgia, it's what's his last name. Brian Camp. Not Camp, it's a- Ratson Burger? I mean, it's another name. Anyways, I'll think about, I'll say the name. The governor of Georgia, people are talking about him running for president.

What's Brian Camp? Brian Camp. Okay, yeah, maybe I'm missing it up with another name. And then I said, what about Zeldin? So Zeldin's not capable, he's very boring. So the guy lost by only 5% in New York to Hocal. What are you talking about? Yeah, but he's boring.

I know they're trying to get him to become the chairman of RNC, but he's not running to be there because he thinks he's going to be president. Sometimes people run to get a job, like a lot of people run to get a job on the administration of who they think is going to win. Okay, hey, you sit this one out, I'm going to give you this job. Hey, you sit this one out, I'm going to give you this job and it's a negotiation, right?

Kind of like that day, we all saw Elizabeth Warren, Amy, Bernie, everybody just sits it on, hey, we're all getting behind Biden and er, here's what you're going to be doing. Fantastic, we're all happy. This kind of worked out. So I'm convinced I'm convinced we were debating James D. Eugenio. He wrote the book JFK Revisited with Oliver Stone and he's turned into a movie documentary all the stuff and I said the swamp kill JFK, no Well, yeah, of course the swamp killed JFK, no? Well, yeah, of course the swamp killed JFK. The swamp killed Lincoln, no?

No, it wasn't Lincoln. I said, well, you know, it wasn't swamp, no, no, you know, it's all this other stuff. He was kind of doing stuff that his own party didn't like. Civil rights, all this, what are you talking about? Well, yeah, well, the swamp kind of went after Reagan, but not necessarily. Well, Reagan was kind of trying, well, the swamp went after,

swamp went after Trump, right? Yeah, well, then who is not part of the swamp in politics today? What are you talking about? Who is not part of the swamp? Give me names today that are not part of the swamp that have roles inside. They're silent.

They can't say anything. Is McConnell swamp? Is Biden swamp? Is Obama swamp? Is, you know, bush, all these names you're going through to be part of the swamp. So for me, some people want a job for resume, some people want it for a nice profile on Wikipedia, some people want it because they want to brag about it, some people want it

to make money. You don't know everyone's positive and negative motives. All I'm saying is when President Bush is picking his team and you're bringing them inside, if CIA can't find out for fact if if WMD was right, how does President Bush or not just President Bush, any other president, no for fact people you're bringing in their motives are positive or negative. Maybe some of these other guys, the Dick Cheney's are the world and Donald's motives were negative. Maybe his is pure, but others are negative. Do you think that responsibility lies on the person that picked those people or no? All right, let me get down to the brass tax on this. Do you think that George Tennet gave

Bush the advice or gave him the information that he gave him about WMD? Because George Tennet wanted to make money. No, I'm talking about, I'm talking about, the thing about Tennet is, he should have fired Tennet. I don't keep a tenet. Why do you keep a tenet? His loyalty is not for you. You get rid of a tenet. Your dad was working with the CIA. Your father, like if there's anybody,

I'm trying to see who gave the advice to keep tenet. Who was it? Your dad's got a lifelong resume of all this stuff. So maybe a part of it for me is not even on W, because I'm convinced George would have called his W would have called his father to say, hey, what do we do with Tenet? And his father probably gave him some kind of fatherly advice and 10% of the influence was probably from props.

This is okay, let's keep Tenet. Why you keep in Tenet? All right, I think George Bush will just disagree with you on this one. I thought for the exact reasons I said before, you know, during the transition, he interviews Tenet, he likes Tenet, he thinks Tenet's not political and Tenet's knowledgeable, simple as that. And it wasn't like he had his guy. No president wants

to have his guy at CIA. What you want is a honest broker at CIA who will tell you the facts, whether you like the facts or don't like the fact slam dunk. That's a fact. That's what he believed because that's his. I mean, it is what the CIA concluded but to to say Ari you you and I you're an odds guy if you like sports it's all about odds we're in the odds game it's a slam dunk you know like when who was the one guy that said shift Adam shift is it Adam shift the the interesting yeah you listen it's proven we have the intel listen to all right so let's go back to intelligence

now president please intelligence so look let's look at iran today kine when i look at the intelligence information that's you know leaked into the news when i see people say that with iran is six months away three months away from nuclear you from having a nuclear weapon as a result of their centrifuge, fusion development systems.

How does anybody know that three months, six months? The intelligence is never that precise. And so if you're the president and you want to know, do we have a threat from Iran? How do you evaluate whether or not based on what happened in Iraq? We have accurate information about Iran. It is so hard to make these judgments. And I don't think it's because the CIA or Donald Rumsfeld or Dick Cheney or anybody else's ulterior motives or because they want to make money or they want to do this or do that. It's because nations are really good at hiding their secret stuff. and you think it's easy to penetrate these nations

You think it's easy for us to put spies places. We I expect us to be the best. I mean, I brought the we're probably the second best Mossad is the best that China is the best. Mossad. So I brought the director of Mossad a former one Shabit Shabit Anyways, I had him and we had a conversation together and you know, on Intel that they got and who they trained and how they trained and all this other stuff. Wouldn't we want to compete to be the best

so we can get this kind of Intel? That's why we are the greatest country in the world. How do you get a guy, Tenet, that no one talks about today? Slam dunk, are you kidding me? Like this cost, how many trillions of dollars? That's a, that we're paying because one guy said slam dunk, our taxes went up, our debt went up.

I, I have a hard time with that. So, well, in lives we're lost more importantly. All of that, this goes back to the fundamental question about Bush's legacy, what you asked about. And this is why I said to you as somebody who I'm reluctant to say it, but I have to say it, is his legacy is going to invariably be tied to the future of Iraq and to the fact that we were wrong on WMD. Are you worried that your legacy gets caught up in that? Can't care less. No, but I don't think that's the, and by the way, I don't think that's

the question though. My only thing, the question isn't tying this to President Bush. I'm not putting any of it on him. The only thing I'm putting on him is why not bring somebody from the U Trust that you know in instead of a tenant. Track record shows this has only happened twice. And the other guy that did it was a guy named John of Kennedy, and then you. So that gap of how it's been done for however long is a long gap of 40 years, whatever the timeline is,

37 years to do some like that. So then the other part, the other part is a person like a Trump gets in. OK, when a person like a Trump gets in to put a team together, my biggest concern was who is gonna pick? And the reason why my biggest concern was who is gonna pick is, who do you trust to put in there that actually has the role? Do you only bring outsiders?

I mean, he still did a great job with his policies. But you're going up against people that have been doing favors for each other for years and you're coming in You want to put a team who is on your side? Who would be on your side like who do you pick? Do you go and pick people that were former Bush people? Do you go and pick former Reagan people? That's a long time ago. Do you go after George? Well George doesn't like you do you go and put you know

And then the people that you bring in What are their motives? So when people talk about the motives of WMD and money being made, again, this goes to a Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld, some of these guys where they are and what their motives were to make money. Because obviously money was made when you see what their background was, with Haliburth and all these other things that they were sitting on. So let me ask this question from you. What are your thoughts on Lincoln Project? And what they're doing?

We can let this slide. That's what you're saying. Hold on, I need to go back and clarify something because when I said, you asked me about my personal legacy and I said I could care less, I want to make sure it doesn't bother me what the critics say. I faithfully and accurately reported

to the American people the information that the White House had. And so I know what I saidfully and accurately reported to the American people the information that the White House had. And so I know what I said and why I said it, it was because it was provided to me as accurate information. So I stated it as such. I don't want anybody to think when I say I don't care, I don't care about the consequences or the loss of lives, etc. I want to make sure people don't misinterpret that. I also believe that you do care about your legacy in general, though, no, yourself personally. My job was to be the president spokesman.

I reported to the president, and it's what he thinks about. It's what he cared about. I'm not even entouching you to 9-11. I'm just saying, Laurie Flesher, like your legacy, it does matter to you, though, no. You know, you build your legacy over different years. I'm very proud of everything I did in the government, including at the White House.

I'm proud of the communications company I've built. I love what I do. And so I have fun. And it's my bosses and my clients that I care about. I really am not the type that really worries about image, name, what do people say? How many Twitter followers do you have? That's never been what I take my motivation from and I never will. I know Pat once asked this question about Lincoln Project. Yeah, I saw that speech you gave at the Reagan library.

It's like an hour speech. I want to say how long ago was that by the way? Well, I've done a several there was this one my book just came Yes, okay. Yeah, that was July. There's a lot of questions we can ask you with that, but I'll be very specific on this one. You said that if you get into politics, if you truly believe in what you're doing, and if you follow your heart, your passion, you truly believe whether you're a Republican Democrat, libertarian, whatever, there's no more fulfilling job in the world. Yeah. Why do you say that? Because there's only one industry for beliefs other than religion and that's government. I mean how exciting is it? How influential? How powerful can it be to make decisions that can move worlds move the nation?

Thank James people's lives, you know, we were talking a little bit about Iran. I am so focused on the future of Iran and that nation was so many young people. And if the United States can use its power and its leverage to bring about change in Iran and throw out a theocracy that has been suppressing tens of millions of Persian people who are so Western oriented to begin with, what a powerful, peaceful change that'd be in the Middle East. You can't do that from Wall Street. You can't do that from any corner of the earth.

You do it in government. Government is where you can so many, make so many changes in life, not only in social issues, in economic issues, in examples that you set for children about what's right or what's wrong. And that's why I encourage young people, despite the polarization of today, if you believe, if you think global warming is going to melt the earth in 12 years, then get your butt to Washington and do something about it. If you think that taxes need to be cut, that capitalism needs to have an injection of

something to make a thought, get down to Washington and pass laws. This is what is exciting. Now, not everybody's like that. Many people want to go into different careers. Many people find the government before the BS. Fine. Don't go. But for those who want to make a difference, government's a fantastic deal. Do you think it'd be better? How do I position this question? Is it better for young people to get a real life, real job first and then get into politics? It's a mix. Or get into politics first, and then after you get into politics,

then you're gonna end up in the lobbying world and all that, and that has a lot of gray areas there. So, is there a better recipe for people? First, you know, for my example, I went right from college by accident into politics. I moved home to play baseball and then I got a job as a press secretary for a New York State Assemblyman who ran for Congress and he lost. But I got the bug, so I stayed in politics for 21 years.

And then I left Washington. I didn't want it to be a lobbyist and I have no political clients. I built a private sector company mostly in sports. Everybody has a different path, but the way you can have Washington be the most effective for the American people is have people who reflect America. That means yes, have a bunch of people who worked in business and then go to Washington, a bunch of people who worked in nonprofits and go to Washington, a bunch of people have a religious background and then go to Washington. And have people

who go to Washington right away as young people who are young and idealistic and believe it's a mix because America's a mix. So there's no one formula. You want something that looks like the country. I think what you're saying is not so much diversity, but diversity of thought, diversity of opinions. I'm a big believer in the latter and not the former, not diversity for diversity. Why do you think what Adams's trying to say, REC is running for mayor of Miami.

For the non-retirement, non-retirement. I think to everybody here. But let's go back to the wonderful question of what do you think about Lincoln Project? I think there are a bunch of charlatans who are making money. You really believe them. Yeah. Tell us how you really feel a little bit. Like you hold it back a little bit.

Even like the Schmidt who was the Cain's campaign manager. He's at the head of the sure tip of the spear. Sure. I mean Steve has had a transformation. He worked for George Bush too. He no longer as a Republican. He can't stand Republicans. He's responsible for Sarah Payland in many ways and he's always lived to regret that. So I think he's doing penance. Look, you know, their beliefs are genuine in that they can't stand Trump and they He's always lived to regret that. So I think he's doing penance. Look, you know, their beliefs are genuine in that they can't stand Trump

and they want to build something to fought Trump. But now they have built something to fight Republicans. But the organization itself was corrupt. It had terrible internal problems, personal problems, embarrassing problems. What, like what? Just funny. Are you serious?

I wanna hear about it. Well, one of their founders had real serious issues with his personal behavior and his personal life and the way he treated employees who were his subordinates. You don't know about Conway, who were you talking to? No, no. You don't know about this? Rick Wilson?

Well, I'm not gonna look. It's all public. I really don't follow Lincoln Project for a living, but they've had a series of embarrassing issues and issues involving real financial problems in their own organization. Let me just want to. I'm all for groups being contrary and for Democrats who take on Democrats, Republicans take on Republicans,

it's part of our mix. I just don't like that one group. So I bring this up. Okay, so maybe to me, I ask a different question. What do you think about Liz Cheney? I like Liz ideologically for being a conservative. I have no problems with her vote on impeachment. That's what she believed in. That's what she did. I do have problems with her serving on the 9-11 commission as 9-11 committee because Nancy Pelosi asked her to do it. As soon as Nancy Pelosi rejected Kevin McCarthy's Republican selections for the committee,

no Republican should have joined that committee. You mean you're saying 9-11? The January 6 committee. I'm sorry, January 6. Okay, got you, got you, got you, got you. You said 9-11. Yeah, I'm sorry, the January 6 committee. Got it, got you.

So again, to me, it's principled. If you want a vote to impeach Donald Trump, vote to impeached Donald Trump. That's a principled position and then deal with your constituents. But serving on that committee, Congress cannot work if Republicans can't appoint Republicans to committees and Democrats can't appoint Democrats. If all of it has to be done at the behest of the speaker, then there is no opposition party. Everything is controlled by the speaker.

She should not have let herself get put in that position. So she's fighting a personal vendetta against President Trump, which I understand, but I think she went too far. So the reason why brought up Lincoln Project is, we saw how they went after Trump, the videos they make, and it's constant. No problem. And by the way, credit to them, I think they influenced the 2020 election a little bit. I think they had some influence.

I don't know what percentage. I don't know what number. They definitely had an influence on what they did. They were very good marketers, what they made, what they did. The part that's confusing to me is they said they stood for conservative beliefs. Now they're going after the Santas. You know, did you see the, the, the, they go after all Republicans now. Yeah.

They are not conservative. Who's funding Lincoln Project, by the way? I don't know. Now, they were able to raise a tremendous amount of grassroots money, a tremendous amount of money from Democrats who viewed it as a bunch of Republicans, McCain, people going after Trump. So Democrats like that contrary in play and boy, where they well funded. Yeah, I'm trying to see if the similar names are behind the Lincoln Project raised a

whopping 39 million dollars from July through September, helping fuel anti-Trump and Blitz. Yeah, I'm curious in who's funding these guys. Is it, is it, there was a guy in Ohio, him and I would always debate. And he would say, Patrick, you don't understand, I'm a Republican. But Patrick, I'm like, listen, I'm an independent myself. I'm pro-capitalism.

I'm fiscally conservative. I'm about leave me alone, freedom. I have some libertarian tendencies, some independent tendencies, and physically, I'm, would you would consider me a Republican physically? Because I wanna be left alone economically. Let me do my part, I'll pay my taxes, I'll do my part. But Pat, I'm a Republican, but Pat, I'm a Republican.

And that's how he convinced people to kind of flip. So one day I say, Carl, you can fool a lot of people, but you can't fool me, man. Your strategy on how you're doing it, your full of shit is what you're doing. I say, I understand the power of what you're doing because people are listening to you say, well, let me tell you, as a Republican,

I'm embarrassed of my party. I'm embarrassed of my party. It's a very, very good tactic in strategy, okay? Because guess what CNN was to put on all the time? Anybody that says, I'm a Republican and I'm embarrassed on my party. So you got what's his name? A Denzinger. Adam Kenzinger. Adam Kenzinger. And some of these guys are going, I'm embarrassed. I'm embarrassed. All of these guys. Joe Walsh, our friend. Yeah, we had Joe Walsh here was a very friendly Time that we had him on the podcast, but are they at this point like non They're so irrelevant that no one's following because they're still getting some traction on Twitter when I see them

Are they irrelevant are they not gonna have any impact are they still effective? I think for those who are in the business who pay Attention and know about the Lincoln projects problems and issues, they're irrelevant. But if you've got enough tens of millions of dollars and you can put advertisements on the air, people can watch and that has influence. But I'll caution you, our system is so big. So you spent 10 million dollars on a campaign. Other people spend hundreds of millions of dollars. Mike Bloomberg was in the 20th century. When he ran the president was insane, 100 million dollars in on a campaign. Other people spend hundreds of millions of dollars from an award with you when you were in the president.

Right, right. A hundred million dollars in like a month. I have just seen so many examples of people using money thinking they can solve a problem. And the American people say, ah, I could care less about your money on voting my way. So money is a piece of politics, but principles and ideas are much more important.

Lincoln Project is one of many people who have their ore in the water spending money. I have a question regarding Lincoln Project because it's fascinating. We've talked about it a million times Pat, especially during 2020, but this, what do you think life is like in the Conway household? You got George Conway, you know, a constitutional lawyer, I want to say, one of the founders of the Lincoln's project, and then you have his wife, Kellyanne Conway, as unabashed, you know, Trump supporter, as it gets. Some might say that she's the reason he got elected in 2016 because she stood up to the

press. The daughter is making TikTok videos saying how much she hates the mom, and they, I don't even know if they have the other kids, but that household must be so combustible. You know, they say like what's harder to be married to, whether you're in her faith, in her politically, you know, in her religion, you know, black and white, you know, intermixed, interracial,

but interpolitics, especially these days, it's so divisive, That household has to be insane. How do you interpret all that? Yeah, I'm reluctant to put myself inside anybody's relationship. You don't know all the facts. I will say this when I worked at the White House and for anybody who works in the White House, I don't care what your party is. When you leave that difficult place where there's a lot of burdens put on you, you should

be able to come home to a loving family who supports you. And if they don't support your politics or your boss's politics, they should have enough love and respect for you to keep their mouths shut publicly. But that's not what they're doing though. That's what I'll say. Yeah, that's what anybody should do.

And I 100% agree with what you're saying. But fully, go ahead. but what would it be? I mean, I'm just thinking of you, okay? You're out there. You're a known person. You're a public figure. You've got money. You've got, okay, so imagine Jen,

who is fully supportive of you. It's the most supportive loyal, loving wife, it's amazing what they have. Imagine of you doing your thing, and you come home to Jen, and she's literally talking trash about you and your boss every single day and you've got kids and you're sitting down at the dinner table that's got to be so uncomfortable as a husband, as a wife.

You're asking me? Yes. I would never be married to that person. Just wouldn't work out because I asked 101 questions to us before we get engaged. I mean, that's yours on our second day I know you're here. You pass my back. I'm not I'm not playing that game I'm I'm not gonna tolerate that game at all in our household now having said that You can manage that with your marriage

But you you don't have that conversation when the kid is born and saying hey, you best have my back girls I'm not bringing you to the world. The kids like who the hell are you of course you chose to you know You guys chose to procreate. I'm gonna be whatever way I wanna be. Ronald Reagan's son is not a supporter of Ronald Reagan, you know, his biological son, now Michael Reagan. So how do you do that? Was your bad father, were they do a bad job?

The kids have a mind that they're on. So I'm less on the kid and more on the spouse. I think that's a problem. Yeah, of course. The kid is the kid. You embarrassed about it, you feel bad for them. And I don't even like to watch those clips. I'm so glad.

Did you see they can't have their household? It's a little bit... Well, there's a million stories of, you know, kids fighting with their parents. I mean, we can go on for days, years about that. But husband and wives on air politically, like saying exact opposite messaging. I've that's unheard of, by the way.

Kelly and Conway is one of the goats of her job. What that woman did, I don't know if anybody is as good as she is in what she did, not many people. She's on the list of the best ad, what she did with her job. If there's no Kelly and Conway, Trump doesn't win 2016. I agree with you. She's that much of a beast.

I don't know if you agree with me or not, or you disagree, but I think she's amazing at what she does. No, I think she provided President Trump, Canada Trump, an invaluable service. I think she was one of the calmer cooler heads at the White House in the early years when she was there. She's not part of the president's re-election in 2024 here.

She's more free agent now and an analyst on Fox News. I told her, I said, if you're going to, this is going to happen again. You've got to be here. Her now we're talking about this a few months ago at an event. But anyways, that's a different story. So I want to ask you about somebody who has a reputation of being a sweetheart

that people love this guy, just a very kind, loving personality. What are your thoughts on Dick Cheney? I liked Vice President Cheney. He was a crumbogen, a tough guy. But, you know, what people don't understand in my job at the White House is I worked for President Bush. I was Bush's spokesman and Bush was the boss. Training was a vice president. That outsider thought training is in control, training is in charge, which Bush always could care less about because again, the guy's a confident guy, he had a thick skin and that criticism was so wrong that it never bothered Bush.

So I looked at the vice president as one of many good advisors that Bush had whispering in his ear. Sometimes he was a little too truckulent. You know, I think with the CIA, what does truckulent mean? Across laymen's. A little too tough argumentative. Cremogen.

It's personality. You say it's Cremogen, I mean. Cremogen, yeah. Cremogen professionally It's personally. You say Cremogen, I mean. Cremogen, personally is a little trucked a month. But he did it because he believed. Nothing to do with money and nothing to do with Haliburton. It was because he believed. You don't believe that. You don't believe in either money. No, fully. No. First of all, he severed his ties to Haliburton. So literally, how could he make a profit off of anything that he did because Haliburton severed ties. He was no longer with them. So, whatever money Halliburton made or lost was immaterial to the vice president.

He didn't hold that footing to come. He was an ideologian. He was an ideologian. I think he had to divest. I'm sure everybody, I'm just president and vice president, I think, are not allowed to have any stock or mutual funds. But presidents are not allowed to have funds. Yeah, I think But presidents are not allowed to have a fund. Yeah, I think they all divest or it's blind trust.

It's probably a challenge. It's probably a blind trust. Yeah, it's a blind trust. But anyway, to the point, he was an ideologue and a very big believer in the old Neocon muscular foreign policy and that he was very much on the side of Get Rid of Saddam. What the CIA would tell you is if there was any interference they ever got from the White House, it was not from President Bush, not from President Bush's people, it was the Vice President and the Vice President's

people who put pressure on the CIA to conclude that there were ties between Saddam and Al Qaeda. That's an angle that the vice president particularly thought was true and he really wanted the CIA to run that down. President Bush and CIA would tell you this, always said to the CIA, just tell me what you know and he gave him no pressure one way or another. He said, just tell me what you know. Ari, for every ten times you spoke to President Bush, how many times did you talk to to Dick Cheney? Well, Cheney would be in a lot of the meetings. So Cheney would be sitting there, but as anybody from the White House will tell you, Cheney didn't talk much.

Bush did the talking. Bush's advisors did the talking. And then Cheney would get together with Bush once a week for their private lunch. And that's when Cheney would say to Bush, here's what I think. That was the Vice President's opportunity event to influence the president, which he did. But in the meetings and all these different meetings, well, Cheney didn't talk much. Did I guess what was their relationship, meaning Cheney's how many years older than George W. Bush? Yeah, but that didn't matter.

Doesn't 20 years. So it's got, I mean, well, a little bit maybe like, why? Maybe seniority, wisdom, I kind of, that, that means Joe Biden knows more than anybody else. Well, yeah, that's a whole nother conversation. But the knock on chaney was that he was this evil doer running the show. Would you agree to that? At least the knock on it. Yeah, oh, and I dealt with that all the time before 9-11, especially, I mean, the knock on the Bush administration was Chinese in charge. Right.

And it was always nonsense. What? Complete nonsense. Right. There's the reality, then there's optics. Yeah. But the press always has to have something to chew on. And so that's what they chewed on,

which was a meaningless thing to chew on. Got it. But you did say that he was the one that kind of wanted the CIA to chase down the... Yeah, I'll try to think about Al-Qaeda. Yeah, I think the CIA would tell you that. So what does that mean exactly? He kind of wanted to invade Iraq? Oh, that means...

Cheney definitely wanted to depose a dog. Oh, I got it. He thought it would promote world peace and would be in America's interest. It wasn't Cheney's decision though. It was Bush's decision. And how much part was Bush's decision. And how much part of Bush's decision

was influenced by the fact that his father went to war in Iraq, Desert Storm, Schwartzkopf, and he didn't get the job down, quote unquote, you don't think that played a little part of going after him? But yourself and George Bush's shoes. America's an attack. September 11th takes place. CIA says on September 11th after the attack, it's not a question of if it's a question

of when there will be a second wave. There will be a second wave. And that starts to create all the infrastructure and the decisions that Bush starts to make about how to fortify America and never let us be hit again. Bush's entire mentality is we got hit once. I will never let this country be hit again. Saddam had zero, nothing to do with September 11th. And I said that repeatedly from the podium.

Right. That's why we invaded Afghanistan. Not Iraq first. Correct. But again, put yourself in Bush's shoes. So Saddam had nothing to do with 9-11. But you are told there will be a second wave. And then you're told Saddam definitely has WMD. And Bush's mind set is I will never let this country be attacked again. So you can decide, all right, he's got biological and chemical weapons and there's nothing America can do about.

We'll just have to hope he never use of them or I believe in the doctrine of preemption and I'm gonna take Saddam out because he is WMD and That is the decision that George Bush ultimately made that people argue about for decades now whether it was right or wrong and I Repeatedly ever that said now it was based on false premises that he had WMD when he did not Have you read this at your points? Sure. Have you read it, Adam? Not sure.

I'm not sure. The book that President Bush wrote. No, I have not. Okay. He talks about that, I think, in the last chapter or second to the last chapter. He's actually a very good book to read. Straight up, it's a very good book to read. If you haven't read it or listen to it audible. It's a very very good book to read

He says, you know exactly what he's saying here did the president ever have any Did the conversation about nuclear attack come up or no nuclear towards them or no? It came out once in the fact that Dick Cheney went on I believe it was NBC Meet the press and he went too far and he said something on the lines that Saddam is developing or has developed nuclear capacities when he didn't. We did not have intelligence saying that Saddam had developed nuclear. He had biological and chemical and then he had to draw that back because the vice president

went too far. But it was inside the administration, we had enough to worry about biological and chemical if that was the conclusion. We didn't have to worry about them having nuclear. Now, one of the pieces that Colin Powell used at the United Nations turned out, also to be false information, that Saddam had sent, I think it was centrifuges, some metal tubes that were used for nuclear development, which caused alarm bells to go off, but we never concluded, or CIA never concluded, that's a downhidden nuclear.

I guess my question is more different. Okay, so if you go back and you look at, what do you think is a bigger attack? You look at a bigger event. You think Pearl Harbor or 9-11? I don't compare. I learned from a smart man once who lost two of his three children that you don't compare tragedies. But you would say both are pretty big, you know, tragic events that happen top, you know, in the top events that happen

in the history of America, fair enough. Absolutely. Of course. Do you think it was a right move on us to, I know FDR didn't do it, but Lyndon Johnson, not Johnson Truman ended up deciding to nuke Japan. You think that was the right move on us? Yes.

You think it was. Yes. Okay. I saved a million American laws. So that was a right move for us to Yes. You think it was. Yes. Okay. I have a million American laws. So that was a right move for us to make. When at what point do you think it would be a right move to do that again, if somebody does that to your country? What a great question. You know, the world has changed since World War Two, where everything was a gigantic land army, navy, known troop movements.

We're in a more stealthy world now, of terrorism. You know, I don't think that right response, if a terrorist detonated a dirty bomb in New York City this afternoon, who are you supposed to nuke? There's no one to nuke. You have to do it through special forces. You have to do it through these behind the scenes, clandestine operations. If Russia today launched a series of ICBM missiles at the United States, would we have to respond in kind?

Yes, because we know who it is, the source. And because if you ever say no we won't, then you're inviting the attack. If you want the turns to work, you better mean it. So do you think like right now, hey, all I'm asking for is for NATO to back off of Ukraine and stop inviting them. NATO is opening the doors for Ukraine to join NATO.

And that's a way of NATO saying, yeah, Putin, we thought you were strong. You really not. If a small little place like Ukraine is able to hang with you, and you haven't done anything yet, yeah, we are letting Ukraine consider them joining NATO. What do you have to say about that? So then he goes and sits there as a man running a country called Russia with a rich history of animosity towards one country in the world, which is America because

philosophically, we're on complete opposite ends at least at one point before Ronald Reagan comes up and says, tear down the wall, et cetera, et cetera, Gorbachev. Okay, great. Do you think Putin's at a point where it's a turning point where he's got to make a decision? You think he's sitting there or no, he's not there and he's going to just sit there and negotiate and figure out a way to do this and lose this and allow Ukraine to join NATO. I cannot put myself in Putin's head.

I was hoping you could do that. Yeah, I'm going to go. I don't know what his calculations are, what his breaking point is. I think it's amazing, the resistance of the Ukrainians. I heard Mike Pompeo, the former secretary of state, say the other day, that it doesn't surprise him that Russia hasn't been able to pull this off. He said their ability, the ability of any nation to move hundreds of thousands of forces

and have supply chain and vehicles that work, he said that's a daunting task. It's so hard to pull off that he said, it doesn't surprise me, Russia couldn't do it. I think Russia is now being seen for what it is, which is an absolute overrated military power. They still have nuclear weapons. So as long as those nuclear weapons can fly, there's a danger, and we have to take it seriously. But the ability to pull off a significant land invasion is really, really hard unless you drill all the time, train all the time, prep all the time, which the United States does. We're one of the few who can do it. Russia's hollow.

You know what? By the way, would you agree that most people thought Russia would have destroyed Ukraine? Yes. Most people were not like if it's like a football game like oh they're gonna crush them and I'm like oh my god, what the hell happened here? This was not supposed to, you know, the Patriots were supposed to beat the Giants but they came back and this is very weird. Is it really Ukraine though?

Or did they kind of, to use your sports analogy? They've got a couple all stars on the sidelines that you're putting in. Right. It's like a last minute guy you pull in. But I guess, okay, so Shammati, the day's talking to Lex, I think. He's talking to Lex, he's on his podcast, and the conversation was about America, with the interest rates, and what we're doing, and Powell, and increasing the rates, we can't

afford a war right now, because money is so expensive for us right now that we couldn't finance a war right now because money is so expensive for us right now that we couldn't finance a war right now. We're, us, we're not ready for something like that. How much of that is true? Do you think if something did happen in America needed a finance a war, it wouldn't be, they would still do it versus how much you think rates and a person like Powell, he called them the most powerful man in the world because him increasing the rate is preventing America from being on attack mode

where you have to kind of take the step back. Do you agree with them? War should never ever be about whether we can or cannot afford it. War should only be about, do we have no choice but to fight it? And if you have no choice but to fight it, then you're going to fund it. So you just have to get the sequence right and it has nothing to do with money. But you know, to Donald Trump's credit, Trump's right when he says he was the one president of the recent note who's kept us out of wars.

He ended wars. You know, he gets the credit for destroying ISIS. Other leaders in the Middle East share in that credit as well. But Trump stepped up and empowered the military and sent the signal to the Arab Middle East. Fight these suckers. Take them out. I'm going to have your back as opposed to President Obama who said, you know, I don't

want we can't attack them. And Trump got it right. And then Trump did keep us out of wars. And I also believe that with the withdrawal from Afghanistan, if Trump were president, the Taliban would not have gotten away with what they did and Kabul would not have fallen. I think Trump's conditions based withdrawal was valid. And I think the Taliban were scared to death at Donald Trump

because he's irrational. People don't know what moves he's gonna make next. He took out Salamani in Iran and so people thought, don't mess with Trump. Nobody thought that about Biden. If you don't find Biden intimidating, the most popular president of all time, 81 million votes. You, that's like a Guinness Book of World record, but going back to Trump. So, questions about, obviously Trump announces he's running for office.

Okay, yesterday, hey, they're going after his taxes and they're gonna get this and they're gonna get that and they're trying to figure out a different way to eliminate him from running. During dinner last night, these are all successful business folks and everybody has different opinion. Well, I hope they are able to get him on taxes because if they do, he can't run. I don't want them to run.

And well, if he wins, he wins. You got a lot of them around. You know, he's the worst thing that ever happened. Well, he had a economy was good when he was doing this. Well, it's not fair what they did to him. No, he deserved everything. He's the shadiest. He's the line.

So it's you're watching everybody on where they're on. This is what they're saying at dinner last night. It was so interesting. And they were open about it like the way they were talking. Like these are people you know some of these names. Yeah, these are names. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, not at all.

Well, of course, the Democrats, 100% Wall Street types of. The known as Republicans. There was, there was, there was, there were, nobody was independent. Everybody was left or right is what they were. Okay, it was very crossed, which was great. It made dinner exciting because there was

little bit of a back and forth. So we know Trump is running. Are you, and the mindset that the Santos for sure is gonna be running? Nothing's for sure in this business, right? But it sure seems like he is. And I hope he does. You think anybody else will run?

Or is there anybody you'd like to see run? Oh, yeah, there'll be a small bunch of them nowhere near like 16 when we had 17 candidates or something like that. But I think there's gonna be eight or nine, at least at the beginning. I think a couple of them are gonna be just Chris Christie and Larry Hogan.

I think the government or former governor of Jersey and the current governor of Maryland I don't think they have a chance. You've got to be a real conservative populist candidate to be successful with today's Republican party But I think it'll be a small smattering the issue for Trump is if it's one or two who are conservative populist outsider candidates running against him He could lose if it's three four or five, they split the vote in Trump wins. Who's your dark horse? Meaning everyone's talking about Trump, DeSantis, you know, even Mike Pence shows up,

and you didn't give any validity, Tom Peo. Tom Peo's thinking about it, Nikki Haley is thinking about it, when it surprised me if there's some other governor who comes out of the woodwork who's kind of laying low now, who moves in later. But you know, DeSantis is the flavor of the month legitimately so I think he's a great decision maker I love the way he just confronts big things and makes fundamental decisions. I think his vulnerability especially in Iowa

New Hampshire is going to be he's not a retail politician He's not a enjoyable laughable backslap and kind of Paul. And in New Hampshire, that's really important to Iowa to some extent. Because those are the initial primaries in caucuses hanging in the Republican party. Correct. Those are the first two. And as they say in New Hampshire, somebody asked who are you supporting? And the resident of New Hampshire said,

how should I know? I've only met the candidate three times. They take it seriously as retail politics there and most candidates camp out. When you say retail politics, the old hey shaking hands, kissing babies, hey, hey, I'm beer with that guy. That old thing. Spending time in meetings and people's living rooms. Not everything is a giant ballroom, not everything is a rally in New Hampshire. They want that local touch. That's not the synthesis strength. So look, what I love about where we are today, and I'm open-minded on Donald Trump. There's a lot about Donald Trump, I object to, especially in terms of his personality.

There's a lot I admire about his policies. But my position personally, and as a Fox News analyst, is I like being a consumer, make these guys compete. And then me as a consumer, I'll tell you what I'm going to do at the end of the day. I want to watch it, see how it plays out, and decide who's the strongest and who's the best. You know, I think the issue for Donald Trump

is he made himself too hot to handle. Has he just made everybody start to realize, people have realized it before, but now say it publicly, that do we really need all these controversies? Do we need all the baggage that comes with what Donald Trump does and the way he does it? Yes, he was great on the economy. Yes, he was great on foreign policy. Yes, he was great for achieving peace in the Middle East. Yes, he was great for Israel. A lot of issues which are important to me, but the question is, has he made himself so hot

to handle that none of that matters? Can you have somebody who's equally good as a decision-maker, equally good on policy, who just doesn't go too far? And can actually attract independence and Democrats? That's what I want to see play out in the primary. So you're not sure yet. Do you think both of them have a chance of winning the whole thing? Like if Trump becomes a Republican nominee or the census

become Republican nominee, do you think both of them have a chance of winning the whole thing? At this early stage, I would say somebody other than Trump has a better shot at winning the whole thing. Because Democrats and Independents, just I see a very difficult road getting them to support Donald Trump. And one of the biggest factors in the upcoming primary is going to be if all the polls start to show, let's just say to Santis.

To Santis is beating Biden. Santis is beating Harris by five points. And Trump is only beating them by one. That is going to be a shocking message to Republican primary voters who say, I'm not taking a chance. I do not want somebody who could lose this thing. So keep your eye on those head-to-head polls as they start to emerge in early 2023. You just still trust polls? You just said a month ago 238 seats and we're going to win Senate and we're going to have the house and

it's going to be a red wave and and First of all you ain't the only one. I think 99% of people everybody got wrong on what it was You think it was really the Roe v. Way that was the biggest driver. What would you think was the biggest driver last minute? two one is the reason that a party gets its clock cleaned in its first midterm election It's the referendum on the current president. Right. In 2022, it was a referendum on Joe Trump. It was a referendum on two presidents.

If it had only been a referendum on Joe Biden, Republicans would have had the 2530 seats in the House of the House of the House of the Senate. But Donald Trump never left the stage. He's still hovered. So independent voters, especially instead of breaking overwhelm against Joe Biden, they went split right down the middle. Democrats carried him by two percentage points. Yeah. That was the biggest factor of all. Then Roe v. Wade did play a role into it as well. That helped motivate a lot of Democrat turnout. Don't you think the whole we've gotta save democracy, these election deniers,

like that, don't you think that was also a major factor? But that ties into the whole Trump stain on the field. That was a factor that motivated high Democrat turnout. And the turnout in the midterm was quite high. Typically, there's a massive drop off between a presidential year and a midterm. This drop off was not near as high or as much as a historical dropout.

But isn't that all because since 2016, every election has been record turnout because whether you like him or not, Trump made you pay attention to politics. Yes. You know, Obama, whether you liked him or not, like, yeah, okay, cool guy, whatever. He didn't like, it wasn't must see TV. Trump must see TV. Is it a big Trump kind of? I don't know if you know that or not.

Massive. But he, the, what I will give him credit for is, you know, he woke a lot of people up. Whether you like him or, you know, don't like him, support him or do not support him, this record turnout is all due to him for the last eight years, right?

I agree. Oh, I agree. I mean, 16 broke all the records and then 20 broke all the records. And now 22 for midterms. What do you think? 2018 had a higher turnout than 22. Okay. But that was the first year of Trump. That was Trump's midterm. Well, he got crushed. It was way to way. It's about the midterm. And this is why this whole notion or democracy is in trouble. Their democracy is freaking thriving. That's why people are turning out so much, whether you love Trump or you hate Trump, or democracy functions, it works.

I can make the case that there's a reason for low turnouts because people are happy. When things are good and calm, you don't have to turn out. All of a sudden, people see a threat to America, Donald Trump, or I love Donald Trump. So we have massive turnout. That's a healthy thriving democracy. And what settled it?

The will of the people. That's what makes a democracy work. Let me ask a different question here. Let's change it up a little bit. You know how sometimes you like you watch certain people, you're like, you know, I wish this guy would have done XYZ. I wish this guy would have ran a business.

I wish that guy would have ran, I wish this guy would have ran. Is there anybody that you looked at, you said, this guy, I wish he would have ran for president. He would have made one hell of a president. Is there anybody that you've said that to or you've thought about, because this is the industry been a part of.

Yeah, I mean, I've occasionally had thoughts about that with Peyton Manning. Uh-huh. Until he declares his candidacy and then the press will tear him up. Are you being serious? No, I do think about outsiders. I do.

That's what I'm asking you. I think this is why I've always been open-minded about Donald Trump despite the fact that I work for establishment figures. I've always just looked at things much bigger. I love it figure. But the problem is, as soon as you enter the England vote, Republicans don't get it anyway.

As soon as you enter the fray, as soon as you enter the campaign, you get torn up. So who's got the ability, who's got the fixant to handle that? And most athletes don't. You know, it's really hard. Look at a Herschel Walker in Georgia. You most athletes don't. You know, it's really hard. Look at a herchal walker in Georgia. He could still win though. Yeah, it's tough. He could still win. That's going to be a tough race. But you also hear like the names like Tom

Hanks and the rock and Oprah, Michelle Obama. Yeah, and part of it's the info, infotainment side of politics. You know, I do like to think about that. but like I said again, as soon as you enter the ring, boy, you're gonna find out what you got, and you're gonna find out if you have thin skin or thick skin. Anybody else outside of Manic, like anybody for you to say that this guy's got thick skin, he could do it, because it's funny how you took it as, it's not just communication, it's not just Whiti,

it's not just being funny, or even having good policies, you have to have thick skin. Who is there to, you'd say, this guy, this guy can manage all of it. Is there anyone? Yeah. There's nobody I would put my finger on right now. Okay. I think what I love about American politics

is somebody emerges off the bench and becomes a star. And we don't know who that is. And we're not supposed to. We don't need to know who the big name of 2023 is yet. It's up to them to prove it to the American people. And so when I hear the Democrats say they have no bench after Biden, I always come, that's all.

You got a deep bench. It's just that nobody knows their names yet. They will emerge. You're the same thing for the Republicans. You think New Sims run it? He says he's not now. He said he's not yeah you can't believe it i think there's a silver lining for republicans in the

fact that we underperformed in twenty twenty two and that's if republicans have taken the house by big numbers taken the senate democrats would have risen up and said to buy them we are not placing our future in a eighty two year old guys a nation goes into recession who's really unpopular and just lost the house and senate. So now the Democrats are going to get stuck with Joe Biden. They're going to have an 82 year old nominee in 2024. And I think that's a huge opportunity for whoever the Republican can. It is to clean the guy's clock. I just don't see the American people going for an 82 to 86 year old second term president.

No, either do I follow up on Pat, just because you've been around presidents, obviously George W. Bush, the historian John Meacham, be familiar with him, they, I think they believe they asked him, well, if there's one characteristic that a president can have above all, what would it be that makes him a good president? And I believe his answer was measured, gotta be measured, right? Almost like stoicism, okay. You know, Pat referenced being charismatic and being energetic and you talked about,

you know, living room politics. What was the term you used? You know, when you can, like, when you're doing no hamster, when you call it, Oh, retail politics politics politics. I was thinking, cramudge in the tube,

no, not a truckulent. What word did I use? There's a lot of words that we're trying to define over here. I was thinking, cramogen, vatupalib, truckulent, what words did I get? There's a lot of words that we're trying to define over here. I'm googling a lot of things. But if you could give your assessment, if there was one word that would make a good president, you said, you know, not thin skin, like all these words we're using,

what word would you use? Moral. A lot happens from moral strength and moral authority. That's how you inspire people. People think you're a good person doing things for good reasons. They will follow you. They'll disagree with you on some issues, but they'll say he knows more than I do. I hope he turns out right. If people think you're immoral, if you do things for wrong reasons, you can never get that back. So, moral. Measured, I like that, but measured is internal.

Measured is what you do when you've got the CIA telling you one thing and you've got somebody else telling you another or you've got one expert saying, 2008 market crash that you've got it intervened. Another expert saying to you, don't intervene. Whatever you do, let this figure itself out. That's where president has to be measured. Listen to both sides, ask good questions and come up with an answer. But measured is not how you sell policies.

You sell policy through charisma and a compelling approach. Can I give you a little bit of pushback? Yeah. You know, sort of the, the, the, the, the, the economy between Trump versus Biden was that moral argument. Well, you know, Biden's a nice guy, you know, he's, at least he's a good guy. He's not, he's not Trump, who's this evil character.

He's a good guy, you know, that whole thing. So maybe that was the moral versus immoral equation. I don't think, I don't think, I think people made a judgment about Trump's equation. I don't think, I don't think, I think people made a judgment about Trump's morality. I don't think Joe Biden inspired people on the basis of morality. I think for some people, particularly the media who fell for it,

they just thought Biden was a good guy, you know, that kind of. Got some saying, exactly. But that's not moral. That's a different measure. I'm not sure about Biden's morality. I think there's a lot we don't know, because I do think he lied about what he knew about his son's business dealings.

A whole series of texts and emails and photos have come out that show Joe Biden lied about that. He's been contradicted by evidence. So when I see Joe Biden saying about Mitt Romney that Mitt Romney and Republicans want to put y'all back in chains as he said to a black audience in 2012. I do question Joe Biden's morality. Joe Biden has a history of playing on America's racial divisions. Jim Crow 2.0 puts y'all back in chains semi-fascists. Joe Biden loves to play in that arena for the purpose of dividing American people in drawing support

to the Democratic Party. But when he says that Mitt Romney and Republicans want to return this country to slavery, you're gonna tell me that's a moral statement, that's a moral man, that's a man playing some of the lowest politics around racial lines. Identity politics, vicious game. Thank you for that response. What's this what's this right here? 2018, son, I love you more than you'll ever know. But you got to get your things together. You need help. Joe Biden, voice, multi-hunter Biden is the one

for Go-la-Lor, Go-la-Lor, Go-la-Lor. In a message, the former rising state, I call to tell you I love you. I love you more than the whole world pal. You got to get some help. I know you don't know what to do. I don't either. Well, that's not the real one. You got to get some help. I know you don't know what to do. I don't either.

Well, that's not the real one. No, the one I was looking for is the one where he says, hey man, I think you're clear. Right. The new release story. Exactly. The time is releasing at least. I think you're clear, et cetera, et cetera.

What do you think about what the musk is about to do here? What all the stuff is releasing with Twitter? You know, I love it. On the other hand, who cares about Twitter? And why are we also hung up on this stuff? You know, if Twitter went the way I'd be fine. I like Twitter, I tweet. That's a great way to get your message out, et cetera.

But life is bigger than that. And that's all always good. Oh, oh, Ari, flash it. I think you just poked the bear a little bit. Pat is very big on Twitter right now. Oh, no, no, I'm curious to know what he thinks about it. You know, for me, my thought is for a guy to buy Twitter that is officially not running you the same way that YouTube Googles. Well that's why I began this by saying I love it because he's

a contrary and voice. The fact that now he's being criticized is he's looking like a Republican running Twitter. How many freaking Democrat billionaires run media outlets as soon as that happens you take over the washington post you take over you run the near time local newspapers as long as your democrat or a little it's perfectly acceptable as the way it should be but if you're a republican you cannot run a media outlet if you're a republican according to the media jason but uh... the bolt elam was in super political on twitter until bernie centers a little bit more started attacking for no reason then others followed of all the dues they would have could have attacked

they chose the guy most capable of helping governments of problems strong uh... strength choice several other major democratic politicians attack me too all around the same time it was coordinated outside a party leadership and independence like a mansion they are all essentially they are essentially actors on the political stage not directors or scrip writers do you agree with them yes look i think Elon Musk is the best counterpuncher in america Elon Musk knows how to fight back and he doesn't go too far and he's very witty and good at it. Donald Trump could learn a few lessons from that.

Donald Trump, when he counter punches off and ends up hitting himself in the chin, and it's own chin. So there's a lot about Elon Musk, I like. But again, my bigger point here is, I'm gonna continue to tweet as long as Twitter exists. I'll continue to use that as a forum to get my message out, but there's life

is so much bigger than social media. All right, I think you're being a little bit naive. And, you know, of course, there's life more than social media. But when you're trying to have a voice without people silencing you, you kind of need other options. And I like what happened yesterday with Tim Cook

and Elon Musk getting to, and I think Elon Musk even responded to Tim Cook. What, or he said something about about he was at the Apple headquarters And he tweeted about that and then even yesterday when they interviewed Sam Bankman freed at New York Times and at the same event read Hastings was interviewed and they said hey, so what do you think about Elon Musk? I think he is the biggest genius genius, creative in the world. He says, he has a different style of leading.

I have a different style of leading, but I think he's a genius. I think he's good. I think we have to be a little bit more patient. I was very surprised for Reed Hastings to say that. And Reed Hastings, I think, gave $3 million to Newsom or somebody, and he's a major contributor to the left himself.

So for him to say those words about Elon was great to see. And our Tim Cook's position, where they're not planning on taking Twitter off Apple's app, all the other stuff. It's great to see. I think you need opposition. That's not what I'm saying. I think we need opposition.

Very simple. And totally agree with that. That's what I wanted. But I guess if I were to give advice to a president, I would tell the president, don't tweet and don't look at Twitter. Did you see what Trump said yesterday? He said he had no plans of coming back to Twitter.

He's gonna miss the answer. So you think that's the right thing? That's a financial move. Because he has no choice. Because it's a financial issue. This is a financial issue. Yeah, yeah. What I said, I said I could.

Go ahead. Can I ask one follow up about media in general? Back to that Reagan speech you gave a few months to go about your book. And essentially, I said, I go ahead. And I just want to follow up about media in general. Back to that Reagan speech you gave a few months ago about your book. And essentially that's what this is about. You talked about media bias, and they're no longer journalists. They're more activists.

And you gave the analogy of, in the White House press briefing room, there's for every 12 Democrats, there's one Republican, this kind of stuff. I admit it, I used to only watch MSNBC and see it. And I would watch Fox Business. We need to fix it. I'm being fixed, I've been neutered. But we talk about this all time by getting a mixed media diet, right? Like, if you watch CNN, watch Fox a little bit and contrarian views, different viewpoints and don't just listen to the

mainstream media, watch podcasts and watch this and like fully, fully consumed. You know, I like watching this, uh, looking at this all-size media bias chart, you familiar with this topic, you can pull that up. What media outlets, I think we could all fairly state that CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, they're on the left. No doubt. Fox, Newsmax, OAN, you know, daily wire even, they're on the right. We all know this. Where do you find your center these days?

Who do you think is really playing the center actually being the old school Walter Cronkite? Just give me the news. Nobody. Who do you trust these days? Let me put news. Nobody. Who do you trust these days? Let me put this way. I think the best show on the air of anybody is Fox News six o'clock with Brett Bear. But Bear is a beast.

That is an old-fashioned solid news show. There are reporters who go from the White House long or the Treasury Department or LA, they're playing it right down the middle and giving you the news straight. And it's an hour long as opposed to the networks, which are 30 minutes long. So that's to me the most objective best show on the air.

Of course, Fox at night was Sean and Laura, et cetera. That's opinion TV. But, you know, what I do, and this is thanks to Twitter and large part, I follow reporters left and right. And so I'm constantly getting delusged with this view, with that view, this news, that news. But I also know how to read a story in the New York Times

and see the bias right away. And I barely read the New York Times anymore. There's some things I'll read. But you're a professional, most average Americans, they don't know, they're not in depth. You know, all right, is this a bias report? Is it not? I don't know. They're just, they're all the time from people. Where can I go to? Is it not? I don't know. They're just,

I hear it all the time from people. Where can I go to get the new straight? Right. I don't have enough time. And you know, somebody like me, I'm a news consumer. So I spend time doing this stuff. I watch CNN in the morning. I watch Fox later in the day.

It's literally your life and your business. But the average working American, they're working nine to five. They got bills to pay. They're living paycheck to paycheck. They're just like, all right, what's going on today? Let me watch the news for a half hour. Right.

And they put on the TV or they read a article or whatever, and that's what they got. And my complaint, and this is one of the reasons I wrote my book, is too many mainstream media reporters, especially in the era of Trump, turn themselves into anti-Trump activists. That's what they thought journalism was about, was getting rid of Donald Trump instead of reporting it straight, fair, to the middle about Donald Trump and critics of Donald Trump. Sorry, what can be done about that? You know what I wrote in my book is that I really hope that conservatives go into journalism schools and that journalism schools have to really attract conservative thought. It goes back to your point about diversity. It's not about the chromosomes or the makeup of a class or what skin somebody has. It's about diversity of thought

How many people own guns who go to journalism school? How many people who pray every day go to journalism school? Yeah, journalism schools just don't represent the breadth and depth of America, which means newsrooms don't So I don't think it'll ever fix itself until the media legitimately and intellectually and happily welcomes conservatives into their ranks. But they don't seem to want to do it because those people are alien.

Look at what they're doing at Elon Musk. You cannot own Twitter if you're a known Republican. One more follow up. What percentage of journalists, writers, contributors, whatever are college educated Democrats? Yeah. It's a big theme of my book. That fundamental flaw of journalism today is its college-educated Democrats writing for

fellow college-educated Democrats. I cite a poll that showed if you're a Democrat with a high school diploma, the press doesn't understand you, you think. Independence, high school diploma, or college degree, the press doesn't understand you. For all Republicans, you think the press doesn't understand. The only group of Americans who said to the Gallup Organization that they think that the press understands their life are college-educated Democrats.

The press is now in a cocoon. They have driven themselves into this little small narrow ideological cul-de-sac that they know how to go round in the cul-de-sac, but they don't understand America. Do they recognize that, though? No. No, because they're too like-minded. They're newsrooms, they're management.

Everybody's cut from the same cloth, and then they think there's something wrong with their customers. It's the only business I know that's losing customers, losing money, and instead of saying, what's wrong with us, they say, what's wrong with their customers? And then they continue to lose customers, of course.

You brought up such a good point. Such a good point. You said, someone asked you a question. I said that Reagan. They said like well You know if there's so much money in the media They you know they just get they got to make their money and you said well because that's because they're not relying on Corporate advertisers as much anymore and it's a subscription based model and you gave the metaphor the story of One time the New York Times printed a favorable story about Donald Trump and their subscribers like what the are you doing and we're going to unsubscribe I think they lost their most subscribers ever the next day and they changed

the headline on the story of nature. So if you're if you're relying on subscribers, you're going to be just relied to their opinions and their emotions rather than actual advertisers that want to make money. That's it. Over and over what's happened to the print press. It's happened on TV too because people have sorted themselves. Conservatives tend to watch the stuff that reinforces their views, liberals watch the stuff that tends to reinforce their views.

So you don't want to piss off your readers or your viewers. Your base. Right. But this is also what we haven't seen yet. And I think it's going to take a decade or maybe even two to see is the power of podcasts. I think it's going to be going in a complete different direction the next decade or two where a lot of these guys, you think people are getting numbers right now. We haven't even seen people have 100 million subscriber channels yet. Wait till people have 100 million subscriber channel. And they're doing a clip, every clip they're doing, they're getting 14 million views. 18 million views. You lose the game.

So this race of 10 to 20 years, it's gonna be a very, media is gonna be a very, very different game than X10 to 20 years. And they're scared shitless. They have to make the right adjustments. going to be a very, very different game than X10 to 20 years. And they're scared shitless. They have to make the right adjustments. They have to understand how to be straight up. I think one thing I'm most excited about with Twitter is he lost $750 million of advertising per year

because 50% of the top 100 advertisers dropped off. That's a big number. And to replace that $750 million, all he needs is 7.7 million people out of his, you know, 250 million active followers to pay $8 a month. If 7.7 million people on Twitter pay $8 a month, he no longer needs to $750 million that are advertisers. I'm willing to say, if 30 million people pay eight bucks a month on Twitter, it's game over. He doesn't have to bow down to big pharma.

He doesn't have to bow down to nobody. He becomes the biggest threat in everybody's business. Big pharma, one of these big advertisers are worried the fact that they may not need their money. Imagine you have money to pay to companies and they're like, yeah, we don't want your money. It's like, what do you mean you don't want my money? I've been able to buy you for a long time with your opinions because I can't do it anymore. No, we don't want your money. Oh my God, it's like, yeah, we don't want your money. It's like, what do you mean you don't want my money? I've been able to buy you for a long time with your opinions because I can't do it anymore.

No, we don't want your money. Oh my God, it's like, you know, when a 22-year-old girl is like, oh, look, I can't get anything. I want my money. It looks honest and it's like, hey, it's kind of changed as well. That doesn't work anymore. I actually have to have some substance. These big, far more companies are gonna be sitting there

saying, not just big far more. A lot of these other advertisers saying, man, we are no longer attractive the way we used to be 10 years ago. Games about to change, my opinion, folks. If you're watching this, we're going to put the link below to Ari's book that just came out in July, called Deception, Snobbery, and Bias. Let's make sure we put it in the chat as well as in the description for you to be able to

order this book and obviously based on what he said he's a diehard fan of Twitter. We'll put the one on Twitter as well. Send a message to him. Ari, appreciate you for coming out. This was fantastic. Really enjoy talking to you and hopefully we'll do another one as the election gets a little closer. Now you guys are great and you're right about the future and podcasts. They are changing the communications business. Yeah. Well, with that being said, please subscribe to the PBD podcast guys. Subscribe to value team and subscribe to Ari Flasher's channel at Ari Flasher on Twitter.

There it is. Okay. That's a great channel. Before it goes away. Later on today, we have, we have What do we have? We have shows later on today. Well Andrew Sholtz on a podcast later on today. Take everybody. Bye. Bye. Bye.