Shawn Ryan Show - #271 Ro Khanna - The Internal Failures Undermining America’s Institutions
Episode Date: January 15, 2026Ro Khanna is the U.S. Representative for California's 17th Congressional District (Silicon Valley) since 2017, serving his fifth term as a Democrat. Born to Indian immigrant parents, Khanna graduated ...Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in economics from the University of Chicago and earned a J.D. from Yale Law School. He taught economics at Stanford, worked in the Obama administration on commerce and manufacturing, and authored key provisions of the CHIPS and Science Act to boost U.S. tech manufacturing. A leader on climate, labor rights (supporting the PRO Act), and digital privacy, Khanna refuses PAC and lobbyist contributions and has championed bipartisan efforts like the Epstein Files Transparency Act (2025) for releasing sealed documents. In late 2025, he faced Silicon Valley backlash for supporting a proposed wealth tax on billionaires to fund healthcare amid Medicaid cuts. Khanna advocates for progressive economic patriotism, reducing inequality, and ethical tech governance while working across the aisle on national security and innovation. Married to Ritu Ahuja Khanna, with two children, he resides in Fremont. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: Ready to give your liver the support it deserves? Head to https://dosedaily.co/SRS or enter SRS to get 35% off your first subscription. Receive 30% off your first subscription order at https://armra.com/SRS or enter code SRS at checkout. Head to https://factormeals.com/srs50off and use code srs50off to get 50% off your first Factor box plus free breakfast for 1 year (new customers only, with qualifying subscription purchase). Take care of your skin like you take care of your gear—visit https://CalderaLab.com/SRS and use code SRS for 20% off your first order. If you’re serious about selling to the Department of War, go to https://SBIRAdvisors.com and mention Shawn Ryan for your first month free. Ro Khanna Links: Website - https://khanna.house.gov Campaign Site - https://www.rokhanna.com X - https://x.com/RoKhanna FB - https://www.facebook.com/RepRoKhanna IG - https://www.instagram.com/rokhannausa Roblox Petition - https://act.rokhanna.com/a/save-roblox-petition Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Ro Khanna, welcome to the show.
Thank you. You got quite the studio.
You know, I've done a lot of these.
I haven't ever seen a studio with liquor, guns,
time from your time in Afghanistan, Iraq.
It's worth coming here just to see the studio.
Well, thank you. If you get thirsty, we've got plenty of booze here.
I don't drink, but it looks pretty cool.
You got a great collection.
Thank you.
But, man, this is...
So, tried to get you and Thomas Massey.
on at the same time, but he couldn't make it.
But I just want to say that what you guys are doing,
trying to bring disclosure or transparency
to the Epstein files and what the hell has been going on
with all that, I mean, thank you for doing that.
Well, thank you for your voice,
because you've been talking about this early on,
and it's why I wanted to come down here.
And it's the survivors.
I mean, you know, people don't get how bad this stuff was.
And of course, Thomas has been a key partner.
But you have over 1,200 women, many of them from working class backgrounds.
A lot of them, by the way, didn't have a father.
Like, they were purposely targeted because they were vulnerable.
Epstein creates a rape island where basically rich and powerful people go down there,
either to abuse or sexually exploit these young girls,
or to watch in parties as 13 and 14-year-olds are paraded around
and they're drinking booze and laughing.
And then you have people trafficking, these girls,
even when they were underage or 1920,
being trafficked to other rich and powerful folks.
They call the FBI, the FBI says,
we're not going to do anything.
The FBI says, what the fuck does the FBI do?
What do they do?
So I'm sorry, I'm going to cut you off. I've been covering this topic for a long time. I started this with Ryan Montgomery about two years ago.
I know you did. Then I brought on Tim Tebow. We're bringing on your buddy Schlep who's going after Roblox. I know you're the first and only congressman to actually speak out against Roblox, at least according to Schlep's attorney.
Yeah. And I just interviewed Elizabeth Phillips. Are you familiar with this?
Camp Canacook? I'm not. It's biggest Christian camp in the fucking world. Yeah. And they are,
they, they, I brought Elizabeth Phillips on and she talks about how they've been molesting
thousands of kids for years and putting them under NDA after a settlement so that they can never,
as a kid, so that they can never come out and talk about their sexual abuse at fucking Camp Canacook.
It's sick. You know, and now we have, I mean, I've fucking voted for this shit. I mean, I've fucking voted for this
shit. I voted to get these damn files released, and it's like a total 180 just happened.
Well, I don't know if you had the president on or the vice president on your show, but they
had both of them on. They campaigned on this, right? And so when Massey and I originally
did the bill, we thought, okay, Trump should be for this, because he campaigned, he said,
look, we're going to release the files. Here's the truth of the matter. No one cared about this issue
since the 1990s.
It's not like a Donald Trump thing.
Biden, we didn't release the files under Biden.
This thing was going on since the 2000s.
In 1996, Maria launched a complaint
with the FBI,
and she was told,
we're not going to do anything.
By the way, you talked to some of the other survivors.
They were told, don't talk to the New York police.
Epstein is too connected.
For 30 years until some of the documents
just came out because of Massey and my bill,
Maria was called a liar by everyone in power and said,
oh, she never filed a complaint with the FBI.
So when Trump said he wants to release the files, he was right.
When he said that the system is corrupt,
protecting rich and powerful people, he was right.
And we gave him the benefit of the doubt.
Then Pam Bondi comes and says,
oh, there's no more files.
I mean, come on.
That's when Massey and I do this bill.
And we initially thought maybe Trump would support it
because his own attorney general is betraying his promise.
And what has been disappointing is we've, for the last five, six months,
have had to fight the administration at every step of the way,
which gets me to believe, like, who is protecting these people?
I just, I don't understand.
I cannot, I got really fucking pissed off at the Democrat Party
because the maps, the minor attracted persons, shit,
before Trump came into office, we talked about it all the time.
Now, I mean, I, I, I, why?
are we protecting?
Why is the White House
protecting pedophiles?
Why is the White House protecting pedophiles?
I just don't understand it, Ro.
I can't fucking get it through my head.
Why we would protect pedophiles.
The other thing is, this country
has the biggest fucking problem
with sex exploitation and sex trafficking in the world.
We can talk about fucking Venezuela and Mexico
and Ukraine and Russia and fucking China
and waste, fraud, and abuse
and fucking liberals this, and Democrats.
and Republicans, and we have a pedophile problem.
We have a fucking pedophile problem in this country,
and nobody's doing anything about it in government
except you and Thomas Massey.
What the fuck is going on?
You know how I know this?
Because is everybody in government a fucking pedophile now?
What the fuck is happening?
Well, I don't understand who they're trying to protect,
because I keep saying it's not about Trump.
There's so many people, Democrats,
Republicans who were involved in all of this, just released the files.
And they say, how do you know, Roe, that there are other men involved?
First of all, just use your common sense.
They're 1,200-plus survivors.
You think one guy raped all of them?
You think one guy abused all of them?
Of course not.
There was a system of powerful, rich men who either trafficked in these girls or abused them
or showed up to Epstein's rape island.
The survivors haven't told me the specific names, but what they have told me with
their lawyers is the type of people who were involved. A Wall Street banker, a powerful politician.
And they said that they sat through interviews with the FBI. They're called 302 statements,
and they told the names on those 302 statements. So release the 302 statements. They're not doing
that, even though the law explicitly calls for releasing those statements. We'll know who these
powerful men are. Then there was a prosecution memo. You know, originally,
There were 60 counts against Epstein in supposed to be in Florida.
They prosecuted him on two counts.
There's a memo which explains why there should have been 60 counts,
including ties with foreign countries,
including ties with people who were financing him,
including allegations of a honeypot system
where he was trying to entrap basically powerful men,
and they're not releasing the memo,
even though the law explicitly says,
We want to know all the decisions of why he was charged or not charged.
This is, I mean, it's, it's, they're covering it up.
And the people are asking, why?
Who are the powerful forces that have such influence that they're covering this up?
Every, every citizen I talk to here, see, see on social, anything once those files released.
Was it every single person in Congress that voted for it to release them?
And was there every single person in the Senate except one person?
Everyone in the House except one.
Everyone in the House except.
And every senator.
But I got to give credit not just to Massey's courage,
because he's got billionaires funding against him.
And the billionaires don't like me these days either.
I mean, so you go after the Epstein class.
You make a lot of enemies.
You know, look at my ex, and you see the people who go after Massey and me.
But it wasn't just Massey and me, Marjorie Taylor Green,
Lauren Beauret and Nancy Mace stuck their neck out
to sign a discharge petition that the two of us had
to force a vote on it.
They got bullied by the White House.
They got bullied by the Speaker.
They got threatened.
Their political careers were threatened.
Marjorie Taylor-Green lost her seat,
gave up her seat in Congress over this.
Yeah, didn't the president tell her,
what did he tell her?
He told her that she should,
She's betraying him.
Look, Marjorie Taylor Green was for Donald Trump when he came down the escalator.
She was with Donald Trump when he ran in 2020 and lost.
She was with Donald Trump when he said the election was stolen.
I told him disagree with her, but she was out there defending him.
She was with Donald Trump in 2024 when DeSantis and others were talking about running against him.
No one had been more loyal to Donald Trump.
And when she joined the petition, she says, well, I'm going to explain to Trump that he actually can be a
He's going to come on board.
I'm telling you he's going to come on board.
She said, Trump says to him, well, you're hurting some of my friends.
This is not the right thing.
You're hurting people.
How about hurting the survivors?
How about hurting the women?
Yeah, how about the fucking kids?
Kids.
Hurting your friends?
You know?
Gives a shit about your fucking friends.
We give a fuck about kids.
And these are working-class girls.
I wish people could see their stories
and how they were exploited.
It's a class issue.
rich, powerful people connected to politicians,
doing, figuring out, well, who's vulnerable?
Who doesn't have a father?
Who doesn't have a lot of money?
You know, how do we get that girl to start with giving us massages?
You know what the saddest thing that I heard from a survivor?
They were saying that the survivors are guilty
because the survivors were actually recruiters
of aiding and abetting other girls in getting raped or getting abused.
So one of the survivors says, yeah, I did that.
You know why I did that? Because I was so afraid that I was going to be abused, that I went and I got other junior high girls and other high school girls to take my place because I didn't want to be abused.
junior high girls junior high girls and we can't release the files before we move on and and we just
both get pissed off the side of what we're doing i just what we talked about ryan montgomery
tim tibo i told you about elizabeth phillips who i just interviewed we're bringing on slept i mean
it's such a problem in this country what i'm just curious what what can parents do right now not call their
congressman, not call their senator, that shit's not working. What can people do right now on their
own to protect their kids? One, they need to know how widespread this is. You know how it's widespread?
I realize this because since I've been affiliated with Epstein, I get stopped on an airport.
People will say, hey, Congressman, can I tell you about what happened to me? I get, I had, I've known people
for 30 years. And they said, you know, Ro, something happened. One person told me, you know, when I was four to eight years old, my babysitter's boyfriend abused me. And I never told my mom or my dad, because my dad would have killed a guy, and my mom would have totally lost it. So I've held this with me. And she said to me, Ro, it's like a box. You put it in a box and you put it away, but it comes back at any moment.
And the amount of people who have faced this,
I'm not saying all from Epstein, obviously,
just face this in this country,
is extraordinary and it's sickening.
It's a national crisis.
First thing we need to realize is we've got a moral crisis
in this country.
Second thing is, when you're having your kids,
go to a sleepover, go to a sports team,
go on a field trip, be paranoid.
I mean, I don't want to scare folks,
but when you have them on a gaming site,
when you have them on the internet, they need to be paranoid.
The parents need to understand
that this is not something that happens
in a remote part of the country.
This could happen to your kids.
But the main reason I want these Epstein files out
is because it'll force a reckoning in this country.
It'll be the biggest scandal.
I fundamentally believe in 100 years
because it's going to expose
how sick our elite culture is.
Where for their own gratification,
they think that they can just abuse these girls
and nothing will happen, and that kind of culture has permeated across the nation.
They need to be shamed.
They need to be held accountable.
You know, John, their buildings named after some of these people.
And these survivors go around and they're seeing these people celebrated in the financial
world, in the political world, honored, and they've committed the most heinous act.
It's like, we may not agree on much.
I think most Americans agree you don't rape American girls.
Like that's the long you don't cross.
You don't rip any girls.
None.
But, Ro, let me give you an introduction here before we get started.
So, Roe Kana, representative for California's 17th Congressional District in Silicon Valley,
an advocate for progressive economic patriotism reducing inequality in ethical tech governance.
And most significantly, you had the courage to co-sponsor along with Representative Massey,
the bill to fully release the Epstein files to the public. And that's really why you're here.
Husband DeRidu and father of two children. And I'm told you're here to break some new news here as
well. So I'm excited about that. And while we're on the Epstein stuff, I looked at Polymarket. On Polymarket,
they give a 3% chance that the evidence Epstein blackmailed politicians will be released by January 31st.
Only a 3% chance.
Anything that has to do with government accountability
or doing the right thing always has a very, very, very low chance
that it's going to happen on Polly Market.
What do you think that is?
That's sad.
It's sad it's 3% because we pulled off the almost impossible
getting the bill through the House, through the Senate,
the president to sign it.
And having a judge now ordered all the files,
released. The fact that people still don't believe government, I mean, this should be a wake-up call.
We've got a crisis in this country of trust. And I'll tell you what the files are that need to be
released, the witness statements, the prosecution memos, and we'll know who the people are to
hold accountable. Good, good. Real quick, everybody gets a gift. There you go.
for vigilance league gummy bears made in the USA legal in all 50 states i'm gonna does this give you like
some secret power no i wish it did does it you know do i get to like take these and then go meet
pan bondi get the files out through you know i hope so i'll give you an extra bag for and then uh i have a
patreon account it's a subscription account we've turned it into quite the community and uh so
for this. You're welcome. And so I offer, I offer them the opportunity to ask every guest to question.
So this is from Braxton Ballard. Congressman Kana, with the current delay of the Epstein file release
and lack of clarity in the information that is provided, what actions do American citizens
have to begin demanding justice? They need to say first why this matters. Because you know what
politicians say, oh, people just care about health care costs. They do. They care about housing costs.
Oh, Rowan Massey, this is a conspiracy theory.
It's a distraction.
People don't care.
Let him know, first of all, you're a congressman, your senator, your politicians, that you care
that rich and powerful people can't play by their own rules.
And you want to know who these people are, so they're prosecuted and held accountable,
and that you're disgusted that young girls were raped on a rape violent and abused.
And you don't think it's a conspiracy theory, that you want to know who the other powerful men are.
Look, you either believe Massey, me, and the survivors.
and people like Marjorie Taylor Green,
that this is one of the greatest scandals,
and there are a lot of powerful people
who raped these girls or covered it up
and are hiding behind it,
or you believe that it's a hoax.
There's no in-between.
You either think I'm a liar,
Massey's a liar, Marjorie Taylor Green's a liar,
the survivors are a liar,
or you believe that something disgusting happened.
So if we have that kind of outrage,
and then you, Massey and I, this is my fight.
I'm not giving up.
Massey's not giving up.
We've taken on a lot of interests.
I don't care.
Like, I'm going to fight every day I'm in Congress until these files are released.
And we just put to a judge to create a special master to get these documents out.
There are millions of these documents.
I know where which documents have the information.
And we need people amplifying it.
When we, Massey and I do something blast it all over to the members of Congress.
Tell the president that the MAGA base, you know what's most helpful is when the MAGA base speaks up.
because he doesn't care about people like me who voted for Kamala Harris.
He doesn't care about people who are upset who've impeached him twice.
I mean, he's like, well, screw them, I want.
He cares about people who voted for him.
He cares about people who are with him.
And if they say to him, you know, Mr. President, like, we're with you and all your other stuff, but not this.
That's what's going to make a difference.
I've seen a lot of people reverse their opinions about a lot of very big podcasters.
dropping like flies, you know, in this administration.
But how many files are there?
There are, there's 300 megabits is what Cash Patel said, the FBI director.
And they've released one so far megabit.
So it's like they've released less than 1%.
So how is that legal?
Isn't it illegal what they're doing?
Well, it's illegal?
It's obstruction of justice.
A new president could prosecute them for what they're doing.
They realize this, and that's why Pam Bondi has now said to the judge,
okay, we have millions more documents, we need to release, we need more time.
And so...
Why do they need time?
It's a fucking digital file.
Why do you need time?
So they've got actually two-thirds of the Southern District of New York attorneys working on this, apparently.
Working on what?
On redactions.
Look, they need to look for some redactions, which is,
the survivors.
But you know what?
They've released some files with the survivor's names,
but not the people who abuse the survivor's names.
So they're claiming that they've got to get the survivors names out.
Fine.
They're legitimate.
They are legitimately, proactively,
protecting pedophiles.
They are protecting pedophiles.
By redacting the abuser's names.
They're by, by, by, the White House.
Listen up, everybody.
The fucking White House is protecting
pedophiles. You hear that? They're fucking protecting pedophiles. It's what the fuck they're doing.
And they're doing it because these people are rich, because they were donors, because they're powerful
politicians. And look, I don't want to stoke baseless allegations, but it's clear to me that
there's been some connections to foreign governments. Which foreign governments?
Well, there's connections of certainly in the in the files to Israel. We need to
to know what those connections are.
There have been questions and connections to Russia
and the Russian oligarchs.
Need to know what that information is.
And from survivors' lawyers,
they're saying there are other national security agencies involved.
I mean, think about it.
How does Epstein, as a school teacher,
end up with a half a billion dollars?
That's a great question.
He didn't invent it AI.
You know, he's not like those founders
who came to come to you doing some tech company.
He's there and he's getting money from all these people.
And he's got this ring of sex trafficking going on
where he's farming out girls to different people.
And he's having these parties on Epstein's rape island.
Like, how is this not the biggest scandal
that you got these rich, powerful people in our society
who think they get to play by their own set of rules?
You know what upsets me, what pisses me off
is people like you go and take all this risk with your life.
in Iraq, in Afghanistan.
The guys, whatever you think of Venezuela,
the guys who took the risk of their lives with that.
They have this honor to the country, sacrifice for our values.
And you've got rich and powerful people
who think they've made a bunch of money
who can exploit American girls
or girls who are girls of immigrants
and have no consequence and get away with it.
It's un-American.
It's the most un-American, selfish thing
that totally,
degrades the service of people who do things, honorable things like where are the military uniform
and serve the nation. And that's why I want to stick it to them. This whole Epstein class needs to go.
And to me, this is the biggest issue in American politics. I mean, I'm biased because it's something
I've devoted now this a lot of my life to. But if we're going to allow rich and powerful people
to do whatever they want in this country and what's more elite impunity than abusing a young girl,
if you're going to allow that, you don't have a country, you don't have values, you don't have a democracy.
100% agree with you.
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Do you think that this was a blackmail operation?
I suspect that it was.
I mean, I like a honeypot.
Have you seen anything?
Well, survivors and survivors' lawyers.
I mean, I think that there are people that were rich and powerful folks who conveniently were given access to these parties or access to these girls.
And Epstein, in turn, had a lot of information and a lot of context
and was able to facilitate a lot of meetings.
Now, I don't know what his motive was.
Was he doing, who was he doing the bidding for?
That's why we need the files out.
You know, you've got a background in intelligence,
you'd have a better sense than me, but I know that it's not,
something doesn't smell right.
It doesn't smell right that you have someone
to contact the FBI in 1996, Maria.
and say that this guy is abusing young girls
and the FBI doesn't look into it.
Not only do they not look into it,
our government,
and every person in the media
has spent the last 30 years saying she was a liar.
She never contacted the FBI,
and it's only because of Massey and my law
that part of the documents they came out
was her complaint to the FBI in 1996.
30 years later, she's vindicated.
But there is something deeply rotten
about what has.
happened. And I want to know the financial interest, who paid this guy, what his motive was to
try to get all these rich and powerful people. I mean, don't you think it's a bit odd that he's
talking to prime ministers and politicians and head bankers? And they all are going down to this.
Everybody thinks it's odd. You know? Everybody thinks it's odd. And if there's nothing to hide,
here's what I don't understand. All these people are saying, it's a hoax. It's a conspiracy.
Massey and Con are out there. They're stoking conspiracy. You know how you settle it?
What conspiracy?
What they're like, oh, their claim, this is how ludicrous their claim is.
Their claim is the only bad guy is Epstein and Maxwell.
And everyone else, it's all, it's just Epstein and Maxwell, who was a pervert, and we're focused
on a dead guy who was a pervert and give it up.
No one else was involved.
Okay, if that's what you believe, that Epstein and Maxwell pulled this off with 1,200
girls and survivors and all the girls and the women now are lying about the other rich and powerful
people. And then he just happened to make a half a billion dollars. And he just happened to email
every powerful person in the world, including the current president and past presidents and heads of
states around the world. You know, most people can't even shake hands or get within a thousand feet of a
president. And this guy knows them all. But it was just that he was a sexual pervert and no one else
was involved. If that really is the case, then release the damn files. Release the files and prove
Massey and me a liar. But there's no gray here. Either Massey and I and the survivors are telling the
truth or we're lying. So expose us. If you think we're lying, expose us. You'd end our political careers.
But I know that I'm telling the truth. Massey knows that he's telling the truth. And I'm willing to
take on the wrath of powerful interests because ultimately, until we hold a corrupt class
accountable, people aren't going to trust government. And I'm, you know, I'm more liberal than you.
I'm a progressive. I want the government to do stuff, health care, child care. How do I make
that case when people say the government is corrupt? You got to have transparency in government.
Well, I mean, what are these, what are the files? Who wrote the files? Where did they come from?
Are they FBI files? Are they Epstein's files? Are they Mossad's files? Are they Russian files? What are the,
What are the files? Who is keeping tabs on all this shit?
So some of the files are the FBI.
That's the most straightforward thing.
There are basically 1,200 survivors
and their lawyers who meet with an FBI agent
and were interviewed.
And they ask these survivors, tell us what happened to you.
Tell us who else was involved.
They're called 302 statements.
Those statements should come out.
They haven't released a single one of those.
That's the first thing they should release.
And then the FBI goes and interviews these men, suspect.
Some of them may be innocent.
I'm not saying everyone who the FBI interviews is guilty,
but they have memorandum of that.
They say, okay, when did you show up to the island?
What were you doing?
Why did you meet Epstein?
They should release all of that.
They have not released that.
Then you have, so those are the FBI fellows.
Then you have the Justice Department that took Epstein's computer,
and they've got all his emails.
They've got the photographs.
They've got his correspondence.
They should release all of that.
They haven't released any of that.
We know that evidence in the Epstein computer
will show who else was involved.
Then you've got the Justice Department
having these prosecution memos.
Why does that matter?
Because there was a brave assistant U.S. attorney
who said there's 60 counts against Jeffrey Epstein
back in Florida in the early 2000s, 2007.
And they told her dropped the case only charging
with two counts.
When does that happen?
58 counts, Fannie Mae.
A guy who's raping underage girls only gets charged with two counts,
is let out while under arrest to go continue to rape and abuse underage girls.
Show us what those other 58 counts were.
Show us why you decided not to prosecute.
And then in 2019, there were co-conspirators who were named.
Okay, Epstein wasn't alone.
Suddenly, though, those co-conspirators are released.
We don't have to prosecute the co-conspirators who were named.
prosecute the co-conspirators. Well, there's a prosecution memo explaining why the co-conspirators
should have been prosecuted. Release that. So we know why you chose to not prosecute people. Who are you
protecting? Look, if you're not moved by the fact picturing like a seventh grader being raped on an island
or think of like an eighth grader in a party with multi-millionaires and politicians being paraded
around naked and people with, you know, drinks in their hand laughing, if you're not disqualification, if you're not
disgusted by that, be disgusted by the fact that rich and powerful people are so influential
in this country that they had a president campaign on releasing the files. They've had a House
of Representatives pass a law, the Senate pass a law, and they still can't get the damn files out.
Like, doesn't that just make you disgusted? I want to know what the repercussions are. I mean,
because the deadline was December 19th, if I remember correct, right? Yes, yeah. It's January 9th.
Yeah.
What are the repercussions?
Are there any repercussions?
I haven't seen any politicians have any fucking repercussions.
Ever.
Well, there are repercussions.
First of all, they thought, okay, they're going to do the release,
and people are going to forget about it.
They'll release a bunch of BS, and then no one's going to care.
And one of the reasons that I appreciate your voice
is that you're calling them on that.
You're not letting them get away with it.
And they were shocked.
Christmas Eve, they come out and say,
okay, no, no, no, we have got more documents
because they realize that their own base,
the MAGA base, wasn't letting them get away with this.
So they come out now in January,
and they say to the judge,
we've got three million more documents,
five million more documents,
we're going to release them in these next few weeks.
And Massey and I went to the judge
and said, you need to supervise this
and see how these documents come out.
Now, if they don't do it,
there's three repercussions. Massey and I will be introducing inherent contempt next week,
which is only requires the House to pass it, and Pam Bondi can be personally fine up to $10,000
every day that the documents don't come out. That's it?
No, that's the first. The second thing is, she's breaking the law, and she and other people
of the Justice Department can be put in jail. I mean, they can be prosecuted. Now, I don't think
Donald Trump's going to do it, but we're going to have a new president, and then new president can do it.
They'll all be pardoned, so that will never happen.
You think he'll pardon all of them, even...
Yeah, of course. Why wouldn't he?
Well, their career Justice Department officials, who, if they're along with this, I mean, he'd have to pardon a lot of people.
There are hundreds of attorneys reviewing this stuff. It'd be a pretty big conspiracy if
everyone is breaking the law. But yeah, I mean, look, it may be a case that it takes a new
president to get all of this out. And some people get away with it. But, you know, I'm concerned
about the destruction of evidence, too. I mean, making sure that the evidence is not destroyed.
How would you do that? How would you destroy? How would you ever be certain that the evidence
wasn't destroyed? Or it hasn't been already? Well, look, you can't be certain, but the survivors'
lawyers have seen the files, some of the survivors' lawyers. So they would know if there's things
missing. Their career justice department officials have seen the files.
And now, if you're part of the group that are destroying these files, you're taking a big risk because you're violating the law.
You could be prosecuted.
I mean, it's not just people in Trump's circle.
You're a career prosecutor.
You're really risking your career if there's prosecution.
So I do think we're going to get to the truth of the matter, whether we're going to get accountability for Bondi and Patel.
I mean, we're trying everything we can.
but ultimately if Trump pardons them, yeah, they get away with it.
I mean, let's just reverse engineer this.
So you say the only thing that needs to be, maybe he didn't say the only thing.
The main thing that needs to be redacted is 1,200 names.
Correct.
The victim's names.
Yeah.
You're a Silicon Valley guy.
You mean to tell me we can't create a fucking AI program that just redacts the names in about, I don't know, three minutes?
All three million files in there, just blacks them out.
We can't, all the people over there in Silicon Valley, Palantir, all these things, they can't,
they can't figure out how to make a program that just redacts that real quick?
They could.
I'm sure.
They could.
I know.
I'm being a little facetious here, but.
But they could.
Yeah, no, look, I mean, obviously they want to drag their feet.
They'll claim, okay, that's not enough.
They need to be human check on AI.
Fine.
Massey and I are less concerned about the time.
If they had come back to us and said, look, you're pushing too fast.
December 19th, we're going to do it by March 15th. Fine. The problem we have is they're not releasing
the actual documents. They're releasing fluff. I mean, here and there they gave us something,
but they're not releasing the witness memorandum. They're not releasing the Epstein files.
They're protecting people. And, you know, Trump is out there himself saying, yeah,
I got a lot of people get hurt. I don't want my buddies to get hurt. That's what I don't get.
I really don't get why he doesn't just come out and get these files out.
And what is the force?
Like what is holding it back?
It's a moot because he's...
It's a blackmail operation.
What do you think's holding them back?
Say it.
Well, I, you know, I'm my...
What do you think?
I mean, I don't know.
I don't know.
What do I think?
Yeah.
I think it's Israel.
I think Israel, Mossad is holding this shit back.
That's what I think.
Have you seen anything that, any context here that might make you believe that in the recent,
in the last six months, last year?
Like I've said, I have reason to believe that foreign governments were involved and that
the names that have come up have been Russia and Israel.
What the level of involvement?
I have no idea.
But there's some force more powerful than just campaign donors involved in covering this up.
Otherwise, it doesn't make sense.
It doesn't make sense why they're fighting so hard to keep these files.
Like, you can say a lot of things about Donald Trump.
He understands politics.
You don't get elected president twice.
He knows this thing is hurting him.
It's the one issue that is hurting him amongst his base.
So why wouldn't he just get the files out?
And that's what Morgan Taylor Green was saying.
Like, this thing was never about trying to go after Trump.
And there's actually no evidence that I've seen
that he was involved in the abuse of 100-8-year-olds.
We haven't seen any evidence to that.
There are other rich and powerful men.
So why, if you're the president, wouldn't you just say, okay, like, get it out there?
I don't get it.
There's some force bigger than that that is holding back us getting to the truth.
And that's what should be disturbing to Americans.
Other than that our culture needs a moral reckoning that we allow this to happen,
what are the forces that are,
preventing us from doing this.
And are we going to get people actually willing to stand up to it?
It seems like you got a lot of people standing up to it.
I mean, I don't know what else everybody can do,
but everybody's screaming.
I don't know anybody that's not screaming at the top of their lungs
release these damn files.
Except the administration.
Invite the vice president back.
Ask him.
He could get involved.
Oh, there not.
going to come back here, Roe.
Really?
No.
He's got, but Trump may not.
He needs to, he's going to, he wants to run.
He's got to come back in 20.
I hope he does.
I would love for him to come back, but I don't know.
I've been pretty hard on him lately.
Well, I, I just think, look, he was a, we disagree.
We go back and forth.
But I think he could be a constructive force here.
He should, he should be the guy saying, well, let's get these files out.
Like, does he want to have this as a liability?
I mean, he said it three years ago.
He was...
I just retweeted it today.
Yeah.
No, I mean, he should be out there saying,
get all the stuff out there.
Like, this is a new generation of politicians,
Democrats like Rokane, May, Massey, Marjorie Taylor Green.
Yeah, it's a previous generation that did all this horrible stuff.
Expose it at the Epstein class.
You know, when Democrats have fallen,
I haven't had any sympathy.
First guy taken out was a British ambassador.
constructed Tony Blair's victory.
The reality is Larry Summers was
Treasury Secretary for Bill Clinton,
and he was,
his, is caught up in all of this.
And I said that, you know, I support.
If the Clinton's coming and testified, fine.
If it's Democrats, Republicans, I don't care.
Massey doesn't care.
What was the deal with the Clintons?
They were supposed to show up.
They should show up.
I support Calmer, that he's the Republican.
He said, look, let's have him in front of the committee.
And they're scheduling it,
But I've said, yeah, they should answer what they know.
So they did not refuse to show up?
They have not refused to.
Okay, so that's media bullshit.
Now, the scheduling, like, they need to do it soon, and we need to have, they should show
out, they should do the deposition.
And, you know, but there shouldn't be a selective release.
Like, don't have the Justice Department just put Bill Clinton's pictures in there because
you know you want to make political headlines.
Release everything.
I mean, so play it straight.
Massey and I have played it straight.
If it's 90% Democrats in their files, I don't care.
If it's 90% Republicans, I don't care.
Bann should have the same thing.
He's not in the files.
He's in his 40s.
You know, it's a bunch of people who are now in their 70s and 80s
who are caught up in all of this stuff.
There needs to be a cleaning.
That's why I've said this Epstein class needs to go.
And I think we need, you know,
the only thing that's going to get this out
as the MAGA base, because that's what got the bill passed. You know, Trump had, I don't think he even
realized he signed my bill. I mean, we kept saying it was a Massey bill because it was a Republican
bill. I don't think he's like, oh, I signed Rokana's bill. He didn't have a signing ceremony.
We had Massey and I called. He didn't want to do a signing ceremony for the bill.
But the point is, we had 70 Republicans willing to vote for my bill in defiance of his opposition.
Then he realized, okay, I don't want that. So he said, I'll sign the bill. The only thing
that'll get him to release these files is America says, look, we're with you on a lot of things.
We voted for you three times. We disagree with Kana on Medicare for All. We disagree with him
on Venezuela. We disagree with him on calling at ICE. We're with you, Mr. President. But you know what?
This Magist, this Epstein stuff, he's right about that. Release these files. That's what we need.
His base needs to demand this off of. They are, though. Am I missing? My mistake?
something? They are. I don't think they've been vocal, not to the point where he thinks that he could
lose them. I mean, he thinks, okay, they're upset on this one thing. They need to say, like, this is a
red line for us because you told us there were pedophiles in part of the government. You told us
they're rich and powerful people who are corrupt. You said you were going to drain the swamp. You never
pretended to be a perfect person. We knew, you know, okay, like many people, you had warts in your life,
but you were going to clean up the system.
You were going to expose the system.
You haven't done that.
Do that.
That, that, that, whether it's Vance or Trump,
they've got to get these files out.
And they think, oh, it's not the central issue.
The cost of living is an issue.
Affordability is an issue.
I get all of that.
But there's something deeper.
There's something called morality.
There's something called countries' values.
That's what this is getting at.
They know this is a big deal.
They're, oh man, it makes me so fucking angry.
How many abusers do you think were involved?
Do you know?
I think there are two types of, three types of abusers.
The ones who were actually raped underage girls.
I would say maybe at least a dozen or a handful.
I mean, I'm not saying that that's the biggest number.
but there are people from just conversations with survivors.
We'll know once the files are out.
The second, people who showed up at these parties
and saw young girls parading around
and knew they were being abused and didn't say anything.
That number is in the hundreds and covered it up.
And then the third is people who were trafficking girls
who were slightly overage in 1920
and being exploited, who may have been raped when they were underage,
and saying, okay, yeah, do you have a girl for me?
Where do I meet her?
And technically it was over the age of consent.
But anyone who looks at that will know they were abusing these girls
in terms of the emotional, physical damage to these girls.
And all of that is in the files.
Jeez.
How long was this going on?
Decades.
Decades.
Decades.
20, 30 years?
20, 30 years.
That's why when people, they do the gotcha question sometimes,
oh, Ro, you guys didn't speak out about this enough in the Biden administration.
And first of all, I did speak out in 2019,
but second, I say, yeah, we should have.
We were wrong.
This country has been asleep.
Like, that's not a reason not to care now.
Now I've gotten to know these survivors.
Like, yeah, all of us were guilty for 25 years,
other than a few journalists for not care.
for abandoning these girls. Fine. Guilty is charged. Now, let's move on. Let's actually do something
about it and get these files out. And that's the honest truth. Like, this is not a Trump thing or a
advanced thing. This is an America thing. It's a crisis that we didn't care about these girls.
We treated them as abandoned property for the gratification of rich and powerful people.
and they didn't matter.
How was, I mean, we know how, we know a lot of ways he was tied to Israel.
He was an Israeli.
Maxwell's dad was involved with Mossad.
I mean, he wears an IDF shirt and a bunch of the photos that were released.
So we know that he's tied to Israel.
How was he tied to Russia?
There are survivors' accounts, again, without the specific names,
we're talking about Russian oligarchs who were involved in coming to the
island who were involved in the trafficking. There are accounts about him having access to Putin
and being able to facilitate meetings with Putin in some of the documents. So he obviously
had ties to both the oligarchs in Russia and to people close to Putin. And that needs to be
explored. I mean, why wouldn't you want to know if there's these other countries that have
access to the most powerful people in our country and are getting information about that.
Because it exposes them.
That's the only thing I can think of.
Am I missing anything with the ties to Israel?
Look, I think you're right that there are obviously ties.
I've tried to be, you know, Massey and I've tried to be careful in that, you know,
we don't want to stoke something unnecessarily, but it needs to be,
It needs to be examined, and we need to get the facts out.
And that the fact that foreign governments are involved,
every lawyer of the survivors who I've talked to,
and many survivors have said that that is the case.
So let's figure out the facts.
Man, man.
What am I missing?
What should I be asking you that I'm not asking about the Epstein files right now?
How do we actually get them out?
And I'd say this, look,
there are going to be a number of dates in January where they're going to do a document release.
And so far, people have been paying attention.
Every time they've done a document release, the server has crashed because so many people
are looking at the documents.
And every time they do that, they think, okay, we're done.
People are satisfied they can move on.
Don't let them move on.
Every time they do a document release, if it's not actually the things there, speak out,
speak out on social media, tag Bondi, tag Blanchard, tag, tag,
Vance, Tag, Massey, Marjorie Taylor, Green, me, Bulbert, say we want this information out.
That's the only thing that you say, like, is Massey and my contempt going to work?
We'll try.
Is future prosecution going to work?
We'll try.
It's when the American people speak out.
That's why I flew down here.
That's why I came here, because I know you've got a lot of people following this.
You've been on this before even I or Massey were on this.
You've been speaking about this for years.
Your audience cares about this.
We need them to continue to fight for it.
They're going to be pissed.
Roe, let's take a quick break.
When we come back, we'll get into some Roblox stuff.
Sounds good.
Perfect.
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All right, Roe, we're back from the break.
I think we've pretty much wrapped up the Epstein stuff, but I do want to ask you.
I mean, you've talked to a lot of these victims, you've talked to their attorney,
you are their champion.
What do these victims want to see happen?
What are these poor girls
that have been fucking raped over and over
and over and over again?
What do they want?
They want to be seen and heard.
That's why some of them cared about the law passing.
Some people said,
first time I actually felt heard and seen
by the American people.
Many of them want to meet the president
to explain to him what happens.
They have some sense that they're not being just labeled as a hoax.
They've asked that can they go meet with him?
They want the people who abuse them or stayed quiet
to be publicly exposed and to be held accountable.
They don't want buildings named after them.
They don't want them to see them on television being celebrated.
They don't want to see them at powerful positions.
and corporations, and they want prosecution.
I mean, the prosecution is the hardest part.
They're not naive.
They think that that may be the hardest part.
But they want some sense of acknowledgement
by this country that what happened to them
was wrong and disgusting.
Do you think they'll ever see that?
I do think that the House and Senate passing
that was a big moment for survivors.
If you watch the footage of them in tears
and feeling heard,
And by the way, for sexual assault survivors around the country,
saying finally the government is waking up and actually saying that there's a problem in this country.
But I think it will be a betrayal of all of that if these files remain stuck.
And until these files are released and they're released fully
and we have some sense of accountability as a country,
they're going to feel abandoned.
There needs to be a reckoning sense of that of, of, of, of,
of justice and before we can have people moving on and healing.
Do you, are you, are you at all worried about the repercussions if it is fully disclosed?
I mean, a lot of people think that the, that the entire country's power structure will be decimated.
A lot of people think that the entire world power structure will be decimated because so many people are involved in this.
Do you have any fear about that, that the, that the power structure will be decimated?
in rubble because they were so many were involved with this?
I think if it had, if this had been released 15 years ago, yes.
But I think some of these people are no longer actively in power.
They're towards the end of their careers.
They just want this to go away.
So now I think it can be exposed without that kind of disruption.
But will it cause an enormous moral reckoning in this country?
I think we're going to be embarrassed and shocked and angry and disgusted with ourselves as a people that we allowed it to happen.
I think it's going to cause us to re-examine potentially relationships around the world and what we allow to take place.
I think it's going to force us to re-examine the power that rich and powerful people have in this country.
over the justice system and a sense that there are elites who've gotten away with things you and I can't, right?
Most people, they get a parking ticket, they get a camera light ticket, and their car will get booted if they don't pay the tickets, right?
That's the life for 95% of Americans.
And then you got these 5% who are doing the most heinous things and laughing about it.
Man, let's move on to Roblox.
Another topic of not inspiration, huh?
You're doing the right thing.
Sounds like you're the only one doing the right thing over there.
Well,
are you,
is it true that you're the first and only congressman to go up against Roblox?
I was because of this kid, Schlep, who you know.
And he showed so much courage.
He was basically a whistleblower, right?
I mean,
there are people on Roblox who are acting as predators,
pedophiles, taking advantage of kids or playing games.
And there was not.
Still happening.
Still happening.
Not was.
Still happening.
But still happening when he started, well, he's been kicked off the platform,
which is why he's used the past tense.
It's still happening.
But he was kicked off because he was going out and he was exposing these folks because
Roblox wasn't doing it.
And no one was listening to him.
And he was basically kicked off the platform for doing this.
And so as a guy from Silicon Valley, I said, this is crazy, you know, because the company is in
my area.
And I said, I'm going to come to this 21-year-old kid's defense.
And people said, what are you doing?
You're going to take on?
I mean, these billionaire founders.
And I said, yeah, I don't care.
I took out on the Epstein class.
This is who cares about this?
That's good for you.
You know, and so I, we did a petition to support what Schlepp was doing and saying
he should be reinstated onto the, in Roblox.
I mean, they've kicked him out.
I mean, let's let them back onto the platform.
And let's have transparency of what are you doing to make sure
that you don't have pedophiles and predators on your platform
praying on 12, 13, 14-year-old kids.
Is he back on there?
He's not, not, not, not yet.
But he, you know, all he was doing is saying,
okay, I'm going to expose this guy who's a creepy old guy
having conversations with a young girl, young boy,
because Roblox is not doing it.
And so the response to that is to kick him off?
I mean, come on.
And all he's fighting for is safety standards.
And your kids are on these platforms.
They're playing games.
Yeah, he just doesn't want a 12-year-old girl to be exploited sexually and have to carve
slut into her forehead with razor blades.
Seriously.
That's the kind of shit they're doing on there.
Did you know that?
I didn't know that example.
I didn't know that one, but I know they're doing.
There's a bunch of these.
They've had women, not, excuse, girls, young girls, swallow razor blades.
Oh, my God.
They had one.
commit suicide on camera.
That's disgusting.
It's disgusting, isn't it?
We did, we uncovered a lot of this about a month ago, two months ago with Brian Montgomery.
The day we released the episode, it took one week, $6 billion off their stock in one week.
Because of this episode, you know, I mean, that's why you should have Schlepp one.
I don't know if you've had them on, but he.
We're talking to him.
Yeah.
But he, you know, he's showed courage.
And the reality is, look, if you're a 44, 45, 50-year-old guy
and you're talking to a 13-year-old girl online,
that's unacceptable.
Like, that's my, like, you know, if you're a coach or something, fine.
But there's no reason for a 50-year-old guy
to be talking to a 13-year-old goal on a gaming site.
So how hard is this to detect?
Like, they're like, well, we don't know if it's pedophilia.
You don't have to have people swallowing razors.
Just you can't be talking to young girls being a 45-year-old guy on a gaming site.
You can't be talking to young boys.
Like, what the hell are you doing on there?
And that's going on, and it's rampant, and they hide behind, well, how do we know?
You know, based on common sense.
If you wouldn't allow your own daughter to hang out with someone in a room unsupervised playing a game,
then you shouldn't be allowing it online.
Yeah.
I want to clarify, too, that's not happening on Roblox.
It's that 764 satanic cult that's that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, it's, that's, it's, it's, that's, it's, it's, it's, it's, but.
Well, look, this is the responsibility of technology companies, right?
There's a lot of positives to allowing people to get information, being on social media,
but you can't have exploitation, you can't have pedophilia, you can't have pornography,
you can't be having algorithms feed junk on social media to young girls where they're
thinking of eating disorders or suicide.
And we've allowed a lot of the social media to get out of hand and not protect our kids.
And I'm the guy who represents Silicon Valley.
I'm for innovation.
I'm for technology.
But you do that with common sense
that you protect kids on these platforms.
Speaking of Silicon Valley,
how about that billionaire tax?
How's that going?
I've gotten quite a lot of hot water on that one.
You know what I found out, though?
You know who was the first person to propose
one of these taxes, one of the first people?
Donald Trump, when he was running for president at 2000,
he called for a 14.5% tax on anyone making over $10 million.
And he said, if you're wealthy, you can pay a tax.
And, you know, since I don't know what he thinks now.
But my point is this, look, I'm all for entrepreneurs,
and I'm all for people making billions of dollars.
Fine.
You're brilliant like Steve Jobs and build Apple.
Great.
You built Tesla, SpaceX.
Great.
I won't set to Elon, stick to cars and Mars or something.
You build all that wealth fine.
But we've got to have a social contract in this country where the wealth can't just be in the hands of the few.
You've got to have some sense that every person working class families are going to benefit from that.
And you get people having health care, child care education.
That's my view.
Well, I mean, I'm not going to disagree with you and say that there is a, I mean, there's definitely a, there is a gap.
here and it's a fucking problem. But I mean, I mean, if you just look at history, every time this
happens, the billionaires, I mean, the business owners, they just leave. They go somewhere else.
And then there are no jobs. And so, and it sounds like that's what they're going to do if this
tax goes through. So, well, I think we have, it has to be designed in a way that you can't tax
illiquid stocks. You can't tax companies that are still not.
profitable, you've got to get conversations with people who want to design it in a reasonable
way and have a consensus on how to do it.
So I'm not saying that you can't fix some of the design.
But ultimately, the idea that having just a 1% tax a year, I mean, in a theory on building
wealth when you make about 10% every year anyway in the stock market, and that you're going
to use that to make sure people have helped.
health care and child care and education.
I just think that's what's going to prevent a revolution.
You know, think about the guys who went in Venezuela, right?
And like, they stick the landing despite being shot at.
They wear the uniform.
They give every single thing for this country.
And you're saying to me, okay, if you're going to, let's say,
that countrywide have a 1% tax on wealth that people are going to leave,
like, come on, have some more patriotism.
Have some loyalty to the country.
I mean, just a caveat.
to that. I mean, what are you going to spend the money on? Where's the money going to go?
I mean, look at our fucking cities, bro. Look at Chicago, St. Louis, San Francisco, L.A., New York.
Tons of Minnesota right now. I mean, look at all this shit. Our cities are fucking trashed.
We have a fentanyl problem. Yeah. I mean, and where's all the money going? It sure as fuck isn't going into this country.
You know where it's going? It's going to Ukraine. It's going to, it's going to, it's.
Israel. It's going to fight war in Venezuela. It's going, it's going everywhere but here. And we all
see it. Everybody fucking sees it. Everybody sees another billion, another, another, another,
more billions allotted to Ukraine, more billions allotted to Israel, more billions allotted to
whatever, you know, it's just, it's, it's, it, everything seems to go out of the country. So
why would any business owner want to pay more tax just to have it shipped out of the fucking
country. Well, there I agree with you about the waste and the...
Look at the shit that just happened with the learning centers.
And supposedly $9 billion has been...
I'm not going to have been the waste and the fraud. Two things.
It's sucked out of the country. And then, I mean, on top of that, I mean,
Scott Besson just said yesterday that there's approximately $600 billion in fraud in the
U.S. I mean, don't you think we might want to get a handle on that?
before we tax everybody more, or tax the wealth, the wealthy more?
I think we absolutely need to get a handle both on the overseas wars.
I mean, we spent $6 trillion on Iraq and Afghanistan.
I'm against these kind of regime change wars.
I'm against going and trying to do regime change in Venezuela,
and now what do we want to occupy the country for three years?
Think about how much that's going to cost.
I voted against the billions of dollars that we gave Netting Yahoo
when he was slaughtering people in Gaza.
I was opposed, of course, to October 7th.
there's a terrorist attack in Hamas,
but we can't just be giving billions of dollars
of offensive weapons for two years to Netanyahu.
And I do believe that we need to stop a military budget
of any of these endless wars.
Here's a great analogy.
You're a dad.
If your kids are fucking starving to death,
and somebody gives you,
why would you give your money to your neighbor
so that your neighbor's kids can eat instead of yours?
why would you do that?
No, look, I think we have to first take care of our family.
We have starving people here.
We have people that are dying of fentanyl every day.
We have been around to them.
So look, in Argentina, we're bailing on Argentina's failed leadership.
I'm all for focusing on not these endless wars, not wasting money overseas,
focusing on building our communities.
And I'm also for getting rid of the fraud waste.
and inefficiencies. FDR, who is one of my favorite presidents, New Deal, he said there's total
local inefficiencies in government, wasted money in local governments, state governments.
I'm going to tackle that, and I'm also going to tax the wealthy to get people health care and
child care and jobs. I think we have to do both. But I spoke out on oversight yesterday about the
fraud that was going on in Minnesota and other places. I wasn't like, okay, let's just defend it.
said, let's do an audit on all 50 states.
Look at the inefficiency spending in Sacramento.
Look at it in Minnesota.
But look at it at all 50 states.
And let's have an audit.
Let's understand why we wasted money.
Why did we waste money in the pandemic when unemployment checks were claimed as fraud?
And what were the projects that have been wasted and have a clear accountability so that people
know where their tax dollars are going?
And you have to do that.
if you have my view that we want government to do health care and child care and jobs.
I mean, people may disagree with me that that's the obligation of government,
but I feel that people should have basic education and health care to be able to have a decent life.
But I've got the responsibility to take on a fraud and waste and abuse.
And I don't think this should be partisan.
Like, I don't think we need to be defending wasteful, inefficient government.
I mean, would it be, look, I don't think, I'm sure a lot of people would argue,
But, I mean, I think all in all, it is better for you and I and everybody in this country if we have a better education system.
So, I mean, I can't argue that.
I don't want my taxes to go up.
I don't want to fucking pay for it.
But, yes, I can't argue that.
It would be great if everybody had health care and it was actually affordable.
Yeah.
But, but, I mean, would it be, I mean, is it even a possibility to just think,
and go, you know what, we're not going to tax them anymore.
Let's get this waste, fraud, and abuse under control and reallocate those funds to what you want to do.
I mean, why couldn't we do it like that rather than penalize the...
Because look, I'm a business owner, Roe.
I bust my fucking ass to make what I have.
Yeah.
I mean, 12 to 18 hour days.
I know you work.
Every day, seven days a week.
My team works their ass off.
I don't want to pay for everybody else's shit.
I have a drive.
You know, and it takes a lot of work.
And I do not want to pay for somebody else to sit on their ass at home.
It's just...
But did you...
I don't know your story of...
Did you go to public school?
Did you...
I did go to public school?
No, did I, right?
You want a decent public school for everyone.
I don't know.
You had teachers who believed in me and paved the way.
I would grow up in a middle-class family,
but I didn't have to worry about being able to see a doctor,
get a physical.
You know, I just want the basic.
And the reality is, I mean, by being honest about the math is, yes, we need to go about waste and fraud.
I don't think the math works to be able to get health care for everyone and to be able to get a decent education for everyone, trade schools or college.
If you just do that without having the extraordinary wealthy pay a bit more intact.
Look, my district, where you have more people on from my district than anyone.
Probably.
We've got $18 trillion of wealth.
One third of America's wealth is in my 50-mile radius district.
Five companies over a trillion dollars.
Invidia, Google, Apple, Tesla, and Broadcom.
And they asked Jensen, the Nvidia CEO, he said, yeah, okay, fine, I'll pay a tax or something.
I love living in Silicon Valley.
Whatever you think about the design of this tax, you can't have a nation where you've got some places with $18 trillion.
And then where I grew up in Pennsylvania in Bucks County, the steel mill fairly
works shut down in western Pennsylvania, hollowed out factories all going over to China or Mexico,
people feeling like their kids and grandkids aren't going to have a shot at the American
dream.
That's not a country that works.
So why can't you say, okay, we've got to get this prosperity, not just in Silicon Valley,
not just in the AI revolution.
We need to industrialize America, have a Marshall Plan for America, build up new factories and industry,
build up new trade schools, build up new tech centers and jobs across the country, have
health care and basic public education for the country. That's what I call economic patriotism.
It's to build up this country. And I don't think that's a bad bet long term because it's saying
that we want prosperity, but a basic shot for everyone in this country.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
It'd be great. I'd just love to see the waste, fraud, abuse, but gone first before we all have
to pay more taxes, but that's just me and everybody else.
Let me ask you this, though, yeah, I don't know if you're a billionaire.
I'm definitely not a billionaire.
But if you became, when you become a billionaire, if you thought that the money was actually going positively, right?
Like we're actually building factories in Western Pennsylvania, jobs for kids in Warren, Ohio.
Roe, if I knew the money was going to the right place, I would do it.
You would do it?
I would do it.
But I don't believe the money is going to go to the right place.
I mean, I donate a lot of money to kids, this kind of stuff that we're talking about.
Organizations that are doing something to protect kids.
That's the thing that's nearest and dearest to my heart.
I spend a lot of time and donate a lot of money to veteran organizations because I'm a veteran.
Yeah.
But, and I would, I donate to single mothers.
That's another thing that's dear and dear to my heart.
But so I still do my part.
I know you do.
I'm not the, I'm not the, I'm not the, I'm not the, I'm not the,
asshole that's you know keeping all everything yeah i'm i'm i'm i care about people i want people to
succeed i want them to be successful i want them to get over their trauma i want i just i love good
people but you know when i see all this stuff when i see illegals being housed in in in in hotels
and i see the smalley stuff that we just was just uncovered by uh by by my nick you know i mean
I mean, it's just like, man, I just, when I see another couple of billion, go to another country, I'm like, man, why do you?
Well, I go to Chicago.
This place looks like a fucking war zone.
Why are we sending money overseas?
I mean, yeah, I would love to help all the people overseas.
But look at this place.
This is where we live.
No, that I agree with you.
We're wasting all this money on Argentina and Venezuela.
We should be focused more on Virginia and Pennsylvania and Ohio and people here.
But let me ask you, your genuine view, because I know you're a little bit more.
conservative than I have. We used to have a national aspiration, a national project of doing great
things as Americans, right? We won World War II. We built up Europe with the Marshall Plan.
We built up our own industry and doing amazing things. We won the Cold War. We went to the moon.
We started the internet through DARPA and NSF. We invented GPS. We invented AI through
the government. How do we convince people that you can have public excellence again, that you can
have national projects that work again, that you can have a sense that we can all do something
with government that makes life better? Because I agree with you. Right now, people think it's
corrupt with Epstein. They waste money. But you can't have a great nation if people don't believe
it's possible to do great things with our government. And we've lost that ability of faith,
other than the military. People like, okay, we've got a great military.
But how do we have that more broadly as a national aspiration?
I'll tell you, we have to have trust in you guys, and that's at an all-time low.
And we have to have trust in the institutions, and that's in an all-time low.
And I think you'd know why all of those are at an all-time low, because exactly what you're fighting right now.
A lot of stuff that happened within the last administration, and the one before that, the one before that.
but I mean we haven't seen any of these agencies be held accountable for going rogue.
We haven't seen any politicians held accountable for going rogue.
I mean, and so why would any of us believe you?
I mean, it's, Ro, I'm just going to be honest.
It's so fucking bad now.
I don't even think I'm going to vote the next time.
Because what's the point?
What's the point?
I sat there and interviewed everybody.
They all fucking lied to my face.
Nothing has happened.
Let me challenge you, Sean.
Look, we've had people scale the cliffs of Normandy, right?
And so you and I could be free.
John Lewis was beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
My grandfather, he was an American, he was an India.
He was part of Gandhi's movement for independence.
He was in jail for four years so that India could be a free country.
So my parents could come here.
There are so many people who have sacrificed for this country to build this country.
You did when you wore the uniform.
we can't give up out of cynicism on the American project.
It's like we have been so blessed with people who have sacrificed so much more.
And to say, look, it's all corrupt, we're going to give up, is to squander the sacrifices
of people who built America.
I hear you.
I mean, I'm dedicated.
Get up and run for Congress.
Get up and...
I'm not running for Congress.
I've thought about it.
Or run for president.
I mean, run for, you know, you never know.
There was another guy who didn't have elective office
who did pretty well.
I think I'm good on it.
I actually thought about it, but...
You would be great.
Well, the people that I thought that I talked to about it
that are in there said that I have a lot more influence out here
than I are.
That is true.
That is true.
You do.
But look, anyone, I'm not saying this.
A lot of people, it's easy to tear things down
the harder thing is how do we build it up.
And you've got a huge platform.
We have to have trust, though.
I mean, when I have, I don't even know how many politicians I've had sit across from me, you know, over the years.
And, man, I can't think of a single one of them that got in there and did what they said they were going to do,
maybe even attempted to do what they say they were going to do.
That's sad.
It is fucking sad.
How do you assess my honesty here?
You got out of the sea.
Because you're going against the grain.
Well,
Massey and I are willing to,
say we're willing to risk our seats, right?
Whatever you think.
And you're coming together with,
with the enemy or, you know,
not the enemy.
You know what I mean?
It's been very divisive.
And so, you know,
and that's one thing that I've been trying to display here.
That's why I brought Gavin Newsome on.
That's why I brought Hunter Biden on.
I want to show that, hey, we can have a conversation.
We don't know Hunter was that smart
until I heard about your thing.
I was like,
because it was so caricatured to the media.
Then it was like, wow, the guy has, like, complex thoughts.
Probably going to get in trouble from Hunter.
But I was like, the first time I heard him was on your show.
We're like, and he held his own.
So you did him a big favor.
I like him.
I like him.
That thing went viral.
But look, I think we need people like you to participate in the political process
to help the rebuild the process.
because the thing that concerns me about China,
I was just in China.
I'm now the top Democrat on the China Committee.
They got 20% youth unemployment.
They don't have nearly, in my view,
the kind of innovation that we do
or the sense of having the best and brightest
from around the world want to come to America.
They're not lining up to go to China.
They're lining up to come to the United States of America.
So what is our problem?
Our problem is cynicism and corrosiveness and division
where we give up
on the government and we give up on our ability to self-governed.
And that's a real risk.
Like, okay, we did Epstein, the files aren't coming out,
we aren't being able to stop money in politics,
we're see all this waste and fraud.
If we give up on having a national purpose, national aspiration,
we lose this country.
And I don't know how, that to me is the hardest thing to fight.
It's like I can tell you the programs I'm for,
But how do we overcome the despair, the anger, the cynicism?
How do we inspire this country?
The way, whether you were John F. Kennedy or FDR, Lincoln, Reagan, who I disagreed with.
How do we create that sense of like, yeah, I want America to succeed?
You know, I felt like that the last time I felt like that.
You're going to have to prove to the people that it's not a two-tiered class system.
Yeah.
That's how it's, and that is likely the only way it's going to happen.
and somebody's ass is going to have to get pinned to the fucking wall,
and we're all going to have to see it
to believe that there is not a two-tiered system.
But there is a two-tiered system.
It's very obvious.
You're seeing it right now.
Yeah, and that's what the Epstein class is all about.
One set of rules for the powerful.
And by the way, look what they did to this country, right?
Symbolically, not just the people who were pedophiles,
but this Epstein class are rich and powerful people.
They watched his jobs left,
America. All the industries hollowed out. They didn't care. Profits were going up. Their shareholders
were doing fine. They watched as people's costs the health care went up, child care went up.
They watched as 70% of Americans don't think the American dream matters. They got us in all these
wars overseas and didn't make us safer. So people have had it with that class of folks. They
We want something new.
They want something different.
They want people who are going to take on a corrupt elite.
And I think that's why I'm saying.
We need people like you or others in your show to get out there, run, start to take the
government back and to have a sense of transparency, not fraud, not standing up against a
corrupt elite, and then offering a sense of a vision for what we can do as a country.
We've all seen it.
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I mean, even guys that I have there, I mean, really, I am very good friends with Eli Crane.
Don't agree with everything he says.
I love the man because I think that he holds true to his values and his constituents values.
Yeah.
In fact, I know for a fact he's even voted against what he wants to appease his constituents.
Yeah.
Which I have a tremendous amount of respect for.
But, I mean, I see these guys.
And, I mean, there's a handful of students.
in Congress, I'm a seal, it's tight-knit community, right?
Yeah.
You know, and in other veterans too, Greenberg, especially the special operations guys.
But I mean, they are so, except one seal, there's one guy in there.
But, but, but no, it's seriously, I mean, they are, they are, they are frustrated.
I can see it on their face.
They, I mean, they're demoralized.
Yeah, I hear that because there's a different sense of camaraderie.
It's not just, I think, the folks in the Seals.
They can't get on a committee if they don't play ball.
Yeah.
All they care about, I don't know about all of them, but, you know,
the few that I'm speaking about that I'm close with are, I mean,
they just want to do the right thing, and they can't.
And it's sad.
It's sad.
Yeah, no, I mean,
I hear that.
I mean, one, we need term limits, I think, in these.
Your four term limits?
I am one of the few Democrats.
I worked with Brian Fitzpatrick and Jody Erickton.
I don't think you should do more than 12 years as a House member
or two terms as a senator.
Some people, there are 30, 40 years.
Come on, do something else with your life.
I think we've got to get rid of all the PAC money
and lobbyist money, super PAC money.
I'd love to see that.
Those two things.
You don't take any PAC money, but.
I don't take PAC money.
I don't take lobbyist money.
I don't have a super PAC.
You know, you just get rid of PAC money, lobbyist money.
You create term limits and you make sure members of Congress can't become lobbyists.
You know, I've been on the Armed Services Committee for 10 years.
And I didn't serve in the military, but I've developed such admiration, respect for people
who have served, right?
And you know what a lot of people do after they're on the Armed Services Committee?
They don't go wear the uniform.
They don't go like Theodore Roosevelt to go.
fight the wars or Abraham Lincoln did, they go and work for the defense companies that they were
supposed to regulate as lobbyists. So stop members of Congress for becoming lobbyists. You do those three
things and you would clean up so much of our country. You know, I respect people who sort of
disagreed with me, let's say, on the wealth tax. But what I don't respect is people say, okay,
now I'm going to pour in millions of dollars to take this guy out because I disagree with it.
Like, how do we have that kind of system of government where people can use their wealth for power,
where people can stay in Congress for years just to accumulate power and no trouble limits?
We've got to return to basic democracy.
And people who wear the uniform, you know why your guys or your friends see it most
is because they sacrifice.
And it's a totally different culture in the military.
It's all about the mission.
That's the difference.
It's mission.
Mission first, ego, second.
Politics is ego first, you know, mission second.
And you know what?
I'm tired of the charismatic politicians.
How about courage is the new charisma?
Like, I don't need the guy who's going to be the entertainer or the charmer or the, like, do we think
in the military the best person is the guy who's the funniest or the most charming or the person
who's kind of got the most magnetism?
No.
It's the person who, despite being shamed, you.
shot five times still lands the mission. The person who cares more about the guys in his battalion
that his old life. How about we start to get people of courage and substance in politics?
It is not their ideas. It's not their intellect. It's not their degrees. Frankly, it's just
courage and putting people first instead of putting themselves first. And that's the culture
of the military, actually, in terms of what works. There are no big ego.
it's all about the mission.
And that's what we've lost in our politics.
The last time we had a mission,
I disagreed with the war in Iraq.
But the last time I really felt that
was when George W. Bush, after 9-11,
was saying, you know, on the rocks.
And he was like, those people who did this to us,
they're going to hear from us.
It was a sense of, okay.
Like, I remember that they stopped the Flyers game
because I grew up in Philadelphia.
To hear the president of the United States
talked about what this country was going to do.
Like, how do we?
we get that mission again as a country?
I think I just told you.
But we got to see it happen.
Well, I'm just curious.
What percentage of Congress is four-term limits?
It's not a lot.
I'll bet.
It's not a lot.
How many of you are there?
Two or three?
No, they're, they're,
candidly,
they're more Republicans
are for it than Democrats.
Why do you think that is?
I'm just curious.
You know, the real reason, one reason, which is legitimate but changing, is when we had the Jim Crow South,
and when it was very, very hard for African Americans to run for office and win statewide,
the only way the black community would be able to gain a voice is to get to Congress
because they couldn't win statewide and then develop seniority in Congress.
So some people feel like, okay, finally they have a voice.
Now if you're going to have term limits, you're going to get rid of that voice that's been building since the civil rights movement.
That's one substantive reason.
But a lot of it is also cultural.
I think Republicans feel like, you know, they do other stuff.
They're business owners.
Their military Democrats have a love for public service.
So that's a good thing because we think government can do important things.
It should do important things.
but it can also become a sense of, well, let other people have a turn.
Don't just do 40 years.
You know, one of the reasons I was for Bernie Sanders is he was an outsider.
He was like, yeah, I want a new group of people in charge.
It wasn't even his policies.
It was just like the same group of people are running things.
Let me break up the system.
And that's why you had so many people drawn to outsider candidates.
But, yeah, they're more Republicans than Democrats.
But I think it's also generational, a new generation.
I think it'd be for turb limits.
But you get rid of, you get turblevets, and you get rid of the money in politics,
and those are the two biggest things that would clean up the system.
What do you think would happen, what do you think would happen if the country's power structure?
Let's say all the Epstein files get released, we prosecute,
picture perfect, everything you want, and the victims.
Power structure is God.
what do you think the consequences of that are?
Like I said, a lot of it is the older, older generation,
but I think the consequences of that is you would have a totally new group of people
start to get into our congresses and into our positions of leadership.
I think you would have a sense of accountability, like, okay,
you can't just call up your buddy to stop prosecution.
You can't just call up your buddy to have a different set of rules.
I think it would start to get our country back,
to the founding values of what it used to be that you got you you were in public service for public
service it would be a a reset for for america well i mean when we talk about hundreds of people
that are the abusers i think you said hundreds right either direct abusers or trafficked or
covered up how many people i mean i don't know if you have any more insight than i do but
probably you have i mean you've studied this so deep
based on your stuff.
I mean, the only insights I have that you may not have,
I don't know how many survivors you've talked to are survivors' lawyers.
But my information that I've been repeating to you
is what's coming from survivors, from survivors' lawyers.
Okay, okay.
Do you have any indication of how many people are in politics or?
Quite a few.
I mean, from the power.
I don't know how many are still in power,
but I know there were a lot of,
they were politicians who were involved,
people in politics who went to Epstein's Rape Island, who engaged in the trafficking of women.
I think there were a lot of people in New York and finance, and there were people in politics
that were caught up in this.
Now, they're probably former politicians by now, but it was a group of people who didn't
think even it was anything wrong.
Like, they just thought this is their gratification.
You know, it's like they're powerful.
They get this.
They've conquered.
and they're going to exploit these girls,
and no one's going to touch them.
You know, the other thing is that they're rootless, right?
Like most Americans, you know, one statistic I read, which surprised me,
is most Americans end up living 15 miles away from their mom.
Most people don't travel that far,
and they settle down, whether it's their rural community,
factory town, place where they grew up.
And you look at this Epstein class in these people,
and they're like, I'm in Davao.
I'm in Britain. I'm like flying all over the world. Where can we be at Silicon Valley, New York? Let's go to Epstein's Rape Island. It's just rootless. They're not people going to church every week. They're not going by their synagogue or a temple. They're not going to the barbecues. They're not in their PTAs. And that's part of what the country is lost. When our founders envisioned democracy, they envisioned it.
the power with people in community.
And now if you're in one of those communities,
so you're like the little league coach
who everyone loves,
and you say, okay, I want to run for Congress,
like, what chance do you have
if one of these kind of multi-millionaires
or billionaires moves into your district
and says, no, I want to run for Congress,
I'm going to put in $10 million on TV?
Like, who do you think is going to get elected?
The billionaire.
And that's the problem.
It's like the people are,
the money.
has so skewed it, the, like, you're, the people who are just, like, decent. Like, okay,
maybe you don't want the little league coach being president of the United States. It's like,
okay, President of the United States, you've got to know a lot of stuff and I want someone
who really understands everything. But, like, there are 435 people in Congress. I just want,
like, people who, like, love the community, care about the kids, care about things, have good
values. I don't, I don't need, like, every person that have built a ton of wealth and values.
And you look at Congress.
How many people are like that?
Or just from the community, it's all people who are like, including me, like, you have to raise money.
You have to, it's a, it's a game that is so rigged against ordinary people who just love their community and want to serve their community.
And that's a sad thing.
That's not how it was intended to be.
Well, how did you get in there?
I've lost twice.
You know, my story, I grew up son of immigrants.
It was born in Philadelphia and our bicentenary.
It went to public school, graduated with like over $100,000 of debt, fascinated with Silicon Valley, went out there.
While you were serving in Iraq, I ran against a powerful incumbent member of Congress, Democrat, who had voted for the war in Iraq.
And I thought it was a terrible mistake.
And I ran against an incumbent in my own party.
And he was a Holocaust survivor, someone I respect.
But people said, you're going to kill your career.
How can you run against this guy?
And it was the first anti-Iraq war campaign
in the entire country.
And I got killed.
He got 71%.
I got 71%.
I got 19%.
And but I didn't, I thought I was right.
I kept staying at it.
You are right.
You know, I kept at it.
And then Obama won.
And that's when I got my break
because I had worked on his very first campaign
when he was a professor at University of Chicago
and I was a student there.
I had knocked on some doors.
And so I got to go work for him at the Commerce Department.
And then I came back and I said, okay, let me give it one more try.
And I lost again.
Why did I lose twice?
Because I didn't know all these rich people.
I didn't have a machine.
You know, I wasn't related to Nancy Pelosi.
Nancy Pelosi endorsed against me three times when I ran all three times in California.
California is a machine state.
You know, it's like you got to know the end.
I never had anyone there.
I moved there from Pennsylvania.
I was a son of immigrants.
I didn't have wealthy people, parents.
I'm very proud of them.
They have a middle-class life.
And then I ran the second time, lost.
And the third time, I said, okay, I'll try it one last time,
and I won.
And you know, every time I go into Congress,
it's one of the reasons I think I have a little bit of guts,
because I wasn't supposed to get there.
There was not some destiny of, you know,
Rokana is going to go become a Congress.
I'm a Hindu faith, Indian American,
from a middle class background, lost twice before I won.
So every day I was like, I'm going to make the most of it.
I mean, I should actually try to do something because it was a miracle that I got to Congress.
And I want to change something and do something for the country.
It's a good story.
It's a true story.
I wanted, back to the tax issue.
I'm just curious.
I mean, do you guys run models or anything like that where you, I mean, what if you lowered the taxes?
and attracted more people to Silicon Valley.
Maybe some of the people that left and went to Austin.
I mean, have you thought about that?
So that would probably bring more tax money in
than actually raising the taxes.
Well, that's the theory that, you know,
the Laffer curve of forever Reagan.
I mean, I disagree with some of it.
The main thing, though, I'll answer your question.
Main thing I think would attract people to Silicon Valley,
the AI revolution, is all the AI talent, right?
Like the AI talent is in two places in China.
One third of the AI talent is there, and it's in Silicon Valley.
And that's what Jensen said at Enidia.
Like, why are they there?
Why aren't they in Austin or in Florida?
Because all the AI researchers, the AI talent, is in Silicon Valley.
Now, I think it's a balance.
Obviously, if you move the rates too high, everyone will leave.
But they're putting aside how you do it.
If you're an ordinary person, you're making money, you're paying your tax, you're paying income tax, or you're paying capital gains tax.
The challenge is if you're made a billion dollars, you're a billionaire, you may never have to pay an income tax.
You're not getting income, and you may never sell your stock.
You're not realizing capital gains.
You may be borrowing against this money, and you're living your life, and you're not paying tax.
So how do you get at that?
Now, some people have said one proposal, which is a reasonable one, is if someone borrows against their assets, tax that, if they're doing their lifestyle.
But I think one of the things people feel is like, if you made all this money, you should be paying the same tax as a secretary or a bus driver or someone in the military.
You know, that's what Warren Buffett said.
And we can discuss how to do it.
But that's the feeling of unfairness people have that it's not like they want to sock it to the rich.
just that they want them to pay a same percentage as someone who's a teacher.
I mean, I was just, you know, what makes me think of that is,
I mean, you see all these states going tax-free.
Tennessee is one of them.
Are you guys tax?
We're a tax-free state.
No income tax.
No income tax.
No. Unearned income tax.
But you have high property taxes or no?
Nope.
Nope.
We have a high sales tax.
Okay.
Well, I don't know if it's high by your standards.
But it's just under 10%.
But by making, and I don't know if we're 100% unearned income tax-free yet.
If it's not, it's like a stair-step thing.
It goes down, right?
But, I mean, Tennessee went tax-free, and there are more Californians living here now.
I'm not joking, and I'm not, this isn't like a thing.
But, you know, there are more, a lot of neighborhoods, at least here in Franklin,
60% of the people are from California in the neighborhoods.
Do they like them?
Do they like Californians here or no?
What's that?
Do the folks down here like the Californians or are they?
I don't know.
But there was a lot of concern around COVID time, but I think a lot of that has kind of died down now.
But because it's brought a hell of a workforce and it's, I mean, it's overpopulated around here.
But it's brought in a lot of business and a lot of the infrastructure has flourished as well.
so that's good to see.
But what I'm saying is we've got,
we've got all these people from California, New York,
Michigan, moving in here.
And, I mean, the state is growing,
I believe, 20% year after year since COVID, you know, so.
For Tennessee.
But then you look at Florida.
And, I mean, Florida is just going,
I mean, this place isn't even compare
to what's going on down there,
another tax-free state.
And so I'm just curious.
I mean, when you guys are thinking about raising taxes,
are you looking at what the other states are
and are you seeing the draw that they're getting
from states with higher taxes?
I grant that, that there are people who go to Florida
for lower taxes or taxes.
But you look at some of the things
that California has done well, right?
We had five Nobel laureates out of the UC system.
So that's because of a lot of funding in the UC system.
We've got great higher education.
We've got great community colleges.
We have invested in a lot of health care for people in the state.
And the health care costs are far lower for many people than in Texas.
Now, we've screwed up housing.
You know, we don't build enough.
Austin and Texas does that a lot more.
You know, I think when Gavin ran, he promised that we would build 3.5 million houses,
and we built 120,000 houses.
So I'm not going to defend California on housing.
We've got to have less restrictive zoning.
I'm a yimbi guy.
Let's build.
And I think that we need to look at places like Austin
or other parts of the country that have built
to be able to build more housing.
But this idea that if you just need to be low tax, low government,
I just philosophically disagree with that model.
My view is if you have investments in community colleges,
in trade schools, in public schools, in health care,
That is a high-functioning society where you can build wealth, where you can build wealth for every family.
Like, I just want the shot in America that I had as a son of immigrants, right?
I got to go to a good public school.
I didn't have to worry about going to a doctor.
I got to live in a safe community.
You know, I couldn't hit for anything in baseball.
They always said, Conabat's ninth watched the bun.
But I got to play.
I got to go to Phillies games.
Like, I had a great childhood.
On my street, like, there were kids of electricians and plumbers.
And there was a kid of someone who was like a big shot vice president as a company.
That guy had the pool, and we all used to go to that house in the afternoose.
But the country, they didn't give me a lot, but they gave me enough.
And my parents, you know, they said, Roe, you won the lottery.
You were born in America.
Go work hard.
Go make something of yourself.
Learn about the country's history.
My mom used to, one of the things I never understand is folks who say don't learn English.
My mom used to sit at the kitchen table with note cards of every big English word.
And she was convinced that you had to know every word in the English language to make it in America.
See, that's the spirit I want in this country.
Yeah, you've got to work with everything you have, hard work.
You got to love this country.
It's the greatest country in the world.
You've got to love the history.
appreciate the sacrifice of everyone who fought from the Revolutionary War to the World War II
to fought for civil rights.
Understand how great the country is.
But give a shot to everyone.
The same shot I had.
That's what I want.
I really do.
And we don't have that right now.
I'm not going to disagree with you.
And, you know, we're kind of winding up down the interview here.
But I just want to say that, you know, now that I'm coming out of the, the,
the tribalized, whatever,
sciop that I fell into,
and I think just about everybody
in the country has fallen into.
I mean, you know what I'm realizing
the more other people on the other side of the fence
that I talk to like yourself?
We all want the same fucking thing.
We just have different road maps how to get there.
And that's not a bad thing, right?
Because let's say it was just like
Roe-Kana gets to run America
and no one is saying, like, are you wasting the money?
is the money actually, are people
you're going to move away? Are you actually
going to help the kids you want to help?
That wouldn't be good. And let's
say it was just someone saying, okay,
I just don't want to waste any money, don't want to
spend anything. And I was like, yeah, but what about
building those public schools and factories? That wouldn't
be good. What makes this country work
or has made it work is like having
people on all sides challenge each other
and then we get through a common
understanding and good. And what's not
working in this country is we're busy
launching ad hominem attacks on each other, dunking on each other, without having like actual debate.
It's not constructive criticism or productive criticism. It's just tribalism. And it's not going anywhere.
And what I meant, you know, is this is you care about people and I care about people and we want the best for people.
But it's just different avenues how to get there. And people, you guys,
especially, I've got to start figuring out how to work out these problems, man.
I'm getting you to do to join me.
I don't think you've ruled it out.
I don't think you ruled it out.
You will not see my ass on the floor of the house.
You can guarantee them to you that.
But, Roe, I really appreciate what you're doing.
I mean, I know what it's like to go against the grain, and I just, I applaud you.
Good job for doing that.
People, that what you're doing right now with the Epstein stuff, that's how you're going to get these.
that's how you're going to get the win that you're asking.
How do we get this place back?
And accountability from that would be a great start.
It may be only the start that we need to get things moving in the right direction.
But I do want to ask you, if you could recommend three people for the show, who would they be?
Thomas Massey, of course, who was an interesting person and really smart.
I mean, really and courageous.
Have you had Marjorie on, Taylor Green?
I haven't.
I think I should have her on?
Yeah.
She risked her career for it.
I mean, these are just, because we're talking about the Epstein Files.
But let me, you know, the guy at Dario Amadeh, at Anthropic, actually, you know, you should have, have you had Jensen on from NVIDIA?
I've tried to get him.
I'll talk to him.
I know him well.
He's in my district.
I'll tell him you should come on to this show
because he's one of the great innovators of our time
and he's humble
and he just understands technology
and where we're going in an incredible way.
Man, I would love to do that.
And it'd be a great conversation.
Yeah, it would be.
Man, please connect me.
That would be amazing.
And I got one.
Yeah.
Can you give me AOC?
I'd love to get her.
Have you had Bernie?
No.
Would you do Bert?
Yeah, I'll take him too.
I'll talk to both of them.
Perfect.
Thank you.
I'll tell you who else are big progressives.
There are obviously two of the...
Have you had Mamdani?
I haven't.
Would you talk to Mamdani?
I would talk to just about anybody.
So, yes, I would love that too.
You know, I think to the extent you have people on
both sides.
I think that's great.
The thing I admire about you, respect
about you, why I came all the way down,
is because you take on power.
You're willing to speak truth to power.
And you were doing that on Epstein,
like I said, before I did.
And you're against the grain
in taking on orthodoxes.
And to me, like, what we don't want
in this country is more of the same.
It's like people are sick of the status quo.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm with you.
Roe, thank you.
Thank you.
Appreciate this.
I love.
Thank you.
Cheers.
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