The Benny Show - Live Right Now With Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna talking Charlie Kirk, Leftist Violence, Trump Peace Deal

Episode Date: October 15, 2025

Charlie Kirk Honored with Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House, Democrat Congressman Ro Khanna  joins the show. 120Life: “120/Life is a natural drink that supports healthy blood pressure. See better numbers in 2 weeks or your money back by saving 20% with code BENNY at http://www.120life.com/ ” Advantage Gold: Get your FREE wealth protection kit https://www.abjv1trk.com/F6XL22/4MQCFX/?sub1=Youtube Patriot Mobile: Go to https://www.PatriotMobile.com/Benny and get A FREE MONTH Allio Capital: Text ”BENNY” to 511511 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Going on, everyone. We are live again from Washington, D.C. We have a special show for you, a show that I think is going to be very important because it will be our first big congressional Democrat joining the show today. And we hope that we can find some common ground. We hope that we can find a little bit of consensus. And we hope that we can find a moment here where we can love America a little bit more than we hate each other. And that's what we want to do in the wake of Charlie Kirk's Medal of Freedom ceremony, which we witnessed yesterday at the White House, some incredible breaking news, some remarkable things that the Trump administration did, some behind the scenes that I want to bring to you very swiftly here before we get to our guest, Democrat from California, Roe Kana. Are we going to be asking him about the cat fight between Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris? Absolutely. Are we going to be asking about political violence? Absolutely. Are we going to pull any punches and like try and kumbaya? Well, I mean, the point here is that you should not have to.

sacrifice your values in order to have a conversation. You should be able to do that in a civilized manner. So that's what we're going to do today. And we're excited about it. Wednesday, October 15th, 2025 will be a very special day. It is today. We are at the Conservative Partnership Institute here in Washington, D.C. as our broadcast partner has been an awesome trip so far. And well, ladies and gentlemen, it's going to get even better. Lock in and let's go. My name is Benny Johnson, and this is The Benny Show. This show is brought to you by 120 Life, 120 Life, is this spectacular blend of all natural juices, vegetables, and fruits that are so good for you. It's good for your health.

It's good for your soul. It's good for your ticker. And I got to tell you, after the last couple of weeks, I think my high blood pressure has not improved. But the way to improve it is actually to make sure that your body is getting the fuel. that it needs from the sources that are all natural that make sure that you are able to manage high blood pressure. I certainly haven't. Nearly half of all American adults have high blood pressure. And that is what 120 Life is therefore trusted by health care professionals to make sure that you are getting the kind of beneficiary results that you can get measurable changes

when you drink and eat the right things. 120 life helps me get there. It's great tasting. It's delicious and it's good for you. For a limited time, try 120 Life and save 20%. Just use the code Benny at checkout for a limited time at 120.com. 120 Life offers a risk-free trial with a full refund if you don't see lower numbers in two weeks. Go to 120LiFE.com and use the code Benny to save on 120 life. You can save 20% ladies and gentlemen. Okay. Here we go. We were at the White House yesterday. It was an amazing day. And it was a profound day. It was one of the most beautiful days I've ever seen at the White House. I've never seen. This is not a brag. I've been to the White House hundreds of times, maybe not thousands, but hundreds. The reason why is because I lived in Washington, D.C. for 15 years. I was a reporter here. And so I've seen, I've seen a lot. And I've never been there on a more beautiful day. It was just completely and totally stunning. And this is October in D.C. It could be sleep. it could be overcast. There could be ice storms. You don't know. It's the swamp. It's that bad weather here. And it was just utterly gorgeous. And so the day itself was magnificent. And then the event itself was also beautiful. Erica Kirk and Donald Trump spoke at this event. There were a lot of friends there in the audience. A lot of people that we loved seeing. And a lot of

old and new friends, ladies and gentlemen. Here's just a little short cycle of some of the individuals that we were able to chat with and that we were able to have the pleasure of Klein. This is the time that we're putting up all of our photos, please. ALX, I don't like this block. I don't like leading in this block. I don't like this. Yeah, so it's like, it's like birthday gift ever.

Erica Kirk fights back tears as Trump presents her with Charlie's Medal of Freedom. You've given him the best birthday ever. President Donald Trump awarded Charlie Kirk the Medal of Freedom marking what would have been his 32nd birthday. Charlie, Erica's widow, wiped away tears as Trump handed her the highest civilian honor in the White House Rose Garden. Now, something that made a ton of news was what happened next. After this, Erica Kirk went up to me at the White House ceremony and showed me what was on the back of the cross. And what was on the back of this Medal of Freedom, medal was a cross. And it was the first ever Christian crucifix that has ever been engraved in.

This is the first time they've ever put a cross on the back of the Medal of Freedom. President Trump to honor Charlie Kirk's advancement of Trump to honor Charlie Kirk's advancement for the kingdom of Christ. Charlie Kirk was memorialized by his friend, Donald Trump, in beautiful statement right here. He filled every single day with purpose and he fought for truth when it was unpopular and he stood for God when it was costly, but that's what we're called to do. Surprisingly enough, he did pray for his enemies, which is very hard, but he did. He did. He did. He did. No one else. I mean, I saw him do it. No, he never did it in front of anyone else, but I can attest to that. But he also loved people when it was inconvenient.

That's the wrong clip line. And I'm just saying we're just going to like our guest, our guest is here now. So our guest is here now. So I'm going to maximize time. We're going to read, let's just maximize time with the congressman. And we'll do the intro. We'll try and do the intro later. Clips were labeled wrong. It's fine, though. I can only switch that, too. But, yes, let's get to the, let's get to row, and we'll do what we have to. I'll fix it all in post if I have to. Well, okay. Great. All right, thanks.

Hey, what's going on, man? Thanks for having me. It's sweet to hear from you. I appreciate. I'm sorry, what's happening with your family, huh? I don't realize, I mean, that's pretty scary stuff. Has the guy been apprehended? Everybody gets death threats. They're not that explicitly.

Yeah, but what I'm trying to establish here is like a baseline. Right. But somebody has to get punished. Yeah. But saying they're going to murder a whole family. Because you can't live in a society like that, it's like terrorism. I didn't say they threatened your family. So it's great, like, to see somebody, you know, what you want,

mitigate this you should happen yeah oh well I'm sorry you're doing with that how's your wife been dealing with it yeah she's fine right a lot of trips to the pool like a lot of like you're right yeah we have four kids so we can't buy in the house oh my gosh because he identified where well our dress is not work I'm sorry you're doing how old are your children matter four and just count down for that's a hard that's that's a handful yeah not fun yeah it's not fun yeah this is awesome thank you for doing this great all right good to go recording now benny and i'll just play i see i'm popping in what's he saying i'll play the guest singer for you those aren't good okay

my technical producer back in temple all right three two one well ladies And ladies and gentlemen, we are honored today to have in the studio live with us, Roe Kana of California. Congressman is joining us live. Welcome to the program. Welcome to Benisha. Well, thanks for having me. Look, it started out because I reached out to you offering condolences on the horrific assassination of Charlie Kirk. And I knew, because you show up in my feeds, how close you were on a human level. And to me, Something is broken when we're not able to offer condolences to each other, even if we disagree. And then I'm so sorry for what your family is going through. I mean, horrific. Having someone you don't know threatened to eliminate, not just you, but your wife and kids, appalling. And he needs to be brought to justice. And I'm sorry, on a human level, what you've been going through.

I'm just really happy that the DOJ has taken action. Nobody should have to live like this. We certainly aren't the only ones who get death threats. It happens a lot. I was actually helping a well-known, I won't name them because I'll destroy their career, but a well-known leftist yesterday who has gotten some really credible death threats, and it's not anything that should ever happen. It's hard enough to raise a family, as it is, and you shouldn't do that under terroristic

threatening. I mean, right? We're all calm about it, but people, I mean, as a family that threaten your kids, to threaten to eliminate you, this person deserves the book thrown at them. And we were talking about how you made. may not fess up to, but you have Democrats at your wedding. And, you know, there used to be a time in this country where you have strong, hard agreements on where the country is going, but we could talk to each other, I still have friendships across party lines, try to understand each other,

recognize that none of us have a monopoly on the truth, that, you know, we all have blind spots. And so I appreciate you're inviting me just to have a conversation. Maybe it's Iowa nice. I don't know what. You have a lot of choices for cell phone service, with new ones popping up all the time. But here's the truth. There's only been one cell phone company that stands in the gap for every American that believes in freedom and believes that freedom is worth fighting for. And that's Patriot Mobile. The good news is you can switch to Patriot Mobile today without sacrificing quality or service.

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I want everyone to know that Rokana before almost anyone after Charlie's death reached out. And I don't know how he got my email. We had never spoken before and not out of animosity, but just

we didn't have any professional necessity to speak at that time. And he reached out Like, the congressman reached out right away and said, how do we fix this? Like, what happened to Charlie was horrible. And what can we do to make sure that it doesn't happen to any other American? And it's just like such an honorable baseline, such a human baseline, that I think is missed by some people in your party, by some people who've used this as an opportunity to further desecrate, dance on Charlie's grave. It's been tough to see.

It's been tough to watch. and it's what makes people cold and bitter actually is seeing that that the even in even after this man's widow wife is widowed and children are orphaned that there's still no humanity left and I don't want you know you don't want to live in a country like that right you don't want to live in a country where people will celebrate the death of somebody that disagree with politically or want to assassinate them and you can't unite with that and in order to have a country that functions you have to be able to agree on more than you disagree on um and so anyway it was just refreshing to see um it's been it's been nice to see it's been great to do this is why we're having this conversation well i appreciate that look

i think we have to be able to see uh each other's humanity it shouldn't be uh a big high bar to say we condemn political assassinations that if there is a political assassination you know someone's close to them, that you reach out and you offer condolences, that your heart breaks for someone's wife and their kids, and that we can see each other as Americans, ultimately. That doesn't mean that you have to agree with everything Charlie stood for in terms of, I mean, that Charlie wouldn't want that. He wouldn't. Now, if we want to have conversations about the, you know, places of disagreement, fine. And we can get into that in terms of where people agree or disagree. But it should be done in a way of honoring our country's ability to have dialogue, debate, and seeing

each other as humans. It was tough watching Ilhan Omar and AOC, right, uses an opportunity to attack Charlie. I mean, obviously, you disagree with them. But to not have Democrats vote to disavow political violence, right? There's like, I think there was 53 Democrats that did that. And then Ilhan Omar, you know, using it as a real opportunity to attack Charlie, you know, saying that, you know, his, his opinion belongs in the dustbin of history, you know, his worldview belongs in the dustbin of history, that she's not going to honor this shitty person. Yeah, I mean, that's just, it's just a nastiness.

Well, she's had a lot of death threats too, right? She's had, and we've got to, but look, I think there's, Here's where people are coming from on the Democratic side so we can have an honest conversation. I think even Ilhan or AOC would unequivocally condemn the murder of Charlie Kirk. If they were here, they at a human level would express an empathy for you as someone who knew him. I'm sure of that. And maybe we as a party needed to do that more. But there are places where Charlie had views that were deeply hurtful to people on our side.

Two of those views were what he had said about the Civil Rights Act, right? I mean, if it weren't for the Civil Rights Act, the Immigration Reform Act, my parents wouldn't have been able to come to the United States. I wouldn't be in the United States Congress. And then what the comments he had made about Michelle Obama and Kitangi Jackson-Brown. So I don't think it's beyond the point. pill. You tell me if I were wrong to be criticizing. I'm just saying that he was assassinated, right? So like he was assassinated by the left.

So he's killed. And so he's assassinated. Yes. So he's assassinated and it just seems like it seems like those are the kind of moments where you can set that stuff aside. Let me give you an example. Right now, Joe Biden has stage five metastasized cancer to his bones as this is a death sentence. Um, according to you know, they say, you know, they say there's some. therapies but let's say at least yeah i mean most medical professionals say that and it's terrible and i've seen members of my family die of cancer right and i think that that um that joe biden is the worst president of my lifetime i i don't like joe biden and i and i i do and i think he's i think it was a really bad president and when i heard that about his cancer diagnosis you like take the

political and you set it aside and no matter what i thought of joe biden and matter how hard I fought to make sure that Joe Biden wasn't president, you take it and you compartmentalize it and you put it aside and you say a prayer for Joe. I appreciate it. And I said this to me privately as well. I mean, it's like, I want to, you know, and so there's like these two planes that I think are really important, right, where it's like there's the plane of we're working to figure out what the best ideas for this country are. And then there's the human plane where it's like, I really don't, it's terrible that Joe Biden is going to suffer through.

this terrible cancer treatment that I've seen myself personally will affect my family, millions of other Americans. And so I'm going to say a prayer for him that his, you know, whatever days God has for him are painless. And I feel like there's moments, there's like, there's like, there's like, there's like, there's like, there's like moments where you can shift hopefully from one to the other, right, to the human side. And I wish more of America saw the human side, right? And, and, and, and that they, we, doesn't all have to be political. It doesn't, it doesn't have to be, Charlie Kirk was killed. and that's bad but you know here's everything i hate about him you know and that and that that's

what i try i've tried to do and i haven't seen any conservatives dancing on joe biden's you know grave so to speak i haven't seen anybody celebrating the horrible thing that's happening to joe i've seen a lot of people praying for him and saying you know we hope we hope that he lives a painless you know whatever days god has from our painless but i but there were a lot of leftists that were celebrating charlie kirk's death and that will and i'm try what i what i want is to try and figure out what what is that exactly you know why is that happening um because that is something that's bothered a lot of people well look the celebration of his that was horrific disgusting appalling i mean i i i am never met uh erika but i saw her

comments about forgiving uh charlie's killer and to me that uh was what christianity is is all about right forgiveness, redemption. And I saw his kids. I saw this clip of Charlie being interviewed and his daughter running to hug him. And at a human level, your heart goes out to the family. The question then is, okay, you know, and I know you're sincere about praying for Joe Biden, because you've told me that not just in this interview, I'm with that before. But if there was a you know, if you were in the Congress and there is a resolution just to have an honest conversation that says Joe Biden was the greatest president, uh, in, uh, in American history, hypothetically, you know, and, uh, let's wish it well for cancer. You could see why that would maybe. I would

ever say Joe Biden is the president. I would say it's because what the resolution for Charlie was was just to honor his life, right? And so, you know, so I would be like, yeah, Joe Biden was president. And, and he, you know, had a, you know, he did, he did his career, you know, here in the Senate and in the federal government. If I was a member of Congress, I'd find that, okay, so we're going to, so Joe Biden has terminal cancer. We're going to honor his life and his service and say that, that cancer is bad, right? I would totally vote for, God, vote, like, voted for it.

Like, fine, you know, fine. That's not even hard, right? But it was, you know, I don't want to, I'm just trying to get to the core of, like, the humanity that we're losing. right which is it's that's been on full display like the humanity loss has been it's been tough to see now there's been some members like you john fetterman who've just like come out front and been like no like we're not going to use this as an opportunity to attack charlie further or to celebrate his death and i think that that's like a like a rock bottom basement that we can like build from actually

that political violence is wrong and that we shouldn't celebrate it we shouldn't shouldn't want more of Absolutely. I mean, that unequivocal condemnation of the violence, empathy for people who have suffered from it, the ability to condemn violence to you, to your family, threats of violence, I mean, unambiguously, thinking how we tone down and understand how we bring down the temperature in this country. You know, I mean, I've condemned, I got some hot wires on Hugh Hewitt, And I said that the attorney general who was running in Virginia that those tweets were beyond the pale

that I can support him in good conscience when he's threatening to kill the speaker of the house and texting that. I mean, that's not a high bar. But at the same time, you call for him to drop out of the rolls, Jay Jones. I don't call for me to, I never call for anyone to drop out,

but I said that I don't, I wouldn't support him. I don't endorse him. I don't support, support him. And I condemn those tweets. But I, yeah, it's for the, people to decide in terms of, whether it's Republican Democrat, we have a democracy. It's like people who are calling for Donald Trump to drop out because he had charges. I just think we need, but we need to be clear that those, that I wouldn't be calling up today and said, would you

endorse me? I wouldn't endorse them. I don't support them. But at the same time, the group chat, I mean, I know people have dismissed this, but you know, you have these 20, 30 year old folks talking about insults to, to people who are Jewish, to people. Before we get to that, because I'm happy to talk about that. And I want to obviously talk about the differences between the two of them, but Jay Jones. He texted Republicans that he wanted to kill them. He wanted to shoot him with bullets. He called them and harassed them. And then he said he wanted to kill their children, called their children little fascist. This is the exact same. thing that happened to me and a man is now in prison for it, a California man from San

Diego. And he's in jail for doing the same thing, threatening my family and threatening to kill me. And so how do you, how do you parse the difference there between the results? Because Jay Jones, who did that to a Republican, is on the ballot in Virginia and still has a A considerable amount of Democrat support, I haven't seen Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or Nancy Pelosi call for him to drop out of the race or even to condemn, actually. He still has the full support of the DNC, the DCC. How do you know, how do you square that? Because what that says to someone like me is we're going to like selectively choose, you know, where we find condemnation for this. We actually we actually don't think that. that's wrong. Abigail Spanberger hasn't called for him to drop out. I mean, that seems like it seems like the lowest possible threshold is like you shouldn't be asking for people to die, you know, asking for Republicans to be killed. Look, I don't think he should be supported. I mean, that's, that's and I don't think we should be, uh, in endorsing him in because of what those, those, those texts were

pretty horrible. Now, yeah, I don't think you would say he should be prosecuted. The guy who threatened and you should be prosecuted because there was a actionable intent to, uh, to actually harm you. And we have a broad First Amendment in this country for a reason that, but there's a difference between saying someone's speech, uh, maybe protected under the First Amendment, uh, and that we Benny Johnson here, let me ask you, do you really trust Washington, D.C. with your money? Because right now, millions of Americans are watching their retirement savings take a massive hit in the worst market collapse since 2020. The system is broken. It's run by reckless decisions made by politicians fueling rising costs and now unraveling right before our very eyes.

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it's refreshing to hear someone say it though. I mean, I guess it's refreshing to hear. I'm not trying to put the screws to you. I appreciate the fact that you're able to just disavow it. No, and look, I'm sure there'll be some people have said it, maybe because they'll say, you know, it's a close race, and he's on the ballot, and are you not going to endorse him or support him, given that it's neck and neck? And no, I can't.

I can't support someone who threatens violence in that way. And it's not like someone, it's not like, okay, the next day he woke up and then he texted, I'm really sorry I was having a moment, right? It's three years later that that's not the type of, politics. But let me ask you this, because I want to, why, why on the left that the hurt in terms of these issues? And take, take, um, take Kirk out of it. Because obviously he was murdered and, and, and, and sympathies. And you were a genuine friend of his and his family. And I know that

that's been painful. When you look at the issues that, that the left has been hurt by, this idea of the civil rights movement, right, and the Civil Rights Act and this idea that overcomes segregation in the South. And I was telling to someone the other day who said, you know, when he grew up in the South, he couldn't go through the front door of the restaurant. He used to go through the back door, but it didn't really matter because he was too poor to buy anything. And growing up in the South Black meant being black and poor. And then we have Dr. King. We have the Civil Rights Movement. Now we have a, you have a, the end of Jim Crow, you have the Immigration Reform Act that allows people like my parents to

come to the United States. I'm born in Philadelphia. Do you see how people would be hurt if it's anyone saying, well, we don't believe in the Civil Rights Act? Or, you know, if anyone's an African-American woman in a high place like Katanji Jackson Brown were questioning their intelligence. I'm saying, I'm trying to, you know, because in the spirit of having this honest conversation, I'm telling you, where that hurt comes from. And I, again, I've said it before, but I'll say it now, like I love that we're having this conversation. You can't fix the country if you can't have conversations like this.

I hope that more Democrats come on the show and we can have more civilized conversations and have more spirited debate because that's the only way that you start seeing each other as human actually. It's easy when it's an avatar, when it's like a meme online, right, when it's something that's not inhuman, but I'm a physical, I'm a human being, I have kids. I have real children that I'm really raising.

I'm just a dad. I'm just a normal dude, right? Just like everybody else. Like, just like you and your family. And we're just normal dudes. And we're all on the ship together. And if the ship sinks, if America fails, like, we all fail together. And it sucks for all of us, right?

And we both believe that it's the greatest country in the world. Yes. We used to like, well, say, I don't, I like, I don't you do. But I'm not sure that many, I'm not sure. I think that that's actually the difference between now and the 90s is that. the majority, I think, I'm not, I think there's a considerable, perhaps still minority of voters that are not sure if America is the greatest country in the world and aren't, aren't aware. As As Asana, you know, this is the greatest country. I'm in, cheers to that.

American, born in Philadelphia, in 1976, a few people today in this country elected me to represent the richest, most powerful economically across the place in the world, Silicon Valley. This is a country where still your dreams can come true from whatever background you are. It's an incredible place. But the reason I have this conversation, a lot of times people get together like us, we have a dialogue, and then we don't get, people are, it's sort of the niceties, and they don't get to the, yeah, the heart. So please, let me get to the heart of the issue that you just brought up. So you're talking about hurt, and you're talking about people's feelings being hurt or someone's like, like, core beliefs. Right. That's important, okay? And that's the

level that we have to, like, talk about. I'm talking about people getting shot and killed. That's a different level of hurt. So when the president takes a bullet to the head, that's hurt. When Cory Compertor gets killed in front of his wife and children, that's hurt. When Charlie Kirk gets struck in the neck and killed, that's hurt. And millions of people see it. That's actual hurt.

That's physical violence. When a church in Minneapolis gets shot up, right? And the children praying there are killed. That's hurt. when ice facilities get shot up by snipers with anti-ice iconography carved in the bullets, that's hurt, right, right? This is hurt. And so we, in order to get to the next level of politics where we talk about these issues,

right, marginal tax rates and health care, right, in the Civil Rights Act, you have to stop the kill, you have to stop the physical killing, right, before you can even talk about that stuff. But they don't exist, they don't exist in the same plane. One's, one, you know, one is esoteric and as a policy and the other one is war, right? And that and that's, and so when Jay Jones, I want to bring this all back to Jay Jones, when there's a Democrat on the ballot in Virginia to be the top law enforcement agent of that state and there are three million Democrats registered in Virginia and millions of them vote for a man that says he wants to kill Republicans and their children because they're little fascists. What message is that sending? And when the Democrat Party can't disavow that individual, well, what message is that sending to Republicans?

You want to talk about hurt, Congressman, that's hurt. And it's no longer something that is esoteric. It's something that's physically happening. We're witnessing it happening. I just saw it happen to my family three days ago, right? With the DOJ charges. Yeah. So it's like these are real.

When somebody shows you who they are, believe them, you know, these are real. that's that's real hurt and so I think that's a major divide in the country right now right because from a Republican standpoint from a conservative standpoint we're seeing the actual physical bullets and the actual you know death of generational leaders are president taking a bullet to the head look I mean look at what happened to the president in every Democrat including president Biden vice president Harris condemned within hours the horrific assassination attempt at at Butler that 99% of elected Democrats condemned the horrific assassination of Charlie Kirk. But you would agree that this violence has not been one-sided, right?

I mean, I guess the vice president and I have debated a lot, Vance, but one of the things that I was disappointed is for him to say, well, it's all this, the violence on the left. What about, and I don't want to be a what-aboutism, but what about when Nancy Pelosi's husband, Paul Pelosi, was beaten with a hammer in his house. What about the assassination? Hold on. Hold on. Let me just finish that. What about the assassination? That guy's kids described him as a leftist. He lived in a trailer with a BLM sign. The assassination in Minnesota. Hold on. What about Gretchen Whitmer and the governor and militias who captured her? What about the threat? You're saying all these things, but you're not giving me

you know, you're casting these stuff. This happened to me on cable news the other night when they said, well, what about the Poles Nike club shooting? That's that's right wing violence. That was ISIS violence, bro. That has nothing to do with the right wing. They're not the right wing if I disavow them. And I don't, Nancy Pelosi's attack. So let's start on the level. It's horrible to attack Paul Pelosi in his home.

That was awful. I disavow that violence entirely. President Trump should have found it more clearly. I mean, he was kind of mocking it. So that man has a very unique story. And if you actually want to get down under the details, his family describes him as a left-wing environmentalists who supported Democrats. He lived inside of a house with BLM signs in it. And so you're saying, you're as describing that as right-wing violence. It's not right-wing

violence. I don't think. Either way, I disavow it. Either way, I disavow it. It's not even hard for me, right? Do you, are you willing to criticize President Trump's reactions to John McCain, to Paul Pelosi, to the absence of condemnation when the Minnesota? I'm not here to speak for the president. I'm here to speak for myself. And I can, and I, and I, respect the fact that you're speaking for yourself with J. Jones. Right. But like I guess the point is that there's there's in this country. And I'm not saying that there aren't problems on our side. There's in this country a feeling that the the that that the that the violence has taken place against people on the left. I'm not saying that literally by someone on the right, but that the right,

the leaders of the right from the president have not been as unequivocal in condemning that as they should be. But the, but come on. We both have. like functional brain stems and eyeballs you can see that the vast majority of the modern political violence is on the left and that's what all available data shows that's not the ad that is you can't use the adel the adel uses prison uses prison violence and ascribes right wing as right as right wing hate we disavow that entirely that's not part of our movement You can't bundle that data together. I refuse to acknowledge that data on this program.

What is the gain from even right doing, whether it's left or right is more to blame? Why not just come together and say that it's all wrong? Totally. Totally. It's all wrong. And I can tell you this, as a matter of fact, if a Republican was running right now, that said that Democrat children should be slaughtered because they're little communists. And that I want to kill Democrats.

I want to kill Democrats. I would be calling for that person to be banished from the party. I'd say that's absolutely, totally morally repugnant and indefensible. And what I'm saying right now is that the Democrats have a man who's running for the chief law enforcement position in Virginia. It's a big, powerful state, half the federal government is in that state. And, you know, he hasn't been, like, it's barely even been covered. And so that signals that it's appropriate. That's all.

I don't want the signal that that's appropriate. That's fine. But this is why I want the guy. That's why I'm glad the guy was arrested, you know, that came after my family. I want a signal that it's important that we can't tolerate this in society. Right. You know. But, but, but it's not been a, uh, a one-sided problem on the devolution of public discourse.

Of course. To say that it's all 100% one side, that that, that on the Democratic side that just to, to share the perspective that there, there is a sense that the president, whatever you think of him, You know, when he came and he's calling about deporting Ilhan Omar saying, you know, at a rally who's an American citizen in the Congress when he's not condemning Paul Pelosi's incident of Hammer, when he's joking about it, joking about McCain, joking about not condemning unequivocally what happened. It took a week to tough the arson, anti-Semitic arson of Josh Shapiro's home in Pennsylvania. Also a man of the left, a big pro-Palestine guy.

Is that the case? Yeah, it's a matter of fact. The question is not. So more left wing violence. I hate it. And I condemn it, by the way, like completely. And maybe if you were president, we would have had that response within hours. But what we've had is a sense where the Trump and others have not, haven't done it.

I'm not holding you. I stood with the attorney general 72 hours ago. She condemned all of those, including the Minnesota attack, Josh Shapiro attack. The attorney general is top law enforcement official. And she, in her speech right in front of me, I was put from her. She condemned all of that, of course. Yeah. because it's, like, not even hard to do.

Well, my hope is that this can become the baseline. Maybe we can start with this, that regardless of who the violence is against or who the random suspect is, sometimes it's a mental health issue, sometimes it's an issue of motives. We can come together, Republicans, Democrats, unequivocal condemnation within hours and zero tolerance. I think if we establish that, Betty, I love it. They would be progress. I love it.

I'm fine with it. Paul Pelosi to also live a happy, you know, a happy and, you know, like, like, of course these things are wrong. This guy's from California. I haven't, I mean, do you think that I'll hear anything from Gavin Newsom about this, about the guy who threatened my family? You should. I mean, I'm happy to, to reach out to him. And I mean, I, it's a federal crime, but, you know, we've got to tone down the, the, the, the, the anger, the hate the insult. And here's the question, Ben, but you're on a deeper level. Please.

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That's the Sam. Academy Award nominee Jeremy Strong. It's a story you want to tell. I think we got that. Yeah, we got that one. Springsteen, Deliver Me from Nowhere. Only in theaters, October 24th. it's now we can keep going down a politics that's going to insult each other right i mean uh trump

does a meme gavin does a meme there's a you know they're mocking each other's physical appearance i mean you're laughing but that's no i mean this has become like the gladiator i mean the best thing the left has going for them digitally is gavin newsom having a stan account that just copies Trump like on every tweet and it's like we're very close to the people that do like Trump's social media that that that's what Gavin's doing and he's going gangbusters on it you know it's like it's actually remarkable to watch it's so that can be that can be the future of America or we can try to say that we can have ferocious competition but on a debate about ideas about a debate about where we stand on things like how we bring manufacturing back,

how we grow the economy, how we deal with AI, how we make sure we're ahead of China, and we can debate these issues. And we can do it in a way that is spirited, that is competitive, but isn't like Roman gladiators and mud wrestling. And maybe we just keep going down this kind of shock jot politics. I don't think that's what's going to keep America preeminent. if we do that. And what I'd like to do, which I did with Vivek Ramoswamy, in a conversation when he was running for president, is we had an hour and a half long conversation,

deep divisions, but in an elevated plane. And I wish the vice president would do that. The guy's obviously educated. He went to, you know, Ohio State, went to Yale. He's, no one questions his intellect. Why is it always, okay, let's figure out how we insult or mock? And I'm not saying I'm perfect. Why not turn it around a new generation post-Trump? Right. We've had three 80-year-old presidents in a row, literally, through some court. We're going to have people like you and me now leading this country in a post-Trump Biden future. Why don't we try to turn things around in a better way? So it's not just putting up pictures of Donald Trump and calling him fat or vice versa.

In defense of the vice president, I think he was on virtually every single news network this weekend on Sunday shows. He did Sunday shows like he subjects himself to questioning all the time. He's out there on questioning, but he has this side. Sure, Stephanopoulos cut him off with a commercial break. He's got the side of him. You know, he's an set, it's all thinking maybe he finds it humorous who is calling Elizabeth Warren, Pocahontas, etc. I'm just saying that we could, you would agree with me, putting aside who's to blame that we can do better in this country. Like we're not like Lincoln Douglas or Kennedy Nixon.

We've become a country where, to your point, having a stand social media account trying to imitate Trump is. is, like, is that the future of America? Like, is that the future of conversation? And maybe, you know, maybe that is, but that's, is that going to make us lead in AI? Is that going to make us the leader of the free world? Is that what Ronald Reagan would have done and, like, calling to Gorbachev to tear down the wall? So, so how do we, what I'm trying to say is how do we try to raise the standards of conversation, discourse in this country? I swear you could sell out arenas by doing actual Lincoln Douglas debates, by bringing thought.

leaders from both sides and having true debates. People love that. There are big YouTube channels with millions of millions of views. Jubilee is one of them where they just have good faith, good faith debate. Yeah, good faith debate between sides. Right. And like people love that. I swear you could, you really could truly sell out arenas. I would love to. You know, I did one with the big. You can have Marjorie Taylor Green or Massey or the vice president. Not in a way of like, okay, here's the debate with Sean Hannity is a moderator and you take your swing with your rehearse talking points and how about just a conversation right that that was what douglas and lincoln were they were actually talking for hours in a way of trying to understand where to go

as a country and by the way it elevated both of them to the point that 150 years later we're talking about both of them people read those debates like they'd still study them right yeah you think they're getting about newsome stan accounts you think they're going to reading about i mean there will definitely be history books written about Trump's memes but it net and that's a corner of the internet, listen, we live in the, you know, we live in the internet age. And people love memes. And they love, it's like, they love that style of communication. The base does. But I think that there is a ravenous hunger for true and real and hearty debate in this country. And I think that they can coexist, honestly. And there was a debate that was done between Duran DeSantis and

Gavin Newsom. I think it did really well. I think a lot of people watched it. They liked it. And I'd love to see more of that, actually. I was great with that. Yeah. Ron DeSantis held up the poop map Did you see that? I didn't I didn't watch the debate I saw the San Francisco poop map He said here's where all the public defecation is In San Francisco

Dan Lurie's cleaning that up A new mayor Oh is he? Yeah we got a new generation of mirrors And have you been out for the Bay Area recently Not recently but I've been a couple times It is sunken man It is tough

I watched a guy I got an In-N-Out burger right by the wharf There's an In-Out burger right there And then I watched a guy Drop his pants and then just take a giant shit right in front of me. And I couldn't eat. I couldn't eat it anymore.

I love In-N-Out. And I don't get it very often. So I'm like, I was only there for a few hours. This was my In-N-Out burger. And this guy takes a shit in front of me. It sucked. I had to throw away my in-and-out. Well, come to my district.

It's a little bit further south. Okay. We won't have that vacation in the out. We do have, you got to, you know, for all the mockery of Silicon Valley, if it were really that unsafe a place, you wouldn't have five companies. He's over a trillion dollars, Apple, Google, Invidia, Tesla, you know, Broadcom. You wouldn't have them have their families there, living there, schools, their employees there. Actually, some of the cities in my district are the safest in the country, Sunnyville, Cooper Tino, Fremont.

But did we have a problem with San Francisco? Absolutely. Open drug culture, homelessness. And Lurie is cleaning it up. Last year, he's taken some big measures. That's why he's got 73% approval. That's wonderful to see. I'd love to do this tour with you in great American cities.

take on this is that we'll never get another San Francisco. God didn't make two San Francisco's. There's only one. It is a gorgeous, beautiful American city. It's probably one of the most gifted, naturally beautiful American cities in cities in the world, just period. Yes, yes. And so what happens when you can drive through it, when you drive through it and I have plenty of video to show, we got broken, we got a car broken into in five minutes, you know, famously in last year, you know, in San Francisco. And it was all on camera, right? And you can see it. You don't want to see these places. You've had two experiences, one a car broken in and one defecation.

Yeah, dude, man, we go there. I've lived there over 20 years. But you're in the areas outside. You know, we go downtown. We go downtown, right? And so we're staying in downtown San Francisco. We're not looking for trouble. Yeah, no, no.

But you know where we got our car broken into? Where? Nancy Pelosi's house. We were just there. We were right up there on billionaires, you little billionaires block. Yeah. Bro, they smashed right into our car, took all of our stuff right across. We were just filming an open, right?

because we were going to talk about, not to docks, Nancy Pelosi, but we were just talk about the neighborhood. Yeah, this was after COVID. Yeah, I mean, look, right across from Pelosi. This, her secret service was there, actually. Right. And they just watched our car get smashed

and all of our stuff get taken. I think they were laughing about it. But that's happened. I mean, that's a very safe neighborhood with some of the most beautiful homes I've ever seen in my life. Yeah. Very expensive homes. Right.

And it was not safe even there. And so then you watch the Paul Pelosi thing happen. And it didn't shock me because we were, someone, someone criminally attacked us right across from her house. And I was like, geez, man, this is just unsafe. It's unsafe. Like, Pelosi should move, actually. Like, this is unsafe for anyone to live here.

And I hate seeing that. Here's my take, okay? This is not the own-libs thing. My take is that we should protect, we should preserve Chicago. Like, we won't get another Chicago. We won't get another New York. Like, we shouldn't abandon these cities to total ruin. It's actually important for America to have these cities. There's a guy who believes in federalism and low-control.

Don't you think that the way to do that is, you know, I often say about the president. And I said, part of me thinks that he really wants to run for like Mero, New York. Like the guy is like, that's the job. He'd be a great one. That's the job he really wants. You like Mondami? Did you endorse him? I, I've endorsed him.

I have endorsed him and I'm going to campaign. I've campaigned for him, for Mikey Cheryl, for Abigail Spanberger. And we've got a broad tent party, but I have endorsed Mumdani. But the, the point is, I mean, why not? Okay. Oh, we don't have enough time on the live for this. That's the next. That's the conversation.

You should have Mondani on. I would love to. I mean this. I would love to. I'd say this in absolute earnest. I would love to have them on. I'd like to have AOC on. I'd like a Bernie on.

Yeah. This is like critically, it's like critically important that we at the very least like can have these conversations. You know what you could do? Like adults. You could actually hold. You get one conservative, one progressive Democrat or whatever kind of and have a conversation like we're having.

Yeah. It's substantive. It's not like, oh, kumbaya. like we've had disagreements and you and try to there may be a huge appetite for that in the country no one is no one has tried it right and so what we end up having is like this 10 second back and forth but the point was you know what you'd get to with that sorry to interrupt you congressman but what you'd get with that is you'd probably get an arena i don't know if you could sell it arena maybe you could you'd probably get an arena that would show up where like the crowd

would be very very mixed yeah would be like a ton of people from different backgrounds right that like would be there to see their side right so you'd have the aOC people like but with the maga people right like it'd be kind of neat it'd be neat i mean i don't want there to be too much alcohol served right is i don't want people doing shots okay because it'd be like an eagles be like an eagles game right i don't want batteries being thrown and there'll be some overlap like there'll be an overlap like getting money out of politics there'll be an overlap about totally about not having lobbyists they'll be an overlap on like transparency of government there'll be an overlap saying like we got to bring You know what to go so viral, Congressman?

Yeah. It's having, like, the, the, uh, stadium roar. Because there'd be a line like that about like, let's get filthy lobbyist money out of politics. I'm sick of big pharma money in politics, right? And the stadium would roar and it'd be all these MAGA people next to all these burning people. They all be clapping together for the same thing. It was like, it's the meme, you know?

It'd be the meme, like you're the driving meme. I introduced Trump's executive order on big pharma as a bill in Congress because I agree with it. Like his, he could have written that same thing. I mean, it was basically going after pharma saying American shouldn't pay more than people in like Britain, France, and Japan. So there are those areas. But on this city thing, like if Republicans are concerned about what's happening in Chicago or what's happening in these cities, then run someone from Mary. It's not like you guys haven't won with Giuliani or more centrist's marriage.

What my concern is you don't want the federal government. There's going to be a Democratic president at some point. You don't want a Democratic president sitting there saying, okay, we're going to mobilize the National Guard because we don't like what Abbott is doing. We're going to bring in the tent cities. We're going to force the tent cities on you. Yes, that's right. We're deploying 100,000 drug users to Tampa, okay? And we got a bunch of meth heads.

We got an army national guards of meth heads. Okay. We're going to send them in. I'm going to say, we're going to make everything, San Francisco. And by the way, what they're doing on university, you want to, like, just thinking. I think sometimes it's short-sighted. Just think of what a Democratic president could do to the conservative universities

if we said, okay, you want federal funding? Now, here are all the left curriculum that you need to have. I mean, it's keep the federal government out of sort of the interference on local cities, on private universities, even if they're getting federal funding, I get that argument.

But you really want, like, okay, right now it's like Trump making the compact for MIT, and Massey's pushed back on it as MIT grad but do you really want the left being getting in there and then probably well I mean like oh okay do we want the left the Hulu original series Murdoch death and the family dives into secrets deception murder and the fall of a powerful dynasty inspired by shocking actual events and drawing from the hit podcast this series brings the drama to the screen like never before starring Academy Award winner Patricia Arquette and Jason Clark The Hulu original series Murdoch Death and the Family is now streaming only on Disney Plus.

Being on college campuses talking about curriculum. Come on, Congressman. Do you hear yourself? Could you imagine if Democrats tried to censor people on social media? It'd be crazy. Whoa. Yes, as a guy who's lost like 50 accounts to censorship. Could you imagine if the left was operating on a college campus? Come on, come on. These are the kind of conversations you can have, like if you have an open debate.

And yes, of course, like obviously institutional racism, D.E.I, like quotas. I think those are wrong, actually. And I think they're against the civil rights. You talk about the civil rights amendment. Yeah, obviously it's illegal to hire people based on their skin color. You started this conversation saying the civil rights, that the Civil Rights Act is incredibly good for the country. Totally. And so we shouldn't be hiring people based on quotas and skin colors. And we shouldn't be bringing them into colleges based on DEIs and quotas and skin colors. And having that foisted down from a government. So what I'm saying here is that Trump is, and this is probably much longer conversation than we have time for, but Trump is to reset that is actually aligned with the Civil Rights Act, to say that we're not going to look at skin, we're not going to look at the amount of melanin you have in your skin to say whether you deserve to be in this college, that that is actually a good thing. We're going to look at you on your merits.

Here's what I think is missing. I think that's, we're the ultimate. That's actually in line, you know, with an MLK speech that says, I want my children to be judged by the content of the character and not the color of their skin. And I agree. Yeah is the opposite of that. No one should be hired because they're Indian or white or what they're racist. But here's the challenge that goes. Totally agree.

Totally agree. Who have supported diversity and inclusion programs, equity, inclusion programs. Here's what the challenge is. So I used to teach at Stanford in economics before I got into Congress. And I used to say my students used to get. funded before they had an idea. Why? Because they were meritorious, because they had the best plan? No, because they had the email to the venture capitalist who their parents knew or who they had the network. And then I went down to the south. So it's always been, by the way, like in all human

history, right? Like, you know. Historically black colleges were some of the most hardworking, ambitious kids, you know, had some of the most incredible ideas. But they would have no shot, no shot of getting any of that venture capital, unless the 1% of venture capital goes to black entrepreneurs. Now, I know you believe this because you believe in the potential of everyone. If we are going to have programs that say, you know what, that's kind of messed up,

that we've got all this talent that is not getting access to the right networks, and we're going to lose to China if we don't have everyone on the playing field. I don't view that as unmeritorious. I view that as meritorious. I view that is looking for God-given potential in every zip code

and making sure people aren't disadvantaged, because they don't have certain networks. And so this is the real conversation about DEI. It's not, okay, do you just hire someone based on race? It's how do we make this country more meritorious when some people have not had the same opportunities. Yeah, you really got to work on the racism in your district, Congressman. Because what you're talking about is your district there.

You know, you really got to work on that. Those racist Silicon Valley companies that won't hire black people. Congressman, you told on yourself, oh boy, it looks like you're going home with some real troubles. You're going to have to really lecture those big tech companies about their racism. I'm not saying that they're racist. I'm saying that they're networks that we have to work to make more inclusive. Look, that's, that's, and that's the American product.

Where you're born is where you're born, you know. It's like, and there's going to be benefits and downsides to everywhere that you're born. You're right. We've got to do that, right? I mean, part of the story in this country, I mean, have you ever thought, like, people who've built America, right, who scale the cliffs of Normandy, they won the Civil War, won the Revolution War, built the steel, built the coal, deindustrialized, jobs left, rural towns hollowed out. Like all the wealth was piling up in districts like mine. We've got billionaires,

trillioners. Have you ever said like, yeah, we need to do more for rural America? I don't view that as affirmative action. I view that's like, how do we get economic activity there? Factory towns. And I view the same thing with the Southwest or the Black South. But my point is, there's probably a place where we can come to some, even if we disagree, a way of understanding where we're coming from, and me not saying, you know what, Benny disagrees with me on this, and so he's a racist. Or he disagrees with me on this, and he doesn't like Indian people, right? And we can come at this with a conversation like we have. That doesn't mean I have to come up and be like, oh, Benny's the greatest on every view. You can hold your own, but we've got to find a way

to disagree more respectfully. And if there's one critique I have on my party, and I'm going to ask you what your critique is of yours. Uh-oh. But one critique of mine is sometimes we came off too much scolding. We come off as, you know, I think of the kids I grew up with who watched Rocky movies and went to Phillies games. And I was like, you know, I'm no better than them just because I have a fancy title as a congressman or I am Silicon Valley.

Like, they have a lot to teach me not just now, but when I was terrible at like Little League and they used to say watch the bun. And I think about them all the time and how I'm still one of the, those kids who grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. And I think our party sometimes comes off as can be preaching. You tell me, honest, honest reflection, where do you think your party could do better? Your party comes off as preachy. And I feel like my party doesn't preach enough. I feel like there's a huge messaging problem with the Republicans and that we need to get a lot sharper with our ideas for saving America. Kids can't afford a home. Like,

we need to actually talk about that. But kids can't buy homes. What the hell is going to happen in 10 years and 20 years? Kids don't have enough money to buy a home. What's the average price of a home in your district? What's a million dollars for a starter home? Like, for something that is no bigger than the studio? Is it a million dollars? How is that possibly, you know, and kids are working at Starbucks for minimum wage and say minimum wage approximately? is when I was a kid. Yeah. So it's like,

you know what? So, like how do you see the Maxwell house has become Maxwell apartments, the coffee that you know, like Boulder's coffee, they had Maxwell house. Yeah.

And now they're like, well, we're changing our name to Maxwell apartments because people don't buy houses anymore. That sucks. Is that true? That is true. Is that a meme?

It should be a meme. It was like, this is like the commentary on the American dream. That's insane. We have to care about these things. We have to like actually, like it feels like, oh, you know,

another social program. No, like with no it's not a social program it's like the future of our nation uh young men and women must be able to afford homes right like you you have to fix this they shouldn't be burdened with trillions of dollars of debt uh in pointless wars for forever wars uh there you like you and pharmaceutical costs are obscene and so our health care costs and so no kids can afford health care that's like a joke no one will ever own a home and you're going to have like an entire nation of nihilistic renters that's an awful future right

in a dollar that's insurance getting you know that's exactly right yeah 71 billion dollars of profits and no more small businesses no more small businesses in total corporatist control of everything that's awful you know who's been saying some of this stuff is marjorie taylor green yeah that's a terrible that's a terrible that's a terrible future but look that was an honest answer that's a terrible future and we need to talk about that like i agree with yeah for like the more from a moral perspective like that's it's an immoral thing to do your children from a patriotic yes it's an immoral thing to give them that as a future isn't that the significant biggest issue in this country that 70% of Americans believe that the American dream no longer exists.

That sucks. Yeah, that sucks. And my parents, when they came here, right, put aside what people think partisan was, but John F. Kennedy was saying, we were going to go to the moon. The country was on the march. We were like, we were the place to be in the world. And they never had a doubt that I or my brother would have a better life, that this was the greatest country in the world. They, you know, I still believe that. But see 70% of Americans lose that sense of chutzpah, that sense of building things that were the greatest nation, your kids are going to have a better life. That's what our political class should be talking about.

That's what we should be trying to figure out a common ground. And, you know, I don't care if Donald Trump were to get the credit. I gave him credit. I was very, very critical of Netanyahu, but I was one of the few people, you know, he's not Voldemort. I mentioned his name, President Trump. Yeah, good. He released the hostages.

You know, it's not that hard to do. Yeah, did you call Obama on that? Did you call your boy Obama? Did you say, hey, hey, Obama. Say Trump. President Obama. Why didn't he say Trump? Obama has one of the great American stories.

Clinton and Biden said Trump. I think even Pelosi and Schumer were all like, good job, Trump. Obama did. The point is, I thought not interesting. You know what I wish for the, because I actually want my American president to succeed, like whoever it is. you fight hard you have the president i wish after uh the next few years he he has his president i don't believe this whole took 2028 that's going to be ruby

gavin does boy gavin does gavin is scared shitless of trump 2028 he talked about larger taylor green who know did you send him the trump 2028 dad can you admit are you the one who sent Gavin that you know they haven't sent it to me yet so yeah yeah you know but the the point is I want him to see, focus on just like if he can bring, he's trying to bring people together in the Middle East. How about trying to bring people together in this country, right? Like, this is it. Like, he's not going to run again.

I'm ending wars, man. That's how you do it. Yeah. Listen, dude, if like Trump's, Trump, you will be wearing that Trump 20208 hat. If he lowers all the prescription drug prices by 90%, if he ends these wars, Ukraine and Gaza, like he's already got one down, right? And then, look, he's, let's not. These are things that a lot of people care about and really like, you know.

These are big time policy. I totally, totally give him and his team credit on the release of the hostages and telling BB to stop the bombing. Now, he's got to make sure that it continues, right? These ceasefires continue. But also, you know, the bloated defense budget going to, you can't say I'm against endless wars and then I have like a trillion plus on the defense. Totally.

Totally. See, look at this. Like, I think there, I've been, I've seen it in your eyes. There's been like, oh, what? Oh, cool. We actually agree on a lot of this stuff. Like, yeah, but we never have enough. You know, it's like you get caught in like the DEI trap, right, where everyone's like screaming. But the herd of my ancestor, you know, like, you get caught in like the emotional argument.

Right. Instead of the human argument about like the future of our children and like what kind of country or the big things, right? And I'd rather, there's like an old John Adams quote about like how I must study war. I don't know exactly how it goes, but he's like I got to study. Exactly. And I feel like we're back there. I feel like like this is the generation. You're relatively young, especially for Congress.

For Congress, you're a spring chicken. So it said, we need a new generation. They said, probably 49. Only in Washington. Is that considered the new generation? Yeah, that's right. Firefighters are like retiring at 50 or something. That's exactly right.

So it's like, you know, I have young kids. Yeah. And it's like, that's my motivation. And I just, I just don't care. I want to leave them a functional country. And like these little things, these little things, these little. I used to think money in politics was the biggest problem. I think extremism and hate in politics right now is our biggest problem.

For real. Yeah. You can't talk to you. Totally. Totally. And I think there would be like, if we had this conversation with the stadium of people, there would have been multiple applause lines where both sides, all of your supporters and all the people that are there on the right would have stood up and applaud. You started about housing. I mean, that's, yeah, for real. I mean, need to want to talk about real things. Gas price, food price, housing price. Totally.

Right? And that's not a one party thing. That is like a general, and health care. That is a generational. That's like, that's like our political system uniting to F Americans for decades. Like that's both sides uniting to screw over Americans for generations. Like that happened a long time ago. Where are you on taxing? Well, like Bannon says, which I agree with on him, he says taxable of the billionaires in Rose district.

Put up, put some wealth tax. Yeah, I said to Elon, someone asked me, can you become a trillioner? I said, fine, but tax him at 5% on the trillion dollars. can fund some of this stuff. Yeah. I mean, you know, do we even have it? Is he a trillionaire yet? Not yet. Not yet. Does he live in your district? Is he your taxpayer? He's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he doesn't have any house. He just kind of, he crashes at different people's houses. It's the craziest thing. He crashed at your house? No, my house doesn't kind of make it make it take. Okay. What does Elon say about that? Does Elon like the trillion

dollar tax? I'm sure, you know, I think he's so focused right now I'm becoming a trillionaire. But think about, look at all the billionaires and trillions that we have in my district and just, and if you just tax them, you can help at least solve some of these issues for the 70% of Americans who have the American dream slipping away. Like we could build new. Yeah, man. I mean, if you're looking for, if you're looking for consensus here, I'm no tax expert. I'm not going to be able to like jump in. I haven't like, I'm not going to be able to jump into the margins there. But what I am is expert on like pattern recognition.

And clearly there, the middle class is getting destroyed in this country. And the working class. Yeah, in the working class. Hard working. That sucks. And that's terrible. And you'll lose it, again, you'll lose a country there. You'll turn into a total kleptocracy.

It'll be serfdom, right? It'll be just serfdom in slavery. You'll have a ton of, of streets buying up some of these houses. Yeah, a ton of super poor people. The majority of the country is so poor they can barely afford their next meal. And then like, like, Uber wealthy. And that's a horrible, nobody wants to live in a, in a place like it. Nobody wants to live in feudalism.

Nobody wants to go back to, like, 16, you know, the 600 Europe, you know, like, nobody wants to do that. Benny for Bernie Sanders. And then nobody wants to live like that. No, it's Benny for Trump. These are Trump policies. That's right. Bernie just got, Bernie sold out. Bernie said, no, I'll get a new house.

Oh, you'll come out. Oh, you'll get, you'll give me a new house on the lake. Then I will drop out of the race. Oh, please. That's right. Hillary, I do have a your endorsement. Please, please. Why my book?

I, I would like that. I would love to have Bernie on the show. I'm not a Bernie hater. You know, I'd love to talk with him. You know, I'd love to talk with him. His whole thing is that. He was like Trump before Trump. Yeah.

There you go. On some leave, on something. And the question, I will just disagree with this on, you know, I just don't think Trump's policies actually are solving the income divide. I agree with you on the diagnosis. This is, this should be 2026, 2028, if we were a rational country, what you said would be the debate. And instead of like meaming, just meming each other, we'd be like, okay, here's what we, here's how we think young kids can buy a house. Yeah. Here's how we think you're not going to go into debt.

Here's how we think that you could actually have health care so that you don't have to be paying more for your premiums. And this would be the, this would be the debate in this country. And I'm not saying I have all the answers. And I'm not saying that I shouldn't be challenged. And people can say, oh, those programs are going to be a waste. But this should be the defining debate in the. this country. And you should host something. You should call it revitalizing the American dream. You get someone from the right. You get some from the left. Maybe get like a moderator from

the left. You know, get some left wing like, you know, internet personality to, you know, to balance everything out. And then and then do it. Yeah. And then like have these like moments of great consensus where you're like, wait a second. Cheap gas, cheap food, good solid health care, cheap affordable, like affordable homes for young people. We agree on all those things. Like a functional country, a safe functional country a safe functional country right but see how we started out and where we in it i'm not saying that's awesome the jones tweets aren't worth talking about and they should be condemned but we started out and we'll see if people make it this far we started out with like what everyone asks on cable news and then by the end of this we're like you know what we got bigger issues like

how are we going to be the greatest country well you got to stop killing yeah i mean like yeah make sure that we can have the debates without dying right like that okay so that's like step one and if you can get past that step, then yes, these are the, these are the debates that the country needs. And then you save the country by having them. Yeah. Awesome. Well, maybe we made we did our part today, Congressman. We'll see the reaction. We'll see how much of your base still likes you after this. We'll see how many Silicon Valley tech heads call you. I'm not racist. Why will hire black people? Why did you say that? All right. You lost your speaking slot at Stanford. It's an honor, Congressman. Thank you.

My pleasure. Seriously. Yeah, let's do that. I'll do the first one in downtown San Francisco in the tenderloin. Yeah, with it in and out, burger. Okay, yes, that's right. All right.

Well, cool, cool. Great, that's a, whoa, that's a round. That was great. That was a little longer than 30 minutes. But you want to play a stinger? going on guys we are back here in washington dc after an epic date yesterday charlie kirk medal of freedom ceremony at the white house today is wednesday october 15 2025 we're going to do something different on the show today we are going to be speaking with a congressional

democrat pretty well known guy named rocana he is from california he is from california he is is somebody who has never been on the show before, but who reached out to me after Charlie Kirk's assassination. And said, I'd like to have a conversation. I'd like to start bridging the gap here. And so we're very excited to have that conversation. And we don't want to miss it. And we're obviously on a different schedule today.

But it's something that I think is going to be the work of us continuing the legacy of our friend. Charlie's just my friend, man. Like, I just love that guy. And he was constantly reaching out to, the individuals on the left, people who were lost clearly. And he made his career goal, the ability to bridge those gaps. And he was bringing people together constantly, whether it's RFK and Trump, J.D. Vance and Trump, or whether it's him bridging the gaps on college campuses with pink-haired lesbians, right? Like that he would speak with on college campuses. It was what

his life's work was. And he stood up for his principles and he didn't cuck out, but he made made a clear and honest and moral case, and he did so in good faith. And so that's what we're going to do today, ladies and gentlemen, on the program. As we honor Charlie, like we did at the White House yesterday, Rokana will be joining the show. My name is Benny Johnson, and this is the Benny Show. As we are on the road, it is good to make sure that my blood pressure remains low. It's stressful when we're traveling. We're moving all over the place. We have a rip-roaring day-to-day. 120 Life is how I do that. One-20 Life is a blend of five, all-natural ingredients. that are proven to lower your blood pressure.

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I'm talking about the hit podcast, American Skyjacker, which is now an action-pack documentary coming to theaters and streaming this fall. Find out more at www.com and listen to our bonus episodes. of the podcast coming soon. American Skyjacker. Follow and listen on your favorite platform. Erica Kirk fights back at tears as Trump presents her with Charlie's Medal of Freedom. A beautiful moment at the White House yesterday.

I want to just jump in and share with you what this Medal of Freedom looked like. This is the cross that was engraved on the back of it. I know that we made a lot of news yesterday talking about this. But Erica showed me and she wanted me to show you this cross. This is the first time that a Christian crucifixion. has ever been engraved in the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor, a beautiful, beautiful work from the Trump administration. And I hear little birdies inside the Trump administration tell me, well, this was actually

very hard to do. And they had to push for it very, very mightily in order to get it done. It's a beautiful thing, ladies and gentlemen, an incredible ceremony. Obviously, President Trump sounding off on his dear friend Charlie Kirk, here we go. One month after Charlie's death, we still feel the terrible shock and the pain of his loss, like just about nobody I can think of. Charlie Kirk was one of a kind. He was unstoppable.

And he really was, boy, when he had an idea in his head, oh, he would call me, sir, please, you haven't done it yet. He said, Charlie, relax. Just relax. He didn't relax. He'd call me the next day again. It got it done. but he was like indomitable and always will be he's really irreplaceable nobody can replace him but they're going to do great but you can't replace that kind of person and that kind of talent

frankly the word talent is an important word but that kind of talent so we hold his memory in our hearts forever every single day of this administration we will continue to carry out the mission for which he lived and he really did he lived for this country he lived for his wife and his family but he lived for this country, too. In Charlie's honor, we will continue, like we have been, to fight, fight, fight, and to win, win, win, we're going to win so much. There's a completely beautiful thing. It was amazing to see Erica and so many friends at this event.

It was the most beautiful day I've ever seen in the White House. I've lived in D.C. for 15 years. I've never seen the White House so gorgeous. It was like the heavens just opened up. and uh revealed this don junior walking down the hallway of presidents this is the only other video i really want to show you is uh don junior let's uh we'll go ahead and listen to this so we have a new uh great wall of presidents this is me filming but it gets really good towards the end guys i think you want to probably see this grand cleveland mckinley roosevelt you know in order

Eisenhower, Kennedy, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, other Bush, Obama, Trump, and the auto pen. Because, in all fairness, the auto pen was running things for the last four years prior to. Trump, too. There you go. So many good people. Boom. So many people there. Good people there yesterday.

I know we have a couple of photos. Again, I don't want to belabor this. We obviously shared a lot of this yesterday. today. But here's some of the crew, obviously, that defended Charlie with every inch of their lives and every single day went into battle with Charlie. You know many of the faces there. Blake Neff, Jack Pacific, Tyler Boyer, and Andrew Colvette. Also, some legends in the audience. This is a really neat lineup of, well, the Fox News Power lineup here. Bill O'Reilly, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Jesse Waters, Laura Ingram. Jeez, an incredible lineup.

So do we have the photo of me and Megan Kelly and Jesse Waters? This is cool. We got some great quality time with Megan Kelly yesterday. Everyone is just really neat to roll and hang out. And Jesse had me on the show last night. Yeah, it's just an honor to, it's just an honor to see so many. It's just neat to see so many people showing up to honor Charlie. It was truly like the, it was a true and proper powerhouse in Washington, D.C.

There was also a massive statute of George Washington that has been applied. to the Rose Garden that I thought was cool. Look at the size of that thing. And yeah, this is, there it is, right there. Megan Kelly, God gave us beautiful, sunny, perfect afternoon to celebrate Charlie and his Presidential Medal of Freedom on what would have been his 32nd birthday

and it's good to spend it with some old friends at the White House. Benny, button your jacket. Stop eating so many senator rolls. That's the message right there. Ladies and gentlemen, we also, I'll get one final thing. We also got to see the Donald Trump brand new flagpole. And you can see it in that photo, but also as you, as you walk by it, you just realize how majestic this thing is. It's a freaking awesome flagpole.

I have not seen in person, and I'm seeing it for the first time, are these massive flagpoles. That President Trump has sold at his own expense. It costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's hard to really describe. Well, this is, yeah, this was an amazing day. It was just an honor to be invited and an important moment to sort of crystallize, like, what we're doing here. We're going to continue the work of Charlie. We're going to continue the work of Charlie today.

We're going to have a Democrat on the show in a second. All right. And so there is one other takeaway that there's a lot of gold of the White House. Like there's an ALX and I were both there. There's so much gold now at the White House. It's crazy. Advantage gold, ladies and gentlemen, we'll help make sure that you can be as golden as Trump's White House. I don't know, dude.

Trump has like probably tens of millions of dollars of gold leaf all over the White House now. It's been freaking awesome. It is austere. That is beautiful. The feds have cut rates again in making precious metals potentially spike even higher. You should make sure that you are investing in your future right now in a fantastic performing asset class. It's done great for me. It can do great for you.

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Help protect your family and secure your future. Don't let the Fed. gamble your life away. Text Benny to 85545 today. That's Benny to 85545. And one more partner since we are on the road, ladies and gentlemen, Patriot Mobile, of course, as you know, keeps us locked and loaded on the road. We are here at the Conservative Partnership Institute today in Washington, D.C.

I just want to shout out like the people who are keeping us connected here. Like, why not just join the team? Okay, Patriot Mobile, everywhere we're going at the White House yesterday, CPI helping us do our broadcast today from their studios. Ladies and gentlemen, these are incredible conservative companies. The only conservative Christian wireless provider is Patriot Mobile in this country. They believe in truth. They believe in justice. They believe in the American way.

And they believe in free speech. I know this is a matter of fact. They help us speak freely from the road every single time we're hitting the road and we're doing more today. as well. Ladies and gentlemen, Patriot Mobile with us all the way, the backbone of this company, the backbone of our connectivity to you. Take a stand today and go to Patriotmobile.com slash Benny, call 972 Patriot, and use a promo code to Benny for a free month of service. That's patriotmobile.com slash Benny. Call 972 Patriot to make the switch today. Ladies and gentlemen, with the moment that we had yesterday at the White House, I want a moment of, I want a moment of peace.

I also want a moment of us, people stop to be dying. I don't want people, I don't want to, political violence. So let's see if we can like have that moment with Rokana. Rokana, give us like a second to switch up the studio. It's going to be an in-person guest here. And let's rock and roll with the, well, the highest profile Democrat who has yet to be on the show. And hopefully not the last, right? Because we need to have these conversations.

So let's rock and roll with Roe Kahn, a congressman from California right now. Well, ladies and gentlemen, that was an interesting conversation. Whoa. I don't really know. I'm going to have to process that. Luckily, I have a little bit of a trip today. I'm taking a train, actually, to New York. So hopefully to do some more, more meetings, more content, be fun.

So I guess I will have some time to process that. Fascinating. I like that we were able to roast them a little bit. I hope that I don't think that we cucked out on anything. I'm not here to like try and make nice. I believe what I believe. I'm not going to compromise that for anything. However, I do actually know as a matter of fact,

this company is a company made up of young people. Prices and costs are extremely out of control. I read your comments. I want young people to be able to afford houses, food, gas. And health care. I mean, obviously, like, these shouldn't be things that we even debate. How we get there, I think is part of the debate. But then roasting Rocana about Silicon Valley and the capitalization of his firms.

Got them. That was cool, man. I hope that we are able to do more of it. And I hope that, yeah, I hope that we made you proud. Ladies and gentlemen, talking about capitalization, Allio Capital is the company. That helps make sure that while we're doing these. interviews that my capital is being managed correctly, Allio Capital is an investment app that is probably based actually in Rokana's district, so we'll see if he gets a call there.

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The average score for their app right now is a 4.8 out of five stars in the App Store at Google Play. It's beautiful, easy-to-use app. Text my name, Benny, to 5-E-E-E-E-L-I-O-Captal. Text Benny to 511, 511 today in order to start investing and know, ladies and gentlemen, that the future is golden. And how can the future be golden without our verse of the day? Let's make sure that we lock it in. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you.

I do not give you as the world gives. I do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. John 1427. Oh, this is an awesome verse. Let's just read the last line again. not, I do not give to you as the world gives, because like, these are profound and spiritual and eternal gifts. Do not let your hearts be troubled. Do not be afraid. The most commonly used verse quote in the Bible. The most commonly used phrase in the Bible is do not be afraid.

Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. Fear not. That is how we are going to carry on today. We are not going to live in fear. And that is exactly what we said, actually, on Jesse Waters last night. So why not just end with that, right? I wanted to play this clip, we just didn't have time before the congressman got here. So on Jesse Waters last night, this is what we were able to talk about, along with Charlie's Cross. It's been a remarkable couple of days. Thank you so much for sticking with our program.

And remember, in the end, we win. Ditch boy, Benny. See ya. This afternoon, Erica Kirk told us about how Charlie prayed for everyone, including his enemies. Watch. Surprisingly enough, he did pray for his enemies, which is very hard, but he did. He did. He did. No one else, I mean, I saw him do it. No, he never did it in front of anyone else, but I can attest to that.

But he also loved people when it was inconvenient. and he ran his race with endurance, and he kept the faith. Host of the Benny Show, Benny Johnson. That was a throwback to Arizona when she forgave everybody, and Trump said, I'm sorry, I do not wish my enemies well. I don't forgive my enemies. And he's gone through the entire Middle East, carpet bombing Hillary every step of the way.

It's been remarkable. However, Donald Trump clearly understands Christendom and understands Christian doctrine, and the power that Charlie Kirk brought to the advancement of the kingdom of Christ because Erica Kirk showed me something remarkable at the White House right before coming over here to do your show, Jesse. If you don't mind, I'd like to share it with your audience. She opened up the Medal of Freedom, as you can see there, that very few Americans

get there only a few hundred given out, the highest civilian honor. And then she turned it around back. And what you can see here on the back is the first Christian cross, the first crucifix ever engraved onto a Medal of Freedom given by the President. This is a historic moment, the first time that religious iconography has ever made it onto this award, and it is done in honor of Charlie Kirk and what Erica told me, Jesse, was that this is for the advancement of Charlie Kirk and his work for the Kingdom of Christ, and the President understood that so profoundly that he gave him this great honor.

What a wonderful and blessed symbol. And like you said, one of a kind. Isn't it interesting how Donald Trump almost died? And then when Charlie died, the presidents talked more about heaven than he ever has. Have you noticed that? Jesse, I've seen you cover thousands of Donald Trump speeches and many Don Jr. speeches. When was the last time you had Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr. talking about Christ? and their faith in God, live on stage together.

It was a remarkable moment. Don Jr., of course, had to make jokes about Kamala and Hillary while he was doing it, but still it was profound and it was beautiful. And there is something that I'd like to say as we move forward from today, which is the most common phrase in all of the scriptures is, fear not. Do not be afraid. This is a moment where people have a profound sense of purpose in life and you can see it you can feel that spiritual energy people are no longer

afraid the intention of that assassin's bullet with trump and with charlie was to make us fear to make us put our heads down and to not speak anymore and now people are speaking up louder than ever fear not i've felt the same thing fear leaving your body after the 10th and it's contagious and i hope everybody feels it too benny johnson great to see you thank you so much godspeed The United States Soccer Federation presents the U.S. Soccer Podcast. Searching for an inside look at the people, stories, and passion that fuel the state of soccer in America. Who's going to be the key man for the U.S. men's national team? First and foremost, they need to win.

There's something so fun about being the underdog. You're playing with house money almost. But what does this success mean for the future of U.S. soccer? Ooh, you're getting deep now. This is where soccer will come to life. The U.S. soccer podcast. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.