The Eric Metaxas Show - Vivek Ramaswamy (Encore)

Episode Date: October 29, 2024

Vivek Ramaswamy shares his important new book: Truths: The Future of America First --> https://a.co/d/9NAKDSP

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to eat him, but he kept spitting him out. Oh, the whole thing was just a disaster. Anyway, here's the guy who's not always that easy to digest. Eric the Texas! Hey there, folks, welcome to the show. You can hear from my voice. I'm sick.

I'm sick and tired, but mostly sick. I've been traveling. I'm in a hotel room in Atlanta. And today, by the grace of God, I'm going to speak to a thousand or so pastors about the election and where we are in the country. I'm with the Faith Advisory Council down here with Paula White and Jenny Corn and Malachi O'Brien and a million other people that I will know. And I will be with Donald Trump today, which is amazing.

but I will be in the room with him today. And I'm sorry that I feel sick, but that's the way it goes. I've been traveling absolutely like a madman. I was just in Spokane, Washington. And folks, if you can get to an event where I'm speaking, it is such a joy for me to meet people in the bookline. We get pictures. It just is such an encouragement to me.

I want to be real clear. I so look forward to that. It's just a joy. I met so many people in Spokane, and I don't even remember where I was before that. I'm starting to slip because I've just been traveling a lot. I guess this week I'll be in Washington, D.C. for a special Socrates event at the Museum of the Bible. We are screening the Bonhofer film, which, as I've said, is fantastic.

Thank the Lord. It's such a great film. We're going to be doing a pre-screening because it doesn't come out until November 22nd. Please remember to get tickets, discounted tickets at angel.com slash Eric. Please do that. It's so important that this, have a gigantic weekend. Send a message to Hollywood. Please take advantage of that.

Angel.com slash Eric. after Atlanta, let's see, what did I say? I'm going home today. I hope to sleep enough that I shake this cold or whatever I have, which is whacking me out. I go to D.C. for the Museum of the Bible. After that, I fly to Boise, Idaho, so way back across the country to Boise, speaking at a couple of events in Boise, and then I fly down to Palm Springs, California. Holy cow.

Would you pray for me, folks? I take that seriously, if you would, because I'm not feeling great right now. Chris Heimes, there's so much to talk about. I mean, yesterday on the plane, I figured out the technology so that I could watch the Trump rally in Madison Square Garden.

Oh, my gosh. Yeah, it was a, it was unbelievable. I mean, my wife wanted to maybe try to go last minute and, you know, I think you were able to get tickets, but what it didn't tell you is that there's no guarantee you were going to get in. And apparently it went all the way to the Hudson, you know, the line was pretty incredible. I mean, the one thing I have to comment on is the vileness, V-I-L-E-N-E-S-S. The vileness of the Democrats somehow, somehow insanely.

making this sound like, oh, it's a Nazi rally. I mean, I have to say it is complete, it's a level of fiction that you just think, they'll just say literally anything. The level of desperation will make them say literally anything. I think one comedian cracked a joke about Puerto Rico that makes them take this like eight-hour thing and say, oh, it was hate speech, it was a hate rally. I have to tell you, this is the definition of gaslighting, ladies and gentlemen, because tons of people will believe that narrative, will believe that mainstream media lie. And those people who don't know

the facts will vote. So if you don't vote, I have to say I was shocked and disappointed to see that our friend Lila Rose, who's a pro-life hero, she seems to have advocated not voting because the Republicans are not pro-life enough. That is a profound mistake and will result in innumerable abortions in America if you don't vote, folks. We're in a war, and we need to understand where we stand right now. And so I beg my friend Lila Rose to rethink her position. This is for all the marbles. If you want to be able to advocate in America for the unborn, Donald Trump needs to be reelected. That's the starting line for the pro-life cause is to reelect this man who overturned Roe v. Wade.

when I saw the rally, it gave me real hope because there was such a joy in the room. Tucker's speech was a highlight. But just to see Elon Musk having woken up to where we are, I really think that a lot of these people who aren't yet Christians or they're not officially Christian, they get it more than most Christians. That's part of my message is that sometimes God has to go. go outside the church to make the church see what he sees. And there's a great irony there, but at the same time, if you look through scripture, that's often the case. Now, I got to say, by the way, today on the program, we're rerunning my friend Jay Etzel. I spoke to him last week.

He's one of my dearest friends of over three decades. He and I had an important conversation. he's exhorting people to fast and pray for the election that's coming up. We don't know what's going to happen in a few days, folks. We know that even if Trump wins the left, which let me repeat, will stop at nothing. They will do anything. Will they cheat? Yes. Will they cheat enough?

We don't know. Will they lie? Will they – what are they planning? I hate to sound like one of those people. But the fact is, we've seen it. They did it four years ago. The COVID madness. We've seen things we'd never seen before.

And they were all tests. Will you wake up? What about now? What about now? Will you wake up now? Will you wake up now when you see the corruption of Joe Biden and the corruption of the Democratic Party? Will you wake up? Will you stand?

And what's going to happen in the next few days? We don't know. But we know that Christians have to vote. I want to say in hour two today, I wanted to rerun my conversation from a couple of weeks ago with the Vakramaswamy. He was. Was he at the rally yesterday, Chris? I don't remember. He was. He did speak there. He was electric. He was terrific. He was terrific. I watched it on my phone on the plane flying from Spokane, Washington to Atlanta. I figured out a way, finally to figure out how to watch it on my phone. So I was able to watch it on my phone. but I guess I missed Vivek, but we're going to play my conversation with him from a couple of weeks ago. In our one today, we have my conversation with my friend Jay Etzel.

And I want to remind everybody this cruise thing, we have 122 people already signed up. I hope we get 300 or more. If you're interested, this is going to be an amazing thing. go to Ericmetaxis.com slash cruise. It's just going to be a blast. I will be healthy. I will be able to talk. Yeah, you'll be, we'll have you vitamin C'd up and, you know, vitamin D up.

You'll be fine. The website is Ericmataxis.com slash cruise, ericmetaxis.com slash cruise. But it's an unbelievable week. as I say, by the time you hear this, I will be probably in a room with Donald Trump. I'm looking forward to that. I hope that some coffee will enable me to speak with him. Not that it matters.

God's in charge. And don't forget to fast and pray. Pick a night this week or whatever you want to do. But these are utterly historic times. And it's a privilege to be alive right now. This is a battle for everything. We've never been alive at such a time. So don't miss it.

Don't miss it, folks. We'll be right back. God bless you. So you're putting money away, saving for the future. For retirement, for your family, you're doing what you're supposed to do, right? Well, what if I told you that your 401k IRA and other investments are probably paying for gambling, abortion, and LGBT causes? Inspire Advisors can tell you where your profits are really coming from. Do what I did.

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or a 10-ounce silver American flag bar with every qualifying IRA. That's noble gold investments.com. Hey, folks, welcome back. As promised, in the studio, as my guest, right now, someone who goes by the name Vivek Ramoswamy, welcome. Good to see you. And you really are Vivek. That is me.

There are not a lot of Avakes in my life, so I can just leave the last name out. It's great to be unique. It's good to be unique. It's good to be welcome. Glad to have you. Listen, I'm excited. We were talking earlier. I'm an author.

Today, your book comes out. The title is Truths, the Future of America First. Okay, I know what America First is. I know a little bit about you, as my audience does. The title, Truths, why is that plural? Yeah, look, I think that there's 10 things that are true that used to be too controversial to say or used to be so obvious to say 30 years ago. But as recently as three years ago, we're too controversial to say in public.

and what I want to do is to speak those hard truths, not just to conservative audiences. But my goal with this book is a little different. I want to reach audiences who disagree with us. I'm showing up on college campuses to even allowing the people who are reading this book to be armed with the arguments and the facts they can use to talk to their own left-wing friends or colleagues or family members to bring them along on questions from gender ideology to climate science to even the history of the United States and the U.S. Constitution. This book states out, stakes out some hard, uncomfortable truths in the current cultural climate,

but things that are well-grounded, reasoned, and allow everyday Americans to actually be persuaded. So this is the opposite of your truth, my truth, we have our truths. You're actually talking about reality, immutable truths. And is there a list of 10 of them, or is this just what my notes say? Because I'm reading them here, and I'm thinking, I agree. violently with all of them. Yeah, there's 10 chapters in the book. And it was based on, so during my presidential campaign, I stated 10 hard truths. Whoa. You ran for president? Yeah, I ran for president last year. I got to say I missed that. Yeah. No, seriously, it was an adventure. It was an adventure.

Any endorsements you want to make on this program? You know, I endorse America. Of course, I've endorsed Donald Trump to be the next president and a lot of Republican senators across the board. But I do that because I endorse the core premise the United States of America was found on. And that's what this book is about. What are some of those, ideals that unite all of us that, you know, we live in a country where if you work hard, get ahead, you're the best person you get the job, not based on your gender or your race, or a country where you get to speak your mind openly as long as I get to in return. Right.

So these are basic principles the country was founded on, but the book lays out 10 hard truths that were based on some of the core principles I ran on for U.S. President, my candidacy for U.S. President on, but which makes some arguments that hopefully will win over even those who may be undecided or even on the left. How do you think we got to a place where people are challenging what are to most, to most people, obviously true things? We're talking about reality. I mean, to me, it's almost like saying, like, I think the periodic table is racist. We're going to dispense with that. We're going to invent a new periodic table. You'd say, wait a minute, it's the periodic table. Like, there's some basic things. You can argue, but how did we

get to a point where things like gender, things that until three minutes ago were accepted by pretty much everybody are suddenly questioned. Well, that is, for example, one of the chapters in the book is entitled, There Are Two Genders. The fact that that's controversial today says how far we've fallen. Yeah, I explain a little bit of what's going on. There's some paradoxes at the heart of this. So in that chapter, one of the things I give people is the toolkit to say, you know, if you have two X chromosomes, you're a woman.

If you have an X and a Y, you're a man. Yeah. But the irony is the same LGBTQIA plus movement. There's so many letters they put a plus. You're actually the only person I've ever heard. Like go all the way. Get all of them. But they just put a plus at the end because there can be many more yet to come.

But the same movement that says the sex of the person you're attracted to is hardwired on the day you're born. That's the same movement that now says your own biological sex is totally fluid over the course of your life. That doesn't make sense. Now, take that one step further. It's even less sensible than you think. that one that they say is immutable at birth as the sex of the person you're attracted to, yet there is no such thing as a gay gene. And yet you do have two definitive sex chromosomes, yet that's the one that they say is completely fluid.

You have other paradoxes in this movement where on one hand they'll say, you know, I happen to believe, and I've said this before, and it's courted some controversy. When I say that if you're a child who says your gender doesn't match your biological sex, that means you suffer from a mental health disorder. People came at me for that. But can you imagine we're at a place where even when you say that, even I'm like, whoa, because even though I agree with it, even though it's obvious, we live in a world where people who don't like that are very, I mean, even saying very vocal, they're more than vocal. They're hostile. Physical, they can be physical and violent about it.

They're not accepting of your saying that. Well, one of the things I want to do is to highlight the logic of this because let's say you disagree with me on that. Then that must mean that you believe that gender conversion surgery should not be covered as a medical benefit as opposed to cosmetic one. Right. And yet, the argument that many trans activists have made is that it's covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act when it comes to actually getting payment. Actually, now I've just learned something. You've just, that's very interesting what you just said. It's a hard fact, actually.

It's a big trans rights victory. Right. Right. But they call it Americans with disabilities. And pursuant to that statute, they said that gender conversion surgeries need to be covered. So what I'm trying to do here is lay out a number of, forget where you are in the debate. Let's just take these facts. You can't believe both of these two things at the same time if you're operating according to principles of logic or science or reason. But you can believe two contradictory things at the same time if you're subscribing to a kind of cult.

And so what's going on with this with this cult, quasi-religious cult? Here's what's going on is in the first chapter in the book is entitled God is real for a reason. When you stop believing in something bigger than yourself, when you stop believing in God or country or even your family, you start believing in new substitutes instead. And I think that's the origin of the climate change agenda, what I call the climate cult. That's the origin of the transgenderism movement. It's the origin of the racial wokeism. movement is these are substitutes for purpose and meaning in our lives. I'm sure you're right about that.

Who was it that I guess it was Bob Dylan said you got to serve somebody. I think you got to worship somebody. You got to worship something. We are built by God, I would say, to worship him. And if you don't worship him, you will find a substitute. And when you talk about climate change, it has all the trappings of faith. I mean, this is the stuff of scripture almost across many major world religious. The golden calf is the symbol of that, right?

Moses isn't gone for very long. By the time he's backed down, the golden calf is built. We have a need to bend the need of something. Blaise Pascal, I quote him in the book. He was a famous scientist of nearly 400 years ago. He famously said that if you have a hole the size of God in your heart and God doesn't fill it, something else will instead. And I think the mistake that meaning the conservative movement have fallen into is often to say,

we're going to play whack-a-mole. We're going to stamp out that poison one at a time. but without actually offering our own alternative vision of what actually fills that void. And so that's one of the warning calls in this book is that, you know, we had this red wave that never came in 2022. Why is that? They tried to blame abortion. They tried to blame Donald Trump. I say none of those things is really responsible. I think the reason we didn't have that red wave in 22 is that railing against the radical Biden agenda is not enough. We have to offer an alternative vision of our own. And the left, say what you will, they're very good at this, actually.

The left will feed you race, gender, sexuality, climate. Well, I personally believe that the individual family, nation, and God beat race, gender, sexuality, and climate. But the problem is we as conservatives don't have the courage right now to stand for it. We at least haven't for a really long time. And that's one of the things that, you know, certainly I'd like a change in this country, but it's one of the calls to action coming out of this book as well is, giving those everyday Americans and probably, let's be honest, right, a center of Americans here, the toolkit to be able to not only push back,

but to articulate our own alternative vision. That's what I hope to do through this book. Well, your first chapter is titled God is Real. And that's interesting because so many people mean different things about God, but I think we're living at a time, I've been saying this for about three years now, that what we're seeing, what we've seen, most people have never seen anything like And so the word evil comes up. Now, as you say, this isn't just political differences.

We're seeing a level of madness, a level of coercion. We've never seen this kind of authoritarian thing in America, what is happening. And I think it's not too much to say that it feels evil. So I think a lot of people, as a result of that, are turning toward God, even if they're not sure what that means. They just know if there's evil, then God has to be the answer. And so Tucker has been much more expressive about, you know, things theological, a number of people who weren't there just a few years ago are going there. And it seems to me that when you talk about, you know, Elon Musk describes it as the woke

mind virus, it feels like a kind of madness that has taken over the culture, such as happened in Germany in the 30s. And it seems to me that it's ultimately a rage against God. At least that's how I would frame it. Yeah. Look, I think that we are seeing a kind of new awakening in the country and in the West. I think there's a hunger to belong to something bigger than ourselves. That's what makes us different than other animals, by the way. Right. I mean, we as human beings are wired to believe in something bigger, a greater purpose. I mean, without that, what are we? Right? We're a different looking group of two-legged higher mammals walking some geographic space that we call a country actually on our iPhones.

I want to come back to the subject of country borders. I'm talking to Vivek Ramoswamy. The new book, Brand New Truths, the Future of America First. Don't go away. Hey, folks, we're officially in that time of the year where eating becomes way off-balanced. Parties, holidays, family gatherings always mean more snacks, more sweets, and generally indulging in all the wrong foods. And when you're eating habits get off-balance, so can you.

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That's N-U-T-R-A-M-E-D-I-X.com. Neutrametics.com, use the code Eric for 15% off. Again, Neutrametics, N-U-T-R-A-M-E-D-I-X.com. Neutrametics.com, use the code Eric for 15% off. Welcome back, talking to Vivek, Ramoswami. The new book is Truths, the future of America first. So you just touched on the nation, and I said there's a chapter here called An Open Borders. not a border. This is more of the madness. In other words, a few years ago, you know, I heard somebody

say, oh, we've got to defund the police. I thought, what? Like, that's madness. You're kidding, right? They weren't kidding. The idea of an open border, it's madness. I mean, most people know that these things are just crazy, destructive. So it's almost comedic that we have to reassert things as basic as we should have a border. Well, it's one of the chapters in the book is entitled, An Open Border is not a Border. And the fact that we have to say this, see how far we says how far we've fallen. But it actually ties in with even some of the other chapters. So we were talking about the LGBT movement earlier. So one of the people, it tells a story of actually a Russian border crosser into the United States who came in claiming that she was the subject

of Putin's persecution against LGBT persons and that she was an LGBT person. Turned out later when she was pressed on in court, she crumbled, she started crying. She says, I'm not gay. In fact, the truth is, I don't even like gay people. So she had just lied as a way of creating a persecution victimhood tale. And it reveals who our immigration system rewards right now. So the immigration system sets up incentives for certain types of people to come in. You might imagine one that's based on randomness or chance.

You might imagine one that's based on merit or intelligence or willingness to work hard or knowledge of American culture or the English language. None of those is the immigration system we have right now. The immigration system we have right now rewards one quality above all others, and that is your willingness to lie, actually. Your willingness to say that you are seeking asylum in this country, that you're fleeing political persecution when in fact you are not. That is the single easiest and most effective way to get into the United States of America. And literally millions, if not tens of millions in recent years have taken advantage of it by checking the box of saying they're being politically persecuted. when, in fact, they do not at all come anywhere close to meeting the definition laid out in the law.

So then now think about this. We've designed an immigration system in the United States that selects for one human attribute above others, which is your willingness to lie. Turns out that if your first act of entering this country breaks the law, you tend to be more likely to continue to break the law when you're here as well. This is not speculation. It's hard fact. It's hard data. It's hard science. So to me, I think the question is, what do we do with that immigration system?

I'm not somebody who just likes to observe a problem without laying out a path to solve it. So one of the things I am to do in this book as well, one of the things I talk about is, look, moving our military to the southern border, using our own military to protect our own border, aquatic barriers in the Rio Grande. Those are basic physical steps we can take, complete the wall. But we also have to fix the incentive structure, end funding for sanctuary cities, end birthright citizenship for the kids of illegals. And I go into the constitutional and legal basis for how we could do that. And then one of the things that I, you know, people make a very difficult problem of the question of what we do with legal immigration. It turns out that if we actually fix and, dare I say, end the welfare state in this country, we will have fixed 75% of the immigration problem right there. And the real problem even in today's conservative movement, it's easy to point fingers at the Dems and I do plenty of that too.

But taking a look at even the conservative movement, you have a lot of people who are complaining about, the immigration crisis and the mass migration crisis. But when push comes to shove, are reluctant to touch the nanny state and the domestic nanny state and the entitlement state right here at home. Fix that entitlement state, shut down that nanny state, require English as a language that you have to know to enter the country. 90% of our immigration problem is solved right there. But it takes a new generation, I think, of conservative leadership that actually has a spine to see that through rather than just writing, you know, indignant tweets, which is what it's become. Do you, how did you get to where you are now in terms of worldview, political worldview?

Were you raised in a conservative home? I mean, I'm the son of immigrants and I feel that if you, if you're raised in a family where the people raising you didn't have what you have, they help you and understand that what we have in America is not normal. It's a gift. And so I, I've had that innately, even though it's been, it's taken years. for me to really work it through. But how did you come to think the way you now do? Well, like you, I'm also the kid of legal immigrants to the country. You know, my parents were conservative, certainly in the way they lived their lives.

They were apolitical, largely, certainly when I was growing up, but they were conservative in the sense that they believed in hard work. They believed in self-determination. They believe that that's how you get ahead. And they believe in merit, which is something that you call it a Protestant value, you could call it an American value, who is certainly a very important. value that my parents coming from India shared when they came to the United States as well. And so I learned much more from their actions than I did from their words.

That being said, I think that we have lost some of that character of value. I mean, just even take the value of hard work. I think the culture we live in today is one that actually penalizes excellence. Penalizes hard work. You're taught to hide your achievements rather than to be proud of them. And that's what we're now passing on to our kids and their generation across the country, very different than the kinds of values that my parents imparted to me. But I don't want to sit here and just bloviate about that.

I think the goal is to potentially, I believe we can, just turn the tide to revive who we are. The pursuit of excellence in America is something that I think we're longing to revive. And that, too, is one of the truths that I cover in this book. You were at Yale Law School with J.D. Vance. And having come out of that world as an undergraduate, it, it's not a good place to talk about the kinds of things we're talking about. Now, even when you were there, which was not five minutes ago, but the point is that it's

pretty lockstep in terms of wokeism. It was there in the 80s when I was there. When we come back, I want to ask you about that, because a lot of these elite institutions have just been pushing the madness for decades, which is why I think we find ourselves where we do. But we'll be right back talking to Vivek, Ramoswamy. The book is Truths, The Future of America First. A large retail store just canceled a huge order leaving My Pillow with a ton of extra My Pillows.

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Go to MyPillow.com, use promo code Eric or call 800-978-3057 to take advantage of wholesale pricing for the first time ever. On top of that, receive free shipping on orders over $75. They have never been offered this low before. There are limited quantities at this price, so the limit is 10 and once they're gone, they're gone. Go to MyPillow.com or call 800-978-3057. Use promo code Eric to get the standard My Pillar for only 1488, the lowest price ever. Welcome back talking to Vivek Ramoswamy, the book Truths, the Future of America First. So I was just saying you were at Yale Law School with J.D. Vance.

And I always think, you know, can anything good come out of Yale? Mostly not. But you and he seemed to be dramatically grounded. And, you know, at the time that you were there, did you discern that you had to be careful what you said or maybe you weren't where you are now then? Look, I was different from my classmates. You know, funny thing is I didn't even know what J.D.'s political persuasions were. He and I used to watch Bengals games. But for my part, I was certainly a contrarian in the class.

I believe I got a better education because of it. Yale was a different institution back then, though, than it is today. It's always leaned left, but it didn't have the censorship climate. Right. The censorship climate is something else altogether. And I think that's really where this story takes a dark turn. I went to Harvard for undergrad, Yale for law school, both liberal. I was conservative.

I was libertarian leaning, and I still have strong liberty-leaning instincts today. But that was very different than the campus climate. But I actually ended up getting more of my money's worth out of the expensive, and it was expensive to be able to go to both those places. I got more out of it because I was challenged every day. Today it's different where you can't engage on many of these campuses on the type of debate in the open. And I think one of the last chapter of the book goes into this. It's called the U.S. Constitution is the strongest guarantor of liberty in human history.

And the reality is I explore what's going on in Columbia's campus today. I mean, it's a betrayal of the cultural value. The Constitution isn't just about, to me at least, it's not just about the legal constraints and limitations on government. it's also about the kind of culture we wish to create. And in many ways, the Constitution on legal grounds is good at protecting against a tyranny of the majority. But it's not a tyranny of the majority that governs in the country today. It's a tyranny of the fringe minority. It's a cultural tyranny.

And it's not going to be the legal aspects of our Constitution that save us from that. It's going to be a revival of that founding culture of our country, which is going to have to come as much from outside of government as from within. You're singing my song. I wrote a book essentially about what you just said called If You Can Keep It, because it is fascinating. The Constitution is ultimately just a piece of paper. It can't keep itself. And if you don't have a culture of people who understand what this is and what it requires, it doesn't happen by itself. Yes.

I mean, John Adams spoke about this extensively. Our Constitution was made for a moral people. And I think capitalism in some ways is a system that is made for a moral people. There's no question. Virtuous upstream of capitalism. No, I actually say that in the book. Now, there's both capitalism, the free market and people getting to vote, both can go wrong if the people in that system want bad things. Right. If the free market can amplify.

The free market can give you better pornography and drugs. It'll give you whatever you want. So if the people want that, and the same thing with we can vote in tyrants or. Sure. And it's one of the undercurrents in this book is that virtue is an upstream. condition of capitalism is even upstream condition of our Constitution. Yes. And I think that that's something we've forgotten.

One of the probably most important chapters in the book is about the nuclear family to that regard, which is a society that loses its grounding in the basic pillars of virtue, including family formation, I think has no chance, even if it's granted the best of free markets in a U.S. Constitution. Well, it's interesting because a lot of neocons or hidebound conservatives, including George W. Bush, they clearly didn't get that. They really thought that we, you know, we can export our way of life easily, that if people in Afghanistan can vote, they'll, they'll vote and suddenly, you know, or China. Everybody is, or China. Actually, that's,

that's a big one. China is the better example because the naivete of saying that, hey, if we help them get the free market, whatever, not really thinking that it can go very, very wrong. Right. He was this myth. tremendously. Somehow you're going to export Big Macs and Happy Meals, and that's going to spread our core value set abroad. It didn't work out that way. But I'm not about just blaming those who came before us because, who knows, you know, you might have made that we all might have made the same mistakes under similar circumstances. But if we don't learn from those mistakes, then we're actually doomed. And so that's what this book I aim to do is to give us a North Star for what our conservative movement actually stands for. What are we running to, not just what are we running from. And this is also something of a warning call.

I was pretty intent to publish this before the election. There's a reason this is coming out in late September before November 5th is if this wake-up call is at least able to wake people up in the month and a half that we have to what could be a history-defining election, then I think that too will be, I think, a positive in the dialogue in the country in the next month. Do you think there's any question that it's a history-defining election? I mean, I think that we've never ever seen anything as history-defining. I think we're in an existential crisis if we don't. If we don't reelect Donald Trump, we don't even have a chance to fight our way back. Look, I think that that's a precondition.

I mean, the way I look at it is November 5th isn't even a destination. It is the starting line. Okay. So there are many ways for the other side to win. I don't want to fall into this trap by saying that just because we win one election for one seat in November, then it's saved. No, no, no. That's table stakes. But that's really when it begins.

I still am going to be highly alert to making sure that once he's elected, the agenda. isn't subverted. I mean, that's also a big risk as well. So we have to be aspirational here. We can't just look at November as a fetish, but it is a clear, necessary first step to save this country. And so I'm in it to do my part, but it's not just in the realm of politics. You educate people, give them the toolkit to make the arguments themselves. That's what this book does. You also have a title, Facts Are Not Conspiracies. We just have a minute left, but I'd love to hear you talk about that. So we traced the last few years where the origin of COVID-19 was the Hunter Biden laptop story on the eve of the last election actually real?

One of the conspiracies I was accused of propagating during the Republican presidential campaign in the primaries was that Joe Biden was not going to be the nominee. Well, it turns out that if you analyze incentives, okay, analyze the incentives of any actor, that's the best way to predict what's actually going to happen. So people ask me, how do you predict many of these things? I haven't been 100% right. but the incentives generally point you to what's going to happen. Those are grounded in hard facts. And again, you know, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice. Shame on me.

Don't be full twice. So this book lays out a lot of that recent history, particularly in that chapter, to say that just because somebody calls you a conspiracy theorist doesn't mean you're wrong. The sad part is in today's environment, it might even mean that you actually have a greater chance of being right or on to the right set of questions. And that's a big part of the end of that chapter ends with what's the right prescription. It's not less speech, it's more speech. If someone's trying to silence you because they say what you're saying is a conspiracy or it's disinformation or it's hate speech, well, look,

the right answer to bad speech is not less speech, it's more speech. And that is truly the American way. And anybody who wants to read more about that can read Milton's Aereopagitica from the 17th century. In the meantime, may I recommend truths by Vivek Ramoswamy? A joy to meet you, Vivek. Thanks for coming on. Good to be here. Thank you. Teach your children well. Their father's help. Chris, can I hit pause for a second? I keep realizing that we're only able to do this program

because we have these amazing sponsors. Yeah, we have a lot of friends out there. A lot of friends. And I want to mention we got a couple of new ones, actually. MediShare. Let me read this because. this is important. MetaShare is one of our sponsors.

Obviously, inflation is very big. I don't need to sell anybody on that, especially for those who are 65 or older, living on a fixed income. And one of the biggest challenges, this is where MediShare comes in. One of the big challenges is health care. So even if you have Medicare parts A and B,

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That's great. I also want to mention a new sponsor, Tunnel to Towers. A lot of folks already know about them. They do great work. We know that it's about veterans, right, who've served our country. Many of them, this is sick. Many of them are homeless. So one example, Glenda Williams is a U.S. Army veteran who faced homelessness along with her five kids.

That should not happen, right? She was struggling to keep up with rent and basic living expenses. She lived in a dilapidated unit with rodents and mold. The Tunnel to Towers Foundation's homeless veteran program provided Glenda with not just shelter, but also a safe and secure environment where she and her kids can thrive. Imagine folks what it would mean to be a veteran who'd served your country like Glenda and know that folks were there to make sure your family had a safe, stable home, a solid foundation to begin anew for her family and many others like them. Friends like you make all the difference, which is why we're asking you to donate $11 a month to Tunnel to Towers at T2T.org.

That's T2T.org. T2T.org. We're just proud to partner with Tunnels to Towers and with MetaShare on the program. $11 a month. That's crazy. I think that's how much my pumpkin spice latte was that I kick off the autumn with last week. That's what I heard. I think the venty venty.

It's a little bit of that junk. I know. That sugary junk. I also want to mention another partner is the Heritage Foundation. They're the folks behind Project 2025. oh, perhaps you've heard of it. If you go to their website for that, it's 25truth.com. 2.5truth.com.

It's kind of amazing because the left is really freaked out by Project 2025. And that's one of the reasons you've got to love the Heritage Foundation. They do this, you know, whenever it looks like there's going to be a conservative coming into the White House and by God's grace, Donald Trump will get in there. How does he hit the ground running Project 2025 will help so you can check it out at 25truth.com. And before I go, yeah, it's kind of like Pelosi saying we need to pass it to see what's in it. So Trump means to win. So we can see what's in 2025.

Right. Yeah, 25truth.com. And by the way, before I go, let me remind you to see the film vindicating Trump by our friend Dinesh D'Souza. Honestly, folks, when somebody puts out a movie like this, We have an obligation to go and see it. Vindicating Trump. You can get tickets online at vindicatingtrump.com. That's vindicatingtrump.com. And we're proud to partner with our friend Dinesh D'Souza.

Check it out, vindicatingtrump.com.