The Glenn Beck Program - Best of the Program | Guests: Benjamin Teitelbaum & David Sacks

Episode Date: February 23, 2022

Glenn has on Amy Nelson, founder of the Riveter, who joins to share her story of when her family had almost $1 million seized by the FBI without ever being charged with a crime. Author of “War for Eternity” Benjamin Teitelbaum joins to discuss the Russia controversy and Aleksandr Dugin. David Sacks, founding COO of PayPal and Co-founder of Craft Ventures, joins Glenn to discuss ESG scores and their arrival in Canada and America. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Really important show today. Civil asset forfeiture. We have a woman whose life has been destroyed. Why? Because a big company accused her husband of something. DOJ never filed charges but took all of their assets. Hour two of the podcast, something you're not going to hear any place else. What did the language that Putin used in his speech tell us about his next moves?

why is that important for us to learn? We have an expert on Putin and the philosophy of the fourth political theory. Then the COO of PayPal, warning us that what's happening in Canada might be right around the corner here in America. Don't miss a second of today's podcast. And don't miss tonight on Blaze TV, it's Studeau's America at 8 p.m. Eastern followed by Glenn TV at 9 p.m. Eastern. Really important one. This, that we're exposing, uh, what may be, uh, the real reason why they wouldn't talk about the money and China with COVID.

It's going to be a fascinating one. Not as good as the show that precedes it. BlaseTV.com slash Glenn promo code is Glenn saved 10 bucks. And don't forget to rate and review this podcast and studio America as well. Available right here. Subscribe rate and review. Here's the podcast. Listening to. The best of the. Okay, man alive. I'm looking at what's happening all over the world, including Russia. We have a take on Russia that you're not going to get anywhere else in an hour from now. It is something that I have been talking about internally and occasionally here on the program, but it is time for you to really understand this. That's coming up next hour. We have, we also have the, the Chinese social score system that is now beginning here in America, an expert on that coming up in

hour number three. And this hour, I want to talk to Amy Nelson. She is the founder, the Riveter. The FBI seized her family assets without any charges. I got this letter last night. Glenn, I heard you mention my family this morning on your show. I wanted to write and say thank you for noticing our story, which is almost unbelievable. Two years ago, Amazon accused my husband of a crime called Honest Services Fraud.

Although we now know that Amazon lawyers met with the DOJ 87 times, in effect, to persuade the government to charge my husband with a crime, but no charges were ever filed. Nonetheless, the government seized our money via civil forfeiture in May 2020. We're just getting the money back last. week. I'm a trained litigator turned an entrepreneur and this experience has been stunning at every turn. We welcome to the program,

Amy Nelson. Hello, Amy. Hi, Glam. Thanks so much for having me. You bet. I'm sorry we didn't see your story earlier. We just saw it this week and it is horrifying, horrifying. It is. It's, you know, I'll be honest. I didn't really even know that civil forfeiture existed before this happened to my family.

Yeah. It is one of those things that everybody thinks it can't happen to them until it does, and it is so unconstitutional and terrifying. Tell me what happened. It really is. So my husband worked at Amazon Web Services for seven years. Amazon Web Services is the division of Amazon that really builds the Internet. So the Internet lives in these big warehouses with server racks,

and people buy what are called instances on those server racks, and that's Amazon Web Services. and it generates billions of dollars for Amazon every year. And in fact, some of their biggest clients, or maybe their biggest clients, is the government. It's our intelligence community. AWS serves the National Security Agency, the CIA, the FBI to the tune of billions of dollars every year in revenue for Amazon. And my husband's job was supply. He helped Amazon Web Services find real estate to build these data centers.

and he left AWS in 2019. And on April 2nd of 2020, we got a knock on our door around 6.45 a.m. We lived in Seattle at the time, and it was the FBI. And that was the first time that we learned that a couple months prior, Amazon had accused my husband of a crime called Private Sector Honest Services Fraud, which is depriving your private sector employer of your honest services. and from now Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, I want to make sure

that's usually I mean, it's hard to prove in the private sector, in the public sector, it's usually bribery or you're leaving out information, you're profiting on a relationship without telling the other side, right?

Right, it's usually, I mean, it's usually used in the public sector where you have a politician who they say took a bribe to pass a bill. Correct. I believe it's pretty rarely used in the private sector. It is. And in fact, it, you know, it's been pared down very much.

They had charged Skilling, the CEO of Enron, with private sector on a services fraud. And that was actually overturned to the Supreme Court. And it's hard, I think, the bounds of private sector on the services fraud, even the statute, they're very still kind of unknown and being shaped. They're treated differently all over the country. But Amazon had never approached my husband about their allegations.

They never asked him about anything. They just went to the Department of Justice. So what was it they were saying he was doing? So, you know, we've actually never seen the allegations. Everything remains under seal. So we don't know exactly what Amazon said to the government, but what we understand, yeah, it's, I mean, just like stepping back, right, for years, we had all of our money taken and we have no idea what Amazon said happened.

Well, I mean, don't you have a right to face your accuser? Don't you? I mean, you can't know why the government took your money? Well, the way the process works. So, you know, my husband has never been charged with a crime. So he doesn't have a right to face to the Q there because he's never been charged by the Department of Justice with a crime. Now, when they took the money via civil forfeiture, the way it is meant to work is if they take your money via civil forfeiture and then they do not indict you with a crime, the government has to file a civil lawsuit against your bank account. and the bank account as a defendant. Now, the government did that here, but then immediately after they filed that civil lawsuit,

they asked the court to stay, which means to pause the civil lawsuit, because they said, well, we can't possibly litigate this because we have a secret criminal investigation. And so we've just been in a cycle for years where we could see the allegations. We couldn't even cite the allegations because we didn't know what they were.

This is so evil. So evil. This is putting people, this is reversing American justice. You are guilty until proven innocent. It is sick. I mean, it really is. And I will say, you know, I have learned through this experience, which has impacted my husband's career in a measurable way.

I bet. It's impacted my career. I'm just his wife, but it's impacted my career in an immeasurable way as well. In America, I very much feel that you are guilty when accused. used unless and until you can prove yourself innocent, and you have to pay to do that. And I think that's something we really need to consider about our process. And I think the other thing, Glenn, it's completely horrifying about this. This is an allegation made by a private company about private contract related to private

employment terms. And can anybody walk into the DOJ and do that? If I'm Amy that owns the hardware store, can I walk into the DOJ and say, I believe my employee did X, Y, or Z, and the DOJ will jump. They will just take my word and move. I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't know, but I don't think so.

You know, what I know to be true is that Amazon has an incredibly close relationship to the Department of Justice and to our intelligence community, and it's very frightening. How much does this cost you? We have spent probably a million dollars. And where did you get that million dollars? I mean, they took, how much did they, take from you? So $175,000. Now, they took most of that from our lawyer's client trust account. We had sent money to our attorneys to pay for legal fees, and the government went into our

lawyer's bank account and took it. How is that possible? I mean, I don't know. I honestly, I don't know. But our lawyers had already billed a significant, had built us, had built against those funds. And so they repaid our lawyers what they had already billed. So that was how we, you know, got, that's how we paid for this at the beginning. And then we, you know, my husband and I are in our 40s. We're professionals. We've worked our entire lives. And so my husband was able to keep working until the allegations became very public. So, you know, we were able to keep earning money. I was still earning money. And then we had to sell everything. We sold our house, which we had worked very hard for the down payment for and where we had planned to raise our four little girls.

We sold our car. We liquidated a retirement fund. And we borrowed some money from our friends and family. Is there anybody that is talking to you about suing Amazon? You know, I think there are a lot of people out there who think we have a lot of causes of action against Amazon. I can actually tell you, Glenn, that we did sue Amazon, or my husband, rather, sued Amazon in Washington State Court. And he won. And, and, And my husband sued Amazon. So one thing that Amazon did that I haven't mentioned is after Amazon had been lobbying for criminal charges for many months and no indictment or charges had ensued. But Amazon knew the government had seized our money.

Then Amazon sued my husband in federal court in Virginia. So after they couldn't get the DOJ to bring charges, but after they knew that we had no money, they sued him. Which is very cruel. And I think it's a complete manipulation of the criminal system. them. What happened to that case? So that case, so Amazon sued my husband and then they didn't move their case forward for years. They let it sit there until another defendant in the lawsuit forced Amazon into discovery. So we are now in discovery, which as you know, Glenn, as we're sharing facts about the allegations. And our depositions of the Amazon executives, my husband's deposition,

my husband's depositions of the Amazon executives. So accused him of these crimes will begin. Next week, actually. And, you know, these real estate transactions at issue were approved by very senior level, the highest level at Amazon. And so there'll be some interesting depositions, I think, where my husband can finally face his accusers and understand what happened. But circling back to this lawsuit in Virginia, Amazon made my husband signed an employment contract that said that they would litigate any disputes in Washington State, where my husband lived, where my husband worked, where Amazon is headquartered. But Amazon, threw it out the window and sued him in Virginia because that was where they were seeking criminal

charges. But wait, but how is that possible? I mean, I have contracts. If anybody litigates on any of my contracts, it is here in Texas. If I litigate, it's here in Texas. I mean, that's common. Frankly, I think that Amazon thinks they're so big and they have so much money that no one can go up against them. I truly believe Amazon thought, you know, Glenn, 90s.

37% of people accused of a federal crime plead guilty because it's terrifying because they can't afford to defend themselves because perhaps the government will use civil forfeiture against them. Perhaps they will, you know, lobby any other number of threats. And so I believe, I believe when Amazon accused my husband of a crime, they just believed that would be that and that they would never have to prove any facts. Because if you plead guilty, you don't have to, the accusers don't have to prove anything. right there's no trial they don't have to actually explain what happened so i believe that was amazon's bet when they started this and it's a good bet right it's a good bet not because of the truth but because 97%

of people plead guilty when accused and amazon is represented by a former federal prosecutor who worked in the district in virginia where they're seeking charges and i can imagine that that former federal prosecutor perhaps knows current prosecutors in virginia and could call them up and ask for some help um but so we sued, my husband sued Amazon in Washington State for breaching the employment contract, and he won. The judge in Washington State said, you know, I learned the first year of law school that if you want to breach a contract, you can, but that doesn't mean you're not going to pay for it.

Right. So we won that, which is, you know, great. But I think, you know, there are other causes of action that I think my husband will have against Amazon. I hope so. Amy, what can people do to help? Well, we would love your help. You know, we're waging this battle still against Amazon.

In civil court, it's costing an enormous amount of money because Amazon is fighting discovery for the lawsuit that they brought. And so we have, we're raising money at a website called nelson's fight amazon.com. And we would love your help. And we'd also just love help in civil forfeiture reform. The government should not be able to take money and call it a crime without affording someone the ability to fight back. it's nelson's fight amazon dot com correct okay good for you uh amy thank you god bless uh please keep us up to up to date on this story i'd really like to follow it so anything you can share uh let us know next week will you i will thank you very much thank you nelson's fight amazon dot com you're listening to the best of the glenbeck program

Benjamin Titlebaum. He is the author of War for Eternity. He is also associate professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. Normally, I would say, warning, just from the book and that he's a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. However, I've talked to Benjamin several times over the last, I think it's the last year, maybe it's been longer than that. he is watching something and very concerned about something that I am concerned about. And that is the influence of traditionalism as really defined by Alexander Dugan, a very, very dangerous guy who is actually calling for Armageddon.

He is actually believes that that's the thing that's going to solve all of our problems. And I guess in a way he's right. but I don't think the way he's trying to pull it together. Benjamin, can I call you Ben or Benjamin? Ben, please. It's a pleasure to be with you this morning. Thank you very much. I know we've talked about doing this show for a long time,

and we may have to cut this into two shows and then maybe even a podcast as well. But I want you to, let's start with Putin's speech, and what he said, that I think only a few people really can pick up on that know who Alexander Dugan is and what his plan is. So tell me what we learned from Putin's speech. And good morning again, Glenn. It's a pleasure to be with you.

If you listen to that whole speech, away from it thinking that this is all about kind of dry policy decision-making on his part. He spends a lot of time talking about the economy of Ukraine, spends a lot of time talking about the history of the Soviet Union, the Communist Party, some of the policy decisions that he thinks that they made wrong and need to be corrected. But at the very beginning of that speech, he said something almost in passing that, yes,

would, I think, go by unnoticed for a lot of listeners. And he said that Ukrainians and Russians have a spiritual bond between the two of them. And that tells me, and it should tell a lot of observers, that Putin is thinking in two ways, and he's motivating himself in two ways. There is this to deal with that. also makes this. Okay, so let's talk about Dugan and just define traditionalism.

This is something that if you read the fourth political theory, there are times that you will read it and go, yeah, I kind of agree with that. Because I think this is what Brexit is about. I think this is what some Canadians feel. I think this with some Americans all over the world. People are feeling like, hey, you know, I'm French. I think France is pretty great and I'd like to be French and I'm not embarrassed about France. Same thing with Brexit. They want to be British. It's this feeling that we are being told that our traditions and our country is not good, not, doesn't have anything special about it. And people are

pushing back on that. All of our traditions are being threatened. That part of his, definition of traditionalism is, I think, something that connects with people all around the world. But that's not what it means, correct? That's just a small piece of it. And sometimes, you know, when we're exploring ideas, details matter. Yeah. You can have a sort of doctrine that is appealing in a lot of senses, but a small detail can turn into something sinister. So when Putin is referring to the spiritual mandates of Russia, that connects him with a prominent Russian philosopher, kind of of a mysterious mandate and a political operative named Alexander Dugan.

He is associated himself with that is so key here because when you look at history in the way that justification. Just total and complete chaos. Yes, distinguishing features. That is what is paired with this. key traditionalism that is what is distinguishing. I will tell you that Ben and I have talked off the air and I've

wanted to do this show for a while, but I have waited until I think people are in the right frame of mind to understand it. I think this is one of the most critical things that we can learn about, especially those of us on the

right, because this is how you will know if there is a trouble maker in your midst because a lot of people will hear some of this stuff and go, yeah, that's me too. But that's not what they mean. And they have a different vision of the future. So please listen to what we're talking about here.

It goes way beyond Russia. But let me stay in Russia for just a couple of more minutes. What is Novo Russia? Novo Racia. This is Dugan's way of describing these eastern territories in Ukraine that are breaking off apparently and have been recognized as independent states, people's republics by Putin. Dugan has been referring to them as new Russia, as a new expansion. And Putin in the past has borrowed that language from this renegade philosopher that I've been speaking. to you about. He used that. I mean, Crimea was really a Dugan plan, wasn't it?

Absolutely. I mean, it was one small piece of a Dugan plan. Right. I can, to catch your listeners up, Dugan, after the fall of the Soviet Union, this philosopher, after the Soviet Union fell apart, he wanted to see not the revival of communism in the communist state, but a Russian nationalism that would expand almost to the, to the, to the, to the, to the, exact boundaries of the former Soviet Union, but do so not carrying this secular ideology, but instead a really fanatical Russian nationalism and federalism. And all of those states that started to move out of the Russian sphere, Georgia, the Baltics, Ukraine, all of those in his mind were targets to be brought back in. And it was imperative that Russia did it forcefully, decisively to establish a boundary for American and liberal democratic ideology in the world. It was important for him to set a boundary there to show.

And it is the same kind of thing in a way that Hitler used faith of people. He used all different faiths. It wasn't just Christianity. He destroyed those faiths as he went in. But Dugan is using faith, and that's why that spiritual element, because the Ukraine plays a very important part for Eastern Orthodox Christianity, right? It is the spiritual, I don't know, center for that, isn't it? It's one of them for sure.

It's also a sort of mythological center for the origins of the Russian ethnicity and state as well. Which is even worse, because that's exactly what Hitler was doing with all of the other religions. He was tying, he was just tying all these myths together. Yes, Chris, you know, you look at the union of religion and nationalism to find yourself in a place where your state acts as though it has a divine mandate. And that is a dangerous place to be. It's not surprising. And what's perhaps surprise your listeners, given what we're saying here, that one of

Dugan's ideal states in the world today is Iran, because there you have a union of state power with, so this is all. All right. I want to talk about the fourth political theory. If you can define what it is. I also want to do one more thing, a stop on Putin. Is he the lunar Putin or the solar Putin, which will understand what is his real game here? And then I want to bring it home to America, which is extraordinarily important for all Americans, but especially those on the right.

and we'll give you that information here in just a second. We are with Benjamin Titlebaum, the author of War for Eternity. He is a guy who I have talked to several times. They're really, I think there's about three of us, Ben, that are watching and understand the importance of Alexander Dugan. And it's a little frightening. Everybody I talk to, I think there's one other guy that I know that, we all look at each other and goes,

why aren't people paying attention to this? It's so important. Right. What is the fourth political theory? This is a challenge, Glenn, to explain. I know, I know. But if, if,

when Alexander Dugan speaks about a fourth political theory, he's speaking about an alternative to the other three made Western ideologies that fought throughout the last century. That is to say liberalism being one, lowercase L. It's, you know, when Americans hear liberalism, you think Democratic Party, but we're really just talking about free market, democracy, rights of individual rule of law. And communism being a second one and fascism being a third. Dugan's belief was that communism and liberalism in World War II combined forces to kill the third political theory, fascism.

and then liberalism, the first political theory, allowed communism to die of old age, essentially with the Soviet Union. But Dugan wants to see an alternative to all of these, one that you might say fuses elements of the second and the third of communism and fascism. In his mind, the danger of liberalism and the lowercase del liberal democratic world

is its rampant individualism. And it's contempt for history. It's devotion to progress and the belief that really our roots are something to be overcome and escaped. And also it's real toward globalization and building larger and larger communities. What he wants to see is a world that is shrunken, basically, in its scope. And where the identity of your group or your tribe works on preserving those different, our fourth political theory should be doing. should be in his mind to pose a like the United States operating on the global sphere.

So you can hear that and say, wow, I see pieces of that from both the right and the left. And, you know, I see a new world order being shaped like that, except he wants to destroy anything global. He also wants to destroy the United States. and I think there are some others that would like to do that, and they are using some of those tactics. So, um, he sees the United States,

any pathway edgmonic power, occasionally he'll say that if the United States, it's about containing U.S. power. Okay, 45 seconds before the break. Tell me, is he is Putin operating? Do you think in, in, um, Ukraine more under that or on just a,

you know, quick business, capitalist, I just want money and I'm going to get those ports. I tell you, I think the way that he has been speaking recently makes it seem like the business life of Ukraine is more of a facade and excuse ban, this Russian state. Okay. The best of the Glenn Beck program. Max, it is an honor and a privilege to have you on the program. Thank you, sir.

Yeah, great to be here. Thanks, Glenn. So let's talk a little bit about the social credit system. People, I think, see this in Canada. I don't know how people aren't all up in arms on what's going on, but they may still think that that, well, that can't happen here. Can we talk about what's happening? Right.

Well, it's already happening here. You know, last year I wrote this Peter Barry would be the next wave of online censorship. I mean, I was worrying about this last week. last year because PayPal, they helped found, you know, but we sold many years ago. It's now under new management. They are working with partisan left-wing groups like the ADL and the SPLC to define lists of individuals and groups who they deem to have, you know, extremist or unacceptable views, and they're denied access to cell accounts.

And there are other financial institutions who are following suit, the collective effect of which is to shut people out the financial system. And if you think it's bad to deny people the right to free. speech and to place by ideas, how much worse is it to provide them access to the new economy, to the way that they can buy food and medicine and other products for their families? You know, it is really a very severe form of punishment and social control. And, you know, that is what we're talking about. We talk about a social credit system.

We're talking about a system to allow political dissent. It doesn't descend you to the gulag, but it conditions your ability to access the economy and the benefit society, it conditions that on having the correct views, on having the acceptable views. Justin Trudeau, he declared right out of the gate that these protesters had unacceptable views, and then he proceeded to freeze their bank accounts and to shut off anybody who might contribute to them. That is really terrifying. The way he said, you know, we're going to, we're going to shut down their accounts, we're going to close the off-ramps for Bitcoin. It's not only them, but it's anybody who donated to them or, quote, helped them.

That's right. Anybody, anybody who was, quote, indirectly, directly or indirectly involved in the protest was now subject to this law in the, you know, this emergencies act that he invoked without really proper basis. And, you know, anyone who, you know, quote unquote provided property to help facilitate the protests could now be swept up in the dragon net. And so it's not just if you're, say, you know, one of the organizers of the protests, but if you're, you know, a little old grandma somewhere and you want to contribute $25 so that, you know, a trucker, really a poor

destitute trucker can buy a hot meal or some fuel to keep themselves from freezing at night. If that's your intent to make that donation, you can still be swept up in this. And you can have your bank count frozen. And one of the, you know, incredible things about it is not just this unprecedented extension of aiding and abetting liability, but also that it's retroactive. That, you know, grandma who made the contribution at the time she did it, was completely legal. And yet, under this order, she can now have her account frozen as punishment. And so what is the point of this? It is to signal, and there's going to be a chilling effect in the future that even if you make a completely lawful donation to a political cause, if that, if Justin

Trude doesn't like that cause, if he thinks there are a quote of put unacceptable views, that he has the power, that he can invoke the power at some point in the future to freeze your bank count, even though what you do is legal today. That is the precedent they've created. And I think the result of that must be a chilling effect on political defense. Oh, big time. They're, you know, also including insurance companies. I mean, he took their license away, their license to do business, their trucks away, their insurance away, and their banking, having them debanked, and, and he took their license away. And then said, even when this is over, banks might want to consider not doing business with these people.

So basically, I mean, they're lepers. Yes, absolutely. I mean, they're really creating a case of untouchables there in Canada. I mean, like you said, they're towing their trucks or confiscating them. The mayor of Ontario even said, let's sell off these trucks. We've seized them. I know. Sell them off.

We're going to use them to pay our bills. They want to give these guys a criminal records so they can never work again. They're taking away their insurance. They've taken away the regulatory license. And then on top of that, because anybody who helps them, who contributes to them, can themselves now be frozen. No one's going to want to help them. So what happens to those people, David? What happens to them?

You cut people's money off. How do you survive? They're creating and desperate people. And you have to wonder for what. I mean, the COVID pandemic is on the way and it's at an end. Even as Justin Trudeau was invoking these emergency powers, you know, a number of the provinces were ending COVID mandates. They got the message.

He never got the message. It's this extreme intolerance. You know, I have news for you, though, David. I don't, you know, even if it was waiting, I mean, I watched Occupy Wall Street. I was in New York during Occupy Wall Street. As long as you're not breaking the law or destroying property, you have a right to do that.

I never said, we should sweep those people up. That's craziness. That's craziness. And I should be even stronger on the people I disagree with. I should fight for their right more than my right. Because who will fight for mine? Exactly. I mean, this is absolutely about the right of,

of people to be able to engage in speech and political expression and to have the right to protest against their government. And these were almost entirely peaceful protests. There was no violence. And yet Trudeau instantly denounced all the protesters as basically being terrorists. Terrorists. Yeah, exactly, which allowed them to apply these anti-terrorist laws to, you know, to freeze their bank counts, the most extreme forms of, you know, the most extreme powers that the government has, which is to act on terrorist threat, were thereby invoked to really go after these ordinary, you know, working class men and women. We're talking to David Sacks. He's the founding COO of PayPal, and he is warning about the coming social credit system that is in Canada,

and do we have time to stop it here. You know, of the things, David, that I found even as shocking is the fact that there was a hacker who went in, hacked, took all of these names, doxed everybody, and the media published them and started humiliating them and pilloring them in public. That's right. And it had real consequences. There was a owner of a gelato shop who was exposed as having made a small contribution to the protesters, that they got so many threats they had to shut down their shop.

There was a low-level government employee who donated $100. She was fired from her job because of that. So there's been real reprisals based on that hack. And, you know, I'm old enough to remember when social media cited as the reason they wouldn't publish that they would suppress the 100 Biden stories for the election, that it came from hacked material. Right. Where was that policy implemented today? Right.

You know, this was, this was a legally obtained material, and the press just reported it. So, David, you know, I don't know if you're up on ESG, but that is, that's what Trudeau has done without the emergency order. If you fall out of line with ES or G, you're going to be debanked, or you will start to feel the heat. of the banking and financial and insurance system. How far away from this system are we to have a true credit score? Do you see this happening sooner rather than later? And what do we do to stop it? Well, this is my main concern.

You know, at the end of the day, I'm not a Canadian. And, you know, I watch with Santis or what's happening over there. But ultimately, it's going to be up to Canadians to govern themselves. What I'm mostly concerned about is the precedent. that Trudeau has set that progressives here in America might look to and implement. And let's identify the elements of the ingredients of this toxic stew that already exist over here. First of all, you've got big tech companies like, you know, my alma mater, PayPal, have been freezing accounts based on, you know, working with partisan political groups

to, you know, to shut people out of the financial system. That practice is already taking place. Second, you've got state of emergencies in states like California, where I live, where the governor is still operating under a state of emergency. He has invoked emergency powers that never seemed to end, even though we just had a Super Bowl where 30,000 people were sitting elbow to elbow without any masks on it. Yet we're still in a state of emergency. Third, we have recently, the Department of Homeland Security has now defined misinformation about COVID or the election to be a contributor to the terrorist threat level. So in other words, misinformation, in their view, can contribute to terrorism. So we have now all the ingredients where you have politicians invoking fake state of emergencies.

You've got big tech companies shunning through all the political system. And you've got this very scary and dangerous redefinition of terrorism to effectively apply to domestic political dissent. So you have all the ingredients there that Justin Fudeau was able to seize on. All you're really lacking is the emergency necessary to invoke those. powers. So that is what I'm afraid of is I see all the precedents coming together. But we have one thing in the United States that Canada doesn't have, which is a rich constitutional tradition. We have the protections under the Constitution. And so I'm hopeful that our Supreme Court would protect us against, you know, an authoritarian attack on our liberties this way. However, there are many

in our, you know, political system who want to pack the Supreme Court as it stands today. And And what would happen if the Supreme Court were packed? They would water down these rights and liberties and protections that we have. I think this is an issue that supersedes all others. You know, any political candidate who would give support to packing the Supreme Court should be instantly rejected, I think, by everybody across the political spectrum. And furthermore, I would say, you know, Biden has a SCOTUS pick coming up. The Republicans on the Senate's Judiciary Committee should make this topic number one.

What do they think about the use of these authoritarian powers, these fake state of emergencies? Let's hear from them. You know, I don't think Republicans are able to stop the SCOTUS pick, but let's put them on the record and discuss this issue. Are there any other people that have this point of view that is they're in your business? They're in tech. I mean, it feels like, as the average person, it feels like we are just up against this monolithic monster. Yeah, I mean, glad it's rather scary. I mean, I'm definitely an outlier.

in the tech industry. You know, I've been involved in the tech industry for over 20 years, first as a founder now as an investor. And I can tell you that there are other people who do share to one degree or another of my concerns about civil liberties. I mean, I think it does extend across the political spectrum. However, they definitely feel intimidated into silence. They believe that there will be reprisals for speaking out.

And so I would say I'm not alone in my views, but there aren't too many people speaking out, and that's pretty scary. Not that you would care at this point, but have you paid a price for it? You know, not that I can tell. I mean, I would say, but here's the thing was I'm at a stage in my career where I don't have to worry about it. You know, if I never made another time, frankly, I'd be fine. So for me, speaking out is the most important thing. and, you know, if it cost me some business that I don't know about, then so be it, you know.

But so far I've been fine. And, you know, what I'm trying to do, I've participated on this podcast called the All In Pod with a few friends in tech. Well, you know, one of the main reasons why I've spoken out is to show people that you can speak out. And they should have a little bit more courage in doing so. Because I don't think the majority of people, you know, across the political spectrum, want to see our civil liberties eroded this way. I think it is a bipartisan issue, certainly for Republicans, independents, and I'd say even many Democrats, but there is a hard political left, the sort of the progressive left,

that is driving all of this. And one of the reasons why they're successful at driving this is because moderates will not, they're too afraid to speak out and oppose it. So I don't think there's a majority, but they are driving the agenda because no one will speak out against it. And it's really a very hypocritical agenda because, I mean, these people, you look at Trudeau, his self-conception is completely at odds with the reality. I mean, he claims to be saving democracy, preserving democracy, even as he is invoking, you know, authoritarian powers. He claims to be the defender of the little guy, of the working class and the disadvantaged,

while, you know, crushing these, you know, poor working class truck drivers under the sort of heel of of his government. You know, they claim to be on the side of diversity and tolerance while insisting that there's only one acceptable point of view and, you know, censoring all the alternatives misinformation. So, you know, this hard progressive left is completely hypocritical. I don't think most people support it, but they're kind of running unopposed right now because you're so afraid to speak out. David, thank you for speaking out. Thank you for being on the program. I hope we can have you on again. God bless you and all the things that you're doing right now.

David Sacks, founding CEO of PayPal, founder and general partner of Kraft Ventures. If you see what he has invested in, he is on the cutting edge. And God bless him for speaking out. No, no, no.