In conversation with Reid Hoffman & Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

welcome back to the Allin podcast the number one business technology and political podcast in the world I am your host Jay Cal Jason kakanis and with us today three of my besties you got David freeberg cackling over there he is your sultant of science previously known as the queen of quinoa but he sold the Quin Juan business made a killing in quinoa also with us back from Italy back from Italy shamal ptia he's at 67% button and uh he's not happy about it but the hair looks great you still got a little sea salt from the the yachting I think I'm going to try to keep my hair along let's see what happens did you bring any of the sea salt back with you from the Mediterranean put it in a little bottle to spray or no no but I do have Minal oil oh okay great and have you showered in the last week or is it still you got the Mediterranean glove every day I've showered since I've gotten back see that's the problem you were you don't you don't have the SE to use as a natural you know disinfectant anot exfoliant exfoliant also yeah look how many buttons he's got going I know it's just TR beginning I feel uncomfortable for your neck I mean it's like creeping all the way up your neck looks like a prisoner let your winners [Music] ride David we open source to the fans and they've just gone crazy with it Love Queen [Music] I walked here but I had it totally unbuttoned and I thought this is completely inappropriate for Meo Park in August so I buttoned two buttons back in business mode he's in business casual mode he went from casual to business okay and with us of course the Dark Knight himself yeah the Rainman David Sachs and we have a bestie guesty for you folks friend of my other pod this week in startups Reed Hoffman is here and uh you know him as a venture capitalist board member at Microsoft and you the co-founder or the founder of LinkedIn I don't know if you had a co-founder co-founder co-founder of LinkedIn now owned by Microsoft he's got his own podcast masters of scale and uh he he and David saxs work together at PayPal Reed give it welcome to the program and give us a little story what is your fondest memory or the most quirky memory David S and that all those weirdos I'm sorry not supposed to use the word weird anymore I get banned on all of those unique personalities at PayPal tell us about that moment in time and do you remember the first time you met David sex yeah I met um David uh because Peter had known him from Stanford and hired him in um and you know David uh very quickly because he you know uh has a has a strong learning curve as he plays these things kind of got the Instinct of what the game we were playing with PayPal was and it's part of the reason why why I think you know each of the execs have had you know kind of key contributions to making um you know kind of PayPal successful and and David's was this kind of like um maniacal focused on the kind of the the cycle of how the product worked on eBay um and like like there was just a whole bunch of stuff I learned from him it's part of how I track you know kind of you know people I respect is what do I learn from them and that was one of the things that I would say I learned from uh David at PayPal that's nice David tell us your first memory of meeting Reed Hoffman would you remember where you were do you remember the conversation and yeah yeah I think well we met through Peter you know and Reed I think Reed was on the board of was confinity back then and then joined full-time what were you like 28 27 29 no I mean let's see um this would have been 2000 I I guess it would have been 27 when I first joined PayPal 27 28 I guess something like that yeah 99 so whatever that was yeah in any event I mean I'll just to return the compliment you know PayPal had all these existential issues where you had these larger entities trying to kill us Visa Mastercard eBay who else oh the let goes on City Bank yeah and uh Reed was was kind of our Emissary who kept all these dogs at Bay and managed to I guess be friends with them I guess to some degree even though they wanted to kill us and re was kind of in charge of making sure that these existential issues didn't blow up on us and they didn't so we got pretty lucky there it's it's the Will Rogers line it's politics is the art of saying nice doggy while you hunt for a stick tell us like a moment read that is incredibly memorable to you from that PayPal era you know some existential moment or one of the more difficult or funny moment moments late night moments that would be indicative of that era and whatever was in the water that Drew all that talent to one place well part of it is that I mean this is you know among the things I was learning from from Peter was that Peter and Max uh recruited just a tremendous focus on on uh like intense learning curves so you know it was one of the things that Peter later was like okay I guess you have to interview for being on sports teams and so forth because this teamwork thing does matter but like high performers and it was kind of like a like and that was part of the reason why there was such intense um you know kind of uh Innovation and capability um you know probably the most stunning memory I had at at at PayPal is we you know we're all young we're all first time we're we're kind of doing a startup that matters you know kind of uh making this stuff happen and we do this merger with XTO and and you know like pre the merger closing um you know Elon is is saying oh I got this CEO Bill Harris he's the best ever that's part of the reason why you should give so much percentage to the company deck.com and the merger You Know da d d d da and then after um the merger literally the first meeting I had with Elon is Bill Harris is a complete disaster we need to fire him right away like like before we get to the first board meeting we need him fired and I'm like uh Elon you need to talk to Peter about this well I mean my he is decisive that's for sure all right well let's get into we want you know we're going to go a little bit mullet here fredberg we're going to start with business and uh then maybe we had a we had a fun meeting about that topic at a place in paloalto that no longer exists called Antonio's Nut House yes exactly yes the legendary Antonio's n house yeah and when Bill eventually did meet his demise um at PayPal it was called The Nut House coup he got whacked at The Nut House where on the pool tables in the back you whacked him or in the boots in the front well it he wasn't whacked he was whacked at a board meeting not at the nut house but certain plans were formulated at the the back of Antonio's Nut House it's Antonio's Nut House is um yeah the most unhygienic bar in the Bay Area and then that's that's a pretty low Benchmark let's just leave it at that we'll start with some business here talk a little Ai and then since two of our panelists have a passion we'll do the party political parties at the end everybody knows re was a co-founder of inflection Ai and as a general partner at Greylock and uh one of the founding investors also in open AI there's a good story there I'm sure and we just got results Reed uh from Nvidia results were good they beat across the board stock was down after hours analysts said probably profit taking putting that aside we've never seen a chart like this in the history of uh business I would say data seter Revenue 26.3 billion 87% of their revenue now you remember Nvidia started obviously with you know video games and and uh didn't have a major Data Center business that has exploded uh net income 16.6 billion gross margin 75% and uh here's your chart on a total basis nvidia's Revenue scale up is basically unlike anything we've seen But if you look their C quarter over quarter Revenue over the past couple years things are starting to cool off significantly after that giant boom R what's your take on nvidia's just incredible run here is it sustainable will they have competitors and do you think this buildout this massive buildout we're seeing from startups to sovereigns you know to Microsoft which you're on the board of Google Apple Etc is this sustainable and is this going to keep going well I got asked that question unsurprisingly by many public market investors over the year yeah and I said basically told them and say Hey look it's sustainable for two years which for you guys means forever yeah eight full quarters yes exactly so that that's Infinity right in terms of time um you know uh Nvidia has a very sharp you know kind of lead on the importance of the the chips for the training clusters um you know they're they're effective on inference um but I do think that as you kind of scale the demand there'll be a lot of inference chips uh coming in um you know I think chamath here invested in one of those oh um and um I think there's going to be a bunch of those kind of coming in and and and the bulk of the demand will be on the inference side and then Nvidia will have this challenge of do I try to keep my prices and my margin or do I do what what we like competition do I have to respond to the competitive market and that I think will will play out you know start playing out probably in a year two at the latest and then kind of go so I think it's not sustain the the the pure heat is not sustainable um but I think it's you know nvidia's got a very strong position and and um you know I definitely I would recommend people not be short on Nvidia yeah today so yeah there's growth left competition is coming and this is probably not the type of stock you would want to short at this moment in time yeah uh freeberg what are your thoughts on this buildout uh as well as the software buildout that's occurring and when do you think we're going to see some competition come into the space I don't know if this competition and the buildout I think we talked about this in the past I don't know if you guys saw these quotes this week or recently on we don't think about this build out in terms of Roi Gavin Baker in conversation on invest like the is that the name of podcast y I think referen some been with the leaders of these regarding the buildout is so important because ultimately if you create this quote digital God the you know return is how many trillions so it doesn't matter how many tens of billions you're spending each quarter right now you have to get there you have to make sure you don't miss the boat I guess Reed a question for you you're on the board of Microsoft still right like yes indeed as Microsoft SAA publicly talked about how they rationalize the investing principles associated with building out AI infrastructure in the cloud is it Roi based like hey in the next two years we're going to make this much additional incremental operating profit ory we got to get this thing working right right to be more precise is the investment driven by Roi or does everyone just say this is so strategic we just have to win it and we'll throw all the resources we have to at this well so um what well one board members speaking for Microsoft is you know is forbidden so I'm not speaking for Microsoft just speaking for me right um two all all cloud computing platform companies how are yeah what's your s on how they're thinking it's just one of the principles in the Microsoft thing is the company speaks for itself board members don't don't don't speak for them um but you know I think SAA is like the best public market CEO of our uh Generation Um I think he is stunning um in kind of blending com combination of strategic Insight with also kind of being you know kind of return on Capital you know sensible risk-taking Etc and so the actual thing between your guys questions in terms of because I can comment on how SAA thinks with this stuff is he's both thinking about like it's a platform change and you have to be there for the platform change for productivity for cloud Etc and okay let's rationalize the capital to when are we expecting Revenue how do we get Revenue sooner to to have that as a good productive cycle how do we um you know be not trying to you know just uh spend like drunken Sailors which is easy to do right but but to to be targeting you know kind of business outcomes and it's part of the reason why you know like like like you know he's very focused on what are we doing with office what are we doing Cloud what are we doing with you know as opposed to like you you you rarely hear him talking about AGI or never digital Gods because it's kind of the question of I am I am focused on this in a business sense and I think that's that's kind of the way he's doing it but there is obviously a you know kind of a it's hard to predict the future when it's novel and unknown in platforms and it's part of the reason why you have all the hyperscalers now you know kind of fully engaged and intelligently engaged because you say well if even it's just a new platform by which you know kind of software everything with with with a computer unit in it whether it's a a phone or a speaker or a computer or anything else anything with a with a with a with a with a kind of a CPU or a GPU gets more intelligent like you can't miss out on that platform um and so that's that's I think the the thing that's motivating everybody but it's obviously you know how to do that smart is one of the things that uh you know everybody is I'd say obsessing about every week what do you think about the open source movement versus closed Source you were one of the original donators to open aai you were originally on the board and there's a couple of ways to go with this question but I just want to start with forget about the corporate structure over there we'll get to that in a second but I want to talk specifically about open source met is T met is obviously far behind open aai far behind Google Microsoft so they went open source when you're behind you go open source I guess is the idea here um but they're making some big progress who do you think is going to win this ultimately an open- Source uh provider of llms or proprietary closed Source like open AI is and it's confounding to say open AI is closed but closed AI yeah um look from the very founding open AI was never claiming it was going to be open source was claiming it was going to be one safety Open Access um and not differential or controlling access uh for that and I think that's they stayed true to that principle which is I think what the Genesis of the word open is there and um look I think the key thing is there's going to be winners all over the place I think there's going to be winners in the open source side um and you know I don't I don't know if llama's going to win from its open source thing as much as it's just TR saying hey we're training these models so we're going to you know uh put them out there because our closed system closed loop you know doesn't require selling for tokens and so forth but there's also you know Mr all and other folks who were doing competent models um and then I think that the uh the but you know there'll be wins in different ways so it's not like I think like for example you know I think there's going to be a bunch of different startups they're win whether it's coding agents or you know kind of very specific applications within medical or other kinds of things and I think they will you know generate big companies and I think large companies like you know the hyperscalers are going to are going to succeed as well now in the pure model competition the question is when do we start seeing a a a a Asm toote to scale and um and my guess is and you know kind of the gbt landmarks is each order of magnitude my guess guess is the soonest will be gpd6 um and it might not even it may even be after that and that's part of what the the bet that open Ai and anthropic and the hyperscalers are all making is that that that return to scale and then that has a lot of Downstream effects because even if you say we can train smaller models uh to do effective things part of what's going to be really instrumental for training those smaller models is the larger models so like even if there's a bunch of smaller models that are specifically capturing other kinds of Market opportun ities which is part of what I've been doing and investing in AI since you know 2014 2015 um you know there's a there's a there's going to be a a set of those things that are all a whole bunch of startup opportunities so I think it's that the the a versus B is is is is a good dramatic framing um but it's really on which specific opportunities because there's going to be wins and opportunities across them uh sorry just real quick do you think there's one um llm or one found AAL model read that effectively does everything like a meta model that starts to take most of the market or does different versions of smaller models or small agents that kind of network together end up being the best solution for specific applications and verticals like how does this evolve over time like everyone's got this concept that there's a God model that does everything and wins and whoever gets the god model wins everything but the reality of software and principles of biology would indicate that you'll see like smaller Network things that are better at doing things than any one big thing and I'm to hear your point of view on the philosophy of that yeah I think the mistake that people make is they think precisely it's like the one model to rule them all it's like sauron's ring and actually in fact um already today like for example one of the things that happens with all the model providers at Microsoft and open eye which I've seen is all sometimes Sub in like GPD 3.5 as opposed to four to see what the answers are because there's a cost of compute even as you learn to bring the cost of the compu of the larger models down the larger models are always going to be a lot more expensive and by the way they're going to be more expensive kind of probably Loosely on the order of magnitude right so it's like well it's 10x larger it's 10x more expensive totally and and so when you're trying to say hey I'm trying to make business models work the language translation right if I just want to do language translation I don't need a massive model I just need a model that's really good at language translation exactly and so think you're going to see is is is networks of models and like kind of traffic control and escalation and all the rest and agents are not going to be one model they're going to be blends of models and that's one of the reasons why you say well there's actually in fact a lot of a lot of room for startups because it's not like we say well we we take gbd 7 and we just serve it for everything it's like well it's going to be super expensive and there's a whole bunch of things about like serving it more cheaply and like for example one of the the the really great technical papers that I love for Microsoft is you know all you need is textbooks it's like you can you can train very specific models on kind of like high quality data um along with by the way the larger model helping train it that all of a sudden you have a functional smaller model and you know the the question will be a blends of these things so I think the the the the multimodel model approach is I think going to be you know quickly Universal what is your take on I in this new era we uh see open Ai and you're not on the open AI board anymore right you're so you're dependent of that even though you made a big donation at some point donation and investment I led the the first commercial series first commercial so you're an investor in it and you donated to it but actually let's start there what's up with that corporate structure how do we make sense of that something's a nonprofit you donated to it and then you invested in it and everybody's making money and selling and secondary at 100 billion how does that work in the world so um so it's it's a 51 C3 is the governor thing that's what started and you know when you know kind of Elon and Sam were starting this and said look we need you know philanthropic support and we're we're trying to make sure that there's like open access to AI which is going to be an instrumental technology and we've got some great technologists who want to come do this we started as a as a you know kind of as a 501c3 for doing it that that that persists as far as I know till today then you know one of Sam Alman 's you know pieces of Genius was that he kind of said look we're going to need scale capital and I'm trying to go out to raise and Commercial round was 600 million I'm trying to raise 600 million philanthropy and is not working right so so I have this idea which is the 501c3 which is doing this kind of research mission of you know AGI for Humanity is also producing commercial benefits and we can create initially an LP which has a a kind of a a a a a revenue right on the commercial things that investors can invest in and you know um you know Reed it be really helpful if you led this um because you know and I was like well but you don't have a go to market plan you don't have a product plan you don't have a business plan like yeah yeah but you know like we we need to show that we're actually serious with the business I said all right fine I will I will lead it for my Foundation um you know because even though none of these things we like to see as investors were there but I was like look okay I'll lead it as inv I'll manage it as an investment but I'll do as an investment for my Foundation um in order to do this and um and what you know you know kind of that was kind of as we were beginning to get in a you know like kind of we we hadn't seen anything they were still doing DOTA and and robot hands and bunch of those so it's like we're betting on the scale thesis of generating something magical and so we hadn't seen gbd3 yet um and of course once that started coming then it was like well we need a bunch more Capital let's do a strategic you know you know um you know connection and let's talk to all the hyperscalers and let's work out a deal by which one of them invest in us and and and then you know the the Microsoft openi deal came together with you know converting the lp into a subsidiary of the nonprofit you know kind of saying look um there's all kinds of benefits that both open Ai and Microsoft can get from a business deal um and so that's that's that that's what's led to you know the structure um you know that I was familiar with before the board do you what did you think of elon's first lawsuit and then he dropped it and then he refiled where where do you think he's coming from well um what what is the uh you know I'm not very charitable about those lawsuits um you know I would like to be because you know elon's one of the entrepreneurial Heroes of our time and generation but I think it's the I think it's you know frankly I think probably the most thing to say is sour grapes um because you know for example I know Sam offered him as much of the investment round as he wanted right like he could have done the whole thing he could have let it you know it was kind of like hey look we still love you we still and like and he was like no it's not a company that I control it's going to fail so I'm not interested in investing and I was like okay right and so now you're getting these lawsuits that are like you know um like I was misled it was like you were offered everything at every opportunity other than converting open AI into a company that you you completely owned and so um you know I think it's without without basis without Merit but why do you think he would have dropped it and then refiled where do you think that comes from is was is there new information do you think or I think it was a jurisdiction issue Jamal oh that makes sense I got fact that but Reed I mean Elon put in the first what $44 million and he doesn't have any shares yeah I by the way put in 10 million at the same time and I don't have any shares from those 10 million but do you think that he kind of got screwed because he doesn't have any shares I mean at the time he put in the 44 million it was never going to be a for-profit now it's a for-profit a lot of people are profiting you know assuming the paper Mark ends up being realized so he doesn't own anything I mean if you the seed investor and put up 44 million and something and then everyone's making money and you don't have any shares forget about the legal technicalities wouldn't you have a feeling of being screwed well I look I can understand the emotion of that but like it's not like elon's short of money right and so if you go look I'd like to have shares like I did invest in the other thing I didn't get any shares for the 10 million that I put in and by the way it's not just legal technicalities it's actually really important that you're not doing private enrichment off philanthropic donations and so you know it's it's but isn't that what's happened um no from a Viewpoint of they're held separate right um and so you know and the 501c3 continues to to control the um you know kind of control the kind of the the the the mission and Destiny and so forth and so the question are its mission is still is still guiding things and you're essentially investing in that mission and you recorded you recruited people you know on that mission and so um you know I think that the you know um you know I think like I said sour grapes uh okay so let's get into some political stuff first I want to uh get the IP question then I want to talk about lenina con so how do you think about IP in this you know briefly in this new world open Ai and New York Times can't come to terms New York Times caught them red-handed cookie jar according to their lawsuit having indexed a ton of their content it's pretty crystal clear that their content's behind a pay wall and that's how they make money I also subscribe to chat GPT I give them 20 bucks a month maybe 30 bucks a month for every employee in my firm and and I get New York Times content from there all the time I will ask it what does the wire cutter think is the best choice in chat GPT I get that and then I get the answer and I don't need my New York Times subscription I don't visit the New York Times anymore um feels pretty clearcut to me but how do you think about IP should uh an llm be able to ingest whatever they please or should they be required to get permission in advance and pay a royalty to content creators Reed Hoffman huh well as a content creator too look I think I think that it tends to be a little bit of a look we do want content creators to benefit economically from the work it's part of the reason why we have copyright it's part of the reason why we have payrolls you know other kinds of things that I think are are very important and I think it's it's a complicated thing that needs to be sorted out now that being said I think we also want to say that we can train these models like you know like training is like reading and like reading things is you know like when something's available to be read and you've engage in the right economic thing for reading it I think that's a kind of a reasonable fair use thing now maybe we update the terms of service maybe we update you know copyright law or other things to say okay that now changes you know I think we don't want to forbid changes in the future you know um this is like one of the problems we get with it blocks Innovation when we do that it blocks Innovation and you know kind of Hollywood it blocks Innovation and music it blocks Innovation so you want to allow some new chain you know changing landscape and I think this is a changing landscape that arguably is reading so I think that like both of those things are true in terms of what do we what do we want to sort through I think that one of the reasons why this is kind of like you know over like when I give advice to you know various news organizations and so say look don't try to hold out for money on the training side of things because you know we're going to create synthetic data we're going to do all kinds of other things that are going to mean that no one's particular data is really going to matter what you should be is on freshness on brand on other things and we should work out ongoing sustaining economic Arrangements like that that would be my two cents you know suggestion for it and I do think we want to design an ecosystem that includes that and you know when I was involved in those Co conversations at open AI they they agreed with that Microsoft certainly agrees with that in terms of you know how do we make sure that economics are fairly apportioned and so forth for you know what we're doing for you know this phase of you know and ongoing but like you know there's a current Tech new technological wave that's coming and how do you do that so you know that's a messy answer but unfortunately it's a messy subject it it's pretty messy subject yeah before we move to politics I just wanted to actually ask you about inflection so is it still running yeah and so what basically happened there was like some transfer payment from Microsoft and a couple of the people like and then it seems like whatever that deal was a little bit seems to have been copied by Google when they did this character AI thing so just trying to get a sense from you are these deals to structurally avoid FDC scrutiny in terms of the building blocks of it or how how did you think about it and what is the what is the pattern and the trend on these things well the thing I think this happened was you know very early days you had things like you know we're doing an agent and if Pi had launched before J gbt it'd probably be in a different circumstance but like chat gbt got the oh my God high is the inflection AI the inflation agent yeah and so so by the time that Pi we got the the the trend right and the and the interest of the market right but we got the timing you know too late happens with startups so it's like okay we need to Pivot we need to Pivot from a b Toc model to a B2B and we have a unique model but let's sell that to other people who already have audiences because we're not going to be able to easily grow our audience and then you know once we had that as a conversation there were employees are like well we want to do the direct agent thing and that's what we want to do and maybe we'll go somewhere in order to do that and we're like okay how do we fund this and how do we make that work and how do we make it work for investors and we said hey there's a deal structure that could work which is you know with a you know kind of outside party you can get paid enough in a non-exclusive IP license and an ability to selectively hire folks and then you can dividend some of that out to investors so investors you know get back a you know kind of a 1x um and then kind of a a an ongoing position so you know as investors it's great to have a kind of optionality on its B2B business um in order to play that out and this is a structure that works for everybody in this pivot to be to be and that's essentially the the the structure that we did I see great pivot chth into Lena Khan I think one of the things that is quite Paradox paradoxical about your relationship with David saak is you both agree on something in politics which is Lena Khan and her Concepts around future competition and maybe how she's running uh this issue for the United States is leading to basically a freeze on the market we're seeing weird deal structures like some of the ones we're talking about here that could have just been Acquisitions and I'm curious your thoughts on what she you know this sort of breakup of Google now we're seeing that emerge at the same time that they're facing the biggest existential crisis of their career which is language models competing with them and me I would say half of my Google Searchers have already moved to you know uh you know chat GPT like services so what's your take on Lena Khan's approach to m&a and what impact if it's continued and sustained will that have on Capital allocation because I I don't know what happened to the single and double m&a Market but it seems to be completely gone everything from Adobe and figma to other uh mergers that could be happening are essentially Frozen so what's your take so it was funny because I kind of made an off-the-cuff you know kind of remark about Lena Khan which turned into a whole news cycle I I saw you on CNN where they were like are you telling Kamala and Biden what they have to do and I'm like no because I don't believe in that kind of Corruption of of of Politics the only way she's gonna learn about it is either she asked me or she watched this television show um and um and so so she's done a good job on the price cartel she did a good job on the anti competes both of which I think are very very good for you know competitive markets the problem is I think she has a misunderstanding of these uh large tech companies and um for example on the m&a thing you know her theory is you got to prevent the aggregation of power so you got to you got to fight every acquisition of note and the problem of course is that actually quells venture capital investment because it's like okay um part of the the returns is if I'm going to invest in something that might be competing with you know one or more of the large tech companies I need to have acquisition exits as part of being able to to fund enough Capital to really make that acquisition you know that that that that investment possibly work because if it doesn't work I want to be able to at least return recover my Capital by an investment so the right way to look at it is is there competition amongst the top tech companies because you know if one of them is like squashing all the other ones that's a problem if we're if we're five large tech companies heading to three then I'm much more sympathetic to our point of view but we're actually five heading to 10 right or five to seven heading to 12 because like Nvidia is now in the mix and and others I think coming Mi is you now over 500 billion yeah so yes and so you have this ability so the thing is is they're competing on the Acquisitions just like they're competing in the Mar in the marketplace and if you're trying to quell the whole thing because your theory is like like they should just you know the startup should just be able to grow up to compete that actually means that those will never get the capital that they need in order to do that which means you're actually having the opposite of your intent right what you're doing is you're actually in fact making there be less competition because you know capitalists can't say if I'm going to put a 100 million 500 million a billion dollars into this company I at least have a chance of getting my Capital back or I can possibly create a competitor and that's that's the reason I was speaking out against it as an expert um was like interesting you I saw you I think it was a jake taper Tapper who uh you kind of grilled I thought you did an exceptional job of just saying listen I made a donation this is how I feel about it but obviously she's going to do what she wants to do and and that's just how politics works so uh I thought that was actually pretty well done and I actually appreciate you fighting for more m&a because it would be great for the industry Sak you wna you want to throw up a political topic here or you want me to no just just to stick on Lena Khan for a second so I I agree that her approach has been uh overly Broad and has had a chilling effect on m&a and so Jal like you said we've lost those base hit Acquisitions that I think are important to the Venture Capital Market that help new stars get funded I mean if the Returns on risk Capital go down there's going to be less of it that me'll be less be less inovation yeah so I agree with Reed on that the area where I'm not sure we agree is and and where I do agree with Lena Khan is I do think the big tech companies have too much power I do think that they are monopolies or have monopolies and I do think they need to be controlled I just think that you know I wouldn't prevent them from doing any m&a whatsoever I'm curious if Reed like agrees with that that the big tech companies have too much power or agrees with Lena Khan on that and I guess specifically do you think any big tech company should be broken up if so which ones I mean I I would actually entertain that idea of of of deong glomera or breaking up some of these big tech companies do you do you think do you agree that big Tech has too much power or not um I think it's TBD um but the reason I'd say look take the opposite point of view we would say no uh the thesis for no is that they are very strong American comp companies that get you know in the most cases over half the revenue from overseas they create uh technology platforms that beneficially differentiate the US um versus you know many other uh countries in kind of global circumstances like the inter and other kinds of things um I think that they are competing ferociously with each other I mean uh you know Jason just mentioned that you know it's kind of like look we've already got like chat GPT competing with Google search and other kinds of things and I think it's competitive pressure right this is I think what capitalism is about is competitive pressure that essentially creates the thing and that's the reason why like if it's if if we were shrinking like it was Google Uber Alis or I actually frankly think that the you know Everyone likes to talk about you know Google you like I think the the prime candidate is likely to be and I'm speaking as an individual and as a venture capitalist here is apple with the app store right okay so wait so so that brings up an interesting point one of the things we've talked about in this pod is that we shouldn't shut down m&a but the the uh FTC should limit anti-competitive tactics by these big tech companies yep Apple really good example because they drive everything through the App Store you're not allowed to do side loading they want to take what is it 30% piece of any sales you're not even allowed to have a link inside an application to drive except to the website yeah yeah Europe up now you can would you at least want to crack down on those anti-competitive tactics yeah no for sure and look especially when is you know we all know it's nonsense it's like look you could just give the consumers the option to to to allow side loading you could just say it's technically very simple to do and you could say look uh we we don't want you to Sid load because we view it to be Safety and Security but we're giving you the option right fine give people the option right Reed were you surprised that then the first Target where there was like some successful antitrust push back was against Google versus Apple and then second do you think that there's a chance like a meaningful chance that the government tries to break Google up or do you think it looks something maybe more similar to what happened to Microsoft so I think in mandating breakups you know like I think is a um look I think we should operate through competitive networks and competitive ecosystems I think it's part of what smart about capitalism and I think mandating breakups is only when essentially capitalism is failing uh on specific things you want to do the the least the least you can to get back to competitive networks in terms of how you're operating and so you know when you say hey look I iOS has this kind of Monopoly and you say there's no side loading you have to use app store you have to use the payment mechanism you know etc etc it's like well that quells a ton of startup Innovation we all know this as investors because we look at anyone who's perspectively doing a business like this and say no chance it's you know you're you're not going to succeed and so so then you say well what's the least thing that we can do right and you know a classic antitrust like well let's break off the App Store from Apple as well right unclear that that would really fully work you know that's like socialism mandating how the thing should work let's try to get it so that we allow competition uh to determine these things and like for example saying hey like you have to allow consumers the option of side loing you have to allow consumers the option of installing an alternative app store right like that kind of stuff I think you know what's the minimal stuff I think that's the kind of intervention we want to have because I think there's all kinds of benefits that come from why but why do you think that the the case against Apple has made less progress than the case against Google uh I think it's kind of it's less politically easy right like it's kind of like everybody loves their iOS phone and you know there's there's there's less of a blue and red you know kind of combo tackle um where you know the the blue Fe people are like hate big companies less offensive basically you're saying yeah yes more stylish they're they're prettier I I kind of like your approach though with the app store if you were to think of least harm to the ecosystem epic games has their own App Store for games they charge 88% they give they give I'm sorry they give developers 88% they only take 12 and forcing Apple to allow you know a startup to do an app store would solve the entire problem and it seems like that's where it's going to go and all five of us would invest instantly in an App Store that would say 0% take rate and all Advertising based what a great idea that would be yeah GRE I have a question a few weeks ago you said something to the effect very publicly that you had had a one-h hour or multi-hour lunch with Biden and he just seemed like super on his game and then he was kind of dumped was that just a moment in time where he was really great with you or how do you reconcile that with Pelosi and all of these other folks and what happened to Biden well like most of us um I was pretty dismayed by the debate performance um because when I talk to him like detailed thoughtful analysis with no notes on Gaza questions about AI you know and what kinds of things you know what did I think about what the progress you know the thing they were doing with the volunteer commitments the executive order and you know what kinds of things should happen in the future and all that kind of stuff being on the game a little slower right than than you know a a 50-year-old would be but but you know like cogent and totally worth and then you kind of uh looked at the debate thing oh my gosh this is this is this is a disaster um and so um it was like look is the debate a one-off thing is it did you were you ill you know like trying to reconcile the two and you know spent a little bit of time trying to figure that out uh to to what was going on because it was it was the first time I'd seen something like that and you know um you know I don't you know I'm not enough of a DC Insider to know exactly what the set of conclusions were other than I you know I plotted you know Biden for having the kind of Integrity go look I'm maybe I'm Ill maybe I'm old maybe I'm slower but you know the it's about the country more than it's about me because I'm you know not um you know it's it's it's important to be about the country not about yourself I'll I'll step aside and ultimately his decision there's nothing that anyone could force Pelosi couldn't force it anyone else it's ultimately his decision he came to that decision so um you know do you think that they should have run an Open Primary after that and would kamla have won an Open Primary well it's hard to know I mean I think they were definitely leaning towards an Open Primary and then all the people who would be the most natural contenders all endorsed Kamala so um and by the way you say what kind of democratic process it was like well there was a democratic process that picked the Biden Harris ticket which turned into the Harris Walt's ticket and so that's not anti-democratic but I think if you look at the sequence of events it was kind of like well you know we're we're going to sort out you know what we're going to do and then you know all of the key folks you know Shapiro and and Whitmer and every else all endorsed K I was like okay let's just let's get back to you know kind of the the choice of two candidates and so I you know do you feel the voters felt Reed do you think the voters felt left out um the Democratic um voters well I mean from Posta seems not right with the level of kind of energy and all the rest it seems that that that um um that the uh that you know like the with the pure polling and kind of level energy and kind of what's going on they're happy with what they got yeah they're happy with what they got I would have liked to have that speedrun do you think it sets a bad precedent that there were these back room conversations obviously the staff of Whitmer Moore Shapiro their office speaks with Democratic party leadership speak with big donors and there was effectively a coalescing that took place over a period of time that said we should all stand behind and endorse one person instead of infighting and creating a split in the party and does that not set a bad precedent that there is a small group of people in either party that in a primary process effectively get to nominate their candidate get their candidate to become the nominee and therefore there's only two people for the country to choose from and as we have seen recently with RFK Jr and the lawsuits against him in being on the ballot in different states it makes it very difficult maybe for the people to have their choice and is that a bad way for democracy to work and I just love your philosophical view on this on like what's the best way for democracy in the United States to work so for the president for the president yes we do live in a republic all right and there there is various like you know some people have much more influence than others um whether it's media platforms whether whether it's um you know economics and ability to spend whether it's you know a history and a brand and and and other things and so you know this melee and and and kind of you know whole integration set of things now ultimately you know voters are going to decide in November right so you know people do have a you know and I think that that that staying to our Democratic process is what's really key like you know people going to the polls you know I think we should want to live in a country where everyone does you know everyone who is who is legally allowed to vote does vote um and I think that that's you know ultimately good thing now you know are there things that I would like to change sure I'd like to change I'd like to have rank Choice voting you know I'd like to have open primaries there there's a set of things like like actually my principal frustration in all of this stuff is you know what's what's one of the fundamental things the two parties agree on that that that that shouldn't be is that there should be only two parties right and I think that's uh I think that's something that you you need to fix and you can't fix it unfortunately I think with independent candidates because because the whole system is really set up uh for you know kind of two parties and independent candidates are almost always spoilers one way or the other I mean like on the RFK stuff I understand there was a bunch of Democrats who were trying to you know prevent him from getting on the ballot I actually prefer him on the ballot because I actually think his his his antiva stance you know really fit very well with with Trump and so I think he was do you want to address that Reed because I think there was a rumor that you were funding some of these lawsuits to keep him off the ballot or whatever like have you spent any money to try to impact RFK one way or the other I wouldn't be surprised if we look at all the money that goes to all the different organizations if organization X kind of had some kind of ballot thing my in my voice and instruction was always like no no no no don't do that that's anti-democratic but you know you can't control everything just like you invest in a company and Co sometimes the dumbass [ __ ] that you can't do anything about because you give you give money you give money to to folks that then execute their own strategies so you can't control on the ground tactics right yeah so there's there's that happens that you're like no don't do that right well okay that's a good um that's a good segue because let's talk about the five cases against Trump there are five lawsuits hold on jcal I don't can we just stay on this top for a second I think this okay so in in Michigan Wisconsin you had Democratic groups they fought RFK Jr's bid to get on the ballot okay they failed now he wants to get off the ballot but they won't take him off now that they think that his presence hurts Trump and at the same time Michigan's trying to remove Cornell West and Wisconsin's trying to remove Jill Stein so I'm curious do you think there's any principle on display here besides naked partisan hackery I mean basically the Democrats fought having third parties on the ballot when they thought it would hurt Biden and now they want to keep them on the ballot when they think it's going to hurt Trump except for those third party candidates who they still think will hurt Harris so what is there any principle here or is this just partisan hacker I I think it's you know I I frankly you know think that everyone who follows the legal process to get on the ballot should be on the ballot and you know we should follow the legal process I'm very much of a legal process kind of person what I'm opposed to is like you know calling raffensberger and asking for 11,000 votes right which is not legal right so so like yeah sure is that is that bad and and do I advocate against it the answer is absolutely yes um but it's you know follow the legal process if the secretary of state of Colorado throws Trump off the ballot for example is that legal process if it's then overruled by the Supreme Court or could we just say substantively that states shouldn't be removing candidates from the ballot that's anti-democratic uh well but you want them to remove RFK from the ballot no that's not what I saw I okay I'm just trying to figure out no the the rule is that well first of all I don't think that Democratic groups should be suing RFK to keep him off the ballot and that's what he said is that Democratic groups were suing to keep him off the ballot and they were trying to exhaust his resources so he couldn't mount an effective campaign and some of those groups you funded right so maybe you didn't know what they were doing but in any event I consider that to be anti-democratic RFK is now trying to remove his name from the ballot I think as a candidate you're allowed to do that and those same groups that once fought to keep him off the ballot are trying to keep his name on the ballot because now they perceive yeah because now they perceive the political calculation to be a little different so my so I don't see any of this as being Democratic this to me is just partisan hackery isn't it so can't youe that look yes fundamentally from a Viewpoint of like like for example my my direct actions and yes there was you fund a whole bunch of different groups and you have different groups doing different things but you funded them to do this thing that you were thinking of and things happen it's just like companies you know my thing was actually in fact making people aware of of rfk's antix you know statement his anti-science stuff because I thought that would be relevant in the polls in November that that was the the actual strategy that that I believe and I think that would differ entially you know hit Trump more and so therefore would be a spoiler right as these independ are I I have no problem with drawing attention to issues but I I do think fundamentally it's anti-democratic to sue third party candidates to the point where they can't be on the ballot okay let me ask you directly Cornell West um there's an effort right now to remove Cornell West from the ballot in Michigan do you support that or would you oppose that I mean is that democracy but by default I would oppose it I don't know any of the details okay fair enough Reed I have a I have a question for you it's more of a statement actually maybe I just left to get your reaction one of the most divisive issues that we have right now is people's position on October 7th Israel Palestine there is a sense that there's a growing kind of like virent strain of anti-Semitism in America a lot of people point to the extreme left as as where that's really gestating there was thoughts that Josh airo would have been an exceptional candidate but one of the large reasons why he was not really meaningfully considered was his religion I just want you to comment on the broad issue and whether you see it in the Democratic party whether you see it in the Republican Party whether you see it at all just give us a sense of where we stand culturally on this issue well so like I know Josh airo I think he's great um you know I've had I've broken bread with him um and you know he was meaningfully considered um you know I think that the um you know I think we should be so lucky that he would you know run for presidency someday uh some year um you know I actually didn't know Waltz at all and and and you know was initially kind of surprised because you know I was like Oh I thought I was probably going to be Shapiro and I was like well you know I think it was you know probably a close call down to those two and and it looks like you know you know in making decisions I think uh you know Harris you know made a good decision with Waltz so you know I think it's a um you know now on the on the anti-Semitism topic I do worry that you know broadly um we're seeing you know kind of more rise of anti-Semitism and that's extremely important to fight um you know because I think and I think there are people in in the you know it's it's a weirdly like like uh there's some lefties who are doing it and there's some righties who are doing it's both a blue and a red issue in different different shape and I think it's very important that we you know we stand against that uh as a country and so um you know I've been uh you know kind of mostly just trying to say hey look we gota we got to be anti anti-racism anti-Semitism and also anti-genocide and we got to figure that out what do you think of kamala's uh handling of that issue in her speech she basically seemed to I don't know say both sides it but she said hey you can uh believe that the people of Gaza should be treated more humanely and that uh you know Israel has a right to defend herself what do you think of her handling I think that's rational right like you should be anti- genocide both of Palestinians and of Jews right and and like like it's obviously a very very thorny topic yes right so um so I think you know saying that I'm going to try to protect civilians both sides anti genocide I think that's a human Caring Place to be looking out for people Reed do you think that generally speaking Marxist socialist principles are taking a firmer hold on the the the Democratic party and kind of those principles are starting to Showcase not just in the cultural phenomena that that chamath is referencing but also in some of the policymaking that's going on and um concepts of equity rooted in concepts of social justice ultimately rooted in Marxist principles emerging from the Industrial Revolution what about price fix so so as an example the price gouging you know price caps on food proposal the concept of a wealth tax not necessarily the unrealized capital gains tax but separately a tax on wealth all of these concepts of the degradation of power structure through policy and in part some have argued that the anti-Semitism arises from these principles and that the Jews are considered a privileged and Powerful uh cultural class is that is that not being observed you not do you not think that there's some tendencies that are emerging in the Democratic party and may be influenced by a louder far-left and that far-left is becoming more loud and and better represented in the party look I think we should speak out against both the far left and the far right um I think it's important to do both and so you know since you know uh I'm I'm I I'm playing the Democrat here on this conversation I'll ask you guys to play the the the or especially Sachs play the Republican and and speak out against the the far right too um but the the the short answer is yes there are amongst the extreme left that's not everybody in the Democratic party but the extreme left there is um some like you know misunderstandings about you know why it's important to to defend you know kind of anti- genocides like from the river to the Seas like yeah that's a genocidal statement don't use that one right that understand what language you're using and and to be like look the you know we've had a great genocidal moment with you know World War II and we're still trying to recover from it um two you know questions around like like what I think is a a a a foolish wealth tax even though it's by the way narrow to like 80% and then on like the the price gouging stuff um you know one of the things as I started scratching at it you know was interesting I think this week Kroger said yes we did actually artificial raise prices to profit from the pandemic you know and yeah you should stop price gouging it's not quite the same thing as price capping and apparently there's laws that affect even in Florida right or in Texas uh where some of you know uh you guys are living so like it's kind of um you know it's like okay I need to understand this issue in more depth but I don't think it's as simplistic as the political headlines are having it well but the reason why Comm Harris proposed the price fixing proposal price G whatever you want to call it was in response to inflation in other words we've had 20% erosion and purchasing power over the last four years Harris needs a response to that so she came forward with this new economic proposal so it's in that context this came up this wasn't some proposal by the far left of the party unless you consider K Harris to be far left I actually do but okay fair enough but my point is just this is her proposal and it's in response to inflation I mean you don't you understand what causes inflation right it's like the government printing too much money it's not it's not greedy corporations raising their prices too much I mean do you agree with that look I agree that you have to have good monetary policy and so I think we we probably agree on that and I think some printing of money is part of the normal functioning economy but too much is is bad and I don't think look I think Price look part of the reason why we just talked about antitrust stuff earlier you do have to look at places where there's a there's a possibility of kind of commanding stuff from your you're a privileged position and like you know the like I want we all agree we all agree that monopolies have to be controlled no no no debate there but that's not what's caused the inflation right because we've had inflation of Commodities not just Monopoly products but Commodities like just food Staples eggs you know chicken stuff like that driven driven by Fuel and labor and all the other inflationary you know underpinnings of those markets and I think we tried to highlight that I don't know if you saw Elizabeth Warren's interview on CNBC where she got taken apart she made some claims about profiteering by Craft Hind and the CNBC anchor has pointed out you actually incorrect craft hin has seen a reduction in profit over this period of time and so like there were factual inaccuracies in these belief systems but you know for me it feels a lot like the government setting prices in free markets is one of those steps towards socialist principles that worry me the most yeah and look I generally speaking as I was saying earlier I'm like like make sure the network sets sorts it out versus you know centralized control totally totally so so it's kind of like you have to look at is there a place where you're like going okay that's the reason I like focused her words were price gouging and if you're focused on the kind of gouging side of it is like there might be a marketting efficiency that you're essentially correcting then that's I think the same kind of thing we were talking about with like the FTC and the Apple App Store and so forth if it's like I'm just going to set a fixed price on eggs right that's a bad idea and by the way there's there bad ideas like the wealth tax thing that I that I disagree with her her economic thing also had housing which I think is a you know a good you know kind of thing to kind of lower cost for Americans and you know kind of make that kind of uh stable work like I think she's she's been good on immigration um I think this the The Langford Cinema bill which was from you know the the the Republican side was something they were fully prepared to endorse and you know Trump killed it because he wanted to campaign on it it's like look we care about the actual running in the country and so you look I think there's a bunch of good things but if you said do I defend price capping the answer is not as an independent principle by itself and by the way are there people lefties like you know a lot of what Elizabeth Warren says about capitalism I disagree with right I mean I could disagree with you on the border I think you know kamla Harris used to be considered the borders are that's gotten scrubbed I don't think she's done a great job on that but whatever that I want to go back to issues that affect Silicon Valley 25% unrealized gains tax uh it seems like most of Silicon Valley almost all of it is either disagrees with this or is up in arms about this I think jcal you would you said that this is disqualify line in the S it's disqualifying for me for sure yeah so absolutely I mean do you agree that a large unrealized gains tax 25% would be a disaster for Silicon Valley and the whole startup ecosystem or I mean how do you come down on that well as I understand it uh on that tax as it's proposed is you have to have um 80% % of your net worth that's right liquid yeah if 80% or more is illiquid then no you get to defer the tax but there's a penalty yeah you get to defer the tax there's a penalty that's right look I think it's definitely a quelling impact and it's definitely stupid and definitely shouldn't happen okay you know so we get your I think we got your position on it it's stupid yeah we all that but then but then why isn't it dis why isn't it disqualifying the way that jcal says are we just supposed to hope that Comm doesn't do what she is saying she going to do I'll tell you why I think that both the Republicans and the Democrats have realized that there's actually very little difference on a lot of the major things that they actually talk about so what they're both being forced to do is realize that because the centrality of a bunch of the things they say are the same they each have to go to their flanks to get the N plus one vote and so comma goes to the left and spouts all this stuff that seems Marxist or socialist or communist because she has to get those people to vote for her ultimately I think what ends up happening is most of the stuff in the middle has a decent chance of happening the stuff at the fringes I think they get put up Sachs almost as like a sacrificial lamb a good example I think is like all of the stuff that's happening with the student loan reform a half a trillion dollar plan it gets shot down by the Supreme Court this new plan another hundred billion dollar not even being heard yet by the Supreme Court so I think they know this I mean it's not like the Biden Administration is dumb the Trump Administration is not dumb either so I think what they're doing 10 million people would be an example on the right and taking away a woman's right to choose would be the other one yeah and by the way Trump has said you keep bringing that up but Trump has said that he would veto he would not support a national B oh no I'm talking about already doing he already he already overturned Rie wi I'm talking about that yeah and by the way issue to the states it's not outlawing abortion and by the way at the state people in Austin Texas well but that's not had a ballot initiative they have not had a ballot initiative there just about everywhere there's been a ballot initiative the pro-choice forces have won and besides that's a state issue now jcal not federal yeah no it's a state issue and Trump succeeded in taking away a woman's right to choose in Texas but one thing by the way look in the spirit of the all-in podcast I wanted to be clear about like there's there's there's stuff on the on the Dem and some of their economic policy for the far-left people that you know kind of you know they're advocating for that I'm opposed to you know Saks I'd love to hear from you what parts of Trump's things you're opposed to here we go well look I mean I have been consistent on this pod for years that I thought that the let's call it the like extreme pro-life side was not good for the Republican party and I've been opposed to it um I don't think it's what J Cal says I think that overturning roie way did not abortion it basically returned the issue to the states and if you look at the referenda that have happened they've pretty much all gone the pro-choice Direction so I think that the overturning of Ro weight has actually allowed the country to sort of sort out that issue although it's not completely sorted out but look I would not support a National Abortion I would not support redering the issue I think there's a lot of issues on about you know War and Peace where I do not support the you could say the establishment con strand within the party I do not support all these interventions I do not support these forever Wars and there is a big debate in the party about that now one of the reasons why at the end of the day I support Trump is I know this will strike some people as counterintuitive but I think he is the moderate within the Republican Party he's a moderate on abortion I know Jak C you're still bitter about that Supreme Court case however he's been very very clear that he will not support National Abortion ban moreover he took the abortion language out of the Republican platform I think he's the moderate on um on issues of of War he's he was the first Republican candidate to run opposing Bush's forever Wars so I give him credit on those things on style he may not come across as a moderate but those are style points I think on issues he is the moderate the the issue I have with KLA Harris is I don't think she's a moderate you know so like just to take this 25% unrealized gains tax first when this issue came up we were assured well she doesn't really believe that even though it was in the Democratic platform and it was in the Biden Harris budget then people said well maybe it's part of her platform but it's not a priority for her and we just had one of her like top economic advisers come out on I think it was CNBC defending it and her campaign confirmed that she supports it okay so now the argument has become well she support it it is really part of the platform she would do it if she could but she's not going to be able to do it I just don't think that's a ringing endorsement of a of a candidate I don't think you want to support a candidate because they're not going to be able to do what they really want to do do you think she's a moderate or do you think she's a socialist you know uh gonna take the country very far left way yeah but what saaks didn't address is Trump's tariff policy which is also inflationary almost equivalent to the price gouging uh you know food price C I think that they're both inflationary and they're both bad policy that's my personal Point View where I thought it was going to go but anyway yeah honestly I'm not I'm not sure what I what I think of that proposal um you know I guess it depends on the details I'm not endorsing I'm not opposing it but but but just just back to this point that should we support KLA Harris even though we oppose all the policies that her campaign says she supports because it seems like that's the argument now is that Silicon Valley is expected to support Harris even though she wants and her campaign is confirmed she wants a 44% capital gains tax she wants a 25% unrealized gains tax these are things that I think the vast majority of silk Valley considers to be disastrous for the startup ecosystem should we support her in spite of those things well and why look the information did a an actual data poll as opposed to us being talking head saying we say that Silicon Valley does X or Y and you know the information poll showed that There Was You Know Much broader support for the Democratic ticket than the Republican ticket is that is that the thing that Ron Conway just tweeted he might have I don't know if he just no that's that's different AET that's that's a that's a different group that's a group to counteract you and chamath uh throwing as fundraiser for Trump was like I think where that came from so so but the information a news source that that that ran a poll you know did it objectively ran the whole thing to to try to answer the question came out with more folks in favor of you know the Biden Harris ticket than I believe why do you think that is I think that is well because because look taxes is an important issue and I think if you ask any any silon Valley business person they say look lower capital gains promote long-term investment ask me that's what I would say too but you know you kind of go well what actually in fact you most need for business is stability uh rule of law not grifter capitalism where it's like you know give me a ability to my own nft uh you know etc etc you know that's what they go we want that and by the way we can navigate a higher tax rate it'll be less fast on growth and everything else but we can still invest create businesses you know etc etc but we can't do it with you know kind of a uh corroding the rule of law right like you know I think both uh David both you and chamath spoke out against the January 6 stuff I'm curious where you're on that now it's still top of mind for me that's the reason why the kind of the rule of law thing is my red line not a tax policy well let me ask you about that formally here there are five cases against Trump you have uh the Insurrection case you have the New York taxes case you have the hush money case you have the EG and Carol Case uh and um one am I missing there oh and the uh documents case you funded like Peter Teel funded The Gawker case uh the EG Carol Case uh which Trump lost and uh just to ask you why did you choose to fund that and do you believe Trump sexually assaulted Eugene Carol well it's kind of not relevant whether or not I did or not what I funded was an ability to have you know kind of a woman who doesn't have power who's being threatened by a rich man with a lot of money and power to try to silence her to have her day in court where 12 everyday Americans right can come to a judgment and their judgment was uh that there was an assault and there was slander about the assault um and they did it twice and so that was the reason I funded it and you know I think that that's important we you know the laws apply more importantly to Rich and powerful people than it does to poor people um that's that's the important about the the thing I love about America is a rule of law system and I think that's what's most important and that's what's really fundamental that's my red line relative to kind of lines and the s that we're talking about um and you know that's uh you know that's the reason why the various kind of lawsuits where that seem to be that that's what's being emphasized then you know I'm I'm I'm happy to support them well you I don't see how it's rule of law when you have a uh district attorney Alvin brag who's elected on a promise to get Trump he then takes what are at most uh a a bookkeeping misdemeanor that's past the statute of limitations that's expired and he turns into 34 felony charges on a legal Theory that was never explained to the jury and then basically Trump is convicted in a sham trial by a hyperarcs can then run what do you think of that on The Branding on The Branding that he's a quote convicted felon so there are there are four other trials we got your first one think rule of law hold on I don't think feedback I don't want to get re feedback too but mean finish my point I don't think it's rule of law when Trump is prosecuted on a documents charge Biden himself is guilty of he's got all these documents in his garage for decades which the the judge has thrown out and we've seen a bunch of these lawfare cases where Trump has ultimately prevailed the judge has thr it out or he's went on appeal so I don't that seems to me like abuse of the legal system for a partisan political goal not rule of law okay so Reed there's four other cases two of them Trump's been convicted in two of them are outstanding what's your take on the four cases you've heard Sax's take so what's the two that he's been convicted J Cal what's the other one besides the Alvin there's three there Alvin brag was convicted uh and then the um Trump organization with the CFO uh committing tax fraud he was convicted in that one as well or the Trump organization was convicted and people say that's law fair by Laticia James so guilty guilty guilty and those three of five so what's your take on the four that we haven't discussed you had and heard your opinion on Huffman so look I think it's you know it's definitely possible to have some versions of laware although I think most people use the term when it's the legal process and law enforcement that they don't like um you know I think that in the brag case you had you know uh you know indictment and 12 jurors there's jurors I think as I recall one of the jurors said he got uh that juror got their principal news from TR truth social it was a unanimous conviction um I think that you know you you have Vice president uh Pence you know comes out and says you know Trump asked me to overturn the election illegally right that's your own vice president so I don't think that that kind of suggests that there's this just rampant political persecution that there's a lot of fire where there's all this smoke doesn't mean that every single thing uh you know kind of Democrats are trying to put Trump in jail for 700 years these cases are still outstanding they want to put him in jail Reed do you think Trump should go to jail uh I think if he broke laws that say he should go to jail I think the laws apply to powerful people as much as they apply to Everyday People right so I think that's why were these cases why did they wait for two years on these cases so they could bring them in an election year actually I don't think if you look at the like look speaking factually Trump's lawyers are always trying to delay the stuff right I think they were trying to follow every legal process and Trump's lawyers keep asking for want to campaign this year instead of being stuck in a courtroom look after January 6 this was this was last year and the year before asking for deferral setting out trial times like all of the stuff was from his side trying to delay it if it got delayed into this year that's a bad judgment on his his part Jack Smith just filed new charges new charges and all this stems from January 6 in the wake of January 6 mayor Garland's justice department did an analysis of whether Trump could be prosecuted for incitement whether he incited that mob and the legal memo came back and they said no we don't have a case here it does not meet the legal bar for incitement then it was reported by the New York Times that Biden thought that mer Garland was basically being a wimp and they need to go after Trump so the hyper partisan da or prosecutor Jack Smith was hired and he came up with a novel legal theory that somehow Trump had perpetrated a fraud on the American people never been seen before and since then he's been Prosecuting Trump and seeking to put him in prison and and when the Supreme Court just kicked the legs out from under his case with a recent decision he just refiled charges I don't understand anyone can look at this and say yeah look what happened on January 6 wasn't great but the doj looked at it it wasn't Criminal but yet they've been pursuing this guy seeking to put him away for the rest of his life seeking to interfere with this election seeking to deprive the American people of a choice on a separate track you've got Democrats in States like Colorado literally removing Trump from the ballot okay Reed your thoughts so look the first thing is um January 6th I think is a red line I think it's he did incite a riot whether or not the legal for it let's let re finish yeah you know I was fair enough go ahead sorry right um so I think it was the you know there was an incitement of a riot um I think the the riers went in and you know killed police officers were looking to kill vice president Pence you know from the court testimony courts are the best proxy that we have for finding truth and stuff it's one of the reasons why you know by the way and when for example the Supreme Court says no that's great that's legal process I just have to fact check that no police officers were killed where are you getting that from uh I think there were there was the one died from his injuries and you know very soon after and then no no no there there was one cop who had a seizure later it wasn't part of the the riot no police officers were killed as a part of the riot I just have to fact check that it's just not true well and then there's the the one who committed suicide too which is a question of you know I don't know how you that yeah so so anyway so you got the you know the the the storming of the capital um you know he says these people are uh American Heroes he's going to Pardon them he's going to hire them into his administration right and if that's not encouragement for other people doing similar things you know wa he's hire January 6 riers he's gonna hire them yeah I hav heard that well we we'll we'll get you the the the the the Trump speech there's all kinds of wonderful things in Trump speeches if if you listen let me let me just move to one thing so Reed I think this has been an amazingly robust conversation and I think you as always as long as I've known you now for 20 years have been really intellectually honest I want to ask you a favor which is can you stay for 10 extra minutes and talk with us to Bobby Kennedy and the reason I want you to do that is I think that there is a bunch of misinformation I asked you about these things I think it's important to hear maybe from Bobby and just for him to know what you because I do think it's important to hear from the horse's mouth can you just give us like 5 10 minutes so that we can do that because I think it would be an important thing to do so when is that no just right now just we're gonna yeah we're rolling into an interview with last it's just last minute RFK Jr who's on vacation said that he would talk to us about what it was like to kind of withdraw and all this sort of stuff and it got so we booked it right after you but he's in the waiting room I'm fine to do it I mean it's totally your choice it's one of the things I like about your your all-in podcast is you know kind of like let's let's try to speak truth okay right so hey uh Bobby Kennedy is here Mr Kennedy it's great to have you on the all-in podcast for a second time uh may I introduce you to uh Reed Hoffman who you may know of but I don't think you two have ever met we have not pleasure to meet you likewise pleasure Mr Kennedy you dropped out of the race uh perhaps you could tell us and I was quite disappointed about it I really wanted to see a third party candidate getting into double digits again and I just want to commend you on the effort that you put into it maybe you could tell the audience why you as a reported never Trumper joined the Trump team and dropped out so Jason I you know I'm not actually I haven't actually terminated my campaign I suspended it um we've taken ourselves or we're trying to take ourselves off the ballot in the in about 11 states so we'll remain on the ballot in 39 States um and the all red all blue States will be on the ballot in the states where we felt we were going to hurt president Trump with a polling show that we're we're uh getting off there mainly the Battleground stat ironically now the same people whove been trying to get me off the ballot for a year or since October are now fighting to keep me on the ballot in those States so that's one of the S of ironies um I you know it became clear when about two months ago when the um when it it became clear that I was not going to be allowed on the debating stage and I I pretty much had a shut out in the mainstream media so the mainstream media uh ABC NBC CBS CNN MSNBC in 16 or 17 months I had only two live interviews um Ross perau during his 10-month campaign had 34 interviews and then you know all of them were very very much aligned with the Democratic National Committee and so when they did mention my name which was pretty and it was accompanied by a lot of defamations and pejoratives and um mischaracterizations Etc I never really had a chance to reach those audiences the audiences that I was reaching I was dominating in I was beating all the candidates among Independents which is now the largest demographic I was beating them among young people so your audience was supporting me um the audience that were listening to long form interviews I was dominating but in the older audiences which is a critical Baby Boomers people who really should have been for me because they are people who from my generation who remember the Kennedy administration they were part of Camelot they also I was uh very very popular with them for many years when I was the environmental Champion alone and I should have had good inroads but I was never able to communicate with them because they watch they get their news from from the mainstream media and if you're living in that information ecosystem you're going to have a very very low opinion of me I mean if I was getting my information from those networks I wouldn't vote for myself and uh and then uh president Trump you know reached out to me through this guy call meanss who a food Advocate say food Advocate 3 hours after the shoot after the shooting at Butler I got a call from him and he asked me if I was still interested in the specifically in the VP um uh slot and I said no which I would not have taken vice president uh slot and um he said would I talk to be willing to talk to the administration um to president Trump rather and at first I said no and and I talked with some of my family members and uh including my kids and I then sent CI means and not saying you know I'm interested in talking and and and I got a call almost immediately from president Trump I spent about I don't know 30 minutes on the phone with him and we met the next day in um in Minneapolis and then we met again more recently we had continuing talks with them and we met again more recently for a very very intensive and long meeting at marlago with some of his family members and during those meetings during the first meeting we talked about the idea of having a Unity ticket where I would remain on the ballot where we would Ally ourselves on certain critical issues but we would be able to continue to criticize each other on the issues and that we didn't add a line on and president Trump was very happy with that Arrangement um and the issues the critical issues on which we agreed and I was really stunting to see the level of his commitment to those issues was one anding there are the three issues that really got me into the presidential campaign one was uh ending the war in Ukraine uh the second issue was ending the censorship and the third issue and most important to me was addressing the childhood chronic disease epidemic and the you know the these connected issues about soil health and the corruption in our Regulatory Agencies by usdaa and FDA NIH CDC and HHS which have become sock puppets for these for the big pharmaceutical big EG big food processing industries that they're supposed to be regulating um he was very very much aligned on those issues and it gave us essentially a beach head um in which to construct you know this uh an alliance Bobby let me ask you a question I just want to go back a little bit because I I just want to make sure I heard it properly when Cali called you was it to be the VP on the Trump ticket and did you was that asked and did you consider it and why did you say no to that but then said yes to this well I had no interest in being a vice president if you're vice president it's a you know I've grew up in politics and vice president is a worst job in Washington you have no budget you have no staff except what that your budget actually all comes through the White House so if the Pres if you do something that uh offends the president he can literally you know he can take away your plane he can take away your staff and he can the only thing you really have is the Naval Observatory which is the official presidence to the vice president and he can essentially put you under house arrest and you know I have very strong views on issues and I you know I felt like if I took that job I'd be on house arrest probably on day three so I you know I um I was not I was never interested in that Reed had to run but let's just thank him for appearing on the Pod and I thought good conversation and but I thought thought he approached it in in good faith kudos to him for stepping into the lion's den so he was great yeah sorry Bobby keep going so Bobby let me ask you a question um you are reportedly a never Trumper you there's massive Fallout you cited personally for you as a resident of Malibu uh the extremely talented woman you're married to based on everything I can tell maybe not a fan of trump so this is maybe causing some domestic and some local Town issues for you tell me about your journey from a never Trumper all your friends are I think never trumpers to now joining with Trump that's got to be a hard decision no yeah it was a very hardw wrenched decision but you know I I would my whole kind of Journey was over the past uh 17 months was uh was just was kind of a series of um a very very difficult uh transition you know away from the Democratic party the Democratic party was you know the party my my family is one of the central pillars of the democratic party my family has been in the Democratic party since 1848 since my great grandparents came over and my great-grandfather honey Fitz was the first Irish Catholic mayor at Boston his contemporary Patrick Joseph Kennedy was a state senator and political boss in Massachusetts it's my grandfather Joseph Kennedy was you know FDR's Treasurer he was the first head of the secc he was the Ambassador uh to to uh the court of St James deeply deeply immersed in Democratic Party politics all of my uncles Joe Kennedy who was a delegate to the 1940 uh convention who spoke there a featured speaker and then was killed in World War II my uncle John Kennedy was first Irish Catholic President of of um um of uh the United States my other uncle Ted Kennedy who's one of the longest I think the second or third longest serving member of of the United States Senate is is uh his name on more bills than any other senator in the United States history and then of course my father who was attorney general and I sort of walk away from that party was uh you know I guess it was very very difficult for me and I was actually the last person in my campaign to see that to understand the necessity of that that the Democratic party was not going to allow me to uh to compete fairly that they you know they had rigged the system against us in ways that were really quite extraordinary they had just walked away from democracy they were cancelling primaries they had uh they had chosen their candidate and it was going to be uh President Biden and they and I was really a nuisance to them and so my voice was not allow out there and uh and so that was difficult and then um uh and then leaving you know I I declared independence in October and then uh joining Trump president Trump was yeah that I I burnt a lot of bridges I burnt my boats let me put it that way clearly clearly is definitely um a challenging thing to to go from your family being the Bedrock of the democratic party and Trump being you know uh obviously seen as an existential Risk by the Democratic party so what what should Americans know about the state of politics and fairness in America based on what you've learned what what what do you want the American people to know about the process of selecting a president well and you know I do want to say that I feel like I didn't really re leave the Democratic party the Democratic party left me and left the um and left the ruins of uh uh the the infrastructure that I think my uncle and father had that had made them Democrats if you went on a list of all of the priorities that Robert Kennedy that John Kennedy had I would check every box you know they were antiw War they were anti censorship they were they were against the corporate control of of our country um the this this corrupt merger of state and corporate power that now has emerged as the dominant governing model in our country um the Democratic party has changed demographically uh when I grew I grew up in a Democratic party that was the party of the working class in our country that was party of um small businesses that was the party of the poor um in the last election President Biden got roughly half of the country voting Forum but that half controlled 70% of of GDP and president Trump got about half the country voting for him and that half repres represents about 30% of GDP so we've had this inversion where the Democratic party has become the party of wealth of Elites um and I would say very insular Elites and the um and the Republican party is now the party of the poor the working class and uh it's been you know for me to watch that I've been on the front lines of watching it and um you know the values that held the Democratic party together are no longer there it's held together by uh a a sense of tribalism a sense of and a great great sense of what I would say orchestrated fear of Donald Trump it's the only value that really dominates any discussion if I talk about censorship to a Democrat they'll say yes but Donald Trump is going to become a dictator if you talk about Children's Health they'll say never mind that Donald Trump is the only thing we can worry about if you talk about you know about the history of the democratic party's opposition to war'll say forget all that the only thing we can focus on is Donald Trump and uh that's a very very dismaying and I would say dangerous form of um orchestrated tribalism and one of the other features of the democratic party is this um this need to control this mistrust of the of the pleite mistrust of the demos you know demos is a Greek word for people and the Democratic party doesn't trust the people that's why they have to get rid of Elections that's why they had to get me off the Bel I got um I I did something everybody said all the pundits said could never be done so I got on the ballot in every state I got a million people that sign their sign signatures petitioning me on the ballot and the Democratic party strategy rather than to use the3 billion doar it had to amplify a message and inspire people and and talk about a vision and and the virtues of its candidates instead use them money to try to get me off the ballot get Cornell off the Cornell get Jill Stein to use the courts to use the the uh enforcement agencies including the Secret Service the CIA the FBI to try to rig the election and it's EXA and It ultimately comes down to this mistrust of the people which we're seeing now all over we're seeing the kind of two big forces emerge one is a populist force and the other is a force of control of Ironclad control we saw Europe has already fallen you know you saw the arrest of paval durov last week which was extraordinary you know the the arrest of the the the guy who founded telegram um because he was hosting uh political descent and and and you know the European commission is already openly censoring content so they did not need to arrest him they can take off you know whatever they want but they went through the to the trouble of actually and probably with us encouragement you know catching him when he happened to land for a refueling stop in France France has this extraordinary tradition of free speech that you know began with the French Revolution and then again in the 1880s they passed all these incredible laws their commitment to free speech is as robust as that in the United States and yet now you know and then and then two weeks before that you had this crazy European commissioner jry uh Britton saying that uh ordering ordering Elan musk not interview Donald Trump a former president of the United States the the nominee of of one of the two major political parties and the world is not allowed to hear his point of view yeah it's extraordinary but that is what's coming to this country and you can already and a Democratic party is that the party of control and it's party of not trusting the people let's Bobby let's talk about something then let's assume that this election goes in the direction of now your preferred Direction which is Donald Trump wins what role would you play and what is your agenda what is it that you want to accomplish and explain make America healthy again in that context maybe yeah I mean I it's the three issues ending censorship and that's pretty easy to do you can do it with a series of executive orders ending the Ukraine war which is complex but I think can be done very very quickly and uh and then you know the food issue now it's the food it's medicin it's corruption in the Regulatory Agencies but would you be a secretary in that Administration would you be a special advisor there's no I you know there there is no deal in terms of me getting a particular post so there's just an understanding that there would be some kind of co-governance and the Trump people have already demonstrated their good faith by um inviting me to be on the transition team you know as one of the co-chairs and and they've done something really wonderful which is um to bring Tulsi Gabbert in who shares a lot of my views on this issue as the other co-chair and I think that's a signal that they're sending that they are sincere about um I'm you know making a commitment to these issues what what should parents know about uh your thoughts on how to raise kids in a healthy way make America healthy again are there any vaccines that you would say you would advise parents to take for their kids and how should they look at the industrial food complex you know if you were sitting with us as parents you know uh just having lunch what would you tell us we should do with our own kids I mean the big problem is you can't really trust the government to tell you the truth the agencies are all compromised they all have very very bad uh conflicts almost all the people for example on the on the food on the um food recommendation committees at FDA are people who are part of the food industry and the same is true on you know the on pharmaceutical side the people are making decisions about what's good for you are actually people who are making huge amounts of profit on those recommendations and so you can't really trust the recommendations are um are in your best interest and you know what we know is that uh there is no more profitable there's no bigger profit Center or industry in this country than a sick child you know they and a sick child is a lifetime customer lifetime consumer of very very expensive products and you have this alliance between the food industry and the pharmaceutical industry to keep our children sick to get them addicted you know in the 70s and 80s um the the the tobacco industry was under attack and the two biggest tobacco companies and out um and bought all the big food companies R jrisco you're referring to you yeah and craft and you know so you had Philip Morris by Craft and they took a lot of the scientist from the tobacco industry who are experts on making products addictive and they put them to work on making food addictive on making Ultra processors so adding AG greed inset um that make food uh uh that destroy the the the sa ability of food so that food doesn't fill you up so you're always craving more um and those products many of them are products you know we have almost a thousand chemicals in our foods that are banned in Europe and banned in other countries um and uh and those products are are products that were have been introduced by by chemist that did not exist before and the body does not handle them well well and you know we're seeing this explosion chronic disease when my uncle was President 6% of Americans had chronic disease you know what the budget was for chronic disease and when my uncle was President zero there wasn't any drugs for it there was no uh there was no expenditures on chronic disease today it's $4.3 trillion it's five times our military budget and the people who are making money are the the pharmaceutical companies the uh the insurance companies which actually you would think insurance companies would want people to be well they actually make more money if they're sick on the uh the hospital is the medical cartel the people we trust to make advice to us about our health are actually compromise and that's the difficult part you've got to unravel that corporate capture freeberg when you hear this some people might say uh this sounds like a grand conspiracy theory uh but much of it rings true to I think many of us who are parents watching kids you know uh and watching the prevalence of obesity watching pharmaceutical drugs to counter that and all the money that's made from it and then seeing when people eat clean and they're healthy maybe there there's less there so freeberg when you hear Bobby's uh position here as a scientist who sold the company to Monsanto climate.com and who's working on food today what Rings true about what Bob's saying and what do you disagree with if anything yeah there there are aspects of industrialized food and processed food that are bad for people and I I do agree should be should be changed I don't I know a lot of people that work at the USDA a lot of people that work in other government organizations that don't make a lot of money um they may or may not have worked at other companies but I think that there's no economic incent for them to do harm or wrong I think that the real and so I don't think that there's a constructive design on doing bad things by any individual I think that there is an unfortunate circumstance where people eat bad stuff stuff that tastes better they like it more it sells better and the economic incentive in capitalism is to make more of that stuff and sell more of it and as a result the stuff that people like that isn't good for them they buy more of and the companies make more money and so they continue to invest in selling more and more of that stuff and this goes most processed foods it's terrible it's not good and so I do agree that much of this processed food industry is um uh very adverse to health but I don't think that there's a grand design by individuals that are malicious and their intent and trying to do it I think that there are people that are doing their job on hey this is what the market want government right yeah in the government talking about in government and Private Industry you don't think people in Private Industry are trying to make addicting Foods no no I think that yeah the point is like if people buy more of it they're like let's sell more of it you know okay and I I you know and if that were illegal if it was illegal to say hey this sort of food product should not be made but look alcohol fits the bill too right and we we keep making alcohol and sugar fits the bill the more sugar Coca-Cola did a study years ago where they um they kept increasing the amount of sugar in Coca colola until they maximally uh got sell through so uh some kids liked 60 grams of sugar and 12 ounces of coke some kids like 30 but the perfect level was at 42 G and so that study was done by the scientist that worked at Coca-Cola and then they said that's the product it sells it'll sell the most and that's the incentive inside of that company that's how that company operates now you could ask yourself the question is that evil is that bad we now know that sugar in general is bad the executives at Coca-Cola at AB inbev at other places are trying to make alcohol-free sugar-free Alternatives so there's a lot of push by these people Unilever has tried to make a big push towards good food Nestle's tried to do the same they've all made these stated commitments to improve the health of the food that they produce but it is quite difficult to be successful in doing that and returning money to shareholders the shareholders are like where's the money so I me I think this is the key Point you're making chath I think you're clean food effort and I took me a decade to unravel me eating everything in sight and lose the 40 pounds but shamat when you hear you know sort of this uh back and forth between Bobby and fredberg what's your take on it in terms of and and also the European lifestyle that you live for 10 weeks of the Year what's your take on what should happen here and how Bobby can be successful I think what Bobby says Rings true in the way that I live my life and I just see it demonstrated on my own body you're right Jason you know my wife's Italian she runs an Italian company we she works Italian and American hours for 10 months out of the year and for those 10 weeks we go there and we flip schedule but when I'm there I'm consuming Italian produce that isn't packed in plastic I go to a a local fruit store I go to the local fish vendor and my body changes and I know that because the people that see me when I get back they always comment oh did you lose weight oh do you look you look thinner or this or that and what's interesting is I actually do a body composition before I leave and after I've done this for seven years now and I can tell you that my weight doesn't change that much but my body composition is completely different and I don't know what it is except the things that I'm putting in my body that's different and so I see it and I'm running a Ab test every day you know the price what's the price of the food chamar like is it more in Italy like do you pay more do you think well I've already commented on the fish is outrageous joke yeah um but but there are ways to eat at a materially lower price than there is here and the access to the ultra processed food is different there you can't get the stuff and when you and when you do find that stuff it doesn't have the same you know glycemic and metabolic Lo on your body I'm curious what you think of you know OIC and this category of drugs breaking the cycle I think you've been against them or they certainly helped me uh with half of my weight loss I know sack's had a good experience as well and he's been public about it what are your thoughts on that because it does seem when people take the take the glps which exist in your body that they I'm sure there's more research that needs to be done they do break this habit I know anecdotally with me I don't crave the foods I craved previously and it did kind of rewire my brain and how I look at Food even when I'm off of it so your thoughts on those and and those potentially being a way to break the cycle yeah so and this goes to David's point that you know this is we need to have cheap food and that that is kind of a an outcome that is an admirable or virtuous outcome the problem is the food isn't cheap it it it's cheap on the self on the Shelf but it imposes costs on the rest of us that were the externalities that were paying elsewhere so when I was a kid the typical pediatrician would see one case of juvenile diabetes in his lifetime over a 40 or 50y year career one case it was essentially non-existent disase today one out of every three children who walks through his office door is diabetic or pre-diabetic um when I was a kid the the autism rates were between 1 and 1500 to 1 and 10,000 Americans and that is still true in my generation 70-year-old men and my kids generation according to CDC is one out of every 34 kids some states like California it's one out of every 22 um 77% of Americans are out or 74% adults are obese half our kids obesity when when you know 100 years ago if you were obese you could get a job in the surf circus it was so unusual so we're now and and who's making profit now OIC oic's not going to you can obesity is absolutely and diabetes are absolutely treatable by good food that's the cause now oamic is a good profit Center for it had for um for Pharma there's a now which has been paid for by the company that makes it which is the biggest company in new Europe no nordis that in in Denmark where that company is they do not recommend it it it the the uh uh the treatment of diabetes the standard of care is diet and exercise but that company's entire value is based upon the projections of what is going to sell in the United States and it has and that company is pouring tens of millions of dollars into lobbying to pass this bill that will make Medicare pay for it for every American who obese that could be 74% of people are now eligible I think it's $1,500 a week the cost of that will be three trillion a year if you took three trillion a year a tiny fraction of that you could buy organic food three meals a day for every human being in the United States so wouldn't that be a better expenditure of our money and you know I what I would say is the you know the food producers it's not a conspiracy it's just people following perverse incentives and there are conspiracies I mean when I sued um Monsanto we got emails that showed that the head of the pesticide division Jess Roland for a decade at EPA was secretly working for Monsanto the entire time sabotaging studies creating false science that hide the cogenic nature of Roundup so there are those kind of instances throughout the federal government but mainly it says perverse incentives almost all almost close to 100% of our of our food agricultural subsidies go to process food I mean go to commodity agriculture which is the feed stock for processed food so and then if you look at mostly mostly for mostly for meat the industry controls through lobbying and through you know all these other mechanisms for corporate capture controls the expenditures in the food stamp program so 70% of the food stamp program goes for processed food 10% goes for sugar drinks like Coca-Cola which are just diabetes machines so why are we poisoning poor kids in this country the school lunch program the same thing almost 80 I think 77% of food food lunch program is terrible foods that are actually poisoning our children and you know don't we you know don't we care enough about our kids to say we need you know we we want to care about them we want to make sure that they're not sick they are the most precious things in our country shouldn't that be the focus and you know whatever we're doing to make them so sick when I was a kid 6% of American kids had chronic disease today 60% is that not an alarm is that not you know something that we should all be concerned about I will I will agree on um an important Point uh you know the the the food stamp program the snap program provides food stamps to support 42 million Americans 42 million people rely on food stamps it costs $20 billion dollar of federal money per year and as um as Bobby said the number one product bought on the food stamp program is soda canned soda and there was an important debate a few years ago about whether or not canned soda by the way Bobby you and I probably agree on a lot of things there definitely a lot of things we don't agree on but like these aspects I think are just no brainers uh there was a debate a few years ago about whether or not canned soda should be allowed as a purchase on the food stamp program or whether it should be fresh fruits and vegetables and Grains and other and ultimately there was a food lobbying effort made uh that kept uh caned soda on the food stamp program and it is uh again $120 billion of annual federal spend with the biggest line item going to can soda to you know feed 42 million Americans and and the the the the connection is completely direct high sugar high glycemic index diabetes and other chronic health conditions arise from that connection so um definitely aligned with you on the Mis incentives and the disincentives in these programs that have been created and they only expand every year Bobby can you comment on when people talk about revamping the food supply one of the things that sometimes is not allowed to be said is that focusing on organic food and produce can exclude certain communities and so there's like this Dei filter that preferring that is almost racist in some way like can you just comment on that whole vein of thinking and your thought on that yeah I mean I think feeding people poisonous food is racist and by the way the NAACP gets huge amounts of money um every year from the food industry it may be one of the biggest I think I think Coca-Cola is the biggest um supporter V ACP so a lot of the NGS that are supposed to be concerned about the the disproportionate uh impact on minority communities of federal policies have actually been bought off and bought into the pro says and you know a lot of times those are the voices you hear saying this is racist what's really racist is po poisoning black Americans because these are communities that are food deserts um the school lunch program is the you know often times those communities the biggest access that they have to food and we're giving them poison food we're you know they many of these communities have no Grocery Stores um they you know they no big like they definitely don't have uh Whole Foods they don't have access to to those kind of foods shouldn't we have National policies that that make sure our people are healthy and you know they use of course Market uh Dynamics but also supports we're we're giving billions of dollars in agricultural subsidies for Farmers to addict Farmers to to to Growing commodity agriculture which is bad food food it's low in nutrients it's high in chemicals it's high in pesticides and you know we need to change these perverse incentives so that uh and and feed America I you know we what how can anybody argue with this how can anybody say that we should not have healthy children that we should be giving people food that is hurting them it's just it doesn't make any sense sax any questions for you for Bobby about democracy what went down with Biden the fairness of the democratic party I know you've got some strong feelings on it so I just wanted to give you your red meat and your window here I'm I'm sure a lot of his confirming for you what he's saying um and you know I'll be honest I think what the Democratic party did to you Mr Kennedy was absolutely abhorent and disgusting and it it really is um infuriating to me especially what the mainstream media did um and I'm glad that we got to have you on early on our podcast at least to some of your ideas get out there but uh let's give Sax's red meet here because you joining Trump is a a wild card I don't think any of us saw coming well let me pick up on those themes jcal uh first of all I want to commend Bobby on running an upbeat and positive campaign you know you were and I still are the most articulate and Powerful champion of free speech over censorship civil liberties over the surveillance State peace over War you've spoken about the issue of chronic Health which it to be honest is an issue I didn't know that much about but I think you've put it now on the political radar screen in a way that it's not going away uh so I think you ran a a very Noble and effective campaign and I think like you said it was a campaign for the soul of the democratic party you know I think you represented issues that in the days of your father and President johnf Kennedy these would have been Democratic party issues how did the Democratic party respond they effectively ran you out they did not give you the chance they conducted law fair to keep you off the ballot they didn't let you debate I heard your running mates say they even tried to infiltrate your campaign and all the while this party was claiming to be the party of democracy find that incredibly hypocritical I think that if they had given you the opportunity to debate I think we now know what would have happened I mean we saw what happened when Biden actually debated Trump is there's a complete implosion of Biden's campaign we discovered that indeed the Democratic party had been hiding his condition for a long time and when he was finally forced to debate didn't have a teleprompter or a script it became extremely obvious what happened then they basically put in a new nominee who's never been voted on K Harris has never received one primary vote it was done through a process that was opaque we still don't know how it went down I have to disagree with Reed that um Biden did it in a voluntary way Biden went Kicking and Screaming I mean he basically said publicly over and over again I'm not leaving the race I'm in this race he tweeted it he said it he said only God Almighty could get me out of the race and then it was reported that Nancy Pelosi went to him and said we can do this the easy way or the hard way you said God Almighty she might be God Almighty she might Bey but the point is there was nothing Democratic about this and now we have a new Democratic Party nomy who refuses to do press conferences refuses to do solo interviews refuses to take questions from the Press who's hiding herself effectively and yet this party again claims to be the party of democracy I find it just almost um maddening or or ging again in its hypocrisy and I just I don't see how everybody can't see through this it's just not the way that democracy is supposed to work and I certainly don't think that the people engaging these tactics can be cloaking themselves in all this High fluing rhetoric of of democracy it's just absurd and so I feel like I'm in the place that you are Bobby you know as viewers of this pod know I did not start off supporting Trump in the primaries I supported you in the Democratic primary and I did fundraisers for DeSantis and V and that was in large part because I think of the job that DeSantis did as Governor but when it came to the general the realization that I came to is that Trump is the indispensable figure in our current politics for marshalling this populist energy to resist this hypocritical Elite authoritarianism that wants to engage in censorship over debate that seems to want to protect and defend this um surveillance State over anything it wants to do that wants to keep all these wars going uh even when they don't make sense when we could have found a way to negotiate a diplomatic end to them and so I'm kind of delighted that you've kind of come around to this opinion too I know you have your reservations about Trump I'm not saying that Trump is perfect I mean I think he's a uh he's human I mean he's a flawed vessel but at the end of the day he is the the choice that represents again these populist forces resisting authoritarianism sorry this is more of a statement than a question but I'll let you react to all of that well let me react the last thing you said about President Trump I think if president Trump wins um that people are going to see very different president Trump than they did during the first term um I think he's changed as a person uh and I've known him for you know 30 years I've sued him I've litigated against him and and had a friendship with him even when I was litigating against him and by the way successfully against him but I I think he is um he's focus on his legacy he said many interesting things to me about what he did wrong the last time and about how he filled his you know he had no idea he was going to win he had no idea how to govern and people descended on him the day that he got elected and said you got to appoint this guy appoint this guy and he said you know I I appointed a lot of people I shouldn't appointed I know who they are now he also said something interesting to me he said uh because the Democrats one of the big sort of fulgums of their Terror of trump is that he's going to implement this Heritage Foundation you know uh blueprint which is called uh project 2025 and he brought this issue up to me and he said you know they always telling me I'm I'm for project 2025 I never read project 2025 until they started accusing me of it he said that was written by a right-wing ass this what he what he said he said there are leftwing [ __ ] and there was there right-wing assh and it was a right-wing [ __ ] who wrote that thing and then he started going through it so I you know I think there there's a lot and I think he's interested in his legacy now he wants to leave behind some accomplishments and he wants to make our country better and I think he's um you know he's listening to a wider range of voices and has he's preparing to govern right now and you know I'm going to be on the transition committee picking the people who are going to govern to he's going to be there there's going to be a wide diversity of of stakeholders but he's listening to more than just that kind of narrow right-wing band that people are terrify it would be great if you could get to him because you know he he really did present well on this podcast and had like a very good moment in that first half of the RNC and then he started defaulting back to and I know a lot of moderates like myself hate this about him and it's a big part of why we don't like him is he goes back to Insel Comics goes back to race goes back to gender you know and it's just like dude we that Trump 1.0 is what people don't want they don't want chaotic Trump they want you know post assassination attempt Trump and it's just so infuriating well a lot of people feel that way J con I think at the end of the day you and others are going to have to decide do you want to support the candidate who has the right policies but maybe there's style points that you don't like about him because I think that the things you're talking about the Mean Tweets and so forth at the end of the day I think they're stylistic things I don't think they go deep to to policy or how he would govern or do you want to support a campaign that is running on Vibes and joy you know that has this superficiality that you like but there's nothing underneath it and when we do learn something underneath that when we actually learn a policy then all the the people who are supporting her have to say oh well she's not really going to do that she's not going to do that so the best thing you can say about her campaign is that she's not going to be able to accomplish the things that she says she wants to accomplish good news basis on which to vote for a president good news is I'm in Texas so I can put in my my Bobby Kennedy vote as a protest vote and it doesn't make a difference and I can I can I respond to the other part of David's question to me sure they um and you know I think to me the most troubling thing about what's happening now you have you've had two Democratic candidates who've not been able to give unscripted interviews which is extraordinary I mean my father and Uncle we're so proud of you know the United States our capacity to engage in debate to defend who we were in the world to defend a vision of our country to articulate it to the rest of the world to be the leaders of the Free World and um and have a command of the facts and of knowledge and to be eloquent and um how can you be a leader in the world what does the rest of the world think of us right now I mean what could they possibly think we have two Democratic party candidates were not able to explain themselves in an interview the other day something yeah I really I think point in which is if you want to if you want the job of handling the nuclear codes you got to do an interview first and you know how can you go 30 39 days without talking to the Press without being able to defend your record to explain who you are to the American people and if you talk to Democrats about this and you can get past the anger and past the vi on this kind of wall of of tribal resistance to any new knowledge coming in what they or any con contrary facts what they'll say is well we're not really voting for comma we're voting for the apparatus then you ask the next question how has that apparatus serve you you know has the open border surve you has the $35 trillion debt surve you has all the endless war surve you has the destruction the American middle class highest inflation rate in a generation has any of that actually you know has that apparatus produced something for the United States that you're so proud of that you want to blindly vote without knowing who you're voting for anyway that that I mean and and uh KLA and Waltz will do an interview Dana Bash tonight uh the night we're taping this on Thursday so we'll see maybe she'll miraculously do 10 podcasts and she'll be dynamic but it certainly doesn't look good that they filibustered with Biden and gave them only most favored nation interviews I do respect the fact that we've had so many great candidates come on this pod and have 90minut two-hour discussions I'm very proud of the work we've done here and and Bobby you were a keep piece of that and we really appreciate you coming on early and having these debates and coming here today to talk about it just me means the world for you to come back and talk about this wish you great success with make America healthy again I think it's incredibly Noble independent of how I feel about Trump January 6 abortion any of those issues I respect the fact that you want to make America healthy again uh and I wish you great continued success with that and we will see you all next time on the podcast byebye let your winners ride Rainman David and said we open it to the fans and they've just gone crazy with [Music] it [Music] besties myg driveway oh man we should all just get a room and just have one big huge orgy cuz they're all this useless it's like this like sexual tension that they just need to release somehow what your we need to get mer [Music] our [Music] going and now the plugs the all in Summit is taking place in Los Angeles September 8th 9th and 10th you can apply for a tiet summit. Allin podcast.co and you can subscribe to this show on YouTube yes watch all the videos our YouTube channel has passed 500,000 subscribers shout out to Donnie from Queens follow the show x.com thee all inpod Tik Tok the all inpod Instagram the Allin pod LinkedIn search for all and podcast and to follow chth he x.com chth sign up for his weekly email what I read this week at cho. substack docomo dog.com and see what all the excitement is about follow sax at x.com davidx and sign up for glue at glue. follow freedberg x.com freedberg and ohal is hiring click on the careers page at ohal genetics.com I am the world's greatest moderator Jason calanis if you are a founder and you want to come to my accelerators and my programs founder. University lunch. closeapply to apply for funding from your boy jcal for your startup and check out Athena wow.com this is the company I am most exced excited about at the moment Athena wow.com to get a virtual assistant for but $3,000 a month I have two of them thanks for tuning in to the world's number one podcast you can help by telling just two friends that's all I ask forward this podcast to two friends and say this is the world's greatest podcast you got to check it out it'll make you smarter it'll make you laugh laugh while learning we'll see you all next time bye-bye