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RFK vs BIDEN vs TRUMP w/ Andrew Yang & Dave Smith
Recorded: June 4, 2023 Duration: 0:29:00Space Recording
Short Summary
The conversation primarily revolves around political dynamics, media influence, and anti-establishment sentiments, with no significant crypto-related content.
Full Transcription
Looks like spaces are still having technical glitches.
Yeah, I think they're preparing for tomorrow's space with Robert,
so I'm not sure if that plays a role in it.
Let me get the advice quickly out.
I had a good question ready for Dave.
Hopefully he joins again.
He should.
Hey, Aaron's here.
Hey, Aaron.
Can you hear me?
Oh, Dave is there. Dave is good. Dave, can hear me?
Yes, I hear you.
Yeah, yeah, go ahead. Did I just break Twitter?
Yeah, yeah, no, it's broke Twitter.
No, so they're doing tests as they prepare for tomorrow space with Mr. Kennedy and Elon and David Sacks.
So they said that, you know, expect a few glitches here and there.
And we saw that yesterday.
Yesterday, we saw a lot of people getting kicked off.
All everybody mentioned the deep stay and I crash.
I got to stop that, bro.
You got to stop that.
But yeah, so Dave, I'll let you do what you're saying if you remember what you're saying,
and then I'll ask this next follow-up question.
And I'll prepare the next follow-up question so you can continue into it.
Is that debating Trump, I just, look, I've got concern.
Democrats should have a serious concern on Biden debating Trump and Biden's performance against Trump.
I just don't see how it just, it's just hard to imagine Biden winning,
considering both of their mental states.
How do you think RFK would perform if he was in a debate with Trump?
It's a really interesting question, you know?
And the elephant in the room with RFK is that, you know, he's got real vocal issues.
And that's a real problem.
I mean, it's a real problem to debate someone like Donald Trump with that.
And it's a challenge to run for president, which after all is a speaking tour, really.
I mean, that's kind of the gig.
And it's challenging.
Can you tell the, Dave, tell the audience, what is the condition that RFK has?
It's a pessimistic, dysphoria, I think.
Yeah, exactly.
So go ahead.
Well, from, I'm no expert in it.
From what I understand, it's a neurological condition,
something between the brain connectivity to the vocal cord or the,
so I don't know.
And he has kind of better days and worse days with it.
Now, I will say doing an hour-long podcast with him, you know,
You kind of start to forget about it and you're just listening to the points that the guy's making.
That's a very different format than doing a you get a minute, I get a minute, who can land the bigger blow, which is what debating Donald Trump turns into.
So I think that would be a challenge for him.
What's interesting about RFK is that he has angles against Donald Trump that Joe Biden doesn't have.
he can challenge him on Operation Warp Speed where he is much more vulnerable to his own base,
whereas Joe Biden can't really hit him for that because Joe Biden's the one who wanted to mandate the thing, you know?
So there'd just be, it'd be a very interesting dynamic.
No, look, it's still, it's a, it's a long shot for RFK to beat Joe Biden.
It's a long shot to beat the sitting president who has the entire DNC and the entire establishment behind him.
But no matter what happens in this, it's just going to be, to me, it's just very interesting to almost have a referendum within the Democratic Party about where exactly they stand on the COVID vaccine and where exactly they stand on the war in Ukraine.
I think those things alone are very valuable to me.
Before going to the war in Ukraine, just another general question.
And we're getting to specifics, guys.
I really want to dig into the war in Ukraine and Mr. Kennedy's stance there.
But what would you say are your biggest point of concern, the biggest weaknesses?
He talked about the condition, the vocal condition that could be an issue, especially in debates.
Beyond that, Dave, is there any specific concerns or stances that could make it difficult for Robert to become the nominee?
Well, I mean, I, you know, again, I don't exactly know. I mean, yeah, look, his stance on the COVID vaccine, there certainly are a lot of Democratic voters who were taking quite a different stance, at least...
two years ago, probably even one year ago, I think it's not as difficult for them today. If you look at
the numbers, I mean, the people, the amount of people who got the initial double jab, and of course,
many of whom were coerced into doing so, at the threat of losing their livelihood, but it was
something like 70% of the adult population. But then when it comes to getting boosted after that, the numbers are like half of
that. And then being up to date with your boosters, the numbers are way less than that. So it's
kind of hard to say exactly how much of a problem that position is within a Democratic primary.
I guess we're going to find out. A lot of his other policies that even things that I disagree with
or have a problem with, I think are pretty standard liberal Democrat policies. So I
Again, it's just going to be very interesting.
I don't see the truth is that they know, and I think Andrew Yang was kind of getting at this before.
I think they know that in a fair fight, if they were to have honest debates and have like an honest primary season, he has tremendous advantages over Joe Biden.
Dave, one question I had.
Before I ask you a question, that same question I asked, let me get the audience's thoughts.
I want everyone in the audience, do you think Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would perform well debating Trump.
And be honest, try not to have your biases dictate your answer.
And I'm going to go through the comments to see what everyone thinks.
I might do a poll as well.
But go ahead, Simon.
Yeah.
Yeah, sure. So, Dave, so one question I had was we saw, and the question is linked to what the statement you made earlier.
So in the Democratic primary, do you think he's even going to get an opportunity, a fair chance?
And the reason I asked that question is we saw when there was actually even a primary in 2016 and 2020, what happened to Bernie Sanders,
and what they did to him in terms of the whole Bernie Bro's and so on and so forth.
So do you think that in this situation in 2024, he's even going to get a fair chance?
It is a 100% guarantee that he will not get a fair chance.
There's no question about this.
I mean, the DNC rigged the election against Bernie Sanders in 2016.
In 2020, they had all of Joe Biden's competition drop out and endorse him before Super Tuesday
and made sure Elizabeth Warren stayed in to challenge him.
Joe Biden had his campaign team.
get four former heads of the CIA and fifty different intelligence officials
to swear up and down that Hunter Biden's laptop
was uh... had all the earmarks of Russian disinformation you know it's really
funny and for all the like talk about how Donald Trump tried to steal the
election the democratic establishment tries to steal every single election
there is zero point zero zero zero zero two infinity percent chance that this will be
a fair process the question
is how much can they rig it this time?
Like, we're living in a very different world.
Even, you know, as I was listening to Andrew Yang a few minutes ago, say, like,
well, he's going to get blacked out of MSNBC and CNN,
or he won't get fair coverage there.
It's like, yeah, okay, but more people will probably listen to this
than listen to any show on there.
So...
The question now is like, does he go on Joe Rogan's podcast?
Does he go on all these huge other platforms where he can shine
and where he's got a long form, you know, platform to really dig into these issues?
What, how much of an effect does that have?
To me, that's the only question.
I bet every dollar I have that the DNC will not give him a legitimate fair process.
I, and Dave, just to add to that, I mean, I completely agree with you.
And it's going to be...
up to him and his team to be smart and to ensure that they get engagement,
come onto these bigger platforms because he is going to be shot out by the mainstream media.
So I agree with it.
Let me, Dr. Dhanes, you got a question for you.
Go ahead.
Yeah, Dave, Danish, just wanted to follow up a little bit on the commentary that you were making
before the space crashed.
I love the way that you explained.
I never put two and two together, and I never made the connection between him and Ron Paul and how he was super anti-war when others weren't, when he was, you know, and all of those connections.
But Ron Paul never won.
And so now, you know, are you saying, and I know what about...
What was numbers, Danish, what ways his numbers?
What ran Paul's numbers?
Ron Paul, uh, his father.
Ron Paul, sorry.
He never got above 20% of the vote.
Yeah.
And so was it just a different time?
Dave, is that your argument that it was just a different time and a different media landscape?
Yeah.
Well, I mean, it's just factually true that it was a different time in a completely different landscape.
And back at that time, a blackout on CNN was much more devastating for a presidential campaign than it is today.
There just weren't the other alternative platforms.
But, you know, another way to look at this is that β and just the parallel that I was drawing was just that at the time when George W. Bush, the Republican president, is saying you're either with us or you're with the terrorists β
Ron Paul is coming out and saying, well, actually, it's the U.S. military that kind of started this fight.
And actually, our foreign policy is what provoked Osama bin Laden and created all this hatred.
It's just the most polar opposite thing from what his establishment is saying.
And I see a similarity in that to...
RFK saying this vaccine that you guys are mandating is actually harming people and not helping
them at all.
And the war in Ukraine is not being fought for all of the reasons that you claim.
Now you could look at it like this.
Ron Paul comes along in 2008 and 2012 and is in some ways a measuring stick for how okay
is it to say this in a Republican primary?
And no, he didn't win, but he did get millions of people to vote for him.
He did break all types of fundraising records, and he did generate tremendous enthusiasm.
And then the next presidential nominee, Donald Trump, stood up there and ran and won all.
on the anti-war position.
Now, he didn't follow through on that perfectly,
but he won on the position
that we should end these wars.
So you could, theoretically,
you know, you could,
I think those two things are related.
Like, I don't, I think there was a contribution to that.
The major difference,
is that you're talking about Republican primary voters and Democratic primary voters.
And just different populations.
Democratic primary electorate is going to be a vast majority, or not vast majority, but majority
college educated or aligned, you know, still middle aged is going to be the bulk of it.
And the permission structure is just different in the Democratic Party versus the Republican Party.
I mean, you saw it with Trump's.
victory in 2016 where Trump's like, yeah, you know, whatever your bullshit orthodoxy is on like trade or like military, uh, interventions, like fuck that shit. Like I'm just going to say what I think and what everyone's actually thinking. I was like, yeah.
You know, it's just a different environment on the Democratic side,
and it's a different relationship with the media.
I mean, I think that running now, you would try and obviously max out,
like, new platforms and space and podcasts.
And the dominance of corporate media is fading every, you know, month, quarter, whatever it is.
But when it was last measured, still 69% of Democrats have a high trust
in corporate media. So let's say you shave a few points off that. You knock it down to like 65, 60 even.
You still have like a very hard shell around a certain body, probably a majority of Democratic primary voters.
But Andrew, the challenge. Sorry, go ahead, Dave.
No, well, so I don't necessarily disagree with all of that. I mean, I'm saying there's parallels between the two. I'm not equating them and saying that there's no differences.
Right.
That's what's so interesting about RFK's campaign, is that it's kind of going to be a measuring stick.
I mean, yes, you make some fair points.
Also, at the same time, an 80-year-old socialist almost beat Hillary Clinton, and they kind of had to cheat in order to make sure he didn't.
And, you know, it's true that polls will show in the 60s percentage of Democratic voters, trust the mainstream media, but what percentage of them actually watch it and listen to it?
i mean cnn can't crack a million viewers a night on any of their shows you know so it's just
again i'm not saying you're right there are differences between where the republican base is at
and where the democratic base is at but we're going to kind of find out with this rfk uh campaign
and right now considering the state of of as you've mentioned before the coverage or lack
thereof or negative coverage he's getting from the corporate press
I mean, the poll numbers are pretty interesting.
He's actually doing very good for someone who's mounting a primary campaign against a sitting president
who's getting no corporate press attention or just negative attention,
where they're censoring him and then telling you they did that because he was wrong.
It's pretty fascinating that he's doing so well.
You know, one other...
And Dave, you and I don't disagree, really.
Like, I agree that there is like this...
these successive waves of anti-establishment energy and candidates,
and I think Bernie is a great example.
And the waves are just going to keep coming.
And the question is, how high can the water level rise in any given cycle?
Yep.
So, um...
I mean, and that's the question, isn't it?
Because essentially, you've got this anti-establishment sentiment on the riot.
Oh, no, no, you know, this is getting annoying.
Erin, I want to go to you, but Andrew, there's a narrative that hasn't stopped.
That goes, Dave, you can ask that question as well, and Aaron, if you can touch on it as well.
There's a narrative that is gaining a lot of steam, and that's the anti-establishment.
And this is something that Sully says in every freaking space.
Anti-establishment lays everything on the establishment.
And this is something that will benefit Robert and obviously benefits Trump.
My two questions, one's unrelated to RFK and that's why do you think that narrative is gaining so much traction?
And do you think that plays a role in RFK's popularity as a contender to Joe Biden?
Yeah.
Andrew, Aaron?
Yeah, yeah.
And Aaron, I'll shut up and let you take this one if you want.
Actually, let me just shut up.
Aaron, go ahead.
You can go ahead and take that one, Andrew.
I had something else to say.
You're like the opposite of me and Sully.
We like shut each other up because we both want to speak.
Go ahead, Andrew.
Yeah, I'll hit this one.
Then you can take it away, Aaron.
So if you look at all of the Gallup polling on institutional trust,
It's just been declining very steadily over a multi-decade, even multi-generational period, and it's not just the presidency.
It's education, media, big business.
health care, like, you name it, our institutional trust has declined across the board in just about all of these things.
I think the most trusted institution in American life right now is the military at above 50%.
After that, it might be like librarians.
It's definitely well below 50% for the presidency.
And so...
In that environment, people are going to get more and more ticked off and more and more drawn to anti-establishment appeals.
And the Democratic Party is like the last of the institutionalists who are holding down the fort.
There are some people that feel very, very, and by the way, like, you know, like I think,
I probably speak for a lot of people here.
It's like I'm not reflexively anti-institution.
You know, like I want institutions to be great,
they perform great.
Like, but it's frustrating to a lot of Americans
where it's like when they do screw up,
like there's this total like blotting out of the screw up
that makes us lose trust.
So that's why we're all plugging into this
is because like, you know,
it's been building and building for years and years.
All right.
Yes, I can totally understand that.
I'd like to, you know, I want to be transparent that I've interviewed Bobby and we're in a lawsuit.
You and I've joined a lawsuit or started a lawsuit to sue the media, which has been in the news,
but not as much as you'd want because that's not why I want to talk about.
Can you tell me, Erin, can you tell me more about the lawsuit?
Why are you suing the media?
That's less like music.
I don't know what you can share, but that's music to Slaman's ears.
Slaman's like on a vendetta against mainstream media.
So he's probably going to join your lawsuit.
He's a pretty rich guy, so you'll probably throw some money at it as well.
I was just going to want to be transparent about, you know, that I, about knowing Bobby.
But there are nine, I think nine of us as the HD may count as 10, but we're suing mainstream.
We're suing Associated Press, BBC, Reuters, and Washington Post.
It's an antitrust lawsuit first of its kind because of collusion because they...
I mean, it's been in Twitter files for those who believe in Twitter files.
We've covered it heavily.
We've covered it heavily here.
Mario, you're listening to a collusion by the mainstream media including the BBC.
Please continue.
I covered it.
I cover.
Educate your host.
Do you just call me a host, man?
I covered this collusion.
And the collusion is very clear.
It's fascinating to see what happens behind the scenes.
Hold on.
We covered it yesterday, man, in the UK.
And the collusion when it came to lockdowns.
But Aaron, sorry, we're taking the line line from you.
Sure, and I...
Well, thank you.
No, I just thought I would mention that, but yes, so we're suing them because in Twitter files revealed and many other places, the media would actually contact the social media platforms and say, hey, if these...
There were the 12 of us named the so-called disinformation dozen.
That would be Bobby Kennedy, Joe, Dr. McCollah, me, and several others, including...
I see a few of the 12 listening.
One of them just...
died and before he died, he said he was intentionally poisoned, Dr. Rashid Bhuthar,
but there were 12 of us that were named for sharing the most information about COVID
and vaccines in the world. And they targeted the 12 of us. They removed Bobby Kennedy,
Bobby Me, and Joe, Dr. McCullough, and one other on YouTube removed our channels on the same
day and changed the policy just to do so. And they're being sued to
separately.
Yeah, Aaron, but this is,
I think the sentiment shifting
against mainstream media,
just to see their,
so Slaman is a lot more
anti-media than I am,
anti-media, but in a very logical way.
But just to see the amount of trust
they're hemorrhaging
over the last few decades
that continues still today,
and that goes both on the left and the right.
I don't see that to be,
you know, before when you see
mainstream media collude against a candidate,
that's a, it's really hard
to win when you have the media going against you. In today's age, he could even leverage it to his
advantage, Aaron. Have you spoken to Robert about this? And what's his stance on the media? Because I know
his team is very critical and they get bothered every time the media take things out of context.
But are they using that anti-media narrative of that lack of trust in mainstream media to their
advantage?
Yeah.
I think so.
I mean, he's been talked to us and we've done, you know,
we've done interviews where he's been very clear on his feelings
that the media isn't giving him a fair chance.
I thought it was interesting that CNN...
actually did interview him and give him somewhat of a fair chance.
But again, as somebody else pointed out, there's nobody, there's nobody listening.
Nobody's watching CNN.
And what I was actually going to say is that we need to take into account that there are millions
of Republicans and Trump fans who are going to be voting for Bobby Kennedy in the,
in the primary.
So that's what isn't taking into account when we're talking about the 19% of Democrats.
So that's really what I had wanted to say because they're such,
you know, they're just very loyal fans of Bobby, even though in the, I don't know what'll happen
if he were to win the primary, but they are, they are voting for him. And that's, that's been
appallingly clear. I think out of the millions of followers that, that, that's, C.D. has, even though
that's his nonprofit, they've removed all of them for, you know, Facebook banned my several
million followers and, you know, and.
And I think they removed all his, his nonprofits, but there are millions of followers that he has there and, you know, millions on their mailing list.
And so those people are primarily or started out as Trump fans.
And some of them still say they'd vote for Trump in the general election if he is, you know, the president.
that not if they give him the Republican nominee, but they're voting for Bobby in the primary.
That's what I wanted to say. And I also think it's different than when Ron Paul was running
because now we have social media. Elon Musk is interviewing Bobby next week and
And then, so that's...
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow.
Okay, so, yes, this week.
I did have a follow-up.
The media narrative just works better on one side than the other.
I mean, when you say that, it just sounds like fake news.
And then if you're a Republican and you just rail against the media like DeSantis and Trump,
it's a home run and everyone's doing it.
So, Andrew, it doesn't work as well.
Yeah, it doesn't work on the...
That's interesting.
Yeah.
And so I had a follow-up for Andrew, actually, really quick.
Could I just jump in with one very quick thing?
God, Dave.
Yeah.
So the really interesting thing about this, though, Andrew, I think, is how much has that
changed?
And, you know, part of the reason why this happened amongst the Republican voting
base is like, if you remember, just, you know, not that long ago, 15, 20 years ago,
the Republicans were the ones who were the champions of the FBI and the CIA in the
military in general, and they got burned really bad. I mean, they got lied into the war in Iraq
and supported it with all of their might. They got lied into the 20-year catastrophe in Afghanistan
and supported it with all of their might. And then they got burned, and they realized, and they
really turned against the establishment. And the question now is, did COVID do the same thing
to voters on the Democratic side? I mean, most of these voters live in the cities that suffered under the
most draconian laws all for nothing. And that's the big question now moving forward. How much do
they look at this and go, you know what? You guys absolutely lied to me about what this vaccine might do.
You guys may not be exactly where RFK is on vaccines, but the truth is that the American people were
told you would not get COVID and you could not spread COVID if you got this jab and we're
forcing you to do it.
And they were wrong about that.
And the lockdowns destroyed people's lives.
And the school closures destroyed people's kids.
And so the question is, where are the Democrats going to be moving forward?
And this is a really interesting test for that.
I just wanted to add that.
And David, I had a question for you on that.
And it's linked to the points that you're making.
We...
We saw the mainstream media and it's something Aaron said that are working together to basically destroy people or destroy candidates or minimize their impact.
So a good example of that is when Musk took over Twitter, they all in cahoots used the same language, the same verbiage, you know, PR for the world's richest man.
And Mario found it unfathomable that these people could do that.
But essentially, you've seen them work together on that.
You've seen them work together on, for example,
taking out Andrew Tate and never having a positive article.
You saw them doing the same thing to Kennedy,
which is essentially not allowing any kind of positive press
in the mainstream media.
So with someone like...
let's say Andrew Tay, he has charisma, he can engage in alternative media.
With Kennedy, he doesn't have the same level of charisma.
So therefore, do you think that he's going to have to up his ante on the level of engagement he has on alternative media,
such as, for example, your platform, maybe other YouTube channels, maybe on larger Twitter spaces, maybe on Rumble,
very...
various other mediums.
Podcasts like Aaron, Aaron and Dave,
platforms like errands and Dave's.
Yeah, I said Dave's.
Yeah, I said that, Mario.
Sorry, Dave, I love that.
I love to ask you about.
Well, it certainly seems like that's his game plan, right?
I mean, he's coming, he's doing the podcast.
He's doing this big Twitter space tomorrow.
I have a feeling that's going to garner an incredible amount of attention.
Now, in terms of, you know, you have to be authentic to who you are.
um... he's not andrew tait he's not donald trump but there is something about him
uh... and he does have there's an energy about him that you know he's a kennedy that still
hold some cachet and particularly amongst democrats and older democrats even and he's not
like one of these like peripheral kennedy's like he married a cousin and took the name or something
you know he's bobby kennedy's kid and i think that still holds some weight to it but i think
he has to be who he is and
I think that the long-form, in-depth conversations that are not like what the mainstream corporate press has typically been, where it's kind of like these very quick bullet point interviews, I think that's where he shines. And so I think that's his advantage.
You know, something you said, Dave, earlier, which was that he won't have a fair shot.
I have a question for Andrew.
So, Andrew, you know that this question is going to come at some point, but I might as well just ask you here up on our spaces since you're here on the Sunday.
If RFK Jr. doesn't get a fair shot and if RFK Jr. there is no primary in the Democratic Party and he looks for a home, is forward party going to open up your arms and say, you know what? You have a place with us?
Oh, so we've already spoken about how, like, there aren't going to be debates.
The primaries aren't going to be covered in the same way.
So I don't think there is going to be much of a process on that side,
unless something very, very dramatically changes.
In terms of what's next for various candidates,
and by the way, I think there are going to be some Republicans who feel the same way.
The major effort...
right now is through an organization called No Labels that is spending $50 million on ballot access.
I think they have it in five or six states now.
And this is public, so I'm not spilling any beans, but they're exploring a possibility of running a Republican and a Democrat
together or a Democrat Republican in some combination.
So the mechanics of running a presidential candidate is that you need ballot access on a party line.
So this question is suggestive of the forward party.
So those you don't know, I am the co-chair of one of the most prominent third parties in the country now.
I think we might even be number three by resources, though I joke all the time there's a very steep drop-off between two and three.
Right.
But I'll be frank and say we're not looking at the presidential and we won't have ballot access in all 50 states by 2024.
So to the extent that someone wants to run as an independent, they would either need to team up with no labels or they would need to be getting ballot access like immediately, which has a cost typically of, let's say, tens of millions of dollars.
And even if you have the money, in some cases the money is not enough because you need some time as well.
And Andrew, just to jump on that question to ask an additional question, if hypothetically he does get screwed over by the Democratic Party, which is highly likely, and he was to run as an independent, who would he take the votes from?
Like, do you think he take votes from Trump or do you think he take a vote from Biden?
Well, again, in practical terms, like, it would probably depend largely upon what ballot line he's under.
So if you look at what's going to happen in the general in 2024, I believe that you're going to see, like, no labels line.
If, like, I mean, they will have procured the line. I don't know what they're going to do with it.
You're going to see a libertarian line. You're going to see a green line in, like, you know, 37 or 38 states.
So I think who he takes votes from is largely dependent upon what party line he's standing with and who is running mate is and his messaging thereafter.
I think most of us listening to this, by the way, right now, think he is going to get shafted by the DNC.
Marianne Williamson will probably feel the same way.
And so, you know, and you're going to.
