SIO17: Dialogue with Trump Supporter Dr. Robert Price

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:28 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only, I'm your host Thomas Smith and this is episode number 17. Okay everyone, what you're about to hear is my attempt at a calm, rational dialogue with a Trump supporter, an avid Trump supporter. And I don't want to give anything away about it, I want you to listen in real time, kinda as it happened, and I'll give you thoughts afterward. I'll just say that my goals going in, I'll let you know that I didn't, I didn't know how I knew Dr. Price supported Trump as the candidate. I had no idea how he would react to his, his presidency thus far. I wasn't sure maybe he would be more concerned. Maybe he would, you know, have reacted to some of the scandal that's gone on.

0:01:17 Thomas: I didn't know. So I asked him that and we kind of go from there. The reason I attempted this and wanted to do it is lately I've been thinking about a lot of big questions about whether what we as liberals are doing right now is making a difference, whether it's the the right thing, whether we're it's possible to reach anyone, how much misinformation, fake news, whatever is playing into debates like this. These are big questions, things that aren't going to be answered by just one interview but something I've had in mind, I've of my mind, though I always want to cover Trump and politics in general and cover things that I think are wrong, things that I think are lies, things I think are issues, there's been in the back of my head a growing frustration and feeling like if you don't agree, you don't agree, if you do agree, and that's that.

0:02:12 Thomas: It's been feeling a little helpless, a little fruitless. So this was my attempt to see what would happen if I just tried to have a calm discussion, not get in a shouting mess or anything like that. Just keep it to the best I could to confront a Trump supporter with things that I think are problematic about President Trump. Oh, I will add that, of course, this is just one person's discussion with one guest that was limited into about a little under an hour. So there's, of course, a billion things I could have brought up. I'm happy if you guys want to give me feedback on what you thought I could've done differently, but just know that there was a finite time and I wasn't going to bring up literally every bad thing that Trump's ever done because that would take a very long time.

0:03:04 Thomas: I tried to go with the flow, respond to what Dr. Price was saying. So anyway, I just mean to say there's always going to be Monday morning quarterback and there's nothing I can do to avoid that, I guess. But what I do want to do, well, I'll stop talking. Let's get to the interview. Let's see how it went. And then I'm going to say a few things afterwards. So I will see you after the interview here is Dr. Robert Price on president Trump.

0:03:42 Thomas: Joining me right now is Dr. Robert Price. How are you doing, Dr. Price?

0:03:46 Robert: Doing fine, I hope you're the same!

0:03:48 Thomas: Doing great. So, as a refresher, you were on in October to talk about Jesus' mythicism. And, of course, we met at the Mythinformation Conference where you debated on that question. It was really cool, and we met very briefly, so that was fun. But today, I wanted to talk something a little different. I'll be totally frank with you, Dr Price. I'm just, I don't, I'm at a loss right now, you know, I don't know what to do. I, uh, I'm a little, you know, full disclosure, I'm about as anti-Trump as it gets, I'm about as liberal as it gets, but I'm just tired of spinning my wheels in the echo chamber, you know, and I just was wondering, I'm really glad that you are coming on today, you're someone who publicly, vocally supported Trump, and I don't know, I thought we'd just give it a try, have a dialogue, what do you think?

0:04:36 Robert: Sure, it's a great idea!

0:04:38 Thomas: I, you know, thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate it. So let me just start by asking you this. What can you, to the best of your memory, and I know you've, you talked about it publicly, but to the rest of the world, what can you tell us about what's going on? To the best, to your memory. What were the main reasons that you were a Trump supporter? If you could, you give me your top three or something, whatever comes to your mind.

0:04:57 Robert: Well, I like his stance on national security in a time when people, I think, are letting their heart rule their policy rather than their head, and are in effect inviting the same sort of tragic nonsense that's happening in Europe, and with unvetted multitudes of people coming in. And, gee, what a coincidence, the rape count goes way up and there are all sorts of sexual assaults and plain old terrorist attacks. And it just seems to me obvious we need to do something about that. So the walls, which, by the way, Democrats had earlier suggested, I think it is a real good idea. And if there is any way to vet people who want to come in more thoroughly, I don't know that there is, but I think it's worth a try. So I like the national security business.

0:05:17 Thomas: Hmm.

0:06:02 Robert: I also am hopeful that Trump is able to realize his his goal of being a law and order president, we're in the situation we were 50 years ago in the 60s with campus rioting and things like this. And I think that something needs to be done. And the general topic of political correctness, which is, I guess, at the heart of this, I despise and loathe that. That. And I say this as one who believes in the complete equality of men and women. If women are not indeed superior to men, they should have equal opportunities, authority, pay, no question about that.

0:06:53 Robert: I am a great advocate of cultural diversity. I have been ever since I was a teenage fundamentalist of that. I once recently in a doctor's office I saw a woman come in with this beautiful African, uh, headdress and gown, and I said, please don't start wearing stuff that's beautiful, keep up the good work, um, so, um, you know, I, I don't see that, uh, supporting Trump is lockstep high tied-bound conservatism. I'm pro-gay rights, etc., etc. But certain of these things, I don't even see why they're controversial. Another thing is, it seems to me that Obama has wrecked the economy with gross over-regulation and a kind of an almost religious opposition to fossil fuels and so on.

0:07:52 Robert: And it's good to have a successful businessman who has some idea of how the economy works. I could go on and on, but I'm still a big Trump supporter. And go

0:08:04 Thomas: Okay. Yeah. Well, I was going to say you could go on and on, but I, I, You've already given me plenty there to think about. So I was, but that was going to be my next question. So you're still in support of Trump. Are you happy with how it's going so far?

0:08:20 Robert: Except for the astonishing attempt by the Democrats to thwart him at every turn. I really fear for democracy When you have this kind of non-cooperation strike, I'm just amazed. Some people don't realize that, as Obama said early on, elections have consequences. And these people who oppose him, I mean, I can see having a legitimate disagreement, but it's like they used to ask Trump, oh, are you going to support the result of the election? Well, they're not. And it's amazing to me.

0:09:05 Thomas: Okay, who isn't? What do you mean? What's an example of that? For example, you have any problem with Obama's transition of power over to Trump?

0:09:12 Robert: I'm sorry, I don't understand.

0:09:14 Thomas: Well, who are you talking about when you say people aren't accepting the results of the election? I mean Obama, yeah, okay. Okay. So what's an example of that?

0:09:19 Robert: The Democratic Party, well, Chuck Schumer and all these attempts to just prolong the votes on the cabinet nominees and so forth. Well, that's one of the biggies right there, that they're obviously just trying to slow things down. I don't know how much difference that makes, but it seems to me really unparalleled, plus the constant misrepresentation of what he's doing. And I should think that that's not the way democracy goes, a sustained campaign of undermining the president. It just seems to be they're not playing fair.

0:10:09 Thomas: Do you not think Republicans did that with Obama? I mean, they didn't allow a Supreme Court justice pick nine months or more before the election. Would you not see that the same way?

0:10:20 Robert: Well, that was the so-called Biden rule. I can see how they would, I mean, they're playing the game, but this is, that since the selection of the Supreme Court judge is supposed to be the prerogative of the president, that they didn't want Obama to get one last shot in at the last minute, and that is gamesmanship, I realize. Well, it doesn't really matter.

0:10:46 Thomas: Not really the last minute though. I mean last minute would be like a week or a month. Is last minute nearly a year? Let

0:10:54 Robert: It's at the end of his term. And I can see how people wouldn't like it, but I don't think there's anything shady about it. And Obama's own cabinet nominees were rubber stamped by the Democrats and Republicans just within days. And it just seems obvious they're having a kind of childlike temper tantrum. And that's

0:11:19 Thomas: Me ask Another question though. Do you, you not think that his picks for cabinet are quite unorthodox and the fact, well,

0:11:28 Robert: Just what we need. And, well,

0:11:29 Thomas: Okay, let me, let me grant you the, if that premise, if you think that's what we need, sure, but don't you recognize that when he's bringing in billionaires with so such complex financial situations that getting the chance to vet their conflicts of interest is going to take a lot longer than your typical appointee who is just a politician with not vast, you know, billions and different companies and coming from that business background.

0:12:00 Robert: I at least don't get the impression that they're doing anything but stalling. Nobody's really found anything. And I think it's great to have successful. Well,

0:12:08 Thomas: Can you talk about A specific person? Because let's talk specifics. I mean, they're not just stalling with Flynn, for example, who just resigned. That was in response to Republican backlash because the Republicans have the numbers to get everybody through. So there's nothing, it's not going to actually do anything unless we get Republican support against one of these, but who's an example of who you think we're stalling on?

0:12:33 Robert: Some of them who now have very lately been put in there, like Rex Tillerson and Betsy DeVos and surely the guy with the EPA, can't think of it, and Price. I always loved hearing Dr. Price in the news. It just seems to me that their ideological opposition, and especially with the billionaires, it seems obvious to me that if you're interested in prosperity and a good economy, you want people in charge who have participated and succeeded in prosperous economic stuff. You don't want some socialist in there, which is kind of what you had under the previous, because

0:12:52 Thomas: Well, Let's, let's talk about that. Do you, how do you, I, I wonder how and why you see Trump as a successful business person, because did you Because He's well, but he started off with a vast inheritance and did worse than the basic market. If he would have just put that inheritance, inheritance, in a basic mutual fund, he would have more money than he does have now. So, I mean, I wonder where, where the, I would actually, I agree with you if he was someone, a rags to riches story or something, but he's someone who started with vast resources and didn't beat the market.

0:13:28 Robert: He succeeded in business.

0:13:56 Robert: Uh, you can't tell me that Trump with all of his real estate empire and so on has, uh, not been a successful businessman. That's just delusional, that's

0:14:05 Thomas: Well, but if you start off with more resources and you go through a series of bankruptcies and, and a billion dollar loss in 1995 because of his horribly run casinos. This is not, this is, you know, this isn't his last release tax return in 1995. I mean, he's just not a good businessman. He's somebody who has a, okay, Well, what do you think about the billion dollar loss in 1995? And the fact that he couldn't, he had to shut down his casinos and move out of Atlantic City. Yeah.

0:14:29 Robert: Absurd. Well, He also had an airline that failed and he shut that down. That's what you do when you're, uh, in big projects and taking risks.

0:14:48 Thomas: But, um, I wonder where, where you think he his, his business acumen comes in, because it, it seems as though if you start with a vast sum of money and you don't beat the market, how could you argue that you're a good businessman? I mean, if you just carried on roughly speaking and, and have less money than you would have if you'd just invested that money, I mean, it just seems hard to me. Go ahead.

0:15:09 Robert: Well, that's Because Somebody Wants to accomplish something, right? He isn't just trying to be a miser and soak up money.

0:15:16 Thomas: Oh, sure. But he he could have he didn't accomplish much. I mean he's he's got a brand name.

0:15:23 Robert: Oh, come on.

0:15:25 Thomas: Okay. All right. So so we disagree on on his business success. So I okay. Okay. Fair enough. So you view him as a successful business person and that's who we need to get the economy running essentially. Essentially.

0:15:25 Robert: Come on. You bet. Yes.

0:15:40 Thomas: You referenced Tillerson and how it took a while to get him through. I'm curious, as younger person myself, who I don't remember much of any of the Cold War or anything like that, do the Russia connections not concern you? Does the the fact that not at all.

0:15:58 Robert: Not at all. In fact, it Enhances his value. Here's a guy that has already more than gotten his feet wet and knows how to work with, and you might say have detente, to use the old word, with Russia. It remains to be seen as what's going to happen on the areas where we can't let them get away with things like threatening the Balkans and the rest of Ukraine and things like that. I don't think we're just going to say to Russia, oh, go ahead, do whatever you want. We don't care. I think it's excellent to have somebody who knows these people and has worked with them. It seems odd to me that anyone would think otherwise.

0:16:41 Thomas: You don't think that when Tillerson has made a lot of money on deals in Russia and stands to gain from the sanctions being lifted on Russia, you don't think that would create a conflict of interest there?

0:16:48 Robert: So?

0:16:57 Robert: No, I don't know that they will be lifted, but I don't think succeeding in business is a bad thing. I don't think trade with other countries is a bad thing, even like with China as well. They are rivals and pose some danger, but surely it mitigates that to be in positive, constructive trade relations at the same time there are other problems. These guys are real rich. I don't care. I am real poor. I don't envy them. I'm glad they're there.

0:17:04 Thomas: No, I don't either.

0:17:30 Thomas: No, you know what? I actually, I'm not going to argue with you on that particular point. I actually don't. My point isn't that we can't have rich people. It actually isn't that. It's that when you are talking about someone who, as you referenced yourself, may need to be tough on Russia, may needs to impose more sanctions, may need commit to these sanctions. I wouldn't want someone who stands to lose money by not being able to do business in Russia, whose business is too tied in with a particular political outcome in Russia. That's a conflict of interest. My rule of thumb isn't no one can do business with Russia. People can do business, but those people shouldn't be in charge of policy that needs to be free of conflict of interests. Does that make sense?

0:18:25 Robert: Hasn't he sort of put his business aside as Trump has? I mean, are you assuming he's going to be corrupt and profiteering? I don't see any reason to assume that

0:18:36 Thomas: It's something that maybe would take a little bit of extra time in a confirmation process, process, though, don't you think?

0:18:41 Robert: Conceivably.

0:18:41 Thomas: That's not something.

0:18:43 Robert: I don't know any of the details on that, but well,

0:18:43 Thomas: Yeah. Well, he was confirmed, but it took a little time to review all that. And my point is, that doesn't seem like unreasonable obstructionism. That seems like trying to vet someone who has a very clear possibility for conflict of interest.

0:19:00 Robert: It just fits in with a larger pattern of overt obstructionism, so it seems to me not unreasonable to suspect that that's what was going on there as well, though I admit I don't know.

0:19:11 Thomas: Huh. Well. So is there another example of obstructionism? Like, take, for example, Betsy DeVos. The fact that she has literally no experience in schools of any kind and that doesn't bother you because we need like an outsider or something?

0:19:24 Robert: That's Not quite the case. She's an advocate, an activist for school choice. I'm I'm unpersuaded that people in the teachers unions have any real experience with actual teaching and actual kids. We need somebody that will drain that swamp, to use the famous cliche. I wouldn't trust the NEA or the AFT farther than, I as far as I could throw them, and we need somebody to clean them up, somebody from the outside. She doesn't have to be a classroom teacher, uh, to do that. And, as speaking of the another example of this, this, uh, the, uh, Ninth Circuit Court, uh, usurping the power of the President by saying, And we don't agree with your executive order about the 30 day or the 90 day suspension and all that. You can't have these people.

0:19:32 Thomas: Yeah. Well,

0:20:18 Robert: It's like they're ignoring the separation of powers in the name of checks and balances, misapplying it, in my opinion. That's a classic. We don't like it. So we're going to make it illegal. We're shutting you down.

0:20:32 Thomas: What happened in that case was that the order was sloppily written and they didn't know whether or not it included current green card holders. And they took

0:20:40 Robert: They immediately made it clear that it didn't and said, come on in, green carders.

0:20:42 Thomas: About a day and people,

0:20:47 Robert: Oh that's a tough one. A

0:20:49 Thomas: Well, when people are trapped in airports, yeah, that's not cool, man.

0:20:54 Robert: Few people, come on, this is classic liberal craziness, let's make the exception into the rule. Somebody has to hang around in the airport overnight, which I've done two or three times, and because of that let's turn on the faucet for unvetted refugees from Syria.

0:21:12 Thomas: I don't think that, I think that's a complete straw man. I think there's a lot of people a complete strong man. Here's the argument I'm going to make if you'd let me get through it. So the court, I do another podcast with a expert, and we've talked all about this proceeding. So I actually agree with you that his executive order, for the most part, is legal and should and will stand, most likely, if he rewrites it. But there was a real sloppiness in how they enforced and dealt with it. They didn't make it clear initially.

0:21:41 Robert: So what? How big an issue is that? How How big an issue is that?

0:21:45 Thomas: Well, It, it is an issue because if something, if the way they originally wrote it, if it was unconstitutional, then of course that's an issue. I mean, that then it is the responsibility of the court, by the way, who still haven't ruled on it. They just allowed a stay because a temporary restraining order because of the unconstitutionality of parts of it, but it will ultimately go through if he rewrites it. So I don't see that as obstructionism. I see that is a problematic order that contains a partially unconstitutional element to it. And so they issued a temporary restraining order on it.

0:22:20 Robert: Of course, the whole point is a temporary travel ban. So this just knocks it out. It's like running out the clock.

0:22:30 Thomas: Well, no, I mean, it's not, his travel ban is 90 days, right? And this, the decision will likely be in the next week or so. So it, sure, it will delay it for a little bit, but the refugee vetting process takes about 15 months. So, it is not going to make any difference in that timeline. That's who this is targeted at. So, I don't, yeah, I mean it's,

0:22:54 Robert: Well, isn't the point of it to have a moratorium for a while until you can figure out what to do next?

0:23:02 Thomas: Yeah, but well, let me ask you another question. This is something that I'm curious why it wouldn't bother Republicans more. States that he didn't include in the travel ban, doesn't that bother you at all?

0:23:15 Robert: They have vetting, like these seven, which Obama picked out, by the way. They, the, it's not like we're never going to let anybody from these seven in, but there's no government in the two or three of the cases, and they don't have adequate vetting, which apparently they do in Saudi Arabia and a couple of these others, though that doesn't seem to stop, you know, hijackers from coming in from Saudi Arabia, but apparently from what I read, that's what, what is at issue there? He didn't even choose them. He went with Obama's list and for the same reason, the lack of vetting.

0:23:54 Thomas: Is this Obama's list you're talking about? A list of what?

0:23:58 Robert: Seven countries where we ought to have a moratorium on admissions. He did the same thing. But it's conveniently forgotten now.

0:24:07 Thomas: Well, no, he didn't do the same thing. He stopped people coming from Iraq briefly because of a specific threat, but he didn't stop immigration from all seven countries, and he certainly didn't institute a blanket ban on these seven countries.

0:24:24 Robert: Well, that's not what Trump is doing either.

0:24:30 Thomas: You think that Obama was able able to correctly identify these seven countries as specific threats, and that's why Trump went with them? Is that what you're saying? But

0:24:40 Robert: Well,that's what I hear. I mean, I'm no political scientist. I'm not in a position to know independently, but that's what I hear, and that's the best I know.

0:24:52 Thomas: It doesn't it doesn't bother you that, uh, and and and you can check Snopes on this, I actually thought it might be a bit of liberal propaganda, which I don't, I'm not in support of, uh, false news, no matter where it comes from, but this is okay?

0:25:03 Robert: Snopes is liberal propaganda.

0:25:06 Thomas: Well, you can check other sources too, but, uh, it, these countries do happen to be, uh, the countries that he he has has business ties to. Those are the ones that he didn't include on the list.

0:25:15 Robert: Well, it was nice of Obama to do that with him in mind, but I agree with what Bob Beckel used to say a year or so ago. I'd like to see a moratorium for a year to one people coming in from all Muslim countries. I think you just cannot take the chance. Well,

0:25:34 Thomas: So what, when you say cannot take the chance, what attacks are you worried about from these, from refugees? Or is it just anybody?

0:25:41 Robert: The kind of thing happening in Germany, Sweden, Denmark, and other places where you have these guys that think that non-Muslims or non-Sunni Muslims are fair game, that the women don't count as humans, they can just be sex slaves, they're raping kids. There's these sexual assault in the swimming pools stories that are coming out every week, if not more often. There's just all kinds of stuff happening. And look at what's happened in Paris and so forth. It just seems to me you got a few bad apples, perhaps more than a few, ruining it for everybody. Because no doubt the vast majority of Muslims are peace-loving and wouldn't do this, but so many are coming in, you're getting the bad apples and we

0:26:30 Thomas: Yeah, but so many are, okay, I, you know what, I agree with you as regards to Europe. I think Europe is a totally different case and I'm not in favor of open borders across Europe and free migration. I do think that is causing a lot of problems, but we're not Europe. I mean, we just don't have those kind of numbers, but we will be. I mean the refugee numbers we're accepting are tiny and the process of vetting refugees takes 15 months. It's a long process and it hasn't been a problem in our country. I mean, they were U.S.

0:26:48 Robert: Will be oh Yes, it has. How about those people out in California that, uh, gunned down the husband's colleague,

0:27:09 Thomas: Citizens, they were second generation, don't know how you're going to, yeah, but I mean if that's your evidence, that one attack is what you're pointing to, I mean how many more attacks do we have that are just crazy people with guns

0:27:09 Robert: The wife. Was not, oh, There's several other ones uh, and, uh, I, it just seems to me you're sticking your head in the sand, if not somewhere else, uh, it, uh, it just seemed to me insane to make Americans martyrs for the cause of, uh, of let's pretend that everybody's hunky-dory, this kind of bad version of cultural diversity. If we have to sacrifice some people, that's all right. We don't want to look bigoted. That seems to me, again, to make the exception into the rule.

0:27:53 Thomas: That's not really what I'm trying to do though, I means the problem is people can be radicalized because of the internet now, I mean it's these people were citizens of this country, um, their parents immigrated but they, they were born here, I, I don't know, do you think that we're going to stop, I mean there's... there's what, 300 something million people in this country, are we going to stop every single attack by, by preventing this, I mean, so

0:28:19 Robert: Well, you can stop some. That's worth doing. It just seems to me that Hillary Clinton wanted to double the number of refugees and it just seems to me, suicidal. And why do it? Why not do something else like safe zones in these living hells these poor people come from? That would do the same thing. I can't imagine they want to leave home. They feel they have to, understandably. Well, why not protect them at their home, if need be?

0:28:50 Thomas: More military action where they're coming Yeah,

0:28:55 Robert: There's nothing bad about that.

0:28:57 Thomas: You know, I actually think there might be some area of agreement there. I think that we could be doing more in Syria. It's a tough situation because of how unpopular the Iraq war was and how toxic the idea of boots on the ground is. Is. But one thing that's interesting is the fact that Trump ran more as the peace candidate in that respect. I mean, he shamed Hillary for being in favor of the Iraq war and claimed he wasn't in favor of it. Is that something that you think he's going to change his mind on? He might be tougher militarily in the Middle East?

0:29:35 Robert: Well he always said that there were exceptions, exceptions, like with ISIS, and of course that means Syria, that you have to get rid of these people. But other than that, he doesn't want to start invading countries and trying to make their governments over in our image, which won't work. In fact, it's Trump's critics now that seem to be beating the drum for a conflict with Russia inexplicably, that, oh, McCain says it's an act of war what the Russians are doing. What is it you want, McCain? What are you driving at? And they're trying to beat the drums, it sounds like, I hope they're not, for war that Trump would avoid.

0:30:21 Thomas: Well, that's really interesting because, I mean in the the past, it's Hillary who was criticized for her Russian reset button. She was just absolutely lambasted by conservatives for that. But

0:30:32 Robert: Well, that was because she was so naive and clueless. It was under their administration that the Soviets, the Russians took took over Crimea and half of the Ukraine, and we did nothing about it. That's water under the bridge. That can't be undone. But as Obama finally wised up to do and sent NATO troops to the border of the Baltic states, that's what I believe Trump will follow up on based on what he and Tillerson said to NATO allies. So I think if you do that and show that our rivals and potential enemies, that they can't just get away with everything, which they could under the previous administration, you can avoid their mischief and having to go to war. I

0:31:26 Thomas: It's curious to me that you think this administration will be better at inflicting some sort of pressure on Russia when they're more tied in with Russia, when they're more cozy with Russia. Like, what do you think about the intelligence consensus that Russia was trying to win the election for Trump?

0:31:45 Robert: Have no way of knowing, but I tend to think that this is part of the holdover from Obama's administration that they and the State Department are trying to muck things up and, again, obstruct what Trump wants to do, even if what he wants to to do would be traditionally in their purview, I mean, with their sympathies. A lot of it's inexplicable to me, and I just see no reason for this except to try to make Trump look bad. Why would-

0:32:19 Thomas: Hold on, what are you seeing no reason So it sounds to me then like you're rejecting the consensus that even Trump himself eventually admitted. Well, but even Trump admitted that the evidence showed that Russia was interfering with our election. He resisted it for quite a while, but then he admitted it at a press conference. So are you still, but do you think he's wrong on that, that there wasn't any intervention? Yeah.

0:32:25 Robert: Yes, that's right. Yeah. Yeah, that right. Right, well, Uh, No, I, what I think it turned out to be fake is the claim that, uh, he had Flynn work with the Russians to leak these emails about Hillary so he could win the election, uh, they may, it does seem like they tried to interfere, uh, it by

0:33:06 Thomas: I'm not making that claim, but what, what, well, the Flynn thing is, uh, is almost unarguable because we, uh, expelled a bunch of their diplomats and we imposed sanctions on a bunch of Russian officials and they did not retaliate at all, and now it's, as a result, if we come to find out that it's a result of Flynn speaking to, and by the way, this was recorded, the call was recorded, that's how they know this, uh, speaking to a Russian diplomat about it, doesn't that seem a little, is that not untoward to you, is that not something that that concerns you, that that they would be colluding with somebody who's not, who historically has not been our friend, uh, in, in Russia, to to make promises before the administration is in place, so,

0:33:31 Robert: Well, It seems to me that this is a result of Obama and the other Democrats screaming about this in order to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's victory. And to make it sound good, they kicked out all of these diplomats. And probably Flynn was, this is my guess, I'm not party to it, obviously, was saying, look, this is tantrum and a propaganda stunt by Obama. We're not going to carry on the the same hostility toward you. That would be my best guess. I don't think that it's collusion, though again, how would I know?

0:34:37 Thomas: Then are you, sorry, just to, just to clarify, are you still, um, under the impression and making the the claim that Russian intelligence wasn't trying to affect our election? Yeah.

0:34:47 Robert: That I don't know. I suspect they were in some way, but in what way, I don't know. It's this thing with Flynn that I think is kind of a wild conspiracy theory, but I'm not ruling out the likelihood that they in someway tried to influence it, because I've heard it described in different ways. And sure, they may have done some of this and they've done it before.

0:35:11 Thomas: It Was it, was Russian hackers who hacked the DNC and and and released, uh, the emails? Because they also now

0:35:18 Robert: We also hear that it was not, that it was in-house from the Democratic Party, perhaps somebody who was a Bernie Sanders supporter and wanted to get back at Hillary. I have no idea.

0:35:28 Thomas: That that was a that was the theory that Trump had, that that he tried to use to excuse it, but he later backed away from that when he was finally shown the briefings and shown the intelligence that the the vast consensus of the intelligence community is that this was a Russian hack, so I, I want to know, is that not something, I mean, that is essentially an act of war, I mean, hacking in another country's election, especially Russia to us, and and affecting the outcome, is that, that, that isn't something that that that concerns you? Oh, so it's okay as long as they didn't affect it but

0:35:59 Robert: They didn't affect it in all probability. Well, I'm just saying I wouldn't get that upset said about it is since uh as far as I can tell there was no real uh damage done

0:36:16 Thomas: If it had gone, the, let's pretend it went the other way. Let's pretend the Russian hacking led to someone you don't like winning. Wouldn't you be concerned about that?

0:36:18 Robert: Well I don't think it led to anybody winning it's

0:36:27 Thomas: Okay, I'm saying hypothetically. So the Russian hanging happened. So now you're saying because the consequences may not have ended up changing the result of the election, that it's okay or that you don't care

0:36:45 Robert: A moot point even if it's true, uh, I don't know what the, uh, the, uh, intelligence people said, but, uh, to Trump, but it was three out of a some 17 intelligence agencies that made this charge, and what's his name, Assange, claimed that it was not Russians, that it was an inside source from the Dems. I don't know that he ever recanted on that. I'm pretty sure he hasn't, and I don't know who to believe.

0:37:19 Thomas: Or that honest, and Trump has recanted on that claim of it being someone from the DNC. The intelligence community is in consensus on this. Early on, there was a little confusion, but not now. I mean, it's consensus that it was Russian hacking. But, well, when we're talking about intelligence and the fact that even Trump is agreeing with it, I don't know why that wouldn't...

0:37:34 Robert: Consensus where I don't know what it's based on does not impress me. Well, I'm not a fundamentalist. As Trump said it, I believe that that settles it, whereas I do think there's reason to believe that the intelligence community and the State Department are out to get him. I don't know, obviously, but this is my suspicion.

0:37:59 Thomas: Despite Trump admitting it, if it

0:38:02 Robert: Yes, as stupid as I sound, that is what I'm saying. I don't know why he says that. I don't, but he's certainly been.

0:38:06 Thomas: Were just a plot to undermine Trump, why would Trump agree with it? That doesn't, I mean, it just, it strikes me as you're doing backflips to try to resist this obvious conclusion, then the consensus conclusion that Russian hackers try, you know, hack the DNC and try to influence the election. It just seems like you're Doing real gymnastics to avoid that conclusion. Conclusion.

0:38:27 Robert: On the other hand, Trump has been saying very recently that the intelligence community is out to get him. So I take that seriously too. I admit I don't know. I'm not privy to these things, but it seems to me there's a good reason to think that he was right the first time.

0:38:40 Thomas: The, yeah. The Intelligence community is, is withholding information because they are worried it will be leaked to Russia because of the, how, how close the ties are in with Trump to the, to Uh, Russian Intelligence I

0:38:55 Robert: And the intelligence community Seems to be leaking information when it serves their purposes. I don't trust them. I know that I'd never trust any governments, whoever was in the White House. I didn't know that I'd trust them or the intelligence community necessarily. There's so much funny business going on. I have to be an agnostic on, on many of these questions and just go with suspicion since that's probably all I'll ever be able to justify. Either way.

0:39:30 Thomas: Okay, it sounds like we're, we're at an impasse there because it, it, I, it's amazing that you would take the word of Assange and suspicion over Trump himself and the intelligence community, but I mean, it sounds like we're, we disagree. So, so we might as well move on.

0:39:43 Robert: Yes, I'm pretty stupid, I am afraid.

0:39:45 Thomas: I didn't say that. I just, I don't, I don't understand it.

0:39:47 Robert: Oh, yes, you did. Go ahead.

0:39:49 Thomas: Well, don't get it. Am I not allowed to disagree with you? Otherwise I, all right. I mean, I, I am amazed at this particular opinion. Yes. When it comes to being the law and order president, do you think that has played out in, in so far and is that something, can you give me more? Because that was one of the reasons you gave, would you mind going into that more? Well,

0:39:52 Robert: No, you are, but come on, go ahead.

0:40:12 Robert: Oh, I would love to see him. Now, he hasn't said this specifically. He's only been in office less than a month and has done a lot of other things, but I am hoping he'll, number one, one, change and improve the conditions in the inner city, which would certainly help lower the crime rate, like in Chicago and so forth. But when there are rioters, I hope that there will be a real military response, hopefully with just tear gas and rubber bullets. But I think that rioters are enemy combatants of the social order, and I don't really care what they do to put them down.

0:40:55 Thomas: Sure, I mean, I'm no fan of riots, but I mean, are you, when you say put them down, I mean, are you literally advocating violence?

0:41:00 Robert: If it comes to Kent State again, that's all right with me.

0:41:04 Thomas: Okay, I'm not quite sure what to say. I mean, riots are bad certainly, but I think they happen after the Lakers game. I mean, there's well

0:41:16 Robert: Don't care what leads to them or whether it's conservative or liberal. You cannot allow that. And when you do, you're just helping them erode the fabric of society. When you're fighting terrorists or Nazis in World War II, you don't just read them Miranda rights. You have to get rid of them. And that's why I'm in favor of capital punishment as well, if you can show they really did it. And I think these people are at war with the social order. I mean, some are avowed anarchists. And if they begin not just to opine that, but to put it into action, they have to be stopped and, if need be, destroyed.

0:41:58 Thomas: I mean, sure, I'm anti-violence. I'm anti-violent, uh, protest and riots. So I do, I do agree that there, that needs to be contained. I guess I'm just a little blown away by the, by the, I suppose the, the, don't know, just the, the sheer violence of what you're saying is, is a little scary to me. I would, I would hope that there's a, okay.

0:42:15 Robert: We live in a time of growing crisis. And I think there has to be a genuine alarm or we'll just temporize and hope things get better, which will cause them to get worse. Oh,

0:42:28 Thomas: Um, oh, I was going to ask you, uh when it came to destroying ISIS, uh and, and, and that kind of thing. And, and Trump's, the, the idea that the Obama administration was, was not getting this right. What do you think about the fact that Obama ordered more drone strikes than any other president and, and, and killed top level members of ISIS? I mean, so,

0:42:50 Robert: I'm glad. I've always been glad he did that. I don't mean to make him sound like he did nothing good there. There is another side to that, that had he captured these people, they might have been good sources of intelligence. But I I'm not convinced by that. I mean, it's like a give and take thing. There are points on both sides, but I was altogether in favor of him droning these people,

0:43:17 Thomas: Okay, fair, fair answer. But would you, would you have advocated and you, you still advocate for maybe boots on the ground in a more invasive kind of military to ISIS.

0:43:28 Robert: If need be. And it's probably going on already and even was under Obama without them being forthcoming about it. And if so, I certainly wouldn't have criticized them for that. But at least you could have airstrikes that many more like we had during the Iraq wars. Obama was singularly reticent to do that. And he would tell the rules of engagement. He would tell the pilots to come back if they were liable to hit a convoy where there were innocent people in there. And things like this, it's just silly. I think what he did, some of it was right, but it was insufficient and handled in a silly, childish way.

0:44:16 Robert: And I think that Trump might do the same sort of thing with airstrikes and drones and so on and do it more consistently. And hopefully it wouldn't come to American troops getting horribly maimed and killed like the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. I don't want to see that happen again. But I do want to say an effort to eradicate ISIS the way we did the Third Reich.

0:44:44 Thomas: Interesting. Okay. I know another question I want to ask you. In Trump's cabinet, do the ties to Goldman Sachs bother you? The fact that he hit Hillary so hard on that, he hit Ted Cruz so hard, and then something like three or four of his cabinet members have very ties to Goldman Sachs, previous CEO, previous executives. Does that bother you at all?

0:45:11 Robert: No, there might be something fishy about it. But again, I have to assume that people that are high up in the economy are the people we need helping to run it. I don't know that they're all corrupt and thieves, they might be, but I don't make that generalization. However, I do think the banks and their interest in making business loans was severely damaged by the Dodd-Frank fiasco, and that if that can be lifted, then we'll have more loans and more small businesses and a better economy. And I gather that is more likely to happen with people with these connections. But Trump was never a Bernie Sanders type in his criticisms. And as I understand, what I remember, remember, at any rate, was with Hillary, what he criticized her for was sounding like Robin Hood and condemning Wall Street and the big banks while she was taking money from them and saying something very different to them in closed meetings than she did on the campaign trail. So as I remember, that was the nature of his criticism of her.

0:46:32 Thomas: Really think that business and government are the same thing? Do you think that success in business can lead to success in something as vastly different and complex and huge as the American economy?

0:46:45 Robert: Well, if they were the only ones in charge, that might be a danger, but you have various generals and others, uh, who I think have a real good grasp of these matters. They tend to be the most educated of any professional class. But in terms of the the economy, Obama never ran as much so much as a lemonade stand, and his uh hoity-toity Harvard advisors knew nothing about business either. They were just ideologically, almost theologically, committed to a quasi-socialist agenda and thus screwed everything up. They wrecked the economy. And I think, oh,

0:47:25 Thomas: Hold on. How do you make the claim they wrecked the economy, when they took it from the biggest recession in recent history in 2007 and 8 to what it is now, which is, what

0:47:32 Robert: Come on, it's the slowest growth since the Depression. The incremental improvement is nothing compared to what Reagan did and what Trump could do the same way with deregulation. That's just uh talking points of the uh of Obama and and the dems. It's anybody can see that the economy still is uh languishing. Any

0:48:02 Thomas: Measures do you mean? Like in what way?

0:48:04 Robert: The employment, if you count the people that gave up and discussed and stopped looking for work, uh, salaries being frozen or going going down, the number of businesses collapsing, the decrease of numbers of small businesses beginning, and the explicit attribution of this by the would-be small businessmen of the overregulation and the persecution of the coal industry, the gagging of oil exploration and fracking and so on. It's obvious they just had dogmatic assumptions that were anti-business. And I think that is so obvious, it is astounding to me that people say they don't see that.

0:48:07 Thomas: Well, It's hard to, this is one of those times where when we look at the consensus measures of the economy it looks good but now, you know, you're talking about information that we don't have access to. Like somehow the the unemployment rate.

0:49:14 Robert: Oh, I think we do.

0:49:16 Thomas: So is there an unemployment rate calculated that shows something different than the agreed upon one that we use as a measurement, that Trump will still be using as a measurement? Because it's lower than Mitt Romney promised in 2012, is a talking point you hear a lot. It's interesting.

0:49:35 Robert: Well, this is like the old joke. The waiter comes up to the diner and says, how did you find the steak, sir? And he said, well, I moved one of the peas and there it was. It's like they say there's been growth, but it's minuscule by the standard measures or metrics, as they love to say. And one thing they do is this sleight of hand thing saying that, oh, unemployment is down when it's distorted by the fact that so many people, for which we have numbers, have been unable to find work for a long time and just stopped looking. If you count those people in, you've got a big increase in the number of unemployed. So it's like a professor of mine once says, figures don't lie, but liars sure figure.

0:50:27 Thomas: How do you see income inequality as a major problem in today's economy? Economy? Do you see the fact that the top percent of people have more wealth than ever relative to everybody else?

0:50:40 Robert: They get to be the top people. They, they created businesses and succeeded and got a lot of money. I don't have a problem with that. I wish I could do it.

0:50:49 Thomas: You know, actually, let me clarify, though. I'm not saying they're morally wrong. I am not at all. They could be completely, we could just be completely agnostic of that. We could say they worked hard, they did whatever. But what about the mere fact? I mean, how bad would it have to get for you to think that maybe a higher tax rate on the super wealthy would be appropriate? But

0:51:14 Robert: That's like spitting into the ocean. You could just take every dime they had and it wouldn't make any difference. That seems to me to be magical thinking. The issue would be, how can you increase employment opportunities for the poor? And Obama certainly did the opposite of that by destroying small business. So the thing to do would be to make a more viable economic atmosphere, but just to tax the ones that have it and give it to the ones that don't, that's just not going to work. It's like somebody's a cancer patient. You say, here, drink this can of Coke. That ought to do the trick.

0:51:56 Thomas: The income inequality is getting worse and worse, and the tax rates are lower than they were under Reagan, and they're lower than they were in our biggest times of prosperity. Well,

0:52:07 Robert: It's just not gonna work, even if you take every red cent from these people. It's like pouring a glass of water into the Atlantic. Yeah.

0:52:16 Thomas: We could provide more benefits to people who don't have them. I mean, we can provide... What about... What do you think about...

0:52:21 Robert: I'd love to see that

0:52:21 Thomas: Yeah, what do you thing about universal health care, for example.

0:52:22 Robert: A health care is a great idea, and obviously Trump and Paul Ryan and the others think so too. They're, they're not saying we're just gonna repeal Obamacare, which is failing. There, they're saying we have to have a better replacement. It's easy to make people sound like heartless villains because they're against Obamacare, until you realize they're saying, no, this isn't the way to do it. There's got to be a better way. And in fact, there have been several different Republican plans toward that end, and I hope one of them works.

0:53:00 Thomas: I think I agree that Trump has certainly said that he wants a better replacement, but Paul Ryan doesn't. I mean, he wants to repeal and, and he doesn't, he just thinks some sort of like, OFSA or something like his, his plan doesn't involve replacing Obamacare, but, but I do agree that, that Trump Has made that claim. So I'm very curious to see what the result of that is. Do you expect that there will be a plan in place, a Republican plan for some sort of universal health care as a result of Trump's policies?

0:53:32 Robert: Oh, yes, I do. Again, I am not an economist, so I don't know. But if anybody is liable to be able to come up with a workable scheme, I would think it's Trump and his economic advisors who have some idea what to do with money, unlike the palookas in the Democratic Congress that inflicted Obamacare on us.

0:53:55 Thomas: But it's just, I mean, business just isn't the same as government. That's the thing that I can't get my head around because it's, well, better, but they're just different things. They're not, it's not better or worse. I'm not saying business is bad. I am I am fully capitalist, by the way. I'm not any sort of communist kind of socialist kind of person. But I just think they're different. They're designed to do different things. I mean, businesses are designed to maximize profits for the business owner. Government is not meant to do that. It's designed to provide the

0:54:01 Robert: It's better than government and many, many jobs that the government is supposed to do. Well, that's why

0:54:32 Thomas: Service that we...

0:54:32 Robert: Government screws up business for the very reason you mentioned, they don't know what the heck they're doing in the many, many aspects of governance that have to do with the economy.

0:54:42 Thomas: But their goal isn't necessarily always going to be to benefit business. So do you think it should be? It should always be trying to...

0:54:50 Robert: That's not necessarily implied. I mean, these guys like Tillerson and others, and Trump himself, maybe they're lying about it. I have no reason to think so. They've put aside their own profits for the term of their office, and they're trying to make it better for fellow Americans. I, I, I'm willing to accept that as the the truth, I don't know, but that's my working hypothesis. And it's got to be better than having Barney Frank and people like this in charge of it. Well,

0:55:28 Thomas: Yeah, I mean, I think when you get to a certain level of wealth, I don't know that Tillerson is out to make himself more rich. I'm not sure, but I do see it as a legitimate, you know, when you're talking about how long it should take to vet somebody, I do do see that as a very legitimate reason to spend more time on the confirmation process. And he was confirmed ultimately, but I just saw that as not a great example of Democrats trying to throw a wrench in the works. It seems reasonable that you would.

0:56:00 Robert: There's plenty to Choose From, give

0:56:02 Thomas: Guess a last question would be, you've got yourself access to a very liberal audience right now. What would you like to say to that liberal audience as regards to the Trump presidency and all this discussion.

0:56:17 Robert: Give them a fair chance, see what there is in in common, such as infrastructure repair, and use your much vaunted skepticism and flexibility of mind to question the absolutist party line that seems to govern the left in so many ways. And I would also suggest you read Jonah Goldberg's book, Liberal Fascism, which puts a lot of things today in an astonishing historical perspective.

0:56:49 Thomas: Yeah, you know, I want to say that I agree on the infrastructure is actually a big source of agreement with Trump. I hope he follows through with that. If Trump did nothing but spend billions of dollars on our terrible infrastructure, I would be a supporter of his presidency.

0:57:05 Robert: There you go.

0:57:06 Thomas: I would. Would.

0:57:07 Robert: That's what I like to hear.

0:57:08 Thomas: Well, unfortunately he's not doing that, but if he did, if he did, oh, he's already, but well, not to get back into it, but he's already done too much that I disagree with. But I will say that if he did that, if He replaced Obamacare with something better, I mean, those are things where we can, you know, you and I can regroup in a year or two and see where it is. I would support those things, you know, like those are two examples of things that if He follows through on, you know, I will commend him for that. But thanks for joining me. And thanks for this discussion. I that some of the charges of towing the party line, I mean, that kind of goes both ways, don't you think? A little bit, but

0:57:12 Robert: Well, he wants to. He says he's going.

0:57:40 Robert: Bravo.

0:57:51 Thomas: Wait,

0:57:51 Robert: Well it does, but I do not take a consistent conservative party line. I'm anti-abortion. I've mentioned other very liberal or libertarian positions I have. What's that?

0:58:04 Thomas: Anti-abortion? Or you said anti-Abortion? That would be the partyline, right?

0:58:11 Robert: Well, the thing is, I accept a conservative view on that just from my reasoning out of it, whether I'm right or wrong, who knows. But there are other positions that rightist people commonly take that I do not. I'm pro-gay rights. I I'm feminist as I define it. I don't I guess other people hold the copyright on that. But, uh, there are, uh various viewpoints of mine that would get me in trouble with conservatives. So I think when people are flexible, and I know many people that say they do this too, that they look at each issue and decide, they don't all hang together. But it's easy to have what Peter Berger calls a plausibility structure, where it seems seems most natural to go along with the views of those people you hang with.

0:59:07 Robert: And that's, I think that's a big mistake, as easy as it is to do.

0:59:12 Thomas: Yeah, I think that's certainly true. I I think that's what people do. I think we go along with our groups. But I think that what I've learned from our discussion is that we just have different sources of the truth. You know, and we're getting down to claims about the truth where you have your sources and I have my sources and there's not much more we can argue about that. And it kind of sucks because I don't know what the solution to that is. Even if, from your perspective too, I mean, like, I don't know what the solution would be if if one of us is right. How would we bridge that? You know, how would we ever solve that problem? I don't t know.

0:59:52 Robert: That Is a toughie. I did a column a few months ago called Politics and Paradigms, where I show how I think that it is, this is why people get nowhere in these debates when they have them at all, and that they should, we should try to do what Don Cupid calls the leap of reason beyond our accustomed paradigm for viewing things, but it is real tough and you have to somehow try to leap outside to take a look at the all the views with uh the best objectivity you're capable of, and of course that's tough to do. It's

1:00:31 Thomas: Yeah. And for my part, I think that, do you worry about, I mean, Trump has been such a reliable source of being unreliable. I mean just in his press conference today, he said at the end he had the largest electoral college victory since Ronald Reagan, and someone, a reporter, pointed out, and no, you've won fewer electoral college votes than three of the four presidents since Reagan. And he just said, oh, I was given that information. I mean, it just, I don't, I don't rely on Trump's grasp of the truth. And does that, stuff like that, bother you? Or is it just a gaffe? Insignificant.

1:01:05 Robert: Insignificant, uh It's it Just doesn't matter. I mean, it's not like, uh, like when Obama said that that there are 57 states. I don't know how to explain that, but it's not really that important.

1:01:06 Thomas: Okay.

1:01:17 Thomas: Obama said that there are 57 States. I'm skeptical of this claim.

1:01:19 Robert: Yes, he did. I mean, to me it's unimportant, but he did, that's a tough slip of the tongue. How could you possibly make such an error? Again, I don't think it makes any difference. I don't think he actually thought there were 57 states, I don't know what he was thinking, but again, it's trivia, I don't care. I mean, I really despise Obama, but I don't hold that against him.

1:01:24 Thomas: Could that, could that have been a slip of the tongue versus actually making a claim like, like event.

1:01:51 Thomas: All right. Well, Dr. Price, thanks for joining me. We did our best, I suppose, but I think we ran into our, you know, we got different facts. I don't know. So we'll have to, I'll have maybe we could try again. Maybe we can, I want to look at some of the claims, evaluate some ofthe sources, and I don't know. We'll see. But thank you. I really appreciate your time.

1:02:14 Robert: Well, thanks for having me on.

1:02:38 Thomas: Well, there you have it. You know what this reminded me a little bit of? This reminded me of when I was little and I went to church and when I started to think, well, there's no way these people believe in hell or believe in Noah. I used to think there's no way these believe in these religious things about God and these claims about God that make God seem mad or make God seems childish, so I just made my my own kind of God that was like, yeah, this is, this is the real God and everybody else kind of knows this. And then later on in my life, I learned that no, people actually just believe what's in the Bible sometimes. And I don't, I don't mean that as an insult to Dr. Price, but I genuinely was not prepared, of all things, and the funny thing is it was right in front of me.

1:03:26 Thomas: The one thing I wasn't exactly prepared for was for Dr. Price to literally stick to every Trump soundbite and every Trump counter-argument because they're so bad to me and they're based on inaccurate information. They're based on really sticking your head in the sand on a lot of issues like the Russian hacking. Like, my God, the idea that our enemy of so many years hacked tried to affect our election, arguably did, I think, and that's okay, because maybe it didn't have an effect on it, and I'm just kind of unconcerned, I just, I wasn't ready for that level of obvious partisanship, just whatever's good for Republicans is fine, whatever, you know, like that, I was just not ready for, that level, I don't know why, I thought there would be, I thought maybe there would be room for like, oh yeah, I see what you're seeing here, but, but let's talk about this. Or maybe there's a greater good to Trump that I wasn't aware of. You know, I just, I wasn't really ready for textbook Trump defense, which is stupid, which is absolutely stupid. I should have been.

Not that there's anything you can do, but the reason I, I guess maybe the reason I hoped it wouldn't be that is because there is nothing you can do when someone relies on misinformation. I, The backlog of work needed to evaluate these claims about the unemployment rate and the Russian hacking.

1:05:02 Thomas: It's so easy to just say, nah, I don't think that happened. That's really easy. It's a lot harder to go about showing to someone who doesn't want to believe what everybody already believes, what the intelligence community believes, what Trump himself said. It's, it's so hard. How do you get through that? How do you break through that?" So anyway, I'm gonna leave this be, but I'm going to say, oh, two things I just wasn't aware of that I need to comment on. I didn't know, I had a memory of learning about Kent State and what that was, so I knew what he was referring to, but when I looked it up, had that been fresh in my mind, I would have had a much different response, I can't believe that Dr.

1:05:49 Thomas: Price said he would be in support of another Kent State, that was demonstrations on a college campus for which four people lost their lives, that's horrible, that is a horrible thing to say. I apologize to you listeners for not having the facts on that at the ready. I remembered something about it, I just, I wasn't fresh in my mind what Kent State referred to. That's a horrific, awful thing for Dr. Price to have said. I can't believe I'm really blown away. I mean, I was blown away by that entire bit of rhetoric he used there and how willing to just kill people he was, I guess, or to have the riot police do so, though. But, but that in particular, I would have, I felt like there is just no point in trying to be outraged at that.

1:06:38 Thomas: And I felt that way about a lot of things. I felt he had his Trumpian point of view that he was ready for me to just be outraaged at. And then he can just say you're being a liberal, being outraged. I just I just felt like skipping that part so that we could actually get on to discussing discussing other issues. I should have had more of a reaction to saying that because that is an absolutely horrible thing to say.

The other thing is this nonsense Obama 57th state thing, I had never even heard of that, because it's insignificant and doesn't matter, unlike all of Trump's lies, which are, well, I won't say all, unlike the Trump lie I brought up, Obama accidentally said that he's visited, he didn't say there were 57 states, you can look it up, you can see the video, he said, oh, we visited in our campaign, we've almost visited all the states, I think we visited 57 is what he says, and clearly he meant 47. He said 50 instead of 40, that is nothing, that is a tired candidate, you can see he's been campaigning at this point, he's tired, he said 50 instead of 40, that is insignificant, that really is nothing.

Whereas Trump believing and having no idea that he got fewer electoral college votes than three of the last four presidents and, and just making the claim on national TV, like, I got the biggest electoral vote victory since Reagan, that's a different thing. That is not a slip of the tongue. He didn't, oh, I meant to say I got the, the not biggest at all since Reagan, that I meant to say that he would, that's, that's a different thing. So I was caught a little by surprise by that 57 state thing.

1:08:19 Thomas: I had never heard of it. I had absolutely never heard of that because it's a nothing issue. Uh, and I probably would have forgotten such a nothing issue, but interestingly, I did read that, um, the far, far right, to which I would, uh, put Dr. Price, but I, I won't say that he was making this claim. He didn't on the show, but the far far right at the time had a a conspiracy theory that he was referring to 57 like Muslim Muslim states, that there are 57 Muslim states in the world, and that he was a secret, it was part of the secret Muslim claim, so I think that's so funny, especially because in the fact-checking part, if you look it up, it says there aren't 57 Muslim States, there's more, I think there might be more, but I just thought that was so funny that that little detail to it, but anyway, that was absurd, that wasn't absurd deflection, Trump was not, Trump doesn't make slips of the tongue, he has no clue what he's talking about ever, Oh, and speaking of, this interview took place before the Sweden thing that just happened.

1:09:17 Thomas: So that's why I wouldn't have brought that up, because it hadn't happened yet. But it's such a different thing. So I'm going to talk about this more on Thursday, I think. I think it's necessary. I want to get your reaction, see what you think about the whole thing and react to that. Oh, leave a voicemail if you want, that's a good place to comment on this. I could tell you the number now, but you're probably just gonna forget, so just look in the show notes for the episode, it's there, call, leave a voicemail. But anyway, I wonder if we could crowdsource... okay, first off, is this the thing to do? Should we try to convince Dr. Price? I bet you he'll come back on, give it a couple months. I wonder if it's worth it. Here's a thought I had: what if we crowdsourced anti-Trump stuff, like all these points that I was making, or some of them, or which ones you guys end up thinking are the good points to try to make.

1:10:09 Thomas: And we only use sources that are Republican and like anti-Obama because I bet we could, I bet we could compile sources for the Russian hacking, for all these other things that is only Republicans, just not even liberals, just every single, so here we've compiled a list of research. I can't have Haeley do that. I don't pay Haeley enough. I'm not able to, to ever do all this. This would be a huge project, but to, uh, to be able to have every source be a Republican in and still make a case against Trump. That would be very interesting. I don't know what good it would do because I'm amazed at how much a person can really buy into the Trump talking points. Another thing I should have brought up more with the business stuff is I should have brought the example of Kellyanne Conway selling Ivanka's stuff and Trump tweeting about Nordstrom.

1:10:59 Thomas: I should've asked about that to get a reaction, to get his view on that. That would have been very interesting, interesting thing to get a view on. So let's, let's crowdsource this a little. I wonder the first phase, I think, will be like, is there any point? Is there ever any point, should we ever even try to talk to Trump supporters? I mean, you, again, my goal was to not have him hang up and be mad and go away. I wanted to keep him in dialogue.

And I did at least that. But if you look, like, you can blame it on me if you want. But there was no effect on his opinion on anything, and of course he will say there was no effect of his opinion on mine, but there was no effect to this, so, like, is this even, uh, fruitful, is there, is there any point in even trying to engage with a Trump supporter? It just, it really feels like running into a brick wall, there's just nothing.

If your view is, well, I know that Trump is right and I know he's a great businessman and I know that the, the whole intelligence community is against him and I know the whole media is against him, I mean, that's a conspiracy theory level thinking that you can't break free of. It's, there's nothing, you know, I mean, certainly that nothing I'm going to do is going to break him free of that. I just don't know. So what is the point? Is there a point? Should I even be trying to do this? Let me know your thoughts. Maybe we could put it to a vote.

I don't know, because it would be interesting to try to put together, knowing now more about Dr. Price's, his views and what he thinks and the way he's arriving at these conclusions, to try to put together sources that he would agree with. I absolutely would bet every dollar I've ever made that it won't have any effect no matter what we do, but is it worth trying?

1:12:46 Thomas: I don't know. So let me know your thoughts on that. This is running long. I'll have more thoughts on this while I digest and hear your guys' comments and voicemails and stuff. I'm very curious to see what you think of this. So thank you for listening. I, let me know. We'll see if we, if we want to pursue this more or if we or if we just go back to the echo chamber, go back to where it doesn't even, you don't ever engage with someone the opposite side because it's pointless. It really feels pointless but maybe, maybe you'll think differently. All right, thank you so much for listening. I will see you guys on Thursday for more on this and other issues then.