0:00
all right everybody welcome back to the all in podcast we're very excited today to do our third Deep dive long-form discussion with presidential candidates for the 2024 election started with RFK and he got a huge boost in the ratings
Search this video
0:15
after it was on the Pod we had Vivek and now Governor Chris Christie is with us Governor thanks for coming my pleasure thanks for having me guys all right so it's a little bit different here than I think some of the other news hits that
0:28
you do this is not short form it's long form we like to you know have a thoughtful discussion with the candidates not with talking points and I know that you're a straight shooter so I think you'll fit right in here with the other boys I think they're
0:43
very unique amongst candidates that you've actually brought up the deficit as we know uh just two facts here and then I'll hand it over to Freeburg for his question last two administrations have run up the deficit
0:57
massively here's a chart of our debt Trump added almost 8 trillion Biden's added four trillion and this is obviously an unpopular issue to bring up as you've mentioned bringing this up is unpopular doesn't get you votes necessary to say we have to cut spending and Freeburg and I are very much I'll speak for myself this is my number one issue in terms of picking a candidate freeberg I think you said it's your number one issue so Freiburg I'll
1:25
hand it over to you in terms of a question for Governor Christie yeah Governor Christie nice to see you you and I staying on a karaoke stage together in Idaho a few years ago uh but it's uh I do remember that yeah is that
1:37
a Sly way of saying Idaho I have to put that two and two together there everyone nice Freebird it was a small bar in Idaho oh it was a lot more in Idaho small part in Idaho small establishment classes with a few few folks who happen
1:52
to be in a bar together at the B conference [Music] Rain Man Davidson we open source it to the fans [Music] we watched the Republican primary debate a few weeks ago and I think what struck me at least was how little focus and attention is given on the fiscal situation the US government deficit in excess of two trillion dollars this year debt to GDP in excess of 130 percent 30 plus percent of U.S debt is coming to you in the next year
2:38
which means it's going to get refinanced at the higher rates of probably five and a half percent plus and then when you look at the the demands on Social Security Medicare forecasts are that both of those systems
2:49
necessarily go bankrupt unless there's some Extraordinary Measures taken and that seems to be a very kind of Hot Topic Golden Goose that can't be touched or debated all of this seems to be largely ignored and so much of a conversation is around
3:04
social issues in the United States military issues War Etc when fundamentally there's no gas in the tank I guess the point of view I'd love to hear from you is how do you think about that does that matter to you right now
3:17
or do we think that this is a can that we kick down the road and will solve this problem later we'll grow our way out of it if we cut some spending it'll fix itself it seems so core to me that the future of the United States is going
3:31
to be dependent on how we're going to manage this fiscal emergency that we're facing well look uh David it's core to me too and I'm you know if you've seen any of the excerpts from any of the Town Hall meetings I've done so far
3:43
um you know I've been talking about both the issues you just raised uh it first off I think on the on the deficit and debt side I learned about this after becoming a prosecutor and having to come to New Jersey and inherit two problems
4:00
immediately we have a two billion dollar short-term deficit for the last five months of the fiscal year that I inherited and then we had a 11 billion dollar deficit on a 29 billion dollar budget for the fiscal year starting July 1 of
4:15
2010 and I had to deal with both those things and as you know unlike the chart that was just shown you don't get to run it up you you have to square it um and so you know I learned how hard it is and how ugly it's going to be for
4:30
your popularity to do these things so on the on the first piece on the two billion we sat down I refused to raise taxes and we sat down and we eliminated 683 individual programs completely and then swept every Surplus
4:49
from a school board in the state and the way we did that was we reduced their state aid by the amount they have in Surplus to get the 2 billion in balance and then extended that into the next budget cycle kept all those cuts in place which did
5:09
some structural uh you know refiguring of the deficit um and then made additional Cuts after that you know I gotten elected with um 48 and a half percent of the vote and after I did that my approval ratings went down below 40.
5:25
uh in my first six months but what I knew was it was absolutely necessary because in our state we were already over taxed and the idea of raising taxes again was not an option that was to me viable so when you learn and you go through that
5:42
process and then you look at what we're dealing with federally I think you realize three things right off the bat one it is an imperative that we need to reduce spending what it's doing to inflation and the long-term ability of the country to grow it makes it absolutely necessary to to me kicking the can down the road is not an option because the problem is only going to get worse and and it's going to begin to impact our ability to
6:11
be able to do some of the core things that government is supposed to do and then third that you've got to be willing to sacrifice popularity for results and you know I'm not going to sit here and say it'll be fun to do it won't be
6:29
but I went through it once already on a smaller scale and quite frankly you have a much longer Runway to do it at the federal level than I did at the state level and I had you know hard deadlines of you know June 30 2010 and July 1 2010
6:46
to accomplish both on the entitlement side I think I'm the only person who's been talking about this and saying out loud we've got a consider raising retirement age and we've got to consider means testing and eligibility for Social Security and you know those also you know I remember watching Biden's uh state union address and to me the most disgusting part of it was when he said can we all agree we're not going to touch Social
7:14
Security and both sides stood up and cheered yeah I agree that was the that was the the worst moment for me as well liars and hypocrites like they all know it's going broke in 11 years and that's an automatic 24 benefit cut on the
7:27
Social Security side an automatic 25 Medicare benefit cut on that side so you're not going to be have to you're not going to be able to let that happen um and so you got to deal with those issues and I think you can deal with them
7:41
um through both um eligibility issues uh regarding means testing and you could deal with it um by also dealing with retirement age retirement age I would do it over the longer term not for people in their 50s and 60s currently but for people in
7:56
their uh 40s and below and let me just say one follow-up because to your point I think the recent polling showed something like 83 plus of Americans support the benefit they get from these two programs Social Security and
8:10
Medicare that it should not be touched that that is the popular opinion that is what the voters are saying do you not think that you put yourself at risk in your campaign by making these statements and how do you get elected
8:22
and instigate change I put myself at risk by running yeah let alone put myself at risk I I just think you have to be honest with people it's 11 years it's not 20 years it's 11 now and and it means that if the next president doesn't deal with it
8:41
then it is going to be an absolute crisis mode when it has to be dealt with we'll be inside three years and at that point the options will be even fewer so yeah of course it's yeah and I know someone will run a commercial by the way
8:54
is that the part is that the behind closed door conversation is that what's going on is the folks that you know that you talk with everyone behind the closed door when they're not in front of the camera are saying we are going to have
9:04
to deal with this in the next Presidential Administration yeah yeah but but the but they all say I can't believe you're saying it out loud right but you know to me we are in such a bad place in politics in this country if we
9:18
don't start telling the people the truth about the problems we have we're never going to have an opportunity to solve them and that that's that's risky but my entire candidacy is risky so you know you might as well just go for it and
9:33
tell people what you really think and I do think there are a number of people out there who are thinking people I think most people who answer that 83 percent number um you know David is are people who um don't even know that we're 11 years
9:47
away from insolvency because nobody talks about that part um and and if you don't talk about that part why would any of them watch Social Security touched but I'm finding in my town hall meetings when I tell people
10:01
it's 11 years from insolvency how would you deal with a 25 cut 24 cut in your social security benefit people older folks in particular look horrified and so you know I think it's an educational process and I've always
10:18
tried to treat politics at least in part that way that you know uh you know something I say New Jersey all the time when press would ask me about a poll that didn't like a position I was taking on an issue I'd say you know a Leader's
10:33
job is not to follow polls is to change them and and my job is to change them and to persuade and convince through facts and argument that this is the right way to go and sometimes you'll win and sometimes you won't but if you don't
10:47
tackle the problems what the hell are you doing there um you know the housing behind you is nice but um you know frankly it's not worth it to me if I'm gonna go there and just be another um one to kick this can down the road as
11:02
you know um Obama Trump and Biden have all done Bush tried to do something about it and the Congress rejected it but Obama you know Trump and Biden have done nothing what are your top two areas where you would cut
11:18
in order to save entitlements what are the other areas where you would go to find savings well look I think I think we we have to look at Social spending in general um that's really drastically increased post covet and those increases have not
11:35
been taken back so I think you have to look at all the programs that were ramped up during covid and say okay um what's it going to be to bring it back to pre-covered spending to start and then after you do that a further evaluation of of those programs to see if they're effective and I think that would get you a good part of the way there given how much spending increased during coven um I think secondly um we need to look at the way we fund
12:08
education in this country as well um and whether or not when we're spending 800 billion um what do we do with the 80 billion the federal government spends another place an interesting place to look small in comparison to a two trillion
12:25
dollar debt I understand but um that's another place I would look and the only place I really wouldn't look is on the military side at this point because I think you've got to increase efficiency and effectiveness at
12:38
the Pentagon but on the other hand I I don't think um that this is the time to be cutting back there when our Navy and Air Force are both in the conditions they're in it's a good segue with the military obviously one of the major uh
12:53
differences in thinking on this pod and you know a big debate inside the Republican party is around should we defend Ukraine and then eventually will we defend you know Taiwan and so maybe I'll hand it off to David I'm stunned that this is
13:10
coming up on your pod yeah uh it's it's it's a point of a contention uh I think I won't speak for you heard a time before Governor yes sir as as does my my oldest son listen to it so in times when I miss my son Andrew is and and he
13:28
wanted to give me a full briefing before I was going to go on the box today and his evaluation of all of you um I told him I was going to refrain from that because I didn't want to bring his biases into the interview correct uh
13:41
can you at least tell us what his evaluations were well after afterwards I will absolutely absolutely well okay by the way our path to presidential candidates is through the Suns it seems it's kind of a comment it's actually RFK Sons uh very bad into the Pod David of course is a pacifist he's a long time GOP member but doesn't believe we should be fighting never-ending Wars let me go back yeah let me level set here on foreign policy
14:05
first before we get into Ukraine I want to go back to the bush era forever Wars the Iraq War one of the reasons why Trump I think really took off in 2016 is he was the first Republican to really come out and say that the Iraq War and all these Middle Eastern forever Wars we got into was a big mistake and even though he was even though he was for it when we did it okay well fair enough but he said on the campaign Trail and homies
14:31
finish the question in 2016 he said that bush lied us into the war and he said no more bushes putting aside Trump for a second we can get to Trump what is your view on it do you fundamentally agree with that that we relied into the Iraq War do you do
14:44
defend it no I think that I think that most people would admit that we were misled I wouldn't use the word lied um I would say misled into the Iraq War because of the wmd issue I mean I supported the Iraq War because of wmd
15:02
and I thought if Saddam Hussein had wmd that that was something that we had to deal with in the context of the post-9 11 World um when it turns out that he didn't have wmd I don't think there would have been many people who would have been
15:15
supportive of the Iraq War um absent WMT so I thought Trump's statements in 2016 were typical for him um he changed his opinion and instead of giving a rational reason for it he gave a sophomoric one and so I don't give him
15:34
a whole lot of credit for that but well you did at the time in a sense I mean when bush bush said sorry Trump said that bush ledis and the Iraq War at the South Carolina debate that was on February 13th you endorsed him on
15:47
February 26th yeah so what's that mean well I mean if you thought his answer was sophomoric why'd you endorse him two weeks later well I endorsed him because I was convinced he was going to be the Republican nominee for president and I
16:00
didn't want Hillary Clinton to be the president and so having been in that race competed with him after he won South Carolina convinced he was going to be the nominee and having at that time had a 15-year relationship with him my view was I could go in there and try to make him a better candidate and if he won a better president and that's why endorsement absolutely nothing to do with his sophomore cancer on that I didn't like his answer
16:24
um on the wall either saying Mexico is going to pay for it I thought that was sophomoric as well but you know what in American politics you don't get to often vote for the candidate you want to vote for um you get to vote for the ones who are
16:37
left and if if I had my first choice in 16 it would have been me but that didn't work out so I defaulted into Trump because I thought he was a better choice than Hillary Clinton and by the way still do think he was a better choice than
16:51
Hillary Clinton okay but you probably agree with that right sex you thought Trump would be a better choice than Hillary Clinton I mean honestly back in 2016 I wasn't sure what to make at Trump because he was such a you know Outsider and sort of a wrecking ball I agree with him about the Iraq War but I can accept the governor's answer that we were misled on that war and and if we had known the truth about it we never would have gotten into it so I
17:15
think we can all agree on that yep I want to get to Ukraine but just just quickly 2012 do you regret not running in 2012 there's a lot of a lot of commentators who say that you kind of were the Trump before Trump you had this combative style this kind of take no prisoner sort of attitude and you kind of had a moment in 2012 where it looked like maybe you could have been the front runner of the candidate I guess why didn't you go for it in 2012
17:42
and I mean do you regret that at all I don't regret it and I wasn't ready to be president and that's why I didn't run I know it seems quaint now after Barack Obama and Donald Trump have been president but you know back in 2012 I really felt like it was necessary to feel in your heart and your mind you were ready when people started talking about me running for president I hadn't even been governor for a year and before that I've been a prosecutor
18:12
and in my heart I just David you know it just didn't feel like um I was ready to be president and if I don't feel something in here I'm not going to be very effective at making the argument politically nor am I gonna be able to convince
18:27
people to give me their money which you need to do as well and so no I don't regret it and by the way you know all those commentators who say that never ran for a goddamn thing in their lives and you know they all can think oh you
18:40
would have won you would have beaten Romney and you would have beaten Obama maybe I would have maybe I wouldn't have but that's kind of like the dog catching the garbage truck if you don't think you're ready and you catch it the worst moment
18:54
wouldn't have been losing that election the worst moment might have been winning it and getting into the Oval Office for the first time and saying oh my God am I really ready to do this so I don't have any regrets I really don't
19:05
and and um everybody who usually you know commentates in that way are people who have never put their name on a ballot for anything and until you do that you don't know what it feels like and what it means to have to offer yourself up to people
19:21
um for anything let alone for president yeah okay fair enough it's going chronologically here 2014 Biden is now Obama's vice president he requests the Ukraine portfolio to run it for Obama there's a famous phone call
19:37
that gets leaked where our deputy secretary of state Victoria Newland is on tape picking the new government of Ukraine which takes effect a few weeks later after the violent overthrow of the democratically elected Ukrainian government the yanukovich government three months after that Hunter Biden is appointed to the board of barisma do you believe that that appointment was made for any other reason than Joe Biden was the de facto ruler of Ukraine
20:07
I I don't know about him being the de facto ruler of Ukraine I mean he was the one I don't think Joe Biden is a fact a ruler of anything but let me clarify what I mean by that on the on the victory on the Victoria Newland phone
20:20
call she says she needs to get approval from Biden and Jake Sullivan's National Security advisor for this new Ukrainian government that she's picking so she basically is saying that Biden is the boss he's going to sign off on this
20:36
they apparently get the approval from Biden and that government does go into effect after what appears to be a U.S backed coup so Biden clearly has enormous influence over that country now okay or Jack Sullivan so look it's too glimp
20:54
to say he's the ruler of the country so I don't mean that I just mean he's the ultimate Authority it seems like in approving or picking this new government three months after he does that Hunter binds appointed to the Border Barista so
21:07
my point to you is what reason could there be for Hunter Biden's appointment other than Joe Biden's influence over that country none there you have it what you want me to say so a year later so 2015. I don't know
21:23
why sax became a venture capital if he should have been a prosecutor absolutely it's just incredible I'm overwhelmed at the moment as a former prosecutor I can see you sweating oh my God you're on the roofs well no I'm just I'm trying to be
21:37
a great presentation flip to page 13. yeah come on no no I want to get I want to get I want to get this is a four hour podcast we're gonna go day by day over the last decade 14 years old on the Middle School
21:55
playground and you push that kid Bobby what were you thinking no I'm actually establishing common ground with the governor before I get into areas who might disagree okay okay here we go excellent okay so 2015 you have this prosecutor named shokun
22:10
this Ukrainian prosecutor who is investigating barisma Joe Biden according to his own acknowledgment on a videotape to I think he was speaking to the Council of Foreign Relations says that he gets choken fired and then magically the investigation into Barista stops do you think that was in furtherance of stopping corruption in Ukraine or was that an effort by Joe Biden to protect himself or his son from this investigation I think we're gonna find
22:37
out as um continued congressional oversight occurs and the special counsel I hope investigation broadens so I'm not ready to say I know that for sure but I'll tell you this much there's enough smoke there that we got to see
22:52
where the fire is um and and I'd also say about Biden I would never discount not as a substitute motivation but perhaps it's an additional one the fact that he likes to pretend he's in charge of things um but instead his staff is really in
23:09
charge and that's how you get trained in the United States Senate your staff really wants everything um at least with many of the Senators and that's why it's such a bad um training ground for the presidency in my view but I I digress myself um I'd say it is a likely motivation it may not be the only one and it's something I'm certainly intrigued to find out about um as oversight moves forward and I hope the special counsel's investigation
23:40
broadens into the specifics of then Vice President Biden's involvement with his son's business dealings let's talk about that for a second there is I guess the most recent Revelation is that Joe Biden was communicating with his son under under a pseudonym or burner account was it Robert Peters yeah in your experience as a prosecutor is there any legitimate reason why somebody would want to use a pseudonym for communicating with their son
24:08
um look burner accounts always raise my eyebrows um as a former prosecutor but what I will say is that I I would understand someone in public life if they're communicating with family wanting to do that in a way where it
24:24
wouldn't be detected by folks who are prying in one way or the other whether that might be media but more particularly hackers and other folks who are able to do things that I really don't have much understanding of except to be fearful of them
24:40
um so I don't want to say that as a de facto proof Point David but again going back to my seven years as a U.S attorney um when I saw someone having a burner phone or other types of burner accounts definitely made me say let's take a look a little more closely at that and see what we can find yeah so at a minimum at a minimum it's suspicious for sure and deserves inquiry yeah especially after buying City had no involvement with his son's business
25:07
dealing so we found out from Devin Archer sworn testimony who is Hunter bind's partner that by and participated in 20 phone calls with clients to be the brand so too far down the the Biden uh and Trump well which okay give us tons
25:25
of I think material maybe we can get okay so you could Ukraine which a Ukraine war and and you know who do you think's ultimately responsible for the invasion of Ukraine do you think the United States obviously the governor has
25:38
said he supports Ukraine anymore yeah so maybe just in terms of governor do you think the United States is responsible for the invasion of Ukraine because we didn't do enough in terms of taking NATO off the table like
25:52
some people think or do you think Putin is responsible for invading Ukraine because he invaded Ukraine I don't want to lead the witness you already did but the the the um my answer is that Putin is responsible now shocking I do think though
26:12
that United States inaction um and and bad signal sending to Putin going all the way back to George W bush who said I looked into his eyes and saw his soul um then to Barack Obama who was you know completely uninterested
26:33
um in anything and and when Putin made moves on Ukraine under the under the Obama Administration he did nothing um to Donald Trump who sought as an opportunity to extort Vladimir zielinski um to get dirt on Joe Biden um in return for military aid to Joe
26:52
Biden who I think has been a handwringer on this issue and when he said well maybe a small Invasion wouldn't be so bad um you know it reminds me of you know something I said to folks um when I was U.S attorney everybody's definition of
27:08
the word small is different um and you can't assume what they mean is the same thing you mean so I do think there were American actions and inactions which contributed to sending signals to Putin that maybe we wouldn't
27:21
care if he did it um but um that's a small sliver in my view of the responsibility The Lion's Share the responsibility is in my view on Putin fair enough would you admit Ukraine into NATO well I think that in the situation we're
27:38
in now David um they're gonna be it's almost a de facto point at this point I I don't I think that given that we permitted Russia to do what they did um given that we're that that they have now executed what they've executed in
27:53
terms of their aggression against Ukraine and the NATO support um from a military hardware and other perspective intelligence perspective for Ukraine I think it is now a foregone conclusion that Ukraine will be will be
28:09
admitted to Nato and frankly it's got to be now I think one of the penalties and one of the prices that Putin pays for his aggression but when would you do that I mean so Jen stoltenberg at the Vilnius Summit made it explicit that Ukraine's future is in
28:23
NATO but it could not happen unless and until they win this war would you admit them sooner than that no okay no I wouldn't because that would lead to war three obviously that's what I'm attempting to avoid yeah okay fair enough would you have been willing to take NATO expansion off the table in 2021 in order to avoid a war no I think that was too late if you were going to take NATO expansion off of the off of the table if you were
28:53
going to do it it would have been done much earlier because if you did it then that would essentially be giving in to Putin's threat um and I think that would have sent an even worse signal than some of the signals that I that I mentioned before so no I wouldn't have been willing to do it in 21 in order to avoid it because quite frankly I don't believe that it would have avoided it it just would have forestalled it do you believe that we
29:17
made the correct decision I mean I know I'm going way back here but in 2008 at the Bucharest Summit we declared Our intention to bring Ukraine and Georgia for that matter into NATO but we didn't have a plan to do it do you believe that was a
29:29
mistake I think it was a mistake not to if you're gonna do it you should have a plan that lays out exactly how and when and why and I think just um expressing aspirational goals in that regard is dangerous in foreign policy in
29:46
that regard and so I think the mistake was made not necessarily by ever having Ukraine and NATO but by doing it the way it was done again um was it on in my view an unnecessary or at least a not well thought out provocation
30:03
is there anything about Joe Biden's policy in Ukraine that you would change yeah it would have been much more aggressive in providing military hardware much sooner um than what he did and I think he's been he's been the ham ringer on it
30:18
every step has had has been preceded by Freddie and burrowing frat furrowing brows and and and uh hand ringing and I think if you're going to be in this you have to give them the tools they need to win um when I met with zielinski a month ago
30:40
he made it very clear to me he had no interest in American or Allied troops in Ukraine now or ever he felt this was Ukraine's war to win or lose but that they needed the uh the military hardware necessary to to
30:57
compete in this war against Russia and that you know my view of what their biggest concerns were which I the ones that I agree with are the pace and amount of armaments that have been given not only by the us but by the rest of the NATO
31:13
allies as well I mean for a lot of us let me just ask a quick couple of quick follow-ups here and then we can move on I mean for a lot of us Biden has not been half-hearted about this he saw it 113 billion dollar appropriation that
31:25
seems like a ton of money that could have been spent domestically what little hand ringing there was was on the giving of f-16s and Abrams tanks and the reason for that Biden said was that it could lead to War III
31:39
I mean are you not concerned about those kinds of escalations I mean isn't that a good thing to be concerned about not dismissive about it's always It's always important to be concerned about it but you have to be thoughtful about it and
31:50
look at what the what the alternatives are and to me the alternative of allowing the the combination of China and Russia um to to Route Ukraine uh is something that's not in the U.S vital interests and will lead to other problems as well with China going forward and so um these are none of these are easy decisions Dave but what they are are the ones that you want someone who is thoughtful and has some experience making them as president
32:24
and I don't think Biden checks either of those boxes sufficiently and I think his contact has shown that and by the way the same applies to Trump what do you think the resolution is here and if in I don't know 16 months you're president or when your president uh how would you deal with this if the war still raging here well I think it depends on what disposition the war is in at that point yeah Jason I think um you have to evaluate how successful
32:53
has Ukraine been in pushing back they've made some success in the past couple of weeks in terms of breaking through some of the Soviet initial defensive lines I think we have to see exactly how successful they've been
33:08
um but what I would say is that there's there's no question that this isn't this is a conflict that we need to support and send a clear message messages that have not been as I said earlier since it all clearly to Putin that you know this is a guy who has
33:26
openly discussed the reassembling of the Soviet Union um and I have no no Illusions about the fact that this former kg beer thinks that the Soviet Union were the good old days and if he thought he'd get away with
33:43
assembling as much of it as he possibly could he would um and I think that we have to send a very clear message on that to him and a very clear message on that to China regarding authoritarian expansionism and this is where I think the the Trump
33:59
um DeSantis ramaswamy foreign policies are so hopelessly um ill-informed and naive the idea that we're going to go to Putin who yesterday was sitting with Kim Jong-un and persuaded the better places to be with us go away from your communist Brothers in China and North Korea and come with us because it'll be a much better deal for you and that Donald Trump's going to do that in 24 hours or if a fake ramaswami is going to do it by
34:31
virtue of his winning personality I mean to me he looks like the guy you wanted to stuff in the locker in the 11th grade but um I don't think that's the guy who's gonna put straight Vladimir Putin to leave the Communist Chinese and to um
34:45
you know come to uh come to uh the America's side but Governor you have to admit the war is not going well for the ukrainians I mean this counter-offensive here's what we are promised remember just uh several months ago before the
34:57
counteroffensive you have people like Petraeus and Ben Hodges saying that the counter-offensive would be like a blitz we would they would rapidly penetrate the sir vegan lines they would march across the country to the Sea of azov
35:09
they cut off the land bridge to Crimea all this would happen within weeks and it would be a significant Ukrainian Victory it has been almost a total failure the ukrainians have taken even the Washington Post and Politico
35:22
Publications like that have said their losses have been staggering the battlefield reports have been sobering these are our top blob Publications saying this so we have been unsuccessful moreover you say we should give them
35:34
more weapons but we've run out we've run out of the key type of ammunition in this war which is artillery shells that's why we're giving them cluster bombs we got the the cupboard is bear so I'm just wondering how exactly would you turn this around
35:48
given that the ukrainians are losing this war very badly well first off there was a lot in there all right let's go back to the predictions from Petraeus and others you can hear me making those predictions because I think anybody who
36:01
was briefed on the on the deficiency of armaments for Ukraine would not have said something like that unless it was wishful thinking secondly um I I understand the reports regarding our own deficiencies in providing them with with
36:22
more armaments we have I think work to do with the rest of our allies in nato in terms of they're providing more more of the artillery and other armaments that are needed by the Ukraine the Indians are even less than we do I mean
36:38
well but but look this is going to have to be something that we're going to have to to to Cobble together together to get it done and it also shows what I was saying earlier in regards to the budget question that you know this massive
36:53
military built up that Donald Trump says he did was baloney I think you have an interesting point there actually which is to me one of the biggest surprises this war is that we spend 877 billion on the Pentagon and that we
37:05
could run out of ammo right so I mean without blaming Trump per se or Biden I just think we're getting ripped off I mean the military-industrial complex is royally screwing the American taxpayer how can we spend 877 billion dollars and
37:19
not have ammo can you explain that to me or have food insecurity for a lot of members of the military not have paid leave not have Health Care the idea that you don't want to look at that budget is an enormous
37:33
that's what I said that is what you said no it is not what did you say I said no no I did not say that what I said was that the Pentagon has to be made more efficient and more effective with what it spends but not reduce what it spends and that
37:50
goes right to the point that David just made which is you have to get answers as president to the questions of what are you spending 877 billion dollars on if we're running out of ammo and there's food insecurity and there's not paid
38:06
leave right so what I what I was saying through the answer I gave you on the budget was I did not see that as a place to cut but I did say very clearly that it's a place where we have to make the Pentagon more efficient and
38:22
effective and we need a secretary of defense and a president who want to and demands answers to those questions first are you not sympathetic to the idea that efficiency sometimes means spending less to get the same or more if that's the
38:36
conclusion we come to after examining it then I'm very um sympathetic to that so then you are opening to cutting the defense budget I'm open it is a secondary issue the primary issue on defense no I understand I just want a
38:50
clear answer so I understand where you're coming from you want to look at the defense budget you have an intuition that there's potentially extreme levels of waste right and so if you find that waste will you just cut it or no you just reallocate it reallocate why for the for the very reasons that David's just talking about if we're running out of ammo if our submarine capacity is not where it should be which I believe it is
39:15
not if our ship capacity is not where I believe I believe it should be and it is not in my view and if our modernization of our of our air force is not where it should be which I believe it is not then you reallocate that money okay so
39:30
there's a principle in capitalism called zero-based budgeting which I I actually like what you're saying but just to kind of double click on what that is zero-based budgeting starts with the principle that you just started which is
39:41
what are our priorities what do we want to accomplish and then you go and systematically build up where the budget actually starts at zero dollars hey Pentagon you get zero not eight hundred billion what do we need to accomplish oh
39:52
we need bullets okay we need armaments okay we need to have food security for all of our armed service men and women absolutely and then what happens if that number gets to 350 billion do you just cut half a billion or do you find ways to spend
40:07
the other half a trillion dollars well I'm glad you brought that up because that's what I did as governor I was the first governor who did zero-based budgeting and I did it um first governor New Jersey to do it and I did it because of the the Dire Straits that we were in I didn't think we could assume any longer anything in terms of our spending so I absolutely would want to take that approach now I don't think you're going to go from 877
40:35
billion to 350 billion um and say that we've met all of our defense needs and the needs of our fighting men and women with that with that number but let's just leave the number blank for a minute if I concluded that we could do everything we needed to do through the re-engineering of what how we were spending the Pentagon and that ultimately it would check the boxes I want it checked in terms of some of the issues I just talked about
41:07
and it turned out to be less than 877 billion of course I would look not to spend 877 billion but that assumes a lot of things in there as you know but the principle of zero-based budgeting from my perspective worked when I was governor
41:26
not only in terms of keeping our spending at an increase of two percent a year annually for eight years but it also educated me much more on the intricacies of the budget as the ultimate decision maker I think that was
41:43
useful you were a very effective prosecutor and part of that is having a good intuition so I'm just going to ask you your intuition how much waste do you think is in the military-industrial complex in that 877 billion do you think there's 30 cents of waste do you think there's 40 cents of waste do you think there's five cents of waste or do you think there's like 70 cents of waste my intuition tells me that it is significant I can't put a
42:06
number on it be irresponsible for me to put a number on it but there's no doubt that when you see us spend the 877 billion and we don't have 155 millimeter artillery shells that there's waste let's talk about governance and just
42:21
like civil society and government for a second but let's just finish on this military-industrial complex why is it how does it come to be that so much corruption and graft gets introduced into the military budget explain just how how it
42:40
happens how does all of this waste end up happening where on the one hand you ask people men and women oftentimes poor oftentimes minorities to come and serve and put their lives on the front lines you don't even give them enough food
42:53
somebody's clearly making money out of the 877 billion just explain how that waste comes to be and the influence pedaling and the revolving door just so that the average person can understand it well first off and I'll answer your your question
43:10
specifically but let me say by answering it this way I don't want to imply in any way that this waste and Corruption happens just in the military budget because it happens it's been my experience it happens across budgets
43:26
um across disciplines with that being said I would say it happens in a number of different ways first of all not doing zero based budgeting contributes to that because people no longer have to rationalize or Justify the existence of
43:40
a program they just need to hire enough lobbyists to keep it getting put in there so that's one way that it happens secondly incompetence in administration so people who are either purely incompetent in the job or alternative
43:56
two is are corrupt in the job and so they look the other way on waste because they want to get a job through the revolving door you talked about on the other side third way that I think it happens is um extraordinary events that cause
44:18
political overreaction so you'll have an extraordinary event that occurs um from a national security perspective and then politicians want to look like we're responding to it and the way we're responding to it is we're going to spend
44:34
X tens hundreds of billions more on this broad category of of initiatives without really digging into whether that can be spent effectively that way or not and then once it gets in there for the reasons I gave to you in the two
44:53
examples before it doesn't get out so you layer it over and layer it over and layer it over and layer it over and then that's the way that stuff happens so I think it's a bit of a nutshell a presentation on that for you
45:10
um but I think those are the three most important elements that I've observed personally um in governing a state with sixty thousand employees and a 34 billion dollar budget you think the antidote to that is a is to start with zero based
45:28
budgeting or are there other more radical changes you would want to make whether it's to the CIA or the NSA how do you think about getting to the root cause of or root answer of the truth look I think that that there's two ways to do it initially and zero-based budgeting is one of them and secondly is to try to select competent people um for those positions who understand clearly from the leader what their mission is would you for example be
46:00
willing to do an EO that said if you serve in these roles you're banned from serving any of these folks for 20 years or something like that something that just makes it clear that there's no Financial motivation for somebody to walk out the door and then go and work for Lockheed Martin or just augment that let's talk about these former generals like the ones we were quoting who predicted the counter offensive would be this wonderful
46:20
success they're all now on the boards of weapons manufacturers so the people in the Pentagon who make a lot of these procurement decisions about weapon systems when they retire they go off to serve on these boards I mean the big
46:36
weapons companies are basically their retirement program I mean that seems like a horrible set of incentives I mean would you do something like ban the revolving door between people working in the Pentagon and then working for a weapons company
46:49
well I certainly would be willing to consider um if they if they worked with a particular contractor they had supervisory or decision-making authority over a program run by a particular contractor not being able to go back out
47:05
and work better when they go back in the problem is they know in advance that their retirement program is going to be working on one of these boards so they're not as tough as they should be when they're actually in the government
47:15
job all right so you talk about the revolving door on the way in like basically you work your way up to General and then you retire and then you join the boards of these Raytheon and Lockheed and all these guys well I think that there are appropriate
47:30
restrictions that can be put on in terms of number of years to make it go past the period when that person could have direct political influence on the administration that's in play but I also think we need to be careful
47:42
about the fact that we don't we don't wind up um throwing out the baby with the bath water in the sense that there are some people who are legitimate people who are not looking to do it in a way that is corrupt or unethical but who develop great expertise in certain areas and that expertise can be very helpful we're only looking at the negative side of it um so I think there are ways to do what we need to do with the political
48:11
influence and that it would be to ban it for the rest of that Administration so if you serve in a particular Administration for the rest of the administration you can't go back out and work on the issues that you were
48:25
working on when you were there that to me this seems to be reasonable yeah I mean I I don't know whether 20 years makes sense or not um but you know we've identified the problem now let's figure out how to fix it my I'm willing and open to do that
48:41
but I want to make sure I do it in a way that is not creating a whole different set of problems that we'll then be talking about well and and the analogy I make in part on this is the wall between CIA and FBI um and the problems that that I think
49:00
precipitated um regarding 911. so you know there there are fixes to these things and I'm telling you guys is I'm willing to be open about how to do it I favor the concept I think we're negotiating over length of years and how
49:17
it applies should that be the case for all government administrative jobs Governor sure so FDA into Health Care Health Care into FDA USDA like should that be the case everywhere it's the same principle yeah how should that then be applied to Congress people ah well uh since the EO won't cover members of Congress in the same way that that's why they don't have term limits which I believe they should have um and why none of this stuff will ever
49:44
apply to Congress so let's tell the truth it'll never apply to Congress because they'd have to pass it for it to apply and it will never happen but the president could do what he could do about his branch of government and
49:58
should and I would let's pivot to one of the most controversial topics between the two parties which is immigration and I'll pull up two charts here to queue up the uh discussion here's the first chart just since 2000 we've been uh net
50:13
migration United States just on a steady stream down at around 5 million second chart is border crossings that orange line there that you're seeing that's covid and then the Blue Line obviously is the return from covid but uh the
50:27
Border agency seems to think not much has changed over the last couple of years at the border however we have and that's across obviously multiple Administrations other countries have point-based systems they have very logical discussions over
50:43
immigration is this person going to add and be accretive to the society is this person going to be a drain on society and you know they just UK Australia New Zealand countless countries now use this point-based system it's incredibly polarized here and we have the lowest and we have the lowest unemployment of our lifetime plenty of jobs we still have 1.6 jobs per American who is who are looking for jobs I'm curious why you think this
51:11
immigration discussion is so polarized and not factual and how you as president would uh resolve this issue and and maybe make it make more sense to the American public well I look I think the first thing the first part of the question is how has it
51:31
gotten so polarized and I think it's because people in political life have used this as a weapon um on both sides of the aisle um to try to promote their own um political agendas Democrats have wanted this perception
51:49
um on the on their positive side from their perspective um that don't let anybody in because they think ultimately those folks who come in will be their voters ultimately over the Long Haul and they also want to raise restrictions they want to raise the issue of restrictions that are placed by Republicans on this to make us seem to be heartless uncaring unfeeling people on our side um we want to make the entire system seem completely Lawless
52:25
because that plays into our view of ourselves as the Law and Order party and the Democrats as the party who could give a damn about Law and Order and we want to play into the populist side of it which says that any person
52:39
who comes over the border is likely to take your job not just a job your job and then when you present it to people that way they our course are going to be anti-immigration because they'd like to keep their job and support their family
52:54
and have a life that they want to look um forward to and for their kids as well so that's my explanation on the first part as to how we got here seems logical yeah and and fair by the way your assessment of both parties by the way on these
53:10
topics I think is excellent by the way completely unfair way to have conducted this stuff the problem has been that we haven't had presidential leadership on this issue since Reagan Reagan ultimately and I think he learned this
53:29
as a conservative governor in a blue state we're going to deal with Jesse unra running his legislature and Reagan um let's all friend of mine because I just finished writing a book on Reagan so it's fresh in mind to me um
53:44
Reagan learned that it was only he the governor who could force people into a room to to get issues resolved in the same way when he was president he didn't love the deal he made on immigration same way he didn't love the deal he made
54:07
on Social Security but he liked it more than he liked the alternative of doing nothing I think the only way we're going to resolve the immigration issue Jason is to have a president as I said in response to David friedberg's earlier question on debt a president who's willing to sacrifice some popularity to try to force a resolution and I do think that most Americans would support a merit-based immigration system why does it never come up I mean
54:42
it's if these other countries have had such great success with it why won't any politician say it I haven't heard you say it in the debates I don't know if you have I haven't heard everything you've said but they'd even ask us about
54:51
immigration in the debates they next comes on immigration entitlements or the debt three things we've already talked about here today but they had time to ask me about UFOs yeah that was pretty bizarre they're like hey
55:06
the most meaningless setup for us uh Governor um let's talk about UFOs I mean what did you think of the ending of secession Governor yeah I mean you know it's like I mean so um so I have talked about my town hall meetings about
55:25
Republicans should be advocating for a merit-based immigration system but we need to also recognize while I think both parties will be in should be in favor of a secure Southern border if for no other reason than the Fentanyl
55:44
and drug related issues that are that are involved why is there such a debate over the numbers because you know I I just pulled up those numbers and that's the border patrol and that's across multiple administrations and then people are
55:57
saying you're living in a simulation Jason do you see the Washington Post just last week the headline is families Crossing U.S border illegally reached all-time high in August this is the Washington Post oh you trust the
56:10
Washington Post now I'm saying that if a liberal Democrat publication that serves the DC blob is admitting this problem why can't you admit it oh I'm not saying that it's not at all-time Highs but it doesn't seem to have gotten much different than over the last two administrations like it's not a serious problem no no I don't I promise you I'm not worried about my job as the United States can't absorb a million migrants that's my question
56:40
obviously I care about it so don't tell me I don't care about I'm just fact checking that that it's fine to fact check but even though it's at all-time highs if you look at that chart it seems like there's a big debate on the numbers
56:52
that hey maybe at all-time Highs but it's been relatively the same and so that's what I'm trying to get at Governor why why can't we get good numbers on this well we do get good numbers on it but everybody slices the numbers differently you know
57:08
um I I I used to work in a deli when I was in high school for a period of time and you know everybody had the same big chunk of baloney but depending on how you sliced it um it looked different and so I agree with David that it is
57:27
a very serious problem right now and it's because of Biden's policies and his rhetoric he sent a very clear signal during the 2020 campaign if I win the borders open let's go everybody come on in and it has caused a crisis in a number
57:48
of levels also Democratic politicians saying that they were willing to be Sanctuary cities and Sanctuary States well now I see the front page of the New York Post every day and and here's Eric Adams complaining that he needs help
58:06
he needs help well you should have shut up and not said you were a sanctuary City and then you wouldn't need the help but it's easy did you see the video yesterday he said that all his time in New York he's always seen an end to
58:21
every problem there's always a solution he says I have not seen I cannot see an end to this problem I don't see a solution yeah no he didn't I'm in favor of the point system have been very consistent about that I think we should actually have a thoughtful discussion of how many people we can actually bring in and sustain you know that that's the obvious discussion we all agree on merit-based immigration the thing that I have an issue with
58:50
Jason is just you pretend like the borders not in crisis it is in crisis oh yeah I think it's it's it's not it hasn't been resolved for decades right I mean we we have not had a solution there but when's the last time the Border was
59:04
functional Trump at least had to remain a Mexico policy and then Biden revoked it and now they're thinking about bringing it back because they have no way to control the huge number of people who are streaming across yeah I'm just
59:14
trying to advocate for a point-based system by the way on the numbers yeah that's what should be part of a negotiation between Republicans and Democrats in Congress in the White House yeah based upon the current circumstances we can't deal with all the stuff that's happened before but what we know now is we have current circumstances now guys which are not only impacting quality of life in terms of crime and quality of life in terms of Education
59:46
because you see what's going to happen in the New York school system and you know you are going to have thousands of immigrant children who now are going to show up at the New York City Public Schools to be educated
1:00:01
um that's why the uncontrolled part of what um of what David Sachs is talking about is is so vital right now and thirdly but most importantly to me is the fentanyl issue because when you have 110 000 people dying of overdoses last year in this
1:00:20
country and you have overdose being the number one killer of men between 18 and 34 it is a crisis and it is a crisis which is not created entirely by the border but is contributed to mightily by what's going on at the border would
1:00:36
you send uh there's been talk of this I think from certain candidates would you send troops into Mexico to take out the cartels or is that no I know I would not I would put National Guard at the border to work with Customs and Border Patrol
1:00:53
um to stop the fentanyl uh cartels from getting in to our country and I would use our intelligence community to do what we always do with enemies of that nature which is to Target them and to make sure that if they're going to do what they're going to do that they're that they're dealt with but in terms of a Ron DeSantis full-scale invasion of Mexico yeah I think I'd probably demure on that one you'd whack these people bring in the Fentanyl and
1:01:22
you just wouldn't do it on the soil in Mexico correct and also um and I'd whack them within the laws of the United States sure it would not be a vigilante system where everybody goes down there and just starts popping somebody they think is a fentanyl dealer if they come over the Border um but what I would also say to you is we've got to we've got to also make sure we deal with this diplomatically with the Mexicans and by diplomatically I
1:01:51
mean not like being nice through very hard negotiations with them to say to the Mexican president like you have you are importing precursor chemicals from China into your country to make fentanyl with the sole purpose of profiting from and killing Americans that's not something we're going to tolerate so you wouldn't send Fury out we got it I mean we do it the smart way not the way that lets you pound your chest and pretend you're you're you know
1:02:23
television let me double click on that since you you brought up fentanyl we have this crisis here in San Francisco open air drug Market cheapest fentanyl you can get plus we give subsidies if you come here and you're a fentanyl
1:02:33
addict we we pay for you to come here essentially it's absolute chaos we keep getting promises in San Francisco that we're going to turn around and we're going to take it seriously it never happens given that is there not a case for the
1:02:47
feds coming in and cracking down on the fentanyl trade here and if you were president would you come in and you sharp the local authorities and just take out all these crazy open-air drug markets in some cities like Los Angeles
1:02:59
and San Francisco I actually said that in the debate what I would do um would be to instruct the Attorney General to instruct the U.S attorneys in the cities with these kind of problems that we are taking over the prosecution of
1:03:16
violent and Drug crime in those cities if the prosecutors on the state level are unwilling to do it the U.S attorneys have the laws under the on the federal books to do it we have the rooms of the federal prisons and we will police these
1:03:29
cities until they get their act together they just got a couple million votes in California because people here are fed up with the locals Governor can I just push back on that I recently started reading the Federalist papers again sex
1:03:42
I don't know when you last reviewed them and I'm just struck by how so much of our modern political rhetoric is driven by what the federal government will do for you on a national basis a state basis and now even a local basis is that
1:03:55
really the role of the Federal Government no or should each state and each City ultimately decide what the hell kind of City they want to build what they want to live in and then deal with the consequences and let the
1:04:06
federal government become responsible for the things that were defined in our Constitution and that the constitutional republic was meant to set out to do for the federal government rather than use the federal government as a hammer to smash all Nails everywhere at some point the hammer is going to break so let me answer the question which is no it's not the role the federal government to do it unless the Discord and the inability of the
1:04:34
states to deal with an issue begins to affect the entire country and I believe that these this failure and it's by the way it's a planned failure David this is the Soros group going around and electing these completely liberal prosecutors who say
1:04:53
no I don't I'm not gonna prosecute these crimes anymore it begins to affect the very nature of the entire country if we don't have functional cities David we can't have a functional country and so no I would do
1:05:08
this only because I think by the time I get there in January 25 we are going to be at Last Resort World now if in the interim between now and January of 25 the Discord in places like San Francisco Los Angeles Chicago New York and others got so bad that the citizens There Rose up and demanded something different and the states and cities started to respond to it I'm no interest in doing this unless we are the law enforcers of Last Resort and so
1:05:42
philosophically I completely agree with you but we're now in a situation where when I was in New York City all day yesterday it is the worst I've seen New York City since the late 70s I agree yeah and I was old enough then to go in I was a high school
1:06:02
student in the late 70s and go into the City and my parents used to be petrified if I insisted on going into New York to go to a basketball game or a hockey game the walk from the Port Authority bus terminal on 41st and 8th to Madison
1:06:16
Square Garden on 33rd and 8th was a absolute youthful uh youthful education um on drugs and porn and and violent crime but so I agree with you philosophically on that but I think in the instance we're in right now this is what we'd have to do in order to get it back under control um and so I'm not thrilled about it but I think it's absolutely necessary in the United States we have somewhere between two and three million Americans incarcerated
1:06:49
one of the highest per capita incarceration rates of any country in the world and a lot of this Justice Reform movement arose from what are considered to be very deep inequities in the imprisonment of of American citizens for various Petty
1:07:07
crimes misdemeanors that turn into felonies that turn into three strikes that turn into spending your life in prison and that obviously there's a big racial divide in how this affects the population and from that movement arose
1:07:19
this effort to try and address the social inequities and how the prison system has become to some an extension or the follow-on to America's toward history with slavery what is your point of view then do we have inequities in the prison system in how we address crime in this country and if so what would the right path have been looking back now at the efforts and the dollars that have gone into trying to solve this problem through
1:07:46
decriminalization that has obviously led to massive problems in in inner cities is it a problem the criminalization in this country the incarceration of this country and if so what's the right path to addressing it and obviously you have
1:07:57
an intimate history here so you would know this better than most that we would talk to yeah look I think it is a problem and let me tell you what I did as governor we did Criminal Justice Reform in New Jersey and we did it in a
1:08:08
bipartisan way and this is what we did I thought that the biggest problem we had in New Jersey was our um our state constitution required it was a shall issue State on bail everyone was entitled to bail under our Constitution and
1:08:30
the only factor that could be taken into account constitutionally David was risk of flight so if you had a rap sheet as long as my arm and your arm put together that could not be considered by a judge in whether or not to Grant bail or not
1:08:45
nor could the the nature of the violence you committed in those Acts I saw that as enormous problem I agreed with Democrats that on a lot of these minor drug crimes and I don't mean dealing crimes I mean possession crimes with addicts being arrested for small amounts of possession that we had become a debtors prison in New Jersey that if somebody couldn't afford the 500 bucks for the minimum L which was usually five thousand dollars
1:09:18
they spent more time in in county and state prison than they ever would have spent if they'd you know just pled guilty and been allowed to plead guilty and get sentenced so the deal we made was this on certain defined non-violent crimes
1:09:36
I would agree to the state law allowing release on people's own recognizance in return the Democrats would amend our constitution to make it a May issue State on bail and to add dangerousness to the community as a factor to be considered
1:09:56
in granting bail or not what's happened since then crime in New Jersey is down since we did this we closed two state prisons and we have not had any spike in violent crime like you've seen in New York since then because we did it smartly and in a way
1:10:17
that was balanced and what you've also seen is 98 of the people released on the Rogue recognizance have shown back up for their Court hearings so we're not having some you know people running around and jumping the RoR
1:10:34
um release that they've gotten and I took one of the two state prisons we closed and turned it into a drug treatment prison so that folks who had documented drug and alcohol addictions while in prison were able to go for the concluding parts
1:10:52
of their term to this secondary prison to get which is fully secure and they were detained but they also got drug and alcohol treatment while they were in there and what we've seen with that is we've seen recidivism
1:11:08
drop among those people who've gone through that program by nearly 40 percent there are ways we can do this without having the results New York has had through their ridiculous Criminal Justice Reform we could do it the right way across the
1:11:25
whole country have you seen other states follow New Jersey's later or New Jersey's model or I have seen a couple of other states that have done it um I don't think anybody's done it as well as we did it and Imagine This
1:11:37
you know a republican governor got support from the PBA and the fop for that reform so from law enforcement professionals and got an A plus from the ACLU now when you can get both of those it's kind of hard to get that done and I
1:12:01
think we've gotten it done and we just had a at my policy Institute we just had a seminar on this from people from the public defenders to criminal private criminal defense lawyers prosecutors and cops all on a panel and not one of
1:12:17
them had an objection to Criminal Justice Reform in New Jersey and this is now nearly 10 years after we did it so I think there are ways to do this um unfortunately a lot of people don't want to have an a long-form conversation on Criminal Justice Reform um they want to have either the Joe Biden approach from when he was in the Senate mandatory minimums for everybody for everybody in the can three strikes you're out all that stuff or they want
1:12:47
to have the George Soros conversation you know where um nobody who commits a crime really meant to do it and all jail is unfair both of those are dead wrong Governor you mentioned the FBI briefly before one of the revelations
1:13:02
that came out during the Twitter files is that we had 80 FBI agents monitoring American social media accounts and submitting takedown requests to Twitter this is your pre-elon Twitter and presumably many other big tech companies
1:13:19
because I'm sure they weren't just doing this with Twitter what business is it of the FBI to be monitoring and censoring Americans do you think there's any justification for that what is your view of that I think
1:13:31
the only reason to monitor those kind of things would be for terrorist information and I think that would be that would be reasonable to do um but I don't think for any other reason other than terrorist activity domestic or foreign I think the FBI has
1:13:49
a right to do that and I think it's the right thing to do um but I don't think under any other circumstances today but they should be doing that are you willing to say to Chris I understand it you you recommended Chris Ray for the position many years ago and and you're I think you're a fan of his are you willing to say to him knock this off you should not be you know involved in censoring American social media accounts I'm willing to say
1:14:15
to Chris exactly what I just said to you and and by the way I've known Chris long enough I mean we were in the bush justice department together starting back at nine you know write the immediate Post 9 11 period so
1:14:28
I've known Chris now for 22 years um I will say exactly what I think to Chris and we'll instruct him appropriately with the attorney general and let me just make a point David since you brought that up I don't think presidents should be involved
1:14:43
in the criminal investigatory activity of the Department of Justice in any way and so you should set policies that say like that you know your work should be restricted on monitoring to just domestic or inner or or International terrorism
1:15:03
but you shouldn't be commenting in any way on what they're doing from a criminal investigatory perspective I think that started in the Obama years with Eric Holder when you appoint your wingman attorney general I guess that's
1:15:17
what happens and the fact is that it's continued through the Trump years and now through the Biden years and my instruction to my attorney general will be the same as it was because in New Jersey we don't elect attorney general we appoint them like you do in the federal system and what I said to each of my Attorneys General was I know I was a U.S attorney for seven years I got a lot of expertise and opinions on criminal prosecution I'm
1:15:41
never going to call you ever and I never did because once you decide to be a political figure and not a law enforcement figure you should stay out of criminal investigations so I know you didn't ask it but it struck me when you
1:15:55
were talking about that Governor let me ask let me ask you one last question from my end which is why are you running for president recent polling data shows a 52 unfavorable rating 23 favorable and you're a three and a half percent in the
1:16:08
average of the national polls what's the goal here help us understand how you think about the campaign and how you think about your future as a political operator and what your goal is with the campaign my goal is to be president of the United
1:16:22
States and since I've been doing this for a while I don't pay attention to National polls because we don't have a national primary and in fact we don't have a national general election what we have is 50 individual State
1:16:34
elections that's the way we nominate candidates and if you look at the most recent poll in New Hampshire I'm in second place in New Hampshire at 14 percent ahead of Ron DeSantis ahead of Vivek ahead of Nikki ahead of Pence um and behind only Trump
1:16:50
and now I'm behind by 20 points I'll give you that but I'm behind a guy who's only at 34 percent in that poll and so I absolutely believe I can win New Hampshire and I believe if I win New Hampshire David then the whole race
1:17:06
changes you have a line there yeah yeah right so so let's start off with I'm running because I want to be president United States yep and that's the only reason to run I think I I don't need to run to become famous I'm famous enough I don't need to run to I don't need to run to get a book deal because you know what I've already written two books and my third one's getting ready to come out I don't need to get a job on TV I gave that up to run
1:17:33
for president so I'm running for president to be president David and and that's why I'm doing it and for no other reason should Donald Trump be in jail we'll find out when these Trials happen what do you think I'm willing to give everybody the perception of Innocence because that's what the Constitution demands that I do criterial intuition I would have indicted both Federal cases I would not have indicted the New York case or the
1:18:01
Atlanta case as to Donald Trump I think on the New York case the Manhattan D.A has a much more important work to be doing than bringing a case on a seven-year-old payment to a porn star that he was having an affair with to
1:18:14
keep it from the American people after the American people already know everything they need to know about it so I think that was useless and purely political in the Atlanta case once Jack Smith indicted Trump on Election interference federally
1:18:29
I know that um Fannie Willis was probably very upset that she had been investigating it for two and a half years and he beat her to the punch but he beat her to the punch and there's no reason to indict somebody for the same acts twice
1:18:43
and so I wouldn't have invited him in Atlanta I would have indicted him for sure on the uh documents case but I will tell you since you asked I wouldn't have indicted him on the documents I would have just indicted him
1:18:57
on the obstruction of justice and the lying I think by indicting on the documents you just made it a much more complicated case that may not get to trial for a year and a half or two because of the classified documents involved and I
1:19:11
would have invited him on the January 6th case because I believe his activity um from election night forward um is worthy of the probable cause standard now we'll see if the government can prove it Beyond A Reasonable Doubt
1:19:27
on both those cases I will tell you but on those cases that you would bring that you would indict as a prosecutor what sentence would you seek because you know these Democrat prosecutors are seeking over 500 years of jail time for Trump I
1:19:42
mean what do you think that's just the status David that's just the statutory number it's not whatever is done and people do that all the time they look at the statutory maximum they add up each count and the statutory maximum and they
1:19:55
come up to five it never happens and it's never asked though yeah and it's never asked for um what you do if you were the prosecutor what punishment would you be seeking I don't think that it makes any sense um for Donald Trump to go to jail and it's not just because he's Donald Trump it has more to do quite frankly with the fact that he'd probably be 79 years old before he'd be ready to go to jail and when I was Prosecuting cases I really
1:20:24
felt like when you get to that age and you send someone into the atmosphere that federal prison is even the minimum security federal prison that you're essentially giving them a death sentence and unless they've done something with
1:20:38
like Bernie Madoff for instance which is worthy of a death sentence then I I would not think that sending him to jail would be appropriate um now I you know a judge may feel differently and in the end all the prosecutor does
1:20:54
is make a recommendation the judge makes a decision if I were president of the United States well I would not consider pardoning Donald Trump if he were convicted unless the trial for some reason showed itself to have you know unconstitutionally
1:21:09
unfair elements that were not corrected by the courts other than that I wouldn't pardon him but if he were sentenced to jail I certainly would consider commuting the sentence for the reasons I just said let's talk about what happened on
1:21:23
January 6th or a second a lot of folks in the Republican Party are framing it as like you know a day out at the park and uh we just saw Trump appointed judges give The Oath Keepers and the proud boys sentences multi-decade sentences for
1:21:40
seditious conspiracy do you think this these sentences that have been handed down by Trump appointed judges are part of a deep state conspiracy against the Republicans or do you think these people are domestic terrorists and that they
1:21:54
got appropriate sentences you know I don't want to she used to give an answer on each one of the cases because I quite frankly could tell you that I haven't followed the cases each one of them closely enough you just did on the other four let's give an opinion pardon me you just did on the other four though I don't know there were no you're asking me about that was the Trump cases yeah and I'm talking about and I said that because of
1:22:20
his age okay all right and so none of these folks are the proud boys I think we're in their 70s okay so that's the difference between the two but I'm gonna try to answer your question great I just don't want to say I'm giving an opinion as to each and every sentence okay what I want to say about it though is that what they did on January 6th was unlawful it was extremely serious and it requires imprisonment okay and so each of these individual
1:22:52
cases have nuances and individual facts through them that I'm not I will tell you I'm not completely conversant in okay so the difference between a 15-year sentence and an 18-year sentence over 22-year sentence
1:23:05
if I sat down and I delved into what was presented at trial and what was presented in the sentencing memoranda I'd give you an opinion but I haven't done that enough to be honest can I ask one final question from my perspective one of the reasons
1:23:19
that the polling can sometimes Veer this way is that in the Republican polls a lot of the attacks against you Governor focus on obviously Bridge gate and Beach gate and then this kind of like theoretical corruption allegations directed at you and your staff now your staff was convicted of wire fraud but then the Supreme Court overturned it nine to zero right and now what they said though was that there was corruption but there wasn't corruption
1:23:51
to try to get money which is why the wire fraud I think that's what Elena Kagan said in the ruling the majority ruling it was and it was 9-0 so it was very very clear that the doj just kind of took again to your
1:24:03
case talking about Trump the wrong charges almost okay and what they did was not illegal even if what they did may have been illegal under a different Statute in any event it would be great for you to set the record on Bridgegate and Beach gate
1:24:16
we're really calling Beach gate well I'm just calling it up like really well I think what people got upset was and I'm just going to repeat this I don't have an issue with this is there was a State Beach that was closed and there was
1:24:28
pictures of you and your family on that beach when everybody else was told to stay at home that's I get I guess that's what people point to I'm just giving you that just say just address it however you want so you can be definitive in
1:24:39
your own language all right so let's deal with um the beach situation um every beach in New Jersey that day was open except for one every beach in New Jersey so the idea that people across the state of New Jersey were kept off the beach that day and me and my family were the only people on the beach is completely wrong so everybody who wanted to go to the beach that day could go to the beach somewhere in New Jersey except for the
1:25:12
state park and the reason the state park was closed was because the legislature did not send me a budget in time if they sent me a budget I would have signed it and the beach would have been open they refused to send me a budget
1:25:25
now having said that factually contextually it was a mistake for me to go on the beach now I told everybody when the the budget standoff was going on that my family was going to be at that house and they were going to go on the beach
1:25:44
but we were not going to use any services lifeguards or garbage service or anything else because it wouldn't be open so I told everybody that up front I shouldn't have gone out there myself because I was the governor it was a mistake I went out there and spent an hour with my family it was a mistake I hardly think it merits a gate yeah I wouldn't give it a game baby and I and I would hardly call it corruption okay yeah no it's not corruption on
1:26:15
bridge gate let's remember this has been investigated by a democratic State Legislature with subpoena power by a democratic U.S attorney with an ax to grind for me with subpoena power and in both of those investing and also
1:26:36
an investigation that we um uh authorized internally all three of the investigations agreed on one thing I had no knowledge of what happened no one told me what was going on and I didn't find out about it until well after the fact
1:26:54
and nobody's ever disputed that who's done an investigation and if they thought I'd done something wrong given that ridiculous indictments they brought I'm sure they would have thrown me in there too if they had anything
1:27:06
they could have gone with these were three employees who did something extraordinarily stupid and they should have been fired and they were as soon as I found out about it they were all fired they should never work in public office again
1:27:26
but what they did was stupid not Criminal and if we start criminalizing every time someone does something stupid we won't have enough jails and when you get Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Clarence Thomas to agree on an overreach by the Department of Justice it was a politically motivated prosecution because I had just been re-elected with 61 percent of the vote in a blue State and was ahead of Hillary Clinton by eight points in National polls
1:27:55
that's why they did it they thought they were going to get me they cooperated the guy who admits he was The Mastermind of the situation they cooperated him to try to get me and once they realized they couldn't get me they had to indict somebody so they
1:28:12
invited the two other people I believe you I think that the I think the doj engages in a lot of political prosecutions why isn't Jack Smith's prosecution politically minded and the point I'll come back to is that Merrick
1:28:25
Garland did this analysis when he first came in on whether Trump was guilty of incitement on January 6 and they had like a memo come back saying sorry we can't get him for that there was then a leak in the Washington Post from Biden
1:28:39
himself saying that he thought mayor Garland was being kind of wimpy and that they should go after Trump and then lo and behold mayor Garland appoints Jack Smith to go get Trump and Jack Smith's case depends on knowing the inner
1:28:51
workings of Trump's mind this like fraud on the American people idea that he not only made up this stolen election narrative but he knew it was false which I don't see how they're ever going to prove Beyond A Reasonable Doubt so why
1:29:03
isn't that a political prosecution I mean Biden clearly wanted it he instigated it through through a leak to The Washington Post or at least that seems to be the chronology whether it was deliberate or not and it requires
1:29:15
Jack Smith to prove this impossible Theory because it requires knowing what Trump was really thinking when he was saying all this stuff right so how is that not an equally political prosecution all right so let me separate
1:29:26
the two so you're talking just about Jan's sixth not about the classified documents correct I'm just talking about the Jack Smith theory that Trump perpetrated a fraud because he knew his stolen election narrative was false well
1:29:40
look I think that there is going to be a lot of interesting testimony that will be given in that case regarding what Donald Trump really knew and what he really thought what he was telling people at the time and I don't think it's as clear-cut as you're making it out to be now what I said at the time when he brought the Jan 6 case is it is aggressive there's no question it's an aggressive prosecution do I believe it's political I don't know
1:30:08
but I will say it's aggressive it's much more aggressive than the classified documents case because you're exactly right that state of mind which is a part of every criminal case will be a part of this one and trying to get inside Donald
1:30:23
Trump's Minds is a dangerous thing because he says so many contradictory things right so you know he was saying to me during debate prep in 2020 that he was absolutely convinced that um he could lose this election
1:30:41
not that it would be stolen that he could lose it because of covid and covid ruins his great economy and now he's going to lose so he said a lot of different things to a lot of different people over time um and all I'd say David is that
1:30:57
it is going to be an aggressive case to prove and by the way if they don't prove it it will be a stain on the Department of Justice for bringing the case at all I have and then why support it I mean look so hold on let me I'm going to
1:31:13
finish that okay I know what you're going to say so I'll finish it I believe given what I know that Donald Trump does not believe that the election was stolen that's what I believe from knowing him for 22 years and from being with him in much of the
1:31:32
pre-election period and him expressing his very genuine concerns about the fact that he was losing to Biden and that he could lose to Biden not because of mail-in ballots because of covet that I don't believe he really believes
1:31:47
the election was stolen but can you prove that Beyond A Reasonable Doubt well that's the that's the part that's aggressive David and I don't know all the evidence they have I suspect they've got a number of people who are going to tell the jury that Trump told them that he thought he lost but we're gonna see but we're gonna see and that's why I call it aggressive by the way let me just get on the record here that I agree with you that a lot of
1:32:12
the underlying Behavior was really bad and I've said so on the Pod before I'm not defending the underlying Behavior what I question is the wisdom of one president basically Biden his justice department going after the former
1:32:26
president who is currently the leading candidate in the election against him and doing it within a year before the election as opposed to three years ago how is that wise David let me ask you a question first off if they didn't Donald
1:32:40
if they had indicted Donald Trump six months after January 6th you know what everybody would have said brush the judgment no good investigation they had this breed determined you can't win as a prosecutor on that
1:32:56
one either you went too quick or you waited too long so I don't buy that at all I think it's bull now on the question of whether or not a president should allow his justice department to charge someone who is his predecessor and potentially
1:33:16
an opponent again well what's the alternative let's say on let's take it away from the January 6th one and look at the documents one if he obstructed Justice if he Glide and obstructed the grand jury subpoena if he kept classified
1:33:33
documents he was not entitled to keep and then hit them from his own lawyers when they were trying to respond to that if he instructed people to delete surveillance camera video which would have shown him having people move those
1:33:46
documents then all you have to do is declare for president and you don't get prosecuted I mean I understand it's a lousy situation but there are a number of people who believe that the only reason Donald Trump is running for president again is to be able to make that argument and so I understand no no I think he wants retribution from the sea to power I'll do I'll do so Governor Christie let me ask you a question because you know Trump
1:34:24
do you think he tried to overturn the election and do you think given the chance to overturn the election and steal the election Donald Trump based on your knowledge of his character for multiple decades and working with him do
1:34:36
you think he would have done it do you think he's that criminal minded I don't think he would have any he would have had any problem with the election being overturned okay and I think if it if it if it was he would have been more
1:34:50
than happy to have his rear end sleeping in the white house tonight um now I think he evolved to that position in this respect I've had the opportunity to meet um a number of different presidents every president going back to Bush 41. every one of them regardless of my disagreements with them on policy we're matured and humbled by the office except for him okay the office made him worse it made him a worse person I've known him for 22 years
1:35:34
the guy I met in 2001. would not have done what 2020 Donald Trump did and I think he is a perfect example of power having corrupted someone to the point where he was willing to not only engage in that conduct
1:35:53
but to essentially threaten his own vice president um do you think Russia gay played played a role in that I mean meaning here Donald Trump you know he's the ultimate Outsider maybe he has a chip on his shoulder about not being accepted in you
1:36:09
know by certain elements of society he wins the White House as this huge shock and rather than accepting it the entire Democratic party said his election was illegitimate and they claimed that basically somehow Putin masterminded it
1:36:20
and then they subjected him to two years of this Mueller investigation which turned up nothing but they claimed that he was based agent I'm talking about him asking for help from Russia you're the last person to live in that simulation Jason correct
1:36:49
not asking the governor a question do you think the two years of this Russia gate Oaks basically drove Trump to this Behavior or played a role in it I'll go with your with your last piece not the first one I I no doubt that it
1:37:04
contributed to his feeling that people were after him no doubt and I said from the beginning I thought the Russia thing was complete crap and the reason I thought it was was because I was there in 2016. that campaign was so bad
1:37:20
and so disorganized they couldn't have arranged a two-car funeral let alone conspired with the Russian government to interfere with the election I was there it was amateurish and it won because they ran against the worst presidential
1:37:38
candidate in my lifetime in Hillary Clinton so I said from the beginning I thought the Russia investigation was illegitimate and was wrong do I think it contributed to his attitude I think it did but I don't think David it would be
1:37:51
fair to say that that's what made him that way yeah fair enough it's a lot more than contributed to it than that but yeah I would certainly concede that because I objected to the Russia investigation at the time in real
1:38:09
time to publicly kudos to you for that because I think you've been Vindicated by what's happened in the last few years last question for me on documents okay do you think that there's a selective prosecution issue here because Sandy
1:38:22
Berger stuff documents in his pants from a clean room never prosecuted Petraeus had a huge classified documents problem slap on the wrist I mean it seems like and by the way Biden had documents by his beloved Corvette and in offices all
1:38:37
over the place going back many years so I mean isn't this document's case it seems like no one really wanted to prosecute this law until Trump did it and now it's like get drunk now look I think Trump did this one to himself
1:38:51
David if he had turned over the documents he illegally had and at any point when he was being requested to from February of 2021 through to when the search occurred there would be no prosecution well I agree with that and the problem let's get these other guys because they gave the documents back because look Biden gave the documents back I mean Penn State the documents back when asked what this guy did was obstructed it in
1:39:22
every way he could I don't want people looking through my boxes my boxes this guy is like a freak and about these boxes I'm telling you he I used to campaign with him he would have a box of documents now back then it was 2016. it
1:39:38
was a box of documents from Trump Tower no one could touch them no one could look at them he'd go through them a little bit but they he literally had a seat for his box of documents next to him on his plane no one could sit next
1:39:53
to him the box of documents went next to him so there's a psychosis here on the documents David that's deep all right okay but maybe but maybe that is to himself he did it to himself walked into it I agree he totally walked into this
1:40:08
he sprinted into it with his arms wide open and he screwed himself but in the process he screwed the country but what you're describing is an idiosyncratic issue he liked his boxes he had mementos in them this was not a national security
1:40:22
issue and I'm sure it was how sure it was how you cannot permit the president United States to be flashing around in Iran War plan on the on the deck in Mar-A-Lago sorry not allowed especially not after your president and you know what he could have Declassified any documents he wanted to when he's president he didn't and now he's trying to say he mind melded them to be Declassified come on David this stuff is such it's it's it's laughable
1:40:52
but you agree the president the president has an unlimited authority to Declassified documents right of course so he didn't do it through the process he wanted but who's to say that he didn't do it no his attorney general said he didn't do it his White House counsel said it is he did it so who's to say his view he Declassified other documents the appropriate way these he just thought about declassifying therefore they were Declassified come on
1:41:18
I agree it's a bad argument but I don't know it's not a bad one David will make it anyway David it's not a bad argument it's not an argument come back anytime you want Chris it's not you gotta sit in I think you got to sit in I mean look I
1:41:31
you know I I will tell you guys like I am very sympathetic to Executive Authority I've been a governor of the state that has the strongest constitutional governorship in America but you gotta follow the law when the
1:41:48
law empowers you to the extent that the United States president is empowered that should be enough you shouldn't have to act outside the law and here's why he did it he didn't do it to sell the documents he didn't do them to give them to some
1:42:02
foreign power he did them to show off look what I have look I'm still really the president this is the real core problem with him David but doesn't this pale in comparison to the crimes of the Biden family I mean
1:42:19
I don't know do we have time to talk about the two billion dollars that Jared Kushner has gotten from the Saudis and why he got that money is it because he's such an expert investor the guy who bought 666 Fifth Avenue and nearly
1:42:36
bankrupted his entire company I mean he's actually a pretty smart guy I mean oh yeah oh no he's a genius he's an absolute genius David and that's why the Saudis gave him two billion dollars he was out of office collecting money David what why would a
1:43:02
president of the United States when he has somebody like Mike Pompeo as his secretary of state who's been a congressman a West Point graduate member of the military CIA director Secretary of State why is he sending Jared Kushner over
1:43:19
grift to negotiation results she got the Abraham records wait no no he gets the oh so now we're not giving Pompeo the credit for the Abraham Accords it's Jared Kushner look in the end Abraham Accords were a good idea or a
1:43:37
bad idea great idea great I want you to give Kushner credit he was totally involved no no he's involved congratulations why was he set in the first place because of his extensive his extensive foreign policy experience apartment buildings in New Jersey that's what he was doing so look I absolutely believe that as I answered your question very directly before that the only reason Hunter Biden was hired for these things was to get influence
1:44:10
with his father absolutely and I think he should go to jail but we can't look at the Jared and Ivanka making 40 plus million dollars a year while they were in the white house getting two billion from the Saudis to invest after they leave the White House and say that's not a grift as well not to mention the fact that he's spending campaign money to pay his legal fees when he's supposed to be a billionaire how about you sell the Trump Tower
1:44:39
apartment since you don't live there anymore and pay your legal fees with that or how about sell one of your friggin golf courses to pay your legal fees with that but instead and a 100 average donation from Americans who
1:44:53
donated to something called save America which was supposed to fight the steal of the election is now being spent to pay his legal fees because he took classified documents illegally out of the White House and by the way that same organization
1:45:08
paid Kimberly Guilfoyle 60 Grand to give a three-minute speech on January 6th and paid 208 thousand dollars to Melania stylist as political strategy she looks great there's plenty of grift to go around yeah and I'll tell you this the
1:45:24
grift is deep the Christie Administration no member of my family will make money off the fact that I'm president you can't say that about Trump or Biden okay this has been an amazing all right I have no voice final question when you did this karaoke
1:45:48
with David freyberg yes did you do Thunder Road Living on a Prayer Rosalita what was the song or did you guys I don't remember duet I don't remember which song David and I did together but I did do Thunder Road carry on fantastic in in that small bar in that little town in Idaho beep event like I do also remember there being um a karaoke on a Backstreet Boys song oh that's definitely Freeburg yeah and I don't think Freiburg was in that one I
1:46:24
don't think do you remember David which song we did yeah and listen I remember yeah there's got to be one in there listen uh Governor we really appreciate you coming on uh we wish you great success congratulations on New Hampshire
1:46:42
and uh really really thank you um did a great job today thank you for being so forthright thank you guys for giving me the uh look I love the opportunity to be able to go into more depth about this in anything other than UFOs so it's really
1:46:57
good really good oh wait we have another hour of UFO questions I would really encourage you to to spread this Gospel of the most thoughtful way to beat back corruption is something like zero-based budgeting across the entire front area I like that too that was a great one nobody says it people are I think RFK and Vivek scratch it but I think you could nail it if you take it and want to run with it and there's just a lot of money that's
1:47:27
probably sloshing on the sidelines that needs to get reallocated I'm sure you saw how viral Jon Stewart's interview with the under secretary of defense for Budget went that was an incredible interview and obviously it hits a nerve
1:47:40
with a lot of people so it's a really important point it speaks a lot to the broader issue nice well I'm I'm glad to be here I'm I'm I'm I'm happy that I did not take my son's briefing um but I can guarantee you that he's
1:47:52
going to be listening he's very stressed he's actually he works for the New York Mets he's down in Dominican Republic today and he calls me from the Dr and he said is today the all-in day and I said yes today's the day he goes call me right afterwards so he's gonna tell him what are you gonna I'm gonna tell him it was great we had a great two hours and he's gonna enjoy listening to it and yeah now anytime you guys want me back I'm back
1:48:17
thank you very much I'm on the board there too yeah I think that's a little bit of a problem that may be worse than zero-based budgeting I don't know at least the next look like they built a nice Foundation here don't give up on
1:48:29
the Mets yet wait till next time you're not giving up we'll get there all right two hours with the governor going around the horn here Friedberg uh your thoughts after two hours with Governor Christie where was he strong where do you
1:48:42
disagree with him what do you think of his presidency after two hours of intimate discussion here on all in podcasts I don't know if I've got a huge shift in opinion he's a very personable guy he has a good command of the the subject
1:48:57
he's got good experience running a state so those are good qualifying criteria obviously this is a very challenging race for him I'm not sure if he hits any zingers that really helps accelerate him past the momentum that Jose has and
1:49:10
obviously the lead that Trump has with the you know Conservative Party Support with DeSantis so it seems like it's going to be a tough campaign and a tough race for him and I'm not sure he brings anything today that shows how he's going
1:49:23
to kind of get ahead of this problem so that's the campaign let's talk about for you if you were to contrast him to other Republican candidates DeSantis Halley Vivek where does he fall for you personally yeah I remain of the concern
1:49:39
that there's a giant meteor hitting a fiscal meteor hitting the United States okay and everyone's talking about a lot of other stuff okay and it's the don't look up documentary to me okay and he's the most attuned to that in your mind or Nikki he has a good point of view I think his alignment around keeping military spending and you know this this discussion around corruption it's it's such a a micro problem relative to the macro
1:50:05
condition again 31 of U.S debt coming up for refinancing this year uh it's going to be you know and we're already seeing by the way this year interest expense on the debt is greater than the military spending if you had to pick uh two
1:50:21
candidates on the Republican party that were most intriguing to you for your vote which too would they be I'm going to skip that question for now okay chamoth I'll go to you post this to our discussion he he I thought he was great
1:50:33
I'm curious how you thought were the strong points in this discussion uh and then I guess we can talk about his campaign as Freeburg just did but then we could also talk about how he resonates with you and in terms of getting your vote maybe where he sits I don't think my opinion has changed much before or after I mean I think that he's a he's a very personable Charming guy but I'm not sure that he says anything that's different from
1:51:01
The Establishment wing of the Republican party and I think that the winning candidate whether I agree with it or not is irrelevant at this point but the formula has been laid bare for everybody to see and I think that you have to have
1:51:14
radical ideas and so when you think about the people that are getting the most attention on both the Democratic and the Republican side but they're essentially pushing back on is all of this Orthodoxy and if he really wants to win he has to
1:51:32
embrace being unorthodox and heterodox and he doesn't have enough heterodoxical policies to cut through so he just cannot win as a practical matter so if he Embraces those heterodoxies Because he believes in them he's he has a chance but if he doesn't it's going to be Trump versus Vivek so if uh it winds up being Biden Vivek Trump Christy Nikki in this sort of like final you know race towards Finish Line which two candidates do you find most
1:52:07
appealing right now not not saying you'll vote for them but which two are resonating with chamath polyhapatia most I'm still pretty open-minded I haven't decided I know who doesn't resonate with me okay tell me is DeSantis okay so
1:52:21
DeSantis is off the table everybody else is still yeah I mean and I was very clear early on that his campaign was DOA and I think that that's probably just gonna he's going to have a a withering kind of embarrassing end to the campaign
1:52:34
unfortunately for him but I think the the heterodoxical rhetoric is going to get ramped up both by RFK and by Vivek and I think it's going to put a lot of pressure and by Trump and I think it's going to put a lot of
1:52:48
pressure on Biden and it's going to put a lot of pressure on the other republican nominees uh to come through the noise here it's an interesting point to moth because if the chorus becomes this heterodox point of view it's it looks really bad
1:53:02
Biden is almost in this truly defensive mode because then you have multiple parties speaking similarly about the establishment I think there's a very good chance that Biden's son he's indicted this week he's in jail by the
1:53:14
time the election comes around which I think also speaks very poorly to the risk that there is some clear links of corruption that come out and I think that that's going to put the election under severe pressure and I think you can you can bet that
1:53:35
every single Republican Mega donor is going to come out of the woodwork to fund the Super PAC that's going to blast the airwaves all across the country with that content so that's I think a foregone conclusion if it looks like
1:53:51
there is fire where there looks right now is smoke and if David Weiss hacks this decisively and it moves the trial quickly which I suspect it will this is all bad news for Biden and so you know you have that on that side the
1:54:06
Republicans have the red meat that they need the heterodoxy on both sides is what's getting all the attention so you know I think I think what Donald Trump did in hindsight was really break the glass on being able to say
1:54:19
the things you couldn't say and that will now be the formula for candidates to win yeah and just for folks who haven't been watching the news um justice department is believed to indict Hunter on the gun charges this month I think they're still
1:54:34
investigating the potential corruption where there's smoke maybe there's fire and if it leads to Biden and so this whole race could be totally flipped upside down at any moment same with Trump and his induction gun charges are
1:54:47
nothing charged just so everyone understands what that is when he applied to get a firearm you know you have to take you have to check off these check boxes on the form yeah and one of them is I apparently that you don't have a
1:54:59
drug problem yeah and so he lied on that form I guess but that that's the kind of charge that I I personally don't believe they should be going after him for because I don't think they would prosecute an ordinary person for that yeah and in his defense Hunter said I have no problem scoring drugs so I don't have a drug problem I can get them anytime I need them it's one of these weird kind of almost again like a paperwork charge and remember
1:55:23
that what the doj tried to do was a settlement with Hunter Biden where he would plead guilty on that same gun charge because it's kind of a nothing charge but then buried deep in that settlement was a broad Immunity on all
1:55:37
the foreign lobbying he was doing the Pharaoh act violations and then it came out and the judge said wait a second like that's too much like what are you doing and they reject the judge rejected the settlement so frankly I view the
1:55:51
charges by the doj on the gun charge as a misdirection of what the real issue is with Hunter Biden he was running around the world collecting money with being an unregistered foreign agent foreign lobbyist yeah that's the Crux of
1:56:05
the issue is that's the corruption but the point is that's what the doj should be looking at not these laws that's what they are looking at yes did Hunter use drugs David I think I think looking at the tax evasion tax fraud
1:56:19
charges that is their way of looking at that so I think it's going to come out I think at this point they're they're looking at both everybody will have the truth if if the bidens are truly not guilty that will be clearly established
1:56:31
now in this process but if he was acting as an unregistered agent of these foreign governments that is also going to come out and if there were links between him and his father and Communications that's also going to come
1:56:43
out I think that but he hasn't even been indicted on that yet right yeah I understand I think it takes time I think they will thoughtfully put it together but I'm not confident about it given that they wanted to give him broad
1:56:54
Immunity on those charges I think no but I think I think David Weiss is under such a microscope right now idea that she doesn't act conclusively here I think would be a huge problem and then the next president if it's Republican
1:57:05
will reopen it so whatever happens here will need to be definitive and I think the special prosecutor probably understands that at this point yeah so let's go back to your impressions before we go down the Biden Biden Biden uh Rabbit Hole here
1:57:18
what are your thoughts after two hours with Chris Christie anything change in your outlook on him and then I'm curious are you still team DeSantis all the way okay so on Christy I like talking to him more than I thought I was going to
1:57:34
um I think he was easy to talk to I think the two hours went by pretty quickly I think he brought his energy level down to the right place for a podcast I mean it was a little different than when he's very pugnacious on the
1:57:47
debate stage and can kind of grandstand and he you know engaged in a discussion with us so I thought that was positive the only time his energy really changed was basically in the last five minutes when he went on to a full-on like Trump
1:58:00
diatribe and it was almost like you know a little bit of TDS kicked in that being said his position on Trump was a little bit more nuanced than I was expecting first of all he admitted the whole Russia gate thing was total baloney
1:58:14
second he said that with respect to these State charges the Alvin Bragg in New York and the Fannie Willis and Atlanta those charges should not have been brought yeah I thought that was pretty good I kind of agree with him on
1:58:25
those I I agree with his ass I thought that was intellectually honest did you feel intellectual honesty from him yeah I think he really believes this yeah third I took a couple of tries by chamoth and then me to to get him to say
1:58:36
this but he said he would not put Trump in jail he's too old for that and I thought that was I I wasn't sure where he was going to come out on that I didn't know if he was going to say Trump deserves a life sentence who would
1:58:48
pardon him if he was President he said he said I wouldn't pardon him but I commute his sentence he didn't have to spend time in jail so I thought that was new information and again a more nuanced view than I was expecting on the
1:59:01
documents case he said that Trump ran into the charges which frankly I agree with I think yeah could have avoided that easily however Christy said he did it for eosyncratic reasons he loves this box of mementos yeah he didn't really
1:59:14
address them there you and I have yeah yeah and you know who else loves their mementos I have I have a handful of kids under the age of five who love blankets and yes pacifiers Teddy yeah I would just go a little further and just say listen if he
1:59:29
did this for idiosyncratic reasons rather than nefarious reasons like selling State Secrets then I think you apply the same standard of prosecution as they did to petrayeus or to Biden himself or the thing you keep missing is
1:59:43
that those people gave those back you keep missing those acts I don't know why you have that blind spot because he basically said that Trump has an anxiety complex and he su he sells suits with that box of documents that's what he said Trump the same way as Sandy Berger I mean come on those guys moving on uh the last point was on the Jack Smith charges where he admitted that Jack Smith has to prove Beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump
2:00:17
knew that his election denial argument was false and I think he pretty much admitted that that would be a very very hard thing to prove but he said he wanted to wait to see what evidence they had to me that kind of begs the question
2:00:32
of why you bring that case in the first place any event so that's on Trump I think what I saw there was a little bit of TDS but a more nuanced overall perspective when he got into the details on foreign policy I think we had a lot of interesting
2:00:45
conversation there about the mismanagement of the military-industrial complex and I think shmoth had some really interesting questions there that then I followed up on and really you couldn't get him to say anything other
2:00:59
than he wouldn't necessarily increase the size of the defense budget until you did the efficiency survey but he kind of had to be pushed to even get there and what I would just say is that on that question on military spending combined
2:01:13
with the question of Ukraine he pretty much has the standard establishment Republican position which is the only thing Biden has done wrong is not move aggressively enough on Ukraine that you know giving mixed messages not being
2:01:27
hawkish enough I'm sorry but Biden has had the most hawkish policy on Ukraine that any president's ever had and the only reason there's been hand ringing about giving them f-16s is because it could start World War Three and I
2:01:40
personally want Biden thinking about that you know so again I think think this neocon Republican position that involves Chris Christie and Haley and Pence and Mitch McConnell you know basically the whole Republican establishment they basically believe that Biden who says we need to support Ukraine for as long as it takes as much as it takes he's still not doing enough I just don't fundamentally buy that argument you still teams DeSantis here's
2:02:05
my view on it so look I I would support DeSantis I also would support Vivek for for me oh whoa whoa whoa this is new information so you're saying you are now equally open-minded to the vague and DeSantis it's not equally minded but look for me most here's the way I divided I divide Candace at this point into acceptable versus unacceptable okay and for me the number one issue is whether the president the next president will seek
2:02:32
to de-escalate or end the Ukraine war or they will seek to escalate it guys Christie along with all these others by saying that Biden has been too dovish on Ukraine is effectively saying he wants to do even more on Ukraine so we're not
2:02:46
going to take I'm not willing to live for the next four years on the knife's edge of World War III I don't want so that's what you're doing to put well I don't want the Sword of War Three camp well no I think that the candidates who
2:03:02
said that they would either end or de-escalate Ukraine or Vivek DeSantis and Trump has said it they're the only three oh and sorry Robert F Kennedy Jr okay but you're not going to vote for him so that puts you in Vivek well I
2:03:16
don't know I mean he might be my favorite to be honest would you pick him over Trump I would certainly take Kennedy over Trump you would wow this is incredible for sure breaking news folks this is this is all incredible wow look
2:03:27
for me this is the Little Miss test issue is are you going to escalate or de-escalate the Ukraine war and I think that these hawkish Republican candidates pose an unacceptable risk of war three what do you think Jason yeah Jason what do you think I thought he broke your heart there in a couple of places no actually um I don't expect all candidates to line up with my belief system perfectly obviously it's well spoken obviously he's qualified
2:03:53
I'm looking for a moderate like Freeburg I think the existential crisis of the balance sheet is my top issue I voted Republican about 25 and Democrats 75 I'm literally a moderate and an independent and uh right now I really don't think Biden
2:04:09
can be president or Trump so that leaves me with RFK on one side and it leaves me with Nikki Halley and um Christy on the other side and Nikki Haley and Chrissy are really into balancing the budget and so I'm I'm
2:04:22
leaning towards voting Republican if those are the two candidates now the thing that I think handicapping this election is not being talked about all that much because we have the Trump Biden rematch taking while they are out
2:04:35
of the room is I don't know that Biden makes it to the starting line nor do I think Trump makes it to the starting line and so that changes everything and who knows what percentage chance that is I don't think any of us can give it a perfect
2:04:46
uh handicap but let's say that is the case um then I think it's you know there's there's a lot of lanes open here and I think the election will be once again determined by moderates and I think women who are still very much upset about the Roe v Wade issue and I think those two things are going to play a significant role and that's where I think Nikki Halley and Chris Christie believe it's a state's issue and they're not into the national ban
2:05:09
for abortion I think moderates are not into Biden I think they or I don't think they're going to be into RFK I think they're going to be into Nikki Haley and I think Nikki Haley could happen and I think Chris Christie would happen so I
2:05:19
hope we get Nikki Haley on here because I don't know her enough but I would like to have that to our discussion so I'm leaning towards Haley Christie if they make it all right this is Ben another amazing episode of the all-in podcast we
2:05:31
went for over two hours enjoy the one and a half times episode everybody because next week is the all-in summit and we're not going to tape next week so you get a week off from the Pod while we uh Bank I think like 20 amazing amazing guests from Ray dalio to Elon Musk to Mr Beast I mean the list of people Gwyneth Paltrow that free version has put together is extraordinary congratulations to freeberg on a program even better than last year's
2:06:03
program is it unprecedented success here so great great job Friedberg and the team over at the production board the parties might be fun too I got my tux I'm ready to go we will see you all in Los Angeles or some portion of you
2:06:18
about one percent of you in uh Los Angeles next week sorry for the fomo everybody but Freeburg will be releasing the episodes on Twitter X and YouTube are the exclusive uh locations so you're not going to get in your podcast feeds
2:06:32
flooded with the 20 talks you gotta go to x follow all in podcasts on x and search all in podcasts on YouTube you can subscribe and then there's a bell there you put on the alert I think you're going to drop them every day or
2:06:45
every two days Freeburg something in that sort of pace so you got 20 days of content coming at you coming at you for the dictator himself the Sultan of science David Friedberg chair person of deal in Summit 2023 great job and Rain
2:07:01
Man the architect himself with that incredible Gordon Gekko hair wow looking great sex I am the Undisputed world's greatest moderator according to the YouTube comments and we'll see you next week bye-bye we'll let your winners ride
2:07:18
Rain Man [Music] we open source it to the fans and they've just gone crazy [Music] I'm going [Music] to do it besties [Music] it's like this like sexual tension that they just need to release somehow [Music] [Music] I'm going all in