Episode 240: Richard Ojeda

Welcome everybody to Crystal Kyle and friends. I am excited for today's show because we have Richard Ojeda on today. I have a little bit of a man crush. It's fair. I'm not gonna lie. I got a little bit of a man crush. That accent, how aggressive he is, like this guy's the man. So for those of you who don't know, he ran in 2018 for Congress in West Virginia as a Democrat, massively overperformed. I'm talking about like took 35% from the Trump people, still just came up short because it was West Virginia, right? Now he's running for office again, this time in North Carolina as a Democrat. And yeah, I mean, given this environment and everything, I think he can get it done. And with this guy in Congress, oh, you are not gonna have to worry anymore. Where's our fighter? I don't know. No, we found him. We found him. He's right here. Believe me. He has a way of putting things. He absolutely does. So I'm excited because we also have him in studio, which is fun. So we're looking forward to that. But before we get to Richard, we got a bunch of stuff to talk about. So first of all, there's a lot of speculation going on now, Crystal. Did Trump get a bad diagnosis? It was Trump told like, hey, dog, tick tock, homie, like time's running out for you. Because as you know, he's got those fat ass ankles, which is a sign of poor blood circulation. What's it called? Chronic venous insufficiency. And he's like stage four or something. I think it's called Kangol's McTaco tits. Kangol's McTaco tits. That's right. Shout out to the I've had it ladies. We love the I've had it ladies. I think that's the technical medical definition. But he's gonna die for real. But it looks like he's gonna die. We're all gonna die. Chronic venous insufficiency. It's a matter of the time frame, I guess. So he has chronic venous insufficiency, which I think it's stage four that he's at, at the very least. And that could be a sign of congestive heart failure. That's one of the things it can be. He's also 79 years old, and obese, no matter what he says, he's fat. And there's not many old fat people walking around, right? So it sounds like he was told like, this is not looking good, bro. And so he's been going around saying very, very curious things. So he was on Fox News the other day. And he was saying he wants to get in heaven, and he's not sure he's going to get into heaven. And that's why he's trying so hard for peace between Russia and Ukraine. That was a bizarre moment, because he kept repeating it in different ways. So this is clearly something that's on his mind. And this guy, this man has never once in his life worried about, am I gonna get into heaven? Is that gonna happen? No. He's like a total fucking hedonist freak, who's just looking for large appetites of many kinds. This is not a guy who's contemplative like that. So there was speculation about that. And then I also have this clip for you. So he went on, I guess this is a radio show here. And listen to what he says about him trying to get peace between some other places. Watch. And it's, you know, a lot of amazing, amazing things. You saw the Abwehr, Bajan, that was a big one going on for 34, 35 years with Albania. Think of that, I mean, going on for years. And I got to know the heads, and I got to know them through trade, I was dealing with them a little bit. I said, why are you guys fighting? And then I said, I'm not going to do a trade deal if you guys are going to fight. It's crazy. Anyway, one thing led to another. And I got that one settled. And that was a one that people said is not you couldn't settle it. Even when I had them both in the Oval Office at the end, when they were getting ready to sign, they were sitting next to each other. They were trying to get away. They didn't feel good. By the end of an hour, they were hugging each other and congratulating each other. It was beautiful to watch, actually. So he says he got peace between Aberbaijan and Albania, but in reality, it's Azerbaijan and Armenia. Like, he doesn't care about the specifics. He just wants to get out. I got peace. I got peace. I can get to heaven now, right? Add it to the good tally, right? Did I do it? Did I do it? Like, that's what he's trying to do here. I don't know, man. I think there might be something to this, that he's like, he's got some health struggles. I mean, he definitely has some health struggles. I am not convinced. I just feel like we're going to be cursed with this man forever. That's what I really feel like. I just feel like he's going to, I mean, I just, it seems like the villainous people are the ones just that live forever, for fucking ever. And I did look up, you know, because in America, life expectancy depends very much on what your wealth and income are. And so if you are a wealthy American man, your average life expectancy, you can expect to live to around the high 80s or even 90s for those in the highest income or wealth percentiles significantly longer than their less affluent counterparts. Yeah, to that, he's president of the United States now, on the one hand, maybe that makes it more stressful for him. But I don't see that he like really feels the burden and the weight of the decisions that he's making. So he's going to get the, you know, the best health care in the world. I did ask, you know, someone who's a medical professional about his particular diagnosis, and it does not seem to be terribly serious. So I think, you know, that he is older. So it's very common once you get older, you start contemplating your legacy and your mortality. So to talk about heaven in that context is very weird. But anyway, that sort of lines up. And then the other thing is people who are around him a lot do seem to feel like there was some actual like religious shift that happened after the assassination attempt. That could also be leading to more contemplation of his mortality. I don't know. But no, I feel like we're going to be cursed with him forever. So he's going to outlive us, Kyle. It's probably true. So I asked Grok, what are the chances somebody who's 250 pounds and 79 years old, what are the chances they die within the next five years? And Grok says 42 percent. Within the next five years? Yes. I asked for it within the next five years. 72 percent. I'm sorry. 42 percent for a 79 year old who weighs 250 pounds, by the way, that's the low end of what he actually weighs. I mean, it's hard to know tall people like have shorter lifespans. That's true. Let me ask that, too. What is he like? Six, six, three is what he claims. Something like that. I mean, he is fairly tall. He is pretty tall. I think he's a little taller than me. I met him once. I don't know if I ever told people. Did I tell you this story? That I met him? I didn't really meet him. Meet him. But like I was around him. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was at a golf club. I was a member of a very exclusive golf club. And we were eating and like, you know, a little bar restaurant area. Yeah. And Trump walked right by outside. And you know, I looked out and I saw him with his goofy ass hair. This was pre-presidential run. Way pre-presidential. I'm talking. So I must have been I must have been 12 years old. So let's do the math on that. That must that's the year 2000. So people probably know that I interviewed him at the White House Correspondents Dinner. I don't know if people know that. You tell the story. OK. I was doing for I was with MSNBC then and he was not officially running yet. Or if he was, it was the early stages when everybody just thought this was a fucking joke. Right. An absolute fucking joke. I think at that point he was just flirting with it. And so I was doing like red carpet coverage of the White House Correspondents for MSNBC. And so he comes in with Melania, whose name I didn't even know at that point. And I asked him, I was like, you know, I asked him something about, though, are you really running for president? And in my head, I was like, I can't believe you're giving this. You're even like paying credence to those like you're embarrassing that you even ask that question. But then I asked him, hey, do you ever find Obama's birth certificate? Because, you remember, he hired private investigators to go to Hawaii, blah, blah, blah. And he goes, he turned from being very like full on charm. Oh, I love you on the cycle. And Ari and Abby and Torrey, you guys are so great, blah, blah, blah. When I asked him that question, he goes, that's the wrong question to ask, Crystal. That's the wrong question. And then that was basically like the end of it. He's still like that. One thing that triggers him and he'll fucking flip on you just like that. So I also met him one other way, too. So when my mom and dad split up, my dad had a girlfriend and the girlfriend was the head of a pro shop at one of his courses in Westchester, in New York. And so, you know, I had been... Such a perfect person for a divorced dad to date. I know, right? It really is. She may have even like regionally ran like all of his pro shops or something like that. But anyway, my dad was dating this woman. And because of that connection, there are times where we got to play Trump's course, which was like a super exclusive course that cost a quadrillion dollars to get in. We were able to play it just because my dad knew when my dad was dating the woman who runs the pro shop. And there were a couple of times where I was there and Trump was there also. And I saw him like in the pro shop and stuff. So when you met him or saw him, did he give off dying at 80 vibes? He's fat. He was fat back then, too. Like, honestly, low key, he was giving off dying at like 71 vibes. I do feel like he's lost a little weight, though, too. I don't see it. I don't see it. He's thick, bro. I mean, Ozempek is a thing. He's not big for a thing. If he was on Ozempek, his noosey, his neck pussy would be roast beef pussy. If he if he actually lost a lot of weight, he would look horrible, like he needs to stay this way. Yeah. But I do think he's lost a little bit of weight. I don't think he's as big as he was previously. I don't know about that. But I've had people in my family that are like his size. Those motherfuckers were dead at like 68. You know, I'm saying it's like it's a miracle that this man is still kicking. Never mind the fact that I'm convinced. I don't know about miracles. One way to curse. I'm also convinced he's been doing uppers for years, too, though. People say that. Yeah. I mean, nobody has that kind of energy unless you're you are on a shitload of uppers on a daily basis. Like it's part of his daily regimen. Yeah. Yeah. And he doesn't he doesn't sleep, which can't be good for you over the long term. Horrible. Horrible diet. But yeah, we know that the like White House physician or whatever was giving out pharmaceuticals like candy in the first Trump administration. People don't remember that story, Crystal. That story was wild because not only they were given any sort of drug that people use recreationally, they were giving it out. You name it. Fentanyl, ketamine, Percocet, Vicodin, Xanax, Adderall, anything you can name that people use recreationally or that, you know, you got some like punk teenager selling it. They were they were doling it out like Skittles. And so that that's a real story. There was something going on there where it was like a legit like narcos type shit where there was like a White House cartel where they're getting pills from there and they're pushing them on the street. I'm not even kidding. Or just using them for their own consumption. If they use that, there were enough drugs in it from that story, there were enough drugs. It's a big administration. You got a lot of people. Yeah. You got to provide for great Gatsby like parties where people are like fucking, you know, doing all sorts of drug. I can see that for sure. I can see that for sure. People throw around the term degenerate all the time. You know, it's always projection. There's such a massive generous. So anyway, you're skeptical. I'm less skeptical. I think I think something's going on because he keeps doing this thing like the extent to which he wants a Nobel Peace Prize is crazy. Like he is obsessed with getting a Nobel Peace Prize. Yeah. But like, dude, if you want a Nobel Peace Prize, you can't randomly bomb Iran. Well, just they didn't attack us. I mean, I don't think a nuke. If you're as an American president, there are many things you could do that could earn you the Nobel Peace Prize. You could end the fucking genocide in Gaza. Right. How about that? Did that ever cross your mind? Not bomb Iran. Not bomb Iran. Not bomb Somalia. Not bomb Yemen. Not now. Did you see this? Force a fucking like actual resolution so that Palestinians have a state. You would get a Nobel Peace Prize for that. That's true. That is true. But did you see that now they're sending 4000 marines to Venezuela? Three warships to Venezuela? Yeah. And Venezuelan reaction is trying to mobilize millions of people because they think an attack is imminent. Ken Klippenstein published that they're drawing up attack plans on Mexico. Mexico. Yeah. And you want a fucking Nobel Peace Prize? Are you kidding me? You're terrorizing the world. You invaded America. Yeah. You invaded L.A. You invaded D.C. and you want a Nobel Peace Prize. It's amazing. This guy, he's the ultimate like have his cake and eat it, too, type guy. I don't know how we got on this side ramp rant, but the bottom line is, I think his time might be numbered. You are more skeptical of that. I hope I'm right. Yeah. All right. It would solve a lot of things. Speaking of evil motherfuckers who are probably going to live forever, Benjamin Netanyahu, fresh off his milk boys appearance, has now joined the gentlemen of Triggeredometry. I know you love the name of that podcast. OK, before you continue. Are you Triggeredometry by it? There's. Yes, there's something about there's like a whole douchebag lane in podcasts that came about. You know, like along with the Rogan era. Yeah. There's all these people who just who see what works. Right. Like, oh, I can attack wokeness. I can beat up on the purple haired college kid. That's all I have to do. And I can become famous doing that. And all I have to do is say, let's have conversations about having conversations about having conversations. Oh, that's all you have to do. And you get really famous. OK, I'll do that. And so you get a podcast like this where these douchebags Triggeredometry is what they named it. Like, are you kidding me? What are you, fucking 17? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It is disqualifying in any case. Low IQ slop is what they serve. I haven't watched all of it. We Sagar and I reacted to a couple of clips today. They would drive you insane. The things that we saw, but we didn't get a chance to talk about this one, which I think is really significant, which is basically Netanyahu calling for even more censorship on anti-Israel views. Let's take a listen. You know, it's very hard to find to fight the, you know, the deception, the lies, the the starved children, the pictures of starved children are turned out to have cerebral palsy or other congenital diseases that leave them emaciated. And Israel is, of course, accused of starving children pretty much the way that in the Middle Ages, Jews were accused of killing Christian children for their blood. So, you know, what do you do against the lie that circles the earth 10 times before the truth has a chance to emerge? You have to shorten the war as speedily as possible. And frankly, we also have to do something about the the algorithms of the social networks. This is this is a big challenge. I don't want to I don't want to dismiss it. So first of all, he's doing genocide denial there with regard to the children that they've been starving literally to death and accusing anyone who would point that out as doing a blood libel, of course, and then says we need to do something about the social media algorithms that allow people to say, hey, I don't really want my taxpayer dollars going to bombing babies anymore. He's calling to just flat out censor the Internet. He wants to remove everything I, Benjamin Netanyahu, don't like remove, remove anything that criticizes Israel. And we'll we'll scream at the top of our lungs, anti-Semite, Hamas apologist, anything. Doesn't matter how mild the criticism these people call. He called the liberal Zionists protesting in Israel hundreds of thousands of them. He said they're Hamas apologist. How do you deal with a man like this? You don't deal with a man like this. You lock this motherfucker up. He's a war criminal. They should bury his ass under the jail, leave him there forever. Correct. OK, I'm sick of dealing with this guy's bullshit. That's the only answer. I mean, if we're going to have any sort of humanity, like putting the any semblance of putting this barbarism in the past, there has to be accountability. There's no doubt about it. And anybody who has laundered that lie that he just put out there, oh, the children aren't starving. This one has cerebral palsy. Oh, my God. If anybody because I don't know if it was Washington Post or New York Times, but somebody got involved in laundering that lie and ran a correction to a piece about starving kids and said, well, the Zionists say that this one had a pre-existing condition which led to it. Anybody who's laundering that lie is a fucking disgusting scumbag Holocaust denier. And not only are they a liar, they know they're lying. They know they're lying and they're doing it anyway, because even if I grant you the point, which I don't in any of the individual cases, I don't grant you that. But even if I did, what about the other hundreds and thousands of people fucking starving? Like the number of pictures and videos on social media that show it are astronomical. And they single out like one and go, this kid has a genetic deformity. And then you learn very quickly, oh, the genetic deformity came about because the mother was starved when she gave birth to the baby. Right. So even that stems from the starvation campaign. Israel has bragged about putting Gaza on a diet. They've done it for years. And now there's no there's no question. Of course, they're cutting off the food, the fuel, the water, the electricity. Everybody knows that. I mean, they announced this. I know that drives me crazy. They literally announced it, that they were blocking that coming. There were months that went by with next to no aid getting into the Gaza Strip. Don't you think that's going to have an impact, especially when they've also gone out of their way to raise all the farmland and destroy all the greenhouses? Any innate ability that Palestinians would have to grow and produce their own food has also been attacked and utterly destroyed. Barry Weiss's outlet, the Free Press, did a whole lengthy version of this Holocaust denial where they picked these 12 different instances and were like, in each of these cases, what the news media didn't tell you posturing, by the way, like the news media is pro-Palestine, which is insane. Anyway, what the news media didn't tell you is that they all had other conditions. Some of the things were like rickets, which do you know how you get rickets from vitamin deficiency? One of them was his other condition was that half of his skull was blown off by the IDF. That was the other condition that the news media was hiding for you when they told you that he's also, by the way, being starved to death now. Like, is it really any surprise to you that in a famine, the first people who die are going to be the ones who are young, sick, elderly, injured, the weak? That is who is going to be most affected most rapidly, who will be at the greatest risk. Are those people also not worth saving? I mean, it's just utterly disgusting, not to mention the fact that it's not just food they've been blocking. It's also medical care. So yes, if you have one of those other conditions, not only are you being starved to death, you're likely not getting the medical care that you need. So it's just so incredibly disgusting. But, you know, I think as public opinion has dramatically shifted against Israel in the U.S., they're going to resort to ever more heavy handed tactics. And you already see this. I mean, they installed their like IDF sensor over at TikTok. You had Sherry Redstone talking about how she, you know, the 60 minutes, the one time they covered Gaza in like an effective way that like, you know, blew her mind and caused her to basically like destroy that program and sell her stake and make sure that and now they're bringing in Barry Weiss, potentially hiring Barry Weiss and buying her outlet, etc. You have obviously the heavy handed tactics of the Trump administration kidnapping people for wrong thing off the street. Like the more that they lose their grip, the more heavy handed and and like undeniable the authoritarian tactics are going to be on censorship. According to the IDF's own numbers, we just learned this today, according to the IDF's own numbers, 83 percent of the dead are innocent civilians in Gaza. Eighty three. And that's probably including like all military age males. Right. So if I was there and I was just being assumed to be a loss. Yeah. So even the best case scenario, how you measure it, 83 percent of the of the dead are innocent people. Yeah. That I need everybody understand something. It is impossible for that to be an oopsie. It is impossible for that to happen by accident. That doesn't happen by accident. That's on purpose. They killed all these innocent people and they did it on purpose because in their mind they think guilty enough. They're Palestinian. They're Muslim. They're Arab. Who cares? Their babies are terrorists because when they grow up, they might be a threat to us. So we do what we do and everybody shut the fuck up about it. And then if you complain about it, if you point it out, if you say this is an injustice, this is unacceptable. We're going to censor your ass. We're going to do our best to censor your ass. We're going to try to take you down off the Internet. We're going to try to muzzle you. But you know what? It's gone so far that I mean, what are they going to do? Censor 70 percent of the Internet. You know what I'm saying? Like eight percent of Democratic voters still support Israel. Eight percent. Well, I'll tell you what they're going to do. I mean, we can see it. They know their time is limited. So they're just going for it all right now. The final solution. I mean, that's what they're doing. Today is the Gaza City is being invaded as we speak. This E1 settlement, which will sever Jerusalem and different Palestinian communities in the West Bank, which is seen as like a, you know, dagger to the heart of any possibility of Palestinian state, which let's be honest, I mean, they've been destroying that possibility for years and years and years now. But this is an extraordinary development. The U.S. government is fine with it, which is a total shift in policy from previous administrations, at least pretense that they opposed additional settlements. They're bombing their neighbors. They're going to go back to war with Iran. They are going for it all right now in terms of total ethnic cleansing, final solution, greater Israel project. And they're just hoping that they can pull that off before there's any sort of consequences or accountability for the horrors that they've committed. The question is how long until they can be self-sufficient and not need to rely on U.S. money? Because we give them so much fucking money. Oh, yeah. We've given them nearly 300 billion dollars in their history. Oh, yeah. Like they are the biggest fucking welfare queen. Yeah. On the planet. They've got free health care. They've got free health care. They've got, you know, a pedophile safe haven over there. They've got the, you know, a massive social safety net, like the dole for the more Orthodox, like the more religious who don't work. And so they have a huge social safety net, health care for all. And you know, yeah, our tax dollars are going to that in part. And so if there is and I think it's very possible that you have a major flip on Israel policy if a Democrat gets elected in twenty twenty eight, which I think they probably will. And I think that through the primary process, you're likely to get someone who's very different oriented with regard to Israel and the Democratic base absolutely demands it. Yeah, they're there. Their days of mass, overwhelming, consistent support could be numbered and it will have devastating consequences for them. But I think they're just so committed to so committed to the genocidal course that nothing would throw them off. And AIPAC doesn't just need to be registered as a foreign agent. They need to be banned. Hmm. Ban them. All right, now let's move on. Let's talk a little bit about this pro public article that came out basically describing how RFK and Trump have completely destroyed our health infrastructure in this country in a way that is already like nearly impossible to come back from. I mean, this will take this would take two terms of a Democratic president just to try to build back to where we were before. Yeah. Never mind, like improve upon stuff. So according to this ProPublica piece, you ready for this? More than 3000 scientists and public health specialists have either left or been fired. Jesus. Over 1000 regulators and safety inspectors have also been fired or left. And in total, more than 20,500 workers, which is nearly 20% of the Department of Health and Human Services, have left or been pushed out, according to ProPublica's analysis. So what this means is exactly what people think it means. This is our health infrastructure that we're talking about here. I'm sure you saw the story about RFK canceling all the grants for all of the MRNA vaccine research. They were working on a cancer vaccine. We don't need that, do we? But he read some shitty blog from some snake oil salesman that said the MRNA makes you grow titties and Bill Gates is putting a microchip in your anus. And so there were therefore we're going to have to cut. And this like it's literally like government by bro science. I mean, I'd rather have the microchip than cancer. It's government. It's government by like Joe Rogan style bro science, you know. And here's the thing is, I mean, you can't take these people seriously. He postures like he's, you know, anti-corporate and he's going to take on big pharma, blah, blah, blah. Stripping the government of regulators, food and safety and drug regulators. So pro-corporate. I mean, this is a corporation's wet dream. Absolutely. I can, you know, get rid of all my safety standards and, you know, have sell my mystery, my like dated mystery meat to the public and not have anyone checking in to see what's going on here. And it'll all be fine and well and good. Like, yeah, that is their absolute dream. So then he'll do these things like, you know, oh, Shake Shack is I mean, not Shake Shack. Yeah. Steak and shake is using beef to fry the French fries. Maha hashtag Maha. Your coho saga has been on this. It's been all over it. Because there's this like mythology that's been created in Maha that all these weird little like things that RFK believes are somehow like the end all be all of health. So like they took Skittles and removed all the artificial dyes. And now people are pretending like Skittles are healthy. But there's yeah. It's like, no, it's still sugary fucking bullshit. You dumb fuck. Like, oh, they got rid of the blue dye. Meanwhile, RFK is literally drinking blue dye. It's fish tank cleaner. It's the fucking methylene blue shit. Yeah. His brain is literally dyed blue and is never going to go back. So apparently all the artificial food dyes bad unless it's fish tank shit. That's the smallest problem with his brain, though, if we're being honest, if we're being honest. He's got a lot of stuff going on. I mean, you see the influence, the like influencer culture taking over the administration. He and Pete Hegseth did that whole like I know, which also I am. I am trigonometry by him wearing his fucking jeans. Yeah. What is the workout is so disturbing to me. I can't even look at it. But yeah. So they'll do these like performative displays or they'll do some like corporate tie up sponsorship package basically with Skittles or with Steak and Shake. Keep wanting to call it Shake Shack and and pretend like that's any sort of policy. Meanwhile, the actual research that benefits people is getting gutted, the actual regulators who protect people getting gutted. You know, obviously he never cared, at least in the context of his presidential campaign about, oh, how about more people have access to health care? Maybe that would be a maha priority. No, we can't do that. So it's just all it's all a show. And the thing is, you and I have talked about this. I find it hard to both intellectualize and discuss the way that this administration is both this immense fascist danger that is doing genuinely, horrifically damaging things across the board and how they're also just a bunch of like goofy, unserious, fucking idiotic weirdos. And, you know, I think RFK Jr. is like perfectly fits in perfectly in this administration in that way. We canceled all the cancer research, but do a couple sit ups. Yeah. Mm hmm. That's the mindset. Right. Do some pull ups. I know that we got rid of like you're not gonna be able to get medicine that you need to survive. But, you know, you do some pull ups. It'll work. Go get some. Go get some fucking beef tallow fries. Yeah. All right. It'll work out. It'll be free skittles. Oh, my God. You'll be fine. Oh, my favorite. The raw milk. Oh, this data. Did you see this? an emergency thing like don't drink the raw milk because a bunch of people are fucking hospitalized because they were drinking the raw milk. And it literally said on the milk to this in the state of Florida, deep red state on the milk. It said not for human consumption. This is for like animals to have the milk and people are drinking it because this fucking dipshit has, you know, he promotes this nonsense. The difference between non pasteurized milk, raw milk and pasteurized milk is that pasteurized milk. They boil it to burn off the pathogens, burn off the germs and the diseases and the viruses. Yeah. And this fucking idiot is like, no, let me suck it right out of the udder. Let me. I like the pathogens. Oh, now my tummy hurts. Can't be the raw milk. I just drank. No, definitely not that. Like, they're so stupid. Like I said, it really is like I he reminds me of my dad, RFK. He reminds me of my dad because my dad, he's one of the whatever. Your dad's coming up a lot in this intro today. Really? Did I talk about him before? Yeah. With Trump. Oh, that's right. And yeah. Yeah. He was kind of related to that story. But anything that like whatever gut instinct he had, that's it. I don't need to read anything. I don't need to learn anything like that. I had a gut instinct. The instinct is correct. That's RFK's whole approach to science. Yeah. I don't think the vaccines work. Who cares? Who are you? Right. You're not a... You wouldn't know a placebo-controlled double-blind study if it hit you on the fucking head like an anvil. Maybe your brain worm can try to push the anvil off. But you know what I'm saying? Yeah. It's just crazy. And these guys, they are destroying our health infrastructure. And think about all the damage these people have done. When you take the doge cuts and this bullshit, pediatric cancer research cuts, NOAA and the NWS cut. They tried to bring some of them back out of desperation, by the way. I don't know if you saw that. But it's still not even what it was before. They fired like 600 people. They're like, let's bring back 400. Even in their attempts to make things better, they still can't make it correct. You know what I'm saying? You got Meals on Wheels being cut, cutting the CFPB, nuclear safety officials being cut. We don't even have routine food safety inspections anymore. In this article, they say that whoever's left doing any food safety inspections, they're like, we have to go to the store and buy the stuff to do the tests ourselves. They don't provide us with it. That's what they say in this ProPublica article. That's insane. That's completely insane. I know, like they're destroying everything. And meanwhile, they're grandstanding as they do it, as if they're some sort of fucking heroes. I know. People should be coming at you with fucking pitchforks, bro. And you know, RFK doesn't get enough attention because there's so much other insane shit just going on all the time. But this is the sort of stuff that it will have massive, short and long term consequences. And to your point, even if you have a Democratic administration that spends eight years trying to rebuild, some of the people and expertise and the research that was being done and the grants that were pulled, some of that just won't come back. You will never know what possibilities were taken off the table. Brain drain, absolutely, where you will never get back what is lost during this period. And it's also this very, I mean, it's just a total libertarian approach to health where they have this view. I mean, they had this view during COVID of like, oh, if you're healthy and you work out, then you won't get COVID or you'll be fine. If you have COVID, you don't need the vaccine, et cetera. And they just sort of take that view of a lot of chronic conditions and diseases of just like, oh, well, if you do your pull-ups, that really is their thought. If you like do your pull-ups and your sit-ups, then you'll be fine. And we don't need all of this modern medicine. So childish. It's just so, I don't know. How are we going backwards so fast? They also get obsessed with things from time to time. It'll become like the next big thing on the right. So this methylene blue thing is one of them. But then another one is like, they've all convinced themselves that nicotine is actually the healthiest thing in the world for you. Yeah. Bro, let me tell you, from somebody who smoked cigarettes for years and vaped for years. Really? Is that what we're going to say? I saw Tucker talking about that. Oh my God. First of all, that motherfucker's face is beet red 24 seven. Why? Because he's always sucking on zins, bro. His bloodstream is like 78% nicotine at this point. Homie's going to keel over and die any fucking minute. I know that nicotine doesn't cause cancer. That part is true. But let's stop pretending like, oh, it's no downsides to it. And it relaxes you while making you focused at the same time. It's like, if you're popping 18 zins a day, dog, you're gonzo. You're going to be in trouble. And if you try to quit, it'll be like a fucking heroin addict trying to quit. You're going to go through flu symptoms. It's going to feel like shit. But they get obsessed with these little things and they convince themselves of the most utter bullshit you've ever heard in your life. Yeah. Like a seventh grade rumor among idiot boys. Like assholes. It's one thing when that is the podcast influencer world. That's bad enough, right? Because people are very impressionable. Now those fuckers are running the government. Exactly. And like making policy based on their weird influencer views that they just like thought up on their own. And it's dishonest to like deep down. They know that that shit is not true. You know what I'm saying? Like deep down, you know it. When you're smoking cigarettes, everybody knows this is not good for you. The vape thing. Here's how you cope. You say, oh, this is better than the cigarettes. That's how you cope with it. You're like, oh, I took a step in the right direction. It's like, okay, is it objectively good though overall? And like they avoid that part. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. But they convince themselves of these things and they go with it a thousand miles an hour. And it's embarrassing. It's fucking embarrassing, you know? Country is an embarrassment at this point. Yeah, we're cooked. Anyway, let's bring in our not cooked guest who we absolutely love. He's going to help us get anti-cooked. That's right. We are anti-cooking on the show this week. All right, let's bring in Richard Ojeda. All right, guys, I am super excited to welcome to the show today, Richard Ojeda, who's running in North Carolina's ninth district. I am so excited for this. I was just telling Crystal when we were doing the intro, I have a little bit of a man crush on you, man. I mean, I don't know how many of the old videos you've seen when you ran for president. What was that, 2016? No, 2020. That'd be 2020, right? Yeah. I was giving you like the most glowing coverage. I was like, who the hell is this guy? This guy came out of nowhere. He's the most charismatic man I've ever seen in my life. Then you go back and look at the record and you were out there in 2018 at the teacher strike in West Virginia, and you made a huge impact. And the day you dropped out, I was hurt, man. You know, I know there was a lot of people that were disappointed. I will tell you, I worked so hard for that state. And it doesn't mean that I don't love that state because I've left it, but it was just really hard when you really put in the work to fight for these people. And it just seems like sometimes they just, they believe that Donald Trump is the second coming in many cases. It's really a red state. Yeah. That's true. And it's just so hard. And then moving back to North Carolina, that's where my children were educated. That's where they were raised. My wife was a successful real estate agent when I was in the military. So going back there, it actually felt like I was going back home. And also I should point out that when you ran for Congress in 2018 in West Virginia, you were able to swing 35% of Trump voters to you. So first of all, it's massive over-performance. But how did you do that? And do you think you can repeat that in North Carolina? I think I can. It's about putting boots on the ground. Look, I am not scared to walk into the belly of the beast if I have to, because I believe that if I do and they listen to me, I'm gonna convince some of them to come back over to my side. So I'm putting boots on the ground everywhere. I've got one county that is 19% Democrat and 81% Republican. But make no mistake about it. I'm showing up there as often as possible. I want them to see who I am. I want them to know who I am. Right now, my opponent, Richard Hudson, he don't put boots on the ground. He calls himself the veteran's representative. He's never picked up a rifle and manned a post. He's never served our country in the military. He sat quiet while Elon Musk fired over 7,000 VA workers. And he voted yes on that big horrible bill that's targeting 86,000 VA jobs. That's my care in the community. That's my dental care, you know? And that is unacceptable. And there's a lot of people in my district that absolutely know exactly what's gonna happen if we continue down this path. And I believe that they're gonna be the ones that are gonna be willing to support me over him. And I know Fort Bragg is in your district. Yes. So a lot of military, a lot of retired military who live right around there. Just for people who don't know you, acquaint them with Richard Ojeda, your career, how you ended up running for office in the first place. Well, you know, I got into politics because when I retired from the military, my mentality was every single politician I ever knew that shook my hand, I immediately wanted to Purell up real fast and wash my hands. And of course, you know, politicians and just how they were, you know, it was always dirty. And politics was one thing that, you know, I didn't wanna really participate in. But I got involved in politics because I got sick and tired of watching people do nothing. You know, you show up and you write three checks to the three biggest crooks in the county and then we don't see you again and you win this area. So I started to get into politics like that. And then somebody decided to threaten my father and I decided to go against that person right there. And it almost cost me my life. I mean, a lot of people don't know, but I actually won my primary for my Senate race in West Virginia while undergoing facial reconstruction surgery because I took a pipe to the back of the head and ate broken bones in my face with brass knuckles. They knew that if I didn't die on that creek bank, I'd be the next state senator and I'm hard to kill. So tell everybody about that because you were attacked in 2016 when you ran for state Senate in West Virginia. How did that come about? Like what happened? Well, you know, I will just say, I'm not blaming it on my opponent, but I will tell you that there are people that absolutely did not want me to win that seat. And that's what happened. It gave me a good understanding of what Southern West Virginia politics really is. And believe it or not, violence is part of it. If you really do the research, I survived and I won. And, you know, I did everything in my power to try to elevate people in my district. You know, spending four years after I retired, after 24 years in the military, in the classroom, when I got to the Senate floor and I saw what the Republicans were doing to teachers and school service personnel. And you can't talk about teachers without talking about school service personnel. But the things that they were doing was absolutely unacceptable. So I stood up and I threatened the Republicans about a potential strike. And five days later, all 55 counties was on strike. We had 28,000 teachers singing, we're not going to take it. And the Republicans knew, and especially when they walked out the front door of the Capitol, because when you look to the left, there was a tent that said, United Mine Workers of America. Over here was the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. There's the pipe fitters, the boilermakers, the carpenters, the painters, all of them were there supporting those teachers and the Republicans knew if they run, if they go against these teachers and school service personnel, they're going to be in a world of hurt. So it passed and we won a 5% pay raise for all the teachers and school service personnel. And there's things that I want to do now that I'm talking about that's going to elevate teachers and school service personnel. I want to create a VA style system for police, fire, first responders, correctional officers, and nurses. You know, we can tell police officers, we'll let you retire 25 years. But when they retire, they lose their insurance. They need a VA style like I have that will cover their healthcare for the rest of their lives. And don't they deserve it? I mean, come on, police officers, firefighters. I tell people all the time, I got multiple tours in combat and the death that I seen in Haiti for the earthquake broke me. But the VA takes care of me. Every single car crash where people die, police officers and firefighters and first responders are cutting lifeless children's bodies out of these vehicles and stuff. But they don't have anybody that sits down with them. They have to swallow it and just hope that it doesn't overtake them. They deserve something like a VA. And that's exactly what I want to try to fight for. Richard, talk a little bit about the politics in West Virginia. And obviously you've, you know, lived in North Carolina a long time. You're running to represent North Carolina. But West Virginia is such a fascinating state because you had that massive statewide teacher's wave and teacher's strike and the public was behind the teachers. Yes. And at the same time, you see the way that West Virginia, especially Southern West Virginia, overwhelmingly supports Donald Trump. Yeah. Who is, you know, a union buster, a strike breaker, horrible for working people. The people that you know, how do they square these things? Like, how do they think about it? You know, that's one of the things is the majority of teachers, a lot of teachers are married to coal miners because those are two jobs that you can get where you can raise a family in West Virginia. So teachers loved me, but a lot of teachers actually said, I can't vote for him because my husband's a coal miner. And I've never been against coal, but I do say we really do need to prepare ourselves for when coal is on its way out. Right. Understand, we lost more coal jobs under Donald Trump than anybody else, but nobody tells these people that. And if all you do is watch Fox News and Newsmax, all you're doing is drinking from the fountain of Fox. So they're not going to tell you, you know, right now over the past six months, something like 770 more coal miners in West Virginia have lost their jobs. You know, who's in charge? Donald Trump is right now, but nothing's happening for these people. And that's the thing is that, you know, when you go down to places like West Virginia, you promise these people the world and then you leave and you give them nothing. And a lot of times they've grown to expect it. Yep, the guy shows up, tells me everything, then he disappears and nothing happens. But he did shake my hand and took a picture with me. So I guess we'll stay with him. And it's sad because those people deserve so much better. I would say those people deserve to get real love because they haven't gotten that ever, ever. If you look at the coal mining and how it started, it was literally legalized slavery. I mean, they paid the people in script and you could only use it in the company store that jacked the prices up on everything. I mean, that's how it was. Those people have been done so dirty. They don't know how. It's like if somebody says I can fix things for you, it's like they just don't believe it because it's never happened for them. And to be honest with you, I worked so hard to win that seat and did quite well, you know? But it's just, you know, sometimes it's just that way. I hate it, but that's how it is. I mean, but I have to say it's a new day in America. It is a new day in America. And I don't wanna get ahead of myself here, but I'm really optimistic about what's gonna come. I mean, assuming everything is free and fair enough, which is a question, there's a real question there. But tell everybody, you have a really fascinating backstory. Tell everybody how you went from supporting Trump in 2016 to being, and I'm not kidding about this, his fiercest critic that maybe I've ever seen. What was it in particular that made you finally break from MAGA? And what made you wake up? Well, first off, the things that he was saying was cringeworthy at best. But he was talking about helping the coal miners. When he come down to West Virginia, put that coal miners cap on and worked that invisible shovel, and we know he never held a shovel in his hand. But the thing is, is that the people went crazy, you know? And I was like, you know what? All of my family was coal miners. I mean, like everybody. My grandfather laid track in the mines until he was 72, and he paid his union dues to the day he died. And, you know, I thought to myself, I'm going to hold my nose because he's here talking about helping these people. We haven't had anybody come down there and talk about helping the coal miners since JFK. So I said, I'm going to hold my nose and I'm going to support this guy. It wasn't two weeks after he had taken office that we all realized this guy is garbage. He ain't going to do nothing for these people. And the truth is, is we lost more coal jobs under him than any time before. You know, it's, you know, it's one of those things that just, it's sad. So I immediately started throwing stones and I continue to throw stones and I'm going to call him out and anybody else out for the things that they're doing. You know, I look at the people of West Virginia and I'm from North Carolina, you know, and I'm glad to be in North Carolina. I'm going to fight for North Carolina and I want to elevate the lives of people in North Carolina. But I want to help people all across this country too. And West Virginia is a part of that. You know, I think that there are some things that we can do. We call ourselves the greatest nation on earth but we sure as hell don't prove it. And we need to. We need to start doing better for people in this country. If we can't elevate the lives of teachers, school service personnel, police officers, firefighters, correctional officers, first responders and nurses, then we've got a problem. We've got a problem. And I want to get to Washington DC and I want to start pushing the things that we need. And if we take back power, we're going to have to right all these wrongs. And I'm talking day one, overturn, Citizens United, things like that. We've got to prove to the people that if we take back power, we're going to use it properly to elevate the lives of all Americans. And if we don't, then we have no business staying in power. Yeah, it's amazing how quickly Trump outed himself as a fraud because he ran as the anti-outsourcing guy. Then in his first term, he outsourced 200,000 jobs. Now in his second term, as soon as he got in there, he cut off the funding for all the Joe Biden bills like the CHIPS Act and the infrastructure bill, which killed 800,000 manufacturing jobs that were going to come back here. And I feel like it's stuff like that, that makes people who maybe were working class and were Trump curious, or at one point voted for him in 2016 or whatever, they see that now and they go, okay, well, I just got conned. He's a scam artist. That's what he is. Yeah, tell us a little bit about your district in North Carolina. What's the makeup? Who's your opponent? And what do you think are the most important issues for constituents there? I know veterans issues, obviously very key. You had the huge attacks on that with Doge. I have to think that the one big, beautiful bill and the attacks on Medicaid. Talk to us, what are you hearing from people there? Yeah, obviously, my district is heavily saturated with veterans, so veteran healthcare is a big issue. And once again, I mean, they're cutting it to pieces. You fire 86,000 more VA workers, you are absolutely, they're going to shut down our clinics. If you're a veteran, when I lived in West Virginia, I used to have to drive two hours just to get blood drawn. I had to take an entire day off just to get blood drawn. It takes five minutes to get blood drawn. But my community, my care center in Sanford, North Carolina, I have a fear that that's going to end up being closed down with all these cuts. If that closes down, then I have no other choice than to drive all the way to the VA hospital. And for people that are veterans that are working other jobs, I mean, you have to take a day off. So that is something that is, it's tough. The northern part of the district doesn't even know what Richard Hudson looks like. And that's why I'm running against Richard Hudson. He is the head of the NRCC. I actually out-fundraised him this last quarter and they dumped a bunch of money in the end just so it didn't look so bad. But I'm telling you, it's about putting boots on the ground and showing up. Education is big because we've got schools everywhere and teachers and school service personnel, they vote. And, you know, it's me having a conversation with these people. You know, I found out that in North Carolina, we pay our bus drivers $27,000 to transport our most prized possessions to and from school in the hail, sleet, rain and snow, $27,000. You're allowing a person who is taking care of our children to live in absolute poverty. Because if you look at how much rent is today, it's not much left after you pay the rent and then you got to pay your utilities. I want to elevate that. I would like to take teacher and school service personnel pay out of the hands of the states. Now, here's the deal. If you want to pay the teachers more in your state, by all means, go for it. But I think that we should never allow a teacher in the United States of America to go to work and pay them less than $70,000. That's it. And we should do that. If we can give $3.2 trillion to the billionaire class, we can take it back from them because they don't deserve it. And maybe we could do this for our teachers and school service personnel. Start teachers off at $70,000. And that's it, $70,000. Now, if you're in Colorado and they pay their teachers more, by all means, we're going to give you the first $70,000 for every teacher. If you want to raise your teacher salary, another 25,000, then the states can handle that. But we're going to make sure that every single teacher makes $70,000 cash. We got teachers with master's degrees that don't make 40 grand, and that's a slap in the face. So also with school service personnel, $50,000. So every bus driver, every cooking staff, every special needs aid, and make no mistake about it, these people are crucial. There are people that are changing diapers in high schools, and they are absolutely needed. Why should we allow them to live in pure poverty? And because I spent four years in the classroom, I heard the issues that these people had. And that's what broke my heart. And that's why I had to stand up and give that speech that started the teacher strike in West Virginia. You know, I still love these people and want them to succeed. And I think we can do that. That's the same thing. If we can give trillions of dollars, there's 814 billionaires, 814. 331 million people are getting stabbed in the back so that we can make 814 people happy. No, we need to do something for the people. We need to create a VA style system. Let me tell you something. I've seen my share of death and I participated in it. I also was in Haiti for the earthquake and that place broke me. I found myself breaking out in tears constantly because of that. And I'm going to tell you that there's no reason why we should not be doing more. And we can. A police officer and a firefighter, how many lifeless bodies have they cut out of vehicles that were crashed? Every overdose, every murder, every death, they're a part of that. But they don't have a system like I have that takes care of my mental health. I am taken care of, but they're not. They have to swallow it. A police officer has to go through their whole entire career and has to basically block it out. They deserve a VA style health care that will take care of their health for the rest of their lives. So when they retire at a 25 year not retirement, they don't have to worry about health care anymore. They can go get a second job and get a second retirement. And that's what they deserve. And I think that we can do that if we start making the rich pay their fair share and using that to elevate the people in this country that deserve to be elevated. Yeah. And I've heard you say that Donald Trump and all these politicians, they should have the same health care that we do. Yeah. They should be forced to be on the same health care that we have. Yeah. I'm going to stay with the VA. I don't care what they offer me. I'm staying in VA because if I am a member of Congress, I'm going to be going to the VA and I'm going to expect the VA to take care of me just like they take care of everybody. And if they don't take care of me, then, oh my gosh, if you're not going to take care of me as a member of Congress, imagine what you're not doing for veterans. And then I got a problem. And I will make sure that I go nose to nose with somebody about that problem. So tell us a little bit more about your opponent, the type of, I think he's a big AIPAC money recipient. Yes. That's some of his biggest. AIPAC is like his biggest donor. I actually out-fundraised him and my donations are $18. That's the average donation, $18. His is over $800 because he's in the pockets of corporations and billionaires. That's what he cares about. He don't care about the people in that district. He don't put boots on the ground. He doesn't show up. He shows up to play a round of golf or he showed up at Fort Bragg, North Carolina to stand next to Donald Trump on a stage where they put up a merchandise station where they sold white privilege cards to soldiers that bought them. Unacceptable. That's a slap in the face. This guy does not care about the people. For him to call himself a veterans representative is a slap in the face to me and everybody who's picked up a rifle a man to post. And he supported the Dogecuts because I know that in those cuts 83,000 veterans lost their jobs. He supported those cuts and he pretends like he's pro-veteran? Exactly. That's the thing. That's why they love MAGA so much because if all you do is drink from the Fountain of Fox, Fox doesn't tell you that. Have you ever heard Sean Hannity open his show and say, hey everybody, just want you to know we had to pay $787 million for lying. No, they don't. So the people that watch Only Fox don't know the damage that's really done. They think that these guys are out there fighting for the people. But the truth is, put boots on the ground, he doesn't show up nowhere. And he had the gall to tell all the other Republicans, stop the town halls. When you say stop that town halls, what you mean is we don't have anything worth talking about. We don't have anything that we can champion because we're doing nothing. Because instead of pushing legislation, you're too busy licking the boots of Donald Trump. And is he supporting these, what we're witnessing now across the country is just a flat out authoritarian takeover. Trump has invaded Los Angeles. Trump has now invaded Washington, D.C. Somebody I saw the other day died. They got T-boned by this big military vehicle. I don't know if they died or if they're just in the hospital, but it was not good. It was not pretty. Does your opponent support this kind of stuff? Everything that Donald Trump does. And let me tell you something. I'm gonna tell you, to sit and watch American soldiers rolling out a red carpet for a murderous dictator who has kidnapped over 40,000 Ukrainian children. The thought that I would ever watch American soldiers on their knees rolling out a carpet for a dictator is unacceptable. And I recently saw some pictures here in Washington, D.C. Whole bunch of soldiers just sitting on a curb, you know, just hanging out. Because why? Because there's no reason for them to be here. Right now, Washington, D.C. is experiencing a 30-year low in crime. This was nothing more than Donald Trump trying to mess with people and try to act like he wants to put on some type of a show. You're wasting a lot of money. And these soldiers, these soldiers aren't doing anything. They're sitting there wondering, why are we here? And they're probably having a hard time finding a place to sleep, finding where their food is. So it's just absolutely unacceptable. And make no mistake about it. My opponent loves everything that Donald Trump does. You know? As somebody who was in the military for over 20 years, how does it make you feel watching Trump threaten Greenland, threaten Mexico, you know, bomb Iran illegally? He bombed Somalia, bombed Yemen. We just learned this week he's sending 4,000 Marines to Venezuela and three warships to Venezuela. Congress didn't debate this. Venezuela is not a threat to us. Everybody knows this. He doesn't care about people in the military. And he's basically using them to throw them in the meat grinder for his own fascist ambitions. How does that make you feel as somebody who was in the military? It sickens me. I mean, I think it was yesterday. He was talking about how, well, maybe I'm a hero too. I mean, this guy, you know, I mean, just Draft Dodger, five times the stories about him. And I hate when I see him in his cadet uniform, because of course they've said that he actually borrowed somebody else's uniform because that person had some medals on their uniform. But at the end of the day, it's like, I am so glad that I retired and I never had to serve under Donald Trump. Because right now, if you are not drinking from the Fountain of Fox, I mean, they'll try to get rid of you. I mean, look at what happened. They fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Not just a person on the Joint Chiefs, but the chairman, the guy in charge of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They fired him because of the color of his skin. And then they fired the next day, the female admiral that was over the Coast Guard, because she was a woman. And right now that's what we got. We have our military that is absolutely being under attack by these people. And it's unacceptable. You know, when I heard that the Air Force has now said that they're not going to allow transgender people that were serving this country to receive their benefits, their military benefits in their retirement after you get rid of them. Are you kidding me? Are you telling me that because you don't like the way a certain person is, that they don't deserve to get their retirement that they've been in the military for, for the past 15 to 18 years? You're going to tell me that they don't deserve their retirement? They did their job. This is unacceptable. What they are doing to our military, and make no mistake about it, if they can come and take their benefits, they're going to come after everybody else's benefits. At the end of the day, all they care about is money. All they care about is money. And if they can stop this big chunk of money, and they can use that money to divert it to maybe making those 814 billionaires more happy, they're going to do that. And that's what, look at USAID. We got crops, $2 billion worth of food that's supposed to go to USAID that's rotting on the vines because they're no longer in existence, you know? And make no mistake about it, if we're not there showing goodwill to places all over the country, all over the world, I mean, Russia will, China will, and they are. They're already doing that. So it's horrible. SONIA DARA A lot of people, myself included, have been horrified by seeing the images of Gaza and the use of taxpayer dollars to absolutely decimate the entire Gaza Strip, some 70% of buildings destroyed. God only knows how many people have been killed, hundreds of thousands, based on a lot of expert estimates. What has that meant to you to see American taxpayer dollars used for this purpose? We have veterans, you know. on the streets in the United States of America. Right now, they're coming after our veterans benefits. They're gutting the VA, but yet we're going to continue dumping money? I mean, to me, I'm just like, I want it to stop. I want the death to stop. You know, there's women and children and my tax dollars are being diverted. That's part of the reason why they're being killed. And that's unacceptable. What would you, if you were in Congress, would you vote to ship additional weapons? Would you, let's just start with that question. Would you send additional aid to Israel at this point? I want it to stop. No, I want it to stop. I want this to stop. Children are losing their lives. You know, it's got to stop. And I don't want to be a part of it. I don't want to be a part of it. I don't want to support anything that's going to go to killing innocent people. And women and children, as far as I'm concerned, that's off limits. And right now, they're being slaughtered. And what about, would you pledge not to take any funding from the Israeli AIPAC in particular? I am not taking no funding. I don't want no funding from any part, any part that's dealing with that. I don't want nothing, no part of any of that. So keep your money. I don't want it. You were one of the original people who said, I'm not taking corporate PAC money. I'm taking small dollar donations. That's right, right? Yep, still that way. Yeah. I have no desire. I don't want to be, I'm not going to be ruled. I want to get to Washington DC and I want to push real legislation. That's what I want to do. And if somebody goes to Washington DC and pushes real legislation, then they're going to be safe because the people are going to see it. You know, there's a lot of things that I want to, I want to overturn Citizens United. I want to remove the cap on social security. So social security will be here for our grandchildren. You know, there's a lot of, I want to bring back the fairness doctrine. I want to bring back something that says, you know what? If you're going to call yourself media, you have to tell the truth. Right now, our country, half of our country is completely lost in the sauce because they're just getting garbage dumped into their head. You know, I think that if you call yourself news, then you should be honest. And if you get caught lying, then you should receive a severe fine. If you get caught lying again, then you're off the air, period. That's what needs to happen. Fox News has done some serious damage to this country. And I will, I have no problems. They are one of the major problems as to why we have so many people in this country that are completely lost. Because once again, they don't tell the truth. And we should require that every single entity out there that calls himself the news is actually telling the truth. How do you feel about the way democratic leadership has performed in this second Trump era? Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, those folks. You know, I want to see, I want to see people fighting. I want to see people, I mean, going nose to nose with some of these people. I absolutely love what I'm seeing with Gavin Newsom because Gavin Newsom is also showing everybody this is exactly the way Donald Trump is being. You clapped and loved it when Donald Trump was spewing this kind of garbage. But now that Gavin Newsom is doing it, that's just a bridge too far. No, look, I'm telling you right now, we need more people like Gavin Newsom to come out here and fight fire with fire. I'm sick and tired of people thinking that Democrats are weak. We're not weak and we should prove that we're not weak. Go nose to nose with any one of these people. Look, I will work with anybody who has good ideas that will help the people. But make no mistake about it, I'm not going to sit there and let somebody just push me around. And I'm not going to sit there and be quiet when I see somebody spewing BS. Yeah, we've never seen anything like this with the Republicans. I mean, we saw what they just did in Texas. They're gerrymandering five more Republican seats. Gavin Newsom is responding to that and saying, whatever you do, we're going to cancel out here. And I mean, Trump is just openly basically admitting that I'm going to rig this thing. I mean, right as we were coming on air here, he said something to that effect again, like we got to ban the mail-in, no more mail-in voting. We got to ban the mail-in voting. Here, I'll read it for you. Big win for the great state of Texas. And he talks about how Abbott did a good job here. And then he says, no more mail-in voting, no more voting machines. He said, at the end, he said something really chilling. He said something like no more with this crooked game of politics. He said, if we do these two things, we'll pick up a hundred more seats and the crooked game of politics is over. See, that's him admitting like, I don't want elections anymore. Yes. I just want it to take. And to your point, you got to fight fire with fire because if you don't fight back, like this is everything. This is the whole game. Yeah, but look, if you slap me, I'm not going to slap you back. I'm going to put a fist in your teeth. And you know what? That's what I'm saying. You know what? Don't just counter with five seats. Go ahead, go all the way. Make as many as you can, Gavin. Make as many as you can, New York. Make as many as you can, Illinois. If you want to play this game, let's play it to the hilt. Look, at the end of the day, I'd love nothing more to guarantee we're not just going to take back the house, but we're going to take back the house with the ability to where we can push and pass anything that we want. And that's what our focus needs to be because make no mistake about it. If we're 51-50, then it's always going to be a fight. But if we have a super majority, we can actually get these things done and actually they will pass, you know, ending Citizens United. There's no reason why we should, anybody in this country should know, do you really want these corporations buying your elections? Look at what Elon Musk did. Elon, and I'm going to say it. You know, Kamala Harris was winning by 10 points in seven of the eight battleground states the day before the election. And one, she was only winning by two points, which was Nevada. And then all of a sudden the next day, Trump sweeps everything. I'm still like, how did that happen? But once again, once again, if all you're going to do is just accept it, then that's why the Democrats lose. Fight back, you know? Are you worried about election rigging for the midterms? When it comes to- I am, I'll say it. When it comes to this, you know, regime, absolutely. We know that they're going to, Donald Trump is going to cheat. He's going to do everything in his power to cheat. I think the only thing that could potentially help us is that he had a falling out with Elon Musk. But for all I know, they're going to become buddy-buddy again before the next election. And that wouldn't surprise me. But you know, nothing would surprise me, but that's why this is so important. It seems like what he's doing too, so first of all, they're doing all kinds of, you know, trying to pressure states to get rid of mail-in balloting, the rigging of the districts, all of that sort of stuff. There's other things, executive orders he did earlier in the administration, but it also seems like he's setting up to just deny the results if they don't go well for him. And he also said it to Zelensky. And he said something to Zelensky, which indicated that- Oh, he said, well, Zelensky, you know, is still there because they don't have elections because they're at war. Yeah. They're being occupied by Russia, the eastern portion of the country is occupied. And Trump was like, oh, if you're at war, you don't have to have elections? Interesting. Little twinkle in his eye. And make no mistake about it, bing, the light bulb popped up there. Nothing would surprise me with this regime. And at the end of the day, Donald Trump is doing this because Donald Trump knows that the moment that he is no longer relevant, he's going to be prosecuted. If we take back the House and we take back, if we take back the Senate, or even if we don't take back the Senate, when we pick up some seats, I believe that there will be some Republicans that are done with Donald Trump. And we could actually impeach him and have him removed. And the moment that that happens, he's going to be in a world of hurt. The only reason why nobody is seeing the Epstein files is because he's all over them. Everybody knows that. Yeah. So my thing is, is bring it out. Bring it, somebody's got it. Come on, Elon, I'm sure you got it. Somebody's got it. Yeah, you were saying. And oh, by the way, you're going to tell a thousand FBI agents to comb through the files to remove Donald Trump's name? Isn't that called tampering of evidence? Yeah. I would think so. Yeah. No, I mean, I think that's what he's, I think that's part of what he's scared of if Democrats take back control, any kind of subpoena power, any kind of investigations, you know, potential impeachment. But shouldn't that be a litmus test for Democrats? We talked about this, Crystal, that all the crimes Elon, he cut pediatric cancer research illegally. He cut Meals on Wheels. All these things, wildly illegal. He had no authority to do it whatsoever. Did it, got away with it. Shouldn't it be a litmus test for Democrats to stand up and say, he should be prosecuted for this. Kristi Noem, Stephen Miller, Trump, they should all be prosecuted for their endless crimes. Yeah, and here you are. They act like they care about the people. What are you doing? You want to kill free lunches? I spent four years as an educator at the high school level. If it wasn't for those free lunches, a lot of those kids wouldn't get no food. You know, where I come from in Logan County, there's a hill behind the town of Logan. And I tell people in the summertime, when the kids get to sleep in late, they stay up all night playing their video games. Not those kids. Because if they don't get up at 6.30 and run down to the local middle school for that free breakfast and that bag of lunch, they don't eat today. These are the people that are under attack from the Republican Party, and they don't realize it. It's like they don't understand that that's what these people are doing. You know, when you kill free lunches, when you cut SNAP benefits, you're hurting children out there. If we're gonna require a child to spend eight hours a day in a place where they're supposed to learn, shouldn't we feed them? And once again, a hungry child. A hungry child's not gonna be able to focus on their studies. I watched young girls jumping over tables in a cafeteria because one of the cooking ladies walked out and put on a big metal tray of corndogs. And I watched girls jump over tables to grab handfuls and stick them in their purse. And this was when I was new. And I looked at a guy, I said, what am I watching? And he was like, yeah, they take it home. That's food for them tonight. And I was like, oh my gosh, I can't believe that. And now they're wanting to kill lunches for these kids. I mean, that's unacceptable. Meanwhile, give another tax cut away to the rich. And they're 3 million in food stamp benefits. 3 million families are gonna lose their food stamp benefits as well. Yeah, yeah. And we're talking about people that are on the bottom. I mean, you're punching people in the nose that are the least of us. And it's the thing is, is that I'm so sick and tired of watching all these pastors and everybody coming together, putting their hands on Donald Trump for what you do to the least of my brethren, you do unto me. So if you drop a bomb on a child, you're dropping a bomb on Jesus. If you're removing the food capabilities for a child, you're removing the food capabilities for Jesus. Look, I'm not a super religious guy, but I do know what Matthew 25 is. And I do think that everybody should do their best to try to live a Matthew 25. And right now we've got people that claim to be super religious, but they do everything against the teachings of Jesus Christ and they need to be called out for that. What makes you think you said earlier that you think in the next term, Trump, maybe there'll be some Republicans who turn on him. Maybe you could actually get a conviction in the Senate, get him removed. What do you think would lead to their eyes being opened? Epstein files? I think that the Epstein files is something that I think that that's, you know, you not gonna be able to stand. Once that comes out, you're not gonna be able to stand. And look, here's the thing too. Look, if there's Democrats that are on that list, arrest them too. Democrats are saying, get everybody who is guilty of preying on these kids should go down for this. Democrat, Republican, I don't care. But that's the thing is that, you know, we're okay. If any, if President Biden is on it, put him in jail. But he's not, you know, but show the files. If those files did not have Donald Trump's name on them, they would have been released long, long time ago. But because he's all over them, two decades of partying around with this guy. And this guy was absolutely a horrible human being. And so is Donald Trump. But once again, they're gonna do everything in their power to make sure that the people don't get to hear this because they care more about holding on to power in Washington, D.C. than they do making people get held accountable, especially if some of those are some of those 814 billionaires that we keep dumping money towards, everybody. You have a lot of Republicans in your district. Do you see any of them kind of waking up, asking questions, questioning past support? MAGA is probably a bridge too far. But I'm gonna tell you, when we went to the first Where's Richard Hudson? There were Republicans and independents. And they come up to me and said, I like what you had to say. I'm gonna back you. I'm gonna support you. I mean, I had an event that was thrown for me not too long ago that was independent voters thrown by a person who ran as an independent. So I believe that, you know, my message, the type of person that I am, I think resonates with a lot of these people. You know, I don't sit quiet. I'd rather take a beating than bow down to you. And I think a lot of people appreciate that. I think it's the strength that attracts a lot of people, the strength of your message, the fact that you're confident you don't back down. And that's something that is just so rare among Democrats. And I think people are yearning for that void to be filled and you're filling it. I'm a real Democrat. And I tell people, you know, a real Democrat is an old school Democrat. I believe in unions. I think that if you have a job, it should be unionized. And I will stand on picket lines and throw down if I have to, you know, because those are the important people. And once again, you know, this regime wants to do away with unions completely because they don't like anybody to look at any boss and say, hey, we need safety on the job. We deserve to have better pay. You know, there's so many people in this country that are working nonstop and it's barely even making the ends meet, barely making them meet. And these are the people that are absolutely just on the verge of going under. And that's what's gonna happen when you kill all these capabilities and you start cutting the capabilities from these people. You know, a poor family that relies on SNAP, when you get rid of those SNAP benefits for that family, what are they gonna do? Because the truth is, is there is no plan for what are they gonna do right now. But you're talking about, you know, when you got a mother that will literally go without and will starve herself the last week of every month just so her children can get food in their stomachs. I mean, it's a wonderful mother, a mother that sacrifices for her kids, but this is the United States of America. I've been alive for almost 55 years and every single day that I was always told that America's the greatest country ever because we can whip you, because we can drop more bombs on you, but we don't do nothing for our people. We tax the hell out of the middle class. We don't do anything for these people. Right now, the middle class are carrying this country. The middle class have been carrying this country since Ronald Reagan said, trickle down economics. It's about time we turn this around and let's let the billionaires carry the United States of America for the next 50 to 60 years. Because if we do, make no mistake about it, we will finally make America great, but it's not gonna get great under this regime. Especially with kicking 17 million people off Medicaid. Yeah. Yeah. Richard, tell people where they can support your campaign. You can go to ojeda4nc.com. We've got some really cool merch, but you can also donate to my ActBlue link. I do a nightly live called Ojeda Live. I try to do it every night at 8.30, so definitely check that out, people. You gotta check that out, guys. And I say what I say. If you like what you hear here, you're gonna like what you hear there. And let me tell you something. I appreciate you two. You guys have been on the front line for a long, long time, and I'm really glad that you're still on the front line because we need more people like you right now than ever. Thank you, sir. Man, that dude is something. He's one of a kind, isn't he? That dude is something. You get him going on something. You could see why I was sad when he dropped out in 2020. Yeah. Right? I was like, oh, fuck. Yeah. Just his existence helps with stuff. I helped him a lot in the 2018 campaign. I spent a lot of time with him in Southern West Virginia. It was an incredible campaign. I mean, he overperformed more than any Democrat in the entire country, but that district- It's true. I remember covering it. And it's not just, I mean, if you know West Virginia at all, Southern West Virginia is the most Trump place. Like in the country. It's like the Trumpiest place in the country. He tried Mission Impossible as a politician. I'm gonna run as a Democrat in West Virginia, which is now like one of the deepest red states in the country, if not the deepest red state. In Southern West Virginia. Southern West, and- And came- He got super fucking close. He overperformed. 35% of Trump voters flipped to him. Yeah. And now he's running in a district. Do you know anything about this current district? Yeah, I mean, it's a tough district, but it's not nearly as tough. If he overperforms by 35 points again, he'll be good. No, I think it's, I wanna say it's like an R plus 11. So it's, you know, it's tough. R plus 11 for him is like, that's like R plus two with his talent. Yeah, I think so. I think not only that, I mean, I do think there's just a big wave that's brewing because people are very energized to vote against the Republicans. And the Republicans are kind of demoralized. And they never really turn out when it's not Trump on the ballot. They don't turn out in the same way. So I think he's got a shot and he doesn't have much of a primary opponent. You know, there's somebody else in the race, but they're like not really raising money, whatever. I think they've run in the past before. So he's pretty much, you know, I think he's a lock to be the Democratic nominee. And we'll see, it'll be one of those seats that if there really is a wave, we'll end up with him in DC. And he's gonna make some, he's gonna make some waves. There's no doubt about it. He's the leader that we all want because he, so he really does sort of neutralize a lot of the right wing stuff, just because he's, you know, a good old boy from the South. The way he talks, the way he looks. Military, the accent, the look, everything about it. So it's a guy who looks like that, but he sounds like me. Like that's hard to, how are you gonna fight that? Cause he doesn't back down either. Like he'll keep going. He's what we need. Like he's the direction we need. The thing about Richard is he's not like, he just has this gut instinct for class politics. That's really what it comes from. He just has this like deep seated commitment to and conviction about, like he was saying, the least of these. And all of his politics really flow from that. And, you know, when I, when he talks about the way that being in Haiti and seeing the devastation there really broke him, like that's all a part of how committed he is. I mean, just to humanity, I, you know, I've been thinking a lot about, okay, well what are the core divides in politics? And, you know, what are the important distinctions between like the coalitions you want to form and whatever. And I really just think being like pro-humanity is such, is the most crucial divide at this point. Like that you actually care about human beings. You don't want them to be murdered. You don't want them to be starved. You don't want their healthcare taken away from them. Like so that a bunch of billionaires can get even richer. It should be such a simple threshold. And yet so many of our political elites and the influencers and all those people around them fail the test. So I don't know many people who are more just like their core conviction is being pro-human than Richard Ojeda. Yeah. So when he lost in 2018, I was like, damn, I hope he like runs again for something. And now finally he's doing it again. Oh, and we mentioned Ojeda Live at the end there. You guys got to check it out. And we're going to tell his people this off the air, but he does the same thumbnail for every video. And the title is just like the same, like, you know, Ojeda Live, whatever the date is or something. And like, so we're all trained on YouTube. Like go to the big sparkly thing, go to the thing with the amazing thumbnail, the amazing title. And like, you know, we're almost like animals in that way. But you got to overlook that and just watch the Ojeda Lives. Again, 30 minutes, he tries to do it every night and they're amazing. He's amazing. He spits fire. Yeah, and that is the format where he is the absolute best. Unstoppable. When you just turn the camera on and give him a microphone. He'll just go. Tee him up with a few stories or something, that's good, he'll just go. And I am going to talk to his team about like, let's see what we can do with these titles and thumbnails a little bit, because I think, you know, there's so much potential there that's untapped right now. He could eclipse our sub numbers in like a year or two if they do the right titles and thumbnails, like just like that. I've always said they should give him an MSNBC show. Oh. I mean, the problem is though, he actually threatens billionaires and he calls out billionaires. Yeah, they can't have that. They can't have that. But if they were to fucking do the right thing and give him a show, oh my God. For the first time ever, you would have, MSNBC beats Fox News in the ratings today, you know? And it would continue. It would continue. Yeah, yep. So anyway, fun seeing him. Yeah. Been a while since I got in a catch up with him. Yeah. All right guys, there you have it. We love you all very much. You know the drill. Everybody please subscribe to the channel, sign up on Substack and we love you. We'll see you next time. Peace.