How Ben & Jerry’s Was Silenced on Gaza - with Ben Cohen

[MUSIC] Lemonade. [MUSIC] Thanks for listening to Hussam Menhaj Doesn't Know. Listen to and follow Hussam Menhaj Doesn't Know. Add free on Amazon Music or just ask Alexa. Alexa, play the podcast Hussam Menhaj Doesn't Know on Amazon Music. Also with Amazon Music Unlimited, you can now listen to your favorite music, podcasts, and audiobooks all in the Amazon Music app. Listen to Hussam Menhaj Doesn't Know on Amazon Music. Ben and Jerry's was created by Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield in 1978 in his one of the world's only fully-goated brands. We're here to make some of the best ice cream you ever tasted. Not only is their ice cream incredible, they have been extremely supportive of progressive causes, like marriage equality, trans rights, indigenous rights, Palestinian rights, reparations, dismantling the prison industrial complex, and fuck it, dismantling white supremacy while we're at it. They literally embed these messages right into their products. How is this possible? I mean, I thought corporations and morality didn't mix. Did Ben and Jerry's hat capitalism with love? Well, that might depend on what happens next because right now, Ben and Jerry's corporate parent Magnum is trying to silence them. So, I'm just gonna sum up what happened real quick. So Ben and Jerry's were sold to Unilever in 2000, and then their agreement basically set up a firewall between Unilever and the Ben and Jerry's board so they could take whatever political position they wanted. But that changed starting in 2021 when Ben and Jerry's announced that it would end sales in the occupied West Bank. Unilever fought them on this and then fought even harder in 2024 as Ben and Jerry's tried to speak out about the genocide unfolding in Gaza. They even blocked a pro-Palestinian flavor Ben and Jerry's wanted to create. So, after some legal clashes, Unilever spun off its ice cream business into the Magnum ice cream company, but the underlying conflict didn't change. So, Ben and Jerry's asked Magnum, "Please let us become an independently owned company so they could be free to say whatever they wanted." And Magnum was like, "No!" So, Jerry Greenfield resigned in protest, and Ben Cohen has taken the fight public with the free Ben and Jerry's campaign in petition at freebenandjerrys.com. So, that's the table stakes. And because of that, I sat down with Ben to talk about this whole drama. But my favorite part of this interview is the second half, where we talk about a passion we both share. Dunking on the military industrial complex. We also talked about what he thinks about renaming the Department of Defense to the Department of War. Finally, something that Trump has said that's honest. His arrest for protesting Gaza at a Senate hearing. My country is giving weapons to Israel as a gift to kill all these people in Gaza. And I asked him as one of the OG Bernard Brothers. If he thinks Bernie could have gone all the way in 2016. Absolutely. I have no doubt in my mind. And to be clear, you do not get free ice cream when you go to freebenandjerrys.com. And I'm very mad that I didn't get any. But Ben did bring free ice cream to this interview in lots of Oreos, which will make sense very soon. ♪ Hurry right away ♪ ♪ Don't be late, stop late ♪ ♪ Make your daddy pass ♪ ♪ You have had some time ♪ Magga has this famous tagline. That's been very popular over the past few years. You go woke, you go broke. Anytime a Disney movie comes out that flops, they go, you go woke, you go broke. Are you broke? Not yours, I can tell. When we talk about corporate values, what does that mean? Well, I mean, in terms of values, you know, the values I think about happen to coincide a lot with what Jesus talked about in the Sermon on the Mount. You know, I care for people that are oppressed, welcome the stranger, feed the hungry, feed the poor, love thy neighbor. I mean, yeah, I'm into that. It seems good. I mean, and I think what's happened is that business has said, well, you know, that shit's bad. You know, maybe that's for a rate. Maybe that's when you're in church. But, you know, we can't have those values in business. If we were going to have those values in business, we wouldn't be able to stay in business. We go broke. And it's just not freaking true. It's a lie. I mean, and Ben and Jerry's proved it. I mean, Ben and Jerry's has had these humanistic carrying values. I mean, the same values that, you know, that we want in anybody. You're just talking about basic virtue. That's all I'm talking about, right? And the reality is that business is the most powerful force in our society. And if business wanted to, it could have those values. And it would be a really beautiful society. What do you say to people that push back on this philosophical notion that the very idea of capitalism, of companies that have to deliver returns quarter to quarter for investors, just fundamentally bumps up against the virtues of integrity, honesty, empathy, care for the weak, the impoverished, the poor. What do you say to those people that say these are just oil and water? This is a paradox that you cannot resolve. We've heard that story. It's a lie. I mean, I understand that, you know, maybe it's easier to run a business where all you care about is the financial bottom line. How much money is left over at the end of the month or the year? In terms of meaning and in terms of joy in terms of doing that business. If you factor in social concerns into your day-to-day business activities, it's a much more meaningful, joyful experience. It's very motivating to employees and it's very motivating to customers. I mean, Ben and Jerry's, you know, taking these stands for justice, ends up creating this sabbatical relationship with our customers that's the strongest bond that a company could ever make with their customers. I mean, usually people are buying products from corporations in spite of the values of the corporation. I mean, they're kind of buying it because they need it but they're kind of holding their nose because, you know, they don't really want to be supporting that corporation. That cares only about one thing. And when they have a chance to buy a product from a corporation whose values they agree with, man, they are overjoyed and they just want to keep on buying that stuff. There was this lightning rod 2020 moment in the wake of George Floyd's murder. It was this very powerful moment. And in the year since that, there's been this huge pushback, the rollback of DEI. Again, this go-woke, go-broke kind of talking-point agenda. In the six years since that moment, have you now become more cynical to a lot of the language that some of these companies have used? Because it certainly has made me more cynical. Well, I tell you, I was, you know, I mean, of course, the death of the murder of George Floyd was a horrible and saddening thing. But when all those corporations started making these statements soon after that, that we're going to hire more non-white people, we're going to banks, we're saying we're going to make sure we loan to more non-white people. We're going to make sure that our suppliers are not just white people. And they came up with, you know, actual numbers, objective numbers that you could hit. We're committing so much money to this. We're going to have so much of a percentage of our workforce diverse. I was really kind of overjoyed. I was feeling like, wow, they've corporations have finally gotten a conscience. They've finally are, have decided to use their power to improve the way life has conducted here. And to, you know, especially for people that have been discriminated against and oppressed. And, you know, and then, you know, Trump comes into power and he says, "Dei bed." And all these guys just jettison all those programs. Has that type of political polarization made having a strong social stance harder? Because now it's everything's a political issue. We got a new M&M. Well, who'd the M&M vote for? It's like, we're recasting Cinderella. All right. Well, which party is Cinderella and, you know, do you find it to be difficult to navigate? You have certainly ran a successful business through every version of partisanship, blue or red. Is this particular moment more polarized than ever? Or has it always been that way? I mean, I think that the country is probably more polarized than ever. You know, a big reason being that, you know, every other president has sought to bring the country together. and the current president is seeking to divide. it. So, you know, it's a rather influential office and I think he's being quite successful in dividing the country. But in terms of Ben and Jerry's being able to be Ben and Jerry's and Ben and Jerry's values, I mean, there's no doubt that the Magnum Corporation, I think is kind of falling in line with what Trump wants. So back in 2000, Ben and Jerry's was bought by Unilever. And you did something unprecedented. You created a legal framework that essentially it guaranteed you and your independent board of directors to take whatever political stance you wanted. Is that true? Yes. How'd you do that? Well, so what happened was that Ben and Jerry's was a publicly held corporation at the time. Unilever wanted to buy it. Jerry and I did not want it sold, but we didn't own controlling shares. And so against our wishes and despite our efforts to keep it independent, the company Unilever wanted to buy it. And they were other companies that also wanted to buy it. And Jerry and I were incredibly resistant. So Unilever says, "Well, why are you resistant?" And we said, "Well, because we think that if the company is purchased by another company that doesn't have the same social values, that our social mission is going to get destroyed." And they said, "Well, let's just write it into the acquisition agreement that the social mission will live on." And you know, we're trying to figure out, "Well, how do you write that in because the social mission needs to evolve as the country evolves, as the situation evolves?" And the way that we ended up doing it was to form this independent board of directors for Ben and Jerry's that has legal authority in perpetuity over the social mission, over product specifications, over the quality of our ice cream, the use of the trademark, how the company is marketed. So it sounds like, "Hey, as long as the ice cream stays good, the money keeps coming in, you can hold whatever position you want." And Ben, I got to give it to you, man, you went hard in the paint for decades, standing ten toes down on a lot of issues. Over the years, Ben and Jerry's supported Black Lives Matter, refugee rights, marriage, equality, criminal justice reform, voting rights. But then you crossed the line. You said the P word. The Palestine word. You said it. And your corporate overlords, we're not too happy about that. Well, what happened? Yeah, what happened? You know, the board was feeling for, you know, years that having our ice cream sold in the occupied Palestinian territories in the West Bank, was went against the values of the company, you know, essentially supporting the mistreatment of people who lived in the occupied territories. And that, the occupation itself was illegal. And so, you know, there was a bunch of studies and worked on it. There were visits to the area by our people from the company. And eventually there was a decision that was where the board of Ben and Jerry's and the management of Ben and Jerry's and Unilever all agreed that Ben and Jerry's would pull its products out of the West Bank. And what happened, what I'm told happened is that when we announced that, the head of Israel called the head of Unilever and said, you know, if if you don't make this right, if you don't get those products back here, we're going to kick out all the Unilever businesses. And they had, you know, like 20 different brands, 20 different types of products they were selling there. And so Unilever unilaterally went against the board of directors and sold the rights to Ben and Jerry's to in Israel. So that the ice cream would be available in the West Bank, although only in Hebrew. And, you know, that was a major, you know, usurpation of the power of the board. And there was, you know, a bunch of negotiations that proceeded and they broke down. And eventually the board had no choice but to sue Unilever, which is, you know, not your every day thing that a, you know, a subsidiary of a corporation, sues the corporation. And so that, you know, after that point, Unilever started muscling Ben and Jerry's on a whole range of issues. And, you know, when we, when we called, tried to call for a ceasefire, when they ended up with this war in Gaza, they wouldn't allow us to do that when we wanted to support the students that were protesting. They wouldn't allow that when we wanted to support people's right to free speech and freedom of the press. You know, there was that woman who wrote an op-ed in a college newspaper and she got kicked out of college for that or deported or something. We wanted to support her and, and we were prevented from doing that. And that's illegal, you know, that the terms of the agreement. Is it true that they stopped you from celebrating Black History Month? Well, they, yes, it is true. There was, there was a post that we wanted to put up supporting Black History Month and they would not allow that. And this is the same company that I, I was so proud of the statement that they made after the death of George Floyd, which is we must dismantle white supremacy. I mean, I felt like that was the, that's the company, you know, so our company made that statement, but I had nothing to do with it. And I was overjoyed because it was the company itself that took that position. And, and then, you know, there was this huge change and, and Unilever prevented us from putting up this post in support of Black History Month. It was pretty strange. But Elmo celebrates Black History Month. Exactly. Exactly. It's kind of ridiculous. I, I think it was Trumpism. I mean, I think at, what, at the time, Trump was down on Black History Month. He wouldn't, you know, he wouldn't, you know, he, he's trying to get all the information about how the US was involved in slavery. Yeah. Trying to get that information out of the museums, out of the, out of the college, out of the high school textbooks, public school textbooks. So that, that's what it was part of. Last year, you were arrested after interrupting an RFK junior Senate hearing to protest Israel's Gaza blockade. Let me show you the footage. Take me through what's going on and why you did it and how you feel. Let's take a look. Then why are you getting arrested? Go down the hall. We'll be honest. We'll be honest. Four kids in Gaza by buying bombs and pays for it by kicking kids off Medicaid in the US. You're going down. You're going down it all way. They need to let food into Gaza. They need to let food into starving kids. Now that you're not being dragged down the hallway of a government building in zip ties, what were you trying to tell the American people? What's, what's going on here? Well, what was going on for me was that, you know, I'm sitting home, you know, reading these newspaper articles or, you know, whatever you read online, whatever the however you get your news these days about how my country is giving weapons to Israel as a gift that are being used to kill all these people in Gaza. And, and then, and, you know, I mean, I keep on reading about that and it's driving me a little crazy. And then, well, it's driving me very crazy. And then I see this other article in the news paper about how there's another outbreak of, of lead poisoning in, you know, I don't remember where it was. Maybe it was no walkie. And, you know, lead poisoning is an issue that drives me up wall because it's very preventable. We know what causes it. And we know how to fix it. And, you know, lead poisoning is cannot be cured. It's a lifelong thing. A kid gets lead poisoning and their brain is affected for the rest of their lives. And instead of using our money to get rid of lead. We end up buying these bombs to kill more people and so you know everybody has their breaking point and I saw these things and I said you know I want to chain myself to the White House fence and you know the people I work with said well you can't do that anymore you know the White House fence has been militarized and you can't even get to the White House fence because they have a fence before it and they have guys with big machine guns walking in between and they said you know we think you wanted to do a hunger protest you were going to I mean change yourself to the fence and oh yeah and and they said well but we think we can maybe get you into a hearing and you can make some kind of statement and I said you think that's really gonna be effective and they said yeah and I had my doubts and uh you know it ended up being kind of one of the more effective things I've ever done. So all this activism in the positions you took in regards to Gaza it obviously did not fly too well with Unilever but eventually Unilever spun off and sold you to another corporate daddy called Magnum. Right how did that happen? Well what they did was they spun off their entire ice cream division. They they have that ice cream division that comprises about a hundred brands of ice cream around the world. Here in the US it's popsicle, good humor, Klondike, Briars, Tulenti, Yasso and Ben and Jerry's and Unilever decided that you know for one reason or another they decided to get rid of their their whole ice cream operation. I think originally they were trying to sell it to another conglomerate or some private equity group and they weren't able to do that so they they decided to spin it off into its own separate publicly held corporation. So as soon as it gets sold to Magnum this other conglomerate, Jerry resigns. You guys, you're Jordan and Pippin baby, you're magic and Korean. Well, not quite. Hey, if it was an eating contest, you two were goaded. Don't ever don't ever hold yourself small king. Okay, you two were goaded. So he he's he steps down. What was that like? Why did Jerry step away? What was it specifically about Magnum in the pressure in regards to this issue that made it too much for him? Well, I want to be clear that Jerry and I have not split up. We're still the best of friends and we we both came to understand that there was no way that the social mission of Ben and Jerry's was going to survive under the ownership of the Magnum Corporation. And you know, Jerry decided to resign in protest and I decided to stay on and fight. I mean, you kept the fight going and and you've taken the fight, both public and online, with the website freebendingjerrys.com. You've been there. Yeah. Well come again. Well, well, well, well, look, Ben, I have I have a couple complaints. All right. First of all, I went to the website and I thought I was going to get free Ben and Jerry's and I didn't. It's a different type of free Ben and Jerry. It is a different type. So look, I think the cause is important. I think the clickbait is wrong because a lot of people are going to go to the website and they're going to think they're going to get free Ben and Jerry's. So we got to have another tab or sublink to get free Ben and Jerry's. But what is freeben and Jerry's.com? What's the what's the goal of the website? Well, so when Unilever announced and this was like two years ago that they wanted to spin off their whole ice cream division, Jerry and I went to them and said, hey, you know, there's been all these conflicts between Unilever and the board of Ben and Jerry's and why don't you just separate out Ben and Jerry's so that it could be sold to socially conscious investors that actually support the mission. And you know, and have Ben and Jerry's be able to thrive and have the other businesses be able to thrive. And Unilever said, no, we're not willing to do that. And so Jerry and I were very public about calling for socially conscious investors to make an offer for Ben and Jerry's and some of them attempted to do that, but Unilever refused to engage with them. And then the company got split off into the Magnum Corporation. So is the goal for freeben and Jerry's.com? Is the goals if there's enough public momentum and movement behind this? Is this an awareness play? Are you guys basically asking almost like the way musicians during those old record label contracts? Are you asking, hey, let me go independent? I don't want to be a part of the old record label. Will you let me spin off and do our own thing? Yeah, that's that's exactly what we're doing. And then how does the public come into play here? Well, I don't know if dad doesn't own a private equity company. The reality is that the fate of Ben and Jerry's is in the public's hands. If enough people get involved and they make their voice heard, they stand up, they participate in the actions that are on the website, they sign the letters that sound the petitions, they they bomb Magnum's social media with, you know, statements about freeben and Jerry's. Magnum is gonna end up having to give in and sell it. And you know, what's really happening from a, you know, financial investor point of view is that this brand that they've got Ben and Jerry's, this very powerful brand, which has been built on this values led business model. It's the very thing that Magnum is in the process of destroying. They're destroying that values led business model. They're therefore destroying the brand. They're ripping the heart out of out of Ben and Jerry's and it'll become less valuable. I want to turn to a passion that you and I share, dunking on the military industrial complex. I'm going to share a video that you recently posted on your IG. That's enough to fully fund schools that serve 8 million kids. Take another one off. That's enough to convert 1 million homes to solar energy. Take two off. That provides universal pre-K education. One Oreo. End homelessness. Two Oreos takes care of all the people that don't have enough to eat. Take a look at this. China spends that much on their military. Russia, that much. I ran North Korea even after we take all those Oreos off. We still have more than enough to protect ourselves. I mean, that's that's quaint. Trump's already said he wants a $1.5 trillion budget. That that's the amazing thing. Sit in Trump calling for a massive investment in America's defense, writing on truth social quote for the good of our country, especially in these very troubled and dangerous times. Our military budget for the year 2027 should not be $1 trillion, but rather $1.5 trillion. What really amazes me about that is the the callousness of that mentality that, I mean, first the country is saying, hey, we're broke. We ain't got no money. We're in debt. And then he's saying, well, I can figure out a way to squeeze out another 500 billion. And what I want to spend it on is the Department of War. And where does that, I mean, what kind of mentality is that? I mean, you've got people that are starving around the world. You've got people that are dying of preventable diseases. You got people in our country that can't afford child care. You got people in our country who can't afford health care. And the first thing he thinks about is, let's build more weapons and kill more people. You seem to be up in arms pun intended. So we will go side stage and we will update that diagram. I want us to kick off a fun little game show that we do here on Hussam and Hajj doesn't know. It's called no your empire. You ready? All right. I'll try to get him right. Let's do it. How many military bases does the United States currently have in other countries? About 800 military bases around the world. That's that's what the US has. Do you know How many country who has the next highest number has? - I have no idea. - Five. - Well, clearly those bases are not to defend the United States. - Well, what are they for? - They're to dominate the world, they're to control the world through military force. - How many countries does the United States currently have troops stationed in? - What is it, like, it's over 100, isn't it? - Approximately 175. Now, Netflix is currently streaming in 190 countries. So that's almost all of Netflix's territories. How many countries is the United States an active armed conflict with? - Ah, well, at least 10, I think. The answer right now is four to six. Now, I don't know if you're on signal with Pete Hexeth or Cash Patel, who's the head of the FBI, but it's four to six from what we've guessed. Iran, Venezuela, Syria, Somalia, maybe Iraq, in Nigeria. - I just found out about Nigeria a month ago. I was like, we have beef in Nigeria. - And Niger too, I think. - I mean, when you say armed conflict, what is that, including places that we bomb or drone assassinate, that kind of thing? - Well, to me, a bomb or drone is kind of the same. So whether you kill brown people with a PlayStation controller, or there's a human doing it, I think it's the same. - Right. - But that's just me, maybe I'm getting caught up in this. - I think my number of 10 is better than your number of four to six, but whatever. - What do you think of the name change from the Department of Defense to now this thing called the Department of War? - Finally, something that Trump has said that's honest. It is not the Department of Defense. It is the Department of War. - Dude, I agree. - It's not set up to defend the US. - I'm actually pro this weird level of demented transparency. - Yeah. - Just say it for what it is, pop the whitehead. - What you got. - Like when you have a zit, just say what it is. (laughing) The US recently started a new war with Iran. I don't know if you've heard. Now, Iran is part of the axis of evil. Now, as we know, evil is bad. Are Iran and Russia our enemies because they're more evil than our allies? - Any country that doesn't do what we want them to do, that's an enemy. That is the official policy. If you read the actual US policy, the national security posture and strategy, all that crap, any country that develops economically or militarily must be considered to be an enemy and we must do what we can to keep that country down. We need to sanction the country. We need to develop military plans to take over the country. I mean, the US is currently developing plans to have a war with China, which is so freaking absurd. - Wait, so we're mad at them because, not because they directly did anything bad to us, but because they're more successful. - We don't like their form of government. We don't like the idea that they're economically successful. And we believe that it's a zero-sum game that we need to control the entire world. And China is getting to be powerful. If we let them become too powerful, then we won't control the entire world. I mean, I think what China wants and what just about every country wants in the world, in the UN, is a multi-polar world where the power does not reside just in one country, but where countries are treated as equals. That was the idea of the United Nations. And the US has essentially thrown that out the window and said that we want a world where might makes right and we're gonna be the mightiest country there is and we're going to call the shots, 'cause we don't want to cooperate with other nations. - Well, so if the UN is calling for equality, what is the purpose of NATO? - The purpose of NATO was to protect the Western Europe from the Warsaw Pact. The Warsaw Pact was that group of Soviet countries, and when the Soviet Union dissolved, there was no longer a need for the Warsaw Pact. It lost its purpose and it should have been, NATO should have been disbanded at that time. - But it still exists now, right? - It does. - And it's what, just like a nuclear war trip wire? So if Russia just fucks around and invades any of those NATO countries, it's basically a green light to blow up the world. - I guess, I mean, I think the way those countries and Europe look at it is that there used to be the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union had invaded them and taken them over and they're concerned that Russia is gonna try to do the same thing. But clearly, it's not strong enough to do that. It's not capable of doing it. I don't think, I don't particularly think they wanna do that. I mean, they've got their hands full trying to run their own country. I mean, this NATO and Russia thing, that issue got you in some particularly hot water, especially with liberals. Ben and Jerry's tweeted, "We call on President Biden "to de-escalate tension and work for peace "rather than prepare for war." I thought that was a pretty benign tweet. - Yeah. - I mean, we got a lot of kind of, these are a lot of Elmo approved pieces of language, de-escalate. Elmo tells us to de-escalate tension and fights. De-escalate tension. Great, work for peace. That seems cool. Rather, instead, preparing for war. And liberals weren't happy with this tweet. They accused you of being an appeaser who loves Putin. How'd that make you feel? - I'm not pro-Putin, I'm not pro-Trump. I'm pro not solving your problems through war. And, you know, how to make me feel, you know, it's okay. People can accuse me of whatever they wanna accuse me of. I mean, it kind of goes with the territory. I mean, if you're gonna take a stand on something, other people are going to be opposed to it. - So, unless, based on this NATO agreement, unless we're gonna have a nuclear war with Russia, aren't we gonna eventually get to the point where we have to have some sort of settled agreement? - I think so, yeah. - So, that's what the tweet was saying. I think you should have re-worded the tweet. Here's what you should have said. Look. A bunch of people are gonna die. And that's not good. And then after a bunch of people die, they're ends up being a peace agreement. So, let's just skip over Act one and two, and let's just get to the peace agreement. - I'm with you. I'm part of an organization called the Eisenhower Media Network, which is a bunch of former mid to high level military officers and at the very beginning of the war in Ukraine, we took out a full page ad in the New York Times and called for a ceasefire. So, instead of having a ceasefire then, what we had was a war that's, what is it? Now in its fourth year, that's killed and destroyed. I don't know how many people and how many homes and villages and eventually there's gonna be some negotiated peace. They did the insanity of America's nuclear arsenal. Let's take a look. - Let me show you something. Here's one BB. That represents the nuclear bomb that we dropped on Hiroshima. And now what I'd like to do is demonstrate the size of our current nuclear arsenal. That was 50,000 BBs. Enough to kill everybody on earth. That's fucking crazy. You know what's fucking crazy, Ben? I saw that video first thing in the morning before I had to drop my kids off at school. Fucked up. my day, bro. Well, you can use that information to change it and make your day better. Okay. Well your boy had to take five milligrams of Xanax just to get through the day, but in all seriousness, how many dollars does the US military spend on nuclear weapons per minute? Isn't it something like 125,000? Yes, it's approximately $100,000. Yeah. And that's just nuclear weapons. What if instead of spending less on nuclear missiles, we spent more on defending ourselves from nuclear missiles, allow me to show you a video from Pete Hegseth, Big Uping, The Golden Dome Initiative. We need that support and Congress and they're there. We appreciate their support and work in getting that one big, beautiful bill to the President's desk for signature. Because with that signature came a massive $25 billion down payment on the Golden Dome for America. A revolutionary shield of space-based weapons and sensors, a vigilant constellation of next generation sensors and satellites that will see every threat from every corner of the globe paired with a network of space-based interceptors ready to neutralize any ballistic missile, any hypersonic weapon, any drone long before it threatens our homeland. That's how we establish complete and total orbital supremacy. What's your response to this whole orbital supremacy thing? I mean, it's not white supremacy, but this sounds pretty badass. It impressed me as a like a snake oil salesman, a medicine show. What made you call bullshit on this? Because for me, it was the Comic Sands MS font at the bottom. That's the part that really got me. I can't take it. We didn't do the captioning there. That was the Department of Defense. Let me tell you something. DOD, if you're watching this, the rest of the world is laughing at us. There's plenty of font options. You can't go with that. But what did you think of that? It's a physical and mathematical impossibility. It can't be done. Why? People talk about it as hitting a bullet with a bullet. The number of interceptors that it would require is unrealistic. It's a beautiful idea. It's a beautiful fantasy, but an invisible shield that will protect us from any of all threats. It just doesn't exist and it never will exist because it's a physical impossibility. I mean, you know, this is just a replay of Star Wars, not the George Lucas movie. You're talking about the pitch that Ronald Reagan made in the 1980s. Right. He made the same pitch. I'm going to come up with an invisible shield that's going to protect us from any and all possible threats. When you saw Ronald Reagan make the Star Wars pitch in the 80s, you weren't buying it. No, that wasn't. You know, I mean, you didn't see the video. If you'd Austin play band the video, you didn't see this? US spy satellites would watch the world below. The first response. Space-based kinetic energy weapons fire high speed projectiles from hypervelocity guns. Earth-based nuclear-powered X-ray lasers fire their radioactive rays. Chemical lasers fire beams that burn through the shell of the on-rushing missiles. The surviving warheads enter the atmosphere above the United States. They're attacked by laser-equipped planes. Earth-based lasers and AVM rockets eliminate the last warheads. Kinetic energy weapons. Chemical lasers. Particle beams. You can't beat that. It's make believe that it's beautifully produced. That's what orbital supremacy looks like. It looks like Tron. And I'm saying that as someone who stars and Tron aries. I'm in six scenes and it's streaming now on Disney+. Take that, Putin. How do you make sense of the very real reality that no matter which political party is in power? Defense spending year to year is always going up. It's not going down. It's not defense spending. It's war spending. And yes, you're absolutely right. Both parties are equally to blame for what I think is destroying the soul and the spirit of America. America is not about taking care of people who need help. It's not about providing health care for people who need health care. It's not about providing food for people who need food. It's about killing huge numbers of people. I mean, I'm not exaggerating. The weapons that we have are designed to kill literally millions of people. And the mentality is that, well, and that's not enough. We need more. And, you know, I mean, you can kind of understand it that it's gotten simplified to the extent that what people have come to understand what they've been told is that if we spend more money on the military will be safer. But it's not true. You know, like Trump, he doesn't think about, well, what weapons do we need actually to be safer? He thinks about, I'd like to have a trillion dollar military budget. And so he raises it to that level and then says, you guys figure out, you know, how to spend it, what to buy with it. And then he says, well, you know, a trillion, you know, that's pretty good. But I want the next one to be one and a half trillion. And I don't know what it's got to pay for. But you guys figure it out. But the reality is that it makes us all less safe. It makes us all less secure because that money could be spent on things that would really make us more safe, more secure. Things that would make us healthier. Things that would allow us to have childcare for our kids. Things that would allow us to buy houses. Things that would allow us to, you know, feed people that that don't have enough to eat. You know, I mean, you walk around, you say, oh, there's such a homelessness problem. It's horrible, you know, nothing could be done about it. I mean, you could end homelessness for $40 billion a year, which is chicken feed compared to a trillion dollar Pentagon budget soon to be, well, if he gets his way, 1.5 trillion. Well, are Americans basically just not allowed to vote for decreasing the defense budget? I think that's true. You know, none of the major party candidates are talking about that because they're deathly afraid. If they talk about reducing the Pentagon budget, their political opponent is going to call them weak on defense. And that's, you know, that's going to make it hard for them to get elected. That's a charge that, you know, the problem is that it's, it's kind of a complex issue. And people are busy, you know, trying to fix the hole in the roof and pick the kids up from daycare. And they don't have the ability to, to analyze this stuff. And so some guy says, well, we need to spend more money to be safer or else that guy's going to come and kill us. I mean, I guess three years after Ben and Jerry started in 1981, Bernie Sanders became the mayor of Burlington, Vermont. You and Jerry scooped ice cream at the victory party. You were the original Bernie bros and have been huge supporters of Bernie Sanders throughout his entire career. What is it about Vermont that makes you care about your fellow American citizens? Yeah, that's an interesting question. I think that for one thing, Vermont is a very, very small state. And people, people know each other. I mean, it's not like people are in the way. It's like people, you know, you like running into a person because it doesn't happen that often. And, and also there's, there's kind of a farm and rural mentality, which is that you help your neighbor. That you know, I mean There there aren't that many people around you see you see someone in trouble. You help them out Do you think I mean the other thing about Vermont is that The biggest things in Vermont are natural things mountains the lake trees Whereas you know you end up like in a city like here and the biggest things are man-made so You have more of a sense of yourself as a human being not being the biggest thing but being a small part of Of a a natural world. That's beautiful, man Do you think that if the DNC had supported Bernie Sanders more in 2016? There was a possibility that he could have been president. Absolutely. I have no doubt in my mind I mean, what was amazing to me was I was receiving emails from the Bernie campaign and I was receiving emails from the Trump campaign and They were very similar you signed up for both list serves. Yeah They were very similar. I mean, you know, we need to be saved from all those corporations that are screwing us We need to be saved from the ultra wealthy that are screwing us I'm for you the little guy You know, it's just that one of them was honest and the other one was just kind of pandering Do you think the Democratic Party learned its lesson in 2016? 2020? No, no, I've I've kind of given up on the Democratic Party. You know, I think it's just calcified I think I think mostly it's it's you know, there are some there are some notable exceptions, but I think to a to a large extent It's a lot of Old white men that are that are just caring too much about their own position and and getting re-elected and not not trying to change the country in a way that that You know kind of revives the spirit of America that You know, they're not looking to you know, I mean, they're fiddling around the edges They're they're not they're not making any of the major changes in terms of how our economy is structured how our You know, how the whole federal budget is structured in order to prioritize the benefit of regular everyday people as opposed to prioritizing the benefit of corporations and the ultra-ultra-wealthy and weapons manufacturers so this a man you've been fighting the good fight for 50 years Are you hopeful or do you feel hopeless about the future? You know, I get I guess if you're continuing to fight you must feel hopeful You know, I mean what what choice do you have? You can you know, you're confronted with injustice You can either ignore it You can complain about it or you can try to do something about it and You know, I I understand that Certainly me myself. I'm not going to be able to to solve the problem, but there's a heck of a lot of other people that are also working on it you're working on it and you know Pete Siger told me this story that he came you know, he was walking along and he he comes He sees this playground off in the distance and He gets closer to it and he sees what's going on is that there's this giant seesaw and There's lots of people running around and he gets closer and he sees that You know the seesaw is you know one side is down. There's this giant rock on it and the other side is up and There's all these people with teaspoons running around taking a teaspoon of sand from this big pile of sand climbing up This ladder and dumping it in the bucket as the part of the seesaw that's up and you know, he's watching this going on and And he's noticing that there's holes in the bucket and that the sand is is running out and so He he pulls one of these guys aside and he says stop stop you've got to got to see what's going on here And you know, he gets the guy to stop the guy is sweating. He wipes his head and and Pete says Don't you see there's holes in the bucket and the sand is running out and you're never going to get that thing to flip And the guy says oh no, you don't understand There's more of us with teaspoons all the time and one of these days where there's going to be more coming in Faster than it's running out and all of a sudden the whole thing is going to flip and So you know, I'm a guy with a teaspoon and there's more of us and you're in you're racing up to fill up that bucket Yeah doing what I can I mean what do you otherwise you just accept it say well Yeah, it's really fucked up. We're killing gloves goes of people We could be feeding we could be helping we could be making the world a much better place But we're not and well, I'm just going to go back home and I don't know smoke some dope Ben I Appreciate you taking your spoon fill in it up with sand Climb it up that thing and fill it up that goddamn bucket and I hope we all help you fill up that bucket You'd be great to be climbing up the ladder with you. Hey, man. Free Ben and Jerry's calm. All right free Ben you Ben calling ladies and gentlemen Hassan Hassan Hassan. Let's let's do a demonstration. Let's do a demo Let's use some Oreos and do a demonstration these gold ones on top. That's the half a trillion dollars that Trump wants to add to the Department Award budget these little orange ones. That's the 150 billion that he's already added because he likes big numbers like that you could take 11 of these Oreos That is enough to provide Medicaid insurance for everybody in the country homeless people you could take care of that For two Oreos Okay for another two Oreos led poisoning is irreversible. We could get rid of it for three Oreos people that are literally starving to death You could take care of all of them for this many you have a shit in Oreos. Here's how much China spends Russia spend I ran spends with it. They're just half of an Oreo. Yeah 10 billion Oh, yeah, they got half Oreo - the dude in the White House. He can use his Oreos to actually help people This is a great sponsored content for Oreo hashtag fuck raping Have you subscribed to lemon out of premium yet? 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