have. the iron maga triangle, top of the top of the heap, strong manufacturing, secure borders. the third element of that and the endless wars. yeah, yeah. and the showman. how was not an endless war? that was five years. we beat the nazis and the japanese imperial forces. we got in, we got out. we had a mission and we allowed people to shoot people. yeah, yeah. afghanistan, iraq decade between the two of them, trillions of dollars of treasure. i would had occasion to go up walter reed and it was said i would see young men and women in the rehab places that jim's mission and arm lay two legs,go.

good afternoon. my name is nyala harrison. i am an attorney at the law firm greenberg traurig and a long standing volunteer here. welcome to the 41st miami book fair. if you a first time attendee, then i'd like to welcome you to the fair. if you are returning, then it's good to see you back. and if you are a friend of the fair, then i want to extend a very special hello and welcome to you. are there any in the room. all right fantastic to see you

it's good to have friends and love to have some more. so please consider joining the friends today. we are thankful to all of our sponsors, including the green family foundation, amazon the marriott, marquee and brickell and all the other sponsors. at this time. i'd like to ask you to silence your cell phones for the pleasure of everyone here in this audience this afternoon, at the end of the session, the author will be signing books just the hall, and there will be period for a brief question answer. with that i'd like to go ahead and susan rose, who's then going to introduce the folks who have come here to see susan rose is an award winning theater and film producer. she is the tony award producer of the band's visit. her other broadway productions include the tony nominated shows

and the amazing technical dreamcoat hurlyburly, bloodshot, the who's tommy and illinois. she co-produced macbeth, starring daniel craig and the drama desk award winning musical the last five years. with that, i welcome susan. hi, everyone. i'm a newbie to miami. this is my first book fair, and it's amazing. i think it's amazing everybody. does a fantastic job. i'm so happy to be able to introduce the moderator today, ben manzarek. he the new york times best selling author of the accidental billionaires the founding of facebook, a tale of sex, money, genius betrayal, which was adapted aaron sorkin into the david fincher the social network, bringing down the house, the inside of six m.i.t. students, who took vegas for

millions which was also adapted into. the number one box office hit film one, the antisocial network, the gamestop squeeze and the ragtime group of amateurs, traders that brought wall street to its knees, and many other best sellers. his books have sold more than 6 million copies worldwide. i'm very pleased to also able to introduce kara swisher. she is the host of the podcast on with kara swisher and the of the pivot podcast with scott galloway. both distributed by new york magazine, a co-founder and former editor at large of recode. she was the host of recode decode and co-executive producer of the code conference. she is the former contributing writer for the new york times and host of its sway podcast and has also worked for the wall street and the washington post burn book, a tech story. simon and schuster is her third

book. and i just want to say something on a personal note i know kara rarely stays, but when you do it's because she were hanging with your favorite dog potato who comes you down when you were watching shogun. and without further ado, ben and kara, thank you you. shogun. hi, everybody. you all so much for being here. i want to say what an honor and a privilege it is be sitting with kara. same amy. i think that kara is the best journalist around. she's the best by far. journalist. i would not have able to have written my books without. borrowing from your reportage. yes. and she is fearless and feared,

i think, to some extent. and she's willing to say things that nobody true. so hopefully won't get in too much trouble today. so i'm you. yeah, we do get in trouble. let's that so i'm going to i'm going to bounce around a little bit because how i know kara is when i wrote the facebook story is when i discovered you you had already been in the tech world. and i'm an outsider and you found mark zuckerberg. got to know mark before anyone else. that's correct. yeah. so i want to start with mark. yeah, because he has changed a lot. yes, he has many more muscles and even more muscles. so when you started to care, mark, it's fine. i'm good. it i'm going. he looks good. same with jeff bezos, who the way is having the best midlife crisis ever for all this. so zuckerberg was a kid when you first met him. he was he was, i don't know, 19,

20, something like that. very young. when you first where was facebook when you started with mark? they were in a small you know, they actually had an office when i met. they were actually in the garage, larry and sergey. so they were all of them. jeff bezos i met him when he didn't have a headquarters and i helped him find it in seattle. was weird, but that's when he was wearing pleated khakis and and oxford shirts and was quite a bit thinner. but i, i met him at a small headquarters that facebook had gotten in palo alto, and it was right above a place called pizza my heart, which was a pizza. and so i met him there because the guy who was it was in troubled company from at the beginning. very much so. and he could never find the right people to him, get to the next step. it was kind of a weird, crazy place and it was it still had the effects of sean parker, that gang and he had hired, this guy named own ben otto, who worked

for jeff at amazon. and owen called me up and they also had a pr person named brad barker, and they're like, come and meet mark this, you'll you'll like him. and i said, oh, all i and i had met every social network. there was myspace, there was friendster. there was so many of these at the time was like search engines but previously and i go i don't know i've heard he's an --. and and, and they're like, well, they didn't say no. and i was like, wow, all right, fine. and i went to meet him and mark of today is little different than mark before, but he was very shy. he had a hard time interacting and having an actual conversation and and he but he messed by being incredibly arrogant, like he had a card that said which so immature. he thought it was cool. i thought was an interesting juxtaposition. but he had a card that said, i'm the ceo, which i'm like, what is wrong with you? and i have four kids and i was like, stop it.

like, i would laugh at my children if they did that and and he came in and the first thing he sexy didn't know how to enter a converse station like hello like hello would be the then he would say he goes i heard you think i'm an -- and it was sort of like, all right, i do it because most people sucked up to me because i was at the wall street journal and he this was not a suck up. and because they wanted a profile or whatever and and i said, listen, a lot of people think you're an --. i've never met you, so i don't. you're an -- yet, but let's find out. and that's where we started. oh, my. i mean, so did use not an assault the way did you believe when mark started, when you first met him, that he was going to build something that is is impactful? is facebook or as important as facebook? you know one of the things he like to do, we like to mimic other tech what he read about other tech leaders. steve jobs used to like walk around palo alto right. right. and so mark's like, let's walk around palo alto. and i'm like, i've known steve

jobs for 15 years stop. like, please stop. i know what you're doing here. and so what we did, i walk with him. and one of the things that he did and it was actually he was better walking. he started talking, you the myspace guys, and they were like the miami club. they're like, thump, thump, thump thump, thump. you know, they were all trendy, very good looking party, that kind of thing. and we're the top thing. and he started calling facebook immediately, which was really struck me as a utility. that's the word he used. it was an unusual word from a young person and he was dead. right. it was a utility. right. as opposed to it's cool place to hang because you know what happens to cool to hang, they become an uncool place to. hang. and so he immediately i well that's really smart like he he really did understand. and what i found very unusual is and you'll find this among a lot of tech people is he is the least person running social network. right. if you know so that was interesting. so it was his way of of creating his ideas community he had these

ideas around you know all kinds of the first amendment he didn't never read it from what i can understand he he hasn't it's very short. it's i used to say to him, it's very short. it's first you can read it and then because he used to always say he's the public, he was saying is the public square. remember that i'm the public square. i'm like, okay, why do you own everything why do you control everything? it's a private company and you're a billionaire. how is that a public square? he's like people who say something the public square tend to go bad, right? and then i said, well, let me make some of the decisions. of course, that's not happening. but so anyway, so he was he was a thoughtful person, but he had a very hard time community, as you know, as you depicted. i was joking with ben backstage when mark when the social network came out, i did this famous interview with him which he sweat. this was profusely. it was the best and most famous interview. zuckerberg but also in my mind, it was maybe the best tech interview. i'd ever seen. oh, really? because you got to mark i don't

well, you can us how you got to mark so we knew mark better after that interview we did we ever did or ever will. you know, oddly enough i didn't like that i didn't like that interview at because he was i don't like you don't want someone fainting during an interview. it gives you a bad reputation. but but he what happened was he has a panic attacks. i was aware of them. walt, who did? walt mossberg, who did the interview with me was mark was very nervous. and one of the reasons was this coming out about him. he was very upset about it. and we had had dinner the night before and he kept saying, you know, this is how people are going to think of me, this person, blah, blah, blah. and kept saying, it's not like you at all. this guy a lot. and, you know, and he's kind of better looking than are but anyway he but was very upset that this is what people would think of him and i was like it's a movie, mark. it's not real. it's not. well, they didn't i didn't say this and was like, would you please stop? like, you're having movie made? and in any case, i think this is

before they went public, i was like, you're going to be a billionaire. like, don't worry. it like, don't be notorious the way you are. but he was very upset by that movie. he really was. and so that's what led to it, was all of what sheryl was upset. yeah, for a while. then she was okay with it, whatever. and you know sheryl well too, right? or jerry but you were telling me now your relationship with them is not same. you know, i talked to facebook i was invited to their christmas party next week, so i guess it's okay. but no, they don't talk to me now. and that gets me to the next week. i mean, they're like, you're mean to us. i'm like, what are you talking about? like, right. i said, point to a place where i'm being mean, like and factual. and by the way, i was right about the impact you were going to have and the deleterious effects social media, they just didn't like the message and they didn't like to take responsibility for the consequences of their actions. none of these people do. it's never going on. so i agree. and i think that that gets to

sort of the next point, which is that previous to you. yeah, tech journalism didn't really exist to the extent that does. no i think what mossberg really actually i would give my partner mark was mark mean said mark. walt mossberg i'm thinking of mark wrote this column that his first line, the column which preceded me by ten years, said is too hard to use and it's not your fault. and i love that idea. walt is someone that recruited me into the wall journal, by the way, and became my partner and we did these famous tech things. and i think the idea was there a lot when i got there, walt said, go in with your cleats, parachute him with your cleats on. but be fair. that was what he told me when. i went because there was no one out in silicon valley except for slavish fanboys like mr. gates. your head is so big. how did you come up with microsoft? and i was like, this piece of software from a user point of view, like why did you come up with this piece of -- and so or are you creating a monopoly like

that was the kind of questions i ask. i was i wasn't telling you what was how the watch worked. i told you what time it was right. that was how i looked at it. and so he you know, what really got me into that idea? and i think you had all these slavish fanboys, but just like it was crazy and it was all boys, let me tell you that just couldn't look up and see the historical impact this asilomar pact, the way you might see. they just were like as if it was electricity being invented, they interested in the science of it versus the impact would have. and i was interested in the positive and negative impacts had hoped for. the positive things to have more of a resonance. and i very aware of the negative things. right. and so you went into this and in burn book, which is wonderful and everyone should read it. it's part you did not initially you wanted to be in the military i did and you shifted gears. i didn't shift gears. i was gay and you weren't allowed be in the military without don't ask, don't tell.

my dad in the military, i always joke i'd be such a good admiral. be right about now i'd be being fired by trump. i too woke because i you know, whatever they i wanted be in the military. i have a great regard and. i thought i would be good at it. and i was going to be in the cia. i thought about being the c i went to foreign school at georgetown. so i thought the cia was one area and i even the cia at the time was, i would say, anti-gay they would. at one point i had one interview where they were not the cia, but another one. and they're like, well, what if people out, you were gay? and i'm like, but i'm out there. like, what if they found out? i might, but i'm out. this is the kind of discussions you would have. yeah, well, what if we assigned to saudi arabia? i'm like, i don't speak arabic, but sure. like, why would you do that? it was like those were the kind of discussions you i just wanted to be an analyst or serve in, it seemed. and then when you went to california, i remember in your book at someone said to you, are you going to cover cvs or some like cb radio?

because cbc radio's right, because this was the media people also were even worse because at the time print was ascendant and media reporters were ascendant because it was like time or time warner, all that stuff. and the minute i saw i was at washington post and i left and don graham, who's one of the loveliest owners all time, not the current one, was sorry, but give me a -- break, jeff come on. how much how much of a wimp do you have to be to do that at the last minute? oh, my gosh. yeah. i'm sorry to be sorry. he could have waited. i get the argument he's making. but not ten days before the election when it's already a written thing like, stop it and stop pretending anything else and then blame reporters for it. it's it's his fault they lost a subscriber because of him. nobody else. and do you think that it was an act out of fear? was he being fearful or was he going for this space? oh, he's worried about iran.

worried about iran. i wouldn't say mortal enemies. i mean, who cares? these are two like they had to actually fight. it would be ridiculous. i mean, i could take them both easily so that i believe i believe that and i would write about it. we'd make a movie and it would be great. wrote, in the immortal words of kamala harris, i have a glock. i don't actually. but, you know, i mean, we would we definitely want i think she has a mythos. i definitely want to get to elon musk and be sure i want to start software. let's start software, though. well, you asked about we were asking about what the. oh, media. i always thought the media did not get what was coming and that was another thing. i was at the washington post and don graham asked me, why are you to the wall street journal? i said, the water's rising and you're on a lower flood plain than the wall street journal, because i thought business would have a little resonance. but the minute you saw the internet, the minute you saw these technologies, you understood that everything that could be digitized would be including the business plans of all these newspapers, particularly i covered retail for seven years, and you saw

wal-mart come in and decimate all the local retailers that paid for the washington post. so you saw that coming out. you saw i subscribers. and then when i saw craigslist, i was like, oh, you're screwed. you you sell a product that's expensive static and they're mean to you. what a great product classifieds are, right. and they don't work on top of it. and so i was like, oh, no, this is going to change the economics and i don't think a lot of people paid attention to. so i was paying attention to cell phones and the internet and it so obvious where it was going for these people amazing. so you were you were definitely on the early side very quickly, which is why i left newspapers to create all things, all the other thing. yeah. yeah. and so starting back sort of with these that were, were dominating that world. i want to start with steve jobs. yeah. because i think i want to get it from you. i mean, you called him. i think the words i have it here. reality distortion around him. it was good though. it wasn't like this bad stuff. now that he's like a ponzi steve, you would say.

i want to say he's perfect. he's right by today's standards. he looks like a gentleman. like, come on. i mean, like he parked his car badly. like you know, he'd be parking handicapped spaces, not good, but boy, he nice compared to people today. he, you know, specifically and he was he was he was he was he had a lot of education. he read widely. he understood history. he understood his responsibility a little better not to say he didn't want to sell iphones right he really did not to say he couldn't be mandates. yes. he lied to us on stage about creating iphone. and the next year i said you lied to us. he goes, yes, i did. you know, but like he said, yes, i did so that's fine. you know, not great, but but he was i thought he was he understood the marriage of art and technology. i thought they were very it's not a marketing from the privacy thing was really was irritated by social media he really was irritated about rapacious grabbing of information. and he had real problems with.

and if an apple still to this day doesn't do that like as well, everybody does. but you know what i'm saying? yeah, they, they really did have a set of values about what they were selling, which is a really good product we're not going to steal. we're going to tell you what we're doing all the time as opposed to. and that's why, you know, facebook and apple have so many beefs back and forth because. and they they look at apple as like, you know, a tisk tisk and like. mm. yeah. how dare you want a thing which is they're taking your information and then they're using it, monetizing it and then it back to you. right. you know and then telling you how dare you say this is the wrong thing or how dare you pass law that might protect you the thing. so and so getting the bill gates how about and was steve was great he was positive is bill gates on the same he's changed okay he used to be very irritating now he's kind of like the elder statesman. he's made some bad judgment calls around the epstein stuff obviously that it's hard to leave that out, but i'm not sure what i've yet to see. really good reporting that i

haven't done any, so i'm not going to comment on it, but he he was incredibly arrogant, incredibly domineering, obviously, i covered the microsoft trial, the washington post. he really you know, he he was he was very aggressive in terms of doing things and trying to take advantage over the years. he's changed, i think, since he left microsoft, the philanthropy has been very interesting. i just interviewed him recently and the stuff he's doing climate change around investing in that is is really interesting. and i think he's had a just a a bigger view of impact. i would say he i put him in the steve jobs camp. he sort of they they reconciled as steve died which i think i think we did the interview with the two of them, which i think was the best tech interview ever done. i have to say yeah. it's like having edison and man up for it. i don't want interview him that anti-semite. so edison in way but that gets

it elon you know yeah like he can i have all these tech people he can lead rocket on a surfboard. yeah the at&t transit. it's like henry ford went all again. well, he's. he's an interesting one. yeah. yeah. we getting like nice with the cars but you're a -- anti-semite. thank. okay all right. yeah let's well, let's start with bezos. okay. before we get to elon, because i have lot to say, and you have a lot to say on elon bezos. i'd like to say less and less over time. i know. unfortunately, i think we're going to stay more. he's now in the oxygen now. so so amazon let's start with bezos. yeah. when you started with bezos, he was a geeky yeah, you know, well, he was a math guy and he had worked for wall street firm. now, one of the differences with him is he started as an adult. like a lot of these people were young. the google twins were younger, right? mark was young. mark was later the way not for late to later, but he was he was an adult was in his thirties i

think i think we were we're the same age and and he was he was he already had a good career and was success awful financially successful. so it was a little different. i always thought the word i wrote down in my notebook, which i found was ferrell. i found him. ferrell. ferrell yeah, you could see him like right around the thing. and he really was much of a business person. so honestly, he was easier to deal with because i didn't get any lectures about community and saving the world and right the wearing of sweatshirts stuff like that he wasn't yeah that archival silicon valley we're doing this for good he was books that's right you know and he was but now he's seems to be his best life in some ways. yeah. he's gotten really good shape. he is. and and now i think somehow he stepped away amazon to some degree and. he stepped away from amazon to some sort of. yeah. yeah, i think so. and he's still having a relaxed interactions him or. yeah there's no another one. i mean you know he's this is why it kind of like is like he called me incessantly when he

needed me and then when he didn't, he didn't like such a user. but that's fine. i got the i got the switch. he wanted to be in the wall street journal. he wanted have profiles written of him. he he was that it was a touch and go company a long time right. so are you this is coming from that are you in competition with regular newspapers now is do you see yourself in that i don't even think of them as competition they're just not even in the same anymore. no, i make i'm profitable so that's of of and now i want to i don't newspapers i work for all of them. yeah. worked for everybody. most of quit all of them. so does it make you sad to see newspapers or you think that. no, i think what like about it is that now it's an opportunity do interesting things right now. now, same thing with cable networks. they're done. i'm like are they like why do they have to be now it's like this spinoff i was talking the comcast people yesterday about the spin. i wanted to understand it a little better and it's an opportunity to do great stuff

now, now that they're free they have to be good and they have to be innovative. and so i always think the decline of something is an opportunity, right? for me, for all of them and so they can now like they're like, oh, it's only old audiences. it's this and like does it have to be, you know, you can change it. same thing with newspapers. you just get the court, see, one of the things i have always been in business and so to me if costs are aligned with revenues, you're fine you know, even if it's break even if you don't you're not going to ever make that much money for media necessarily all the value is sucked up by google and facebook and everything else. these days. not forever but you can do some really interesting like my podcast stuff. we have three or four people working for me. that's i pay attention to the costs and i understand one of the things that i understand is when we met and this was from the early of doing the code conferences, the all things d conferences, i knew exactly how much money we made, what our contribution was, which was almost total.

by the way, the journal would have never thought doing this thing. and then you could pay me based on what i did. like, that's i got from silicon valley. my you know, if we made $5 million, i'm going to get at half of that, my friends. right. and if that was i mean, profits that what that's what's interesting because you know you're i know i don't mean to quote mika brzezinski these days, but know your value, right? i've always been aware of my value. and i some people in media are overpaid and some people are underpaid. actually, their value. yeah, i think it's an opportunity for these come up. i sit there and think that they have to get out under right now to stay alive. a billionaire has to buy them. that's no, they don't have to be. what's happening? yes, you have to recap, analyze them. that's what you have to do. i think the billionaire thing is a problem because they sit around. now, what's happened is that the pros, they're in a status. what's bezos going to want? that's what you can feel it. they're right. what's going to do? the thing is he could give --. that's my feeling.

he's on his yacht with lauren having a good time, and then he's like, oh, i own that paper. katharine graham convinced me to buy it. so same thing with marc, like i was marc benioff owns time, and he got on that. he he had some fit on twitter about. kamala didn't do an interview with him, right? how dare she? you know, she never did in 50 years. but i'm like this. and so i texted go you know what you whiny person said i had a bad word to him and i said she'll do and said, if you were relevant, she'd do an interview with you. it you try to be relevant. and he was like, what's how did i magazine? i'm like, nobody reads it. so guess what? she'd be better my podcast because i'm bigger than time magazine. so it was like, you know, they just are so sensitive. these they think they should get everything for owning it. and so i think there's other ownership ways, there's other cost ways that don't like. i think people in media should own a piece of the stuff like the washington post reporters should get a piece of it, a piece of it, and then be motivated to do something about.

right. i mean, okay, that would be. but then they never gotten a pot like i'm just using poll as an example. they they podcasts. they never did. they and one of the things that's gotten i used to wonder is when is cnbc going to do a business in media podcast? never, never. why not? they could have. yeah, just not their model. and they don't. why not? so why not figure that out? and and engineer it and figure out what you could put on to figure out? yes. and so i want to get switching gears again. i want to talk about peter thiel, because this is someone that now people know about. but previously i think most people were unaware or he's just a shadowy figure in the background. yeah, well, he's written like three books, so he's not the most significant person. i would agree in the world right now. and i would agree and we don't know him you this circus clown in front of everything but peter's the one i always watch. you know because i only about peter is very smart. where did you start with peter? i mean, did you actually, i paid attention him right away because you could tell. first of all, look, you don't

have to agree with someone to think, wow, a smart person. like, i hate to tell you, but steve bannon is very smart, right? or you know. you know, but i guess so. goebbels. but but, you know, that's the comparative for me. but you have to pay attention to what saying and so i read all of steve bannon. i read all of peter's books and some of them were terrible. like when he when he and david sacks compared rape to belated regret he said rape, was belated regret. and i wrote a story about that why they don't like kara swisher, but they wrote it. i didn't write it. they wrote it. so they should take responsibility for their stupidity. stupidity and cruelty. but one of the things about him that's interesting is he's got a viewpoint about world, which is let's let's break it completely down. let's destroy. right. and create something a new in which an uber ceo runs everything right. he has a point of view and it's not authoritarianism, a new way of thinking. it's like a it's like founder

mode, whatever, that kind of thing. and so think he is very behind the scenes. he's the one that paid j.d. and which my favorite rachel maddow calls him, peter thiel's failed intern. and i would agree he wasn't very good at tech. he was a senator and now he's probably to be president. i mean actuarial tables. he's trump is old too. like he could be president at any time and so i do not want anything to happen. violence is repulsive but i have to say he's in line and so peter paid $30 million to get him elected to senate and got him to the like. that's a very good and bad investment, a small investment to get him and is i'm sorry, his his he is i call him a billionaire's but that's a different way to put it. but i think he's bought himself in a very smart into that so he has influence and i think he has influence j.d. who used to be very anti-trump. right. and i don't particularly think peter likes trump either. you know, you can sort of i

think he's a vehicle for him. and one of the things it'll be interesting how much he engages because he's not doing the performative stuff that elon's doing is like hanging at mar a lago and like waving to people on the patio. that's so strange. that's such a strange it goes into elon. i mean, peter is a background guy. usually, and well, you know, he is i mean, i think he's open about his beliefs, which is. yeah, that's correct. and which i appreciate he's not hiding anything about who he is. i think we don't realize the degree of 100% or remove himself were some personal things that were going on but he remove himself for a little while. but if you go back i didn't interview i used to carry around a little camera a little flip phone. it was a flip. it was called flip camera. and i used do videos of all these guys and have a 15 minute argument after with peter on it. very early on i went to this. he was over in the presidio and we were debating everything, like all this stuff. facebook's valuation is that

he's gay. we were talking, he was like, gay people shouldn't have special rights. i was like, how about equal rights? he goes, i go, why can someone adopt? we had this amazing discussion about that now he has kids. he may have a different point of view and and it was really it was was really smart and he very pugnacious. he's some of the stuff is weird some of it's interesting but he definitely is the brains of the opera he was he was the brains of the operation back at paypal right he was the brains facebook. know he facebook. yes he made a $500,000 investment for 7 to 10% of that company and had a good at it. not a good influence, but he had an influence on mark clearly compared to say, you know, the bizarre stylings of marc andreessen or whoever, like peter is very clear there. so i pay attention to him more than what he's funding got all tight with the mercers and that kind of stuff. amazing. yeah. so he's sort of george soros, the george soros bad side. interesting. so let's talk let's continue on.

i want to get to elon. so when i left out the google guys, we could get to the google guys. but let's start with elan, because i think we're all talking about elan to some degree. when i went into writing about elan, saw him. i liked elan thought elan is like a da vinci. he's in the same sentence as great, not inventors, but someone who's taking the world forward into, i think, more like a i think he's more like a ford and he's a business innovator because. he didn't invent many of these. that's the one thing. but he got them to like jobs. jobs wasn't a coder, but he understood and he knits things together in his force of his personality. he's more like that, i would say, right and and then there's big change with ellen. yes. and i think it has to do with twitter when took over twitter deeply before it was before that, because i've done probably more interviews like long term interviews of them than anybody. and he he was so challenging and interesting. and one of the things is at some

point, everyone was making a lot of money. everyone shifted into doing stupid, stupid things like, you know, and i joke about this. but they're like, cara, we're going to digitize dry cleaning. i'm like, how? like basically just an app. and they pick it up, right? that's it. thank you. so uncreative, so uninteresting. but it was like that and so and all of them were like, swanning around. we're going to make investments here as if they had they had one lucky job at google and they thought were a genius and they were tiresome and he was not. he investing in cars. he was and even even hydrate hyperloop, even neuralink. interesting. there's plenty of other companies besides neuro. like, not that you'd know autonomy, although is so far ahead of tesla doesn't. have anything. and he was good. i liked his p.t. barnum thing he had going on a lot of. it is p.t. barnum like. yeah. we're going to start robotaxis. i'm like, i've been riding in for san francisco for three years now. like, might i introduce you to it's been going for many years, but he was really interesting and then the and the space stuff, was it challenging analog

things that were also digital. and he also had the force of personnel ality. he also was very funny. you know, people often say that about trump in the early days. now it's sort of curdle into whatever is happening right now but he had a sense of humor and it was very juvenile. and i would say he 5% of what he is 100% now he had 5% of meanness and, weird, angry ness, you could feel it like, but it was very small. it never showed itself very much. now you heard all these stories of what he did to his his poor daughter and stuff like that. but he was really interesting compared them like he was different. and we talk we talk a week, we text a lot and stuff like because he was always i was like, huh, that was interesting. this was interesting. and he would admit failure, which wasn't was unusual. the only person does doesn't now is mark cuban. he does absolutely it was great yeah who's who is sort of

arrogant now is terrific which is interesting he's gone the other direction it's called maturity you know but you don't see that in silicon valley very often the opposite toddlerhood and that's an insult to toddlers. i have one. and and so what interesting about him is he was so challenging and interesting. and then things started shift like very and he was also somewhat i can't believe i'm saying this, but was sort of poignant like it was random at some oscar party and he's like i've anyone to date? do you know anyone, i'm like, i'm not fixing you up with anybody. like, there's nobody i want near you because i think there's a lot going on there that i don't want a woman involved with that i know. and so, so he was he was funny. he was interesting. it was always orthogonal. i like orthogonal thinkers and he was that he was you're like, oh, i hadn't thought of that kind of thing. and jobs was very much like that, too. he's not like jobs. me just say, i know steve jobs. he wasn't my friend, but he's no steve jobs.

that's what i would say about him. but he was he was interesting and. then we did an interview during covid first. he got really mad about something walt tweeted and decided not to talk to me for a year because of walt tweet. and it was weird. walt said, i love my tesla, but i don't understand how it's worth four car companies, something elon had actually said himself. but because walt said it, he got mad and then he's like, i'm never speaking again because of walt. and i was like, first of all, you idiot, he loves this -- tesla is your problem. he wasn't talking about you. talking about wall street didn't matter it? was this weird, like, anger thing. and i ran into him. he texted me a year later, he's like, why are we talking? i'm like, you told me never to talk to you again. like it was weird. it was weird and capricious and strange. but then during covid, we did an interview that was on zoom and he you could see him curling with covid. it he was all mad at the state of california for being responsive about it. it was very early on.

and he said, you know, i've read all the studies. there's only going to be about 15 people dying from covid. this is what he said to me. i was like, oh, doctor, well, be good to know, like, what the --? and older people get this reference and or doctor george clooney fine, whatever. and i like i don't know the history of of pandemics million people tend to die that's usually the bottomhe number that die. it seems like we and also i said we don't what we don't know. so being cautious is a good idea necessarily? no, it's not i know what's going to happen. it was really i read like you could see he probably stayed up all night and read all the studies and he started talking about hydrochloric and all this stuff. and i was like, well, you know, you do not say this to elon musk. right. but got like crazy. and he goes i'm going to just what do you want me to walk out right now like as if it was like some you know over bread horse or something and he's or dog or poodle and it was and he was like i could right now i go, okay, no and he's like, but i could. and i said, well, okay.

and then he's like, do you want me to go? and i don't know. but you think this was so ridiculous? was so like, i'm like, ah, like i'm a lesbian. this is dramatic for me. like this ridiculous and. and and then he didn't go right. he doesn't go. and we texted back and forth. trump he was on some of his committees, stuff like that. and he started to get this another thing we did an interview in which he would she teared up said he didn't cry, but he did. he said that if when tesla was in real trouble for a while, there and he slept on the floor of the factory and i was like, you know, there was a hotel next door. and he's like, i had to sleep the floor of the factory to show people. i'm like, no, you did you or is it just performative, right? i was like, there's a hotel you could have gone over, you're going to sleep, come back. like, it was so stupid. and he did stuff like that and at one point he said to me, if doesn't survive, humanity is doomed. a version of that. and i was like, wow, okay, yeah. like we're going in a different direction. sure. if i had heard that from a

homeless guy on street of across the street, right? like that kind of thing. and but he was elon, so you have to listen to him. and so which is where we are now. and, and then he got more and more he got mad at that and then he was fine. he came back. we did a very funny interview which he compared jeff bezos rockets to small --, which was funny. they are they do look like small --. it's weird that design is weird. and i mean rockets, but that one in particular. and so he was fine. and then i tweeted something. he stays up late at night. and then obviously the journals written about his drug. right. the megalomania as he gets richer and richer, kind of increased this with all these enablers and and the and all the good people that he interact with fell away, whether can think what you want about sam altman. but they were very close same thing with reid hoffman all of them the ones that were reasonable all mark right all the way and then all the minions and enablers come in. aren't you the smartest person

in the world? blah, blah, and, and then i started to see some i heard from some of the personal stuff that seemed disturbing i found disturbing. and and he got mad at me and, called me an --. that was it. and. and this is amazing. i could talk to you, but i think we're going to open it up for questions now and see what you guys want to ask for the time we've got left. so with the time we have left, i'm able to entertain one question. oh, wow. okay, so. oh, no, we only got one question and that's a lot of pressure you can listen to pivot every twice a week. so you're in, you're here in south florida. you've probably seen a lot billboards for crypto. and you guys. oh, yeah. you haven't mentioned anything about crypto. what are your thoughts on that? you were at as you said, you're very good at looking out did you buy bitcoin when was one? i actually did when i did one of the original stories about bitcoin because a guy named wences casares who started xapo, i came i was very intrigued by the idea he was from, i think,

argentina. and so it made sense for a country like argentina where they had massive inflation to be in cryptocurrency and i bought ten bitcoin and at the time i put it on a hard it, there weren't wallets then or anything else and i put it on on a little thumb drive, i think, and i've lost it oh no i it for $50 at the time i think in bitcoin. yes i do somewhere i'll find it someday but i sure couldn't it, i'm guessing because i don't remember code. i think i'm interested in it, i'm not against it. i think it needs regulation which is not going to have now. gary gensler gary over did i thought that i mean it's like the early internet it's of of charlatans and ridiculous people who make you know, it's a speculative instrument right now and it doesn't seem to have any efficacy. so ultimately, it's just a speculative. and where is it going to have efficacy? i think there was a big in it. and then sam bankman-fried kind of pulled back on that. so you the fraud and game

playing, you know, it's at 98,000 now because they think trump's going to start a bitcoin reserve but that's not doesn't give it underlying value to me the real focus should be on i almost constantly what's happening now is a cambrian very much the same way was even more so what's happening now is really massive. you see the money flowing to it maybe too, you know, in video is now the most valuable company the world. they're like cisco in a way, and in the early days of the internet. and so you're going to see if i was focusing i mean, i think crypto is one part of it, and that's to go up and down. but it's to me, it's a casino. and again, i don't see the use case it yet, except as a speculative instrument of value. well, you got to hang out with the winklevoss. martin no, i do not. i never reviews. oh, man. those two that they were perfectly depicted in that movie years. i'll tell you those two. and they get hurt. they get hurt. they're like, you're mean to us. i'm like, deservedly. boys would love your thoughts on

blue sky and chad. djibouti. well, fascinating for you. i just an entire episode of on kara swisher about this you can to it but very briefly i'd use them and very promiscuous with social media i'm on twitter largely because i don't like being called the c-word by elon musk all day long. i just don't care. i think it's a nazi -- bar and should stop using it. it's not. and it's useful for my businesses and it's just mean makes me feel bad. i have 1.6 million followers and i'm off of it. so that's how much it annoys me. it doesn't help me, by the way. it doesn't help me. so it doesn't matter. i wouldn't be there. it did help me, but i liked. blue sky, my wife loves blue sky. she went to brown university, so she would. but one of the things that she said, i like threads. i think it's a good product. i actually do think it's a good but i know all these fancy people so wife's like threads is like the cheesecake factory and blue sky is like the cool bar,

right? and i'm like, i like the cheesecake factory. it's really good cheesecake. it's delicious. and they have chicken poppers. yeah. you know, so it's whatever you want. i think you should try it. like linkedin can be very good for a lot of people. i think you should try all. i love blue sky. i love the the and the ceo blue sky. they're fantastic people. i think there's i think there has to be a fractionalization of all these social networks. so go where you like make the social network you like if you like white supremacy i've i got a social network for you right so go there if you like that if you want to be lgbt can i do use it all the time. i like it. i think it's interesting. the last thing i'd say is, you know, one of the things they talk about is these echo chambers, right? and we are an echo chambers. we are. what's interesting is they love to talk about the left being in an echo chamber. what do you think? right. is in their in their own chamber? and then they complain about our give me a friggin break. i think what would be interesting is to probably get

off of social media because it isn't life and get out and get and have more community things like this. let me tell you, this is. this is astonishing to me to see all these young people, you know, listen to podcasts, listen to all of podcasts, different thing, start to participate in community and events and things like and have a mixed hybrid thing and that's where i think and i think the real problem is, the problem with all these devices, they're addictive. you cannot live without them from a work point of view and a social point of view and, and, and and they're necessary. they're necessary to to, to working through the world and so the addictive part makes it a real problem and i often think that people 30 to 55 are really the actual not kids right my kids aren't on social media they use they reddit to discover and find things my older kids. but it's you have to, like i always say, at the end of this burn book, i say, you know, you

kind of use that line from that good that great movie. i go, you know, look up, look the -- up and use it for what is which is a tool versus what it's become, which is a weapon. every technology ever from the beginning of time. and i would tell one more quick story. i advise you to read yuval harare's book. i did a great interview with him it's called nexus and i yuval like all the tech people love that book remember they were carrot. did you know all this about sapiens? i'm like, i did because i went college like, but i'm glad you're now learning it, boys. but but one of the this book is really enticing because it's kind it's an indictment of tech really in many ways. but one of the things he says and you should and read it because many every technology has its deleterious and positive effects. when the gutenberg press was invented, the best selling. this is the first time books were widely distributed. it was not the bible. it not copernicus that came 200

some years later. you know what it was a book by a crazy bipolar or misogynist name. heinrich cramer. it was called the hammer of witches and it was a manual of how to find and kill witches and guess they were women, right? hundreds of thousands of women died in the ensuing 200 years. the deleterious effects of this today, if read the hammer which is which i did, it's all through. q and on same stuff, same ideas around women. and some of it's funny like that there is a women men's --, which seems to be a theme throughout time. and let me tell you boys, mostly men, are interested in --. not women, not me in particular, but in general. why? why would we collect? so this idea was witches collect men's -- and put them in a -- tree in a nest and keep them like it's in book. and it's like. and i was kind of like, oh,

that's interesting. like, but why? and then this one man comes and gets his and he wants to take another person's -- because bigger this is all in this book is fantastic and. then he's like, no, that's the vicar's --. you can't take that -- anyway, read this book. so good selling this book now. so good. but we don't read henrik. but here's the thing. it's the thing. it's the same. and eventually the for copernicus and the renaissance, and eventually we use for great things. but right now are in the friggin hammer of witches right now. and we need to emerge that period. but it's constant with every technology comes, with every ship, there's a shipwreck, which is what i use in the book. so fantastic. what are we oh, i think we still have time, do we as someone that's speaks against powerful

people. yeah i work for for nonprofits and right now which comes up ministration there are at risk i'm talking to the microsoft that someone that speaks to powerful people i work for for non and right now trump is saying that he might take some nonprofits which are terrorists it's arts and poetry. what up for what what is do you follow gut again speaking powerful people do you analyze how would process and are you ever like i am you know i'm scared of scary things that's it. powerful people are just mostly flawed people, many of whom hadn't been hugged enough as a child. and one of the things i think about is everyone's the same so i treat them exactly the same and. if they find to be good people focus in on that. and i'll say it if, they're not well, what are they going to do? like, i'm like, bring it on. like, what are you going to do? i mean, they could sue me into

oblivion, but okay, the seventies already cut 32 million. what doesn't is already cut 32. who does? the seventies. 32 million in grants for the arts. so i feel i agree it's a huge we have to do organize don't fall prey this idea that you cannot win back in 2004, the democratic party was guess what happened the many years bill clinton that to 2004. what year was it? bill clinton came in anyway. this is an up and down thing. and i think these people are terrifying in many. they're also incompetent in many ways. right. and so and that's not to say that that's still not scary because there's some competence among some of these people already, they -- it up. it seems like. i'm like, what are you doing, you idiots? you the other thing i focus in on is, literally look at the numbers is half and half, almost we that the i'm a democrat lost

lost in the wrong places but they didn't lose by that much and so what do you do with those numbers is it's like if you i what i did because scott was going on about landslide trump's landslide is number 46 or 45 in presidential landslides. biden won by 4.3%, trump up by 1.2. that's not a landslide. just won in the right places. that said, we should pay attention to what the people over on the other side are saying and what bothered and what got wrong and figure out how to serve people. and i think any politician that serves people and figures what their problems are listening to all sides, not just not just like the maga people. we can listen to some of them. not really, but they should be listening to us like that's the thing. i went to kentucky to they always do silicon holler. silicon. they did it here. silicon sand, whatever. it's ridiculous. i went there and i said, listen, nobody from silicon valley is coming here to open up a company. i'm sorry, they're not you're

not trained enough. it's easier to do it offshore, blah, blah, blah. they appreciate it that i came there to talk to them and they were some people were like, i'm so glad someone came here to. talk to us and listen to our our issues. and i did. i was like what's your issues about? and they were like, well, is coal mining coming back? i'm like, no, they're going to have robotics do it. you're that owner over the minute he can replace you with a robot he's going to do it. he's going to lie to you about but he's going to do it because he wants to make money and you better pay attention to that. and so had this great dialog and they're like thank you for coming to talk to us. i said you've never been to san francisco to talk to me come to san francisco and hear my life like it was a really interesting. and then we found a lot of commonality. like they had all these issues around gay. and i started talking about my kids and my family. it goes long way once you start to realize the common america has divisiveness, works on the internet so does hope. it really does and that's where we you know let's get back to cat videos spicy thing i love

that that's i think have some time by the way everybody go see everybody goes is so good i did a great interview with jon chu who's such a great director so it's great it's really good even the men, it's really good. sure, go ahead. it's not barbie, calm down. all right on the theme of leaders ai. so there's a couple of new players in the in the space, right? you have them is at deepmind and zero i'm having hard time hearing you solve the problem. so there are some some new leaders in the space of ai are there? what you have them is that deepmind at anthropic it's been around a while but yeah but but they are you know are at the forefront of leading of the biggest changes in technology right and not many people knew about them you know five or ten years ago. so what's of them? are we in good hands. would one of the biggest changes that we're facing in the future? you know, my worry right now, i i broke that story of deep google buying deepmind. i was super interested in that company because i really was

focused on about ten years ago. i was sort of interested in because my idea was i kept google was so neanderthal that we things in and then it came back us, right? like, why doesn't it come? why doesn't the information come at us? right? why do we have to compile it ourselves? it's artisanal like, i'll go get this go good here. it's sort of like shopping used to be, right? and so i was very interested. the idea that information reveals itself to you, all of it together, that there was going to be that. and a.i. has been around forever. why? i mean, just have called it different things. but but what's happened is there's been a mix of computing, of computing power data is critical all and and energy use like the ability to really step it up now is where we. are so we've gone from sort of you know not so smart to dolphins to where it's going right so i think some of them are interesting. many of them are flawed think i like them a little better than the group. but my issue is every one of these companies like openai is

$157 billion value asian and it's a star up stop me like that is like that is not small so and by the way it has a microsoft anthropic has an amazon. matt is spending billions of dollars nobody can keep up without spending billions of dollars and therefore the four major players are the same players who brought us partially the insurrection right like who brought us part polarization and everything else and no responsibility and stealing of privacy and no antitrust. so this is the this is my worry is it's controlled by very big companies because. it's so costly at this point. it's not like early internet was not costly. it wasn't cheap. and so my worries that it'll it'll be dominated by the same giant without any government involvement to worry about safety and things we can agree on like killer drones maybe not like you know what i mean, like

we do with nuclear energy. and so as much as i like them individually, think big corporations are really leading this and i worry about the of innovation for the google was it was really in a garage amazon was a tiny company can they ever compete this environment you know microsoft is reviving three mile island yeah it's a they are not nuclear energy is is a much more right do research anyway it's it's fossil fuels are bad that's that's just let's be clear that's what the really is right now for us but we have to find innovative energy the big companies control this. that worries the internet was not controlled by big companies fact it upended them. i'm i, i prefer. the young eating it's old i do i think that's better for this country. it's the reason we've been ahead on it's the reason democracies

are better than any other system and it's you know china's top down and it's surveillance economy where we should be bought bottom up and that's my worry in that. so anyway just i would the only thing i would say is all of you use it start using it. you cannot do anything unless understand and use it and it's it'll you'll figure out what's good for you and what's not good for you. but it will replace certain jobs. it will create new ones, but it will most i was talking to a pretty big mogul the other day and he said he had 6000 coders. he goes by next year i'll have 2000. hey, i will. all of that. yeah. that's the future. the future. this i think we have. well, i want to thank everyone. thank you. that was. that was excellent. that was great. thank you all so much. you guys.

and now joining us on booktv is george landreth, the. his book is called let freedom ring again. ken, self-evident truth, save from future decline. let's start with your subtitle, landreth. what do you mean by self-serving? well, i'm kind thinking of the idea that, you know, all men are created equal, endowed by their creation and the rights among these are life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. getting back to these ideas that

every american, every human being actually has inalienable rights. and we to respect those rights and our government ought to be organized in way that it's focused on protecting rights and and not necessarily them. and i think as government has gotten bigger and bigger and bigger, it sometimes transgresses that principle. so then it starts to order us about and treat us like we're subjects rather than citizens. and so i would argue that we went from 13 what i would call fairly insignificant colonies to militarily and, economically compared to the rest of the world, to being the world's sole militarily economically. we were the shining city on the hill and i hope that we still are. i feel like that is a little bit at risk right now because we have kind of i feel like we've gotten a little off the path, lost our way a wee bit. so my book is hoping to wake america from its civic slumber and get us back on track where

we focus on things that matter most, which is letting people be free and then they will. generally, some people misuse their freedom and if they do, they can be punished for violations of the law. but most people will use that freedom to accomplish good things, you know, to support their family, to raise their family, be an entrepreneur, invent new things and so forth. so i think we need to unleash that as opposed to unleashing. because the founding fathers believed in the people and they had a lot of concerns about big government because they'd had some bad experiences with big government with the king and parliament and so forth. and you write in your book, we need a lot less than we currently. how would you like to see it shrink? well, i'd like it to it to focus on maybe what it needs to do the most. and again, back to this of inalienable rights and not kind of dictating how we live our

life, not dictating what we're allowed to think about, talk about. i'm a big proponent, for example, of free speech and that people who totally disagree with me and might even call me names and say, i'm idiot. i think they have the right to say. and my someone said, well, what would you do about the answer is? i'll try to give a better response, a more fact based response, a more logical response, so that the listeners will decide actually think he's right, but i don't want silence people who disagree with me because i feel like the the rigor of having an open debate is really worthwhile it helps educate the public and it empowers the public to to be the ultimate fact checkers of everything that happens. you are the founder of frontiers freedom, and you also host the conservative commando radio show. what are those? frontiers of freedom actually, i'm the president and ceo, but the founder was malcolm waller, who was a friend of ronald reagan, former senator, former

senator and, good friend of mine and a mentor of mine. but that is a it's a public policy think tank. and interestingly enough, the perspective of the organization is a lot like this book, its goal is to promote the government that expands and protects americans rights but doesn't try to compel them into things. i mean but only thing i really want to compel people to is to not harm others. meaning if someone shows up at your house to to commit murder or to burn your house down, i'd like the police to show up and stop them. but you know. but if somebody to come to my house to deliver letter telling me they thought i was a complete bozo, they hate me and they don't mean harm. they just mean to insult me. that's fine. that's. that's. you know what i mean? i think we to understand that we can allow disagreements. what we know. and so anyhow, that's our organizational perspective. and then conservative commandos

is a radio and a tv show. it comes in two formats and it's it's broadcast over fcc regulated airwaves. we always remind our guests no foul language, please. but i don't want a phone call from the fcc. but anyhow, we are again that same perspective. the goal is, is to promote freedom and opportunity for all. do you believe that there is a deep state in the federal government? i think there is a little bit of what you might call that and that is as government has grown very large it gets a little in the sense that historically there's been very significant checks and balances. the various branches of government in our constitution. there are not a lot of checks and balances, the bureaucracy and when it's doubled and, tripled and quadrupled, i think that a little bit of a problem because i teach constitutional law and law school and our founders were very very focused

on dividing, slicing, dicing power. so they did it with separate branches of government. they did it between federal, local and state governments. they the concept of federalism. and then they created all kinds of limits. in fact, i would even argue that first ten, the bill of rights is not a statement of rights. if you read it, it doesn't say fly in, fly away language. you have the right to speak. but it says us congress shall make no law. in other words, it's a limited position on the ability of congress in we don't care what the populace wants to do. they don't like your opinion they can't silence you and. same thing with religion. if populace doesn't like the church, you choose to go to or the fact that you don't go to church, they have no say in the matter. so in that sense, it was a limitation on the majority because our founders were worried about a majority being, you. they wanted to avoid government from the of of three sheep voting to eat the two. to me three wolves out voting

the two sheep as to what's for dinner. and they wanted to make sure that we didn't have democracy become that kind of an exercise. they the public in the majority to be the movers of policy america. but they wanted to limit what that policy could be so that if i'm unpopular i still have a right to live they can't just vote to say no trial him just throw him in jail. we don't like him. george landrith has undergrad from brigham young law degree from uva. do you think the federal government has been. well, i don't know. you know, weaponized. i think things, and things like nuclear weapons and aircraft carriers and things like that. i mean, obviously, we have a military and that's important for our national security. but i do think that we some as government has gotten it's a little more a little too proactive in the sense that. you know i think an example be i

happen to be pro-life. but i wouldn't want the government showing and trying to arrest people who are pro-choice. i think they have a right to have that opinion. and i feel like we're getting a point where maybe the government's getting a little too focused on trying to predetermine what we're allowed what the acceptable opinions. you see that in some cases and you know, like up in canada there now, i think they've been working on making it illegal to misgender someone. so i think myself, my mother used to misnamed us and what i mean you know because i was the oldest of and sometimes my wife has done the same thing with our kids you know she'll you know, instead of calling him thomas or carl or or jefferson she might call them by one of the other names, you know, and then she'll catch herself and say something or something. is that a crime? you know, and and so on some level, i think we have to. make sure that government is not that much in our face.

you know, i'm very much into the idea that we want a powerful government to protect us from terrorists, to protect us from foreign adversaries, is we want a powerful government to make sure that we have law and order in the streets. you know, there's a riot going on. we can stop that riot because i don't want to have. my house burned down by a mob. a thousand people, you know. so but if it came with to the irs. yeah. i think that as an organization that was targeted by the irs during the obama administration, that does bother me because. i feel like the rule of law suggests that that's not an appropriate use of government power and that is what you should do is say, i don't like their views, so let's go ahead and use the power of government, punish them for their views. i don't that i think that's inappropriate and. i don't like that just because it was me. the reality, if i were in an administration and they came to me and said, hey we want you to go after these groups that are our adversaries, i'd be like, i can't do that for you. i'm sorry.

that's not legal. it's right. it's not the rule of law. and we go after who violate the law, not people who our adversaries. in your book, let freedom ring, you quote marcus totally as cicero. quote, a nation can its fools and even the ambitious but it cannot survive treason from within an enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly against the city. but the traitor moves among those within the gates freedom is sly whispers rustling through all the alleys heard in the very halls of government itself to what are you referring? i'm just referring to the idea. we have some americans now who really will act as if the constitution is un-american. and i'm thinking to myself, they didn't used to be like that. it didn't matter. it wasn't a political. every there was complete unanimity.

i don't think we have to agree on everything. but for example, i think we would be really hopeful. all americans agreed that we're endowed by our creator with an animal rights. we're not rights by government. and because if government gave you rights, it has the right to take them from you. but if government didn't give them to you, if a higher authority gave them to you, they can't. and jefferson is the one who said that if those were given to us by our creator, we can't take them from you because they're his gift. and i think that's a much better place to be as a nation and as a people. even if you don't believe would argue if you're an atheist. and that's fine, you can be an atheist. that's part of religious liberty is to not believe. but even then i think you would find comfort in the idea that the populace believes that you have these rights that are essentially inalienable you can't sell them, you can't have them from you, they are yours stuck with them. and that's that's think a great place to be. you also