好了，各位，我们开始吧。介绍一下这里的共同主持人，小鲍比·肯尼迪和埃隆。我先来介绍小罗伯特·F·肯尼迪。我想大家都已经知道，他是约翰·F·肯尼迪总统的侄子。他是参议员兼司法部长罗伯特·F·肯尼迪的儿子，后者在赢得 1968 年总统选举的加利福尼亚州初选后遭到刺杀。在进入总统政治领域之前，小罗伯特·F·肯尼迪。

曾是一名环境律师，并在许多领域从事活动。他最著名的事迹是清理哈德逊河。他也直言不讳地支持原住民权利、和平与公民自由。他还是儿童健康保护组织的创始人，该非营利组织保护儿童免受药物和环境污染造成的有毒化学物质侵害。那么接下来，鲍比和埃隆，我想我们都很期待听听你们要说些什么。

埃隆，很高兴见到你，非常感谢你主持我们的活动。

非常欢迎。谢谢。这是一个让公众直接听到你讲话的绝佳机会，我非常期待听听你要说些什么。

我还想感谢你在这件事上的领导。就是打破这一切，打破整个审查体系。事实上，我想说一点，对于我们这些试图讨论偏离官方正统观念、而这些讨论在其他平台上遭到审查的人来说，Twitter 一直算是最后的避难所。第一次真正的审查行动发生在 2019 年 2 月，当时亚当·希夫致函所有社交媒体网站的负责人，包括 Google、Facebook，也就是现在的 Meta、Instagram、YouTube、Pinterest 等，要求他们开始审查那些关于疫苗但并不。

那些不符合官方叙事的信息。而唯一的地方、当时唯一抵制希夫的群体处在情报委员会之前。所以，这算是第一个迹象，表明情报机构对公共卫生有兴趣。在这些社交媒体网站中，唯一抵制那些、那些诅咒的是、是 Twitter。当时由杰克运营这个平台，而他、不知为何，他能够对他们说不，其他平台却不能。

所以我非常高兴。埃隆，我认为你来到 Twitter，为我们的国家带来了一股清新空气。尽管你来自南非，但你却不知为何处在自由表达的传统之下，以及这对美国民主有多么重要。所以我非常感谢你。

非常欢迎。是的，我认为要拥有强健的民主制度，言论自由绝对不可或缺。没有言论自由，民主根本无法运转。

是的，就是言论自由。信息的自由流动就是水，就是阳光，就是肥料，就是土壤。民主。没有它，民主就会枯萎、死亡。历史上从来没有什么时候，我们回顾过去会说那些审查言论自由的人是好人。他们总是坏人。他们总是。这总是迈向极权主义的第一步。但同时，你知道，这也是宪法制定者所理解的事情之一：极权体制比民主体制拥有巨大优势，因为它们效率更高。

民主是杂乱的，也是缓慢的。它前进 2 步，再后退 1 步。它是大量辩论的产物，而辩论进展缓慢、过程艰苦。我们相对于极权体制唯一的优势，那个巨大优势，就是发展为政策的思想首先要在辩论的熔炉中经受锤炼。然后，最好的思想会在这个思想市场中胜出，而这种情况在极权体制中不会发生。

这也是我们宪法的制定者所理解的动力之一：凭借这种通过辩论、讨论和对话，而不是通过命令来产生政策的动力，我们将能够在竞争中胜过极权体制，并比它们延续得更久。

完全正确。我完全赞同。民主和言论自由的特点是，它就像当众洗自己的衣服。是的，你会看到一些东西，也许你知道那里有脏衣服，但至少你能看到。它没有被隐藏起来。进行这种辩论至关重要，即使你强烈反对辩论中的一方。如果你不允许这种辩论。我认为支持审查的人真正需要明白的是，除非那些你不喜欢的人可以说你不喜欢的话，否则那就不是言论自由。

而且，如果你、如果你开始审查，那么这种审查转而落到你头上只是时间问题。

我的意思是，第一修正案不是为轻松的言论、讨人喜欢的言论和可爱的人而写的。它是为艰难时期而写的，也是为了保护那些没人希望你说出口的言论。我记得 977 年，纳粹分子想要在伊利诺伊州斯科基游行，那里是一个犹太人社区。这个国家的自由派人士和美国公民自由联盟大批出面支持那项权利，尽管他们对纳粹分子所说和所做的事情感到震惊和厌恶。

所有人都同意，我们必须愿意为这样做的权利而死。而那是。那就是民主的全部基础，也就是我们允许人们谈论。而其中一件事，你知道，那个。促使我竞选总统的事情之一，正是你刚才谈到的我们国家透明度的终结。政府。现在有太多事情是在秘密进行的，决策过程不透明，有一些人正在。

正在作出决定的人，他们不一定是公众排斥在外的民选官员。如今有如此多的美国人觉得，民主的承诺是一场诱售骗局，我们已不再生活在一个真正由我们主宰自身命运、由我们主宰、决定自身信仰的民主制度中；那些我们无法控制的人、金钱、利益、大公司已经接管了一切。

这种发生在华盛顿特区和各州首府的国家权力与企业权力的合并，不仅让本应保护我们的监管机构变成了侵害美国人民的掠食者，还把所有决策、真正的决策都从美国公众手中夺走了。而且，你知道，你会看到如此多的人。我今天在宾夕法尼亚州乡村地区，周围都是对我们国家感到绝望的人，他们幻想破灭，因自己不理解的原因在贫困中挣扎，但他们觉得自己已不再是自身命运的主人。

而且我认为，其中很大一部分原因是，这确实是真的。我们的政府已经变成了企业权力的工具，而且它并没有如实相告。正因为如此，它不得不对我们撒谎。你知道，它承受不起透明公开，因为它真的告诉了我们它在做什么，以及为什么要作出某些决定。人们是不会容忍的。所以一切都必须笼罩在恐惧和欺骗之中。而且我认为，你知道，美国人即使并不理解这一点，也明白有非常不对劲的事情正在发生在他们身上。

完全正确。实际上，我觉得真正离奇、而且与过去非常不同的是，相互勾结的不只是大公司和政府，尽管这种情况实际上已经存在一段时间了。比如，我想是艾森豪威尔曾警告我们提防军工冲突，而他是真正了解这件事的人。但我觉得难以原谅的是，传统媒体的遗产也几乎完全在与政府步调一致地行事，虽有一些例外，以及与。

与美国企业界一起。而他们。他们真正的义务是质疑政府，而不是在美国附和政府并充当其传声筒。这太疯狂了。

我的意思是，传统上，媒体的职能应该是充当第一修正案的守护者。它们应该向权力说真话。可它们反而成了权势者的宣传工具，为了，你知道，那些大。军工复合体、制药公司，或以及其他大公司。你知道，媒体被收编的机制之一，就是通过广告进行收买，尤其是在制药领域。

1997年，我们修改了这个国家的法律。我们过去一直禁止利用媒体销售药品。过去没有直接面向消费者的药品广告。这是违法的。FDA在97年修改了那项法律，由此掀起了一场制药资金涌入广告领域的海啸，并让制药公司不仅控制了宣传其产品的平台，还控制了内容。

在《晚间新闻》上，我和罗杰·艾尔斯有过一次奇怪的会面。罗杰·艾尔，福克斯新闻的创始人。我和他的关系非常奇特，因为我19岁时曾在东非和他一起住在帐篷里3个月。即使那是在他创办福克斯新闻之前，但他一创办福克斯新闻，就成了我眼中某种达斯·维德式的人物，尽管他对我们国家所做的一切都与我的信念背道而驰。

我一直与他保持着非常亲密的私人友谊。他会允许我上他的电视网，还会要求他的主持人，比如汉尼提、尼尔·卡武托和比尔·奥赖利，让我上节目谈论环境问题。那些年里，我是唯一经常上福克斯新闻的环保主义者。2016年，我制作了一部关于汞和疫苗的纪录片。我给他看了，他非常感兴趣。

他有一位家人，他认为那位家人因疫苗而受到了伤害。他说，很遗憾，这件事我帮不了你。他说，他的任何主持人如果允许我上电视谈论这件事，他都会被迫解雇他们。他还说，当时他的晚间新闻节目广告收入来自制药行业。他告诉我，一档晚间新闻节目平均有22条广告，其中通常有817到18条是药品广告。

他说，如果他的任何主持人没有先征求他的同意，就把我云上他们的节目，他都会被迫解雇他们。如果他不这么做，就会接到鲁珀特的电话。他说，是在10分钟内接到鲁珀特的电话。当然，他指的是福克斯新闻的老板鲁珀特·默多克。这让我看清了，你知道，为什么电视上没人愿意谈论这些事情。因为正如我所说，制药行业不仅在发号施令，还利用这些节目、这个平台来为其产品做广告。

但全世界只有2个国家允许直接面向消费者做广告。一个是新西兰，另一个是美国。很大程度上正是因此，我们服用的药品是任何其他西方国家的3倍。我们的。我们的健康结果也是最差的。我们在医疗保健上的支出比任何其他国家都多。我想我们在全世界排名第79。我们的健康结果，我想，我们买的是蒙古、古巴和哥斯达黎加，还有。

如今，药品已经成为我国仅次于癌症和心脏疾的第3大死因。而且不只是制药公司。前几天我在看《早安美国》，里面有一则广告，我想是通用动力公司在《早安美国》上投放的。《早安美国》的观众里没有人在购买杀人无人机。那么，通用动力公司为什么要在《早安美国》上做广告？

当然，他们投放那些广告，是因为他们想决定节目内容。他们希望能够对《早安美国》获准处于的那种奥弗顿窗口拥有编辑控制权，也就是《早安美国》上的讨论获准处于的范围。因此，他们想确保美国人热衷于我们的战争和好战的国家政策，这样他们就能继续销售武器。

遗憾的是，我们从电视网和企业电视台听到的许多官方叙事，正是由这些力量决定的。

是的。事实上，Twitter已经感受到了广告商的巨大压力，因为。而且，你知道，至少在西方，遭到了许多公司的广告抵制。我当然要感谢那些一直支持我们的公司，比如苹果、迪士尼以及其他许多公司。但。但是在北美和欧洲，我们大约一半的广告一夜之间消失了，仅仅因为我们坚持言论自由。

所以对于你所说的情况，我认为公众没有意识到广告商为了迫使组织循规蹈矩而施加的压力有多大，那种极端的财务压力有多大。我认为这是对民主的根本性腐蚀。公众理应对此感到无比愤怒，而且必须采取措施。这太疯狂了，他们确实是在试图逼Twitter破产。

嗯，你知道，我真的很好奇，你知道，你为什么决定公布Twitter文件，因为那件事，我是说，如果当时我是你的律师，你知道，当然我不会是，因为我不是公司律师，但我无法想象Twitter的任何律师会告诉你这是个好主意。有一段时间，你知道，我们因为审查制度起诉那些社交媒体公司。当我们听说你要接管Twitter时，我们的律师来对我们说，你知道，埃隆·马斯克似乎非常支持言论自由。

也许我们应该告诉他，我们正准备把他们全都告了。但如果他公布那些，你知道，他与白宫通信的记录，那将把Twitter撤出诉讼。因为，对于听众中不了解这一点的人来说，Twitter这样的公司基本上被视为出版平台。如果你是出版者，你想刊登什么都可以，也可以拒绝刊登任何你不想刊登的东西。政府不控制这件事，其他任何人也不控制。

如果你是《纽约时报》，你拥有不刊登罗伯特·肯尼迪社论的绝对权利。不，那不是审查。审查是政府命令你那么做。所以Twitter。所以我们不能因为Instagram封禁我的平台账号而起诉它，但如果我们能够证明政府向马克·扎克伯格施压，让Instagram封禁我的平台账号，那么这就涉及《第一修正案》，并且根据美国法律成为违法行为。对于其中一些公司，我们掌握了这种证据。

但它真的正好处在法官是否会接受的临界线上。当时，Twitter文件中公布的那类信息本会对我们非常有价值。但那会是。我当时对我的律师说，我认为埃隆不会那么做，因为他的律师会告诉他，那太疯狂了，因为这会使Twitter面临诉讼，面临责任风险。

所以当你独自那么做时，我既惊讶又欣喜。而且，你知道，显然有人把你描绘成某种邪恶图谋一样的人，但你接连采取的行动都不符合你自身的利益，而且显然是为了保护言论自由，也是为了，你知道，这对你来说源自某种比经济利益更深层的地方。埃隆，我只想告诉你，我对此有多么钦佩你；你从另一个国家来到这里，并在许多人背弃我们宪法的这样一个时期，你知道，成为拯救美国民主和言论自由的关键力量，我谨代表我的国家表达我有多么感激。

是的，它是。

这确实一直极其困难。如果我们在 Twitter 只是循规蹈矩，照广告商的要求做一切事情，尤其是照那些向广告商施压的各类非营利组织的要求做，你知道，还有整个所谓的 GDEI 运动，它对企业行为产生的影响比人们意识到的大得多。我的意思是，如果我们只是像其他所有人一样走这条线，我们本来会。每年的差额是数十亿美元。

基本上。我们的。我们的收入因为没有循规蹈矩而减少了一半。所以这件事的规模极其巨大。而且。而且坦率地说，Twitter要实现收支平衡非常困难。我们希望实现收支平衡，但目前还没有做到。

而且。

但我不在乎要花多少钱，也不在乎需要付出什么。如果我们失去言论自由，失去民主，美国就会垮掉。美国垮掉。我不知道世界会发生什么，但那不会是好事。

我的意思是，我很想听听任何这方面的细节。你有没有。你发布 Twitter 文件之前和律师谈过吗？你有没有和其他任何人谈过，他们告诉你，做这种事你一定是疯了？

哦，是的，当然。

所有人。

我的意思是，每个律师都建议不要这么做，说这太疯狂了，会惹上天大的麻烦，我会被起诉到赫拉贡，而且会是一场巨大的灾难？我。是啊，我不在乎。就像，我不在乎。我的意思是，我只是。你知道，人们很容易把我们在美国拥有的制度视为理所当然，但它确实在其他任何地方都不存在，你知道，甚至加拿大也没有。我有一半加拿大血统。而且你在加拿大并不拥有你在美国拥有的言论自由权利。

你知道，也许加拿大未来某个时候的新政府会制定那些权利，因为这极其重要。但是，你知道，我认为，如果我们不能不惜一切代价保护言论自由，我们就没有一个正常运作的民主制度。如果我们没有一个正常运作的民主制度，其他一切都无关紧要。

让我再问你一个问题。你的背景中有什么，你知道，让你认为它赋予了你如此坚定的信念，使你愿意代表一位委托人，为了一个你甚至并非出生于其中的国家，承受这种巨大、沉重、难以言表的经济打击？

嗯，我应该说，我的确非常认为自己是美国人。

那么你认为，是你的背景和童年或其他什么中的什么造成了这一点？有没有任何。有过什么事情吗，你知道，是一堂公民课吗？是一位教授吗？是。

我。嗯，我喜欢研究历史，文明史，各种各样的历史。而且，虽然美国当然犯过错误，它并不完美，也曾经做过错误的事情，但我坚定地相信，美国一直是世界历史上最强大的仁善力量。而且这再次不是在为错误或坏事开脱，但我认为，美国是世界上一股仁善力量的证据是压倒性的。

你看看诸如，你知道，第二次世界大战后的马歇尔计划之类的事情。你知道，第二次世界大战结束时，美国拥有压倒性的军事实力，拥有核弹。美国本可以接管全世界。本可以占领任何它想要的国家。然而它，它什么都没有做。事实上，它还给了钱，给了，给了那些曾经参战的国家。我不确定历史上是否曾经发生过这种事。

它帮助重建了美国，帮助重建了德国和日本，甚至在珍珠港事件之类的事情发生后仍帮助重建了日本。我的意思是，这真是，我。人们真的必须。也许以前发生过这种事。其实，我不知道有过。所以，你知道，所以我非常支持美国。再说一遍，这并不是说我们不能做得更好，或者，你知道，我们需要。我们确实想做得更好，我们想保持这一点。但无论如何，所以我是它的超级拥护者。

而且我，你知道，我还想指出，我在美国以外没有任何房产。我没有持有任何其他护照，我将在这里生活，也将在这里死去。

嗯，这非常感人，也非常令人钦佩，谢谢你，你知道，谢谢你为我们国家所作的服务和承诺。你知道，我一直在关注你，也一直在看媒体如何歪曲你、我所在的党派民主党里的人如何歪曲你，把你说成是对民主构成威胁的人，而你所做的一切都表明了一种，你知道，你简直难以置信的投入。

你知道，在革命期间曾经。我们在革命期间失去了25,000至70,000人，他们为给我们带来宪法而牺牲。那些人也把自己的生计置于险境。他们把自己的财产置于险境。他们把自己的经济地位和社会地位置于险境，并且以一种，你知道，为了原则的方式。你知道，我看到你也在做同样的事，而且你为其他美国人树立了如此出色的榜样，展示了我们应当如何行事，即使这会让我们损失很多钱。

而且即使风险看起来不值得，个人风险看起来不值得，你还是这样做了，而且你这样做时并没有，你知道，从中获得任何声誉上的好处。你因此遭到了诋毁。所以我，你知道，我想谢谢你，萨拉。我确实想问你一个问题，因为我，你知道，当我看到你多年前做的一次采访时，我真的开始钦佩你了，你在采访中说，我们应该对AI感到恐惧，你说，我想我是这样引用你的，你说它首先会夺走我们的工作，然后会杀死我们。

所以，你知道，而且那让我觉得，那让我觉得这是一种真正的坦诚，来自一个身处科技行业中心、甚至还在，你知道，从事一种东西的人。然后我看到你正在用……做的事。而在我看来，如果它走向错误的方向，那是一项可能会真正以可怕方式贬损民主和人类自由的技术。那么你对此有什么看法？

嗯，首先说Neuralink，重要的是要理解Neuralink，对于那些不了解它的人来说，Neuralink正在开发脑机接口，以便与大脑直接通信。Neuralink的进展会非常缓慢，因为任何时候只要你把一种设备植入人体，FDA的要求，我认为正确，正确地说，是极其严格的。你必须跨过许多门槛，才能让它发挥作用。

我们所说的首批应用只是让四肢瘫痪者，或大脑与身体失去连接的人能够进行交流。比如说，如果斯蒂芬·霍金能够像身体机能完全正常的人一样交流，那将会非常了不起。所以，在很多年里，这些应用只会是让人们恢复因脊髓或脑部损伤而失去的功能。

长期来看，我认为它有，希望有一定机会通过让AI与人类形成更紧密的共生关系，来减轻人工智能带来的生存风险。我当然同意，这并非没有风险。而且，你知道，我们需要非常谨慎地决定如何去做。但我确实想强调，它不会突然发生。它会非常缓慢地发生。而且至少从人工智能的发展来看，我认为在Neuralink先进到足以在你的某种大脑皮层与你自己的，与你自己的某种AI延伸之间实现高带宽通信之前，我们很可能就会拥有数字超级智能。

但毫无疑问，我们需要极其谨慎，而且我们会极其谨慎，它的发展会很缓慢，所以你肯定能看到它逐步到来。人们有机会提出反对意见、担忧和问题。而对于Neuralink，我们也在努力做到极其公开透明，你知道，所以没有任何隐瞒，而且就像我说的，我们受到FDA广泛的审查。那么现在谈到人工智能，或者可以说，人工智能有一些层级并不危险。

比如我不认为，你知道，自动驾驶汽车真的很危险，或者，你知道，拥有更好的自动纠错功能很危险，但当你拥有某种远比最聪明的人类聪明的深度智能时，事情就可能变得危险。不，我，我，我不想在这个问题上钻得太深，因为这是个大问题。但是，但是它，但是我，并不是说我认为数字超级智能或AI AGI一定是坏事。

我只是认为它是，它是一项非常强大的技术，而且它确实存在变成坏事、以违背人类利益的方式行事的风险，我们需要意识到那些，那种风险，并且需要非常谨慎、周全，尽最大努力确保它带来益处而不是伤害。

是的，是的。我的意思是，你知道，如果我真的入主白宫，我认为这是我需要高度关注的事情之一：我们要如何监管它？我们要如何立即把来自世界各地开发它的人召集起来，你知道，并设法对它进行监管，从而，你知道，让它最终不会杀死我们所有人，或奴役我们，或做任何它到底会做的事情。但即使是，你知道，即使是，即使是自动驾驶汽车，我认为美国大约40%的工作都来自，都是驾驶工作或涉及驾驶。

而如果你取消这些工作，甚至是作为入门级工作的Uber工作，无论我们在未来10年能不能做到，我的意思是，这对国家来说将会是，将会是一个非常艰难的挑战，要弄清楚，你知道，该如何安置所有这些人，而我用了一个非常糟糕的说法，但是，你知道，“过剩人口”，因为很多人将会觉得自己就是这样。

是的。所以我确实认为Uber司机或一般司机仍有一条出路，因为仍然需要有人管理和照管一批自动驾驶汽车，几乎就像牧羊人照料他们的羊群一样。因此我认为这实际上最终可能是一件好事，因为，你知道，你不再是驾驶1辆车，而是可以实际管理一支由10辆车组成的某种车队。而我认为这是好事。我并不是说这不会造成扰乱或工作岗位的变化。

我只是说，自动驾驶是。它，我认为，并不是文明面临的生存风险。因此我认为这个。我认为。我认为在我看来，它将带来显著的净收益。但我确实认为，我们应该受到批评，别人应该向我们提出这些问题。我的意思是，总体而言，我渴望采取一系列能够最大限度提高人类未来变得美好之概率的行动。这并不是说我不会犯错，应该说我确实会犯错，但至少意图是这样的。

而且，但正如我所说，我认为受到批评是好事，受到质疑是好事，在这些问题上受到追问也是好事。实际上，对公司而言，尽可能做到公开透明非常重要。我的意思是，我认为这些话题对人们来说确实很有意思，但我觉得很多公众会很想听听你的总统竞选。

好，我很乐意谈谈。我们有什么问题吗？

好，我们有一大堆问题

我们可以请进来。

我们可以请几个人进来，然后也可以再请更多人进来。图尔西·加巴德在这里，巴拉吉在这里。迈克尔·谢伦伯格在这里。奥米德在这里。在我们结束审查这个话题之前，你知道，鲍比，你刚才很快提到的一件事是，你的 Instagram 账号刚刚恢复，而你已经被封禁了2年。我猜他们不得不恢复你的账号，因为有一项法律规定，当某人竞选总统时必须这样做。

所以显然，在这个国家获得言论自由的唯一方式就是。但疯狂的是，你竞选团队里的人也被冻结了账号。显然，任何使用肯尼迪团队电子邮件域名注册的人都是如此。

是的。

都被冻结了。我想他们刚刚恢复了账号。所以我想听听这方面的情况。然后，接着埃隆所说的 Twitter 因广告抵制而承受的巨大压力，我想请谢伦伯格进来，他是《Twitter 文件》的主要作者之一，并且针对他所称的“审查工业复合体”做了大量工作。所以如果能听他讲讲这一整套事情是如何组织起来的，那就太好了，因为我认为人们并不了解这些施压手段是高度组织化的。

所以我想先请鲍比回答，然后我们再请肖恩进来。

是的，所以我被赶出了 Instagram。我想是在大概 2020 年夏天或春天，21 年，我被赶出去了，而我大约有，我有，我当时有，在我被定罪的那天，我被赶出去，我大约有 770,000 名粉丝，但我一度有 900,000 名。他们会把人数削减。每当我达到 900,000，他们就会把人数削减到 800,000 或 700,000。所以我一直都在流失粉丝。他们说这是因为我，我把它当作错误信息来宣传。

但“错误信息”这个说法与事实完全无关，正如我们现在从 Twitter 文件以及 Meta 的电子邮件中知道的，你知道，就是 Facebook 上的那些，是我们从 Facebook 获取到的。它与事实准确或不准确完全无关。它只不过是一个委婉说法，任何偏离政府正统观念和政府声明的言论都会被称为错误信息。我的 Twitter 动态里没有任何事实不准确的内容。

我们放在那里的所有内容，我放在那里的所有内容，都引用了经过同行评审的出版物或政府数据库并注明了来源。那里没有任何内容是任何人曾经能够指出有问题的，包括 Facebook。我申诉时，我试图申诉，而我，我们写了一份很长的备忘录，说明我在那里面，在，你知道，在我的帖子里从未发布过任何一处事实错误。但后来他们不肯让我申诉。

本来必须有一个申诉系统，但他们不允许我进入那个系统。我确信自己本来会胜诉，因为他们实际选来担任裁决者的人是一群非常优秀的人。他们是法学教授，主要是世界各地大学的法学教授。其中许多人是我认识的人，而且你知道，我当时也是法学教授，我确信他们会给予我公平的听证。

所以他们甚至不让我进入申诉销售流程。然后，正如你指出的，在最近，自从我宣布竞选总统以来，我们现在大约有 50 人为竞选团队工作，而这些人每个人都有一个，曾有一个 Instagram 用户名，例如，我的儿媳 Amarillis 有 tink，他们想在自己的 Twitter 上，在自己的 Instagram 账户上使用那个用户名。而当他们试图注册时，Instagram 会发给他们，Instagram 会给他们发一个标记，说你已被停用 180 天。

所以他们一个都不获准使用。当然，根据，你知道，这属于违法行为，它叫作《联邦法规》第 14 节，对言论加以规范。它保护总统及其他联邦选举竞选期间的言论。所以。但是我认为 Meta。而且我不想，你知道，我现在不想把矛头指向 Meta，因为我认为现在是这个国家疗愈的时候。

我很高兴自己的账户得以恢复。他们把我所有的旧帖子都还给了我，也把我所有的老粉丝都还给了我。我甚至不知道他们是否还存在。所以我对此非常高兴。我们一直在 Meta 对接的那些人，你知道，最近一直非常配合，他们现在也允许我们的人注册了。我认为，这个，你知道，并不是每个人都有埃隆·马斯克和杰克·多西那样的远见，能够说，好吧，这确实是错的，我们不会容忍这种事。

即便他们在那里抓住的原因是数十亿美元。你知道，很多美国人生活在恐惧之中，他们当时做着自己认为妥当且正确的事情。我认为现在是我们，你知道，我们专注于疗愈和弥合分歧的时候。所以我不想。我确实想感谢 Meta 恢复了我的账户，我希望这是。我希望我们能从这一过程中学到一些东西，并且能够继续前进，确保这样的事情永远不会再发生在美国的各州。

是的。

Michael，你想在这里插几句吗？现在或许很适合谈谈你了解到的情况。说句公道话，你知道，我不认为。

是的，听起来很不错。

你能吗。是的，我的意思是，说句公道话，我不认为 Meta 作为一家公司想要审查人们。我只是觉得他们承受着巨大的压力，却没有顶住那种压力，但是。Michael，你能谈谈这个吗？你发现了什么？

我想我们和他断线了。是吗？喂？

Michael，我们接通你了吗？

嗯，当然，我很乐意。

你能清楚听见我吗，David？能。

是的，我们能听见。

我们能听见。

很好。嗯，非常感谢你们邀请我，各位。Kennedy 先生，听您讲话确实是我的荣幸。我们并非在所有事情上都意见一致，但您。哦，抱歉，各位。

你们能听见我吗？

好，我们刚才能。

你刚才断线了一下。

现在听我说。

很好。

嗯，首先，非常感谢您，肯尼迪先生。我非常感谢您有力的发言。

你们现在能听见我吗？是的，我们能听见你，但现在又听不见了。

你把自己静音了。好了，Michael，我们会回到你这里。好了，听到你了。

David，你现在能听见我吗？

是的，我们能听见你。

很好，很好。嗯，嗯，首先，非常感谢您，肯尼迪先生。能够听到您如此雄辩地谈论支持，实在是莫大的荣幸和喜悦。我只是想在此基础上补充。但 Twitter 正受到政府的。而 Twitter 显然是一个对审查要求保持透明的平台。我想知道，您是否会支持我们许多人提出的一项呼吁，即应当强制要求投票的政府官员和社交媒体平台对他们所作出的审查决定保持透明。

因为问题很大程度上出现在审查闭门进行、而且没有申诉机会的时候。另一方面，由政府监管社交媒体公司非常困难，因为这会侵犯《第一修正案》。所以我想知道，您是否考虑过要求所有相关方保持透明的必要性，无论是政府、社交媒体公司，甚至是要求按照其意愿审查某些内容的广告商。

是的，事实上，迈克尔，我认为这是一个非常好的解决方案。如果我当选，我会把所有社交媒体公司的负责人召集到椭圆形办公室，开一次会议，在我们弄清楚如何让这件事运作起来、并使其符合民主原则之前，谁都不离开。我认为你说得对。我认为戴维·萨克斯说得对，他说这些公司并不想进行审查。

老实说，他们正受到来自广告商以及，你知道，来自非常强大的政府实体的巨大压力，要求他们参与审查。而我们甚至不了解他们正遭受的所有不同形式的压力，这些压力正在向他们袭来，它们之所以袭来，是因为政府当然与这些公司签有事关其生死存亡的大合同。而且，你知道，我们就是不了解。就这些。

不透明。而且我认为，如果这些公司更多地像公共承运人那样运作——我并不是说把它们认定为公共承运人，那算是某种终极制裁措施——如果它们继续，你知道，进行审查，那会是你可以考虑的做法。但我认为，如果它们像你所说的那样，几乎像公共承运人一样运作，所有决策都保持透明，而且人们觉得自己有权查看算法，并理解那些用于审查言论和提出推荐等的算法。

我认为，对于如何解决这些问题，这是一个非常巧妙的解决方案。你知道，那里。有些言论。我基本上是言论自由绝对主义者。而且我认为，对错误信息的补救办法是更多。是信息。是信息。而对恶劣言论的补救办法是更多言论。绝不是审查。审查是迄今最糟糕的解决方案。有些形式的言论不受保护。你知道，煽动暴力不受保护。

恋童癖。还有你。此类招揽不属于受保护的言论，你可以审查它们。但如果是受保护的言论，我认为就不应受到审查。但我认为，无论如何，我们都应了解其中的逻辑、算法和方法，而且我们所有人都应能够接触到这些东西，所以，你知道，这一点至关重要，因为这些机构如今就是公共广场，而且，你知道，它们是言论发生的地方，你可以与其他美国人交谈，并且。

而且，你知道，我们必须想办法把它们纳入我们的民主价值体系。

嗯，听到这些真的非常好。非常感谢您。这是一个强有力的。这是对透明度非常强有力的支持，我认为，透明度能够让左翼和右翼的人走到一起。我们将会。我们用更多言论而不是更少言论来解决问题。而我认为，这正是透明度。所有要求审查的人都必须保持透明。

这就是那会给我们的。

所以非常感谢。

我很感激。

让我请奥米德·马利克加入，我认为他做了大量工作，在这个……在企业层面，涉及抵制和施压之类的事情。奥米德，你有什么问题或评论吗？

有，当然。

非常感谢。你知道，罗伯特，你曾经雄辩地谈到监管俘获，无论是在 CDC、FDA、EPA，甚至是 NIH。我的意思是，托尼·福奇当了50年官僚，怎么还能有超过1000万美元供他支配？这些问题，我希望会有一位勇敢无畏的记者去调查。但我想把这个问题反过来看，也就是说，企业俘获呢？联邦政府内部的一些部门实际上正在对我们的经济产生不利影响这一事实呢？

所以，正如我们在这里谈到的，围绕言论。但情况甚至比这更糟。我的意思是，CIA、FBI，通过这些受其施压的大型科技公司，影响着我们彼此沟通的能力。但即使你非常热衷于违宪地利用 OSHA，试图在一段时期内强迫全国各地的雇员接种许多人不想接种的针剂，让他们在那件事、那件事和养家糊口之间作出选择。

所以这个问题分为两部分，第一，当政府利用私人行为者替他们干脏活时，我们如何防止《权利法案》遭到他们侵犯？我说的不只是这里的审查，我实际上说的是对经济自由的剥夺。然后第二，我们如何提高工资？而那是否，那么我想具体问问你。我们能否通过真正设立边境并限制移民，最终提高这个国家的工资？

谢谢。

是的，我的意思是，让我先谈谈第二个问题，那就是，是的，我们需要封锁边境。你知道，对世界上每个国家来说，能够在边境控制移民，都是一项关乎存亡的关键职能。让数百万人，或者数十万人，在这个例子中是数百万人越过边境涌入，不是任何国家能够或应该容忍的事情。而且你知道，最糟糕的是，这在边境造成了一场人道主义危机。

我们边境开放的观念如今成了全世界的信条。所以人们从世界各地飞来，从欧洲、从中国、从亚洲，从飞机前往厄瓜多尔。然后那里有一个，你知道，并且在非营利组织和政府团体的协助下，实际设法前往美国边境。而且那是在公共汽车上，而且，而且这种情况需要被叫停。而我们采取的方式之一，以及许多拉丁美洲和中美洲移民，是美国在南方的糟糕政策所造成的直接结果。

紧缩计划、禁毒战争、资助暗杀队、扶植和支持军政府、军事独裁政权，以及那些国家数十年来一直发生的种族灭绝。我们需要处理这些问题。但你知道，最重要的是，我们需要封锁边境。事实上，我今晚就要去边境。我会，我要越过边境，我想是在凌晨3点左右进入墨西哥。

我会同边境两侧的人交谈，也会同利益相关方交谈，并在接下来的3天里与边境巡逻队及其他地方的人会面，努力制定能够永久封锁边境的政策。你知道，这种流入，我们国家有些人受贫困所困，无法获得，因为公共援助匮乏，甚至无法获得公共援助。

而且你知道，我们需要保护这个国家的人民，以及我们的城市人口、农村人口。如果发生紧急情况，10%的美国人拿不出1000美元。我们没有能力供养大量新移民。这一大批新移民正在进入我们的城市，给学校系统造成压力，给社会服务系统造成压力，而那些已经在苦苦挣扎的人，那些已经在苦苦挣扎的美国人。

这需要被关闭。而这就是我担任总统后会做的事。我会。我打算。而且你知道，还有其他国家也有这个问题。以色列在非洲人口方面有这个问题，通过在边境使用各种不同的技术，包括一些围栏，但主要是技术监控，他们已经能够将其关闭。我们也需要做同样的事。作为总统，我会这么做。

我还会开放合法移民，让我们确实需要的、将有益于我们国家和经济的移民继续进入。但我们不能允许边境移民不受控制。至于，你知道，这些机构在强迫美国企业采取某种行为方面扮演的角色，这是骇人听闻的，而且它。而且我一上任，就会发布一道行政命令，禁止联邦机构，无论是 NIH、CIA 还是 FBI，参与任何审查美国公众言论或强迫美国公众采取其他行为的行动。

那些行为并非法律所要求。而这正是我们在疫情期间看到的。我们在疫苗强制令中看到了这一点，也在言论审查中看到了这一点。我会禁止这种行为，并确保它不会发生，至少在我的任期内不会发生。我上任后的第一个星期，就会签署那道行政命令。

谢谢。也感谢埃隆和戴维主持这场活动。最后我还想说，民主党不允许民主在自己党内发生，也不给罗伯特一个至少与乔·拜登辩论的平台，这多少有些讽刺。

嗯，这是个有意思的观点。我们把图尔西请进这里的对话。图尔西是前民主党国会议员，我相信她现在是独立人士。我想要。我其实有一个问题要问你们两位，关于民主党的演变。鲍比，你父亲时代的民主党是选择和平而非战争的政党，是选择言论自由而非审查的政党，是选择公民自由而非监控国家的政党。

而如今，你或许是唯一一位在那些问题上持这种异议立场的知名民主党人，图尔西，我认为你在那些问题上的感受也一样。我想我的问题是，民主党怎么了？诚然，其中许多弊病是两党共有的，但民主党过去曾有一个非常显眼的派别反对这些事情，而现在似乎已经没有了。所以我想问你们两位的是，发生了什么，还能修复吗？

我的意思是，我就简单回答一下，我也很想听听塔尔的回答。你知道，我目睹了这种事在民主党内发生。我目睹了其中一些事情发生。我的意思是，我认为民主党变成了战争党。我把这直接归因于拜登总统，因为，你知道，拜登总统一直都是，尽管我一直很喜欢他，但我不喜欢他的一个方面是，他一直非常赞成一种非常好战、咄咄逼人且具有攻击性的外交政策。

而且他认为，认为，你知道，暴力是实现美国海外目标的合法政治工具。而且在许多情况下，它是，是联邦政府使用的首要且最突出的工具。伊拉克战争期间，当我叔叔反对那场战争时，民主党内的乔·拜登比其他任何参议员都更是推动那场战争的人。而我认为，这就是他获得新保守主义者支持的原因之一，而且你知道，所有这些，这些新保守主义者，人们并不知道新保守主义者是什么。

新保守主义者被称为新保守派，但他们是一群在苏联战败之后，在那之后，在柏林墙倒塌以及，以及苏联解体之后，脱离了共和党和民主党的人。有一群人，一些知名知识分子，他们所持的立场是，美国已经赢得了冷战，而作为胜利者，我们应该享用战利品。

他们发表了一项名为“新美国世纪计划”的方案，其核心主张是，美国作为如今唯一的超级大国，应该利用其军事支配地位、军事优势来强加美国霸权和美国控制，利用暴力将美国的控制强加给世界上所有国家。而那个群体，我想其中有22名领导人最终在乔治·W·时期进入了国务院和白宫。

布什政府。他们策划了这场战争。他们制定了一项发动7场战争的计划，我们会非常迅速地打这些战争，以击败中东所有不顺从我们的国家，从伊拉克开始。他们发动了美国历史上第一场先发制人的战争。对一个从未对我国做过任何事情的国家发动战争。正如我指出的，那场战争有1万亿那场战争我们这场结束战争，在其后果中，在利比亚、叙利亚、也门、阿富汗和巴基斯坦。

它让我们付出了8万亿，而我们一无所获。伊拉克最终的处境比我们发现它时更糟。我们杀死的伊拉克人比萨达姆·侯赛因还多。我们杀死了近100万伊拉克人。我们把伊朗伊拉克推成了伊朗的代理人，而这正是我们40年来一直试图避免的外交政策结果。我们创造了ISIS。我们迫使200万难民涌入欧洲，这可能让欧洲所有民主国家在整整2代人的时间里陷入不稳定，并最终导致了英国脱欧。

这就是我们花费8万亿美元所得到的结果。由于美国政坛的那场灾变，它变成了一个新保守主义者。他们声名狼藉。他们被所有政党驱逐了。但不知怎么，他们又回到了拜登的白宫。而像维多利亚·纽兰这样的人，她的丈夫罗伯特·卡根是“最新美国世纪计划”的作者，最终掌管了外交政策。艾普丽尔·海恩斯和安东尼·布林肯最终掌管了这种我们如今正在应对的、非常好战的外交政策。

在医疗方面。你知道，我看到了最初发生的事情。制药公司站在共和党和民主党一边。他们，你知道，他们被民主党人带着某种蔑视要求，因为他们是这个国家最腐败的行业。那4家生产所有美国疫苗的公司，赛诺菲、葛兰素和辉瑞，在过去10年里支付了350亿打刑事罚款，比任何其他行业都多。

他们支付了美国历史上金额最大的刑事罚款。这些公司是惯犯。他们一遍又一遍地使出同一套手段。而且他们在民主党内并不受尊重。民主党一直有一个问题，就是它无法问心无愧地接受企业资金。所以共和党一直有很多钱。民主党唯一既能保持纯洁性又能从中筹集资金的人，就是出庭律师和工会。

但工会急剧衰落。所以现在，他们从占美国劳动力的大约50%降到了10%。而我们剩下的只有出庭律师。奥巴马总统当时正试图让奥巴马医改获得通过。他与制药公司达成了黄金握手协议。他无法让它通过。制药行业在国会山的游说者比国会、比所有众议员、参议员和最高法院大法官加起来还多。

他们投入游说的钱是第二大行业的2倍，比任何其他行业都多。而且，而且奥巴马总统，他们可以永远拥有奥巴马医改。所以奥巴马需要安抚他们。他所采取的方式就是达成这项糟糕的交易，让联邦政府无法在联邦医疗保险和奥巴马医改中就药品价格进行谈判。所以奥巴马医改将为制药行业创造这股资金洪流，为患者免费购买他们的产品，免费。

但我们不能像你在加拿大和其他所有国家那样讨价还价。你不能和他们谈判。所以他们想收多少钱就可以收多少钱。这就敲定了交易。突然之间，制药行业站在了它那一边，民主党人接受制药行业的钱在道德上变得可以接受。不到1年，民主党人从制药行业获得的钱就超过了共和党人。然后，这就让他们站到了那个，你知道，支持疫苗的一边。

他们算是，我们算是势均力敌。然后特朗普总统参选了，在他的总统竞选期间，他有3次表示，他认为疫苗正在导致自闭症。这就造成了这种情况。这个议题随后成了文化战争的一部分。它成了文化分裂的一部分。民主党人把这个议题扔进了与特朗普总统否认气候变化相同的反科学垃圾桶。如今，它成了你的政党、你的部落的标志。

如果你对疫苗提出疑问，你就是支持特朗普的共和党人。而如果你，如果你只是对它们的效力和安全性抱有一种不容质疑的宗教信仰，你就是民主党人。所以我目睹了这一切的发展，目睹民主党人慢慢变成这些亲企业、亲战争、亲审查的共和党人。你知道，那些过去曾是共和党人的人，而共和党人变成了艾迪的审查、支持公民自由、反战。

而且发生了这种巨大的重新结盟。我说得比原本想说的更多，因为我真的想听听图尔西的看法，听听她对此的观点。

谢谢。谢谢你，博比，也谢谢你提出这个问题。戴维，你所说的很多内容正是促使我离开民主党的原因。你知道，我并非出生在一个民主党家庭。坦率地说，我的父母都是思想相当独立的人。所以，当我第一次竞选州众议院，也就是20年前竞选夏威夷州众议院的一个席位时，我必须决定，你知道，我想加入哪个政党。当我作出这个决定时，坦率地说，我受到了民主党内部一些领袖的鼓舞，博比，比如你的父亲和叔叔，还有小马丁·路德·金这样的人。

夏威夷的民主党领袖曾竭尽全力为种植园工人而战，这些工人有来自夏威夷的人、来自亚洲各地的人，还有来自世界各地的移民。是民主党领袖挺身而出，为他们争取能够坦率地说像人一样受到对待的权利，并让他们摆脱当时夏威夷那些共和党地主的压迫。所以，你知道，自由和公民自由的理想，以及一个海纳百川、包容并欢迎各种背景和不同理念人群的民主党，对我真的很有吸引力，也是，为什么加入民主党？

但快进到我们今天所处的境地，正如你所说的，博比。我的意思是，今天的民主党是一个完全受这个由战争贩子组成的精英主义小集团控制的政党。它不仅由战争贩子领导，而且我们现在还面临这样一种局面，正如我们去年秋天看到的，国会进步党团，你知道，他们竟敢向拜登总统发布一封公开信，非常温和，非常温和，并用大量华丽的辞藻呼吁开展外交，呼吁他领导一项外交努力，结束俄罗斯与乌克兰之间的战争。

而在24小时内，他们就撤回了这封信，实际上畏缩在角落里。你知道，我们可以想象他们为此承受了怎样的压力，以及他们因为胆敢呼吁和平而受到怎样的公开批评。所以，民主党内部支持和平的声音已经被压制。我们如今拥有的不是这个庞大、紧张、包容的民主党，而是一些把精力集中在分裂我们、把每一个议题种族化、利用身份政治来，你知道，获得一些政治加分和选票、破坏基本自由和言论自由、鼓吹审查的政党领袖；他们不仅鼓吹审查，还试图建立政府机构，以便让我们闭嘴，把国家安全体系武器化来打击政治对手。

民主党如今所代表的原则和理想，与这个国家的根本和奠基原则直接相悖。而现在，我们已经到了拜登总统极其危险地、实质上把我们拖到核战争边缘的地步。而这就是。博比，我很想问你一个问题。在这个领域，在外交政策这个方向上，鉴于我们面临的现实，鉴于，你知道，我们越来越多地听到许多政治人物、共和党人和民主党人，坦率地说也包括拜登总统，正在积极而强硬地呼吁美国与中国的经济彻底脱钩。

拜登政府正在积极而迅速地朝这个方向推进。埃隆，你最近谈到美国和中国的利益像连体双胞胎一样交织在一起。我认为这实际上是在说明，让我们的经济脱钩这一行为，实质上就像把连体双胞胎硬生生撕开，暗示着由此将给我们双方的。给这2个国家和全世界带来灾难性后果。

所以，博比，你会如何处理美国与中国的关系？你是否认为，实际上有可能与中国和平共处，甚至与中国建立一种获胜关系？还是你认为这是一场零和博弈，为了让美国获胜，中国就必须失败？

是的，我认为这是个很好的问题，图尔西。我的，你知道，我对此的处理方式是，让我们承认这样一个现实：中国是一个雄心勃勃的国家，它确实希望为了争夺在世界上的影响力而与我们竞争。但现实是，它并不想在军事上与我们竞争。它不想与美国开战。而且中国仍然，你知道，与我们相比仍然是一个非常贫穷的国家。

他们的，中国人的人均收入大约是美国的三分之一。他们希望自己的公民过上更好的生活。而且，你知道，他们希望在世界各地与我们竞争。我认为我们应该竞争，我认为我们应该在经济平台上与他们竞争，而不是在军事平台上。而且我非常，我不害怕中国人。我不担心美国人的聪明才智会落后于中国人。

我认为这将是，那种竞争会是一种对全世界都有益的竞争。而且这是一种具有协作成分的竞争，是一个协作的世界，而不是一个竞争的世界，可以说是一种协作式竞争。而且，你知道，中国人不想与我们开战。我们，我们在军事上的支出更多。我们现在每年在军事上支出1.3万亿，包括不能削减的退伍军人福利。

但你知道，冷战结束后，我们被告知将会获得和平红利，并将把军事预算削减到每年2000亿。相反，如果把，你知道，退伍军人和国家安全算在内，我们把它维持在每年13亿，而且，而且我们从未得到那份片段红利。所以，我们现在用于军事的支出超过世界上接下来的前10个国家。我们的支出是3倍，我们的军事预算是中国的3倍。

中国人，我们拥有的核武器是中国人的5倍。中国人无法、也不想在军事上与我们竞争。中国人在全世界大约有1个半军事基地。我们有800个。所以，这有点像一个自我实现的预言，说，哦，中国人，你知道，想成为我们的敌人，并展开军事竞争。他们不想。我们应该做的是降。低对中国的军事压力。

看在上帝的份上，我们应该与中国对话。我们已经5年没有与中国举行会议了。我们知道自己的目标是什么。我们希望重建美国的工业基础。我们不希望中国人从我们手中夺走它。与中国人进行的任何谈判都不应该是军事上的耀武扬威。应该讨论的是，我们如何与你们建立一种能像每一种良好经济关系那样让各方受益的经济关系。

而我们下一轮谈判的目标是，我们希望在美国这里重建我们的工业基础。我们达成的任何协议、与中国人进行的任何交易，都应该首先考虑这一点。我们怎么做到这一点？但我并不是，你知道，中国人一直比我们做得好得多，因为他们一直在海外投射经济实力，而世界喜欢这样。

我们以为世界站在我们这边，但事实并非如此。我们所有的。唯一支持这种，你知道，这种与中国好斗、好战关系的人，是澳大利亚、新西兰、韩国、日本、英国、加拿大和美国。而我们在世界上几乎是孤立的。世界其他地方正看着我们说，你们到底在干什么？为什么要试图制造一场与中国的战争？为什么要和他们争夺。

争夺。为什么要把台湾变成一个军事问题？让台湾和中国自行解决那个问题吧，并在军事上退后，试着拥有一个。他们想要。他们不想要战争。他们想要和平，也想要繁荣。而有战争时，这是不可能实现的。所以，让我们，你知道，让我们缓。和战争言论。让我们在经济上竞争，让我们谈谈这一点，找出一种能够进行明智谈判的办法，让我们因为中国而变得更好，而不是拱手让出一切、把就业岗位输出海外，之前所有其他条约都是这么做的。

相反，让我们弄清楚如何与他们建立一种经济关系、一种金融关系，从而重建美国的工业基础。

谢谢你，鲍比。这是一个如此。显然，这个问题以及更广泛的外交政策问题，是任何一场总统竞选的核心。遗憾的是，正如我们所看到的，传统上这些问题极少得到它们理应获得的那种关注。而且再说一次，这恰恰说明了为什么应该举行总统初选辩论，让美国人民能够明确选择，作出明确、知情的选择，决定他们希望看到谁担任我们的总统兼武装部队总司令。

谢谢。感谢你分享见解，也谢谢埃隆和戴维主持这场重要对话。

而且你看，你知道，我们没有过。我们已经没有与中国人举行过严肃的经济会议，甚至政治会议，自15，7年以来。你知道，中央情报局局长比尔·伯恩斯最近去了那里与中国人会面，但那不是我们为了与他们进行真正的政治和经济讨论而需要举行的那种会议。那种讨论应当坦率，而且，你知道，在那里每个人都把自己的牌摊在桌面上，看看我们是否有办法彼此和平合作，并维护世界和平。

我们究竟为什么要去，而这责任在。你知道，这责任在总统。你知道，拜登总统已经禁止他的国务院，而国务院由“整洁”管理，已经禁止与中国人进行任何形式的会谈或接触。这令人愤慨。你知道，这与德怀特·艾森豪威尔当时试图做的事情恰恰相反，他当时试图与，你知道，与俄罗斯人找到一条通往和平的道路，而这被，你知道，中央情报局那些错误的YouTube飞行破坏了。

而我叔叔也试图做这件事，让我们与。与俄罗斯和平相处，让我们与中国和平相处，让我们所有人都享受健康经济竞争带来的繁荣。

说得好。说得好，鲍比。谢谢。

事实上，有一件事值得。那就是在我最近的中国之行中，我，与那里的高层领导，我，我们就人工智能风险以及需要进行某种监督或监管，进行了一些我认为非常富有成效的讨论。据我从这些谈话中的理解，中国将开始在中国实施人工智能监管。所以那。那是。那些都是非常有希望的讨论。而且，你知道，我指出，如果，你知道，如果有一种在中国开发的、具有压倒性力量的数字超级智能，它实际上会对中国政府的主权构成风险。

而且我认为他们认真听取了这一担忧。

是的，我是说，我很喜欢你这么说，因为这让我们明白，无论你对中国有什么看法，如果我们无法就这类问题与对手谈判，现在就存在生存性威胁。而且不只是人工智能，还有这些生物武器开发，你知道，我们现在在世界各地、乌克兰等地都有这些实验室，它们正在开发各种骇人的东西，其中包括，你知道，杀死某些种族人群的族裔生物武器等等，它们就是被设计来做这种事的。

而且他们已经有了。已经拥有它们了，而且它们随时可能逃逸。你知道，世界上每个国家都曾希望禁止生物武器。我们，我们发起了，理查德·尼克松在1960年签署了生物武器条约。让全世界所有国家同意停止开发它们。但我们，中央情报局，继续秘密开发它们。然后在2001年之后，我们通过了《爱国者法案》，重新启动了生物武器军备竞赛。所以现在世界上每个国家，或者许多国家，现在都在开发它们。

我们应该关闭整个项目。你知道，新冠显然是一个生物武器问题。我们。而且你看到了它对我们造成了什么影响。如果那是一种真正的疾病呢？一种死亡率为50的疾病，比如衰变、发烧、埃博拉，或者，你知道，这些其他真正致命的病毒之一。他们的实验室里也有那些东西。如果那就是那一种呢。让我们在全世界把它关停。让我们真正关停所有生物武器开发，曾对此进行过核查。

然后，让我们与来自伊朗、来自。来自以色列、俄罗斯和中国的其他人坐下来谈谈。好的。并确保没有一个国家开发出一种会杀死我们所有其他人的武器。我们需要。你不能只让一个国家监管这件事。中国不能独自监管数字……的开发。监督者，你需要美国和中国。我们所有人都需要参与。

我们所有人都需要能够。能够监管研究。它正在其他国家发生。我们需要透明度和保护。否则，我们正走上一条道路，通向一个对全人类而言非常严酷的反乌托邦未来，在那里我们已经越过了这样一个节点，以至于我们不能。以至于我们还能享有不与地球上的其他强国就这些事情进行谈判的奢侈。你知道，我们需要一位意识到这些对人类的威胁、把自己视为全人类守护者，并且一天24小时都在思考这些问题的总统。

我们如何避免这种未来？生物武器导致的灭绝，或者灭绝。这已经超出了限度。我们再也承受不起不就这些事情进行谈判的后果。而且我们还会把所有这些机构加进来。CIA也在开发这些东西。而我们对此一无所知。他们在美国的美国体制中并不友好。你知道，我前几天和迈克·蓬佩奥谈过，他就是这么说的。他说了他在该机构任职时所说的话。他对该机构的说法非常程式化，而且确实很聪明。

他说，他在那里任职时，在瓦解，你知道，在瓦解CIA的机构俘获方面做得并不好。他还说，他说，如果你去看它的上层回声，那么该机构几乎完全由不相信美国制度和民主的人组成。而且，你知道，根据我所知道的一切，我认为这完全属实，而我对那个机构了解很多。而我们必须，你知道，我们必须摆脱战备状态，因为这给了这些机构以高度保密和不透明为借口。

假装我们处于一个，你知道，并把我们置于一个安全国家之中，让他们能够开发所有这些疯狂的技术，而且看到它们将会把我们所有人都杀死。这太疯狂了。

确实如此，博比。而这真正触及了她关于外交的核心观点。埃隆，你知道，你举的例子说明，当我们真正愿意进行对话时，能够产生什么结果。美国人民应该能够相信美国总统会把美国人民的福祉和利益置于他或她所作决定的首位。世界各地的人们面临着共同的威胁和关切。

我们并非生活在真空中。尽管我们可能与其他国家存在分歧，但诸如AI、核战争的威胁、保护我们的环境之类的问题，关系到让我们这些生活在这个星球上的人类有清洁的空气可以呼吸、有干净的水可以饮用，并且能够种植食物以求生存。你提到了生物武器。有如此多不同的挑战，我们，我们必须共同应对。我们需要一位认识到这一点，并把人民福祉中的这些利益置于你所谈到的整个特殊利益集团之上的领导人。

好的，谢谢你，图尔西。顺便说一句，博比，我认为迄今为止整场乌克兰战争中最超现实的时刻，可能就是维多利亚·纽兰在国会作证时承认，乌克兰存在一个秘密的生物实验室网络，里面存放的材料潜在危险性如此之高，以至于她担心这些材料落入俄罗斯手中。

是的。在媒体连续数周将那个事实描述为虚假信息、俄罗斯的虚假信息之后。而且还惩罚我们这些说，是的，这就是正在发生的事的人。然后维多利亚·纽兰在国会面前，从马可·鲁比奥那里得到一个，你知道的，放水的问题，而且实际上是在宣誓作证，并如实回答说，是的，我们在那里有生物武器实验室，我们真的很害怕俄罗斯人会进入那里，拿到我们的东西。

这太奇怪了，因为我们究竟为什么会在那里设有生物实验室。就是如此、如此奇怪。

顺便说一句，即使在她作证并如实回答马可·鲁比奥的问题之后，媒体仍继续围攻。我在自己发表的一些声明中引用了她的话，表示赞同你，鲍勃。

图尔西掉线了。

抱歉。

尤其是在战争时期，那些生物实验室中可能存在的任何病原体都有可能被释放，并造成威胁，对世界造成威胁，使它们处于脆弱状态。乌克兰已将我列入黑名单，禁止我今后再次访问他们的国家。而我被。由于这种所谓的错误信息、虚假信息，我发布在社交媒体网站上的帖子遭到封禁或限流。全国各地的新闻媒体都说，你知道的，批评我传播错误信息、虚假信息，即使我引用了美国国防部网站上将此事陈述为事实的内容。

我认为这恰恰表明，即使他们说出了真相。真相，他们显然也害怕真相，并希望能够继续做他们正在做的事，不计风险。

出于好奇，克兰有新闻自由吗？

不可能。没有。哦，好吧。只是想确认一下。

嗯，偏偏就在 Semaphore，今天刚有一篇文章谈到 EDA 在那里必须获得政府许可。

完全正确。

然后另外，说到令人难堪的披露。《纽约时报》今天有一篇报道，说那些讨厌的纳粹徽记不断出现在，你知道的，乌克兰军人的制服上，而他们不得不不断审查照片，以免这些东西出现在新闻报道中。当然，《纽约时报》说，这件事最大的问题并不是西方先进武器可能正把它们的手伸进，你知道的，新纳粹分子的手中，而是这会助长俄罗斯的宣传。

但不管它是什么，这又是一个令人难堪的数据点，表明，你知道的，我们不断被灌输有关这场战争的信息，然后这些事情，你知道的，冒出来，你便意识到，你知道的，他们可能并没有把一切都告诉我们。

我的意思是，我们一直受到这些漫画式描绘的宣传灌输，而这些描绘现在已经模式化了，你知道的，有一个坏人，他做了一件坏事，那是无端发生的。而美国需要介入，通过那些被他伤害的人来解决这一局面。而且，你知道的，这如此有力地证明了美国人民，你知道的，他们。他们愿意作出那些牺牲。我认为在某些情况下，是牺牲我们的孩子、我们的财富，去介入并帮助其他国家。

但问题是，我们仍在被自己的机构伤害，这些机构，你知道的，它们正在、正在省略背景信息，正在省略细微差别，正在省略这整个历史，在这个案例中，是我们宣传，这让我们卷入了，也让我们和乌克兰卷入了一场对乌克兰没有帮助的战争。乌克兰现在大概已经失去了350,000个孩子，他们的处境远比开始时更糟，当他们，好吧，在2014年2月14日，在2019年，他们本可以签署班克斯协议，保住昂博斯，而且不会有任何人被杀。

而他们永远不会。而且他们永远无法再回到那个境地。正如你们所理解的，俄罗斯人不会赢得这场战争。他们承受不起赢得这场战争。对俄罗斯而言，这场战争关乎存亡，就像我们在墨西哥输掉一场战争一样。

你是说乌克兰。你是说乌克兰能。

抱歉，乌克兰。抱歉，乌克兰无法赢得这场战争。而且你知道，他们现在，死亡比例究竟是多少尚不清楚，但有可信的信息表明，他们的死亡情况是每有1名俄罗斯人被杀，就有7人死亡。而我们，我们已经把这个国家变成了这个，你知道的，变成了屠宰乌克兰青年精华的屠宰场，以服务于这些，你知道的，美国尼康派的地缘政治野心，他们想耗尽俄罗斯军队的力量，并对弗拉基米尔·普京实施政权更迭。

普京，而且、而且我们，而且乌克兰是这场战争中的受害者。这是一场代理人战争。它是俄罗斯的受害者。是的，它是。这是一次非法入侵，也是一次残酷的入侵，本可以由弗拉基米尔·普京避免。但它同样，几乎同样，至少也是美国政策的受害者，以及，你知道的，那些无论如何都想卷入这场战争的人的野心和渴望。

我认为这场战争本来很容易避免

如果我们当时愿意运用

外交手段，并且基本上向俄罗斯人提供书面保证，保证乌克兰不会成为北约的一部分。那正是他们在2021年12月所要求的。以及一份给白宫的书面最后通牒。这也是他们在2022年1月与我们的国务卿明确……。而那些谈判最终结束于我们表示不会关闭北约的大门。然后就像你说的，我们没有做的另一件事是支持《明斯克协议》，该协议本可以给予俄罗斯族人和顿巴斯一定程度的有限自治，并且本可以解决那里正在发生的那种内战。

如果我们当时只做了这2件事，我认为这场战争很有可能根本不会发生。你知道，很多人说，嗯，你不可能知道这一点。但重点在于我们尝试过。我们从未尝试过排除北约选项。我们从未尝试过支持《明斯克协议》。

是的，这里有一个大问题，因为泽连斯基在2019年以和平纲领参选。我以前指出过，你知道，他曾是，他是一名喜剧演员和演员，我这么说并没有贬低的意思，因为我妻子也兼具这两种身份。但他，我之所以这么说，是因为他从未参与政治，可他却以70%的得票率取得了压倒性胜利，因为他以和平纲领参选，并承诺会签署《明斯克协议》，解决此事。

而《明斯克协议》所做的事情和最后通牒一样，也就是说，北约将永远置身于乌克兰之外，而且。还有我们，他们会。顿巴斯将成为乌克兰境内的一个自治区，仍由乌克兰治理，但能够保留自己的语言和文化，并能够保护其公民免受亚速营之类的力量，以及，你知道，乌克兰政府内部其他敌对势力的暴力侵害和致命侵害。

政府。而他们，顺便说一句，乌克兰以90比10的投票结果决定离开乌克兰、加入俄罗斯，这让俄罗斯联邦以90比10获胜。而俄罗斯的弗拉基米尔·普京说，不，我们不要你们。我们希望乌克兰保持为一个完整的国家。而，而那就是。然后，你知道，他们同意了。俄罗斯同意了，法国同意了，德国就一份明奇卡军团条款达成了一致，那是一项合理的解决方案。让你，让北约置身于乌克兰之外。

还有为什么，你知道，我叔叔肯尼迪总统过去总是说，如果你想要，拥有和平的唯一途径，就是把你、你自己放到对手的位置上。他在7月或6月10日发表了这篇非常著名的演讲，再过5天，现在就是它在美利坚大学发表60周年。他最重要的演讲，那篇演讲使这个国家在大气层核试验禁令条约问题上转变了方向。那是第1项禁试。

那是核时代的第1项条约。那是第1项禁止在俄罗斯以某些方式使用核武器的条约。他和赫鲁晓夫私下就此达成了一致，没有让国务院参与。国务院反对它。军方反对它，国会和参议院反对它。但在他发表这篇演讲、随后进行全国巡回活动之后，美国人民最终支持了它。不过，那篇演讲是一篇引人入胜的演讲，因为他第1次向美国人民解释了俄罗斯在第二次世界大战期间所发挥的作用和遭受的苦难，因为我成长于这样一代人之中，我们被告知是美国赢得了对纳粹的战争。

而且，你知道，我们每周都在电视上看维克·马维尔出演的《战斗》之类的节目，那些节目展示了美国人如何成为胜利者。而且，你知道，如果没有美国，世界就会有点迷失。我叔叔是在告诉美国人民，那不是真的。击败希特勒的人是俄罗斯人。而他们作出的牺牲，是世界上任何其他人都无法想象的。希特勒经由乌克兰入侵俄罗斯，随后杀死了每7个俄罗斯人中的1个，并把这个国家、这个国家的三分之一夷为平地。

我叔叔在那篇演讲中继续说。他说，想象一下，如果整个美洲大陆，美国本土的情况，从东海岸到芝加哥之间都化为废墟。俄罗斯发生的就是这种事。如果我们要与这个国家和平相处，你们就必须理解这一点，而且，你知道，我们今天需要理解这一点，我们需要设身处地。顺便说一句，这不只是普京。早在90年代，俄罗斯领导层就说过，你知道，在92年，他们，我们做到了。

他们达成了一项协议。他们说，我们将把我们的军队、我们的400,000名士兵撤出东德，并把东德交给一支敌对军队，也就是北约军队。而我们希望你们为此作出的让步是，你们不会让北约向东扩张。布什总统曾有一句著名的话，他告诉他们，我们不会让北约向东移动1英寸。然后，尼康派的领袖布热津斯基，这位所有1997的祖父，制定了一项计划，要让北约进入每一个前俄罗斯卫星国。

而在当时，乔治·坎农，也就是美国历史上最重要的外交官，他是冷战遏制政策的设计者。就美国的治国之道和外交而言，他是一位神祇。他说，如果你们按照你们正在愉快筹划的活动那样，让北约向东扩张，那将是一场灾难，最终会迫使俄罗斯人诉诸暴力，因为你们正在侵入他们的国家安全领域。比尔·佩里当时是比尔·克林顿政府的国防部长，他曾威胁要辞职，因为他说，这是与俄罗斯开战的公式。

而且把这——这是在普京上台之前很久。比尔·伯恩斯，当时是俄罗斯——是美国驻莫斯科大使，也说了同样的话。他说，这是一个将要迫使俄罗斯人投入战争的公式。顺便说一句，比尔·伯恩斯现在是中央情报局局长。所以，正是这些最重要的外交官在说，如果你们让北约向东扩张，就会迫使俄罗斯人投入战争。而我们让它进入了除一个国家之外的每一个国家，也就是乌克兰。

然后我们说。而那一个地方，俄罗斯说，那是一条红线。事实上，比尔·伯恩斯从莫斯科给国务院写过一份便笺、一份备忘录，说，“ye”的意思是“yet”。他说，如果你们让它进入乌克兰，他们就会开战。他们不会。那是一条你们不能越过的红线。然而我们就是，那些，你知道，他们在整个布什政府时期尽其所能，之后他们遭到流放，又在特朗普时期回来了，然后他们。

他们在特朗普时期还做了什么？他们废除了2项核条约。所以我们退出了2项条约，也就是禁止在俄罗斯附近任何地方部署中程核武器的中程核武器条约。我们单方面退出了那项条约。然后我们在罗马尼亚和波兰部署了具备核能力的宙斯盾导弹系统，它们可以发射战斧导弹，在几分钟内抵达俄罗斯，并斩首整个领导层。

俄罗斯人说，好吧，你们部署了那个？我们忍了，但我们不会容忍在乌克兰也部署，因为你们制造了400英里，你们将能在几秒钟内对我们的领导层进行“迪库普”，斩首我们的领导层。而那将。那很可能会破坏整个地区的稳定，以及先发制人打击军团。然而我们还是这么做了。而且这简直，我们的所作所为令人目瞪口呆，你知道，这个失误。这就像梦游般走入第一次世界大战。

这正是第一次世界大战中发生的事，你知道，当时这些大国像白痴一样行事，梦游般走入这场，你知道，什么也没实现的战争。什么也没有。而现在我们正处于那个位置。现在我们有核武器，而我们正在走向，我们正在挑衅一个核武器比我们多1,000件的国家。这简直疯了。

埃隆，你想对此发表评论吗？我只是觉得你刚才取消静音了。

抱歉。

只是。

我是说，我也有很多这样的担忧。我，我是说，我认为，如果，如果不能尽快想出某种、某种和平或停火方案，那我，我同意，我们实际上是在把乌克兰青年和俄罗斯青年中的精华送出去。我认为，那些人中真正想去那里死在战壕里的人寥寥无几。而且我认为，如果，你知道，如果外交官们在享用精美晚餐，而这些孩子却全都死在战壕里，这在道德上应受谴责。

这简直疯了。让我问一下，在能源这个话题上，你对核能有什么看法。

嗯，我不太愿意在这里和迈克尔·谢伦伯格争论，因为我多年来一直在就此争辩。但我一直说的是，伊莱，假如核能，我完全支持核能，只要你能让它安全，也能让它经济实惠。而现在，它离这两点都还差得太远。并不是我说它不安全。是保险业这么说。保险业认为这种核能太不安全，以至于不肯为其提供保险。

而且，你知道，我们已经看到了它们的记录。那记录骇人听闻。你知道，发生的情况是，他们，你知道，现在他们，他们。那些储罐可能占了1平方英里，他们每天都往里面装水，因为那是受污染的水。他们试图不让它流入太平洋，但根本没有办法永远阻止它。所以他们正在建造这些巨大的储罐，而且那里，而且你可以在互联网上看到，它们一直延伸到地平线。

你知道，我们已经目睹了切尔诺贝利发生的事情，等等。但先不谈这个行业过去灾难性的表现，你只要，你知道，如果，如果他们，如果他们突然获得一种能让它们伤心的技术，并且获得一份保险，这样我们现在就不必为此担心，你知道，他们去找了国会，他们买不到保险，所以他们去找了国会，并且，你知道，通过在半夜进行卑劣的立法操作，通过了《普莱斯-安德森法案》，该法案给予他们，该法案免除了他们的责任。

它让他们免于承担责任。所以他们就像疫苗行业一样。他们没有守规矩的动力，因为他们不必支付成本。房主来支付成本。我在芒特基斯科家中的保险单里有一项条款，不为核事故产生的辐射提供保障。在印第安角，那是我的。所以他们把负担转嫁给了我，不应该允许行业这样做。

其次，它的建造成本高得像灾难一样，建造一座太阳能发电厂的成本是每吉瓦10亿美元。一座风力发电厂的成本是1.1、1.2。一座燃煤发电厂的成本约为每吉瓦36亿美元。而我建成一座核电站，成本是每吉瓦150亿美元。

所以。

然后你还必须为，你知道，铀矿开采付费。你必须为技术人员付费，你必须为停机付费。你必须为未来30,000年的废料储存付费，这是人类有文字记载历史长度的5倍。而且世界上没有任何一家公用事业公司会建造核电站，除非它完全由公众补贴。所以，你知道，我信奉自由市场资本主义制度。

你。如果我们愿意，我们可以通过燃烧上等肋排来生产能源。但，你知道，我们为什么不采用成本最低的能源生产方式呢，那会是，你知道，那会是某种非核能的替代方案。如果你能让核能具有竞争力，我就支持它。但我是自由市场绝对主义者，我认为我们应该采用最廉价的能源形式，你。我们不应该有任何补贴。不。而且所有公司都应该必须将其成本内部化，就像它们将利润内部化一样。

而这意味着污染的成本。你不能允许一家公司可以排放造成酸雨的污染，一家煤炭公司，让阿巴拉契亚山脉的每一个湖泊酸化，而且，你知道，从佐治亚州到魁北克北部，把汞排进我们所有的。美国的每一条淡水鱼，让海洋酸化，铲平所有山脉。他们需要向美国公众支付这些成本。失去这些资源的代价必须得到赔偿。如果他们这么做了，就不会有人买煤，因为煤据说很便宜。

但它是最具灾难性、最昂贵的能源形式，这一点可能一直被否认，核能除外，核能是任何人所能想象出的烧开一锅水最昂贵的方式。所以我只是，我相信市场、自由市场资本主义，这也会适用于能源行业。而在这一点上，核能就是没有竞争力。

好了，各位，我们有一个。简单确认一下时间。我想鲍比只能再待15分钟了。我们已经进行了大约2个小时。所以我想确保能让听众提一些问题。

其实，戴维，如果可以的话，我只是想快速回应一下，然后当然可以。所以我当然同意，你知道，太阳能和风能都很棒。我是太阳能和风能的坚定支持者。我也同意，煤电厂的。煤电厂的成本被低估了。实际上，如果把煤矿开采造成的死亡，以及几乎住在煤电厂里的人们肺部受到的那种影响都算进去，情况相当糟糕。

实际上，这比核能糟糕得多。所以。不过，我确实想表达一下我的观点，在我看来，其实核能非常安全。如果你看一下核电实际造成的，你知道，死亡人数，与任何化石燃料发电相比都微不足道，而人们对核能的恐惧却非常强烈。我认为这个。这种担忧，你知道，我不清楚为什么保险公司收费这么高。

但是。但是它，你知道，我认为现代核电站极其安全。而且事实上，尽管这确实违背了很多人的看法，我其实是核能愿景的信奉者。所以我只是想正式说明这一点，我们可以继续谈别的事情了。

好的，听起来不错。只剩几分钟了。还有太多内容要谈。鲍比，你提到你的妻子是一名演员和喜剧演员，就像泽连斯基先生一样。而且其实，我们。我们得以。我注意到谢丽尔也在房间里，所以我们把她请上了台。谢丽尔，欢迎。还有我。我明白你的问题，也就是你对鲍比竞选总统有什么感受？而且我还关于你在好莱坞的所有朋友对他的参选有什么看法。

你们能清楚听见我说话吗？

亲爱的，我不知道你要这么做。

哦，不，我也不知道。我只是坐在这里管好我自己的蜡，听着并享受这场对话。哦，好吧，现在我忘了问题是什么。我对此有什么感受？

对，对。你的好莱坞朋友们对此有什么感受？让你当场回答。

嗯，顺便说一句，我很喜欢他们被称为我的好莱坞朋友。他们大概会说，我敢肯定，我没有任何一个朋友认为自己是好莱坞朋友，不过。嗯，首先，是的，我花了一点时间才适应鲍比参选这个想法。而且，你知道，我花了一些时间来考虑。鲍比和我谈了很多，并且，并且决定，是的，这是需要发生的事。说实话，这一直非常有意思，有时也令人兴奋。

对我来说，看着鲍比处在他得心应手的状态真的很有意思。你知道，我真的确信这就是他注定要做的事。所以他。他就是。我只是看到此刻有一道光照耀着他，而看着这一切真的很令人兴奋。所以我同时也知道，我知道会有一些挑战，我，你知道，希望我。我知道自己会足够坚强去面对。但我。所以我知道会有我们必须面对的挑战，而且，你知道，我们会有。

我们会挺过去的。

对。

我说过。谢丽尔最终，你知道，决定，好吧，我们就接受这件事时，她告诉我。她说她。谢丽尔成为演员之前，甚至在她刚开始当演员时，她靠调酒谋生。她说她要去巴哈马，发明一种加入参议院的新型玛格丽塔，而那将是她的解决办法。

我是个非常务实的人。

好的，那么谢谢你，谢谢你这么配合。谢丽尔，我在人群中看到了你，忍不住把你请到这里来。所以对此非常感谢。

能被，能被注意到真好，而且，而且谢谢你。谢谢你们，埃隆和戴维，谢谢你们主持并做这件事。现在我会悄悄回到幕后。

好的，听起来不错。好的，我们接下来听凯利·斯莱特发言，人群中还有几个问题，我也想回答。但巴拉吉，你想问个问题吗？

当然。你能听见我吗？

能。

好的。

好的。

肯尼迪先生，你在和平、公民自由、CBC、比特币等多个问题上展现出的深刻见解给我留下了深刻印象。我其实只有一个问题。这个问题与我们的金融体系有关。简而言之，你能否深入研究政府联邦美联储对美国国债及其他政府债券的贬值问题。简单介绍一下背景，美联储已将美国国债变成了新的有毒废物。

一系列考虑不周的举措，已将所谓世界上最安全的资产变成了世界上风险最高的资产，并为第2场金融危机搭好了舞台。斯坦福估计债券损失达数万亿美元。达利欧说，损失远不止银行，还波及养老基金、保险公司及其他机构。努里尔·鲁比尼说，大多数银行在技术上已接近资不抵债，数百家银行已经彻底资不抵债。

《卫报》称，银行债券投资组合的未实现损失大到足以构成系统性风险。风险 而《欧洲货币》称，美国国债已不再符合高质量流动性资产的标准。眼下，这场债券危机正被淡化，或者被归咎于美联储和财政部之外的所有人。但从根本上说，财政部在2021年出售了资产，美联储随后在2022年使其贬值，从而削弱了无数银行及其他金融机构的资产负债表。

简而言之，美联储撒谎，银行死亡。美国国债是新的有毒废物。西方金融体系是一个彻底炸毁了其基石资产的整体。而第2场全球金融危机的 没有任何明显的出路是不涉及印大量钞票的。所以，尽管我承认这个话题听起来有些晦涩，就像次级抵押贷款和CDO曾经不幸给人的感觉一样，你能否深入研究美国国债和其他政府债券被……贬值的问题

时候，而这就是你的问题，我真希望你之前没有说我对每个问题都有那么深刻的见解，因为我唯一的回答是，你愿意当我的财政部长吗？因为如果你有解决办法，我想听听。

我没有很多解决办法。我可以告诉你我认为问题是什么，是。不过如果你愿意，我们之后可以谈谈。

我很愿意给你们看所有图表。我非常愿意。而且我，你知道，我确实，你知道，我长期以来一直深切关注……，这种关注几代以来一直深深根植于我的家族之中，关注的就是美联储这种失控的性质，以及，你知道，什么，还有美联储不仅对全球货币供应量，而且对民主和个人自由等方面的影响。我叔叔曾试图对此采取一些行动，至少把货币供应量与基础货币、黄金和白银脱钩。

他，你知道，在任期间推出了黄金凭证和白银凭证，它们曾是，这样至少会有一部分货币供应量是，是不能轻易操纵的，因为它与基础货币挂钩。但他去世后，我们又回到了完全的法定货币，而那，你知道，我认为正是你现在谈到的所有问题、终极问题的根源，而且我，你知道，我并没有高到足以坐在这里告诉你我对此有一个简单答案的专业水平。

我和很多人谈过，也得到了很多关于如何应对这个问题的不同答案。没人声称有什么万能药，但你知道，我们就快要撞墙了，而且你知道，我们已经看到人们对我们的、对我们的信用和货币失去信心。而且你知道，美元现在正面临失去世界储备货币地位的威胁。巴西已经发出信号，表示正在转向中国，你知道，采用中国货币。

沙特阿拉伯、阿根廷、巴基斯坦以及许多其他国家正在，而那将会是，那将会是一个让大萧条看起来都像轻松小事的美国。所以我知道，我理解设法找到一种能够，你知道，应对这场危机的办法有多么紧迫；如果你有想法，我很愿意和你谈谈，也愿意和任何认为自己能帮助解决这个问题的人谈谈。

好的，听起来不错。我们可以用整场节目只谈这些问题。我们只剩几分钟了，所以我想，我想继续下一个话题。谢谢你，Balaji，我也很乐意之后帮你们联系，让你们可以再多谈谈这件事。Bobby，这是一个来自听众的问题。我们收到了很多关于枪支管制问题的提问。我认为这是信息流里最大的议题之一。这里有一个来自用户 Pat King 的问题。

他说，在把票投给你之前，我需要了解你对宪法第二修正案修正案的详细立场和政策。那很可能是唯一阻止我投票给你的事情。对于他以及其他人在枪支管制问题上的疑问，你会怎么说？

我对枪支管制的立场是，我不会夺走任何人的枪。我知道我，我是一个宪法绝对主义者。而他，你知道，我们可以争论第二修正案当初何时旨在保护枪支，但这场争论现在已经由最高法院裁定了，而且它有一个非常，而且最高法院，你知道，安东宁·斯卡利亚的裁决对拥有枪支的权利作出了非常宽泛的解释。但更重要的是，我不明白任何告诉你，通过渐进式改变或渐进式法律来监管。

顺便说一句，我想说这件事。我的家人中有2人死于枪支暴力。所以，你知道，我对，我理解这给如此多美国人造成的心碎。它直接波及了我的家庭。我知道，作为总统，你们会对我有所期待，而我，我会尽我所能减少这个国家的枪支暴力。我认为，从我手中被拿走的工具之一，就是夺走人们的枪。

我认为现在这样做不对，因为这只会让我们的国家两极分化。我曾在这个国家的农村地区生活过。我知道枪支文化在那些地区融入得有多深，也知道从他们看待宪法的方式来说，这对他们有多重要。我也知道，我们生活在一个宪法一直受到攻击的时代，其他所有修正案都以前所未有的方式受到攻击；而那些坚定信奉第二修正案的人，会如何把这视为对我们《权利法案》系统性攻击的一部分。

我不想卷入那场辩论。我想阻止校园枪击事件。如果归根结底需要像保护航空公司那样保护学校，我会这么做。我不想再有任何孩子死在我们的学校里。我还会非常仔细地研究精神科药物在这些事件中所起的作用。目前没有关于这个问题的可靠研究，而这些研究多年前就应该完成，因为有大量间接证据表明，像 SSRIs、苯二氮卓类药物和其他药物正在导致这种情况。

我们国家现在正在发生一件世界其他任何地方都没有发生、在人类历史上也从未发生过的事情。而你必须看看其中一些。几乎所有这些药物，如果你查看它们的制造商说明书，都会列出杀人和自杀行为这一副作用。而在百忧解推出之前，我们几乎没有。我们国家没有这些事件中的任何一起。而且在人类历史上，我们从未见过有人走进一间满是儿童或陌生人的教室，然后开始向人们开枪。

还有其他国家的人均枪支数量和我们一样多，而上一次校园枪击案是在21年前。我们每21小时就有一起。小时。我们与世界上其他任何地方不同的一件事，就是我们的孩子和我们的人民服用了多少精神类药物。我们需要审视这一点。美国国立卫生研究院多年前就应该这样做，但他们不会做。他们还会阻止其他人这样做，因为他们是。

因为他们不是在为我们工作，而是在为制药行业工作。而如今，这是他们的主要利润中心。所以没有人不想听那些。你知道，制药业不想听到任何有关选择性血清素再摄取抑制剂问题的说法。但我上任后会立即开展那些研究。我们会查明真相。某种东西是某种东西。你知道，枪支、枪支的泛滥，显然是一场赌注，暴力。

但是，任何告诉你可以通过在边缘上修修补补，移除足够多的枪支，从AR15到其他什么，然后达到那种。达到西欧那种局面的人，都是在糊弄你。这不会发生。我们现在需要寻找其他解决办法。而我们。而我们最终在这个国家实现枪支管制的唯一途径，是通过共识。而当我们都在彼此争斗时，这种共识不可能形成。

我们需要向公众、向那些对宪法感到不安的人保证，我们的宪法不再受到威胁，没有人想来夺走他们的枪。这会让人们坐到谈判桌前，说，好吧，我们怎样保护我们的孩子？而这就是我将努力做的，让总统。

好的，谢谢。我们来连线凯利·斯莱特。凯利，看起来你正在某个地方滑滑板。你有问题要问鲍比吗？

嗯。能听到我说话吗？

能。

能。

好的。很高兴和你交谈，鲍比。先生，你好吗？

很好，凯利。谢谢你打来电话。

好的，我很感激。我想，当我说听到你谈论所有这些话题让人耳目一新时，我代表了所有人，比如与另一党派沟通之类的事情。很高兴看到图尔西在这里。她是我的好朋友。我知道她经历了什么。她去叙利亚与那里的领导人交谈时，回国后因此遭到了猛烈抨击。但就你之前关于中国、俄罗斯和其他地方所说的观点而言，我的意思是，我们需要与这些人对话，而我不明白为什么这会被视为如此糟糕的事情。

这并不意味着你赞同他们。这意味着你只是试图解决解决方案，想出解决方案。但在国内，我们越来越多地从媒体那里看到这种情况。正如你之前指出的，我认为，当你开始谈论大型制药公司和其他公司与媒体相互勾结、继而控制叙事、试图封杀像你这样的人所产生的影响时，事情似乎就进入了危险地带。

其中有一些令人恐惧的话题。所以我觉得听你讲话、听到你在谈论所有这些不同话题时展现出的坦诚，真的让人耳目一新。我想，这也算是把我带回了我的问题，因为在我看来，你几乎就像是一匹为透明和诚实而来的特洛伊木马。在这种政治环境中，这真的让人耳目一新。而且我感觉，到目前为止，有时候你一直被。他们曾试图在媒体上把你缩减成几个简短的谈话要点。

而我很喜欢听你谈论所有这些其他事情，而不是让他们把注意力集中在你的疫苗立场、对医疗问题的质疑上。但随着你深入谈论所有这些其他话题，我们学到了很多。所以我只是想知道，你将如何改变这种叙事，让人们听到你更广泛的信息，并继续把它传播出去。因为有太多充满挑战的事情，但你谈论它们的方式也确实很鼓舞人心。

非常感谢你，凯利。还有。也感谢你的勇气。在，你知道，在疫情期间，你确实是少数几个人之一。当世界各地的运动员都受到霸凌时，你是少数几个站出来的人之一，而且，你知道，你来参加了我的播客并和我交谈，当时世界上真的没有人愿意和我交谈。所以我永远不会忘记这件事。而且我，你知道，我非常钦佩你，不仅钦佩你作为运动员，你是我最喜欢的运动员之一，也钦佩你的道德勇气，以及你面对世界时那种真正温和、友善的方式，你知道，那种充满爱的方式，这非常鼓舞人心。

我，你知道吗？除了之外，我没有什么好策略，而且我从来不会以疫苗相关的话题开场。我，你知道，我在所有这些问题上已经算是被噤声18年了，我觉得自己有，你知道，有很多、很多我迫不及待想说出来的东西，那些人们现在可能不想听的观点。我再也不需要谈论疫苗了。但如果有人问我疫苗的事，我会告诉他们真相。

很多时候，人们问我疫苗的事，然后立刻又想让我闭嘴，因为这就像打开了一根消防水管。而我，你知道，我有很多领域知识，我对这个问题了解很多。而且，而且所以我会，你知道，我通常也会对媒体说，如果你们不想听我谈疫苗，就不要问我。这样，你知道，你们永远不必听我谈。但如果你们问了我，就不应该在我回答你们的问题时让我闭嘴。

但是，你知道，我认为我其实一直做得相当不错，凯利，能够谈论其中一些问题，你知道，关于乌克兰、关于审查制度的领导层、关于经济、关于美国中产阶级的毁灭、关于新保守主义者对我们外交政策的侵占、关于华尔街和那些大型企业独裁者对我们国内政策的侵占，以及我们的机构被它们本应监管的行业所俘获。

而且你知道，我现在这一直，你知道，谢丽尔和我都对这些问题获得了如此大的关注感到惊讶。真的一直，你知道，她说这令人兴奋，而且我想我们两个人都，你知道，很兴奋，因为人们似乎正在倾听，而且真的关心这些问题。所以希望这种情况会持续下去。谢谢你加入我们，凯利。

是的，我很感激。还有最后一件我想说的事，就是提一下，我看过几次采访，人们非常想挑战你，却不听你说什么。我觉得听到那种媒体真的很迷人。但你总是友善回应，而且会给出深思熟虑的回答，我对此很感激，因为我认为我们所有人都需要更多这样的态度。这是与任何人展开任何对话的绝佳方式，尤其是那些与你意见不一致的人。

所以非常感谢。

谢谢你，凯利。

很好。

这里有一个听众提问。让我看看。Tanner22 问：你的能源政策会继续用大片太阳能板和风车摧毁我们的景观吗？TX Frenchman 问：你对石油和天然气持什么立场，钻探还是不钻探？

嗯，对于这两件事，我都没有简单的答案。你知道，我认为，就像我说过说过的，我认为我们不应该那样做。每一种能源系统、每一个能源生产设施都应该必须将其成本内部化。所以，而且有些情况，比如说，我曾在美国为海上风电奋斗了很多年。我认为海上风电在北大西洋的一些、一些地区以及欧洲部分地区是合理的。但在美国，我们拥有非常出色的陆上风能，而且，而且我们拥有的陆上风能可能是全世界任何大陆中最好的，南极洲除外。

而且我们有很好的经济机会，也有很适合实施的地方，可以把环境破坏降到最低。例如北达科他州的许多玉米田，这给北达科他州的家庭农场主带来了巨大的经济繁荣。而且，如果我们有一个能够接收这些能源的电网系统，就有可能供应我们很大一部分能源。我认为蒙大拿州，这是一种税。得克萨斯州拥有足够的风能，可以满足我们电网 100% 的能源需求。

现在，人们正在，你知道，利用获得高额补贴的风能在大西洋建造风力涡轮机，而且，而且我们看到这些大规模鲸鱼死亡事件，似乎与此有关。对我来说，这是不可容忍的，也不是我们应该做的事。所以我反对。但你知道，就各地的能源而言，能源问题没有单一的解决方案。每一种能源都、都与某个地方相关联，你必须衡量它对当地实际情况的影响，也就是，你知道，每千瓦时造成多少环境破坏，而这些成本需要内部化，这样公众随后才能以市场为基础，对他们想要的能源作出理性选择。

而且，而且所以那就是我，你知道，那就是我对此的看法。

好的，谢谢。我收到鲍比团队的通知，我们必须结束了。我们现在已经进行了两个多小时，时间过得飞快。所以，非常感谢所有参与的人，也感谢所有仍在等待提问的人。我们实在无法让每个人都提问。但以后还会有其他机会。我相信今后还会继续这样做。鲍比一直非常乐意参加播客和接受采访。

所以我相信你们会更多地听到他的声音。如果你想关注他的竞选活动，他的团队告诉我，你可以访问他的网站，也就是 kick24.com；如果你想捐款，可以在那里进行，也可以加入邮件列表。所以，Kennedy, 24，就是这个网站。非常感谢大家参与，我们会

会下次再见。

非常感谢你，戴维。也谢谢你，埃隆。

谢谢大家。

All right, everybody, let's get started. Introduce our co hosts here, Bobby Kennedy Jr. And Elon. I'll start by introducing Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. I think everyone already knows he's a nephew of President John F. Kennedy. He's the son of Senator and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who was assassinated after winning the California primary in the 1968 presidential election. Before entering presidential politics, RFK Jr.

Was an environmental lawyer and activist in many areas. He was most famous for cleaning up the Hudson River. He was also outspoken on indigenous rights, peace, and civil liberties. He's also the founder of Children's Health Defense, a nonprofit that protects children from toxic chemical assault from pharmaceutical drugs and environmental pollution. So with that, Bobby and Elon, I think we're all excited to hear what you guys have to say.

Elon, a real pleasure meeting you and thank you so much for hosting us.

You're most welcome. Thank you. This is a great opportunity for the public to hear directly from you and really looking forward to what you have to say.

I also just want to thank you for your leadership on the. On just breaking this, the whole of the censorship. In fact, I say one thing, that Twitter was always kind of the last refuge for those of us who are trying to talk about issues that departed from the official orthodoxies that were being censored on the other platforms. And the first real effort at censorship happened in February 2019 when Adam Schiff sent a letter to all, to the heads of all the social media sites of Google, Facebook, now meta, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest and others and demanding that they start censoring information about vaccines that didn't.

That was non compliant with the official narratives. And the only place, the only group that resisted Schiff at that time was ahead of the intelligence committee. So that was kind of the first indicator that the intelligence apparatus had an interest in public health. And the only one of the social media sites to resist those, those imprecations was, was Twitter. When Jack was running this and he, for some reason, he was able to say no to them when the rest of them weren't.

So I'm very happy. And your arrival at Twitter, Elon, has been, I think, a breath of fresh air for our country. You somehow understood, although you're from South Africa, you somehow under the tradition of free expression and how important that is to American democracy. So I'm very grateful to you.

You're most welcome. Yes, I think it's absolutely essential to have a robust democracy. We must have free speech. In the absence of that, democracy simply cannot function.

Yeah, it is free speech. And the free flow of information is the water, it's the sunlight, it's the fertilizer, it's the soil. Democracy. Without it, democracy withers and dies. There's never been a time in history when we look back and say that the people who are censoring free speech were the good guys. They're always the bad guys. They're always. It's always the first step toward totalitarianism. But also, you know, it's one of the things that the constitutional framers understood that totalitarian systems have a huge advantage over democracy because they're more efficient.

Democracy is sloppy, it's slow. It advances two steps and retreats one step. It is the product of a lot of debate, which is slow moving and laborious. And the only advantage, the big advantage that we have over totalitarian systems is that the ideas that mature into policies are first annealed in a furnace of debate. And the best ideas then triumph in this marketplace of ideas, which does not happen at totalitarian system.

And that's one of the things that the dynamics that the framers of our constitution understood that we would be able to out compete totalitarian systems and outlast them because of this dynamic that produced policies through debate and through discussion and conversation rather than through dictation.

Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. The thing about democracies and free speech is that it's like washing your laundry in public. Yes, you see things that perhaps you know there's dirty laundry, but at least you see it. It's not hidden. And it's essential to have that debate, even if you disagree strongly with one side of the debate. If you don't allow such debates. The thing that I think people who are in favor of censorship really need to understand is that unless people that you don't like can say things that you don't like, it's not free speech.

And if you, if you start censoring, it's only a matter of time before that censorship is turned upon you.

I mean, the First Amendment was written not for easy speech and likable speech and lovable people. It was written for hard times and to protect speech that nobody wants you to say. And I remember 977 when the Nazis wanted to march through Skokie, Illinois, which was a Jewish neighborhood. And the liberals of this country, the aclu, turned out in force to support that right, Even though they were appalled and disgusted by what the Nazis were saying and doing.

Everybody agreed that we had to be willing to die for the right to do so. And that was the. That's the whole base of democracy, is that we allow people to talk about. And one of the things, you know, that. And one of the things that prompted me to run for president is what you were talking about is the end of transparency in our country. That government. There's so much going on now that it's done secretively, that where the decision making is opaque, where there are people who are.

Who are making decisions, who are not necessarily elect officials at the public has fenced out. And so many Americans today feel like the promise of democracy has been a bait and switch and that we're no longer living in a democratic system where we are actually the sovereign of our own destinies, the sovereign, the deciders of our own faith, that people over whom we have no control, that money, interest, that large corporations have taken over.

This kind of merger of state and corporate power that's happened in Washington, D.C. in the state capitals, has not only turned our regulatory agencies into predators against the American people, they're supposed to be our protectors, but also that all the decision making, the real decision making, has been taken from the American public. And that, you know, you see so many people. I'm in rural Pennsylvania today, and I'm surrounded by people who feel despair about our country, who are disillusioned, who are struggling with poverty for reasons that they don't understand, but they feel like they no longer are the masters of their own destiny.

And I think a lot of that is because it's true. Our government has become an instrument of corporate power and it is not telling. And because of that, it has to lie to us. You know, it can't afford to be transparent because it actually told us what it was up to and why it was making certain decisions. People wouldn't put up with it. So everything has to be cloaked in fear and deception. And I think, you know, Americans, even though they don't understand it, they understand that something very wrong is happening to them.

Absolutely. The thing actually I find truly bizarre and very different from the past is that it's not just large corporations and government that are in collusion, which has actually been the case for a while. I think it was Eisenhower that warned us about the military industrial conflict, for example, and he's someone who really knew about it. But the thing that I find difficult to forgive is that the legacy of traditional media is also almost entirely, with some exceptions, working in lockstep with the government and with.

With corporate America. And they. It is really their obligation to question the government, not to Go along with it and be their mouthpiece in the United States. This is insane.

I mean, the function of the media traditionally is supposed as the guardians of the First Amendment. They're supposed to speak truth to power. And instead they've become propaganda vessels for the powerful, for, you know, the big. The military industrial complex, for the pharmaceutical companies or and for other large corporations. You know, one of the mechanisms by which which that media capture has taken place is buying through advertising, and particularly in the pharmaceutical realm.

In 1997, we changed the law in this country. We had always forbidden the use of the media to sell pharmaceutical products. There was no direct to consumer advert of pharmaceutical products. It was against the law. FDA changed that law in 97, and it launched a tsunami of pharmaceutical dollars into the advertising space and gave the pharmaceutical companies control not only of the platform for advertising their products, but also control of content.

On Nightly News, I had this weird meeting with Roger Ailes. Roger Aile, the founder of Fox News. And I had this very strange relationship with him because I spent three months in a tent with him in East Africa when I was 19 years old. And even if that was before he started Fox News, once he started Fox News, he became kind of this Darth Vader figure for me, despite the fact that all the things he was doing to our country were antithetical to what I believed.

And I kept this very fond personal friendship with him. And he would allow me on his network and he would require his hosts like Hannity and Neil CAVUTO and Bill O'Reilly to put me on to talk about environmental issues. I was the only environmentalist during those years who was regularly going on Fox News. And in 2016, I had done a documentary on the mercury and vaccines. And I showed it to him and he was very interested.

And he had a family member who he thought had been injured by a vaccine. And he said, unfortunately, I can't help you with this. He said that any of his hosts who allowed me on TV to talk about this, that he would be forced to fire them. And he said that of his advertising revenues for the nightly news shows were at that point coming from pharma. He told me that on average there is 22 advertisements on a nightly news show and 817 to 18 of those are typically pharmaceutical ads.

And he said if any of his hosts cloud me onto their show without checking with him, he would be forced to fire them. And if he didn't, he would get a call from Rupert. What he said from Rupert within 10 minutes. And of course, he met Rupert Murdoch, who is the owner of Fox News. And that kind of gave me insight to, you know, why nobody on TV wanted to talk about these things. Because, as I said, the pharmaceutical industry not only is dictating, is using those shows, the platform to advertise its product.

But there's only two countries in the world that allow direct to consumer advertising. One is New Zealand, the other is the United States. And it's largely as a result of that. We take three times the pharmaceutical drugs of any other Western nation. We have the. And we have the worst health outcomes. We pay more for health care than any other nation. And I think we're 79th in the world. We're buying, I think, Mongolia and Cuba and Costa Rica, our health outcomes and.

And pharmaceutical drugs are now the third leading cause of death in our country after cancer and heart dise. And it's not just pharmaceutical companies. I was watching the other day, Good Morning America, and there was an advertisement, I think it was by General Dynamics on Good Morning America. There's nobody in the audience in Good Morning America who is buying killer drones. And so why is General Dynamics advertising on Good Morning America?

Well, of course, they're doing those advertisements because they wanted to dictate the content. They want to be able to have an editorial control over the kind of overton window that Good Morning America is permitted within which discussions on Good Morning America are permitted. So they want to make sure that Americans are enthusiastic about our wars and about a belligerent national policy so that they can continue selling weapons.

And unfortunately, those are the forces that are dictating a lot of the official narrative that we hear from network TV and from the corporate television.

Yeah. In fact, Twitter has seen extreme pressure from advertisers as. And, you know, has at least in the west, seen a advertising boycott from a lot of companies. I would like to for sure thank those companies that have stuck with us, like Apple and Disney and many others. But. But we have in for North America and Europe seen roughly half of our advertising disappear overnight simply because we insist on free speech.

So what you're talking about, I think the public does not realize the magnitude of the pressure, extreme financial pressure that is placed upon organizations to toe the line by advertisers. And I think this is fundamental corruption of democracy. And the public should be absolutely outraged by this, and something's got to be done about it. It's insane that they're literally trying to drive Twitter bankrupt.

Well, you know, I was really curious about, you know, about your decision to release the Twitter files, because that I mean, if I had been your attorney, you know, and I wouldn't be, because I'm not a corporate attorney, but I can't imagine that any attorney for Twitter told you that was a good idea. And there was a time, you know, we were suing the social media companies for the censorship. And when we heard that you were taking over Twitter, our attorneys came to us and said, you know, Elon Musk seems very sympathetic to free speech.

Maybe we should tell him that we're about to sue them all. But that will drop Twitter if he releases the, you know, the records of his communications with the White House. Because, and for people who don't understand this in the audience, companies like Twitter are regarded as essentially publishing platforms. And if you're a publisher, you can print anything you want, and you can refuse to print anything you want. The government doesn't control that and nobody else does.

If you're the New York Times, you have an absolute right not to print an editorial by Robert Kennedy. No, that's not censorship. Censorship is when the government tells you to do it. So Twitter. So we could not sue Instagram for deplatforming me, but if we could prove that the government pressured Mark Zuckerberg to have Instagram deplatform me, and then the First Amendment is implicated and it becomes illegal under American law, we had that proof for some of the companies.

But it really, it was right on the borderline of whether judges would accept it or not. And it would have been very valuable to us at that time, the kind of information that was released in the Twitter files. But it would be. I at that time told my attorneys, I don't think Elon would do that because his attorneys are going to tell him it would be insane because it would subject Twitter to a litigation, to a liability risk.

And I was so surprised and delighted when you did that on your own. And, you know, clearly you've been portrayed as somebody who's kind of this sinister agenda, but you're doing step after step that is not in your self interest, and that is clearly designed to protect freedom of speech and is designed for, you know, is coming out of some deeper place than financial self interest for you. And I just want to tell you how much I admire you for that, Elon, and how grateful I am on behalf of my country that you would come here from another country and be the key instrument for rescuing American democracy and freedom of speech during a time of, you know, when a lot of people were turning their backs on our Constitution.

Yeah, it's.

It definitely has been extremely difficult. If we at Twitter simply toed the line and did everything that the advertisers and especially the sort of various nonprofits that pressure the advertisers and, you know, the whole sort of GDEI movement, which is sort of having a much bigger effect on the actions of corporations than people realize. I mean, if we just simply go the line like everyone else, we would have. It's billions of dollars a year in difference.

Basically. Our. Our revenue is cut in half because we didn't toe the line. So just the magnitude of this is extreme. And. And it's frankly a struggle for Twitter to break even. We're hoping to break even, but we're not there yet.

And.

But I don't care how much it costs or what it takes. If we lose free speech, lose democracy, America falls. America falls. I don't know what happens to the world, but it's not a good thing.

I mean, I'd love to hear any kind of details about. Did you. Did you talk to attorneys before you release the Twitter files? Did you talk to anybody else who told you you must be out of your mind to be doing this?

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Everyone.

I mean, every lawyer advised against it and said it was insane would get a huge trouble, and I would be sued to Helagon, and it would be massive disaster? I. Yeah, I don't care. It's like, I don't care. I mean, I just. You know, it's easy for people to take for granted the system we have here in the United States, but it really doesn't exist anywhere else, you know, not even Canada. I'm half Canadian. And you don't have the free speech rights in Canada you have in the United States.

You know, perhaps a new government in Canada at some point will enact those rights, because it's incredibly important. But, you know, I think if we don't protect free speech at all costs, we don't have a functioning democracy. If we don't have a functioning democracy, nothing else matters.

Let me ask you another question. What is it in your background that you know, that you think gave you such firm convictions where you'd be willing to take this huge, massive, unspeakable economic hit on behalf of a principal for a country in which you weren't even born?

Well, I should say I do very much consider myself an American.

So what do you think it was in your background and your childhood or whatever? Were there any. Was there something that, you know, was it a civics lesson? Was it a professor? Was it.

I. Well, I Love studying history, the history of civilizations, history of all kinds of. And while of course, the United States has made mistakes and it is not perfect and it has at times done things that are wrong, I am of the firm belief that the United States has been the greatest force for benevolence in world history. And this is again, not to excuse mistakes or bad things, but that is, I think the evidence for the United States being a benevolent force in the world is overwhelming.

You look at things like, you know, the Marshall Plan after World War II. You know, at the end of World War II, the United States had overwhelming military might have the nuclear bomb. The United States could have taken over the world. It could have acquired whatever countries it wanted. And yet it, it didn't do any of that. In fact, it gave money to, to the, to the countries that have been fighting. I'm not sure if that has ever happened in history.

It helped rebuild the United States, helped rebuild Germany and Japan, helped rebuild Japan even after things like Pearl Harbor. I mean, this is, I. One has to really. Maybe this has happened before. Actually, I'm not aware of it. And so, you know, so I'm very in favor of America. Again, it's not to say that we can't do better or, you know, we need to. We do want to do better, we want to maintain that. But anyway, so I'm a huge fan of it.

And I, you know, I also want to point out I don't have any homes outside of the United States. I do not carry any other passport and I will live and die here.

Well, that's very moving and very admirable and thank you for, you know, thank you for your service and commitment to our country. You know, I've been watching you and watching the way that you've been mischaracterized by the press, mischaracterized by people in my party, the Democratic Party, as somebody who was a threat to democracy when everything that you have done has indicated a, you know, you're just incredible commitment.

You know, during the revolution there were. We lost between 25,000 and 70,000 people during the revolution who died to give us our Constitution. And those people also put their livelihoods on the line. They put their property on the line. They put their financial status and their social status on the line and in a way that, you know, for principles. And you know, I've watched you do the same thing and you've been such an example to other Americans of how we ought to be behaving, even if it costs us a lot of money.

And even if the risk don't seem worth the personal risk, don't seem worth it, you've done that and you've done it without, you know, having any kind of reputational benefit from it. You've been vilified for it. So I, you know, I want to thank you, Sarah. I do want to ask you a question about because I, you know, I really started admiring you when I saw an interview that you did years ago where you said that you said that we should be terrified of AI that you said, I think I quote you this, you said first it's going to take our jobs and then it's going to kill us.

And so, you know, and that felt, that felt like real honesty to me from somebody who is at the center of the tech industry and even, you know, working on a stuff. And then I see what you're doing with. And it seems to me that is a technology that could potentially be really horrifically denigrating to democracy and human freedoms if it's taking the wrong direction. So what are your thoughts about that?

Well, Neuralink, first of all, it's important to appreciate neuralink, which for those who are unaware of it is neuralink is developing brain to computer interfaces to allow direct communication with the brain. The neuralink will progress very slowly because anytime you have a device implanted human, the FDA requirements, I think correct correctly, are extremely difficult. You have to pass many hurdles to have that work.

The first applications that we're talking about are simply enabling someone who is a quadriplegic or someone who has lost a connection from their brain to their body to be able to communicate. Say if Stephen Hawking was able to communicate as well as someone with a fully functional body, that would be incredible. So the, for many years the applications simply be to enable functionality that people have lost due to spinal or brain injuries.

Long term, I think it has a, hopefully some chance of mitigating the artificial intelligence existential risk by enabling a closer symbiosis of AI and humans. And I certainly agree that this is not without risk. And you know, it's something we need to be very careful with how it's done. But I just do want to emphasize it's not going to happen suddenly. It'll happen very slowly. And at least looking at the advancement of artificial intelligence, I think we will probably have digital superintelligence before neuralink is sufficiently advanced to have high bandwidth communication between your sort of cortex and the, and the sort of the AI extension of yourself.

But no question we need to be extremely careful and we will be extremely careful and it will move slowly so you'll definitely see it coming. And people have an opportunity to object and raise concerns and issues. And with neuralink, we're also trying to be extremely open book and you know, so there's nothing hidden and we are, like I said, audited extensively by the fda. So now with respect to artificial intelligence or it's like there's levels of artificial intelligence that are not dangerous.

Like I don't think, you know, self driving cars are really dangerous or you know, having better autocorrect is dangerous, but it's when you have some deep intelligence that is far smarter than the smartest human, that's where things could get dangerous. No, I, I, I don't want to go too far down that rabbit hole because that's a big one. But, but it, but I, it's not that I think that digital superintelligence or AI AGI is definitely a bad thing.

I just think it is, it's a very powerful technology and that there is, there's certainly risk of it being a bad thing and acting in a manner contrary to the interests of humanity and that we need to be cognizant of those of that risk and we need to just be very careful and thorough and do our best to ensure that it is beneficial rather than harmful.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, if I do get in the White House, I think that's one of the things that I need to pay a lot of attention to is how do we regulate this? How do we bring in the people who are developing it and you know, immediately from all over the world and figure out a way to regulate it so, you know, so that it doesn't end up killing us all or enslaving us or whatever the heck it's going to do. But even, you know, even the, even self driving cars, I think something like 40% of the jobs in America are from, are driving jobs or involved driving.

And if you get rid of those jobs, even Uber jobs which are an entry level, which we could do in the next decade or not, I mean it's going to be, it's going to be a really difficult challenge for country to figure out, you know, what, what to do with all these, and I'm using a very bad characterization, but you know, surplus humans because that's what a lot of people are going to feel like.

Yeah. So I do think there is an avenue for Uber driver or drivers in general in that there'll still be a need to manage and take care of a bunch of self driving cars, almost like a shepherd tending their flock. And so I think it actually could end up being a good thing in that, you know, instead of driving one car, you can actually manage a sort of a fleet of 10 cars. And I think that's good. I'm not just saying that it will not result in disruption or changing of jobs.

I'm just saying that self driving is. It, I don't think, is an existential risk to civilization. And so I think the. I think. I think it will be, in my opinion, a significant net benefit. But I do believe that we should be critiqued, we should be asked these questions. And I mean, in general, I aspire to take the set of actions that maximize the probability that the future will be good for humanity. That is not to say that I do not make mistakes, say I do, but that is at least the intention.

And, but as I said, I think it's good to have critique, it's good to be questioned, it's good to be pushed on these issues. And it's very important for companies to be as open book as possible, actually. I mean, I think these are really interesting topics for people, but I think a lot of the public would love to hear about your presidential run.

Well, I would love to talk about it. Do we have any questions?

Well, we have a bunch of questions

we can pull in.

We have a few people we can pull in, and then we can pull in more as well. Tulsi Gabbard's here, Balaji's here. Michael Shellenberger's here. Omid's here. Before we leave the censorship topic, you know, Bobby, one thing you mentioned that you went over really quickly was that you were just reinstated to your Instagram account and that you've been locked out for two years. And I guess they had to reinstate you because there's a law requiring it when someone runs for president.

So apparently the only way to get free speech in this country is. But the crazy thing is that people on your campaign were frozen out of their accounts. Apparently anyone who signed up with the Team Kennedy email domain.

Yeah.

Was frozen. I guess they just got reinstated. So I guess I just want to hear about that. And then following up on what Elon said about the intense pressure that Twitter is under from advertising boycotts, I want to bring in Shellenberger, who was one of the key authors on the Twitter files and has done a lot of work on what he calls the censorship industrial complex. So it'd be great to hear from him on how this whole thing gets organized because I don't think people understand that these pressure tactics are highly organized.

So I guess Bobby to you first and then let's bring in Shawn.

Yeah, so I was evicted from Instagram. I think in the summer of maybe or spring of 2020, 21, I was evicted and I had about, I had, I had at the time, the day I was convicted, I had evicted, I had about 770,000, but I had been up to 900,000. And they would cut them back. Whenever I hit 900,000, they would cut them back to 800,000 or 700,000. So I was losing followers the whole time. And they said it was because I was, I was promoting it as misinformation.

But the term misinformation had nothing to do with, as we now know from the Twitter files and from the emails that meta, you know, that's on Facebook, that we've recovered from Facebook. And it had nothing to do with factual accuracy or inaccuracy. It was simply a euphemism for any statement that departed from the government orthodoxies and government proclamations would be characterized misinformation. And there's nothing on my Twitter feed that was factually inaccurate.

Everything that we put up there, that I put up there was cited and sourced to peer reviewed publications or government databases. There's nothing on there that was that anybody's ever been able to point to, including Facebook. When I appealed, I tried to appeal and I, we did a lengthy memo showing that I had never put up a single factual error in that, in, you know, in my post. But they then they wouldn't let allow me to appeal.

They had to be an appeal system, but they would not allow me to enter that system. And I feel confident I would have won because the people that they actually selected as judges were a really good group of people. They were law professors from mainly law professors from universities around the world. And many of them were people I was acquainted with and you know, I was a law professor at that time and I'm confident I would have gotten a fair hearing from them.

So they wouldn't let me even into the appeal sales process. And then as you point out in the last since I've declared for the presidency now we have about 50 people working for the campaign and each of those people has a, had a Instagram handle which said, for example, my daughter in law Amarillis had tink and they wanted to use that handle on their Twitter, on their Instagram accounts. And Instagram would send them when they attempted to register, Instagram would send them a Flag saying you've been suspended for 180 days.

And so none of them were allowed on. And of course, that's illegal under the, you know, it's called Section 14 of the Code of Federal Regulations, which regulates speech. It protects speech during presidential and other federal election campaigns. And so. But I think that Meta. And I don't want to, you know, I don't want to be pointing the finger at Meta right now, because I think it's time for healing in this country.

And I'm happy that I've been reinstated. And they gave me back all my old posts and they gave me back all my old followers. I didn't even know if they existed anymore. So I'm very happy with that. And the people that we've been working with at Meta have been, you know, recently have been very cooperative, and they're now letting our people register. And I think it is, you know, not everybody had the foresight of Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey, of saying, okay, this was really wrong and we're not going to put up with it.

Even if they caught causes billions of dollars there. You know, a lot of Americans were living in fear, and they were doing things that they believed were proper and right at the time. And I think it's time that we, you know, that we focus on healing and bridging the divide. So I don't want to. I want to really thank Meta for reinstating me, and I hope this is. I hope we learn something from that process and that we can go forward and make sure that nothing like this ever happens to states in America.

Yeah.

Michael, do you want to jump in here? This might be a good time to talk about what you've learned. For what it's worth, you know, I don't think.

Yeah, that sounds great.

Can you. Yeah, I mean, for what it's worth, I don't think that Meta, as a company wants to be censoring people. I just think that they're under incredible pressure and didn't stand up to that pressure, but. Michael, can you speak to that? What you found?

I think we lost them. Did we? Hello?

Michael, we have you a second?

Well, sure, I'd be happy to.

And can you hear me okay, David? Yes.

Yeah, we can.

We can hear.

Good. Well, thanks so much for having me, guys. And Mr. Kennedy, it's a real honor and a privilege to hear you speak. We don't agree on everything, but you're. Oh, sorry, guys.

Can you hear me?

Okay, we could.

We lost you for a second.

Hear me now.

Great.

Well, first, thank you so much, Mr. Kennedy. I really appreciate your strong remarks.

Can you guys hear me now? Yeah, we can hear you, but not anymore.

You muted yourself. All right, Michael, we will go back to you. There you are.

David, can you hear me now?

Yeah, we can hear you.

Great, great. Well, well, first, thanks so much, Mr. Kennedy. It's a real privilege and pleasure to hear you speak so eloquently on support. I meant just to build on. But the Twitter is under from government, and Twitter is clearly platform transparent about the censorship demand. I'm curious if you would support a call that many of us have made that there should be a mandatory requirement by voting government officials and by social media platforms to be transparent about the censorship decisions that they're making.

Because so much of the problem occurs when the censorship is happening behind closed doors and there's no chance to appeal. On the other hand, it's very hard to regulate social media companies by the government, since that would infringe on the First Amendment. So I'm curious if you've thought about the need for requiring transparency by everybody involved, whether it's governments or social media companies or even advertisers who are demanding that certain content be censored at their behest.

Yeah, and actually, Michael, I think that's a really good solution. And if I'm elected, I'm going to call the heads of all of the social media companies into the Oval Office and have a conference and not walk out until we have figured out how to make this work and make it consistent with democracy. And I think you're right. I think David Sacks is right when he said that, that these companies do not want to be censoring.

Honestly, they're coming under tremendous pressure from their advertisers and from, you know, very powerful government entities to participate in the censorship. And we don't even have an idea about all of the different forms of pressure that they're coming on to that they're coming because the government, of course, has big contracts with these companies that are existential. And, you know, we just don't. That's all.

Not transparent. And I think the companies, if they function more as common carriers, and I'm not saying being declared common carriers, which is kind of the ultimate sanction, that if they continue to, you know, censor, that would be something that you would consider. But I think if they functioned, as you say, almost like common carriers, where all the decision making was transparent and where people felt like they had a right to see the algorithms and to understand the algorithms that were being used to censor speech and to make recommendations, etc.

I think that's a really elegant solution about how to solve these issues. You know, there. There's some speech. I'm pretty much a free speech absolutist. And I think the remedy for misinformation is more. Is information. It's information. And the remedy for bad speech is more speech. It's never censorship. Censorship is by far the worst solution. There are forms of speech that are not protected. You know, inciting violence is not protected.

Pedophilia. And you. Solicitations like that are not protected speech, and you can censor those. But if it's protected speech, I don't think it should be censored. But I think in any case, we should understand the logic, the algorithms, the methodologies, and we should all have access to those so that, you know, that's key because these institutions are now the public square and, you know, they are the place where speech takes place that you can talk to other Americans and.

And, you know, we have to figure out a way to integrate them into our democratic value system.

Well, that's really wonderful to hear. Thank you so much for that. It's a strong. It's a very strong endorsement of the transparency, which is, I think, something that brings together people on the left and the right. We're going to. We solve our problems with more speech, not less. And I think that's what the transparency. Mandatory transparency by everybody who's demanding censorship.

That's what that would give us.

So thank you very much.

I appreciate that.

Let me pull in Omid Malik, who I think has done a bunch of work in the. On the corporate side on sort of boycotts and pressure. Omid, do you have a question or comment?

Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you so much. You know, Robert, you've spoken eloquently on regulatory capture, whether it's the cdc, the FDA or the EPA or even nih. I mean, how is it that Tony Fauci has over $10 million available to him even though he's been a bureaucrat for 50 years? These are questions that I hope an intrepid reporter would look into, But I want to just flip it on its head, which is to say, what about corporate capture? The fact that elements within the federal government are actually adversely affecting our economy.

So that as we've touched on here, around speech. But it's even worse than that. I mean, the CIA, the FBI, affecting our ability to communicate with one another is through these big tech companies that are being pressured by them. But Even as you're very passionate about using OSHA unconstitutionally to try to force employees around this country for a period to take a shot that many did not want to do and making them choose between that, that and putting food on the table.

So the two part question is, one, how do we prevent our Bill of Rights from being violated by private actors when the government uses them to do their dirty work? I'm not just talking about censorship here, I'm actually talking about the deprivation of economic liberty. And then secondly is how do we get wages up? And is that, then I want to ask you about that specifically. Can you get wages up finally in this country by actually having a border and restricting immigration?

Thank you.

Yeah, I mean, let me just address that second issue first, which is, yeah, we need to seal our border. You know, it is a key existential function for every nation in the world to be able to control immigration at its borders. And having millions of people, or hundreds of thousands, in this case millions of people flowing across the border is not something any nation can or should put up with. And you know, worst of all, it's created a humanitarian crisis at the border.

The notion that we have an open border is now a gospel around the world. So that people are flying in from all over the world, from Europe, from China, from Asia, taking from planes to Ecuador. And then there's a, you know, and being assisted by nonprofit groups and by government groups to actually make their way to the United States border. And it was in buses and, and that needs to be shut down. And one of the ways that we do, and a lot of the Latin American and Central American immigration is the direct result of bad US policies in the south.

Austerity programs, the war on drugs, the funding of death squads, the installation and support of juntas, military dictatorships and genocides in those countries that have been happening for decades. And we need to address those issues. But you know, above all, we need to seal the border. I'm actually going to the border tonight. I will, I'm crossing the border, I think around 3 o' clock in the morning into Mexico.

And I'll be talking with people on both sides of the border and talking to stakeholders and over the next three days be meeting with people from the border patrol and elsewhere to try to formulate policies that will seal the border permanently. You know, the flow of, we have people in this country who are poverty constricted and don't have access to, because the paucity of public assistance, don't even have access to public assistance.

And you know, we need to be protecting the people in this country and our urban populations, rural populations. 10% of Americans could not put their hand on a thousand dollars if there's an emergency. We don't have the capacity to support a lot of new immigrants. This huge lot of new immigrants is coming into our cities and stressing the school systems, stressing the social service systems for people who are already, for Americans who are already struggling with.

It needs to be turned off. And that's what I will do as president. I will. I am going to. And you know, there's other countries that have this issue. Israel has this issue with African populations and using a variety of different technologies at their border, some fencing, but mainly technological surveillance, they've been able to shut it down. And we need to be doing the same thing. And as president, I will do that.

I will also open up legal immigration so that the immigration that we do need, that's going to be beneficial to our country and economy will continue. But we cannot have uncontrolled immigration at the border. In terms of the role of, you know, these agencies in compelling behavior from US Corporation, it is appalling and it. And as soon as I get into office, I'm going to issue an executive order forbidding the federal agencies, whether it's nih, whether it's the CIA, the FBI, from participating in any efforts to censor speech by the American public or to compel other behavior from the American public.

That is not legally required. And that's what we saw during the pandemic. We saw it in the vaccine mandates and we saw it in the censorship of speech. And I will forbid that and make sure that it is that it does not happen, at least during my term in office. Immediately, the first week I'm in office, I will sign that executive order.

Thank you. And thank you, Elon and David for hosting this. I also will close by saying it is somewhat ironic that the Democratic Party is not permitting democracy to occur within their own party and giving a platform to Robert to at least debate Joe Biden.

Well, that's an interesting point. We pull Tulsi into the conversation here. Tulsi is former Democratic congresswoman who I believe is now an independent. I want to get. I actually have a question for both of you guys about the evolution of the Democratic Party. Bobby, the Democratic Party of your father was the party of peace over war, the party of free speech over censorship, the party of civil liberties over the surveillance state.

And today you're perhaps the only prominent Democrat who is taking that sort of dissenting side on Those issues, Tulsi, I think you feel the same on those issues too. I guess my question is what happened to the Democratic Party? To be sure, many of these afflictions are bipartisan, but there used to be a very conspicuous wing in the Democratic Party to oppose these things, and it seems like there isn't anymore. So I guess my question for both of you is what happened and can it be fixed?

I mean, I'll just answer briefly and I'd love to hear Tal's answer. You know, I watched this happen in the Democratic Party. I watched some of this happen. I mean, I think the Democratic Party became the party of war. I attribute that directly to President Biden because, you know, President Biden is always, although I've always liked him, the one part of him that I did not like is that he's always been a very in favor, very bellicose, pugnacious and aggressive foreign policy.

And he believes that, that, you know, violence is a legitimate political tool for achieving America's objectives abroad. And that in many cases it is the, it's the first and most prominent tool that the federal government uses. During the Iraq war, when my uncle was fighting against that war, Joe Biden in the Democratic Party more than any other senator was the man who was promoting that war. And I think that's one of the reasons he got the support of the neocons and you know, all of these, the neocons, where people don't know what the neocons are.

The neocons called neoconservatives, but they were a group of people who had departed from both Republican and Democratic parties in the, after the defeat of the Soviet, after that, the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the, and the collapse of the Soviet Union. There were a group of people who, prominent intellectuals who took the position that America had won the Cold War and that as victors we should enjoy the spoils.

And they published a plan called a Project for New American Century that essentially argued that America should use its military domination, its military superiority now as the only superpower to impose an American hegemony and American control, to use violence to impose American control of all the countries in the world. And that group, I think 22 of those leaders ended up in the State Department and White House during the George W.

Bush's administration. They orchestrated the war. They had a plan for seven wars that we would fight very quickly in order to defeat all of our non compliant countries in the Mideast, beginning with Iraq. And they launched the first preemptive war in American history. War Against a country that never did anything to our country. As I pointed out, there was a trillionthat war us this out war in its aftermath in Libya and Syria and Yemen and Afghanistan and Pakistan.

It cost us 8 trillion and we got nothing. Iraq ended up in a worse place than we found it. We killed more Iraqis than Saddam Hussein. We killed almost a million Iraqis. We pushed Iran Iraq into becoming a proxy to Iran, which was the foreign policy outcome that we have been trying to avoid for 40 years. We created ISIS. We drove 2 million refugees into Europe, which destabilized all the democracies in Europe probably for two generations and ended up with Brexit.

That's what we got for the $8 trillion. As a result of that cataclysm politically in the United States, it became a neocon. They were in disgrace. They were exiled from all political parties. But somehow they got back into the Biden White House. And people like Victoria Nuland, whose husband Robert Kagan was the author of the Project for the Newest American Century, ended up running foreign policy. April Haynes and Anthony Blinken ended up running this very belligerent foreign policy that we're now dealing with.

On the medical side. You know, I watched what happened initially. Pharmaceutical companies were on the side of the Republican Party and Democrats. They were, you know, they were required with kind of contempt by Democrats as they as the most corrupt industry in the country. They paid the four companies that, that manufacture all American vaccines, Sanofi, Glaxo and Pfizer, paid over the past decade 35 billion dozen criminal penalties more than any other industry.

They paid the biggest criminal penalties in American history. They are serial felons, these companies. They keep doing the same at play over and over. And they were not well regarded in the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party has always had a problem is it cannot accept corporate dollars in good conscience. So the Republicans always had a lot of money. The only people the Democrats could could maintain their purity and collect money from would be trial lawyers and labor unions.

But the labor unions declined precipitously. So there now they went from about 50% to 10% of the American workforce. And all that we were left with was trial lawyers. And President Obama was trying to get Obamacare passed. He shook a golden handshake with the pharmaceutical companies. He could not get it. The pharma has more lobbyists on Capitol Hill than Congress, than all the congressmen, senators, Supreme Court justices combined.

They give more to lobbying twice with the next biggest industry, more than any other industry. And and President Obama, they could have Obamacare forever. So Obama needed to placate them. And the way that he did it was by making this terrible deal where the federal government could not bargain over the price of pharmaceutical products and Medicare and Obamacare. So Obamacare was going to be create this flood of money to the pharmaceutical industry to buy their products for free, for the patients, for free.

But we could not bargain like you can in Canada and every other nation. You couldn't bargain with them. So they could charge anything they wanted. And that sealed the deal. And all of a sudden pharma was on the side of it became permissible morally for Democrats to accept money from pharma. And within a year, Democrats were getting more money from pharma than Republicans. And then so that put them on the side of the, you know, pro vaccine side.

They were kind of, we kind of divided evenly. And then President Trump ran and three times during his presidential campaign, he made the statement that he thought that vaccines were causing autism. And that created this. That issue then became part of the culture war. It became part of the cultural divide. Democrats put that issue into the same anti science dumpster as President Trump's climate denial. And it became now a badge of your party, of your tribe.

And if you ask questions about vaccines, you were a Trump Republican. And if you, if you had a just a religious belief in their efficacy and safety that could not be questioned, you were a Democrat. And so I watched that, all that play out and watched the Democrats slowly become these pro corporate, pro war, pro censorship Republicans. You know, what had once been Republicans and the Republicans that became Addie's censorship, pro civil liberties, anti war.

And there's been this tremendous realignment. And I talked more than I wanted to because I really want to hear from Tulsi and hear her take on it.

Thanks. Thanks, Bobby, and thanks for the question. David, so much of what you said is what drove me to leave the Democratic Party. You know, I wasn't born into a family of Democrats. My parents, frankly, were pretty independent minded people. And so when I first ran for the state House, a seat in the state House of representatives in Hawaii 20 years ago, I had to decide, you know, which party I wanted to join. And as I made that decision, I was inspired by leaders within the Democratic Party, frankly, Bobby, people like your father and your uncle, people like Martin Luther King Jr.

Democratic leaders in Hawaii who had gone to the mat for the plantation workers, who were people from Hawaii, people from across Asia, people immigrants from around the world. It was Democratic leaders who came in and fought for their rights to be able to be treated, frankly, like human beings and be set free from the oppressive landowners that were Republican in Hawaii at that time. And so the ideals of, you know, freedom and civil liberties and a big tent, inclusive Democratic Party that welcomed people from all backgrounds and, you know, different ideas was really attractive to me and was, why join the Democratic Party?

But fast forward to where we are today, as you said, Bobby. I mean, today's Democratic Party is a party that is under the complete control of this elitist cabal of warmongers. Not only is it being led by warmongers, but we have a situation now where, as we saw last fall, where the Congressional Progressive Caucus, you know, they had the audacity to release a public letter to President Biden very gently, very gently and with a lot of flowery words calling for diplomacy and for him to lead a diplomatic effort to end the war between Russia and Ukraine.

And within 24 hours, they retracted the letter and essentially were cowering in the corner. You know, we can imagine the kind of pressure that they were under to do that and the kind of public criticism that they received for daring to call for peace. So the voices for peace within the Democratic Party have been silenced. Rather than this big, tense, inclusive Democratic Party, we now have party leaders who are focusing their efforts on dividing us, on racializing every issue, using identity politics to, you know, gain a few political points and votes, undermining fundamental freedoms, freedom of speech, advocating censorship, not only advocating for it, but trying to create government entities in order to shut us up, weaponizing the national security state to go after political opponents.

The principles and ideals of the Democratic Party stands for today are directly counter to those that are fundamental and foundational to this country. And now we're at a point where President Biden has most dangerously dragged us essentially to the brink of nuclear war. And that's where. Bobby, I'd love to ask you a question. In this realm, in this vein of foreign policy, given the realities that we are facing, given, you know, we're increasingly hearing a lot of politicians, Republicans and Democrats, frankly, including President Biden, who are actively and aggressively calling for a complete decoupling of the United States and China's economies.

The Biden administration is actively moving forward quickly in this direction. Elon, you recently talked about how the United States and China's interests are intertwined like conjoined twins. I think really making the point that this act of decoupling our economies would essentially be like ripping apart conjoined twins, implying the catastrophic consequences that would occur as a result for both our. Both of These countries and the world.

So Bobby, what would your approach be with the United States relationship with China? Do you believe that it's actually possible to have a peaceful coexistence or even a win relationship with China? Or do you believe that it is a zero sum game where in order for the United States to win that China must lose?

Yeah, I think that's a great question, Tulsi. And my, you know, my approach to that would be let's recognize the reality that China is a very ambitious nation and that it does want to compete for us for influence in the world. But the reality is it does not want to, to compete with us militarily. It does not want to have a war with the United States. And China still, you know, is still a very poor country compared to us.

They have a, the Chinese have per capita about one third the income of the United States. They want to have a better lives for their citizens. And you know, they want to compete with us in places all around the world. I think we ought to be competing, I think we ought to be competing with the, with them on an economic platform, not a military one. And I feel very, I'm not scared of the Chinese. I'm not frightened that American ingenuity is going to fall behind the Chinese.

I think it will be, that kind of competition is a competition that will be good for the whole world. And it's a competition that is a collaborative piece, a collaborative world rather than a competitive world, a kind of collaborative competition, if you will. And you know, the Chinese do not want to have a war with us. We have, we spend more on our military. We're now spending 1.3 trillion a year military, including veterans benefits, which you can't cut back.

But you know, we were told after the Cold War ended that we were going to get a peace dividend and we were going to cut our military budget back to 200 billion a year. Instead we've got it at 1.3 billion a year if you include, you know, veterans and national security and, and we never got that piece dividend. So we now spend more on our militaries in the top 10 next nations in the world. We spend three times, we have three times the military budget of the Chinese.

The Chinese, we have five times the nuclear weapons of the Chinese. The Chinese cannot and do not want to compete with us militarily. The Chinese have about one and a half military bases in the world. We have 800. So it's kind of a self fulfilling prophecy that says, oh, the Chinese are, you know, want to be our enemy and have a military competition. They don't. What we should be doing is de. Escalating the military pressure on China.

We should be talking to China, for God's sake. We haven't had a meeting with China in five years. We know what our objectives are. We want to rebuild our industrial base in the United States. We don't want the Chinese to take that from us. And any negotiations with the Chinese should not be about military swaggering. It should be about how do we have an economic relationship with you that is going to benefit all parties the way that every good economic relationship does.

And here's what our objective is in the next round of negotiations is we want to rebuild our industrial base here in the United States. And any agreement that we make, any transaction that we make with the Chinese, that should be foremost in our minds. How do we do that? But I'm not, you know, the Chinese have been doing a lot better than us because they've been projecting economic power abroad and that the world likes that.

We think the world is on our side, but it isn't. All we've got. The only people who are supporting this, you know, this pugnacious, bellicose relationship with China are Australia, New Zealand, Korea, Japan, Britain, Canada and the United States. And we're pretty much alone in the world. The rest of the world is looking at us and saying, what the heck are you doing? Why are you trying to create a war with China? Why are you fighting them over.

Over. Why are you making Taiwan a military issue? Let's let Taiwan and China work out that issue on their own and back off militarily and try to have a. They want. They don't want war. They want peace and they want prosperity. And that cannot happen where there's a war. So let's have, you know, let's de. Escalate the war talk. Let's compete economically and let's talk to that and figure out a way that we can have a smart negotiation where we do better because of China rather than giving away the store and exporting jobs, which all the other treaties have done.

Instead, let's figure out how to have an economic relation, a financial relationship with them that rebuilds the American industrial base.

Thank you, Bobby. This is such an. Obviously, this issue and the broader issue of foreign policy is central to any presidential race. And it's unfortunate that traditionally, as we've seen, these issues are very rarely given the kind of attention they deserve. And yet again, this is exactly why there should be presidential primary debates for the sake of the American people to have a clear choice, a clear, informed choice on who they would like to see as our President and Commander in Chief.

Thank you. Thank you for sharing your insight and thank you, Elon and David, for hosting this important conversation.

And see, you know, we haven't had. We haven't had a serious economic meeting, even a political meeting with the Chinese since 15, seven years. You know, the CIA director, Bill Burns, recently went over there to meet with the Chinese, but that's not the kind of meeting we need to have a real political and economic discussion with them. That is frank and that, you know, that where everybody puts their cards on the table and to see if there's ways that we can work with each other peacefully and keep the world at peace.

Why in the world would we go and this is on. You know, this is on President. You know, President Biden has forbidden his State Department, which are run by neat, has forbidden any kind of talks or outreach to the Chinese. That is outrageous. You know, it is exactly the opposite of what Dwight Eisenhower was trying to do with, you know, to find a road to peace with the Russians, which was disrupted by the, you know, the CIA misbegotten YouTube flights.

And my uncle tried to do the thing, let's have peace with the. With Russia, let's have peace with China, and let's all enjoy the prosperity of healthy economic competition.

Well said. Well said, Bobby. Thank you.

It's actually something that is worth. Is that on my recent trip to China, I, with the senior leadership there, I, we had, I think, some very productive discussions on artificial intelligence risks and the need for some oversight or regulation. And my understanding from those conversations is that China will be initiating AI regulation in China. So that. That was. Those were very promising discussions. And, you know, I pointed out that if, you know, if there is a digital superintelligence that is overwhelmingly powerful, developed in China, it is actually a risk to the sovereignty of the Chinese government.

And I think they took that concern to heart.

Yeah, I mean, I love you saying that because it makes us understand, no matter how you feel about China, if we are not able to negotiate with our adversaries on issues like that, there are now existential threats. And it's not just AI, it's these bioweapons development where, you know, we have these labs now all over the world, in Ukraine, etcetera, that are developing all kinds of hideous and including, you know, ethnic bioweapons that kill people from certain races, et cetera, that are designed to do that.

And they already have. Have them, and they're ready to escape. And you know, every country in the world has wanted to ban bioweapons. We, we initiated Richard Nixon, signed the bioweapons treaty in 1960. All the countries in the world to agree to stop developing them. But we, the CIA, continue to secretly develop them. And then after 2001, we passed the Patriot act and we relaunched the bioweapons arms race. So now every country in the world or many countries are now developing them.

We should shut the whole thing down. You know, Covid was clearly a bioweapons problem. We. And you saw what that did to us. What if it was a real disease? A disease that had a 50 mortality like decay, fever, Ebola or you know, one of these other really deadly virus. They've got those in the labs too. What if that was the one that is. Let's shut it down around the world. Let's have a real shutdown of all bioweapons development, had verification of that.

And then let's sit down with the other people from Iran, from. From Israel, from Russia and China and talk about. Okay. And make sure that one country does not develop a weapon that is going to kill all the rest of us. We need to. You can't just have one country regulating this. China alone cannot be regulating the development of digital. Superintendent, you need the United States and China. All of us need to be participating.

All of us need to be able to. To police the research. It's happening in other countries. And we need to have transparency and protection. Otherwise we are headed down the road to a very grim dystopian future for all of humanity where we are beyond the point where we cannot. Where we can afford the luxury of not negotiating about these things with the other powers in the planet. And you know, we need a president who is aware of these threats to humanity and sees himself as the guardian of all of humanity and is thinking about this 24 hours a day.

How do we avert this kind of future? A bioweapons extinction or extinction. It's beyond. We cannot afford not to negotiate about this stuff anymore. And we'll add all these agencies. The CIA is developing this stuff too. And we have no idea. They are not friendly in the America of the American system. You know, I talked to Mike Pompeo the other day and he said that. He said what he said when he was at the Agency. He was very canned and really smart about the agency.

And he said when he was there, he did not do a good job of dismantling of, you know, of dismantling Agency capture at the CIA. And he said that, he said if you take the upper echo on it, at agency is made up almost entirely of people who do not believe in the institutions of the United States and democracy. And you know, so I think that's absolutely true from everything I know and I know a lot about that agency. And we've got it, you know, we have got to get off a war footing which gives these institutions the excuse to be super secret and non transparent.

Pretend we're at a, you know, and put us in a security state where they can develop all these crazy technologies and see that are going to kill us all. It's crazy.

It is, Bobby. And that really gets to her central point about diplomacy. And Elon, you know, your example of what can come about when we're just really willing to have a conversation. The President of the United States should be trusted by the American people to put the well being and interests of the American people at the forefront of the decisions that he or she makes. There are common threats and concerns that exist with people around the world.

We don't live in vacuums. And while we may have differences with other countries, things like AI, things like the threat of nuclear war, things like protecting our environment so that we as humans on this planet have clean air to breathe and clean water to drink and that we can grow food to survive. You mentioned the bioweapons. There are so many different challenges that, that we must address together. And we need a leader who recognizes that that and puts those interests in the well being of the people ahead of the whole cabal of special interests that you've talked about.

All right, thank you, Tulsi. By the way, Bobby, I think probably the most surreal moment of the entire Ukraine war so far has been when Victoria Nuland was testifying before Congress and admitted that there was a secret network of biolabs in Ukraine who contained materials that were so potentially dangerous that she was worried about them falling into Russian hands.

Yeah. After the media had been characterizing that fact as disinformation, as Russian disinformation for weeks. And then, and punishing those of us who were saying, yeah, this is what's happening. And then Victoria Nuland gets in front of Congress and gets a, you know, a free question from Marco Rubio and actually is under oath and answers it honestly and says, yeah, we got bioweapons labs there and we're really scared the Russians are going to get in there and get our stuff.

It was so weird because why in the world would we have biolabs There. It's just so, so strange.

The media continued to pile on, by the way, even after she testified and answered Marco Rubio's question honestly. I cited her quote in some statements I made agreeing with you, Bob.

Tulsi loses.

Sorry.

Especially in a time of war where they would be vulnerable to whatever pathogens might exist in those biolabs being released and causing threats, threat to the world. Ukraine has blacklisted me from visiting their country ever again. And I was. Posts that I put on social media sites were banned or shadow banned because of this claim of misinformation, disinformation. News outlets across the country called, you know, criticized me of spreading misinformation, disinformation, even when I cited the DoD website that stated this as fact.

I think it just shows, even when they speak the truth. Truth, they're apparently afraid of the truth and want to be able to continue what they're doing, no matter the risk.

Does Crane have a free press? Out of curiosity?

No way. No. Oh, okay. Just wanted to confirm that.

Well, there was an article just today in Semaphore, of all places, talking about how EDA has to be licensed by the government there.

That's exactly right.

And then separately, talk about embarrassing revelations. The New York Times today has a story about how pesky Nazi insignias keep turning up on the uniforms of, you know, Ukrainian army members, and they have to keep censoring photos so that these things don't appear in the press. Of course, the New York Times says that the biggest problem with this is not that advanced Western weapons may be finding their hands into, you know, the hands of neo Nazis, but rather that this will play into Russian propaganda.

But regardless of what it is, again, it's one of these embarrassing data points that show that, you know, we're constantly being fed information about this war, and then these things, you know, pop up and you realize that, you know, they may not be telling us everything.

I mean, we've been propagandized with these comic book depictions that are now formulaic, you know, that there's a bad guy, he did a bad thing, it was unprovoked. And the United States needs to go in and fix this situation by the people he's victimizing. And, you know, it's such a good testimony, the American people, that, you know, that they. That they're willing to make those sacrifices. I think in some cases, of our children, of our fortune, to go in and help other countries.

But the problem is we're being victimized still by our own agencies, which are, you know, which are, are leaving out the contextual information, which are leaving out the nuance, which are leaving out the entire history in this case of us propagates, which brought us into, which brought us and also brought Ukraine into a war that is not helping Ukraine. Ukraine has now lost probably 350,000 kids and they are in much worse position than when they began, when they, okay, in February 14, 2014, in 2019, they could have signed the Banks accords and kept on boss and had nobody killed.

And they're never gonna. And they're never going to get back to that place again. And as you guys understand, the Russians are not going to win this war. They cannot afford to win this war. This war is existential for Russia and it would be like us losing a war in Mexico.

You mean Ukraine. You mean Ukraine can.

I'm sorry, Ukraine. I'm sorry, Ukraine cannot win this war. And you know, they're now, it's unclear what the ratio, the death ratio is, but there's credible information that they are suffering deaths that are seven deaths for every one Russian killed. And we are, we have turned this country into this, you know, to a slaughterhouse of the flower of Ukrainian youth to benefit the geopolitical ambitions of these, you know, of the US Nikons who want to exhaust the Russian army and exercise regime change over Vladimir Putin.

Putin and, and we, and Ukraine is a victim in this war. It's a proxy war. It's a victim of Russia. Yes, it's. It was an illegal invasion and a brutal invasion that could have been avoided by Vladimir Putin. But they're equally, almost equally, at least a victim of US Policies and, you know, the ambitions and aspirations of the wanted to get into this war no matter what.

I think the war was easily avoidable

if we had been willing to use

diplomacy and basically give a written guarantee to the Russians that Ukraine would not become part of NATO. That is what they were demanding in December of 2021. And a written ultimatum to the White House. It's what they were explicitly with our Secretary of State in January of 2022. And those negotiations ended where we said we wouldn't close NATO's door. And then like you said, the other thing we didn't do was give support to the Minsk Agreements, which would have provided some limited autonomy to the ethnic Russians and the Donbass, and that would have solved that sort of civil war that was going on there.

If we had just done those two things, I think there's a really good chance that this war never would have occurred. You know, A lot of people say, well, you can't know that. But the point is we tried. We never tried taking NATO off the table. We never tried giving our support to the Minsk agreements.

Yeah, and there's a big question because zelensky ran in 2019 on a peace platform. And I've pointed out before that, you know, he was a, he's a comedian and an actor, which I'm not saying in a disparaging way because my wife is also both of those things. But he, I say that because he had no involvement in politics, and yet he won in this huge landslide with 70% of the vote because he was running on a peace platform with the promise that he would sign the Minsk Accords and settle this.

And the Minsk Accords did the same thing at ultimatum did, which is they said that NATO will forever keep out of Ukraine and that. And that we, that they would. That Donbas would be made an autonomous region within the Ukraine that was still governed by the Ukraine, but would be able to retain its own language and culture and be able to protect its citizens against violent aggression and deadly aggression from forces like the Azov Battalion and, you know, and other hostile forces within the Ukrainian government.

Government. And they, and by the way, the Ukraine that voted at 90 to 10 to leave the Ukraine and join Russia, which won the Russian Federation 90 to 10. And the Russian Vladimir Putin said, no, we don't want you. We want Ukraine to stay a complete country. And, and that was. And then, you know, they agreed. Russia agreed, France agreed, Germany agreed on a Minchka Corps words, which was a reasonable settlement. Keep you, keep NATO out of the Ukraine.

And why, you know, my uncle, President Kennedy used to always say, if you want to, the only way to have peace is if you put your, yourself into the shoes of your adversary. And he gave this very famous speech on July or June 10, five days now, it'll be the 60th anniversary at American University. His most important speech, which was which turned the country around on the atmospheric test ban treaty. It was the first test ban.

It was the first treaty of the nuclear age. It was the first treaty to ban certain use of nuclear weapons in Russia. He and Khrushchev agreed on it privately without involving the State Department. The State Department opposed it. The military opposed it, Congress and the Senate opposed it. But the American people ended up supporting it after he gave this speech and then did a national tour. But in that speech was a fascinating speech because he was explaining for the first time to the American people the role and the suffering that Russia had endured during World War II because I grew up in a generation where we were told that America had won the war against the Nazis.

And, you know, we were watching shows like Combat with Vic Marvel every week on tv and that showed how Americans had been the victor. And, you know, and without America, the world went a bit lost. My uncle was telling the American people that's not true. The people who beat Hitler were the Russians. And they made a sacrifice that is unimaginable to anybody else in the world. Hitler invaded Russia through the Ukraine and then killed one out of every seven Russians and leveled the nation, one third of the nation.

My uncle went during that speech. He said, imagine if all of the American continent, the continental United States case, was reduced to rubble between the east coast and Chicago. That's what happened to Russia. You've got to understand that if we're going to have peace with this country and, you know, we need to understand that today, we need to put ourselves in the shoes. By the way, it's not just Putin. The Russian leadership back in the 90s said, you know, in 92, they, we made it.

They made an agreement. They said, we will pull our troops, our 400,000 troops out of East Germany and we will turn East Germany over to a hostile army, the NATO army. And the concession that we want from you for that is that you will not move NATO to the east. And President Bush famously told them, we will not move NATO 1 inch to the east. Then the leader of the Nikons, Brzezinski, the grandfather of all the 1997, laid out a plan for moving NATO into every one of the former Russian satellite states.

And at that time, George Cannon, who was the most important diplomat in American history, he was the architect of the Cold War containment policy. He was a deity in terms of American statesmanship and diplomacy. He said that if you move NATO to the east, as you're pleasant event planning, it will be a calamity that will end in forcing the Russians to violence because you are intruding on their national security. Bill Perry, who at that time was the Secretary of defense under Bill Clinton, threatened to resign because he said, this is a formula for war with Russia.

And put this is long before Putin came in. Bill Burns, who was the Russia, the US Ambassador to Moscow at that time, said the same thing. He said, this is a formula that is to be to force the Russians into war. Bill Burns, incidentally, is now the head of the CIA. So these were the most important diplomats who were saying, if you move in NATO to the east, you're going to force the Russians into war. And we moved it to every country except one, Ukraine.

And then we said. And that was the one where Russia said, it is a red line. Bill Burns, in fact, wrote a note, a memo from Moscow in the State Department saying, ye means yet. And he said, if you move it into the Ukraine, they are going to go to war. They're not. It is a red line that you cannot cross. And yet we just, the, you know, they did as much as they could up through the Bush administration, then they were in exile and they came back in Trump and they.

And what else did they do in Trump? They got rid of two nuclear treaties. So we walked away from two treaties, the intermediate nuclear weapons treaties that banned intermediate nuclear weapons stationed anywhere near Russia. And we unilaterally walked away from that. And then we installed Aegis missile systems in Romania and Poland that were nuclear capable, that can fire Tomahawk missiles and get to Russia in a few minutes and decapitate the entire leadership.

The Russians said, okay, you got that? We're putting up with it, but we're not going to put up with that in Ukraine because you created 400 miles, you'll be able to decoup our leadership, decapitate our leadership in seconds. And that will. That is likely to destabilize the entire region and Legion of Preemptive strike. And yet we did it anyway. And it's just, it's dumbfounding what we did, you know, the blunder. This is like sleepwalking into World War I.

This is exactly what happened, you know, in World War I, where you had these great powers acting like idiots and sleepwalking into this, you know, war that accomplished nothing. Nothing. And now we're right on that. Now we have nuclear weapons and we're going up, we're picking a fight with a country that has a thousand more nuclear weapons than we do. It's just insane.

Elon, did you want to comment there? I just thought you went off mute.

Sorry.

Just.

I mean, I share a lot of these concerns. I, I mean, I think certainly if, if there's not some, some kind of peace or ceasefire that is figured out soon, I, I agree that we're essentially sending the flowers of Ukrainian youth and Russian youth. I think very few of those people actually want to be there to die in the trenches. And I think it's morally reprehensible if, you know, if diplomats are having fine dinners while all these kids are dying in trenches.

It's just crazy. Let me ask, on the energy subject, what are your views on nuclear power.

Well, I'm hesitant to get in a fight with Michael Shellenberg here because I have been disputing this for years. But what I've always said, Eli, is that had nuclear power, I'm all for nuclear power if you can make it safe and you can make it economical. And right now it is so far from being either. And it's not me saying it's unsafe. It's the insurance industry. The insurance industry regards this nuclear power as so unsafe that they will not give an insurance policy.

And, you know, we've seen their record. The record is horrific. You know, what's happened where they're, you know, now they're, they're. There's probably a square mile of these tanks that they're, they put water in every day because it's contaminated water. They're trying to keep it out of the Pacific, but there's no way to ever stop it. So they're building these huge tanks and there's, and you can look on the Internet, they go all the way to the horizon.

You know, we've watched what happened at Chernobyl, etc. But putting aside the past performance of this industry, which has been cataclysmic, you just, you know, if the, if they, if suddenly they get a technology that makes them sad and get an insurance policy so that we don't have to worry about it right now, you know, they've gone to Congress, they can't get insurance, so they've gone to Congress and, you know, sleazy legislative maneuver in the middle of the night, pass the Price Anderson act, which gives them, which absolves them from liability.

It gives them immunity from liability. So they're just like the vaccine industry. There's no incentive for them to behave because they don't have to pay the cost. The homeowners pay the cost. My insurance policy in my home in Mount Kisco had a provision that does not insure you against radiation from a nuclear accident. At Indian Point, it was my. So they shifted the burden to me, and industry shouldn't be allowed to do that.

And then secondly, it's so catastrophically expensive to build a solar plant cost $1 billion. A gigawatt. A wind plant costs 1.1, 1.2. A coal plant costs about 3.6 billion a gigawatt. And I have nuclear power plant built, cost 15 billion a gigawatt.

So.

And then you have to pay for the, you know, the mining of the uranium. You have to pay for the technicians, you have to pay for the outages. You have to pay for the storage of the waste for the next 30,000 years, which is five times the length of recorded human history. And no utility in the world will build a nuclear power plant unless it's fully subsidized by the public. So, you know, I believe in free market capitalists system.

You. We could make energy by burning prime rib if we wanted to. But, you know, why don't we take the cheapest way to make energy, which is, you know, which is going to be some alternative that is not nuclear. If you can make nuclear competitive, I'm for it. But I am a free market absolutist, and I believe that we should take the cheapest form of energy that you. We should have no subsidies. No. And all the companies should have to internalize their cost the same way that they internalize their profits.

And that means the cost of pollution. You can't have a company that can put acid rain, a coal company, acidifying every lake in the Appalachians and, you know, from Georgia to northern Quebec, putting mercury in all of our. Every freshwater fish in America, acidifying the ocean, chopping down all the mountains. They need to pay those costs to the American public. The loss of those resources have to be paid for. And if they did that, nobody would buy coal because it's supposed to be cheap.

But it's the most cataclysmic, expensive form of energy that probably have been denied, except for Nuke, which is the most expensive way to boil a pot of water that anybody has ever imagined. So I just, I believe in markets, free market capitalism, and that'll apply to the energy industry. And at this point, nuke just can't compete.

All right, guys, we have a. Just a quick time check here. I think we only got bobby for another 15 minutes. We've been going for about two hours. So I want to make sure we get in some questions from the crowd.

Actually, David, I just wanted to just quickly respond to that, if I may, and then for sure. So I certainly agree that, you know, that solar power and wind are great. I'm a huge supporter of solar and wind. I also agree that the. The costs of coal power plants are underestimated. They're actually, if you add up the deaths from coal mining and the sort of the effects on people's lungs who live nearly coal plants, it's pretty bad.

It's actually way worse than nuclear. So. But I do want to sort of voice my opinion that in my opinion, actually nuclear is very safe. If you look at the actual, you know, deaths from nuclear power, it is they're minuscule compared to certainly any fossil fuel power generation, that their fear of nuclear is very high. I think the. The concern, you know, it's not clear to me why the insurance companies charge so much.

But. But it, you know, I think that modern nuclear plants are extremely safe. And I would actually, although this does go against the lot of people's views, I actually am a believer in nuclear vision. So I just want to state that for the record, we can move on to something else.

All right, sounds good. Only a few more minutes. There's so much more stuff to get to. Bobby, you mentioned that your wife is an actor and comedian like Mr. Zielinski. And actually, we. We were able to. I noticed Cheryl in the room, so we brought her on stage. Cheryl, welcome. And I. I get your question, which is how do you feel about Bobby running for president? And I'm also about what all of your friends in Hollywood think about his candidacy.

Can you guys hear me okay?

Honey, I didn't know you were going to do that.

Oh, no, I didn't either. I was just sitting here minding my own wax, listening and enjoying the conversation. Oh, well, now I forgot the question. How do I feel about it?

Yeah, yeah. And how do your Hollywood friends feel about it? Put you on the spot.

Well, by the way, I love that they're called my Hollywood friends. They would be like, I'm sure there's not one friend of mine that considers themselves a Hollywood friend, but. Well, first of all, yes, it took a little while to get used to the idea of Bobby running. And, you know, I took some time with it. Bobby and I talked about it a lot and, and decided, yes, this is what needs to happen. And honestly, it's been really interesting and at times exciting.

It's really fun for me to witness Bobby in his element. You know, I really feel confident that this is what he is meant to do. So he. He is just. I just see him in this light that's shining on him at this moment, and it's really exciting to watch. So I know at the same time, I know there will be challenges that I, you know, hope I'm. I know I'll be strong enough to face. But I. So I know there'll be challenges that we'll have to face, and, you know, we'll have.

We'll get through them.

Yeah.

I told. Cheryl told me when she finally, you know, decided, okay, we'll go along with this. She said she. Cheryl, before she was an actor, and even while she was an early actor, she made her living, bartending. And she said that she was going to go to the Bahamas and invent a new kind of margarita that had Senate and that was going to be her solution.

I'm a very practical person.

All right, well, thanks for, thanks for being a good sport. Cheryl, I saw you in the crowd, couldn't resist pulling you up here. So appreciate that.

It's nice to, it's nice to be acknowledged and, and thank you. Thank you guys, Elon and David for hosting and doing this. And I'll slip back into the background now.

All right, sounds good. All right, we'll hear from Kelly Slater and there's a couple of questions from the crowd I want to take as well. But Balaji, you want to ask a question?

Sure. Can you hear me?

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

Mr. Kennedy, I've been impressed with your sophistication on a number of issues related to peace, civil liberties, CBCs, Bitcoin. I really only have one question. It relates to our financial system. The short version of it is will you be able to dig into the devaluation of Treasuries and other government bonds by the government Federal Fed. As a little bit of background, the Fed has turned Treasuries into new toxic waste.

A series of ill considered moves has turned the so called safest asset in the world into the riskiest asset in the world and set the stage for a second financial crisis. Stanford estimates the bond losses to be in the trillions. Dalio says they extend far beyond banks to pension funds, insurance companies and other institutions. Nouriel Roubini says most banks are technically near insolvency and hundreds are already fully insolvent.

The Guardian says banks unrealized loss on bond portfolios are sufficiently large as to represent systemic risk. Risk And Euromoney says U.S. treasury bonds no longer meet the standards for high quality liquid assets. Right now this bond crisis is being downplayed or blamed on everyone other than the Fed and Treasury. But fundamentally, treasury sold assets in 2021 that Fed then devalued in 2022, undercutting the balance sheets of countless banks and other financial institutions.

In short, Fed lied, banks died. Treasuries are the new toxic waste. The western financial system is a whole blown its bedrock asset. And the second global financial crisis of There are no obvious paths out of this that don't involve printing a lot of money. So while I recognize it's a somewhat arcane sounding topic, just like subprime and CDOs unfortunately once were, will you be able to dig into the devaluation of Treasuries and other government bonds by the

time, and that's your question, I wish you hadn't prefaced it by saying I had so much sophistication on every issue because my only answer is that will you please be my Treasury Secretary? Because I'd like you if you got a solution, I want to hear it.

I don't have lots of solutions. I can tell you what I think the problem is, is. But we can talk about it afterwards if you want.

I would love to show you all the graphs. I would love that. And I, you know, I do, you know I have a deep and long time concern about the, that has been deeply ingrained in my family for generations about just the out of control nature of the Fed and you know what, and the impact the Fed not only on the global money supply but on democracy and on personal freedoms, etc. And my uncle tried to do something about that by at least decoupling the money supply to base currency to gold and silver.

He, you know, initiated during his term gold certificates and silver certificates were, which would at least have some part of the money supply that was, that could not be easily manipulated because it was attached to the base currency. But after his death we went back to a full fiat currency and that's, you know, I think that at the root of all of the issues, ultimate issues that you're talking about right now and I, you know, I do not have a high enough level of sophistication to be able to sit here and tell you that I have a simple answer to it.

I've talked to a lot of people and I've gotten a lot of different answers about how do you address it. Nobody claims that there's a panacea but you know, we're about to hit a wall and you know, we're already watching people lose faith in our, in our credit, our currency. And you know, and the US Dollar is now being threat with losing its status as the world's reserve currency. Brazil has already signaled that it's moving away to the China, you know, adopting Chinese currency.

Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Pakistan, many other countries are, and that will be, that will be a United States that will make the Great Depression look like a cakewalk. And so I know, I understand the emergency nature of trying to figure out a way that can, you know, to deal with this crisis and I would love to talk to you about it if you have ideas and anybod who thinks that they can help solve this problem.

All right, sounds good. We could spend the whole show just talking about these issues. We only have a few minutes left, so I want to, I want to move on. Thanks, Balaji, and happy to connect you guys afterwards so you can talk some more about it. Bobby, a question from the crowd. We got a lot of questions on the issue of gun control. I think it's one of the biggest topics in the feed. Here's one of them from a user, Pat King.

He says I need to know your detailed stance and policy on the Second Amendment amendment before you get my vote. That's likely the only thing holding me back from voting for you. What do you say to him and the other people on the issue of gun control?

My position on the gun control is I'm not going to take away anybody's guns. I know I'm, I'm a constitutional absolutist. And he, you know, we can argue about when the Second Amendment was intended to protect guns, but that argument is now been settled by the Supreme Court and it has a very and the Supreme Court, you know, Antonine Scalia's decision is a very expansive interpretation of the right to own a gun. But more importantly, I don't get anybody who tells you that by with incremental changes or incremental laws in regulating.

And by the way, I want to say this. I have two members of my family that were killed in gun violence. So, you know, I take, I understand heartbreak that this is causing to so many Americans. It's touched my family directly. And I know as president that you are going to expect me and I, I'm going to do everything I can to reduce gun violence in this country. I think one of the tools that has been taken out of my hands is taking away people's guns.

I don't think it's the right thing right now because it will just polarize our country. I've lived in rural areas of this country. I know how integrated gun culture is in those areas and how important it is to them from a in the way they view the Constitution. I also know we're living in a time when the Constitution has been under attack, attack all the other amendments in an unprecedented way and how that would be seen by people who believe strongly in the, in the Second Amendment as part of a systematic assault on our Bill of Rights.

And I don't want to get into that debate. I want to stop the school shootings. And if it comes down to protecting the schools the way that we protect airlines, I will do that. I do not want any more children dying in our schools. I also am going to look very closely at the role of psychiatric drugs in these events. And there are no good studies right now that that should have been done years ago on this issue, because there's a tremendous circumstantial evidence that those like SSRIs and benzos and other drugs are doing this.

There's something happening in our country right now that is not happening anywhere else in the world and has never happened in human history. And you have to look at some of the. Almost all of these drug drugs, if you look at their manufacturer's inserts, they include a side effect of homicidal and suicidal behavior. And prior to the introduction of Prozac, we had almost no. None of these events in our country. And we've never seen them in human history where people walk into a schoolroom of children or strangers and start shooting people.

There's other nations that have as many guns per capita as we do in the last school shooting was 21 years ago. We have one every 21 hours. Hours. The one thing that we have that's different than anybody in the world is the amount of psychiatric drugs our children are taking and our people are taking. And we need to look at that. And NIH should have done that years ago, but they will not do it. And they'll block other people from doing it because they are.

Because they're working not for us, but for the pharmaceutical industry. And this is their major profit center today. And so nobody wants to hear none of those. You know, Pharma does not want to hear about any problems with SSRIs. But I will do those studies immediately when I get into office. And we're going to get the truth. Something is something. You know, guns, the proliferation of guns, clearly a bet, violence.

But anybody who tells you that they can remove enough guns, AR15 to whatever, by tinkering at the margins and get to the kind of. The situation that they have in Western Europe is pulling your leg. It's not going to happen. We need to look now at other solutions. And we. And the only way we're ultimately going to get gun controls in this country is through consensus. And that consensus cannot happen when we're all at each other's throats.

We need to assure the public, people who feel insecure about the Constitution, that our Constitution is no longer under threat, that nobody wants to come and take away their guns. And that will bring people to the table and say, okay, how do we protect our children? And that's what I'm going to try to do is put President.

All right, thank you. Let's go to Kelly Slater. Kelly, it looks like you're on a skateboard somewhere. You have a question for Bobby?

Yeah. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Yeah.

All right. Great to talk to you, Bobby. How are you, sir?

Very well, Kelly. Thank you for calling.

All right, I appreciate it. I think I speak for everyone when I say it's so refreshing to hear you talk about all these topics, things like reaching across the aisle. It was really nice to see Tulsi on here. She's a good friend. I know what she's been through. When she went to Syria and spoke to the leader over there, she got completely attacked for it at home. But to your point earlier, regarding China, regarding Russia, other places, I mean, we need to have dialogue with these people, and I don't know why that's seen as such a bad thing.

It doesn't mean you're in agreement. It means you're just trying to solve solutions, come up with solutions. But we see that at home more and more with the media. And as you've pointed out earlier, I think things get into what seems like dangerous ground when you start to talk about the implications of Big Pharma and other companies being in cahoots with media, then controlling the narrative, trying to cancel people like yourself.

There's some frightening topics. So I find it really refreshing to listen to you, listen to the transparency that you have when speaking about all these different topics. And I guess that leads me back to sort of my question, because I see you as almost a Trojan horse for transparency and honesty. And it's really refreshing in this political environment. And I feel like at times, so far, you've been. They've attempted to reduce you to small talking points in the media.

And I love hear you talking about all these other things, things other than them focusing on your vaccine stance, questioning medical things. But as you get into all these other topics, we learn so much. So I just wonder how you'll change that narrative for people to hear your broader message and to continue to get that out. Because there's so many challenging things, but also the way you talk about them is really inspiring.

Thank you so much, Kelly. And. And thank you for your courage. During, you know, during the pandemic, you were really one of the few people. At a time when athletes were being bullied all over the world, you were one of the few people are standing up and, you know, you came and talked to me on my podcast when literally nobody in the world would talk to me. So I won't ever forget that. And I'm, you know, I'M such an admirer of yours, not only as an athlete, was one of my favorite athletes, but also as for your moral courage and for your really gentle, sweet approach to the world, you know, and loving approach to the world, which is so inspiring.

I, you know what? I don't have a good strategy other than, and I don't lead ever with vaccine stuff. I've got, you know, I've been sort of silenced on all of these issues for 18 years and I feel like I got, you know, a lot of, a lot I'm bursting with things that opinions that people may not want to hear now. I don't ever need to talk about vaccines again. But if somebody asks me about vaccines, I'm going to tell them the truth.

And a lot of times people ask me about them and then they immediately want to shut me up because it's like turning on a firehose. And I, you know, I have a lot of domain knowledge, I know a lot about the issue. And, and so I would, you know, what I would say also generally to the press, if you don't want to hear about vaccines from me, don't ask me about them. And, you know, you'll never have to listen to me. But if you ask me, you shouldn't be shutting me up when I answer your question.

But, you know, I think I've actually been doing pretty well, Kelly, and being able to talk about some of these issues, you know, about the Ukraine, about the censorship leadership, about the economy, about the destruction of the American middle class, about the appropriation of our foreign policy by neocons, about the appropriation of our domestic policy by Wall street and, you know, the big corporate dictators and the capture of our agencies by the industries they're supposed to regulate.

And you know, I now it's been, you know, Cheryl and I have been astonished by how much traction these issues are getting. It's really been, you know, she's said that it was exciting and that I think both of us are, you know, excited that people seem to be listening and really care about these issues. So hopefully that will continue. And thanks for joining us, Kelly.

Yeah, I appreciate it. And one last thing I wanted to say is just to mention I've seen a couple interviews where people have really wanted to challenge you but not listen to what you say. And I find that really enchanting to hear that kind of media. But you're always kind back and you give a thoughtful answer and I appreciate that because I think we all need more of that. It's a great way to approach any conversation with people that especially the ones you disagree with.

So thanks a lot.

Thank you, Kelly.

Great.

Here's a question from the crowd. Let's see here. Tanner22 asks, Is your energy policy going to continue destroying our landscapes with the seas of solar panels and windmills? And TX Frenchman asks, your stance on oil and gas, drill or no drill?

Well, I don't have an easy answer for either of those things. You know, I think, like I said said, I think we should not have that. Every energy system, every energy generator should have to internalize its cost. And so, and there's some cases, like for example, I fought for many years offshore wind in the United States. I think offshore wind makes sense in, in some in the North Atlantic and some parts of Europe. But in the United States we have great onshore wind and, and we have the best onshore wind probably anywhere in the world of any continent except for Antarctica.

And we have great economic opportunities and great places to do it where it does minimal environmental damage. A lot of the corn fields of North Dakota, for example, which are huge economic boom for family farmers in North Dakota. And potentially if we have a grid system that can pick up that energy, could provide a lot of our energy. I think Montana, it's a kind of tax. Texas have enough wind to provide 100% of our energy grid.

Right now people are, you know, building with highly subsidized wind power wind turbines in the Atlantic and, and we're seeing these big whale kills that appear to be related to it. And to me that's intolerable and it's not something that we should be doing. So I'm against it. But you know, everywhere energy, there's no single solution for energy. Every one of them is, is connected to a locality and you have to measure the impacts on that locality reality of, you know, how much environmental damage per kilowatt hour and that has those costs need to be internalized so that the public can then make a rational choice that is market based about what energy they want.

And, and so that's how I, you know, that's how I would feel about that.

All right, thank you. I'm being informed by Bobby's team that we have to go. We've been going for over two hours now and the times has flown by. So, so appreciate everyone who's participated, everyone who is still waiting to ask a question. We just couldn't get to everybody. But there are going to be other opportunities. I'm confident in the future to keep doing this. Bobby's been super available on podcasts and interviews.

So I'm sure you'll be hearing a lot more from him. And if you want to follow his campaign, his team is telling me that you can go to his website, which is kick24.com and if you want to contribute, you can do it there or you can join the mailing list. So Kennedy, 24, is the website. Thanks so much for participating and we'll

will see you guys next time.

Thank you very much, David. And thank you, Elon.

Thanks, guys.