S7E8: One Year In - Is There More Common Ground

This is Larry Lessig.

This is the podcast Another Way. We're in season seven, and this is episode eight, the last episode in this series so far. I don't know what's going to happen going forward.

This is a conversation that began actually before the election with a high school

friend of mine, Ben Hepburn. As I explained in this podcast, I did something I never do, which is I went back to a high school

reunion before the election because I just

wanted to understand how people from the part of Pennsylvania that I came from, which was a conservative, is a conservative part of Pennsylvania, would be supporting the president. And Ben and I started a conversation, and that conversation led to this podcast. And this is the eighth episode in that conversation, the last one we published in July. So a lot has happened, and I

reached out to Ben and I asked

if we could check in and see where we were.

And this is the product of that,

which is a longer episode than usual. About an hour and a half, I think. Touching base on all the issues that drive me crazy. And as you'll hear, lots of common ground in the problems that we've identified. I identified. Anyway, I hope you'll listen, but even more importantly, I hope you take up the practice, because the thing that this series has taught me is just how important it is to practice this skill of engaging with people you disagree with. It's the most important skill in America right now. As we've talked about throughout this season, the business model of media is focused on the opposite. It's focused on finding ways to get you riled up so you'll spend more time scrolling, screaming, and finding reasons to hate. And I get it as a way of making money. They're out there trying to make money. That's their business. But the byproduct of the way they make money is to weaken our ability

as a people to do the thing

that democracy demands we do, which is to come to understand the problems we face and find a common way to deal with them. So this conversation is not going to solve that problem. And a million conversations like this might, but you're not responsible for the million. You're only responsible for yours. And it doesn't have to be a podcast. It just has to be a conversation. So I'm grateful for Ben Hepburn stepping up for this conversation. I hope you enjoy it. I'll see you on the other side.

All right, Ben, it's been. Geez. I think our last podcast was in July last year, right?

Yeah.

Been a long time.

A lot of things have happened.

You probably have, like Seven more grandchildren

or something like that?

Well, we're waiting on three. One's a boy and one's a girl. And we don't want the other one that we don't know what they are yet. Or it is.

Wait, so how many. How many kids are gonna produce? 3. Is it like twins or is like three different families are having babies?

Three different. Three different families.

And last year you had one of your. Your daughter had twins, right?

Yeah, she is. They're a year old already, Larry.

Yeah, I know.

That's where time was. She's. She's pregnant again.

Oh, my gosh.

Yep. Root for punishment, huh?

All right. And so. And, you know, it's. You're not doing a lot of farming

right now, are you?

No, we're hauling hay and cutting firewood, trying to keep things going.

I apologize to the listeners here because you don't get to see the badger

that's hanging on Ben's face right now.

Well, like I said, it's been cold here.

He's gearing up to be Santa Claus

next Christmas, I can see.

Right. I don't. I never have it this long, but it was so cold, and I was out in it a lot, and I just left it grow. I never trimmed it back or anything. So.

So we're here to see if we can't find some common understanding about where we are in our country, and particularly with our president. What's your general feeling right now?

Well, obviously, there's a bunch. There's a lot of controversy, and I think the same thing is what we've talked about. A lot of corruption, a lot of media bias and pumping. I think there's just a lot of hate, too. I mean, there just seems to be an extreme amount of hate.

Yeah.

For whatever reason. And I think probably I'm fairly laid back. And I think you are, too, at times, although you've gotten excited every now and then. But I'm just, you know, kind of taking care of my own and doing my things, and I listen. I've listened to a lot less news. That seems to help. I do listen to everybody, though, I think, a little bit. I've listened to different podcasts and different people trying to. Trying to understand their logic, and I think they're just angry. I don't know if it's what it is. And, you know, I know that, you know, we've talked before. Is the glass half empty or half full? I like to think that it's half full. I like to think we live in a great country with a lot of great things that we do. And it hasn't been that long. You know, I like, my grandfather, you know, probably was 40 years old when he had his first indoor shower. My dad was, you know, was born and there was no electricity to the house yet. And, you know, different things like that. So I just appreciate where we live and how we live and all the things we take for granted are just, for me, are just wonderful, you know, and other people just, they're focused on so many negatives that it's. It's not positive for them. That's kind of where I'm at, I guess if that gives you a general overview of the way I'm looking at it.

I mean, yeah, I think that's fair. I mean, I certainly also agree about the extraordinary opportunity being American gives us. But we've talked about this part before. I mean, you know, the media gets paid to turn you into people who hate each other. You know, turned us into ignorant people who hate each other. That's how they get clicks.

Right?

So absolutely not surprising. You see lots of that hatred out there. We don't get paid based on clicks, so we don't have any reason to foment hate here. But. Okay, so, but let's, let's just see if we touch base on some of these key issues that we've talked about. Like, so let's start with tariffs, which at the beginning of our conversation, you know, we kind of acknowledge. We'll see big experiment, tariffs. The president said that tariffs would be paid for by foreign foreigners. So the latest report from The Fed says 90% of the cost of tariffs has been paid by Americans.

Right.

The estimated per household cost in 2026 is going to be 1,000 to $3,500. And farmers in particular, you know, there's been a 46% increase in bankruptcy. I'm going to give you a lot of statistics, but everything I'm publishing on my website, when we're finished, you're going to see. You can link to every one of my statistics. You can see the backup. 46% increase in bankruptcy, $44 billion. Net loss in income. Exports to China have dropped by 73%. Fertilizer costs up at certain times, 342%. And then, of course, the government increases the payouts to farmers to compensate by $42 billion. The commodity reference prices have been increased by 10 to 21%. So from my read, that sounds like not much of a success. That sounds like the opposite of what we were promised. Is that a fair characterization?

You know, I think it is, Larry. But knowing the agriculture industry is. I know it and I hope I know it. This has been going on for quite some time, and it's. I think it's really based on the fact that we're trying to feed a nation cheaply. You know, I don't know. These are the figures that I had probably 10 years ago now, that you spent 30% of your income on food and 70% of your income on everything else. Well, and. And then it was in China, it was the exact opposite. They spent 70% of their income on food and, you know, 30% on the other things in life. Well, we continue to feed people. I know people argue that it's. It's. Food's expensive, but when you go out and try to do what we're doing, it's still relatively inexpensive.

Yeah, right.

Because, you know, people are getting away, even in the agriculture community, they're getting away from certain things because it is more expensive. And everything seems to be specialized now. Right. And, you know, and that's what's going on. And bigger. Everything's getting bigger. And, you know, a family farm, obviously, they can't do it because the scale that they're on. Yeah, you know, yeah, we could. We could raise 100 beef cattle and we could make a living. Well, now it has to be, you know, a thousand. Well, that farm's not big enough to raise a thousand. And if we. We're just kidding ourselves. So a lot of farmers are certainly, you know, going bankrupt. They got in the hole and now they're.

They're.

They're getting out of it by selling or whatever they're doing, you know, and it's. It's heartbreaking because even in our little town here of Williamsport, you know, there was. In little Sauk Township, there were seven dairy farms when I was growing up. There's none now.

Wow.

None. Nobody's milking in Lulzoc townspeople. So the bottom line is, you know, it's changing, obviously, and it changed the whole. It changes the whole landscape of business because now we no longer have the feed mills that are selling, you know, to, you know, dairy farmers. And, you know, so they're out of business. And, you know, the things that just keep going in that direction. So, yeah, it's not a good thing. I'm not blaming on President Trump or Joe Biden or Obama. I think it is certainly one of those things where people keep demanding food to be grown cheaper. And we've gotten into that point where in the last couple years, it's starting to turn around where people are going to roadside places to buy their vegetable. They're starting to grow their own vegetables again and you know, those kinds of things. So these are things that change slowly. But the, but the bad part, Larry, is when you lose a farm, do we lose it completely or does it set there? And you know, most of them are not setting there. They're getting developed or they're putting a couple houses on or they're no longer, they're letting it go back to forest, they're letting it, getting it out of production. Now there's programs, the government has, you know, the CREP program in different places that pay farmers just to mow their fields once a year so that we don't lose the production forever. But you know, it's not something that can be easily fixed.

Yeah, I mean, I agree. And we've got like farm share. We buy vegetables from local farms through farm share programs. I think it's an important change. But my point is like, you know, the promise was we've got this trade policy, it's going to help America, it's going to be paid for by foreigners. And some of the strongest Trump supporters were farmers. Obviously when I say that the bankruptcy has gone up by 46% that's since he's become president.

Right.

So this explosion in farmers bankruptcy because of, you know, largely because of these policies. I mean, you're right about the long term trend, but I'm talking about what follows from these policies.

I understand that, Larry. I remember you distinctly telling me that many times when you bring a president in, it's the last president that caused those problems. And I'm not blaming Biden. I just think that was the trend. And like you said, I get it, but this is not something that's gonna turn around overnight in my opinion. And there's been some other factors too. I mean we've had those, had fires in Texas and we've had cattle lost and you know, different things like that that just add to it. And I'm not a conspiracy theory but you know, there's the number of slaughterhouses and stuff have greatly decreased to just, you know, four, what is it? Four major, major ones now. And, and you know, I think people at, at the beginning said that's great because we're going to have cheaper meat. But then they didn't realize all the, the effects of what happens.

Yeah, See a monopoly effect. Yeah, absolutely.

Right.

Yeah. So, yeah, I agree there's long term trends in harp farmers and this might be continuing it, but there was a Pretty big change in policy and pretty big change in consequence for farmers. But even separating out farmers, I mean, we remember, right, we started our conversation talking about the prediction consumers would pay none of the cost of tariffs. It would be paid by foreigners. Our own Fed says 90%, the Kiel Institute for World Economies is 96% paid for by consumers. So a tax on consumers to pay for these, to pay for these tariffs. Then there's another part of the tariffs which I know upsets you as much as it upsets me. We could call it the tariff corruption. Like, so, you know, Trump goes and negotiates with UAE, Middle Eastern government. They buy $500 million in Trump's crypto, you know, his meme coin funding, not the meme coin, but also his old crypto, World Liberty, Crypto Institute. And they, he immediately changes the export policies with respect to these super sophisticated AI chips, Nvidia chips, 500,000 Nvidia chips they can buy because, you know, just basically quid pro quo, you know, you give my private business $500 million, I'm going to give you 500,000, give permission to buy 500,000 chips. In a world where we are blocking access to these chips to especially, you know, countries that are potential adversaries because, you know, they are enormously powerful to Chinese as well. You know, there's estimates that the family, the Trump family, has made $2.25 billion billion dollars billion dollars in pay to play with foreigners negotiating deals at the same time the United States is negotiating deals for tariffs. So we go and we have a delegation there to negotiate the tariff rate. They send Don Trump, and Don Trump is sitting in the next room and they're striking deals for, like, their own Trump properties. The Swiss, he imposed 39% tariff on the Swiss. They were angry. So they came to the White House with a whole bunch of expensive gifts for the President, just gifts. And then he cut the tariffs to 15%. This huge EU agreement called the Turnberry Agreement, negotiated in July of 2025, which is a $600 billion deal to cover tariffs for all of Europe. Why is it called the Turnberry Agreement? Because it's negotiated. It was negotiated at Trump's Turnberry Resort in Scotland, right? So all of the money from that, you know, all these guys there, all their negotiations, all that cost, like, just goes into the pocket of the Trump family, like his own Trump family. And then, you know, we've already talked about the jet, the Qatari jet, which is going to cost one and a half billion dollars to retrofit because they got to Tear it down to the studs to make sure that there's not, you know, any secret spy stuff in it. They, Congress wasn't going to give them the money, so he diverted about a billion dollars from funds that were going to be used to up the safety of the US nuclear land based fleet. And then, you know, at the end of this, what's going to happen to the airport airplane? It's going to be given to the Trump library. Okay. Now Obama has no jet, Biden has no jet.

Right.

The only former president has a, has an, has an Air Force One is Reagan's library. But it was a decommissioned, it didn't fly. It was just like the hull of the Air Force One. You can go walk in if you go to the Reagan Libra. So we're giving him a Air Force One. We're just basically giving his library. Now I say it's not him personally, it's his library. What's the difference between it being his library and him? So the point is like you can't look at this, like this kind of game and think this is, this is what any of us want in a president. Is it? Or.

Oh, I don't, I don't think so. No, I don't think so. Obviously, you know, there's no, why would I want that? Why would anybody want that? You know, and I get it. I mean I, I do, I get the fact that all these things, you know, there's things that we don't want on anything. You know what I mean? I'm looking at, for example, since I'm on the school board, you look at the, you know, the salaries of some of these people or the perks or whatever and I think, boy, that's an awful great job or, you know, wish I would have had that job and that pay when I was there. But no, there's a lot of things, but obviously this is a big time money thing. I get it. I mean, I'm not going to deny that. I, I know that there's some things that aren't going right. I get that. I, I don't know, Larry. You know, I mean, as far as the economics go, I'm, I'm not sitting down and researching it, that I'm, you know, I'll trust you to your, your numbers and your facts and, and those kinds of things. No, I, I'm sure that I would disagree with a lot of things because I'm just not educated in those areas.

Yeah, well, yeah, you can trust but verify because the website will be there. You can Click through to each of these links and it's going to claim they're going to support that. But the bigger point is you and I started this conversation agreeing that corruption was one of the biggest problems we have in Washington. But my point is it's being driven more extreme. I mean, the personal net worth of the President has gone up by $2.6 billion in one year. We've never had a president that's leveraged the power for his own wealth gain like that. I mean, the crypto fleece, you know, his whole meme coin where 90% of his supporters, 90% of the value of the meme coin has disappeared. 750,000 wallets from his supporters have lost money in the Meme Coin. Meanwhile, because every trade creates commissions that goes back to the owner of the Meme Coin. His family has made $385 million last year alone. You know, I mean, it's just, it's just a scam and we've never, I think we've never seen anything like it.

Yeah, like I said, Larry, I, yeah, I'm not pleased obviously with that. I'm not. No, I'm not. I mean, why would you be?

Right. Yeah.

And even, even the tariffs, you know, I know like you say this, this is this and that's that. I get all that. I, I don't, I don't know what the answer is either. You know what I mean? And I, I guess if I, if I sit back and, and look at some of this stuff, I appreciate some of the things that are being said and they're trying to do. And then there's other things that I don't like on both sides, for example, you know what I mean? We can get into the, like, the controversial ICE thing. There's some things that I definitely agree with and there's some things that I don't, and I don't understand why, you know, people are putting themselves in a position to get shot, for example, or hurt or run over. Just doesn't seem to be worth, you know, that particular part of it.

Yeah, we're gonna, well, let's talk about ice, but, but I wanna make sure we close. We were clear on this part. So the other part of the corruption, which is just really astonishing, there's basically an industry now, basically selling pardons. You've got Valentini, who gave $3.5 million. He was facing bribery, money laundering charges, got a pardon, Walzack million dollars given from his mother. He was convicted of failing to pay taxes. Sentenced to 18 months in prison. He gets a pardon. Trevor Milton, $1.8 million. It seems to be around the number convicted of securities wires fraud. He gets a pardon. This Chinese CZ Zhao gives $2 billion to world liberty. That's his crypto group. He gets a pardon. There are these lobbyists like Jack Berkman and Jacob Wohl, who reportedly are open about charging a million dollars for success fees to get a lot to get a pardon from the president. And, you know, the Justice Department, you know, had a very formal process. There's a Office of Pardon. And the leader of that, Liz Oyer, who'd been there through many administrations, was fired and replaced by Ed Martin, who had a slogan, no MAGA Left behind, which basically is like, you're maga. You want a gift? Just come and, you know, pay your price and you'll get it. Now, you know, you might say, okay, whatever these guys get out, they pay their money to the Trump super PACs, whatever. But the biggest thing is, like, by giving pardons, as opposed to just saying, okay, you can get out of jail

or we're not going to prosecute you.

All of the restitution money that was supposed to go back to the victims gets lost. So there's $1.3 billion that was going to go back to the victims of this fraud and criminal activity that just isn't going back to them now because they don't have to pay it anymore. So you can't. And again, never, never has any. I mean, you know, we. Everybody was outraged when Bill Clinton was supposedly pardoned Mark Rich in the last minutes of administration, like, and he was, you know, the idea was he was going to get something after he was president with Mark Rich. And maybe he did, maybe he didn't. I don't know. And I think that was wrong. But that's nothing compared to this machine. It's a, it's a pardon machine. And then the, then there's the, you know, then there's the lawsuits he has brought against the government. So he's suing the IRS for $10 billion, and he says, I'm supposed to work out a settlement with myself. So he sues for $10 billion, and then he decides how much he gets. Or he sued the DOJ for $230 million because he said the search in Mar A Lago, which was a totally legal search, cost him money, and the Russia investigation cost him money. And there again, his own department is going to settle the claim against him. We won't even know how much money they get paid from that. And, you know, it's not like this is a problem nobody thought of. The Constitution expressly says, quote, he shall not receive within the period that he's president, any other emolument that means payment from the United States. Right. But there he is, like, telling us that he's going to fire these people if they don't do what he tells them. And what he's telling them is, I deserve money from the government for. For what? Again, I'm not, you know, I'm not forcing you to say you defend it. I just assume you don't defend it.

No, I. Obviously, yeah, yeah. I mean, corruption is corruptions, Larry. And bottom line is, so why isn't it being taken care of? Is it the corruption so bad on both sides that they can't even monitor, that they can't take care of it? They, you know, as a layperson, you're sitting out here going, what do you want me to do? Yeah, we can vote, we can change. I get it. We can change people. But it often seems that we, you know, in the agricultural community, it, it's, I've heard for many, many years voting, and it says it doesn't matter which crook you put in the office, you're just gonna put a crook in. So what's the difference if I vote or not? I mean, that's the mentality.

I get. That's the mentality. But what I'm saying is there's really no comparison in this level of corruption. Right. There's no suggestion Biden or Obama or George Bush or George H.W. bush was anything like this. Right. There's just no suggestion.

But they're getting Richard Nixon. Yeah, they're getting better at it. Everybody keeps getting better.

Yeah. I mean, you know, there's no allegation of selling pardons on any of those administrations. None. No allegation. Whether proven or not, no allegation.

Right.

So there's a difference here. And that difference, I think, should matter.

I think you're right, Larry. I think there's a big difference and I get it. And, you know, I can joke and say they're getting better at it or whatever, and it's like, so I'll just, you know, we can take things that right now everything that Donald Trump is doing is, is people just absolutely hate him. If you on that side and then you have the other people that just absolutely love him and they're going, I don't care what he's doing, it's better. And that's all that matters. And the people over here are just, you Know, hate, hate, hate. And I'm sitting back and going, well, why wasn't, you know, why wasn't it like this when, you know, President Biden was there? Why weren't we really criticizing him for everything? Or why, you know, when Obama, when President Obama there, why weren't we criticizing him when he was deporting all these people or, you know, all the things. And I sat here and I just really wonder, you know, where, where's it going to even out at, you know, And I know we, we talked about things. Like I said, well, it's, it's man's inability to govern himself. And you said, we got to try. And I understand that. Right. And I do. But, you know, there's so much animosity and who's right, who's wrong? So I get it. Yeah. I'm, I'm not, I'm not defending the corruption. Those things are going on. I get it. I don't know.

Yeah, yeah. You know, okay, let's talk about the immigration stuff. So the president said he was going to be deporting the worst of the worst, quote, unquote.

Right.

So there have been, in the first year, there's been about 393,000 arrests. 74.2% of them are people who have had no criminal conviction. 39 to 43% have no criminal record,

no charge or conviction.

Less than 14% have been arrested for violent offenses, less than 2% for homicide or sexual assault. 2% are gang related. So it's hard to look at that and say, what we're doing is arresting

the worst of the worst.

We're basically trying to meet quotas. You got these ice guys out there, they've been given quotas, you know, $50,000 signing bonus, basically untrained police officers out there doing whatever they can to meet their quotas. And, you know, obviously it's triggering a lot of anger because it just doesn't seem American. You know, it just, the brutality of it just doesn't seem American, you know, 1,100% increase in street arrests where they're, you know, barreling out and just pulling people off the street. You know, so far there's been 170 citizens, United States citizens, who have been arrested. Two of them, of course, in Minneapolis are dead. Thirty recorded deaths from the people being held. So far, you've got the embrace in Minneapolis of the warrantless home entry. We thought we had a Fourth Amendment says you can't come into a home without a warrant. These people just think they can barrel down the door and come in. If you take the total cost for 2025 of ICE operations, it's $200 billion, which means we're paying about $500,000 per ICE arrest. The Penn Warden budget model has estimated the cost of this policy to the economy. The cost at $1 trillion. That's the direct cost, plus lost tax revenues. Over 10 years, you're going to see GDP drop 3.5% or 3.3%. Population is going to go down by 12 million. Wages for high school workers, 2.8% down. Average hourly wage, 1.7% down. And then Social Security will lose $24 billion, or did in 2024, simply because, you know, these people, these immigrants, pay money into Social Security, but they don't collect any because they're, you know, qualified to collect. They just have to pay the tax. They don't get any of the benefits. So this is a huge policy decision, you know, to like, make America, I don't know, great or safe. One statistic that just kind of, to me, is astonishing. You know, there's a 1 in 3 chance that you're going to get cancer. Not you in particular, Ben. I mean, all of us, there's almost zero percent chance you're going to be hassled by an undocumented immigrant. But, you know, we spend hundreds of billions of dollars to get rid of these undocumented immigrants while we cut our spending for cancer research to just $4 billion a year. So 170 billion or 200 billion, but we spend $4 billion on cancer. So how is this a rational policy? How does this make sense?

Well, I know there's an awful lot of people that have lost their lives to illegal immigrants, whether it be traffic accidents, rape, murder. I get that. There's, you know, the whole thing. Was it. Was it Lincoln Riley that was murdered or raped or both, you know, and they. And a person says, well, if that person wasn't in our country, she'd still be alive today. And then you say, well, what's a human worth life or life worth, you know, and they. And that's where people are coming from, Larry. They're looking at that other side and they're saying, well, but if it was your daughter, if it was Larry Lessig's or Ben Hepburn's daughter that was killed by this person that shouldn't even been here, you know, holy hell, we're going to raise Cain and we're going to do this and we're going to do that. And I think that's where the people look at that. And again, they just stop and go, get rid of everybody. I don't care. And I don't want to say they don't care, but they're just saying, I've had enough. And I get that, you know, to a degree where you're looking at it. And I mean, you can cite all these numbers, Larry. And so. So the bottom line is, if I'm listening to you correctly, and I'm saying it's costing us so much to, you know, remove these people and so on. We should just let them hear, and we'd be better off.

Yep.

You know, I think that's true, and I get that. I get that fact. But then again, we are a country of law and order. We are a country of morals. Right. The Constitution was written by men that had supposedly great morals, and that's why this has worked so long, because of our moral conviction. Well, that's kind of been thrown out the door now. Right. Because I often say, how hard is it just to be a good person, really? Not that hard. I've never killed anybody. I've never pointed. I have all kinds of guns in this house. I've never pointed a gun at anybody ever. Never had to.

Right.

Just even, like I said, pointing. And, you know, we have people that are, you know, firing guns on a, you know, on a weekly basis or whatever, you know, in Chicago, where they're. Where they say that, you know, every. Every weekend somebody's killed. How can that be, you know, and how, you know, where's that all coming from? So I certainly understand what you're. I can see both sides. I'm trying to. I'm trying to, you know, wrap it around in my mind as well. Yeah. Could we just. Could we just round up the people that were bad people?

Yeah. So that's 14% of 393.

So would that make everybody happy if we got 14%? But then you have people that are arresting them and putting them back out on the street when we had them arrested, for example, and government ICE could come in, collect them at the jail cell. Nobody's hurt. Nobody. But you have people on that side going, no, I'm going to release them. I don't agree with what you're doing. So, I mean, it's certainly a fault on both sides. Maybe one is bigger fault. You know, maybe there's more of a fault on one side, but there's still fault on both sides. Why would you have a convicted, you know, whatever you want to call a murderer, criminal, whatever, in your jail cell and go, no, I'm gonna, we're just gonna cut them loose.

Why would you, I know that, but why would you think that's what's happening? I don't get that part. Like, why do you think that? I mean, that's what the Biden administration was doing.

The Obama administration.

I mean, the Obama was like deporting people just at the same level, same amount. They just weren't doing it with this kind of gestapo, like police force on the street. Same numbers of people.

Right. Were they doing it with as much media coverage? Did people cover it? Did. Was there any, Were there people that were there hammering, you know, Obama's doing this. And I mean, you know, we, we heard about the cages.

Yeah, yeah, under cages.

Under, under more of the Trump administration, the first administration, how he built all these when it was actually President Obama. But we, we blame, blame Trump for those cages. But. Right. President Obama was the actually one. But we didn't hear about it because that wasn't the media's agenda. You know, I mean, I don't, I can't even figure out what the media, Media is agenda is about anyhow. I mean, I, for the last two weeks, I, I watched, what is it? Guthrie lady who's disappeared. I, I, I said I feel for, I feel for the family, don't get me wrong. But for two weeks, I've heard nothing about that. Everything about that.

Ridiculous. Well, that's because again, the business model. We talked about that. But let's go back to these points. You're right. So somebody, if my daughter were killed by an immigrant, I would be upset. But.

Right, right.

It'd be a good reason not to give me the power to decide what policy should be because I'm kind of conflicted about it. But, you know, so in 23, in 2025, there were 23 homicide convictions of people who were illegal immigrants. 23.

Okay.

In 2025, there were 30 immigrants killed in ICE facilities, died in ICE facilities. You know, these facilities where people describe, you know, basically your hands are tied behind your back. You gotta eat from, you know, with your mouth off of a chair. You know, they're sleeping in the open, there's bathrooms don't separ based on, you know, it's basically concentration camp, like levels. I mean, not like there are no gas chambers. But the point is it is the most, you know, extreme form of oppression and, you know, say, why is it different from Obama? I think part of the thing is it just feels like the aggressiveness and the brutality is the message. That's really what it's about. They want to demonstrate that. And I. That's the question. I mean, I get it. If you lose your daughter, you're going to be upset. And don't, you know, I'd certainly be upset. But the question is, why does anybody think it's sane policy? Again, we spent $200 billion to get rid of people who. 32 people have been killed by them. $200 billion to get rid of them. If we took that same money and we invested it in cancer or we invested it in, like, building better bridges or safer highways or something, we would certainly save a lot more than the 32 people who were killed by immigrants. Right.

I agree with you because it wasn't my daughter. But if it's my daughter, then it's not nearly enough. Like I said, Larry, I can certainly. You're right. I can certainly understand all that. I can see where you go, well, maybe we should just turn the other way and not look at it. You know, what if the guy. What if a guy robs a bank, 25 years later, they catch him. But he has since used that money. He's changed, built a home, has a family, has employed thousands of people. He has a great man, great community. But we find out he's the one that stole the money, do you prosecute him or just look the other way and go, hey, that money was better?

That's Victor Hugo, Les Miserables. That's the whole story, right?

Is it better just to turn the other way, turn the other cheek, you know, do all that?

Okay, but then we're not arguing about that. I completely, totally agree with you, but we're not talking about that. We're talking about, you know, 17. What was it? What did I tell you? It was like. I don't want to misstate the numbers here. 14% were violent criminals. 14%. So we're agreed, the 14%, you ought to get rid of them. But you don't get the 14% by raiding Home Depot. You don't get the 14% by bashing down people's doors or taking them at schools, like, when they're dropping their kids off at school. So, I mean, in our neighborhood, you know, we've got all these kids who are, like, afraid to leave their house. They can't go to school anymore because they're afraid they're going to be pulled up off the street and separated from their parents. Right? None of this is necessary to deal with the criminals. All of this is just to kind of show the brutality, which, again, I don't feel Is like, we started our conversation because I said I don't understand how somebody with the values I know you had growing up, that I had growing up could agree with this shit. I just don't see it. And I don't think your values or my values would agree with this brutality yet. So why isn't that the thing to be focused on rather than we all agree the criminals ought to be taken away, right?

I mean, I do. I agree with it. Here's my question again. You know, I go back to what's being covered, what's being told. How many. How many good arrests are there? How many are there people where they're going now? We had one here recently in Danville. He wasn't illegal. He's been in here 20 years. He's got a business and all that. Well, he voluntarily went in. I guess he's going back and going through the proper channels. No harm, no foul. Nobody drug them across the parking lot. Nobody did any of that stuff. So I'm just saying there are a lot of cases of where we're doing the right things, but of course we're focusing on the wrong, which we do. Right. You know, there's that old saying, you build a thousand bridges, you're, you know, you're a bridge builder, but if you do one thing wrong, then that's what you're labeled as.

So my dad, a bridge relative, told me all the time growing up, no doubt. But the question is, like, you tell me what the proportion is. I just told you that of the 393,000 they've arrested, of the 393,000 they'VE arrested, they've only arrested 14% of them. According to their standard quote, the worst of the worst. They promised the worst of the worst. So what does that mean? That means that 86% of the arrests were of people that were not the worst of the worst. Right? Now, they. Some of them could have been reasonable mistakes, you know, I'll give them half of it. Still, 40% of the arrests are like, completely. Just brutally, I need to meet my quota. So I'm just going to pull people off the street, right?

And there are people on our. On our side or the side or whatever side that are saying, you came in this country illegally, that's the crime you did. I don't.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, that's what I'm. That's what I'm hearing. That's what I'm saying. Hey, you got here illegal, you broke the law, you're here illegally. I get it, okay?

But the kids, the kids that are being pulled from schools and thrown out, they didn't come here illegally.

No, I realized that, Larry. Right. I realized that. I mean, I'm not. It's just like I remember Tom Holman and I believe this was under Obama, you know, or President Biden. No, he didn't work for Biden, did he? Yeah, I think he was under, under Obama. But he was saying, you know, they were criticizing him of taking kids and he's like, hey, if I arrest a guy in New York City that's drunk and he has a kid in the car, I'm take, I'm sorry, we're taking the guy and you know, the kids gone somewhere else too. So it's not just, you know, one sided. I agree with you, Larry. It would be really nice if, if we could say here's, here's what we're going to do. You know, you're here illegally. Come sign up with this. Now you're on our radar. Now we're going to, you've already got a job, you know, everything's good. We're going to put you on this road to where it goes. It may be longer because the other people that have done it the right way, you know, it takes them what, eight, ten years. I've heard all kinds of stories of how long it takes. Right. I got a friend who was a dairy farmer. He had immigrants milking cows and they got a dui, of course, and there was no question, send them back.

Right.

Guy was a good guy, had a family, but he was here illegally.

So you're right about Holman. Holman worked for Obama. He was appointed in 2013. He was the, something like the director, I think the executive associate director of enforcement and removal and they called him the deporter in Chief. He deported 432,000 individuals in 2013 alone. Right. But the question is not whether he's deporting according to the law. He was. The question is, do you need to do it in this Gestapo like way? Like, what is the reason for that? So I don't have to be against deporting illegals or people who are here illegally. Can completely agree with you about that. The thing I'm criticizing is like, how do we do it? Like, who are we? Like, what kind of people are we that this is the way we do it.

I agree with you, Larry. I wish there was a better way to do it.

Well, Holman did it in 2013 in a better way. He didn't do it in this brutal way. He deported More people than Obama, than Trump has deported this year, 400,000, and Trump has only done under 400,000.

So if I said to you, well, why did you have the cages under Obama? Did we not know about what you were doing? I mean, there were some people that died under.

The difference in the cages story is that they took steps, Trump took steps to break the ability of the parents to recover their children. So that many of these parents just lost their children. Just lost them. And the Obama administration didn't take steps to break the ability to recover your child. Like, they separated them, put them in cages. They weren't quite as horrendous, but whatever. I'm against it either way. But the point is, like, why would you make it so that the parent loses a child? You tell me what that would feel like. You told me to lose my daughter. Imagine, like being pulled off the street, separated from your child. Six months later you're released, and you say, where's my kid? And they say, I don't know. We lost track. We lost track. You know, the paper couldn't agree with you more.

I couldn't agree with you more. We obviously need to talk. We need to treat people more like people. And that starts with, you know, when you were coming over here and you had kids. I mean, how many stories have I heard where parents were selling their kids or trafficking their kids or, you know, all the things.

These aren't the people. I mean, people who are selling their kids weren't.

I get it. But I'm saying, Larry, those are the things that confuse people. Those are the things that they lump everything together, and they say, you know, this is what I see, this is what I hear, and it's very hard to unlock everything. And, you know, I get it. I mean, I'm not. I'm not telling you. I don't agree with you. I just know why some of this stuff is being done and what's happening. And it's, you know, it's like all the stereotypes, Larry, that we have, you and I have, have had to deal with our whole life. You know, people that lived in trailer courts were poor or, you know, those kinds of things, and they aren't. That's just where they live or what they like or whatever, you know, and the same thing, you know, we've got so many stereotypes. But I think, to me, Larry, you know, we keep going back and we keep saying, why, why, why? I think it's because we lost our moral compass. I think whether it's Trump or whether it was Obama or Biden or. Or all the senators and so on. Look at what's going on in the Senate and the different things like that. You know, that I think they've lost their moral compass, you know, if that makes any sense.

Maybe. I mean, let's talk about the big, beautiful bill. Okay, so remember the president repeatedly, again and again and again. I could play a video, but I'm

not gonna play the video.

Promised. Promised he was not gonna touch Medicare. Not going to touch Medicare. Not going to touch Medicare. Explicitly asked. If the bill comes and it touches Medicare, are you going to veto it? Yes, I will veto it. Not going to touch Medicare. Of course, 11 million people lost their Medicare by 2034. Just cut. Just totally cut. Largest single cut comes from $344 billion. Comes from changes to Medicare eligibility and of course, Obamacare. Subsidies for Obamacare. Eliminate it.

Right.

All of this he promised he wouldn't do, but he did. And what is he doing it for? So that he can give a tax cut to the 0.1% wealthiest Americans and corporations. This is exactly. I mean, when we first started talking, I said, I'm worried. This is exactly the thing he did in his first administration where he promised a big tax cut that was going to promise. He promised was going to help everybody, and it turned out only to help the rich. Here he did the same thing. And on top of that, he just expressly violated the promise he made again and again and again. Remember when George H.W. bush promised he was never read my lips, I will not raise taxes. And when he raised taxes, that was it. He was gone. This guy.

You mean the politician lied?

Yeah. No, but there are big lies and there are small lies. But, I mean, if you lost, I don't know, you tell me, did this affect you? But. But I just want to know what you think about, like, you know, coming to office, making this promise. A whole bunch of people who voted for him said, yeah, yeah, but he's not going to cut Medicare. I don't have to worry about this. I'm going to have health care when I need to retire. It'll be there for me. Now it's not. So, like, what, you can't be okay with that?

No, I mean, I'm not. Like I said, it's another one of those things that, you know, look over here. This is what I say, and we're going to do it this way. And how it all pans out, I don't. I really don't know how it's all going to pan out. You know, I Get it? I do. Larry, where's.

Where do you get your health care from?

I get Blue Cross Blue Shield. I pay for my own.

From your. Do you get a rate because you're running a business or is it.

I just pay from school.

I see.

You know. Yeah, just about a thousand bucks a month. Wow.

I, I pay a little bit less

than that, but I got. Yeah, I don't have 400 kids in Grand, California.

Oh, I don't have, I don't have any of them now either. But, but. Yeah.

All right, so I know we don't have a lot of the big beautiful bill. I, I have a category here. I'm going to call it vanity.

Let me ask you something. Is there anything in the bill that you did like? See, I like the overtime. No tax on overtime. I like the no tax on tips. Right. I like those things. Those are some things that I like. But then when I go to understand them, okay, for example, like my son works in a prison, right. So he works, he gets forced, and then he works overtime as well. Time and a half. It's only on the half part that we get our, you know, which. Well, again, if you don't, if you don't listen very carefully and if you don't dig into it, you don't realize that. And I said, I thought it was just on the overtime. He goes, no, I'm just, just a time and a half. So, you know, I mean, they give up things. Well, you know, they dangle the carrot, they give you a little bite and then they pull most of it away. I get it.

Right. Yeah.

So there are some things I thought were good. But.

Yeah, and, but that's my point. Like, he comes. So, like, with the tax on tips, eligible workers can deduct up to $25,000 per year in qualified tips. You know, and so I'm not against that. That's probably great. But the point is, he sells the bill as if it's going to help ordinary Americans, middle class Americans, the people who supported him, the people who, like, you know, he said he was fighting for. Right. It. On balance, it didn't do that. On balance, you know, it's the 0.1% who won under that bill. On balance, the rest either held their own or if you're below middle class, you were wiped out. And so that's the question is, on balance, you can't sort of look at the, you know, the couple gift, a couple pennies thrown to the people and the dollars taken from and given to the super rich. And then Say that that's sensible policy for ordinary Americans. Now, if you were, if you were the aristocrat party, you came in and said, I only care about the rich. And so we're going to make sure we just get stuff for that would be fair.

Right?

But, you know, my point is like the honesty, integrity. You say one thing and you do something completely different.

And, and I, and you know, Larry, I've asked people that about that and diehard Republicans, and I don't. I'm not by any man means a diehard Republican or, or anti. Anything. But the one guy who I thought would give me a real logical answer, and I think he did, he said, I'm not. I, I want the rich to be taken care of because they're the ones that are making the jobs. They're the ones that are doing, you know, all this stuff that benefit everybody else. I kind of looked at him and I kind of listened to him, and I could certainly understand his point that, you know, rich people are doing so much for this country and the fact that, you know, they're supplying jobs, but they're also getting richer. I mean, how, how much. Yeah, how much money do you need? And I, and I get it, but it just blows my mind. A lot of this stuff just blows my mind constantly. But again, it boils down to we lost our moral compass. You know, how much much money do you need? How rich do you need to be? You know, like, yeah, Larry, I won't pick on you, but you're writing a book. I'm not saying you're going to get rich writing a book or anything, but,

man, why put yourself.

Why put yourself through that to make a few more dollars? You know, I mean, there you go. I said it. Why, why do that? You know, so I know you're trying to educate me.

It's a. Yeah, it's a disease. I just have to keep on writing. I can't stop myself. But. Right, but I think that's a good question. How much do they need? And so the idea that, you know, this giving billionaires these tax cuts is going to lead to more jobs, that's just economically bullshit.

That's just not the way the world works.

I know, Larry. And sometimes I sit here and I go, boy, if I had that money, how many people could I help? And then how many people could they help? And then how many people could they help? And pretty soon you have a problem of whatever. You know, if you said, I started with, with, with 15 people or 20 people, and then each one of them can help, but it would all be based on our moral compass. Would you say, okay, I have enough now and I can help that next person? Or would you go, oh, no, no, no. I need a new car every year and I need a new boat or I want to go on vacation at least three times a year. Year. Or whatever it is, you know? And the moral compass is, I just think we've lost our way. I really do. I just think we lost our way. And you and I are both old enough to know I'll pick on myself. We didn't go on vacation because we didn't have a lot of money. You know, being a farmer and also being tied to the land, we didn't have a lot of money to go on vacation. But we did, you know, a day trip here, you know, or day trip there or whatever. But we ate very well because we raised our own food. We spent our time doing that where other people spent their time at the pool or, you know, doing different things and spent our time surviving. And that's something that, you know, maybe needs to be revisited.

Yeah. You know, but anyhow, yeah, I disagree about the moral compass, but, you know, there's some who are losing their moral compass more than others.

Absolutely. Oh, absolutely. No question about it. No question about it.

Okay, let's think about the vanity here. It was reported that the President told Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader of the Senate, that he would only release money that Congress had allocated for infrastructure to benefit New York if Schumer would succeed in getting Dulles Airport and Penn Station renamed after Donald Trump. Now, he already leveraged his power over the appointments of people who run the Kennedy center to change the Kennedy center from being the Kennedy center to the Donald Trump and John F. Kennedy center of the Arts, right? Now, when's the last time you saw a president pull that shit? When has that ever happened? I mean, Reagan Airport was renamed Reagan Airport long after the guy was dead. Right? I mean, I mean, that's fine. Like, you want to look back and say, who were the great presidents? Let's rename stuff after it. But the guy. The idea that the guy would sit there with money Congress has allocated and said, I'm not going to give you this money unless you rename Dulles the Trump Airport is just astonishing to me. And it sounds like to you.

Oh, absolutely. I enjoy watching the old clips of Donald Trump with Oprah Winfrey, for example, and different people, and they were just so in love with him. And you're sitting there going, you'd not hear him speak and how much he's in love with himself, for example, or the vanity. You know what I mean? And I mean, but then I. But then I also go, well, gotta be positive, you know, are you being positive or over positive? People are. They just are so in love with themselves and they can do great things. And I just shake my head because, you know, I felt like I was a successful teacher or a successful coach.

After you, Ben, I think they should

rename the school after you.

Well, they named a wrestling room after me.

Oh, that's right, you told me. Yeah. Did you say, I'm not going to let your kids off the bus unless you rename the wrestling room after.

Yeah, but no, I always referred to our program as our program. It was not my program. It was ours. The coaches do a great job. The kids do a great job. It's what we did together. It's not like what I did. Yes, I changed some things. I did it, but we did it together, you know. You know, I had two. Well, I don't know if you remember, we had two a day practices in football, and you probably had two a day practices for band, marching band. Well, we never had two a day practices for wrestling until I got there. We did two a day practices, you know, and we changed the culture a little bit that way. But my coaches all backed me. They were right there with me. And it was our change, you know, even though I was the head guy and I was saying, this is what we need to do, it was us that changed it. So I get it. I mean, the vanity of so many people that, you know, even the vanity. And some of these senators that they're talking, and I'm like, what are you talking about? You know, and nobody wants to hear you talk, but they just keep right on.

And you don't get to be president without having a certain amount of vanity. There's no doubt. But I mean, there's vanity and then there's like ungodly, unbelievable vanity. I mean, as vain as Biden or Bush or Obama might have been, any of them, any of them demand Dulles Airport be renamed in exchange for getting what Congress has already allocated.

Well, and Larry, I can agree with you 100%. But like, I'll look at, for example, let's look at the Bushes, and you say, how many people in your family do you need to be the president? You know, we had senior, we had Junior, and then the guy from Florida. Yeah, he was running. And I'm like, can we get a different look here? Or, you know, Even, even the, even the Clintons, we had, you know, Bill and now Hillary and oh my gosh, is Chelsea going to net run next year or what? You know, and you just think, but you just.

Yeah, I know, I agree.

I mean, you know, even, even President Biden was in Senate for how many years, 50 some years, and then, you know, good Lord, man, can't you give it a rest?

Yeah, I agree. I wish he had. Yeah, I wish he had.

Right.

Okay, so there's this idea called the First Amendment. I know you don't teach constitutional law, but I know you teach. So you understand what the First Amendment is. We now have a world where the President is threatening comedians like that. They're threatening to cancel their, you know, the FCC is threatening to cancel them if they don't, like, bring them into line. The new policy is that the equal time mandate has now been extended. So you have to give equal time to the allies. When you're making fun of people. I mean, like, this is North Korea. What the hell? Like, this can't be America.

I know, I get it. Like I said, it's just the anger on everybody's in the moral compasses, corruption. I'm fed up with a lot of that stuff as well. I can only agree with you, Larry, that, you know, just have some fun. I mean, we've crossed over every single line everywhere. You know, people can't say this or can't say that, but I will say, Larry, like me, I'm not in favor of the vulgar language, you know, but it's my right to do that. I get it. But I don't really think that that's, you know, what we were talking about as far as freedom of speech. But again, we've, we've lost our moral compass. We, we have, you know, Playboy or Playgirl or Hustler or whatever. I don't think those are appropriate. But that's just, that's me, you know, I don't think we need that.

But okay, but what he was like when Jimmy Kimmel got canceled or when Stephen Colbert now, you know is going to be. Has been fired or Seth Meyers has been threatened or Trevor Noah had been threatened with lawsuits. It's not because they were using vulgar language. It was because they were criticizing the President. That's why they're being punished. Right. So in America, the First Amendment certainly does protect the right to criticize the fricking president, doesn't it?

I hear you, but I will go, I will make a little bit light of this, Larry. Some of them, I Didn't think were funny.

Okay, but you should. I mean, you know, you might like it, might not like it, but the point is you shouldn't be punished, shouldn't be able to be punished by the government because you're, you're making bad jokes. I mean, my God, all of us get in trouble.

I, yeah, I don't listen to him. If I don't like him, I don't listen. I just move on. I mean, it's, that's what I do

is that's what freedom is.

That's right. I mean, even, I mean, the controversy with the, you know, the, the halftime shows. Okay, I didn't watch either one, so I really didn't. I mean, I agree with what people are saying on certain topics, you know, like, why would you have a Spanish? I don't speak Spanish and a lot of us don't. Right. And why would you, why do our people just constantly pushing the button, you know, or stirring the pot or making controversy. You know, if I'm, if I'm sitting here watching a halftime show and I want to be able to understand it, I don't want to not be able to understand it. When's the last time you went somewhere and said, oh, I'm going to listen to this guy speak, but he's a language that I don't understand, so I'm just going to go look at him and enjoy the scenery, you know, I mean, why are people doing that, Larry? Why are we constantly pushing the button and.

Well, I mean, you know, I think Bad Bunny is pushing the button because we've had a year of Spanish speaking people being really persecuted, you know, so I understand that. I mean, you know, but for that, it wouldn't have made any sense. But, you know, I completely agree. You don't like it, you don't turn into it, tune into it. That's fine. That's what freedom is. That's what freedom means. Right. What it doesn't mean is that the government gets to punish you or, and

I agree, and I agree with you, Larry, but again, let's go one step further are our elected officials. And I know you said, you know, you had a problem with Trump's presidency. You know, his, he's the president, he, he's the one we're to look and, you know, he's saying things and doing. I get it. How about everybody that's in Congress, or not everybody, but most people in Congress are, you know, always pushing the envelope, always just needling, always just fighting, you know, and I mean, I get It. I get it to a degree. But why are, you know, you know, to the facts where we're, okay, we're talking about the Holocaust and all that stuff. Holy Christ, that was some really bad stuff. And to compare things to that, it's like, okay, things aren't good, but do we have gas chambers?

No, we don't have gas chambers. That's right.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, but. Yeah, and you're right. I mean, again, how do you get on FOX News or how do you get on Ms. Now? By being extreme. That's what you do. So that's why the politicians have the same incentives that the media has. It's like, that's part of the incentive problem. But, you know, still, what member of Congress has filed a $15 billion lawsuit against the New York Times or a $15 million lawsuit against ABC or, you know, a $20 billion lawsuit. It was a $20 billion lawsuit against 60 Minutes because they disagree with how an interview was edited that said it harmed his campaign. When he won, he freaking won. So, like, well, how did it harm his campaign? Right? Or BBC, $10 billion. Wall Street Journal. I am using logic. No, no, no. You know. Yeah, I hear you.

I mean, and. And. But to be fair for both sides, Larry, when you use logic on both sides, it, you know, we fail to communicate. Like. Like, you're talking a lot of numbers. And. And I'm. I was listening to the news, and this seems to be true with the. The leering centers, for example. A lot of money is being fraudulently used for these centers, and nobody seems to know where anything's at or where it's going. And the logic is, well, okay, there's billions of dollars right there, Larry, that we're spending, and nobody knows where they're going. And you're listing billions of dollars on immigrants. At least we know where that's going. Not that it's good.

Wow. Yeah.

You know, I mean, it just seems like there's. And we're all sitting here going, well, I got my. My paycheck this month so I can pay my bills, and everybody else is, you know, billions of dollars or millions of dollars. And where is this? And it's all coming from us. It's all coming from me or you. And the logic is we're all fed up.

Yeah, no, that's. That's right. And there's fraud everywhere. Although, you know what's interesting? He, you know, this obsessive partisanship. Like, you know, when there was fraud discovered, which the Biden administration had been prosecuting in Minnesota with the social services and childcare. They shut off all. They freeze the funding in Minnesota and in California and in Colorado and in Illinois and in New York. Now what's. What unites those states? They're all blue states. Like. Now you tell me you believe that the only fraud in the United States

is happening in blue states.

I don't. I believe it's everywhere.

Yeah.

I really do. And I think that's, I think, you know, that's what I hear from, you know, both sides, that the frauds there, you know, don't, you know, I've heard talk about, you know, the fraud being a minute and, and people will stop in mid sentences and don't think. It doesn't happen here either. Of course it happens everywhere. What you can get away with or whatever. Yeah, you know, that's. Yeah. But I do feel though that, you know, not me personally, not me personally, but I do look and think that they're John Fetterman, you know, which I thought was a terrible person to be a senator. Not because he was a terrible person, but maybe I judged him a little bit on, you know, the fact that he, you know, had some mental problems. As far as. I don't mean. Yeah, I mean, you know, the stroke and stuff. I don't mean that he was mentally challenged or anything like that. I mean, he was just, you know, had a stroke and, and, and of course, the way he dresses, he's. Yeah, you know, I get all that and I thought it was a. But now I'm listening to him and he seems like the, the voice of reason for, for actually both parties.

Huh.

You know, where he's like, I'm getting attacked, I'm getting, I'm getting threats from the Democratic side, but at least I can talk and have an argument with the Republican side. At least we're able to talk. And I see that more and more now. I don't know if that's true. I'm just saying what I observe, you know, that you, you can't. I have some friends that are Democrats and you know, they're just die hard Democrats and when I try to talk or say they just completely will not. I'm like, okay, you know, I'm not arguing with you. I'm just having a conversation and they just do not want to talk about it.

Yeah, it's something we lost. Something we've lost the ability to talk to people you don't agree with. I mean, I think part of the reason I wanted to do this and I'm part Of the reason I'm grateful to you for doing this is that, like, we spent a lot of time talking to each other. Even though we don't agree about a lot of things. We agree about a lot of things. I mean, it's. You know, the reality is, you know,

most of the time, I think we see common ground.

Okay, one, one last thing, because we've been going for a long time. Something we really. I don't think we've talked about at all. The freaking Epstein files. So now they finally. This finally comes out. But like a million mentions of the president in the Epstein files. Epstein is on recording saying that he was, for a period of his life, Donald Trump's best friend. The President said he'd never been on the Lolita Express. The records show at least eight times

between 93 and 96.

He's, like, on the Lolita Express flying with these young girls and all of this stuff with him and these young girls. He said the reason he threw Epstein out of Mar a Lago was that Epstein stole away one of his employees who was a. Who was a massage therapist at Mar A Lago. The woman he stole away was Virginia Guthrie. She was 16 years old. You're like, what are you employing a 16 year old girl in your gym to do massages for? Like, you know, what is that about? So, like, you know, when you look at this, this doesn't seem like the kind of guy you hung out with. You know, I didn't see who you hung out with a lot, but I don't remember. There are many people like that at Loyal Sac High School. So how does that make you feel?

Obviously, it's not a good feeling. It's not a good feeling. That whole Epstein thing, you know, I just keep hearing so many conflicting reports and, you know, whether you talk about Trump or whether you talk about Clinton or what. And you know what I've just come to realize, Larry? I don't think I'm ever gonna know the truth. I just don't think that the truth is out there.

But what do you mean by knowing the truth? Did you doubt that he, like, was involved in this guy who was like, a sex traitor for, like, young girls?

No, I don't. I don't. I don't disagree with that or disbelieve that there was interaction between Epstein or. I don't know what the truth is. I don't understand. Of course, I don't understand that mindset with, you know, young girls and all that stuff, but I just don't know what the Truth is because you hear so much. What do you want to call it? Stories and rhetoric and. And things that one news channel tells you. Another news channel, Facebook post of all these people. They all have these opinions, or they'll get on there and say, this is the facts. Look it up, and. I'm not going to look it up. I just. I don't understand, obviously, the money that's involved in that kind of stuff. And again, losing your moral compass in those kinds of ways where these are children or child or whatever. I mean, just don't get it. I really don't. I have a real. I do have a. I have a real hard problem with that.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's ugly.

Yeah. So, yeah, the Epstein is. Is, you know, for lack of better words, that I'm never going to really know the truth or I don't feel like I'm going to know the truth. I mean, Larry, you realize there's. There's people out there that believe that Epstein's not dead.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure he's dead.

You know, I. You know, and. And, you know, I. I don't know.

Yeah.

You know, I have a guy that, you know, like I said, my son works in the prison, and he just couldn't understand. He didn't believe any of it, really, from the standpoint that there's no. There is no way somebody can hang themselves in our prison.

Yeah.

You know, for that length of time and not have some. I mean, you know, the stories that he tells, it's, you know, like, every 15 minutes. And if a guy's on suicide watch, I'm actually sitting outside the door watching this guy 24 7. Right. I mean, literally stationed there. So, you know.

Yeah, I totally agree with that. And, you know, the. Like, the guy who inspected the body afterwards said that it didn't look like strangling by a rope. It looked like strangling by hands. So I'm pretty sure that Epstein didn't strangle himself with his hands.

Right, right.

Well.

And, you know, there's so many. Well, people. People. You know, I don't think he's dead. I thought it was a different body that. Oh, brother. I. You know, I'm not going to go that far, and I'm not going to get on that train, but just. There's people out there that think so many different. Well, even Larry, something is. I believe that we landed on the moon, but there are people out there that think that was just a hoax. And I'm like, okay, well, maybe it. Maybe it is. Maybe it is. I don't know. But I am not going to lose sleep over whether it was a hoax or, you know, I'm just going to go with, we landed on the moon and done with it.

But I know it's. It's very tempting to believe a lot of these shit, a lot of these

conspiracies, you know, but.

But you're dealing with those people, with those kind of mental thoughts and ideas and. And again, have we lost our moral compass? I keep saying that, but that's the only thing that I've come back to that I can settle in and gone. Why would you do some of these things? Why would you do the things that maybe aren't as severe as what we've talked about today with corruption, but why would you do the dog fighting? Why would you do some of these things that are just so brutal that I can even look at Larry and I can say, why would you have MMA for women? Why is it necessary for women to go in a ring and beat the hell out of each other? Or even men? You know, what would be the purpose? I look at some of this stuff and I just. I don't get it. I look at the Olympics. How in the hell. What do they call it? That curling thing with a throat? What in the hell possesses you to do that?

They're going for the gold, Ben. What are you talking about? They're shot. They're shot.

I get it. But what in the. What. Who came. Whatever. Who came up with that? You know what I mean?

I think that comes from the Greeks. I think that's actually from way back.

And it could be.

Not like break dancing. Breakdancing is not way back, but.

Right, right, right. They're not going to do that again, though, are they?

No, I don't think they lost.

I think that was one. That was one and done. But, yeah, I mean, some of the competitions are. I had a friend who. I forget what it said, but it's like, why are some of these competitions in here? They just had a bad day and they thought, well, this. I'm better at this than anybody else or whatever, you know, and it's kind of comical. But, yeah, I. I just don't understand. I don't understand some of that stuff, Larry. And, and like I said, I. I go back to, you know, even like I. I watch these women in the martial arts and, you know, eating up each other, and I'm like, lots of that. Yes, I can understand the macho ness of it.

Any of it. Yeah,

you know, I was just up to Penn State. Didn't go to the wrestling match. I've been to a few after. But that's. That's a skill, you know, level, leverage, strength, all that stuff in wrestling. And we have it in women's sports as women wrestling now, too. But try to justify some of the things that we do. The

brutality. Yeah, I agree.

Okay. Ben, it's been a lot of fun, as always. You promised you were gonna come visit. Now I haven't. I haven't seen you yet.

I know, I know. Well, you know, retired guys have a lot of things we're doing. I do wanna get up there. I think probably that it would be better to go when it's not quite as cold. And I can get rid of my beaver here.

No, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think you'd be allowed with the beaver. I think you have to leave the

beaver at the border.

Well, it is. I'll tell you, Larry, this is one of the coldest winters that I can remember in a long time. I mean, and I've spent a lot of time outside, whether it's pollen, hay or. And I started growing it back in November, and I just. I normally trim it up. I haven't trimmed it up. And anyhow, I can understand why. Men, you know, warm in the old days and that heat. Cold, cold. I plowed snow the one day, and my face was just literally a sheet of ice because cold and so on. So whatever. So, yeah, I definitely want to get up there and see you and hobnob.

Yeah. And I think. I think you. I think you should also think about running for Congress, Ben. I think you'd be a good congressman from. From that district. I mean, the moral compass. I think that's a good. That's a good slogan there.

It is. Yeah. I don't know if you know this, but I did get on the school board. I did run for the school.

I did.

And it's been interesting because I can't talk about too much of what there's people that got on there for certain agendas. And at this point, I like to think I'm still the voice of reason because they're looking at me and asking me what do I think? But hopefully I can bring that. And hopefully we can do that. Yeah. The moral compass, I think, is important. Common sense and dealing with a lot of different people that have experienced a lot of different things. You have to remember that as well.

Okay. It's a lot of fun. Ben, thanks so much for.

Thanks, Larry. Appreciate it. Have a good one.

That was my conversation with Ben Hepburn. We recorded this on February 15, the day after Valentine's Day, and I am not sure how we'll go forward from here. I know that the podcast wants to find a new season, and the new season would be framed around the fight that we're engaged in, that we that I talked about in season six, the fight to end Super PACs, which we've made a lot of progress on. And we're about to have oral arguments in the First Circuit in the case, which is defending the ordinance passed by 74.9% of the voters in Maine. And that ordinance ended super PACs in Maine. And I am optimistic, which is a word I don't use, that we're going to find in the First Circuit Agreement that the Constitution doesn't mandate super PACs. And after that, even in the Supreme Court, that'd be an extraordinary victory. You can find the sites that I promised in this podcast up on my Medium page. Just go to lessigedium.com and there'll be an essay about this podcast. And in that essay there'll be a link to everything that I mentioned in the podcast. So that you can not just trust, but trust and verify if there are questions you've got. Obviously that's my side of the argument. Can imagine people making another side of the argument. I didn't push at the end, but to the extent we start with there's a half a glass half full or a glass half empty, I'm finding it hard to see the part that's still full. But you knew that about my view and you heard Ben's views as well. I hope this has been worth your time. These podcasts are produced by Josh Elstro of Elstro Productions. You can find the podcast on the web wherever you get podcasts another way, I hope you'll tune in and sign up either for further conversations in this season or when we launch the next season. Thanks again for listening. This is Larry Lessig.