• last year
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. held a press briefing in Austin, Texas, where he was asked about his cryptocurrency policies, his main objectives if elected, and briefly discussed Donald Trump's hush money trial verdict.

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Transcript
00:00 Hey, everybody.
00:02 [APPLAUSE]
00:04 Thank you.
00:06 I'd like to introduce you to my son, Finn, who's traveling with me for a couple of weeks.
00:12 He represents the part of my family that's not working for the Biden administration.
00:16 [LAUGHTER]
00:18 Anyway, thanks for having me.
00:20 [APPLAUSE]
00:22 [LAUGHTER]
00:24 Any questions?
00:28 And we'll take questions from-- one question from everyone.
00:32 So we'll start over here.
00:34 Can you first say your first name, last name, your source, and then speak up with your question.
00:48 First name, Rodado. Last name, Chapel. I'm from Michigan.
00:52 [INAUDIBLE]
00:54 [LAUGHTER]
00:56 [INAUDIBLE]
00:58 And we are just asking questions.
01:02 Your question.
01:04 My question is, would you ever consider a universal basic income or some form, advanced form of Social Security
01:14 if it were funded through alternative mechanisms such as granting individuals rights to their data
01:18 and channeling a portion of the proceeds from the data sales by companies into a public investment fund,
01:24 which would then distribute the returns to the population?
01:28 Under normal conditions, I would be-- I'm not in support of universal basic income.
01:38 I don't know how that position will change as AI matures and emerges.
01:45 And it may be that it's so devastating to employment that we need to move in that direction.
01:53 Otherwise, I very much believe in markets.
01:57 And I hope that free market capitalism can survive AI.
02:03 That's what I would say.
02:07 What was the other part of your question?
02:10 I do believe that people ought to be able to monetize their own data.
02:17 I think that's really important.
02:19 That could be a source of income to people.
02:21 But I don't think that these big companies ought to be able to harvest people's data for free.
02:26 I think if they're harvesting your data, you're giving somebody your data, you ought to be paid for it.
02:33 Thank you.
02:34 Hi, I'm Paulo from Brazil.
02:38 Your platform has some similarities with many right-wing politicians worldwide, such as Bolsonaro, for example.
02:45 Do you consider yourself a far-right politician?
02:48 I wouldn't consider myself right or left.
02:52 I think my positions are common sense.
02:56 I think we shouldn't have these large budget deficits, $34 trillion deficit.
03:03 I think that we should end our addiction to foreign wars.
03:08 Is that right or left? I can't tell you.
03:10 I think we ought to end the chronic disease epidemic that now affects 60% of our kids.
03:16 Is that right or left? I can't tell you.
03:20 I want to end the division, this toxic division that is poisonous and is pushing our country ultimately toward a civil war.
03:35 I want to restore the soils and end the corrupt merger of state and corporate power
03:43 between the agricultural agencies and all of our other agencies.
03:46 I can't tell you whether that's right or left.
03:50 And I want to get rid of all the toxins that are poisoning our children.
04:01 We have a thousand ingredients in our food right now that are banned in Europe and other countries.
04:06 I'm going to get rid of them.
04:07 I can't tell you whether that's right or left.
04:09 I don't think of myself as conservative or liberal.
04:16 I think of myself as somebody who loves my country and wants to do what's right for as many people as possible.
04:24 And I want to save the environment, which is the issue of my life.
04:28 I can't tell you whether that's right or left either.
04:31 Thank you.
04:34 The U.S. is now adding a trillion dollars to the debt every hundred days.
04:43 If we end up getting to a place where we have to print a bunch of money to bail out the banks, what would be your strategy?
04:51 Does it incorporate Bitcoin?
04:53 How are we going to deal with the bank crisis?
04:55 First of all, we need to cut our spending and we need to cut it in ways.
05:03 Our debt is beyond the point where we can just cut our way out of the debt.
05:08 We have to change the way that we spend money so that it grows our economy.
05:13 Right now, the military expenditures are not growing our economy.
05:18 Those are orphaned investments.
05:20 You build a bomber and missile and then you destroy it, and it does not contribute to growth.
05:27 And the chronic disease epidemic, which is the biggest cause, has now $4.3 trillion.
05:33 It's five times our military budget.
05:35 And that also is a dead-end investment, actually.
05:38 It's a negative investment because it imposes greater costs on our society and on individuals.
05:45 We need to end the chronic disease epidemic, which I'm going to do.
05:50 And we need to reapply that money to either save it to savings or we need to reapply it to projects that are actually going to grow our economy.
06:02 We need--the only way out of this debt is to grow our economy so that proportionally the debt gets smaller.
06:10 And there are opportunities, particularly in blockchain technology, in AI technology,
06:19 if we manage to keep those in the United States to grow our economy enormously the same way that Silicon Valley did.
06:26 I also have proposed to apply some of that to use Bitcoin or a basket of hard currencies.
06:38 In our debt--in our deficit services, though, in other words, they issue T-bills that start off with maybe 1 percent of the T-bill,
06:52 the Treasury bill, being a basket of hard assets, which would include Bitcoin.
06:58 And then if that works, then move that to 2 percent the next year and every year at a percentage.
07:05 And ultimately--and slowly, because I don't think it's good for our country to torpedo the dollar overnight.
07:12 I think over the long term, though, we need to inject discipline into our understanding.
07:18 And the only way to do that is with hard currency.
07:21 The capacity to print money indefinitely is enabling politicians.
07:29 It's enabling all our wars.
07:31 We would not have any of these forever wars if we actually had to pay for them.
07:37 The only way that we're able to do it--and it's very destructive for our country--is by printing money.
07:43 And ultimately, hard currency gives us freedom.
07:48 And particularly, Bitcoin and some other cryptocurrencies, it frees us.
07:55 It gives us the capacity to democratize us, decentralize our economy.
08:02 It gives us freedom to carry our wealth across borders in our heads.
08:09 And so it ends the capacity of government to steal our wealth.
08:16 Thank you, Mario.
08:18 I sneaked in here because I've just got so many more questions.
08:22 I've got one more now.
08:24 Critics say that crypto could undermine the U.S. dollar.
08:27 They claim any Bitcoin is a fraud.
08:30 Is Bitcoin a threat to national security and economic stability?
08:35 I think Bitcoin is a way to save the dollar in the way that I just outlined.
08:41 At the dollar, we're already seeing the rise of bricks.
08:44 So we're already seeing accelerated this threat to the role of the American dollar as the global reserve currency.
08:56 And ultimately, I think the only way to save the dollar is through the program that I've outlined, which would include Bitcoin.
09:04 I think it's a salvation.
09:06 And it's also a pathway out of this $34 trillion debt.
09:13 Do you have a question?
09:15 Go ahead.
09:16 I have a question.
09:17 Thank you.
09:18 This is Wendy Yeh from Forsyth News.
09:20 So I'm curious, could you please share your personal experience or exposures to crypto or any coins and that piece of basically the crypto-related things?
09:32 And also, could you please name three biggest issues facing the United States related to crypto, either regulation or the--
09:41 Regulation.
09:42 Yeah, regulation.
09:43 The biggest big issues here in the United States.
09:45 And how would you address these issues?
09:49 Yeah.
09:50 Yeah, I mean, I think the big issues are transactional freedom.
09:56 We need sovereignty over our own wallets and transactional freedom.
10:01 And we need a third.
10:04 We need a decentralized currency that is transparent.
10:10 And that we need to-- and that as a bulwark against totalitarianism.
10:18 You know, we saw what they did during the trucker strike in Canada.
10:23 We saw what PayPal did here in the pandemic, where it leveled penalties against people who were promoting misinformation, which of course was not, you know, erroneous facts.
10:34 It was just any factual assertion that challenged government orthodoxies.
10:40 And then finally, we need to bring blockchain.
10:43 We need to make sure America remains the hub of blockchain technology.
10:48 We are-- the hostility of the Biden administration to Bitcoin is driving this technology abroad.
10:58 In the last couple of years, Switzerland has registered about 1,200 Bitcoin companies.
11:04 They have a value, collective value of $360 billion.
11:09 That-- all of those innovators, those entrepreneurs want to be in the United States.
11:16 We've driven them to Switzerland.
11:17 We've driven them to Singapore.
11:19 And I'm going to end that hostility from the banking system, from the Fed, on the regulatory agencies, from the FDIC, from the SEC.
11:28 I'm going to end that hostility toward cryptocurrencies.
11:32 I'm going to make sure that cryptocurrencies are regulated in ways that protect the consumer from malicious schemes and puppet dump schemes, et cetera.
11:43 But really, truly decentralized currencies should be encouraged, and we should be encouraging the flow of capital into those currencies.
11:53 And I'm going to do that as president.
11:55 How about the first question?
11:56 Do you own any coins?
11:58 I own-- I-- since I started this campaign, I purchased 21 Bitcoins.
12:07 And I did that with my fees in the Monsanto case.
12:13 So I brought, you know, the litigation.
12:15 I was on the trial team that brought the litigation against Monsanto that ultimately settled for about $13 billion.
12:23 I got some fees from that case, and I put those fees into crypto, and I bought three coins for each of my kids.
12:30 Yes?
12:31 Hi, I'm Rachel Wolfson.
12:33 I'm here with Web3D.com podcast.
12:35 I'm just wondering what your thoughts are on the recent approval of the Ethereum spot ETF.
12:41 Do you think that's good for the government and good for traditional financial institutions?
12:45 I think I was very happy with it.
12:48 I think it was probably-- I mean, I would say that no matter what, it's a good thing.
12:55 I assume I was politically motivated because Gary Gensler and the White House have been very, very opposed up until now to doing that.
13:06 But anything is good.
13:08 It's a good step in the right direction.
13:11 I applaud it.
13:12 And, you know, we should be doing everything we can to encourage the flow of capital into alternative currencies, decentralized currencies.
13:23 Okay.
13:25 I'm Cheyenne Ligon from Comcast.
13:26 Thank you for being here.
13:27 I'm hoping that you could elaborate on your plan to put the federal budget on the blockchain, particularly the tech specificity.
13:34 What blockchain-- what does that look like in practice?
13:36 Well, what I want to do is to make sure the federal government-- the federal budget is utterly transparent, and everybody has access to it.
13:45 And, you know, one of the ways of doing that would be putting it on blockchain.
13:49 You know, I'd like to use blockchain in many, many ways to make us, again, more transparent in this country, more decentralized to give individuals sovereignty.
14:04 And, you know, I think-- and also make us-- to encourage an ecosystem of entrepreneurship and innovation in the United States.
14:15 Do you have a question?
14:16 Yeah.
14:17 Jesse Hamilton, TwinDesk.
14:19 What-- if I-- we could just touch on the campaign a little bit.
14:22 What's your plausible path for, like, Toro College success?
14:29 Well, right now, we were told that we could never get on the ballot in enough states to get 270 votes.
14:39 Right now, I think it's-- today, we're on the-- we are on the ballot in seven states.
14:45 We have enough signatures to get on the ballot in 17 states, and I think today, maybe 18.
14:54 By June 20th-- so we have enough, I think, for 229 electoral college votes now out of the 270 we need.
15:03 By June 20th, we will be on the ballot in enough states for 343 electoral college votes, and by mid-July, we'll be on every state.
15:16 So, you know, in terms of being on the ballot, we will be there, and we're getting there.
15:22 We're beating all of our metrics.
15:24 In New York yesterday, we were required to hand in 45-- it's the hardest thing-- 45,000 signatures.
15:34 We had six weeks to do it.
15:36 The window is one of the narrowest, and we handed in 137,000 signatures yesterday.
15:44 We have 1,000 volunteers on the ground.
15:47 We handed in signatures from every county in the state, from 63 counties.
15:52 You're required to hand in signatures from 13 congressional districts, 3,000 in each.
15:59 We handed in over 3,000 from all 26 congressional districts, so we're beating every metric.
16:07 Texas, which is the other hardest state, we got, I think-- we got--
16:13 [INAUDIBLE]
16:15 Oh, yeah, we turned in a quarter million signatures.
16:18 And again, those are the two-- those are both records.
16:22 Nobody's ever turned in that many signatures in New York State.
16:26 So-- and it's forced us to develop a ground game that none of the other candidates have.
16:32 And we're going to have that ground game, you know, ready on Election Day.
16:36 Yes.
16:38 Katherine Ross with Block Works.
16:39 I'm curious--
16:40 Can you speak up, please?
16:41 Sorry, Katherine Ross with Block Works.
16:42 Donald Trump has now come out and said that he's going to be pro-crypto,
16:45 and I'm curious what your thoughts are on that.
16:48 I'm happy about that.
16:50 I think it's a good thing for our country.
16:54 I think it's a good thing-- pardon Ross Ulrich, which he announced.
16:59 I already talked about that, and I'm-- you know, I'm glad.
17:02 Listen, I think, you know, crypto for me, my commitment comes from it.
17:09 To crypto because of a deep commitment to freedom, a deep commitment to transparency,
17:15 a deep commitment to constitutional rights.
17:19 And, you know, and so I think it's good.
17:22 The more candidates-- I'm not going to question whether it was a political decision or, you know,
17:28 or cast doubts on its sincerity.
17:34 I'm happy he did it.
17:36 I think the more-- I hope President Biden does it, too.
17:40 Yes.
17:41 Thank you for being here.
17:42 Quick question.
17:43 Your first name, last name, and outlet, please.
17:45 Andrew.
17:46 Yes, Andrew Gonzalez, CryptoTreaty Journal.
17:48 Just a quick question.
17:49 Do you own the board A?
17:50 What?
17:51 The board A.
17:53 The NFT board A.
17:54 No, I don't.
17:55 I just got that.
17:56 Go ahead.
17:59 Turner Wright with Cointelegraph.
18:01 So after you were put up for consideration with the Libertarian Party and ended up not going through,
18:07 how do you feel about how they-- who they did nominate, Chase Oliver, in terms of his policies?
18:12 I'm happy with, you know, the outcome.
18:16 We didn't, you know, apply for the nomination.
18:19 We didn't-- I was called-- I actually got called at 6 o'clock in the morning.
18:23 And the weird thing was I turned my phone off because Cheryl-- because my phone was bing, bing, binging, you know, late at night.
18:34 She said, "Your phone's on."
18:36 And so I got up and I turned the phone off, but somehow it rang anyway at 6 o'clock in the morning.
18:43 And I had come in from the East Coast late the night before.
18:46 I was-- and I had been at the Libertarian Convention and got on a late night flight, made it to L.A.,
18:53 and Angela McCardell, who was the head of the party, called me at 6 a.m.
18:57 and she said, "I'm on the podium.
19:00 You've just been nominated.
19:02 Do you accept the nomination?"
19:03 We weren't asking for the nomination.
19:06 We didn't expect to-- you know, we don't need that nomination we're going to get.
19:11 It would have complicated our lives to have that nomination because, you know, we're already going to be on the ballot.
19:17 We've already gotten on the heart of the states.
19:19 It's all an easy ride from here.
19:22 And we've asked thousands of volunteers to get thousands of hours to get us on the ballot.
19:28 So if we did something with Libertarian, I think it would hurt a lot of people's feelings.
19:33 It was not an actual partnership with us, but I like the Libertarians.
19:41 I spoke at their convention.
19:42 There's many of our values that I share in common, so I was flattered by it.
19:48 And I initially said to Angela, I said, "I don't think we can do that."
19:54 And then she said, "Well, will you call Amber Ellis?"
19:57 And I called Amber Ellis, and she said, "Yeah, do it."
20:00 And so I said to Angela, "Yeah, we'll do it."
20:04 And I was happy because, at least in comparison, we got 19 votes.
20:09 President Trump only got two.
20:11 So in our first head-to-head contest, I feel good about the outcome.
20:19 But, you know, I commend Chase Oliver, and I love the Libertarian Party, and I hope some of them will still vote for me.
20:27 Anybody back there have a question?
20:30 Okay.
20:31 Oh, amazing.
20:32 I hope maybe you [inaudible] because the first is based on breaking news,
20:36 and I think almost everyone in here would love to hear it, which is the Trump verdict is A.
20:40 Do you have a comment?
20:41 We don't know what it is yet, but do you have a comment, no matter where it falls, on what the verdict might be
20:46 or your thoughts in general?
20:49 No, I don't have any thoughts on it.
20:51 I don't -- you know, I've been very disciplined about not talking about the lawsuits against President Trump
20:58 or the lawsuits against President Biden or Hunter Biden
21:01 and to try to focus on the issues rather than on the, you know, cultural war debates.
21:06 Thank you so much.
21:08 Appreciate it.
21:09 There are reports that you met with Rand Paul.
21:12 Are you looking to -- at that as a way to gain more libertarian connection, support?
21:17 Are you trying to find more support from the Hill and Reynolds?
21:21 And have you -- can you actually confirm those reports that you met with him?
21:24 Yeah, I've met with him, and I've spoken to him many, many times.
21:29 And we -- you know, I met with him, one, because I admire him.
21:35 At that point, we were exploring his interest in the VP in our vice presidential spot.
21:42 I talked to many, many people.
21:45 He was one of them.
21:50 What motivated you to get involved with this campaign?
21:54 With what?
21:55 What motivated you to get involved and run?
21:58 And what's your name and outlet?
21:59 My name is Kat Couturneau.
22:00 I'm with Modern Motion.
22:01 To get involved in what?
22:02 In the campaign.
22:03 In the campaign.
22:04 To run for president.
22:05 And to run for president.
22:06 What motivated you?
22:07 I saw -- I was not -- you know, I had toyed with getting into politics when I was younger.
22:14 But I had -- for, I'd say, two decades, I have not -- you know, that's -- I took that off the plate.
22:23 And I had a great life.
22:24 I wasn't waiting around running for president.
22:26 I saw what happened during the COVID lockdowns, where they shut down the entire economy.
22:32 And I knew that was wrong.
22:34 And then many of the other things in the -- that they did during COVID that the government did without --
22:40 you know, they waived our constitutional rights.
22:42 They shut down every church in our country.
22:45 They shut down -- they attacked the Fifth Amendment guarantee of property rights, due process, just compensation.
22:53 They shut down 3.3 million businesses without due process, without just compensation.
22:59 They shut down jury trials.
23:01 The Seventh Amendment guarantee of jury trials.
23:03 They, you know, they violated the Fourth Amendment prohibitions against pointless searches and seizures,
23:10 about this track and trace of malice.
23:13 And I saw this wholesale attack on the Constitution and then the censorship.
23:18 Not just of me, but so many people who were trying to talk, you know, doctors, physicians, scientists,
23:27 who were -- people who were injured by some of the countermeasures, who were forbidden from talking.
23:34 Even today, you know, the mainstream media will not discuss certain issues.
23:39 And I saw that, and it just seemed so antithetical to my country.
23:45 And my party, the Democratic Party, was at the center of it.
23:50 And then the war in Ukraine, you know, we used to have an anti-war party, which was Democrat,
23:56 and a pro-war party, which was a Republican.
23:59 And I saw, you know, the Democratic Party disappear as an anti-war party.
24:04 So all of these traditional values of my party and my country were disappearing.
24:11 And I saw my country play a unique -- I could play a unique role in reminding people
24:21 about what America is supposed to look like and also fixing it.
24:24 Because most of the problems come from this corrupt merger of state and corporate power
24:30 and from the capture of the regulatory agencies.
24:32 And I've spent 40 years litigating against those agencies and I had a really good idea about how to fix them.
24:38 Great. Yes.
24:40 Yes, RFK Jr., both of you, thank you for your time.
24:43 Austin Arnold of Altcoin Daily, over 2 million subscribers across all social platforms.
24:48 This is a two-part question. My twin brother has a second part.
24:51 You were the very first presidential candidate to come out and support self-custody for every American with crypto wallets.
24:59 What is your stance on decentralized exchanges and the 50 million crypto-investing Americans, voters,
25:07 will be able to use decentralized exchanges as free as they use a crypto wallet or the Internet?
25:14 That is my objective.
25:16 Ultimately, I think cryptocurrencies need to be regulated, particularly those currencies that claim to be decentralized
25:27 but they're actually centralized because there's a lot of opportunities there for con artists and malicious actors
25:36 to pump and dump schemes, etc.
25:38 And the consumers need to be protected against that.
25:42 And, you know, the regulation, it's in different parts of their life cycle.
25:51 You have, you know, the cryptocurrencies look like a commodity sometimes, and sometimes like a security.
26:01 And the federal agencies right now are not equipped to do the kind of regulation,
26:07 the unique regulation that should be applied to them.
26:10 And so, and that's what I'm going to do as president.
26:13 I'm going to make sure, I'm going to ease the introduction and the proliferation of Bitcoin to the entire population
26:29 so that it can be used transactionally.
26:32 Aaron Arnold, Baltimore Daily, CNN Kennedy's.
26:36 Just in a totally different direction,
26:38 how long do you think it will be until large governments begin purchasing Bitcoin or crypto,
26:44 seeing it presumably as an advantage over their adversaries or other superpowers?
26:50 Well, I don't know.
26:51 I mean, I'd say two or three years ago, I would say that I, you know,
26:57 if you asked me when BlackRock was going to start purchasing it, I would have said, I don't know.
27:01 And now BlackRock is, I think, one of the biggest owners.
27:06 So I don't know.
27:07 I think we need a change in administration in order to recognize that in terms of saving the United States dollar,
27:16 you know, that it's not the enemy of the dollar.
27:18 It actually could be used to save the dollar.
27:22 And I, you know, I recognize that.
27:24 Maybe another superpower, though.
27:25 Do you think that will be?
27:26 Well, I don't know.
27:27 I mean, as you know, there are, there are countries that are now using Bitcoin officially as their currency.
27:34 The proliferation has not been that impressive.
27:37 I think even El Salvador is only about 1% of transactions.
27:44 But, you know, I think they don't have it.
27:46 They did not kind of think out their regulatory process.
27:50 And we need to do that.
27:52 I think it will, the proliferation will be very fast.
27:56 And it really depends on the rate of inflation.
27:58 But it's a hedge against inflation.
28:01 That opportunity ought to be, along with all of its other advantages,
28:05 that opportunity ought to be available to every member of the American middle class and working people who are on salaries,
28:12 who ought to be able to convert their cash, their investments, their Bitcoin to hedge against inflation.
28:18 Yes.
28:19 Hi, I'm Sina from Squid Girl.
28:21 Thank you for being here.
28:23 My question is, you said that you want to make this country the most crypto-friendly country in the world.
28:28 We've seen El Salvador fully adopt Bitcoin.
28:31 So if you're president, do we expect the U.S. to be even more crypto-friendly than El Salvador?
28:36 And how do you plan on doing that?
28:38 I think we'll do it a little differently than I admire what El Salvador did.
28:43 I think we're going to do it differently.
28:45 You know, we need to really make sure, we need to make it, we need to create a regulatory infrastructure
28:54 that is designed for cryptocurrencies and for Bitcoin, for decentralized cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin.
29:01 We don't have that.
29:03 I think other examples would be Switzerland, Singapore, that have different models.
29:10 I think we need to do that.
29:11 You know, the […] passed the FIT Act recently,
29:17 and I think that's a really good start towards creating that regulatory infrastructure.
29:24 Yes.
29:25 So, Leonardo Cavalcanti from Blocktrains.
29:29 So the stablecoin issuers like Tether have been buying bonds for a long time now.
29:39 And Tether has more bonds than Germany right now.
29:46 So how do you see this?
29:48 How do you see that?
29:50 Do you think this is a problem with the regulation?
29:53 Do you think the government will be tied up with these companies?
29:59 Because they are buying a lot of treasury bonds.
30:02 I don't know much about it.
30:08 I can't believe that they have more treasury bonds than China.
30:11 There are a lot of people that own treasury bonds.
30:19 I don't think that you can make an argument that it's dangerous for our national security.
30:25 But what you're telling me right now is the first I've ever heard of it.
30:30 So I haven't spent a lot of time worrying about it.
30:33 Yes.
30:34 Derek Bowman, TCRN.
30:35 Mr. Kennedy, I know it's hard to mention, but just to reaffirm,
30:39 last week former President Trump mentioned Ross Ulrich saying he would commute.
30:43 He mentioned Ross Ulrich.
30:45 Would you go a step further?
30:48 I know you said a moment ago, would you pardon him if he said he would commute?
30:51 But would you actually consider pardoning Ross Ulrich?
30:53 I need to.
30:56 And I told this to Ross' mother.
30:58 As soon as I get into the White House, I'm going to look at Ross' case very, very carefully
31:04 and figure out a just outcome.
31:07 And, you know, I don't know whether that means pardoning him or commuting him.
31:11 I don't know yet.
31:13 You know, I'm not going to do it.
31:15 I'm not going to make a frivolous commitment without knowing all of the facts.
31:19 I'm going to have my attorney general review it, but I'm going to do it very, very quickly,
31:24 and I'm going to reach a decision and an outcome very quickly
31:28 within the first couple of weeks of taking office.
31:32 Yes.
31:34 Hi, Rebecca Lee from Consensus.
31:37 You mentioned that you purchased three bitcoins for each of your children,
31:41 and you also spoke about transactional freedom.
31:44 In your opinion, what does the future hold for the next generation of those interested in cryptocurrency?
31:49 And what do you hope it offers them?
31:51 What is my--?
31:53 What is your opinion on the future for the next generation of those interested in cryptocurrency?
32:01 And what do you hope it offers them?
32:03 Well, I mean, my--you know what?
32:06 My objective is that crypto is--and if I get elected president, this is what I'm going to work towards--
32:17 that it is a transactional currency, that people have transactional freedom,
32:23 and that, you know, people have a choice about whether they want to buy it,
32:28 that you can--you ought to be able to--and we should be treating it as a currency.
32:34 We shouldn't be treating it--you know, we shouldn't be taxing it as capital gains, ultimately.
32:42 And, you know, I think there's issues with how we do that, how we transition to that system.
32:50 But, you know, that's my vision, that it should be a currency in our society that's used to purchase apples,
32:59 and, you know, and food and lunch and coffee, and that, you know, people can do that.
33:06 My name is Brandon Bianco from CryptoMarketsMaker.
33:10 You mentioned a few times transparency is a trait of cryptocurrencies that are desirable.
33:15 What are some other characteristics of other tokens that might move us forward into the next generation of cryptocurrencies?
33:22 Well, I can't tell you specific tokens, but the characteristics of it is that it's transparent, it is decentralized,
33:34 it cannot be manipulated to, you know--and like fiat currencies, we can just print it, and, you know,
33:41 fiat current, we wouldn't have war like we do.
33:45 All the wars that we fought, except for maybe World War II and maybe World War I,
33:52 we would not have fought if we actually had a base currency, because, you know,
33:57 the American people would have to approve those expenditures up front, and they wouldn't do it.
34:02 And they'd have to choose between, you know, the schools their kids go to and their--the food they eat,
34:09 and they wouldn't do it.
34:11 People can do it now. Politicians can do it now, because there's no cost to it.
34:16 They're charging future generations, and they're diluting our wealth through the back door.
34:23 And so it has that advantage of actually making honest government.
34:28 It has the advantage if you're in totalitarian systems, you can bring your wealth with you.
34:36 You know, after 1948, there were a million Jews expelled from various lands in North Africa and the Mideast
34:49 under a new retinue of law that says the only thing that they could bring of their property was their suitcases.
34:57 They lost all their wealth. The same thing happened in Germany after World War II.
35:02 With crypto, you couldn't do that. You can have your wealth in your head. You don't have to carry it on your body.
35:07 So it's a hedge against totalitarian systems. It's a hedge against--hey, if you try to carry $10,000 across the border
35:17 into the United States from any country in the world, the government is going to put--
35:23 they're going to do one of two things. They're going to put you in jail,
35:28 or they're going to steal your money and put you in jail. And those are the two choices.
35:33 But if you have crypto, you can go across borders with money in your head and you can retain your wealth.
35:44 It takes the power away from government to regulate it, us, and to address us.
35:50 Okay, so there's some breaking news on the verdict. Thank you. Appreciate allowing me to circle back.
35:56 Verdict is in. Trump has been found guilty on all 34 counts. What is your comment?
36:01 And how do you think this is going to affect the presidential election?
36:06 Again, I've been disciplined about not commenting on the court cases and talking about issues
36:13 that I think are of deep concern to Americans and not the issues that aren't being used to divide us,
36:19 the culture war issues. So I'm not going to comment on it.
36:21 But he is now convicted and running for president. How do you think that--
36:26 at the very least, how do you think that's going to impact the election?
36:28 My answer that I just gave you, I repeat it again.
36:32 Okay, yes.
36:34 Krista Kim for Maxius. I was wondering, referencing the NBC complaint that was filed recently,
36:42 why do you think you're getting unfairly shut out from the first presidential debate?
36:49 Why do I think I am? Because I don't think President Biden and President Trump want to talk about
36:55 any of the issues that I think are existential to the American people.
36:59 I don't think they want to talk about the $34 trillion debt because the two of them ran a path of it between them.
37:06 I don't think they want to talk about the division that is tearing our country apart because the two of them feed on it.
37:14 I don't think they want to talk about the chronic disease epidemic which now impacts 60% of our children
37:22 and is costing $4.3 trillion a year because both of them presided over it.
37:28 I don't think they want to talk about the destruction of our soils, the destruction of our food supply,
37:36 the mass poisoning of our food supply with chemicals that are illegal in other countries because they presided over that.
37:49 I don't think they want to talk about the forever wars because they're the ones who are waging them.
37:55 Those are the issues that are of the greatest concern to our country.
38:00 I don't think they can talk about it.
38:04 The pathological lying of government to the American people.
38:09 When my uncle was president, 85% of Americans thought the government didn't lie.
38:15 Every American knows the government lies every time it opens its mouth.
38:20 I'm going to end that.
38:22 I'm going to do an executive order that says any federal official who lies to Americans is going to lose their job immediately.
38:31 They can't make that promise because they have four years to do it.
38:37 I'm going to end the corrupt merger of state and corporate power that both of them have profited on.
38:44 These are all issues.
38:46 They're going to talk about abortion.
38:47 They're going to talk about guns.
38:48 They're going to talk about the border.
38:50 They're going to talk about trans rights.
38:52 That's what they want to talk about.
38:53 They want a narrow Overton window where all we can talk about is culture war issues
38:58 and about President Trump's convictions, arrests, or whatever.
39:03 I don't want to talk about those.
39:06 I want to talk about the issues and really the fact there's a whole generation of kids, millennials, Generation X,
39:13 that are never going to own their own home.
39:15 Why is that happening?
39:17 Why have they done nothing about it?
39:20 Why are they letting BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard, which are the biggest contributors to both their political parties,
39:28 buy up all the homes that should be going to our kids?
39:31 What are they going to do about it?
39:33 They can't do anything and they can't say anything because they're the ones who created the problem.
39:39 >> Yes.
39:41 >> Yes.
39:42 >> I have a question about energy.
39:46 A lot of the technologies we're talking about, from Bitcoin mining, AI, they're very intense in terms of energy consumption.
39:53 What is your solution for cleaner energy?
39:57 >> I think the industry does need to do better, but I also think there's a built-in incentive system that,
40:04 over the long run, that Bitcoin mining is actually going to be good for the environment.
40:13 The reason I say that is even now, Bitcoin miners are chasing the cheapest energy
40:19 because it's the biggest thing, 85% of Bitcoin mining is energy.
40:24 It is your profits from mining Bitcoin are dependent on you reducing those costs.
40:32 They're going to go to places where energy is free and they're mobile so they can move.
40:38 But any Bitcoin miner who's buying high-cost energy, which is a high-impact energy,
40:44 the lowest cost energy is the lowest impact energy to the environment,
40:48 anybody who doesn't take advantage of that is going to be eliminated in the marketplace.
40:56 The other thing is, I spent 10 or 15 years building power plants, wind and solar power plants,
41:07 and these are intermittent power.
41:10 It's very hard to finance them if you can't guarantee some revenue streams.
41:16 Bitcoin miners can travel to those sites and put a mine at those sites.
41:22 There's times a day when the sun is shining, but the electrons cannot be sold.
41:28 When supply exceeds demand, they can make a contract saying they're going to buy that power.
41:35 They're going to buy all the excess power and put it into their Bitcoin.
41:40 That gives a revenue stream to those companies that in many ways, in many cases,
41:47 will allow them to finance projects that otherwise couldn't be financed.
41:51 That's how we're going to make a transition to renewable power.

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