Patrick Bet-David on Trump’s Comeback, Elon Musk’s Influence, and the Age of ‘Podcast Elections’

Patrick Bet-David, the businessman turned podcaster, has emerged as a force in conservative political commentary thanks to a large and growing audience on YouTube across two networks, PBD Podcast and Valuetainment.

For this week’s episode of Mediaite’s Press Club, editor in chief Aidan McLaughlin visited Bet-David at his new 11-acre Florida complex, which boasts two airplane hangars and a series of studios for the expanding media business. “In the month of November, we got 300 million views,” he said. “That puts us ahead of every single mainstream YouTube channel, aside from MSNBC and Fox News.”

During a year in which the independent media in many ways supplanted the traditional press as the central information ecosystem for a presidential election — for the first time in U.S. history — Bet-David played a key role. His YouTube shows, which boast more than 8 million subscribers between them, pumped out viral interviews and commentary, typically of the pro-Trump variety.

Bet-David’s show was one of several stops Trump made in the chaotic final months of the 2024 campaign. The candidate sat down for a 90-minute interview at Bet-David’s Florida studios — an interview watched millions of times across various platforms.

Bet-David recalled how the interview came together thanks to Trump’s youngest son: “Barron calls us: ‘Hey, can you come to Mar-a-Lago? My dad would like to have dinner with you.’ I go to Mar-a-Lago, it’s him and his father. Barron was telling his dad, ‘You have to come on this podcast!’ Trump was like, ‘See, he’s got an eye, he always tells me which shows to go on.'”

Bet-David’s rise has coincided with a decline in the relevance of traditional media, which is facing headwinds on the business side as well as from critics seeking to convince viewers to tune into them instead. Bet-David argued that, regardless of what happens to the legacy media, podcasts will be the media battlefield once again in the next election.

“If you don’t market yourself through podcasting, you’re not going to be competing in 2028,” he said.

On Elon Musk, Bet-David hailed the Tesla and SpaceX CEO as “the most powerful civilian in the history of America.” He credited Musk’s strategic moves, including his acquisition of X (formerly Twitter), with reshaping public discourse. “Musk is a true believer. He’s not doing it for money; he’s driven by something greater.”

When asked about concerns over Musk’s concentrated power and political influence, Bet-David argued, “It’s capitalism. He’s one of the few with that kind of reach, and he’s using it to disrupt the old systems.”

He also spoke about his growing media business, Trump’s decision to offer cabinet positions to those who have criticized him in the past, and why he waded into the recent rift in the MAGA base over immigration.

Mediaite’s Press Club airs in full Saturdays at 10 a.m. on Sirius XM’s POTUS Channel 124. You can also subscribe to Press Club on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Read a rough transcript of the conversation below, edited for length and clarity.

Aidan McLaughlin: This is the second time I’ve interviewed you. The first was for a story I wrote for The Spectator. And the reason I wanted to write that piece, is that you first came on my radar a couple of years ago, and by last summer, I was pretty surprised that someone like you, with this large audience, wasn’t getting any mainstream coverage. There’s this odd gap in mainstream media coverage of you. What do you make of that and what do you see as your place in the media ecosystem?

Patrick Bet-David: By the way, I enjoyed the interview we did with The Spectator. I thought the article was written in a very fair way and I enjoyed reading it. So look, I’m new to this space because I came from financial services, insurance sales organization, building that, selling that. But in 2009, I heard a message being given by Dudley Rutherford, who said, There’s seven mountains to climb in America. The hardest one to climb is media. Business, clergy, military, family, all this stuff, and then media. Why? Because you can have a lot of influence, but it’s very hard, very competitive. You can’t stay long enough. And I said, Huh. Interesting. Then in 2013, we start a YouTube channel purely for business content. And then 2 or 3 years later, in 2015, one of the videos goes viral and what was business content grows. And then while I was building my insurance company and getting ready to sell it, I asked myself, three years before I sold it, What am I going to do after I sell? If I don’t know what I’m going to do after I sell, I’m not selling. I said we’re going to get into media and consulting. So somebody’s not writing about me for what we’ve done the last four years, I’m not surprised. But at this point right now, with what’s going on, I think you were here election night, we had a couple thousand people here at our new property, it was a number-one livestream worldwide. We have a very weird audience. We have some audience that watches us because they fully agree with us. We have some that watch us that don’t agree with us, but they just like the banter and the debate. And then there are people in the middle that are like, Well, I like these topics, I like that. And so we’ve had a broad business owner audience, day-to-day audience, pro-America audience, and an international audience that’s curious to know what’s going on with current events.

You’ve now built a big media company. When did you realize that it was going to be a success?

So I don’t think we’re big yet. I think we’re getting eyeballs. I don’t think we’re big yet. I think we’re actually very small right now. I think what you’re seeing right now as our consulting firm is growing…

We’re sitting in an enormous air hangar on a very large property.

You’re sitting on 11 acres, two hangars that we have. And we’re going to be building three buildings here to house 2000 employees. Right now, we have 150 full-time employees in three different buildings that we own. We’re selling one of them. We’re moving everybody else in here. The other building is a comedy club with two bars and a cigar lounge where we do our events with Bobby Kennedy, or Vivek, or the debates that we host. The comedy club opens up in two months in Fort Lauderdale, which is great. We’re excited about it. But the media side, I’m watching everybody right now and seeing what things are working and what things are not working, what storyline we want to do, what things we want to touch, what hero or villain we want to go through with documentaries and movies for us to make. It has to make sense to us. And I just wrote my first fiction book called The Academy that I’ve been working on for 13 years, that was just released. That’s probably going to end up being the first movie we do. But movies and docs, you’ll see in 2 to 5 years. Podcast content creation, in the month of November, we got 300 million views just off of two YouTube channels in the month of November. And that puts us ahead of every single mainstream YouTube channel, aside from MSNBC and aside from Fox News on YouTube, not cable, but purely on YouTube. So we’re gradually figuring this thing out and we’re having a lot of fun with it. But when you come back and I’m comfortable to be able to say we’re big, we’re just not there right now.

Putting aside consulting, is YouTube where you’re making the most money? And how much revenue are you pulling in?

Not at all. So YouTube for us, if you combined the AdSense on what YouTube is doing, in November, we made a half $1 million. So it’s not a big number that we’re talking about to be able to consider it big. In YouTube sense, that’s probably good money. Now here’s what we don’t do. We stopped one year ago and it was intentional. About a year ago, I watched all the businesses and I was watching how people were making money: sponsorships. I don’t want to do that. If I do, the sponsor has to be somebody that I wear their product or I use their product, something that we 100% believe in. I don’t want to be like, we’re taking sponsorships for everything. We don’t want to do that. So I paused all sponsorships a year ago which cost us $6 million of not taking sponsorship money. My former sponsorship guy always reminds me, You cost me $6 million. But we started doing everything feeding our businesses. So Minnect is an app we developed the last five years. It’s our business. Consulting, it’s ours. Merch, we sold more merch in the month of November than we did roughly the last two and a half years combined, just in one month. So our merch has grown, our other businesses have grown, our news site that we built, vtnews.ai, where we hired 15 machine learning guys to build the AI on vtnews.ai, that’s growing. But the podcast became the funnel to feed all the businesses. So we increased equity, but at the cost of $6 million of sponsorship money, which we’re okay with.

What’s your approach to news and commentary? There was this debate, it’s almost antiquated now, but there was this debate when podcasters were really blowing up, when Joe Rogan was becoming an increasingly influential and important part of the media ecosystem, about how these new voices and commentators that didn’t go to journalism school, that weren’t part of The Washington Post, were now interviewing major political figures and delivering commentary of their own. There was a debate about whether or not they had a requirement to fact-check guests, or to not platform a certain guest because they’re either too extreme or they’re a conspiracy theorist. Do you see that as a responsibility at all when you’re doing your show?

I’m not sure our role is to fact-check everything we talk about 100%. Yes, we have people on our team who will fact-check things, asking, “Can you verify this?” or “Can you look this up?” But honestly, that’s even more of a reason why we need debates. For example, we had Anthony Weiner on the show. It was a fiery conversation—a real debate, and it made for great TV. It was heated, but that’s the point of a debate. We’ve also had Candace Owens and Chris Cuomo do a two-hour podcast together. It was heated too—lots of back and forth. There were questions like, “Do you think we need ads to vote?” One side says yes, the other says no, and then they dive deep into it. It was a great exchange. And then we had Dave Smith and Cuomo—another fantastic conversation about COVID and Fauci. It got intense, but guess what? We got hundreds of millions of views, clips, and tons of engagement. The real winner? The audience. This is why I believe we need more debates in general.

If you look at CNN right now, do you know who’s been driving their ratings up the past six months? Scott Jennings. He’s not just a star—he’s a superstar. Scott Jennings has single-handedly made people tune into CNN because there’s an actual debate happening. Take him out of the equation, and what’s left? A bunch of people agreeing with each other. That’s boring. For us on the podcast side, we’re not journalists. We’re just curious people. We’re interested in what’s going on, and we ask questions. Take Joe Rogan, for example. He can speak for himself, but my opinion is that he’s not a journalist. He’s just a curious guy, and people like him for that. They trust him. Think about any major purchase you’ve made. Whether it’s a car — I like your car — a house, a watch. You didn’t just buy those things because someone was great at overcoming objections or because they knew everything about the product. You bought them because you liked the salesperson, and you trusted them. It wasn’t about their technical knowledge; it was about how they made you feel. That’s what podcasting is at its core. People like Joe because they trust him. They’re not expecting him to be a doctor or a scientist, and they’re not expecting us to be that either. But they trust us. They feel like we’re fair, and they want to hear what we have to say. And that’s something that’s been lost in traditional media.

This has been called the “podcast election” by many because it’s the first time in modern American history that independent media voices like yours have supplanted traditional media as the primary source of information. Is what you just described the reason this has happened?

Okay, so let me ask you this: Who do you like most on TV and podcasts? The key word is who do you like. It doesn’t have to be news—it could be crime, sports, anything.

I’ll say Andrew Ross Sorkin, just because I was watching him this morning. I’m a fan.

Okay, great. And by the way, although he’s a guy on the left, I like him. I think he does a great job. He’s a guy that I also like to watch because I think he’s a professional. I think he even sold a business in the past, so he’s a guy that has had some success. When he does interviews, he’s asking the questions that I would want to ask. Why do you watch him?

He’s smart, knows what he’s talking about. I feel like he’s at the same level of the people that he’s interviewing intellectually, which is hard to find on television.

I agree. Do you think he’s arrogant?

No, I think he’s incredibly thoughtful.

I agree with you. To me, he’s a top-five guy in business. If I’m hiring a guy, he’s on my top-five list that I’m making the call to. Going back to it, I don’t think this is going away.

You don’t think we’re going to have a rebound of traditional media?

No, it’s over. It’s not gone. It will not be gone for 20 years. But it’s over. It’s no longer the game of mainstream media. It’s done. And you know who proved that to people? It’s not even Trump. Two people proved that. One is Vivek. The other one is Bobby. Look what Bobby did three years ago. Do you know how many times we tried to get him on the podcast? He reached out to us, I got a call from him and Alan Dershowitz. They said, “We want to debate on your podcast.” No problem. Do you know how the interview was? “Today we have Alan Dershowitz—a famous lawyer, 50 years at Harvard—and Bobby Kennedy, an environmental lawyer. The topic is COVID vaccines.” I asked one question, and two hours later, I didn’t say a word. Do you know how fascinating it was letting them talk to each other while staying out of their way? If things got out of hand, I’d jump in, but they were very respectful. Then Bobby went on Rogan, and everywhere else, talking to everyone left and right. He announced he was running for president. I thought, “What?” He started at 1%, then 2%, 3%, 4%, and eventually hit 7%. Are you kidding me? Vivek, like who is Vivek? He comes on our podcast, talking about his book Woke. He’s a successful businessman, a billionaire, maybe worth $1 billion. On our podcast, I was like, Why are you here? Two months later he announces he’s running for president. You could tell he was gearing up for it. He went from 40,000 followers on Twitter to 3.6 million. His followers spiked. Bobby had a similar spike.

Then Trump’s son, Barron, calls us: “Hey, can you come to Mar-a-Lago? My dad would like to have dinner with you.” I go to Mar-a-Lago, it’s him and his father. Barron was telling his dad, “You have to come on this podcast!” Trump was like, “See, he’s got an eye, he always tells me which shows to go on.” And I thought, what a way they’re going back and forth. You saw him go on Theo Von, crushed it. Andrew Schulz, crushed it. The Bloomberg one, crushed it. Which was very tough by the way. And I loved it. He came to us, he went to Rogan, he went all over the place. And Kamala Harris. What does she do? She doesn’t do Rogan. She pays $100,000 to Call Her Daddy. Walks off from Brett Baier because he was being too pushy, and then they stopped that early. All of that shows weakness. This will be a model for 2027, 2028. By the way, DeSantis came here. Vivek came here. Bobby came here. Almost everybody came here. Trump came here. Nikki Haley never came here. Nikki Haley never went on podcasts. What if Nikki Haley would have gone on podcasts? I don’t know what would have happened. But she never went the establishment mindset.

Even DeSantis, as much as he doesn’t like to do this kind of stuff, he went on podcasts. He put himself out there. So I think this business model is here to stay. And I think whoever is planning on running in 2027, 2028, I think is going to be a wide-open market, by the way, because it’s a one-term president. 2028 is going to be the year where everyone’s going to be a free agent. Everyone’s sitting there saying, How do I get the marketing going? But if you don’t go through podcasting, you’re not going to be competing in 2028.

You had Trump on the show. What was he like to interview, and did you prepare for it?

Of course we prepared for it. I took 40 pages of notes on what angle to take because we have a different audience—mainly small business owners who are independent. Many of them are unsure about voting or getting involved. That’s our audience, so we approached it from a unique angle. He was super likable on camera, and off camera, he was shaking hands, talking to people, taking pictures. Secret Service came five days before, checking the property every day. We had to clear every employee from upstairs and leave the building. Helicopters, 36 or 37 Secret Service agents, cops, ambulances, firefighters, and dogs were everywhere. When I pulled up, I had to get out of my car so a dog could check it. When my wife came with the kids to meet him, Secret Service said, “Ma’am, Jennifer, we know who you are. Please park across the street. The President just got here. We’ll let you know when it’s time.” I even noticed a sniper on a nearby roof. One of my friends, Jamie, texted me later, asking, “How many hours did you put into this?” I said, “46 years.” Sitting with someone like that isn’t just about prep—it’s about everything you’ve been through: experiences, policies, taxes. It was a great conversation.

Is he difficult to manage in an interview setting? Because he rambles a bit.

Look, in the last 25 years, I’ve dealt with a lot of lawyers. And if you know lawyers, you know how they are. So I’d ask, “John, we’re thinking about this. What do you think about this or that?” And they’d go, “Well, it depends. Do you want to—” and then launch into some story. That’s how they turn a 15-minute call into 45 minutes so they can bill you more. He’s dealt with lawyers his whole life. In real estate, especially his kind, it’s a very litigious industry. But he likes to control the conversation—what direction it goes. Sometimes you win; sometimes you don’t. Like Rogan said, “I tried to get to a certain part, but I couldn’t.” We went all over the place. But during the conversation, I started getting texts saying we had to move to the next meeting. I stopped and said, “Guys, we said 90 minutes. We can’t do this right now. What do we want to do?” There was a quick two-minute exchange that didn’t make the clip, because nine people were in front of me, his people, and then three of ours. Watching how he handled it—very calm, respectful—was fascinating. “What do you think? I think we do this. Why don’t you tell him I’ll see him later tonight? We’ll set up dinner. I’ll see him at Mar-a-Lago.” Seeing him in action gave me an idea of how he negotiates when things aren’t going his way. There’s a reason he wins. How many people are calling him a genius right now? How many Democratic donors are saying the same? Van Jones said a week and a half ago, “We have to stop saying this guy doesn’t know what he’s doing. Trump is a brilliant politician.” Van gave him credit. He said Trump beat the machine. Not only did he beat the machine, but people realized Biden wasn’t doing well after that debate. Do you remember Biden’s debate? Thirty seconds in, you thought, “Oh my God, you’re alive? This is a mess. It’s over.” By the way, they announced Biden was stepping down and Kamala was stepping in the week of our meeting. A week later, it happened. Kamala came in. She doesn’t talk to anybody. “She’s going to win, it’s going to be a slam dunk.” They thought they’d beat him like they beat Biden. But this wasn’t 2020. For him to come back when even many conservatives gave up on him—they thought DeSantis or Haley would be the one. And then he pulled in Elon, Bobby, Tulsi, Vivek—all these people. Love him or hate him, what this guy has done is unreal. One day, there’ll be a movie about him starring Ryan Reynolds or Ryan Gosling. Tens of millions of Americans will go watch it and say, “We lived through that era.”

I wanted to ask you about his comeback from the political dead because, to me, it’s one of the most interesting dynamics of the election. If you look back at polls from his first term, he was never actually that popular as a president. He never broke 49% in Gallup polls. Then he leaves office, January 6th happens, and pretty much everyone declares him politically dead. People in positions of power, the Republican Party, hosts on Fox News, all said, “Let’s move on to Ron DeSantis.” But then he mounted the biggest political comeback in history. During this election, polls showed people looking back on his first term far more fondly than they did at the time. They even forgave him for January 6th. Many seemed to have a different perspective, either thinking it wasn’t as bad as they initially thought or that his involvement wasn’t significant. What do you see as the reason he was able to go from being declared politically dead, sequestered in Mar-a-Lago, to getting 77 million votes?

Have you ever seen The Count of Monte Cristo?

Yes.

A great book and a great movie. So sometimes when you lose, and you sit there and you feel like you’re being targeted from all angles, the initial feeling is what?

Panic and anxiety.

Panic and anxiety. It’s unfair. Why are they doing this to me? Anger leads to bitterness. And it sucks. It’s like the Detroit Pistons beating the Bulls. Michael shakes their hands. But when the Bulls beat the Pistons, Laimbeer and Thomas walk off. Michael’s just standing there, watching them. We’ve all seen that scene. Then, with the Dream Team in ’92, rumors were that Michael didn’t want Isaiah on the team. To this day, he’s still bitter about it. Why? Because when Michael lost, he showed them respect, but they didn’t give it back. None of us are robots. We’re not machines. We have feelings. Some people are better at hiding their hurt, or can hold it in longer, but everyone has a threshold. It’s like pain tolerance. Some people don’t need much to get through surgery, while others need more. It’s different for everyone. When he felt he won in 2020, it was because of things like the New York Post’s Hunter Biden story being suppressed. Fifty-one intelligence officers said there was nothing to it—they were wrong. Mark Zuckerberg later admitted, “Honorable Chairman Jim Jordan, I regret helping the Biden administration by suppressing the story.” It’s like 2016, when Comey reopened the investigation into Hillary. Remember how damaging that was? If that hadn’t happened, some say she might’ve won. And by the way, the same way that could be true, if you left that New York Post story on Twitter, Trump wins because economy was great.

My counterargument: the New York Post story got way more coverage because it got censored.

So it was going viral. They stopped it. They took it down. But the 51 secret intelligence people demonized it.

They colluded. They should not have gotten involved. You can use a different word for it—I get that. But think about it. You’re calling for security, January 6. Nancy’s on tape with her daughter recording, saying, “I prevented it.” You’re sitting there, alone, asking yourself, “What was this all about?” Bitterness sets in. Then you’re watching deception unfold, and now you’re no longer campaigning by selling the dream. You’re campaigning with, “Vote for me because it’s unfair.” And that’s not attractive.

That’s the, ‘I am your retribution’ stuff.

And it didn’t work. It’s just like when you say ‘I’m with her’. Nobody wants ‘I’m with her’. I want a leader. I don’t want to be with you. Give me ideas for me to be with you. Obama was ‘I’m with you’. And for her it was about her. And for Trump, 2020 was about him. It’s unfair. Jimmy Carter passes away. May he rest in peace. Did you see the way he tweeted?

Do you think he’s changed?

I think certain events in life change all of us, Aidan. For me, I lived in Iran and saw war. That kind of anxiety stays with you. Even now, as an adult, it’s still there. When I watch Argo, I see it differently than most people. My dad’s sister, who passed away four months ago, was in the embassy during that time, and my dad was outside trying to get her out. So for me, it’s personal—it’s my dad’s sister. It’s the same having been in the military. I remember arriving at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, in September 1997. They told us a movie was coming out, and we got to watch it before anyone else. We were in the auditorium watching Saving Private Ryan. At the end, 600 soldiers were in tears, like that was about us. That was our unit. You look at your badge, and you think, This is who I am. My God, I’m so proud to be an American. So when he went through the attempted shooting—the criticism and everything that came with it— you’re alone facing it all. And when you come back, you think, If I get a second shot, I’m going to bring everyone together. And you know what’s different right now? Right now, he doesn’t have that weight on his shoulders. There’s nothing pressing, no reelection happening. And that’s different.

There’s no reelection. There’s no criminal cases. There’s no impeachment. There’s none of that.

But the point is, he is now finally with the weight off his back.

And you think he’ll operate differently than he did?

I don’t know if he is going to, because I’m not the man to say what he’s going to do. All I’m saying is the way he’s vibing right now is the lowest score of bitterness, unfairness, and anxiety I’ve seen since 2020. And I think that is very important for leaders of any society, any country, any company.

Because the fear is that he’s going to get caught up in these petty retribution vendettas.

It’s tough to avoid them.

That’s been a defining part of Trump’s life. He was a reality TV star. He’s tweeted about Rosie O’Donnell a million times. He’s known to be something of a petty man who pursues vendettas.

Have you ever seen when they ask Charles Barkley, how come you’re not on Twitter? He says, man, I’m from the streets. If you say something to me, I feel like I have to say something back to you.

Do you think Donald Trump’s the same?

I think this is old school mentality. You don’t realize on Twitter, X, it’s a shit show. Everybody can say anything they want to anybody. Rogan always says, don’t read the comments. There’s a reason why he says don’t read the comments. For most people, you shouldn’t read the comments. Some people do it like a case study, trying to see what the market is talking about. But for him, the amount of experience he’s had in the last four years is equivalent to the lifetime of a thousand people combined. And he’s done all of that in just four years. The average person can’t handle that. The average leader can’t handle it. Even the average peak performer, who’s great at what they do, might struggle. But to be able to be battle-tested like that? That’s different. This isn’t a job for everyone. But you’ve got to applaud him for winning, and now we’ll see what he does next.

You mentioned Vivek Ramaswamy and RFK Jr. earlier, so I’ll ask a pointed question. A lot of these people—Vivek, RFK Jr., J.D. Vance—had previously, and I’m not talking about a decade ago, I’m talking a couple of years ago, harshly criticized Trump. Vance called him “America’s Hitler.” I had Vivek Ramaswamy on the show, and I asked him about a book he wrote two years ago where he said January 6th was a disgrace and Trump should never be in office again. That was just two years ago. When I brought it up, he dodged the question, saying, “You’re bringing up ancient history,” and got really angry at me, which I thought was a little silly since it was in his book. Then you have RFK Jr., who basically called Trump a Nazi. My view is that these people changed their opinions purely out of political expediency. And it’s hard to blame them. RFK Jr. is likely to be the next HHS Secretary. Vance is the incoming vice president. So I get it. That’s politics. But do you have an alternative explanation, one that’s more generous to them, for why they completely changed their opinions?

Let’s set them aside. I’ll address them later. What does this say to you about Trump?

That he selected them to serve in his cabinet? Well, he doesn’t really have a choice because almost everyone in politics has said nasty things about Trump in the past.

But think about it. Let’s give him credit. What does this say about him? Imagine you flip it. Imagine if this was Kamala. Imagine this was Biden. Imagine this was Hillary. Imagine this was Obama. Would they give those jobs to those people?

No.

I don’t think so. So what does this say about him? Think about it. You’re a smart guy.

That he’s forgiving.

Do you think that’s a good example for us to follow? Do we need a little more grace? Do you think it’s a good example from the top to show? My two sons always fight because they’re 12 and 11. They’re close in age, and it’s very competitive. The older one is a decent kickboxer, and his kicks are ferocious. He’ll do something to his brother because his brother did something to him. So, I’ll pull him aside and ask, “How often can you beat him up?” “All the time.” “Do you?” “Yeah.” “Can I beat you up?” “Yeah.” “Then why haven’t I? If I can show you grace, why can’t you show grace to your brother?” And I’ll tell them, “The great thing about life when you have power is for everyone to know you have it and you choose not to use it. That’s how you gain respect.” You have to respect a man who’s recreated himself at 78 years old. Listen, I don’t know how old you are. I’m 46. I’ve got a couple of guys who are on the podcast with me, Adam and Vinny. They’re both in their mid-forties—good-looking guys who don’t have a problem with women. But it’s still a challenge for them to find a wife. You know how hard it is to go from thinking, “I don’t need to call anybody,” to wanting to recreate yourself and be ready for a wife? For 45 years, you’ve lived without kids or responsibilities. Now you want kids, a wife, and to give up all that freedom. You’ve been able to do whatever you want, and suddenly, you have to answer to someone else. How hard is it, as you age, to be open to change? It gets harder to recreate yourself. The older we get, the more we become who we are. After 48 years, we think, “I’m not changing.” Now, imagine adding 30 more years to that. You’re 78, and you still decide to change. You’ve got to respect that. Now, regarding the other guys—if you’re saying Trump didn’t have the opportunity to choose, he had a lot of people to choose from. He’s the guy everyone wants to work for today. Everyone’s going to Mar-a-Lago. Justin Trudeau, Tim Cook—they all want in.

It’s your view is that he’s forgiving. I think he also likes that people that previously criticized him are now kissing his ass.

Why though?

Because it shows his power.

I don’t think that’s what it is. Let me tell you what it is. Do you have a sibling?

I do. A brother.

Are you close?

Yes, very close.

Okay. So what caused you and your brother to be very close? You don’t need to answer. I’m just going to say it so the audience hears my thought process. What makes a relationship go from one layer of depth to two, three, four, five, six, seven, or eight? Typically, it’s a collision that could permanently destroy the relationship. When that happens, you either say, “Hell no, I’m out,” or if you overcome it, the relationship deepens, one more layer at a time. This applies to marriages, siblings, partnerships, CEOs and executives, customers and companies, or content creators and their audience. You watch, you like it, you think, “Good for him.” A big part of that comes from seeing grace in someone. When people see your grace, it builds trust and loyalty because they think, “Wow, this guy is still willing to do this? I never would have.” Your loyalty to him grows. You almost need those crisis moments to build that loyalty, trust, and accelerate growth and execution. Does that mean a year and a half from now everyone you’re talking about will still be there? Let’s not forget how many people got fired. I’m not being naive here. Some of them might not want to stick around. They might say, “I’m out of here.” Why? Because they’re all type-A personalities. Vivek doesn’t need to do this. Musk doesn’t need to do this. Most of these guys could be doing other things. They’re choosing to be in this. It’s good right now, but he’s not even president yet. We have to give credit to how he’s handled himself and how he’s been forgiving enough to give these guys jobs.

So this is what it says about Trump. What do you think it says about the people that previously criticized him?

​​I don’t know the exact reasoning, but I’ll give you my take on it. Vivek is not your average guy. He went to school with J.D. Vance and made $15 million while in college, working part-time for $15 an hour. He’s super smart—Vivek is like a walking Wikipedia. He’s creating disruption, and it’s fascinating to see someone born in America, with Indian roots, getting 7.2% on the GOP primary side. And because of him, Ronna McDaniel either quit or got fired. People can say whatever they want, but he put the spotlight on it. People are saying all kinds of things about how he made his money, calling it a scam, like what’s Vivek trying to do? And that’s the part right now where things are being exposed. We’re seeing the split between white nationalists and nationalists, the far right and far left—it’s all being laid bare. The tough part is figuring out who’s really a part of those communities. Some people responded when I talked about the founding fathers—saying, “Your founding fathers?” as if they weren’t mine too. I came to the U.S. at 12, served in the Army, and love America. My wife and kids were born here, but I’m not originally from here. Still, I’m an American. As for Vivek long-term, I think he believes God gave him certain gifts, and he’s trying to figure out how to use them. What he does with them is still unclear—whether he’ll be a governor, a VP, or something else. But he’s not going away anytime soon. Musk, for instance, is a huge force in the media right now. He topped our list of the top 50 media power players. He’s only in his mid-50s and will be around for decades. He’s the most powerful media player, no doubt. He can make moves when he wants to, and he has the weight to back it up. Some people may not like him and prefer Soros, but Musk is the opposition to Soros—and maybe even more powerful. Bloomberg might have the resources, but he doesn’t have Musk’s communication skills or energy. Musk is in a whole different category.

I wanted to ask you about this little civil war we’ve had over the last week. You waded into it over H-1B visas, of all things, and there was a rift between people like Vivek Ramaswamy, Elon Musk, yourself, and the far-right of the MAGA movement—people like Steve Bannon, Laura Loomer—who argue against these visas and take a pretty hardline stance on immigration. Steve Bannon, of course, was the architect of the travel ban that affected Iran, where you were a refugee when you first moved to the U.S., during Trump’s first term. What did you make of the reaction to your commentary on it?

First of all, if the Democrats, and the left, and the establishment wanted a gift from Santa, they got it. Think about it, that year ended very solid, minus Trump winning. It was a great victory for Democrats the last week of the year.

Do you think that infighting hurts the movement?

Well, let me give you two perspectives here. Every year, I give the year a name. 2023, I called it the year of investigations. 2024, I called it the year of chaos. 2025, I’m calling it the year of the synergies. I think if you consider what’s happening with MAGA conservatives, libertarians, independents, white nationalists, nationalists—whatever you want to call it—it’s similar to what happened with the Lakers and the Patriots during their times of infighting. There was a point when the Patriots were having issues during preseason practice, and someone asked Belichick, “How do you feel about not having control of your team? They’re at each other’s throats. Aren’t you worried about this?” And Belichick said, “Worried about what? That they want to kill each other? I’d be worried if I was their opponent. I wouldn’t want to go up against them. Because if they’re like this right now, imagine what they’re going to do to their opponents.” And sure enough, they went on to win the Super Bowl that year. But with the Lakers—Shaq and Kobe started fighting, and Phil Jackson couldn’t control it. The team fell apart. They didn’t win another title after that. I’ve interviewed both Kobe and Shaq, and I asked Kobe, “What would’ve happened if you guys had figured it out?” And he said, “We would’ve won so many championships.” This situation is a great test. We don’t know what’s going to happen. But I made a prediction about two months ago, before the election, I said, “What the left is going to do is they’re going to pit Musk against Trump.” They’ll say ‘puppet master’, ‘real president’, all these things. It may not cause a rift between Musk and Trump directly, but it could impact their community. It could create a division within MAGA 1.0 and MAGA 2.0.

That’s what happened with Bannon in the first term.

Exactly. This is where you have to stay observant. When I was first building my insurance company and had a sales team, I tried to make everyone happy. But eventually, I realized it’s impossible to please everyone. It’s not about making everyone happy—it’s about focusing on the people who are actually doing the work. Not the complainers, not the crybabies, not the people who are always unhappy or always bitching. You need to focus on making the people who are putting in the effort happy. I think Trump understands that now. He knows how to maneuver differently today than he did before. Experience will work to his advantage. But at the same time, I always say that the future looks bright, but only the paranoid survive. You’ve got to stay vigilant, because the enemy is enjoying what’s happening right now.

Do you think Bannon and people like him are a bad influence on Trump?

Do I think they’re a bad influence? I think Trump is more of a “What do you think?” kind of guy. But I also think he’s ultimately going to do what Trump’s going to do. It’s like this: He asks, “What do you think about it?” He checks in with others— “What do you think, John?” “What do you think, Mary?”, and then goes back to his room. He makes some more calls, does more research, and asks for more opinions. Then he circles back, makes another round of calls, and finally makes his decision. This is pure speculation on my part; I don’t have that kind of personal relationship with him. We don’t talk on the phone. But I do believe he listens to everyone. However, right now, I think he trusts his gut more than he ever has before.

Do you think Elon Musk is a good influence? Conservatives often complain about George Soros. Musk now has more influence than civilian in history. Do you think that’s a good thing—having someone, a civilian with partisan motivations, holding that much power? Whether or not you agree with his views, do you think it’s good for one person to have that kind of influence?

I don’t know if it’s a good or bad thing. It’s capitalism. He’s one of the few who has that kind of power. What are you going to do? Put a limit on someone’s net worth? They’re still fighting over his $55 billion. The lady in Delaware doesn’t want him to have that much power. So, it’s not like they’re making his life any easier. His net worth may be increasing, but he can’t take much of it off the table. Elon said “Go eff yourself in the face” when it comes to the H-1B visa issue, and that’s because he has firsthand experience with it. I get it. Steve Bannon has a certain perspective because of his own background, and I understand that too. I don’t take it personally when someone has a position based on their experiences. Vivek, when he talks about how Indian parents raise their kids and how they get paid, I understand where he’s coming from too. On the H-1B visa issue, I get the argument. Infosys had to pay a $34 million lawsuit, Apple had to pay $25 million, and even Jeff Bezos was suing Trump’s administration over the travel ban. By the way, Amazon has the most H-1B visas of any company, followed by a few others, and Tesla ranks 22nd. As for Elon, I think he’s a true believer. He’s not doing it for money; he’s motivated by something more. He loves being a father, and he shines in that role. What they did to his kid—he’ll never forget that. Losing a child is devastating, and his situation with his transgender child has been emotionally painful for him. When you read Joseph Kennedy’s autobiography, you see how the loss of his oldest son changed him forever. Elon has gone through similar trials, and it’s made him emotionally tougher. He’s reached a level of consciousness that not many others have. Kevin O’Leary once said Steve Jobs was 90% signal and 10% challenges. He thinks Elon is at 100%. He’s impacting global politics, and he’s aware of it. Look at how he handled Ukraine or his involvement in Germany and other international matters. What he does with this power remains to be seen, but the impact is undeniable.

One of the things Musk is focused on is a crusade against legacy media. His argument is that legacy news media is dead, and independent media is the new media. He uses X in different ways to hurt legacy media and promote independent voices. I happen to think that’s a bad thing because while you can declare legacy media dead, all the information we rely on and that gets uncovered still comes from legacy media. There aren’t really independent voices on X digging up information before The New York Times or CNN.

He would disagree with that. A lot of people would disagree with that. But fine, I understand what you’re saying.

Legacy media still does reporting and the independent media does commentary.

But there’s some people that are citizen journalists.

Very few. The amount of news that citizen journalists break a year, The New York Times breaks in a day.

I don’t disagree with that. And you have to realize they’re still kids, meaning the content is just getting started. It’s just going to get better.

Do you think that’s a bad thing? Will the death of legacy media actually have consequences that would be bad? Or do you think independent media will just supplant it?

Think about it this way. How valuable is photographic memory today versus 30 years ago?

Less and less. I have a phone, what do I need photographic memory for.

How valuable is knowing the encyclopedia today compared to 40 years ago? How much more valuable is Google search now compared to what it used to be with Grok or ChatGPT? It’s night and day. What can Grok or ChatGPT do now? Anyone can make a picture and show anything, whereas before, it would take hours to create something like that. A lot of the things we used to value are now gone. For example, my kids—well, my two older kids, who are 11 and 12—will play a game with me. I’ll ask, “What’s 1 times 1?” They’ll say “1.” “2 times 2?” “4.” We keep going all the way up to 11 times 11, and so on. Do they really need to know all this? Not really, because they have a calculator now. It’s more about strengthening their mental muscles, but calculators make it unnecessary. The point is, a lot of the things that were valuable before, like math drills or even traditional legacy media, will be worthless in 10 years. If legacy media doesn’t adjust, it’s like they’re sitting on the Titanic saying, “We’re not going to sink, we’re not going to sink.” But it’s coming. It’s moving so fast, and it’ll be gone before we know it. The baby boomer generation—76 million people born from 1946 to 1964—how long are they going to be around? My dad’s 82, which means the oldest baby boomer is 78, and the youngest is around 60. How much longer are they going to be in charge? I come home and my dad is watching podcasts, moving from one to the next on his phone. Technology is advancing so rapidly. All the things people used to believe in, like legacy media, are crumbling. Think about how many whistleblowers there are right now. Imagine creating a system where employees can leak information from inside a company. That’s where we’re heading, and it’s going to shake up legacy media in a huge way. It’s going to scare the crap out of legacy media.

Do you still consume any legacy media?

Yes, I do. I like to watch Scott Jennings when he’s on CNN.

You’re a CNN viewer? I’m going to clip that.

You can do that. I’m a Scott Jennings viewer.

Have you had him on your show?

No, I haven’t. We follow each other. I respect him. I love the work he’s doing. And I think he’s a star, he’s going to go places, he’s got 100 jobs lined up right now. Scott Jennings gets to do whatever he wants to do today. He can go anywhere. I like the debate format, so I like The Five, when you’re talking to each other. “What do you think about this?” “What do you think about this?” Because I like the banter. When NewsNation did that one thing with Bill O’Reilly, with Mark Cuban, with Dana White, that was phenomenal, with Chris Cuomo, that was great. So I think NewsNation is doing some good things. I’m excited. The fact that they had a good election night, they have good people there. If you go to my history on my phone and you look at it, you’ll see Jennings, The Five, a few podcasts, and NewsNation clips.