Leighton Smith Podcast #310 - November 12th 2025 - Stephen Rowe - The Leighton Smith Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from news talks it B.
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Speaker 2 (00:28):
Welcome to Podcasts three hundred and ten for November twelve,
twenty twenty five. I mean quote you a headline that's
a few weeks old. The world is changing more rapidly
than anyone could have imagined a few months ago. The
following article was written by Elwin de Grut, who is
head of macro Strategy at Rubbobank. Now, while it's a

(00:48):
bank and it deals mostly with financial issues, this particular
approach reflects what else is going on in the world.
All of these things are not necessarily attached, but neither
are they necessarily unattached. But before we dive into that,
let me be a little more positive, No, let me
be a lot more positive and tell you about Stephen Rowe,

(01:10):
well just a little bit more than you might allready know.
And I want to start at the back end of
his career, and by that I mean this year in
January of twenty five, I joined the Cato Institute as
the program director of CATO Courses, a digital learning platform
for students and young leaders interested in individual liberty, free markets,

(01:33):
limited government, and peace. Let me repeat that, individual liberty,
free markets, limited government, and peace. I'm inclined to sign
up myself. Do we have anything like that available in
this country? Not that I'm aware of anyway. The platform
is now publicly available and growing fast. Beyond his work
at CATO, He's passionate about how artificial intelligence is reshaping

(01:57):
human condition, online content and education. Outside of work, I
believe in living fully and I saw somewhere that is
my motto is something along the lines of play hard
and work harder. The sixty minutes or so that we
spent discussing all sorts of things is I think just

(02:20):
great listening now back to where I was before I
mentioned Stephen Rowe. This morning I received this in the email.
Brian Roche is looking like a fool every minute creepy
Costa remains on the public tip. The Taxpayers Union is
calling for Public Service Commissioner Bryan Roche to immediately sack

(02:41):
the Social Investment Agencies CEO Andrew Coster and rule out
a golden handshake or exit payout. This follows revelations that
the former police commissioner lacks integrity and lacks leadership. According
to current Police Commissioner Richard Chambers, Costa is currently on
garden leave as CEO of the Social Investment Agency at

(03:05):
receiving full pay, Jordan Williams said from the Taxpayers Union,
spokesman Jordan Williams said, every hour Costa remains on the
public payroll is a disgrace. Now I'm working on the
assumption that everyone is familiar with this particular case. The
Taxpayer Union's missive goes on he's on similar pay to

(03:25):
the Prime Minister, despite being exposed as totally unfit for leadership.
The public service is treating taxpayers like fools, and Brian
Rose is letting it happen under Costa's watch. This is
for those who don't know a victim was charged with
harassment while a secret protocol was implemented to hide information
from the Police Minister. The IPCA even say that the

(03:48):
then Commissioner Costa attempted to influence the nature and extent
of their investigation. These are not technical slip ups. They
are serious abuses of trust. Yet, rather than being shown
the door. Cost continues to enjoy full pay on garden leave.
It's a slap in the face to victims. Now there

(04:09):
is one more little paragraph that I was going to
and I was going to say something myself on this
this morning, even before I read this. But as we
seem to be of one, let me just quote this.
This is exactly what's wrong with New Zealand's bloated and
unaccountable bureaucracy. When ordinary kiwis fail at their jobs, they

(04:31):
get marched out the door. When top bureaucrats fail even spectacularly,
they get months of paid leave and more often than not,
a payout. Roche needs to front up to the media
this morning at a short taxpayers that there will be
no payout, no golden goodbye, and no soft landing for
Costa that costs taxpayers. Now let me turn attention to

(04:54):
the media, the BBC in particular, then the ABC in Australia,
and of course government funded TV and radio in New Zealand.
Propagandists all it's just a matter of degree. Europe's public
broadcasters were created to stop propaganda born in the wreckage
of war, to protect democracy from lies. They now preach

(05:16):
soft sanctumonious state approved truths. The resignations at the BBC
this week are only the latest symptom of decay across
the European media landscape. The model built to keep power
in check now serves it. There's a much deeper story
to this particular issue. And to hear or read in

(05:37):
other parts of the media that the BBC people are
saying we are great, we are trusted, we are well,
we're heroes is just BBCBS now across the Tasman of course,
with Australia and the ABC, if you're not familiar with
it or how it's run, or how much money they

(05:58):
get from the taxpayer, and how disgusting they are on
so many fronts that I haven't got time now to
tell you, but I'm happy to share it in another stage.
And then there is another issue, and that involves the
British forces only want to utilize on one newspiece. A
former Commander in chief has warned soldiers will leave the
British Army in retaliation against application of human rights laws

(06:24):
which are said to stifle operations. It was revealed Monday
that nine four star generals who signed an open letter
to the Prime Minister to coincide with Armistice Day, warned
that soldiers trust in the legal system has deteriorated so
baily that it now risks everything. One of the document's signatories,

(06:45):
Sir Nick Parker, lamented over how the human rights laws
have hindered soldiers work. The group claimed that deterioration of
trust is a direct threat to national security, reiterating Sir
Nick's belief that it has sparked an exodus from the
special Forces. The group claimed the deterioration of trust is

(07:05):
a direct threat to national security. In the damning open letter,
which has been published by The Times, the nine four
star generals said today every British soldier deployed must consider
not only the enemy in front of them, but the
lawyer behind them. Make no mistake, our closest allies are
watching uneasily, and our enemies will be rubbing their hands.

(07:28):
The army chiefs have also claimed that the dwindling confidence
has been spurred by the rise of lawfare. Is that
word again, which they explain as the use of legal
processes to fight political or ideological battles, And that will suffice.
But next week there will be more on this because

(07:48):
it it fits the format that's upcoming. But in a
moment we lift the vibes and talk with Stephen Rowe
and you'll enjoy it. Levericks is an antihistamy made in
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(08:13):
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(08:33):
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Leverrix lv Rix levrix and always read the label. Take
as directed, and if symptoms persist, see your health professional.

(08:55):
Farmer Broker Auckland. Now, the name Stephen row might not

(09:16):
mean much to you at this particular point of time.
The aim of the next sixty minutes or so is
to change all that. Stephen Rowe is a very interesting man.
He has a history that involves Charlie Kirk. He's currently
involved very heavily in AI and he's a very good
commentator on American politics. And I can't think apart from

(09:38):
last year's election, I can't think of a more and
I want to say exciting time, a more challenging time
in American politics than right now. Stephen, Welcome to the podcast.
Great to have you here.

Speaker 3 (09:51):
It's an honor to be here. Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (09:52):
You're only about the third person to do a live
in office or studio that I've done. Well.

Speaker 3 (10:00):
I love it.

Speaker 4 (10:01):
I'm able to see how the magic works, and this
is an amazing studio. It's an honor to be a
guest here. Thank you so much. I know that you
were born in Montana, the Treasure State. Yes, it's a
very simple question. Why did you leave? Yeah, honestly, I
wish I didn't, But unfortunately, the way the world works
is you have to eventually depart where you're from in

(10:21):
a lot of ways to kind of see the rest
of the world. And one of the books that inspired me,
speaking of books, was one called The Great Gatsby, and
it shares the story. Most people know about it pretty
well but shares the story of a man from the
Dakota's I believe South Dakota in the novel, and leaves
to the big city and make something of himself. I've
chosen a more legal path, thankfully, and not the bootlegging,

(10:43):
illegal path of Jay Gatsby. But yeah, Montana is incredibly special,
incredibly beautiful. But unfortunately if you want to kind of
make a name for yourself and kind of grow that career,
sadly it was time to depart. But I would love to, yeah,
start by sharing that time. And Montana is a special
one because I grew up in Billings, Montana, which is
the biggest city in the state of Montana. And for context,

(11:05):
Montana's not really that big. There's about a million people
in the entire state, but it's the size of Germany,
actually six percent larger than the country of Germany by
land mass. Eighty two million people live in Germany and
only one million live in the state of Montana. So
similar to New Zealand, lots of land, very few people,
and just truly special because you can go outside and

(11:26):
explore well.

Speaker 2 (11:27):
I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few Germans
looking to move to Montana. I believe that ye at
this at this time, you had an involvement with Charlie Kirk.
Let's concentrate on Charlie Kirk for a little while, because
he was, as far as I was concerned, not well

(11:47):
known in this part of the world. And it all
depends on what engauging is, of course, but I was
stunned to find out how many young people had attached
themselves to Charlie Kirk and were literally crying the day
that he was assassinated.

Speaker 4 (12:02):
Yeah, young and old, but the amount of young people
that he touched, I mean, it was truly profound, because
he was everywhere all across this country, and I was
lucky enough to meet him in the great state of Montana.
And so what happened was I was working for the
governor of Montana. Now his name's Greg Gianforte, and before
then he was just raising his political profile, beginning to
enter the world of politics. I'd begun working as a

(12:22):
social media coordinator for him. And it was a tremendous
opportunity in college to be able to work for someone
so great, I mean, just for on Greg for two seconds.
Here he has his fifth company, Exit right Now Technology
sold to Oracle for one point eight billion dollars and
that was his fifth exit as a company. And so
imagine being a college student being able to work with

(12:42):
a tremendous entrepreneur who was really fantastic. And so Greg
invites me over to dinner and says, you have to
meet this kid, and this kid's going to change the world.
And so I head over to Greg's house and it
was much different than the first time.

Speaker 3 (12:55):
I remember.

Speaker 4 (12:56):
The first time went to Greg's house, I didn't look
him up before I went over, and you know, you
really messed up when you look people up when you're
supposed to look people up before you go. When you
press the call box and it's a security person's voice,
it's not Greg's voice. You know, A beautiful eight opens
into this wonderful, wonderful road overlooking a beautiful home just
in front of the bridge or Mountain Range and Bozeman, Montana.

(13:17):
But the second or third time I went over to
Greg's house, Charlie Kirk was there, and so I sat
down for dinner, really got a chance to meet him
and get to understand what he was trying to do.
He was beginning the opportunity that was Turning Point USA,
and Greg was an early donor. Wanted to see Turning
Point expand into the state of Montana and thought I
was well equipped to start a chapter at Montana State University.

(13:41):
You know, when I was going through college, there was
not a lot of political opportunity for college students. You
had the College Republicans and the College Democrats in America,
just a two party political system, and you know, people
have more views than two parties would have you believe.
But yeah, basically I was part of the College Republicans
at the time, and they gave me koozies and beer

(14:03):
pong balls, and you know, that's really great if you
want to, you know, hang out with your mates and
you know, celebrate with libation. But I wanted to do activism.
I wanted to move the needle. I wanted to make
a difference. And so when Charlie came over to Montana
and I met him at Greg's home, it was so
encouraging to hear that he wanted to do activism. He said,
how about every week we do some major activism on
the college campus of Montana State University, where one week

(14:26):
we have a National Debt cake where you can hand
out slices of the national debt. Another week, we'll have
a giant free speech ball where people can sign whatever
they want and literally write whatever they want on this ball,
but do true activism to encourage the ideals of what
we were trying to profess. Ideas of freedom, ideas of liberty,
limited government, and free speech are the big ones, and

(14:48):
free markets and free minds.

Speaker 3 (14:50):
But yeah, I drank the kool aid, so to speak.
I loved it, and so I'm like, yes.

Speaker 4 (14:53):
I started the chapter at Montana State University, and then
when I graduated, I was lucky enough to join Turning
Point USA full time as their third employee at headquarters.
And it was a tremendous blessing and tremendous honor. But
Charlie was one of those people that worked harder than
everybody else in the room.

Speaker 3 (15:09):
He had very few vices.

Speaker 4 (15:10):
He didn't drink, he didn't smoke, and in fact, I
remember so many times when he was emailing me or
texting me late into the evening. It'd be twelve one am,
twelve am, one am in the morning, and then I'd
still get more emails and calls at six o'clock in
the morning and I'm like Charlie, when do you sleep?
But this man was so dedicated to growing Turning Point
USA and reaching people. I always made the joke that

(15:32):
he lived on American airlines. He didn't have a home
because he would just go from place to place, meeting
donors and students across the country.

Speaker 2 (15:38):
That's expensive. Rent I just got back with it because
I'm interested in that. When you started the champter at university,
what sort of response did you get?

Speaker 4 (15:50):
Yeah, I got a tremendously positive response, and the chapter
grew extremely quickly. And that was with the help of
other people too, which was awesome. But and this chapter
still exists today, So that's how you know it's something
that really was going to stick. But again, most people
didn't get exposure to a conservative message on a college
campus libertarian message on a college campus. If you think

(16:10):
about your traditional administrator or professor or even classmate in
a public university system in America, you're going to find
someone who tends to be a little more on the left,
a little bit more progressive things of that nature, and
very little exposure to the ideas of the right. And
so when you go into a college campus and you're
sharing ideas that most people haven't been exposed to before.

Speaker 2 (16:30):
It's quite exciting, right, this is this is this is
important because you don't get exposed to such things. What
when you were at university, what did you get exposed to? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (16:40):
I mean I got exposed to, you know, things such
as the broken glass fallacy. You know, Kenzian economics, so
to speak. That's what I learned about economics classes. When
I was in my political science classes, I learned you know,
Rospierre and Fouco and you know, these political thinkers of
the past that tended to be French. I feel like
the French philosophers dominate the political discourse of most POLYPSI classes,

(17:05):
political science courses. And again, there was no Milton Friedman,
there was no Thomas soul There was no Adam Smith
or you know, Frederick Bostia.

Speaker 2 (17:13):
Did you have Roskbin No?

Speaker 3 (17:15):
Oh, all the time. I was a rebel rouser in college.

Speaker 2 (17:17):
So what did you get? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (17:19):
So I got, first of all, not the best greats.
When you try and go against the grain, it's unfortunately
met with a lot of malice and a lot of hostility. Again,
I think sometimes the inherent nature of humanity is to
kind of go with the pack. Right, there's that old
expression that people are sheeple, right, they just want to
kind of go along with the grain, you know, they
don't want to go against the grain and basically keep

(17:41):
their head down. And I decided to stand up. And
in a lot of ways, people didn't have a lot
of good attack vectors for a black conservative on a
college campus. I've later become more libertarian in my thoughts
and ideas, but at the time, basically the main hurl
that i'l tur at you is that you're a racist.
So what do they say to me when this black

(18:02):
conservative was on a college campus talking about the ideas
of capitalism being the greatest economic system that's raised more
people out of poverty than anything else in the world.
I mean, they didn't have a lot and so it
was quite shocking and I think really challenged and tested
some people as they tried to combat and debate me.
But I was a rebel rouser that was always raising
my hand in class and not afraid to share my thoughts.

Speaker 2 (18:21):
So you're the one that raised rice, So you're not
one hundred percent You've got other bloodline in you.

Speaker 3 (18:28):
Yeah, Yeah, I'm a double minority, as they say.

Speaker 4 (18:31):
So I'm Panamanian, which is coming from the country of Panama,
which is Central America originally Africa, but my family most
recently was in Panama. My grandfather immigrated here legally, and
when he was able to do that, he brought his wife,
my grandmother, and four children into America. My father, at
the age of twelve, his first language was Spanish, came
into this beautiful country. On the opposite side, my mom

(18:53):
is a full blood Rosebud Sue Native American, and so
there's kind of three levels there. The first level is Sue,
which is the largest encompassing Native American tribe. Then from
there it's Lakota, which is kind of the region. So
think like Sue as a country, and then Lakota as
a state, and then your city is Rosebud, And so
I'm a Rosebud Lakota Sioue. On my mom's side, she's

(19:17):
a full blood Native American and she was adopted at
childbirth by a Norwegian family who owned a farm in Montana.
And only in America do you find these two people
trying to meet. Rosebud Sue Native American and a black
Panamanian met in New York and had me and produced
a back red yeah, of some sort. But the world
sees me as black, So that's why identify as black.

(19:39):
But I'm always happy. I'm proud of my Native American heritage.
I have eagle feathers in my home and dream catchers
and things of that nature.

Speaker 3 (19:45):
If it'd been victimized, oh very much. So yeah, one
hundred percent.

Speaker 4 (19:48):
If you look up my father's name, Aldo Row, You're
going to see an article from the Billings Gazette of
swastika is drawn on my home. And this was when
I was in seventh grade. I came home to a
whole bunch of graffiti go home and words. I just
don't want to use the word on the internet, but yeah,
I mean a lot of abrasiveness, for sure, and it
really hardens you quick. So I guess when you're being

(20:09):
confronted with that in seventh grade, you know, someone's saying
mean things to you in a college campus, isn't that
scary anymore? And so maybe that's why I built a
little bit more of a tougher skin, because I've had
to go through it quite frankly, you know, being black
at a place where there's not very many people.

Speaker 2 (20:22):
Well, we could discuss for the next half hour raising children.

Speaker 3 (20:26):
Yeah, to be tough, Yeah, totally.

Speaker 2 (20:29):
I think it's not what we want because we know
what we're talking. We know what we mean, Yes, very much,
and so does everybody. There just isn't there isn't enough
of it.

Speaker 3 (20:39):
True.

Speaker 2 (20:40):
When you mentioned swastiggers, I immediately thought of Jews in Israel. Yeah,
now we will get on to New York. It's not
mintent at this point, but it'll go where it goes.
So I'm wondering where you stand on Israel. Sure, yeah,
and anti Semitism totally. Well, I think anti Semitism has

(21:02):
no place in America or in civil discourse. There's a
difference between disagreeing with somebody and being racist to somebody,
and I think civil discourse is immensely important first and foremost.
And so do I think Israel is perfect and has
never committed any sin? No, definitely not, And I think
that is important. But at the same time, do I

(21:22):
think that anti Semitism has been a pervasive problem not
only in America but for the past what three thousand years?

Speaker 3 (21:29):
The answer is yeah, one hundred percent.

Speaker 4 (21:31):
And so yeah, I'm lucky enough to have been to
Israel a few times, and I've been really impressed by
the people. I've been very impressed by the faith. And
I'm a Christian myself. I'm a Catholic person, and so
we are taught in our readings and in our scripture
that they are special people. At least that's what Saint
Thomas Aquinas has said about them. And so, yeah, I'm

(21:52):
pro Israel, but I don't give them a blank check.
At the same time. For example, something recently that happened
was we had the ceasefire agreement with Gaza and Israel,
and Israel then proceeded to bomb a whole bunch of
people in Gaza. I think that's incorrect. I think that's
a poor choice. I'm very pro President Trump in a
lot of regards regarding the ceasefire. I think, blessed are

(22:13):
the peace makers, and it's time for peace. And I
think at this point there should be a full ceasefire
and effect, and Israel should not break that ceasefire at all.

Speaker 2 (22:22):
Trump is a terrible person, but a great president. Yes, agree,
will disagree.

Speaker 4 (22:27):
You know, if you talk to me about his character,
you know, I'd want my kids to have a different character.
But yeah, in terms of policy, He's been a profound
president who's done incredible things for this country, and there's
so many positives about his administration. Again, it's not perfect,
but I'm a very happy person to say I support
Donald Trump.

Speaker 3 (22:45):
Yeah, one hundred percent in your rage group?

Speaker 2 (22:48):
Are they many?

Speaker 3 (22:49):
You know?

Speaker 4 (22:50):
I will say it thanks to efforts from Charlie Kirk
and others, I'd say there's more than ever before. But no,
it's a minority for sure. I think that the average
college student tends to be on the left, tends to
be even more progressive. They support people like Alexandria Acacio Cortes,
AOC and Zorhan Momdanni, They have Ernie Sanders, have incredibly
powerful youth divisions, And if you just flipped a coin,

(23:14):
I would say that, you know, most people would tend
to be more on the left than the right, but
even more in terms of percentages, it's probably in like
the seventies percentages of people that tend to be more
on the left or at least center left, and then
in even larger cohort of people in that that are
progressive and outright communist and socialist as well. And so
it's not popular to be conservative on a college campus,

(23:35):
that's for sure.

Speaker 2 (23:36):
All right. We started this chapter on Charlie Kirk and
we digressed, so I want to come back. Charlie Kirk
contributed what to your life?

Speaker 4 (23:45):
Yeah, I mean, he gave me my first job outside
of college, and so I'm immeasurably thankful. But he gave
me a lot more than just that. He gave me
a couple of things. He gave me, first of all,
a lens with which I could use to see the world.
And one of those is the ability to organize community organizing,
and from that see tremendous gains and productivity. There's a

(24:08):
quote that sticks out for me that Charlie really impressed
upon me. This is after our first successful event too.
It was called Winter in West Palm Beach, which has
since become the Student Action Summit, which is the largest
conservative event in America at this point. But this was
the very first one and we just finished it had
about two hundred and fifty college students over massive success.
Charlie gathers us all together and says this quote. First

(24:29):
they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they
fight you, and then you win. They ignore you, they laugh,
they fight but then you win. And that's exactly what
our experience was at Turning Point USA. I remember the
very first time Charlie set up a table at the
University of Wisconsin Madison, saying I'm going to do a
change my mind to prove me wrong. And you set
that table up and there's a student coming by once

(24:52):
every forty five minutes, I mean nothing at all. And
if you saw even his assassination, or had seen him
before in political discourse, you saw tens of thousands of
people surrounding that table by the end, and at first
they ignored him, then they laughed at him, then they
fought him.

Speaker 3 (25:06):
But his ideas are winning, but he didn't.

Speaker 4 (25:08):
So yeah, I will say he's larger than life now,
I mean, similar to many martyrs of political movements. I
think Charlie's impact will be far beyond what his life went.

Speaker 2 (25:18):
How was how can that be maintained? I mean we've
all seen Erica's speech or speeches, absolutely, and I thought
that was very brave of her, very ambitious, and I
pondered whether it would hold.

Speaker 3 (25:31):
Yeah, No, I think it's gonna hold in a big way.

Speaker 4 (25:34):
There's a giant torch for us all to carry forward,
and yeah, my heart goes out to Erica and her children.

Speaker 3 (25:39):
I mean, that's tough.

Speaker 4 (25:40):
I saw an article recently saying, you know, her daughters
are still asking where his daddy. And that's so tough
as a mother to say that your father has passed
away and he's not here anymore. He's not you know,
around anymore, and that's really really sad. But what Charlie
built was an organization that was built tough and built
to last. Turning point, USA has never received more political contributions,

(26:01):
has never been more large in terms of student clubs
across the country and across the world, and continues to
grow every single day. So in the same vein as
many great founders, you kind of look at success, and
success oftentimes is can your organization exist after your departure?
Hopefully that person still living, and sadly, in this case,
Charlie is not. But I promise this organization is not

(26:22):
going to go anywhere. It is well funded, it's well
organized and well equipped for the fights ahead. And I
think that people like me and people that felt something
when they saw Charlie's assassination have an even bigger fire
in their belly to work even harder.

Speaker 3 (26:34):
That's why I'm here in New Zealand timeframe.

Speaker 2 (26:38):
You weren't with him. I mean when I say with him,
you'd left and moved on when he was assassinated. How long?
How long had gone.

Speaker 4 (26:46):
By, Yeah, just over a decade of employment. But we
had been communicating quite often. I remember the last time
too that we were in person together was at the
White House and basically he was interviewing Avonka Trump and
President Trump is president and basically saying, Charlie, this is amazing,

(27:06):
like turning points, bigger than it's ever been before, like
what happens next? And Charlie famously said back to me, Stephen,
this is still just the beginning, Still just the beginning.
And again I still believe that for a turning point.
USA even admitd Charlie Kirk's departure from this world. There's
such a fire and he tapped into something. This is
a shared sentiment. The reason political organizations catch fire some

(27:27):
ways is because it's not always one person. One person
has the leadership and the vision to make it a reality,
but they're touching into something. They're touching into a shared feeling,
a shared motivation, shared aspirations or desire, and that's quite
very much still here and in fact inflamed even more
because once you make a martyr out of an organization,
I think you find that it becomes even more powerful.

(27:48):
Do you have a hYP doubts, doubts about what anything? Yeah,
lots of doubts about everything. Yeah, what would be your
biggest debt of the mondment? My biggest doubt at the moment.
That's a good question, and I think, if I had
to say it, my biggest doubt is in the economic
system of America right now, in the sense that we
are over thirty five trillion dollars in debt, and I'm

(28:09):
very concerned about the future of being the world reserve
currency moving forward in the future. I'm very concerned about,
you know, the economic future that we're leaving our children.
And in the past, it's been the tradition to leave
something better than you found it. And right now, you know,
I don't think we've received anything as a millennial better
than it was found. And now do we have the
ability to fix this right, this wrong, cause a turning

(28:31):
point right and ultimately leave the generation that's coming up
next better off.

Speaker 2 (28:36):
There are a number of things that concern me about
the same. Yeah, because I'm an American at heart.

Speaker 4 (28:43):
I love that everybody is. I mean, it's an ideal.
Anybody can become an American.

Speaker 2 (28:46):
Don't you believe it?

Speaker 3 (28:47):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (28:49):
Why do you people to hate America?

Speaker 4 (28:51):
That's true and they live there too. It's kind of
funny too because sometimes we say like, hey, you know
you hate America so much, why don't you go somewhere else?
And they decide to stay where they're at.

Speaker 2 (29:01):
Indeed, now, there was one thing that you mentioned about
looking at searching people before you go and meet them, right, Yeah,
So I did that with you great briefly. And here's
what I came across, Stephen Rohwe knows what you're thinking
is certain you've made up your mind, understands there's a chance,
a good chance, if you're a Port Adelaide fan, that

(29:22):
you've already thrown him in a box label dickhead and
slammed the lid. You know where Adelaide is, No, I
don't straight. South Australia the capital of South Australia. Now,
the person that's being referred to here turns out to
be a sports commentator on a radio station called five
Double A.

Speaker 4 (29:40):
I've seen this Stephen before on my Google alerts. I
need to be far better than this guy.

Speaker 3 (29:44):
I came here from that radio station. Wow.

Speaker 4 (29:47):
Okay, the other Stephen is in the flash somewhere else. Well,
it's a competition on Google search results. Who pops up first?
We're back and forth. It's neck and neck. Let's change track.
You are renowned. So I understand in the subject of AI. Yes,
I have my doubts about AI, don't we all.

Speaker 2 (30:06):
I don't know. You seem very positive.

Speaker 3 (30:08):
I'm incredibly optimistic.

Speaker 2 (30:10):
I caused arguments between listeners in the correspondences, et cetera
over AI because I think that there is still part
of me. Let's put it that way. There's still a
part of me that says it's overrated. It is not
going to achieve what people think it's going to achieve.
It's another dot com if you want to, if you

(30:31):
want to go in that direction, and I'd be very
concerned about the future. I would be very concerned about
the future if I believed that it was what so
many people seem to think it is. Yeah, so you
critique me.

Speaker 3 (30:45):
Sure, well.

Speaker 4 (30:46):
I think most people, unfortunately have a difference, have trouble
differentiating science from science fiction in so many ways, and
in the same vein reality versus Hollywood. Hollywood would have
you believe that artificial intelligence is terminator too, that it's
I robot, that it's two thousand and one a space Odyssey.
I can't do that for you, how things of that nature.

(31:07):
And the reality is that artificial intelligence is a tool
and your toolbox that you can leverage for success. It's
a force multiplier that allows you to have access to
knowledge that you previously didn't and I think that's a
tremendous opportunity for so many And ultimately, what I think
about artificial intelligence is that it can really help people
become better versions of themselves. And what I mean by

(31:30):
that is the people who have ideas. For example, let's
say that someone thought that they might be an inventor,
but didn't know how to make a website, or didn't
know how to do marketing or things of that nature.
Now has an amazing tool called AI to kind of
fill in those gaps. You know, somebody who is a
school board candidate or running for local office. They have
some good ideas about how they could help people, but

(31:51):
didn't know how to draft a campaign speech or to
market in a political setting, but now they have AI
to leverage that ability, and so AI is a really
good force multiplier and allowing people with ideas to come
to life like we've never seen before. And I think
that if we do this right, and there are dangers
and we can talk about that, but if we do
this right, AI is going to enable more human flourishing

(32:12):
than we've ever seen before in the past. And I
understand the concern. I remember when candle makers in the
nineteen twenty said this electricity thing is going to be terrible,
and yeah, fast forward to today. You can still buy
candles on Etsy. But electricity has saved moral lives, allowed
for us to live longer, healthier, happier lives with medicine
and even just being able to have a light on

(32:33):
what you need it so you don't fall down to
anything of that nature, or maybe even have access to
medicine because we can refrigerate things for a longer period
of time. And so this is the next step in technology.
Artificial intelligence is going to allow for tremendous flourishing. It's
going to be choppy, for sure, people are going to
lose jobs, and there are going to be situations that

(32:54):
aren't great. But the biggest pushback I get is, Stephen,
isn't this just going to take everybody's job? And my
answer to that is it's humans that are using AI
that are going to run over people that are not.
And again, people think that AI is some sentient being
and it's not. This is algorithms, you know, this is
transformer architecture at the end of the day, GPT chat GPT.
GPT stands for generative pre trained transformer, So that's kind

(33:19):
of what's happening. And at a more basic level, and
this is grossly oversimplifying it, but it's autocomplete. And so
if I say the words the cat in the next word,
most logically probably a ninety five percent, you know, expectation
is hat cat in the hat. And that's ultimately what
AI is doing as it's using predictive text to generate

(33:41):
content back. Now there's other modality it's beyond text, but
largely it's the same process of being able to predictively
model what should be popping up, what should be created,
things of that nature. And I think that's a really
really exciting and really cool, But to demystify it a
little bit, again, it's not some sentient being that we're unlocking.
This is powerful algorithmic computers that were making smart mean

(34:03):
by sentient being. Yeah, so I think you know the doomers,
I like as I like to say, the doom What
have you believed? That this AI is something that has
you know, wants, has desires that are independent of the creator.
And what you see as we create AI models increasingly
is that it's the foundation of which you build the

(34:23):
model that really pushes where it goes. And so, for example,
there's a good example with Google Gemini. Before it was
called Gemini, it was called Google Bard in twenty twenty three,
and if you asked Google Bard to create images of
the pope, it would create a female one. It would
create an Indian man, even though popes have always traditionally
been you know, old white guys. But what happens is

(34:46):
basically Google had as a foundation program diversity into the model,
and that's why it was producing those outcomes. And so
there's other ways to produce these foundations, and Google has
figured it out already with Gemini. They took barred behind
the barn and shot it and came back with Google Gemini,
and now it's a much stronger foundation.

Speaker 2 (35:06):
Was that the first AI murder.

Speaker 4 (35:08):
You know, it seems to be the most public execution
for sure, the most public rejection of an AI system
that I had seen at the time, and there's been
some other examples since. But you know, we look at
Elon Musk and Grock, which is one where its foundation
is to be the most truth seeking model. We see
open AI as being the model. Foundation is to help everyone.

(35:30):
And so there's different foundations at this point, but they're
all structured in such a way to make humans paramount.
Humans are always in the loop in the biggest part
of the progress.

Speaker 2 (35:40):
Okay, so that's what's the stop it happening sometime down track.

Speaker 4 (35:44):
Yeah, that means that we have to have the foundation
right as these things continue to develop, because we're at
the advent of what we call artificial general intelligence, what's
called AGI. But that's not going to be that's not
going to stop, and we're going to keep moving forward.
I think for people that have just gone on this journey,
if you're curious, we've had a NI for quite some time,
which is artificial narrow intelligence, right, and it was Gary

(36:04):
Kasproff in nineteen ninety one that faced off against IBM's
Deep Blue, and Gary Kasparov starts with E four, Deep
Blue responds with C three. The sicilian I'm trying to
make chests sound more exciting, but they're battling back and forth,
back and forth, and Gary Kasparov at the end tips
over is king.

Speaker 3 (36:20):
The machine has beat the man.

Speaker 4 (36:22):
And now, of course you log onto any chess dot
com or situation, and you're going to find that these
smart computers are really good at chess, better than every
human for sure. And that's been narrow intelligence. We are
at the advent of artificial general intelligence. So what's going
to happen here is basically, it's good at a wide
range of functions, tools and tasks, meaning that it can
search the internet for you, develop research reports, and create

(36:45):
tweets and blog posts and really fun videos and things
of that nature. But the path we're going on, like
I said, is to ASI, which is artificial superintelligence, the
machines training the machines, and ultimately, if you think of
AGI and there's ten people in a room, it's smart
as smart as everybody else in the room, maybe a
little dumber, maybe a little smarter, depending on the person.

(37:05):
And with as I it's going to be smarter than
all ten of those people in the room combined as
one entity. And so it's really important that we get
the foundation right. And I think we have a lot
of AI safety measures have been put in and we've
really been working at making sure this is being done
in the best way possible.

Speaker 2 (37:22):
Okay, so what about the effect on mental health?

Speaker 4 (37:25):
Yeah, so I think AI actually has unlocked a lot
in the realm of mental health. There's pluses and minuses here,
so I'll acknowledge the minuses first and then go to
the pluses. On the minus front, AI when it comes
to mental health can really be negative if.

Speaker 3 (37:42):
It is your only best friend.

Speaker 4 (37:44):
And what I mean by that is sometimes people are
now using AI to have relationships, and I think that
can be inherent that can be inherently negative. I mean,
there's not going to be too far in the future
where parents that are listening to this are gonna have
to say to their kid, Hey, you have to date
a human. You cannot date that AI chatbot that's already
happening today. And I think that's incredibly bad description.

Speaker 3 (38:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (38:05):
So, basically, when it comes to dating the AI chapbot,
they're able to take on personas or characters, and so
people have AI girlfriends, and there's also AI pornography and
things of that nature, which are I think tremendously negative
on mental health because again, these aren't humans. This is
a bot that's been trained to reinforce you at all
points and never see that you're wrong, and always compliment

(38:26):
you and be your confident and best friend. And I
think that's it can be used for good and used
for bad as it relates to mental health. And so
now flipping on a switch to the good side of things,
think about that for a second. Therapy is one of
the most powerful things humans have to overcome obstacles, whether
that's post traumatic stress disorder or maybe they had a
traumatic instance in their life something to that effect, and

(38:48):
they can now use and leverage these AI chatbot technologies
to have you know, real therapeutic sessions, work through things
and ultimately come out on the other side a little
healthier and happier because they needed somebody to listen to
and maybe they couldn't afford a therapist. And so I
do think AI can help with mental health, and I
think it can hurt with mental health, and so pretty

(39:08):
traumatic ways becoming dependent on it, Yeah, becoming overly dependent
on it. I think human connection is one of the
most powerful things in the entire world. When humans get together,
they can build incredible things like AI technology. And what
I worry about is humans that become overly dependent on
AI technology, siloed themselves from the world and don't communicate
in the public square, wherever that may be.

Speaker 2 (39:31):
You've never been asked this question before. Could an II
entity ever become the President of the United States?

Speaker 3 (39:36):
Yes, yeah, I definitely think that's the case.

Speaker 4 (39:39):
And even now you've got me spooked. Okay, there we go.
And you know, I think we would have a different name.
I don't think it'd be called the President. I still
think there would be humans in control. But we already
see beginnings of this. And so, for example, in Albania,
you can look this up. There's an AI minister, an
AI minister that's helping do government services across the government

(40:03):
of Albania. In Wyoming, there is a guy called vic
Vic who was a human and conduit for chat CHPT,
who said he would only do what the AI would
tell him what to do, and that's how he would vote,
that's how he would legislate, and things of that nature. No,
definitely not. He didn't receive very many votes either. Yeah,
he didn't receive very many votes. But I will say

(40:23):
you will see AI become increasingly a part of governmental
systems due to efficiency. If I'm able to help more people.
In America, we've got something called the DMV, which is
basically where you get your car license from and registration
and basically how you can operate a motor vehicle in
the state of Montana and in the state of Montana
and in the country of America. And if we're able

(40:44):
to make the DMV more efficient and help more people,
that's a pretty good thing. And I think that's what
you're going to start to see AI slowly becoming a
part of governmental systems that allows more efficiency gains. And
then as that happens, you're going to see more trust.
And then when the question is, well, should we go
left or should we go right, and the AI has
a pretty reasonably sound judgment, I think that's going to

(41:05):
start to wait in those discussions saying okay, well, AI
says we should go right, and so we start to
take the right path. And of course humans are in
control at all times, but ultimately assume that we keep
going in this artificial superintelligence path, then I do think
you'll see people that want to defer power to aisystems
completely because they can be in their minds wiser with

(41:26):
their judgments.

Speaker 2 (41:27):
If you've got people who are always in control, and
AI depends on the instructions or however you'd frame it,
then what's what's stopping the evil seeping from the individuals
who are in control utilizing AI for their own purposes.

Speaker 4 (41:44):
Yeah, that's a great question, and I think that's an
important question to ask because we are fundamentally in a
terminal race condition. So let's say, you know, America decides
let's just stop, let's stop developing AI, let's press pause,
let's study, let's figure it out some more. You know,
do you think China's going to stop? Do you think
Russia's going to stop? Or North Korea? The answer is no,
definitely not. And so what I mean by terminal race

(42:06):
condition is means we are four into a race to
see who gets to basically artificial superintelligence first. In my mind,
there are good guys in this story, and the good
guys are ones with Western values, ones that promote, you know,
the essence of the Magna carta ones that promote the
essence of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and
I think, yeah, no, they don't, which is really a

(42:28):
tragedy in terms of public education. I can't tell you
how many times we have Constitution Day in America, which
is September fifteenth generally, sometimes the seventeenth. That switches based
on days. But people keep reading back to me the
Declaration of Independence on Constitution Day, and I'm like, these
are different documents. So it's crazy in public education that
people don't understand the difference and nuances between the two.

(42:52):
But yeah, back to this AI system. So if let's
say the good guys, like I said, Western values wins,
then I think that we're going to have a benevolent
AI that is going to try and cause more human flourishing,
allow people to live again, healthier, happier and long lives.
But if the opposite side wins, and in this case,
I'm going to pick on China just a little bit

(43:12):
with their AI systems like Quen, like deep Seek and others.
If you ask it, you know what happened in Tianaman Square.
Nothing happened in Tianaman Square according to that AI system,
oh everybody knows that, Yeah, exactly, and so that's really
a danger for sure. And so because we're in this
terminal race condition, I think we have to continue to develop,

(43:33):
have to continue to grow, and again we have the
safety in check at this point. We have really good
foundational models that are built to help humans flourish. They're
not built to be evil in any way, shape or form.
And when you think about the possibilities of prompt injection
as we call it, or the chance for someone to
kind of co op this AI system for wrong or

(43:55):
to be mean or to be evil. Right now, we've
got significant efforts that's called red teaming that prevents it.
But even more than that, there's a lot of government
regulation and oversight now that is making sure that's not
the case. And so thankfully there's not one person that
can just you know, in a lab create an AI system,
at least up until this point. It's teams of people.

(44:15):
And when teams of people are working together, that means
that you're taking input from various people, which is I
think a very good thing. It's a coalition, so to speak.
And so in the same way that we have the
United Nations, think about the United nations developing artificial intelligence.
There's not one country that's ruining it, right, you know,
it's not the United States or Russia that's able to

(44:36):
dominate the field. Because there's a whole bunch of people
working together, there's more of a chance that we're working
towards shared goals.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
So how's the UN done so far in its lifespan
on that basis?

Speaker 4 (44:47):
Yeah, So the UN in the fifties and sixties pretty fantastic,
I think, you know, I remember when it was the
League of Nations and then ultimately become the United Nations,
and ultimately they did a pretty good job at the beginning.
I think now you're starting to see some shortcomings of
the UN, whether that was you know, Saudi Arabia being
a part of the Human Rights Council or you know,

(45:09):
other other things. There's a lot of critiques of the
UN that I could make, for sure, But at the
end of the day, I can't think of a better
system that that would allow for UH civilization globally to
kind of connect. So I do think there's a need
for it still, but yeah, it could use some updates
into the twenty first century.

Speaker 2 (45:28):
Right, So we've got we've got we're on the road
to g A I A G I Yeah, No, g
A I yeah, Grand artificial Intelligence. Okay, that's the that's
the new name I've just said. I like it for
down the track g A I. I like it, Grand
artificial Intelligence. What happens to those who are lists intelligent,

(45:50):
those who are the byproduct of shall we say, unintended
consequences that don't have family support, And the question might
be that will g A I undermine family existence? What
happens to those people who are pushed aside and lift
to their own devices or the suggestion comes, well, they're

(46:13):
of no use to anybody, so let's do the night.

Speaker 4 (46:15):
No, definitely don't want that to happen. And in fact,
what's retool them and make them useful in so many ways?
So yeah, I push back a little bit, only in that.
Let's imagine there's somebody and I'll just create an anecdote
if possible. So there's a person who has been pushed
out or cast out from society so to speak, right now,
and we're worried about them getting left behind or becoming

(46:38):
irrelevant or useless. And so if that's the case, how
can we bring them back into the fold. One thing
I'd recommend is using AI for their education. And so
for example, like Alexander the Great had Aristotle teaching him
how to become wise beyond his years, we can have
AI systems that meet people where they're at. You know,
people who listen to this podcast may switch it to

(46:59):
times two speed. If they're a little bit smarter, they
might switch it to point five speed if they want
to slow down, want to hear every single word. And
that's one of the powers of AI and education is
it's able to meet people where they're at and take
them on a journey towards practicality or usefulness in so
many ways. And there's going to be a lot of
ways people can be useful and helpful. I think one
of the greatest fallacies in economics that certainly applies to

(47:22):
AI is that of a fixed pie that there's only
so much to go around, and constantly we see that
the pie expands and the pie grows. The example I'd
pull at you right now is that of the iPhone.
The iPhone is created and all of a sudden, now
we have a trillion dollar business inside of the iPhone,
and it's called the Apple app Store. And in that
app store. There's over trillion dollars of business being done,

(47:43):
whether it's Spotify, or whether it's iTunes, or whether it's
your favorite note taking app or you know, candy crush.
This is a whole new economy that's happened. And so
you're going to see with AI tremendous opportunity for people
who have been out of civilization at this point to
be able to reinsert themselves into it through AI education
towards their desires, because the AI is going to take

(48:05):
them where they want to go. And so let's say
someone wants to become, you know, proficient in another language, Well,
a I can teach you how to speak a different language.
And let's say you want to build up a skill,
A I can teach you that skill. There has to
be the desire of the human at the end of
the day. But we're not going to eradicate people. If
they really want to leave and you know, we can't
teach them, they can hang out, but we're not going
to get rid of them. In fact, there's going to

(48:25):
be more resources available to help them. They're not going
to go hungry. And in America, even now, you see
the poress of the poor with an iPhone, you know,
in their hands as they kind of sort through things,
And so that person on the side is still going
to have immense technology and phone.

Speaker 3 (48:38):
I have a green bubble. I'm a Samsung user.

Speaker 2 (48:41):
Yeah, and why do you not have an iPhone?

Speaker 3 (48:44):
Because I love to annoy my wife? And yeah, I
have a dream.

Speaker 4 (48:48):
I have a dream that one day I'm not judged
by the color of my text bubble but by the
content of my text message. And yeah, I know I
ruined the group chats having a Samsung device because I'm
not an I message. You know, it turns from blue
to green for people who use an iPhone. But quite frankly,
I'm a fan of technology. I found this one to
be my favorite tool when I bought it at the time.

(49:08):
You know, it's got a stylus pen that can take photos,
which is really nice.

Speaker 3 (49:11):
The pin can take photos, Yeah, totally.

Speaker 4 (49:13):
So I can set this down and then if I can,
I'll go selfie style here. I can press this button
here and I just took a photo. And so how
many times have you need someone to take a photo
and you know you don't have someone, Well, thankfully I've
got my phone and for people listening right now. I
pulled out the stylus and there's a little button on it.
I press the button and it takes a photo from
my phone at pretty much any distance, which is kind

(49:34):
of cool, and it can be photos or videos. There's
a lot of unique things about these Samsung phones that
are great. And now you see these Samsungs that are
flippable and foldable and all of those types of things.
But for me, I just love the screen size of
this one. I love the video editing capabilities on it
and the photography as well. Now, I will say the
newest iPhone has this one beat. But you know, I

(49:56):
buy a new phone once every three years, so I'm
open to going back to iPhone. But at the time,
this was the best technology.

Speaker 2 (50:03):
Well I'm not the greatest to when it comes to technology,
but I've got to tell you that that thing's driving
me crazy time. It's a new seventeen and they just
keep pushing stuff on you. It's like you think you've
got it under control and then they make changes, I
add to it.

Speaker 3 (50:20):
So frustrating too.

Speaker 4 (50:21):
And I call Apple a beautiful walled garden because when
you're in the garden, you know your Mac talks to
your iPhone. Your iPhone will talk to your iPad and all.

Speaker 2 (50:29):
These types of things, and no one's talking to me.

Speaker 4 (50:31):
Yeah that's fair, but they've got you trapped in this
world garden, and with the Samsung device right now, I'm
able to kind of freely go about my business and
pick you know, maybe a different laptop than a Mac,
or pick a different tablet than an iPad.

Speaker 3 (50:43):
So I've got more opportunity in my mind.

Speaker 2 (50:45):
Here's a list of reasons that people causes or purposes
that people are using AI for at the moment.

Speaker 3 (50:53):
Love it.

Speaker 2 (50:56):
And I printed it out in printer friendly to eliminate
pictures and things. And now I realize I'm missing a
bit of stuff. But right the top three support support, support,
content creation last year, therapy and companionship this year. Yeah,
we talked about that.

Speaker 3 (51:14):
Therapy and companionship last year was number two.

Speaker 2 (51:19):
This year. Number two is organized life specific search, research
and analysis last year, and find purpose, which also falls
under support of course, and then you work your way
through and you edit text is next, explore interests, learning
and education. I'm looking for something outstanding. Number fifteen is

(51:41):
email writing I do that and cooking. Oh yeah, I
do that too. You cook, I do cook, or you
use ai?

Speaker 3 (51:48):
Oh yeah, totally.

Speaker 4 (51:50):
One thing, just quickly is that I was trying to
lose weight recently, and so I taped into chatchypt help
me lose weight this week, and it gave me, you know,
meals for every day that I should have. And then
I said, even better, give me the shopping list for it.
And it gave me the shopping list, and that way
I had all the tools and resources. And did I
think that Pinko Chicken was going to be something I ate? No,
but it was delicious. I really enjoyed it. It was

(52:12):
great and I did lose weight. It worked well. Congratulations,
thank you. I'm ready for carbo. And then you got
to put a bag on again. You know, I'll try
not to, but I am a big fan of Guinness
and that is my kryptonite and definitely adds to the belly.

Speaker 2 (52:26):
Guinness.

Speaker 3 (52:27):
Oh, I love Guinness. It's so good.

Speaker 4 (52:28):
I thought you didn't drink. Oh, I definitely drink. Yes, No,
Charlie doesn't drink.

Speaker 3 (52:32):
I drank. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (52:33):
Oh, I thought I thought you well, I knew I
loved that. I knew that he didn't drink all the
drink with you. After this, you got another appointment, I do, sadly. Yeah, However,
you don't know what you've just created for yourself, all right.
So look, the third mattha that I wanted to raise
with you was American politics today. Yes, and I know

(52:55):
you're into it and up to it. In the New
York elections, there was a result that I think everybody
expected it because of all the indicators. But there's there's
now sort of feedback about how you feel about it,
what you're going to do about it. And I've got
some I've got some headlines and I want to bounce

(53:15):
them off you.

Speaker 3 (53:16):
Please.

Speaker 2 (53:17):
Here's one from somebody who who I really appreciate. Are
you familiar with kertch Schlichter.

Speaker 3 (53:23):
Yes, I'm familiar with the name. Love kurtz Schlichter's work.

Speaker 2 (53:27):
Tuesday Night sucked. Now get over it, and everything is
written sort of back set up. I mean, I'll give
you an example. While we lost everything, the end result
was not a disaster of Obama twenty twelve proportions, well
except for New York City. The election was the equivalent
of walking down a Scat Francisco sidewalk barefoot after a

(53:50):
hobo chili cook off.

Speaker 3 (53:52):
Oh gosh.

Speaker 2 (53:53):
But it did not illustrate any great new truths. It
illustrated old truths. It just sucked. But it's important that
we learn what we can from it and get ready
for twenty twenty six. I predicted it, but it still sucks.
Give me your thought on that.

Speaker 3 (54:08):
Yeah, well, big government sucks.

Speaker 4 (54:10):
And so yeah, congratulations to New York six Borough, which
is Florida, because people are going to run away from
this democratic socialist Zohan Mamdani. And you know, again, like
you pointed out, we knew it was going to happen
if you looked at the polls, you looked at the stats,
that was clearly going to be the result. And yeah,
a democratic mayor won in a democratic city, which is

(54:31):
New York City, so you can't be overly surprised by it.
But at the same time, the ideas that he's working
to profess are ones that fundamentally I've been tried before
and aren't going to work. But before I get to
the ideas, the other thing to kind of really highlight
about this race that I think is something that is
unique is mom Donnie shares thoughts or sentiments that I

(54:52):
would argue are similar to Bernie Sanders. It's people that
want to, you know, break the system. I think, you know,
the average American in so many ways, if there was
one word that was the top of mind, it would
be affordability. And I think a lot of people feel
like they're getting left behind, especially in a city like
New York City. The stock market has never been higher,
and these people are suffering.

Speaker 2 (55:11):
And the closed then yeah, shut then yeah.

Speaker 4 (55:13):
And the shutdown too was something that was really eye
opening in the state of New York and in the
city of New York City. But on the second part
of this again, these ideas government run grocery stores, you tax,
the ridge schemes, these are things that have been tried
before and have ultimately failed time and time again. I
remember the Soviet Union in those very long breadlines that
didn't look very favorable to me. And there's no clearer

(55:35):
distinction of socialism versus capitalism than Germany East, Germany versus West.
When the Berlin Wall was up, people were trying to flee,
they were trying to run away, and when they finally
were able to, they got out of there as fast
as possible. So I expected exodus of a lot of
people from the state of State of New York and
the City of New York City. Many people will stay.
I think that it's not a lost cause. I think

(55:58):
that people will be able to succeed there still. But
Momdanni's visions are bigger than his britches. At the end
of the day, he's not going to be able to
do a lot of the things he said he's going
to do. For example, taxing the rich even more is
at the governor level, it's not at the mayor level.
And Kathy Hutchell has already said that she's not going
to raise taxes, and so I don't know how he's
going to fund these programs.

Speaker 2 (56:18):
I don't forget that politicians are renowned for breaking their promises.

Speaker 4 (56:22):
Oh completely, and this is going to be really something
of that nature. And this is a pendulum at the
end of the day. And so this was somebody on
the left who is a bit more populist and somebody
who gave a lot of promises that will not be kept.
When people are disappointed, I think you're going to see
the pendulum swing right back to the right. And so yeah,
let's again try these ideas in New York. I'm glad

(56:42):
they're trying them there. They're not trying them where I live,
because yeah, this is going to fail spectacularly and unfortunately.
You know, as a kid, your parent tells you not
to touch the stove when it's hot, but as a kid,
you're like, ah, man, maybe I should touch the stove,
and then you realize it's hot, and then you don't
do it. And so I think this is just the
next generation unfortunately touching the stove. But again, as they

(57:03):
figure out how hot and wrong these policies are, again
they're going to start to push in the opposite direction.

Speaker 3 (57:07):
At least that my help.

Speaker 2 (57:09):
I want to pull another couple of stories and get
you to critique them. Your opinion is valuable. Melanie Phillips,
the British journalist who is Jewish, has written a number
of very good works on the subject that we're talking about.
She's referred to it as the Islamist capture of New York. Yes,

(57:30):
and this particular article fills in a lot of holes.
New York is by no means, I'm just picking this
out of the middle. New York is, by no means
the only place in America where Islamisation is making important
in roads. The Palestinian Arab American influencer Abdul Ayad celebrated
Mandarmi's victory by telling Israelis in New York to pack

(57:52):
their bags and get out. He said that they should
go to Poland or Cyprus, but not the Palestine, where
they would be humiliated and removed. Now, this charming individual
appeared to be speaking from Plano, Texas. This city hosts
the East Plan Islamic Center, a restricted Islamic community governed
by Sharia law that has existed for nearly twelve years

(58:14):
and compromises a mega mosque, homes restricted to Muslim purchases,
Islamic schools, and Islamic medical clinic, and Islamic businesses. At
a public inquiry into this development last April, Douglas Deaton,
an expert in SWAT tactics and urban threat analysis, gave
evidence based on his experience with the Plano Police Department.

(58:37):
One of the first houses in epic name of the place,
he said, had been positioned with a clear view of
some of the police department's most sensitive tactical assets. That
house has all the hallmarks of a fortress and a
command post. The rear of the house looks a lot
like an observation post and a shooting platform. So there's
two parts to this. One is that she's talking about

(59:00):
the Islamist capture of New York. So are the Islamists
and the Muslims in New York? And I'm sure that
you know that on election night they took the Times Square.
I do know that, and pray Yeah, I sold a
picture and it scared the hell out of me. Yeah,

(59:22):
am I right?

Speaker 4 (59:23):
You know, I think that the biggest thing that needs
to happen when you become an American is that you assimilate.
The worry I have is that a lot of people
will come to America and try and make it their
country and not become a part of the fabric.

Speaker 2 (59:40):
That's been going on a long time. It just depends
on where they come from. Yeah, that matters, Yeah, totally.

Speaker 4 (59:45):
And there was a band by President Trump in the
past that was very specific in naming out the countries
that were to be banned.

Speaker 3 (59:52):
And yeah, I think that.

Speaker 4 (59:55):
Sharia law is antithetical to my beliefs personally. I believe
that women have the right to vote and to drive
and to leave their home and not be covered when
they do so they can be alone without a man
and walking them in from to and from peak places.
I believe that men and women can be gay or lesbian, bisexual,

(01:00:16):
and things of that nature, and these things just aren't
compatible with the Islamic faith and that of Sharia law.
What you see oftentimes you'll have, you know, these gays
for Palestine protests and not protests, but signs out a protest.
And I don't know, it's like, I don't know, lambs
cheering on wolves saying like, yes, come eat me, come

(01:00:37):
eat me, because if they went to Palestine, they'd be
pushed off the tallest building and killed.

Speaker 3 (01:00:41):
And so yeah, I think it's dangerous.

Speaker 4 (01:00:42):
I think that a lot of people on the left
have what I like to call suicidal empathy, where they
really think that they're doing the right thing, but at
the end of the day, it can lead to their
own destruction.

Speaker 3 (01:00:52):
So why did thirty percent of Jews in New York
City but.

Speaker 4 (01:00:55):
For Mamdani, Yeah, I think they did it because they're
culturally Jewish. There's a big difference between a practicing Jew
and and then also being a cultural Jew. So some
people are Jewish and the way it descends from the
mother and basically that's their right to be a member
of the tribe, which is exciting and great, but then

(01:01:15):
they don't practice the tenants of the faith. And so
that's what you see in New York often is people
that are culturally Jewish but not religiously practicing Jewish. And
they won't you won't find them at a Shabbat of
Friday night, that's for sure. And so those are the
people that would identify as Jewish that would have voted
from Amdani in my opinion.

Speaker 2 (01:01:32):
So talk to me about the Muslim Brotherhood. Yeah, and
the Communist Alliance.

Speaker 4 (01:01:38):
Totally seems to be there is one too, And yeah,
I mean there's been a lot with the Muslim Brotherhood.
And there's even you know, elected politicians in America like
Ilhan Omar from Minnesota, who I believe is married to
her brother, but also said that she had more more
belonging to her previous country than this one America. But
she's a member of Congress, which I find deeply, deeply concerning.

(01:02:01):
And then, of course, the Muslim Brotherhood is very active
in politics and typically exists on the progressive left. And
I think that you know, when you think about the
Muslim Brotherhood and communism, and socialism. It's really about authoritarian
control at the end of the day, because if you
can control the government structure, then you can kind of
force the political apparatus around people, whether they're willing or unwilling.

(01:02:24):
And I again am on the opposite side of this,
where I think that you should have individual freedom, and
I don't think that's compatible with the Muslim faith. I
don't think that's compatible with socialism or communism at all. Instead,
it's marching orders from the top, telling you what to do,
what to say, and where to go. And I think
that's incredibly dangerous for sure, because again, now if someone
does stick out like a tall blade of grass, they're

(01:02:46):
easily able to cut you down.

Speaker 3 (01:02:48):
And that's not a good thing at all.

Speaker 2 (01:02:49):
Tell me something. If you went back to America tomorrow, yeah,
which you're probably doing.

Speaker 3 (01:02:54):
Actually, yeah, that's legit happening.

Speaker 2 (01:02:56):
But when you got there, you found that you found
that America had been taken over by the Muslim Brotherhood
and they'd put these plays into action that you just
described totally. Well, what happened to you? I have to
talk to me today.

Speaker 3 (01:03:10):
Well, I'll tell you what.

Speaker 4 (01:03:11):
I'll go down with the ship and I'm not afraid
to profess what I have to say ever, and I'd
never have been. And so if it's the Titanic and
it's going down, then I'm the one on the ship.

Speaker 3 (01:03:22):
I'm next to the captain.

Speaker 2 (01:03:23):
Are you sure you'd feel that way when the ship
was tilting.

Speaker 3 (01:03:26):
I think so.

Speaker 4 (01:03:26):
I do think so, And I think that encourages bravery.
And also I'm you know, I have conviction of my faith,
knowing that there's something else after this life, and so yeah,
I'm not afraid to spend this one, this life fighting
for what's right. And that means, you know, standing in
the same same situation. Often this is a rude comparison,
and I'm nowhere. Here is great, but the Founding Fathers,

(01:03:47):
you know, we're fighting one of the biggest governmental systems
in the entire world. These kids were twenty twenty four,
twenty six, and John Hancock famously wrote, Hey, you know
this signature. I hope it's big enough for them to
see it. I'm John Hancock, come after me, right, I've
got that same mentality in a lot of ways. I'm
very team freedom and I'm going to fight for it.
I think America is the last best hope for a

(01:04:08):
lot of these ideas that we hold near and deer
and becomes a shining city on a hill for other countries,
especially amazing countries like New Zealand, to emulate. And so
we can't let it fall. And if it does fall
or starts to fall, I'm going to be the one
in the front lines trying to make sure it doesn't.
But that's peacefully and patriotically.

Speaker 5 (01:04:24):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:04:24):
My hope is to always make sure this is not violent.
But if it is, we also have something called the
Second Amendment, and so that's another place of defense. And
there's other people that think like me, a lot of
patriotic voices that would stand shoulders to shoulder with me,
and I think that's a good thing.

Speaker 2 (01:04:38):
I've spent a lot of time on this particular aspect
of American life and here too, in other places, but
specifically America. And you'll understand why. So with you talked
about the Second Amendment, with the activist judges who are
manipulating much of America at this point of time. Yeah,

(01:04:59):
what's your answer.

Speaker 3 (01:05:00):
Yeah, so you know, you've got two answers.

Speaker 4 (01:05:02):
The first is there's a terrible boating accident that happened
where I lost all my firearms. So if they ask
for the conference of firearms, I want to give them,
but unfortunately I lost them in this boating accident. It
was terrible. I can't believe it just happened. Sarcasm. But
then the other option is saying, hey, I live right
here and I'm not giving you my guns. What are
we going to do about it? And I think that's
the mentality of a lot of Americans who really believe

(01:05:24):
in the Second Amendment. And so this is a scary hypothetical.
But thankfully we've seen over two hundred years of the
Second Amendment in practice and typically speaking, there are immense
tragedies that have happened, especially around schools and especially gun
free zones. To be quite frank with you, in a
world where there are guns, and we've had very peaceful

(01:05:44):
places to exist. Like I said, I'm from the great
state of Montana. You just have to be a half
mile off the road to go shooting. You can open carry,
you can conceal carry. And I'll tell you what. Every
neighbor's friendly. We love each other. We're an amazing community
and everybody's welcome too, especially if you assimilate, and so
I think the Second Amendment is an immensely positive success
story of America in many regards. Again, there's been some

(01:06:06):
real tragedy along the way that's unaccepted, but on the whole,
the Second Amendment has allowed for freedom to flourish in
so many places, and I think that's ultimately a good thing.

Speaker 2 (01:06:16):
But that's only if that's only your judges much to
the same regulations.

Speaker 4 (01:06:20):
That's right, But this time this thing is enshrined in
our constitution and so they can restrict it, and they have.
But at the end of the day, it says you
shall not infringe. Those are the first words of the
Second Amendment. And so my hope is that we continue
to have So.

Speaker 2 (01:06:34):
Let's say that we get to you get to the
point where the three radicals on the Supreme Court turn
into five yeah, and just ignored the Second Amendment or
right anything else in the Constitution totally. What happens, Yeah,
civil war.

Speaker 4 (01:06:52):
You know, I think civil wars happened before in America,
and unfortunately it was a traumatic thing that killed millions.
It's America's worst war because everybody that died was an American.

Speaker 3 (01:07:01):
That's terrible.

Speaker 4 (01:07:02):
But the good guys won the civil war in my eyes,
which was the North, and in the same vein, I
think the good guys will win again. And if you
think about who has the guns, it's not the activist judges,
it's not the progressive left. And so if it really
results into something of that nature, and I don't think
that will happen, and I pray that it never happens,
I think my side is more equipped to win that
battle than the other.

Speaker 2 (01:07:23):
Give me predictions for twenty twenty six.

Speaker 4 (01:07:27):
Yeah, well, we got to get our head screwed on straight.
I mean there's a civil war in the Republican Party
right now. I think Libertarians, where I find myself most
of the day days are kind of left out of
discourse and so many regards and so yeah, in twenty
twenty six, I predict back and forth across the country.

(01:07:48):
I don't think it's going to be a red wave
or a blue wave. I think it's going to be
largely purple. I think you're going to see places like California,
which just approved its redistricting, you know, pick up five
more Democratic seats. I think you're going to see Texas
pick up five more Republican seats. But if you ask
me who's going to win. I think Republicans will retain
the House. I think the Senate map favors Republican this
side of the rounds, and so I think that there's

(01:08:13):
going to be probably a plus one situation happening there.
And then yeah, ultimately this is going to be a
referendum on Donald Trump's presidency. And so the worry I
have as we look towards twenty twenty six is the
word we used before, affordability. And if things continue to
happen in terms of inflation, if prices continue to go up,
then this is going to be a negative, negative campaign

(01:08:35):
cycle for Republicans, and I don't want that to happen.
But if we are able to write the ship, if
the Supreme Court says Trump can do tariffs, I think
you're going to see basis points happen with the Federal Reserve.
It's going to go down, so interest rates come down,
which then usually allows for more economic growth and steam
behind it. Then you're going to see pickups by the GOP.
And so this is not guaranteed. I think it's going

(01:08:57):
to be purple no matter what. But if the Federal
Reserve does what it's supposed to if President Trump was
able to maintain his tariffs. I think you're going to
see Republicans win in twenty twenty six barely, but rast
will win too.

Speaker 2 (01:09:09):
Okay in the in the next round in twenty eight,
and you've gone to JD and a Castes.

Speaker 4 (01:09:17):
Yeah, okay, yeah, I mean, I don't think AOC is
going to be the leader of the Democratic Party. While
she's immensely popular, I think she's going to get the
Bernie Sanders treatment, which means that even though they're the
most popular person, the super delegates will decide who the
Democratic nominee is going to be, and I don't think
that's going to be AOC.

Speaker 3 (01:09:33):
It's kind of funny.

Speaker 4 (01:09:34):
The Democratic Party is the most undemocratic when it comes
to electing their leaders.

Speaker 3 (01:09:38):
It's so silly.

Speaker 4 (01:09:39):
But yeah, I think it's going to be either JD
or Marco Rubio on the right and on the left.
I actually see Gavin Newsom being the person who's running
for president in twenty twenty eight that has the most steam.

Speaker 3 (01:09:48):
I know.

Speaker 4 (01:09:48):
Kamala Harris has said she wants to re enter the race,
but she got demolished the first time they tried to
put her in to the political system with zero votes,
and then she lost again to President Trump in a
sweeping fashion. President Trump won all of the swing states,
won the popular vote, and so it just doesn't make
sense for Kamala to run again at all. But I
think it's going to be Gavin Newsom, and you can
see him taking the steps now to run.

Speaker 2 (01:10:10):
Yes, you can. Is he believable?

Speaker 1 (01:10:14):
You know?

Speaker 2 (01:10:15):
Or is before you answer that, is he believable or
is his presumed ability to adopt some of the approach
that ma'm does he's adopted. Yeah, and I read a
very good description of that, by the way, and how
people got sucked in. But he's capable of succeeding.

Speaker 4 (01:10:34):
He's definitely capable of succeeding. And yeah, I was just
going to admit my biases when I'm like, oh, do
I think he's like a good person? Because I think
the answer is no. But do I think that his
supporters think he's a good person? Do I think he
has the leadership to organize a coalition of people that
want to support him for president?

Speaker 3 (01:10:49):
Yeah, the answer is yes. There.

Speaker 4 (01:10:50):
I think he'll be a very difficult person to beat too.
He's very good at communicating, He's an exceptional orator, and
he's been the governor of one of the largest states
in America for quite some time, and so that's a
lot of bonafide credentials if you're looking for someone to
lead and you're on the left. So that's why I
think Gavin Newsom will be then and twenty twenty eight,
And honestly, I think they're gonna fay. He's gonna fight JD.

(01:11:12):
Vance And I'm worried. I could see a Gavin Newsom
toppling at JD.

Speaker 3 (01:11:16):
Vance.

Speaker 4 (01:11:17):
But it depends on how we play the Trump administration's
final three years, because what happens there is going to
be completely a referendum of what should happen moving forward.
And if we fail, the Republicans fail, then you're gonna
see Gavin Newsom walk into that office and who knows
what's going to happen from there.

Speaker 2 (01:11:33):
Well, based on the witness that I've experienced today, I'd
say that you two are a better ratter than he is.

Speaker 3 (01:11:40):
Oh, thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:11:42):
So maybe there's spice. Yeah, that's true. And again I'm
doing everything I can on my side to make sure
that's not the case. You know, Like I said, we
talked about Charlie. I mean, he's put such a fire
in me to keep working as hard as I can
at this stuff. And I'm not the only one. There's
so many people like me that are now really pressing
the gas pedal. For a while, I thought I was

(01:12:02):
gonna leave politics and kind of kind of take a
bit more of a corporate world. You can make more
money in AI helping corporate succeed than helping politicians succeed.
I promise you that, And I felt like that was
going to be my calling. And then I saw my
best friend get shot on social media, and I'll tell
you what, I've never had more of a fire to
fight for freedom. And I think that's a lot of

(01:12:22):
people out there. So my hope is that there's more
people like me that are trying to fight for what's right.

Speaker 2 (01:12:27):
All right, So just to finish, because you've just mentioned it,
watching that assassination, Yeah, they say that he talked about
it happening. What can you add to that.

Speaker 4 (01:12:38):
Yeah, I don't remember the exact podcast, but I remember
seeing something in the past of him talking about it,
and one of them was actually from the Iced Coffee
Hour with Graham Stephan and one of the hosts there
asked him, how do you want to be remembered, and
he wanted to be remembered as an amazing father, he
wanted to be remember as starting an incredible political organization,

(01:12:58):
to be a podcast host, etc. And the guy said,
it sounds like you're all those things right now. He's like, yeah,
then I guess I've done my job right And yeah,
I think when it comes to true Arlie and his legacy,
I mean, there's no one who's been more meteoric and
a rise and that was a future president in my eyes,
I think that was really somebody who already had changed
the world, but had a lot left to give and

(01:13:19):
was taken from us far too short. But again, he
gave us so much already, and there's so much ammunition,
and there's so much of his spirit and everything that
we do, and so I'm very, very encouraged for the future.
And his legacy lives on. There's an old adage in
America that says heroes get remembered, but legends never die,
and so yeah, Charlie was far beyond a hero. He

(01:13:39):
was a legend, and his legend and his legacy is
never going to die.

Speaker 2 (01:13:43):
Stephen Rohoe I hope you come back. It's made a
pleasure and New Zealand just could be a little bit
better place after your visit.

Speaker 4 (01:13:51):
Hey, thank you so much. It's been an absolute honor.
You've got an amazing studio and it's an honor to
be the third ish person here.

Speaker 3 (01:13:57):
It's awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:14:11):
Here we are into the bail room for podcast three
hundred and ten. Missus producer, How are.

Speaker 3 (01:14:15):
You, Laighton?

Speaker 5 (01:14:16):
Oh, it's really really good to be here this week.

Speaker 3 (01:14:18):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:14:19):
Yes, I understand many wouldn't, but I certainly do. So
what have we got?

Speaker 5 (01:14:27):
Lake and Christine says that was one of the very
best interviews that I've ever heard, and she's talking about
Tony Coleman. How can one person know so much? I
would love my son, who's an economics teacher, to play
it for his class. It's just so informative and comprehensible.
What a lovely gentleman he is. What an absolute manipulator.
Bill Gates's what worries me is that now he's over

(01:14:49):
the climate change con what will his next Tobby hawesby
another plandemic, perhaps that last COVID con our countries in
the world very successfully. Gates only goes where money can
be made. He's no philanthropist, he's a common con man.
If we could stop following this climate change bs wouldn't
have such a hold on the world with their supply

(01:15:10):
of rare earth minerals. No more windmills, solar panels, nor
electric cars. They just don't work. Once again, follow the money.
It's just another con for the poor, gullible idiots to
run too many countries.

Speaker 3 (01:15:23):
And that's from Chris.

Speaker 2 (01:15:24):
Chris. Interesting, actually, and off the back of that, Trump
is wrong. Climate change is not a scam. Now, before
you all freak out, let's just hear the rest of it.
As Jane Smith correctly put in her excellent article the
New Zealand Herald on the sixth of November, the climate
has always changed, otherwise we would still be in the

(01:15:45):
ice age. Her article exposes the considerable distance that exists
between climate science and climate politics. She highlights the folly
of ignoring the science of the carbon cycle as it
relates to biogenic methane, particularly in the case of livestock farming.
Climate politics focuses entirely on methane emissions and ignores the

(01:16:08):
harping of atmospheric CO two In agricultural food production. Food
is carbon and carbons food a byproduct is methane, which
is returned to the atmosphere from which it originated. Our
lush green pastures are of vital carbon sink in that process,

(01:16:28):
no less efficient than the trees that climate politics claims
will save the world. The politics, what have you believe?
That forests are all about carbon capture? Never mentioned are
the methane emissions that occur in the same way as
for agriculture. Tons of forest floor litter are digested by

(01:16:49):
soil microbes and the resulting methane is returned to the atmosphere.
Imagine if the true balance of the carbon cycle was recognized,
the Greens claim that agriculture is responsible for forty eight
percent of New Zealand's emissions would be debunked. The Greens
claim that agriculture sure is responsible for forty eight percent

(01:17:10):
of New Zealand emissions would be debunked, and the billions
of dollars we pay into the ets could build hospitals instead.
Clearly the real scam is climate politics. George, It's all
very good. I just don't understand what you're talking about
at the top, and you're opening Trump is wrong. Climate

(01:17:33):
change is not a scam. The climate change of politics
that you go on to talk about is a scam.
And that's the beginning. So you've got me confused, So
follow up if you would.

Speaker 5 (01:17:46):
Clayton Jin says, I really appreciate that you've got Tony
Coleman from New Zealand Golden Merchants to talk about gold
as an alternative to diversifying investments. This is an increasingly
important topic given the evil World Economic Forum. Elite types
are all scheming to gain control over our hard earned
wealth by enforcing cbdc's down our throats. Until your recent podcast,

(01:18:10):
I haven't personally come across any New Zealand podcasts that
cover the topic of gold. While we are more familiar
with investing in kiwisaver managed funds, company shares or even cryptocurrency,
many are not so sure how to deal with gold,
how to buy, when to buy, where to store, how
to safeguard, how to bequeath and as with all investments,

(01:18:31):
how rich do you have to be before you can
even dabble in gold? Thanks again, lateon. This is why
I never miss a single podcast of yours ever since
you started.

Speaker 2 (01:18:40):
Very generous, Thank you and most of those questions were answered,
I think from Deborah Wow. I thought, well, this could
be a bit boring. How wrong I was. Tony Coleman
had such a pleasant, easy to listen to voice, and
I could understand everything he said. Meantime, I sometimes get

(01:19:02):
confused listening to investment people. Well done and.

Speaker 3 (01:19:05):
Thank you from debs, and.

Speaker 2 (01:19:09):
I'm knocked this one off too. New York is fast
becoming London London. The election of Zoran Mamdani as New
York's mayor is an unbridled display of peak insanity. I
guess inmates will always elect the joker to rule the asylum.
I find it ironic that during the last US election,

(01:19:29):
the Democrats keep screaming, or kept screaming at Donald Trump
to turn down the heat while calling him hitler and
then trying to assassinate him. Yet as soon as man
Dabi was elected, Mamdani was yelling at Trump to turn
the volume up. The progressive left are truly certifiably insane.

(01:19:50):
I find it difficult to debate that they're rebranding Mamdani's
communism as democratic socialism. Ben Shapiro recently defined democratic socialism
merely as communism achieved through democratic means. In fact, he
hilariously suggested that if we wanted what Mandani will become
in future, just look at Bernie Sanders, who is like

(01:20:13):
the old version of Mamdani. And New York had ample
opportunity to learn from the mistakes of others. London elected
a Muslim mayor in Sidik Khan, New Zealand elected the
country's youngest PM ever, and Jacinda Adern. Canada elected a
charismatic PM in Justin Trudeau. Was he really charismatic? He

(01:20:33):
never appealed to me. London, New Zealand, and Canada are
still all reeling from these ideologically possessed leaders. Hegel's observation
that we learn from history that we do not learn
from history is repeating itself before our very eyes. New York,
you've now got the joker, where's Batman? And that we'll

(01:20:56):
do for this week.

Speaker 3 (01:20:57):
Thanks so much, lighton, Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (01:20:59):
Now go out and take care. Oh well, have a
lovely day. Thank you, see you next week, Layton Smith.
Now before we go, let me hint at next week's

(01:21:21):
a little which is something I don't like doing. I've
done it once or twice in the past, and on
each occasion something went wrong, But on this occasion I'm
pretty well, I'm reasonably sure that it won't because next
week's in of viewer is already in the can. But
there is a considerable amount of talk around at the
moment about the state of England, the state of Britain

(01:21:44):
if you want, the British Isles, whatever, but England in particular,
and it goes like this, will there always be in England?
And I'll leave you with this follow up. There will
always be in England, but only if there are always Englishmen.
There will only be Englishmen if Englishmen are willing to
struggle for their identity as a people. That is, if

(01:22:05):
being English means as much to them as it meant
to their ends sisters, does it for the first time
since the tenth century emergence of the English as a
nation out of the chaos of Anglo Saxon tribes. That
is the question. If you'd like to write to us
Layton at NEWSTALKSIB dot Co dot NZ, Layton at NEWSTALKSB

(01:22:27):
dot Co dot MZ Carolyn at newstalksb dot Co dot NZ,
we shall return with three hundred and eleven. Until then,
thank you so much for listening and we'll talk soon.

Speaker 1 (01:22:47):
Thank you for more from News Talks, EDB. Listen live
on air or online, and keep our shows with you
wherever you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio

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Leighton Smith Podcast #310 - November 12th 2025 - Stephen Rowe

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Leighton Smith Podcast #310 - November 12th 2025 - Stephen Rowe