Криптовалюта как мошенничество: актёр Бен Маккензи о связях Эпштейна с биткоином, крахе FTX и политической коррупции

Epstein helped create BTC

Источник: https://www.ryandawson.org/p/epstein-helped-create-btc

Could not load video. Epstien (Ding) Lutnick (ding) Bankman-Fried (ding) Speculation, Gambling, Drugs and Human trafficking. That’s crypto. We were unable to load this poll. Please refresh the page. I know not all of you are into Ancient Gods and history but some of you are. Not all of you care about the US Civil War but some of you really enjoy it Same goes for Native American history, WWII stuff, Gnosticism, etc I could create a second or even second and third Substack to place all of the other topics so as not to overload your email here when its not always about the current events: Iran, Ukraine, Palestine, Lebanon, US elections etc. The advantage of this is a pacing. I can write every day on current events but also throw in the historical things for those who want more. I have in mine building a library of the old gods. I also want an archive of all the Civil War stuff. I don’t plan on removing anything on here that I already posted but I will copy things over and put new things on the new Substack.

Coming July 11th to Las Vegas Eye Update. less bleeding than two days ago. Part of the medicine is having to poke a hole in your eye with a needle. So it bleeds for days. I will know if it worked or not in 7 to 14 days it has been 5 so far and no changed yet but thats normal.

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I mean, if you think of crypto as a story, right, as not really, it doesn't really function as a currency unless it's sort of a black market currency, sort of speculative thing. You can bet on the price going up and down, can use it for committing crime, but for getting paid for committing crime. It's a story with this really devoted small following. And it has a lot of aspects of a cult. And one great thing for a cult is to have this deified figure who only exists as a pseudonym. Because in reality, it might be maybe this guy Adam Back, who we can talk about, who's a very interesting character, or some other cypherpunk cryptographer from that era. But then it would be a real person. And a real person would be a little bit of a letdown probably, right? Whoever it is. Yeah, right. I mean, it would just be such a better story to have it be a mystery and to have the code take on this mythological status as like, you know, it's going to fix everything that ails our traditional financial sector. Because the crypto story is really simple. It's basically, do you hate our current system?

Everybody raises their hand. And then, well, Bitcoin fixes this. And it's the second part that's the lie. I would argue it's far worse if we were to try to somehow use cryptocurrency as a form of money on a global scale or even a national scale. But the story is really simple. And it's so powerful because the first part we all agree on, you know, our current system sucks. And so it gets them pretty far. I will admit, I mean, I love a long story. I did finally at one point was like, oh, I got to just scroll to the end. Like, did they get the guy? And yet again, we are not sort of like dead to rights. It's this guy. He's not like, yes, you got me. It's me. And I would imagine that whoever it is, it is advantageous for that person, if they are still alive, to retain that sort of mysterious, mythical air about them. Right. Because as you said, as soon as everybody knows who you are and it's you, that that sort of like veil of mystery and the sense of like nobility and a noble cause dissipates or at least starts to dissipate. Yeah. I mean, I would be happy to talk about Adam Back specifically. I mean, what do we what do we know about Adam Back? So a couple of things. I've never met him and I've interviewed him. He does not like me. He's referred to me as a crisis actor. Oh, yeah. Well, I'm an actor. You are. And it is a crisis. So, you know, kind of, you know, points for creativity. Adam, a cryptographer, he's the first person that Satoshi emailed. So this person that doesn't exist, you know, this real person, that's interesting. And then I guess in the article, apparently there's a lot of similarities in terms of how Adam writes and Satoshi wrote. But in terms of Adam himself, he started this company called Blockstream. And Blockstream, Adam met with Jeffrey Epstein in the sort of mid 2010s. And apparently there was some sort of financial relationship.

There was some sort of investment of some kind at some point. I think that's really interesting because, of course, cryptocurrency, when it started with the white paper in 2008 and then came into existence in reality in 2009, there really wasn't a use case for it. What could you really do with this stuff? It's just lines of code on ledgers called blockchains. And the first use case was crime. It was the Silk Road, this dark web drug marketplace. And, you know, that has been just a through line throughout cryptocurrency for forever, far before the retail public got really involved in it. Because that's what you can use it for. Crypto is really only good for speculation, gambling, betting the price is going to go up and down, or crime. It's trying to get outside the regulated system. And we can, it's a tool. So like, could you use crypto for good? Sure, right? You can imagine you're trying to send money to a country under sanctions that you don't believe in. And so you're trying to work around it. Sure. But I mean, let's be adults. Like, how are people actually using it? How are they actually using it? They're using it for crime. And the amount of crime is staggering. There's a crypto company that did an analysis study last year, and found that something like $150 billion of illicit activities is financed via cryptocurrency. $150 billion in a year. That is just a shocking moment. And that's from a crypto company's analysis. So it might be on the low end. You know what I mean? So we're talking about like, just a staggering amount of crime. And some of the worst people in the world, you know, Jeffrey Epstein loved crypto.

You know, it's like Russian oligarchs buying Chinese, selling sanctioned oil to the Chinese in exchange for drones that they're going to send to Ukraine. And it's all done via cryptocurrency. You know, it's like, all of the terrible stuff. And so that's really, you know, like, that's my hobby horse. That's the thing I'm beating on is like, what are we doing? What good is this doing? I'm not saying to outlaw it, because I don't think that would do any good. But we do have to regulate it stringently and treat it for what it is, which is both a Ponzi scheme on the speculative side in terms of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Melania coin, Trump coin, Fart coin, Cum Rocket, my favorite meme coin. There are Ponzi schemes on that side, and then there are black market money on the other side, which is the stable coins, which is really where the game is headed. The other thing you get, and this is really important for people to understand, the libertarians of crypto will say, oh, this is great. This is money that's free from the dead hand of state. Well, first of all, we live in a democracy, at least theoretically. So like, that seems a little overwrought. But if the money doesn't come from the government, where does it come from? They don't like to talk about it. But the answer in cryptocurrency is corporations.

It's world liberty financial, but it's also Bitcoin. The Bitcoin that's mined today, the vast majority of it is mined by multi-billion dollar corporations, some of which are publicly traded. So we're talking about literal corporate money. And if that seems like a good idea to you, then okay. But the vast majority of the public already hates corporations for good reason and is skeptical of them having even more power over our daily lives. And so, you know, this is a terrible idea. You were invited to testify. Yeah. Which I think says a lot about sort of the expertise and the reputation you've built for yourself as a crisis actor and also a leading expert on the sort of real story, the underpinnings of what is actually happening in the crypto industry. What is it like to get an invitation like that? Is it a phone call? Is it an email? Like, how did you react to that invitation? What did you think when that came up? Over the summer that year, as I was really, you know, fully into this crypto investigatory stuff and sort of writing articles with my co-author, Jacob Silverman, and working on this book that we would publish and interviewing people and being very vocal online, I was trying to get the attention of people on Capitol Hill. So I met with a couple of folks over the summer. And I kept saying, look, the only hearings that are happening are just glorifying crypto and talking about how wonderful it is. And it was finally crashing over the summer. And I said, you got to have hearing for the victims. You got to talk about the cost because all people are seeing is the like, you know, one in a million person that makes a fortune on it. And that's all the media focuses on.

And basically they were, the staffs were sympathetic, but there just wasn't the right time was with the vibe. And then that fall, Sam got arrested. Sam Bankman-Fried of FTX. Sam Bankman- This empire exploded fantastically. He was kind of the figurehead of crypto at the time. And he was soon, you know, he was arrested in the Bahamas and eventually extradited. And then there was a chance for a hearing. And I got the call. And yeah, it was, it was a really nice moment. I mean, to be honest, I was, of course, instantaneously incredibly nervous. Yeah, no, of course, of course. I've never done it before. One of the observations that I have, that I have made many, many times around congressional testimony of this nature, when it's anything technology related, you sort of, you sit and you watch and you listen and you, you look at the lawmakers who are listening and you hear their questions and you sort of think to yourself like, oh my God, how are we ever going to get anywhere? And I say that with all respect to some of the political leaders of this country, some of them, not all of them, but there is a troubling disconnect between often what is said and what is understood and then what is done. When you walked out of that room that day and sort of in the ensuing weeks and months, did you feel like anything would materially change? Do you feel like they actually understood what was happening and sort of what the stakes were? So as to whether I felt like things were going to change, that's, you know, I can't remember what I felt at the time. It felt good to clear the air. It felt necessary. I went hard, as you showed in the clips. I did not mess around. I remember asking my wife, like, do I use biggest Ponzi scheme in history? Is that like too simplistic? She's like, no, you have to say that because that's how people understand these things popularly. You can be nuanced in a 300-page book, but in five minutes on Capitol Hill and in a specific clip that you're going to be clipped for, you need to be as direct and as hard-hitting as possible. And so I wrote my remarks. And, you know, the good part about being an actor and a writer is, you know, you specialize in communications. And I knew, I think I knew how to have my marks. And then what's so fascinating about actually testifying is how similar to showbiz it was, you know? It was like, you're up there, you're giving your speech, your remarks, you're on camera, but off camera, you're seeing people milling about. And the Republicans only come in to quite, the hearing was two anti-cryptoskeptics, me and this wonderful professor of law at American University of Hillary Allen, and a couple of pro-crypto people, including Kevin O'Leary. Oh, fantastic. So glad Kevin was able to be there. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, I just want you to, I think that's really important for me to remember is like, oh, it's so wonderful. So what an honor to testify, but you're testifying opposite Kevin O'Leary. So that should ground me in a certain humility. And the Republicans would ask questions of the pro-crypto people and the Democrats would ask questions. So none of us were really engaged in that. It wasn't a debate. Yeah. Right. It was sort of like a performative thing where we were just going to hit our marks. And I get that. But that obviously is not, you know, a real conversation. So yeah, I can't remember what I felt at the time, but I definitely, I remember other skeptics saying, yeah, it's over. It's over in 2022. Yeah. Or, you know, it's going to die out. Not all of them, but some of them. And I just remember thinking, I don't think that's true. Well, which brings me to, there's a lot that I want to get into and I want to make sure we spend time on the dock. But I have to ask you about President Trump because crypto was sort of, you know, it was bouncing along. There would be these spectacular moments of catastrophe, right? SBF being a great example. You have the president of the United States come back into office for a second term and become, you know, a crypto evangelist, vowed to make the United States the, quote, crypto capital of the world. So crypto in the United States is back in a big way, right? I mean, it has been endorsed by the president of the United States. There's Melania coin. I mean, it's just like nightmare upon nightmare. And that's just in crypto, not even getting into everything else going on. Has that made your life and this, this pursuit, this, this project around crypto harder? Has it made it easier? Like how has Donald Trump's full throated endorsement of cryptocurrency affected what you were trying to do and the change you're trying to affect? That's a great question. So this film has taken a long time to make. Yeah. The events of the film are largely in 2022. And the post-production, it's a completely independent movie that I financed myself, Gulp. So it took a long time because you don't have any money. It's the opposite of, I directed on TV and in TV directing, you have all of the money and none of the time. You have to like do it very quickly. And doc directing, you have all the time and none of the money. Perfect. And so, but eventually we had to stop. And it was right before the election and Trump had just pivoted to supporting crypto because as recently as 2021, Donald Trump called Bitcoin a scam. He sure did. Yeah. And my personal theory is that, you know, what Trump's sort of business model was prior to being elected president was sort of branding himself and sort of putting his name on hotel properties and things like that. So, you know, Trump wasn't getting a cut of it. He probably didn't like crypto that much. But then he figured out how to get a cut and he was all in. And as he embraced it over the summer of 2024, very publicly, investors realized that if he were to be elected president, the price would go up. So the price started going up in anticipation of that. Sure enough, he was elected and then it just kept going and going. And sure enough, he's done it pretty much, not everything he can, but a lot to really further crypto's rise, dismantling the SEC, dismantling the literal crypto crime task force that the Biden administration had created. Trump being the sort of leader of this cult-like fraudulent coin is, it's dark for the world, but it is kind of chef's kiss for the themes of the- It does track. It tracks. It definitely tracks. You know what's interesting about trying to get the movie out, though? That's what's interesting. So I finished the movie, like, so we needed to wrap production in 2024 or sort of start the editing and then there's graphics and stuff. So we finally finished it in the summer of 25, about a year ago. And then I needed to sell it. And I was initially thinking, oh, this is an hour and a half comedy starring Ryan Atwood from The O.C. and my much more famous wife, who's awesome in this movie. Morena just kills it. And it's like it's a comedy about a topic that's in the news. This is going to be slam dunk. I'm going to have meetings with Netflix and, like, it's going to be done. Interesting. Had some meetings with some streamers, but this was at the time when, you know, he was going after Kimmel, he was going after Colbert. I mean, they're still doing it, but they were really, at that point, dangerously close to kind of like succeeding in the censorship. And here was a movie that's, you know, a little political, more than a little political. I mean, the title's Everyone's Lying to for Money. And I made sure the lying part, when you see the intro, is over Trump's face. Oh, okay. Yeah. There you go. Not trying to hide at all. And, you know, the movie didn't sell. That being said, Cry Me River, the movie's coming out. It's in theaters. People can see it, at least briefly. And the response so far has been fantastic because people are so angry at this stupid system and all these stupid people who get, again, continue to lie for us, to us for money. So it's, it's a wild ride. I'm curious. So, I mean, you've, you've been on this, this, this war path for years. You wrote a book already. Tell me about the origins of the documentary. I mean, as you say, this goes back like many, many years now. Yeah.

So the documentary started off with Jacob. I approached this journalist, Jacob Silverman, about writing a book, started writing articles. We submitted a book proposal, sold the book proposal, and then we went out into the real world to start reporting on this because it was sort of coming out of COVID into 21, into 22. And the first thing we went to in the real world was South by Southwest in 2022 in my hometown of Austin, Texas. And I just figured, why not turn a camera on? You know, these characters are wild. Crypto has all this zany stuff. Like, what's the worst that can happen? And if it doesn't work, then, you know, just whatever, pretend like it never happened. The first day we were filming, we're on the floor of the convention center and I see this booth for a company called Celsius, which was a very dodgy company where, like, you give them your crypto and they give you this, like, guaranteed return of, like, 15 or 20 percent or something ridiculous. That sounds too good to be true. Sounds too good to be true. And I'm like, what's going on? I knew they were being sued by the Texas state regulator and yet they hadn't been adjudicated yet and they're just like, they're still trying to sell people on this. And I look over the other side of the room is the CEO, Alex Muschinski. And I, you know, what are you going to do?

So I mic'd up, I went over and I had this whole conversation with him that is really wild. Some of it's in the movie. He's just like such a used car salesman, right? Just like, you know, just like, it's obviously kind of blustery and full of it. And that was the first day. So I figured I should keep going. So yeah, so that's how it started. And I just kept going and I needed to also finish the book. So 2022 was documenting and 2023 was the book. And then the book came out in the summer. And then I could really turn to all this random footage that I had, which was like invest, uh, interviewing these guys like Alex and Sam Bankman-Fried, uh, testifying to Capitol Hill, going to El Salvador. We could talk about that. Um, but I didn't have a narrative. I needed to create a narrative spine and the spine became me, my story, you know, why the hell was I doing this? Like both personally and then sort of like in terms of my cause or ideals here. Um, and, uh, and that worked because I basically was able to use my, uh, my much more famous and talented wife and get her for free to, uh, to be in the movie and wrote my kids into it. And, um, and it worked out, but it took a while to create the narrative, um, you know, kind of retrofit to the, to the story. And how do you think about, I mean, you, you interview Alex, you talk to, to SBF in the film too. Um, but this sort of culture of, of person who is drawn to cryptocurrency, um, we could describe them as crypto bros. I mean, there are, there are women involved as well, but it's sort of like the crypto guy, right?

And they're kind of, they're kind of slimy. Um, there's something really inauthentic about them and, and they are essentially, you know, preying on more vulnerable people, um, as part of this, this massive exploit, right? This, this massive scheme. I, there are people in my life who are of a, of a certain generation. I mean, many decades older than I am who have invested retirement money into cryptocurrency. I mean, this is, it is a very scary thing. Um, how, how do you describe sort of what draws someone to cryptocurrency sort of as a crypto bro, as someone who's like all in on this community and then as someone on the other side, sort of like that vulnerable population. I mean, these are the people I worry about when we talk about someone like president Trump who listened to him talk about crypto and sort of watch his press release or his press conferences or see that the, the beautiful first lady has a coin out, you know, and they feel like, Oh, I'm, I should get in on that. Um, talk to me about those two like cohorts. How do you see them? Yeah. There's this sort of, if you think of it as sort of like a multi-level marketing scheme and there's the people at the top of the pyramid and then there's everybody else at the bottom and the people at the top are the insiders, people that own the exchanges, issue the coins, the hawk, the coins offer various sort of FinTech-y type access to crypto. Um, they usually do pretty well. Um, and they're not the ones holding the bag at the end because they're not putting their own money into it necessarily. Um, everybody else, almost everybody else loses. Um, and that's just true of MLMs. I mean, in terms of the people that invest in the retail public, it's everybody. I mean, it's, it is very male. I will say it's very, very male, yeah, it is very male. But, um, but 40 million people, 40 million Americans have invested in cryptocurrency. 40 million? I think so. It's like 16% of the adult public, which is, I know, it's sad. Now, now that being said, most of those people only put a little money in. Just like an experiment. Yeah. A little hobby. Yeah. They saw Matt Damon selling it and they're like, sure, I'll put a hundred bucks on it. Right. And try it. And my buddy Dave, I, in the movie, I, I try to explain how I got into it. Cause I'm a friend of this really happened. A friend of mine said, uh, in the depths of COVID, I should buy Bitcoin. And my buddy's great, but he's kind of been a knucklehead about money.

Yeah. Dave. And, and, and so I was like, I'm not going to do that, Dave, but I do do, I do, I do want to hear more. Tell me about it. And he couldn't tell me about it. And so I had to do my own research. But, um, in terms of the people that, that, that are into it, you know, it's everybody. And I describe it in the movie is crypto is really just a story, a get rich quick scheme, a story of sort of, um, you're going to be wealthy. And also, it's going to fix all these problems and it's going to like give you all this freedom. And, um, it's, it's, it's a story as old as time, really just wrapped in this sort of techno babble stuff. And, um, that appeals to just an extraordinary number of people. So if you think of it that way, then crypto is really just a projection of the hopes and dreams of so many people. And I interview a bunch of the victims of the Celsius scam, you know, after I met the CEO, I felt like I should talk to these folks. And so we post on a Reddit and all these guys replied, it was all guys.

And I, and I had really good conversations with him, you know, and very sincere conversations about, okay, well, what did you want this money to do? You know, you were going to make money. How, what was it going to do for you? I had various answers, but the most sort of heartbreaking was a guy working construction in Texas, um, who just, he said he wanted to make a little money to, uh, spend more time with his daughter. Oh, that's really sad. That's really sad. And then, you know, he felt like he let her down and he lost the money. And, you know, I'm crying, he's crying, like, you know, I'm a dad, he's a dad, like it, you know. Um, so it's, it's, so you feel sympathy. I do. I feel a lot of sympathy. At the same time, I came back to these guys at the end of the movie and I say, do you still believe in crypto? They all said yes. Every single one of them. Amongst the hardcore five to six percent of the population, I'm never going to be able to convince them. This is a thing, a scam. No one else is going to be able to convince them. They're going to have to go that journey on their own. And maybe they'll come out on the positive side, but they're most likely to come out on the negative. I didn't make, yeah, they unfortunately all hate Wired too. So we're not going to, yeah, they're not listening to this anyway. Uh, but, uh, but, but, but I'm not, I didn't make the movie for them. I made the movie for everybody else. I made the movie for the 80 plus percent of the country that's never bought crypto. The vast majority of us are skeptical of crypto for good reason. Um, and almost everybody that I talked to who isn't into it says the same thing to me. They say, I don't know. It seems, maybe I'm not that smart. It seems kind of complicated, but also seems scammy. And I just want to say, no, it's not you. Well, that's, that's actually, that's a question. People who say sort of like the blockchain, I find that very intimidating cryptocurrency. I don't quite get it. What, what is the clearest way to explain to someone that you have found to just say like, look, this is what this is.

Here's the deal. Great. The thing you need to know is that blockchain technology sucks. It's old. It's really old. It goes back to 1991, but I thought you could put everything on it. Yeah. And that was what we were sold particularly in 2022 or 21, 22, there was all the, you know, it was going to be like a medical insurance. Oh, it's outrageous. The press releases I got, you could, I mean, you could put farm animals on there. Like literally whatever you want, it could go on the blockchain. Yeah. And so like, it's an old technology. It hasn't found application outside of crypto, right? Like what companies they, now they don't even use the word blockchain. Now they use the word, the term digital assets, which is a wonderfully vague. I will keep an eye out for this. Yeah. Wonderfully vague term. What is it? It's, it's digital. It's an asset of what, what are you owning exactly? So you just need to understand that the technology sucks to give you a sense of how much it sucks. Bitcoin can only process five to seven transactions a second. Visa can do 24,000. So it cannot scale as a payments method. You have to build all these layers on top of it, which sort of defeats the purpose of having it to begin with. And so even Sam Bankman-Fried, when I interviewed him, I was like, Bitcoin can't work as global payments. He was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then he tried to pivot and sell me on this other coin that worked better, but he also owned a lot of, which is very, very funny.

So it can't work technologically. And, you know, blockchain is really simple. It's just a ledger, just a way of storing information. The advantage that it has is it obscures the identity of whoever's interacting. Right. Hence the crime. Exactly. Yeah. And it's not anonymous, but it's synonymous. You know, so you can have all these different addresses in the form of wallets and you can, you know, you can also run your crypto through these things called mixers, which sort of further obscure the identity, make it even harder to track. Your colleague Andy Greenberg has done enormous, wonderful work talking about how law enforcement interacts with these things. So, you know, you, theoretically you could trace who is committing what crime, except you can't really, or it's very difficult to do because you don't know who, who, who, who is what, what is who, who, who is who, who is who within the, on the ledger. And that just requires a lot of like legwork that quite frankly, the law enforcement agencies don't have, generally speaking. So the crypto people will say, no, no, it's open and it's transparent, but at the same time they benefit from the fact that it isn't. So there's just a lot of talking out of both sides of their mouths. So you basically would just say to someone, it's not actually that complicated and it doesn't work very well. Yeah. It just doesn't work that well. Like if someone says blockchain is the future, ask them, doesn't it go back to like 1991? Like if you want to find people that are skeptical of cryptocurrency, ask cryptographers. Like cryptographers are skeptical of crypto because it's moved on. They've moved on from that. I interviewed the guy. He didn't have anything to do with Bitcoin, but he did a precursor to Bitcoin, David Chom, the cryptographer, a nice guy.

And I asked him, you know, about this, like, it doesn't seem like it's working that well. And he referred to Bitcoin as primitive or blockchain as primitive. Where do you want to see this go? What is for you, after all of these years, the ideal future outcome for cryptocurrency? Well, I mean, we put ourselves in a really bad place here. I mean, to state the obvious, where what should have happened, in my opinion, is that cryptocurrency, it doesn't really function as a currency except for sort of legal stuff. It should have been classified properly as a security back in the day, but it wasn't. And it was sort of quasi classified as a commodity. And that's created a lot of the problems. I know this is very, like, dorky, but it's really important. We're the only country in the world that separates our commodities regulation from our securities regulation. Every other country in the world, they put these things together, because why wouldn't you? If crypto were classified as securities, they would have to follow securities laws. And securities laws are predicated on disclosure. You have to know who you're giving your money to and what they're doing with that money. And the crypto industry really doesn't want that, right? Obviously. And so I think, you know, the temptation is to say to outlaw it, right? But I just don't think that's going to work. I'll just be honest. I just think it's a global system at this point. And outlawing it is just going to continue to push it into the dark corners. So I think it's securities law. Stable coins are different. Stable coins, I think, are extremely dangerous. Because stable coins are cryptos that are pegged one-to-one with a real currency like the U.S. dollar. So it's sort of a black market dollar. But of course, it's not backed by the full faith and credit of the United States. It's a privately issued form of money. To me, because they're trading on the trust that people have in the stability of the dollar, it's a counterfeit dollar. It's not a real dollar. If we continue to allow that to exist, and worse, we allow it to infiltrate our banking system, which is what this legislation threatens to do to sort of allow stable coin companies to become their own banks, it mixes the fake money with the real money. And that introduces enormous systemic risk. And at the end of the day, this could crash again, as crypto has done repeatedly over its brief, the tortured history. And we could end up bailing these guys out, like we did in subprime crisis, which is hilarious, because of course, that was the thing that crypto was supposedly set up to be against. I have to ask you here with my optimist hat on. Is there to you any redeeming value in cryptocurrency? Is there a silver lining here? Is there a novel and genuinely useful application of this technology? No. But I do think there's a slight silver lining, which is it points out the myriad failures of our current system. And hopefully, as crazy as Trump is, perhaps he's shifted the Overton window of what's possible on the other side. Interesting. And what about you? I mean, this has been a cause, a mission. There's something about it talking to you that feels like it has been all consuming to a certain extent. Are you going to keep going? Is this an ongoing crusade for you? Or is there something else you want to do? I want to do a lot of different things. But I want to keep going here, because this is probably the best chance to reach the widest, you know, number of people. I mean, I love writing a book was fantastic. I learned a lot, especially from Jacob, and I'm very proud of that book. But just, you know, practically speaking, there's only so many people that are going to read a 300-page book on economics. And a lot more people are going to see a movie. And so I'm really pushing that, and I really want to keep that conversation going. As to what happens after that, I really don't know. I'm not someone who wants to run for office, so that's not really a thing that wants to... You don't want to, but you might. Right, right. If the people wanted me so much. No, that sounds really obnoxious. No, I just, I don't think that's my role. I think my role is probably more communications and, quite frankly, sort of like a PR in terms of understanding, helping people understand that we have the power, that this is wrong, that you should trust your instincts, that sort of thing. I don't know where that leads me. In terms of my next creative project, I'm actually trying to get back into TV, because I miss the collaboration of... Writing books and making documentaries, especially the post-production process, is very lonely. I miss the collaboration on set. And so I'm working on a series, developing a series for myself to be in. We'll see if that works. But I don't know what the future holds. But nobody else does either, right? I mean, we're living in this era where... Ben, we like to close each show with a little game, if you would.

It's called Control-Alt-Delete. I think you're going to be very good at this. I want to know what piece of tech you would love to control, what piece you would love to alt, so alter or change, and what would you vanquish from the earth if given the opportunity? I think we know the last one. So let's start with Control. Control would be AI. What are we going to do to AI? So I have not spent the time on AI that I've spent on crypto. Maybe this is your next project. Yeah. I mean, I don't think it's... I mean, I would love to talk to more people and to be more informed about it. I think that one of the things that's obviously so different about AI from crypto is that it is a real technology. It is actually changing things like right now and extremely powerful, potentially. And I do not trust the guys that are running it right now. And I think there's a similarity between... There's a thing called the grift shift. Do you know about this? No.

It's grifters that shifted from crypto into AI. Oh, sure. I mean, this makes... Yes. And they were all in the metaverse hanging out and... Yeah. And I feel like the control... I don't want to personally control it. I want society to control it in some sort of fair balanced way. But that seems like the best way to do that. Let's see. Control alt. You know, crypto is set up to, like, supposedly to be in opposition to the banking system. One question I have is, why do we have banks? You know, banks are franchised by the government and allowed to issue loans. Most of the money that's created in this country is in the form of loans. The government backstops that. And the banks profit. And credit is extended. So it sort of works. But we also end up bailing these guys out a lot. We do. Yeah. And I just wonder if we should cut out the middleman. I mean, everybody hates banks anyway. So should we have banks? Or should we just have accounts at the government? And the government can control that? Now, the crypto people are going to hate that, right? They're not going to like that. They're going to be so mad. But it makes a certain amount of sense. So anyway, I guess that would be my alt. Whether it's destroying the banks or just making the system more equitable and more fair, too. I'm so curious. What are you going to delete?

Yeah. I think we know the answer to that. Crypto. Get rid of it. I'm pressing that button. Delete, delete, delete. Ben McKenzie is busy deleting cryptocurrency. And in the meantime, you should go see his documentary, everyone is lying to you for money. Ben, thank you so much for being here. This was great. Thanks, guys. It was fun. .

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-Would you describe it as a Ponzi scheme? -Yes, it's a Ponzi scheme. But Ponzi schemes always do collapse. -Yes. -And this will too? It-- I understand the argument that it hasn't collapsed, but the numbers in crypto are not real. A million people lost access to their accounts at FTX. 1.2 million American-- -Lost access? -They can't get their money off. -Because? 'Cause he was running a Ponzi scheme. -I see. -Because he stole it. -Because he stole it, uh, allegedly. -Also, if you-- If you lose your pin number, basically, you're just fucked, right? -Yeah, you're just fucked. -And they say that's-- -I mean, there's nothing you can do. -Right. It's D-Y-O-R. Do your own research. And that's kind of why they use exchanges, right? Because this way somebody else is responsible, so you don't, you know-- -Theoretically, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's all-- it's just lie after lie after lie. I mean, you know, the exchanges are much more-- most of them, especially the overseas ones-- I don't want to get in trouble here in America-- are like bucket shops. Bucket shops existed until the '20s. They're fake exchanges. They take your real money, and then-- they don't make the trades. And Sam, allegedly-- Sam Begman-Freed of FTX-- allegedly, you know, he-he kind of admitted to this in, like, a Twitter spaces or something. Like, "Oh, yeah, we didn't actually even buy some of this." -Boy, if-if you think I don't understand this, I really don't understand NFT. -Oh, NFTs are wonderful.

-What's-- -Oh. -Do we have a picture of some NFTs if people don't know what NFTs are? Like, there's something-- okay, this is something-- I've seen this a million times. -Oh, yeah. -What is that called, stupid? -Board Ape. -Board Ape. -Yeah. -What-- tell me what that is. "Pretend-- Pretend I'm 67 years old." And I don't understand-- -I'm looking good, I understand. -Just go with me, Ben. Go with me on this crazy scheme. And pretend-- and I just don't understand this from get-go. -And explain it to you. -I think that you do. -I don't. I really don't. -Well, well, does it seem like a-- If you're selling a picture, I feel like you're selling a picture that I could also just find online. -You could right-click and save it. It's a JPEG. -Right. -Actually-- -So, what am I not getting? -Nothing. It's a scam. It's a scam. -I told you. -It's a scam. -I told you I wasn't crazy. -It's-- - But people are paying hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars for this. Well, yes and except there's what's called wash trading in crypto, and especially in NFTs. Wash trading is fake trading. You basically can set up as many accounts as you want. The pseudonymity of the blockchain obscures what accounts you-- you control. So, I basically take a dollar from one hand, and I put it together, and I just keep doing that over and over and over again. And you think this thing is worth money. But then, as soon as you actually give them the money, try reselling your Bored Ape. That's-- it's not the buying. It's the reselling that's the hard part. -Um, and what's-- -But even if you wanted to impress-- if this is gonna get you laid or something? -Oh, God. No, that's not-- that's not happening. -Well, what-- okay, then I-- -I don't think so. -Then I really don't understand the motivation. -That's true.

-It's not because you're-- you know art. because it's not art, and it's-- it's not for the money. I don't-- it must be some sort of bragging rights. Like, "Look, I own this." But why couldn't I just say that and show a picture of Bored Ape, which this guy who really has it also has, exactly? Well, what's also really funny is that, technically speaking, they're not even the art-- art, loosely defined-- itself. it's actually the receipt for the art. -Right. -So what you bought is a receipt for a link to a JPEG of a Bored Ape. - -Okay. - -Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

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can you explain in like two dumbed down sentences what is cryptocurrency i'll do it in one it's a get rich quick scheme you are an actor you did the oc do you think the oc introduced an entire american generation to class politics what about people who say what the does ben mckenzie know about crypto i have an economics degree i've spent four or five years looking at it i've interviewed two of the esteemed members of the crypto industry both of whom are in prison who are now in prison crypto couldn't fulfill any of the functions of money you can't buy and sell stuff with crypto if i go to my neighborhood deli in brooklyn and try to buy a bagel with bitcoin they're going to look at me like i'm crazy a lot of crypto folks have got pardons from trump are you surprised at how identified with crypto trump has become if you're a democrat and you're having a hard time choosing between people and corporations my humble suggestion is to get the out of the party why the is the guy from the oc doing a tougher interview of sam bankman freed than the people on cnbc fox business bloomberg yes what is going on why me you need me to do it ryan albert american media american media folks i'm madei hassan i'm ben mckenzie and we're not kidding we're the podcast from zetea where i get to talk to fun people about funny things and serious things ben welcome to the show yeah i think you're having me you're not known for your comedy though you're known for a lot of serious roles i'm not but i just watched your documentary that we're going to be talking about today and you were very funny in that i laughed i shouldn't really be laughing in a very serious documentary about about people losing money but i did laugh um we're going to talk to you it's called everyone is lying to you for money um we're going to talk about the film in a moment uh but we've got to talk about a lot of other things first first of all we're in dc you're in new york are you in dc often no not not like dc no it's great but you're from austin texas yes which is a great city it is a great city although it used to be greater before elon that's true joe rogan is also there he is lex friedman's kind of a podcast bro capital yes there's there's the cyber trucks are somewhat against the original ethos of austin we we you know the slogan is keep austin weird but we didn't mean that kind of weird well there's one thing elon musk is to borrow a line for coming to get very weird um and you're you're ben mckenzie but you're actually ben mckenzie shenkin from watching this doc i realize you have a much fuller name yes your grandfather was very impressive robert f shenkin who helped pass the public broadcasting act in 1967 your uncle also called robert shenkin is a tony and pulitzer award-winning playwright so is this documentary just you trying to show the world that you can do serious substance yes not just the oc which is what most people know him from yes did i grow up with the chip on my shoulder is that the did you go a documentary why yes i would do a documentary on finance yeah i never thought i would be doing exactly this but yeah i mean i was raised with uh i got to you know be around my grandfather for a while before he passed and uh he was a very impressive person um he was of that generation where you know he was the son of immigrants first person in his family to go to college and he um you know did all of this incredible work and was really in the austin community sort of one of the linchpens of creating a cultural uh environment where where austin you know i'm not going to give him credit for all of it but anybody does get some he was a big figure and the public broadcasting act was a big deal very big and then his grandson does the oc exactly i mean the oc was a huge show it was very sweet so he he got to see the oc part and he was really proud of me that's amazing because he was an actor before okay and then there's he's got a great story can i tell the story all right so so it's world war ii he's uh he's met uh what would be his his his assumed wife he's gonna he wants to propose to her uh he gets leave from the army she gets leave from the uso she's also an actress and um he takes on a carriage ride through central park and he gets down on one knee and pops a question and she says i'll marry you on one condition you can't be an actor because she knew how tough it was oh and he says i thought it's not because he's yeah no no no he was a very handsome man look at picture of him back in the day he he probably was quite good but um and he says sure done you know and he never and never looked back wow but then he did lots of substantive things exactly and then he produced yeah we don't all have to be actors to get our validation but then you are an actor you did the oc and i got to start off with an admission so my team and i sitting around ben mckenzie's coming on the show we're going to talk about the documentary we're going to talk about gotham another show you were in that i watched but you're perhaps most famous as ryan atwood in the oc and i had a discussion with my producer and i said should i lie and pretend i've seen the show and then we said no why should we and then i watched your doc and you seem quite frustrated in the doc that wherever you go people say ryan atwood they go we want to hold on you're right oc he wants got nothing to do with so then i felt kind of happy i was like well he's not gonna get that from me he's gonna get no oc love from me because i i don't know who ryan atwood is but i mean i hope from the doc you see that i have i have whether by force or will like then i have to have a sense of humor yeah and you've lent into i think you told senator van holland you could call me right out yes i did in your in your senate hearing liking this video and don't just watch hit like share and subscribe and tap the bell so you never miss a video or live show but if you want early access to exclusive content then you have to head to zateo.com and subscribe now you'll be supporting fearless independent journalism that was a huge show though uh it was very big for a certain generation it was a global phenomenon you were 25 years old when the show premiered i believe yeah 24 25 yeah and you instantly become one of the most famous tv stars in the world you're on all these lists of like the best looking young person in in hollywood um how did you not get up by that experience how are you quite normal today from what i can see yeah you don't know me that well uh uh you do a great job of acting exactly uh uh that's a good question i would say luck uh in many ways but well actually of the young cast members on the oc i was the only one who had been to college and graduated from college and i do think uh from university um my econ degree uh that i wasn't using much um i think that helped i think it helped to have a perspective perspective outside of hollywood i am not it's funny i was 25 playing a teenager i've been asked as a soul for the case yeah i've been asked you know or it's assumed that i was a teenage actor you know like a child actor i was not at all i was a high high school football player in austin texas and then um went to the university of virginia was studying economics really the social life at uva at the time was dominated by fraternities and sororities and that really was not my vibe um and i needed a way to have a social life slash meet women and uh a buddy well a guy who would become a buddy had a had a play and um romeo and juliet okay and uh that is certainly a place to meet women yep and i was not romeo i was friar lawrence okay um but it was a big big hit and uh and i and i fell in love with the uva performance uva not far from here yeah he he he did a thing where he uh uva has a pretty rough racial history and he um and was still self-segregated at the time there was a thing affectionately known as the uh bbs the black bus stop where like all of the black students would basically live in certain dorms after a certain point and the white students would live elsewhere yeah a little so he he cast the capulets as as white actors and that montague is black and this took off we made cbs national news um yeah it was a big deal and i was like this is fun i want to do this more you know so you have that ground you end up in the oc you don't go crazy after becoming super famous yeah on the show you play a kid from a poorer socioeconomic background who goes to live with with an extremely wealthy family in the orange county uh do you think the oc introduced an entire american generation to class politics i do think there was a little bit of more than a little bit of that um but it was also i mean to be sort of honest about it it was also a sort of a celebration of the wealth to some degree or uh you know soap opera juice we're looking through the window our track record is uh i would say it's very positive people love the show and i understand why i'm proud of the show but we also you know off of the oc came laguna beach the reality series which then got real housewives of uh laguna beach launched the entire real housewives series so our uh our legacy our legacy is uh quite varied i would say so your own acting legacy means you go on to a show that i did watch which was gotham well you skipped southland i didn't watch southland so i'm skipping stuff but it's a good show for the for the people that are really into it they're really into it fine we're not going to go through every show i know i know we're going to go to gotham that i watched and i enjoyed and i loved you and premiered in 2014 this was part of the batman universe this is a prequel this is a young bruce wayne with the show it's not about bruce wayne he's a character in it it's about a young jim gordon and his partner and that's you you played uh lieutenant eventually commissioner jim gordon were you a big batman fan before you got cast in that yeah i was actually and i was not a superhero fan because i always felt the superpowers were sort of annoying and just sort of escapist so you're not a superman guy you're a batman guy i'm a batman guy because in the batman world they don't have superpowers they they're messed up mentally and they do all kinds of weird stuff it was a very dark show it was a very dark show yeah i mean the only thing that i look back on and go is the violence is really a lot i enjoyed it uh yeah you did it was so fun though i mean to play cops and robbers in the world of batman as an adult yeah in with the money the the money to actually make it look cool and make me look cool um it was uh yeah i mean it was a dream it was a dream my only regret is that my kids weren't old enough at the time and so they did have they watched it yeah are they old enough to watch it yeah yeah now it's sort of like yeah whatever dad you know like nobody cares although you have those kids because of gotham yeah you met your wife i met my wife i met morena uh on on the show and uh yeah changed my life in so many so many ways and also brought me back to new york that's a really big change like you go to a tv show and you meet your wife yeah and i mean talk about luck i'm at like who's also your lover interested in the show yeah yes yes yes yeah um if you had to pick one batman actor to be in a batman movie with who would you pick and you can't choose uh david mazuz who played batman or the young bruce wayne in gotham would you be michael keaton val kilman george clooney christian bale ben affleck or robert pattinson oh my god i guess i would choose christian bale just because i can't answer i would have chosen christian bale or michael keaton yeah yeah i i do love george clooney i do like george's work but um i'm not from that particular movie as he makes fun of often um but uh i i the michael keaton batmans are still my favorite batmans um because that was what i grew up on as a kid and that really was revolutionary at the time right when when nicholson played the joker and he went into the cinema it because previous to that they were so hokey they were so ridiculous the tv show all of them all of the stuff just going back to morena who you met at gotham she and we're going to get to your documentary but she has a hilarious role in your new documentary which is basically to just roll her eyes every time you you're about to set off to find some truth and the camera cuts her you're you're the director of the film yeah and it cuts dead she's just drinking her wine and just rolling her eyes yeah is that how it is in the in the household yes well that's that's the charming version of it yeah i mean we're laughing because we were talking earlier about uh commiserating about this but yeah i mean you know the the grace that she has shown and the patience she has demonstrated is really kind of because this was a long project it was a long project it's it started at least i've turned the cameras on in 22 so it's four years um i was sort of researching it online even before then um she's been incredibly patient um she's also in many ways you know i talked to women about cryptocurrency it's such a male thing that's so true and and so many of them have been lectured by some bro about crypto she is effectively a surrogate for the entire female population i didn't think of that when i was watching but that's a very good way of thinking so okay let's get going with the movie it is called everyone is lying to you for money uh it is uh it's been in cinemas since april 17th um let's have a watch of a little bit of the trailer cryptocurrency it's pretty stupid no balls right you might recognize ben mckenzie from the oc he's been a critic of the cryptocurrency industry to understand my journey into cryptocurrency we have to go back you know what's taken off is bitcoin it's money it's uh it's cryptocurrency so i've said cryptocurrency i don't know what that means what is this like look i have a degree in economics surely i can figure out this crypto stuff no banks no fees electronic go good time with your mortgage your house take all your money by bitcoin but i had a few questions i can handle the turbulence up against a multi-trillion dollar industry shielded by every celebrity on the planet i hired a film crew yeah did you talk to my agent i thought we were cut out there on marina hilarious so you are an economics grad from uva you actually studied economics uh i did a little bit too at college but i don't pretend to be an expert so i enjoyed uh watching this um what is cryptocurrency because you say to your friend dave in that clip we saw in the trailer you say what the fuck is cryptocurrency that's the start of the project in 2020 and can you explain to those of us who still don't get it in like two dumbed down sentences what is cryptocurrency i'll do it in one okay oh maybe i actually need two all right well it's a get rich quick scheme is the the foundation that's the foundation but what actually is it like well then i'm gonna need more than two sentences so one of the things that i bumped on um was the word currency because you know if you know any you don't need an econ degree to know that with something with money you can buy stuff with it sell things um it's called medium of exchange uh in economics currencies do three things they're a medium of exchange you can buy and sell stuff with them they're a unit of account uh you can run your books with them and they're a store of value their value stays relatively consistent over time cryptocurrency it was very clear from minute one of me looking at this that well maybe the first few days crypto couldn't fulfill any of the functions of money you can't buy and sell stuff with crypto if i go to my neighborhood deli in brooklyn and try to buy a bagel with bitcoin they're going to look at me like i'm crazy um it's not used as money anywhere in the world unless it's being used as sort of a black market form of money for criminal activity you go to el salvador to see if they're actually using it bukele the president right and you find that no one wants to take your exactly and we can talk about why that is but it but it couldn't fulfill that function or wasn't fulfilling that function i guess i didn't know why but we can talk about it part of it is actually about the technology um and the other two functions the unit of account store of value its price is so volatile you know everyone's jumping around like a rabbit on amphetamines it could never be a real currency imagine you know your bagel is like you know three dollars one day and then five and then one and then you know what would happen is people would hoard their money and the entire economy would would implode it'd be like well anyway so it couldn't fulfill any of the three functions of money and so then the natural question is all right well what is it um if it's not money and you know if you're putting money into it hoping to make money off of it through no work of your own that sounds like an investment yeah and yet crypto had not been classified that way it had been classified as a commodity rather than a security and this is all very you know technical sounding but is huge difference because securities laws have securities have all these laws yeah that protect investors regulation regulations meaning um you need to basically securities laws are predicated on disclosure you need to know who you're giving your money to and what they're doing with the money and the cryptocurrency industry does not want that to exist why uh because it's a lot harder to run a scam when you're um when you're doing that scam i've got that written down here is it a scam is it a con is it bullshit is it not real yes that's your conclusion all three from four years looking at this yeah so so uh so there's a boy there's a lot of different ways of explaining this so um if it's an investment what is it an investment in um so what crypto is is uh what blockchain is the fundamental technology underneath cryptocurrency is a ledger an append-only ledger just a record of transactions so but it's a pseudonymous ledger where the identity of the people transacting is obscured so uh really i mean just at a basic level who is that going to appeal to um criminals quite frankly um and that was the original use case of crypto its first use case uh so crypto started with this uh this academic paper that was dropped online on a cryptography mailing list in late 2008 height of the subprime crisis and it said basically um wouldn't it be great if we could transact directly if people could transact directly and not use these banks that were they're always hated and were particularly hated at the time understandably um which sounds like a good idea um but it really didn't take off there was really because why give this thing value um and then a thing called the silk road came into existence which was a dark web uh drug marketplace donald trump just pardoned the uh guy behind that correct and uh and there bitcoin found a use case oh if i want to buy drugs online i don't want to pay dollars through my bank right that's a bad idea so i'm going to pay in bitcoin how do you get the bitcoin you have to buy that with real dollars yeah or you mine it back in the day when it wasn't so competitive you could mine it so the way new bitcoins are produced is computers run simple mathematical calculations and there's a there's a random chance of them earning a bitcoin winning a bitcoin but who's deciding all this if there's no regulation who's who's behind all this about a crypto yeah well there is there is some elegance to bitcoin specifically and that there is not a a single person who is running it um i will say that separates it from the other cryptocurrencies in some ways uh right now however you can't i mean you could try mining your own bitcoin but you're never going to get one because it's so competitive that now the majority of the bitcoin that are mined are mined from multi-billion dollar publicly traded corporations so the decentralized democratized future of money is brought to you by indeed these huge as is often the case with these kind of things this episode is sponsored by incognito the number of data breaches worldwide rises every year according to the identity theft resource center data breaches went up by 211 from 2023 to 2024 this means that you and your loved ones are at increasing risk of having your personal information exposed online incognito tracks down and removes your personal data from across the internet including online directories and even commercial databases the process is fully automated for hundreds of known data brokers that collect and sell your data without your consent data can reappear on these sites so incognito repeatedly removes it for you as someone who runs a media company and has a big digital footprint services like incognito are crucial for keeping my information safe on the internet you can get 60 off your first order yes 60 percent by going to incognito.com forward slash Mehdi m-e-h-d-i or by using the offer code Mehdi at checkout try incognito today to reduce the risk of scams protect your personal information and safeguard your privacy just listening to you speak i'm not listening to ryan atwood from the oc i'm listening to a guy who knows his shit where does this urge come from for you to investigate cryptocurrency we see the scene in the film and again i highly encourage everyone to watch the film where you're talking to your friend during the pandemic and it could have just been a hobby during the pandemic you wrote a book too by the way i should point out you co-authored a book with jacob silverman uh who's written for sateo too great journalist um how does where does this come from that you this actor is suddenly it's not just a you know a hobby or a side interest um you are spending a lot of your time energy you're getting attacked by people online as we see in the documentary you're turning up in front of congress what drove you to have so much interest in this one particular issue i think i was raised with a sense of social justice i was raised with a with a an ethos of you know what you do uh for your community and for the rest of society is as important if not more important than what you do for yourself and that's certainly what my grandfather modeled was starting the with helping uh get public radio and television going um but it's also my father my father um is an attorney has represented planned parenthood in texas as they were under attack and does has done a lot of great work um and my mother is was a so you saw this as a justice issue i need to call these people out yeah i mean people are getting scammed yeah i mean early on uh i was just trying to understand it but very quickly it's it's stunk because if these are investments right yeah so at the time in 2021 all the celebrities are selling it right yes it's all of these celebrities and that drove me crazy because we see you getting mad at matt damon very mad yes yes i love matt damon and his work is great but it wasn't his finest hour not his finest hour to say the least you really call him out in the film has he watched the film do we think has he reached out to you i mean a cinema screener he has a written back um he's very awkward trying to cast you in his next film to reward you yeah yeah the lowest moment yeah yeah i have i have a sense that i may not uh get into a matt damon movie anytime soon um or maybe he was one of the people advertising shaquille o'neal there's a bunch of people in the film oh yeah tom brady uh and giselle at the time uh you know gwyneth paltrow i mean the list is you'll see it's it's it's we can do a little mashup and it's like yeah dozens and dozens of hundreds yeah i mean if there's one thing i knew right at the outset from crypto like it doesn't take being an investigative journalist to understand that matt damon doesn't know all about crypto and so why is he selling it right is he getting paid in crypto my guess is he's getting paid in dollars so he's getting paid in dollars to convince you to change your dollars into something else that is perhaps not explicitly offering you financial advice but it is certainly implicitly doing so i would say what about the people in the film we see the crypto i don't want to call them evangelists bros well there's a woman uh in one of the one of the scenes you play of attacking you what about the people who say what the fuck does ben mckenzie know about crypto i mean where to begin i have an economics degree i've spent four or five years looking at it i've interviewed two of the esteemed members of the crypto industry both of whom are in prison who are now in prison you interviewed them at the height of their powers yes um let's talk about one of them the most famous one sam bankman freed who was uh the founder of ftx um a hero who was on the front of forbes magazine fortune magazine profiled everywhere hanging out with prominent members of congress uh this is a clip from your now very famous interview which everyone should remember was well before everyone hated sam bankman freed or thought he was a criminal let's play that when you look at the contributions that i've made most of those have to have to do with pandemic preparedness totally unrelated to my day job how much money have you donated to things like that i want to say ballpark um 50 to 100 million wow 50 to 100 million to pandemic yeah that's right how much have you donated to politicians so i i um i don't remember the late i can get back to you i don't remember the latest figure off and on my head like a round number ballpark i think um i think that you know in the tens of millions is is where total political contributions have been so far so you really need to okay yeah um thanks for taking the time thank you appreciate it just can we do it can we do a picture can we do a a picture um classic pr move jumping in there saying we're out of time we got to go somewhere else right now i hope that doesn't happen in this interview but classic moment there which i by the way i'm just gonna clap because i don't know if you know about my career but i do tough interviews you do oh i know so i'm very proud of the fact that i do hard interviews and i get very upset with american media softball interviews so i'm watching this i'm like why the fuck is the guy from the oc doing a tougher interviewer sam bankman freed than the people on cnbc fox business bloomberg yes cnn what is going on why me you need me to do it ryan the american media the american media folks the the the incredible american media the media every week on the show whether it's about gaza or trump but it's interesting to talk about financial journalists get a pass and we should talk for a moment about yes financial and tech journalists both of whom were taken in by this guy and i don't know why i mean do you feel like you were going to get taken in at any point was i going to get yeah did you did you get bowled over by his charisma and brilliance because he seems to i'm drinking out of a mud that says fraud investigator no i was not about to no i mean why did all the financial media establishment why did all the big ang why did they think this guy he's on the front page of multiple magazines it's clearly a scam as you said yeah i don't know i mean look it obviously varies from from person to person outlet to outlet there are some outlets that are completely in the tank for crypto you know there are crypto outlets are they covering the the industry uncritically there's there's pay pay to play there's there's you know actual money being transferred there i would obviously not use any specific examples i don't want to be sued but this is a known thing that happens in the industry uh then slightly above that is sort of you know the finance as entertainment section which is cnbc and places like that which they just want to show they want a carnival they don't really and he's a character and he's a character and he's a great character right because he's the misunderstood wonderkin household hair shorts billionaire yeah exactly california golden boy speaks about giving his money away he's effective altruist he's an altruist um just a reminder people watching at home he's actually a convicted criminal in prison right now for 25 years from all sorts of laundering charges and corrupt and stealing his his clients money did you know in that moment that he was full of shit were you sitting there absolutely yeah i didn't know exactly what what he was up to but it was very very i mean you don't have to be a you know a student of uh uh body language human behavior to sort of things he seems pretty nervous there about the politicians i couldn't figure out exactly why he hesitated so much because it was public record that he had given to biden and the democrats he'd given 40 million it was a huge what people didn't know he admits it later he had also given to the republicans in secret exactly democrats in public exactly he was actually running or allegedly running a hundred million dollar straw donor scheme and giving to the republicans via cutouts being his employees one of his employees is now in jail rylan salem doing um seven and a half years for making illegal political contributions so um he was playing both sides as you would do in washington if you wanted to get anything done well he's now uh trying to suck up to trump like most people in prison are because he wants a pardon and trump has given pardons as we said the silk road guy and uh the binance guy and a lot of crypto folks have got pardons from trump what do you make of donald trump and his family going all in on crypto with their meme coins and their world liberty financial crypto fund they launched that in the middle of an election campaign just totally normal thing to do are you surprised at how identified with crypto trump has become because we're taping this just days before he's about to host a conference at mar-a-lago where we believe he's going to launch a new meme coin so the book that i wrote with jacob silver first of all i met jacob silverman co-author of the book because he'd written an article in 2021 even donald trump knows bitcoin is a scam he did because he was calling it a scam as recently as 2021 and i thought that was funny and i like jacob's perspective um i did not see trump's turn coming but of course as soon as it started happening i was like of course it's gonna happen of course because why didn't donald trump like cryptocurrency there's a lot of money laundering in real estate there's a lot of money laundering in cryptocurrency yeah i think perhaps trump was upset he wasn't getting his cut it's also easy money right and there's a lot of scamming and a lot of i mean if donald trump knows anything in life he doesn't know many things right but he knows how to scam people he knows how to he's a con man who sees marks yeah yeah yeah and i mean the subtitle of our book easy money is cryptocurrency casino capitalism and the golden age of fraud and the golden age of fraud is a term uh coined by jim chanus legendary short seller but it is really personified by trump right i mean the convicted fraudster president the the guy who whose company was convicted of 34 accounts uh by a jury the the fraudsters turn to selling the fraudulent currency is you know maybe the most vivid illustration of the fraudulence of this whole endeavor but for you it must be super depressing because you spent years following this stuff the only solution is regulation yes we've heard that from some democrats like elizabeth warren and others and you see that in the senate hearing that you do with kevin o'leary another person who did a u-turn on this another trump person and then you have the president of the united states embrace this there's no way you're getting any kind of regulation or accountability when they're going out when he's launching his own freaking meme coin yeah no i mean worthless coins whatever they call stable coins absolutely and and and so where does that leave us for me it leaves us in a position of calling them out of course doing what i can there um unfortunately the republican party under trump is you know completely subservient they're never going to do anything about this issue so we can only keep our house in order on the democratic side so one of my goals is to shame ruthlessly relentlessly shame the democrats the elite democrat leaders who are also subservient to crypto because i assume of political donations you're in a state with you're in new york yeah both democratic senators gillibrand in particular has been very pro-crypto gillibrand's very pro-crypto schumer is apparently working behind the scenes to position his caucus uh correctly on the issue because he knows how much money they have they're worried about elections um packs spending against them crypto packs and become very influential actually yeah and i mean to give you like a like a very sort of clear example of what i'm talking about last year uh a bill was signed into law the genius act yes which if you know this congress and it's called the genius act it's got to be stupid and uh it it um it allows corporations to issue their own money in the form of stable coins so which are uh cryptos that are pegged one-to-one with with real u.s dollar with real currencies like u.s dollar so it's literal corporate money it's literally corporations giving corporations yeah i mean does that seem like a good idea um and for the democrats a hundred democrats voted for it including hakeem jeffries including my congressman dan goldman which is why i'm supporting brad lander for congress if you're a democrat and you're having a hard time choosing between people and corporations my humble suggestion is to get the out of the party like we have to model good behavior here we can't control them but when when john trump wins an election in part because of this relatively thin slice of the american public they can't really distinguish between the parties we can criticize them we can make fun of them but we also need to look in the mirror and realize that the reason that they can't do that is because of this kind of shit yes it's ridiculous well said and so uh yeah so that's that that's i think what we can do in 2026 is hold them to account by the way it's very funny to have donald trump being so pro-crypto when actually the iranians are doing very good at benefiting off of crypto the russians although he's quite pally with the russians but the iranians who he claims to hate yes they they want to charge the tolls in the strait of hormuz with cryptocurrency with bitcoin yeah which i find fascinating um do you want to do on a further wrinkle on that usually the crypto that they use is uh uh a stable coin called tether uh tether's the largest crypto stable coin company 180 plus billion dollars uh and uh tether's broker is uh canter fitzgerald okay which is howard uh commerce secretary yeah my god so they manage what's a circular world i want to come back to democrats and republicans in a moment but just on on the documentary you interview sam bankman freed you go to el salvador you talk about president bukele there and then there's this really powerful moment in the middle of the film where you talk to real people who lost money in the celsius crypto bankruptcy in 2022 the ceo of that firm you interview him in the film he's now in prison um you interview people who lost money and there's this one guy who's crying with tears about losing his life savings maybe losing access to his daughter um and you're crying too there's a real human cost absolutely and i'm sometimes accused by shills within the industry of being anti these guys the guys that are investing in it that's that's ridiculous i'm i'm doing it to protect them to help them and why because the industry doesn't give a shit about them they're trying to exploit them do you ever see the crypto industry do anything other than some performative like oh i'm sorry you lost your money it's too bad we can't help you you know the blockchain sorry and that's that is actually one way that this doesn't work so a blockchain is an append-only ledger meaning it's irreversible if you send your crypto somewhere you can't get it back and the advocates will say isn't that great but in a imagine that was the real world and say your credit card got got stolen right and you went to the bank and like sorry blockchain we can't we can't reverse the charges um this doesn't work and it's an excuse uh screw over the little guy and and it's and it's a gold mine for criminals right right the irreversible irreversibility of the ledger is helpful but here's the and i'm not ruining the film you can watch the film but there is this crazy twist where the guy who's crying at the end of the film he says he's still in crypto quote i'm still in the game he says this is the guy we saw moments earlier crying because he lost all his money he's like i'm still in crypto sounds to me like a cult yes at at at the base level at the sort of five to six percent of the population that's really really into this and it is that small five to six percent i mean it's a big country so it's a lot of people but still uh it's a cult it just takes on feelings there's a great uh paper uh when prophecy fails uh about the dynamics of a cult um what happens when the cult leaders prognostications don't come true what happens when the world doesn't end do the cult members suddenly have a revelation and just you know discard their their their uh belief or do they double down they double down if if you are so invested in this it's it's actually more painful to admit that you're wrong you've been conned you've been lied to um you need to double down in order to sort of maintain that uh cognitive dissonance i feel like at the heart of this documentary is that the crypto in industry has been able to take advantage of the fact that our financial and our economic systems are deeply flawed deeply corrupt deeply unequal they do screw over the little guy they are undemocratic in many ways and then crypto comes along and presents itself as the solution as the democratic decentralized way of helping ordinary people not those evil big banks and i feel of course it's not as you've pointed out today and in the film but the existing economic system open the door to it absolutely 100 if crypto teaches us anything is that we have to fix our our our actual economic system financial system i mean it is it's as simple as that um and that story like such a simple story it gets so so far i think that you know there's a lot of different ways i could take this sort of where what we need to do um but i've been going around speaking up about this publicly um why do we have billionaires um imagine a world in which the thousand or so billionaires that exist that hold now i don't know five trillion dollars worth of wealth or something as much wealth as the bottom 50 of the country yeah altogether imagine that they get to keep the first billion so you know you're welcome you know you benefited off of all of us and our work and everything so good for you you get to keep a billion um and you can buy houses and cars and boats and planes and you can live off the interest for the rest of your life and never work a day so cry me a river if it's not enough money for you the rest of it is taxed at 99.95 percent or something like that um because we could use the money obviously universal health care universal child care all of those are those things but also what do they do with the extra money i mean all they do is use it to buy shit they don't need and to keep hold on to more power and destroy our democracy right or fund groups that will prevent them from having to pay to higher taxes right there was a great line that zoran mamdani had on the flay group podcast during the election when uh bill ackman kept funding campaigns against him he said he goes bill habibi i don't want to tax you as much as you're spending on donations like the whole thing is well i do yeah i mean i'll be blunt that's i guess i'm with you i don't understand what like elon musk wants to keep his first trillion he's going to be the first trillion now on current trends right like what do you do with that there's it's you and i similar age brewster's millions richard prior great movie growing up like he has to spend 30 million dollars in 30 days it is hard to spend billions of dollars how do you spend a trillion the dynamics here so to get on onto the economics um if there is so much regulatory capture and rent seeking um and they have such power then this only gets worse yes like it speeds up actually in the absence of meaningful regulation uh by the way we should be taxing corporations far higher as well of course no we're seeing it speed up we're seeing levels not since the 1920s right right and and to be very very clear we're talking about taxing a thousand people that's it and corporations literally for as far as i'm concerned i don't want to tax anybody else massive public support including from maga i mean we're talking about 80 percent and yet we can't get it pat gee i i wonder why it must just it must just be the bad republicans yeah can't possibly not not it's not bipartisan it's not no couldn't possibly no no no no yeah that's outrageous anyway i um we're gonna come to politics i promise just finishing this just just putting a bow in this you're trying to talk about a movie and i'm trying to talk about politics no i'm gonna talk about politics don't you worry you've already taken us there don't worry but i gotta i gotta ask this one because i got a clip i want to play to you when i hear about cult and crypto and bullshit i cannot help but think of ai i feel like there are parallels watching your documents like you know what ben mckenzie should do next he should make a documentary about ai i would watch the shit out of that and i i look at that sam beckman freed interview i look at these interviews and i think of this let's play the next clip ai is going to be massively deflationary um i've gone back and forth on this a little bit because you can imagine some weird things happening with all of the money in the world going into self-replicating data centers or whatever the empowerment of individual people whether or not society has structured in a way where they've naturally had all of the advantages looks like it's going to go up and up massively more abundance and access and massively decreased costs to be able to create new things new companies discover new science whatever um i think that should be an equalizing force in society and a way that people who have not gotten treated that fairly get a really good shot as long as we don't screw up the policy around it in a big way which could happen it sounds familiar did you read the uh profile of him in new yorker i did did did you recall there's this one quote from an anonymous microsoft executive who has business with open ii and he said there's a pretty decent chance that he's the next bernie made off or sam bankman freed my heart sank i mean fuck you know i mean the analogies are there obviously he has not committed any crimes yeah yeah we had that we had that disclaimer but the the bullshit yes the people sitting around that he promises the world it's a very long article i recommend people reading it but read it but but it's it's many many many sources that have worked with sam that say he's basically a pathological liar yes i mean that's them talking not me yes so um we have to you know again but the point is is like sam back before he's one of many right sam altman is one of many people in this cult with bros pushing this new abundance future and saying everything's going to be great and they're spending in elections like crypto to defeat any candidates who don't want data centers in their district who want to regulate these ai bros right i mean i would say the difference between ai and crypto is that ai is an actual technology yes that does actually have and crypto isn't and let me explain why yeah um because there's a lot of sort of hand wavy like sort of like techno babbly stuff that gets out of crypto bros mouths but the reality is blockchain has been around for 35 years it goes back to 1991 stuart haber and scott stornetta at bell labs building off the work of cryptographers like david chom who i've interviewed and you'll notice something about blockchain it's not used in any business outside of the cryptocurrency industry it is exceedingly hard to find a business that is not in the crypto industry that uses blockchain why because it sucks bitcoin can only process five to seven transactions a second visa can do 24 000 bitcoin cannot work as a global payments method because the tech sucks even sam bankman freed admitted that to me when i interviewed him and then then he said well other blockchains are faster including solana um which is also a coin that he owned a lot of um so the tech is bad yeah um for all the reasons that we've talked about and i i i think the ai thing is more troubling because it's not it's not about it is about the tech of course but it's about about who controls the tech yes right um and of course you know sam is sam altman is trying to flip it into i'm the good steward here but why in the world should we trust him i mean he has the most to win yes of of anyone in the world and they are funding anti-regulatory campaigns of course and that is the overlap and of course it comes back to what you said which is there is a bipartisan problem in this country where democrats and republicans are both susceptible to corporate PAC spending to intimidation by the 0.1 percent and to this ideology that says if you're a good capitalist you leave all these people alone there's no model you know the people like lena khan who were running the ftc were run out of town she's now working for mamdani um what do you make of the democrats right now under chuck schumer and hakeem jeffries are they in the right place politically i feel like they're going to win the house and senate but that's in spite of them not because of them exactly correct yeah absolutely um are they in a good place what place are they in under under schumer and jeffries do they know uh yeah no absolutely um look i respect the service uh but um uh in my opinion uh it is time for chuck schumer to hang it up and uh or at least step down as a as a leader and the same for jeffries is a younger man so i i can't it's not an age issue it's just a bad judgment issue well look i mean we have to decide who we are and we have to the good news about trump the only one of the few silver linings is that he's exploded the overton window of what's possible um he has just blown it up and unfortunately he's on the bad side right he's doing everything he can to destroy this country in so many different ways but hopefully that galvanizes the rest of us to shift it back to shift it back and that is not just the the the sort of date core democratic constituencies when we talk about the billionaires that's 80 percent of the country agreed right so we can find common ground fighting against corruption but we can't if the democrats are complicit complacent and cowards in the face of it so we have to be braver stronger and you know this word of authenticity that's throwing this around you know that's the new thing we have to find candidates that are authentic authentic yeah motherfucker you're either authentic or you're not and you're an actor yeah and like i know i'm cursing a lot to be authentic but like though a lot of democrats are cursing now well i'm just gonna yeah i know and then then they're trying cursing on as though like they're the you know trying to hang out with trump yeah they're trying to hang out with the older kids in the park and trying it on it's like you're either authentic or you're not so be authentic or find someone who's authentic yeah yeah well i mean step aside there are people running absolutely who are authentic i want to come to someone like that quick question when are you running for office uh i really hope that i never have to run for office that is not a no i will point out you're a very good politician already um you're from texas you've been involved in uh election efforts for other candidates for uh you tried you were part of the turn texas blue campaign that didn't go so well i watched the ad with you and marina uh what do you think of james tallarico in texas running for the senate i think he's a very talented politician i think that he's done a very very good job of uh navigating and what is a very tricky terrain in texas so i give him a lot of props um i'm a little unclear on where he is on crypto and i have not had a chance to talk to him about it but i would like to interesting um i'm not saying he's pro i'm it's a little bit i don't know so uh okay because that's my hobby horse that's the thing that i need to but he's a very talented guy and i think he has a good chance if he sits down with me again i interviewed him a few months ago hopefully you're going to speak to him soon i will ask him please you're also a new yorker now how have you felt about maya mumdani a little over 100 days in i love him you love him he's fantastic okay and one of my favorite things is when people say um wow i mean it's new york you know new york is not america yeah motherfucker america is nothing without new york it's the large it's the largest city in the country it's the center of capital it's the center of culture and you are saying new york isn't america what are you talking about we're all america but you can't you clearly can't exclude the largest country also this idea that some liberal bastion they elected giuliani yes bloomberg yes eric adams this is not a city that was just electing one socialist after another yeah it was actually quite impressive yeah yeah that he pulled it off in a city like that with his socialist policies with his criticisms of israel but but he is but he is authentic right he is who he is i mean my favorite mumdani moment is he's standing in the oval office and he says yeah he's a fascist right he doesn't back away from me does that i can't say this in front of donald trump in fact trump gives him permission to say and then he was asked again recently in an interview on nbc do you still think he's a fascist yeah even though he texts with trump right that is authenticity and that is skill real political skill very good uh shame he's not born in the us um um brad lander was a uh a person who worked with mumdani cross endorsement mumdani was part of the campaign he's now running for congress against dan goldman uh you mentioned a moment ago that you're supporting him over crypto uh which makes sense dan goldman voted for the genius act which you said is a dumb act we agree um brad lander is also jewish running against dan goldman who's jewish dan goldman's super pro israel uh brad lander uh a critical of israel i think it's fair to see he's not an anti-zionist but he's very critical of what netanyahu's done and the genocide there does that factor into your equation at all well i'll just point out that there are you know apac is notorious for not only spending money on races but hiding the fact that they're spending the money yes and making their ads never mention israel right guess what other industry also does that crypto crypto right so that has turned like that now all of a sudden in certain key districts voters are aware of who apac is funding let's do the same for crypto that's one of my goals let's do the same let's let's let's let everybody know just just who is on what side here people or corporations yeah and on people corporations and crypto dan goldman is on one side brad lander's other on israel too do you recognize that yes is that is that a coincidence i mean i don't know uh in an interview with john stewart you said elites in power in the democratic party have made this decision or a a series of decisions starting from a while ago and chosen capital over labor do you think that's changing at all right now oh in the primary in the primaries i mean we're seeing a lot more energy you know you saw the bernie sanders aoc anti-oligarchy tour yes i'm always hesitant as a i mean look i'm a democrat from texas so i've had my share of hard times um i'm always hesitant to get too excited but i am excited i am i am i'm i'm buoyed by the fact but am i saying that right i'm buoyed by the fact that um that um not only are democrats winning and winning by large margins in in in sometimes in conservative uh districts but but people are outflanking the current reps from the left yeah and and winning and i think that is a very very good sign um for for far far too long the democratic party may perhaps since clinton has been just afraid yeah of representing regular working people and it's insane because certainly the republican party isn't doing that mom danny had a great line recently in an interview where he said we need to move beyond the time where if people want to see democrats being courageous they have to look in the history books yeah uh which i thought was very powerful and because everyone's always calling fdi it's like well you can be fdi now if you want to yes joe biden claimed you he would be fdi he brought in a bust i believe fdi but you know didn't go all the way um who's your pick for president in 2028 and you can't say jd vance damn okay can i say tucker carlson wait are you sorry are you saying is popular on some part this is a republican side no democratic who's your pick i assume you're a democrat who wants a democratic president yes who would you like to see run at least if not if you don't have a single i mean i would like to see everyone run i really think everyone is going to run yes i think 35 people running great it's called democracy great i mean very crowded i mean do you remember in 2016 there were about 18 17 republicans around they had to have the kiddie table debate the night before with like the losers like lindsey graham who did like the night they got the shitty night before and then donald trump was with like jeb bush on the main night i feel like the democrats gonna have three of those because if you have like 35 people that's like 12 a night yeah well look it'll be better than the last time when we didn't yeah the coordination we didn't have a you know because biden hung on too long we we never had the open process so i would like the open process yeah we'll see how messy it gets i'm not gonna let you do politician you have to answer the question pick someone or pick a couple pick people you like i i i have to say i and i'm not trying to be a politician about that genuinely i genuinely like a lot i think we have a really strong do you like aoc you're from i love aoc okay i think what do you make a ro connor from silicon valley lefty being very anti-war crypto crypto what's i don't know i don't know i i don't want to speak out of turn because i haven't done a ton of homework but there's just it's hard for silicon valley dems to be okay outspoken against places like things like crypto interesting so what about uh gavin newsom from california i mean give me a break i love the way you're like i just want everyone to run and it wasn't very why didn't i mean yeah and then when i go through the list you're like this is my game all right give me yeah keep going i want to let's keep going happily keep going what do you think of josh shapiro pennsylvania yeah i mean i like what he's done in the state um i i i i so look i am uh have you seen this documentary the bb files uh i haven't seen it all i know some of it you need you should watch i mean i know you like to watch jason stay the movie i do like to watch jason stay the movie and your documentary the bb files is a documentary that came out last year yes it's a little alex um alex gibney i think it's alex i think he's a producer on it yeah yeah yeah um and it is the uh police interrogation videos of the jim and yad and yahoo and and it really for me someone who was born like i was not aware of netanyahu's entire history um and and the footage of the investigations is really fascinating um but i encourage people to watch it because um the way i would message this is that uh benjamin benjamin netanyahu does not have the best interests of even his own people at heart and has been um exploiting the situation to his benefit um this is not a you know pro-jewish anti-jew this is not a an issue of a faith this is an issue of politics and he is a very skilled politician who's hold held on to power uh for a very long time with great cost in human lives do you think josh shabir is two pros or is that why you started about netanyahu i i i that's my concern but i don't know i don't know jb pritzker surely know because he's a billionaire and you're not a fan of billion well i'm not i i yeah and you know steyer running from california i i do have a problem i don't want us to be obviously oh we get to pick the good billionaires it's not about whether you made billions that's fine um i mean most of the time some of it right um as the aoc once said you don't make a billion you take a billion yeah i mean there is this this this at what point does your entrepreneurship transfer over into well first of all how much of that is luck yeah being at the right place at the right time i mean obviously all of these guys and it is always guys like they are the most the smartest people that have ever lived but perhaps there was a bit of luck there and also when does it switch over into rent seeking where it's not really about the technology um it's that amazon has you know a sort of a stranglehold over uh buying things online do you not worry sorry to take a tangent we're about to wrap up but i gotta ask this do you not worry when you talk about amazon and billionaires and corporations and taxing you're not worried about your own career i mean hollywood is a place run by billionaires and corporations it's still a free country you know for for now and the other and the other thing is i'm a i'm a rich white college educated dude if i can't speak up who can like again model behavior so maybe i don't get the next matt damon movie maybe i'm not yeah i don't think you're getting about yeah okay fine whatever maybe bezos doesn't put me in whatever amazon's doing fuck you i don't care like i'm gonna at least you got to say your piece and by the way there might be a few other people on the other side i mean ted sarandos like he uh he couldn't speak up because they were uh yeah they were gonna try to merge and now uh i don't know ted it'd be a good way to position yourself fair last question uh the senator in the movie who who uh asked you questions chris van holland might run for president what do you make of him i like him as a person as a as a as a senator yeah i'm glad we did this i'm glad we went beyond your they should all just run um where can people see everyone is lying to you for money they should go to everyone is lying.com that is our website which will update as so basically we needed to prove our this is a true indie independently financed i financed it myself wasn't financed in bitcoin it was not financed in bitcoin it was financed in part by a short bet that i made that crypto was going to crash yeah i made about i made about a million dollars betting against various frauds like crypto and i finance this is in the book that's amazing yeah so yeah fun um putting my money where my mouth is and uh um but but you know suffice it to say i have not made my money back yet um documentaries are hard to make money off we know that here is very hard um so basically people need to come see this in the theater to the degree that it's uh please do and i know that that's hard i'm a father of three the number of non-animated movies that i've seen in the movie theater in the the last couple years count on one hand there are couples at home watching which we watched this weekend yeah film about crypto no it's really good yeah don't be put off it is kind of a date night movie right a little bit don't you think there's that scene at the end with you and marina the sunset yes yeah come on all right very date night movie yeah crypto date night exactly so everyone is uh every everyone is lying.com and also every uh instagram is everyone is lying film uh what do you do next last question another doc or are you back to cop shows yeah uh i want to take the skills i've learned uh and go back to television in the sense of creating a show for myself that has social justice at the heart of it and so i have this idea i'm working with david e kelly uh you know fantastic uh brilliant uh legendary showrunner on a legal drama political thriller set in new york um inspired by real people and events surrounding the eric adams corruption investigations well promise me you'll come back when you decide to run for office so we can do a proper political interview i'll put a suit and tie on i have no idea what you're talking about okay still no denial you'll know um make sure to like and subscribe to we're not kidding wherever you get your podcasts um and don't forget to head over to zoteo.com to become a subscriber so you can get we're not kidding as soon as it drops before anyone else for now from me i'm Mehdi Hassan i'm ben mckenzie and we're not kidding did you like this video don't forget to subscribe to this youtube channel and turn on notifications for exclusive content and to support our independent unfiltered journalism head 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