 Biden, how is his apparent dementia not a real, real issue, given as horrible as Trump, as you see Trump to be? But most importantly, the question I'd love to hear answered is, instead of you debating all of these lame socialists that you just seem to walk all over and it's just, you know, easy, easy fruit, low-hanging fruit, why wouldn't you, why don't have a debate with the real objective of us who disagree with you about Trump? You know, if Andy or somebody like that wants to, wants to debate, I don't know any real objectivist who disagree with me about Trump who would want to debate me. I mean, and who, who, who's the audience for that debate? So this is the real answer. Who's the audience for that debate? Who cares if objectivists disagree about Trump? See, my goal is not to convince objectivists to agree with me. I mean, that's, see, I mean, I'm not, I don't really, I mean, you do disagree with me about Trump, for example. So what, you know, good, but we agree on fundamental stuff. My goal is to convince people and non-objectivists about objectivism and, and, and me talking about Trump is one way to get to non-objectivism to, to come in. So most of what I do in life and most of what I want to do in life is not about objectivists. You know, you've read all the Vine Rand, you've got all the facts, you've got everything. We both have those. We disagree on them. I'm quite happy for me and you to say we agree to disagree. And the fact is that the objectivist movement is not big enough to be, to change the election. So my position on Trump doesn't matter existentially for anything, right? So my focus is on getting new people into the movement and on taking people who haven't read everything, who don't, who don't consider themselves yet objectivists or are, and are relatively young at it and try to get them to be deeper understanders of the objective of the, of the, of the philosophy. But I don't, and even there I don't do, I don't take them all the way because I'm not a philosopher. So my orientation is towards them. I mean, I was thinking you were going to ask, why not debate a conservative Trump supporter? And I would love to, I mean, I do tomorrow and conservatives are the ones who resist debating me. They don't want to debate me. But I would love to debate a kind of right wing, because my, my whole purpose in life is differentiate objectivism from everybody else. So I will debate, hard to believe, but I've been debated and I don't kiss once, right? I want to, I'll debate libertarians or some libertarians. I'll debate leftists. I'll debate conservatives. I'll debate people across the spectrum, unless they're completely nuts. I'll debate them. The one, the one group of people are not interested really in debating. I don't find it that stimulating. And I don't see the purpose in it is objectivist, because if we agree on almost everything and disagreements on Trump, who cares? I don't care. So, so here we are with the, again, low hanging fruit, a Trump supporter. I'm sure you would absolutely stomp all over a Trump supporter. The point I made earlier about great drama being, you know, the good guy versus the good guy who are, and there's general confusion over, over what really is, which way do you go with that? I think especially a show like this is, is everybody's an objectivist pretty much listening to this show right now. I don't think that's true. And I don't think that's true. I, you know, I think there's a lot of people who are new to objectivism or listening to the show. Right. But I have a serious interest in objectivism. And for the most part, you're not going to find much disagreement. So you're going to, we're all going to agree. And, and if we, you know, so then what, what are we left with? Just two to 5000 people listen to every one of these shows. They might find something interesting in it. Well, wouldn't there, but I, I guess it's made, maybe it's just me personally wondering, because there are, there are objectivists out there who are, I don't know, you'd say pro-Trump, but would certainly never vote for Biden over Trump. And, and an issue like that, that's, that's everything else we're going to agree on. We're going to agree on metaphysics, we're going to gain epistemology, but when it gets to politics, which is really so important, and it is, it is, you can't turn on the news without it, how is that not number one topical? And then number two, raise some very interesting questions in people's minds. I think people have, could learn a lot about the, like Alex talking about energy policy in relation to any Democrat being, being elected, but Alex wouldn't debate me on Trump. I would bet anything of all my wealth, which is less than yours, but I'd still bet it that Alex wouldn't debate me and take the pro-Trump position. And this is the thing. Maybe it's energy, maybe you're just discussing energy policy, but we'll agree on that. Trump's energy policy is much better than Biden's. I mean, there's no question. Where's the disagreement, right? That's not, that, that, that is not the issue on, on issue by issue. I mean, there's some issues that were objectivists or people who call themselves objectivists disagree. You know, the issue of trade, maybe there's some issue of people who disagree. Certainly on the issue of immigration, there's a lot of disagreement and I've debated, I debated, let it pick up on immigration. There's, there's other issues in which objectivists disagree, but they're not there many. The evaluation of Trump, the evaluation of the presidency of the United States, I just, I don't think, I don't think it warrants a debate. I mean, my view is I've said everything I've got to say about this. I've said it many, many times or many, many forums, many, many formats. You're either convinced that you're not. Debates aren't going to change that fact. I don't hold it against you in any kind of serious sense that you, you want to vote for Trump. I'll vote. You see, this is where we disagree, I think, Robbie. And this is why you fought, you're so offended by the fact that I didn't vote. I don't think it's that important because the fact is your vote doesn't matter and my vote doesn't matter. It, if my vote was the absolutely deciding vote in an election, maybe I'd care, but my vote is not the deciding vote in the election, certainly not in California and yours in Texas. Yeah, probably not. We have to take a long view. So I don't, I don't, I don't view voting as important and it, it's, it's more important to you in terms of your own integrity that you did what you think was the right thing versus existentially out there having an impact on the world. So my view is if we disagree about voting, fine, then, then each one does what they want. Now again, if objectivism was the balancing vote, right? If I, in my statement on my show would determine the fate of the presidency in the future, right? There were so many objectivists that we would be the swing vote. Then I agree with you. Then I would have a debate. Then the debate makes absolute sense. It's a discussion. It could be a discussion. Yeah, it could be a discussion. But, but, but isn't energy powers everything? How is, how would, I know you, for all Trump's foils and these arrogance and braggadociousness and all the things you hate him for that I find completely irrelevant to, to run the country. This is where we disagree. I think those are the things that are important. And I think that the particulars of energy policy, not that important. I mean, Obama, Obama, if he'd had four more years, we still would have electricity in our homes. It might be a little bit more expensive, but we'd still have electricity in our homes. Indeed, even if Bernie Sanders was elected tomorrow, he wouldn't actually implement the Green New Deal. It wouldn't be implemented. It wouldn't pass Congress. So we'd still have electricity in four years. It would be worse. It would be more expensive. But it's not any one of these elections is not like any one policy issue is going to wipe us out. You know, we've survived Obamacare. We were told we couldn't survive Obamacare. We're all going to die. We survived it. Not again, it's worse than it was. It's better for they hadn't been Obamacare, but we survived it. And, you know, but Trump is changing what the presidency means. He's changing what America means. He's in that. I don't think we can survive. I think any particular policy we can survive, but fundamentally changing the balance of power and approach to power and approach to what America is, that is so deep. And I think it's already in the four years has already, I mean, think about, I mean, I cannot imagine an epidemic becoming politicized eight years ago, 20 years ago. It's just unthinkable. And what has happened in the last four years, just our attitude towards something as scientifically simple and straightforward as a virus. And I blame Trump for this. I think the left is responsible as well. But primarily I blame Trump with everything in America today is politicized everything, whether the sun rises in the West is a political question. It doesn't rise in the East. There you go. And that is this part of the great damage that he has done to the psyche of America. And maybe we were heading there anyway, and it didn't matter who president was, but he is the guy who's kind of pushed us over the edge. And so this Biden, this guy that can't put sentences together, what's he going to do to the presidency? He's going to be a nothing. And he's going to do very little. And he's going to surround himself with, you know, semi competent people, just like any other president has. And things are going to run okay. And hopefully there'll be enough Republicans in the Senate to block most of what he wants to do that's really horrific and bad. And things will deteriorate a little bit and the margins. And we will continue to fight so that in four, eight, 12, 16, 20 years, we still have a country. But I don't know what happens if Trump and that mentality, I think, for example, I think Trump is destroyed the Republican Party. What that means is there's no opposition party anymore. There's nobody to oppose the left when it wants to do certain things. That the whole opposition is gone. And that is Trump. Now we will pay for that in four, eight, 12, 16, 20 years. And if Hillary had won, there'd be a robust Republican pro free market opposition. What do they call it? Conservative nationalism and this new rights and all the different variations of new right. The one group in the Republican Party that has been eviscerated by Trump, eliminated doesn't exist, is the pro free market group within the Republican Party. It's gone. And the Republicans will say that there is nobody in the Republican Party today in any position of power or prominence who is pro free market. And to devastate the Republican Party in that sense, in that way, is going to have consequences that are far worse than having four years of Hillary or four years of Biden. You don't think the lockdown under Hillary or a Biden presidency would be a whole lot worse? No, I think would have been less worse. I'm in Texas. All my gyms are open, thriving. Things are going extraordinarily well here in Texas. Oh, it's great. But I don't think that has anything to do. I don't think the lockdowns would have happened the way they happened, if not for the fact that Trump was president, the fact that in the first 45 days, Trump in his, you know, blind, evasive arrogance ignored the threat completely. I think somebody even like Hillary or Biden would have been much more respectful of the experts who were not advocating shutdowns. There is no document in the government that says that the way you deal with the pandemic is shut down. The way you deal with the temp pandemic is test, track, isolate, and the fact that from January, middle of January, until the middle of March, we did almost no testing, certainly no tracking, very little isolation, made the situation such that New York had no option but to shut down. And then everybody copied them because there was no leadership. There was nothing kind of, and indeed, I remember, I remember, I mean, people can forget this, but I don't, that when de Blasio didn't want to shut down New York, it was Trump harassing him to shut down New York. So Trump has taken a position completely contradictory from week to week. You know, he criticized the Georgia guy for opening up too soon. Right. What was that about? You know, and I'm not making this up. I heard Trump say it. I wasn't reading it in the New York Times. So Trump has been all over the place. The extent of his poor leadership here is so devastating. But the key was that early on, he didn't listen to the scientists because that's who Trump is. He doesn't listen to people who know what they're talking about. I don't think that would have happened under any other president that I can think of. Well, I think we need to consider that we have a culture that was ready for lockdowns. I think that's more scary than who's in office. I think that's also true. But I don't think the lockdowns were inevitable. I really don't. And I think they could have been prevented. Maybe New York need to be locked down. I'm not even convinced of that. If they had done what was basically needed to be do, do with the court, what lots of other countries, a few countries did. So it looks like there's competence across the board. But the countries that did it well, did it well. And look, the lockdowns are not a political issue in England where the conservatives dominate politics. They still did a lockdown. Germany did a lockdown. France did a lockdown. Everybody did a lockdown. Left or right. The only countries that didn't do a lockdown were the countries that paid attention to the scientists, that paid attention to how you deal with pandemics, which are South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong. That's it. Everybody else screwed it up. Even Sweden, which didn't do a lockdown, but didn't do testing, has screwed it up. So it's, it's, it's, you know, and everybody looks for America for leadership. This is the thing that when you screw up as president of the United States, you're screwing up more than just the United States, you screw up the world. So, you know, I don't know. I, you know, I, I, I, I'm not convincing, obviously, to some people, to you, Robbie. I know it's to many others. The testing and tracing in a country of 330 million is a little bit different. Not hard to do at all. Not break was in Seattle. They could have done it easily then in Northern California then gone to then as soon as it came out in New York, they could have done in New York. It's not that hard to do. It's not an issue of size. Korea has a smaller population, but also smaller resources, less resources that we do with the richest country in the world that we can't. And the CDC theoretically had the plan. The fact that the whole Trump mentality is what causes, if you remember, I mean, again, early on, the, the, the World Health Organization offered, offered the United States one of their tests, a test that had been proven at work in South Korea and Taiwan and these other places. And the Trump administration said, no, we need an American made test and the CDC made an America made test, which loaded up to be completely faulty. And that took us back at least four weeks. It's the whole mentality of Trump that's anti science, anti other anti, you know, a business patient, anti, you know, authoritarian top down that made this, I mean, other countries that should be more authoritarian than us got the business community involved in testing earlier than we do it, got tests out there. I got a variety of different tests, but didn't turn down a perfectly good test because it came from a foreign country. Who cares where it comes from as long as it works. So no, there is a whole mentality that the Trump administration has that's incocated into government that is absorbed into the bureaucracy that has, that the coronavirus brought out the complete and utter incompetence. And it happened. I see it in foreign policy and the way they do foreign policy, even the better people within the State Department are pathetic because they can't do their job because the way the Trump administration approaches these issues, you see it in every field. Now, yes, he has the right approach, basically, because he leaves it alone in energy and a few other places. But all this other stuff is far more damaging in a long run perspective. And again, what he's done to the Republican Party, we will not recover from for many, many, many, many years, because for many, many years, we will not have a proper opposition to the Democrats and they'll steamroll over us. And his opposition to the Democrats is about, is what? It's not, it's not ideological. It's not about markets. It's about, you know, it's about name calling and it'd be Joe. It's about nationalism and statism. So, you know, he doesn't disagree with them on anything fundamental. So no, I really think he has made this country much worse often ways. Now, it's true in four years, when things suck, and there's been a Democratic president, I will be saying, see, this is what happened because of what Trump did. The Republicans couldn't stand up to this guy. And you'll say, and others will say, no, it's because we elected Biden, if only Trump or president, things would be much better. No, no, no, parallel universe to prove it. Well, I certainly believe Trump is in for another four years, which gives you another four years of grief. I hate to say the debate will have another four years of my grief. Look, the fun part is, the no matter who gets elected, I'm going to have four years of grief. It's not like I'm going to celebrate that Biden gets elected. I'm going to be miserable when Biden gets elected. And then I'm going to start riling against Biden. And that'll be four years of me going after everything, everything Biden does. My job never ends in terms of being anti whoever's in the White House. I mean, I did this one Bush was in the White House. And I don't know if you remember this, but I voted for John Kerry in 2004. And I'm proud of that vote and desperately, desperately wish that John Kerry had won in 2004. But it didn't work out that way. So, so the financial crisis got blamed on the Republicans, it got blamed on the capitalism, got blamed on, you know, good stuff. And the Democrats won and we got Obama and Obama's eight disastrous hobo years led us to Trump. And it all could have been different if only John Kerry had won in 2004. I guess you were wrong then. And I definitely believe you're wrong now. And let's do one of those food. I know you're a big foodie. So let's have why we've got why we've got so many witnesses. Let's have a meal of our choice in the city of our choice in the United States on the on the result of the election. I don't know who's going to win. I'm not saying Biden is going to win. You know, I do think I do think this I think that the Republicans will lose the House. Yeah. And well, they really lost the House. The Lord lost the House. They won't gain the House, even if Trump wins, I think they won't gain the House. And I think there's a significantly better than 50% chance that they lose the Senate. So that is a bet or that's not a bet? No, I don't have an opinion who's going to win the election. I don't know. I, you know, I wish I knew. I wish I had a view. Maybe in a month I'll have a view and put it this way. As soon as I have a clear view on who's going to win the election, I'll take you up in the bed if I disagree with you. All right. I look forward to it. And again, thanks. Happy, happy birthday. I hate to bring you, hate to bring you all this anxiety the day after your birthday, but happy, happy birthday. What we need today, what I called a new intellectual would be any man or woman who is willing to think, meaning any man or woman who knows that man's life must be guided by reason, by the intellect, not by feelings, wishes, wins or mystic revelations. Any man or woman who values his life and who does not want to give in to today's cult of the stare, cynicism and impotence, and does not intend to give up the world to the dark ages and to the role of the collectivist broad. Using the super chat. And I noticed yesterday, when I appealed for support for the show, many of you stepped forward and actually supported the show for the first time. So I'll do it again. Maybe we'll get some more today. If you like what you're hearing, if you appreciate what I'm doing, then I appreciate your support. Those of you who don't yet support the show, please take this opportunity, go to Iranbrookshow.com slash support or go to subscribe star.com Iranbrook show and make a kind of a monthly contribution to keep this going. I'm not sure when the next