Ep 341 | Government Is Captured by the Pharma Lobby | Guest: Del Bigtree

Typically, Americans on the political Left worry about corporate power while those on the Right worry about government power. But the real danger is when corporations and government collude to dictate how you ought to live. We saw this during COVID, when experimental vaccines were pushed onto the American people, earning pharma companies big profits while they were shielded from any liability for the harm their products may cause. At this year’s FreedomFest in Palm Springs, Matt Kibbe caught up with Del Bigtree, host of “The HighWire,” who has devoted most of his career to researching the vaccine industry. He points out that the pharma lobby is more powerful than the banks or even defense contractors and that they effectively control much of what our government does, meaning that our system is neither as capitalist nor as democratic as we imagine.

The government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic was such a naked power-grab on such an unprecedented scale that even five years later, we are still struggling to hold the responsible parties accountable and to even fully process what happened. One unintended consequence of lockdowns, however, was exposing some ugly truths about who is really in charge in America. Matt Kibbe sits down with Debbie Lerman, author of “The Deep State Goes Viral,” to talk about whether our elected officials actually have the power to change things or whether someone else is pulling the strings. The word democracy means rule by the people, and we like to tell ourselves that our politicians are bound by the consent of the governed. In a post-COVID world, however, it’s becoming less and less apparent whether that remains the case in America.

As riots rage across Los Angeles and the conflicts between ICE officials and illegal immigrants escalate, why does it seem like nobody in Washington is actually interested in fixing America’s broken immigration system? Matt Kibbe sits down with Steven Olikara, CEO of Bridge Entertainment Labs and former Democratic Senate candidate, to discuss how both Democrats and Republicans have an interest in exacerbating the problem in order to use it as a campaign issue in the next election. This is yet another example of what Olikara calls “the division industrial complex,” which seeks to keep Americans polarized and at each other’s throats. Instead of falling into this trap, Olikara stresses the importance of sitting down for civil conversations with those who hold differing opinions and working to find common ground that can lead to real solutions. The political establishment wants to keep us divided because that’s how it retains its power. It’s important to understand the rules of their game.

The fight over President Trump’s "big, beautiful bill" is boiling over, shattering the White House alliance with Elon Musk. Join host Matt Kibbe in an exclusive sit-down with Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) as they dissect the bill’s massive new spending and skyrocketing debt — provisions Paul warns could bankrupt America and spark runaway inflation. Plus, Paul reveals his bold plan as chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security to wield new subpoena powers, targeting Anthony Fauci and others who lied to protect the pandemic industrial complex.

As the Republicans in Congress are poised to spend trillions more, while ignoring all of Elon Musk's DOGE recommendations, some members of the administration and Trump loyalists are running defense, attempting to convince voters that their gargantuan reconciliation bill actually puts America first. Matt Kibbe tears this narrative apart, pointing to the hypocrisy of neocons who claim to care about small government while repeatedly voting for more spending to fund endless wars. Drawing on his experience as a budget economist and a Tea Party organizer, he explains that Republicans are setting themselves up for a clobbering in the midterm elections if they fail to enact any of the changes voters demanded in 2024.

For libertarians in America, there are plenty of things to be depressed about as Congress fails to cut spending or implement the DOGE’s recommendations. But one area where there is room for optimism is the school choice movement, particularly at the state level. Matt Kibbe talks to Corey DeAngelis, author of “The Parent Revolution,” about the great strides parents are making in taking control of their children’s education. After the pandemic locked down schools, forced students onto Zoom calls, and exposed parents to what is actually happening in the classroom, parents are more energized than ever to break free from the government school system. They are working with their legislatures to keep more of their tax dollars, which can be used to opt for private schooling or homeschooling. Even Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” contains some important school choice provisions that will bring more educational freedom to the country.

In the aftermath of most national disasters, such as 9/11, the Iraq War, and even January 6, the media typically spends years writing an endless series of think pieces, autopsies, and analyses of what went wrong and how to prevent it from ever happening again. In the case of the COVID-19 pandemic and the accompanying lockdowns, we’re not seeing the same thing, and in fact most media outlets seem to want to forget the whole thing ever happened, even though it represented the most dramatic curtailing of American civil liberties in living memory. Matt Kibbe talks to David Zweig, author of “An Abundance of Caution: American Schools, the Virus, and a Story of Bad Decisions,” who argues that the media wants to hide its own culpability in pushing for lockdowns and censorship of dissenting ideas. Zweig, who considered himself broadly left-wing before the pandemic, was shocked at the persistent illogic of keeping schools closed in the face of evidence that children faced virtually no risk from the virus, and his ensuing investigation led him to question many of his preconceptions about the state of American journalism.

Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, headed by Elon Musk, came storming in this January with a mission to expose government waste, fraud, and abuse and to highlight up to $2 trillion that could be cut from the federal budget. One hundred days in, the department has made some impressive progress, but government spending remains as high as ever. Matt Kibbe sits down with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) to find out where we stand in the congressional budget process, as well as the progress of the Make America Healthy Again coalition and Trump’s use of emergency powers to impose tariffs.

At the Young Americans for Liberty conference in Washington, D.C., Matt Kibbe sits down with legendary journalist and educator John Stossel to talk about his long career bringing libertarianism to the masses. Stossel reflects on how the media landscape has changed, with decentralized platforms offering more opportunities to communicate without the fear of editorial censorship, and explains how his recent projects are bringing liberty into the classroom. He also laments the fact that for as long as he has been pointing out the benefits of free markets and personal liberty, many Americans are still not receptive to the ideas of freedom. Can Kibbe cheer him up with a dose of optimism? Watch to find out!

The second Trump administration has awakened Democrats to the dangers of executive power, but they have no one to blame but themselves. Matt Kibbe goes through the history of the expansion of executive authority, in which the presidency becomes more and more dominant over the other two branches of government. A lot of what we are now seeing can be traced to Barack Obama, who boasted that he could do what he wanted without Congress because he had a pen and a phone. Since then, there has been an arms race between the two parties to see how much they can get done with the presidency alone. It’s a strategy that only harms the American people and our freedoms and will almost certainly come back to bite the very people who started it.