So for today I wanted to cover the world of politics and what's happening with the Trump administration It's an eruption of news Truly, I mean you don't know where to pay attention to what exactly and I really wanted to focus on the animal rights aspect of it and basically the impact of this Trump administration on the lives of animals. And to kick off the conversation, I wanted to ask you about this whole thing we keep hearing about at the price of eggs. What is this all
about? The enterprise of X, did you say? Oh, the price of eggs. Oh, the price of eggs. Sorry, I don't know how I it's almost like AI beating back to you something that you didn't hear quite right or they didn't hear. Yeah, that's funny. The price of eggs. Oh, well, of course, that's the big drama in the news. Everything is about like eggs have become a symbol. of how outrageous food prices have become. And it's frustrating to see that because obviously bird flu and other
factors have a lot to do with that. And some parts of the egg industry and other animal ag industries are really doing quite well profit
-wise. there's quite a bit out there about how they might be exploiting this situation with bird flu and with inflation and This whole chaos that Like you said flooding the zone type strategy that the Trump administration uses to overwhelm us with information and with with conflicts and situations that we don't know how to react to So I think that, you know, as activists, we kind of have to rise above all that noise because,
and recognize it for what it is. It's a strategy to distract us, to try to disempower us as a society, as a movement, whatever the movement is, if it's animal rights or food justice or
climate crisis. they're all they're all part of you know we we share a lot in common with other movements in terms of how our main how mainstream and dominant culture try to disempower and distract us from our goals and and this is a classic kind of strategy flooding the zone trying to overwhelm us to think that you know we'll never be able to get the public's attention on what needs to be attended to. And so we have to kind of, you know, we have to rise above it.
We have to be able to, it's a test of our ability to have discipline and also it's a test of our Our character and our discipline and our and our ability to focus Probably more than anything What bird flu Yeah Well, that's that's interesting because no one you know, no one in the farming industry or in the agriculture industry is denying They're all Talking about bird flu not maybe in the right way or the way we would like for them to talk about it, but it's interesting because
the industry knows that it's a disaster and wants the federal government to step in and give them more subsidies, more disaster, what they call disaster relief. And yeah, like you said, what bird flu? In terms of like a lot of the public, it's not even on their radar. It should be though, because it's in the news all the time. But it's not a big threat yet to human health, public health. So it's still on the fringes of people's consciousness, probably. If that's what you mean
by what bird flu. Yes, I mean, you don't hear about it. You hear about the prices of eggs increasing, but you don't hear about the costs. You don't hear about the underlying problem. Yeah, that the underlying problem, you know, is often associated with inflation and Sometimes on the on the left side of the media, you might see, oh, it's more about like price gouging. The industry is trying to get more out of consumers and exploiting the
situation. So, but yeah, you rarely, you rarely hear you know, you not only you don't hear about it, but you don't see it. It's one of those hidden realities. Like, you know, we don't see the mass extermination of birds. We don't often see sick dairy cows on the side of the road. However, there have been some really good reporting of this stuff and it's getting out there. But yeah, we'd love to see it out there 20 times as much as it is. And I would recommend looking through
the content of Dr. Crystal Heath. She's been on the forefront of covering this issue. And she got me informed throughout this whole crisis. So yeah, that would be one recommendation. Yeah, Crystal and I have known each other for several years now. And we share information and ideas and a lot quite a bit. So happy to have her.
mentioned on the show because yeah, she's really one of her big strengths as a veterinarian is the ability to leverage media coverage on on the subject of bird flu and animal agriculture in general. And that's, you know, something we need more and more of. And it's really difficult to accomplish. So I I commend her for her abilities
to do that. To give you an example, I mean, recently there has been a new investigation from Animal Recovery Mission of another Fairlife supplier, but this time it was a brand new state -of -the -art facility in Arizona. And I think it was two different suppliers of Fairlife that were under investigation by ARM. They released the investigation to Great Fanfare, professional
PR people working on it and everything. And there was some coverage in Arizona, local news coverage, but Fairlife is based in Chicago and there was no coverage here. Nonetheless, we planned a rally at Fairlife's headquarters on March 3rd, but I could tell leading up to this that we weren't getting any local media coverage. And that was the That was the critical factor in 2019 when the first big arm Investigation was released and the media Covered it across Not just locally
internet nationally and internationally. It was quite a quite a media sensation and It was for a couple of weeks leading up to the rally that we had at Fairlife headquarters So we had about 60 people meant many people that I didn't know well either. As activists, they were just people that heard about it and decided to come out. They felt it was an important thing to do. But this time around 2025, the media wasn't there.
The media wasn't covering it. And as a result, we had about 25 people or so at the rally and
no media coverage. So, you know, this this is a you know we could get into a whole conversation about how important it is to get our message out in the media our point of view how we need to shift that narrative mainstream media narrative more in our favor that's a whole discussion i don't know if you really want to get into that but crystal has been able to get an important perspective into mainstream media outlets and uh i think that's Fantastic. It's much needed.
Definitely. I'm more of the lane, I would say personally of creating our own media platforms and reaching people directly instead of having to depend on the whims of big legacy media. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That's it. That's an important thing to really focus on maybe on independent media outlets that are more likely to cover the topic or even just create your own content if you can leverage an audience for sure. Yes, and
she's also good on that. She's been after me, you know, trying to convince me to open a TikTok account. But yeah, social media game, you know, I'm not that good at it. So, okay. piece of news coming from the Trump administration was the the Brooke Rollins her not an election but her. Yeah, it's an election appointment. Appoint an appointed cabinet member. Yes, right. Yes. So is it she's the agriculture secretary. That's
right. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Do you know who is Brooke Rawlins and is she in any way sympathetic to the animal cause? Well, I don't think she's sympathetic to the animal cause, although she has said things about that her policies would mitigate or reduce animal suffering. and be good for the environment. She has made statements about bringing in those benefits to what her policies are. Now, we did a little
research into Brooke Rollins. I didn't know too much about her frankly until when I started hearing that she was Trump's pick. We started doing some research. We learned that she previously advocated for an elimination, her words actually, an elimination of farm subsidies and corporate welfare. That's not something you hear in political circles in the establishment Democrat or Republican, or
even what we hear from progressives. We're not going to ever hear Well, Bernie Sanders might come out and say, yeah, a corporate welfare is bad, and we need to end it. And there, you know, you might hear that from from some of the others too. But I don't think I've ever heard Cory Booker or any of those kind of, you know, more progressive food reform type voices in Congress or in government
say, we need an elimination. Not a cutting just an elimination of farm sub subsidies in other words that that's a welfare program It's a socialist program to prop up an industry that should really be standing on its own two feet and should the free market should should be What allows this industry to sink or swim? And I thought that was pretty fascinating. It's more of a libertarian type of and I think that was, I believe it was
in 2016 when she made these comments. But we're still like, when we went to DC for our week of action, we hoped to confront her. She never ended up showing up at this conference. She was very much suspected to show up, but she wasn't on the program. And she did make a virtual appearance. But we still went there. We confronted a powerful
group of panelists. And one of the parts of our message was, hey, you know, you guys are talking about farm subsidies and bailout money for bird flu, but you have a new secretary of agriculture that has previously called for an elimination of all of this. So where is your reality next to to hers or this Trump administration, if their goal is to make these massive cuts, how is it that you guys can be talking about how we need
to increase disaster relief? Because there's more wildfires, there's more extreme climate, weather events, there's more drought, there's more zoonotic disease that is killing off. the animals that would otherwise be marketed and sold. And so there's such a disparity between what she has said and alleges to stand for and then what people in Congress and people even at this USDA conference where it's the biggest annual event. for the USDA and it's just huge.
The room we were in had at least 500 people on it, just listening to a panel. And then there were hundreds of other people in other parts of the conference. And they're all talking about, gee, I wonder how we can get more subsidies out of the government and get taxpayers to pay for things that we don't want to pay for. There's a dissonance there that that is really striking. Do you think she will make those cuts? Well, I think she's going to be at the whim of Trump.
And I think you've seen Trump go back and forth with tariffs and using carrot and stick. It's really not that unusual. But it's very exaggerated in Trump's case because he likes to make a show of everything. But honestly, this whole carrot and stick approach with using tariffs or something like that isn't new. If you guys don't do this, we're going to punish you by cutting your subsidies or cutting the Department of Education or we're going to impose a 250 % tariff on French wines
or whatever. All these outrageous things are really more just kind of It's a chess game. It's kind of a maybe chess is too sophisticated for Trump I would say probably but it's more of just like a It's a negotiation type thing to try to you know force people to do things that you want want them to do And I don't think she's gonna have much autonomy I think she's probably gonna have to go along with whatever he decides to
do, or probably get ousted. But the point is though, we've already seen, it's not a question of if, because we've already seen major cuts. We've already heard about farmers and ranchers in the US. And when we think about farmers and ranchers, we think of these poor people that you know from the dust bowl era that when subsidies were really necessary actually for farmers, we think of these poor people that can barely make a living, and that's not really representative
of who farmers and ranchers are today. They're much more corporate, they're much larger in scale. And so, but we've already heard them outraged about getting letters from the USDA saying that they can't count on these different programs. that are sources of revenue for them. So it's already happening. It could get reversed. I think there's gonna be a lot of back and forth, quite frankly, because that's Trump's style. A lot
of back and forth, a lot of chaos. And where that will end up is anyone's guess, quite honestly. But this administration wants to make major cuts. and already has made major cuts, not necessarily in the areas that would be beneficial to humanity or the public at large, but more to the wealthy, right? So when you hear stories about the USDA cutting food aid, so farmers were getting paid to supply food to Indiana's food bank. for poor people, those kind of programs are getting cut.
But it remains to be seen, are the really unjust subsidies that are going to corporate firms and organizations that don't need tax dollars, are those going to be cut or eliminated? I'm not really sure where that's going to land. That's what we're really looking for. And I guess this was my next question. Do we want those cots? You know, and, you know, if we do, where exactly do we want those cots? How is it, you know, most beneficial for animals? Yeah, that's a great
question. And I'm not sure. That's a tough thing to answer because I mean, On the one hand, there's a simple answer. And that is that we're a fan of subsidies when they actually promote a greater good, a public good, like providing food to hungry people or to eliminating the waste of food. Obviously, there's a lot of animals' lives that are wasted because food is so much wasted. And subsidies that help people buy food, like food stamp programs and things like that, that help the environment.
Obviously, we're a fan of housing, education. I think anything that produces a public good is a subsidy of some value. But the reality is that up to now, subsidies have been used to support animal agriculture in a hugely unfair way, because so much of the billions have gone to animal agriculture. And if you're truly trying to reduce animal suffering and create a more sustainable food system, then that subsidy system has to shift. because all subsidies are is a way to incentivize the agriculture
industry. They're gonna go wherever the money, wherever the money is. And so that's why we're so on Congress because they are going to decide where those incentives are going, those financial incentives are going to be for the next five years. And so we need to hold them accountable because that's the top level decisions being made in our food system. And if we're not there, then it's left to industry lobbyists, meat industry, egg industry, dairy industry, and those congressional
officials, those elected officials. If we're not in the room, if we're not in those spaces of power, then we don't even get heard. We're out leafletting somewhere. And these people are making huge decisions on our food system in the future of our food system. So, um, we have to be in these spaces of power to get anything done, to make any change. Yes. Let's, let's talk about
this. Um, because in our last conversation, you made the point that everyone is in the animal protection space focused on passing pushing laws and not you know focusing on the subsidies the money and now it's it's on the news you know because of all of those potential cuts and but still you're you're You haven't, you're the only one basically who is interested in that. And yeah, it's, it's, it's greatly disappointing
to say the least. Why do you think there's this obstacle for animal protection organizations? Why are they not? with you, meeting those lobbyists, or trying to get a meeting with that new Secretary of Agriculture. Why are they still focused on the law part, you know, reforming the law or passing a new welfare law? Oh, great question. I mean, some of them are, and many of them aren't. As you said, The mainstream side of our movement and most other social movements are on the reformed
side of the equation. The more grassroots side of a movement, which we identify with at Free From Harm, is more on what we call the transformational side of the movement. We want to focus people's
attention on the big picture change. we feel that people are ready and perfectly capable of understanding that the long -term vision and Necessity is a transition to a plant -based food system and that we need to start that process now So that if that's the vision that we put out for people and the reason why is because of all the problems associated with with exploiting and killing billions of animals like bird flu
just being one example. If that becomes the vision, then things like whether we should get animals out of cages or whether we should, those become kind of just not important because we've already moved the public. that we're already moving the public, they're already accepting this premise or vision that the future is a plant -based transition that needs to start now. It might take time. We are under no illusions that this will happen
tomorrow, but it needs to start now. And so, most mainstream groups are already invested in their campaigns, whether it be for cage free eggs or crate free pigs, or whatever it is, guagua. And so it's very difficult to ask. It's a big ask to make to ask people, hey, see, give up, you know, drop that because there's something bigger on the horizon here. Bird flu is creating
an opportunity that we must seize upon. There's a weak spot in this industry that we can exploit and leverage to our advantage like never before, and we need to seize on this opportunity. Not everybody sees that opportunity and is willing to shift gears. and maybe give up or severely reduce campaigns that they've invested a lot
of time and money into. And it's understandable, but it's also unfortunate because movements that succeed have to adapt and innovate and seize on opportunities that present themselves that it doesn't matter what we're involved in. The only reason why we've seized upon subsidies and bird flu is because there are two hot point issues that we feel can really rally public support
across the political spectrum. The issue of subsidies, for example, this idea that we should be charging the industry for bird flu and other disasters that they create rather than taxpayers resonates across the political spectrum. Bird flu being a threat that the industry has created because of the extreme conditions it raises and kills billions of animals. That's another thing that we can seize upon to build mass public support.
If we want to build a mass movement, then it has to be not a luxury product, but something that actually affects people's day -to -day lives. And these things do. money in their pockets, food on their plate does. And that's what we're
talking about with bird flu and subsidies. So my hope is that as we continue down this path and do more actions and build our teams in different cities and confront power holders in our food system and show people how this can be done, that these people can be accessed and should be. And here's how we can do it. Here's an example. Here's another example. Here's what our team in San Antonio did. Here's what our team in Denver
did or in San Francisco. And it starts to hopefully create and it hopefully kind of starts to inspire people to want to seize upon point issues like this, like bird flu and subsidies, where there's a huge potential for public's popular support. It's just a movement principle that I learned that other movements have used to their advantage.
So, for example, in the Black Lives Matter space, certain incidents like the killing of George Floyd was seized upon as a tremendous opportunity to bring a consciousness about police brutality. They did a magnificent job of seizing upon certain trigger events like that and amplifying it into the public space, into the media. And as a result, they were able to shift public opinion on their cause dramatically, from like 30 % approval to 60, 70 % approval. And that's what we wanna do.
We wanna create a mass shift in the media narrative, but also in the consciousness of Americans about this industry that they would otherwise trust, animal agriculture, which they generally trust and think is doing the right thing. We need to cast doubt. and create a questioning for that. And so things like bird flu become the catalyst, the trigger for us to shift public thinking about our food system. You remind me of a story I told before, but of a conservative podcaster, huge
conservative podcaster. And I was listening to her talk about a coat she was going to wear for an event. And the coat was made in fur. And then she said, Oh, my gosh, now I'm going to get those PETA letters about The coat every time I mentioned foie gras or fur or any luxury products of the kind I get all of those letters and And then she said but why are they? criticizing my fur coat when you know every morning I drink a glass of milk and You know milk is basically exploiting
cows Um, so how does that make sense? Why are they not, you know, criticizing, uh, my consumption of dairy and, you know, my, my blood was boiling. I was thinking, Oh my gosh, why have they not
made the time to make that case for her? You know, they focused on, um, criticizing her fur coat and her consumption of foie gras, which is, you know, rare, um, but not, uh, talking about the real suffering, the animal exploitation, the dairy industry, the meat industry, or bringing those arguments about taxpayer money going to subsidies that would have resonated with a conservative. So yeah, such a frustrating thing to witness. Did you want to comment on that? I'm just listening
now. I know I've seen, I've seen situations like that too, and tempted to respond and then, you know, you have to be careful what you say. And I, yeah, I know what I've experienced exactly those situations too. I'll just do it at that. Something I never had the opportunity to ask you. So I did an episode on the end of the antibiotic area. And the scientist I interviewed, he's not vegan. He's not, you know, an animal activist. But, you know, he understands he has a good grasp
of reality. He's not in denial of the impact of the animal industry. And at the end of the interview, he told me how, you know, factory farming would not have been possible without antibiotics. And then I asked him, you know, is big pharma a big client of a big act? Basically, is there this uh, an holy union between those two industries. And, um, he was hesitant. He said, um, maybe, you know, I'm not the right person to ask that. So let me ask you this question.
Have you ever, uh, noticed, um, something of the sort, you know, um, uh, a partnership, a presence of big pharma, um, maybe, uh, in DC recently, uh, among all of those big ag, uh, lobbyists, um, are they present? Um, because you know, they're big ag is one of their biggest clients. They, they purchase all of those antibiotics
from them. Well, what you're alluding to is, you know, what we, what we often call it, like, uh, Bill Moyers would call the pillars of support that that financially or otherwise support something that's needed by that industry or that institution. And, you know, when we look at animal ag and how privileged it is in terms of subsidies and benefits and how protected it is by our tax dollars, we also have to look at all those pillars of support. You know, the pharma industry, which,
yeah. I mean, I've seen statistics where 60 % to 70 % of antibiotics are sold to animal ag clients. It's somewhere around there. I've seen many sources cite that. But also, beyond big pharma, we don't realize that a lot of the crops that are grown serve the animal ag industry. And the money. the capital firms, the banks, the lending institutions that the USDA uses for these loan programs, 0 % loans, no interest for farmers or ranchers or corporations or whoever
they're lending to. And so looking at these pillars of support and this, you know, what we call a power map kind of lays out who are the big players here and who are targets that are valuable targets that are actually funding or some otherwise supporting animal ag. We should really look at that whole big picture, that whole tree, pharma being a big one there too, but also the money. Where's
the money coming from? Because Banks and investors, even just wealthy individual investors are having a huge enabling effect to help this industry continue to prosper. We have to look at those as targets. You made a very good point on social media about farmers who grow legumes, who grow, you know, plant -based food, and how, you know,
you were supporting them. You were telling them, you know, I support subsidies for you, but not for those, you know, animal agriculture lobbyists, and how they were not very receptive to your support. Why is that? Yeah, that's a good question. In some cases, they took offense. You could tell that for them, I think if you try to get inside of their mind, my best guess is that they're benefiting from both what they call specialty crops, which are crops grown for human consumption,
as well as crops grown for animal feed. to benefit the animal ag industry somehow. And perhaps they also have animal ag interests, financial interests that could shape their views on it. But we found them to be rather hostile. We were a little bit in their face, I would say, but not at the beginning. We actually started out really, we kind of eased
into it. We tried to find that common ground and say, we really support and we're against this idea that the farm bill doesn't really benefit specialty crop producers and therefore the cost of those goods are outrageous when compared to highly subsidized meat and dairy and egg products. That doesn't make sense to us. And they didn't want to speak They didn't want to say anything in support of that. And on the one end, and then on the other end, they were, they were offended
by the suggestion of that. And many of them just walked away. So, yeah, I think they look at it as one big thing. There's no sep, like for us, it's a separation. We want to advance a planet based transition. For them, it's like, oh no, we need all of it. We need to support all of it. And there was one woman who, I don't know her name, but she was part of an entourage of lobbyists for the specialty crop industry. And she said, we don't want to take anything away
from animal ag. We're not asking anything from them. I said, I realize that you're asking Congress for more subsidies, and I support that. I said, but at the same time, you know, as well as I do that the massive subsidies go to animal ag. And we can see it, it's in, you know, it's on paper. It's black and white here. And that was a gotcha question. She got really offended. And she asked me to leave. And the person she was sitting with, this gentleman said, get out of
my face. You need to get out of my face right now. And that's when the conversation ended. So yeah, it wasn't really very pleasant. But I think it was very revealing. You learn so much when you go to DC. And if you want to get involved in our actions, do it. And even if you just want to go to observe, you're going to learn a lot. And that's what I tell people. You don't have to participate. You could actually just go and
learn about what the culture in DC is like. And what you'll find is you ask whether what we're doing works. Let your experience answer that question rather than us telling you, oh, yeah, it works. Go and you'll see every other interest group. You'll see every imaginable interest group. wearing t -shirts or dressed a certain way to express their cultural or ethnic identity, every group under the sun is in Congress meeting with Congress people and displaying their identity
as that interest group. Every interest group under the sun is there. So if this didn't work, If it didn't work to be there in the spaces of power, none of these groups would be there spending the money to do it. So asking whether something like that works is basically asking, well, should we be absent or should we be present? And what do you think the answer is? You know, come on. Should we be absent? We're currently absent. And how impactful or effective are we actually
being? in this context, you know. Not just, you know, when you say interest groups, people should know that even foreign nations are there. Oh, absolutely. Yes. Lots of foreign interests. In terms of trade deals and all that. Absolutely. What's the price tag of being present? How much? would we have to fundraise to get that going? It depends on how many people you want to engage in it. And I think it can be pretty low cost. I mean, we do it with minimal cost. We don't
pay to get into the big events. We just kind of walk in. We're not registered. We're not members of some of these organizations that host these events. So that's what makes it a lot more affordable is because we're there to get a message out. And in some cases, we try to blend in and we try to interview people to get their insights. and get that footage so we can show our supporters this is what it's like on the inside. It's really important that you understand what their values
are, what their concerns are. And you might even be surprised by some of the statements you hear about plant -based proteins and that developing market from really high -level officials. You might even be surprised at what you hear. You might even be surprised to learn that they agree with us. privately quote unquote but publicly they have a very different position on supporting animal acts so. It always makes sense to go there and you can do it with minimal cost by. By not.
Becoming the members are not you know we're people on the outside where the grassroots we're we're we're looking. to access powerful people that typically only provide access to big donors or people that can get them something that have an influential position. We're trying to break through that corruption and cronyism to get a message heard in a very difficult, it's not easy work because we're not insiders, we're outsiders. We don't want to be insiders, really. We don't
want to be high paid lobbyists. And we don't want to play that game. We want to expose it because it needs to change if we're going to see any major change to our food system. But don't we want to hire one of those high paid lobbyists so they can do their magic? My theory is we'll never outspend or outsmart the animal ag game. They have the best lobbyists, the best trade reps, they have the most influence in Congress.
If we try to play their game, we'll lose because they're going to outsmart us and outspend us. We don't have those kind of resources. But what we do have is potentially a movement to build popular support to demand a change. That's the whole spirit of the grassroots, is that change comes from the everyday working people, and that the real change comes there and is thrust upon those in power, rather than playing this kind
of insider game. Now, at a very late stage, when we have the popular support we need, then if you look at like a model like Bill Moyer put out in the 70s, the stage seven and eight is codifying that change into law. And that's when we need powerful insiders, lawyers, attorneys, lobbyists, Congress people, politicians, to codify that change into law and make sure that it sticks.
That's when those power players are needed. But the path to get there is all about people driving, the movement driving that change from the outside. So it's not like we don't recognize the importance of insiders and reformists, we do, but their role is more valuable when we've already built the popular support we need. We are nowhere near that yet. So the laws we're going to see passed
now are going to be inconsequential. That might save a couple of hundred or thousands of animals, but in the grand scheme of things are going to have no real impact on shifting the power structure in our favor, if that makes sense. Yes. Let me shift then the conversation to that. This question of popular support. The day after the election, I took the mic and talked about how we needed to reach out to conservatives, that this was
a necessity. Why? Well, because the politicians on the right who come to power, if they have no vegan constituency, like zero vegan voted for them, then how are they even going to be remotely interested in the animal cause? Like we need to build that constituency. We need to not gave our vote freely to one party over another, and let them, you know, fight for our vote. Let's be one of those important segments of the voting
population. What do you make of that? Yeah, I think the key is probably to zoom in on demands that do have wide popular support. across the political spectrum like I had mentioned earlier. And I think that's what we're trying to do. And so, yeah, I think unfortunately, we are engaged in the political process, but we're also outside
of it. And the benefit of not being tethered to the process is that you can speak freely and build support outside of that system and not worry about whether you're going to have, if you say something, you're gonna have a problem with certain donor groups or advertisers that are gonna come down on you and ask you to change your view. We're not tethered to special interests
and moneyed interests. by working on the outside in, we're able to focus on values and issues that are important to people across the political spectrum. What matters to us is that working people, like people making 50 or 40 or a thousand or less a year, are the people we're really trying to appeal to because they're the ones struggling with food prices. They're the ones that are going to be the first to suffer from climate events, climate crisis from bird flu and zoonotic diseases
and pollution from the industry. So when we appeal to that group, We're we're kind of cutting through The different Political divides Because we're focusing instead on issues that actually matter to people of all stripes What do you think of the fact that now in the in Trump's cabinet there are many not that many, but a few ethical vegetarians,
even vegan, people who care about animals. I'm thinking of Tulsi Gabbard, I'm thinking of Vivek Ramaswamy, who tweeted, I think, a day before the election that animal welfare would become a priority or something like that for the conservative
party. Is this a way in for the movement? Well, it's a political calculation, I guess that we we have to make and I'm not saying I don't think I've made it myself, but Obviously, it's kind of a chess game, because if you become allied or associated with a certain political figure that is very controversial, or creates a lot of controversy just by the very nature of who they are, then you risk alienating different
parts of your your support base. And so I think the way we approach that has to be done pretty carefully, strategically, and we should just be honest with people that we're looking, we're not, you know, we're not with them on X, Y, and Z. We don't support, you know, brutal dictatorships. We don't support cutting aid for HIV testing and some of the things that they support or that they have championed. We only see this as an opportunity on the animal issue or on the food
system issue. to the extent that they share our views. And then they're also gonna say things that are going to probably blow their position up because that's what these kind of people seem to do. The people that Trump attracts seem to be unstable in the sense of saying one thing one day that sounds great to one group. And then
that's the nature of politics, isn't it? We went to a Senate hearing on the farm bill a couple of weeks ago and Cory Booker, much to many people's demise or disappointment, spoke in defense of the boutique pig industry and how it really needed to be protected. He could have chosen to speak about a number of different issues, like the need for supporting plant -based proteins. Now, a lot of people responded to those videos that
we put out. on that as how disappointed they were with Cory Bicker, because they thought he was vegan, and they thought he was supportive of a plant -based food system. In my mind, I share the disappointment, but I also realize that a politician has multiple interest groups to represent and to speak on their behalf. They're going to say things that are seemingly contradictory because they're there to try to please many different interest groups. So don't expect them to be your
hero. Just realize this is their role. And what we need out of them is to make policies that advance our cause. That's what we should be razor focused on. Not whether they said something That pleases us personally or offends us because honestly. That's a distraction like we have to realize
their politicians. And the only role. That we should see as you know valuable here is the relationship is about advancing the cause and not whether you know whether they they actually act regardless of what they say what what they do is really what matters. in the end. The reason why I come back to this idea of gaining grounds with the more conservative crowds is really, you know, from my point of view, I don't see the other side having, you know, very optimistic political
future, a very promising political future. I think we're in for a long conservative right, you know, era. And I feel like if we don't do something in, you know, gaining some grounds with them, we won't make any progress in the coming future. Yeah, and I guess that's why I I fearfully think about this this issue and try to rise the the alarm on on that. Okay. A few words about wildlife. We talked a lot about farms and big ag and but what about wildlife? So of
course, there's a question of the wall. That's one ecosystem ticking bomb. And then now there's the question of clearing forests. How do we prioritize, you know, this over that? So I know that your focus is, you know, farm animals, but then you see everything happening with wildlife and you think, well, Should we also advocate for change on that field? What is the priority and why and
how do we balance all of that? Well, by advancing a plant -based food system and challenging the dominance of animal agriculture through whatever subsidies or bird flu or whatever. issue we choose to focus on that we feel is the most resonating to the public. We're also definitely thinking about all of the other casualties and side effects of that change. So by reducing animal agriculture's power and growth, we're also reducing that effect
that it has on wildlife. And most people, of course, don't realize just how routine it is to decimate wildlife in regenerative agriculture, but also in factory farming, where wildlife are just seen as a threat to domestic animals. are simply eradicated, poisoned, trapped. It's incredible. I mean, you know, millions of wildlife, I can't remember the last I heard, but it's very routine
even on small farms. I mean, I hear about small scale farmers, hobby farmers saying, you know, they had to... trap and poison all the foxes and all the all the animals within a certain range on their property to protect the handful of pigs, you know, a group of 10 or 15 pigs that they have or a flock of chickens. It's very routine in the mindset of this industry to do that. So by reducing their by reducing the power and dominance of that industry were the one of the benefits
is more protection of wildlife. Yes, and we often need to be reminded of that. I think you're right. I think that's something that we should really think about. Speaking out about more in our messaging, because wildlife is important to a lot of people. again across the political spectrum. So we could be capturing interest and support from people
that that are wildlife sensitive. With the tariffs now, and with America being caught off from lots of foreign products because of those tariffs, do you think that the farm activities will intensify now in the US. Because of the tariffs? Yes, because now the difference of the difference of prices will make consumers prioritize, you know, products
made in the US instead of foreign products. Well, that's the claim that that those you know, like Trump that are promoting and enacting tariffs is that, oh, it's definitely going to make us stronger economically. You know, the reality is, is that the economy is so global in nature that there's, I don't really see how that that's
going to be possible. So like, I was listening to some trade reps from like the soybean and corn and sorghum industries, and they rely on equipment that is made in other countries, parts from other countries to make farm equipment, which they absolutely, critically need to produce that crop. So I think that it sounds really good to say, yeah, we're gonna slap tariffs on this country. punish them for the trade imbalance that they have with us. But it's far more complicated
than it seems on the surface. And we're interdependent on other economies. And so this tariff idea is a black and white highly reductionist, simplistic way of of it's more about if we're gonna make America great again, then we have to level the playing field and make it more fair for Americans, for American industry. But it's really kind of, it's more of a distraction than a reality. And
I'm not an expert in this. It's a very complicated subject, but I know that When you hear from the industry people, the ag industry people, they say they don't want tariffs. They think that it complicates things and it makes things more expensive for them. Of course, they're very careful about what they say and how they say it because they don't want to get in trouble from the Trump administration and get punished or something. They're real careful about what they say, but
they don't want tariffs. Fascinating. Okay. So I guess my last question, Robert is what, what is on your radar right now in terms of, you know, um, things coming from the Trump administration, um, actions, um, um, organized by free from harm, um, uh, you know, big conventions, um, you know, what should we be on the lookout for in terms of politics and the animal cause? Yeah, that's a great question. I think what we'll be focusing on, we started the year with a surprisingly active
February. We weren't really expecting that to be the case, but these opportunities presented themselves and we decided to seize upon the DC events that came up at the end of February. So one of them was an organization that is made up of all of the 50 secretaries of agriculture, the highest level officials in agriculture for each of the 50 states. Speakers from the top level of Congress people that are making just, you know, deciding on the farm bill, the chairman
of the Committee on Agriculture. on the Senate side, on the House side, these are the top level people. So we said, oh, these are great opportunities to get in front of them. But we also have to balance that with also potential for media coverage and media interest. So events that we know the media is going to cover. And sometimes it's called
media jacking. There's a history of that. Somebody, I don't know who coined that phrase, but media jacking is the idea of not expecting the media to cover you or your events and come to you, but actually going to where you know they're interested in covering and staging something that gets covered because they're there. That makes a lot of sense. It's funny how, you know, for so many years you complain about, oh, you know, the media doesn't care about these issues.
It's not that they don't care about those issues. It's that they already have an agenda to cover these other big events with big people's names. And maybe we should just accept that and say, okay, let's get access to these venues and stage our actions there. So to me, that makes a lot of sense. It's not easy, not easy work. It's not always easy to get access. Sometimes you just walk in and other times it's a lot more
difficult, but it's always worth a try. The problem with this kind of style of activism is that there's a lot of unknowns. And so most people doing activism would prefer a very routine formulaic predictable kind of action where they know they're going to show up at this time, at this location, signs are going to be provided. All they have to do is kind of like maybe study their talking points a bit, practice them. And then it's just having these outreach conversations or holding a screen
and showing video like in a cube of truth. And I understand why a lot of people are really attracted to that kind of very structured a predictable form of activism. But like Erika Chenoweth says, that one of the key traits of a successful social movement is to innovate and that expecting change by doing the same thing over and over again is a recipe for failure. You have to adapt and innovate with the times and with what's happening and seize on those opportunities that present themselves.
And that's hard because it means actually dropping other plans that you may have spent a lot of time and thought on and saying, oh my gosh, this is coming up next week. We have to seize upon this opportunity. So we like to think of ourselves as being small enough and and resilient enough to adapt to those things and seize on those opportunities.
And getting in front of the biggest players in the food system and having conversations like getting face to face is critical because of how easily it is for them to ignore you, ignore all of your supporters emails and phone calls. But when you're in front of them and you're in front of their audience of people that admire them, they kind of have to listen to you. There's no way around it. So being in those spaces of power and being in front of those in power, it's not
a new concept. It's something that movements across the globe have done and continue to do because it is very impactful. And I think our movement is in dire need of growing that effort. Incredible. A great way to end the conversation. And yes, innovation, so important. Professionally, I always say innovation is not a luxury, it's a necessity. You can't do business without innovation, not in this highly competitive world. Yes, definitely.
So I, I, I agree with everything you said. Did you want to add something, Robert, before we stop the recording? I'm good, I think. Yeah. Well, unless you have any. No, well, I'm good. And thank you. Thank you so much for having, you know, for coming back to the show. And I'm, every time I talk with you, I learned something new. And I'm you know, re -inspired by the cause.
Sometimes, you know, you look at activism and you think you get very disappointed and uninspired, but having, you know, someone who understands things from a macro level, you know, explain how, you know, we could make progress and making things clear is, is very appreciated. So thank you, Robert. Oh, my pleasure. Yeah, it's, it's always a good learning experience both ways. You know, I, I think we're all learning, hopefully, and applying that. Because activism is a we like
to say activism is a craft. It's something that that you refine and improve over time and through experience, just like any other kind of craft with your hands. And so it's not something you just learn and then stop. And then I've mastered this. I've become vegan and I've become a great, been great at these arguments. I can defeat every single argument that is thrown at me. I've mastered the craft. It's done. It's never done. It's an
ongoing evolution, just like life. And I think if we looked at it as a craft more that we'd also be a lot easier on ourselves because yeah, sometimes you only have one chance to get it right. When you carve that piece of wood, if you screw up and cut it too thin, it's going to show and people are going to see you made a mistake. Just like when you get up in front of an audience and you don't say exactly what
you wanted to say, you got one shot. And maybe it didn't work out exactly how you wanted it, but you really remember the next time then, this is how I really want to say it. So, you know, it's a process, it's a craft and we should just kind of embrace that and, you know, learn as we go. and give of your time and of your money to free from harm. I think it would be well invested. Thank you everyone for listening. I kindly invite you to share this podcast with the vegans you
know. Let's encourage more people to take action. Again, thank you so much for caring and I will see you next Tuesday for a new episode.