Speakers: Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert interviewed by Natalie Brunell
Bitcoin 2024 Conference – July 27, 2024
View the original video here on Youtube
Natalie Brunell:
Max and Stacey, I’m so excited to talk to you because, as a former broadcast journalist, you were the first two people talking on TV, like a decade ago, about Bitcoin. And you’ve orange-pilled more people than anyone else I know. So, first of all, give a round of applause for that, because they’ve gotten a lot of people into Bitcoin.
Let’s talk a little bit about El Salvador. How’s life there?
Stacy Herbert:
It’s filled with volcano energy, because everybody has coffee from a volcano. If anybody wonders how Max Keiser is able to walk out on stage like that everywhere he goes, it’s because he has coffee from a volcano.
President Bukele makes his own brand now, it’s Bean of Fire (BeanofFire.com). You could actually go buy some coffee right now from President Bukele. I swear to God, he actually grew it himself, personally. And you could buy it with bitcoin or over Lightning.
Max Keiser:
Smells like freedom!
Stacy:
Yeah!
Max:
Smells like economic freedom!
Stacy:
Yeah!
Natalie:
So talk to us a little bit about living in El Salvador, what it’s like, what bitcoin adoption has been like over the last couple of years, because a lot of people were at the Bitcoin conference. That was the first one I attended (2021), when the announcement was made that it was going to be legal tender; the first country to do so. How has it been since then?
Stacy:
Does everybody want to hear the answer to that, or do you want to hear about Trump? Yeah! You see, they want to hear about what Trump said about President Bukele.
Well, you know what? What I think about that is that President Bukele is the biggest rockstar on Earth right now, right?
Last night at two in the morning, I was up. Who posts to President Bukele, but Elon Musk, right?
President Trump, the 45th president of the United States, spends part of his RNC convention speech, to millions and millions of people (an important speech), to mention one leader, one other head of state, and that is President Bukele. So, never in El Salvador’s history was the head of state ever that important?
I think it just shows that good times are ahead, because El Salvador is now an important player on the world map. Also, I think probably many people in this audience have actually been to El Salvador. *audience cheers*
You see? Don’t trust, verify. Just as they were booing what President Trump had said before about bitcoin being a scam, most of these people in this room have been to El Salvador and they know, they verified for a fact that it’s safe and that things are changing for the better there.
Natalie:
Well, I did want to address what happened in that speech. Can we dig into it a little bit more? I think it took a lot of people by surprise. There was the inauguration, I know both of you were there, and we saw a lot of prominent Republican figures there, including Don Trump Jr., right? Matt Goetz was there. So where do you think that came from?
Max:
Jealousy, because at CPAC, President Bukele gave a speech. Donald Trump gave a speech. Who was everyone talking about? President Bukele. Donald Trump got a little jealous. And he’s like, “Oh, I gotta talk this guy down.” But President Bukele is the most popular leader in the world right now. Bitcoin is legal in El Salvador, and it is the new shining city on a hill. El Salvador is the first country out of the world turning, right?
Stacy:
YEAH!
Max:
El Salvador is a beacon of freedom. El Salvador already put bitcoin on their reserve. All these politicians are up here saying, “We’re gonna put it on our reserve.”
Well, guess what, folks? They’re lying, because they’re held in the pockets of the central bankers and Jamie Dimon. All those folks are not gonna let them do that. If you really want freedom, you want to smell the volcano of freedom, move to El Salvador. Do what Ayn Rand suggested; if you’re not treated well in your country, leave, get the fuck out. Go to a real country, like El Salvador, with a real leader, with real people, and real entrepreneurialism.
Fuck the US! They’re not giving you what you want. You don’t get freedom of speech. You don’t get freedom of expression. You don’t get freedom– any kind of freedom. Move with your feet. The voting? Not gonna get you nothing! Walk out! Walk!
Natalie:
What did you think of his response? Bukele tweeted back that he’s gonna take the high road. Did you get the inside scoop on how he really feels?
Stacy:
That’s because he’s a leader, right? He takes the high road, but we’re not leaders.
Max:
No, no, we’re like the IRA.
Stacy:
We take the low road.
Max:
I’m like the Bobby Sands of El Salvador.
Natalie:
So, for people that watch that and maybe don’t know a lot about El Salvador, why is what President Trump said wrong?
Max:
Because he suggested that the President and El Salvador were dumping criminals over the border into the U.S. Not only is that materially and factually wrong, but it’s highly offensive. The MS-13 gang was birthed in Los Angeles, then the Clintons dumped them in El Salvador, and they went on to kill tens of thousands of Salvadorans. So, it is highly offensive to suggest that the opposite is true. That’s why I got my dander up, because it’s not just being cute. He’s not just trying to be a rival at the sorority cotillion, like, “Oh, he’s got a better dress than I do,” and being a bitch.
He’s making factual errors. He’s saying the wrong thing, and he’s insulting tens of thousands and millions of Salvadorans, and the Salvadorans made bitcoin legal tender. Salvadorans are the beacon of free speech. The Statue of Liberty is now a volcano in El Salvador. So, get in line, pal.
Let me tell you something, you don’t change Bitcoin, Bitcoin changes you, Donald. So, you’ve got to come to the Bitcoin side. You’ve got to get in line. You’ve got to bend the knee, which you probably are not going to be able to do. You certainly won’t hear much out of one ear.
Stacy:
No, that’s too soon! That’s too soon.
Max:
Too soon? It’s a rough world! Okay, Bitcoin fixes this! It demonetizes violence. Okay?
Natalie:
Well, you actually said on the first podcast that I did with you that Bitcoin is an explosion of love. Sometimes we need to share a little love with our enemies to get them to understand maybe what they’re wrong about. So show a little, do you have a little love you want to show for Trump?
Max:
I do. I have a special flower for Donald Trump when I see him. I’d like to present this flower, and express my love and gratitude for at least raising the political game in America to a new standard of forthrightness and truthfulness.
I am a big Trump supporter, and I am voting for Trump for a third time coming up in this next election. But you know, Trump is from New York, I’m from New York, and so we speak like New Yorkers. This is how we do it in New York, and that’s the way it is.
Stacy:
Yes, exactly. We did vote for Trump and we will vote for Trump. I believe that he’s the best hope for the United States in terms of Bitcoin policy and the restoration.
You know what? Bitcoin in El Salvador falls under President Bukele’s policy of economic liberty. And that is very American in the concept. It’s an enlightenment ideals of life, liberty, and property. The security situation in El Salvador also falls under that same sort of thinking of the president.
So, Trump did misspeak, I’ll say he misspoke. I think he’ll probably correct himself here once he shows up and he speaks in front of this audience here. He’ll see that this is President Bukele land here instead of, you know, somebody who hasn’t yet proven himself in terms of Bitcoin. Bitcoin in El Salvador is economic liberty and so was the security policy.
Natalie:
Many people expected smaller countries and those furthest away from the money printer to be the first to embrace Bitcoin. But now we’re seeing global superpowers and American presidential candidates talking about Bitcoin. What’s your take on that? Did you see this all along in game theory?
Stacy:
Max did, I’ll say. But I mean, this seems way sooner than I expected, right? And I didn’t expect the U.S. to be El Salvador’s first follower. Because, the United States will be our first follower, I believe. But, El Salvador is number one. We have the first mover advantage still.
We listened to RFK Jr.’s speech yesterday, and he was great on Bitcoin. Really, really good policies on Bitcoin. It’s good that RFK is out there, because he was unfairly and undemocratically excluded from the Democratic Party process of debating Joe Biden six or seven months ago. The world could have figured out that, well, the voter could have known then what they know now, instead of having Kamala Harris imposed on you.
We have two major candidates; we have RFK and we have Trump pushing for bitcoin. I think that’s better. It’s better for El Salvador for sure, because the United States is our most important partner. We have the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency there in El Salvador, the U.S. dollar and Bitcoin. So it’s better if we’re allies across the whole top and down.
Max:
The analogy that I like is: Bitcoin is gunpowder. If one country adopts gunpowder, then you really have to adopt gunpowder as well, to get into this paradigm of mutual assured destruction or survival. Now, we’re entering into the global hash war, or the global Bitcoin war, which I wrote about five years ago. When everyone was saying that, “Oh, all these countries are going to ban Bitcoin.” I said, “No, in fact, that’s the opposite. They’re all going to embrace Bitcoin.”
They’re going to competitively mine bitcoin and hoard bitcoin, because it becomes a new global Bitcoin standard. And, we’ll see every fiat money go to its long-term value of zero. It’s demonetizing gold; you see that in the ETF market. People are dumping gold ETFs and buying bitcoin ETFs. It’s demonetizing the stock market. It’s demonetizing the bond market. It’s demonetizing the property market. It’s demonetizing the fine art market. Everything goes to zero against bitcoin. Everything goes to zero against bitcoin. Anything you hold as an asset, the purchasing power relative to bitcoin is going to go down.
This is what I suggest: people who are going to speak English, look up a dictionary for the definitions before they open their mouths and say these words, because they’re incorrectly using them. But, come to me and I’ll help you. And, if in fact you don’t take a suggestion, then I’m happy to get more forceful.
Natalie:
I’m glad you brought up how Bitcoin will disintermediate and demonetize politicians. I want to better understand your philosophy on politicians, because people are looking at everyone from Trump to President Bukele and saying, “Why are we so supportive of them?” We’re trying to basically shrink the state and shrink their power, why should Bitcoiners be excited that these politicians are talking about bitcoin? Shouldn’t we not care about them?
Stacy:
Well, because, like I said, in El Salvador, President Bukele puts Bitcoin under his larger policy of economic liberty. If you read the U.S. Constitution, you read about that we have the freedom to pursue life, liberty, and property and pursuit of happiness. So these are the foundational ideas behind Bitcoin as well. I think somebody who basically will be there to defend those rights, that’s the purpose of the state.
If you read (Frederic) Bastiat, if you read The Law, that’s the purpose of the state, is to defend those rights for you, for us, right? And that’s all you want. You don’t want all this other stuff, like Kamala Harris might support, right? You want them to stay away from you, to stay out of your business, and let you just operate your own business and build.
That’s what President Bukele does all the time for El Salvador. He says, “Come build”. Soon we’ll be giving away 5,000 passports to people who want to build, to highly skilled people who are motivated, who want to come build. That’s what we want, builders.
You want a leader who’s going to be like that, and stay out of your way. Any leader who’s going to adopt Bitcoin is a leader who is easier to trust, because they’ve already made that decision. That’s a powerful decision for a leader to take. It’s like, I’m going to give up power, because I no longer have power over the printing press.
Natalie:
How do we discern when they’re talking about Bitcoin, if they really understand it, or if they’re just trying to get votes?
Max:
Bitcoin is a magic mirror. If you are of good character, it makes you a better character. If you’re a bad character, it makes you a worse character. If you look at somebody, like Craig Wright, the Bitcoin magic mirror revealed that he’s a true scumbag.
Stacy:
Boo!
Max:
If you’re somebody like Michael Saylor, the Bitcoin mirror exposes somebody with a high degree of integrity and a passion for education and a deep understanding of bitcoin. Same thing in the political class. You have Cynthia Lummis, who I think you can say gets it. She’s been orange-pilled, and she’s working hard in politics to make positive things happen.
Other people in politics who talk about Bitcoin, we’ll find out soon enough whether or not they’re just being narcissistic, self-serving assholes or whether they are genuinely hardcore Bitcoiner maximalists.
You know, nobody escapes the guillotine. Bitcoin is the new guillotine of the 21st century. All the toffs who are posing and not really worthy of the power that they get, they’re gone. Goodbye, have a nice day. You’re gonna be disintermediated and you’re going to zero.
Stacy:
By the way, I want to say there is something that Trump did that is so Bitcoin, and that is to get up and say, “Fight, fight, fight!” That was pretty Bitcoin. Okay, that was honey badger of him. That was wild to see. It seemed like a Bitcoin meme of the era of say, 2015/2016, come to life. It seemed like a honey badger. Everybody’s watched those videos over and over, right? Where you see these things that are insane. What are they doing? Why are they taking on that lion? And it seemed like that to me. That was good. That’s very Bitcoin.
Natalie:
So are you hoping President Trump makes his way down to El Salvador? Maybe pay you guys a visit? See what it’s like down there?
Stacy:
Yeah, he should pay us. That sounds like a threat. He’s going to pay you a visit. *laughs* Very New York, you know? I’m gonna pay you a little visit.
No, we have some coffee for him.
Max:
Yeah, definitely.
Stacy:
We’ll give him this one. I have a brand new package to give him, but we’re gonna give him this open one now that he was so rude, right?
Max:
Yeah, come on down to El Salvador. You’re welcome anytime, Donald Trump. Look and observe how the Bitcoin country operates and works. It’ll be an inspiration. I know Don Jr. has been to El Salvador and he’s buying property in El Salvador. He’s had great meetings with the president. And (Matt) Goetz has been to El Salvador. He’s buying property. All the smart money is going to El Salvador.
All the smart politicians are going. So it’s only a matter of time before the orange pill drops and “the Donald” makes his way to San Salvador.
Natalie:
We only got a couple minutes left. I did want to ask you: I saw you paid a visit to Nvidia on behalf of El Salvador, what’s that about?
Stacy:
El Salvador is becoming the tech hub of Central America. When we have our website up, you’ll be able to apply for citizenship. If you are willing to come build, we’re looking for 5,000 of you. Part of this is we are planning on being the tech hub.
Remember, President Bukele just pivoted to the economy for the second term. We have very big plans. Cathie Wood said that El Salvador’s GDP is going to increase by 1,000% in the next five years, because of Bitcoin and AI. She’s the one that told us we have to do this. She made that prediction, we need to make it come true.
Natalie:
Final thoughts in the last couple seconds here. What do you want people to know about Max and Stacy and El Salvador?
Stacy:
We would love for you to come join us. The more, the merrier. We’re building amazing things. We’re very excited to have a first follower. I think it’s going to be good for the relationship between the United States and El Salvador when we’re a Bitcoin country here in the United States, as well.
Max:
Yeah, I would just second that. Come on down and visit for a week or two and get to know the country. You’ll be pleasantly surprised. A lot of people who visit end up living there. The opportunities are fantastic.
We’re opening up a Bitcoin bank soon. So you’ll be able to borrow against your bitcoin and buy some property. You’ve got both the rise in the property price plus your Bitcoin at the same time. You’ve got a brilliant place to live.
Plus the building is about $150 per square foot, which is about 90% cheaper than you find anywhere else. So you’ve got the bank for the bank for the bank for your bitcoin. So it’s really the opportunity of a lifetime.
Natalie:
Well, you said earlier, don’t trust, verify. I had the chance to spend some time with you in El Salvador. I didn’t know what to expect. It was one of the friendliest, most hope-filled places. We got to go to Hope House and talk to some girls. We taught them about Bitcoin. I think that a lot more people will be moving with their feet, maybe not just to El Salvador, but Bitcoin nations around the country. So thank you so much, Max and Stacy, everyone.
Disclaimer: Transcripts provided on bitlyrics.co represents solely the opinion of the speaker and is not by any means financial/legal advice or an opinion of the website. The content has been transcribed with maximum accuracy. Repetitions and fill words have been amended in order to enhance the reading experience. The full text may not be confirmed by the speaker. Please, refer back to the above-provided source of content for more certainty. If you are a speaker and wish to confirm/amend your speech please contact us.