Ron White Talks Presidential Run; Rips Donald Trump & Calls Ted Cruz “Unqualified”

One of the founding members of the famed Blue Collar Comedy Tour and 2016 independent presidential candidate – Ron White appeared on Revolution Report Live hosted by Chris Johncox and Alon Ganon to give an in-depth interview regarding the comic’s bid for the White House. White discussed his controversial drug policy, how his campaign differs from the rest of the pack and gave his honest views of fellow presidential candidates like Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Chris Christie. White’s campaign site can be found here

So Ron, how does your campaign differ from all the other candidates? What’s your “X-Factor”?

Well, my “X-Factor” is that no other candidate knows the American people like I do. After the last thirty years I’ve spent every waking moment traversing this country from side to another. It has been back and forth, up and down, non-stop and around fifty weeks a year. I’ve made these people laugh, I’ve had dinner in their homes, I’ve drank with them in bars, cried with them when their children died in wars and quite frankly, I love them. Nobody else has that perspective nor could they obtain it in any way, shape or form.

With such a diverse line of candidates, who do you see as your toughest competition?

*laughs* Well all of them would be tough competition for me! For all the obvious reasons of course, I have no formal education, I drink and smoke too much, the drugs, the women, the list is endless really. The reason I decided to this in the first place is that people ask me to run for president all the time. They always have and I haven’t taken it that seriously, but then I started to watch the Republican debate and I sat there a realized what’s wrong? Well, what’s wrong is that I don’t believe a single word that any one of them is saying. Not a single word. Every syllable of it sounds contrived, like you have handlers back there and coaches that are saying to them “this is what the American people want.”

It’s the same trick every four years on the American people and most of the American people are gullible enough to fall for it every time. “Here’s what you need to say, here’s what your buzzword is going to be, they want to hear this – now go say it and the louder you say it, the better it is”. Look, even though I think I have an 11th grade high school education, but I do have a G.E.D; which is really nice and if you don’t know what G.E.D. stands for then you probably have one too. I’ve gotten where I am by stacking words together, which is a really complex thing to do so I doubt the candidates are going to question my intellect. I hope they don’t anyway. Yet, me getting into a debate with any one of them would be a lot like playing ping-pong with a chicken. It would be very easy. I was watching that debate and they were talking the next day on the news about “zingers”. Here I am thinking “really, “zingers” that’s what you’re giving points for? Well I’m in!” If you want to sit around a trade insults with each other then I’m president already.

You look at how qualified these people are. I like Donald [Trump] fine but should he be president of the country? NO! You cannot say the stupidest thing anyone says in the world every week and be president of the United States, you just can’t do it. For example, the wall between Mexico and the United States is the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard in my entire life. Do you have any idea how good the Mexican people are at digging tunnels? Do you know where El Chapo is? No. You don’t. Do you think he went over that wall? He went under that wall. It was the nicest tunnel I’ve ever seen, a mile long. It had lighting, a fountain, a dairy queen and he was just gone. It makes more sense to build a net between the United States and Canada to keep the geese out, which I would LOVE to try.

Speaking of all the debates going on, who do you see winning the Democrat and Republican nominations?

Well, you know, I don’t see anybody beating Hillary and for the Republicans, you have me scratching my head. Like a lot of people I didn’t think Donald had a long shelf life and I was proven to be completely wrong about that. I think there is a segment of this population that is really stupid. I’m talking about your meth people, your snake handlers, and those kinds of people. I’m asking those kinds of people not to vote for anybody. If you know you’re stupid, if you’ve been told by people that you’re stupid then don’t vote, please don’t vote. If you just want an “I voted” sticker, I’m going to put a bowl of them in every Dairy Queen in America, you just go get one and stick it on your shirt. Otherwise, you’ll just be negating a vote from somebody that actually gave it some thought.

My campaign slogan is “Vote Smart” not “Vote For Ron White”, it’s “Vote Smart”. Think about this, this is really important. I don’t have the candidate that I want to elect; there is nobody there that I want to be the president. I look at the field and I’m like “where are the best and the brightest in this country”? They don’t want this job, it’s a horrible job. It pays nothing compared to running Google or any other major corporation. It’s just nothing. You get a book deal, which is great if you make it through eight years of hell and you look forty years older. We need to make it a better job so we can attract more talent.

Chris Christie? Really? I don’t even get it, isn’t New Jersey a failure? There is no place to work in Atlantic City, I used to work for Trump down there and Donald should fire himself. That’s the casino business, where people give you money and you give them back nothin’ and they can’t make it work. It’s just so corrupt. I don’t get it. Ted Cruz? Maybe… He’s a gun touting Texan but completely unqualified to run the country. Rubio? A first term Senator from Florida that doesn’t even vote? You tell me because I just don’t get it.

I think it’s going to be Rubio to be honest with you because he’s the most “establishment” candidate out of all of them.

Right, well I don’t even know who “they” like the best. I know that they hate Trump and they don’t like Cruz that much either but they have to get behind one of these guys and I just shake my head thinking “this is who you guys came up with?! Did you talk to everybody, because this isn’t that great?” You have a reality television star that is about to become the President of the United States. Now, I don’t think it’s going to go that far and I pray that it doesn’t go that far. I’ve played golf at his golf courses, I’ve stayed at his hotels and they are both as good as it gets, nobody does that better than Trump. However, he can’t run this country, it just won’t work.

Who would you say is your favorite president?

Favorite president? Well, I played golf with Bill Clinton, which was the most mesmerizing four hours of my life, just to be in his presence. I even heard that before, that once you get in his “tractor beam” it’s an experience. In fact, Jeff Foxworthy who is a staunch Republican, when he met him he was like “I’ll follow you wherever you want to go!” He kind of shook it off after a little while but it’s hard for me to judge a president. I know that there was some horrible decisions made during Clinton’s reign and some great decisions. The economy, the balanced budget, but the way we balanced it was shady as hell and I think it added to the collapse of our economy. Do I have a favorite though? Probably John F. Kennedy.

You say a lot of things that go all around, left and right views. Which views do you specifically hold from each party, where do you lean right, where do you lean left?

Well, I’ve never been a straight party, one party guy. In fact, it’s really hard for me to understand how somebody can be. I think both parties have great ideas as well as horrible ideas. If I were president, I would let you keep your guns and if you want to break into somebody’s house, I wouldn’t break into mine because I got my guns, my father’s guns, his father’s guns and it would just be a really bad idea. In Texas though, it’s legal to brandish a loaded AK-47 at a McDonalds because of open carry handgun laws. I would make that an act of Terrorism and put that person in prison.

You can have these guns and to say that you can’t or make guns illegal in the United States is like making glaciers illegal, it’s just ridiculous. However, I want those guns in cases and I want them unloaded. You cannot walk up and down the street carrying a gun, you just can’t do it. I would say let’s control what we got a little bit better, that way when we see somebody carrying a gun that’s somebody we need to keep an eye on.

I think the people listening/reading this who are wondering if they want to vote for you, if they are a left-leaning person then they are probably wondering what views you share with them and likewise with the right-leaning. Do you have crossover appeal with people who identify in the mainstream or is it mostly with independents?

Well, no independent has ever been elected president and I don’t expect one will be this time. I’m not going to sign with either party and if I wanted to have a legitimate chance I would just switch over to Republican, get into these debates and that would be the only way to go, right? I just want the American public to know that if they want me to go do this, I will. I’ll do it with love in my heart and to do what Donald Trump says, to surround yourself with smart people. Yet, nobody is qualified to be president. Until you become president, you’re just not going to know how to be president. The only person to be qualified to be president, is the president or someone that has been president. You surround yourself with really smart people, you listen to these very complex issues and you make very complex decisions. I can do that, I’m willing to do that and I’m willing to stop doing stand up to do it. Which, I wouldn’t quit stand-up for anything else and I’m not going to quit stand-up until I find out [I won the election] so don’t worry, I’m not going to quit and I’m not going to talk about this on stage. When I’m on stage, I’m going to do my act.

It sounds like one of your campaign rallies would be quite the event to attend. So, I was watching an interview that you did with, FOX11 I believe. You said that we have a “meth epidemic” in this country and I wanted to know how big of an issue is this on your platform? Would you say that it’s the top issue in this country and why do you think it’s a big deal?

Meth kills one hundred people a day in this country, everyday. If you do meth it destroys a few things. It starts to deplete fluid in your brain and your spinal cord. It turns you into a monster, it’s completely addictive and there is nothing you can do, nothing that will ever get you back to where you want to be. All you want is another hit and that goes on forever until all your teeth fall out and you are a burden on society. If you are a heroin addict, that ain’t great but you’re just a heroin addict, not a monster. Is that a great thing? No it’s not, it’s horrible but it’s not meth. The reason that I know about the meth problem is because I know the American people and I know what they’re up against. When and if you listen to the American people, that’s what they are talking about. It’s the size and the scope of the people doing meth in the lower and middle classes, even in the upper classes. This is a cheap drug that causes complete euphoria and if your circumstances are dire, euphoria is a great thing to have. That’s what you get from beer, weed, whatever. Meth is made by people that know they are killing one hundred people a day and they don’t care. So they’re going to sell this to your kids, get them hooked on this stuff, it’s a network that’s just crazy and being made in trailers all over the place.

Here is what we do. First, we legalize marijuana because we should, we need to stop perpetuating the lies that our parents were told, that their parents were told that weed has roots in hell and if you smoke one joint you’ll axe murder your whole family, that kind of propaganda has set this country back fifty years. I’ve been smoking pot since I was twelve years old and I have functioned at the very top of one of the most difficult art forms in the world. Here are the numbers. All America needs to do is shut up, hush your little heads and think about two numbers and I’ll solve this marijuana problem for you. Alcohol related deaths in America last year: Over eighty-thousand. Marijuana related deaths in America last year: Two. Now everybody can shut the fuck up. Thank you, this was a public service announcement from Ron White.

Yes well our audience is big fans of ending the drug war or at least legalizing Marijuana. So you said, your solution for fighting meth is to put a bounty out on meth labs and it’s something like a twenty-thousand dollar bounty?

I’m not talking about stopping the drug war. I’m talking about a twenty-thousand dollar bounty so you show me where a meth lab is, operating with people in it, we will have boots on the ground, go there and give you two minutes to give up your meth-babies and if you show one inch of resistance we will kill everybody in the building, including the people there that are visiting their meth lab buddies. Everyone will go straight to hell, which is exactly where they belong and deserve to be. I wouldn’t even think two seconds about it.

Well I’m sure you know that these people are crafty, deceitful and living off the system. I completely agree that they are problems and should be dealt with but what’s to stop people from taking advantage of this twenty-thousand dollars, making a bunch of fake meth labs, really cheaply and keep having you bust them. I mean, that sounds like something people would try and abuse.

We would have to do a little research, we would have to do a little research on the building and watch it for about a minute. There is going to have to be people in there for us to shoot. We want an operating meth lab and you don’t even have to go in there and shoot, you can get a roman candle, fling it in there and blow the whole place up. I’m serious. They don’t care so I don’t care. If they don’t care about me then I don’t care about them and I’m sorry if the trailers next to them get a bit damaged. We’ll be sure to fix them.

I like what you are saying and think you want to help but I just think that the drug war hasn’t been handled very well by the police and I’m not sure that adding to it is going to solve the problem. If it didn’t work with marijuana, why would it work with meth? I’m not getting how this is going to stop people from doing meth if it hasn’t worked in the past.

Well, because the war on drugs before was ridiculous. This is why I’m not talking about sending a forty-five year old cop with a box of doughnuts and a six shooter walking up and down the streets looking for these meth labs. I’m talking about Navy SEALS going in there, I’m talking about surveillance, twenty-five thousand people scouring this country, finding these labs and shutting them down. You know what it was [the problem] with the war on drugs? “Here’s Willie Nelson, asleep in his Mercedes, let’s get him!” That was the war on drugs, right there. Let’s bust somebody for weed!

Weed is going to be legal, we are going to use some of the profits to go after these meth labs and quite frankly if it’s not effective we would have at least killed a few hundred of them. We’ll make a dent in it and a lot of it comes from Mexico anyway. I’m just saying, if we can’t start a war with them here, how could we possibly stop Mexico from stop sending meth over here? I’m talking about a real fight, not a fight that we can’t win.

Would you look at it as a deterrent by using these measures?

I would think twice about it.

I completely agree with you, I don’t think I could find a single person that find marijuana to be worse than meth. It is discouraging; we have a big problem with it here in my state.

It is bigger than you know, much bigger than you know.

You said that you are willing to kill them and as a libertarian I subscribe to the non-aggression principle and I have to wonder if killing them is the right solution? Wouldn’t you rather help these people or do you think they’re too far gone?

No, no, no. I’m not talking about meth users; I’m talking about meth lab operators. What would you like to do, help them cure their addition to making money illegally and killing children? You go in there and you take a little more stern approach. We don’t have any room in our prisons for these guys and I would also make it that if somebody committed a crime and you cannot figure out who the victim is, then nobody would go to jail. That would free up a little space and doesn’t take a genius to figure out. I’ve got an eleventh grade high school education and I figured it out. Nobody goes to jail if you can’t figure out who the victim is. I believe in the death penalty but I believe you need to have three credible eye witnesses that what you did and then fine, I don’t have a problem with it [the death penalty]

You’re right when you say I sway both ways and I believe if you fight that war hard enough, serious enough and put enough attention, money and boots on the ground then you can do it. We’re already paying these guys anyway and I don’t want them in the Middle East, I rather have them over here fighting these meth dudes. I guarantee you that they’re not a hundred Americans a day in the Middle East but they sure would love to. I’m friends with my tour manager? His son is special forces and I told them this idea and they were like: “that sounds fine to us, let’s go track them down “

Final question, what would be the first thing you do when you get in the Oval Office?

I would recover from party I had the night before!

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