Shaun Maguire: Why Iran is the World's Greatest Evil & Trump is the Only Hope for Peace | E1189

I think there's a huge difference between having freedom of speech, being willing to use it, and having lots of information warfare. I don't think we had freedom of speech before Elon bought Twitter. I think we're moving away from free speech very quickly in Europe. The modern paradigm of DEI is toxic, woke etiology that is literally cancer for society. The Iranian philosophy when you're losing is to create chaos, so they're creating as much chaos in the world as they possibly can. The war in Ukraine where America could not have botched the initial response more-

Is Donald Trump the best chance we have of alleviating the soon-to-be World War III in the Middle East?

100%.

Why? Ready to go? (instrumental music plays) Sean, I am so excited for this, dude. Listen, I've wanted to do this one for so many years. I've heard so many great things. Doug Leone goes to me before this, "Sean is the most interesting man I've ever met." I was like, "Whoa. Shit." (laughs)

Impossible.

But thank you so much for joining me, man.

Hey, it's great to be here. Thank you, Harry. I'm a big fan.

Listen, first question, dude. How did you go from a high school dropout to a PhD at Caltech? That's quite a jump.

With a big chip on my shoulder. Um, yeah, I mean, look, as a kid, I, I was- I wasn't stupid, but I really hated school and hated my teachers, and, you know, I went to public school. I got a zero on my first Algebra II test for not showing any work. The teacher wouldn't- wouldn't change their mind. Like, I offered to show my work, et cetera, um, and once I got a zero on that exam, like, the highest grade I could get in the class was a C, and at that point it's just like, "I'm done with school. I'm just gonna go learn stuff on my own, uh, be on my computer," and I did that, and then I kind of hacked my way out by doing this thing called the California High School Proficiency Exam. It's basically a test you can take that lets you leave high school early, and then I went to community college for two years and transferred and... Uh, because of that experience, I, I wanted to show that teacher that I can actually do math, and they were wrong, and I guess the ultimate culmination there is getting a math PhD.

When you're at community college in between and you have nothing to show, you have no forms of success that you can go, "Well, look at me. I've done this," did you always feel that you would be successful and that it was inevitable and that you just needed to prove it, or were you genuinely questioning yourself in those years?

I mean, look, I think that's a natural response when you're, like, a teenager and you don't know that much about how the world works, and I was nervous. You know, and my parents, to their credit, they made me work from a young age, and s- so I had worked, like, on construction sites for two summers carrying wood, like literally carrying wood around, and I had also, um, worked in a surf store, Jack's Surfboards in Orange County, California in, in two different stores, like, folding T-shirts when people would, uh, you know, they'd go try on clothes and then I'd have to fold it up right behind them. It was, that was the worst job I've ever had. I vastly preferred carrying wood. At least I was learning Spanish and was outside and stuff. But when you've had those experiences, it's very, very motivating. Like, I did, I did not want to be stuck folding T-shirts the rest of my life, um, but on the other hand... So, so like, while having the self-doubt, I did have a lot of confidence. Like, I knew that I was smart, um, I had been. I was a computer hacker as a kid, and when you're a hacker, you just, you learn this mentality that you will always find a way in. You will always find a trapdoor, a back door, a side door. If you have to parachute onto the roof, like, whatever it is, you'll find a way in. And so I had that in the back of my mind, that I'll find loopholes to get in.