Read the full transcript of Iranian-American entrepreneur and founder of Valuetainment Patrick Bet-David’s speech titled “Two Things Tyrant FEARS!” at CPAC 2025 conference on February 22, 2025.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
The Greatest Fears of Tyrants
PATRICK BET-DAVID: What would you say are the two things tyrants running a country fear? What are the two things? First thing they fear is you and I having guns to protect ourselves.
The second thing they fear is you and I having a megaphone to express ourselves. Now I want you to think about this.
My Interview with the IRGC Founder
In the last three weeks, I’ve interviewed two different people. One of the ones I had on the podcast three weeks ago, he flew in the entire time he was nervous. He was a former founder of the IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. He started the IRGC with Khomeini in 1979. Three months after I was born, I was living in Iran, and I brought him on the podcast. For many years, we’ve been wanting to have this man to come on the podcast, but obviously he doesn’t want to come because directly and indirectly, millions of people died because of this man. If you go on Google, you type in founder of IRGC, you’ll see his name and Khomeini’s name.
I bring him on. It’s a little uncomfortable. I said, “So let me ask you a question. When you guys took over the revolution, the Shah is gone. That’s the last time the Middle East was at peace. No issues. Iran gets along with Israel. No wars. Things are good. Then you come over. You take over Iran. Khomeini flies in. You fly in. What is the first thing you guys did?”
He says, “Our number one mission was to get all the guns out of people’s hands.”
And I said, “Tell me why.”
He says, “Because we wanted to be safe.”
I said, “Safe from what?”
“Well, we had to be careful because there was a lot of criminals who had a lot of guns.”
I said, “Citizens having guns are criminals? They’re trying to protect themselves.”
So again, what do tyrants fear? First thing is what? Your guns, because you can protect yourself.
Meeting President Bolsonaro in Brazil
Two days ago, I got back from Brazil. We’re flying out to Brazil to do a three-hour interview with former President Jair Bolsonaro. How many of you guys love President Bolsonaro? So we’re in Brazil.
While we’re about to go, they are briefing us on what to be prepared for before we go to Brazil. They say, number one, have an international lawyer ready in case something happens. Number two, make sure you have an armored truck. Number three, come with a good delegation. We went with nine of us. And then we’ll be escorting you all over the place.
So we go and we experience everything, and then eventually the president comes. And the president sits there, and we start conducting the interview. One of the most emotional interviews I’ve ever done. This man is crying, tears dropping on the table. I can’t wait for the interview to come out this Wednesday.
And I hear him speaking. About 15 minutes left for the interview to be done. Somebody comes in and is whispering in his ear, whispering in his ear. Boom. He swipes the hand. Interview ends. Doing all the stuff that he’s doing. He gets out. One hour later, alert on the phone. Jair Bolsonaro has been charged and is facing 38 years in prison. For what?
There’s a judge there in Brazil. His name is Alexandre de Moraes. Anybody knows who he is? Okay. If there is a picture for someone that looks like a tyrant, it is Alexandre de Moraes. This man is a tyrant at the highest level. And he is the second man, the second point that tyrants fear is freedom of speech.
I’m talking to the former president. He’s not comfortable talking about certain things, but he let everything loose. He knows you can’t talk. They don’t want you to talk over there. So you got guns, freedom of speech, and in the world, we have 195 countries of which 193 have constitutions. Of the 193 that have constitutions, only one country gives you full on freedom of speech with nothing about hate speech and Second Amendment. We’re the only ones here that we have in America.
America’s Unique Constitutional Legacy
Now keep this in mind. Sometimes when we sit there, we hear about, you know, next year is going to be United States’ birthday for 250 years. It’s going to be amazing. We are one of the youngest countries in the world. It’s awesome. Well, think about the oldest countries in the world. Iran, roughly 3300 B.C. Egypt, 3100 B.C. You got Assyria. You got Armenia. You got China. We’re one of the youngest, but watch this here. Does anybody know what country has the oldest constitution in the world?
What country has the oldest constitution in the world, including U.K.? We, the people, have the oldest constitution in the world. So now watch this.
Some of you are clapping. You’re like, “I don’t know what point he’s trying to make here. I don’t know where you’re going with this.” Let me give you some numbers here. Dominican Republic has changed their constitution 32 times. Venezuela, 26 times. Haiti, 24. Ecuador, 20. Brazil has changed it 7 times in the last 100 years.
Experiencing Freedom
While I’m there, in Brazil, we’re going to the airport. Our flight’s at 4:30. We get there at 2 o’clock, waiting. Our flight gets canceled. We have to redirect our flight. We go to Peru, and then from Peru we fly out to Miami. And I’ll never forget when we landed in Miami. It reminded me of back in July 15th of ’89, when we’re escaping Iran on a Lufthansa flight. And while we’re going, everybody’s waiting for the one magical word from the flight attendant. Anybody knows what it is?
It’s very simple. You can officially order alcohol with “Crossed of Order.”
And we’re like, “We’re free! This is amazing! We are officially out of Iran,” right? So we land in Miami. I’m like, “Oh my God, this kind of takes me back to that moment when we left, you know, Iran and experiencing what freedom’s like.”
The Political Landscape in Brazil
Then we get down here. And I’m sitting, and I’m talking to all these different senators and congressmen in Brazil. And here’s a number I noticed. I want to kind of take it back, because it’s very important for us to be thinking about.
In Brazil, they have 11 Supreme Court justices, of which only two are conservative. In Brazil, they have 81 senators, of which only 22 are conservative. In Brazil, they have 513 congressmen and women, of which only 130 are conservative.
The Importance of the Supreme Court
Let me just kind of take back a little bit and talk to you guys about maybe possibly the greatest accomplishment any president’s ever done. If the Supreme Court justice was the other way around, 6-3, and when they said Colorado wants to remove the president off the ballot, and they would have succeeded, Kamala Harris would have been your president today. I understand. I’m with you. But I want you to think about why this is so important.
My Personal Journey
For 25 years of my life, I was an atheist. When you live in Iran, my mother’s Armenian. Her last name’s Borosian. My dad’s Assyrian, Bedavid. I’m living in Iran. We’re a Christian family, trying to make it work. We’re going to school. We’re going to church, kind of keeping quiet. And you dream about one day coming here. You’re like, “Oh, my God, I can’t wait to one day come to America. It’s going to be such a great deal to come to America.”
I’m sitting there kind of thinking to myself about all this stuff with Iran, and hey, the Congress, the Senate, all this stuff. You bring it to today, this man flips three Supreme Court justices. He doesn’t do that. Kamala gets in. They would have done everything in their power they could have to prevent the president from speaking. They try to silence him. They took him all the social media sites. There’s a lot of people that want to be friends with him today, same people that silenced him. They said he can’t use social media. Got off.
Then you go from there. You dream about coming to America. And you sit there. You think about it. You say, “Oh, my God, I cannot even believe the fact that I’m living in a country like this where you and I, as an atheist, you’re like, maybe God this. I don’t know about this.”
People are dying in Iran. I’m in a refugee camp in Germany for a year and a half. You come to the States. I’m a regular guy going to school. Then all of a sudden I join the Army. I go to the 101st Airborne Division Air Assault. I’m in the Army. I’m in my uniform, quite honestly. I joined at first for GI Bill.
Finding Pride in America
And I’m standing there waiting. We’re at a Labor Day, a Memorial Day. And I see one of my chief warrant officers on this side in tears. I see another colonel over here in tears. I see a sergeant first class on this side in tears. I’m like, “Why are these guys crying? Why are they crying?”
And we go into an auditorium. They say there’s a movie coming out about your unit. You guys are going to get a chance to watch it before the world sees it. What’s the movie? “Saving Private Ryan.” I watched this movie. At the end, I’m like, “I am so proud to be an American. I am so proud to be part of the 101st Airborne Division. I am so proud to be living here.”
So I watch. While I’m in the Army, because of my PT score, I was able to go hang out at this one camp for two days where we could play pool, jump in a lake, and all this stuff. This man hands me a Bible. I’m like, “Sir, I’m the wrong guy to give you a Bible.”
He says, “My parents gifted me this Bible December 24th of 1974. I think you need it more than I do.”
I’m telling you, “You don’t want to give it to me. I’m the wrong guy.” He gives it to me. I start praying three times a day. Long story short, 25 years old, life changes, God’s in my life. Everything from there has been revolutionary. It doesn’t even make sense to me. It’s a miracle.
The Call to Prayer and Vigilance
Here’s what it made me think about. How many of you remember the last time you had one of those nights where you pray for an hour and you’re on your knees and nobody sees you? Who knows what I’m talking about? Anybody that’s ever done that before? By the way, for some of you that are devout Christians, maybe it’s a normal Tuesday for you. But for those of you guys that just kind of go to church once in a while, you’ve only done that three or four or five times in your life.
Does anybody relate where you don’t do that often? What were you praying about in June of 2024? What were you praying about when you’re sitting there? What were we thinking about? What was going on? What were the issues? Everything we’re watching, what’s going to be taking place?
And you mean to tell me the president is a one look away from this being assassinated and he lives and all these miracles happen, President Obama in eight years flips one seat, Trump flips three seats in one term. You don’t think God’s hands on America again?
By the way, the reason why I’m sharing this with you is sometimes when we start winning and we start making money and we start driving the nice cars and our candidate wins and we’re like, “Yay, it’s great and it’s awesome,” our paranoia goes away. Let me just prepare you for something. We’ve got to stay paranoid. We’ve got to stay optimistic. They’re plotting their moves behind closed doors while you and I are here at this event.
We’ve got to keep recruiting the next Bobby Kennedys, the next Tulsi Gabbards, the next Elon Musk, the next Joe Rogans, the next anybody. We’ve got to recruit them over with common sense, with values, with the way we treat them. And if we do that, the future of America will look bright like never before.
