Jason Hartman starts the show by sharing staggering numbers from commercial real estate loans to office space for lease. He discusses the shift of office models to work from home. In the interview segment of the show, Rick Sanchez of RT News is hosted by Jason Hartman as they look at how mainstream media has gone off the rails. They discuss external influences on news outlets. Later they go into the housing market and what they believe the future of real estate will look like post-pandemic.
Investor 0:00
Yeah, I still feel like I’m on the path for sure. And there’s a lot more wealth that I want to grow and things I want to do. But I’ll tell you, it’s when I think back to where we were, and what both of us my wife and I both have done to be where we are today. It almost like if you told me this is where we were headed 10 years ago, or what I would have told you, you were nuts, because I could not. I couldn’t have imagined we’d ever be able to buy real estate again, or that I’d ever want to, you know, here we are with, with several properties later. And we’re still, we’re still chugging along.
Announcer 0:30
Welcome to the creating wealth show with Jason Hartman, you’re about to learn a new slant on investing some exciting techniques and fresh new approaches to the world’s most historically proven asset class that will enable you to create more wealth and freedom than you ever thought possible. Jason is a genuine self made multi millionaire who’s actually been there and done it. He’s a successful investor, lender, developer and entrepreneur who’s owned properties in 11 states had hundreds of tenants and been involved in thousands of real estate transactions. This program will help you follow in Jason’s footsteps on the road to your financial independence day. You really can do it on now. here’s your host, Jason Hartman with the complete solution for real estate investors.
Jason Hartman 1:21
Hey, everybody, welcome to episode number 1500 and 67. For those of you watching the live stream, I’m just doing the intro portion for our guests today, who will be none other than rick sanchez from RT America news. His slogan is let’s do news. And he really does live by that. It is so rare nowadays, sadly, so rare to see journalism. I mean, everything has become an agenda. Everything has become an opinion piece. Absolutely refreshing to see some real news out there. So just thought I’d share this intro portion of the podcast with you if you’re watching the live stream. If you’re watching the podcast Hey, it’s pretty normal. But I have a few visuals to show you and these visuals will be on the video on our YouTube channel with Rick Sanchez. So let’s go ahead and dive in. I got some staggering numbers here. Are you ready to have your mind blown? post any comments or questions below? We will try and get to those for you. But let us know where you’re located and where you’re watching or listening from. Okay, so rick sanchez will be up in a few minutes. But here are some mind boggling numbers for you. So the first one, these are all from the Wall Street Journal, by the way, Wall Street Journal, excellent publication. I’m a big fan. They do a great job. So $3.87 billion. That is $3.87 billion, almost 4 billion with a B dollars. That is the value of these securitized commercial real estate loans in foreclosure last month. Did you really let that sink in for a moment? Many real estate investors and analysts expect this number to grow soon? Duh, yes, it’s going to grow a lot. The commercial real estate market now of course, that depends what type of commercial real estate you’re talking about. But sadly, we are going to see this get a lot worse, it is going to get a lot worse office properties. And we’ll get to that in a moment with another staggering number below. Office properties, hotel properties, retail properties, of course, those are all very, very hard hit, but others as well in different ways to different extents. But the industrial, and the multi family housing, you know, that’s why like housing, it’s all about housing. If you ask me, I love housing, that’s my favorite asset class, in the real estate world or in or in any world for that matter. It’s all about housing, that holds up really, really well, because at the end of the day, everybody needs a place to live. They can outsource the office jobs to home, which is what we’ve been doing the last many years, really a couple of decades, but certainly the last several months. And they can outsource them to India, China and the Philippines. To a large extent those office jobs. Certainly they outsource the industrial jobs to china and other Asian countries quite a bit. And then this call center jobs with Office properties and outsourcing retail to the internet. So lessening the need for all of that type of commercial real estate. While at the same time the population is growing. And there is a huge housing shortage in the country. So be a housing investor. That’s where the action is. Okay, look at this next stat from the Wall Street Journal again. 100,000. This is the square footage of office to sublet or sub lease that Twitter is now playing on the market, citing Twitter saying they’re What are they citing de centralization? Yes, they’ve told people to work out of the house. And the interesting thing that’s happening in the office property market is that a lot of large companies are going to this and you’ve heard it in the airline industry, you’ve heard this phrase before hub and spoke, the hub and spoke model, where they’re going to do these small suburban, because that’s where everybody’s moving to suburbia. Right? These small suburban office spaces that are just little centers, where their home based employees, newly home based employees can go and maybe if they just need to get out of the house, maybe the kids are making a lot of noise, and they can’t concentrate. They can go and work. They’re doing what they call office hotelling. Or they just use a desk and these are hot swap desk, right? Or they can go and use conference room and have a meeting and an interesting concept. By the way, I don’t know if you’ve noticed this. Unfortunately, this is not a big enough thing. I hope it becomes bigger. But Capital One, yes. The bank credit card company, right? Capital One. They have these coffee shops in different cities. And they’re really cool. I mean, there’s so much better than Starbucks. Starbucks sucks. Yeah, boo. for so many reasons. Starbucks just sucks. Anyway, Capital One has opened up these kind of conference center coffee shops, with really nice facilities. And you don’t have to have a capital one account to use them. But if you do you get all your coffee and pastries at half price, that they’re really cool. I hope that expands I hope we see a lot more of that. Because I think that’s, that’s a great thing. Much better than the scam known as we work right now. It’s nothing like that. So Capital One, yay, Capital One good job on that. Boo on Starbucks, and boo on we work and boo our big office properties. Okay, I’ll stop with the sound effects now. So look at this next stat 50%. This is the estimated percentage of non office employees in Times Square, New York, who have not been brought back to work since the pandemic began. So some pretty mind blowing numbers there for you. Okay, next thing, and these are mind blowing numbers in a very positive way. It’s all about housing. Remember what I always say, home is the center of the universe, be a housing, investor, housing, housing, housing, at the end of the day, everybody needs a place to live, they do not need an office, they do not need to go to a shopping center, but they need a home. And this is interestingly so regional. Right? This is from the National Association of Realtors, otherwise known as NAR, this is the largest trade lobbying organization on planet earth last time I checked. By the way, if I’m wrong on that, reach out, go to Jason hartman.com slash ask and get some feedback and tell me if I’m wrong. Or if I’m right, or ask me a question or whatever you want. Jason hartman.com slash. So regionally, you look at the growth in the housing market, which is nothing short of phenomenal. This is the pending home sales index. for August, it is up on a month over month number of 8.8%. But in the Midwest, it’s up pretty darn good there 8.6% in the West, 13.1% in the South 8.6%. And in the northeast, the hardest hit of all of these markets. It’s up, because a lot of the New Yorkers from the city and these in Washington, DC and Boston and any high density area moving to lower density markets. So that has sustained that one maybe better than you might think it’s still up, but it’s only up 4.3% the worst of all of the regions. Now, everything has become this really pathetic political football nowadays, and the political football, we can’t even decide if we believe in vaccines together if we believe the economy is getting worse or better. It’s all down party lines. You know, if if you tell me do you like Fauci, I can tell you how you’re going to vote. Right? Do you think the economy is recovering or worsening, I can tell you how you’re going to vote. So you can do this too. It’s no special talent. You know, when the vaccine comes, if it ever comes and remember, this is something this is a different kind of vaccine because it’s an RNA vaccine, a much more difficult thing. So if it comes when it comes, will you take it? Well, by answering that question, we can tell how somebody is going to vote, right? So here we are, the economy, the majority of Americans Say the economy is recovering. That’s good news. But let’s look at how that stacks up along party lines. So 52% overall, say the economy is recovering. 33% say it’s getting worse. 10% say me, it’s just about the same. And 5% they don’t have an opinion. Okay, so fine. But when you look at party lines, and you look at Democrats, only 34% say things are getting better versus Republicans. 76% say things are getting better. Wow. That is a mind boggling difference. A mind boggling difference. How do you move from 34% of Democrats who say, okay, things are getting better. To the republicans who says 76% of them, things are getting better. Now, how about things are getting worse? Well, Democrats 48% of them say it’s getting worse. Things are not looking good. But republicans only 14% say things are getting worse. So do the democrats just look at the glass is half empty, and the republicans look at the glass is half full? are Democrats naturally more pessimistic? And republicans naturally more optimistic? Or does it depend who the current administration is? I don’t know. What do you think? Post your comments below? Okay, and let me know what you think about that. It’s this gap is absolutely mind boggling. It is. It’s just amazing that people could be so different in their views, they’re in the same economy? Well, not exactly. They’re actually not in the same economy. Because depending on where you are on the socio economic ladder, depending on what type of job you have, or what type of business you have, that will obviously make a difference. So, yes, we’re in the same macro economy. But we all have our own micro economy. So little distinction there. Okay. So let’s get to our guests, Rick Sanchez. Remember, we’ve got our pandemic investing event coming up, go to pandemic investing.com, and register for that virtual event. It’s on zoom. So it’s super easy to attend. And we’ve got early bird pricing. And we are really going to help you understand what is going on, and how uneven this recovery if there is a recovery, how uneven it is, and what to do about it, how to manage your portfolio, how to make investment decisions in these absolutely crazy times in which we live. So without further ado, let’s get to our guest, Rick Sanchez. So it’s a great pleasure to bring to you someone who is usually interviewing other people, and he kind of softly promised he wouldn’t be interviewing me today because I’m interviewing him. That is none other than the great Rick Sanchez, you know who he is. You’ve seen him on RT news, what I love about Rick’s segments and his philosophy toward media, which we’ll explore today a little bit, but I think this is his philosophy. Maybe I’m speaking for him. But he’s a bit of a maverick. You know, he really believes in something called news. I know, that may sound like an outrageous thing in today’s world, because it’s so agenda driven. And everything’s so politicized. Where have all the journalists gone? I mean, it is, especially the investigative journalists. So it’s, it’s really great to have him on the show today. Rick, welcome. How are you doing?
Rick Sanchez 13:58
I’m doing great. You know, it’s funny, I should probably let our audience know if they’re not familiar with the fact that I’ve had you on my show a couple of times. Yep. Because I see you kind of as the consummate expert, economically, but specifically in real estate, and not just theory of real estate, but actually working with your own hands from the ground up. That’s what I think is so cool. That’s fine. You know, I’m just wondering, I don’t know if we’ve tackled this question when we’ve been on the air on the news with Rick Sanchez, where we’re now getting upwards of millions of people tuning in, because it is very different from anything offered here in the United States.
Jason Hartman 14:34
And I’m in we’re gonna go into that I got to ask you all about that.
Rick Sanchez 14:38
It really it really is a fascinating, a fascinating concept. What’s happening with news nowadays, but let me ask you something that’s dear and near to your heart, and that is this uptake, this surprising revelation of people buying homes up the wazoo, and if they’re doing it in such a way, that’s not going to cause a huge backlash down the road. Like I’m thinking people worry about delinquencies in the car business and another kinds of businesses where people have to take out loans. What’s going to happen when people don’t have money in their pockets? What’s going to happen? If the unemployment doesn’t come down? Are you worried about that? Should we be
Jason Hartman 15:19
a little bit now You promised you wouldn’t interview me? And you’re already doing it. It’s a habit. I could tell. But you know, definitely a little bit. And like, I’ve probably conveyed on your show, Rick, and I’ve done on the podcast before I know, you listen to the podcast, but, and and thank you for listening. You know, it depends where and in what price range? I think this necessity housing is going to be fine through all this. But let me tell you, I think all of us three months ago, we thought the world was ending, you know, I mean, nobody knew what to expect three, three months ago, I said on my podcast, and people couldn’t believe I said it. I said, if you are a new investor, who’s just saved up the money to buy your first two or three properties, we don’t want your money. Just wait, you know, if you wait two or three months to see how this thing pans out a little bit, it’ll be okay. Just don’t do anything. Because we were very unsure. And what I think this is proving this sort of artificial boom in the economy in the stock market. Number one, it’s a very uneven situation. Some people are really struggling. Others aren’t. Others are doing very well. It’s it’s a very mixed kind of thing. But also, just that the whole economy, not only of us of the entire world is built on a house of cards. It is fake. Okay, I think we’re all getting the sense now that no matter what happens, I mean, we got this sense during the Great Recession, the government, and the Fed is going to come in and just fix it all, which is probably a dangerous idea.
Rick Sanchez 16:52
But I’d be thinking though, and I’m nowhere near as smart, as you
Jason Hartman 16:57
know, you underestimate.
Rick Sanchez 16:59
There are some other things where I may be pretty smart, but it’s not on this. But I was talking to my wife about this the other day, even if the average person out there is investing in real estate, I think what happens if there is a downturn is there will always still be people who need housing. So whether there are fewer people who can hold on to their properties, right? That does not mean,
Jason Hartman 17:22
we just came off set. And so he’s you’re you’re at the station, right? In Washington, DC. Yeah. Isn’t that amazing? on you go back on the air here in a little while. Right, it’s right
Rick Sanchez 17:33
behind me back, I’m going back on the air in a little while to finish, where because of the COVID situation, what many newsrooms are forced to do right now is they have teams of journalists working at one time. So normally, I would come in and I would do a couple of shows the Primetime shows, seven o’clock, and eight o’clock, right now I’m doing the two o’clock, the three o’clock to five o’clock and the seven o’clock. So. And the reason we do that it makes sense is, if somebody goes down in one team, it doesn’t knock out the entire operation, you could always bring in the other team. So that’s what we’re going through right now. So it is it is a little bit crazy, and that there are long days and long schedules, and then you kind of get a week off, but not in my case, because the other team likes to have me on to do analysis the way I like to have you want to do analysis. Speaking of analysis, back to the final question, then I’ll let you interview me. Sure. Yeah. In the end, we do have a downturn doesn’t really matter to the average real estate investor, as long as he has butts in seats, as they like to say, as long as there are still people who want to be who needs to be living in homes, and they need to rent anywhere. Yeah,
Jason Hartman 18:40
I think you’re right, I, you know, look at in the type of housing that we invest in, you catch people moving up or down the economic ladder, or just staying in one place, right? We may well see. And we saw this during the Great Recession. Rick, were, you know, 2008 2010 11 period, we saw people that had been foreclosed on. They used to live in a bigger house, they used to live in a nicer, nicer neighborhood, they used to send their kids to private school. Now, they’re renting a basic house for 1400 dollars a month, you know, they’re sending their kids to public school. Okay, so things change. But the nice thing is in this basic necessity, housing, you’re going to catch people moving down the ladder or moving up. Either way, you’re you’re good in the high end. That’s a different story. In the very low end, like those D class properties. I don’t know. I guess you’ll always have a poor class sadly. But when times are good, you know, the rising tide does float a lot of boats. I can’t say it floats all. But some of those people move up and some of those areas even become more blighted. I think the area that kind of part of the market we’re in is pretty safe. So the answer is if there is a situation where the money the well runs dry, sort of spate There will still be people out there who are going to need housing. And most of them, the trajectory of buyers, these are the renters might change. In a down economy, there may be more renters than buyers, but that doesn’t really affect the real estate investor. Right? That’s it, right? Well, it doesn’t affect the investor who is truly an investor. And I’m, for those of you just listen to audio, I’m doing quotes with my fingers. Because in investor invests for yield, they invest for cash flow, whereas a speculator invests, well, they don’t invest. They speculate they gamble for appreciation. And I teach one concept I call the three dimensions of real estate. And what what you find is that in a so called boom cycle, and most people consider a good, quote, real estate market to be a seller’s market, meaning it’s easy to sell properties, you put them on the market, you’ve got 10 buyers knocking down your door to buy the property. That’s what most people call a good market. Okay. But is that really true? It depends what your perspective is, right? Maybe a buyer’s market is better, right? Maybe you know, seller’s market is better. Maybe the in between market that I like to call a broker’s market is better. Because I find it very hard to operate in a really hot market, like we have now. And we’ve had that for quite a few years, because there’s very little inventory. And it’s very hard to please buyers right now. Okay. But what happens that you basically we’re stating is that the amount of people in the renter pool stay there, they can’t move into the buyer pool, because they can’t qualify for a loan. Maybe interest rates are too high housing affordability is too low, or they have bad credit. And so whatever this is, they can’t buy. So that push it puts upward pressure on rents, and investors who already have a portfolio, they like that that’s a good market for a landlord. So that would be another type of market a landlord’s market. Right? Yeah. And actually, usually very low interest rates, like we have now spur a seller’s market, which is also what we have. So low interest rates make it easier for renters to become buyers. And that’s not as good for landlords, if you already own your portfolio and say you have 50 units or 100 units or whatever. And you’re going to welcome higher interest rates, you’ve got super low interest rate loans that can’t be duplicated. And renters are not buying because it’s too hard to qualify for a high interest rate loan. So that puts you in a pretty darn good position where your rents are going up and you just sit tight and collect the rents.
Rick Sanchez 22:51
Yeah, that’s fascinating. And that’s what happens when you put yours into something like this, like you have and you come up with a performer that’s formulaic. And doesn’t matter what the situation is. And the final analysis program works, you just have to plug it in a little different way. Right, right. You
Jason Hartman 23:08
have to adapt your strategy. You know, sometimes you’re in a strategy where things are going up, up, up, and that’s like a capital gains market. Sometimes you’re in a dividend market, meaning a cash flow market, mostly, where you’re just collecting your cash flow. And that’s great. Either way, you know, you can make money either way. Okay. Are you ready to talk about the media? Let’s do that.
Rick Sanchez 23:28
Okay. I know a little bit about it just a little bit,
Jason Hartman 23:31
a little bit. So first of all, how long have you been in the news business?
Rick Sanchez 23:35
Oh, my goodness. When I was going to school at the University of Minnesota, where I had, interestingly enough, gotten there. I graduated in Miami, highly high school. I was a pretty good football player. And I got a football scholarship. More kid, refugee immigrant from Cuba. My parents barely made $10,000 a year combined income.
Jason Hartman 23:55
When did your parents leave Cuba? By the way, there’s an interesting story, right. So a year after Fidel took over
Rick Sanchez 24:02
Unitas But no, it was over, they smelled that there was something totalitarian or wrong. coming later.
Jason Hartman 24:09
They got out just in time, you know, I I was in Cuba about 15 years ago, maybe fascinating place really fascinating. But
Rick Sanchez 24:18
my parents made the decision. They didn’t want their children to grow up there. We ended up leaving the island. I went to Miami where I was, I grew up as a regular American kid, whose mom and dad did not speak English. How could they they came very late in their lives. Sure. I graduated from high school got a scholarship to go to Minnesota to play football. That’s pretty good. Pretty good student pretty good. football player and then suddenly a professor tapped me on the shoulder and said, You know, you’re pretty smart kid. You look pretty good. CBS News is offering a scholarship, three in the entire nation. It’s probably going to be 10,000 people who apply but I want to recommend you because I think you’ve got what it takes. So I My God, lo and behold, I applied and they they Done pay me they did.
Jason Hartman 25:02
Fantastic. So you went to work for CBS and you were probably a reporter at first, right? And
Rick Sanchez 25:08
I started off, I started off through the University of Minnesota. Then I graduated from the University of Minnesota, I was just a punk kid trying to learn journalism. But when I graduated, there weren’t a lot of people in the United States who spoke perfect Spanish and perfect English. And since I was educated in the Midwest, my English was that it was flat. It was Midwestern. So that worked to my advantage. And in Miami, they were looking for people like me, and I ended up getting a job right out of college, and a pretty good one. And then I just kind of worked my way up. I went from working for NBC in Miami, to then working for NBC national, I worked for CNN, I worked for Fox News. I worked for Univision in Spanish. Oh, wow. And now I work for RT America, which is a global situation, which is very different. So I’ve worked and or had a show, and had some of the highest ratings. Thank God in some of the biggest networks in the United States, including my show Rick’s list at CNN, which was the highest rated show. They’re
Jason Hartman 26:08
fantastic that that’s excellent. And so when did you started RTX,
Rick Sanchez 26:13
2018. On October, that’s about about two years now.
Jason Hartman 26:18
And they recruited you from CNN.
Rick Sanchez 26:21
No, it’s funny. CNN had fired me, which happens a lot in our business. You know, in our business, it’s a lot like being a manager in baseball, right? football, you know, you just yeah, you get fired, you go on to the next one. And, you know, the good thing is they usually pay pretty well. So you can make a pretty good salary. But then, from time to time, when cnn had let me go, something interesting happened. And I think people who are watching us, maybe this may be a heuristic experience that we can all learn from, because we always wonder what is our worth? What is our value? And in my situation, Jase, when I got knocked out at CNN, I still had four mouths to feed, and I had a wife and the four kids and I had to figure out what I was going to do in my life. So I went back to Miami. And the first thing I did is I said, Well, I’m still a broadcaster. So I can do radio, which I did, but it wasn’t enough money. So I have to do television. So I did television in Spanish, I’m independent station. And it still wasn’t enough money. Fox News couldn’t make me a full fledged anchor reporter at the time, but they gave me a contributor gig, which snow kinda wasn’t enough money. But when I combined the money for Fox News, and the money from you know, radio, and the money from the other gig, I was able to come close to what I was making at CNN, though now, but I was working my ass off, right? You were basically working three gigs, three gigs. And that’s that’s a lot of work. And it’s really, really hard. But what I was doing that what I learned was the principles of advertising. And let me tell you why. So I had to get on the radio, where a radio station said, Oh, my God, we had Rick Sanchez. So they would go to advertisers and say, we have Rick Sanchez, how’d you like to have Rick Sanchez, do your commercials, we can, we can write you Rick Sanchez’s voice, that’s way advertising works. Joe, I noticed that the radio station was doing very well with my product, my name my brand, the television station was doing very well with my product, my name, my brand. And so was Fox, you know, distributing the work the way they work. And I start thinking to myself, you know, it’s funny, I’m renting myself out to all these people. What if I owned that brain? You know, where I’m going here. So I knew at the time in Miami, the hottest industry was healthcare. Miami attracts a lot of older people, right? Care is a commodity there. So I realizing that there were doctors that were looking to do advertising, because the only way to make money in healthcare is to have a good marketing plan. And I realized that if I got together with some doctors, and here’s, here’s, here’s the cool story. I got together with some doctors, I knew there was a lot of money to be made in managed care of health care, where you take care of people who are 65, and need a really good doctor or provider program. I got together with some doctors and I said, Look, let’s go to an advertiser, a media company and say that we’re working together, we’ll create a television show for them. And we’ll take half the inventory of the show. In other words, Jason, for everybody listening at home, if you’re getting a half hour show, let’s say there’s three minutes of commercials on there. We want a minute and a half phone every night where we get to put our spots, so right to say I traded with them to do that. So we had my brand. I owned a piece of the company that I was negotiating for to go in there and take the show. And then we were able to do a show I got a salary. More importantly, I had a piece of the product. And I was able to do that through this wonderful company called Kanto. How would you believe Jason that four years later that company is now ranked by Inc magazine as the number one fastest growing healthcare company in America.
Jason Hartman 30:00
But I wouldn’t believe it, because I already found that out. Because I, I looked them up after talking to you about it before, but the listeners don’t know that. So go ahead.
Rick Sanchez 30:09
It’s exciting. It’s exciting to know that in your life when you get knocked down, and you have to start all over again, if you reach deep, deep inside yourself, you can find the skill level, you just have to apply it in a different arena. That’s all they realize. All I know how to do is this. No, just because that’s what you did doesn’t mean that’s all you know how to do
Jason Hartman 30:29
in Rick. Lesson. The lesson for everybody listening is look, you know, we’re going through a very uneven time, obviously, in the economy with all that’s going on. It’s crazy. And things change. during these times creative destruction happens, people get fired, companies go out of business changes happen, and being able to adapt to that. And you know it? I mean, how many stories have we all heard about how someone got fired, and it was the best thing that ever happened to them? Although they didn’t feel that way that day, right? They felt Oh, God The world is over. But then it turns out to be a blessing in disguise, right.
Rick Sanchez 31:07
That’s exactly what happens. And you know, I would never have thought that that day when I was fired. And I was sitting in my closet at night crying because I didn’t want my wife and my kids to see me that way. I never met my wife in my life. Imagine that. I would go on to start a company that’s worth probably over a billion dollars is now you know, I’m in the state. I’m almost at an investor status where I’m very, very wealthy guy. Yeah, I’m embarrassed saying congratulations.
Jason Hartman 31:42
And that’s the American dream. Yeah. from one generation, you know, poor people leaving Cuba. And here you go. So that’s that’s right. There is the American dream, folks. Could that have happened in many other countries? It could have happened? Certainly not in Cuba, that’s for sure. Unless you were with the government, and you were on the inside. Right. That’s the one small group that gets that. That’s a great story talked to us about the media business and the media landscape. Here’s what I’m thinking. First of all, I’ve been following our T news for, I don’t know, 12 years now or something, maybe 10 years. And it’s kind of weird. You know, here’s, you know, the Russian government is actually an investor in this company. Okay. So they exert, I guess, some form of editorial control. But, you know, the news stories are fantastic. I mean, they cover I, you know, I read their stuff on my on my see my dog on my iPhone app. And there you go. Yeah, we’re both showing dog pictures. For those of you who are watching dogs and families. I mean, they’re there. It’s some of the best news stories out there. You know, you don’t get this stuff on CNN. Well, this is like, kind of two minutes. Wait,
Rick Sanchez 33:02
I see where you’re going with that. And I understand you’re bewildered as I kind of am in many ways, if you will, during that’s the right word. Yeah, it is, you know, I do not trust our tea to tell me what’s going on in Russia. I’m gonna trust them. I think that somehow they’re going to be influenced, right? Like, in many ways, I don’t trust the BBC, who is also, you know, an institution kind of owned by the government as well. Yeah. Right. And I have a feeling whenever they do a story about Hong Kong, it’s always anti China and pro Britain. Well, of course, Hong Kong used to belong to you. And now you sound like jealous? Yeah. We could we could go into all kinds of short stories one at a time, and delineate what it is about them. That makes the communicator bias. For some reason, when I say I, maybe not, I wouldn’t trust our tea to give me all my information about Russia. I don’t trust CNN, or MSNBC, or Fox, or any us channel and some newspapers, when they give me information about the United States. So Louis, I mean,
Jason Hartman 34:01
I don’t think anybody will disagree on either side of the political aisle. I mean, the mainstream news media has gone off the rails. It’s, it’s insane. And, you know, you probably know about this, but the New York Times has closed its offices, and told all its journalists, journalists, in quotes, you know, to go work out of the house. So guess what they’re gonna see, they’re gonna sit on the internet, and see all the things that are the echo chamber have what they already believe. And that’s basically going to be stories from this formerly venerable institution that New York Times years ago was this amazing company. They’re not investigating anything.
Rick Sanchez 34:44
There’s a lot of reasons for that, though. And first of all, I will defend the honor of most journalists who are read journalists. I also understand and they’re, by the way, are very few real journalists left because most of the crew on television, not miss watching any of these people. I’m not listening Tucker Carlson, I’m not this marching Cuomo or Rachel or Anderson, Barney his people, the great majority of them are not hired because they’re journalists, that a true journalist is someone who has, who has cut their teeth, covering stories, researching stories, picking up the phone calling people tell me about this. Tell me about that. Explain that to me, like I have done with you. While I’m sitting here in this office preparing my newscast, right? A journalist is not somebody who has a television show on some cable network, who they hand scripts to. And he has 42 writers who prepare his material. And then he goes out there and puts on makeup and just starts reading. Yeah, nobody writes my copy, I write my own damn copy.
Jason Hartman 35:42
And I know that to be true, because you interviewed me three times. And two of those times, you sent me a write up, right off your own computer, from your email address before the interview and said, What do you think of these things? And these talking points? And, you know, this is this is what I want to dive into today. So yeah, I know those
Rick Sanchez 36:03
guys, you know, yeah. And at the same time, if I were one of those persons that I just named, and I was making 567 $8 million a year, which is what they’re paying, right? Because there’s some few of those positions they want to take care of. I don’t want to use the word bribe. But let’s just say that they are influenced heavily by a salary that makes them that not ask the questions that in the old days, journalists used to ask, right, and journalism has also changed in this way. There is more control. Now from the outside. Look, it used to be Jason, I’ll be straight with you. In the old days, there was some guy in Miami or in Wichita, or in Kansas City, who owned the local newspaper, and he owned the local radio station, and he owned a local television station. That’s no longer the case. It’s not one guy with the pride of his community or corporate giant conglomerates, who owns your company and pays everything. And the salespeople in the old days, if they walked into a newsroom in the old days and started spouting off about what they think our coverage should be. Or why would you do do a story on this or that? No way it would have kicked their ass
Jason Hartman 37:06
literally. Think there? Are there was a real divide between advertising and news? Absolutely.
Rick Sanchez 37:13
It doesn’t exist anymore. Yeah, New York Times is influenced by their advertisers. They’re influenced by Verizon, the people who sit on the board of the New York Times the people who sit on the board of, of CNN or Time Warner, the people who sit on the board of Walt Disney, all these major media companies. There’s something called interlocking going on in our society, you know, that term, a business school term, it means that a guy on the board of one company, let’s just say Raytheon, a guy who makes money on missiles, it’s on the board of a company that does news, how convenient. The leader doing news stories promoting a war. Why? Yeah, you know, so I’m just using
Jason Hartman 37:46
that in pharmaceutical industry is another great example. I mean,
Rick Sanchez 37:51
I mean, so So this, so when people say to me, my god, you’re working in RT, and they have Russian influence. I say you’re working at CNN, or you’re working wherever you’re working. Let’s talk about your influence. Let’s talk about who really makes the decisions about what comes out. Because I’m sick and tired of watching newscasts that do nothing. But talk about the latest Trump tweet and the latest Trump for Paul, and why he’s good at why he’s bad. While there are things going on in the world. Today, I did an interview with the ambassador from Iran. And I asked him seven or eight pointed questions about what they’re doing to foment terrorism, about what happened with solomani. The day before I talked to the ambassador, I think you remember I don’t know if you were on that show. The ambassador from Saudi Arabia and I hammered him and I do stories about what’s going on in the South China Sea where world war three good policy is about to carry
Jason Hartman 38:43
out right. Damn
Rick Sanchez 38:44
it to hell. nobody’s talking about these things on those other channels, saying crap every day. Yeah, pardon me for getting passionate. Yeah.
Jason Hartman 38:51
You really ask the ambassador try from Iran or the Iranian ambassador to the
Rick Sanchez 38:57
US. The Iranian ambassador to America came on my show live today.
Jason Hartman 39:01
And you asked him what are you doing to foment terrorism? Why are you Oh my God, that’s a tough question. You wouldn’t hear that from some cnn quack.
Rick Sanchez 39:12
But guess what, he respects me more for it. And that’s because that’s what I’m supposed to do. You know, right. Yeah. would be anybody,
Jason Hartman 39:19
you know, recover anti Trump. hearing you talk about this stuff. The word that comes to my mind. And I love investigative journalism. I mean, that is like my passion that and consumer advocacy. You know, I grew up watching a show in LA called fight back with David Horowitz Yeah, I used I used to love to watch that guy. He was a consumer advocate. And he used to go out there and expose all these scams, you know, person getting ripped off at the auto repair shop or whatever it was, and I thought that guy was the best. That was journalism, you know? And the word that comes to my mind when you talk about this stuff is the word grit, you know, a journalist used to be gritty, like they would stand up against the evils of the establishment, they would expose the the charlatan and that, you know that the stammer and that and that the church doing wrong deeds or whatever was the government doing, you know, payoffs and I mean, we just did that stall but gone, isn’t it?
Rick Sanchez 40:24
Yeah, that’s why guys like me get fired all the time because at the end of the day, you got to be able to look at yourself in the mirror and fight for whatever you believe the truth is and be as transparent as possible and sharing with your audience how you got there. And they may disagree. There may be some sometimes you’re gonna get it wrong. I’m highly imperfect, I’m assuming. One. If you go in everyday thinking, I’m going to try and find out what actually is going on. I’m going to dig, I’m going to question and try and fill every minute of my time before I go on the air, trying to find out what the story is really all about. And then I’m going to present it the end of the day. That’s what we do. We tell stories we are. And in television, we are the theater of facts, the theater of facts, think about that, we have to still, you still have to put on the show, you still have to go on here and say Good evening, everybody. I’m Rick Sanchez, today, we have found out such and such and I can’t wait to share this with you blah, blah, blah. So I am to a certain extent, performing my facts, right, dammit, to help it better be factual, better be real. And don’t be as me,
Jason Hartman 41:31
you know? Yeah, that’s great. That’s great. You know, one area of life that has become so corrupted also, is the area of and this is kind of a best sideline, but the area of awards, you know, like the Nobel Prize, or, and what I want to ask you about is one of my favorites, the Pulitzer Prize, you know, that’s an investigative journalist award, right? I have those become kind of just watered down and political, where they’re given him to people. I mean, you look at what goes on in like Hollywood, even with the Academy Awards, not that I have any respect for. You say that because
Rick Sanchez 42:08
obviously, I’m a capitalist, right? I believe in the free market, and I defend it. But I do believe that we do get to a point in our own capitalistic society, I guess this is where it turns into maybe crony capitalism, where people can get so much mass, so much power and wealth at the start a buy in, just like they buy politicians and senators and congressmen. Today, they can also buy, I’ll give you an example of what I’m talking about. So there’s these organizations like the Spanish, the Hispanic American journalists Association, black American Journal Association, the every organization has their own group, right? Well, these organizations are essentially paid right? To promote the welfare of that group, guys with blue shirts, journalists Association.
Jason Hartman 42:54
I’m sure there won’t be a white guys Association, that I’ll tell you how much right what will never happen,
Rick Sanchez 43:00
whatever the association is, and it may be and that’s fine. People should have association or groupings. But here’s the problem with those associations. Okay. So this fabric Association, Hispanic American Association, who you think is going to defend, and go after CNN, for example, or MSNBC, or Fox or whoever, right? Fox writes them a check in $200,000, to make sure that they don’t go after them. And guess what they don’t go after? When, when Lou dos was in a lot of trouble, and CNN because he was saying some things that I frankly, wish he hadn’t said and lose my friend. And the Hispanic American Association of journalists was going to do something against him. I was there cnn wrote a check to the organization. Suddenly, they had him as their guest speaker. So
Jason Hartman 43:53
do some of these groups get influenced? Yeah, unfortunately, they do. And I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Yeah, it’s just like, you know, Deep Throat from Watergate, right? Follow the money. All the money, he’ll that’s all we have. That’s what makes the world go round. And there’s influence Everywhere you look, it’s it’s absolutely crazy. The only thing
Rick Sanchez 44:12
that I think is a little different for me that way, when I was I told you, I was running this company in Miami, and the company was doing very well, Ken Oh, great company. And there were three of us. That one was the CEO. The other one was the chief medical officer, and I was the chief marketing officer. And then I got a call from an agent in California. He said, You know, these these guys looking for you, they want you back in the business, to go back and do television, national, or global in this case. You know, Jason, I said, No, I don’t want to get back in there’s no way I don’t want to get back in. And then I came up here and I talked to them and what I felt like I had an opportunity to produce a show with true journalistic independence, where I get to choose the stories and talk about the things that matter, right and not be interfered with. And when I felt like they made that commitment to me, and I never looked back took the opportunity and it’s been a lot of fun stories and nobody else is doing
Jason Hartman 45:04
it. That’s That’s awesome. That’s that’s really good. So, um, what? Where’s the news business going, Rick, maybe we’ll just kind of wrap it up with a little discussion on this. Is there any hope for real journalism to come back? I mean, I do like the thing that you have all these small independent outlets nowadays. I you know, that’s good. But the social media platforms are censoring everybody like crazy. It’s, this is an Orwellian dystopian world we live in, I don’t know what to think of it find
Rick Sanchez 45:33
a way to communicate their message. And I think it’ll be up to us as consumers as news consumers to be able to find the difference. I think we’re going into unchartered territory, though. And you’re a guy who studies trends, right? There’s nobody watching CNN, or Fox, or MSNBC, or CBS, or ABC, or name, your damn channel, under the age of 45. There’s barely anybody watching under the age of 55. And most are over the age of 60, or 70. So what happens to this new generation? How are they going to consume news? Where are they are going to get their news, they’re not going to get it in terrestrial stations. So the streaming the places on our phones, this is gonna this, this is where it’s going to live. And let us just hope that the principles, the ethics that guys, like I learn from my going to a real journalism school, at the University of Minnesota, where these things were pounded into you, let’s just hope that those people have some of those core principles, because without them, in the end, we’re lost. Whether we’re talking about real estate, or business or journalism or anything else. I am
Jason Hartman 46:47
right. I couldn’t agree more. I couldn’t agree more. Rick, do you have any thing you want to share? Like a website or a Twitter handle or anything like that? I do
Rick Sanchez 46:56
a show every night. It’s called the news with Rick Sanchez. Yeah. And you can watch it on RT America. Or these days, we’ve established something that we just started called portable TV, portable TV to answer your question earlier about what’s coming up in the future is a place where you can go to get the news, and you can do so automatically. It’s an app. And in the future, people are going to get their news from us. And it’s pretty cool that we just started this app and it’s blowing up. So kinda good.
Jason Hartman 47:28
Good stuff. Good to hear. So what how does someone find that they look up portable TV literally, or they look up RTM. Download the portable TV app. And you’ll see rick sanchez is all over the place. Good stuff. Good stuff. Well, Rick Sanchez, thanks for keeping journalism alive, what’s left of it. And let’s hope it comes back. And we appreciate your contribution to that take care of
Rick Sanchez 47:52
I appreciate your Jason, you’re a good guy like you. Thank you very much.
Jason Hartman 48:01
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