Towards the end of the interview, we got to the subject of Ventura’s Sept. 11 trutherism.
“I’ll give you another one on your 9-11,” he said.
“When I was doing our show we contacted the FBI and we wanted to know why the FBI — you can pull up their website, you can pull up international terrorists and they have a top 10 list and bin Laden was on it. He’s not now, but he was on it. They give you bin Laden’s summary – what he’s done: Attack on the USS Cole, attack on the U.S. Embassies, but amazingly not a word about 9-11. Not one word. … When we asked the FBI why isn’t 9-11 on there, they wouldn’t say. Off the record, you know what we got? We don’t have enough evidence.”
So what you’re saying, TheDC responded, is that the government orchestrated an elaborate conspiracy to take down the Twin Towers and kill 3,000 people, but the savvy conspirators couldn’t follow it up by getting the FBI to list Sept. 11 as a reason bin Laden was on its most wanted list?
“Why wasn’t it on there? Why didn’t they list 9-11? That’s the biggest crime in history!” he protested.
Ventura finally said that he believed that former Vice President Dick Cheney was responsible for orchestrating the Sept. 11 attacks. He said he thinks Cheney sent President George W. Bush to Florida on Sept. 11 so he could be in control of the government on that tragic day. But why would Cheney commit such a heinous crime?
“Halliburton,” Ventura whispered creepily, thinking he had provided a compelling answer.
But Cheney was already massively rich. Does Ventura really think Cheney killed thousands of Americans to get richer?
“With those guys you ain’t rich enough. Are you kidding me?” he said, before suggesting the most recent recession was also a conspiracy.
“So everybody lost wealth. You know who didn’t lose wealth? It’s in my book. The top 1 of 1 percent, the billionaires,” Ventura explained. “What does that tell me? They create the recessions so they can get richer.”
So the recession was manufactured?
“They all are. We have a recession a decade. They’re all done.”
Really, all recessions?
“No, I just think this last one was for sure,” he said, contradicting himself in less than 60 seconds.
Naturally, Ventura thinks he’s qualified to be president and that there is a groundswell of people out there who wish he would run. And he just might in 2016, he said, so long as a few conditions are met.
“My standard is if I can debate them, I can beat them,” he said.
“Here’s what it will take. I will run with no party. I will run as Jesse Ventura individual citizen. But it would require a grassroots move costing me and the campaign no money. No money. A grassroots move of the people to get me ballot access between now and 2016 in all 50 states. They’ve got three years to do it. In all 50 states get me ballot access and there must be an outcry that I must have a guarantee ironclad that I can be in the debates. … If that’s met, I would probably run for president.”
But that’s impossible, TheDC told him. How can he be guaranteed a slot in the debates?
“I need the people of the United states to show me some balls and give me a reason to put myself on the line again,” he argued. “And that’s what it would take. That if they said, Jesse Ventura can’t be in the debates, there should be 500,000 people at the Capitol protesting.”
Nearly an hour and a half after TheDC sat down with him, the interview came to a close. But as a parting gift, Ventura left TheDC with one more gem.
“Getting to Hugo Chavez, you know what Oliver Stone told me?” he asked rhetorically.
“Oliver told me, ‘Governor, you’d love Hugo Chavez because he’s you. You and him are alike. You’re men of the people. You come from poverty. Hugo comes from poverty. The only reason we hate Hugo Chavez is because he kicked out Exxon.’”
You heard it here first: Ventura-Chavez 2016.
