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Ben & Jerry's was created by Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield in 1978 and is one of the world's only fully goatated brands.
Hasan Minhaj interviews Ben Cohen on Ben & Jerry's fight against corporate censorship over their stance on Gaza and progressive values.
Key Takeaways
- Ben & Jerry's has historically integrated social justice into its brand, challenging typical corporate norms.
- Corporate ownership can limit a brand's ability to take political stands, as seen with Unilever/Magnum's restrictions.
- Business can embody values like empathy and integrity without sacrificing success.
- Public pressure and campaigns can highlight conflicts between corporate profit motives and social activism.
- Media literacy and awareness of bias are crucial in understanding complex global issues.
Summary
- Ben & Jerry's, founded in 1978 by Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, is known for embedding progressive social justice messages into their brand.
- The company was sold to Unilever in 2000 with an agreement allowing Ben & Jerry's board to maintain political independence.
- In 2021, Ben & Jerry's announced ending sales in the occupied West Bank, leading to conflict with Unilever.
- In 2024, Unilever (now Magnum ice cream company) blocked Ben & Jerry's from speaking out on Gaza and creating a pro-Palestinian flavor.
- Ben & Jerry's requested independence from Magnum to freely express their values, which was denied, prompting Jerry Greenfield's resignation and Ben Cohen's public campaign.
- Hasan Minhaj interviews Ben Cohen about corporate values, capitalism, and the intersection of business and morality.
- They discuss the military-industrial complex, renaming the Department of Defense, and Ben Cohen's protest arrest related to Gaza.
- The video also touches on corporate responses to social justice movements post-George Floyd and skepticism about corporate sincerity.
- Hasan promotes Ground News as a tool to understand media bias and encourages critical news consumption.
- The interview blends serious political discussion with humor and cultural references, including ice cream and Oreos.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction to Ben & Jerry's and their progressive activism
- 02:38Harvey Weinstein and media sponsor Ground News
- 05:15Business values and morality discussion
- 09:04Corporate responses to social justice post-George Floyd
- 12:50Ben & Jerry's independent board and social mission
- 16:42Freedom of press and supporting controversial voices
- 20:03Lead poisoning and social issues
- 23:28Jerry Greenfield's resignation and corporate pressure
- 26:16Ben Cohen's fight for independence and public campaign
- 31:11Military spending critique and political commentary
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
We sure do make some of the best ice cream you ever tasted. Not only is their ice cream incredible, they have been extremely supportive of progressive causes like marriage equality, trans rights, indigenous rights, Palestinian rights, reparations, dismantling the prison industrial
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complex, and [ __ ] it, dismantling white supremacy while we're at it. They literally embed these messages right into their products. How is this possible? I mean, I thought corporations and morality didn't mix. Did Ben and Jerry's hack capitalism with love? Well,
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that might depend on what happens next because right now, Ben and Jerry's corporate parent, Magnum, is trying to silence them. So, I'm just going to sum up what happened real quick. So, Ben and Jerry's were sold to Unilever in 2000.
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And then their agreement basically set up a firewall between Unilever and the Ben & Jerry's board so they could take whatever political position they wanted.
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But that changed starting in 2021 when Ben & Jerry's announced that it would end sales in the occupied West Bank.
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Unilever fought them on this and then fought even harder in 2024 as Ben & Jerry's tried to speak out about the genocide unfolding in Gaza. They even blocked a pro-Palestinian flavor Ben & Jerry's wanted to create. So after some
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legal clashes, Unilever spun off its ice cream business into the Magnum ice cream company. But the underlying conflict didn't change. So Ben and Jerry's asked Magnum, "Please let us become an independently owned company so they could be free to say whatever they wanted."
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And Magnum was like, "No." So Jerry Greenfield resigned in protest and Ben Cohen has taken the fight public with the free Ben and Jerry's campaign in petition at freebenandjerrys.com. So that's the table stakes and because of that, I sat down with Ben to talk about
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this whole drama. But my favorite part of this interview is the second half where we talk about a passion we both share: dunking on the military-industrial complex. We also talked about what he thinks about renaming the Department of Defense to
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the Department of War. Finally, something that Trump has said that's honest. His arrest for protesting Gaza at a Senate hearing.
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My country is giving weapons to Israel as a gift to kill all these people in Gaza. And I asked him as one of the OG Bernard brothers if he thinks Bernie could have gone all the way in 2016.
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Absolutely. I have no doubt in my mind. And to be clear, you do not get free ice cream when you go to freebenandjerrys.com. I went and I'm very mad that I didn't get any. But Ben did bring
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free ice cream to this interview and lots of Oreos, which will make sense very soon.
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Harvey Weinstein is complaining about Rikers. That's right. The supervillain of the Me Too movement is upset because he got punched in the face by a fellow inmate. And Harvey is correct. Hitting is wrong. Even in prison, it is awful to
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be touched without consent. Anyways, I read about this story on Ground News, which is today's sponsor, and HMDK's favorite independent news platform.
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Ground News shows a breakdown of publications reporting on a story in which way they lean politically, whether it's right, left, or center. Now, it's not about eliminating bias. We all have biases, but Ground News helps you be a
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more conscientious consumer of the pageant of pain unfolding around us. Now, you may think, "Yeah, duh. CNN is slightly left, Fox is right. Why do I need this?" Well, not everything is about America, folks. Ground News sources articles from all over the
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world. For example, there are currently 97 articles talking about Weinstein and Rikers, and a lot of the publications are international. Now, I know the Globo in Brazil leans right and Lemon in France leans left, and I'm keeping that
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in mind when I read their coverage. So, go to groundnews.com/husten to subscribe and get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan, which breaks down to just five bucks a month with my discount. Stay aware and go to groundnews.com/husten
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today. MAGA has this famous tagline that's been very popular over the past few years. You go woke, you go broke.
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Anytime a Disney movie comes out that flops, they go, you go woke, you go broke.
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Are you broke? Not in yours I can tell. When we talk about corporate values, what does that mean?
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Well, I mean, in terms of values, you know, the values I think about happen to coincide a lot with what Jesus talked about in the Sermon on the Mount. You know, care for people that are
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oppressed, welcome the stranger, feed the hungry, feed the poor, you love thy neighbor. I mean, yeah, I'm into that.
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Seems good. I mean, and I think what's happened is that business has said, well, you know, maybe that's, you know, maybe that's for RA, maybe that's when you're in church, but, you know, we can't have those values in business. If
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we were going to have those values of business, we wouldn't be able to stay in business. We'd go broke. And it's just not freaking true. It's a lie.
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I mean, and Ben and Jerry's proved it. I mean, Ben & Jerry's has had these humanistic, caring values. I mean, the same values that, you know, that we want in anybody.
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You're just talking about basic virtue. That's all I'm talking about. Right. And the reality is that business is the most powerful force in our society and if business wanted to it could have those values and it would be a really
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beautiful society. What do you say to people that push back on this philosophical notion that the very idea of capitalism of companies that have to deliver returns quarter to quarter for investors just fundamentally bumps up against the virtues of
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integrity, honesty, empathy, care for the weak, the impoverished, the poor? What do you say to those people that say these are just oil and water? This is a paradox that you cannot resolve.
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We've heard that story. It's a lie. I mean, I understand that, you know, maybe it's easier to run a business where all you care about is the financial bottom line, how much money is left over at the end of the
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month or the year. But in terms of meaning and in terms of joy, in terms of doing that business, if you factor in social concerns into your day-to-day business activities, it's a much more meaningful, joyful experience. It's very motivating to
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employees and it's very motivating to customers. I mean, Ben and Jerry's, you know, taking these stands for justice, ends up creating this sympatico relationship with our customers. That's the strongest bond that a company could ever make with their customers. I
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mean usually people are buying products from corporations in spite of the values of the corporation. I mean, they're kind of buying it because they need it, but they're kind of holding their nose because, you know, they don't really
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want to be supporting that corporation that cares only about one thing. And when they have a chance to buy a product from a corporation whose values they agree with, man, they are overjoyed and they just want to keep on buying that stuff. There
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was this lightning rod 2020 moment in the wake of George Floyd's murder. It was this very powerful moment. And in the years since that, there's been this huge push back, the roll back of DEI, again, this go woke, go broke kind of
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talking point agenda. In the six years since that moment, have you now become more cynical to a lot of the language that some of these companies have used? Because it certainly has made me more cynical.
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Well, I tell you, I was, you know, I mean, of course, the death of the murder of George Floyd was a horrible and saddening thing.
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Yeah. But when all those corporations started making these statements soon after that that we're going to hire more non-white people, we're going to banks were saying we're going to make sure we loan to more non-
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sure that our suppliers are not just white people. uh and and they came up with, you know, actual numbers, objective numbers that you could hit.
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We're committing so much money to this. We're going to have so much of a percentage of our our workforce diverse.
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I was really kind of overjoyed. I was feeling like, wow, they've corporations have finally gotten a conscience.
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They've they've finally are are are have decided to use their power to to improve the way uh life is conducted here and and to you know especially for people that have been discriminated against and and oppressed and and you
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know and then uh you know Trump comes into power and he says DEI bad and all these guys just jettison all those programs. Uh, has that type of political polarization made having a strong social stance harder? Because now it's everything's a
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political issue. It we got a new Eminem. Well, who'd the Eminem vote for? It's like we're recasting Cinderella. All right. Well, which party is Cinderella in? you know, do you find it to be diffic diff difficult to navigate? You
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have certainly ran a successful business through every version of partisanship, blue or red. Is this particular moment more polarized than ever?
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Uh, or has it always been that way? I I don't I mean, I I think that the country is probably more polarized than ever. Uh you know a big reason being that uh you know every other president has sought to
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bring the country together and the current president is seeking to divide it. So you know it's a rather influential office and and I think he's being quite successful in in dividing the country. But in terms of Ben and
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Jerry's being able to be Ben and Jerry's and Ben and Jerry's values, I mean, there's no doubt that uh the Magnum Corporation uh I I think is kind of falling in line with uh with with what Trump wants.
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So back in 2000, Ben & Jerry's was bought by Unilver and you did something unprecedented. You created a legal framework that essentially it guaranteed you and your independent board of directors to take whatever political stance you wanted. Is
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that true? Yes. Um, how'd you do that? Well, so what happened was that Ben & Jerry's was a publicly held corporation at the time.
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Yeah. Um, Unilver wanted to buy it. Uh Jerry and I did not want it sold, but we didn't own controlling shares. And so against our wishes and despite, you know, our efforts to keep it independent, the company, Unilver wanted to buy it. And
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and there were other companies that that also wanted to buy it. And Jerry and I were incredibly resistant. So Unilver says, "Well, why are you resistant?" And we said, well, because we think that if the company is purchased by, you know,
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another company that doesn't have the same social values that our social mission is going to get destroyed.
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And they said, well, let's just write it into the acquisition agreement that the social mission will live on. And you know, we're trying to figure out, well, how do you write that in? Because the social mission needs to evolve as as the
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country evolves, as the situation evolves. And the way that we ended up doing it was to form this independent board of directors for Ben & Jerry's that has legal authority in perpetuity over the social mission, over uh product
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specifications, over the quality of our ice cream, the use of the trademark, how the company is is marketed. So, it sounds like, hey, as long as the ice cream stays good, the money keeps coming in, you can hold whatever position you
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want. And and and Ben, I got to give it to you, man. You went hard in the paint for decades, standing 10 toes down on a lot of issues over the years. Ben and Jerry's supported Black Lives Matter,
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refugee rights, marriage equality, criminal justice reform, voting rights. But then you crossed the line.
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You said the P word, the Palestine word. You said it. And your corporate overlords were not too happy about that.
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Uh well, what happened? Yeah. What happened? you know, the the board was feeling for, you know, years that uh having our ice cream sold in the occupied Palestinian territories in the West Bank uh was went against the values of the
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company. uh you know essentially supporting the mistreatment of uh people who lived in the occupied territories and that the occupation itself was illegal. Um and so you know there was a bunch of studies and work done on it. There were
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visits to the area by our people from the company and eventually there was a decision uh that was where the board of Ben & Jerry's and the management of Ben & Jerry's and Unilver all agreed that Ben & Jerry's would pull its products out of
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the West Bank. And what happened, what I'm told happened is that when we announced that the the head of Israel called the head of Unilver and said, you know, if if you don't make this right, if you don't get those products back
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here, we're going to kick out all the Unilver businesses. And they had, you know, like 20 different brands, 20 different types of products they were selling there. And so Unilver unilaterally went against uh the board of directors and sold the rights to Ben
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& Jerry's to an Israeli so that the ice cream would be available in the West Bank although only in Hebrew. Um and you know that was a major uh you know usurpation of the power of the board and
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uh there was you know a bunch of negotiations that proceeded and they broke down and and eventually the board had no choice but to sue Unilver which is you know not your everyday thing that a uh you know a subsidiary of a
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corporation sues the corporation. And so that you know after that point uh Unilver started muzzling Ben & Jerry's on uh a whole range of issues and you know when we when we called tried to call for a ceasefire uh when they ended
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up with this war in Gaza uh they wouldn't allow us to do that. when we wanted to support uh the students that were protesting, they wouldn't allow that. When we wanted to support uh people's right to free speech and and
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freedom of the press, you know, there was that woman who wrote a uh an op-ed in a in a college newspaper and she got kicked out of college for that or deported or something. We wanted to support her and and we were prevented
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from doing that and that's illegal. You know that the terms of the agreement. Is it true that they stopped you from celebrating Black History Month?
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Well, they uh Yes, it it is it is true. There was there was a post that we wanted to put up supporting Black History Month and they would not allow that. And this is the same company that I I was so proud of the statement that
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they made after the death of George Floyd, which is we must dismantle white supremacy. I mean, I felt like that was the the that's the comp, you know. So, our company made that statement. I had nothing to do with it. And I was
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overjoyed because it was the company itself that took that position. And and then, you know, there was this huge change and and Unilver prevented us from putting up this post in support of Black History Month. It was pretty strange.
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But Elmo celebrates Black History Month. Happy birthday. Exactly. It's It's kind of ridiculous. I I think it was Trumpism. I I mean I think at what at the time Trump was down on Black History Month, he wouldn't, you
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know, he wouldn't, you know, he he's trying to get all the information about how the US was involved in slavery, trying to get that information out of the museums, out of the out of the college tech, out of the high school
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textbooks, public school textbooks. Uh so that that's what it was part of. Last year, you were arrested after interrupting an RFK Jr. Senate hearing to protest Israel's Gaza blockade. I'm going to show you the footage. Take me through what's going on and why you did
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it and how you feel. Let's take a look. Then, why are you getting arrested?
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Move down the hallway. Congress will be kills poor kids and gossip by buying bombs and pays for it by kicking kids off Medicaid in the US.
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Keep going down. KEEP GOING DOWN THE HALLWAY. THEY NEED TO LET FOOD INTO GAZA. They need to let food to starving kids.
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Now that you're not being dragged down the hallway of a government building in zip ties, what were you trying to tell the American people? What's what's going on here? Well, what was going on for me was that, you know, I'm sitting home, you
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know, reading these newspaper articles or, you know, whatever you read online, whatever the however you get your news these days about how my country is giving weapons to Israel as a gift uh that are being used to kill all these people in in Gaza and and
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then and you know I mean I'm keep on reading about that and it's driving me a little crazy and then well it's driving me very crazy and then uh I see this other article in the newspaper about how
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there's another uh outbreak of of lead poisoning in you know I don't remember where it was maybe it was Milwaukee and you lead poisoning is an issue that drives me up a wall because it's very preventable.
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We know what causes it and we know how to fix it and you know lead poisoning is cannot be cured. It's a lifelong thing.
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A kid uh gets lead poisoning and their brain is affected for the rest of their lives and instead of using our money to get rid of lead, we end up buying these bombs uh to kill more people. And so, you know, everybody
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has their breaking point. And uh I saw these things and I said, you know, I want to chain myself to the White House fence. And uh you know, the people I work with said, well, you can't do that
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anymore. You know, the the White House fence has been militarized and uh you can't even get to the White House fence because they have a fence before it and they have guys with big machine guns walking in between. And they said, you
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know, we think uh you you wanted to do a hunger protest. you were going to I mean chain yourself to the fence and Oh, wow.
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And uh and they said, "Well, but we think we can maybe get you into a a hearing and and you can make some kind of statement." And I said, "You think that's really going to be effective?" And they said, "Yeah." And I had my
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doubts and uh you know, it ended up being kind of one of the more effective things I've I've ever done. So all this activism and the positions you took in regards to Gaza, it obviously did not fly too well with Unilver, but
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eventually Unilver spun off and sold you to another corporate daddy called Magnum, right? How did that happen?
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Well, what they did was they spun off their entire ice cream division. Uh they they have an ice cream division that uh comprises about a hundred brands of ice cream around the world. Uh here in the US it's Popsicle, Good Humor, uh
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Klondike Briars Tente, Yaso, and and Ben & Jerry's. And uh Unilver decided that um you know, for one reason or another, they decided to get rid of their their whole ice cream operation. And I think originally they were trying to sell it
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to another uh conglomerate or some private equity group and they weren't able to do that. So they they decided to spin it off into its own separate publicly held corporation.
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So as soon as it gets sold to Magnum, this other conglomerate, Jerry resigns. I mean you guys, you're Jordan and Pippen, baby. You're magic and Kareem.
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Well, not quite. I would say, hey, if it was an eating contest, Ben, you two you two were goated.
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Don't ever then don't ever hold yourself small king. Okay, you two were goated. So, he he's he steps down. What was that like? Why did Jerry step away? What was it specifically about Magnum and the pressure in regards to this issue that
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made it too much for him? Well, I want to be clear that uh Jerry and I have not split up. We're still the best of friends. And um we we both came to understand that there was no way that
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the social mission of Ben & Jerry's was going to survive under the ownership of uh the Magnum Corporation.
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And uh you know, Jerry decided to resign in protest and I decided to stay on and fight.
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I mean, you kept the fight going and and you've taken the fight both public and online with the website freeben &jerrys.com.
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You've been there. Yeah. Well, come again. Keep on coming. Well, well, look, Ben, I have I have a couple complaints.
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All right. First of all, I went to the website and I thought I was going to get free Ben Ben & Jerry's and I didn't.
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It's a different type of free Ben & Jerry's. It is a different So, look, I think the cause is important. I think the clickbait is wrong cuz a lot of people are going to go to the website and
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they're going to think they're going to get free Ben & Jerry's. So, we got to have another tab or sublink to get free Ben & Jerry's. But what is freeben &jerry's.com? What what's the what's the goal of the website? Well, so when
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Unilver announced, and this was like two years ago, that uh they wanted to spin off their whole ice cream division, Jerry and I went to them and said, "Hey, you know, there's been all these conflicts between Unilever and uh the
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board of Ben & Jerry's, and why don't you just separate out Ben & Jerry's so that it can be sold to socially conscious investors that actually support the mission?" Yeah. and uh you know and have Ben and Jerry's be able to thrive and have the
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other businesses be able to to thrive. Um and Unilver said no, we're we're not we're not willing to do that. And uh so Jerry and I were very public about calling for socially conscious investors to to make an offer for Ben & Jerry's
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and and some of them attempted to do that but uh Unilever refused to engage with them and uh and then the company got got split off into the Magnum Corporation. So is is the goal for freeben and jerry's.com
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is the goals if if there's enough public momentum and movement behind this is this an awareness play are are you guys basically asking almost like the way musicians during those old record label contracts are you asking hey let me go
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independent I don't want to be a part of the old record label can will you let me spin off and do our own thing?
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Yeah that's that's exactly what we're doing. Um and then h how does the public come into play here? Well, I if you don't own a if your dad doesn't own a private equity company, the the reality is that uh the fate of
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Ben & Jerry's is in the public's hands. If enough people get involved and they make their voice heard, they stand up, they participate in the actions that are on the website, they sign the letters, they sign the petitions, they they bomb
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uh Magnum's social media with, you know, statements about freeing Ben and Jerry's. um Magnum is going to end up having to to give in and sell it. And uh you know and what's really happening from a you know
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financial investor point of view is that this brand that they've got Ben and Jerry is this very powerful brand uh which has been built on this values-led business model.
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It's the very thing that Magnum is in the process of destroying. They're destroying that valuesled business model.
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They're therefore destroying the brand. They're ripping the heart out of out of Ben and Juries and it'll become less valuable. Did you know the average employer has to sort through 250 résumés per job opening? I mean, that's insane.
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That would take so long. I mean, usually it' just be a problem for HR, but we don't have HR at 186K. So, how are we going to get through all those resumes?
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Speaker A
Kolkata Chai has brand new tea bags. It is so easy. I literally don't have to think about it. Hot water, tea bag, mug, dunzo. Okay, but what do I think about now?
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But real talk, what is a microwave actually? It hums, it dings, it spins, but what is making the food hot?
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Screw you, countertop Chernobyl. Hard pass. Okay, just enjoy this moment for one second without Ooh, hello fridge.
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Oh, my chilly little frenemy. I tolerate you, but I do not trust you. Do you remove heat or do you add coals? Ew, I'm getting cold just thinking about it. You know why? I should make some chai to
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warm up. Stupid hustle. You're already making chai, but I forgot about it because these tea bags are literally doing all the work. Wait, is it a tea bag or a chai bag or a chai tea? Nope.
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No, no, no. Not going there. Just add hot water, milk, and sweetener of your choice. Honestly, it's the best ji in the game. I should go tell someone.
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I want to turn to a passion that you and I share. Dunking on the military-industrial complex. I'm going to share a video that you recently posted on your IG. Here's the Pentagon budget. 50 Oreos, $1 trillion. Yo, Ben
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the up in arms guy. I'm here to talk about the federal discretionary budget. Here's how much the federal government spends on education, renewable energy, child care, helping homeless people, world hunger. Why don't we just take some Oreos off this Pentagon staff?
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That's enough to fully fund schools that serve 8 million kids. Take another one off, that's enough to convert 1 million homes to solar energy. Take two off that provides universal prek education. One Oreo end homelessness. Two Oreos takes
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care of all the people that don't have enough to eat. Take a look at this.
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China spends that much on their military. Russia that much. Iran, North Korea, even after we take all those Oreos off, we still have more than enough to protect ourselves.
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I mean, that's that's quaint. Trump's already said he wants a $ 1.5 trillion budget.
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That that's the amazing thing. President Trump calling for a massive investment in America's defense, writing on Truth Social, quote, "For the good of our country, especially in these very troubled and dangerous times, our military budget for the year 2027 should
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not be $1 trillion, but rather $1.5 trillion." What really amazes me about that is the the callousness of that mentality that I mean, first the country is saying, "Hey, we're broke. we ain't got no money. Uh we're in debt. And and then he's saying,
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"Well, I can figure out a way to squeeze out another 500 billion, and what I want to spend it on is the Department of War." And what where where does that I mean, what kind of mentality is that? I mean, you've got
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people that are starving around the world. You've got people that are dying of preventable diseases. You got people in our country that can't afford child care. You got people in our country who can't afford health care. And the first
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thing he thinks about is let's build more weapons and kill more people. You you you seem to be up in arms, pun intended. So, we will go side stage and we will update that diagram. I want us to kick off a fun little game show that
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we do here on Hustle Minhage Doesn't Know. It's called Know Your Empire. You ready?
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All right. I'll try to get them right. Let's do it. How many military bases does the United States currently have in other countries?
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About 800 military bases around the world. That's that's what the US has. Do you know how many the country who has the next highest number has?
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I have no idea. Five. Well, clear clearly those bases are not to defend the United States.
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Well, what are they for? there to uh dominate the world. They're to control the world through military force.
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How many countries does the United States currently have troops stationed in? Uh what is it like? Uh it's over 100, isn't it?
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Approximately 175. Now Netflix is currently streaming in 190 countries. So that's almost all of Netflix's territories. How many countries is the United States in active armed conflict with?
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Uh, well, at least 10. I think the answer right now is four to six.
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Now, I don't know if you're on signal with Pete Hexth or Cash Patel, who's the head of the FBI.
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Yeah. But it's four to six from what we've guessed. Iran, Venezuela, Syria, Somalia, maybe Iraq in Nigeria. I just found out about Nigeria a month ago. I was like, we we have beef with Nigeria and and Niger too, I think. I mean, uh
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what are you count when you say armed conflict, what what is that including places that we bomb or or drone assassinate, that kind of thing? Well, well, well, to me, a bomb or drone is kind of the same. So whether whether
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whether you kill brown people with a PlayStation controller or there's a human doing it, I think it's the same.
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But that's just me. Maybe I'm getting caught up in I think my number of 10 is better than your number of four to six, but whatever.
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What do you think of the name change from the Department of Defense to now this thing called the Department of War?
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Finally, something that Trump has said that's honest. It is not the Department of Defense. It is the Department of War.
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Dude, I agree. It's not set up to defend the US. I I'm actually pro this weird level of demented transparency.
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Just Just say it for what it is. Pop the white head. You like when you have a zit, just say what it is.
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The US recently started a new war with Iran. I don't know if you've heard. Now, Iran is part of the axis of evil.
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Now, as we know, evil is bad. Are Iran and Russia our enemies because they're more evil than our allies?
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Any country that doesn't do what we want them to do, that's an enemy. That is the official policy. If you read the actual US policy, the national security posture and strategy, all that crap, any country that develops economically
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or militarily must be considered to be an enemy. And we must do uh what we can to keep that company that country down.
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We need to sanction the country. We need to uh uh you know develop military uh plans to to take over the company the country. I mean the US is currently uh developing plans to have a war with China which is
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so freaking absurd. Wait, so we're mad at them because not because they directly did anything bad to us, but because they're more successful.
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We we don't like uh their form of government. We don't like the idea that they're economically successful and we believe that it's a zero someum game that we need to control the entire world and you know China is is getting
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to be powerful and if we let them become too powerful then we won't control the entire world. I mean, I think what China wants and what what just about every country wants in the in the in the world
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in the UN is a multi-polar world where the power does not reside just in one country but where countries are treated as equals. That was the idea of the United Nations and you know the US has essentially thrown that out the
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window and said that we want a world where might makes right and we're going to be the mightiest country there is and we're going to call the shots and we don't want to cooperate with other nations.
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Well, so if the UN is calling for equality, what is the purpose of NATO? The purpose of NATO was to protect uh the western Europe from the Warsaw Pact. The Warsaw Pact was that group of uh Soviet countries
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and uh you know when the Soviet Union dissolved there was no longer a need for the Warsaw Pact. It it lost its purpose and it should have been NATO should have been disbanded at that time, but it still exists now, right?
Speaker A
It does. And in and it's what? Just a nuclear war trip wire. If so, if Russia just [ __ ] around and invades any of those NATO countries, it's basically a green light to blow up the world.
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Uh I guess I I I mean I I think I think the way those countries uh in Europe look at it is that there used to be the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had invaded them and taken them over and uh
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they're concerned that Russia is, you know, is is going to try to do the same thing. But, you know, clearly it's not strong enough to do that. It it's not capable of doing it. I I don't think I
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don't particularly think they they want to do that. I mean, they've got their hands full trying to run their own country. I mean, this NATO and Russia thing, that issue got you in some particularly hot water, especially with liberals. Ben and
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Jerry's tweeted, "We call on President Biden to deescalate tension and work for peace rather than prepare for war." I thought that was a pretty benign tweet.
Speaker A
Yeah. I mean, we got a lot of kind of these are a lot of Elmo approved pieces of language. Deescalate. Elmo tells us to deescalate tension in fights. Deescalate tension. Great. Work for peace. That seems cool. rather instead
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preparing for war. And liberals weren't happy with this tweet. They accused you of being an appeaser who loves Putin.
Speaker A
How'd that make you feel? Uh, I'm I'm not pro Putin. I'm not pro Trump. I'm pro not solving your problems through war and uh you know that how did it make me feel you know it's okay people can accuse me
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of whatever they want to accuse me of I mean that it kind of goes with the territory I mean if you're going to take a stand on something other people are going to be opposed to it so unless based on this NATO agreement
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unless we're going to have a nuclear war with Russia Aren't we going to eventually get to the point where we have to have some sort of settled agreement?
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I think so. Yeah. So, that's what the tweet was saying. I think you should have rewarded the tweet.
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Here's what you should have said. Look, a bunch of people are going to die and that's not good. And then after a bunch of people die, there ends up being a peace agreement.
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So, let's just skip over act one and two and let's just get to the peace agreement.
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I'm with you. I'm part of an organization called the Eisenhower Media Network, which is a bunch of uh former mid to high level uh military officers. And at the very beginning of the uh war in Ukraine, we took out a a full page ad in the New
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York Times and and called for a ceasefire. So instead of having a ceasefire, then what we had was a war that's what is it now in its fourth year that's killed and destroyed I don't know how many people and how many homes and
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villages and uh and eventually there's going to be some negotiated peace. Let's talk about something else that gives me nightmares and prevents me from going to sleep at night. Nuclear weapons. You had another video that demonstrated the insanity of America's
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nuclear arsenal. Let's take a look. Let me show you something. Here's one BB that represents the nuclear bomb that we dropped on Hiroshima. And now what I'd like to do is demonstrate the size of our current nuclear arsenal.
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That was 50,000 BBs. Enough to kill everybody on Earth. That's [ __ ] crazy.
Speaker A
You know what's [ __ ] crazy, Ben? I saw that video first thing in the morning before I had to drop my kids off at school. [ __ ] up my day, bro.
Speaker A
Well, you can use that information to change it and make your day better. Okay. Well, your boy had to take 5 milligrams of Xanax just to get through the day. But in all seriousness, how many dollars does the US military spend
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on nuclear weapons per minute? Isn't it something like uh $125,000? Yes, it's approximately $100,000.
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Yeah. And that's and that's just nuclear weapons. What if instead of spending less on nuclear missiles, we spent more on defending ourself from nuclear missiles. Allow me to show you a video from Pete Hegsth big upping the Golden
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Dome Initiative. We need that support in Congress and they're there. We appreciate their support and work in getting that one big beautiful bill to the president's desk for signature because with that signature came a massive $25 billion down payment on the Golden Dome for
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America. A revolutionary shield of space-based weapons and sensors. A vigilant constellation of next generation sensors and satellites that will see every threat from every corner of the globe. paired with a network of space-based interceptors ready to neutralize any ballistic missile, any
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hypersonic weapon, any drone long before it threatens our homeland. That's how we establish complete and total orbital supremacy.
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What's your response to this whole orbital supremacy thing? I mean, it's not white supremacy, but this sounds pretty badass.
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It's uh it impressed me as a uh like a snake oil salesman. uh a medicine a medicine show.
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What what made you call [ __ ] on this? Cuz for me it was it was the comic sands MS font at the bottom. That's the part that really got me. I can't take We didn't do the captioning there. That was
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the Department of Defense. Let me tell you something. DoD, if you're watching this, the rest of the world is laughing at us.
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There's plenty of font options. You can't go with that. But what did what did you think of that?
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uh you know it's a physical and mathematical impossibility. It can't be done. Why? You know people talk about it uh as hitting a bullet with a bullet. Uh you know the number of interceptors that it would require is uh unrealistic.
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Uh it's it's a beautiful idea. It's a beautiful fantasy. But an invisible shield that will protect us from any and all threats, it just doesn't exist and it never will exist cuz it's a physical impossibility. I mean, you know, this is
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just a replay of uh Star Wars. Uh not the George Lucas movie. You're talking about the the pitch that Ronald Reagan made in the 1980s, right? He made the same pitch. I'm going to come up with an invisible shield
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that's going to protect us from any and all possible uh threats. When you saw Ronald Reagan make the Star Wars pitch in the 80s, you weren't buying it.
Speaker A
No, I wasn't. I You know, I mean, you didn't see the video. If you Austin, play Ben the video. You didn't see this?
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US spy satellites would watch the world below. The first response. Space-based kinetic energy weapons fire high-speed projectiles from hypervelocity guns.
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Earth-based nuclearpowered X-ray lasers fire their radioactive rays. Chemical lasers fire beams that burn through the shell of the on-rushing missile.
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The surviving warheads enter the atmosphere above the United States are attacked by laser equipped planes.
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Earthbased lasers and ABM rockets eliminate the last warheads. Kinetic energy weapons, chemical lasers, particle beams.
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You can't beat that. It's It's make believe and it's beautifully produced. That's what orbital supremacy looks like. It looks like Tron. And I'm saying that as someone who stars in Tron Aries, I'm in six scenes and it's streaming now on
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Disney Plus. Take that, Putin. How do you make sense of the very real reality that no matter which political party is in power, defense spending yeartoear is always going up. It's not going down.
Speaker A
It's not defense spending, it's war spending. And yes, uh you're you're absolutely right. uh both parties are equally to blame for you know this you know for for what I think is destroying the soul and the spirit of America
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uh you know America is not about taking pay taking care of people who need help providing health care for people who need health care it's not about providing food for people who need food.
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It's about killing huge numbers of people. I I I mean, I'm I'm not exaggerating. I I mean, the the weapons that we have are designed to kill literally millions of people. And the the mentality is that well, and that's
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not enough. We need more. uh and and you know I mean you can kind of understand it that it's gotten simplified to the extent that uh what people have come to understand what they've been told is that if we spend
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more money on the military will be safer but it's it's not true I mean you know like Trump, he he doesn't think about, well, what what weapons do we need actually to to be safer. He thinks about, I'd like to have a trillion
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dollar military budget. And so he raises it to that level. and then says, "You guys figure out, you know, how to spend it, what to buy with it." And and then he says, "Well, you know, a trillion, you know, that's pretty good, but I want
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the next one to be one and a half trillion, and I don't know what is what it's going to pay for, but you guys figure it out." But the reality is that it makes us all less safe. It makes us
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all less secure because that money could be spent on things that would really make us more safe, more secure. Things that would make us healthier, things that would allow us to have child care for our kids, things that would allow us
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to buy houses. Uh things that would allow us to uh you know, feed people that that don't have enough to eat. You know, I mean, you walk around, you say, "Oh, there's such a homelessness problem. It's horrible. You know,
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nothing could be done about it." I mean, you could end homelessness for $40 billion a year, which is chicken feed compared to a trillion Pentagon budget, soon to be, well, if he gets his way, 1.5 trillion. Well, are
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Americans basically just not allowed to vote for decreasing the defense budget or as you call it, the war budget?
Speaker A
I I think that's true. You know, none of the major party candidates uh are talking about that because they're deathly afraid if they talk about reducing the Pentagon budget, their uh political opponent is going to call them weak on defense. and uh and that's, you
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know, that's going to make it hard for them to get elected. That's a a charge that uh you know the the the problem is that the it's it's kind of a complex issue and people are busy, you know, trying to
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fix the hole in the roof and and pick the kids up from daycare and they don't have the uh ability to to analyze this stuff. And so some guy says, "Well, we need to spend more money to be safer. Uh
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or else that guy's going to come and and kill us." I mean, I guess 3 years after Ben and Jerry started in 1981, Bernie Sanders became the mayor of Burlington, Vermont. You and Jerry scooped ice cream at the Victory Party.
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You were the original Bernie Bros and have been huge supporters of Bernie Sanders throughout his entire career.
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What is it about Vermont that makes you care about your fellow American citizens? Yeah, it's an interesting question. I I think that uh for one thing, Vermont is a very very small state. Uh and people people know each other. I mean, it's not
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like people are in the way. It's like pe, you know, you like running into a person because it doesn't happen that often. And uh and and also there's there's kind of a a farm and rural mentality, which is that you help your
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neighbor that you you know, I mean, there there aren't that many people around. You see you see someone in trouble, you help them out.
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Do you think I mean the other thing about Vermont is that the biggest things in Vermont are natural things, mountains, uh the lake, trees, whereas, you know, you end up like in a city like here and the biggest things
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are man-made. So you have more of a sense of yourself as a human being not being the biggest thing but being a small part of a of a a natural world.
Speaker A
That's beautiful, man. Do you think that if the DNC had supported Bernie Sanders more in 2016, there was a possibility that he could have been president?
Speaker A
Absolutely. I I have no doubt in my mind. I I mean what was amazing to me was I was receiving emails from the Bernie campaign and I was receiving emails from the Trump campaign and they were very similar. You
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signed up for both list serves. Yeah. Uh they were very similar. I mean, you know, uh we need to be saved from all those corporations that are screwing us. We need to be saved from the ultra wealthy that are screwing us. Um, I'm
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for you, the little guy. Uh, you know, it's just that one of them was honest and the other one was just kind of pandering.
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Do you think the Democratic Party learned its lesson in 2016, 2020, 2024? No, I've I've kind of given up on the Democratic Party. I, you know, I think it's just calcified.
Speaker A
Uh I I think I think mostly it's it's you know there there are some there are some notable exceptions but I think to a to a large extent it's a lot of uh old white men that uh that are that are
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just caring too much about their own position and and getting reelected and not not trying to change the country uh in a way that that you know kind of revives the spirit of America that that uh you know they're not looking to you
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know I mean they're fiddling around the edges they're they're not they're not making any of the major changes in terms of how our economy is structured how our you know how the whole federal budget is structured in order to prioritize
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the benefit of regular everyday people as opposed to prioritizing the benefit of corporations and the ultra ultra wealthy and uh weapons manufacturers.
Speaker A
So listen man, you've been fighting the good fight for 50 years. Are you hopeful or do you feel hopeless about the future?
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you know, I guess I guess if you're continuing to fight, you must feel hopeful. Uh, you know, I mean, what what choice do you have? Uh, you can, you know, you're confronted with injustice.
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You can either ignore it, you can complain about it, or you can try to do something about it. And you know, I I understand that certainly me myself, I'm not going to be able to to solve the problem, but there's a heck of a lot of
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other people that are also working on it. Uh you're working on it. And you know, uh, Pete Seager told me this story, uh, that he came, you know, he was walking along and he he comes he he sees this playground off in the distance
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and he gets closer to it and he sees what's going on is that there's this giant seessaw and there's lots of people running around and he gets closer and he sees that uh you know the seesaw is you know
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one side is down there's this giant rock on it and the other side is up and there's all these people with teaspoons running around taking a teaspoon of sand from this big pile of sand climbing up this ladder and dumping it in the bucket
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of the part of the seesaw that's up and you know he's watching this going on and and he's noticing that there's holes in the bucket and that the sand is is running out. And so he he pulls one of
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these guys aside and he says, "Stop. Stop. You got to you got to see what's going on here." And you know, he gets the guy to stop. The guy is sweating. He wipes his head and and Pete says, "Don't
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you see there's holes in the bucket and the sand is running out and you're never going to get that thing to flip." And the guy says, "Oh, no. You don't understand. There's more of us with teaspoons all the time. And one of these
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days where there's going to be more coming in faster than it's running out and all of a sudden the whole thing is going to flip." And so, you know, I'm a guy with a teaspoon and there's more of
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us. And you're you're racing up to fill up that bucket. Yeah. Doing what I can.
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I mean, what do you Otherwise, you you just accept it. say, "Well, yeah, it's really [ __ ] up. We're killing gloves goes of people. We could be feeding. We could be helping. We could be making the world a much better place, but we're
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not. And well, I'm just going to go back home and I don't know, smoke some dope.
Speaker A
Ben, I appreciate you taking your spoon, filling it up with sand, climbing up that thing, and filling up that goddamn bucket. And I hope we all help you fill up that bucket.
Speaker A
It'd be great to be climbing up the ladder with you, Hassan. Hey, man. Freeben and jerry's.com.
Speaker A
All right. Free Ben. Yo, Ben Cohen, ladies and gentlemen. All right, Hassan. Hass. Let's do Let's do a demonstration. Let's do a de Let's use some Oreos and do a demonstration. These gold ones on top, that's the half a trillion dollar that
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Trump wants to add to the Department of War budget. of these little orange ones.
Speaker A
That's the 150 billion that he's already added cuz he likes big numbers like that. You could take 11 of these Oreos.
Speaker A
That is enough to provide Medicaid insurance for everybody in the country. Homeless people, you could take care of them for two Oreos. Universal prek for another two Oreos. Lead poisoning is irreversible. We could get rid of it for
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three Oreos. people that are literally starving to death. You could take care of all of them for this many. You have a [ __ ] ton of Oreos. Here's how much China spends. Russia spends. Iran spends.
Speaker A
They're just half of an Oreo. Yeah. 10 billion. What about Kim Jong? Oh, yeah. They got a half Oreo, too. The dude in the White House, he could use his Oreos to actually help people. This is great sponsored content for Oreo.
Speaker A
#fuckathon. Hurry right away. No delay. Stop. Make your daddy glad. You have your last
Topics:Ben & Jerry'sBen CohenHasan MinhajGazaPalestinian rightscorporate activismUnileverMagnum ice creammilitary-industrial complexsocial justice
