Tony Brown Interview with Lyndon LaRouche
March 5, 2023

KAYT Radio, Louisiana: Lyndon LaRouche was interviewed live on Tony Brown's show, "Eyes Open with Tony Brown", on March 5th during morning drive time. The station airs in 100 major cities, three states, Mississippi, Texas, and Louisiana, on 10 stations. The show was be re-broadcast at the same time Tuesday morning, the day of the primary. This is a rough transcript of that interview.

Tony Brown: You are listening to Eyes Open, of course, as you've heard, the highest rated call-in talk show in the state of Louisiana, on the most powerful station on the planet. Yeah, that's why we are broadcasting, 70,000 watts of clear digital sound, to the tristate area of Louisiana, primarily, and Texas and Mississippi. Heard in every major city in Louisiana, with the exception of New Orleans. As far east as Woodville and Natchez, Mississippi, and as far west as Houston, and Beaumont, Texas.

Tell you what, folks, LaRouche leads Democrats in itemized individual contributions--yeah, this is out of his camp. "Democratic Presidential pre-candidate Lyndon LaRouche now leads all the remaining Democratic presidential candidates in the cumulative number of individual itemized contributions to his campaign, as measured by the Federal Elections Commission. This figure dramatically underscores the fact that LaRouche has a depth and breadth of popular support among ordinary citizens, far beyond his rivals." That, according to his campaign. "The FEC defines an itemized individual contribution as a contribution by a person who has given more than $200 to a campaign."

He joins us here live, right now, on Eyes Open, with me, Tony Brown. And the reason, folks here in Louisiana, that you haven't heard from Mr. LaRouche, particularly in this area, is because he says that some people are afraid of him, certainly the Democratic Party.

Good morning, Mr. LaRouche. Thanks for joining us.

LaRouche: Good morning. Good to be with you.

Brown: Tell us exactly--certainly our listeners--why does it appear that some folks, certainly in the Democratic Party and in the news media--seem to be afraid of you?

LaRouche: Well, it happens to do with financial interests. There are certain financier interests who have known me very well, for more than 30 years. They know exactly where I stand on how to deal with the situation, in which the world is bankrupt, and the government has to choose between the poor, and the bankers. And so, the bankers, or the financier crowd, doesn't like me one bit.

That's not true, of course, in all levels of the Democratic Party, or of the people. But in that crowd, which controls a lot of the money of the country, I am not popular.

Brown: Now, I wanted to advertise this, Mr. LaRouche. You said that our system here in America, certainly when it comes to financing and the economy, is held together with spit, not glue. Explain.

LaRouche: Well, we're now bankrupt, and poorer people, people in the lower 80% of income brackets, know it. Some people are deluded by the stories about the fabulous riches being made on Wall Street. But that isn't getting down to the people. We're losing jobs, we're losing everything. We're losing infrastructure, we're losing health care, everything is going. We're now in a depression. We're about to get the real "other shoe" dropping, where the crash comes on top of the existing depression.

That's our situation.

People go into a state of denial. People don't like to see a hopeless situation, so they will cling to the hope that things are going to get better, as long as they can. And then they get to the point that they find it's not going to get better, and then they shift their values, and they begin to say, "We've got to do something about this."

Brown: I remember reading something about you last year, that you had stated that America's economy's primarily driven on an inflated housing bubble. Explain that.

LaRouche: Well, what happened is that, you have several bubbles, but one is the housing bubble. Is that the Federal Reserve System began using Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac--which deal with mortgage-based securities--began using that to pump up the real estate market in certain parts of the country, as around Washington, D.C., spots on the West Coast, and so forth.

Now, what this has done, is driven houses, which are essentially shrink-wrapped plastic-covered, [hardly] better than shacks--

Brown: They call them McMansions.

LaRouche: Yeah, or something like that. And these things are going for $400 to $600,000 mortgage, or more.

Brown: Ridiculous.

LaRouche: And people who can not afford to carry that kind of a mortgage are taking these places, because that's what they can get. Now, if this thing collapses, as it will, these people are in trouble, and if it goes down, all those things that are based on mortgage-based securities, go into a collapse. Like LTCM in 1998. Same kind of thing. It's leveraged investments; it becomes a big bubble; it's bloated. Sooner or later, one of these bubbles blows, and then all the bubbles, start to blow.

Brown: Now, let me let my listeners know that certainly this is, I think, your eighth attempt at the White House. You are about 80 years old. Do you think that your tenacity, and your persistent diligence, whatever, pay off for you?

LaRouche: Well, sure. I've been right along, but I've been warning that this is coming. I've been campaigning, saying, this is coming, along with some crazy war policies of some idiots, and warning against it. I've always been right. But, people go to a state of denial. They say, "Well, no, he's wrong. It can't be true. They won't let it happen." The famous phrase, "They won't let it happen." Who's "They"? Well, that's a good question.

No, we've come to the point that it is happening. Now, people who've been up in the grandstand, cheering for the gladiators in the arena, are now finding out, they're the guy in the arena. And they have to start voting for themselves, not for some favorite movie star.

Brown: Now, you say, the lack of interest you're getting the mainstream media, despite your grassroots popular support, obviously, from your campaign contributions, from the average Joe, so to speak, is evidence, and should raise questions about corruption in the media. Can you explain that for us?

LaRouche: Well, it is corruption in a sense, but let's call it for what it is, rather than just trying to describe it. What you have is the major media are controlled by major financier interests. These interests are not just U.S., they're international. These international financial interests are deadly afraid of me, would do almost anything--and they did try to kill me a couple of times--would do almost anything to prevent my getting near power.

Brown: Did I hear you right, Mr. LaRouche? You said there have been several attempts on your life? By these interests?

LaRouche: Oh sure, we have the case in 1973, goes back that early. The FBI memorandum--Washington and New York. They have a plan to have me eliminated, by using the Communist Party thugs to do it.

Then you have in 1986, parked on my front lawn, so to speak, over 400 Federal agents, coming in, ready to shoot. And they would have come in overnight, except the White House told them to stop it.

Brown: And you're saying that the reason why certain people are afraid of you, and it certainly seems that the government is, is because you're telling the truth here.

LaRouche: Well, it's more than that--that's part of it. But the fact is that they're afraid of me. And they know that under conditions--that I'm a sort of a Franklin Roosevelt man, in a sense. That, when faced with a crisis of the type we have now, my belief is, the government's first job is to defend the people, and the sovereignty of the nation first, and then deal with the claims of the bankers, later. That's what--they don't like that.

Brown: Yes, sir. Now, getting back to how much money you've raised so far for your campaign, approximately $6.7 million. Where is the money coming from?

LaRouche: From people, ordinary people. There are no big pockets. I don't have any trace of big pockets anywhere in my funding. It's all ordinary people.

Brown: Now, why do you think you have such broad popular support?

LaRouche: Because I'm known for a long period of time, and despite the appearance that might be projected by the news media coverage of me, actually I'm well known in the base of the population, especially in certain layers. And they just, at times when something happens--. Look, you know, we won a big election, state election, in Illinois in 1986. We've won a lot of elections. We won the Houston Democratic leadership for a while. So, we've had a lot of victories of this type. I am well known in the population. Not everybody, but a lot of people, and people know what I stand for. So, it happens, time comes, people come back to turn out to support me. Time comes, they're not out to support me. This is the way things go in life.

Brown: Let me ask you this, Mr. LaRouche. Now, I was looking at CNN this morning, and I was looking at an advertisement that is currently running, I think on the Internet with President Bush. What do you think about the President's ads, which appear to use 9-11 images to get re-elected?

LaRouche: That is disgusting. It's disgusting, but look, from Bush himself, the poor guy is not, he's not our most brilliant guy. He's sort of an intellectually challenged guy.

Brown: He's not the sharpest egg in the carton, is he?

LaRouche: No. He may smell a little bit, but there's no sharpness there. And he's been a puppet, largely, for people like Cheney's crowd. And that's been our problem. But he's nothing. He shouldn't be President. He's not qualified for dog-catcher--I have that from the dogs, I think.

Brown: And, by the way, let me ask you this question. You are going to be on the Presidential primary ballot here in Louisiana come Tuesday. What is your message to Louisiana residents?

LaRouche: That we are in a crisis. The financial system is collapsing. It's been collapsing for a long time. Now, we've come to the end of the trolley line, and we've got to decide what you're going to do next.

Now, what we're down to is this: You're down to only two leading candidates who are in the picture. Sharpton's still in, but he's in there for delegates, not for winning the nomination.

Brown: That's exactly right.

LaRouche: So, therefore, what you're down to is two leading candidates.

Brown: Let me abreast you of this situation: Sharpton is not even on the Presidential primary ballot here in Louisiana.

LaRouche: I know, in some cases. He has limited resources, what do you expect?

Brown: Well, he didn't fill out his form properly, certainly according to the people down in Baton Rouge, and he didn't send a proper check--I think he sent a campaign check, and they needed a money-order. So, it was trivial, but in any event, I think he has a law suit pending right now, trying to get that corrected.

LaRouche: I talked to him on the way to Augusta, on the plane. We were both coming from Los Angeles to Augusta, Georgia. We just had some brief discussion on this sort of thing. And he also said openly at Augusta, what he stands for, what he's trying to do. And that's what he's doing and that's all fine. But he doesn't have much of a campaign machine.

Brown: Well, I want to thank you for being with us this morning. And your final word to residents here in Louisiana, who'll be going to the polls on Tuesday?

LaRouche: We're going to have to fight. We're going to have to fight from now on, not only between Kerry and me, but to make sure we get the machine going, so that we win in November.

Brown: Okay, I want to thank you for joining us.