The Prisoner and the Podcasters

“I want you to understand what it means to lose your freedom.”

He said that five times in a speech to a Bitcoin conference. He gave it over a collect call from a maximum security penitentiary.

Every few minutes an automated voice cut in over him:

This call is from a federal prison.

He told them about the hole…

He once spent four months straight in there. He had air… stale and foul, but air. Food through a slot in the door. Other than that, it was just a lifeless hole.

And the hole wasn't the worst of it. It was the knowing that even once you're out of the hole, you're still not free… and you never will be again.

He was given two life sentences plus 40 years, with no chance for parole.

This is hell.

You can't even escape it in your dreams, when you sleep…

In the dream I was free. I was in a park, and I felt this huge relief… and then the anxiety just woke me up. And there I was again, in the hole… Life without parole. Maximum security. There's no end in sight.

He knew what talking to that crowd might cost him. He told them so.

I'm afraid that because of what I'm saying to you today, I'll be thrown in the hole, or worse.

He was right. That's exactly what they did.

His name is Ross Ulbricht.

---

On the night of September 10th, 2026, an arena in Dallas went silent. One year to the day since Charlie Kirk was assassinated.

One seat was left empty. An American flag was draped across it, and a white card sat on the chair:

Saved for Charlie.

They played a five-minute video of him, and the whole arena stopped talking.

Then they started chanting his name.

Charlie! Charlie! Charlie!

Charlie was a big part of why Ross was free. He never took credit for it.

The morning after Charlie was killed, Ross told the world.

After the 2024 election, Trump asked Charlie what the number one thing he could do for him was. Charlie said: "Free Ross."

At 31, my life was taken from me for standing up for what I believed in. And Charlie helped me get it back.

Less than an hour after the crowd chanted Charlie's name, Ross took the stage.

When you are in prison, there is a certain sound that a steel door makes when it closes behind you and you are locked inside. I heard that sound every day for over 11 years.

Five years ago, he told a crowd of libertarians and Bitcoiners what it means to lose your freedom… over a prison phone.

Now he was telling an arena full of Republicans… as a free man.

He thanked the man who freed him:

Thank you, Mr. President. You gave me my life back, sir.

He meant it. You can hear him choking back tears.

Trump had made a promise at the Libertarian National Convention in 2024… to a crowd that booed him from the moment he walked out. Some turned their backs on him. People held up signs:

Free Ross

He told them that if they voted for him, on Day 1, he would commute Ross's sentence to time served.

For one line, the room cheered… then they went back to jeering.

Trump kept the promise. More than that… he didn't just commute the sentence, he granted Ross a full pardon on his second day in office.

He didn't need the libertarians anymore. He'd already won. He did it anyway.

When he signed the pardon, he called Ross's mother, and said he'd done it "in honor of her and the Libertarian Movement." Then he posted that the people who convicted Ross were "some of the same lunatics" behind the weaponization of government against him.

He wasn't just letting a man out of prison. He was telling Ross and every libertarian who fought for him: we're in this together.

Ross understood:

He felt compassion for me because he, too, was a target of a weaponized government.

Then he brought up his fellow libertarians.

Now, sometimes I hear from the very people he made that campaign promise to… that after he freed me, he lost focus on the cause of liberty.

Ross is being generous with the word "sometimes." The truth is, many of the biggest libertarian influencers have their knives out for the one man who actually freed him… and for the coalition that stood behind him.

And look… some of their anger is earned. I'll get to that.

The night Ross walked free in January 2025, the Libertarian Party's 2024 presidential nominee, Chase Oliver, refused to thank Trump for it. Trump, he wrote, had "prioritized renaming the Gulf of Mexico over his Day 1 promise."

The pardon came one day late.

A year and a half later, on the morning of Ross's speech, the Libertarian Party's official account called Trump a "true Communist."

Even Dave Smith, who played a critical role in getting Ross freed. Two days after Massie lost his primary, he went on a panel show and declared war:

Now, I'm just one guy, but I am fairly influential with some of the most influential people in this country… You've made an enemy out of the libertarians, and now enjoy.

Four months later, on his podcast he played a clip of Ted Cruz saying Republicans need libertarians to show up in November. His answer:

So, sorry Ted, we will not be coming out for you. You cannot count on libertarians in droves to save the Republicans in the midterms. I have a feeling you guys are going down.

He told you himself: he's influential, and he knows it. That's a flex.

Dave has a giant audience, that's true… but he's mistaking it for power.

That audience couldn't save Massie, who lost by ten points. It couldn't free Ross without Trump… it couldn't even win Clint Russell the Libertarian VP nomination… and the only thing it can do now is help the Progressive coalition win.

Whether he means to or not, that's what he's doing.

So is Clint.

That same night, a few hours after Ross spoke, Trump joked from that same stage that if you don't vote, "you go to hell." Clint's reply:

We're already in hell and I fully intend to take the GOP with me.

Ross knows what hell is.

In 2021, Clint sat down with Ross's mother, Lyn, for an episode called "Free Ross!!!" He called it the most important episode he'd ever done.

Five years later, Ross stood in an arena and answered the libertarians himself.

Clint hasn't said a word about it on his show. Neither has Dave. I checked. I went through every episode either of them has put out since Ross's speech.

As far as they're concerned, it never happened.

And on September 25th, still angry about Massie, Clint posted this to the Republicans:

…we're gonna make it very clear that you can't win without us. Fuck. All of. You.

"All of you" includes Ross now, Clint.

Think about what that means. If Dave and Clint get their way, the coalition that freed Ross loses power in November… and it goes to the party that put him in that cell.

Back in June, I asked this question in "The Thomas Massie Problem":

I cannot stop wondering what Ross thinks of these supporters right now. What does the man getting his life back think of his loudest defenders trying to destroy the man who gave it to him? … They know whose signature is on the pardon.

Now I have my answer.

Ross is standing right beside the man who signed it.

And to the people who say Trump lost focus on liberty, Ross answered them:

That's not true. It's just easy to miss all of his wins for liberty among the torrent of headlines out there.

Then he listed them:

Hundreds of ordinary Americans pardoned, people you've never heard of.

The government pushed banks to debank Americans for what they believed, or where they shopped… or for using Bitcoin. People lost their businesses not for breaking a law, but for being the wrong sort of citizen.

Gun dealers who lost their licenses over paperwork, back in business.

Veterans with severe trauma, finally allowed medicine the government had criminalized for half a century.

Social media companies no longer pressured by the federal government to silence Americans for what they say online.

Parents who spoke up at school board meetings no longer treated like terrorists.

This is practically a libertarian wish list, and almost nobody's talking about it… least of all, the libertarian podcasters.

He ended his speech like this:

I stand here tonight a free man and you are free Americans. And that is thanks to him.

---

So here we are, libertarians. You have a choice to make this November.

I'm not going to sit here and lecture you about Trump. He's done some things I can't defend. I'm not going to tell you you're wrong about Iran. Or the spending.

You were courted in 2024. You showed up.

And then Trump went and did some very unlibertarian things. You got a war you didn't want. A spending bill that makes you sick…

And then your favorite congressman, the most principled libertarian in Congress, got taken out.

You felt like you were being told to see yourselves out.

I get it. I'd be angry too. You're even right about a lot of it.

But being right was never your problem.

Power is what makes ideas matter. Without power, you don't have ideas… you have a hobby.

Ross is the proof. More than a decade of being right didn't open his cell. Power did.

I don't want you to lose anymore. I want you to win. Ross is what winning looks like. It's ugly… it's not perfect… far from it, but it's real. He's free.

Back in May, I gave you a test:

The libertarian test is the simplest possible question. Are you going to help Trump in the midterms or not?

Are you going to swallow your pride and vote Republican in your district? Or are you going to perform purity, vote third party, sit it out, and let the progressives take Congress back?

That is the test. The jokers will fail it. The serious libertarians will pass it.

Which one are you?

I'll be honest… I was worried Ross would fail. He's a libertarian, after all. They're loyal to principles, not people… and Trump is no libertarian.

He passed. Even with the loudest voices in his corner telling everyone Trump had betrayed them.

Now it's your turn.

One coalition put Ross in a cage he was never supposed to leave alive. The other set him free.

One saved Charlie a seat. You saw what the other did.

Ross is you. Charlie is you.

On November 3rd, stand beside Ross, with the coalition that freed him.

Vote Republican for your House seat. Especially if it hurts.

“I want you to understand what it means to lose your freedom.”

stay close,
~ Clay

p.s. The day before this piece went public, a fan asked Dave about Ross's speech. His answer: "Haven't watched it… I saw a brief clip, I respectfully disagree."