Jan Jekielek is a senior editor with The Epoch Times, host of the show “American Thought Leaders” and co-host of “FALLOUT” with Dr. Robert Malone and “Kash’s Corner” with Kash Patel. Jan’s career has spanned academia, international human rights work, and now for almost two decades, media. He has interviewed nearly a thousand thought leaders on camera, and specializes in long-form discussions challenging the grand narratives of our time. He’s also an award-winning documentary filmmaker, producing “The Unseen Crisis: Vaccine Stories You Were Never Told,” “DeSantis: Florida vs. Lockdowns,” and “Finding Manny.”

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This episode will premiere on Dec. 6, 2025, at 5 p.m. ET.

[RUSH TRANSCRIPT BELOW] “I’ve been fighting communism by teaching capitalism,” says Robert Kiyosaki, holding up a copy of Karl Marx’s “Communist Manifesto” and a copy of his book “The Capitalist Manifesto.”

Robert Kiyosaki became famous as the author of “Rich Dad Poor Dad,” a book that has sold 48 million copies worldwide since its 1997 publication.

Kiyosaki maintains that in today’s America, plagued by high inflation and a crumbling dollar, rich dads are getting ever richer while poor dads are getting poorer:

“Food gets up in price, but the poor and middle class have to pay for it. So my apartment houses go up, but the poor middle class go homeless. And that’s the seed of communism, that’s the seed of revolt,” he says.

In this episode, we dive into what he sees as the roots of America’s economic woes and what young people can do in today’s economy to build wealth and prosperity.

Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of NTD.
RUSH TRANSCRIPT
Jan Jekielek:

Robert Kiyosaki, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders.

It’s my honor, my honor. I mean, I love what The Epoch Times is doing. I’m so honored to be part of your program. So let’s go back real quickly. When I was 18-years-old, I read this book here, the Communist Manifesto. I was living in Hawaii. Then I went to school in New York; I went to military school. My economics teacher said, you have to read this book. I went, why? He said, because you must know your enemy.

I went to Kings Point. My economics teacher went to West Point. He flew a B-17 in World War II, got shot down, captured, all this stuff. He said, these guys are not stopping. I went, holy mackerel. So I wrote this book here, The Capitalist Manifesto. Marx was an academic type, a pointy-headed guy. And our school systems are teaching Marxism.

I just happened to find this. This is my hat from Vietnam. I was a Marine Corps First Lieutenant. That was my gunship driver. Our call sign was Scarface. In 1972, I was at the Battle of Quang Tri when the North Vietnamese busted through. I was going, so we’re gunship pilots going in. We couldn’t stop them. The communists were coming through. I was going, oh, my God, what’s happening here? We lost so many men that day.

The worst thing was the North Vietnamese were running. They carried the AK-47 and they ran like this. I was a U.S. Marine and they were defending themselves. The South Vietnamese turned and ran. Gone. When I saw the South Vietnamese turn and run, it was one of the saddest days of my life. Ever since then, I’ve been fighting communism by teaching capitalism.

Well, you could imagine I was surprised when you came in the door with the Communist Manifesto.

It’s worth reading. You know, the average American has no idea, and that’s the problem. I have the good fortune or bad fortune to be in the right place at the wrong time, like the Battle of Quang Tri, you know, when the North Vietnamese broke through.

Well, and thank you for your service, by the way.

Oh, thank you. It’s worth fighting for. Our freedom is worth fighting for. So when they broke through, I went, what am I seeing here? When I was 18 or 19-years-old, I held up a coin, 1965. A silver dollar was no longer silver; it was copper. What they were doing, the U.S. government, was violating Gresham’s Law. Gresham’s Law says when bad money enters a system, good money goes into hiding. I wondered, what the heck’s going on here?

So in 1965, as an 18-year-old kid, I went to school, a military school. I read this book, and I saw our currency, our dollars going down. We used to be a silver certificate; now we’re a Federal Reserve note. As most people know, there’s a big movement to end the Fed, the Federal Reserve Bank, because it’s not federal, it’s not a reserve, and it’s not a bank.

It’s a Marxist organization. It’s a central bank. In 1912 or 1913, when the Fed came to America, it was the end of America. Our freedom is being stolen via our money. You said you had to run from your parents. Was it you or your parents who ran from Poland?

My parents actually left Poland in 1970.

Yes, 1970. People haven’t seen communism. The problem is our school system; communists, our academics, I mean, our professors, were attacked by 39 professors at Arizona State University. I think it’s the fourth or fifth largest university in America. I was teaching capitalism and they said, stop. I respect The Epoch Times for your fight against communism, Marxism, because I’m still in the fight. I just fight as an author, though, and I have a board game and all this. I teach capitalism, but our schools are taught by Marxists.

Before we jump into dealing with our fraught economy, how to actually build wealth as a young person today, all these types of questions, you also told me that you were actually in Zimbabwe. Tell me about that.

Yes, Zimbabwe. Because I was a student of money, I’m a politically incorrect hunter. I was out in Zimbabwe, I think in 2000, 2002, and I was there for the collapse of Zimbabwe because they printed too much money. Remember they had like a $25 trillion bill that couldn’t buy you an egg? They kept printing money. I went, holy mackerel, and Zimbabwe collapsed. America is doing the same thing. We’re now $38 trillion in debt and climbing because of the Federal Reserve Bank, which is Marxist.

So I’m in Zimbabwe watching this collapse. I thought I was back in Vietnam again. I was already back from Vietnam. I’m in a truck. I’m a hunter. When the economy collapsed in Zimbabwe, they called them war vets. These young black guys came up with AK-47s. I went and put the gun right here. They took everything. They took the farm. They took it all. They called it reparations.

So I just went back this year, 2025, to teach my cash flow game. The Zimbabwe Economic Council asked me to teach money to Zimbabwe through the cash flow game. It was such an honor to go back there. I’m writing a new book called, I Kept My Promise. I said, I’ll return, I’ll come back and I’ll teach. But I’ve seen too much.

Zimbabwe was such a wake-up call. Quang Tri was such a wake-up call. At 18, going to military school, reading this book and then holding up a coin at 18 going, what is our money? Why are our silver coins copper now? They were stealing our wealth via our money. That’s what happens when central banks take over.

Well, I think we’re not quite there yet. Not this sort of hyperinflation. I remember seeing that. It was just something, it was kind of unimaginable, the level at which it was growing. Even as a lot younger, I saw that as being hugely problematic. But how do we deal with $38 trillion in debt?

We can’t. So that’s why one of the questions we’re talking about before this program started. That’s why I own gold mines and I own silver coins because they can’t print gold and they can’t print silver. I own a lot of Bitcoin, Ethereum. I want to get away from my government as much as I can. I hate to say this, but the U.S. government is corrupt.

My friend here is Donald Trump. We’ve written two books together, and then he became president. We were supposed to write the third book. He goes, hey, Robert, I can’t write the third book. I’m going to run for president. I said, good luck. It’s just amazing that he keeps going. But we got together to teach money, to teach financial education. Our school systems stop us. It’s in academics, exactly what Marx believed: the intellectuals should run the world. People like my poor dad, PhDs, think they’re superior to all of us. Just because they went to school and got a PhD, they think they’re smarter than you and me.

You know, as we were preparing for this interview, one of my producers mentioned to me that she first heard about you when her father told her, I’m the poor dad, actually, and you should learn how to, you know, you should learn the rich dad principles. But things have changed since you wrote that book.

It’s gotten worse.

So, where are we at today? What is the situation for young people or for their parents or grandparents who want to help them basically be successful today?

Well, the question I start with is, what did school teach you about money? It’s because our school system is Marxist. They’re like my poor dad. They’re good people. They just don’t know. Their whole value system is, I’m a straight-A student. I got my PhD, or I’m a doctor, I’m an accountant, I’m an attorney. I’m smart, but they don’t know anything about money. One of the things that this guy talked about here was income tax. He said that Marx said taxes are essential for the spread of communism.

Now, think about this. America was founded as a tax-free nation. In 1773, there was a thing called the Boston Tea Party. America was founded as a tax revolt against mother England. In 1913, I think, to my mind, an old man now, when the Fed came in, the next thing formed was the 16th Amendment, which allowed taxes to come back into America.

What’s happening, as you can see, is the gap between rich and poor is getting wider and wider and wider. Every time you print money, fake money, fiat money, I get richer, the rich get richer, and the poor middle class get poorer because inflation sends my prices up. I have oil wells because you can’t print oil. The price of oil goes up, the price of chickens goes up, food goes up, and real estate goes up. But when mom and pop go to the supermarket, they go, what? I can’t afford to eat anymore.

So I could think Marx wanted this gap between rich and poor. In fact, that was his plan. As he just studied Marx, he said he wanted equality. He said the way you destroy anybody is you pull the poor up, but you pull the rich down, and that’s what Marx was trying to do. I see all that going on right now.

Today, I’ve never seen such homelessness spreading all across the world, but also in America. I’ve seen homelessness in Africa and things like this. But we’re in Phoenix, Arizona, right now. We have whole zones full of homeless people because they can’t afford real estate. Their dollar doesn’t pay much.

So that’s why I started when I saw in Vietnam, when the North Vietnamese punched through the line. Again, this is my squadron here, and I’m very proud to be a U.S. Marine and gunship pilot. And they kept coming. And then they were running like this with their AKs this way. And a few years later, I’m in Zimbabwe, doing the same thing, going, it’s repeating. It’s just repeating.

And just to clarify, with Marx’s intention, the way I understand it, what you said was very interesting, right? What I understand is he was trying to increase that division, right, between the rich and the poor so there would be struggle. Did I get that right?

He wanted to bring the poor up and the rich down. You know, his thing was to take away the means of—he wanted to control the means of production. That’s what he wanted. And he says the abolition of private property is what Marx wanted. And this guy, what was his name? I forget his name. Someday you’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy.

But the situation that you described is one where the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. So they’re separating from each other, not coming together. Can you clarify that?

Well, when you print money, I get richer because I own real estate. I own oil wells. I own cattle. You know, food goes up in price. But the poor middle class have to pay for it, so my apartment houses go up, but the poor middle class go homeless. That’s the seeds of communism; that’s the seed of revolt. You know, that was the Russian Revolution—Lenin and Stalin. It’s happening all again, and the way this was so stupid that only an intellectual from a U.S. university or a school would believe this crap. Oh yeah, that’s a good idea. Yeah, it was a good idea, but the only way they could enforce this was by force.

So you look at what happened in China—they had to use force to get the people to comply with this stupid man’s ideas, with his ideological ideas in Russia. They had to use force to get them to comply. So that’s the Falun Gong and all this stuff; they suppress people because Marx wanted everybody to be equal: pull the rich down, pull the poor up. People actually believed that idea, but his primary idea was that intellectuals should tell the world how to live. Those are called the liberal Left.

And to achieve that revolution, he wanted to destabilize society.

Well, you destabilize it by taking the currency. You make the currency fake. And that’s what happened when the Federal Reserve Bank came in 1913, I think. At the same time, the 16th Amendment was passed, which was taxes. And America was founded as a tax-free nation in 1773. It wasn’t founded in 1776; it was founded in 1773 with the Boston Tea Party. And now everybody says, well, you have to pay your taxes. You have to pay your taxes.

I’m a capitalist. I pay zero taxes legally. I fight like a dog. I refuse to play that game because what those taxes are used for is to create wars. You know, that’s how we finance our wars. It’s tragic what’s happening. It’s absolutely tragic.

And I fought in war. I didn’t like doing it. But I realized Marx was like my poor dad, head of the labor union. And my poor dad, what Marx said was, workers of the labor union. And my poor dad, what Marx said was, workers of the world unite.

So I go home to my high school; my poor dad’s head of the teacher’s union: workers of the world unite. That sounds familiar. Today, the NEA, National Education Association, the National Extortion Association, is the most powerful labor union in America. And they control our government because this is what talks here. We’ve got to fight back.

So that’s why when I heard that The Epoch Times, you guys were coming to interview me, I said, what an honor because I’ve been in the same battle you’ve been battling. I fight these guys here. And that’s why I wrote this book here. And that’s why my friend here, Donald Trump, and I fight together for financial education.

So what is the best financial advice right now, given our current reality for the typical young person who, you know, many of whom are wondering what their future is going to look like? They’re wondering, could I even afford a house? Could I even—how do I get into getting assets like Robert Kiyosaki has suggested in his books, if they’re familiar with Rich Dad, Poor Dad? Where do we start with providing that advice and education?

May I give you a long answer to a short question? In 1974, I was getting out of the Marine Corps, and the government passed a thing called ERISA, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. I said, what does that mean? Well, I entered the government; it says income security, you know, it’s fake.

It started the 401k and the IRA [Individual Retirement Account]. That shift in 1974 was that workers shifted from a defined benefit pension plan, a DB pension plan, to a defined contribution pension plan, a DC pension plan. So defined benefit was like if I worked for today, I worked for the Ford Motor Company, I’d have a defined benefit plan; my retirement was guaranteed. The 401k or ERISA put in place a defined contribution pension plan. That means if there was nothing there, you have no retirement.

So my tariff, I just feel horrible; my generation of boomers, they’re going to have the rug pulled out from underneath them because when this market comes down—which it is coming down now—they have no retirement because everything is put in 401ks, ETFs [Exchage-Traded Funds], IRAs—all that crap, bonds.

You know, when my financial plan friends say bonds are safe, that is the biggest lie I’ve ever heard. You know, bonds aren’t safe. China and Japan are dumping U.S. bonds right now. What about gold? What about silver? What about oil? What about cattle? What about some—what about real estate? Do you know what I mean?

Because I read this book here, in 1965, I was 18-years-old, I said, I better start thinking differently. But my rich dad, which is why I wrote this book here, agreed wholeheartedly with this book. He says, your poor dad is a good man. He says, we should give people money. We should take care of them. Well, that’s honorable. I want to teach them. That’s why I wrote this book here. I want to teach people to fish vs. how to steal fish. And that’s what the liberal Left is doing. They’re stealing our wealth, our money.

So where does that leave the typical young person today?

Well, get financial education. I don’t plug my own stuff; I have a board game called Cashflow.

Well, you know, this is why I’ve come here to you, right? Like we need good advice for all of us. I mean, I need it, frankly—not just the young people. So how do we educate ourselves? You mentioned one thing very clearly—that you want to have tangible assets that appreciate.

Yes, the reason I created the cash flow board game when I was 10 years old, I kept asking, Dad, what am I going to learn about money? He says, we don’t teach school about money. Then I realized he didn’t think about money. I said, well, how do I get rich? He says, if you stay in school, get your PhD. I said, Dad, you have a PhD; we’re poor. Do you mean most PhDs are poor? He says, then you better talk to your best friend’s father. That was rich dad. And rich dad was a man who had never finished school. He dropped out of school at age 13.

So I went to see my rich dad. And I said, would you teach me about money? He said, get out of here. I said, get out of here? You’re wasting my time. I said, I’ll do anything. He says, you work for me for free. So I had to work at rich dad-owned hotels. So I had to go there, pick up cigarette butts and all that, and work for free. And I’d sit down. And he said, OK, I’ll teach you about money. And he’d break out the Monopoly game, and we played Monopoly, four green houses and a red hotel.

Guess what? I own green houses and red hotels today. I was 10-years-old, and it was in my brain. I said, that’s how I get rich. I’m not saying you have to buy real estate. I created the Cashflow board game because the power of a game is better than a teacher. A game includes four intelligences: mental—you’ve got to move stuff around, emotional, and spiritual.When you lose in a game, losing is good because you want to fight back.

So there are four intelligences in the game: mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual. Like you go to a golf course, can I learn how to play golf? Yes, but you can’t use golf clubs. That’s what schools are like. Can you imagine this?

You’ve hit the ball 500 yards, and it’s a hole-in-one. You’ve hit a hole-in-one every single time. That’s academics. That’s PhDs. I sat there and said, you guys live in la-la land. And those la-la land guys are Marxists. They’re exactly as Marx said; it’s intellectuals who should run the world.

Let’s say you’re a young person today. You’ve just finished, let’s say, high school. You’re considering maybe the trades because they’re becoming fashionable again. You know, there’s this whole big thing against trades for a while. You’re considering university, and you don’t have a lot of money. Your parents are, you know, poor dad style, right? For whatever reason, maybe just down and out. Maybe they tried. What’s your next step?

I’ll just tell you what my rich dad told me. I’m kind of like the Marine Corps. Like I said, you know I’m a pilot, and so my friends were all enjoying the airlines, and my poor dad was so happy to go fly for you, that fly for American Airlines and then get your PhD. I said, that’s it. Then he goes, I went to my rich dad, and he says, how do I get rich?

He says, be an entrepreneur. I’m like, so how long did it take you to become a pilot? I said, two years. Same thing; you need the skills of an entrepreneur. So I said, what’s that? He said, skill number one of an entrepreneur, right? You have to sell.

I went, oh my God, because my poor dad’s family hated salesmen. They hated salesmen. No, I don’t want to sell, please, to my rich dad, please. I can’t sell. My mom and dad hate salesmen. You know, they think they’re crooks, they’re liars, they’re scum, and all this.

I said, he asked me for my advice. You have to learn how to sell. Oh no, I’m about 27-years-old. No, anything but that. He says, Robert, how’s your sex life? I said, zero. He says, because you can’t sell. I said, okay, I’ll do it. I’ll learn how to sell.

So then my next job was to go find a job that paid me to learn how to sell. And so I got down to interviewing with two companies, finally IBM and Xerox. And so the only thing I asked them about wasn’t the pay. I said, tell me about your sales school. So today, you can get that same, similar sales training in network marketing. You go to a network marketing company like Amway or stuff like this; they have to train you to sell, and they’ll coach you. If you fail, they’ll coach you. So I had to learn how to sell. And then that was number one.

The second was after I was selling, rich dad says, so what’s the next thing? He says you have to learn how to use debt, and in my poor dad’s family, you know, debt is a trap. You know, it’s dangerous, and rich dad says, you just came back from Vietnam. The U.S. dollar is debt. Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard; this is 1974. So in 1971, the dollar is now debt. He says you’ve got to learn how to use debt.

As I said before, the more debt they print, the rich get richer, and the poor and middle class get poorer. So this gap between everybody is so wide today. So I said, how do I learn how to use debt? He says, take a class on real estate. So I’m searching around, and I found one: how to make millions in real estate with nothing down. You know, it’s hype; this is TV time before YouTube.

So I signed up for this nothing-down course. It was really good; this guy was a real estate investor, and for three days he taught me how to use debt and all this debt financing. And I said, okay, I did three; now what do I have to do? This was the best advice. He says, most guys will leave this course and do nothing. He says your job in the next 100 days is to look at 100 deals. What he says you got to get to the real world.

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