Jesse Ventura was blacklisted by the WWE for attempting to unionize his pro wrestling colleagues. As Governor of Minnesota, he defied the U.S. embargo on Cuba in 2002 for a visit to Havana’s Food an Agribusiness Exhibition. As a third-party candidate, he beat the Democratic and Republican nominees to become the Governor of Minnesota in 1998. We’re lucky enough to have him on KK&F for Episode 85 for a riveting conversation about his years of political struggle, the cause of building a third party, and how Trump morphed into a WWE villain. Watch below:

In our exclusive interview with Ventura, he takes us through his journey as an antiwar advocate, from his family history and his career in the Navy during the Vietnam War to his protest of the draft. Ventura’s opposition to the draft arose from a class-based analysis of its great inequality: rich kids went to college and racked up national debt, while poor kids went to die in the wars.

You pay taxes, don’t you? Then you have a right to know what your taxes are being spent on. End of story.

— Jesse Ventura

With Ventura as our guide, we also learn about the exploitation of the wrestling world, starting its story with its beginnings at carnivals (“beating up the local tough guy”) to its formalization as a major, regionalized sport. Ventura, of course, rose to become a major, widely renowned wrestler, and he explains how wrestlers like him brought significant attention to Saturday night wrestling. But as we know from his legacy as an organizer within the wrestling community, Ventura brought attention to the unfair contracts and compensation that he and his fellow wrestlers received. It’s yet another example of how this true firebrand — within American politics and beyond — has rejected the status quo and shared his contagious belief that a better world is possible for all of us.

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