Andrew Schulz's Flagrant with Akaash Singh - Did Trump Betray His Voters? Feat: Pod Save America & Ro Khanna

Episode Date: July 15, 2025

YERRR – this week’s episode is politics turned all the way up. First, the guys from Pod Save America pulled up to chop it up on the chaos in D.C. Then Congressman Ro Khanna slid through to break down what’s actually getting done in Washington with his new Senate Bill about releasing the Epstein files, and his idea for the future of the Democratic Party. All that and more on this week’s episode of FLAGRANT. INDULGE. 00:00 It's all our fault + Just being right 3:35 Andrew's not in one of your cults 7:48 No regrets + We changed politics 10:53 Pod Save America joins us + Building a coalition 13:52 Epstein is bigger than we think 18:08 Trump's base won't let this go 20:31 Holding your Party accountable 24:49 Leadership = OLD, Trump flip-flops + Winning news cycle 28:40 Dems have to offer a better alternative 30:57 Rise of Mamdani + Can it be implemented? 33:51 New York Mayor race ain't over 38:40 Criticizing Israel isn't antisemitism + Awful optics 45:20 Grifting on both sides + Allowing for "redemption" 51:47 Getting back to Obama politics + Harder Messaging 54:23 Who do you want to run? An outsider? 58:57 Fun Obama story 1:00:23 Poirier send off or 1 more fight? 1:03:15 Ro Khanna joins us + Whose side are you on? 1:07:29 What is the amendment? Who exactly could block this? 1:11:08 Releasing files sets precedent + Reforming is HARD 1:14:22 Needing SuperPACs = problem in our system 1:20:54 Kamala could never win + Call out the old guard 1:25:34 Dismissing Epstein files as conspiracy 1:30:27 No fair Democrat primaries + Gaza's importance 1:34:24 Lacking self-reflection + Politeness over accountability 1:40:15 Party's priorities + Hope in the outsider 1:48:14 Dems targeting Mamdani rather than Big Beautiful Bill 1:55:00 Courage to rebel + Views on Gavin Newsom Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up everybody? Apparently we ruined America. You know, we were trying to hold the person in power, President Trump, accountable for not fulfilling some of his promises. And that was foolish, man. You're an idiot, dude. You're a bad person. That was a foolish thing to do. Once you vote for somebody, no matter what they do, even if it's the exact opposite of what they say they're going to do, you just ride that until the wheels fall off. Yes, double down. Exactly. Always double down. Like if you vote for a guy that you know is dead until the wheels fall off. Yes, double down. Exactly. Always double down. Like if you vote for a guy that you know is dead, you pretend he's not dead for four years.

Exactly. That's what makes you virtuous. Absolutely. That's what makes you care about your country. Pick a side, man. Pick a side and you die for that side. You know, so that's, you know, that was a big fuck up of ours. That was a big fuck up, man.

We just kind of wanted to know about Epstein, you know, victimizing a thousand girls and who else he did it with. We just kind of wanted to know. And Trump was like,, victimizing a thousand girls and who else he did it with. We just kind of wanted to know. And Trump was like, you're not gonna know. And we're like, I don't like that. Yeah, but that's our fault. Yeah, that's being a bad American. But we're being bad Americans right there. A good American says, yes, yes, T Daddy, thank you so much. Damn.

And I have some more. That's what he's supposed to say. That's what a good American says. But because a bad American would be like, yo, you said you were gonna end these wars, and we're still just blowing up places we don't want to blow up anymore. No, no, no. But what would a good American do? You just say, oh, thank you so much. Can I have another one?

Oh, my gosh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what you said. I should go there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. OK, so a bad American would be like, wait, wait, wait. You said you were going to lower the deficit,

but right now we're just increasing the price. Yes, bro. That's what you voted for. That's what you voted for. If you vote for that, then you've got to stick with that the whole way through, no matter what. Really? Yes, exactly. Oh, bro. That's what you voted for. That's what you voted for. If you vote for that, then you got to stick with that the whole way through, no matter what. Really? Yes, exactly.

Oh, wow. That doesn't seem very democratic at all. No. Well, good Democrat, if somebody wants to change their mind on Donald Trump, says, no, you're not allowed to. And instead of wondering what maybe made you vote for him, you just say, you're stupid, you're a bad person, we don't change anything. Oh, that's... We're perfect. Because I figured what they would want to do is maybe win the midterms. Oh, no, no, no, no.

Or maybe even win the election. But you don't want to win, you want to be right, just on Twitter. So just right, right now. Yeah, on Twitter for five minutes. The most selfish thing that they could possibly be. Yeah, yeah. So only them. Just get some clicks and views.

Of course, because you don't actually have to care about like what the state of America is. It's not like we live in a democracy where you lost and you actually need people that are disillusioned to go on your side. Yeah, so you gotta go to the party that just doesn't have primaries for candidates. I get it, I get it. And if you're upset by that, you love Trump and everything he did and every lie he tells. That's a great point.

That's your problem. That's a great point. You don't want to hold them accountable or get disillusioned by them, it makes you a bad person. That's a great point. I know, you know what I should have done? You don't want to hold them accountable or get disillusioned by them and make them bankers. That's a great point. You know what I should have done? If I wanted to vote for somebody who was going to end the foreign wars, who was going to

increase the budget, and who was going to just silence the Epstein files and throw it away, I should have just voted for Kamala, right? Because she was going to do that. And that's what had been happening for the past four years. And that's what was happening. And she said she was going to continue. So I should have just voted for Kamala, right? Because she was gonna do that. And that's what had been happening. And that's what was happening. And she said she was gonna continue. So I should have just voted for that. Exactly, because you were happy with the status quo. Yeah, well, no, I wanted something different.

I was hoping for some sort of change. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Then you should have voted for Kamala. Yeah. Okay, got it, got it. Okay, well, listen, now you know. Yeah. I'm just a fucking idiot, obviously.

I didn't understand how this information and comedy works. Yeah, you don't understand democracy. Yeah, damn. Democracy is tough, dude. We need someone to explain it to us. Yeah. Yeah, dude. I think we should get somebody to explain it to us.

I know a couple of guys that are pretty brilliant. Okay, I'm in. They are probably the OGs of this political podcast shit. They worked for somebody that we really respect. Gang gang. Oh, hell yeah. Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton.

Oh yeah. The goat, dude. No, we got a great episode today. By the way, guys, I'm sure some of you have noticed what's happened the last few days. I just want to let you all know right now, I'm in neither one of your fucking cults, okay? If you want me to be in your cult, you can go fuck off.

I'm not in the damn cult, I'm not a Republican call. I'm a free American I'll make my own fucking decisions and I'll say whatever the fuck I want about whatever president is in power Okay, simple as that. I don't give a fuck what you guys have to say. No, I mean it It's like if you guys are getting any shit, I just I implore you to do the exact same thing We're not gonna get caught up in this group Thank like I do understand that there, you know some like social media influencers out there that are no different than the Trump grifters where you just make your money

and you get your views and you get your virtue signaling feel good moments out of calling out this shit. But if you actually care about what's happening in the country, maybe you'd want to talk to some different people and maybe you would hope to build a coalition and move some votes back over to the Democrats if you think that they have a better idea for America. But obviously that's not what you want. But God forbid we shine a light on the people who... You know what I'm getting a lot of? You talked to him, you platformed him as if he was at 0%.

And then we talked to him and then he won the election. As if he had fucking no shot of winning. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. And people were like, this guy's a monster, he's not a human being, then we humanize him. That's what he keeps saying. Let's game theory this, Akash. We are so powerful and influential by simply sitting down with him, right?

We made him president. So one would think that if we are disillusioned by some of the things that he is doing as president, and we are upset that that same influence might be able to make someone is president. And we're upset that that same influence might be able to make someone else president. So shouldn't you be embracing this massive influence? Yeah, come to our side. Or you just want to take no accountability

for the fact that you ran a dead guy and a woman that couldn't speak. Yeah. With no primary. With no primary at all. So let's put it again. Maybe she could speak, but she wouldn't speak to us. Mm-mm, okay. I wanted to talk to both people

who could be president of the country. Sorry, I'm an asshole. Sorry, I'm a bad person. Being a fucking idiot. Yeah, I mean. Do you know that, I know this is crazy, but did you know that politicians lie? Oh, wow.

That's something I just found out. Something that's like, Trump's a fucking liar. You didn't know he was a fucking liar. And I was like, oh, I thought they were all liars. I didn't realize that there were people that tell you the truth in politics. Yeah, every politician that said Biden was sharp cognitively when he refused to give up power in 2022. That's really interesting.

They were not lying. They were being honest. He suddenly got retarded. That's a really interesting... Yeah. Suddenly, as soon as the debate comes. No, this does... Dementia. This does happen all the time. He actually got dementia while he was

prepping for the debate, like when they were like, five, four, his brain stopped working. That does happen. Because you're right. Elizabeth Warren, she came out and she said something. I mean, yeah, it was hilarious. What did she say? They said, well, do you stand by your comments about Biden's lucidity? And she was like, yeah, he was so sharp He was extremely sharp when I saw him and and then she the guy even asked her was like do you think he's sharper than you? She goes Sometime yeah, like she couldn't even help herself from laughing

So what you do is with politicians is you gravitate towards the lies you like better. That's what we all do. Because one or two of those lies happen. Exactly. It's simple as that. If we go off of like the truth that we know is going to happen, nothing's going to change. We already know that. Right? So we have a little bit of hope. Give me one thing. Obamacare. One thing. That worked. You did that. You could lie about a lot of things. You do one thing. If Trump did one of the things, we would have been happy. Stop the endless war, stop the spending, release the Epstein files, we'd have been like, you know what? Okay.

Unfortunately, the one he chose was the immigration one. The one that we were not too with. But he said to us, in which we pressed him in a way, I don't know what you thought. You're being far too nuanced. I think they think we were supposed to dunk on Trump immediately, make him get up and walk off in 30 seconds, and now we're all happy. We had an hour conversation so we could get into it. I wouldn't have minded that. But you got to questions like Shull saying, hey, what about people who are here working hard?

And then Trump saying, well, you got to start with the criminals. He didn't. So he didn't even do that. So he's done nothing on those fronts in terms of the promises He made us but I don't regret it at all I don't even regret voting for him at all because what you see is all these Democrats that are starting to take up the issues That he was the one campaigning on. Ooh, so essentially what he's done is pull the Democrat Party over to the center So if they start talking about these issues Ro Khanna who we have on later on this podcast

So today we got that I don't even know if I already said this, but we've got the Pod Save America boys. And then Ro Khanna. The OG podcast bros. They don't get the credit that they deserve, but they are the OG bros, okay? We've kind of taken over the Manosphere bro thing, but they were the fucking Obama-sphere bros,

or whatever that was back then. We appropriate. So yeah, so we sorry for taking that from you guys. But no, they're on, they're fucking brilliant, and they've got great perspective on what's happening politically and how the Dems can take advantage of these kind of moments where the right is fractured. And then we got Ro Khanna, who's pushing up this bill in Congress right now, where he wants to release the entire unredacted EPSCIM files.

And we're going to get a moment where hopefully we get to see which congressmen decide that they do not want that out there. And that is going to be very telling Yes, so I'm very excited for you guys to hear this conversation. But uh, yeah, that is a that is a great point We're really fucking awesome Was that the point that you were making? We changed the Democratic Party I think is the point that you made. But yeah, but it's like now you see so much of the Democratic Party that's echoing a lot of the sentiments

They're usually on the right. Yeah, right. So they're pulling over. I think you see Democrats, like Roe is basically taking on the Epstein conspiracy. Yeah. That's a right-wing thing that now the right-wing is trying to sweep under the rug. So Roe's like, you're not going nowhere with that shit. Yeah. If you said it was a thing and you campaigned on it, let's expose it. Yes. So...

I think Biden wanted to expose it. I think he had all the files in his mind and that's why they made him go crazy. What would you do? What would you do if someone had that level of incriminating information? He had all the files in there. You would make him forget. Exactly, bro. You would make him forget everything he knows. That's what they did.

Maybe we are as powerful as they think we are. We changed politics, dude. I mean, the White House did respond. Yes. They did. That was great. That's awesome. That was the dumbest thing that the White House has ever done. I just want to point this out. Never respond to us.

But yeah, I was like, just take a second to appreciate how fucking cool that is that the White House is saying your name. That's so crazy. He was like, he said something like, Andrew knows that life is better in America right now. And I'm sitting there, I'm struggling in my house in the Hamptons, watching in my pool with my daughter. Your daughter's eating sand. Yeah, she's eating sand. I'm like, I don't know if I can live in this America anymore. I went to the store, I got an $8 on a Palmer. I was like, I don't know how I'm going to exist in this America. Now, there was a moment when he said life is good,

and I was like, hey, you're not wrong about that shit. But yeah, it's OK. So listen, something we say now, we expect an immediate response from the White House. Yeah. A precedent has been set. If we talk about the White House, they fucking respond. And if they don't respond, what do we do then? Do another episode until they respond.

Fuck yeah. We don't stop. We double down. Damn, I wish we had a better response. I just kind of lobbed up something with no rhythm. It was a volleyball net. Anyway, boys, let's get to the test. Right now we're about to be joined by the most dangerous ethnic group in America, White

Podcast Bros. These two guys have played a major role in shaping how millions of people understand politics. From Obama staffers to co-founding one of the most influential political podcasts out there, Pod Save America. These guys are smart, thoughtful, handsome, vaccinated, and they're genuinely trying to make politics more honest and nuanced, which is refreshing. It's good to see some other people out there doing that besides us, finally. Right. Okay. Please give a warm flavor welcome. We call him Johnny Fabs and TV Tommy. You guys can call him. You probably already know him as John Favreau and Tommy Deez. We're doing a podcast, bros. What's up, bros? We're reclaiming it. We're reclaiming bros. How's it going, guys?

Guys, thank you so much for taking the time. I appreciate you indulging me yesterday. I hit up Tommy and John yesterday. It was a bit of a media storm that happened after some criticisms that I had over Trump. And I had John, and I was like, John, like, can you, am I off on this? Like, what is the best way to handle like somebody that I voted for that is not living up to their promises? I'm criticizing them. And some responses are, well yeah, you're a fucking idiot.

And I was like, I don't know if that's the best way to build a coalition. What do you think? What do you think about that, Sean? No, that shit drives me nuts because I think, first of all, Trump lies a lot, he's always lied a lot, and it also assumes that every single person in America was supposed to be paying attention to like every single word

that Donald Trump has ever said. Right, right. And which they're not. But then aside from all that, like you said, if you wanna persuade people to join your coalition, which is how you actually win elections, then when someone says, oh, I'm disappointed in the person I voted for,

you say, well, welcome, welcome to our side. Yeah, yeah. That's the smart thing to do. Which is what the right thing. Unless you wanna just be right on the internet, which a lot of people just do, you know, so. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead, sorry.

No, no, no, it is, I don't know what it says about me, but when they were like, fuck you, maybe I have mommy issues or something, I was like, I kinda like this, like. I think I'm going back to the devs guys. No, what are you saying Tommy? No, it drives me crazy. I mean, like on the right,

how dare you not say what the dear leader says? Like that doesn't track for me. And then on the left, like Democrats, we just need to understand that saying ha ha ha and scolding people and, you know, telling them that I was right and you were wrong, but that's so, no, everyone hates you when you do that. Right?

Like whether it's in life, whether it's in your house or a political party. So we just gotta welcome people. And we also have to say to them, okay, what could Democrats do that would earn back your vote? Because it looks like, and again, my assumption is the administration thinks that the Epstein thing is just an internet issue.

I'm really curious what you guys think. The administration is thinking right now. Because for them to so flippantly throw it away after campaigning so hard, to me indicates that they're going, this is on Twitter, this is on Instagram, it's not going to sway any of the voters. It feels like it's a little bigger than that. What do you think? I think it's a lot bigger than that.

I think Akash nailed it on the last episode. There's sort of two options here. Either these guys were lying all along, Cash Patel, Dan Bongino, all these influencers, and were cynically using Epstein's abuse of what DOJ now says was 1,000 kids to advance their political agenda, or they're covering something up.

And so I could understand good arguments for each side, but we do know that Bill O'Reilly recently said that he talked to Trump in March and he said, well, there's a lot of like good people who are in the Epstein files who are associated with him who didn't do anything sexually was the suggestion and he didn't wanna put their names out there because that's unfair guilt by association.

So there's like a lot of smoke here that suggests there's something happening. I think that they know it's a big deal in the administration, but there's just not a lot of good options for them right now, because they clearly don't wanna put out more information. Yeah. Right?

Or, so there's, they either don't wanna put out more information, or there's no more information to put out, and either option leads to what Tommy was just saying, that either they lied to us all along and we're exploiting this issue, or that they're covering something up. And so all they can do is move on, tell people to shut the fuck up and get back on board,

all the MAGA influencers and everyone else, and hope that there's, you know, just wait for the news cycle to move on. But like, I just don't think that, I don't think that's gonna work because, you know, conspiracies or questions based on scandals that are, all you have to do is say like, are they covering something up?

Is there more info? Like, that goes on forever. Forever, forever. You know, like there's no, there's no stopping that. Yeah. And to your point, and addressing what Tommy said earlier of of there's a lot of names that would just be there, be guilt by association. I'm gonna be honest, if you are hanging out with a person who's convicted of pedophilia

in 2008, you are guilty by association. Yeah. Like if anybody in this room was a convicted pedophile, I'm not hanging out with them anymore. Yeah. I don't know what else to tell you. I'm not hanging out with him anymore. Yeah. I don't know what else to tell you. I'm not staying at your fucking brownstone on the Upper East Side. Like, I can pay for my own plane ticket.

Yeah. Also guys, tour dates. I'm gonna be in Kansas City August 1st and 2nd, August 8th and 9th, I'm gonna be in Toledo, Ohio at the Funny Bone, August 22nd and 23rd. It's a lot of fucking Ohio, huh? Liberty Township, September, September 11th through 13th.

Let's hope I don't bomb on those shows. Dania Beach, Florida. Bunch of other dates on my website at akashceng.com, but also the Akash Singh Show drops this week. We are trying to work out our first episode with Ranveer Alabadi, talking about everything he went through. He is currently, I think right now, in front of the Supreme Court. So we have to be a little delicate

with when we drop it. But I'm very excited for you guys to see it. I think it's important for anybody who's anti-censorship, etc. Check out the first episode of the Akash Singh Show this week. I love y'all. It's gonna be on my YouTube channel, youtube.com slash Akash Singh Comedy. Love y'all. What's up, guys? Mark Yagnon here. I got some tour dates for you. If you want to skip forward, dude, I'm not going to stop you. You know what I mean? I completely understand. It happens. Alright, suck his dick. That's not bad. Honestly, it's not bad. That's not bad. Actually, it is bad. Don't do it. Okay.

Because this Saturday, New York City on July 19th I'm gonna be doing Alex's show at the Hard Rock. Come on out. It's And then I'm gonna be in Stanford, Connecticut Hoboken, New Jersey Levittown, New York Chandler Arizona San Diego Burlington I'm also going to Canada Toronto, Montreal a bunch of other days Detroit is in there and we're adding some I'll see you guys at the show. God bless you all and peace be with you. And like Mark said, this Saturday, July 19th, New York City, Times Square. Suck his dick.

Suck his dick. All right. At Hard Rock Casino, Times Square, we have a happy hour, we have comedy, we have an after party, I have to come have a good time. Wait, cancel comedy, X on Instagram, link in bio. Happy hour. We have comedy. We have an after party after come have a good time wait Cancel comedy X on Instagram Lincoln bio. I don't know if you guys saw the clip that's going around now of this Fox interview that Trump did in 2004 last summer I just saw whatever clip you sent to me

He's doing this interview with Fox and what we all saw on television is Rachel Campos Duffy, who's the Fox host, former real world contestant, married to the transportation secretary now, Sean Duffy, she asked Trump about declassifying the Epstein files. And what everyone saw was Trump saying, yeah, yeah, I would. But turns out they edited the video and the rest of his answer was played like much later on Will Cain's radio show. And his full answer was, well, yeah,

that one's a little more complicated than the Kennedy files or other, or January 6th, because you don't wanna tarnish people's reputation if they're just mentioned a few times here and there that doesn't have to do with anything else. So that was last year that Trump said that. And then they just decided to edit it out, which I've been reliably told by Trump

as a huge election hoax to edit an answer like that. So I'm sure a settlement with Fox will be forthcoming. Do you think his base is gonna just let this go? No, no, I don't. I think there's kind of like a couple categories of people. Like I think there are some folks who genuinely kind of fold into like the QAnon set of beliefs where they believe sincerely that there's kind of a cabal

of evil, mostly Democrats who are child abusers who run the world. Like there's people who sincerely hold those views. There's also people who are just like, what? You said you would do this. Pam Bondi in February promised us that she was reviewing the files. None of this makes sense. And now you're just insulting us.

And I think what's interesting about this scandal is it's like the Megyn Kelly types, like traditional Fox Republicans are mad the Tucker Carlson's of the world are mad and then Alex Jones is really mad. It's like it runs the gamut. Mm-hmm How how do you guys handle when I mean I imagine you guys feel very comfortable being critical of your own party Do you are you delicate about it? Do you feel like you have to be even more critical? Are you ever concerned that you guys have so much influence that your critiques could sway voters away? How do you hold your own party accountable is basically what I'm asking. I mean, about a year ago, after the debate between Biden and Trump, we sort of immediately

after the debate said that it was fucking awful and that Biden should seriously think about whether he needs to stay in the race. And, you know, we weren't too popular for a while. Yeah. But like in that sense, look, there are some times where Democrats fuck up and like I agree with what they're trying to do, like the underlying policy behind it, right?

And so there, when it's just about execution or fucking something up here and there, then I'm more like, well, I agree with the goal, I agree with the policy outcome here, so I don't want to be like, I don't want to just be shitting on everything. But with something like the Biden debate performance, I was like, look, we either, he either drops out of the race and we give ourselves a chance to beat Donald Trump or we have Donald Trump as president again, which I didn't want. So like, of course I'm gonna criticize Biden. How do you feel about the lack of primary?

Sorry. I mean, for a reelection, it's kind of standard, but look, I mean, I struggle with this one a little bit, right, like obviously after the debate, it was self-evident that he was not up for a reelection or four more years and saying as much, it was just like, it was stating what was obvious. What I struggle with was, to be honest with you,

like before Biden ran in 2020, I felt like he was too old to be running at that point. I felt like I kind of, we were a little, we're pretty critical of this campaign in Iowa and New Hampshire when he took like fourth and fifth place and then he won South Carolina, won the nomination and won the presidency. And I was like, you know what?

Maybe I'm just a fucking idiot and I don't know anything about politics and I'm wrong. And so then when he decides to run again in 2022, I was like, this doesn't feel right. All the data is telling us he's too old, but like clearly he had made the decision at that point. And so I was like, I don't know. Well, if I had to vote for one over the other,

I would have ended up voting for Joe Biden because I agree with him on the issues. But now I think about in hindsight, and I was like, you know what? Maybe I should have just been louder then. Like, I don't think they would have cared. They didn't give us an interview for four years because we were critical in that 2020 primary. And they just held a grudge.

Oh yeah, they hated us. Oh yeah, they're not happy. I don't think that, I think on the primary issue, like I kind of blame the other Democrats who could have run, but didn't, you know? Like people haven't taught. Yeah, like, look, you could, I mean, I get that when it's an incumbent president,

it's rare to have a primary challenge in a presidential. It's also even rare for that primary challenge to succeed. And if you run against Joe Biden and he ends up being the nominee and wins the presidency, and like the party's not going to look at you kindly. So I get the calculation that goes into that. But ultimately, if Josh Shapiro or Gretchen Whitmer or Pete or any of those folks decided to primary Biden, they could have done it and they chose not to.

And they made a calculation about why that wasn't good for their careers or why they wouldn't be successful. And that's fine. But like, you know, they could have done it. And I like Pete, but I assume you were working with Biden for four years and you probably saw the cognitive cognitive decline well before that debate. And you still chose not to primary him, which is a little disappointing, I guess. You make an interesting point about like, if you support the underlying policy that you're trying to implement, even if you fail in implementation, the idea behind it is right.

And I think that that's like an issue for Trump right now where he has a lot of people that are like concerned or disillusioned because a lot of things that he was promising weren't really policies. Like releasing the Epstein policy isn't a policy. Ending foreign wars isn't a policy, right? Like I guess reducing government spending, there are ways that you would attempt to do it, but maybe it didn't happen. But some of these things are promises that are very difficult in execution.

It's almost like I don't really begrudge Trump not being able to convince Putin in one phone call to be like, I'll just give Ukraine back the Donbass region. This is hard geopolitical diplomatic shit. So maybe there is a version of over-promising and under-delivering, which no politician has ever done in history. But I just wonder what a base does there, and then how can Democrats that feel like they actually can serve that base, not just bringing over voters that are pissed, because I don't think those are like real, that's a real coalition, but like actually how can you serve these people?

Because it feels like the Dem Party right now is a little bit fractured. There's like this new guard that's kind of rebellious and exciting and it's gaining a lot of steam. And then it feels like the old guard is trying to do whatever they can to kind of consolidate power. Is that what you guys are seeing? Yeah, I mean, look, the leadership of the party is really old. We have a real gerontocracy party in the, real gerontocracy problem within the Democratic

Party. The status, the last eight politicians to die in office were Democrats, right? So that's not good. Cool record. The two of us sitting here, we worked for Obama. We could tell you a lot about people feeling like you were under the leverage. Bring back Obama, man. Can we just convince him to come back?

Everybody loved him even though they didn't, they did. They, yeah, but like at the time, you know, there were a lot of people who were very disappointed by him. They felt like he ran on being anti-war, right? And he ran on ending the war in Iraq, but he sent more troops to Afghanistan. There were a lot of drone strikes, there were a lot of controversial counter-terrorism policies.

There was Libya, Syria, like a million things, right, that people were understandably mad about. And I have a lot of sympathy for people who govern, because campaigning is a lot easier than governing. Governing's fucking hard. There's events that happen, you don't control them. Like the Arab Spring happens, and it just changed everything we did

for two years in the Obama administration, and Benghazi happened, right? So there's just like cascading events. I do think though, like Trump is in a real, Trump has just flip flopped on so many things. I mean, you guys talked about this. It was not just Epstein. It was the Iran strikes. I mean, today it sounds like he's going to send weapons to Ukraine again.

So there's a lot of, a lot of things royal in the base here. And even with Israel specifically, it looked like he was taking a hard line with Bibi. And then I don't know if it was his ego, like he just couldn't let that mission that was so successful that they did go on without feeling like he was somewhat in control of it. I just don't understand the impulse. But it seemed like he gave away so much diplomatic currency by saying, yeah, I was actually negotiating with them, but I was with Israel the whole time.

It's like, well, now anybody else you negotiate, what do you think they're thinking? They wonder if they're going to get their fucking window blown open, right? I think with Trump is he doesn't necessarily have an ideology. He has a bit and the bit is, um, he identifies something that people are pissed about. Yes. He tells them who's at fault for it. He then says, all right, I'm going to fix it. He tries to do something to fix it that may or may not work. And then he just claims victory anyway and hopes to move on to the next thing. And he doesn't really think about the long-term consequences of what he promises or what he says because he's just trying to win the news cycle, right?

He's just trying to get to the next day because that's how he thinks. He's a TV guy. How can we get Democrats to do that more? That shit feels good, guys. It does feel good. It does feel good. But then you get fucked when you actually get into office and that's what's happening with Trump now.

He makes promises to two different groups of people, promises that are opposed to each other. You can't possibly do both of them. And then you get into office and now you're fucked. End the war in Ukraine in a day or I'm not going to add to the deficit but I'm also going to extend tax cuts for the richest Americans. You can't do both those things.

I mean, you can do the last thing you said and we'll just look the other way. Listen, we're doing all right. It's a nice podcast. But yeah, the first thing is horrible. Okay? The first thing is disgusting, yes. I mean, I do think Democrats can learn from Trump. He understands the sort of new attention economy, he understands the internet, like we should try to do

the things he does and emulate those. Like going to McDonald's was a genius move and serving people food, right, it just was. But I didn't answer your question about what the Democratic Party should do. Like we have to provide an alternative that is better. And I want it to be anti-war. Like what if when you authorize military force,

you have to vote on it every year? It needs to be at sunset after 12 months or else. Or what about, we should be for working people. We should lower taxes. We should have better schools. There should be a child care affordable. We need a broad reform agenda that is not just about Washington. There's that part. It's like, don't take lobbyist money, but also no congressional stock trading, a lifetime ban on these fucking congressmen

becoming lobbyists. And then there does have to be something about this gerontocracy issue. Because I really do think we need some sort of term limits for congressional committee chairs or something that allows fresh blood to circulate up so those people end up running. Yeah, if you can't hold your head up, like Schumer's head is coming out of the middle of his chest. So I feel like if you don't have like the next strength to hold your head up straight,

then we got to hank you out of politics immediately. Yeah, you can't be like doing a video where you're like hunched over in your chair yelling about Trump tacoing, you know, that's gonna fucking break through really well. But I do think like, and you guys have talked about this too, like Trump has these ideas that are just their policy ideas in theory, but they're also just easy to understand. So it's like build the wall. Oh yeah, I get building the wall.

And you guys talked about Mamdani, right? Like everyone who just paid attention to that race, even a little bit, you know that, you know, he wants to freeze the rent and wants free city buses, right, like those are just easy things to understand. And I think sometimes Democrats, when we come up with our policy agenda, it's like a 10 point plan and it involves

fucking refundable tax credits and no one knows what the hell that is. And you just gotta make the policy ideas both bold and simple to understand, accessible for people. And then you actually gotta have a plan to make it, to pass it, right? Like you can't just promise a bunch of shit and then not be able to do it.

It doesn't matter how well intentioned your idea is or how helpful it is, if you cannot communicate it to us in a way that is digestible and enticing. Freeze rent is amazing. I don't even rent and I'm like, can I freeze my mortgage? I want everything frozen, right? Now, the question I have for you guys is, you've seen the rise of Mondani, obviously in New York, and pushing certain policies, and you talk to different people about how easily they will be executed. I have some guys, friends of mine who are in real estate, obviously biased, but they'll say certain things like the downstream effects of this are going to put us in the same position we are right now. I'm sure you've heard of

the ghost apartment situation in New York, which is downstream from these rent freezes. I think there was a 2019 law passed that said that once you were rent stabilized, you couldn't ever move away from that. So then these landlords just never renovated the apartments and now they're just sitting there baking, et cetera. Of this rise in the Democratic socialist side of the party, how effectively do you think they will be able to administer some of these changes? Or do you think some of this is kind of similar to Trump in that, like, it sounds really great,

but it won't be able to be implemented, and then the people will be kind of frustrated? Yeah, my biggest worry about Mumdani is that he's not going to be able to deliver on the big promises he's made. And because I think part of it is not just not because of him, just because of the job itself. He's going to have to get approval from Albany on raising a bunch of taxes and stuff like that. And so if you don't have that, then you have problems.

The housing issue, where I am on this is, rent freezing does sound great. Ultimately, you're not going to solve the housing problem without building more housing. And I think more housing, more supply is probably a more important thing to get done than just freezing rent because you freeze rent of people who are already in there and then they don't leave. And the real challenge is what about people who don't have a place to live, who can't afford to even rent an apartment, who can't afford to buy a house. So you actually just need to build a lot more housing. Now what I like about Mamdani is I think having listened to him a bunch of times, I think

he's more reasonable than his critics suggest and he's more willing to compromise with people and find ways to get stuff done. And I do think he knows that he's gonna be judged on whether he actually improves affordability in New York. So like, does he get the rent control thing done? Does he get the free city bus done? We don't know, but can he point to a whole bunch of things he's done after a couple of years in office

and say, well, look, rent, you know, affordability, people can afford to live in New York now, or at least they can afford to live in New York a little bit more than they could, and I delivered on that promise. So I do think that delivering on the promises is, I worry about that for him more than I worry about, oh, he's gonna become some radical leftist

who destroys the city. What if he delivers on none of the promises, but agrees to go to Israel three times in the first year? Is that? God, I cannot believe this election has become about that. I mean, I would also say. It's crazy, right?

It's so fucking stupid. I mean, he, like he, I, talking to his folks, like, I don't think they think the general election is a done deal. The numbers get complicated. It's not, yeah. Look at the, yeah, look, polling, he's at like 40% in the polling. There's Eric Adams running, that Cuomo's gonna run. There's this Republican guy and like, he's got some work to do,

older African American voters in particular, I think kind of like normie Jewish voters, normie Democrats in Manhattan, I think he's got some challenges. And I think you can solve that through politics, through conversations, going to the ton of synagogues, meeting people, talking to them.

Because, Andrew, I remember what you said about the awakening you had about anti-Semitism after October 7th. Yeah. And just, well, just that, like my wife's Jewish, like we have a lot, had a lot of similar conversations and just that feeling of like seeing people celebrating a horrific massacre of innocent people.

Horrible, horrible. And how shocking that was and how frightening, how that led people to feel unsafe and Those feelings have not gone away for a lot of people right at the same time I think the war in Gaza has become this humanitarian catastrophe Abomination yeah abomination just morally strategically everything right so two things can be true But I do think you, he's gonna have to talk to these folks

who sort of had feelings like you did and say like, look, you know what? Upon reflection, I realized that globalizing intifada hits a certain way for you and is hurtful. Yeah. And I'm sorry. And like, that's not something that's okay. And he's gonna have to figure out a way to localize the intifada.

Yeah. I'll probably take the local. I think it's halal goes back to $8. Does that count as localizing the Interfax? All right, guys, listen, I know I'm all about Bitcoin, and here's what I've learned. I should not invest in any other coins. Kraken gave us some money to invest.

I lost $7,000 last time out of 10. Wow. So that's me. Almost hard to do. So this time, they gave me some money to invest. I lost $7,000 last time out of 10. Wow. So that's me. Almost hard to do. So this time they gave me more money. All I'm doing is Bitcoin. That's it.

I'm not fucking around with fart coin anymore. Everybody's saying they're meme coins. Fuck yourselves. It's Bitcoin only for me. What about you guys? I think I'm mostly Bitcoin too and I think I've been doing okay. Little E4C.

You're up the most. I think I'm up the most, yeah. I'll be honest, I didn't pick them. Mitch, you had a Jewish person pick them. Yeah, you had your handler. That's smart. I didn't have my Jewish handler pick it. That's smart.

And it's working out. Yeah, you're winning. Also got gold, I mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of gold, a lot of diamonds. I bought real estate. No, I doubled down on Epstein coin and it's crushing right now. I'm like, I'm through the roof, dude.

They should make that. I don't even know if that's what it's for. You know they don't ever show you the results of that. Yeah. Trump said that there's actually no coin. What the hell? What did I put all my money in? This is crazy.

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as serious as your passion at hexclad.com slash flagrant. Let Hexclad know flagrant sent you and experience the ultimate upgrade in your kitchen with Hexclad superior performance. Now let's get back to the show. I think you make a great point in like, I mean, it is just so tricky because I, listen, I'm not even Jewish. Everybody thinks I'm Jewish. So I get all the antisemitism, right? So like, it's real. None of the benefits.

I don't get any of the IQ, I don't get any of the hedge fund access, I just get the antisemitism, you know? So it's like, so it is out there, it is 100% real. And I think that there's just, there's obviously tons of people who are antisemitic. just, there's obviously tons of people who are anti-Semitic. I think there's also tons of people who like really feel for what's happening in Gaza. And then they conflate like believing Israel should exist with believing you should just

keep bombing Gaza. And I think it's, it's hard for a lot of people to even like separate that issue. Like we're all sitting here right now and we're just going like, hey, this has been going on for two years. It's rubble. Their kids dying, their adults die. Like, it's not just kids. It's like everybody's fucking dying. So that needs to stop. You could think that, but also be like, I don't think that we should fucking attack Jews in this trip. Like there's videos of people just chasing around Hasidic Jews. Is it funny? Yeah. But it's wrong. You know what I mean? It, it's, no, it's not funny.

But yeah, there has to be, there has to be, there has to be a space. You know, there has to be a space for that. I need to see the video before I decide if it's funny or not. You know, I'm tearing this out. No, no, it's, no, it's just, there has to be a space for the conversation and we can't just immediately throw around anti-Semitism

whenever people disagree about an independent nations policy that we are actually supporting. Right? So, yeah, how do you guys, what do you think the best way to handle that is? Do you guys, do you guys get criticism when you take a hard line on that? Like what is? Oh, the head of the ADL called me an anti-Semite in a New York post op ed like a week ago. No, for saying what?

Cause I said that Bibi Netanyahu had dragged the United States into war with Iran. I said Trump got forced. He did, he got duped. He got duped. Right, Netanyahu started a war and he knew that to blow up the Fordo facility, he needed the US to do it for him.

So I'm not sure, like that just seems like a statement of fact, he decided, this guy Jonathan Greenblatt decided that was anti-Semitic. And what upsets me about that is, it is weaponizing a very serious problem, which is anti-Semitism in this country, to try to silence your political opponents. And it makes me viscerally angry

because my daughter goes to a Jewish preschool and when I drop her off, I go through like six, seven layers of security. Security guards, guys with guns, right? Like I understand on a personal level, like where this fear comes from in the Jewish community. The suggestion that me criticizing Trump or Bibi's Iran policy makes me an anti-Semite, makes me so angry that like I want to lash out about it, right? And so the conversation's all about it.

It also numbs people to the word, and it's not a word we should be numb to. Yes. And people should be able to figure out the difference between criticizing a government and criticizing a policy and criticizing people's religion and their ethnicity. I mean, even when, you know, it always bothers us when you criticize Trump and then Trump

and some mega people try to be like, oh, you're anti-American, you hate America. If you criticize me, it's like, no, I fucking love America. I just don't like you running it, you know? Like that is this, I mean, it's similar to the criticism of Israel. Like I think the Israeli government's making a horrible mistake.

You know, I think it's been a fucking catastrophe. But also like people have to have, I also think principles that are universal So it's not hard to say like yes the killing of innocent Civilians men women and children is horrific no matter who does it treating people differently? Because of what they believe whether they're Muslim Jewish Christian, whatever is wrong It's just like wrong across the board Yeah You should just be able to like if you're gonna have a principle that and feel that strongly about it Jewish, Christian, whatever, is wrong. It's just like wrong across the board.

And you should just be able to like, if you're gonna have a principle that, and feel that strongly about it, it just has to be universal, it has to be across the board. There's a sentiment, I think that's like beautifully said, and I think that's what most people actually feel. And I think what often happens is when you throw around these pejoratives,

like when you call everything anti-Semitism, when it's really not, it's like a criticism of government, you'll keep talking about it, right? Because you guys have a platform, you also like maybe will deal with the slander, whatever it is. Most people won't. Most people got a regular job and they're like,

I don't want that label. And then they just be quiet. And then what it does is it forces the conversation to the extremes who are the people that don't care if you call them anti-Semites because they're like, yeah, I'm an anti-Semite. They just say it blatantly. So now Nick Fuentes is the one controlling the conversation on something that should be a lot more nuanced, probably. So I wonder why Greenblatt doesn't see this. I mean, he's got to be aware of what

the downstream effects of using that word far too much are. I think there is a belief that you can silence critics and police their speech. And I think conversations around Israel, Palestine have been some of the most policed conversations and policies in Washington for a very long time. And like someone like me or John or Ben Rhodes, a guy I do a foreign policy podcast with, like we would be ex-communicated from that city

if we ever tried to get like a Senate confirmed job, again, because of comments like this and a lot of like kind of careerist strivers in Washington see that they clock it and they kind of, you know, play within the 40 yard lines. And I think that's a huge problem because it leads to policy blind spots. I think that is a big optics problem for Democrats in that I think there's a certain underlying moral superiority within the Democratic Party that we are the morally superior party.

But then we see you be very silent on these atrocities, not you guys, but like these institutional Democrats. And I think a lot of moderate people are very put off by, you're telling me you're so morally superior, but you're clearly for sale and have an agenda. And that makes me very put off by this entire party. Well, and this goes back to when Andrew got criticized for this is what you voted for. Which is, it's this feeling that like,

obviously Trump is bad, obviously his policies are bad. Everyone should know that. Everyone should know that he's a racist, horrible, whatever. And if you don't, then fuck you. Then you deserve what you get. And like that might be satisfying to certain people personally, but it's not gonna move the ball forward, and we gotta think, what's our ultimate goal here? Is our ultimate goal to just be right on the internet?

It's so selfish. Or is the goal to pass policies that we deeply believe in that are gonna improve people's lives? Because if that's the goal, then we're gonna need to have a bigger coalition than a bunch of white liberals. Yeah, I've never... It's just so selfish.

It's just like, it's clicks, views, attention, pats on the back, but it gets you nowhere. There's no like, what about the midterms? What about the election? Yeah. I mean, in that same conversation where you're criticizing Trump, you're also tacitly encouraging the DSA. And if you're someone that is a fan of Mamdani, they see someone like you encouraging Democrats, socialists, why would they not jump all over that and say, finally, OK, we got this guy

on our side. He's coming around to what we believe in our agenda instead of letting their ego get in the way. It's just such terrible policy. It's, I've never seen, I don't know, I feel like there are people that grift all over the place, but it is the equal and opposite grift. There's the Trump grift, for sure.

Everything Trump does is right, and you go along with everything he does, and he's playing 40 chess and all this. And then there's the everything Trump does is wrong grift, and you get the same views, but it's not real, right? You satisfy that like primal urge in people. And I understand people are frustrated. I get it.

That's totally fine. Like I'll meet you where you are emotionally, a hundred percent. But I don't like this claim that they're actually trying to like make the world a better place and they actually care about where this goes. It's like, if your view, if your video gets 5,000 views, I promise you'll never mention it again. And if it gets a million, you'll talk about it nonstop for the next two months. Like, let's just be honest about what it is.

Everybody's cocking each other's shit, and they're just writing the exact same headline. I saw it happen over the last two days. It's like, none of you guys care about building anything. That's where the Epstein stuff came from, I think, because a lot of people like Bongino and Cash Patel kind of started talking about it, and it built and built and built, and it got them a following. I think, because a lot of people like Bongino and Cash Mattel kind of started talking about it and it built and built and built and it got them a following.

I think Bondi too. I think Bondi got caught up in like, I think she kind of wanted a moment. She's like, I'm trying to build myself a larger career here. She has bigger aspirations. She's like, it's on my desk, without really understanding what she meant with it's on my desk. Totally. She brought in those influencers and gave them the binders. What the fuck is that about? It's so stupid. To tie it back to what you guys are saying, I'm harping on this with you

because you have such a powerful voice within Democrats, but in my lifetime, I've never seen a party, political party, as obsessed with excluding people. And the irony is Democrats seem to love talking about inclusivity. Ad nauseum. Inclusivity, inclusivity, inclusivity. But if somebody steps out of line

from what we want them to say, fuck you forever. You are, you have no chance of redemption. How do Dems fix that? Well, one thing, I mean, look, I think there was a huge problem among Democrats that was, particularly a few years ago, about not having conversations with people we disagree with like I got invited to Go on a bar stool show. I said no

I don't think I can do that man because like my audience would get upset about some things Portnoy said and I think back to That and I'm embarrassed and I'm mad at myself because like how am I gonna speak to that bar stool audience if I don't go on Those shows right so that was fucking stupid. I'm embarrassed about it and we're course correcting I think a lot of Democrats are doing similar course corrections. You saw it when like Bernie endorsed, or Rogan endorsed Bernie, and Bernie put out a press release about it

and he got attacked by a lot of Democrats about it. So I think we're learning from those mistakes. I do think there has to be, I do think we're kind of a more motley coalition of diverse voices than the Republicans are right now. Like I guess I would just push back a little bit on the idea, Democrats can be annoying, we can be scoldy, but I think sometimes like it's online mobs

more than the party, you know? I was gonna say, like I actually think democratic politicians in general have been good about this and have only gotten better, especially since the election. But I think what people experience when you're paying attention to the news or you're following politics is the influencers, the people online.

And look, Trump, as we're seeing with the Epson files, Trump just like, just doing everything, just letting the base drive him wherever he wants to, and over-promising, that's gonna get him into trouble. And I think that the challenge for democratic leaders and democratic politicians is to push back on shit like that when people aren't being inclusive

and people don't wanna build a big tent. I remember Sarah McBride, our first trans member of Congress when Mike Johnson and Nancy Mays tried to do that bathroom bill to prevent her from using a bathroom. And she responded by being like, well, I'm going to follow the rules, but I didn't come here to argue about these issues, and I'm going to try to make people's lives in Delaware a lot better. And a lot of online activists in the trans community just attacked her and still attack her to this day.

And it's like, this is the first trans member of Congress. And imagine sort of the burden on her shoulders. And what she's trying to do is say, you know what? Sometimes we need to be more inclusive. Sometimes we need to focus on, she's not picking the fight. And so it's like, why are you criticizing her for that? Because that fight might make you feel good But what she's trying to figure out is both how to make sure there are more trans members of Congress and also even more importantly

How to make sure that she delivers on the promises she made to the people who put her in your office in the first place There is when Pete came on the pod He told this great story about like I think he like first started dating his now husband or something like that And there was this woman like worked in his office and she was like a, you know, I think maybe a little more conservative religious woman, right? And she said something to him like, I met your friend and he was, he was very polite or he's very nice or something. And he met her where she was emotionally. He knew that for her to say that it was a much bigger leap than the average person that

would just be like, I'm so proud and you're so brave and all this other like, yes, queen shit. Like he was able to recognize what that meant for her. I thought that was like very emotionally intelligent, right? He could go, what do you mean my friend? He could scold her. And I think to what Akash is saying is like that sentiment and maybe it is online. Like I think the sentiment is like Republicans, it's like, you could fucking shoot someone in the head. But if you're like,

listen, I believe in small businesses, they go, he's a good guy. Yeah. And then with Democrats, Democrats, it's like, I believe in trans rights, gay rights, black rights, but Asians shouldn't go to Harvard. You're like, what the fuck are you talking about? It just takes us one thing. And then online, at least the rhetoric is you're? It all takes this one thing, and then online at least, the rhetoric is you're scolded and you're out. You're right. Trump saw a political opportunity by welcoming RFK Jr. into the fold,

and all of a sudden there's a prominent Democrat named Kennedy who's a cabinet secretary. So he's been a genius on that front, for sure. And Democrats, you're right, sometimes we have a laundry list of things and you don't check all the boxes, we don't allow you in the tent. I do think the solution here is getting back to Obama era politics.

Like he was actually brilliant about this and emotionally intelligent about this, because he understood that he just like tried to connect with people on a human level. And he understood that people would misstep and that people had different views about race or abortion rights or things, or maybe said things that offended him.

But if you could connect to them or make them think that he was going to help their lives, he could get their votes. And it was, I think that's the right approach. Okay. Do you think that still works though? Because we see the way Trump handles things and clearly he appeals to a lot of people and he's not, he doesn't give much grace at all. Yeah, he doesn't give much grace at all. Yeah, he doesn't I mean I look I think part of the challenge today, too

Is the sort of information environment and like all of the incentives? to our earlier conversation about the attention economy just pull you in the direction of simplicity of yelling about things of being like really strident, making everything black and white. And, you know, it's, you hear, you know, when you hear like Pete on your podcast, or I just listened to Gavin Newsom for four hours on Sean Ryan's podcast, like you hear in a space like that, you get all the complexities and the nuance

and you'll hear politicians be like, oh, I didn't like this guy when, or this girl when I like saw them on TV. But now like, you know, they're a little more complex than I thought. But television, social media, like, it doesn't allow for that. And so I think Democrat, it's easier for Trump

because Trump's message is, well, I'm just gonna burn everything down because you're all pissed and I get it. And so I'm just gonna tear the whole system down. And that's like an easy message to get across. And the Democratic message is, look, we have to work together with this very fractious coalition

and this like very diverse country to sort of build something together that's gonna be better for people. And that's like, you know, people are fucking bored already just hearing that sentence. Yeah, we're the earnest fucking losers, it sucks. Like we're in this one new democrat space where like actually we think government can be good.

And the reason I don't think there's a ton of conspiracies is because mostly people are incompetent and they can't keep secrets. It's like boring, lame answers like that. And it's like, yeah, the burn it down stuff is fun. I know you guys got to go in a few minutes, but two things. One, Vitor, I know that you're a Kenyan college graduate. My dad went to Kenyan. No way.

Wow. And his good friend and I believe roommate a part of time there was a guy named Paul Kluge. Did you take any of Kluge's classes? I know the name. I absolutely know the name. Kind of a legend over there, so I thought maybe you might take it, but but all good. And then separate separately from that, who is, I know we have like a couple minutes here, so who do you guys think that you would like to see? I was gonna ask that.

Yeah, who would you like to see run at this point right now? Who do you think has the juice and who you think could execute the plan and bring some people maybe that the Democratic Party lost back over? And you can give a couple of names. It killed Yaya Sinwar. I'm going to be very honest because I've now been through a couple cycles where I've, you know, regretted listing off a bunch of names that didn't go too well. Like there's no one right now that I think could be, is gonna be like a winning presidential candidate.

That does not mean that all the people mentioned that are often mentioned can't like grow into becoming an excellent candidate and ultimately an excellent president. Like that's what campaigns are for. And a lot of people grow during a campaign. But right now, I just think it's tough. And there's a lot of Democrats who are out there who are, they look like they're always just reading the stage directions.

Here's what we're supposed to say, and here's the right message that'll work. And I want more of these candidates to sit down on shows like yours. Or here's my advice to them, when something in the news happens, when there's a development, before you look online, before you watch TV, before you ask your staff about it, just like stop and think about how you feel about it. Like what is your genuine reaction to what just happened? Write it down and then start there. And if you need to like, you know, massage the language and this or that because your advisor tell you that's fine, but at least start with what you believe in your gut.

And I feel like because Trump has won twice now, and we've been through a decade of this, people have just stopped trusting their instincts, which I get is understandable. But I think people at least need to go back to trusting their instincts because you could be wrong, but that's much better than just bullshitting your way through it, which people can tell immediately.

Yeah. Yeah, like the two things that I think, I'm in a similar place. Like there's no one who I would quit this job for right now and go work on their campaign there's no one like kind of like you know getting the heart going. I do feel like it's more likely to be someone from outside of Washington because even after Trump I still think there is just such a high distrust in institutions and the establishment and just frustration with the status quo And by the way, you're seeing that like everywhere. It's not just the United States like in Germany. They just had an election and

Among young you Track this the AFD like young men went to the AFD and young women went to the far-left parties and they all said fuck You to the establishment Spain right now In Spain right now, you're seeing the exact same conversation about immigration that we're having right here? Yep. Like, yeah, so you're seeing it all over the place. Sorry, may I ask why AOC wouldn't necessarily captivate you guys?

I'm not even being critical, I'm just curious. Look, she does captivate me. I think she's like one of the best messengers in the party. I think she's genuine, authentic. I think that because she has had many years in the public eye, opinions about her from people who don't pay close attention to politics are still pretty polarized. She's got the curse and the blessing

of almost 100% name ID, which means that a lot of people have formed opinions of her. Now, can she turn those opinions around to win purple states in a general election? I don't know, maybe, but I think that it's tough. It's tougher, but like, who knows? She at least, you know, she's at least genuine and very inspiring.

Yeah, I mean, I didn't mention her just cause like, I don't think she's gonna run, but I do think she would scratch a lot of like important criteria. One is just social media fluency, like knows how to communicate with people in 2025. And it can't just be like, you know, ads on Jeopardy or whatever.

And also just authenticity. Like the fact that she was a bartender, sometimes Republicans make fun of her for that. That is like the best part about her. Like she's a human being. She had a job where she worked with her fucking hands. When Obama was elected, he and Michelle had just paid off their student loans.

They lived in a little condo. They were normal people, or the closest thing to normal you could be when you get elected president. And I think it's gotta be someone like that that feels connected because in 2016, voters were telling us we're sick of the establishment, we're sick of Washington,, we're sick of Washington, and we were like, hey, here's Hillary Clinton,

a person you've known about for 24 years, who's had a lot of people killed. Yeah. Not Epstein yet. Yeah, okay, okay, before you go, because I know you gotta go, you guys both worked intimately with Obama, big Obama fans over here,

can you give us an Obama story? Ooh, an Obama story. Just a fun little Obama story, anything. I'm trying to think of a good... Can we take a guy's... We can cut it if you don't want. Can you just cut this guy's name? Yes. So a good buddy of mine.

The name you just said, by the way. Yeah, yeah, yeah, got it, got it, got it. That is cut. Cut from the record. Okay. A good friend of ours was in the car with, I think it was then Senator Obama, and it was like two younger guys in him. And he's like, so who are you guys dating?

He asked the first guy. And then this other friend of ours was in the back. And he's like, so, like, person, who are you dating? And our friend goes, I'm gay. And he's like, yeah, you got game, you got game. And he's like, no, no, no, I'm gay. And he he's like, yeah, you got game you got game and he's like, you know, I'm gay You got game Sorry, I'm saying that I'm gay and he's like, oh well, there's lots of cute guys I love that Obama was just so happy and accepting that there is clearly for a moment

someone with severe autism in the back of this car My boys, thank you so much for taking the time. I appreciate you guys. I wish you the best of luck And we got to get you in studio when you're in New York Cheers guys All right guys before we get to this Rokana conversation Absolutely. Absolutely. Cheers, guys. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right, guys, before we get to this Ro Khanna conversation, I want to talk a little bit about a fight this weekend that I'm very excited, but also I'm almost sad about. So Dustin Poirier and Max Holloway are fighting this weekend, and this is going to be Dustin's

last fight. Yeah, dude. Oh, that's sad. I have a suspicion, though. I think if he wins in convincing fashion It's not his last fight. I Think if Dustin wins he challenges Ilya Topoya for the belt they give him one more Like if he wins in like devastating fashion, it's really exciting

he's still the UFC's biggest star right now like him and Max are probably the biggest stocks, yeah and I Think it'd be one more shot at the title. Also going up against Ilya. Ilya is coming up in weight. They're both strikers. Dustin has amazing hands. He always does well against guys who can strike. Now Max on the other hand is just Max. He's fucking unbelievable. He's a dog. Like they fought once before, Dustin won. But you know, when Max came up in weight and then knocked out Gachey yeah that was crazy that was crazy so and Max's incredible hand it's gonna be an amazing fight they're just both fucking unbelievable competitors

but like if Max wins then Max fights Ilya again at 155 I don't know a lot of cool shit happened what do you guys think? As a part of me if I'm Dustin I mean this is how I know I'm not Dustin is that if I win I'm just walking off yeah you know you just hang it up you get to leave a legend like you do a whole thing You know, I put your gloves in the middle of the cage call it a day But I just think Dustin, you know, if you win, you're like, yeah, fuck it Let me get the belt one more time if you lose you're like, let me do one more You know what I mean? Like I don't know how you walk away from that. No, it's it's probably yeah It's just probably the most exciting thing in the world and everything else is so mind boggling

boring. Yeah, there's like an adrenaline rush. It has to be. It sucks. Go surf. Yeah, you need to do something dangerous. You need a skydive. Imagine someone's like, hey, it's going to be your last show and you do an arena and

it's the greatest show you've ever done in your life. Yeah, we're going to do another show. Yeah, we'll do one more. But then if you bomb, you're like, well, I can't handle that. So no matter what happens, you just go to literally can't go. You bomb, you're like, well, I can't handle that. So no matter what happens, you just go to literally can't go. You just keep stretching it out. Oh, that's brutal. There's not really a risk of CTE with performing at an arena though.

Yeah, that's true. That is true. It's very minimal. But also if you've been fighting guys for 20 years, you're like, ah, fuck it. I got it. Wasn't that an activity? Max was like, I don't know, I just like fighting. He was like, not even before he was a fighter. That's what impressed me with Gagey.

I was worried, you know, you interview these guys, you really get worried for them. And I was like, worried when he was fighting Gagey. Like, Gagey's big, he's gonna throw hands, and again, I'm very casual, but I was like, this seems like a scary fight. And then Max just kind of dominated that fight. So, initially I'm scared of him fighting Dustin,

but I don't know, man, I guess you can't ever underestimate this guy. Yeah, Max is a dog, man. Anyway, Steggs, the leader of globe betting and US social casino has been on top sports political events. Use the promo code FLAGRANT for your welcome bonus. Now let's get back to the show. But that's not all folks.

Today we are also joined by a complete anomaly, a politician actually fighting to release the Epstein files and end pointless wars. I once described him as not only a congressman, but a dish. We are very excited to speak to him while he's still alive. Give it up for Ro Khanna, everybody. Yeah. Love it. Thank you so much, first of all, for being here.

I know that you have the techno-feudalists, the tech-feudalists or whatever they're called, are ringing you left and right trying to push agendas in, so thank you for squeezing us into your time, and that you have a beautiful plant over your right shoulder. Well, thank you for your dish comment, it has become folklore in my family. You know, what is Rokana, what kind of dish? So it's become now like a running joke in my family. All right, well when we all retire and we open like a small Punjabi Hindu restaurant,

then we can decide what goes on the menu. You didn't say, well, you know, don't say chicken tikka masala. That's gonna be- No, no, no. Not an answer. Butter chicken. Garbanzo. Make a dish other than chicken tikka masala.

Yeah, like a lamb roganjosh or something like that. Okay, that's's now so now I know you've been to an Indian restaurant. What is this guy talking to? I grew up in this village. I'm in the heart of India. My favorite thing is halwa puri which I'm sure Akash knows but... Halwa puri? Yes. No, I've never Halva Puri. Halua? Like the sweet thing? Yeah, the sweet thing. You got aloes, halva, puri. I've never had that weird shit in my life, dude.

Oh, we're having an Indian bar. I like it. Probably if you eat that... Eat some Jalimbi, Doc. What are you doing? What is the thing that I said you look like? A galab jamun? Galab jamun, yeah, yeah.

I look like a galab jamun. Those are fighting words. It was a compliment. It was a compliment. I'm not a fan of that. I'm not a fan of that. I'm not a fan of that Galab jamun, yeah, yeah, I look like a galab jamun. Those are fighting words. Yeah. It was a compliment. It was a nice thing to say. It was on his wedding. I said, you look

like a galab jamun with teeth. He said that about Young Me, which is accurate. That's true. That is true. He was a little kid. He was adorable. He was pudgy. Beautiful teeth. Yeah. That is true. He was a little kid, he was adorable, he was pudgy, beautiful. Anyway, dude, let's get to the important stuff. You're about to show how many of our congressmen are pedophiles. How does that feel? Well, look, it's a pretty simple thing. And to me, it's whose side are you on? Are you going to be on the side of the rich and powerful, basically getting their own

justice? Are you going to be on the side of people who were participating in this being exposed? And I don't think it's a partisan issue. We should just release these files. People say, well, why didn't you do this earlier? And I didn't do it in the first Trump administration or Biden administration, but the reality is you now have had the attorney general tell the whole country that there's a list and you had the president say that he's going to release it.

So it's now become bigger than the Epstein files. It's an issue of trust. People feel that the rich and powerful have their thumb on the scale, they're screwing folks, life is hard. This has now become an issue of trust. What do you think about the list? Do you think it exists? Do you think there are powerful politicians and businessmen on that list? What are your specific thoughts?

Yes, I think it exists. I mean, I think, look, I don't know if there's a specific entries of here are the people who went to Epstein's Island, but I think that there is evidence suggesting that there are a lot of powerful and rich people who were on these plane rides, who frequented some of these parties. And the standard at the DOJ is you don't release information unless someone is charged. And I get that. I get that you don't want to destroy people's lives. But this has become way too big.

You have accusations now of intelligence agencies involved, of national security involved. And so the president, like he campaigned, should just say, in this case, we're going to release everything. We're going to protect the this case, we're going to release everything. We're going to protect the victims, but we're going to release everything so the American people can decide. Can you explain what the amendment is essentially? Because you're proposing an amendment, right? And what would that make Congress do exactly?

So basically, if the amendment passes, it would require Pan Bondi to release the list and any evidence, any files within 30 days. But before that, just proposing the amendment would make each congressman go up in front of Congress and say whether they're pro-releasing it or against releasing it, right? Absolutely right. But that to me is the most interesting thing because then you get to see who's in the pocket if there is a pocket to be inside of. Totally agree.

But the secret, the dirty secret in Congress is it's not how you vote, it's what we're allowed to vote on. What does that mean? Meaning that the speaker is going to try to probably stop this from coming to a vote. So I introduce it, today's Monday, I introduce the amendment, and on Monday night, the Rules Committee of Congress meets. It's like the high priests, right?

They're about nine people on this committee, and they get to decide whether Congress even gets to vote on my amendment or not. Can you tell the good people right now that are watching, hopefully millions, who those nine people are that get to decide whether or not we get to see if Congresswomen are supportive of releasing the Epstein file. Who are those nine people?

Let me get the exact names. I'll just look at... Do it. Look it up. Take your time. Look it up right now. The Rules Committee is basically appointed by the Speaker, but here are the... Take your time. Look it up right now. The Rules Committee is basically appointed by the Speaker, but here are the... Take your time, there's no rush here. I just want to

know who is accountable, who is responsible. Because it seems like a pretty benevolent thing to do, right? We'd like to know this information. The Chairperson of the Rules Committee is Virginia Foxx from North Carolina. Okay. And you've got Jim McGovern, who's the ranking member. He's on the Democratic side. Okay. And you've got Representative Michelle Fishbach from Minnesota, Representative Ralph Normand from South Carolina, Representative Chip Roy. I hope Chip votes for this, and Chip's usually for transparency.

He's a pretty independent minded guy. He's a pretty independent minded guy. He's from Texas. You've got Aaron Hoschein from Indiana, Nicholas Langworthy from New York, Austin Scott from Georgia, Morgan Griffith from Virginia, Brian Jack from Georgia, Jonah Goose, Teresa Lager, Mary Gay. So these are the people, is there anybody else or is that it? No. Okay, so these are the people that decide if we get to know which Congress women and men would like the Epstein file to be released. These are the people that get to decide because it can't

even go to the vote if they don't decide that it's worthy to be presented in front of Congress, right? You're absolutely right. And most people don't even know this. I mean, they just think, okay, congressman gets up and you file an amendment, you file a bill, people should be able to vote on it. But there's this committee first that the speaker appoints. It's always nine people from the majority party and four people from the minority party. So the majority has it stacked in their favor

and they vote on whether your amendment, whether your bill can even get a vote in the Congress. And a lot of times they allow Democratic bills to get a vote. But in this case, you know, I have my doubts. I'm going to on the floor to make the speech. I'm talking to some of them individually and I'm hoping they'll just say like. There's unanimous support in the United States of America for releasing all the information Around the Epson files. I can't fathom. I mean you brought up an interesting point

Which is like if you're not charging somebody with a crime releasing their information there might be some sort of I don't know if it's a breach in Your civil rights. I'm not exactly sure what that would be. Like if somebody is associated with something but there isn't an allegation against them, what could that do to them and their life? Could they argue this sets a dangerous legal precedent and try to hide behind that? Yeah, that is I think what they will argue.

You know, they'll say, look, there are hundreds and thousands of people who may have been caught up in an investigation. They may have gotten money from Jeffrey Epstein. They may have run into Jeffrey Epstein and a fundraiser. They may have had an email or a phone call or something fairly innocent. He may have funded a university program. And so now, by putting all this out there, you're potentially harming their reputation.

As a general matter, I agree with DOJ policy that you should not, if you're just investigating one individual, leak stuff before you charge them. Because the government then would be way too powerful if they could just do that for folks before they charge that. But in this case, where you have got the entire country outraged at a government that may be protecting the rich and the powerful, where you have got national security implications, where people are asking whose side are you on, I think the president should say I am making an exception because of the little mistakes. We're going to release all the information.

We're going to exempt the personal information of the victims. And I trust the American people to decide that we're just gonna get it out there. And I think people are fair enough. They're not gonna be like, okay, you showed up to some fundraiser with Jeffrey Epstein and that means you're a pedophile.

I think people are capable of taking this information and making a pedophile. I think people are capable of taking this information and making the reasonable conclusion. Do you have confidence that your bill will actually come up for a vote if you have the president telling everyone, hey this is old news let's move past it and focus on other things? No I don't because I think you know if it was that easy we would wouldn't need to do podcasts or something. The sad reality is when it comes to reforming things, DC just doesn't allow votes. Ban PAC money. Oh, we don't need to vote on that.

Ban super. We don't need to vote on that. Massey and my bill, right? Massey's a great Republican, independent minded, we do the War Powers Resolution saying, you know what, we don't need to be spending billions of dollars bombing Iran, having more troops in Iran, and by the way, come to Congress before then. Well, let's just not vote on Kana and Massey's bill on War Powers. The game in DC is not that they vote things down.

It's that they don't even vote at all. Wow. That's interesting. I wasn't aware of that either. I think so many Americans were just ignorant to the actual system. We think we understand it because we learned it in elementary school, but we don't really understand what it takes for a bill to get there. And then why is a person like you, like I was doing some research on you and you've

never taken any PAC money, but why is a person like you impervious to the effects of these super PACs? Like Bernie, for example, is also impervious when there are all these other politicians that seem absolutely petrified of pissing off the super PACs. Well, I'll just give you a candid answer. Look, I represent a district of Silicon Valley, and so I have a lot of people who are more affluent there, and they can give individual contributions, and it's easier to raise money. Bernie is very principled, but he was a national figure. And so when you're a national figure, you get a lot of people who are willing to give

you $10, $15. But if you're in a district that is not affluent, and you know, like you probably didn't recognize the names of any of the 13 members of Congress I said, and no one knows who you are, then it's very difficult to raise money in this system without the PACs and without the lobbyists. So I don't have some holier than thou attitude. Not like Ro Khanna, oh yeah, don't take PAC money,

I don't take super PAC money, because I can. The problem is the system. Now, how do you fix the system? Ban super PACs. Summer Lee and I have a bill to do that. It's is the system. Now, how do you fix the system? Ban super PACs. Summer Lee and I have a bill to do that. It's, by the way, constitutional, even under Citizens United. I don't want to get too in the weeds, but think about this. Elon Musk, right? He can spend $250 million on a super PAC, but he's limited to only giving $7,000 to a candidate. You just have the same limits on super PACs as you have for candidates, and that would

ban super PACs. And then you should ban all PACs and lobbyists from giving money, and you should allow, I've said that we should have this thing called citizen dollars, democracy dollars, everyone gets $100 that they can spend on election campaigns. Every voter is a donor, but you need some broad campaign finance so it's a fair system. And who are the politicians that currently stand in the way of executing those ideas? That's not a list of 13 names we should vote for. I know you're going to have to just name all of Congress, but I think it's important that

Americans understand who the people are that are in the way of the things that we want. Because I think right now we just go, it's government, it's politicians, and there's this blanket statement, and then there's a few of you that sprout up and you seem like these rogue figures. And if you don't have a lot of support and backing in a social media presence, it's very easy to make you guys radioactive. We saw it happen with Bernie. It's definitely happened with Thomas Massey. Like it's very easy. And I imagine a lot of that money comes in through those super PACs, right? So I think it's that kind of transparency is important

so that when politicians vote against the will of the people, we are aware of it and we can vote them out. No, totally agree. So as a start, you know, there are about 10 of us who don't take any PAC money or any lobbyist money. People should be asking their members of Congress to join that group of no PACs and no lobbyists. But to get this vote on ending super PACs, again, it comes to this rules committee.

Are they going to allow a vote on the amendment to end super PACs? And they aren't. And by the way- So what's it realistically going to take to get that through Congress? Is it going to take a president getting elected who starts making it a big deal, or what? Is there a way? You know, the reason I supported Bernie Sanders is because he was actually going to fight this stuff. I mean, that's why I was a co reason I supported Bernie Sanders is because he was actually going to fight this stuff.

I mean that's what was a co-chair of his campaign because he would have gotten on and he would have gone from the Oval Office or whatever and he'd be like let me tell you here are the people on the Rules Committee here's why we're not getting a vote and I'm going to actually push this thing through to get a ban on super PACs or get a ban on money. But you're actually right it's going to take president. And the reason it's going to take a president is otherwise people campaign and then they don't pay attention to the detail. So every Democrat will say, okay, we want to ban super PACs. And let's say we get the majority, then are we actually going to be putting a bill to ban super PACs? Last time we did, it was called HR1, when Biden was president, the House passed it,

and then the Senate couldn't get it passed because of the quote unquote filibuster. That was Manchin, Sinema, a few other people who didn't wanna pass it. But you need a president basically putting sunlight on all this, calling out people by name who are standing in the way of these bills getting passed. And then there's the same pressure that essentially the super PACs are applying.

When you have a president that is that much, that much sunlight, as you said, that, and then you see kind of Trump do it all the time, if somebody's going against him, he's basically blatant. He's like, yeah, we're going to primary you guys. He's putting like the fear of God in these people, right? But that's essentially what the super PACs are doing, right? So if we don't like it when he does it, then we shouldn't like it when the super PACs are doing it. Yeah, just because we can't see it doesn't mean it's okay.

And we also don't even know who like runs the super PACs. I mean, there's this like veil of like obscurity. Like I have no clue who the, what would you call them? Like the managers of the super PACs? Who are these people that are in these like unelected positions that have so much power in our democracy? Yeah, what their interests I don't even know. It's like old school people it's like it's you know Elon is like he comes from money but now he has like you know real money right and and he wants everybody to know and he's flexing and he wants to shape the world in his vision. Old money they don't want you to know who the fuck they are

You know what I mean? Like I I don't even know if Rothschild's exists anymore. I do I never met one. I Was told Jay electronica was dating one at one time could be totally fake Cooper's a Vanderbilt. His last name is Cooper switch his name I don't get it. So so I think that like, I think it's important that Americans understand the people with the controlling interests in these super PACs that have this unbelievable amount of power and sway in our democracy. I mean, that are really kind of like stripping, the stripping our influence as voters.

They really are. And probably more at the level of Congress and Senate than even the presidency. Because the presidency, everyone kind of tunes in. And yeah, the money matters, and the awful super PACs matter. And by the way, it happened on both sides. Let's not kid ourselves. I mean, Kamala Erickson, $1.5 billion.

Oh, 100%. Yeah, this idea that Kamala's campaign was all small donations is a complete bullshit I mean she spent but no amount of money would get her elected like you could it could be a trillion nothing Nothing would ever get her elected. There's not a lot of the election was again today with Trump's Betrayal and some of this Epstein stuff and the war don't think she would lose. Yeah, she's that bad No way she no no she's that bad. No way. No, no, she's that bad.

She's that bad. And I'll tell you why, because I've thought a lot about this. Come on. Because I got recently, we got a lot of shit over in the last couple days, right? Because we're on the pod and we're like, all these things that Trump are doing are none of the things that he promised during the campaign. He said he was going to showcase what happened in the Epstein situation. He campaigned hard on it.

Boncino and Cash campaigned hard on it. His son campaigned hard on it. They really campaigned hard on this thing. Ending the foreign wars was a big part of what he was saying. That hasn't happened. It seems like we're still funding him. It seems like Israel does whatever the hell they want to do. We're still just turning Gaza into rubble.

Kids are fucking dying. So it's like Ukraine seems like we we're gonna send more money over there, shrinking the budget, not expanding it by a few trillion dollars. So like all these issues that I think were important to us, that we wanted to see executed, and he was making those promises, and all of a sudden he seems to be flip-flopping on those promises.

So naturally we're gonna criticize him, like, well this isn't what we voted for, right? I thought that was great. You're calling balls and strikes. Yeah, because you're smart. I thought you're talking about your dad, about the New York Times, and how he had the scrunched up New York Times every day. Yeah. But so I guess what I was saying to people is like, if I wanted to vote for somebody to not release the Epstein files, to continue foreign wars and to expand the budget, I would have voted for Kamala.

The reason I didn't do that is because I didn't want that. So my issue with Trump right now is he is doing what Kamala would have done. I mean, you can't tell me that Kamala is going to release the Epstein files. I think the only difference is green card holders aren't tell me that Kamala is going to release the SC files because Biden did. I think the only difference is green card holders aren't getting deported, which is a big deal. Well, I'm not talking, but I'm agreeing with you.

Most of the big things that we had a problem with would be status quo, whether Kamala won or Trump won, it would be the exact same. Tariffs, we don't actually know the economic impact yet. And then green card holders, which is an issue, but the big stuff that bothered us as a country is still going to be an issue of Kamaloans. Yeah, I just think, yeah. So it's like, he's basically running as like an institutional old guard Democrat on these issues. He's not doing the thing yet. There's a new wing in the Democratic party that wants to get rid of the old guard. It's the Bernie wing. And we've said no dumb wars. And that's just not

about Iran. I mean, Bernie and I led to stop the war in Yemen. We were vocally opposed to the war in Iraq in 2003. There's a wing of the party that says, get rid of these super PACs. We shouldn't have super PAC money. Not, we should go kiss up to billionaires and celebrities and raise the most super PAC money. There's a wing of the party that is out there trying to get Medicare for all and healthcare for everyone. And that wants to reduce the deficits.

I mean, I came out with a plan to reduce 12 billion dollars of deficits. But I think the only way the Democratic party gets credibility is to call out the old guard and to say, you made a lot of mistakes and we need a new party. Hey, welcome, welcome to the show. Mark decided to show up today. I feel so disrespectful.

Sorry, Rob, my apologies. I'm on Indian Standard Time. Please forgive me, sorry about that. You'll be an hour later if you're running. But yeah, not to distract because I think that the point you're making is fantastic. What keeps those new Democrats, sorry, what keeps them from making a real push? Because in our opinion, we're idiots, but it seems like it somehow gets muddled with

identity politics, and then that kind of takes over the discourse. And then the new Democrats that can make real change, we aren't as captivated by. Is that what you think or is there something we're missing? I think it's something much deeper. I mean, there is huge financial interest against the policies that some of us are pushing. I get booed when I vote against a trillion dollar defense budget. That's at 56% of our defense budget. If you pull up one of the clips, you'll see on the Armed Services Committee,

it's like 67 to one, and everyone is like, Kana, Kana, you're gonna vote for it, and then when I vote no, boo. Wow. So the point is you're taking on the defense contractors when you're saying we don't want more wars in the Middle East. You're taking on the Pentagon when you're saying

you don't want a trillion dollars of defense budget. When you say, okay, I want Medicare for all, you're taking on the PBNs, you're taking on the health insurance companies, you're taking on the hospitals. When you say, okay, I wanna release the Epstein files, and I don't care which way that's gonna go. Why are more Democrats not speaking out about it?

Well, they're donors who probably want those files to be released. And so then, so what game do the donors play? They don't say, oh, Rokana is wrong. They just say, yeah, no, he's an unserious guy. He's going down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. That's not statesman-like. You know, we're above it. We look the part of a politician. And you know what people say? Yeah, you looked the part of politicians who've been helping out the rich and powerful and have corrupted government while people's lives are getting screwed. The thing about the conspiracy is there's no question that I'm sure the internet has made the Epstein thing bigger than maybe what it actually is. But where it already is, is once convicted,

pedophile, we already know that that happened, sweetheart deal from the government, and then Ghislaine is locked up for 20 years for procuring underage girls for him. I think they said there's over a thousand victims. So this is not conspiracy. Like that to me is enough to get a little look under the hood of who else was in his circle, right? Like if you know a guy was already convicted of being a pedophile, I don't know why Bill Gates is showing up to his house. I don't know why the former Israeli prime minister is showing up to his house. I don't know why Clinton's flying on a plane with him.

Like I imagine you vet the people you talk to. I mean, you obviously didn't vet us, but I imagine most I imagine you vet the people you talk to. I mean, you obviously didn't vet us, but I imagine most people that you talk to, you vet them. So I think there is some curiosity like why some of these incredibly powerful and wealthy people would just look past the fact that he was a convicted pedophile. Well, you just said three things that most politicians aren't going to say. They're not going to want to say, well, why did Bill Clinton show up or why did Bill Gates show up?

Cuz they're gonna think, well, who am I offending? Who may not support me? And that's why our politics are in this mess. And that's why you don't have more people on the Democratic side screaming right now to release these files. But my point is if we just get our credibility back, if we stop listening to the big moneyed interests, the donor interests, if we're actually a party against war again, for a party that stands for the working class and for the guy getting screwed, then maybe we start

to win back the country. Because that's what Trump ran on, that we were getting into these dumb wars, people's jobs were going offshore, the government was taken over by too many corrupt interests, that he was going to clean it up. Because he hasn't delivered, doesn't mean Democrats can just say, well, let's just go back to how things were. No, people were pissed off. All right, guys, stay break for a second. You need to take care of your mental health, okay? We know how important it is, but we also know how daunting it seems to drive up from a therapist office every single week And that's where Talkspace comes in Talkspace makes therapy easy and convenient because you can take your appointments from the comfort and privacy of your own

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right now you go to www.gruns.co. Get up to 52% off. Use the code flagrants. Let's get back to the show. What is your advice for Democrats? Like when you hear, like I'm a lifelong Democrat, right? I've felt very disillusioned by the fact that like, I don't think we had a fair chance to actually pick a candidate for president in the past three elections. Like I didn't feel like there was a fair primary process at all. Right. And I was really friendly. Do you think that's a fair assessment? It's not only a fair assessment, it's a true assessment. There was no primary process in 2024. Bernie in 2020, I mean, I was the co-chair of his campaign after he won Nevada.

All the prediction markets said 70% he's going to be the nominee. Then what happened? Buttigieg drops out suddenly two days later, even though he's doing well, endorses Biden. Klobuchar suddenly drops out, endorses Biden. Beto drops out, endorses Biden. Like when does this happen? It's like an era, a track and field race. He got 10 people, one guy's a little bit ahead, and then every other person on the field just endorses the guy ahead so that he wins and the guy coming second doesn't happen. It's like never, in sports you'd never allow this, and yet that's what happens, and that's how they beat Bernie.

So no, that was not a- Why do you think they did that? Well, they were afraid of what Bernie was standing for. Bernie was talking talking about taking on big insurance companies, taking on the pharmacy benefit managers, taking on the defense contractors, taking on Wall Street from buying up single family homes. He was actually going to fight to end super PACs. He would have not just said, oh yeah, I'm for a livable wage.

He would have called out senators saying, you know what, that senator is not for raising the wage and voting against it. And then when they're calling him. What do you think motivated the other people that were running to just drop out and support and endorse Biden? They get promised a cabinet position, right?

They get promised a piece of the pie. They're like, okay, you're not gonna run this time, but you run next time. Don't let me put words here. What do you think? Yeah, look, they get promised a piece of the pie. They're like, okay, you're not gonna run this time, but you run next time I don't let me put words here. What do you think? Yeah, look they're good people, but they they they say look you can run in the future You can we're gonna make you committee chair. We're gonna make you a In the cabinet where we're gonna make sure this is good for your career And then they appeal to well Bernie Sanders couldn't win

Do you really want Donald Trump to be president? And you've got to be. I think what Al is asking, and maybe you answered it already and he's not, we had Pete on the pod. We really loved him. We thought he was awesome. You named him as one of the guys who dropped out. Do you feel like he's a little bit compromised

having dropped out or no? I think that's what he was trying to get at. Look, I don't think he should have dropped out and endorsed Biden. I don't think he should have dropped out and endorsed Biden. I don't think that that was a fair process. I think you should have just allowed the process to play out. And in my view, there were a lot of people who voted for Bernie who were upset about it.

But then it's not just that. You've seen this bombing in Gaza going on with Netanyahu. I voted against giving the extra funding to Netanyahu. It's one of the reasons that some of the interest groups have targeted me, because I don't think, yes, I think that October 7th was horrific and Israel had a right to defend themselves, but after three months they had destroyed

most of the Hamas battalions. It's been two years later. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. 25,000 dead. Now that was really brilliant, what you did is evading the Pete answer and then taking us to something that we cannot argue. That was good.

That was slick. Indian Indian, respect. My son, very good. But I, did I not answer Pete? I think you did. I thought you said no. I'm gonna be honest. What I would think though is that more people in the Biden administration, others should

have called out what was going on in Gaza. And I figured with Pete was not, yeah, that he dropped out, I disagree with it, but I was getting back to Pete, is that he and others should have been calling out this unconditional money going to Netanyahu. Absolutely. I just find it funny that like the last few days we've been lectured by a lot of staunch liberals who pretended that the person they voted for wasn't dead for four years. Like they pretended Biden wasn't senile for four

years and we're getting lectured for criticizing the person that I voted for. Like I think you should- Yeah, I think they're pretending they had a really viable, awesome candidate that we all should have voted for and not just acknowledging- You're getting into a moral visual of lecturing you. I mean, I don't get it because they think you-

We platformed him, we talked to him. Not even that, it's just they're like, you should have known better You should this guy's a career con man. He's just always lies You should have known and it's like no dumb. That's why the Democrats lost it It'd be like look I it'd be like I represent Silicon Valley. It's like let's say there's the latest Version to the iPhone and people like you know what this iPhone really isn't good We're gonna go buy some other phone and a bunch of people at Apple sitting around saying you know what, this iPhone really isn't good. We're gonna go buy some other phone.

And a bunch of people at Apple sitting around saying, you know what, they're really stupid. They should really like the iPhone. Guys, we gotta tell them why they should like the iPhone. As opposed to saying, you know what, this iPhone really sucked. Maybe we gotta look in the mirror and change our party. It's not the Democratic party is not entitled, Andrew,

to your or Kasha or anyone's vote. It's not like, oh, okay entitled, Andrew, to your or Kash's or anyone's vote. It's not like, okay, just because your dad read the New York Times, you better vote for the Democrats for the rest of your life. We didn't earn your vote. And the reality is we didn't earn your vote last time. We were in these overseas wars. We were taking big pack money. We weren't talking about people's anger at the system within with inflation. We didn't have a clear economic vision. People didn't feel us. And so, okay, they both and Gaza was going on and we didn't even allow a Palestinian America to speak. Yeah.

Well, you know, we can keep having more of the same. We keep putting up these status quo faults and we can keep losing or we can realize that people are angry in this country at both parties and we got to take on the establishment. I haven't figured out if this is a good thing or bad and I want to get your opinion on it. So I feel like Republicans, even if they disagree, they all fall in line. If Trump says, hey, I want to do this, they fall in line. With Dems, there's fractured. You say old guard, new guard, and you guys disagree quite a bit. Do you think that's a good thing for the party or a bad thing? Well, it's a good thing. I think the Republicans disagreed a lot in 2016. They had this guy,

Donald Trump, who basically went on the stage. Jeb Bush was supposed to be president, and he said, Jeb, you can't even call the Iraq war a mistake. And he transformed that party. He insulted Mitch McConnell. He insulted Jeb Bush, he said all these people don't know what they're talking about, they got us into these wars, they're talking about cutting Social Security. No one liked him in the party. And but he stuck to his guns. I think the Democrats sometimes were too polite.

We're not willing to call out our leadership. I got in so much trouble because I said Chuck Schumer was making a mistake by not allowing a War Powers Resolution vote on the Iran deal. How can you criticize the Senate majority leader of your own party? I think what people want is for folks to just call balls and strikes to be blunt. We love that. Now, dude, I'm tired of the cult of politics. I'm not some fucking Democrat cult member, Republican cult member.

We're supposed to be free Americans that can make up decisions on our own, call balls and strikes, as you say, and then hold the people in power accountable. When people fail us and fail us on the promises they make, we should criticize them. What is the alternative? We just vote and then agree with every single thing that person does. I love Obama, I voted for Obama. I didn't vote for fucking drone strikes of a wedding.

You know what I mean? Like maybe you wait to the honeymoon or something, like Target it. You know, like. Wait till they've been married five years, do a favor. Exactly. You do a favor. Wait for the anniversary.

Wait for February 13th. You know, so it's like, Wait for the anniversary. Wait for February 13th. You know, so it's like, Aiden, you should hold the elected officials accountable. And we live in this like weird time where any measure to hold them accountable comes with immediate criticism. Your experience as a politician, I guess we experience it as, you know, for whatever people thrown in this, you know, political mess. But there has to be a version, I think, also where as Democrats, like this is a democracy. You want votes.

You don't have enough. You lost last time. Right? You want to win this time? If you see people that seem to have swayed over to Trump that are now disillusioned with Trump, you have the opportunity to build a coalition with those people. And you don't build a coalition by just going, hey, fucking idiot, why were you a stupid fuck and that's not how you built.

Totally agree with you. I think we've got to listen to people. And I agree with you on this point, like we can't cancel people, we need to have free exchange, we've got to respect people, but it's got to be much more than that. You know, the democratic lesson is like, okay, let's not make people put pronouns on their emails. Fine, but it's much deeper than that. The problem in the country is you've got a democratic party that was too beholden to the interest groups, to the defense contractors, to the ideology of overseas wars, to not pushing for real reform. And if we run as a status quo party, and like, you know what?

America is already great. Yeah, of course we're great. But you know what? Half this country, half this country has a declining standard of living. They don't think their kids are going to do well. You're making a great point. And I think that the identity of the Democratic voter and the Democratic party are quite separate. And I think the Democratic party is a little bit split.

Obviously, you have the Bernie side, which it seems that you're a part of, and then you have like the old guard side as well. But I think the Democratic voter doesn't believe that his party is tied to these billion dollar corporation and special interest groups. I think that they believe in their heart, like I believe my entire life as a Democrat, I was like, I'm here for progress and making sure people's lives are easier and better

and I wanna help as many people as possible. And once I think Democrats start realizing it, that's actually not the priority of the party. That there are military contracts that need to get paid, that there are pharmaceutical companies that need to get paid, there are insurance companies that need to get paid, there are pharmaceutical companies that need to get paid, there are insurance companies that need to get paid, and those places are going to strip your ability to implement that progress that you want so bad.

The second they start realizing that, I think they probably lean more towards a Bernie or more towards you or guys that actually have that at their heart or their identity. But there is a major chasm. They think that the Republicans are bought, but not the Democrats. And it's like, they're bought too. There's a major chasm and there are people who want to silence that chasm. Oh, you got to row. How can you be talking about the divisions in your own party when we got Donald Trump? Just focus on Donald Trump. And what I'm saying is people are tired about the focus on Donald

Trump. Do you think there's a single thing I can say to any American about Donald Trump that's going to change their mind about what they think about Donald Trump? That's a great one. The guy's been on the, like, there's not a single thing I can say to my whole family about Donald Trump. We had this exact thing. It's like there was a, you know, when we had Trump on, people were like, why didn't you ask him about Epstein?

I was like, so he could give the same answer that he's given a hundred times about being with Epstein? Do you think that if we asked him about Epstein, did he be like, yeah, I used to fuck kids with him. You think he's just going to open up because he's hanging out? It's going to be the same answer every single time. So yeah, yeah. And look, obviously I oppose very strongly what Akash is saying, where he's deporting

people that do prosa and we stand up to that. But you know what we also have to do as a party is say, you know, we hear, why did the guy get elected twice? It's because people are totally livid at the government. Yeah. I think- Real quick, sorry, sorry to interrupt. And a very important thing, I think for both parties to understand, and I think you're seeing this happen a lot with like the Democrats is your compass is not very wide for the things you're used to. Right. Like, I don't need to try pizza in that many different places. I know pizza. I'm from New York. Right. But a wild food in Singapore,

I'm absolutely going to be open to and I'm going to try. And I think what happens with like institutional Republicans or Democrats, we're very, we're very rigid in what we'll accept for them because we don't expect much. The outsider that's presenting these ideas that are wild will indulge him because we need some form of change. And I think that's like why a Mamdani is so popular right now in New York. It's like, I know the institutional Democrats, the Cuomo's, are not going to do anything different and my life isn't going to change at all. So I have a lot of rigidity with them.

But with this complete outsider, maybe there's hope. Maybe there's an opportunity that things can change. I think that's probably what a lot of us thought with the Epstein files with Trump. We're like, yeah, maybe we'll get some justice for a thousand underage girls who've been victimized. That'd be really fucking nice because they're campaigning on it. And then when he goes, ah, we're not gonna see it, yeah,

we have every right to be frustrated by that. I think people would be shocked at how similar the thought process that leads someone to vote for Donald Trump is to the thought process that leads someone to vote for Zeron Mamdani. No, absolutely. The thought process is almost identical, I would bet. And one thing that

frustrates me as someone who probably leans liberal, but would love to lean more is there's one party that you would think really preaches empathy and understanding people and it's the Democrats. But when it comes to voting for Trump, there is no, not even an attempt to understand what makes over 50 or over half the country, whatever the exact percent is, vote for that guy. They're not all idiots and, and, and this enablers and whatever other awful adjective you want to throw at us. Just some of us.

Some, just some, some are, no, some are for sure. There's a percentage that are, look, I'm not saying if you vote for Trump, you're racist, but if you're racist, you're probably not voting for the Democrats. Yeah, there's plenty of racists. There's plenty of anti-semitic. Exactly. Yeah. There's an understanding of, okay, something made a lot of other people vote for. But if you're racist, you're probably not voting for the Democrats There's an understanding of okay something made a lot of other people vote for what was it? Yeah, they're not all bad people You can't just do that and feel better about yourself and expect to improve your party or more importantly the country And I think that's getting great Americans

I mean they voted for him partly because their jobs were shipped offshore what they see in the trickling mine $14 trillion in Silicon Valley. Donstown, Ohio, or Lorraine, Ohio, they said, look, there are no factories, our kids are not going to have a good shot. And then these politicians are sending billions of our dollars and getting into these overseas wars. And this guy is saying, I'm going to stop these wars. This guy's going to say, saying, saying I'm gonna bring back manufacturing, this guy understands that I haven't had a fair shot in life. And you know, Rose family, they just got here.

You know, yeah, my parents are middle class, but metaphorically, a lot of the immigrant communities, they're doing really well. What about you? You built the steel, you built this country, you fought in the world wars. If we don't understand that sentiment and understand that there's a righteous anger that a lot

of Trump voters have. We're never going to start to win them back. But the point is not just, okay, now let's go talk to them and say, you're not, you know, we want to listen. The point is, what are we going to do? How are we going to actually change things? And what I think the, what the test of leadership on both parties is to channel the anger, but then to put something forward that is actually going to solve people's problems, that is

actually going to be solution-oriented. I call it economic patriotism, that we should be having a thousand trade schools, we should have investments in new factories across this country, a Marshall Plan for America. We should stop putting trillions of dollars in overseas wars and start investing in this country. But whatever it is, I think if you don't, if you start out with we were great and Trump voters are just wrong, we're gonna keep losing. Yeah, I like that idea of investment in America and I think that that's very, I think it's very enticing to a lot of voters that just really feel party-less right now, you know, and they're struggling and I think it's very enticing to a lot of voters that just really feel party-less right now.

And they're struggling. And I think when you're struggling, I think when your life is pretty good, just calling someone else a bad guy works because you fear like your life could get worse. When you already feel like your life is worse, you're just going towards hope. Whatever has more hope works. If you go, that guy's a bad guy, he's going to make your life worse. You're just going towards hope. Whatever has more hope works. If you go, that guy's a bad guy, he's going to make your life worse. You're like, I already can't afford to eat and I already can't afford rent. How much worse can this get? That guy's telling me he's going to make 200,000 new, what's it called, rent freeze units in New York City.

I like that guy. That sounds really good. Who knows if he can do it, but maybe there's a chance. And I think that's why a lot of the democratic socialists are like really resonating. I see that popping up all over the country. It's not just in New York City. I can see that becoming incredibly popular and especially in the way that it's kind of like rebuking the traditional old guard Democrats, which I think a lot of us don't really, I feel like we kind of just don't really trust them right now Yeah, and I'm totally totally agree And you know look at the first thing is just to say that the system isn't working because if you're one of those folks who?

Can't afford rent who can't afford to buy a house. That was the American dream You don't know if you're gonna get a good job, and then you're like well Let's just keep throwing people out because why should I vote for the same thing that I was worth? let's just keep throwing people out. Cause why should I vote for the same thing? That I just- Yeah, work. And the American people have been doing this since I'd say 2004.

Nine out of the 10 last election cycles, they've just thrown the other side out cause their life isn't improving. And I think there's an opportunity, not just to, okay, mimic Donald Trump or to mimic Mamdani. You can have your own ideas. You can have fresh ideas,

but you gotta start by saying the system is bad, people are getting screwed, here's what we're gonna do differently. And then let's have a lot of new debate and new voices about where we need to go. You had a tweet that went viral, I don't wanna misrepresent you, but it was, you polled people about were Dems more upset about or attacking Mondani or attacking Trump's beautiful, big,

beautiful bill and more people voted that Dems attacked Mondani more. I hope I'm not butchering. What was your motivation for the tweet and why do you think we got those results? Well, because one week after Mondani won, all you were hearing in the media is, oh, is this the end of the Democratic Party? Is this some existential crisis with the Democratic Party? Because Mamdani has not condemned, unequivocally globalized the Intifada. Well, look, I condemned globalized the Intifada, but the point is that really,

that's what you got out of the Mamdani election. Not that the guy was out there talking about why the price of halal went from 8 to 10 bucks. He would talk about that. Yeah. Yeah. So that's what you look out of that campaign. And then instead of talking about the stuff that Trump was going to do to take away healthcare and child care from working class families, you're attacking Mondani as the problem of the Democratic Party and people, the headlines were Democratic Party is existential crisis.

The 33 year old kid getting elected because he did some media videos calling it why people's life suck is an existential crisis for the party. I mean, come on. And that's, I think the frustration people felt. And then, you know, then you get the, then I got attacked by some of the people

in the establishment. Well, that's not true. So, oh, and so senators spent then, you know, then you get the, then I got attacked by some of the people in the establishment. Well, that's not true. So, oh, and so senators spent five, you know, five hours on the house floor and they would spend more time talking about the Trump bill. That wasn't the point. The point is, you know, what did it feel like to folks? And what it feels like to folks is that anytime you have a new voice, anytime you have someone questioning the status quo, that anytime you have a new voice, anytime you have someone questioning the status quo, the whole party gets uneasy and they come down at him. I mean, the guy's going to be mayor and you still got these billionaires out there plotting about like how you keep Ant Cuomo back or how do you get Adams back?

It just makes no sense. Yeah, why is Cuomo not stepping down? Like who the fuck wants Cuomo to be mayor? I have no idea. I mean, it's like they don't know when it's time. I mean, he's not going to win. Adams is not going to win. Mondani is going to win.

He still does not have the endorsement of every New York Democratic leader, even though he won the primary. And this is the problem. Like sometimes I think we think voters are dumber than they actually are. Voters in America are actually pretty smart. That should be the first thing Democratic parties should realize. Going back to Aakash's point is, if you believe voters were smart, which I do, and they elected

Donald Trump twice, then maybe think like, what are you doing wrong? So voters are smart that you can endorse Mamdani and still not agree with him on every position. Just because you endorse Mondani doesn't mean that you agree with Mondani on every single position and yet we're so afraid in this country. That's the problem with the Democrat party in one sentence, one word, it's a lack of courage. It's like they're so, they're calculat- So how do we- They're pussy. Yeah, yeah. That's like they're so, they're calculative. So how do we? They're pussy.

Yeah, they're pussy. They're pussy. They're pussy. Wait, so how can we instill more courage in them? Because it feels like the courageous Democrats are having a lot of success right now. You might not agree with their policies, I'm not saying you, but like the people listening and watching right now, but they are resonating. And they're making waves, yeah. So like, how do you, how are other Democrats not seeing that and then echoing those sentiments and?

Furthermore, why don't you echo in I want you echo them courageously without the pejoratives like it seems like the worst thing they say about Mondalia, they're like he's a communist. He's an 87. He's a socialist It's like well, can you refute some of his ideas like if if you have a reason why his? New building residential development program is bad for the city, attack that. Defend his idea. Because as someone who lives in New York, I'd like to know why is rent freezing bad? And there are arguments for why it is and why it eventually hurts, you know, the people of that city in the long run. But like, let's attack the arguments that these people are making instead of just throwing these priorities around because then we still are

In my opinion, I think that we're untrusting once we're just trying to cast people as certain things. I start to lose a little bit of faith Totally agree and put your own policies out of how you're gonna build Millions of new homes and how they're gonna be their public homes or private homes So put put out your ideas of what you're gonna do instead of just labeling someone based on as a communist, which is just not true. But you ask why is there a lack of courage? And I think it's pretty simple.

You gotta be willing to lose, to be willing to do something that's meaningful. And you look at one of the reasons Trump advanced one, look at how many years collectively they've been in elective office. Trump like five and Vance has been like five years. Now you look at the amount of years that Biden and Harris were collectively in elective office. And the reality is the longer you stay in, people think, okay, I got to just say everything

to keep my position. Well, Donnie did think he was going to win that campaign. He just says, okay, I'm to just say everything to keep my position. Well, Donnie did think he was gonna win that campaign Starting up he just says like okay. I'm gonna have fun with it. I'm gonna say what I want You know, and if you if you have that view like, okay, I'm just gonna say that we should release the Epstein files I'm gonna who cares. I'm gonna partner with Thomas Massey and I'm gonna say no war in Iran. Maybe I'll be right Maybe I'll be wrong people be upset at me Yeah, maybe maybe this is not the best way to get into the cabinet. But you know what, maybe it resonates

and maybe that it does lead to change. And I just think that's what the Democratic Party needs more of, courage, willingness, actually a willingness to lose these, a willingness to risk your positions of power. That's a great way of putting it. It's, there are too many people that it is their goal your position is a power. That's a great way of putting it. There are too many people that it is their goal to be a career politician.

And if it is your goal to be a career politician, then you will lose your courage. You can't really go up against the party. You can't really create noise. You can't be rebellious at all. And the people realize that and we see the inauthenticity in you. And then when you see someone who's willing to buck the system, even if the ideas don't make sense on paper, it is refreshing because it looks like they're not beholden to a system that has let us down.

In fact, trust your intentions too. Yeah. But they do get skewered though because all of the most courageous democratic politicians we can think of do sit on the periphery of the establishment. Yes. You know what I mean? Like the AOCs or Bernie or Roe himself. Like they kind of are at odds with the establishment and they get crucified for it. Yeah. You know like people sometimes on Twitter will say, oh Roe, you should you should be speaker. I can never be speaker of the house. They wouldn't

vote me for speaker of the house. I've offended too many people. I've broken too many glasses to be speaker of the house. So you have to be comfortable with saying, okay, I'm gonna take certain stances and I'm gonna let the chips fall where they may, but this is what I believe. And maybe there's a movement and it makes you president,

makes you cabinet, maybe you never get further. But you can go back and say, I tried to make an impact. And the best leaders, in my view, don't just have the courage. Then they actually have solutions that resonate. The problem I had with Trump is he had the rebellion. He diagnosed every problem. Like, yeah, jobs are going offshore, too many wars. I just don't think he thought deeply about the solutions.

How are we actually going to get manufacturing back? How are we actually going to take on the defense establishment? And I think our party shouldn't just be rebellion without purpose, it should be rebellion with a new vision, a fresh vision. And let's have 10, 15 people with that vision, not just anoint. The worst thing the Democratic Party could do is to anoint people for leadership in 2026 or 28. Like fight, have more fight within the party. Speaking of which, how do you feel about Gavin Newsom

and the job he's doing out in Cali? You just want me to comment on every Democrat, huh? People who just- Talk shit, talk shit. You said you call balls and strike. I don't care. Yeah, I'm gonna, my phone's gonna blow up after this. I don't like it. You were supposed to talk and strikes. Go ahead. My phone's going to blow up after this. You were supposed to talk about the Epstein files.

My team will be like, what the hell are you doing? You've got the booting game. Shake it up, Gavin. This is the last time I'm going to be allowed to do one of these things. I'm just joking around. My disappointment, the biggest disappointment I had with Gavin, and I've told him this, was he ran on single pair and getting single pair healthcare in California in 2018.

He said we're going to do big things. And then he hasn't supported the single pair bill. And then when he had the recall election, there were a lot of insurance companies that funded the anti-recall effort. And so, yeah, that was my biggest disappointment. There are places I agree with them, but that was the place where I had the biggest criticism of them. We might have to sit down with Gavin and see what's going on, because I think that the

idea from a New Yorker, obviously we're not as entrenched in California politics, right? But I think the idea from the outsider is you see him in interviews and he's like, he's a really good politician, if you will. You know, he seems authentic, he seems earnest, but then the state is on fire. So it's like mainly the southern part. So it's like, we just need to see if like what he says in interviews actually ends up being executed. And at the end of the day, if you cannot execute your vision, you cannot do the job well. And I understand there's limiting factors to this, but that's where the art of being a politician comes into play. It's not just convincing the people, it's convincing those other politicians

to get on board with your plans. But look, Ro, we appreciate you so much. Thank you so much for your time. We hope to talk to you more about this. Stay alive. Make your 2028 announcement here. Stay alive. Okay. Come back when it's time. I totally love my life just to put it on record. Okay. I'm sure if you, for whatever reason, know taken out Peter teals probably got your consciousness somewhere and he can inject It into another Indian kid and we'll get another one of you soon reincarnation. Yes Knowing Rogan Josh that that that takes my level of respect way higher. I'm gonna take you out to some spots man Next time in New York, we're gonna take you some spots. All right, buddy. Take care. Thank you. Thank you