Blocks w/ Neal Brennan - Ezra Klein

Episode Date: September 4, 2025

Neal Brennan interviews Ezra Klein (The Ezra Klein Show) about the things that make him feel lonely, isolated, and like something's wrong - and how he is persevering despite these blocks.  00:00 Intro 00:28 Being a liberal leader 1:40 Biden & Democrat Ineptitude 12:32 Social Media 17:30 Future for Democrats 22:22 Sponsor: BetterHelp  23:40 Sponsor: CookUnity 25:09 Finding the right candidate 28:42 Career pressure 42:53 Transition from Writer to Performer 47:12 Sponsor: Huel 49:16 Sponsor: Mando 51:07 Information Hygiene 1:01:45 Joe Rogan and Podcasting 1:13:05 Not Paying Attention ---------------------------------------------------------- ​Watch  @EzraKleinShow   Follow Neal Brennan: https://www.instagram.com/nealbrennan https://twitter.com/nealbrennan https://www.tiktok.com/@mrnealbrennan Watch Neal Brennan: Crazy Good on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81728557 Watch Neal Brennan: Blocks on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81036234 Theme music by Electric Guest (unreleased). Edited by Will Hagle ([e-mail])  Sponsors: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at https://www.betterhelp.com/neal and get on your way to being your best self. Go to https://www.cookunity.com/nealfree for free premium meals for life. Thanks to CookUnity for supporting the show! Visit https://www.Huel.com and use promo code NEAL to get 15% off for new customers. Control Body Odor ANYWHERE with Mando and get 20% off + free shipping with promo code [NEAL] at https://www.shopmando.com! #mandopod  Sponsor Blocks: https://public.liveread.io/media-kit/blocks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest today I'm very excited about. He's got his own podcast. We'll call it the Ezra Klein show. It jumps around. He can't find a stable home for it. And he's got a book out called Abundance, which is what I understand. It's about his checking account for the last four years. Is that about right?

I wish. Still, you still don't have any money? I don't see how that's possible. Ezra Klein is here, everybody. It's a, it's a, it's liberal Christmas. Okay. Thank you for coming. Thanks for having me. I see you as sort of... Am I liberal Santa? I mean, kind of. What do I bring you except for bad news?

Hanukkah Harry? Do you find yourself to be sort of a de facto liberal leader? In the way that John Stewart was, didn't like it, resisted it, I'm on after robots. You're on CNN. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls. What is wrong with you? I think if you begin to think of yourself too much in any way like that, you begin to lose your mind. I completely agree. But clearly you've kind of like, uh-oh. I will say that the experience I've had in the last couple of years is you go into rooms and, you know, I'm a reporter, right? My whole career I've been, you know, calling people up and waiting for them to

call me back and going to meet them and trying to put right down what they say. And in the last couple of years, as you begin to see things completely derailing, you make these calls, you go into these rooms. And what you're looking for on some level is like, who are the adults around here? Who knows what's going on? And then you have this creeping suspicion. There are none. Or if they do, they're not telling anybody.

Yeah. And so there's no one to save you. No one to save us. you're just going to have to try to be one of the people. And it is a very, I would say, frightening realization. Was there a moment or it's just been gradual? It's gradual. I mean, I would say, there's been a bunch of moments.

The one that was clear where you were like, I have to be more active in this is the Biden stuff. My heart breaks a bit for Joe Biden. Where you were like, I just wonder if there's a way we could not have him be our nominee. I just hypothetically, you know, I'm asking around. Yeah, that was a moment where you look around and you think everybody knows this. They were able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I've been able to do with the COVID. They all know on some level.

Not that they don't think you see it now. That's not my point. I don't think there's some grand cover up. But the people who need to act like the adults are not. From a place of self-interest, laziness. People are complicated, self-interest. I think there was also people get very caught in what they think is and isn't possible. So when I was doing that Biden work, which is back in sort of early 2024, the thing that I,

my contribution, I think, to that discussion was not saying Joe Biden is too old to be a good bet to run for president. And a lot of people had said that. It was saying that there was still something, that it's saying that whatever it was eight months before the Democratic convention, there was nothing the party could do because the primaries were de facto over was insane. There were still a lot of things. And you knew to be untrue. It wasn't true. You, the candidates are chosen at conventions. And so it was the fatalism, right, that they had gotten into this thing where one, there's nothing we can do. And two, the only other

option is Harris, who at that point, I mean, she didn't end up pointing the election, but I think she was stronger than he would have ended up being. But they had decided like she was unthinkable too. Or maybe they decided to think that because it protected Joe Biden. And it was that nihilist. It was like you people are sitting around all day telling me that that fascism is on our shores. And you're just going to roll forward with this. You're behind in the polls. Your guy can't give up press con. I mean, I don't want to be too hard on that. Like, it's all done now. And Joe Biden is sick. And the point is not at the bottom. Hopefully someone to write a book about it. Okay. Yeah, right.

But there are a lot of things like this. I mean, you know, Trump came in. And the point is not that I know what's going on either. I don't. I mean, I do my best. I'm trying to figure out the world from my perspective. But I remember Trump came in. I didn't have sex with a porn star.

And I was calling around to sort of top Democrats. And beneath a bunch of my questions, the real question was, do you have a theory of this? Is somebody on your team of a theory of this? Have you thought through what your opposition looks like? Do you, this is bad? in getting worse fast, do you actually have a strategy? And pretty clearly became clear to me they didn't. They were reactive like everybody was. And I'm not exactly blaming on them on that, but there are fewer people in politics with a plan than you think there are. There are, like,

one of the reasons conspiratorial thinking about politics isn't true is you just, you have no idea how reactive yeah everybody is well that's what you know from dealing with them yeah it's like when i have friends that gamble on sports i'm like i know a couple athletes don't gamble on sports you don't want your income based on so-and-so's work ethic because it can be real and consistent yeah so just do put it in an index fund that's my advice to the kids i have a a theory of the the case of what happened to the Democratic Party, and I'm, you're the guy. I see, I see you as like, this is customer service. You're the customer service rep.

Okay, what I think it happened was, because of social media, certain groups got a lot of amplification and a lot of seeming importance. They rose to the top of the priority list on social media. And Democrats seem incapable of telling any group, you're not our priority. And so we, so it was easy to paint Kamala's, that they, them, like, whatever that had. Kamala's for they them. President Trump is for you.

Because it's sure seen, even from my point of view, it sure seemed like they were only catering to people that could perform grievance on social media. and they couldn't say no to anybody. So they just, it's like the parent who just kept coddling their kid and they created a fucking bunch of brats. So, and they couldn't, so what I was saying before we started rolling is Obama was the last person to say, I'm not going to vote yes on gay marriage. I'm sorry.

Yeah. And he got away with it. I believe because he's black, which Trump's, pardon the pun, Trump's gay. It's like this like punching up, punching down calculus, and you just end up with a party that seems to serve no one. And I grabbed a screen grab of something I tweeted the day after Kamala lost. And this is from Democrats.org. And look who's on there. It says who we serve.

One white guy with dreads. And it's nine black people or people of color and one white guy. comment threats on democrats dot org so because they couldn't say hey god forbid trans people god forbid went got like we our priorities got to be collective or working class people i know they're not they're not they're not really on social media etc go so i'm modified a bit i think there's a lot of truth to that and i think pretty the social media dynamic of it is really important i agree that Obama was the last Democratic leader who said no routinely to to his own coalition, his own base that there were small parts of the coalition, not even small parts. There was a, I mean,

I covered all this and there were all these, the Obama white us would complain about what they called the professional left. There's a whole idea in the blogosphere, which was bigger back then, that the left was kept in what they called the veal pen. Beal pen meaning veal are kept so they don't grow. Yeah. So Obama's relationship with his own base, with the electorate, was so personal, right? They were so invested in him. He just had a lot of authority in it over it, maybe not as much as Trump does running what's functionally a cult of personality or there's real consequences for crossing him. But Obama really was a party leader. I wouldn't quite call the machine boss, but closer to that than what we have now. The people came after him, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. Their theory was always putting functionally his coalition back together, but they didn't have his relationship with it. So what he could do through himself, they had to do through promises, right? You give this group, you give that group, right? They, I mean, Hillary Clinton just had to be explicit about all kinds of things Obama was implicit about.

And Biden, I think there was sort of a dual problem. It's not that she or he, Clinton or Biden, never should know anybody, right? You know, activists on behalf of Palestine don't think that Biden never synode anybody. But I do think this is caught up with one. Biden was fundamentally insecure. He almost had lost the primary to Bernie Sanders. He did not win Iowa. He did not win New Hampshire, right? He was not that strong. He wins on Super Tuesday after South Carolina in this kind of coalition where, you know, Buttigieg and Klobuchar drop out and endorse him. But it was sort of a party movement. The other thing is he was just, I do believe this was meaningful. Again, Biden was not Cino, but he was. too old. And he was not exerting the level of communicative power or force. He was not as engaged on a bunch of, on the variety of issues, say, Obama was. That's all true. I agree. But I'm talking about how it seems. He didn't, he didn't tell them what to put on Democrats.org. You know what I mean? He didn't tell him, go 90% people color wanted it. But like,

it's it seems like Democrats were only catering and still like that poll in the last week that's like Democrats are still hemorrhaging people because it doesn't seem like they're on the side of most people it seems like they're on the side of the you know the more

the louder more marginalized groups what would they what would be the signal they could send to you right what would they need to do what do you think they could do that would break through such that you would know about it, that would make you revise that opinion, right? If Hakeem Jeffries was sitting there, here, Chuck Schumer, like, okay, this is not the rep we want. What would you need to see that would make you feel differently

about it? The ones who seem like their four people are Bernie, AOC, are the more, like, grassroots people who get more donations just by their, Bernie's got charisma whether people realize it or not aOC's very good looking etc um so what it would take is it i don't know it just seems like they think they're better than voters like it seems like their message for the last 10 15 years been like we're better than you and we expect your vote and it's a bit like i told a senator or congressman he's like you have any tips i go dress worse dress dress dress dress do you run the fetterman play shorts all the time he took it too far but also maybe he didn't he sure seems like he's regular he sure doesn't seem like he's in the pocket

of anyone he doesn't have any pocket but i'm saying he doesn't seem like he's in the in the in the in the in the in the bag for he's not caring anybody's water so i guess that's my thing is like what what do what do you think they're gonna do because it doesn't seem like even the the the recent poll and they're like yeah this is not good right now we know what we're gonna do until there's a primary, there's not going to be a party leader. The party has no leadership. Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer are not public-facing leaders in that way. Mitch McConnell did not define the Republican Party in people's minds. So they're going to have this problem. They're going to have to figure out, and we'll see how they, well, they do it at the midterms, which are going to be defined

by these individual races, right? Roy Cooper in North Carolina, the oyster farmer in Maine. And we'll see how it plays out. Then they've got this problem that you're getting at, which is whether or not you know they would think this is entirely fair i hear this from a lot of people right it's become like a really congealed conventional wisdom about the democrats and one of the ways i see them play into it is not just who's on the banner at democrats dot you know org because i mean you know they get they got also issues with like who's running whose staff and like the staff is way far to the left of the principles and you it's the thing but staff culture comes down from the top and the idea the Democrats became deferential to their staff as actually taken hold in the party. They don't want

to do that. Yeah. But, you know, in many cases, you look at, say, a Ruben Gallego in Arizona, like, they've been very clear on ending this. Most Democrats, it might be true for most politicians, but the thing that I think you have with Bernie and AOC, the thing you had with Obama, thing you have with really, with a certain thing with Trump, actually. Is it when you ask them off the charts he was the biggest star on television for a decade he beat ER it's not just that there's like a you ask him a question and you feel the thing that happens when you ask him a question is they answer you that they're telling you the thing they really think yeah and they're not first running a mental algorithm about what you will think of the thing they really think

but also what anybody watching might think of the thing they were thinking will somebody on Twitter be mad at the reaction reaction reaction and you know people who did just got in trouble he was on I think it was policy of the world or policy of America. And he got asked a series of questions about Israel and Gaza. And the reason it ended up being a problem for him, I don't think was really even his position, which was muddled, but it's that you could feel him not telling you what he thought. I'll tell you the person who I'm becoming more impressed by right now is Newsom. Since the 2024 election, Gavin Newsom, who was like Joe Biden's top surrogate, you know,

he's just trying shit he's out he's like having charlie kirk on his podcast and steve bannon and people are getting mad at him and he doesn't really care but you're talking about him and he's learning right he's listening and absorbing things and then he's out there like reading leading the redistricting fight and he's got the social team kind of going a little bit hog wild the thing you feel from news so much i've not felt from democrats for a while is he doesn't really care if you're mad at him he is not he can take He is not running first with the question of, will this make anybody who likes me mad? And if the answer is, yes, it will make somebody who likes me mad.

I'm not going to do it, right? And I think this actually, you mentioned social media. I think social media incentivizes some ways of communicating and not others, right? A lot of Democrats are tuned for the era in media when the New York Times, CBS, even cable news, like sort of controlled who got airtime. And then what the media said about what you said and the media really mattered. So this question of winning over the gatekeepers, you know, the elites, people care a lot about how polite you are and you didn't say anything stupid or outrageous. A lot of them are still, I think, tuned to that. Kamala Harris was definitely tuned for that. Social media created a move towards identity.

If you go back, forget politics. I read about this in my first book. Go look at what BuzzFeed was at the beginning, right? BuzzFeed begins is Jonah Paredes sandbox for virality on the internet. And if you look at what they figure out, it's that identity goes viral on the internet. So this stuff is not political. It's like 37 things only left handers will know, right? 22 things only people the immigrant parents will know.

Anything that is like me asserting my identity and my unique experience and drawing the line between me and other people, that's what works online in the era of social media. And pretty of the Democratic Party goes hard in that direction. I think that reflects some of what you're talking about, about which groups become central. That too, yeah. I mean, depends on the candidate. I mean, some are very, some are not fearful, right?

Some are incredibly like riding into battle on this, but it kind of goes both ways. Now it's like the thing is shifted again. And the thing you can't do in video as well, practically long-form podcasts, which would become a more important medium. If people feel you, I feel this when I'm booking, I will not book a politician for my shift.

show who I think will give my audience this feeling. I've heard you talk about that. I just, if you come on, I will not book anybody who I think my audience is going to listen, like, that person's not really telling me what they think. Now, having said that, you're a guy who thinks in paragraphs. I can see it. Meaning so like. But I'm telling you, I think I'm telling you what I think.

No, I agree. But it's, it's the kind of thing where it's seen, you've thought a lot of, you've thought, you think a lot, right? So you kind of have like, what were my, you kind of collate your thoughts. and it seems presented and it seemed but I don't think it's it's not sanitized look Obama doesn't do podcasts anymore I wish he did I would like to see him much more out there than he's gonna have to well I mean I guess only if he and Trump there's some like outside I was talking to a legal scholar the other day who really does think jump a run for third term I kind

of don't but I could be wrong and I'm like is this what this is all leading up to like the Avengers end game of American politics where Donald Trump and Barack Obama will finally get to face off with each other in 2028. I don't think so. But you would find that Obama, who speaks in incredible paragraphs, also has a quality of, you think he's saying what he thinks, because he does. I don't think the issue here is the level of composition in what people are saying. I think you can tell if people are trying to never offend you, or more to the point,

never offend the people who are on their side. And they're just absolutely allergic to it. Yeah. And you, but, and you also understand why they got that way. Yeah, I do. As much from legacy media. And then I'd almost say more from social media of the purity tests. And like, he said this.

It's like gotchaing people and thin slicing people and like, and misrepresenting people intentionally for your own gain. Uh, so I'm, I'm sympathetic, but I also think you have to just go, fuck it. Yeah. I'm going to say the wrong stuff. You do need that, but it's also so much teeters on so little. It's the craziest thing about American politics. It's like if there had not been Howard Dean, right, if there had not been the amount of inflation there was in 2023, if Joe Biden was just 10 years younger and could have made the kind of case for himself that he could make when he was 10 years younger, if he had not sort of under a very.

certain moment of pressure picked Kamala Harris, who he was never kind of that close with and instead picked somebody who more represented his form of politics. It's like so little, like the election was decided by two points in the battleground states. You know, it felt like it was 15. I know, but it wasn't. Like, that's the fucking thing about it. You can imagine so little changing. And then the sort of retroactive because Democrats lost in a profound way, like really did lose, like, and lost in an important election. But now it's like people look back and it's like everything they did was wrong. Yeah.

Every cultural dimension of the party was wrong. These people are absolute fucking idiots and losers. Yeah. And they lost by a field goal. Yeah. And they did actually pretty well in the Senate given what kind of year it was. I mean, you can, you can look at it a bunch of different ways. I'm not, I have been pretty hard on the Democrats was trying to get them to do an open convention all year. I think they made a huge series of mistakes and functionally let fascism come to our shores.

So, like, my level of fury about this is pretty high. But I always think it's worth keeping in mind that in a 50-50 country where kind of every election for a long time has been within a couple points, you don't need that much to have gone different. And Republicans are like, we could have won't that election with Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley and instead we won't with this idiot again. Instead, he seems like the most potent force American politics has ever seen. Yeah, three points in the polls, right? That's the difference between that. I'll pause it and answer for your question. the future of the democratic party or any successful politician is accepting that in pretty much

every question there's going to be almost 50-50 blowback and just going i like if i am for israel i'm islamophobic if i if i if i'm if i if i notice that it's a famine in gaza i'm i'm anti-Semitic, like... Don't you care about the hostages, Anil? No, of course. That's exactly right. I do this issue. Of course.

I do this issue all the time on my show, and the... The degree to which the email on it is just, like, people living in completely different universes. And I bet... Which we should admit the other universe exists is like, it's so, it's so sad to me. And that's, and the future might be and just going, yeah. I do not think that... that at least for Democrats, the future is trying to create their own version of Donald Trump. There's always this kind of idea that, you know, you want to re-fight the last election.

What the person you can find is most like the other guy. I mean, do you see this in the way I talk and think, I still do think that trying to show people that in a complex world you are trying to integrate different ideas and views and find a way forward. I think people still want that. I do think you have to find actual leaders. And leaders are both capable of doing that and of leading. And those are two different projects in some ways, right? Building the coalition and trying to think through and also think of through the other side.

One of the trips I'm currently on is about the way liberal and liberalism just became so exhausted. And it got kind of pincered between right populism and and love. left populism. And what we let out of the basement was illiberalism. And it's so dangerous. I mean, it is like being re-exposed to how bad this really is, this, which has always existed in American politics, right? McCarthy, Father Coglin, you can go way back. What we were keeping kind of bound was really lethal. And I didn't think we were going to have to deal with it again, personally the masked like per i mean we're dealing now with mask paramilitaries grabbing people off the street throwing them in vans throwing them to like el salvador in torture prisons

and then our like dolly appointed cabinet officials are posing for pictures in the el salvador and torture prisons in front of like human bodies stacked on top of each other they're sending out like tweets where they've used an a i system to studio giblify an immigrant woman crying is she's deported that I think about how frustrated so many people were with you know you brought that you started with you know Barack Obama opposing gay marriage in a way and you're saying you can only do it because he was black I would say that was like the normal position then if you looked at that primary it's not like the white candidates supported gay marriage I agree so things were in a bit of a different place but nevertheless

they were quick to forgive I'll say that I will say they were quick to forget because but there was also this um reality then that I think at least sort of among liberals, there was a sense that you had to take into account that much of the country did not and would not agree with you. And you had to hold in your politics that disagreement. And you might try to persuade them. You might sometimes try to work over them. But if you look at Bill Clinton, if you look at Barack Obama, if you look at the people who are the sort of national level liberal leaders in this period, the sense that you're always working with disagreement and that you have to embody some of the opposite of yourself in yourself.

That's a really important part of the politics. And I think what takes over is this fantasy that you could just win. Yeah. That you could just completely break the other side and get everything you wanted. That you don't have to compromise. That you can take the strongest possible position on everything.

And that's going to mobilize this hidden mass of supporters. And suddenly you don't have to deal with all. all the messy disagreement and the fucking compromises and the half a loaf and the quarter of a loaf. And not only do I get it, I often felt that way, but I don't think it's going to work. And so one of the things that I'm thinking about... It's not going to work for who? I think anybody, actually, but I think the left in particular. You need some of what liberalism at some point was able to do.

People need to feel, even if they don't agree with you. that you like them and will think about them that you believe in them as full participants in this experiment and the sentiment you were describing

at the beginning here where your perception in Democratic Party is just don't like you or somebody right maybe like you you're a liberal by the comedian

but barely barely but that is acid in politics yeah they don't have to you don't people don't need to agree with you

yeah they need to feel you like they like you need they need to feel you'll like them it's the definition of of charisma isn't do i like that person it's does that person like me this is both one of trump's weaknesses but trump has like he's got almost like the comedian's capable to weave in and out it's jd vans's weakness jd vans his contempt and hatred for the people he doesn't like yeah it radiates off of him right but the the liberal version uh like the the conservative sin is this, yeah, this rage, this like, y'all are destroying America kind of thing.

And the liberal sin is this condescending contempt and finding politicians who just do not project that is actually, whatever they believe is such an important thing. It's a reason Bernie Sanders is a very, very effective politician. That dude is rock solid in his beliefs. and he will give you the actual thing that comes into his head at that moment

but you're around him and you think yeah this guy is here for the people is here for and he doesn't really hate the other people right he's motivated

by sympathies or not his resentments it's an important dynamic in politics yeah it's an important dynamic in life don't limit it this show is sponsored

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for life. That's free premium meals for life by using code neel-free or going to cookunity.com slash N-E-L-F-R-E-E-C-U-E-E. Here's a tough one. You talk about politicians leading and the thing that occurred to me on November the day after the election I don't remember what it was what let me just preface this with the deal like the you know that's got some disclaimers in here let me get let me do the land let me do let me swear on on on on Ebermx kendi and Robin de angelo did I'm sure it occurred to you hey what if America's not ready for a female president what do liberals do we keep it's It's, Trump's lost once to a guy.

Sorry, those are the facts. What if in a general election, America's not ready? And you can say, we only lost with 2%, but what if that's just true? What are, now I say that because the counter argument is like, well, so we shouldn't have fought for civil rights? No, obviously, civil rights were effective and righteous and lost the South for, it was supposed to be. one generation turns out five so far what are we supposed to do what if a woman isn't what if america's too sexist to have a female president what should democrats do writ large should we guide america should we hope that they're what do you as somebody i know you thought about let me go back to

something i was saying a minute ago because i have thought about this um i you sort of like wave us off for a second. But 2016, Hillary Clinton, beats Trump by, I think it's 1.5 points, roughly, or Jewish points in the popular vote, but loses the electoral college pretty narrowly. The system we use. 2020, yes, very importantly. But she's also, she's a candidate who, I mean, Sanders runs very strongly against her, but mainly there's no field against her, except for Sanders, who was considered a long shot and like Martin O'Malley. Yeah. There's not, She is functionally coordinated, like she's a vice president.

Um, 2020, Biden runs during COVID. I mean, Trump is very weakened by that point and he wins. I think if Hillary, I think if you can imagine a world, right, I actually think Biden would have won in 2016. He would have been a much stronger candidate than Clinton, but you imagine somebody runs in 2016, loses to Trump. Hillary Clinton's been sitting out and keeping her powder dry, runs during the pandemic and wins, right? I think that's pretty easy to imagine. there was no process behind choosing Kamala Harris in 2024. And we would argue Hillary because of the Bernie stuff. Yeah, I mean, there was at least a pro.

And Bernie did run against her. And I don't actually buy the whole argument that like the Democratic Party rigged it. We can talk about that. Yeah, not I imagine. But I don't think it's interesting. I think that if there had been a full like imagine they did some kind of primary or, you know, mini primary leading to the open convention. Do I think Kamala Harris and Gretchen Whitner would have run the same race or run it in the same way?

There are a lot of male candidates who I think would have lost that election. I just don't actually think, like, female here is the right category. You have to find the right candidate for the election you are actually running in. So you're basically saying, like, it would be like me saying, I don't think a black guy can get elected in 2004. Yeah, which would have looked like a very reasonable thing. thing to say 2004. And I just think that's really how, like, it works. You need incredible candidates. Yeah, they have to be. They have to. Like, the category doesn't tell you that much when you're talking about who can win a presidential election, which is functionally nobody. So

few people can operate at that level for that long without completely collapsing as a person and a political figure. So you're really looking for bell curve level talent. And my big critique of the Democratic Party is they've actually not been doing the things they need to do to look for bell curve level political talent there you know Barack Obama like came you know people thought it wasn't his time yet and it was too early I mean he won for Senate in 04 yeah he becomes a presidential nominee in 08 it was very very very very quick um but he just muscled through because he was so fucking good at it yeah you need a process that you're actually looking for so fucking good at it not for next in line for it yeah it's the it's it's it's like nepotism basically um all right

and speaking of build for it how how's your life going because i am i am i as much as i made fun of your checking account it seems like your life has uh your career has exploded in the last three four years seems like it's doing okay but but you're being modest but like it's got to be kind of at the edge of your dreams for it or or hopes it is yeah we are out of the yes we're out of scenarios that i had considered what were the what were the what did you think was going to happen and what would you where would you say to us now i wouldn't say i plot things out that way um or hope when you i i hoped you're a blogger so yeah i mean that's true too um you know think about things individually like me and derrick thompson were the book abundance

I heard you do most of the work. I did not say that. I just like so discontent between the quarter. The idea that it's still on the bestseller list, whatever it is, 22, 23 weeks later, is crazy to me. The idea that it's a big deal in Canada, the UK, Australia is shocking to me, right? I didn't see that coming. But it means we hit something that's real, which I think is like a couple levels. One is that it's actually offering a vision for a kind of,

liberalism that doesn't feel exhausted, and also that is taking seriously the way liberalism and left-of-center politicians actually failed, and left-of-center governments have failed. The reason is getting picked up in the UK and Australia and Canada is they kind of have a bunch of the same problems. These are affluent, stable countries. They've become very sclerotic, and it's very hard to get things done through the government. So when you're the party saying, hey, vote for us, we'll get things done for you through the government, and not that much changes.

People lose faith in you. So I think that's one dimension of it. But I don't, all that, how does it feel? Does it feel like I was right about myself? Does it feel validating? Does it feel like you seem pretty humble, but also you're, I know what it's, you can't be that humble. You seem humble and you seem ambitious. Great.

Tell me more about that. It feels like pressure. In a way you didn't expect? or it's just I mean by I this stuff I always feel like you most people look like an asshole talking about it so I try not to but I'll this is the place where where successful people come to complain the experience of this kind of work going well is pressure a million more things to do and you feel a responsibility to try to do them well And it's not like I just do abundance. You know, I run a podcast. You probably have worked on abundance in probably a year, right? You've done press for it, but you've done the work.

I mean, but doing the press. But then I've done a lot of, I do columns, I do shows and do other people shows, right? You're trying to, and I'm also trying to see where the weak points in our arguments were and push it forward and where things were vague and it needs to become less vague. I mean, there's a lot of intellectual work still to do. It's a beginning of a conversation at the end of it. We, I mean, American politics. to me is in an emergency state where the system itself is cracking open.

And we are, you know, one of my lines on this, you've heard the old line, like, the features here just unevenly distributed. True for authoritarianism right now. Yeah. So that's a, like, to the extent, I am a voice that liberal figures listen to using that voice well. And I see one of my roles as directing attention at things and ideas and figures that deserve it or need it. I do a lot of coverage of Israel and Gaza that's shattering. You know, and you're trying to figure out ways to be part of a healthy rebuilding effort across a bunch of different issues that have never been in as bad shape in my lifetime. I mean, it feels, I have never felt so.

profoundly like the things that I believe in are losing in the places I care about most. Yeah. Losing this badly, right? This is not like in American politics, I'm thinking now, this is not like if Barack Obama had lost to Mitt Romney, if Bill Clinton lost to Bob Dole. This is a much more fundamental, almost civilizational level collision. So do you feel, do you feel like pressure because you are a voice and you could potentially affect change more than most people. And there is, you know, what do you, yeah, what do you do then with your platform in that time? What's useful? What's not useful? It's not like I think this sits on my shoulders. I'm not running for president. Yeah. But I think everybody involved in this work at any level. And people just,

I mean, I know this from people who are just following along, right? I see my emails. I talk to my family like what does it mean to live through something this um like this is not a period that the history books are going to skip over right it's not going to be one of those you know uh you read a history of the 20th century the 1930s and 40s get a lot of attention yeah they do right the 1920s is a little bit less so um flappers and then 50s is like the desoto yeah and then 60s nothing and then hippies so how do yeah what do you there's no good playbook so it feels more pressure within yourself yeah like i experience this stuff as pressure i don't experience i don't sit around and be like oh my god look how

great i'm doing no yeah i look around like oh my god look how badly everything is going yeah do you feel guilt and this is i there's a i mean i'm jewish so i mean this i didn't even this plot that's a block that writes itself um do you have allergies kidding um of course um the there is a part you could you could no one's ever said this about me but because I made money

on Chappelle show you could call me a racism profiteer interesting are you because he made money on the Chappelle show I made money

well again we're talking about racism it's like race you could say Bob Dylan is a war profiteer because he made money writing songs about

what you know what I mean like you know what That's why I'm saying no one's ever said it. But I thought of it about myself, Ezra, and aren't those the worst? Do you feel guilt, Neil? Aren't those the worst insults of all? Yeah, sure. Do you feel like, not like you're profiting, but you're, I don't know, do you know what I'm, you know what I'm getting up?

No, man, I don't have like a crisis as my brand. I would deeply have preferred it if Kamala Harris had won the election. And my book had done a little bit worse because liberals were not so desperate. I would have, I would take that world in a second. like in a second okay so i don't have any i think i would feel that way if i felt some part of me was sort of into it right uh got it i think that if i felt inside myself some part of me is like yeah chaos like that's gonna be great for my podcast rankings and i become that kind of laughing all the way to the bank yeah like i think i might feel that way my actual level of horror

and despair keeps me from feeling that fantastic um and we don't know if that's judaism or just regular human stuff. Big one is, I mean, because I was going to say, like, what's your schedule? I, as someone who lists to the pod and reads, I would think most of your columns, how, you must be really stressed out from, I personally don't like doing that much, meaning I can't remember it if I do like, then I got to go here, then I got to go here. And then at the end of day, you're like, what did I say? Yeah.

How is that for you? bad um one thing right now is that there is so much that feels so urgent to cover and not even everything just things that it feels like for my show or for my columns it really feels like we should do something on this um that uh i'm doing more podcasts than i'm like contracted to do right like i'm above my number uh not that i'm kind of am but like um Because it feels irresponsible right now to take time off. Do you get paid for extra ones? No.

Interesting. But I'm not going to cut it. But that's not how it works. I just like... Yeah, I got it. In theory we do like six a month and I've been routinely like seven to eight. And I think my bosses are not asking this of me. It's just like the feeling of you have to, like of course you would.

And everything is like that, right? You know, the book has come with a million. book has come with a million, like, would you come talk to the mayors here? And that's all great. But everything cannibalizes everything else. How does your wife, journalist, Annie Lowry, feel about all this? And she's finishing a book. And also, yeah, so she's finishing a book. So we're trying to create space for that in the household. And we have two young kids. Fuck. That's a lot. I was a few weeks ago was sort of like spinning out. And the thing now that I'm doing is just the amount I am meditating a day is like shocking.

And it's like the only thing that kind of keeps me right now balanced at all. Um, so. Twice a day? Yeah, like right now I'm like twice a day. I'm meditating like 40 minutes a day. It's not like if you're, you know, really serious in the stuff, maybe it's not that much, but it's a lot for me. And it's the only thing that like kind of like pulled me out of, you know, usually I have

a pretty good internal wall on what I'm covering. and between what's happening here and what's happening in Gaza, it has been totally breached. And the things I'm reading to try to get perspective are terrifying. They, like, force you into confrontation with terrible things humanity has done and is doing. And you probably no longer have a thing of like, that'll never happen. Yeah, I don't have that. Yeah, the possible, anything's possible.

Yeah, I think a lot, I now have much more of like, I get, how terrible things happen you know yeah it's also real gradual yeah oh and yeah i think i think so often i've been reading diary this is this is where my fucking head is that one i've been reading journals people kept a pretty intense periods and it's that incredible juxtaposition between how bad everything is getting around them and also you still got to make dinner like the kid yeah get dressed right you know did you get did you pick up food that you know like you got to go to the market, right? It all just keeps rolling. And there is this incredible pressing together of the completely normal and the completely abnormal. And I find it very, very, very hard

to go from, you know, I spend the morning reading about how we're grabbing people off the streets and vans and the building of what seems to be like a paramilitary force. And it's like, I go pick up the kids from camp and get asked 57 questions about Pokemon and like that's a lot of mental shifting to make and people do this all the time like people you know my best friend has worked for many many years in humanitarian crisis response you know like there are people who just sit in these things and have to do this kind of shifting but it's hard and you know it's a very it's very mentally um intense i would much prefer to live in more boring times like deeply prefer to live in more boring times do you your friend who works in humanitarian crisis like

is there a point where they just go okay it's six o'clock i can't give a shit anymore because if i give a shit anymore it's going to bleed into my life was this going to bleed into tomorrow like how do they justify turning it off it's it's not that you can turn it off necessarily i mean different people are built differently in this way too um and you have people who in that kind of work and up with incredible trauma, incredible addiction issues. I mean, he, you know, is a much more balanced person the most. And he's very good at joy, which a lot better joy than I am. And I don't think it was one answer for anybody on this stuff.

But the idea that, yeah, if I could, look, if there were a switch I could flip, a pill I could take, a button I could press, or when I picked up my kids, the stuff that was running through my head all day stopped running through it. I would flip a switch, take the pill, press a button. It's not how my mind works. Here's a question. Do you ever do, are you, are you kind of doing two-track parenting? Peaceful future parenting and chaos future parenting? No, I don't bring this to them. I'm not, but I'm not saying bring it to them like, hey, kids, like, is there a party that's like, yeah, we're going to go to school and also like, let's figure out.

out karate or let's figure out explosives or whatever like I'm not a you not a prepper I don't think a year of Taekwondo is going to prepare me if things go real bad it's too late for us right but no I've not you know I you're assuming things are going to be peaceful and my friend the economist Tyler Cowan he's got this line to people who are you know believe in like AI doom and things are you short the stock market have you shorted the market I think he's going to collapse. And he, I think he, to him, if you're not, it reveals a, like a, like a truer belief, maybe beneath the ones you're describing.

But I just think most of us are inconsistent. And I would say that if you really pushed me on the range of outcomes that I think are possible, you wouldn't see that I have made contingency plans for them. You're still, you're behaviorally an optimist. I'm not behaviorally, I'm just here handling today. And I just, I don't even check my mail often enough. You know, forget laying down plans for, you know, very extreme futures. You're hoping to get invited to one of the billionaires' bunkers.

I think we're all just. I think that, I think the ones with bunkers are maybe, maybe bought in on the futures, I fear. I have a counter argument to all that. It's like, okay, you're going to fly private to your bunker. You're going to need to get fuel. What's the airfield where you're going to have to get fuel like? That's going to be. It's like they're fucked also.

Look, and I will say, because I don't want this to all just like sound too alarming. Most cases, I don't think we are on the edge of like, I don't think we're Germany in 1937 or whatever. I think that this is a bad period. We have had a very bad period. I think that tail outcomes that I would have put at extraordinarily unlikely are like somewhat more likely, right? But I think the likeliest case is that we muddle through, although there are going to be a lot of people along the way who are deported and hurt. It's just I can imagine if you read this. stuff about another country you would not think it's going to end well so it's a lot of faith in

our institutions and our culture which you know whether or not you think that we are still deserve that faith that um but man you know when they keep occupying different cities right now you know they send in the national guard to l.a they you know occupy dc and i think like what happens if somebody throws a rock what happens if some or a sandwich yeah but like what if that had been a rock yeah right what if some marine or national guardsman or whatever here's a car back fire here's a gunshot or you know or what if there is actually a gunshot right the conditions exist for things to spiral out of control really quickly and and for a lot of people to support it and for a lot of people to support it and for the people in charge to see it as an

opportunity and so we are further down a dangerous set of path uh dangerous a dangerous had a pass, then, you know, I thought this would be pretty bad and it is worse than I thought it would be. Yeah, I was going to ask you, you think you were cynical enough or not, like, I'm sure you go through, like, am I too cynical or not cynical? What I said to everybody at the beginning was that the thing you need to think of, the Trump is like a cloud of probabilities, and more extreme probabilities become much likelier when he's in charge. And so I think we're, you know, it wasn't that I thought this was out of the question, but it wasn't probably in the center of my, you know, expectations.

But, um, but yeah, we're taking a lot of big risks. Tell me about your transition from, and I went through the same transition, writer to performer. Do you, because, because I see you, you change head shots. You, and I'm like, I don't think you're, I don't think you're vain. I think you're literally, I think in my case, I'm just playing defense. But what do you, right now you're going for some sort of chess grandmaster look? That's what I tell my barber, yes.

But what is it? Hot rabbi. There you go. Have you noticed it and has it been conscious? So the big thing that seems to have really changed the way people perceive me is that I grew a beard, which... Is it laziness? It wasn't laziness. I didn't really think I could.

I had never gone through the... I know I could grow facial. It was weird to talk about. I knew I could grow facial. hair, I'd never let myself go through the awkward, like three or four weeks, the middle passage. The middle passage. My wife would want me to grow a beard for a long time. And an insult. We can all admit that's an insult, right? And then, I don't know, it was, I guess, summer last year that I did it, or a little bit before that maybe. Okay. Well, talk about

But it wasn't all that conscious. I just did. You know? But looking at it, looking, it's like, do you think about what you wear more? Oh, this is like a disaster. Thank you for admitting it. I'm kidding. Thank you.

But no, you've got, you've gone from a guy in a room to like a, so going to video on the podcast. There's no other word for it. A star. Going to video on the podcast has made me have to think about what I'm wearing on there. And so I used to do a lot of cable news. But cable news functionally has a dress code. It's very clear how you show up to that. Right.

You wear a sports jacket. You have a college shirt. Maybe you have a time. Maybe you don't. I think that typically looks a bit weird in my podcast studio. It's like too formal. But I can't be that informal given what I'm talking. I find thinking about this completely, I hate it.

It's my least favorite part of my job. I know. Like I feel like I'm always getting it a little bit wrong. And I have not yet figured out the wardrobe where I can just like, relax into a uniform. I'm trying to figure that out. But I also find shopping for clothes just, it's like the thing that tires me out the fastest. Thank you. It's unbearable. You ever have to do a fitting? No, I guess I haven't done a fitting. It's unbearable. We try on five different things and okay, now try. And you're just like,

I'm going to kill somebody. I'll wear whatever you need to wear out. I'll wear it. Yeah. So I have to look forward to you. Yeah, I'm trying to figure the, thinking about having to think a lot about what to wear on air in a gray podcast box and balancing that with what I am to I just don't I don't have enough clothes man like first of all I just don't have the options I'm not sitting around with a whole emotional spectrum of clothing options yeah and you're like am I repeat are people going to notice I repeated what does it mean to repeat I wore this on the pod yesterday what I want to repeat it what I want to do is find the thing that, which we'll see, I have a theory of what it might be, but

is just completely like, I don't have to change it. Like I would like it to be, Zora and Mamdani is always in the same thing. You need to lead. I need to lead. I need to lead. I need to lead. These are my five outfits, guys. This is it.

We're not. I would like a visual signature, which makes it so you don't have to think about what I'm wearing. Like the person, I always think this is so interesting way. Momdani is always in the same thing, basically. Interesting. He has a real visual. signature yeah um and yeah i would just like to not think about it steve jobs woody allen yeah sure so that has that has that has definitely been uh the pope we'll see about this one what do you

so what how has it been is do you how do you find going from invisible to extremely visible on your you look in the mirror a little more are you like judging yourself for being vain are you how how do you find it i mean it's all the normal shit i assume people go to i have to be more careful about what i public. I've experienced a lot of... No, no, no. I mean, probably that too, but that is, it's like the number of times when I am sitting at a restaurant or coffee shop and when the person next to me gets up or I get up, they're like, hey, I don't want to bother you. But that also means anything I was saying was probably heard. It's like that has changed, you know, my comfort safe, you know, meeting somebody in a coffee shop. It's, you know, it's fine. People who come up to me are mainly

nice. It's, again, I mostly experience it as a lot more work and pressure, and I'm trying to do a good job. I try not to spend a lot of time perseverating about what, like, the world's impression of me is. I don't think my work is very good when I do that. What happens to it? I think it just gets self-conscious. Got it. Like, if it's not, I've always found this on the show in my columns. the shows I do because I think they're the shows I should do as opposed to the show I actually feel completely compelled to do it they don't work yeah no you're right I've experienced the same thing myself

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Mando's got you covered with deodorant plus sweat control. Say goodbye to sweat scenes and say a little long lasting freshness. Mando. You have basically just phones and attention span. as one of your blocks, which we all do more or less. The Steve Bannon thing of flooding the zone with shit, right? I feel like even when Steve Bannon's not involved, every zone is flooded with shit now.

So there's so much information now that I can understand why people just go, I declare a mistrial. I don't fucking understand this. There's too much information, too many counterfactuals and too much actually, actually, actually. And I feel, how do you deal with it? Trying to think about how I deal with it. One thing that I, I read a lot of books is like an actual answer to that.

I do not get. Are you a fast reader, by the way? I'm not a very fast reader. I envy your, I am not. I think people perceive my speed to be higher than it is. So if I'm reading like a 300-page book, it's like, that's like a six-hour project for me. It's not nothing. Double that for me. So I know people who... You locked yourself in a room? What do you do? I go to a coffee shop.

I lock... Yeah, I try to do that kind of thing. There's a high floor at the times for nice windows. I like to read there. Great. You're welcome. It's my subscription on it. Thank you.

I appreciate it. You're welcome. I think you'd be really careful between things that give you the sensation, like the texture of information and feeling informed, like being on X, and things that actually make you informed. Mm-hmm. And I really, really try to the extent I can to not mix those two things up. So I think that X, Twitter, Blue Sky, whatever, it's, like, rotted my profession's brain. And it's been very, very bad for American democracy. You think you're co-workers.

I mean, not necessarily your near-time. Not of my coworkers, but other people in my profession, yeah. And that it incentivized the wrong shit? That too. But I actually just mean something more simple here. I know so many people who tell me, like, I go on these places to be informed. and I'm like, it's not information. Like, it's just noise, so much of it.

There are nuggets of information, but as a way of actually learning about the world, it is so not just inefficient. It's like for the nuggets of things that are valuable you get, the amount of time and emotional energy you expand on things that would be better if you never even knew about is so high. And like dumbass Twitter beefs and whatever. I don't read enough of this,

but I, like, I spend a lot of time magazines. The physical newspaper is just like a, it is a, yeah, physical. I've moved almost all of my information consumption to paper. So I save all these articles and then I print them all out if they're not in a magazine or a newspaper I have. I, maybe I've just become a Luddite, but even putting, even when I'm dealing, so I've, for my podcast, right, the way I prepare, we sort of two kinds of shows on the podcast. One is what we call book prep. So somebody's coming on, they've written a book. Pretty straightforward. You got to read the book. And then, you know, me and my producers talk about it. And it's not, they don't tell you, you read it. I read the book.

Yeah. And the, and so do they. And, you know, I'm not saying I read every page of every single book, but I do my best. It really shows if I don't. Yeah. The only way to know something is to do it yourself, to absorb that information. I never heard of you until 1030 this morning. Huh? I'd never heard of until 1030 this morning. So I get it. But so then you have a lot of news preps. And those are sort of the producer will do a lot of synthesis for me, but inside that, it's like the document I will get is like a 30-page document within 15 links in it. And what I do is I print that out. I click through the links that look like I should read them. I print those out. I bring this like stack of paper that I've printed out on the office printer up to the floor I work on. And I just sit there

with a pen going through it, going through it, going through it. And the thing that I notice is even when I'm reading the same thing, right? The, you know, one, you know, reading the same article either in paper or the computer, the amount I get out of it on paper because just shit's not blinking at me and distracting at me and I'm not following links and clicking over to my email and it's so much more. So one way I try to handle it, I'm not saying I cannot know everything that I need to know right now. Nobody can. Nobody ever can, but particularly not right now. That's one of your blocks of like the lack, the lack of total expertise. Yeah, I just, and it's impossible. It's Impossible.

Like, can I follow everything going on in trade negotiations with China right now while following? Why are we tariffing Brazil over Bolsonaro while following what is happening with all the new ice money and the construction of new detention centers? While following, what is happening in Congress over this or that wall following? What is happening in Democratic Senate recruit? Well, like, of course not, right? Not at the level I would like to know about it all.

AI. And but so you got to choose, right? I structure what I'm learning about based on what. things I have to create, what the next podcast it is, what the one after that is, what the next column is. And then I print as much of it as I can out, or I get a hard copy of the book, and I try to sit and read it, or I read the newspaper, and I try to sit and read it. And the better I am about being on paper versus digital, both the more simultaneously, this is a crazy thing to me, simultaneously, the more I know and the less crazy I feel. Because the feeling

of getting information that way is better. Like the sensation, getting the same, amount of information on X or TikTok or whatever versus getting it in a book. It just feels better in the body. You can think it's not as alarming. It's not yelling at you. It's not as emotional. Yeah. I screen, whatever the light, the LED, whatever that does to you. We had books for a long time and we called it reading, not doom reading or hell reading. We had Twitter for like a couple years and we call doom scrolling. It's not good for you. Yeah. It's bad. Like, Like, it's important. I'm not telling you it isn't, but we've just, you know,

not all technical pants is a positive. I wanted to ask you about, which is you were not a very good student. No. At what point did that switch? Because I started thinking of life as like there are A students and B students and C students, and I sometimes am an A student, and it's directly proportional to the amount of work I do. Were you a good student? No.

How bad? I got a 1070 on my essay. SATs back in the old way out. That's testing, though. I'm asking you about your work ethic. I was a charismatic. I think Ali Wong calls herself a charismatic A cup. I was a, I remember it to be.

Sorry, Ali, if it's a B. Boys, they never liked me growing up in the 90s in high school. Guys, they weren't into charismatic A cups. I was a charismatic B student. But like I would, I would bust balls with the teachers. I was working the, I was working it, but like, yeah, but I wasn't, I wasn't, I wasn't doing any. It flipped for me when, sort of when I went to college, but kind of when I found blogging, I just, I do not absorb information by sitting in a room and watching somebody talk.

Still, it's not a way I absorb information. I like podcasts because I can do something else with my hands. I can walk. I can walk. I can, you know, but I really like reading. I just don't process, I don't hold information that other way. It just doesn't work for me. And I really think that was a core for me in school. I said this before, but you watch, you know, saved by the bell or whatever, do people still know that reference? Or am I too old? A couple more. It's going to, it was going to expire tomorrow if you hadn't mentioned it. So thank for bringing it back up. You watch these shows and, you know, you got the kids are all like doodling and daydreaming and it's going off in a little daydream, you know, fantasy sequences.

I thought that's what everybody was doing. That's really what I was doing. Yeah, now it's been... I really was not able to pay attention. And so I didn't absorb things. I'd get home and look at the homework and I'd be confused. And it just didn't work for me. So when I didn't have to do that anymore.

And it's like, can you read all the books and write an essay? It worked out fun. And that's generally like... And that I built my entire life around doing that. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like... And I'm sure you're like, so I'll just keep reading and whatever, writing about it or talking about it.

Like that, okay. Yeah. Basically doing book reports. Yeah. I do. My whole, like, I've built all ground book reports. Yeah. Has your work ethic always been good?

No, terrible. The main thing that adults would have told you about me until I was 18 was smart kid doesn't work hard. Did you have 80? You look back and go, I think I had, or it was just like, I don't, some people, I didn't give a shit. i would have ended up medicated in today's world yeah um i don't think i had i mean a ds spectrum disorder and who knows and um but i am a little surprised that nobody given how badly i was doing and how confusing and frustrating it was to everybody that nobody like you know pump me full of at all i do think i don't i think i am um attentionally a little bit

but i think a lot of people are attentionally unusual where you learn in some ways and not in others the thing I always was was obsessive about the things I was into so I was a relentless reader then right it's not like that came later I would caught like I spent like three nights a week at Barnes & Noble's I just like it had high school

in high school yeah I was very cool clearly I you know my attention kind of did you do anything to offset it smoke cigarette was there anything or was just straight I was not cool but

Uh, drink. I was a, before the end of high school, I had a pretty intense pot face. Sweet. Yeah. Sweet. You seem cool. You seem like you cool. Thank you, man.

What were you reading at Barnes and Nobles? I don't remember. I liked being in bookstores. I still do. It's a place I feel calmest. It is there are, there are, there are a lot of graphic novels, um, you know, like just comic books, but, you know, I had my pretensions to reading philosophy. I like just, I like just, you go into a bookstore and it's like, it's like, you,

you feel just like how much knowledge and story is in that place like how much you would love to know in here that you will never have time to know and yeah they're just kind of I think they're still basically my favorite at least you know human created places

that's yeah they are really like unique like oh this is this is a book like if you close your eyes and they put you you go up you'd smell and go I'm in a bookstore we're recording with one of these Village. There is a used bookstore near here that I'm going to go to it when we're done. I think it's just called something East Village used books. I went to it totally randomly a couple months ago. It was like it only takes cash. It's like a super weird place. And however they're curating,

well, it's just, it was amazing. I walked out with like 15 things and you just are, you're in there and you're like, if only I could read this. Yeah. Like if only I had this in me, I just still feel that I find them to be places of wonder yeah it is and there's a part of me that's that the formality of books

meaning I I've had I'm I'm I wouldn't say I'm well read I don't read as much as I should etc but be kind of to yourself but then I'm sure no why start now

but I have friends who don't read much and are some of the most impressive brains on I've ever encountered. That doesn't strike me. You made this sort of like, but it's what I was saying earlier, like just different minds work differently.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, my point is not that the way to be anything is to read, that's just how my mind works. That's how my mind focuses in on information. Other people are amazing at learning from lectures, right? That's a great format for them. Yeah. Other people, it's conversation or it's, you know, whatever it might be.

I think one thing we're about to find is that there are going to be people who are really good at learning things from AI and really good and most people are going to be really good at being distracted by AI. And so for a small number of people. When you say learning from, you mean they like bullet points? Like what do you mean? I mean, that's an astonishing technology of what you want is an always on tutor. And for some people, they will use it that way and they will love that.

And then for a lot of people, they will use it to cheat on their homework. But there's going to be a slice for whom that's like a door to. It's better than books ever would have been. Yeah, or at least for them, it's what books are for me. Yeah. Or something. A cause for sexual arousal. I mean, there are sections for that, yeah, in the bookstore.

Sure, sure, sure. You should look at what is bestselling, man. So it's a lot of, a lot of fairy romanticcy. Are you more open to the it was funny watch. I've been doing Joe Rogan's podcast since he did it in his basement. Uh-huh. I'm probably on one of the first 20 episodes or something. So watching people's reluctance, revulsion, oh, what is your, like, acceptance, then jealousy is, has been fun for me as like, somebody

who's a reluctant liberal or conflicted liberal. Because here's the thing that liberals don't understand that I wish I'd mentioned earlier. The need to belong might supersede all other human needs. The feel like you belong. Joe and I couldn't be more different, but we have enough commonality to feel like I, he likes me, I like him. It's a warm environment. and what has been your

arc in terms of understanding the what the broosphere whatever whatever it's called like I've pitched Rogan on all of my books if I'm not on that show it's not because I don't want to be oh that's funny I almost feel like I was going to recommend you at one point like you please do I've pitched it multiple times on abundance

I'm the any absence of me there is not because I have some kind of feeling about it no but you know that there was a thing on the last of like Like, don't go there. But I got, look, when there was a big fight on the left, as stupid as all hell, but like, you forget what year this was now. But the year that Sanders went on Rogan and then on Twitter, there were a bunch of lefties being like, how dare you? And I was on Twitter then. And I was like, the fuck is wrong with you all. Like the whole case for Bernie Sanders is it he's the kind of guy Joe Rogan would like.

And he can go into that space and it works. Like politics is about persuasion. I became a trending topic because like the lefties were yelling at me so much for defending Bernie Sanders for going on Joe Rogan. I just don't have this view about how media works. You have to go to where people don't agree with you, not just where they do. There are some places where you're not going to find open minds, but that's not Rogan or wasn't Rogan. My sort of entry into podcasting was not Rogan, but sort of a J. So my, the first two podcasts that I listened to a lot were Pete Holmes, you made it weird, and Tim Ferriss.

And so that sort of world of podcasting, and then I would listen to people who were on them and, you know, so I'd listen to all these shows. I just sort of grew up in podcasting with that. And one of, I think, the really damaging things that happened is this tendency to try to, like, like push certain shows into like, that's not our kind of place. Yeah. And something I noticed happened. So I think you're saying the one of the most, maybe the most important human drive is to belong. That's true. Another very important human drive is to improve.

People really want to improve. And podcasting, just a fucking tremendous amount of podcasting is about self-improvement. And for women, self-help podcasting became left coded. So Brené Brown, Sarah Perel. Yeah. All kinds of, like, great shows, right? For men, self-help podcasting, which is what a lot of Rogan, Ferris. They call it optimization, whatever.

Anything, yeah. You know, Peter Atia. Yeah. It became right-coded. Yep. And that, I was watching that happen. I was telling people, like, this is a disaster. The thing everybody wants, like, if you're going to abandon male self-help to the right,

you are going to abandon men to the right. I talked about depression on Rogan, and it's got a million. You know what I mean? Like, it's stuff that it would be saw. It's left. He also got much more political over the years in my view. Oh, great. He back then, I mean, it was weightlifting and UFC and there was some politics, comedy, but it was, it's a so much of that world is about becoming a better man.

I mean, you find in a certain way, but also, like, I'm genuinely interested. Like, I, like, I consume what feels to me like a psychotic amount of protein and, like, you know, weight, So you really do listen. Yeah. Like, I mean, Rogan was never specifically my speed. But, um, but,

oh my God. Like, yeah, I, uh, the idea that I am somehow immune from these trends. Yeah. Like, loved all the psychedelic,

like the big psychedelics boom in podcasting. Yeah. These are all things I was interested in before the podcast. I talked about DMT, Iwaska on Joe's. And it's, again, more people come up to me from that.

Yeah. Than Netflix. Abandoning, like, the things. that men talk about to the right is just it is the stupidest possible politics yeah you don't want to abandon spaces you just don't yeah and i'm not saying everything is equal here i think that there's a lot of fox news that it's just i don't think it's like i don't go on newsmax not because i think it'd be wrong of me to do so i just don't think i'm gonna persuade many people i don't think it's a space that like these four minute like little cable news hits but i've been on ben shapiro show multiple times yeah you know i I just, I genuine. Politics is about persuasion. And not only that, but it's also about the left loss because they didn't think they needed to. It was so righteous. Persuasion also

isn't just you telling other people what you think. I learn when I go on those shows. I get a sense of how other people are thinking about other things. What answers they would come up with to my arguments. I truly don't. I think of that as anti-politics. Like that way of thinking about things. that approach where what you're trying to do is say, this is not our kind of space, not our kind of people. What we're going to try to do is marginalize it, like push it off the board. I'm not saying you should never try to do that. I think there are some things in society that we have until maybe fairly recently, like correctly said, we are, we don't do that. Yeah. Nazis.

For instance. Until, you know, Musk took Twitter back over, but, um, or took Twitter over. But I think you got to be really careful. That should be pretty small number of things and when things are getting big you can't pretend that you have if it has organic interest like you can pretend that you can marginalize it you don't get to choose what matters in society yeah and so just ignoring it or abandoning it it's just like a it's a huge and obvious mistake um great no i don't know where people were expecting that to go i complete well neither do that's what i'm saying like the the i don't know if it's social media or the but it was this righteous this like insistent insistence on being correct right and then you we won't even we won't even

talk this is it's not my job to teach you or yeah it's not my job to educate you and then people end up feeling again the most key thing you don't like them yeah um i've been doing as part of you know abundance has created a bunch of interest for me on some of these shows and i was actually been without like naming any names here, I've been struck by how many of the podcasters in adjacent spaces are really personally wounded. They want to, like, I go on the show, it's like a therapy session about how much they're considered a certain way. And I was like, in some case, I'd even realize they were considered that way. I kind of think all of it is. I think Bill O'Reilly went to Harvard, wasn't popular. I think Roger Ailes was some, like, it's all grievance. It's all

personal grievance. I think a lot of, like, Joe, Theo, Schultz were sort of like, you're not quite for us. Yeah. And then they go, okay, fuck you. And by the way, showbiz was wrong, because all those guys are really fucking funny and talented so but it's just snobbery and then they go okay fuck you i was i'll show you flagrant out long yeah i like i like shultz enormously yeah um those guys are very very sharp yeah uh but you know alzen i mean those are true believers right yeah you know he they they have a real politics to them and and i respect that about them but i think it may be born out of personal grievance but i think for a bunch of them like i want to give people also it's not like only liberal politics can be authentically motivated and if

on the right your point of grievance but rogan like i don't even think shultz is on the right at this point i mean it's my perception of him he should speak for himself the ovan i don't really have a clear sense of his politics like before people will come up with a completely internally coherent ideology where you know like everything fits on one side of the other what they're going to sense is do you like them and with you know a bunch of people like i've run into i've been really struck by how strong their sense of being disliked was and how much that, yeah, that wounded them. Like, I don't know how much that's a factor in Rogan. I assume the, like, sort of like what happened with him around COVID. Yeah. And vaccine miscarriage was extremely radicalizing

to him. That is my impression. And like, but CNN kept going like horse pills. And it's like, you know it won the Nobel Prize as an anti-malaria drug. But when you have a horse dewormy medication that's discouraged by the government. That's the upside down where we're in with figures like Joe Rogan. The 2015 Nobel Prize, a novel therapy against malaria. Called Ivermectin. Stop calling it horse pills. So it won the Nobel Prize for human malaria. So recently, you get into this thing where I just think it's a very, very important part of politics. It's not radicalizing people against you. Mm-hmm. Yes. Sometimes people are so focused on the 20 or 30 or 40% of disagreement they have with someone. It's like that they miss it. They could have 50 or 60

percent of agreement. Um, politics is won by having 60 percent. Yeah. And their, you know, their echo chamber tells them it's a betrayal if they try to court those people. And look, the right has plenty of its own dogmas. I mean, you cannot be a Trump person in good standing and say the 2020 election was correctly decided. The thing that is interesting to me, it's like the the left, it's purity test is very programmatic. So you had to agree with all of these different things, you know, on health care, on cultural issues, on all these different, you know. The right, it just eventually became Trump.

And if you agreed on Trump, then you could have all kinds of other opinions, right? You could be Arfkid Jr., you could be, you know, Thomas Massey. You could be, you know, Peter Thiel, don't even believe people. So Trump ends up having, probably at the beginning, I think this is beginning to break down now, a very wide coalition ideologically, because the only agreement he is demanding is on him. It's like a single point of agreement. And if you're willing to bend the knee, then there's actually a lot of flexibility for you outside of that. Now it's getting harder for them.

And, you know, he had Musk broke up and, right, you can sort of see the way as choices get made, you lose that coalition, but it's effective for them in 2024. How did you get better as a podcaster? I just do it a lot. Do you listen back? No. Oh, God, no. No, I don't like hearing my voice. Yeah, amazing.

Do they give you notes? Like, stop interrupt? Like, what do they tell you? Not really. You know, occasionally you notice in the emails you get that people are like, you're interrupting way too much or, but also I've had experiences where I will try to take the notes. I'm getting my email and then realize that it's breaking another part of the show. So I had a thing where I was like, okay, you got to make your question shorter, man.

You just got to stop asking stuff on questions. And I did. Except when I began doing short questions, it turned out that, well, my questions are too wordy. They allow for more complexity in the show and the conversations were getting worse because I was trying to do these artificially simple and is making the show more interviewey and less conversational. So, I don't know. Like, I would, there are a million things I would like to be better at when I look through

a transcript that we're editing. The number of times I say right. like it like my soul shrivels inside do you tell them to cut them i don't think you can cut that that many rights it's not even done about you know but it's a tick for me it's like when i'm saying and they did that right and then you know i say right and yeah i literally go like cut there's too many yes yeah so the extent it'll be cut i'm sure we cut i'm i'm sure i'm worse than i come out to the audience but i don't i don't i don't i'm not in the edit um except on paper I don't listen to myself.

We do so many shows, too, and I have to do so much prep for them that I have to move on the next one. I think over time I get better because I'm in the conversations. I feel what works and what doesn't, but it's not a structured feedback process. How is your husband going? I hope well, but I keep a pretty strong zone of privacy around my marriage. Oh, that's great. Is that learned, or you just knew immediately up front?

Like, we're not talking about it. Yeah, I don't talk about my marriage. Great. Your, but so your temperament, in closing, your temperament is white knuckling via, but with the aid of meditation. Sure. Yeah, that's how I describe my, my soul. My temperament, my attitude now, usually I'm pretty, I think I'm actually, it's really been these last three months. Usually I'm pretty good at holding things at bay.

The white knuckling, on some level, I think if you're not white knuckling at the moment, you're not paying attention. Yeah. But I try not to think of that as like... Do you think there's merit to not paying attention? Yeah, I don't think everybody should be paying attention. I don't think human beings are meant to know this much news. And particularly if you don't have any way of influencing it, that just following every single terrible thing that's happening anywhere in the world. Look, I work in the news.

I love the news as a business. But the thing where It's a heck of a business From what I understand Go ahead The thing where we take it as our job To tell you the thing That is going to upset you most every morning

You know Sometimes it's like Do you, does everybody need to know about that plane crash? Yeah Everybody in the world, and for this long Yeah Not because it's not a terrible tragedy

But there is something where it's like Well, what will upset you most today? It's hard on people's nervous system And again, I think when it was A thing that got printed out on paper. You know, you got it in the morning and you sort of flipped through it. But now it's like, it's alerts on your phone. It's everywhere. I think figuring out how to wall yourself off from some of it is important for being sane. All right. I'll end my subscription to the New York Times.

You don't have to twist my arm. In closing, what are- I really hope they don't watch this. As a, trust me, they want. As a, as a tribute to your show, what are three books you would absolutely not recommend? Ooh, interesting. What are three books I would not recommend? I didn't think you would answer it. Yeah, I probably won't answer it. Let me say that I bought so many books based on your show and not read almost all of them.

Yeah, I mean, that's how books work. Was your social progress? Social progress? I don't think it. All right, maybe it wasn't you. Was it? I have a lot of just books like that are from the internet. You were Reddit, generally.

I don't think I have, I don't think I have anti-recommendations. No, I know, I just thought. It was trying to. I was trying to. I like that. Cute, motherfucker. I hope you ate your protein because we're going to fight. Guys, Ezra Klein, what a, what an honor. Honor's big word, but like, I really enjoyed it.

It wasn't unpleasant. I'm, no, what a non-unpleasant experience. I could have done way worse. We could have been exercising or something or been at your bookstore. But, but I have a lot of respect for you, and I appreciate what you do as a, guy and and I'm going to shake your hand. Thank you very much.

Thanks for coming. Thank you.