Breaking News from Pod Save America - Trump BRACES for MASS DEFECTIONS After Epstein File Emails (w/ Majority Report's Emma Vigeland)

Episode Date: November 13, 2025

Jon Lovett sits down with Emma Vigeland (The Majority Report) to discuss the disturbing new details from the Trump-Epstein scandal and the future of the Democratic Party. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, everybody, joining me today. It's Emma Viglin from The Majority Report. Welcome. Thank you so much for having me. The studio is so lovely. There is so much to get through. We came out of a shutdown. Democrats were in disarray. Feels like another lifetime as the Epstein scandal has reemerged with a vengeance. Let's start with that. So we learned today that Republicans expect there to be mass defections on the discharge petition. This was what Rokana and Thomas Massey introduced. They were scrounging their way to get to a majority, to get just a few Republicans to join. Mike Johnson refused to seat a new member of Congress because she was going to be the vote that took it over the top.

Now they're going to bring it to the floor. It looks like as many as 100 Republicans could join. Trump sure is acting like someone who is worried about this. He's trying to buttonhole a bunch of members into opposing it. Doesn't seem to be working. Emma, where are you at on the latest here? Well, it's amazing how much of a self-inflicted wound this was. It felt like Trump could put Cash Patel, the podcast or in charge of the FBI,

and thought that he could lead his supporters around like sheep and that they wouldn't be able to understand what's happening here, but this is a major problem for him, in part because so much of his brand has been built on the idea that he is in some way outside of the Republican Party, that he is a break things kind of guy. Maga is separate from the traditional Republicans that people hate. Like, you look at the favorability for the Republicans and the Democrats, and it's, it's quite dire. But when you have candidates, even like Azora Mamdani, who is eschewed by the establishment of the Democratic Party. In this current environment, that is something that elevates you. Why this hurts Trump is it makes him a part of the elites that he always was a part of, but he

branded himself as different from that. And so now he is a part of the cover-up, the elite cover-up that they were always speaking about amongst the base. Really is like extraordinary. They drummed up a bunch of conspiratorial scandal. They were reading codes into Democratic emails to create Pizza Gate. You had all of these Republicans running to expose this elite pedophilia ring. Now you have the White House bringing Lauren Boberton to try to convince her to oppose this. She walks away thinking the conspiracy. In the situation room, wasn't it? In the situation room, yes. Which means like that is very classified stuff that they're saying you would know. Or like to make it seem more legitimate, but like anybody, she walks away more.

more convinced than ever that there's something going on here. Then we see emails that are being released where Trump and Epstein clearly had a relationship that went well beyond when he claimed it was over. It also exposes that Todd Blanche's interview of Galane Maxwell was either deliberately meant to obscure their relationship or he was not able or didn't want to. know more about their relationship just today, just before we recorded this. So George Conway, one time Bill Clinton impeachment lawyer noted this that it sure seems like Todd Blanche was either a willing or an unwilling accomplice in Galane's efforts to undercut

or kind of underplay Trump's relationship. And he's pretty defensive about this. And, well, we didn't have the information. Dio Deode just didn't have all this information. Well, why not? Right? Like, what is, like, why are you, so why are you acting like a defense attorney for Trump and Galane Maxwell as opposed to a prosecutor trying to get to the truth about all this?

Well, I mean, he's, was Trump's personal attorney like yesterday. So I think, like, we can see how this Justice Department operates. It's incredibly naked. But because Republicans control both chambers, they allow them to get away with just broad illegalities. But, you know, about the Epstein issue, I do think that it's, this isn't, seeing these Republican defections and however many end up voting now that the discharge petition has enough signatures is going to be indicative of how weak Trump is, especially after this last round of elections, which I'm not sure if you can remember an election cycle in

an off year that was this partisan, that was this aggressive in pushing back again. the actions of one party, whether it's Zora Mandani as a Democratic Socialist in New York, or when you have Spanberger and Cheryl and the results, even in Seattle, what we're seeing too. So the fact that you have Republicans that are going to defect here, you can see that his authoritarian grip on the party or his bullying the fact that he tries to use primary challenges with his backing as a threat against these people. if they go against him, that's falling on deaf ears now. And that I think says a lot more about where Trump is than anything else. Yeah, I think it was Thomas Massey who made the point that there will be a time when Trump is gone and we will have to live with this vote.

It is a like, it is startling how fast we went from is Trump going to refuse to leave office to Trump really feeling like a lame duck? He is not able to cajole the caucus into avoiding. this vote. You have people jockeying for position in a post-Trump Republican party. You have leaks from the White House saying the president's got a tour of the country to tout his economic agenda. He's cloistered in the White House. Just like real lame duck shit, which is pretty amazing. You brought up the election. So we had these five blissful days between across-the-board victories in New Jersey, Virginia, New York City, elsewhere. Public commissioners. races we always knew and cared about public commissioner races in Georgia, Supreme Court

racism in Pennsylvania, a few other big races. And then that led into the eight defections that led to the end of the shutdown and a lot of recriminations about Schumer, which felt all the more galling to people because we just got a signal from voters that they were not, certainly not penalizing Democrats for picking this fight. Where are you at on the Schumer of it all? I mean, I think he's a dead man walking. I would imagine. And I would, if I were able to have the Democratic Party listen to me, I would say that there should be a vote on leadership tomorrow. I mean, this is the kind of action that creates such a fissure with the base, where the base is screaming for fight. The broader electorate is screaming for fight, as we saw in those results. and the fact that basically all they got was a promise on the vote for the extension of ACA subsidies

when we're going to see people's premiums double, triple skyrocket what they're going to go through with this amount of pain and the fact that Democrats signed on to it and there was some reporting that I had seen, I believe, from Corey Robin about how many of those Democrats were more concerned that the filibuster would be done away with and that was what they were concerned about protecting because Trump was basically telling the Republicans. And I think Republican leadership also wants to preserve the filibuster because it benefits them disproportionately. Under Biden, there was a period where there were 50 Democratic senators

or two independents at the caucus with the Democrats and 50 Republicans. And the 50 Democrats represented 40 million more people than the 50 Republicans. So you can already see the Senate as an undemocratic institution in and of itself, the fact that Montana has two senators and California has two senators. On top of that, the filibuster is another kind of undemocratic obstacle that creates the center of the Republican and the Democratic Party or puts them in a position to eschew the left or right flank and not participate in a more direct version of democracy already. And so I think Thun and Schumer, who didn't vote for it, but clearly his fingerprints are all over this and he was involved in these negotiations, they were more concerned with the preservatives. of those anti-democratic guardrails. And so why I get so frustrated about this

is that why did the message about democracy fall on deaf years in 2024? How could it possibly have after January 6th? And I think, one, people's material reality right now, what they're experiencing with so-called democracy, is not good, so it's hard to sell the structure when people's material conditions aren't being met. But I think the broader problem is,

and you guys were all over this, this on the show with Biden was the lack of democratic responsiveness internally with the party to their own base, right? When you have only 8% of Democrats approving of Israel's military action in Gaza over 70% saying it's a genocide in terms of voters, let alone independence, 25% only approve of Israel's military action in Gaza, per that, I believe, a pure Gallup poll from a few months ago. But also the base was saying, Biden's too old. We want something new. And if there was a primary process where some of these issues were able to be hashed out and the public was brought into a discourse, that shows democracy. Democracy isn't just showing up at the midterms and in general elections

or in primaries. There has to be a democratic responsiveness to the base. And I think Schumer really does not recognize that that should be his role. Yeah. It's, it's. It's a very important. interesting like I think like that is I think there's a lot of truth to what you're saying I think there's some problems with it like I I want like I you know I I want I have the same instinct right like that's the direction I want I that feels sort of the thrust of it feels correct but then you say well hold on there have been times in which the American economy was far worse and you didn't see this sort of rattling against the cage of democracy itself or a lack of faith in democracy itself there's another part

of the filibuster too, which is, I don't think Republicans are defending the filibuster because they're worried about what Democrats will do when it's gone. I think that's what maybe they tell themselves. But I think a few of these Republicans are well aware that the filibuster goes, suddenly they don't get to blame Democrats for intransigence in the Senate. Oh, I agree about that too. Suddenly they have to own the Republican agenda, which leads me to think, well, if we're going to get rid of this thing anyway, let's have them do it.

Right. Of course. Let's take, it is important for the argument against Schumer that his fingerprints were all over this deal. And I think that is because people want to hold Schumer responsible for the ways in which they are disappointed in the outcome of the shutdown when really their critique of Schumer is not about this specific event, but about the weakness of his leadership going into the shutdown, right? That he is so buffeted by the different wings of the party and has so little kind of deeper loyalty with any segment of the party. that he can't tell us who he voted for in the election, that he has to vote no on this deal when people think probably he was behind the scenes aware that it was happening. But what if he really did, like what if the, what is actually happening here is Chuck Schumer,

the majority of his caucus never wavered, right? They wanted to do a shutdown over a range of issues. They chose health care because they thought it was an issue in which there might be some way to get some kind of a victory. And then he goes in, he's already lost a couple members before it's even begun. And he, like, if what happened, right, is he did not have the ability to cajole five or six from joining the three that were already against this from the outset. Is that an example of your thesis? Or is that something more ordinary in which really, it's a, there was thin margins.

And he was going to lose people anyway. And really, we just, you don't like Schumer for a variety of reasons. reasons and you kind of want to hold him responsible for this when maybe he's not. Well, I mean, I think that it would be naive to think that the Senate leader of the Democrats was not across this. And there has been reporting that he was in contact with this, this gang of folks daily. And yeah, I think our issues with him also go back, or my issues with him and the lefts broadly go back to the spring when I think that their leverage could have been stronger than doing this in the fall. Now, his theory about Trump's unpopularity is true.

But I think you could have also sped run that in the spring. It's interesting, though, right? It is interesting that there was some true. Well, of course. But that's because of the nature of Trump's actions, in my view, more than the Democrats and their responsiveness to it. Right. But, or lack thereof.

But, I mean, the fact that he couldn't guarantee, I think, an ACA subsidy extension with this deal is a major failure. A promise on the future vote means very little. I mean, Mike Johnson is already essentially saying that they're not going to work with them on this and this means that this is materially going to impact people's lives now overall do i think that it's probably better for the health of the democratic party that these people this gang of i forgot the exact number but they're all by the way not up until 2028 at earliest or retiring right that they are showing themselves to be more interested in the maintenance of the system that doesn't

seem to be working for people than they are in fundamentally changing things because it's not good for their political future, I think, with where the base is at right now. So I have a variety of different problems with Schumer where I think that he acts more as a concierge than as somebody who is a fighter. And that is not something that is going to meet the moment with the severity of what we're seeing here. The other thing that he should have been fighting on is the concept of rescissions. The fundamental structure of the body of Congress is at risk right now because the Trump

administration is essentially functionally saying, Yeah, Congress has the power of the purse, sure, but we're going to decide pocket recisions, recisions, where we're going to spend this money, even though that is literally not our role constitutionally. So beyond the material impacts on people with the ACA subsidies, the Democrats are participating, that gang of Democrats in the Senate helped participate in neutering their own body in an unconstitutional manner. Yeah, I'll go further too. In claiming that as part of the deal undoing illegal layoffs and guaranteeing SNAP because Trump was withholding the money when the the contingency funds were there is allowing Trump's extra legal abuses of authority outside of institutional power to make him more powerful inside of these institutions, which is I think the most dangerous thing you can do with someone who is trying to

agglomerate authoritarian control of a government but which again like some of this always just to me boils down to communication right because no one has done a worse like the group of senators who made this deal

have communicated it so fucking poorly and like they made me sort of so angry about their logic because their logic was really against any kind of shutdown whatsoever like well it was going to be pain And so that was always what a leverage was in a shutdown. And you have someone like Tim Kane saying, well, I didn't know what to say.

I had to look the Capitol Police in the eye and I had to look somebody who wasn't getting snapped in the eye. And I think that's real. I understand the human pain, like sort of the humane feeling of that. But presumably you understand that these people can hear an argument, right? Like we're not children, right? Like you can explain to us. Even like Schumer, like explain this to us that you, like, they're sort of in an older world where they're kind of still messaging like they're trying to get a paragraph into a story so that that story gets in front of people

when 90% of people aren't paying attention and the 10% are are too smart for what you're saying. They're already like the hyper engaged get it and the people that aren't paying attention aren't going to hear about this. So why not just make an argument to the hyper engaged? By the way, are the people that are going to talk to their families about it and just say, you know, like if Schumer had gone to the microphone and say, I'm against this deal. A few of my caucus members were never for doing the shutdown at all. They thought it was dumb. I think they're wrong. There's a disagreement.

I held it together as long as possible and then it all fell apart. But in the end, I think it's probably good politics for a bunch of Democrats to say they should have kept fighting while the government is open and we get to refocus, right? Like there's a little bit of like just just tell just level. They're horrible at direct messaging. I mean, I think Schumer had what you're saying about a paragraph or the top paragraph or what the headline will be in the New York Times. Like Schumer's across that, sure. But that is already, it's just engaging with the same voter base, right? You know, Schumer infamously in 2016 said that for every blue collar worker, we lose.

in western Pennsylvania, we gain two in suburban Philadelphia, basically. Now, the direct quote, I'm paraphrasing a little because my brain's a little slow today. But that, you know, strategy has been an abject failure. But the Democrats do have a corner, a corner on the hyper-educated college-educated voters. They have that lockdown, basically. My question is, and I think people on the left are talking about this a lot, is how do you expand the base? And that is where affordability, as the buzzword, I think, is a step in the right direction. a focus on people's material means. But I already saw that Trump's 2024 campaign director

was having, had to an interview with Politico and said, our new focus is gonna be. Affordability. So how did the Democrats create a distinction on that front? And I think that they're gonna have to get more specific. And when we're talking about the fight oligarchy tour, billionaires, people's class interests, you know, I wrote this down because I just couldn't believe it.

There was an analysis I was reading in, gosh, I can't read my own handwriting. But I was reading it in the London School of Economics, and it was, oh, here it is. All right. What's going on? The collective network of America's top toll billionaires now surpasses $2 trillion. And since 2020, that's an increase of almost 200%. And so, like, when I talk about democracy and it being connected to people's material reality,

if people don't have their material needs met via democracy, that cheapens that or that cheapens it in their eyes and it gives rise to a political nihilism that Trump represents where the only thing that matters nothing's really changing in my life so I might as well be entertained by this reality star and people live by his base I think lives vicariously through him in a way where he says whatever he wants they know he's lying but there's a thrill in it for them and so the fact that we've allowed the most important part of how we structure our society to turn into this reality show that also has this sadism element in it, with ICE, with the genocide in Gaza.

I mean, the darkness that he has overseen. It can't be overstated. It means that the only way that we can meet it is, I think, with a lot of what you're saying, with this more direct communication style, we don't need to treat the voters like idiots. Democrats don't need to be afraid of their ideas. They don't need to be afraid to make the case

that we're going to materially change your lives. And when I go back to what Zorong did so effectively, is that he never, never treated those voters like idiots. You see those explainer videos he puts out there about how he wants to achieve things and how things work. That is a way to engage people civically as opposed to making politics the reality show that benefits Donald Trump.

Yeah. Because when nothing matters, who wins? The clown. Yeah, the part of it too, I think, is we really just, the opening that was left for, for Trump and the Republicans to fill when you had Joe Biden being unable to communicate basically at all. We just went through this election. And I think just to your point, and I think a sign to be quite hopeful is, yeah, the base, the Trump base is the Trump base. And we have our, our, our,

our hyper-educated, engaged group of people. Great. We love our, we love our resistance. And I, you know, Cringe is caring too much and I don't think you can. Look, I cry on air like once a week, so I've got that lockdown. I have to be so, it's so funny. I have like, I am an easy cry. I cry at the end of everything. I'll cry at the end of an episode of a procedural. But when I talked to Tim Miller and he got me right after the election, I do think his

goal was to get me to cry and it did work. And then fucking, of course, that's where like, it's like there's like somebody at like on the Fox News, Jesse Waters beat that's like if somebody on Pod Save him, America cries, like we got to get that footage. Oh, yeah. Oh, they love it when a woman does it too. Oh, yeah. They're rare. That, that's like double for them to see a woman crying. It's really fun. Sort of the natural. Yeah. I'm too hysterical. It's so emotional. Yeah. Can't trust me. But we saw that a bunch of, we saw not just a turnout advantage in the midterms. We saw a bunch of people that had voted Trump

come back. And I do think there's been a lot of like, you know, what is the future of the Democratic party? And I wonder if on some level there's a synthesis here. of like you need a couple things in different measures in different races. But Abigail Spamberger and Mikey Sherrill represent a triumph of just good old fashioned normal politics. They had a set of core issues. They weren't too far left. They assuaged a lot of moderate and sort of independent concerns while kind of putting forward a kind of clean, simple agenda of achievable things they could do based on the issues that were on people's minds. And then you look at what happens in New York and you have someone really captivating a huge group of people with a much more

ambitious and bold set of policies and representing kind of different kind and a new kind of politics. And I'm wondering if you see heading into both the midterms and 2028, is there a way, is there a version of an agenda, like a coalition agenda that would that that would be something that both a like not maybe not Zoron himself, but like the base of the the, the excitement. young people that got behind Zoran and the other kind of heart of the Democratic Party, which is the center-left super pro-democracy, Obama, Hillary, Wine Mom, a more moderate person. Is there an agenda that we could get this whole coalition behind? I mean, I think I'm more hopeful about that than I've ever been.

And that's one of the glimmering, you know, shining beacons of hope I have in this time period, because I've never seen the base so activated. And part of why I love coming on shows like this is, like, I'm a member of DSA, but I feel like we have so much more in common than what the fissures of 2016 were, right? I mean, I think that there has been a broad understanding. And even like the role of Elon Musk, right? So in terms of coming together, let me step back about these elections. I, Cheryl, I was pretty surprised and pleasantly surprised to see how specifically in like the 11th hour of that race, she was really focusing on things.

I'm going to declare a state of emergency over the cost of living. I'm going to crack down on corporate landlords. It's not as far as what Zoran is saying, but that was influenced, I think, a lot by his rhetoric. And Spanberger, I don't know if you could have cooked up a more advantageous situation for a Democrat in the same. state where a bunch of federal workers live and the Trump administration just waged out all out war on them and made them lose their jobs. But still, immensely exciting. And even, you know, Jay Jones, the fact that those texts being leaked didn't kill that campaign means that they, and we're seeing this with Grand Platner too. The voters are like, we don't care. We want fighters. That's it.

Can I? Yeah. I want to, I want to let you get to the, sure, there's, we're still in a dependent clause. I hear that. I feel like both grand planner and jones like jones apology he got to a more effusive apology maybe it wasn't as first grand platner has been prosterity like he just laid himself out and like I didn't know and people are gonna like people like like in politics of course you attack apology as being either um like kind of fake or kind of obviously there's a motivation fine okay let's go to philosophy and let's go to 101 and be like is there altruism you know like they've said the right thing like like i remember people would be like oh i can't believe Virginia elected someone so shameless as Jay Jones. Like Jay Jones said, and I quote,

I am ashamed, right? Like, there's a little bit too of like, whether you take them at their word or not, either the voters or the people that are making these apologies, I want there to be some like kind of acknowledgement that the Republican antipathy to just saying you're sorry is politically costly. A hundred percent. Like it's people say sorry and it works. That's good. Right. Well, it's actually kind of what they say about the censorious left. Right. Yeah. But the left is actually, or liberals, way more interested in like something like restorative justice or sometimes sometimes but but no i'm actually i'm with you that's been my critique you know i mean i i i think that i that we have to to zoom out and how i want to zoom out is is is building the broadest based coalition based on class right

and then having a variety of different kind of perspectives even dan osborne in nebraska he's not a democrat he's running as an independent he may not share all my same social issues but he's endorsed by unions, he wants to tax billionaires, let's bring him in. I mean, from Grand Platner to Zoramamandani too, these are more populous candidates that I think can bring new energy into the party. But in terms of like what the overall message can be to get back to your original question, taking away from these races and these significant victories, is that affordability is a step in the right direction, but the way that we can concretely define ourselves as totally, distinct from the Republicans who are about to try to co-op this and they're very good at co-opting

democratic messaging is you create you alleviate the affordability crisis by taxing billionaires and returning that untold concentration of wealth that is over the gilded age levels at this point and eventually it's going to have to come crashing down and we will have to have an FDR-style candidate who brings more material impacts for people is saying we're going to tax billionaires to do that because the Republicans can't do it and we're going to to create trust in social programs again. And that is through civic engagement. That's through treating voters like serious people and not talking down to them and abandoning some of the liberal censoriousness that we were just critiquing. Yeah, I do think that's, I'm with you on that.

Though, like, just to push on it because I do want to get to the. Sure, we're dressed, dressed alike, but we can disagree. No, I don't actually think even we, you know, we are just like, I don't even, I'm actually not even, I'm like, like, I want to test my own assumptions about this because I agree with what you're saying. But the truth is, if you look back for the last several presidential elections, maybe the rates are slightly different. But how to raise money, there's a lot of agreement, right? Elizabeth Warren had a wealth tax.

Every Democrat in the last 20 years has ran on higher marginal rates for the top earners in one fashion or another, you know, the classic Democratic line is we're going to stop rewarding companies that ship jobs overseas, right? Like we've had like that kind of on the on the supply side for taxes though the challenge right has been what is the agenda that unites us on On actual social programs. We've had debates about Medicare for all I saw I think it was rocana that floated an idea that I do think is going to be a place where Democrats probably land is something like let's on the path the single payer. Let's get Medicare eligibility to 50 plus right like that to me is something. But on the on the like the scolding piece of this I did this. We we had cricket con. last week and I had this great conversation with Hassan Piker and Simone Sanders Townsend and Jessica Tarlov and Tim Miller and they were really mixing it up and there was this feeling of

okay like this is what a coalition has to look like and sometimes it's going to be pretty tense but maybe that discomfort is just what we have to live with and that requires the left of the party to see people like on the center and the center left and even the pro-democracy center right as part of a coalition, which by the way, I think has happened, right? Like no one was fighting harder to elect Kamala Harris or Biden before her than Joe Biden, then Bernie Sanders and AOC. I was advocating for her a lot on my show too. Yeah.

So yeah. And then, but then that also requires people that are more moderate to feel comfortable with people like Zoran Mamdani being in the coalition and being less afraid of Republicans. And I know how we get there. Well, that's, I think, part of where, you know, just to bring it back to that race and why it's so significant is it lays bare the hollowness of the vote, no matter who argument, from those, the old guard of leadership. Because I just am amazed that Chuck Schumer still after the election, he probably didn't vote

for him and that's probably why he doesn't want to say. He probably voted for Andrew Cuomo, a man compromised by Donald Trump, who is a sexual predator and who has been one of the biggest bullies in politics that I can think of. And who was, I mean, we don't know what he did. But the reality is that Zoran Mondani, at the very least, I think also lifted the tides in other races across the country this is my argument i have no proof but just from vibes in terms in terms of well uh just a quick aside you mentioned that a lot of in new jersey for example union city which is like an 80 percent latino city uh 50 point swing to Cheryl from what kamala harris did so just to say like those something big was happening that something big is happening and that was in texas they're

redistricting based on trump's numbers from 2024 where he made those gains with Latino voters that might not be the case. If you're gerrymandering and making lighter red districts versus deeper, let's see how that works after you. I'm curious. Although Blue Texas has been a myth my whole life, so I don't know. One day, it's, yeah, it's only, one day it will be true. Once it's true, it's true the whole time. Right. Once it happens, it was always true.

It's a myth until it's disproven. Exactly, I know. We sound like we're end times evangelical preachers here, but eventually we'll be right. But, but yeah, so the, what I do think that he did, though, you also saw an increase in gains in really young voters, like 18 to 29. And I do think that Zoron's popularity online increased engagement for those voters, even if they weren't in New York City. They were more likely to pay attention to their races when they saw this campaign that was viral, that was energetic, that was exciting. Of course, all of what he advocates for is incredibly exciting.

Just the idea of public service and giving back, I think, is really important that he engendered that. So I just can't still reckon with the fact that the leader of the Democrats in the Senate chose to reject that energy on grounds of, I don't know, Israel ideology on that front. But God, Chuck Schumer said earlier this year that his job is to keep the left pro-Israel. And as I keep saying, only 8% of Democrats support Israel's military action in Gaza. So if that's your job, dude, you're failing at your real job. and you're failing at your fake job. Yeah, it's, um, the democratic leadership should be more afraid of losing the young people that were behind Zoran than being painted as pro Zeran by Republicans.

That is what I believe. But I, and, and if your job, if you believe your job, right, like is to try to help people understand a more nuanced view of, of, of Israel. you're not going to do it by avoiding the reality of what people are seeing what people are seeing what people are feeling how they've shifted like I have a like I talked to mom Dani about this directly and like I my problem when he didn't like look I I I talked about this with him in both directions like the ways in which anti-Semitism was used as a cudgel and by the way it was like incredibly rich when and so cynical God Cuomo ran the most cynical race of any

political operation in my life. I just have never seen something like that in my like there have been more racist campaigns. We've we've beaten because there have been but really racist for for like yeah I don't know 2024. Oh yeah. No absolutely. No, I was like an extraordinarily bigoted campaign. Yeah. But I would say the most cynical campaign I've ever seen in my whole life. And then he had the audacity to say that mom, Donnie was using Israel as a wedge issue. She was like, no, that's what you did. That's what you did. You made people think like you made this more salient for the voters as if he was running for mayor. of Tel Aviv, which was ridiculous. But if your goal is to create a big coalition in America

that opposes Israel's military campaign in Gaza, which I think is the right thing to do to oppose funding Israel's military, one role you have as a leader is to, I think, speak out when parts of your coalition are saying things that could alienate others that would get behind you, not just because I think some of those statements were morally wrong, but because I do think they're politically alienating. And to me, like, what made Zoran such an interesting figure put on, is actually the ways in which he was often doing some normal politics and coalition building outside of this issue, right? He's keeping on the police commissioner. He brought in Brad Lander. He did a ton of meetings to assuage people's concerns. He's also, I think, one

mistake people made in how they ran against Zoran is they ran against the New York Post covers. But he's a much more interesting and smart and curious and thoughtful person and was able to describe like really in detail defend a lot of his positions in a way I think people didn't hear. But I do think that speaks to the way we have to kind of come together because I do think the left ought to be a bit circumspect at times at the work that needs to be done to persuade, right? And that requires, I think, at times, compromise. And it's while at the same time, I think the center needs to learn from the enthusiasm that this kind of populism engendered. And so the solution is not going to be centrist who sound like populace. I think that helps.

I think people do genuinely want that, but that's not enough. But also being populist and being charismatic and being inspiring to a big group of people that want to see them in their leaders. Like that is true. But that does not mean you don't have work to do to bring more people along because those aren't yet majority. Yeah, yeah, I, I, I, there's, there's a lot to chew on there. I think, you know, about Zoron's talent as a coalition builder, he has Bernie style politics, Obama style charisma, but he has,

like, the city, municipal, political, like, you know, relationship building thing down that you really need. And love Bernie to death, you know, one of the greatest, uh, the OGs. But, you know, he's a little cantankerous. I was interviewing him a couple months ago and midway through the interview, he just leaned back and went, and that hurt. That would break my heart in two. It wasn't my best moment. I should have to stop telling that story. That didn't happen.

Yeah, sure, I got to cut it. But no, that sounds exactly like him. And he's done that on air with a bunch of other interviews. So, you know, that is one of Zoron's talents. And I think that is part of, you know, he's a quintessential millennial politician. in many ways. Like, our generation is really, when you look at polling, the most progressive consistently, a generation.

So in terms of where the left needs to be smarter, I hear you on that. I think part of the problem is that we don't really have any national democratic politicians who are leading the way on the issue of Israel's genocide in a way that matches the urgency or gives people rhetorical framework to advocate on this issue. Now my viewpoint is that Zoran is really the first to do that where he talked about when asked do you believe

Israel is the right to exist as a Jewish state he says I believe it has the right to exist as a state of equal of equal rights. That is my position I think more Democrats should be speaking in that in that fashion meaning one democratic state and there needs to be some sort of United Nations Commission that comes in truth and reconciliation and there's already 700,000 settlers in the West Bank, illegally occupied by Israel since 1967, as has East Jerusalem been, and Palestinians since that period have been living under a one-state reality.

And we have to be beginning to be speaking about the reality on the ground because the two-state solution fiction is just something that bides time here and still undercuts the idea that multiculturalism is a strength. We can't be making the case in this moment of fascism that racial integration in Greater Israel is a threat because this group of people can't be living aside this group of people. And a state that's maintained in terms of ethnic or racial supremacy is not one that should be supported by the Democratic Party, especially when we have a fascist in office. Yeah.

Where I'm at is agree with. with the statement that no state has the right to deny the equal rights of anyone who lives within its borders full stop. And that ought to apply to every country, including Israel. I do think there's been a move against the two-state solution as fanciful, and I take those arguments. At the same time, I think you can make a very good case that a one-state solution is not closer. Like these are both, we are very far from, we are very far from a genuine and lasting and just peace.

I see a two-state solution as a great step to what I'm talking about. And if it needs to happen as a diplomatic step to give Palestinians more rights, I'm all for it. Yeah. All I'm at is, look, we can get to the prescriptions from here, but ultimately what will happen in that region will be determined by the people in that region and what we ought to be advocating for is the human worth and dignity of every person, especially when it has been denied to the Palestinians. And like, I don't, I just think, I find that like the kind of, it's almost becomes an intellectual exercise about what the future could look like. Like, we ought to have

these basic principles. And I agree with you the way that Zoran talks about it. There is a, there is a, kind of, I think like, I think where people who describe themselves as being pro-Israel, take issue with this is it feels like a hyper focus on Israel when the equal rights and dignity of many people are denied throughout the region. But then my response to that is, well, we describe Israel as a democracy. We hold it to the standards of a democracy. I would like to continue to do that, right? Yeah. I do a higher standard than we hold Hamas or the Saudis, right? Right. I mean, John Kerry said it best. I mean, I think he did say at one point, Israel can either be a Jewish state or it can be a Democratic state, but they can't be both. And, you know, that's really my position on that.

And, and I think it's also because the United States, you know, where I wish we could reorient our focus is, is that to Israel and what it means, of course, in terms of a form of reparations for the victims of the Holocaust, like that cultural memory, we have to be sensitive to that, especially when tensions are so heightened around this, right? And I would just add to that, the fact that Jews were expelled from countries throughout the Middle East upon the founding of Israel. Yeah. That is like, although Abi Shlame would argue that Zionism is the reason for that more than, but yes. I'm not going to go.

I know. I don't want, I'm not, I just, like, I just think so. I just, I am just a, there's, you know, I think back to earlier eras in which the left failed to come together to face a rising authoritarian menace and they were not stupider than us. They were not less aware of the dangers. Maybe in some sense they were because they hadn't lived through as we have access to history that didn't exist yet. But there are genuine and real painful differences that make it hard for people to unite.

And I think one way to understand, like to get to the other side of that is to like just lay the complicated truth out. That's all. I'm zooming out to say basically in terms of moving forward more broadly. My point is just that some of the some of the crunchiness of the messaging on the left is in my view because we're not seeing enough leadership. Oh. I love my squad and I love progressive members, but they're still not talking about them in the terms that I just talked about, right? And I think that that would help people understand some of the left wing position a little bit more on this.

But on the issue more broadly, why I think there's a focus on it, why people get so riled up is one, just because, like, it's a genocide. But two, because I think it's a litmus test for a lot of people. They see if you can stand up and be brave on this particular issue or you go against where a lot of, like, the blob or where DC is or where moneyed interests are, where the military industrial complex is, people genuinely view that they can trust you. you're seeing moderate members already saying, I'm swearing off A-PAC money, right? Because they see the writing on the wall here. And so I think to build a stronger coalition for Democrats, that is a really short-handed way to create trust. And it's not just Democrats. As I mentioned those numbers earlier, independents are really, really against this as well.

It's like the only positive views of Israel seem to be coming from the Republicans, and it's older Republicans too. And then the younger ones are all actually anti-Semitic. Yeah, I would say, look, I think the ways in which, and I agree with, I think, one very good reason to turn away from APEC money is because it is an organization that has become basically right-wing conservative. Yeah. And is not a welcoming place for people who have a, forget a, like a nuanced pro-Israel view, right? Like, they're just not, it's, it's become a tool of the right in, in Israel, because it's kind of propped up by a bunch of people that have pretty old-fashioned views and sort of on the subject. But, like, putting that issue, putting Israel aside as an issue, I agree that that it is for some

people, a kind of a trust marker. Like, you talked about a movement that is uniting people around class. I think ultimately, whatever, the, the salience of this specific issue for a subset of people, we are going to win or lose on a broader message that is about the concentration of democratic power and the concentration of economic power. And I feel like as much as we can get that to be the kind of core of what we're talking about, I think the better position will be in. I will say, though, that, you know, I tell this story a lot because I was 14 when Obama was running. That was where my interest in politics began. I literally became obsessed with Obama as many young people did. and that campaign, and in particular, it was the primary, and Hillary Clinton having voted for the Iraq war previously and supporting it, I, as just a young person, I was furious.

I couldn't understand how anybody could vote for what we did to hundreds of thousands, killing hundreds of thousands of people in this illegal war. And that was what generated my enthusiasm for politics, and I talked to other people, and many of them, you know, feel the same way. there were other aspects of the Obama campaign, of course, that were incredibly exciting and how that got so many newer voters engaged is a lesson going forward. So I think a lot of what you're saying is absolutely right in terms of what the base needs to be. But for young people, I do think that this issue has to be addressed more substantively to make sure that we're drawing a distinction because leaving a vacuum here, we're seeing it already.

Marjorie Taylor Green tweeting out of A-PAC, I don't want to take you. your shekels. Nick Fuentes is getting folded into the Heritage Foundation. When Zionism is conflated with Judaism, we are seeing a very horrifying increase in anti-Jewish hatred across this country. And I think it's incumbent upon us to have a real clear message on this to not allow these charlatans and bigots and Christian nationalists to fill the void. And I, but what I, I guess we can go back and forth of this. I, like, I think that's all quite true. I just think like the there is a there is a kind of whatever like wouldn't say it as a consensus view but I would say there's like a whatever median view that would say something along

the lines of Israel committed atrocities in Gaza and they should receive not one more dollar for any military aid. That's easy. Right. And at the same time saying we reject anybody that embraces anti-Semitism and anybody who would claim that that not only do Palestinians have a right to live in sort of peace and dignity with equal rights, so do Israelis a right to live in peace and security. Right. Like there is a kid, all I'm getting is that's a great, that's a great baseline. But what you're saying is like a lot of Democrats aren't saying they're not even ready to cut off funds. Well, what I, all I'm getting at is I think we're going to have a big primary and we're have a big debate and I think we're in the end what I would like is for there to be kind of a kind of

like a way to get to that kind of a kind of collective use so that we can focus on what we're going to do to lower health care prices to get more people into Medicare and to like kind of find a united front so anyway that's where I'm at yeah I didn't mean to bring us down that No, no, no, no, I'm glad I did. But it always goes back to that for me because it's hard. You know, it's it's it's a galvanizing issue, I think. Emma, we can keep talking about. We got to wrap it up.

Are there any Epstein conspiracies we should end on? What do you think? Democrats could be a little bit more conspiratorial. That's my hot take. You know what? We're all fucking conspiracy theorists now. Yeah. Because there was a bunch of conspiracy theories that were like kind of half baked and bananas.

And here we are. And there is a cover up at the Department of Justice. Donald Trump was president when Epstein died. They've been sitting on all this information for a while. I'll tell you, here's my question. What the fuck was Merrick Garland doing all day? Oh, my God. What was he doing?

Walking around with like a candle and a sleeping cap? Like, what the fuck? Well, not on just this one, but like, I mean, on the, the, and we should have done what they did in Brazil. We should have prosecuted Donald Trump for trying to do a coup in this country. I mean, like early, immediately after. It's, this is something that the left understands that I think the comies and garlands of the world just simply do not, which is.

they believe legitimacy comes with broad bipartisan acceptance, but that is moral relativism. Uh-huh. They've accused the left of being morally relativist forever, and, you know, there's a strain of that, whatever. But man, no, legitimacy is something deeper. And just because just as everyone doesn't tell you that you're right, doesn't mean you aren't doing the right fucking thing. Well, I mean, that is a good way to fold in Epstein, where it's just that it's such a low barrier to entry story for a lot of people, where it's, just speaks to something where they genuinely feel like there is a different set of rules for elites and what's going on with our lives and they're not going after people in power and i really do

think that the 21st century or we could go back to iran contra really um but for decades there has been a lack of accountability for illegal conduct the iraq war january 6th aran contra nixon Yeah, right. Bill Clinton lied under oath. Exactly. And that happened. That undercuts people's faith in democracy too, right? When there is a lack of accountability and it builds and builds and builds because powerful

people don't want accountability and they know that they can get away with more. Why did Menendez commit another crime after getting away with it the first time? It's because that's what criminals do when they get away with things. And we're seeing that level of criminality with Trump right now. It's an accumulation of decades of powerful people not being held accountable for doing things that are illegal. And I think the American public sense is that. And we have to stop because we've gone on longer than we said.

But I will say, I think it goes, it's not just allowing powerful people to get away with it. It is also just a kind of celebration of power. I don't think it's a disco-I don't think it's a coincidence that as leaders became. less and less accountable to the law. We allowed the presidency itself to become more and more powerful that we that we kind of equated a president that was willing to do things that used to be Congress's purview with strength. And the law became this kind of fuzzy thing that could only be described by like the Brahmin

priesthood. Well, I don't know. Now we got to, we're out of time. We've got to stop. I know. But it's been great. It's been great. It's so great to talk to you.

I'm so glad we're able to make this happen. Yeah, me too. Emma Viglin, thank you so much. And check out the majority report of which she is a co-host. Yes, we are live Monday through Friday, noon, eastern. That's 9 a.m. here, right? For sure. I can even do basic math.

Then you can check it out. Yeah, noon, eastern, Monday through Friday on YouTube and on every podcast platform too. Oh, yeah. All right. Thanks so much.