Chapo Trap House - 570 - Deere John Letter feat. Jonah Furman (10/25/21)

Episode Date: October 26, 2021

We’re joined by Labor Notes’ Jonah Furman to discuss the ongoing strike of over 10,000 John Deere workers. We discuss the effects of a tight labor market on labor power, what’s at stake in the strike, and how the current “vibe” of labor militancy might affect future strikes. We then look at the other end of capital with a piece from FT detailing the “vibe” at the Milken Jamboree, an event named after the “junk bond king” headlined by, of course, Bari Weiss. Check out Jonah’s writing in Labor Notes: https://labornotes.org/author/5777/content And sign up for his newsletter here: https://whogetsthebird.substack.com/

All I'm gonna be is hip-hop. All I'm gonna be is hip-hop. All I'm gonna be is hip-hop. Okay. Greetings, everybody. Monday, October 25th, 2021. It's your chop up of the week coming at you. It's me and Matt, Chris on the Ones and Twoes as usual. Hello. Felix, Felix still on sabbatical, but if you're not joining us for the first half of the show today is Jonah Furman of Labor Notes. Jonah, how's it going? Good. How are you guys doing? We're doing well. Obviously, we want to get you on and talk about strikes. They're back. I

want to get into some of the individual cases of some of these strikes that are going on right now in terms of the company, the unions, the stakes, the contracts. But overall, to the extent that labor actions seem to have cropped up across a pretty broad spectrum of industries and sectors of the economy, you're talking auto manufacturing, coal mining, healthcare, transportation, telecommunications, and the one that you've written about recently, John Deere. Just to start things off, could you talk to us first about just in terms of a very basic definition of a tight versus a slack labor market and how the circumstances we see now has perhaps temporarily strengthened the hand of workers leading to some of these

strikes that we're seeing right now? Yeah, for sure. I feel like the protagonist of this story that people like to tell about the labor market is like the small business owner who cannot find someone to flip burgers for $11 an hour or whatever. But there's a very different view. There's also the people who quit their job and say, I don't have to put up with this anymore because I can just go get another job. There's also the view of the people who are stuck working in a tight labor market where there's understaffing too much work, you can't have a normal work day, you're working forced overtime, all this stuff. So basically a tight labor market means what people mean is you can not find enough people

to fill all the slots, all the jobs that are open, right? Which changes the leverage you have with your boss. So if you say, I know if I walk today, you can't just get five more people to fill my spot, you have more leverage than you had if there's 200 people lined up behind you who are ready to take your job. In a slack labor market, there's a thousand people at the door and you're scared to fart too loud or you're going to get fired and then replace you. That's the essential difference. The ways that it expresses itself right now depends on whether you basically are unorganized, you're organized. If you work at Taco Bell and you don't have a union and don't have any real plan to change your working conditions,

but you know you can get a better deal elsewhere, you'll go cut a deal. You'll say, I'll go work down the street, better job, more pay. That's a tight labor market for the unorganized. But for union members, organized people in any way, it means something else. It means you know sort of systemically your employer like John Deere cannot replace all 10,000 of us. They have a lot of money. They don't have a lot of leverage. We could make collective demands now that could land, that they could be forced to accede to, that we couldn't have made five years ago. So that's part of what we're seeing with the labor market. And now, it's been sort of an unofficial policy among sort of the economic mandarins

in charge of the U.S. economy. Like Larry Summers, for instance, basically creating the conditions that sort of supplement a slack labor market has been basically the de facto policy of the U.S. government. There should always be some slack in the work market so that there's sort of a disciplining effect of that fear that like five or 10 or 20 other people could just take your job if you're fed up with the conditions, right? Totally. And the other side, sort of like the supply side where you want to make people scared to leave their job. So this is like a big reason why big corporations don't want Medicare for all, even if it would save them money on insurance costs, is because they

don't want it to be that you could just drop this job and go get another job without being scared that if you get sick in the two weeks intervening that you're going to be totally screwed. So yeah, it's not just even the slackness and the tightness, but it's all these kind of like mechanisms that make it harder or easier to not have a job in this country if that's what you need to get a better deal. Well, I mean, one of the sort of the new mechanisms that's been introduced, certainly post-COVID, is the creation of this category of essential workers. How has the creation of this like this new category of employment put employers in a tighter bind than they've been before,

at least as it regards John Deere or Kellogg's or some of these jobs that are now categorized as essential? Yeah. I mean, well, one big way is just like this kind of X factor of workers' confidence and understanding of themselves as essential. So like on the John Deere strike, all the UAW locals printed up these shirts that say, deemed essential in 2020, prove it in 2021, you can't build it from home. And that's like the message right there. Workers understand that they were given this status as, you know, we need you to like run agriculture in this country. And now they have a sense that it's time to pay up. And this is like a pattern

we see in crises, you know, like World War II and World War I. After those big events where labor gets squeezed really hard to get through a crisis, there's always a snapback effect where workers are saying, it's time to collect and where's, you know, I just got us through this thing, like you said, so where's the payoff? Were the Deere factories mostly open during 2020? Oh, yeah, open. I mean, there was, so it's like, it's like the worst mix. So some of them had big layoffs, which meant people just didn't get paid for big chunks of time. So some people collected, you know, less than 40 grand in a year with a good union job after

being there for 10 years. But other people had, you know, they talk like endless tens is what they say every day is a 10 hour workday. And a lot of people were forced in every Saturday because you're so far behind. Partly it's supply chain stuff. Partly it's because Deere is pulling in all this money, so they want to put more product. But yeah, you had people who are working crazy over time. And then again, like I said, with a tight labor market, it means that they can't fill positions. So you don't have like two extra guys who could take your shift if you need off, you know, there's like not this backlog. So you're stuck on the job with more work than you had before the pandemic.

Speaking of like a John Deere specifically, because I know you've written a lot about this, you read the sort of the strike caught a lot of people by surprise. Could you lay out what was the contract that was being negotiated? What was being offered that and what was it what was being offered that led to a on some for on some in some quarters, a surprising rejection of the contract by union members, including among union leadership? Yeah, totally. So basically, you know, union contracts are up on a cycle every certain amount of years. John Deere is every six years. So the last contract was 2015. And they started negotiations in this year. And there's like sort of a dance going up to a contract expiration

date where it's not that uncommon to take a strike authorization vote. Basically, you're trying to say, give your bargaining team more leverage at the table so that the company knows if they don't bargain something decent, you could walk, you already voted to walk. So they took this strike authorization vote in early September. And at that meeting, they gave Deere's first offer and Deere's first offer, you know, it's another part of the dance. They did this extreme low ball where it was like, we're gonna, you know, possibly close plants, we're gonna end overtime after eight hours, we're gonna end parts of weekend overtime, we're gonna gut the seniority system, you know, all this totally draconian stuff,

raise your health care costs. So part of that is supposed to like set expectations for what the contract you're gonna get, right? You're like, well, it's better than that dog shit offer we got the first time. But it had also the opposite effect where people were like, holy shit, like, fuck, Deere, like, we're going to walk if that's what it comes to. So essentially, they ended up, there's a whole rigmarole, we can go through the kind of punches that each side through, it looked like they were gonna avert a strike. And then they brought this contract to the membership that, you know, the union negotiated, they thought it could pass, you don't bring it, you know, they were not recommending you vote no, they're

recommending this is a decent deal. And essentially, the big things that it did was it destroyed the pension for all new hires. So there's been a big problem at John Deere. Since 1997, there's a split in the workforce, what they call a two tier system. The first tier is you were working there before 97, and you have better wages, better benefits, you have a full pension after retirement, you have health care after retirement, which is important if you work with your body, because you can't make it to 65 on that job. And then if you were hired after 97, you have a supercut pension, like a third of the pension, not really livable, no health care after retirement, your wages are way behind your health care plan on the

job is much worse. So a big demand in the contract has been for, you know, decades, people being like, two tiers got to go, there's no more 1997 pre 1997 post 1997, no more two tier, if you work here, you should get the same benefits and wages and all that stuff. So dear what the other way, they wanted to make a third tier, meaning if you're hired after November 1 2021, no pension. So it was totally the opposite, people were hoping to see it eased up, you know, like the two tier system a little softened. And instead, they went the other way with it, they also offered wages that were sub inflation, if you do the math, it's like 2% or less per year for six years where inflation for the past year was 5%,

but alone for the past 25 years and Deere is making crazy money, like the most they've ever made the first three quarters over all of this is the fact that like COVID or not John Deere is more profitable now than it's ever been. Yes, yes. So like this idea that that like belt tightening needs to take place is kind of absurd. And to this question of like a tiered system, like I can imagine how in terms of disciplining labor, like the logic behind the effectiveness of this, because if you're pre 97, you're like, Oh, well, you know, I want to keep my pension and the good benefits. And if you're put it and like the way in which managing kind of play the pre and post 97 people against each other. And

now now the this this suggestion that Oh, how about a how about a third tier? So the post 97 people now have a like a lower tier that they can feel better than or and be afraid of you know, just destabilizing transfer. Yeah, exactly. Can I can I just bring up something on the on the new tier? Just that I thought this was a funny detail. They wanted to replace the pension system with something called choice plus. Just choice plus is one of those words where when you see that offered as a benefit, you know, trouble brewing bad things coming. No way is choice plus good. Yes, totally. I mean part of what they were saying is if this 401 it's like sort of they call it like, you know, an enhanced 401k and what a lot

of members have told me is like, you know, a 401k only like a match only works if you have money to save if you're making 39 grand a year, there's nothing to put in my 401k unlike a pension, which is basically you're going to get this much based on how many years you work. So I know what my retirement is going to be. And like you can say what you want about pensions versus 401k, but the members are very clear for generations at John Deere, you've been able to retire knowing I'm going to get X dollars a month and I can afford it. But I mean, just as it regards to the tier system, and I was reading your reporting on this and then even just like seeing some of the news coverage of the of

the picket lines and John Deere workers, I mean, it was heartening in a sense that like as you said, a big issue for them was this issue of new hires, and that anyone new deserves the exact same pension and benefits that we already all have. So like as far as the people striking, they're not doing it like they're doing this both for their own benefits, but for the benefit of potential future employees of John Deere. Yeah, totally. I mean, there's like a beautiful thing to it, this like solidarity a moral cause saying, you know, people with my son works here, I want him to have a decent job to I'm not going to sell them out just so I can make short term gains right now. There

is also like this strategic thing that I think people should not downplay, which is workers see that the boss is trying to do this tier thing to divide, both divide the union and play each other like off each other, right? You want to at a certain point, this is what's happening in the Kellogg strike is they have this second tier workforce that's capped at 80% and now Kellogg is like, we want to make that 100% because at a certain point, the boss isn't going to pay you $12 more an hour to do work that they can get for cheaper. So when they set up the tiers, they're putting this like cancer into the system and the worker see it's not going to happen next year and the next five years, I might even get out

unscathed, but at a certain point, they're going to go for the throat and say no pensions for anybody. Yeah, whatever tier gets introduced, even if you're not in that tier, it's a preview of things to come. They're telling you they're going to do to you eventually when their hand is strong enough. As far as John Deer goes, how has management reacted thus far in the midst of this strike? I read reporting that they were going to cut off the health insurance of striking workers. What is the status of that? Yeah, totally. It would be funny if it wasn't so fucked up and there were so many people affected by this stuff. First, they reacted

by being like, we'll just switch all the salaried people to do the factory stuff and they'll drive the tractors and all this stuff. We covered that last week. Fairly humorous 9-1-1 calls from the John Deer plant. Yeah, totally. And reports of someone drove a tractor into the wall or whatever. But what Deer has tried, there's really three big super vindictive things that they've tried to do. One is cut health insurance. So they announced that they're going to cut all these 10,000 workers and their family's health insurance next week, which you don't have to do that. You can do it. You can be like, oh, it's employer-based. You're not working. But they're going to cut all these

people off this health insurance. The second thing they were going to do is it's a complicated, stupid system of how Deer workers get paid for some of their quota work. People take lower wages so they can be in this quota system where they can get quarterly payouts. But this is like earned wages and it's millions of dollars. And Deer was like, we're not going to pay that. It seems like it's totally illegal and totally wage theft, but they were like, we're going to cut you off the health insurance. We're not going to pay you all this money that you already earned. And then the third thing was these injunctions. They're going to go to the courts and say, find a judge who will say, you can't pick it. You can't

have a chair. You can't have like a burn barrel for heat and light. And people are like stuck alone now outside these plants because of a judge's order that will arrest you if more than four people show up to the picket line. So the good news I would say is that those first two things got reversed. Deer, I don't know if it was like public pressure or someone made the call or they're like scared of Tom Vilsack coming to like a picket line or whatever, which sure. But yeah, they were like, actually on Friday, they were like, actually, we're not going to cut the healthcare. We're actually going to pay you the wages you earned. So that was like wind in the sales for a lot of these workers who would have been totally

screwed in a lot of ways. Call back the Pinkertons, Vilsacks on the line. We got Vilsack in the house. Let's get out of here. One of the interesting things in your reporting on this is you refer to a Wall Street analysts report to investors on the John Geer strike, which was provided to you by an anonymous source. And you say, the ownership class has its eye on what's going on inside the UAW. What are they looking at and why are they so interested? This is just kind of amazing. I mean, there's a big context for the UAW here is that there's a historic vote happening in the union because of a huge corruption scandal, which really is, you know, people like to joke about union corruption. It's really quite rare to have

a really big corruption scandal like this. But for the past like five years, there's been these prosecutions at the top of the UAW where people are going to jail. The guy who negotiated the last deer contract, I think just finished a jail term for taking money from Chrysler. This is like what the scandal was mostly about was people taking money from the company to negotiate worse union contracts. So this all triggered this whole consent decree thing, which means they are forcing a vote on whether to switch to direct elections of top officers. Basically, they're saying there's so much corruption in this union at the very top that we need the members to be able to have some sort of check on these top leaders.

Right now, there's no way, you know, you negotiate a shitty contract, you just move up the chain of the internal union at the national level. So this vote that's happening, the ballots dropped last week on Tuesday, and it's basically this like warning shot to the national union leadership that like, if you don't negotiate better contracts, we're going to vote you guys out. The same thing happened with the 90% no vote on the John Deere contract that was this big surprise was like, that's a shocker 90% no vote on a recommended contract does not happen for a normal union negotiation. So what they're saying is basically there's this movement inside the union to demand more from the employers and to discipline national

union leaders who aren't ready to deliver who aren't ready to actually take people out on strike when they authorized strikes, which was a big part of the drama and the lead up here. And, you know, the people who only care about the stock price realize that if the DAW gets new leadership that's ready to strike more and ready to bargain more intense intensely, you know, go against two tier contracts that have been around for decades, then the stock price could take an actual hit. So it's really interesting to watch Wall Street. It's like, you know, the Financial Times always has the best reporting on this stuff because they are the ones who actually have skin in the game.

And just in covering this, like, I mean, you mentioned like just the kind of like the practical concerns and logistics of maintaining a picket line, certainly in the light of, you know, right wing judges ruling against you. But like you said, having heat, having food, having signs themselves, like so what is it? What is the what is your sense of what the morale is like on on the John Deere picket lines at these at these plants in the Midwest? I think it's I mean, it's kind of amazing. Like these are people who there's not been a John Deere strike since 1986. And some of these people's parents were on that line, but I haven't found anyone who was there, you know, whatever that was 35 years ago.

So there's this kind of energy of like, we're making history, people who go on big strikes tend to hold that stuff with them for the rest of their life. And there's like clearly some of that intensity here. I mean, imagine you work for like a company that is like grinding you down for 20 years, and you finally get to strike them after every five years, six years being like, is this going to be the time we finally going to go for it? So a lot of these people are like, still in this, you know, some members have called it the honeymoon phase to me of like this strike. You know, if it goes for months and months, it's going to be very cold and different in in Iowa. But right now there's kind of like, you know,

a militancy and excitement, there's tons of people coming out to events. One of the plants had like 1000 people show up for a picket line that went 15 blocks long. So I think there's excitement, enthusiasm, all that. Little sack aside, I mean, have there been any any politicians, state or national who have lended their support or said anything in favor of this strike or in solidarity with the union striking? Yeah, I mean, there's been like people running for office in Iowa who have like showed up to a picket line, which is pretty, you know, in the Midwest is pretty pro forma. I think

it's been pretty glaring the silence from the red. I mean, it's very strange to have your agriculture secretary be like the most whatever pro worker person of your administration that probably has not happened before. Joe Biden last Friday was like, they were like, what do you think about the strike? He was like, these workers have a right to strike. You're like, cool. You know how you say that about me? Do not shoot. Yeah. No live ammunition to be used. But you know, it's like, yeah, that's the law from 1935. And then Dick Durbin was like, oh, man, really hope there's not a strike.

And you're like, what? That's not like all the members want to strike because they want to win, you know. And then Chuck Grassley was like, there's a strike. He's like, I don't understand. Are you my daughter or where am I? Someone's finally taking action against the history channel for not showing history. Yeah. I mean, that's like a crazy amount of voters for him, just cynically like 10,000 people, mostly in your state, all their family, everyone who likes them is like, I don't know, maybe just doesn't give a fuck.

I mean, I mean, like you write like Joe Biden has said, I want to be the most pro union president ever where it's like, well, you got miles to go, Joe and also like easy buckets made, just say anything nice. UAW rocks, you know, that's it. I guess just from like a broader view of like, you know, what seems to be like increasing labor militancy in this country, I mean, I know we've covered on the show, like, you know, throughout the past couple of years, like an increasing militancy in public sector unions and increasing like demand among rank and file against their union leadership to go on strike and things like that. But like, as someone who's been covering this for a

long time, now that we're seeing this in the private sector, I mean, like, do you feel, do you feel something different? I mean, like, is this categorically different than things you've seen before? Or like, I mean, what's your take on just like the, the increase in labor militancy in the private sector? Yeah, I mean, I think it's a big deal, but all this stuff is kind of, it's still in kind of the tea leaves stage, you're like, this looks like they might be moving in that direction, the trends are good, all that. I mean, what we saw with the teachers was an actual strike way where West Virginia teachers went and then, you know, thousands of miles

away, like Arizona, Oklahoma, Kentucky teachers all went to basically running on on vibes, like on inspiration from those workers. That's like the historic strike ways are way bigger than what we're looking at right now. We have, you know, maybe like 15,000 people are on strike right now, which is great. And much more than has been at any other time this year or the past few years, you know, mostly, but we're not yet at, you know, we're like at 1980, late 80s levels of strike activity, which is like certainly not the heyday of the working class. Oh, let alone the 1940s, like you bring up the examples of the huge, huge explosion of

strikes that happened after World War II, where it was just like, like you mentioned, there's this, this pressure builds up where workers are being asked to sacrifice for a greater good. And then the, you know, the crisis is over. And then it's just sort of like, okay, all right, well, like we sacrifice. So now, like, let's, let's, let's see something in return. Do you think in some sense, like COVID has like is, is similar to World War II in the kind of like, I mean, in this, in that it is a national crisis and that everyone is being asked to like, you know, tighten their belt and make sacrifices. But then like as

it sort of peters out, or like, you know, like the bill comes due, do you think that like that, that is leading to some of the, what we're seeing now? I mean, that's, if you talk to workers, that's like alive and well, and not just like fringe people being like, you know, who've wanted to stick it to the man forever, like regular ass people are like, what the fuck, like this 18 months has been like hell, you keep saying all this stuff about how essential we are and how we keep the economy running and all this stuff. So I think regular people feel it. I do think the scale, you know, for context, the 1946,

you know, the mid 40s strike wave, if that was happening today proportionally, it'd be like 10 million people on strike, you know, so we're like not close to that level. But I do think there's, if you talk to these workers, they're watching each other, you know, like people, I was talking to these electricians in Florida and they were watching this carpenter strike in Washington state and they're like, we want to do like that, you know, that level of like inspirational action, it does matter. It needs more than just inspiration, but I feel like there's something happening with regular working class people where they're kind of aligned, you know, right now they have an identity that's shared. There's sort

of like a class formation thing happening here where people are like, yeah, essential workers, I went to work for the best 18 months, like I'm ready to come collect. Yeah. One thing that you wrote about that I thought was interesting is about how the crisis is ongoing and how all of the trends have been to point any kind of a shortage in the system onto the workers. Like you wrote about this KIP system they have where like a lot, the workers at the factories basically work based on how much they can produce and when there is a part shortage, like there is now in the supply system that they just don't have the parts to produce and so then they can't be paid based on what they produce

and all of that, you know, any kind of choke point is then offloaded onto the workers and that seems like that will be ongoing for awhile. I'm sure, you know, the crisis is still unfolding is what I saw. Yeah, totally. And it has these like paradoxical effects like that where like there's either not enough work because of a supply shortage, so you're laid off or you're not getting your quotas met or you're not getting paid out or it's like there's a flood of demand we've built up for so long that now we're like 800 mega tractors behind and you got to work 16 hour days for the next three months. So it's like, of course, you know, they find

ways to offload every worst part of the supply chain issue and the pandemic onto the lowest, you know, the shit runs downhill right onto these workers. I think it's too much to be at. Workers should not be responsible for making mega tractors, just regular sized tractors, please. These tractors are huge, man. They're like $800,000 before I described them to me. These giant like combine harvesters or whatever, yeah. Just, you mentioned though like in sort of like the political negotiations that are going on right now regarding like a budget or the social infrastructure bill or whatever you want to call it. You talk about, you quote,

you know, Joe Manchin, one of our favorite guys here, has sort of staked his opposition to a lot of this on the idea that he is concerned that America is becoming an entitlement society. Like we're all looking out like, what is he talking about? And like how in terms of like people feeling entitled to too much and how does that like reflect anxiety over this shift in labor market power? I mean, the entitlement thing is crazy when you're talking about these workers. Like, I never know how to talk about it because it's like, yeah, they're entitled. They entitled to the wages of the work they've done, you know, at least or like basic, a basic raise

like the level of stuff we're talking about is so peanuts compared to, you know, what these companies are making all that. So, but I think, I mean, you know, what we wrote about in that piece with Gabe Wynant was like, they don't want to, the state has a role to play in the labor market. They can slacken it. They can, they can tighten it. They can build a bigger safety net that makes it easier to get a new job. They can change the rules about unionization, all this stuff. And like one way to read what's happening in the negotiations is like, how much leverage do you want to shift over to the workers or keep on the, you know, like all the CARES Act stuff was huge bailouts for these corporations. You know, one of these

amazing things like in direct interventions that Congress has made in the pandemic was like all this CARES Act funding, Kaiser, who has 40,000, maybe more workers who are looking at striking in the next couple of weeks, they gave back $500 million in CARES Act funding to the federal government. They were like, we don't want all this money. Like you are, you are giving us too much. There's like this negotiation happening between corporate America and the state. That's like, how slack are we allowed to make this market? How tight can we make this market? I guess like just in terms of the historical perspective, we mentioned a second ago, like about the idea that like if this were 1946,

10 million workers would be on strike. And like, so we're talking about 15,000 now. And in like whether, whether, you know, like when we discussed this on the show, like is, do you find that like in covering this, like there is always a, a tendency or an overcorrection to look at the very inspiring and heartening things that are going on in terms of solidarity, but particularly on the left, this tendency to oversell it or put too much hope in it or just kind of like, like a danger of like every, the expectations being raised every time and then feeling dejected when it's like, because you know, this is, this is 70 years plus now of policy. And it's like trying to turn around like one of those shipping containers

in the Suez Canal or something. This is very long, long work. And like there's a, you know, most of the most powerful forces in our society are rate against it. And these, these muscles of organizing or solidarity of atrophied over many gen, over generations. So I mean, like, how do you think there's like, is it difficult to like, try to like be positive and supportive, but not oversell or get people to, I don't know, like a juiced or excited, but while trying to maintain a kind of an enthusiasm for some, for things like this? Yeah, I mean, like, I, I, I totally get that I, I'm very, I've identified for a long time as a pessimist about the labor movement being like, we're not there yet. Like there's not

a general strike on, you know, last week where we do have 10,000 workers go and that's good to like look, look at it in the eye. But I think a lot of it is like, you know, sort of downstream of the disconnect between people and, you know, between like socialists and working people, like talk to workers. They don't think there's like a revolution brewing at their workplace. There could be a strike next week. Like they get real about the actual, you know, what are we actually looking at? I don't, I think it's totally real with raising expectations and, you know, the fallout of that. It's, it's a dance you have to do of like, hearts and minds is one part of it, but also organization is like the other part

of it. Like the reason John Deere strike, workers are on strike, we can talk about kind of like the inspirational stuff, the narrative stuff, that's all part of it. That motivates individual people, they feel moved to action, but they just held a fucking meeting, have a union and decided we're going out and they all, you know, did the tech spanking and called each other up and said, here's the picket line, here's the signs, here's what we're going to do. So like that's infinitely more important in terms of like getting results, things happening in like material reality than like the vibe of being an essential worker. I think they're, they're both important, but like you got to get real with it.

Vibes are important, but so is, so is realness. You've heard of a card check. This is a vibe check. Yes, yes. We need to institute a national vibe check in the private sector. Obama promised vibe check and he threw us out of the bus. If you like your vibe. Matt, do you have any thoughts? We covered most of what I was interested in. I guess just what is, what do you, what does it look like the, in terms of the, because we're talking about how there's this increased sense of leverage among workers, but you still have a pretty united capital here and you're seeing them doing empire strikes back shit at the national level to, to ensure that whatever sort of progressive momentum within the Biden administration is completely checked and they're

effective there. Is that, what does that mean for the future of these strikes that are out now ongoing? I guess, I guess I'm asking essentially, who you got? I mean, I think one big thing, you know, the labor notes take on all this stuff. What we do at labor notes is like the idea that like, just like there was a capital offensive and a state offensive with Reagan and Paco and the business round table in the late seventies and eighties, there was also a labor movement response to that, which was totally inadequate. You know, there was missteps. There's a lot of stuff that got baked in during that time of these two tier contracts we're talking about, or just concession after concession,

taking wage cuts to accommodate capital as much as possible, backing off of political challenges inside the Democratic party because you don't want to, you know, you have the scary enemy, you want to be closer with your own, almost friend. So one thing is like, I think we are seeing across unions some kind of move against, we're not doing the labor movement of eighties anymore. We're going to strike against a new tier. That's like not very common. That has not been common. We saw it starting in like 2019 and the Q the big GM strike, they were like, everybody tier one, everyone go on to the top tier, no more bullshit of temp jobs and shitty new hire jobs. So I think that's like the big

narrative in the labor movement is that there is a push by the members to say, stop settling for shit, there's enough money here, and we've gone long enough taking cuts. In terms of like what's next, like what I'm looking at, what could be a big deal is like, I don't think we've seen the last of the IOTC strike, we'll see, they still have to vote on this agreement, which if the John Deere strike taught me anything, it's wait till the fucking vote. The Kaiser thing keeps growing every week, there's like 2000 more Kaiser workers who say we're ready to strike too. I mean, that's a huge, it's like 200,000 employees and about 40,000 of them are talking about actually striking. And we are seeing like

downstream effects. You got like 5000 workers in Philly, the SEPTA workers just authorized yesterday, 1000 hospital workers in West Virginia, you have minors, nurses, you know, you have all these different groups that are like seem to be saying, okay, we saw like the strike tober headline, we're ready to talk about it in that term and join a wave, you know, like people are looking for a wave to ride. And I think there's enough kind of congealing that like, this might keep going, it could also fizzle, but I feel like it might keep going. I guess just finally for me, I was just wondering, we mentioned the John Deere attempting to

staff their factory floor with like engineers and middle management. We talked about, you know, some of the nasty things like threatening to cut off health insurance. And I'm just wondering out of any of these strikes, like, you know, Kellogg's, John Deere go down the line. Do you have any other, how should I put this, amusing if it weren't so evil lines from management in terms of their propaganda efforts on this? Any juicy details about how management is attempting to quell these strikes? I would say on the Kellogg's thing, this is just a PSA. There was a lockout in, I think 2014 in the Memphis Kellogg's plant, and they brought in scabs like they're doing now. And

then like two years later, there's video footage came out of a guy like peeing on the cornflakes assembly line. And we were like, yeah, that was definitely one of those scabs that we brought in. So, you know, beware of Kellogg. I'm not even saying boycott, but just for your own health and safety. I mean, you know, it's like, it's so predictable. They do the same shit every time. And like, it's always like, we're a family and you're fired. Like that's basically the twin move. So like, you know, Dollar General just that they tried to unionize like six workers at a Dollar General in Connecticut. They were like, we cannot have this. And they

fired like one of the main organizers, you know, so like, there's that there's Hello Fresh is like, Unite here is organizing like 1500 Hello Fresh workers in this like insanely growing industry that could, you know, the next five years be a huge thing in the US. And they're spending like $20,000 a day at one of the warehouses to bust the union. So like, they will just flush money down the drain to keep any, any structure out. But you know, as for like fun stuff, I mean, I feel like it doesn't get better than crash and attract. That for me, I've been writing that for, you know, they don't teach you at business school

that it's that there's more in the front than you think when you're in the cabin. And you have to like take into account the thing in front of the wheels. There's there's a reason why those forklift certified operators are so boastful in their memes. They have to put in the work to actually learn how to use those things. Yeah, it's a professional degree. Yeah. Jonah Furman of Labor Notes. Thank you so much for talking to us today. If people would like to read more of your reporting, working, they find you go to labornotes.org or you can follow me on Twitter, Jonah Furman, Jonah. Thanks so much. Thanks guys. We'll march to

we drop the girls and the fellas will fight till the death or else fold like umbrellas. I don't know if it's super worth getting into, but I like kind of want to talk about that Alec Baldwin thing, a relationship to the ongoing labor thing. It's it's wild. All right. I was just about to bring that up. Yeah. Yeah. Do we want to talk about it? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. Okay. So, all right. We are back. And look, I, Jonah brought up a IOTC and I didn't want to bring this up during the interview because he's a serious labor reporter, but I guess I got to mention it. Alec Baldwin killing someone

on a movie set, definitely a labor issue. What? Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. Actually, no, no, no, it's not a labor issue. It's it's it's telling us so we need to get rid of guns and movies all forever. Everyone needs to nerf or get the fuck out. That's a labor schmaber. I mean, I actually, my solution to that would be to set all action movies in the Middle Ages or just pre gunpowder civilizations, Roman Empire, you know, caveman times, things of that nature or in the Dune universe where the personal your personal force field has rendered firearms redundant. But there you go. More Dune, more Dune, please. Are you listening? No, but I mean, like, there

were reports of like a walkout on the set of that movie, like before this horrific accident happened. The the the Union crew was complaining about cut corners and abusive practices. And they basically walked out, got kicked off the set, and then a bunch of, I guess, film students from what I understand what were brought in, including an armorer who was the 24 year old daughter of a well known Hollywood armor. So that's every pathology of the industry compacted into one incident. And I mean, I mean, the thing that's been frustrating is that I feel like when something like this happens, the tendency is to want to like try to find one person or one thing or one guy to blame on this. But but to for something

like that to happen is a breakdown on so many levels of like control, order, regular procedure that you there's there's not one clear bill. The villain is the entire production, the entire proceedings going on there. And it is just a referendum on the exact thing thing that all the IOTC workers are talking about. I mean, I the IOTC guys have a particular place in my heart because I did I have briefly worked production on TV shows and stuff. And those guys, those guys and ladies who work in those production capacities are subjected to grueling conditions to make the you know the CBS procedurals that we know and love. I mean, I mean, it's a it's a it's a horrific accident. But I mean, like, what? Yeah, like,

how many things had to go wrong in terms of best practices for Alec Baldwin to be handed a gun with live ammunition in it? I mean, is that even what happened? Like, yeah, like it's just fucking a and like, I mean, obviously, we all think Alec Baldwin is a shithead. But for him to now have murder on his on his consciousness is I'm I'm sorry. I feel bad for the man. I mean, he wasn't an executive producer of the movie. So like more than firing the pulling the trigger himself, I mean, like he is in some sense responsible for the conduct of I mean, like the sort of like standards that are being observed on hit on a movie set of which he's a producer. I mean, yeah, I guess most tragically of all, I think it's

we'll probably never get to see the Western rust. Apparently, the movie is about a guy trying to get his kid out of jail after he gets convicted for killing someone accidentally. Yikes. Yikes. Brandon Lee situation here very bleak. But yeah, no more guns and movies certain certainly no more squibs. Oh, God. I mean, I've, yeah, I've kind of given up the ghost on the squibs. There will be no more squibs. The squibs have gone out in our lifetimes will not see them again. But that's okay. There's plenty of good old classics that are still out there that I can rewatch and enjoy for the first time. Because back because it really does make you appreciate things. If you go back

and watch like the lowest dirt ball low budget movie in the 80s, they were still using just glorious real squibs. And now on 300 million dollar films, they've got some fucking janky looking CGI blood, but whatever, it's fine. Yeah, that's not bad about it. You've just been watching the escalator scene from total recall just on repeat, just as a bomb to your soul. Oh, yeah. Yes. Matt, you and I have talked about this. The thing is that you don't even really need all squibs. You need like one slow motion close up shot of one guy getting devastated by like 20 squibs. And then the rest you can just kind of fudge it and fake it. And it's it's fine. You just need like

the one thing. You should have at least if depending on like if you've had a few if you only have a few shootings in a movie, they should all be squibs. But yeah, if you have like a really high body count action film, yeah, like for every five people who get shot, all of them you get a nice juicy squib and everybody else just sort of falls over. That's fine. Yeah, exactly. Instead of everybody gets their own pixelated dog shit, which is what we have. Well, Jonah brought up the Financial Times. So for the second half of the show, I sourced a an article, a very good article from the Financial Times this week that I think will make for a very interesting sort of wine entree pairing with our interview

half of the show. This is headline here. Financiers find safe space for milk and jamboree at the Beverly Hilton. Inflation is a concern at the first pandemic era event, but so is cancel culture. So this is the milk and jamboree. And I've just I've been trying to get tickets to that. I need a miracle. I've been standing in the parking lot. Just give me tickets to the milk and jamboree. Is this a reference to Mike Milken? Yes. King of junk. The creator of junk bombs. Jesus fucking Christ. And the funny thing about this, like this is just openly the milk and jamboree. That's just like this. This is a conference for crime and criminals. Yeah, this is like when the like, like if every Batman, like the rogues

gallery is like, welcome to Joker Fest, you know, speaking at two o'clock is to face. And after that, we'll be hearing from the Riddler. But yeah, so this is like a big fun event at the Beverly Hilton. So I'm just going to read you from the Financial Times, which you know, I swear to God, if the New York Times had covered this same event, you would not be you would not get some of the details that you get for the courtesy of FT. So it begins for the first time in two years, the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles played host this week to one of the most gilded events in high finance. More than 2000 people gathered at the Milken Institute Global Conference. The elite get together organized by the one

time junk bond King Michael Milken. There were moments of tension during the panel discussions in spacious ballrooms, as well as quieter gatherings on the onsite bar and more exclusive parties high in the hills. Rising inflation and supply chain malfunctions were threatening a 40 year bull run in the bond market, the attendees worried. Nosebleed asset valuation left money managers with little to buy. It's gotten harder to steal stuff lamented on stage Howard Marks, the oak tree capital founder, who at Citigroup in the late 1970s had been one of the first buyers of Milken's revolutionary debt. So this is just like just like being covered by the press, just open spacious ballrooms are like, God, just it's hard. It's getting

harder and harder to be a criminal. It's hard out there for him. But like, I mean, like when we talk to Jonah about how like financiers have their eye on the UAW, like this is what they're talking about. Like this is the eye of Sauron is the spacious Beverly Hilton ballroom where they're just checking up on just taking the temperature of our society and how ripe it is to be harvested for organs, resources, you know, but it says here, but there was also much to celebrate. Since the pandemic interruption, hedge funds and private equity firms, many founded by Milken's underlings at the defunct Drexel Burnham Lambert have prospered as asset prices soared to all time highs and political gridlock snuffed out the

chance of systemic change. Mixing in a safe space in all senses, the masters of the universe attacked the big issues of the day with gusto. The usual celebration of economic Darwinism was paired with high brow content on public health, philanthropy and diversity. Plus a sprinkling of celebrity actor Uma Thurman hosted a talk on the benefits of psychedelics while former heavyweight boxing champion, Vladimir Klitschko, was spotted milling about. Oh, come on, Uma, they're just like, like three o'clock, main ballroom, how to rape the world economy even harder. 430, expanding consciousness with ayahuasca. Getting more out of here employees with micro dosing, they're water coolers.

The financiers disagreed about the trajectory for inflation and cryptocurrencies, but there was near unanimity that capitalism, financial achievement and wealth were bedrock principles that were under threat. Two different prominent fund managers who had left New York and California explained their flight to lower tax states was not purely financial, but also related to the rhetoric in Sacramento and Albany that made their professional success feel unappreciated. Oh, yeah, it's that thing that we talk about with the concert is all the time is like that it's not enough to win. You have to then feel good about the winning, you know, you can get every single thing you want. And if one person in a like the Albany State House

says, hey, maybe these guys are bad for the society, you're like, fuck this bullshit. I'm moving to Alabama or wherever. Princess and the P shit. The more the more of a coddle little font loroy you are, the more anything that is not fully to your specifications just is just not acceptable. And he was like, what do I have all this money for if it isn't to make a world that is totally revolves around me and reflects to me only that I'm great. Well, what's the point of the money? Some of the some of some of the Batman's rhetoric about quote, evil doers has led me to leave Gotham City. The formal program of panel discussions often felt like a sideshow to the wheeling and dealing. Money managers set up war rooms

and suites and restaurants along the cluster of luxury hotels dotting the intersection of Wilshire and Santa Monica Boulevard, trying to snag their slice of the trillions accumulated by pension and sovereign wealth funds. Attendees had to be both vaccinated and produce a negative COVID test result. Oh, thank thank God. They got their social conscious so seriously. Not a mask in sight. The irony was goes here. The conference passed out its own jet black can 95 masks to be worn at all times inside. Well, what the fuck? I mean, if everyone had to produce negative COVID test results and vaccination passwords, what the fuck? Why are they making everyone wear black gas masks during this fucking thing? It says here, dozens

of whole monitors and hot pink vests milled about unafraid to admonish any rogue member of the global elite whose mask slipped. It's metaphorically speaking. They're not admonishing anyone whose mask slips on stage and they're like slavery. I think it's a new innovation in the labor market. I think we should take advantage of they're going they're going around to people being like, excuse me, sir, but you're the reptile skills are showing under your eyes. Pull up the skin suit. That's the real reason they have the N95 mask. Yeah. The irony was plain. Michael Milken made his Wall Street legacy, flouting the rules and eventually the law at age 75, having received a pardon from last year from Donald Trump.

Milken moderated several eclectic discussions, including ones on the global pandemic recovery and development in Africa, while he served up a few zingers. Before one session, Milken chatted warmly with Maxine Waters, the Democratic congresswoman who has long represented the predominantly black neighborhood of South Los Angeles. Reverence from Milken came from his former colleagues, Leon Black, the former Drexel merger bank banker turned private equity kingpin, showed up months after he resigned as head of Apollo global management, following the exposure of his financial ties to pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Like if the New York Times wrote this article, you would not hear the phrase pedophile Jeffrey Epstein or economic

Darwinism. These guys love talking about development in Africa and it always sounds so is so insidious. You know, yeah, I got the Gates Foundation. That's the gate. That's the Gates Foundation's job. Milken. Stay off. Yeah, hands off the sports kids. Those are Bill. Those are Bill Gates's sports kids. Okay. Was Milken running this thing from jail before and or were they just they just keep naming it after and just sell it to just celebrate? Yeah, yeah. This is the return of the Mac. Black and his wife, Deborah, attended a distress debt discussion where their son, Ben, explained how his own investment fund was playing the SPAC craze. That's SPAC. I don't what it is. You have guys with the SPAC. I'm taking notes here.

Mark Cuban style. What does it not elaborate on what that is? Let's see. Amid the rich and famous were a group of once disadvantaged youngsters who had been selected as Milken scholars. Oh God. Little Lebowski urban achievers. They have they have fucking keg tappers in the back of their heads. Just you can go over and just get a shot of Adrena Chrome and just walk back into the party. It's like the heart plug in the legendary. Amid the rich and famous were a group of once disadvantaged youngsters who had been selected as Milken scholars with their college tuition paid by Milken by the Milken family and a lifetime of mentorship. He does not want to have to do any of this. Amid Reza, a son of Bangladeshi immigrants

whose Ivy League schooling two decades ago was paid by Milken's foundation. He still wakes up at 4 a.m. and goes to work. I wake up at 4 a.m. too. Why? Because Michael does. He's still institutionalized. You know what I'm saying? It's hard to fucking get out of those habits once you've been inside. Going on here, it says, worrying about the oppressed. Milken began organizing gatherings in the 1980s to evangelize his junk bonds in an edgy convention that became known as the Predators Ball. An edging convention. Back to Jeffrey Epstein here. Back then, corporate raiders were widely condemned as avaricious asset strippers. But Milken and his foot soldiers believed they were fighting corporate cronyism. Junk bond

fuel takeovers, in their view, would bring egalitarianism and unprecedented innovation. This week's event had its own panel discussion called democratizing finance, leveling the playing field for the next generation, whose star participant was Kathy Wood, the founder of Ark Investment, which earned massive returns during the pandemic by betting on disruptive high-growth tech stocks. Wood praised the rise of retail traders, many of whom used a smartphone app, Robinhood, recounting a story of an elderly woman who began trading equities for the first time after watching Wood on YouTube. That Kathy Wood lady is quite a number. Trunon has done a few episodes on her, and there's

a lot of background about her. She is wild. I would recommend looking up the Trunon episodes on Kathy Wood. It says here, despite a roster of attendees, which was unsurprisingly predominantly middle-aged, white, and male, the event debated the plights of marginalized groups. The discussion typically defaulted to market-based solutions, such as the panel investing in growing wealth for women of color. Wealth taxes and reparations were not on the list, but it was not all saccharine. Michael Pior, a resident at the Milken Institute and a former Republican commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission, moderated a lively session entitled, Promoting Greater

Wealth Equality. Michael Tubbs, who had trialed a universal basic income in his former role as mayor of Stockton, California, wondered why big banks were entrusted with no strings attached bailouts while welfare programs came laden with requirements. Critiques of cash transfer and UBI are rooted in the ideology that some people we can trust with money, and some we can't, Tubbs said, going on to describe wealth inequality in America as obscene. The session, however interesting, was shunted off to a distant meeting room that was sparsely filled. This is the marquee event at the Milken Jamboree. That was not the case for someone who turned out to be one of the conference's biggest draws. Barry Weiss, the provocateur

and self-styled free speech martyr. Giving away the game at the Milken Jamboree seems to be the theme rather than ending oppression. Self-styled free speech martyr Barry Weiss is the biggest draw at the Dracula Conference. They're the most powerful people in the richest fucks in the entire world. They're just like, yes, Barry, please, please, more. Tell us more. Tell us about your plight being censored. Her appeal to older financiers, that's also funny. Her appeal to old people, period. I mean, that's her appeal, period point blank. Any book tour, any book reading she gives, she's like Jay Leno. She's one of the only people who plays to an audience categorically 40 years older than she is.

They all like to imagine that she's her smart young granddaughter who just can't catch a break in this harsh world. We're the cutting edge rebels. We're edgy and cool because we're not afraid to tell you some real shit about how the junk bond market is fucking ripe for investing in. It says her appeal to older financiers was known, but it became crystal clear when her session entitled Talking Back to Cancel Culture drew a capacity crowd that left some stuck outside in a queue. They fucking love that shit. I got it. The cancel culture stuff is just so... My eyes

just go fucking blank. I'm sure like you guys, I find the whole discussion of it more just irritating than anything. But these older people just like, it is the most interesting thing in the world to them. These are the most uncancellable people on the planet, you know what I'm saying? Michael Milken got a pardon from Trump, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, they're at the most Olympian remove, but they're also incredibly powerful people. Who are now living in a technological and media environment where they are having to see the opinions of their lessers. And that is very unnerving and destabilizing and anxiety

producing for them. They hate that shit. And they're like, someone do something about this. Who can I send some Werther's originals to who will do something about this? And there's a lot of people who are like, me, I love Werther's. But just in terms of our wine entree pairing with the first interview, I think there's a reason the biggest draw at the Milken Jamboree is a conference on talking back to cancel culture. There's a reason these people like talking about it, because I think it's a way for them to basically exercise further their financial fucking chokehold over the rest of us. Because yeah, it is innervating, but I think most people who engage heavily in

the cancel culture debate one on one side or another just want you to keep fucking talking about it. Yes, even though you don't have to. They're interested in the interest of people who pay them to make this what matters at this given moment in time. Weiss spent several minutes criticizing her former employer, The New York Times, and decried what she called the philosophy of woke. At one point, Weiss compared her professional travails to the life of Galileo, the Italian scientist who was forced to renounce his views

on heliocentrism to avoid being burnt at the stake. Calm down, Barry. I mean, the fucking the ego tried to get she tried to get the New York Times to fire her and they wouldn't do it. So she had to quit. I mean, just like the equivalent would be somebody like is climbing up onto their own stake and lighting the bonfire themselves. But it's also whatever professional consequences Galileo suffered for his theory of a heliocentric solar system, I'd say a little bit more, I don't know, important and world history changing than Barry Weiss' discovery that BDS threatens indigenous Jewish bodies and spaces. I'd just say one is a little bit more worthwhile than the other. Or it's just, I don't know, a little

bit more important. If you're going to compare yourself to someone, she could have compared herself to like, I don't know, like, you know, when Krusty the Clown lost his TV show. Again, though, Krusty would have had to have quit the show himself under no pressure. This is really good, though. Her interviewer, the conservative political poster Frank Luntz, I mean, again, once again, Barry cutting edge here, like the bleeding edge of fucking like dangerous cultural fucking rebels. Being interviewed by, being interviewed by a guy who still has spaghetti stains from like the fucking, the last time he had to like, last time he had to watch a focus group through a fucking two-way mirror.

Yeah, I'm more impressed that Luntz would risk his professional reputation as Mr. Poles by consorting with such a dangerous and, you know, against the grain thinker as Barry Weiss. It says her interviewer, Frank Luntz implored Weiss to throw her hat in the ring for the open U.S. Senate seat in Weiss's home state of Pennsylvania. Okay, can I donate to this campaign now? Is there anything I can do to make this happen? Someone needs to do worse than J.D. Vance in a primary, and I think she's got the power to do it. An idea that was greeted with a burst of applause, marking the rare milk in conference talk where

those in the audience were not fiddling with their phones. So there you go. That's the milk in jamboree. Yeah, I mean, it is like, it's a conference where it seems like the biggest thing they're complaining about is that they have run out of copper wiring to strip out of the walls. And so all they can think about is the idea that someone somewhere else maybe is considered wrong by somebody, and that's it. That's all they got. And it really should make people who like, obsess about this shit on either side, who are not that well off, wonder, like, how the hell is this a priority

in your life? I mean, for these freaks, I understand. They got nothing else to care about. All right, so that's our wine entree pairing. But I think to close out today's episode, let's just, let's also get, there is a trailer out now for a new documentary that is coming out next month that we almost certainly will basically have to do an episode on. A documentary about the presidential campaign of one Pete Buttigieg. All right, let's see. So let's just close out today with some high hopes and let's just watch the trailer for

Mayor Pete, the official trailer coming this November to Amazon. You think you want to make sure that I passed him? You spent so much in your life hiding that you truly were. The CIA. He's talking about the CIA. The CIA. A hometown boy who went to Harvard and became a Rhodes Scholar, only to return to the city where he grew up. He's also a new way. I made Pete promise that we would have fun. This is the only chance you'll ever get to vote for a Maltese-American left-handed

Piscopalian gay war veteran mayor, mind you. From the director of Boys State. The mayor to being a presidential candidate. But I realized I had something to offer that was just different. When I talked about coming out, that was for everybody who's tried to figure out how to be who they are. The challenge, of course, is how do you master the game without it changing you. A developing story. One candidate is dealing with a crisis back home.

There had been an officer involved shooting. Get them off the streets! He looked a little too free. Oh, he's sad. If you weren't ready. Are you saying things that project the right kind of warmth? Are you connecting with people? My way of coming at the world, the stronger an emotion is, the more private it is.

I've never met someone who thinks so deeply about who he can be private. That's why he kills dogs in private. You're going to tell every single gay kid in this country that it gets better. You're looking at someone who has a young man wondered if something deep inside of him meant that he would forever be an outsider. And now you were looking at that same young man, happily married, asking for your vote for president of the United States. They're raising the roof.

Oh, there's some dogs in the trailer. You cannot dislike this or you're homophobic. Just to let you know, there is a cow in the audience. We know who's side the cow is on. There's a lot of it, Dave. No, you have to like it. You're required. Sorry.

All right. Okay. My trailer reacts, go. It's inspiring. I'm sorry. Don't yell at me. He's telling millions of young gay people that they could be Terminator automatons and it's inspiring and I love it.

It's big, bold, mythic. I'm going to have to see it again. Actually, my actual reaction to this trailer was, I mean, it's very heavy on him and Jason. And we see like a lot of the inspirational message about how you're going to make every gay kid in America is going to know it gets better. And you know, he said like, part of his story, every time I see Jason and Pete in the news footage or certainly in this trailer, which is designed to make them look as good as possible, they don't really communicate a whole lot of, I don't know, warmth towards each other

because there's a ton of footage in this trailer of them holding hands, but there's not one single image or footage of them kissing. There's one. They do a little smooch. Oh, they do a little smooch? I'm going to say this. Okay. I saw a smooch.

All right. You were not even paying attention. What the fuck? It sounds like you're not respecting his journey. It's all the indication of inspiration, but without anything there to see why one should be inspired. What is Pete going to do when he does when he gets to something? See, that's the thing.

This is the Obama model. Yes. Obama being president is what made things better because we're all going to be like we're a better country for making him president. That is the same pitch that Pete had. He was the next iteration of Obama. Yeah. It is the antidote then for Trump because Trump, more than anything that he did, was

just anathema to the Democrat because he is bad. He is a bad man, and so you need a good man in his place. What do any of these people do? It doesn't matter. Well, for guys like Pete, though, it's because they represent certain marginalized communities, and it's them representing them and inspiring those people that has the active effect. That's the effect that they have.

By being president, they make other people feel better about themselves as citizens, and that's as much as you can ask for anybody because all this shit runs itself. What are you going to do? There's Joe Manchin in the Senate, and just be inspired and figure it out somehow. The line that stuck in me from this trailer is when he says, he's got all these people running for president. I knew I had to run because I offer something different. And?

Yes. And? And also, I liked the one moment in the trailer where you thought it was going to get serious. There's been an officer involved shooting back in South Fender. Are you projecting the right feelings right now, and then it just goes right from that to Jason saying, I have never met anyone in my life who feels more deeply than Pete about everything. And they're like, okay, whatever happened to that cop who killed that cop in South Fender?

He felt deeply about it. What else do you want? Well, there we go. Mayor Pete, I mean, wow, that just, that takes me back. That takes me back to where we were on the damn campaign trail. Yeah, I can't wait to spend the next five days with that fucking song in my head. So there we go. Mayor Pete trailer reacts.

All right, boys, let's sign off for today. Thanks again to a Jonah Furman of Labor Days. Till next time, gentlemen. Bye-bye. Bye. Thank you.