I've Had It - Dumb People Love Dictators

Episode Date: December 11, 2025

Sam Seder dunks on all the billionaire bootlickers.Order our new book, join our Substack, and more by clicking here: https://linktr.ee/ivehaditpodcast.Thank you to our sponsors:Apretude by Viiv Healthcare: Learn more at https://APRETUDE.com or call 1-888-240-0340.Hexclad: Find your forever cookware @hexclad and get 10% off at https://hexclad.com/Hadit! #hexcladpartnerAura Frames: Exclusive $35 off Carver Mat at https://on.auraframes.com/HADIT. Promo Code HADITJones Road Beauty: Use code Hadit at https://jonesroadbeauty.com to get a Free Cool Gloss with your first purchase! These sell out fast so get them while they last! #JonesRoadBeauty #adIQ Bar: Text HADIT to 64000 to get twenty percent off all IQBAR products, plus FREE shipping. Message and data rates may apply.Follow Us:I've Had It Podcast: @IvehaditpodcastJennifer Welch: @mizzwelchAngie "Pumps" Sullivan: @pumpspumpspumpsSpecial Guest: Sam Seder @majorityreport.fmSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

So are we supposed to start the podcast? Ready, one, two, three. Patriots, gay triots, they triots, black triots, and brown triots, and all the people that are mean to those people can do wet pumps. Fuck off! There she is, crowing like an eagle for America. You guys, in our journey from establishment Democrats to woke AF, progressive AF, we are sitting with our master now. Sam Cedar. And those of you die hard anti-establishment Democrats,

I hope that you're proud of us, that we are sitting with Sam now. Sam, how are you? I'm proud of myself for sitting with you guys. I'm doing well. Thanks for having me. You know, it's really been an interesting, I've always been a Democrat, but it's really been an interesting journey for me as I've seen establishment Democrats like set us up to a position to lose because I hate losing and I really love beating Republicans. Yeah. And we

lost to a fucking moron twice. Twice. And then you look into that and you realize what the problem is and then you start realizing a bunch of the corporate media that you've believed and that you have held dear was all bullshit.

Yeah. That's a lot. That's mouthful. Yeah, I mean, I think like, you know, I've been doing this now for over 20 years. You're an antique. I am very old and I feel older than that. But, you know, and when I started off, it was in the aughts and it was in the run up to the Bush, the George W. Bush reelection in 2004. And to watch Democrats always operate from a defensive crouch was extremely frustrating at that time. And there was like, when like John Kerry got swift-boated. Yeah, when John Kerry got swift-boated. But, you know, when I think of that election, I also think of John Kerry

wind surfing off the coast of Nantucket in August. And I'm thinking, this is, I mean, I had left the show business because I had this opportunity to do talk radio. And I thought, like, this is, you know, arguably the most important election of my lifetime. And I thought, like, you know, he could have just waited three or four months. I mean, granted, he'd have to maybe go to Bermuda or something like that to do as windsurfing. But there is a lack of urgency, I think, by Democrats. and I think a lack of understanding, particularly with a specific sort of, I want to say a generation, but it's not just a function of age.

It's a function of, I think, when they learned politics. You know, like for me, every 90% of the music I listened to was basically from a like an eight-year period from when I was like a high school into like a couple years out of college. That's basically where I'm stuck on. And I feel like there were a lot of politicians who were. stuck on a certain era and we're operating under that, that understanding of politics. And the Republican Party is not who the Republican Party was, you know, 30 or 40 years ago. And so I think they, we are stuck with Democrats who are largely in the leadership, who don't understand the

moment that they're in and are just not up to the moment that they're in. And I think like, look, you can lose well, right? I mean, in the odds, we were dealing in the wake of 9-11. There was reason why, you know, people were cowed and people were nervous and people were largely in shock, I think. But Democrats didn't even know how to lose well in a way that made it clear, like, who's responsible for what policies and we're willing. to fight for these other policies, even if we don't have the strength to win now. So it's frustrating and welcome to the party. That's all I can say. Yeah. I remember I was registered, raised Republican, evangelical Christian, registered as Republican, apathetic Republican, is what I would

say. But what I remember about the John Kerry thing, when you were talking about, that's when you kind of entered this realm. I remember what a big mess they made of his wife being rich. Yeah. And now I look at it and I think his cabinet is all billionaires. But more than that, here's where I knew and I should have known then, but I still went along with the Democratic Court position. John Kerry was a war hero. Right. He was swift-voted by draft Dodgers by George W. Bush, the dumb one, the son, and Dick Cheney. who went predatorial style into poor neighborhoods to recruit the poorest people into the military, sent their sons and daughters to Iraq, not, you know, John Kerry, who wouldn't even stand up for, I mean, not John Kerry,

Dick Cheney, who wouldn't even stand up for his own lesbian daughter. And he, what you said, Sam, that they operated from a defensive crouch. John Kerry did that to a tea. And I remember my husband and I, we would stay up and watch John Stewart every night because when you live in the Bible Belt and you're surrounded by, people that think George W. Bush is so smart. You really have to tap the vein with, you know, media that makes you feel like you're not going fucking crazy. So we watched John Stewart every night. John Stewart was peak then when he was bashing George W. Bush. And it just infuriated me that he, John Kerry then, who actually went and served in combat, in Vietnam. My dad served in Vietnam. These people are damaged from that. There's a whole generation of dads out there that have PTSD,

and they were never allowed to deal with it because then you're a pussy if you go to a therapist. And they raised all of us. And, Dad, I love you. Thank you for your service. But it's, there is a lot there to the people that made it back home. And the fact that the Democratic Party, that's how much they fought back on that. It really pissed me off. They, they were, they were afraid.

I mean, the reason why Kerry was vulnerable to that is because he really led with that, you know, in the convention, for instance. Like, I don't know if you remember that 2004 convention, but it was so over the top promoting his military service. And that, frankly, that was not the impressive thing about John Kerry. What was impressive about John Kerry is he came back and testified in front of the Senate and said, who's going to be the last man to die for a mistake in Vietnam? And that was what was impressive about John Kerry as a young man.

He did this. And, but they were so afraid of being seen as weak in the war on terror that they had to sort of like, you know, get out in front of their skis. And they, John Kerry made, basically made it possible for the swift boating to have an impact on it. Let me ask you this. Do you think that it's connected, that the same mentality of John Kerry, like you said, highlighting the military service and not the standing up for principle after the fact. And do you think that that's connected in the same way that Democrats want to try to appeal to patriarchal Republican voters, the same way that Kamala Harris trotted around with Liz Cheney

and the same way that when Rahm Emanuel was on my podcast, he threw trans people under the bus. There is this pussyish nature of Democrats where they are, pining for the approval of establishment Republicans, and they're never going to give it to them. No, they're never going to give it to them. First off, I really enjoyed that moment with Ron Manuel. I really have a strong distaste for that guy. But, yeah, no, I think that's, I think that's, I think that is the same impulse. And the, the same idea that, like, you know, what, what Harris did was just complete malpractice, because she's going around, every, every, every, every, the same idea that, like, you know, what, what, election now is a change election right and uh she's going around with a republican to say we uh you know

we agree like she is basically saying like he's the outsider you know and and that's what people want like she's saying we're the establishment and he's the one who's going to come in and shake up the apple cart and in a change election you want that person so like the idea that she was going to convince you know, sort of like these supposed moderate Republicans, they first of all, they don't really ultimately exist. To the extent that they exist, they want their tax cuts and they know who's going to give it to them. And they don't care about the rest of the stuff. I mean, to the extent that there are moderate Republicans who don't subscribe to, you know, the rest of the conservative movement stuff, they want their tax cuts and they don't care about anything else. And so it doesn't

matter if Lynn Cheney is there. It doesn't matter. She could have gone around with Dick Cheney. She could have gone around with like, you know, like it doesn't matter. She could have around with George Bush. All she's communicating is to the people who are actually sort of like go back and forth, you know, as to who they're going to vote for and don't really have a deep sort of connection or understanding of politics. Those people just want something different. They just want change. So she enforced her, we are the establishment. I agree with them. That was the whole argument, right? Like, he's outside of, he's outside of the system. We're, you know, where, like she literally promoted what he was running on, you know, and we live in a country

where four years is a lifetime in terms of remembering what, you know, what Donald Trump was like, you know, and people will forget 12 months after he's going, oh, they forgot January 6, they forgot everything. You know, at one point on that Air America show, we would have have Gore Vidal on quite a bit. Genean Grawfalo and I hosted this show. And Gore Vidal came on and he had just written a book, I think it was called the United States of Amnesia. And I didn't really appreciate or understand what he was, I really didn't like feel what he

was experiencing. And again, like having watching George W. Bush get reformed in the eyes of the public and having, you know, Rachel Maddo go to. Dick Cheney's. That was so weird. What was that about? I think that she has a streak of politics that are, that are, that find the establishment, particularly foreign policy people, okay.

I just felt, I mean, I don't know what else to tell you. I remember what Dick Cheney and Carl Rove and George W. Bush did. they got the marriage amendment on states so that they could pull out evangelical voters intentionally to vote on family values. And it drove a lot of people to the polls to vote against marriage. The whole time, Dick Cheney has a lesbian daughter. And so the Cheney's, I thought Kamala was going to win up until the moment that she started trotting around with Liz Cheney. And here, I agree with your take, but here was my take on it.

I remember specifically Liz Cheney, this is on video, lying, one of the biggest lies told in American politics that harms women in red states beyond measure is the lie that if there's a fourth term abortion and that doctors and nurses murder babies after the born. And she said that. She said that on tape and that type of propaganda and that lie is so diabolical. There are women in our home state right now in Oklahoma who are pregnant, they're excited about it, they go to get an ultrasound, and there's something catastrophic with the fetus. They are unable to get health care, and then the government has institutionalized shame on them,

and they have to travel to another state to receive health care. And it's Liz Cheney incubated this anti-woman policy, and Dick Cheney and George W. Bush incubated this LGBT anti-LGBQ plus shit. And to me, we can trot around with Liz Cheney if she atones for that because I believe that people can politically evolve. But if you don't atone for it, no trotting around. Tough titties, Liz. We're not trotting around with you.

I agree with you that people can atone for that. I think I still think it would have been just an enormous malpractice. I do too. Regardless of whatever was in her heart. But yes, she got up there in 2019. She was at a podium with a bunch of other Republicans. She's talked about post birth about abortion, which is murder, murder, which doesn't happen. She said Democrats are in favor of killing babies after they're born.

And yes. And not only that, the most chilling moment I remember from that era with George W. Bush was when he did a prime time address from the Oval Office talking about wanting a constitutional amendment, a national constitutional amendment. Amendment, federal constitutional amendment, to make marriage only for straight people. And it was so chilling that we were at a point where you're going to codify the second-class citizenship of gay people at that point. And yeah, that's all been memory hold. People memory whole, like the torture, the spying. I mean, so much of the war on terror, we're.

are now seeing this build out in the context of, like, you know, you can trace the equipment that ICE has and that the militarization of our police have back to that era. And you can also trace in red states the rampant homophobia, transphobia, and anti-womeness health care and misogynist laws were incubated during those eight years. And they really took such a hold in gay people and trans people and women in the these red states, particularly the poorest that cannot flee, are suffering. And it all took foot under this brand of compassionate conservatism, the family values Republican voter who defines that if you are a lesbian and you have a lesbian wife and you've adopted kids, that you're

not a family. And it's so inherently anti-family. And it still permeates. And it set the psychological soil for what now is worst, which is Stephen Miller. and Donald Trump's Gestapo reign. And then now I'm concerned about the psychological soil that this administration is setting for after biology catches up with Trump, what is fucking next? Because the Republican Party gets progressively more diabolical and more evil, Sam. Yep. I mean, I agree. And I think for too long, we've had Democratic leadership who has said, I mean, Obama said that the fever is going to break.

Biden said the fever is going to break. I mean, they said it over and over and over again. You know, when Obama got elected, you know, they were calling him in addition to saying that he wasn't born in America, which was obviously, that's what sort of gave birth to Donald Trump's political career. They were, you know, carrying around monkeys on nooses and stuff like this. And he's like, well, it's going to, the fever is going to break. And he said that in 2008.

He said that in 10. He said that in 12. he said that in 14 and 16 and then Biden started saying it I mean and it's not that's not the way this goes this is not a fever this is not they haven't caught a cold this is what the movement is built upon and the you know we are seeing the effects of a an era of Democrats who just weren't aware of what's going on I mean there are Democrats now who I think I am you know to the left of ideologically, but understand, understand partisanship, you know, which is different from necessarily having like progressive values or whatnot. I mean, I think the Democratic Party, I think,

is definitely to the left of where it was 20 years ago, broadly speaking, you know, on economic terms, you know, not so much from 40 or 50 years ago, but from 20 years ago because we were in the wilderness for a while. But even in those areas where I would disagree ideologically with some of these Democrats, at least they, I think, are aware of, like, there's a partisan fight to be had here. And that's, you have to engage in it. You can't, you know, things like, let's get rid of the filibuster, I think is a really important test, regardless of what your ideological backing is. You know, to the extent that people don't want to get rid of the filibuster, it's a good that they don't want to own the things they vote for.

Yeah. And you have to be very suspicious of a politician who doesn't want to own what they vote for because they're probably voting for something that most people, if they were really aware of it, wouldn't be happy with them about. I mean, this is what we hear with Republicans all the time. It's why, you know, they're cutting, you know, now they're talking about the Obamacare extensions, the payments, the subsidies as being rife with fraud and abuse. They keep having to go back to the fraud and abuse because they don't want to concede to the American public. We're

just kicking people off of food stamps. We're just kicking people off of health insurance. We're just kicking people off of Medicaid. We're going to kick people off of Medicare eventually if they get their way. We'll kick people off of Social Security because of all the, you know, Social Security disability fraud and abuse. It is a way of avoiding taking responsibility for policies that they have that the vast majority of people would be against. And the filibuster is another one of those things. So, you know, like for me, a big litmus test for a politician, let's say, going into the

Senate is, will you get rid of the filibuster? I mean, putting aside like any ideological differences, will you make sure that you own your votes and make the Republicans own their votes, right? And so... Just principle. Well, it's not, it's not, it's democracy. Yes. But not like an academic theoretical notion of democracy.

I mean, the reason why democracy is good and it's, you know, in this era we, I think it's particularly incumbent upon people to make this case. because there's a bunch of monarchists, you know, authoritarian. The reason why democracy is good is because it brings about outcomes that are the best outcomes for the most amount of people because the process demands it, you know, a democratic process. And so, you know, from my perspective, like my politics are to democratize more things, democratize the workplace more, democratize our policy choices. And that leads to sort of like making sure that you constrain people's political power if it is outsized to the person to the left

or right of them. Or you increase the political power of people who might be marginalized in society. So that's, you know, where like, you know, my, my supportive things that are like antitrust, because if you have a concentration of economic power, it ends up becoming a concentration of political power. And, you know, there's not an infinite amount of political power. It's political power is a dynamic. If somebody has a lot of it, that means that there's a lot of people who have a little of it. Yeah. And that's a problem. All right, listen at last minute gift shoppers, I'm going to make your life so easy. What you need to do is buy your loved ones or friends, an aura frame. These are the perfect gifts because you can absolutely personalize them.

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Around the recording studio, we are fully stocked with IQ bars. Their IQ mix, for example, is a zero-sugar drink mix that hydrates with electrolytes, improves mood, and boosts clarity, which obviously you can tell by how sharpest tax pumps and I are while filming. So, listener, right now, IQ bar is offering our special podcast listeners 20% off all IQ bar products, including the sampler pack, plus free shipping. To get your 20% off, text had it to 64000. had it to 64,000. That's had it to 64,000. Message and data rates may apply. See terms for details. All right, Sam, let's shift gears of just your grievances. I know that we've discussed them. I have many. I know, but I just have to ask you ask all of our guests, what have you had it with? So Sam Cedar, what have you had it with? Well, I guess leading it to that, I could say billionaires.

You know, you hear, maybe you've heard people say like every billionaire is a policy failure. And I subscribe to that notion, you know, in the greatest economic period of greatest economic expansion we had in this country and more importantly, the greatest period of economic parity. So there was less wealth disparity happened in the wake of World War II. a lot of spending going on here, but who, when you have less economic disparity, that means that more people are sharing in the wealth that the country is producing. And during, from like the 50s and through the 60s, the top marginal tax rate for this country was 90%. So if you made over $470,000, it ebbed and flowed a little bit. but let's, you know, which is approximately $3 million in today's money.

Every dollar over $3 million, your first $3 million gets taxed, you know, maybe effective the tax rate is somewhere around like 30% or 25% at that time. But every dollar after that gets taxed at a 90% rate. So if you make $4 million, the first $3 million, $30% taxes, but that last million, $900,000, $900,000. of that goes to the government. And during that time, when we had tax rates like that for 20 years in this country, 20 years, the least amount of wealth disparity that we've had in this country, the greatest

economic expansion we've had in this country. And today we have just an incredible amount of wealth disparity, both in the context of billionaires, which is problematic because you can see it, for instance, like in education, you know, Bill Gates, people, you know, have different feelings about Bill Gates. Some people think he's like, you know, sort of this benevolent billionaire. There is no such thing as a benevolent billionaire. It's like saying there's a benevolent king. They're oligarchs. It doesn't matter. No one should wake up in the morning and go, you know, I have an idea for education and be able to put in so much money into education. He dumped a billion dollars in a small experiment up in the

Northwest, but then created all of these mechanisms in which would feed into that. And so the entire education system in this country moved towards high stake testing, value-added teaching, all of these experiments which demoralized teachers ended up hurting kids. And in 2017, about 10 years after the start of this or 15 years after the start of this experiment, they hired the RAND Corporation, the Gates Foundation did, do a study, assess. how we did. And the RAND Corporation came back and said, it was a mistake. It was a total failure. You should have listened to teachers. And they never listened to teachers because it doesn't have to. That's the problem. It's so anti-democratic. You don't need to have people

who are stakeholders at the table. If you have that kind of economic power, you have that kind of political power. This is the biggest problem with America. And this is part of the reason that Trump got elected. We've worshipped capitalism and money so much that we think that if somebody is a billionaire, we give them the affirmative action of intelligence. 100%. And then we think they can step outside of their area of expertise and do anything. Or luck.

And in the area of expertise, listen, if you become a billionaire, in addition to having a tremendous amount of luck, you've also exploited a tremendous amount of other people's world. Right. But you see like Joe Rogan, and he's so obsequious to billionaires, he has all these billionaires on all the time. And he just, you can tell he's in awe. And he gives them this ridiculous transference of, oh, this person must be brilliant because clearly he loves money so much. This same thing with Donald Trump. He projected, I'm such a great billionaire to the public. And they bought into it when he is a horrible businessman. He squandered his trust fund. He

bankrupted casinos. He's a grifter. I mean, an unbelievable grifter. But there's a problem with the worship of wealthy people. And I think it's too. fold. It's easy right now to caricaturize these billionaires. Like Elon Musk's a total piece of shit, Zuckerberg went on TV and said, I feel like men have been neutered. I mean, I think what a puss boy. All right. So you can you can talk about what pussies, each of them are individually. But that's somewhat intellectually lazy because it's the system that has allowed these people to become where they are. And then a culture that props them up and idolizes them and give attributes intelligence and expertise to them that they simply don't have.

Well, you remember, like, George W. Bush was, like, supposedly the first CEO president, right? I mean, that's how they sold him. Yes, I do. And you had Paul Ryan at the time telling these fake stories about how, you know, a kid who comes to school with a, and has to get a free school lunch. He feels badly about this. He wants a brown bag. I mean, he told this fake story that was like not even his story. Somebody else had made it up.

But the point is, is that they were basically saying, you are more morally righteous if you're wealthy. And so when Donald Trump came down that escalator, I was actually, back in those days, I was doing MSNBC, I was in the green room, and I walked out to do Chris Hayes. And I think we did like a mystery science 3,000 when he was coming down the escalator.

And I said, dude, he's going to win. Because they have built, I didn't think he would win the general election. But I'm like, the Republicans have built a system where it's like, if you have money, you are necessarily morally more righteous. So my attitude was like Donald Trump's going to walk on the stage and he's going to go, I'm a billionaire. And everything I say is right. Everything you say is wrong because I've got more money than you. The prosperity gospel has also soiled the psyche for that as well. I mean, yeah, I'm screw up in all of that. In her

evangelical home, they give rich people can do a lot more things with impunity. Talked about that. Well, it's just I was raised in it where it was, well, you have more, you're entitled to more. You're entitled to pass judgment on people that have blessed you more. And I was special. I was unique because I was God's blessing. And luckily, I was white and from privilege. You know, so it was this whole, I had no idea how to operate in the real world. My world was not real.

It was insulated by all these other factors. It wasn't until I had real problems where I had to confront that. but there's an entitlement taught in church and in Republican families that you're better. Yeah. You get to, and I do believe because I remember demonizing the poor people, I remember comments in my home about what people bought with food stamps, like soda pop versus milk. I remember those comments so well. And now I realized it was all about victimizing poor people so we could have more. Yep.

Yep. And I think that's, I mean, that's the way that, you know, you justify exploiting people. That's the way you justify like sort of saying, you know, the Republicans today say like, well, you know, the people on Medicaid, they can go out into the, in the fields and pick. We can, you know, train them. You know, they're just loafing around, you know, as if like there's people who, like, I'm not going to work so that I can get free health care at age 25 or something. Like, that's just no one thinks that way. And to the extent. that there are, you know, just because we live in a world where there's, you know, any, there's a wide range of people, to the extent that there are those people who would do that, like, I'm not going to work, I'm just going to get Medicaid. It's, it's just, you either have a choice of like some of those will get health care and versus we're going to kick kids or people who desperately need it off. Yeah. And, you know, for me, you know, we should have just universal health care. We should have a single pair.

It's... So you brought up Paul Ryan, and I've been reminded a lot lately of the hot mic moment, whoever recorded Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy talking about Donald Trump, and this is years ago. Yeah. Being on Putin's payroll, being compromised. And that was a pretty big moment. And they, you know, these are Republicans talking to Republicans, asshole buddies on a break from, you know, being in the house, somebody recorded it and leaked it. And I forget who the other guy

that they said, the guy isn't in Congress anymore. It was a California congressman that they threw under the bus as well. And then at the end of it, Paul Ryan goes, hey, this is just friends. We're not going to share this. And then you see what has happened foreign policy wise with Steve Whitkoff, which by all account seems like a Russian asset, Jared Kushner, who has no business whatsoever doing any sort of negotiations with Vladimir Putin. And you see how Vladimir Putin is literally calling all of the shots who he's weakly positioned. He's not even paying his military right now. We're abandoning, you know, any support for Ukraine.

And I think now that, like, I think it's safe to say that the entire Republican Party is pretty much compromised by Russia that Putin has kind of taken it over. I don't know if I think that they are compromised in, outside of the fact that I think they're just, I think they're just trying to enrich themselves. And I think like they, I don't think that, I think Whitkoff, to the extent that he's like not up to it, it's, it's because we're projecting onto Whitkoff, the idea that he's there trying to represent some, some iteration of United States, foreign, policy where I think what he's trying to do is make money and I think that's what Donald Trump

is trying to do. And I think that's like, and I don't think, I think that is the, I think that's it. I mean, I think like a lot more stuff makes sense if you just assume they're there. I mean, you know, if you live in a small town, you sometimes you see this in terms of the politics there where it's like business people perceive local government as just an extension of their business. You know, like, I'm going to sit on this county board and I'm going to, when we get a grant from the state, I'm going to hand that over to my buddy. And my buddy is going to like come over and he's the one who's going to give me the contract to dig the ditches that he needs, Doug, or that he's, you know, doing for the school. And that's all it is. And I think Donald Trump has come in with that same sort of mentality.

and he's basically saying to all these people, like, yeah, go for it. Just make sure I get a taste. And that's basically like, it's mafia, it's mafia. I mean, it's built on that sort of same mafia thing. Now, I also, you know, I mean, I have different theories about like, you know, what, like, what Donald Trump would not want to come out at different points. I mean, like, I think it's just as likely. the Epstein stuff shows that he's, you know, maybe involved in like money laundering or financial stuff or was, you know. Blowing beba.

Bubba. I think we talked about a different theory about that blowing Bubba that it was a euphemism for something else about those pictures of him. But I think it's more like I think it's more likely that maybe he was. was, you know, that he was in a position of like, you know, a lot of money laundering. And I suspect, you know, you don't get away with that money laundering unless you were sort of working with different alphabet soups, you know, in the government that might have been using you as a way of tracing other things.

I mean, I could go into a long thing. But there was a, Wayne Barrett was a, the village voice reporter who did the most coverage of Donald Trump. He died on the day that Trump was inaugurated the first time of cancer of cancer. And I had interviewed him a couple of times. I had interviewed him for years and years, but a couple of times in the run up to that election. And he kept saying this guy, Felix Sater. And I don't know if you remember Felix Sater. He was a character in the Trump saga in the first Trump administration. but he was a he worked for Trump at one point he was a special whatever it was he had a business card he his office was in Trump Tower but he also was an asset for the CIA and the FBI and

Loretta Lynch was it what I maybe I'm saying her name wrong but she wrote an affidavit in support of this guy got him off of a charge of sticking somebody with a champagne flute in a bar fight, and he was supposedly the guy that maybe have gotten bin Laden's cell phone number, and he thought he was going to jail with the stone at one point, and then he just sort of disappeared. We never heard of from him again, but he was, I think, a conduit for money laundering. It would be my guess. Yeah. And this is just my opinion. It's totally speculative and, you know, not actionable in any way. But that's my guess. He was tied up in some stuff. And, you know, you don't get the phone number of bin Laden unless you're engaging in some international sort of

stuff that is probably not and so I don't know I grew up in the you know with whitey bulger up in Massachusetts and I think that I think those type of things happen yeah okay the there's been a huge shift in the public's thoughts and polling around Israel the country and you're Jewish yeah and a lot of people that live in flyover states like pumps and I have the majority of our lives. You don't, you don't live around a large Jewish population. You certainly don't hardly live around any Palestinians or even any Arabs for that matter. And so if you live in a red state like we have, you're kind of more focused on local government that, you know, abortion and, you know, gay rights and they're trying

to put the Ten Commandments in schools and all this chicken shit, you know, horrible shit, right? Well, then you start seeing these images. You know that everybody's mad in the Middle East. And And that's just generally from my adult life. I'm like, oh, yeah, they're always fighting over there. Yeah. I'm in Oklahoma fighting, you know, these Christian nationalists. I can't take that on right now. And then you start seeing these images of what's happening in Palestine.

And you find out that this military is bombing schools and hospitals. And then you hear reports, very valid ones where children have been executed, bullets in the head or in the chest. And you keep hearing more and more and more. And then you find out that I kept reading and reading into it, that Benjamin Netanyahu was funding Hamas to try to stay in power. And then you just are so outraged at the blank check from Joseph Robinette Biden all the way to Donald Trump. And then you start speaking out about it. And then people get on, you call you, you know, that you're anti-Semitic for speaking out against egregious war crimes and human rights violations.

And it's something that has so been really traumatizing for me personally to realize, as I've had like Cory Booker and other politicians on, that I really love. Like, as a person in a red state, I was like, well, this person is wonderful. What a wonderful politician this man is. And when you realize that APEC spent as much money as Elon Musk did to get Donald Trump elected, but they're controlling our opposition as well. I want to pull my hair out by my root one by one because it is just like, are you fucking kidding me? And then that poor Miss Rachel, who's the most darling Mr. Rogers of our time, they're calling her an anti-Semite.

And so I have multiple questions for you. Number one, in very simple terms, what is a Zionist? And then number two, do you think these? These far-right Jewish groups are diluting the dangers of what anti-Semitism is. And why are they seeking refuge? From my vantage point, I'm an atheist, I've never been indoctrinated in any religion. The most anti-Semitic things that I see are on the Maga side, the Young Republican Chat Group, Elon Musto and Sig Heils, all of that.

Far more than I see from Missouri on mom dining or anybody on the left. So will you speak to that in terms that a lot of our listeners, Sam, all across America, these beautiful blue dots in blue states, but a lot of blue dots in red states, we don't know other than what corporate media has told us for decades regarding this. So what's a Zionist and then anti-Semitism? And how fucked are we? I mean, I think, you know, the most simplistic version of a Zionist is someone who believes is that it is okay for there to be an ethno state, a Jewish ethno state, in the land of Palestine.

And I think, you know, what's problematic with it is that ultimately it leads to, well, there's two things. One, it's a colonial project in an era where much of the much, not this country, but certainly colonial projects of that era have been largely decolonized. And that's part of that Zionism. And part of it is also that it leads to an apartheid system. At best, at best. When you say ethno state for clarity, this is kind of like Jewish supremacy. Yeah. Jewish people in Palestine would have premier rights over indigenous Palestinians?

Correct. And I mean, that's what it is in practice. And, you know, I think there's, for me, having grown up, you know, I was when I was bar mitzvahed, we were only, you know, 35 years out from. the end of the Holocaust. Many of my Hebrew school teachers were Holocaust survivors. Much of like what we were taught in Hebrew school was about the Holocaust and sort of like that was the predicate. And then the way you'd end that was Israel. And so there was a lot of like, I think there's obviously a tremendous amount of trauma that comes out of, out of the Holocaust.

And the founding of the state, starting with the Balfour Declaration was largely for the West to have some form of hegemony in that area, some form of some like beachhead in that area as oil becomes more important. And from a Jewish perspective, I mean, there was certainly like movements that were anti-Zionists within Judaism, not just like very religious, like the Saddamers, you know, ultra-Orthodox who feel that you shouldn't have Israel until the Messiah returns. But there were also the bundists who were also against Zionism as being racist and being sort of supremacist. And there was some prominent Zionists who sort of left Hannah Arendt and I think Albert Einstein who were like sort of Zionists at one point and then sort of left because they realized like this is going to lead to something bad. Were you kind of raised to be? I mean, I was right, see, I don't think I was like, I, I, I, as a child, I never, you know, really used the word Zionists. Right.

Like, it wasn't something that was in the parlance, at least in my world. I was supportive of Israel and perceived Israel as like, you know, an extension of my Jewishness. I went there when I was 15 as part of like my confirmation class. And the beginning of my disillusion with Israel happened while I was there because we were in the northern part of Israel and we saw like 30 attack helicopters go up low over the beach. And they ended up those of the ones who had bombed Beirut. And later that- How old were you? 15, you said?

I was like 14 or 15. And I had a big argument with my rabbi at the time. I'm like, you know, we and I would have. said we at that point we're not supposed to we're not we don't do that right we respond you know we respond to it's defense forces we respond to attacks but we don't attack and and you know it wasn't until the 80s and and I wasn't aware of it until like you know the into the odds or maybe the late 90s that there was a moment in Israeli history, which was akin to the moment in our history about the reconstruction.

So you had something called the Dunning School in this country that taught that the reconstruction failed because black people were unable to be politicians and have a political class. And then Eric Foner comes around and a new breed of historians who look back and go, that's not what happened. There were programs. Like you had murders of politicians in South Carolina and people driven out and, you know, Oklahoma, I mean, you know, Tulsa massacres and et cetera, et cetera. Well, there's a similar thing in Israeli history. In the 80s, a lot of like documents were released or declassified for a small period of time. And there was a reinterpretation, a re-understanding of what happened in the founding of Israel in 1948. And I had, you know,

back when I was in my film days, I met a filmmaker named Benny Bruner who did a document entry called The Great Book Robbery, which showed that there was actually Palestinians living and had a culture and had a society, you know, because we were always told this is a land without a people, for people without a land. But it turns out there were people there. And they call it the Nakba. What is the Pakistan? The Nakba, which is, for them, it's a tragedy. Right. And because they were dispossessed from their land. And, you know, so many, Gaza exists in the way that it did is because so many of those people who were dispossessed in their land throughout what was Palestine at that point were essentially ghettoized in Gaza.

And so I think like, you know, over the years since that was 14 or 15, you know, and at different times I've engaged in it more than in others because at some points you find it intractable. But I think certainly in the past couple of years, it has become, in the wake of October 7th, it has become really, I think, too hard for people to ignore. And, you know, we have the, there's, and I think people were ignoring it for a long period of time. I mean, not everyone, but, you know, but. I was. Oh, but I think a lot of people. And certainly, listen, the mainstream media.

does not follow. I mean, the other day Hillary Clinton was at Miriam Adelson, who gave Trump $100,000, $20, 30 million, this go round at a at a right-wing event. Condescending Jews. Condescending to Jews, but condescending to everyone. I mean, the idea that the reason why people's perspective on Israel has changed is simply, because they've been hypnotized by TikTok is absurd. That would be like the functional equivalent of, you know, I don't know, William McNamara saying, hey, listen, what's going on in Vietnam is actually completely just.

The problem is that now we let reporters film what's going on there. That's what has happened. Another example that Sarah Horowitz, the Obama speech, she said, it's so hard to talk to young Jews about Israel. with a wall of carnage, a wall of Chilean dead babies. Dead babies. The same thing I thought that could be said, somebody could say it's really difficult to talk to other Europeans about our Jewish project through walls of concentration camps.

It's the same fucking thing, Sam. It is insane. Here, explain this to me. I mean, the idea that you could actually hear yourself saying those words, like the thing that's making it hard for me to express, how job. what Israel is doing is dead bodies is all of the dead baby the images of the dead babies as if that like wait a second it's not just the images are representation of actual real people who have died real babies who have died tens of thousands of children tens of thousands of children and it is um it i i it's like a it's like a psychosis i think All right, listener, two things I want to talk about. Absolutely cannot stand heavy caked on makeup.

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And, I mean, I've read so many books about it. I've watched so many documentaries. It's been something that I've spent years and years studying about the Holocaust. And then to find out that the state that, you know, and you just described how it came to be, but it's supposed to promote safety, and this will never happen again to anybody else, that they have now done the same thing to Palestinians that was done to them. Is that a byproduct of this Jewish supremacy? that like the roles that are i mean that's the part that i think is such a i don't listen i don't

think they've done the same thing i think they've done a different thing that is um horrible and unjust and cruel and inhuman and um a war crime and crimes against humanity it's not the same But it's also, you know, it's, it is, it is a, but they have, Israel has become the oppressor and has been for decades and is engaging now in an ethnic cleansing and in a genocide that it's not the same, but it's not better. Let's put it that way. I think, I mean, I have a couple of theories about it. I mean, for me, it's very difficult as a Jew. First off, like, I think it's important to, I think it's very, very dangerous to conflate anti-Semitism with anti-Israel or anti-Zionist perspective. I think it's very dangerous for Jews. And I think it's just a lie. I mean, it's just not true. I think I do. think that, like, as a Jew, I have a, um, I personally feel a, um, a greater moral obligation to, uh, fight against it than I might other horrors that are taking place in the world in the same way that like, I am more activated to fight ice in New York City than I would be in Chicago because, you know, like I have some close proximity or, you know, um,

But I think it's a combination of like a trauma. I think it's a combination of, frankly, I would be interested if someone was to, you know, explore the idea of what happens with a lot of people who were oppressed in the Soviet Union who were brought to Israel and many of them end up being settlers and given land on the West Bank. I mean, I think you're coming from like an authoritarian society, and sometimes those lessons are hard to unlearn. And if you're in a position where you can, you're no longer the horse, you're the rider, I think that can impact people in very, very bad ways. And so there was, you know, were there opportunities in the course of Israel to sort of get off this path and maybe not. correct the reverse the colonization, but to, you know, find a different way forward. I mean, it happened in South Africa. I think there were, but they were missed.

And so, you know, it's a horror. It's a horror show. And I think, you know, hopefully we're moving into a place where to the extent that U.S. has leverage over Israel, which I think is quite great, actually, at this point. And I hope that, I hope a Democratic candidate can be very clear-eyed in criticism against the Israeli government and support for Jewish people and against anti-Semitism, because both of those things. It's easy to do.

It's very easy. And you have the, you know, groups that Hillary Clinton was with that are weaponizing anti-Semitism to silence education in universities, which actually incubates anti-Semitism. 100%. Okay. We have just a few minutes left and we'll play our game, Had It or Hit It. Oh, my God. Welcome to Had it or hit it.

I would hit it. I'd hit it every day, sometimes twice a day. Had it or hit it kids screen time. Oh, I had it. I've had it. I'll tell you, I had it. Here's the thing. I have, my son is like cross platforms and I keep apps off his phone.

And then like, but now his school, it's like he's doing his homework on his phone or his iPad or something. And then he's like, oh, I just want to do duolingo. I'm learning Navajo. And I'm like, you're learning Navajo? That's amazing. But then is he really learning Navajo or is he just like? And so I have like 14 different ways in which I. I prevent him from using his devices and none of them work.

Yeah, I've fallen into that trap, too, where you're grounded from your phone. Well, they only have, you know, online school. You only have books online. And I'm just like, is that bullshit? I know. But it's true. But then I'm also, when my kids were little, I was guilty of throwing that phone in front of them just to shut them up. I mean, I learned from my daughter.

My daughter is 20. So she just sort of like, I learned it what a mistake that was. Yeah. Okay. Had it or hit it, Bill Maher? Oh, had it. I never, I never. I mean, Bill Maher has always been just a pompous ass. And his, he, he's, he's a, he's a bit of a reactionary. I think he's just sort of dressed. He's always been a little bit like libertarian and libertarians, I cannot stand. Yeah. All right. How did it or hit it, Zoran, Mom Dani? I'll hit it. I mean, I'm very, I'm incredibly, excited for Mamdani what it means both for New York and what it could mean nationally for the Democratic Party. For the Democratic Party

and just you know I think New York is going to become I think a much more fun place because he enjoys the city he's cool. Well you understands what makes the city great which is that like you can walk I mean you must be experiencing this

every day is a great day in New York. You walk down the street and you've seen people from countries you've never seen people from. You've interacted with people from places that you never even thought about. You've had food that you, you know, like, I grew up from Worcester, and it was like, ooh, you're going to go get some Chinese food. And, you know, like that, like, you know, it's just your life is just richer. A hundred percent. The diversity that the city brings.

And that also has to be like a socioeconomic as well, because if only rich people can live here, you don't get the art. You don't get the sort of like the, you know, artists and young comedians and painters and musicians. Culinary, restaurants, whatever it is, they don't have the margin of error to experiment and create new things. And so I think, you know, it's going to be a better place. And I think it's cool. He ran an impeccable campaign. He did such a good job up against all of the billionaire class. He did such a great job with all of the Islamophobic attacks on him and remaining calm, never being a victim and standing up against anti-Semitism. But what he did that was so important for me to see that I've used a lot as we articulate to our podcast listeners when it comes to human rights. You have to link all of them. You cannot prioritize anti-Semitism. is more important than Islamophobia, as more important than homophobia. They all have to be on the same stomping grounds, which is so unbelievable to me about Hillary Clinton. She always said women's rights or humans' rights, you know, her famous saying about connecting

women's rights to human rights. And then to see her on that stage yesterday, I really, for the first time, I thought I really fucking regret voting for her in 2016. I should have voted for Bernie. I should have done it. I, you know, but it's a political evolution that I think people in the base are going through right now. And Pumps and I are representative of that, that you start evolving and you start getting more

curious because on the left, people are readers. You are curious. People haven't taken away your critical thinking. So when you see a politician trying to propagandize you, it doesn't work. It's harder now because, you know, there's a lot of negative to social media, but there's a lot more access to information, it makes it a little more challenging to sort of wade through to find out what stuff is bullshit. But there's enough diversity where it's, you can't corner the truth the way that it was when there was just like three networks. Yes, I agree with that.

I was a great MSNBC Democrat for a long time. Okay, last one. Had it or hit it, United States of America? Well, I'd hit it. This is my home. And, you know, that doesn't mean it's perfect. It doesn't mean that it's even like, I think we have a lot of improvement to do, but this is my home. And so I've, I'd hit it, as the kids would say. You did it, Sam. Okay, thank you so much. Thank you.

This is really fun. It's so awesome to be in person with you in New York City, obviously the greatest city in the world. And we'd love to have you back some other time. I'd love to. All right, I come to tell him. We will see you next Tuesday and Thursday. I'll tell you what I've had it with. I've had it with that.

Listen up, Patriots, Gaytriots, and Natriots. We have a new podcast that has dropped. It's called IHIP News. It's Monday through Friday every day, 15 to 20-minute hot takes on the political landscape of the United States of America, always served with a side of pedigms. grievances. We are on all the available platforms, Apple, Spotify, Google, whatever you get your podcast and YouTube. Please go rate, subscribe, and reviews so that we will chart upwards with America's greatest legal mind, pumps. Pumps, what does an eagle say? Caca! A little bit more enthusiasm. Caca! That's it. That's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's the patriotism

that this country means right there. Thank you.