Julian Dorey Podcast - 😮 [VIDEO] - INTENSE DEBATE on Ukraine, Trans Issues & Free Speech | Rotimi Adeoye • #125

Episode Date: November 8, 2022

(***TIMESTAMPS in Description Below) ~ Rotimi Adeoye is a political strategist, commentator, and writer. Currently he is a Communications Strategist for the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) as well as an Opinion Columnist at The Daily Beast. Prior to his work with the ACLU, Rotimi worked as the Press Secretary for the Congressman Dan Kildee (D-MI), the Chief Deputy Whip of the House Democratic Caucus. *NOTE: The views and opinions expressed by Rotimi Adeoye are his and do not reflect the views or positions of the ACLU. ***TIMESTAMPS*** 0:00 - Rotimi’s early career in Congress 5:30 - Voting Rights & Voter ID 16:59 - GOP blocking early counting; Biden’s Speech on Democracy 27:45 - Bernie Sanders & Donald Trump compared; Rotimi on Biden’s Economic Policies 39:10 - The Atlantic’s piece on Pand3mic Amnesty 54:12 - Social Security; Power & Politics 1:08:52 - The Status of the Ukraine-Russia War 1:29:25 - Funding Government; Libertarianism & Socialism ideologies 1:40:49 - Critical Race Theory (CRT); Identity Politics 1:48:40 - Transgender Rights Convo; Penn Swimmer Lia Thomas debate 2:03:16 - The Trans Community & Mainstream Media 2:09:51 - Political Violence 2:20:30 - Free Speech 2:29:37 - The Intercept’s bombshell story on DHS oversight of Social Platforms 2:36:44 - Rotimi recalls January 6th working on Congressional Hill 2:45:47 - The after effects of the George Bush-Dick Cheney White House ~ Get $150 Off The Eight Sleep Pod Pro Mattress / Mattress Cover (USING CODE: “TRENDIFIER”): https://eight-sleep.ioym.net/trendifier Julian's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/julianddorey ~ Music via Artlist.io Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

And I think what happens now is when people see this, they now go, we don't want the government involved at all. Which you basically take the opportunity where you could have done this the right way, and you now have to undo all of the bad crap that you've done. Is there an example of the government regulating speech at any point in human history where it stops with one thing that is agreed upon as wrong and it never goes past that? I can't think of an example that's the problem

wrote timmy that's it did i nail it oh you killed it i got it right you killed it i was so nervous about that last name all day i was definitely saying that wrong for you know the last year or so imagine how i was when i was a kid and my mom is teaching me that she's like okay here's your first name here's your last name and yeah just think about that don't feel bad at all i couldn't even do it for a little bit well dude thank you so much for coming in i know you had a uh weekend in new york city stop through here for the day you know i had to had to. I had to come by, man. I had to come by. Well, I appreciate it because your timing is great, too.

Yeah. We got a lot to talk about. We got a lot to talk about. A ton to talk about. So just as a disclaimer out front on your behalf, I know we talked about this, but you are not here on behalf of the ACLU. Yep. Here on my own accord.

Okay. Okay. So all the opinions expressed herein are of you. They're all mine. All mine. Well, that's all we can ask for. No one else's. I don't like people that take a company line on stuff. Yeah, you know, they're all mine. All right, good. Well, can you start off by just explaining exactly what you've been doing on a day-to-day over the last year or so with the ACLU? Yeah, totally. So I'm a communications advisor for the Voting Rights Project. So, you know, it's a group of people that work on voting rights litigation, and then I kind of help tell the story of the ACLU's voting rights

work in a communications way. So whether that's online, in the press, in the media, so helping to tell that story of what we're doing to protect the right to vote in the media. So I really like it. Then outside of that, I have an opinion column at the Daily Beast where I write a lot of different articles about politics, about culture. And I've really enjoyed that.

I've been doing that for a couple, five or six months right now. I'm a writer. So it was really great to have the opportunity at the Daily Beast, a really great online magazine to write articles now and then about uh politics and that's kind of a line as far as like you're in that mind state all day because you're basically a professional political strategist yeah yeah so you know before this i was uh a press extra on capitol hill um for congressman dan kildee so he was the chief deputy whip of the house democratic caucus so kind of what state uh

michigan uh represented flint michigan um so kind of to give context um you know republicans and democrats they have caucus leaders and under that they have a couple people called chief deputy whips and if you ever seen the show house of cards um frank underwood was a whip and his job yeah so the guy that I worked for was one of those whips. He whips votes for the Democratic Party. So going out, seeing how people in the party are voting. So as a press secretary, my job was to kind of communicate the message of our office to constituents, but also to other members of, you know, the caucus, the Democratic caucus, and kind of a lot of strategy, a lot of political strategy. So I've,

I've, you know, I've done a lot of work in the political communication space. I've talked to a lot of people, and I really enjoy politics. I think fundamentally America is a unique country, and we're a great country because of how different we are and how many different opinions we have. But I think at the same time, the way this country succeeds is when we allow each other to have those tough conversations. And then ultimately, I think the best ideas rise to the top. But I think America's, you know, we're one of the few multiracial democracies in the world, and we've survived for actually a very long time. So I think this country has a lot of

potential. And when we get it right, I think we have a lot of opportunity to succeed. Well, it's such a hopeful thing to start off with. Yeah. A lot of people don't have that opinion and I don't judge them for it because I think we're in a tough spot right now. I think we're seeing a lot of things that are very scary and can concern a lot of people. Not a lot of people. They concern me. So, you know, I think I like to take an optimistic tone because I think about people like former Congressman John Lewis. I think about voting rights activists like Fannie Lou Hamer that were living in the South at a time when it was racially segregated, but they realized that the promise of America wasn't what they saw with their eyes, but what could be in the future, and they worked towards that.

So part of my kind of thinking is that, you know, if they were able to kind of fight through the vitriol back then and fight for the America that they knew was possible, then, you know, I should be able to stand up and do the same. I know those are big shoes to fill, but I think if we all can think like that in some way, our country would be so much better. I agree, man. And things get drawn, issues get drawn along political lines too,

which is part of the reason I wanted to have you in here. Because obviously, like, you're on the Democrat, you're within the Democratic Party. That's been your affiliation, working on Capitol Hill. And that's, you don't hide that at all. But, you know, with things like voting rights and how it happens, the reason this is so well-timed is because we're dropping this episode, like, on the day of the election or the day before. We're calling it a couple days before. So it's like, you know, that's one particular thing of a litany of things where it's like when people hear the term they don't even know what goes into that and there's been i mean there's

been bullshit political battles that focus on one or two things and then the rest of it you don't really get a picture of yeah it's like you and i were talking even before this and it's like you know to start with let's let's let's go there since that's the day-to-day and let's do it this will go where it goes but like to start with you know when people hear about like repressing voter rights and stuff it's you it's it's a democrat versus republican issue where the democrats accuse the republicans of not allowing enough people to vote and the republicans accuse the democrats of basically like stacking the vote by letting anybody vote yeah and i think as with most things i think the answer is probably somewhere in

the middle but the issue that we are all familiar with that they talk about all the fucking time in the media is when they're talking about like voter id so just to start there can you explain to people what exactly goes into that because even like i voted voted, I don't know, 10 times in my life, whatever it is. And I don't even remember what happens when I go in there and I assume I handed my driver's license or whatever. But when we're talking about the ID issue, is it just like, oh, people need a driver's license to vote and that's it? Or are there other new ones? There are very few things that you can be certain of in life. But you can always be sure the sun will rise each morning.

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You get both on-road confidence and off-road capability. Dirt road ahead? Let's go! Truck month is awesome! Ask your Chevrolet dealer for details. Sponsors to it. So I think kind of first starting off, I think the idea of voter ID conceptually sounds like a mighty fine thing. Hey, you know, everyone should have voter ID, get a voter ID, go and vote. But when you look at it and actually how it's implemented, it's an extremely burdensome policy that really affects minority communities for the most part. And I think we can pull it up and bring it up on the screen if you'd like to.

But, you know, there are organizations like the Brennan Center that have done tremendous research showing that, you know, getting a voter ID in a lot of poor communities is actually extremely difficult to do. In a lot of places, a single DMV site may be open for one or two days in a month. And if you're someone that has a working class job, you work many hours in the day, a single DMV site may be open for one or two days in a month. And if you're someone that has a working class job, you work many hours in the day, many hours into the night, finding time to simply go and get an ID like that can be really difficult.

And if we really want to have a democracy where every single person has equal access to the ballot, we can't then set up a kind of pretty arcane system for them to go and get an id so i think the concerns around there being some sort of identification for people to vote are fine and valid but i think more importantly what we have to do is kind of figure out a way that is fair and is not kind of using a kind of difficult system for people to – thank you. Cheers, pal. Cheers. For people to go and vote. And I think voter ID is burdensome and does that.

So my issue with that – because, again, we're going to talk about all the other stuff below this because that's what I'm really interested in. I just want to start off with the most basic one yeah my issue with that argument that i've always had is i feel like it does create almost like a racial element to it and how it's described because they keep saying and you may have said it in there as well like oh it affects a lot of minority communities and everything and the thing that i get is like well you're saying like they're they're not smart enough to go get an id which i know you're not saying. But do you understand why there's people, you know, who are looking at this maybe even from the middle? Like, wait a second, but everyone has to go to the DMV to get a license.

Like, why can't they? Like, isn't that a part of being able to identify like who you are? Yeah. No, so I think, you know, as I said before, the concept of having people have a voter ID, it makes sense. But again, when we look at the facts, you know, it is a racial issue. You know, Black, a lot of minority communities don't have access to the same type of resources to actually go and get a voter ID. So as much as we don't want, you know, as much as we, you know, sometimes I think it's, I think, I think America, we do this thing a lot where we'll go like, oh, we don't want, we don't want to make this a racial issue. But, you know, the reality is a lot of these issues are as racial, you know, only not too

long ago, there were people in, there were black people in the South that didn't have the right to vote. I have black friends and, you know, their family members are that didn't have the right to vote are actually still alive. They're older, you know, like at, you know, I was actually having conversation with a voting rights activist who marched with Martin Luther King. She was 12 years old. She's still alive today. She's 85 years old. And kind of talking with her, I was like one. I was just so humbled to be talking to someone that had such an experience. But it kind of showed me that voter suppression that we saw in the civil rights era wasn't that long ago. And with that being said, some of the remnants of that era still exist today.

So to go back to your point about, oh, you know, like, you know, black, I think there's this thing I see a lot of people say online. Oh, like black people are smart enough to get ID. It's not a matter of being smart enough. It's a matter that there are systems in place in certain states that really make it difficult for people to get voter ID. And until we change those systems and make it easier for people to register for ID, then I think it is wrong for people to have voter id required for them to go and vote so the the other point there then would i mean first of all when you're talking about the remnants of past eras where there were blatant human rights violations yeah of course like i'm sure that yeah that woman you were talking with that is pretty powerful shit yeah you know she's

she's seen the other side of this yeah it's like i would imagine you know 30 40 years ago in in the same in the same breath if you were talking to an 85 year old woman period like they could tell you like oh yeah i remember what it's like not to be able to vote because i'm a woman yeah you see this and it progresses over time correctly where it's supposed to yeah it should have been in the first place we all agree on that yeah but like when you're just when you're just pointing out the minority communities and everything, in today's times, I would also say, okay, if the argument is there's not enough resources or not enough DMVs or places where they can get easy access to stuff, what about all the places that have other types of minority communities or even just regular white people like in the middle of the country where it's rural and they don't have access to yeah and i'd say that's also a say and that i'd say that's also a problem um the reason why i'm saying um minority communities is because that's who it largely affects but you know at the end of the day um there this is reminding me now there used to be this thing that uh martha king used to say and he used to say um i'm gonna butcher

this quote a little bit but he used to say essentially that like, you know, when we help black people, all people are helped. Like, you know, we help the black community, all communities are helped. So at the end of the day, I'm talking about how this disproportionately affects, you know, black voters.

But at the end of the day, when our democracy is stronger, when black people, when more black people can vote, our democracy is stronger for everyone. Because that means that more white Americans can have a country that actually represents the full true promise of democracy and where everyone can vote. So I think it's important. The reason I started that is because it's important to talk about how it affects minority communities. But at the end of the day, there are, of course, rural communities that are facing this problem of access to voter ID material.

So it definitely affects them as well. And that's why I think, you know, again, why voter ID is a – at the end of the day, it's being used as a voter suppression tactic. And until we can find ways for everyone to access voter ID, it's wrong to have people use voter ID to vote. Well, again, looking at the other ones you and I were looking through, which I really – to say I was misinformed on it would not even be putting it lightly. That's where I use the word suppression a lot more. If I see people, if I see legislators putting in enactments to say, you have to have an ID to get there. I don't think that's racist. I wouldn't put the word suppression, and this is just my opinion personally, I wouldn't put suppression with that. I get where they're coming from. I think there's something to be said for your

argument. So it's not like I'd be saying, oh, let's do that for sure. But I've always had a question on that, like, okay. So it's good to have another perspective on it. Some of the other things though, like for example, this Pennsylvania law, HB 17, is that it? HB 1703? Yeah. So can you explain that one? Let's just start there as to how this works and what that means for the restricted rights of people who vote. So just to make sure I have this right, we're talking about when we're counting – we're talking about the counting votes on Election Day. Sometimes those –

No, that was the other one. Hold on. Let me see. You know what? This is why this is here. Perfect. So that we can make sure we get this. So people today will be looking some stuff up just so that we're not mixing anything

up. Hey, you know, there's a lot of stuff it's okay that was number 10 on the thing so I'm reading a footnote so this is literally from the law criminal penalty of anyone assisting a voter in returning a mail ballot with narrow exceptions yes HB 1800 HB 1300 201 criminal penalty for election officials who send out an unsolicited mail ballot yeah that's different okay we'll get that one later but essentially what this law was saying is that if you have if you're somebody who for example walked in and and helped a disabled person vote yeah you could be possibly liable for a criminal penalty and be accused of

like voter fraud in that way yeah and a lot of states uh pennsylvania isn't alone like this there are a lot of other states across the country that are considering policies like this um you know after the 2020 election there have been over 400 uh voter suppression bills like this introducing state houses. Of course, they all haven't been signed into law, but, you know, legislatures, legislators have introduced them. And I think that is very concerning because what we're seeing is after the 2020 election, when the former President Trump lost the election, a lot of people use the concept of voter fraud as a pretext to pass these voter suppression laws. And I think that's really dangerous because the fact of the matter is the 2020 election was safe and secure. Of course, there are a couple instances of mistakes and people want to call it large for a start, but there's always mistakes. And these are mistakes that are rectified immediately,

but there were no mistakes that changed the result at all. And what President Trump was doing was sowing distrust in our democracy, which ultimately people use as a pretext to pass these voter suppression laws. Yeah. So I think a big issue that didn't help the problem there with people getting into that was right afterwards on social media, there was all kinds of stuff that was getting censorship tags And I feel like if they just hadn't done that People wouldn't have put the alarm bells up and he would have never gotten anywhere with that argument either way though either way We know what happened. We know he did we know he still tries to say it today and everything this this was another one though because I Did not realize that for example in a state like Pennsylvania, which was one of those states he had in question due to, oh my god, they're counting ballots days and days later.

The Republicans are the ones who introduced the legislation to make sure that that's the case, meaning that you can't get – like we're used to getting results of elections like that night of the election. But in Pennsylvania, some other states, they had to count for several days. So at least in Pennsylvania, the Republicans are the ones who put in the law to restrict from being able to count mail-in ballots before 7 a.m. on Election Day. Yeah, exactly. And I think what's really interesting about that is, one, it slows down the process and I think also it is now it's used as kind of something where people can sow distrust again in our democratic process by saying that the results haven't been counted for a couple days oh what's going on what's happening why things have been counted for a couple days and I think that further sows distrust in our democracy so it's really

disappointing to see that the Pennsylvania Republicans are supporting legislation like that, when in reality, you know, they should be having more people vote. My confusion with all this stuff, and I'll be honest, like, you know, if you're a good politician, you should want more people to vote because if you are really right and you have the right ideas, you should have more people vote because then everyone can see how your ideas are right and how the way that you want to govern is right so the fact that republicans want less people to vote is further shows me as you know i'll be honest i'm a partisan i'm a democrat further shows me how a lot of their ideas they don't think a lot of the american public supports them

and then i think on top of that it's also just frankly anti-democratic and dangerous i think that that it's a sort of group think top down what's the word i want to use this is not the word i'm i can't think of the word i want right now but i'm gonna just say message for now because it does the trick it's a group think top down message that then people start to just take as truth because like if we're being honest here and you and i also in the car we're talking about this you know i of course agree that in in a healthy democracy we're once an election's over and somebody's won and somebody's lost you know move on that's that's what it is the will spoken but you know the the hypocrisy from the democratic party that i really

haven't liked is the fact that they are making this this whole mart and they're doing a nice job with the marketing campaign but they're making this like oh my god these people are a threat to our democracy because they won't accept the results of the election when and and i hate george bush but in 2000 2004 and then with trump in 2016 they were doing the same exact thing and in fact i didn't i told you this one as well i didn't even realize but in 2004 after john kerry lost i don't know how the fuck he lost to george bush that's that makes no sense but whatever after he lost they were quite they were standing on the floors of congress talking about how the voting machines

in ohio were fucked and there wasn't two of them it was a bunch of them and I'm like I didn't even know that and so when I see this and this is my complaint with these parties and it's why I shit on them all the time it's like I feel like every time one is calling the other something they're just calling out their own security what they already are okay well a couple things I kind of want to talk about what you said. Well, you know, on the first thing is when, you know, when Democrats were talking about, you know, past elections where they haven't won, I think, one, that's not okay. You know, when the results are out, you know, you should accept them. But two, I think what is different this time is that unlike those other instances where you had a couple members here and there saying some things that definitely shouldn't have been said in this instance the 2020 election

you had a concerted effort from the republican party to overturn the results along with spreading disinformation you had president trump meet with elect meet with uh legislators and put together a fake slate of electors to try to change the results in Washington. You then had. So essentially what happened is Donald Trump met with a set of, you know, representatives to plan for a fake slate of electors to basically change the results of the electoral college. So kind of for context, there's some scene setting that should be done here. And I shared with you, Link, the fake elector plan. So when, you know, when, you know, an election happens, every state we have the electoral college has a couple different electors. And those are

actually people that say that they are representing their area and they are, you know, essentially electors representing their town. What President Trump and members of the Republican Party did is they tried to have a different group of people come to Washington to actually act as a different slate of electors than the ones that were sent to Washington, D.C. So that is, in my opinion, that's actually subverting the will of the people. And that's different from just going on the congressional floor and saying, oh, I don't I don't believe the results of the election. Also, on top of that, Donald Trump, on the day that the election was going to be confirmed, used that used the myth of voter fraud to incite a riot on the Capitol

that basically killed one police officer, injured hundreds of police officers, and almost basically, or for facts, sent a signal out to the world that American democracy wasn't as stable as anyone thinks it is. And that really concerns me because there are so many countries around the world where there are people that want to live in a democracy. They want to go and vote. They want to have their voices heard. And when Donald Trump did did that he sent a sign to a lot of authoritarian dictators to say hey you know what american democracy is not stable and so they can go back to their nation they could vote you see america you guys want a democracy look what happens when you have a democracy and that's dangerous to me so i don't think it's the same i don't think democrats and republicans are doing the same thing when a couple

democrats were getting pissed that george bush won election, because for the most part, at the end, they they accepted the results and they let and they let, you know, when Donald Trump won the first time, you saw Obama bring Trump to the White House, you saw Obama go to the inauguration, you didn't see Trump invite Biden to the White House, you didn't see Trump go to the inauguration. So there's this lack of acceptance from Republican leaders of democratic norms. And that's scary, because for so long, this country, you've had these democratic norms. The president invites the the president invites the opposing party to the White House. The president rides in the in the beast, the limo to the inauguration. Donald Trump didn't do that for whatever reason, because he personally felt hurt. Well, by the inauguration, they told him not to do it. Exactly. But, you know, I think it shows that there is an erosion of norms that is

happening. And I think that is why I thought the president's speech recently in D.C. talking about democracy was excellent. I thought it was good on him to raise the alarm that the crisis we're having in our country is serious, that you have people that are running for office that are continuing to parrot the fact that the 2020 election was stolen that is bad for our democracy it's not only bad for our democracy and as i said before it's bad for the world i think that the people who are parroting things like that as i said i that's beating a dead horse at this point to me if anything like just to start right there so i don't disagree that that's problematic i also think you know biden reads whatever's on the fucking teleprompter so i don't i don't really give him responsibility for what's happening and

i give the administration if you could say responsibility for what's being said and i was telling you because i was watching the game last night i didn't see the full speech yeah so i'm saying this without having seen the full thing totally but i did watch i probably watched a grand total of seven or eight minutes of it between like all the clips i watch okay and one of the things that's been bothering me in the rhetoric of his speeches is he will literally say things like he'll talk about the threat to democracy that all and he'll label the MAGA Republican Party and he just labels the whole thing others the other people right which is the other side which you can disagree with them that's fine like I do too but I'm saying like if you're someone who is

sitting there and you are not an adamant Democrat right I'm sitting there as someone in the middle now voting for these parties and I'm like well that that's kind of that's that's that's up in the rhetoric right there And then the very next line he says is and we got to remember we're all human beings man You know we got to come together you got it We got to get along and it's like but you just said they're not you just said they're all a threat to democracy And it's the same thing like all those ass assholes in D.C. on January 6th, no disrespect, that wasn't exactly the brightest among us down there, let's be very honest. There were what, 77, 78 million people I guess that voted for Trump? Yeah.

That's not representative of the 77, 78 million people that voted for him. Most people I know who voted for Trump thought those people were a word I'm not allowed to say anymore. You know what I mean? No, yeah. That's just what it is so I don't what one thing that I think is a huge problem with the Democrats right now is and it's just going to come back from the other end if they keep doing it like this is that they are labeling all of it the same thing and they're now going to allow the Republicans to label anything that's not a Republican as a leftist you know communist or

whatever and it's just going to ramp the rhetoric's is going to ramp up. Well, I think, and I've heard Biden say this, and, you know, maybe you could say more clearly, I think that's up for debate. But what he did say during his speech was that not all Republicans are MAGA Republicans. Most of the Republican party is good. They actually, did he say that? Yes, he did. He said it like he fundamentally said that most republicans aren't a part of MAGA republicans but he makes a good distinction and i think we should bring up the speeches he says there are MAGA republicans and they're actual republicans and i think that's the truth of the matter you know you have a small sect of the republican party that is basically

parroting this election fraud um yeah i believe yeah let's let's see that's why like when i go to talk about that that's why i said out front i didn't see the full speech because this is exactly what can fucking happen with clips yeah clips see i think the first uh to biden and his team the group was clearly delineated maga republican well this is the one from 2022 or from september when he was speaking in philly oh that's a philly right okay and so if if he makes that distinction i'll still appreciate that the problem is that you have to remember there are a lot of people who are very much you know got on board with the republicans in the make america great again movement that you had and it's not 10% of people. It's a lot more

than that. And I will say, like any other sector of people, are there some bad people in there? Sure. I would argue we saw some of them on January 6th, for sure. But there's also a lot of great people. There are also a lot of people who, you know, your urban liberal could be on the side of the road with a flat tire and they're going to pull over with their trump hat and not think twice and help them and vice versa i agree and i think people need to remember that because one thing about trump that to this day i think people don't get because he is you know so controversial and guys got a loud mouth and all that is that if you want to argue about his solutions sure i'm gonna agree with you on plenty of things there, trust me. But if you want to argue with his ability to identify the problem, I would say that that's where we could

go a bit wrong, because Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in 2016 identified the problem better than any candidates from two parties at the same time I've ever seen. I disagree with their solutions, but the people they spoke to different sometimes different types of people who faced a lot of the same issues being left behind not having a real representation in dc wanting to see america continue to hold its place in the world and to lead the way and and to not you know backpedal on so many things there's a lot to be said there so when a guy like biden who you know he's old obviously at this point and it's kind of embarrassing but he is

an establishment guy yeah he is the same type of guy it's not to write off his whole career but he's the same type of guy that those people were like oh my god i've been left behind by them so now when they see that they automatically turn off wait, that's the same dude who I fucked me. You know what I mean? It's not from a place of like of of just instant hatred before they look at it. It's from a place of like we've already seen this before. So fuck that. But I think it's a little bit manipulative because if you look at Donald Trump, Donald Trump wasn't like this blue collar worker that, you know, had a, you know, kind of like came from poor family.

He came from wealth, basically manipulated the New York real estate market to make his empire, won on reality TV and decided he wanted to run for president. Joe Biden claimed from a working class family from Scranton, Pennsylvania. He had a father who lost his job and actually spent his life building up a career. So when people go that, oh, Donald Trump as a person was more relatable from where he came from, I think that's just like, you know, you look at their life stories are radically different. Now, I think, you know, I think we talk about Joe Biden's career being like a politician for a while. I can I can sort of see where you're coming from. But at the end of the day, when you then look at, I think, what both people have done while they're in office to help the American people, I think that's even where it gets further different.

You know, Biden passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, which is the only infrastructure bill we've seen any president pass in the modern era. Donald Trump every week used to talk about infrastructure week. This is going to be infrastructure week. This is going to be infrastructure week. Never could get it done. Joe Biden sat down with Republicans, sat down with Mitch McConnell, and actually got the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act done. That's going to create 700,000 jobs a year. And Donald Trump couldn't do that. And, you know, I think it's tough because we're going into election and a

lot of people are, you know, frustrated because the economy is not doing great. You know, gas is expensive. Infl inflation is ruining an american economy yes people are struggling you can't put money aside to save for college save for your kids college fund to take a vacation and that's a real problem it's happening around the world too you know we could sit here and talk about what's going on in london oh you're crazy we can get to that it's fucking nuts's bad. But there's also international inflation there because of the pandemic we had. And the president has, you know, he's the Bipartisan making the right strides towards fixing the economy post-COVID. Now what the voters see and how they respond are, you know, totally different thing. And we're going to have to see what happens next week.

But I think that, you know, I personally, you know, I'm a partisan Democrat. I think that Biden and the Democratic Party have met the moment and they've passed the right legislation to meet what's going on. For example, I think canceling student loans, great idea. The president promised to do that, and that's something that we should do. So I think he's met people economically. The media environment we have right now is very split, and it's very tough to get things through that you want to let people know what you've done or the administration wants to let people know what they've achieved. And the media right now, it's very tight. It's very partisan. It's you're either watching one thing, getting one type of opinion, or watching another thing, getting another type of opinions.

So it's tough to get out what's been accomplished. But fundamentally, if you look at what's passed, he's done a lot. And then I think on top of that, he passed the CHIPS Act, which was a legislation that essentially speeds up chip manufacturing in the United States. That was actually very good. There's been things that have been done. So it's always interesting to me when people go, oh, Joe Biden, this old dude that sleeps at the wheel. And it's like, yeah, he's not the most articulate, but neither was the last president. But at least he's going to Washington and signing bills. He's signing bills and getting things done. Sorry, he's not like the most like polished person. But at the end of the day, we don't need a president

that's the most polished. We need a president that's going to work for the American people and get things done and create jobs. And that's he's doing i mean symbolism matters and that's why you know him being old and not being able to talk or get a sentence out is is problematic but i'm i'm a more bare bones like what is happening kind of guy i like to get to the bottom of that so no i don't think he's making a fucking decision in there i think there are other people making decisions really and i there's a lot of people who are like that's a disaster for and i'm like i mean it is what it is like it's not ideal but i'm looking at whatever the decisions are made they're coming out of that office because that's who had the press the office of the presidency of the united states

of the president of the united states has certain legislative things that they do and that's what you got to look at so i take what i have and i will say the chips act thing which there's a lot in there just at a base level that is an important first step because china has been making exactly chips exactly in the south of china and that's an issue for a fuck ton of reasons yeah but when you're talking about like the economics, one thing that people take a ton of issue with him is that, you know, he'll say like, oh, when I came in, Trump's economy was bop, bop, bop, bop, bop. And now it's this. And it's like, no, it wasn't like he said something the other day with and they ended up having to delete the tweet. He said something about inflation that didn't have to do with Trump, and then they had to take that down.

And then there was another one where he's like gas prices were at a record high when Trump came in, and now they're at 330 or whatever. And people are like, no, is that literally like 178 when Trump comes in? just saying every single thing that Trump did is the reason that we're here. It detracts from your point because you're going to run into things where that's not the case. And then people can call it out because you're saying like, all right, I feel like the infrastructure bill is a good first step. The problem is it hasn't arrived for people. And when you're talking to prospective voters right now, people are trying to pay their next fucking bill. People are trying to make sure that their kids have food on the table and stuff people are trying to make sure that their job's gonna be here fucking next year totally and so they're not gonna sit here and say oh that bill that might you know start coming into effect in 2024 let's

wait around for that they're sitting here like my dollar is worth 10 to 15 percent less than it was a year ago what are we doing about that yeah and you know i think that's i think that's 100 true you know i kind of when i think about a lot of these issues i think about kind of my own upbringing i grew up in a single parent household so you know i saw my mom make those tough decisions i saw my mom like struggle to pay the bills at the end of the day i straw i saw my mom struggle with things that you know people that had two parents didn't so like when So, like, when a lot of these issues happen, I think about them also from a political aspect, but also from, like, a personal aspect. And that's why when I think about the election that's coming up, you know, I tell people, you know, vote your values. Vote what you think is the best move. don't vote for, when you go and vote, don't vote because you feel like

you need to basically check the other side. I think that's a wrong way of voting. I think the best way of voting is you take the two parties or, I think, unfortunately, we have two parties. That's a different discussion. Yeah, there's a debate we should have more, but I think you should look at both sides and say,

what are they both proposing? I think you should look at both sides and say, what are they both proposing? I think going and having a protest vote and saying you're just going to vote against one side because of what they're doing is wrong, I think, is not the best way to approach it. That's my opinion, of course. And, you know, when we look at the economy, I think – and I think that applies. Like, I think it's really tough right now. I think we're dealing with a lot, a lot of inflation. And I think that applies. I think it's really tough right now. I think we're dealing with a lot, a lot of inflation. I think that's hurting people. But studies have been done recently showing that things are getting better.

So my hope is that – Like what? What? As far as things getting better with inflation? Yeah, well, I think if you look at gas prices in Biden is essentially – Well, it came off that top. Yeah, it came off the top. Yeah, that top the top. Yeah, that that top was

awful. But yes, yeah. And I think, you know, he's opened the reserve. So gas prices are coming down. It's going to take time, of course, and people are still struggling, but things are going to get better. This is going to take a long time. We had a once in a generation pandemic that like we haven't seen forever, like a generation, you know? So like, I think it's tough because there's so many families struggling right now. There's so many people that are in tough spots. And, you know, I think, I don't think that the Biden

and the Democrats are sitting there going, oh, like, we don't care. Like, we're these liberal elites. Like, we could give a shit. Like, you know, I think they're actually going and they're, you know, they're trying to help the American people. And I think we've seen that in the legislation that's been put out. And, you know, things especially like canceling student loans for so many people, that has an immediate effect today. You know, when those loan payments restart in a couple weeks and, you know, there's a kid that, you know,

has all this student loans left from a plumbing master's degree he got and he doesn't have to pay that anymore because the government covered that. That's going to be money that he can use to save, you know, to save up to buy a house, to save up to take his family on vacation. Like there are there are parts of, you know, the things that Biden has done that we can feel now. But I do think there are some parts that are going to take longer. But I think that's unfortunately, you know, the nature of political policy, which is tough that things take a long time. But I do think there's some things that will be felt immediately. Well, part of the reason that people are frustrated is it was actually really highlighted in the past week or two, there was an article that came out that just got body bagged online. And I read it.

I don't know how many people read it or just read the headline. It was less than a thousand words. I read it. But it was called something along the lines of let's declare a pandemic amnesty. And it was in the Atlantic. I saw that. And man, did I cringe reading that, listening to what this lady said. Because all the things that people were ripped for that then eventually got

drawn on political lines it wasn't necessarily at first but all the things that people got ripped for particularly by the left let me curb that not all many of the things that got ripped by the left were true if you talked about covid coming from a lab in May 2020, you were a racist. It was true. If you talked about the fact that COVID – there's scientific data that proves that COVID can't jump outside or has a very limited way of doing that or at the very least masks are not useful outside, you were called a hateful bigot. that was true when i mean don't you get me started on the whole thing in in your arm i mean there was all kinds of stuff where if people were if if people said anything citing empirical data i'm not just talking about that asshole online going this is all bullshit i'm talking someone that actually had data they were canceled that guy alex baronson the ex new york times reporter he just won he's in the middle of another one right now. He just won a case against Twitter that allowed for discovery in the case that got his account had been banned.

He was a guy who was tweeting out studies on the backs and tweeted it out. It was literally reported from government studies, company studies, the whole bit, and they banned him because they didn't like it. But the discovery in the trial showed that there was communication between the White House and Twitter where the White House says in an email, what are we doing about Alex Berenson? So when people see stuff like this and they see that there was one party that seems to have been continuing the mass forever pandemic forever oh two weeks to stop the curve fuck that two years that's who people blame the economy on and they're not it it is very hard even if i think that there's a lot more that goes into it and i do and i had a problem with all the things i just said it is very hard for me to look at at someone like that and say yeah but think about these other things too they don't want to hear. They don't want to hear it. They don't want to hear it.

Yeah, you know, I think that's a good point. I, you know, the article that you mentioned, I haven't read it, but I've kind of, I've looked at a lot of the commentary, so I should have read it. But I can tell you this. I think a lot of people, and I think this is one thing

I think the Democrats can do better. I think a lot of people just want people to understand that life can be complicated sometimes and you know that people can make mistakes and that you know people can you know kind of you know think about things a little bit a different way i like to think about you know um everyone has older family members uh you know some of my older family members when i talk to them about a lot of um social justice issues like they kind of can't wrap their head around it i mean they mean well and they like you know, some of my older family members, when I talk to them about a lot of social justice issues, like they kind of can't wrap their head around it. I mean, they mean well, and they like appreciate it, but like getting the right words and like getting the right terminology down sometimes

is tough for them. And why I'm talking about this story, so I think it applies to this, because I think in some of those scenarios on masking and vaccines, I think if some of the leaders came out and said, okay, you know what? This was a new virus. We learned about it. We didn't know that this was actually the case until now. We found out new information. But they did not. That's sort of changing your mind.

They did. They lied. Yes. Well, you know, I think- They lied. Some did and some didn't. Okay. There could have been some that didn't.

That's fair. But I'm saying like, let's take your older family members as an example. I guarantee you, you wouldn't say to them, you're an old racist and then tell them that they should be banned off social media from saying those things. Do you understand why those people who had that happen to them are pissed off and are coming for you because of that? I get that. Yeah, I definitely understand that. I think there are a couple different kind of layers to that. I think on social media in particular, and we could talk about that, we could talk about the DHS kind of article later.

I think it is probably one of the, I think it's the toughest issue we have right now facing our society, figuring out how to monitor places like that, because the government should have a role in kind of what's happening there. But I think when it's done in the dark and when it's done in private and people aren't aware of how these decisions are made and they're made in private, I think it erodes complete trust. And I think when you erode trust like that, what happens is people don't trust institutions anymore. I think that's what you saw with exactly the pandemic. A lot of decisions, I think a lot of the decision-making that happened, of course, should have been made more publicly. People should have been kind of let, you know, they should have been shown more of what was happening when decisions were being made. And I think that's why a lot of people, when you don't know what's going on and people

are just telling you to do things, you go, hey, why am I being told to do this? The evidence isn't being provided to me. But at the end of the day, like, you know, like a lot of those decisions, and we can, we're going to have, we could, we get into this, but a lot of those decisions ultimately saved lives. Like if we didn't kind of keep the economy closed at the beginning of it for a short amount of time more people would have died that is a fact that is yeah at the very beginning yeah exactly at the beginning i mean and and that's what i i think they kept going exactly problem they kept going like if they had just done it we all know i mean look i lived up there i know what it was the guy that sit that sat five feet from me he was in his mid-40s in shape fucking

captain of the softball team he and i can say this because it's a public story yeah he was on a respirator in a coma for 60 days like i know how bad this got so i want to be clear like when people are like oh it didn't exist i'm like fuck you i know what it was but we also all know well we don't all know but a common science on viruses is that as viruses kill their host they they go oh shit they want to stop killing the host yeah so over time and it can take a while but it dissipates and so what i'm saying is that yes at the beginning fair point and there were things we there are some things we didn't know. There are some things that we didn't, say, attack back with it in the right ways. But the fact that they kept going – I mean they went at this thing until the day we invaded Ukraine.

I mean – until the day Russia invaded Ukraine, right? So when people look at that, they go, okay, fine. Why did we have to – like why did you take it that long when we were telling you early on, like, hold on a minute, like we need to open up and get back here? You know, I think that that is a tough question. And I think that's, it's fair. I think, you know, at the end of the day,

I kind of can understand what people are going through, you know, economic livelihood's important. Like, you know, if you're being told you can't open your business, you can't go to work, you have to sit at home, a lot of people feel frustrated and rightly so. And I think, you know, something that should have been done earlier on is thinking about, you know, we have a lot of people that aren't working a lot of people, you know, that can't make it to work. How are we going to help people? How are we going to make sure that people can have some type of way to make an economic living? I think that's something that I would have liked to see the Democrats do a lot

better. I'm going into this, I think there should have been more economic, not just economic, like I people go economic aid. It's like, actually thinking about how we can help people get through this crisis. I think that happened a little bit. But I think it should have happened a little bit more and it should have happened a little bit earlier. And I also think the decisions that were made around, you know, pandemic lockdowns, it should have just been made public. It should have been made public a little more clear why those decisions were happening. I think ultimately they're right. They're right moves. I think you look at states like Michigan, they look at Governor Whitmer, who's up for reelection right now. I think she ultimately made the right decision. You know, when people say, Hey guys, I got four quick things to ask you this week to help me grow the show. Number one,

as always, if you haven't already, please be sure to share this episode around with your friends and on social media. Word of mouth is the best thing we can do. Let's keep that rolling. Number two, the regular YouTube list. If you haven't already subscribed, please subscribe. If you haven't already hit the like button on this video, please be sure to hit that thumbs up button. If you haven't already hit the bell button for notifications on the channel, please be sure to do that too so that you know when we drop a new episode every single week.

And finally, would love to hear from you guys down in the comments section as always. If you are on Apple or Spotify right now, please be sure to leave a five-star review on either one of those platforms. That is a huge, huge help. Thank you to everyone who's been doing that. And thank you to all of you who are going to do it now. When folks go, you know, like she closed the schools like now, I mean, she reopened them when it was safe to reopen when medical officials said it was safe to reopen. If she opened them at any random time, when everyone was just pressuring her to open them, people would have got sick, people would have died, then people would have gone to her and been like, what the hell are you doing? You're

letting people get sick at schools, you're letting people catch COVID. So I think there's kind of a duality to this. Like, if you look at it both ways, you're kind of in a tough spot. So ultimately, I think making a decision, a governor making a decision to rely on the medical experts that are there that have years and years of medical experience to say, okay, like, you know what, I'm going to follow your lead on this. And that's where we're going to make a decision on opening up things. I think that that was ultimately the best move. And I think they made the best decision there. Well, you make a really good point at a society level yes that we have a big problem with people don't

want to be the first one to be sued or held liable because no disrespect to many of my friends out there i know a lot of great lawyers but we do have too many of them and lawyers job is to sit around and tell you every way you can get in trouble right so? So, and then it's like a veiled, it's a veiled threat society in that way. So I would buy into the argument that even at a political level, there was some way of like, oh my God, am I going to be liable for this? And they may have even been thinking about like elections and stuff, which that I don't like, but understandable. The fact that, you know we we did have data early on that proved the kids

were not having a problem with this and or largely we're not having a problem with this and we just made it so archaic and shut down i mean that's another thing that's coming on the ballot now because to the surprise of what should be no one our test scores are now coming out so that people can see what's going on with kids. And they're through the fucking floor. Because kids lost effectively, including when they went back and it was all like, you know, they had plastic shit around their desk and everything. It doesn't matter if you were a kindergartner, an eighth grader, a twelfth grader, or in college. They lost effectively close to a year and a half of school. I agree.

I think, you know, kids lost time. You know, I had my younger sister remember she wanted to graduate college and it was really tough watching her kind of come back and being like i can't have my senior year which for me was like one of the best times i had also like academically being able to take seminar classes where i was in smaller classes and like could actually work through issues but with like the friends you know that's the last time you get to have a lot of your buddies and watching my sister do that was extremely you know tough as it were to watch right but at the same time you know a lot of people died like a lot of people passed away and i think that if we didn't make those decisions to shut things down we should we would have seen a lot more death so i

think it's like i listen to you i want to be clear at the beginning i agree with you yeah at the beginning i don't care how people want a Monday morning quarterbacking now. I saw this shit. I agree with you. I'm saying when they went past, once April was done and we had information and we knew some things that we had done wrong. For example, putting people on fucking respirators. Knew that was a problem. Don't do that.

We also knew comorbidities were the biggest thing. A lot of the people dying had severe health problems or they were old as fuck no disrespect it's like once we knew these things that's when they should have been like okay let's fucking go and they didn't and they and they kept on gaslighting people the same people the same experts medical experts like they're tweeting out some of this stuff and by the way what sucks is that they don't represent medicine like they're they don't represent medicine. Like, they don't represent all these amazing doctors out there. There's a lot of doctors who looked at this and they're like, oh, I don't know.

It's not my expertise, but I don't know. And now later they're like, oh, I was fucked up, right? But people are starting to literally not trust doctors in general, which is insane to me. But because you had some of these medical experts on there, know who i'm talking about saying these things and then you run tape of them saying a different thing six months later and pretending nothing happened people felt gaslit i get that no i i think you know and i i said this before and i'll say it again i think you know i believe that medical experts should have been more clear when they found out new information and their perspective changed i think going and like you know i saw a lot of it.

So a lot of people get on TV and say, oh, this happened. And then this happened. And there was no clarification. Say, oh, hey, we learned something new. This is why we're changing our position. Instead of just, I'm changing my position and this is why it is.

And you have to accept it. I think that is like one, just like bad communication, like in general, like just communicating with here, communicating with friends, but also think this is bad leadership Um, so that is something that I think could have been done better But I think I still go back to the fact that a lot of these folks have taken our Years and years trained medical experts like when they were making calls. I think it was ultimately the right decision

I think a lot of people did suffer. I think we had a completely difficult time as an economy. Our economy struggled. Like it was, I think you can relate to this. Like you grew up, you saw 2008. Like that was wild. That was awful. It's insane. And like seeing that again, and now, you know,

I think especially our generation feeling like we've now seen two economic crises. This one was different. Exactly. And it was a lot different and it's painful. And, you know, so I can understand why a lot of people feel left behind. And I think that's a real, real feeling. And I think going back to the elections, I think it's going to be tough for Democrats.

Like, you know, I'm not going to like shit here and be like, oh, blow out. But like, you know, I think it's a tough election for Democrats. I think you have that going on. But at the same time, I think historically, you know, the party in power has a tough time always retaining the both chambers in Congress and, you know, the House and the Senate. So I think it's going to be tough. But I think, you know, if Democrats can talk about some of the good stuff they've done, be honest about things where they may have gotten wrong, and at the same time, you know, talk about the things that they've done that are actually going to help the economy and are getting to people – will get to people soon, I think there could be a chance for success. On the other hand, you have the Republicans that have actually said they're going to cut Social Security if they're elected. Yeah, what's the story there?

Who's saying that so sender michael in an audio clip we can pull this up that just came out said he plans to rip social security from the ground and then also in a rick scott he's the head of the senate republican senate committee in his plan has said that if republicans are elected they will actually get rid of social security and it was interesting because uh brought Rick Scott on Fox News, and they thought he'd have an easy interview because he's a Republican, and he's talking to a Republican host. And the host says, why are you cutting Social Security?

And brings up his plan, shows that in his plan, he actually has that they're going to cut Social Security. And, you know, he's being held accountable even by Republicans. So it just shows you that even the Republican media establishment does not like a lot of the policies that the elected – that the Republican candidates are putting out. And it should scare every American, you know, because your parents worked for Social Security. They spent their time at their jobs to have Social Security when they became adults. And the fact that if Republicans are elected, they want to gut that it should concern every person yeah the social security thing is like i remember sitting in a yeah when i was when i was when i was on wall street i remember sitting in

a meeting with a with a social security like financial expert and this is gotta be five years ago yeah towards the very beginning of my career. And the guy was talking about – someone asked him about funding. And this dude didn't strike me as – at least he didn't put on anything like he was political or whatever. He was actually really solid, just talking about numbers and whatever. And he said, well, I think that would be anyone who votes to to defund social security is voting themselves out of office and i never forgot that because i started to think about like demographics across the parties and i'm like well yeah among older communities especially there is a mix so if you lose every demographic if you lose five percent and we're

just like fuck that because of that you're done it's you're done but this is this is the clip let's let's see i haven't seen this before so let's just see make sure this is in context but this is mike lee we we have to honor the promises made to america's seniors who paid into these programs for decades we can't walk away from that actually no that's not the truth it will be my objective to phase out social security, to pull it up by the roots and get rid of it. People who advise me politically always tell me that's dangerous. And I tell them, in that case, it's not worth my running. That's why I'm doing this, to get rid of that. Medicare and Medicaid are of the same sort and need to be pulled up so

wait a minute though that's from back in 2010 yeah that's from years and years and years ago before he was in office yeah that's an ice cold take but okay now now i will say we did set up a lot of things in this country that we didn't think about how to pay for i think there are things we can figure out there have been discussions that like that's out of control i can figure out how to pay for social security though i think when you're leaving behind people who have paid into this their whole life it's so i just that's just not something i could ever ever get behind but this the first quote where he said i'm not coming after that is in 2022. yes now some people it is reasonable to say oh flip-flopping or whatever i also do have a problem in politics though with the fact that people cannot change their opinions we hold people

the same belief they had a long time ago yeah if that tape had been recorded a year ago or something you were saying this i'd have a huge problem with it but at first glance yeah that sounds like a guy who who gets it and knows like his voting life is over if he defunds Social Security. I think what is on top of that, what's confusing is the flip flop. But then also you have and we can pull this up as well. Rick Scott, the leader of the Republican Senate committee. So for context, this is the guy that, you know, runs the he's a senator from Florida. He runs the campaign arm of the Republican Senate committee.

He has in his plan, if elected as a leader, that he wants to cut Social Security. So if you have the leader of the Republican campaign arm saying that, you have Mike Lee, then we clearly – he seems like he's going back and forth. It should raise an alarm to people that there is a chance that if Republicans are elected, they will cut Social Security. social security yeah so i think i saw a clip of biden where he was reading like a what was it not a manual but like a booklet that scott had written yeah about this yes exactly i had heard that and again like i i don't care who's supporting that that's that's just a cold take to me and for what it's worth no i don't think they'll ever have a shot of putting that through because remember you have to get your own party on board yeah 30 republic i guarantee you they're right away 30 republican senators no shot and i think this is it's interesting that uh

can you say that because i think that's what we all said about um abortion we all thought that was the court yeah that was a but the thing is that, you know, Justice Alito, we can pull this up, said to Ted Kennedy, Senator Kennedy, before he was sworn in, he said, you have my word. I will not get rid of abortion. Yeah. Like, you know, so I think to say that, you know, just because it's not politically smart, they won't do it is dangerous. You know, we got to take people at their words here. You know, Alito, you know, a lot of people thought that Alito wouldn't cut, wouldn't support getting rid of abortion rights because it wasn't politically smart, but they did it anyways. So, you know, when people say things, we have to take, you know, we have to seriously take what they're saying.

One's a court, though. You got to remember that. Yeah. The Supreme Court made that ruling. When does fast grocery delivery through Instacart matter most? When your famous grainy mustard potato salad isn't so famous without the grainy mustard. When the barbecue's lit, but there's nothing to grill. When the in-laws decide that, actually, they will stay for dinner.

Instacart has all your groceries covered this summer. So download the app and get delivery in as fast as 60 minutes. Plus enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees fees exclusions and terms apply instacart groceries that over deliver behind closed doors obviously got leaked ahead of when it came out but they are they have the ability to legislate on certain legal like law issues yeah we're getting out of my pay grade to actually go all the way there but they have the ability to do that whereas when you're talking about the social security here this is something

that would have to go through the chambers of of government if you don't if you think for one second that thing when it got to the house floor before even the senate if you don't think the phone lines of every republican person who was going to support that wouldn't be ringing off the hook with every threat in the book, I think you're crazy. I will say this. It would never get through. Now, if you look at abortion, which I just thought was – I felt like the Democrats in addition to – we know the data that says party in power, first midterm. It's usually the wave the other way in addition to already having the momentum i thought the democrats were doing

everything possible to lose every single seat and then it's like the republicans will find a way to do something stupid after that and so when you see the the abortion thing come through which is done by in this case conservative justices that were put on there and supported by republicans and senate and then you hear republicans supporting that ruling and whatever. I'm like, well, Jesus Christ, now they gave them at least one thing to fight on. So yes, there are some issues with that. But when it comes to the things that are strictly going to go through on law, like the government has to pass it, I don't see, I see zero risk to that happening. The conversation at a national level would have to severely change ahead of an election for me to say like oh there's a shot right it's not changing you're hearing a few guys talk about

it and they're they're never going to do it so i think i think there i think you know when you say uh you know it's the court and you have congress and congress has to like legislate so there's like more hoops to jump through on social security rather when the court abortion, there were just like a couple of folks like, I still think the same premise applies that broadly, we think that elected officials and justices won't do something because the popularity of it goes against the American people, but actually they can still do it and they can get it done. Because, you know, that's just what their prerogative is and their power. Because American politics is power politics. If you have the power, you can do what you want to do. And this is, you know, like, and this is something I think about with Democrats a lot is like, I think that Democrats,

a big problem I have with Democrats is like, we should – a lot of times I think we're trying to focus on – I think the culture is trying to focus on the culture when it's more we should focus on winning elections because winning elections is how you change things in this country. So I think that's – again, we could talk about that later. But to kind of back to what we were talking about with that power let me ask you a personal question on that yes that power politics thing yeah because you worked for the whip yeah and you had mentioned right at the beginning of our conversation i let it go because we were going into other things but this is a good spot to come back to it you had mentioned that you were working behind the scenes to organize the caucuses to get behind things and whatever. What kinds of things did you see there that you didn't like?

And things you liked. I'll ask both. I think this applies to not just my office in general. I think this is just the air of the city of washington dc itself um i think in washington a lot of political things become very transactional and i think that's what a lot of america the american people don't like is this kind of wheeling and dealing i think that is that happens a lot of washington um and i think that's something i saw that i didn't like um and i think that's not really emblematic of like a pacific member or like a sick politician i think that's just a city in general is that things are transactional and i think that's not something that you know

the american people should have in their elected officials but i think something that i really liked is a lot of the people that i saw that worked for you know uh members of congress in the senate they were good people. They wanted to actually help the people in their community. I thought it was really powerful when I'd see a member and their staff was from the same town. To me, it showed that the people that were there, they were actually coming to Washington

to work for their town because they went to high school there. They went to elementary school there. Their friends were there, their family were there. And I think that's something that a lot of people, I would say, I would encourage a lot of maybe your listeners to think about is like, there's kind of this idea that everyone in the government is bad and they're all like these evil henchmen. I don't help with that. Yeah, but I think a lot of people in the government are fundamentally there to try to do something

good. And, you know, whether, you know, I think there are a lot of people in the government are fundamentally there to try to do something good. And, you know, whether, you know, I think there are a lot of obstacles in, you know, doing good anywhere, whether you're a corporation, whether you're in the government. But I think a lot of people that go to Washington and, you know, some elected, some good work for someone, they actually have good intentions. They want to help people. You know, I think you look at a lot of congressional offices, their constituent services, like helping veterans get their GI benefits, helping people access their social security,

access their Medicare, access their Medicaid. Like there are people behind the scenes doing good work. You know, so I think that's something good that I saw. And that's something bad that I saw. You know, I think the transactional thing is, I think just, it's a part of DC. I think that's, you know, the nature of the a part of DC um I think that's you know the nature of the city yeah and and it's like you know you talk about the constituent service and I think

to every extent when you're there whether you're a republican or a democrat or an independent it's always interesting to me when we look at elections and like let's say an election is won 60 to 40 blow out yeah for a seat that means there's still 40 of that place that didn't fuck with the person that won 40 who may have wildly different beliefs from that person yeah and that person is elected by the majority yeah to go do the job for their constituents but in reality they may be doing things that 40 of their constituents don't think represent them at all which there's no way to solve that i'm not saying this is like oh fuck them for doing that yeah that's just a part of the system i just think about it a lot because i'm like you know what like it's it goes back to the question that comes up

all the time for different things it's like what is good and bad like things change in society and then society votes where more people vote on one side than the other and then they go there and they reset in the pendulum swings the other way again you know what i mean it feels like this never-ending game of just back and forth back and forth back and forth with whatever the soup du jour problem of the moment is and still even in those moments there's people that feel like oh my god i don't have anyone representing me because they don't they don't stand for anything i stand for. No, I definitely agree. I think the nature, I think politics is difficult. I think it's extremely hard work. Trying to find common ground and trying to find things we agree

on is tough, but I think there are a lot of things that we agree on. And I'll bring this up again, but example that was getting an infrastructure deal done. I think like, you know, a thing about me in Pennsylvania, and I think all my Pennsylvanians will agree is like, there are a lot of damn potholes. And I think that's something that everyone can say is like, it's annoying when you take your car outside, you drive down the street and you go down 10 potholes. And the fact that, you know, you had people in Congress that noticed that and were saying, OK, you know what, let's get a bipartisan infrastructure deal done. Let's get something to American people to build things in our country, because that is how this country became great. We have the Industrial Revolution. You know, people forget, we literally built the tallest buildings, we built trains, we built buses, we built cars, and that's how this country became great. And that's how America is going to stay on top,

is by if we have another Industrial Revolution, and we build again, we start making things in America, we start building American buildings, we bring back American manufacturing. And bills like the CHIP Act and bills like the infrastructure, Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, are how we get those things started. And so, you know, I like to think there's some good things that have happened, you know, since Biden's become president. I think there's some not great things. But I think that's one thing that reminds me that, you know, like, you know, we've made some progress, but, you know, there's still so much we have to do as Americans. And there's still so much, you know, things we still can kind of get to to make our country, you know, really great, you know. And I think that's the American experiment, you know, like this country is never perfect.

And it takes its citizens to constantly make it perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. and that's that's the beauty of the process what what you and i were talking about in the car though that is my fear is that the incentivization of the divide is only growing yeah and so you know a guy like you let's point out the very specific example of when you were working for the whip okay because that's where you're actually working yeah in the democratic party if something is said that you and you express your opinions on yeah if something is said that you disagree with that is a key policy point you or from the opposite end if

something is said that a republican disagrees with that is a key policy point on their side yeah neither of you are in any way incentivized to recognize that neither of you are incentivized to as you would every day express like oh we're doing this fuck that we need to do that and i'll even you know what i'll even give credit at the political level too like at the actual politician level because you saw it a few weeks ago with the with the very very very left wing of congress i forget everyone who was in there was like rashida like Rashida Tlaib, Jamie Raskin, there was like 30 of them. They had a letter released. The Ukraine. And what they were calling for was there has been information to suggest, I'm not saying it's for sure,

but there's information to suggest that there is a potential for a deal that would allow Ukraine to not lose anything from what they got and could potentially negotiate a peace here and de-escalate this situation while giving Ukraine effectively a W. Not a full W. Russia still exists. There's still country and everything. Yeah. But like – because they want to like end them. But it would give them a w and this has been something that in the mainstream media has been shut down anyone who even suggests it as an idea is a fucking pro-putin troll so they put out this the far left wing of of of the

of congress puts out this letter that i'm like good on them like okay cool and within a day what did you see they they had to come out and say a staffer elite that's bullshit they were told to shut the fuck up and get in line so even at the level of the people who are elected yeah they believe in something which they actually in that case those people i think they do stand for that right they want to see peace these are not foreign policy hawks so to speak that's not what they ran on yeah people like that there's other people who are certainly within that party but it's like they can't even talk so how do we solve that where if we're going to exchange ideas that includes having nuanced ideas within our own party well i think the first thing on that is i think uh the way that we stop and end the um what's happening in uh with

happening with ukraine and russia is russia leaves ukraine and the second thing is that's how we ended that's like i think that is how we ended that's what they were talking about well i think the difference is they were kind of they were the letter was written in a way that was trying to say that like ukraine has to cede some points which to me was kind of ridiculous because at the at the end of the day if someone came to the united states and invaded the united states would any of us be asking them would any of any of us be saying well let's make a deal to give up texas and no cut new york you're right exactly you're right we would say we are keeping ours and that's what the regained people are doing so i admire their strength i think the ukraine people have stood up to a tyrannical nation and have fought back

and i think that is what they're doing they're doing the right thing i think at the end of the day that letter i think you know staffer league whatever maybe they were told yeah maybe they were told that okay you know you need to end this like at the end of the day i think that letter was disastrous and i think it was a slap in the face to essentially the negotiations that even could bring about change because but they're not even you do understand there and this by the way this is a bipartisan problem the republicans and democrat war hawks are in there not even entertaining the idea of peace that could get ukraine a w because what this letter and i don't have it in front of me but this i'm not sure what detail they went into

with it i can't remember that so i'm not going to say right now but the there is there is on the table there is intelligence to suggest that there is a possibility i'm not saying that this definitely is on the table but there is a possibility that ukraine would be allowed to draw the lines back to where it was on february 1st 2022 so the only thing russia would have would potentially would be crimea and so to me like they've had that for nine ten years and we can argue about that too but to me de-escalating the biggest nuclear power in the world getting ukraine a w perhaps also getting them a little extra protection as well to make sure that there's not an incentive for another invasion which i'm down with negotiating that fully understand a need for something like that

to be in there how do you not consider that i don't can what i consider a slap in the face is when i see all these neocons who who might as well be the sperm of george bush out there going never surrender. We're going in. We're sending tanks. We're fucking these people up the asshole in Russia. That's what they're saying. And it's Democrats.

It's everyone from the Hillary Clinton wing of the Democratic Party all the way to someone current like Lindsey Graham in the Republican Party right now. Like we need to look at ideas that could de-escalate the situation without giving Ukraine an L. I'm with you. Don't give them an L. Give them a W. I'm just saying maybe the W isn't that Russia's off the face of the map. Well, I think, again, it's –

I think the way that we're kind of positioning this is as if the United States has kind of this overall kind of deciding factor as to what Ukraine can do. I think the United States has a big role in their acts where, along with a lot of the Western, like the World War II Western alliance has sort of come back and like basically helped you know has funded ukraine war efforts at the end of the day it's like it's really up to ukraine as to how they decide this is going to work out i disagree okay well well tell me why we're here talking because we've given them a lot of yeah i think i think that's true but i don't think i think to a certain extent though like you know at the at the end of the day like you know we, we can talk – the numbers are in the millions, I imagine. Like, you know, military-grade technology is not expensive. But still, it's up to the Ukraine people to decide how they want their government to act. And so to say that, you know, the United States should go to Ukraine and be like, hey, do this. Like, which one to me kind of furthers the idea that I think that you're trying to talk again, which is against, which is that

like the United States, like kind of like grandfathers, like this nation tells you what to do when in reality we're kind of in the opposite sense, grandfathering them to stop fighting. So I think both sides are dangerous when the reality is we should continue to the one support the Ukraine people because they have a right to their own sovereign state and two we should let them decide how they want to handle this war and the best way to end the war is ukraine to get out of its of a country that's not theirs so ukraine's gdp in 2021 was approximately 200200 billion. Yeah, totally. We've given them tens of billions of dollars so far. Okay, yeah. Math is math.

Yeah, it's a lot of money. And yeah, you're right in that there are other Western nations who have given them a lot of aid as well who have a say for sure. But the only thing, unfortunately, I don't like this, but I have to live in reality. The only thing that matters in this world is money. Yeah, it's important and so when you are funding them that much and by the way like let me let me take the the positive side that people don't want to talk about here from our selfish angle like andy bustamante brought this up the cia guy when he was in here and he's like hey from a tactical perspective the united states basically having a client state over there which you know

people hear a CIA agent say that immediately like right so certain things go into their head yeah they're like the tactical element of that of having a country that basically owes you and has to kind of work to your wishes is critical especially in that part of the world so there's a part of me that says like if I'm just putting on my america first hat or whatever like okay all right there's an argument there but i also don't i i have to look at not just for america for the world there's a lot of other countries over there at risk as well it's like i don't want to escalate a nuclear war especially with a dictator who's dying who has doesn't give a fuck yeah right exactly putin that man doesn't really give a fuck about what happens next at least you have to assume that

so you see what i'm saying with like looking at if there is i'm not saying it does exist i don't know i'm not over there i'm sitting in the fucking armchair yeah but i'm saying the fact that they are stopping members of congress from exploring it is worrisome to me. Okay. Yeah. So I think, you know, what the reasons they gave for the letter, I am one. I am not 100 percent on if that is the right reasoning. I am skeptical of it. But I think, like, I still, you know, I still am going to go back to this point that, like, it is wrong for us to go to a country

and tell them to stop protecting their homeland. I think if it were us and someone came and invaded us and people told us to stop fighting for our homeland, we would actually, like, I don't think that is a scenario that would ever be entertained here. Do you think they'd be funding us at that percentage of our GDP?

I think there would be countries that would be. I think there would be countries that would be. One country for the size of this, we have the biggest GDP in the world, 19, 20, whatever. Don't let me pull a number out of my head. I'll check that later. But it is the biggest.

It's whatever the number was actually yeah I think it's not I'm going to check it in a sec but it's 19 trillion I think China was in second place with like 12 and a half trillion I'll pull that up but like no one's going to be no one can own us to the extent that we can I hate that using that word

yeah no I get what you're saying financially yes you know but i i still i still can i think even when you look at the financial relationship yeah you know like 19 trillion yeah we have you know we have the we have the largest gdp which i think even further goes to say that with that much power for us to step into a country and say that, okay, now we've helped you, you know, you've specifically said that you want to, you want to fight for your rights to have your own country.

And then we want to say that, oh no, that, you know, now that we've given you all this money, you have to listen to us. You have to do what we say. That is further creating the grandfather relationship when like this grandfathering and kind of controlling what they're doing. When I think the best thing again is they should be allowed to decide

how they deal with an adversary that came into their country and is killing innocent civilians, killing women, children, bombing hospitals, destroying people's places of worship, people's places of work. And they should have a right to say, you know what? We're going to fight them and we're going to get rid of them. And I don't think that, I think that the Ukraine people have fought very, you know, they fought graciously. They've been strong. We've even had Americans go there and volunteered and fight for them, have been captured by Russian shoulders, have come back and said that they've experienced horrible things, which I think

even further shows to me that we cannot capitulate to russia because this is exactly what putin wants us to do he wants us to say hey you know what america they they don't want to you know they they're tired of this give up so that he can get his land because at the end of the day we mentioned this putin's sick putin's weak he's basically looking for a way out like you know it's a good point in the sense that if there were a way and I don't know that there is because it's a real war going on if there were a way to kind of stalemate this until that motherfucker croaks you know I've always worried that whoever comes behind them is gonna suck they're gonna suck but like are they gonna be as bad yeah hard to say right like I feel like if we could just get to a point where they feel like they have their guy, no one came in and killed their guy and decided it was going to lead for them.

And then like, all right, let's de-escalate this a little bit. That would be good for the world. It's just between now and then, I understand completely what you're saying about land. Land is a thing that in this country we don't have a good enough appreciation for because we've been on an island for so long. And the two countries that border us largely – Yeah, we have good relationships with. For the most part. Exactly.

We have a border problem and arguments with Mexico, but we're not going to war with Mexico. Exactly. Right? So we don't understand what it's like to be invaded. And that is a fair point i just don't know you know there's a lot of over there we don't know this is effectively the point no i i think that's a good point i think it i think it is scary you know i think it's scary that you know you have a country that has in the past been a large nuclear power is now flirting with the idea again

and is publicly saying that they are considering using weapons like that. I think that is very scary for the world. I think that is frightening. But I think at the end of the, like, you know, we go back to it, like the Americans and the Western alliance, you know, helping the Ukraine people fend off russia is the right thing you know that is the right decision when it comes down to it you know setting the if we don't and we set the tendency that if you're a bigger country you can just go

to another country and take it over is a bad and dangerous idea you know our grandfathers went and fought in europe because people because nations shouldn't do things like that you know the record's been set for two wars that you can just show up to another place and take another piece of land in europe and by us supporting ukraine we're making good on our forefathers promise of the past two wars by saying that you know what that type of stuff is not okay and it's you know I you know I've thought about this for a while because you know I was someone I remember growing up and seeing my friends parents I had a friend that his literally parents fought in Iraq on Afghanistan seeing that kind of stuff yeah it sad. It's tough.

You got families in America. You got kids are losing their brothers, their dads, their moms. It's awful. And that Iraq war was such a shit war. Exactly. It's painful. Oh, my God. War is evil.

It's, I think, the worst thing that humans do. And so to kind of feel like that's happening again is overwhelming. And I think it's dark. But, you know, I will still say that the Ukraine people have every single right to defend their land. And, you know, we're by the Americans getting involved in the Western Alliance to get involved. We're making good on our forefathers promise that you cannot just go to another European country and invade it. And that's another great little silo too because it's one I struggle with. Because I study – it's just always been so – I don't know if fascinating is the word more than horrifying to know that a guy like Hitler, that was not that long ago. Like there are people alive

still yeah literally fought against that yeah I think about that a lot it's crazy and how fast it happened and what do we all know of the story in the build-up the the most famous one is British Prime Minister at the time Neville Chamberlain with the appeasement mm-hmm yeah so we use that as an example, and we should, because there, and I could say it was more than him too, there was a level of that from the rest of the world as well, but I also don't like to go total false equivalency. Like, I do believe that you can have very bad,

and you want to try to get rid of that right but very bad is not the same as like the devil himself and so yes i think putin's very bad i think he's a devilish guy and i think russia's a problem i think relative though considering when things like appeasement went into place from a gdp perspective and from a circle of unity perspective, I think, and from an evil perspective even. I will say that. I think Germany and Hitler was a significantly bigger problem. And so what I don't want to get caught in is trying to totally appease like they did because who knows where that goes. Again, a guy after Putin, is that a Hitler character?

Probably not, but knock on wood, let's hope that's not the case. But also, how do you take a reasonable stance to, instead of just trying to two eyes for an eye, fucking walk away and know, all right, we're going to do this different and this different, but the world can take a deep breath for a second. That's where I want to try to live, and I feel like they're making that impossible because people either – you either have the people who immediately were like, this is a lie, like Putin. And there's some people who are like, Putin had every right to invade because of NATO, which I think is bullshit. Or you have people who are like, we need to send every tank, every gun, every whatever, and we need to take them out. And it's like, all right, let's both please chill. Yeah, I definitely agree. Like, I'm not – I don't think – at least I don't think we should be scrambling the fighter jets and sending them over to Kiev today.

Like, that is, I think, think a very very unnecessary escalation i think what we're doing so far um is the best way to kind of you know kind of see what happens and i think you know as the months go by i think you know um the bond administration i think is you know i would argue they've done a pretty good job on this is like you know kind of working with ukraine leaders to see what support they need and you know biden to his they've done a pretty good job on this is like, you know, kind of working with Ukraine leaders to see what support they need. And, you know, Biden, to his credit, in a recent meeting when Zelensky was pressuring for more aid, he, you know, he held to account, said we're helping a lot. And I think, you know, he yelled at him. Yeah. And I think that shows that, you know, like the American foreign policy doctrine is back. and i think the good aspects of it are back and the bad aspects of

it um some of it may still be there but fundamentally the worst acts of it are gone um and you know that for me was a big example i think you know biden showing you know the american people that hey you know what i'm i'm hearing concerns like you know there have been concerns about how much we're spending there like how much money are we giving? And by having that interaction and saying, hey, you know what? Like, we're helping a lot. Like, I'm going to need you to, you know, kind of sit back is I think was a good example of leadership. That was – I kind of laughed out loud because, again, I think Biden is like just an old man reactionary. But I'm laughing because he's supposed to be toeing a certain line allegedly right now.

And I can just see that conversation. Zelensky like, president you have to say by the way what the fuck is up with that guy's voice he's like this little dude and then he's like i will protect ukraine like all right dude like chill out but i could see him on the phone like mr president we need more i don't know why you're not hey listen man shut the fuck up like i that's how i pictured it going and it actually was refreshing because we're sending him i pictured it going and it actually was refreshing because we're sending them billions of fucking dollars and it's like again understand where it's coming from and whatever but you do also have to understand a lot of people in this country you know ukraine's not an issue for them even if you and i know like that's got some serious

geopolitical forces there are people going to the ballot box who are trying to pay their bills. That is a bigger problem. I agree. So when they see tens of billions of dollars going to some fucking foreign country and aid not coming here and being told to suck up the gas prices, they're saying, go fuck yourself. No, I think Congress is tough right now, but I think it's tough to explain. This is, I think, a struggle is that if, you know, we can kind of, we're definitely going to hate this, but I think that if Democrats had, you know, there was more room in the Senate, there are more Senate Democrats, you could actually pass quicker and faster economic

aid. The way that the Senate's, you know, a lot of the aid that Biden spent. The way that I mean that is, you know, at the end, like what we've seen so far from Biden and the Democrats is you saw the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act. You saw the CHIPS Act. You saw the Inflation Reduction Act. I think there is more economic policy and economic aid that would be given to the American people. The reason why it's not happening right now is because Congress is divided. You know, you got the Democrats barely have it barely have the senate i think it's like debatable to say they have the senate i think if there were more seats available if democrats had more seats

they could actually get more things done and they could act more quickly you got to be able to pay for it though too exactly and i think the way that you pay for it is that you raise the capital gains tax that is how you pay for a lot of these policies. And if you're making over $400,000 a year, you shouldn't see your taxes go up as an individual. I think that is how you pay for it. Because at the end of the day, the wealthiest Americans for too long have not been paying their fair share in taxes. And lower class and lower class Americans have been paying their fair share. So it's time for the top 1% of America to actually pay their fair share in taxes. Because if you're the top 1%, you got to count it.

You got so many ways to screw people over and to get around this shit. And you know why? I know that because the former president wouldn't release his tax returns because he was doing it for so long. I don't think Donald Trump knew he was going to become president, to be honest.

I think this opportunity showed up and he was like, oh, like, let's go. And then realized that, oh, wow, now I have to show all the sketchy things I did in the past, like defrauding businesses, ripping people off in taxes, doing all this sketchy stuff is going to come to light. And, you know, kind of back to my point is I think that's how we pay for those things. I think it's really frustrating, not frustrating, but I think a lot of times our media and environment and the conversations we're having are so conditioned to say, oh, we can't afford things. There's no money. We can't do this.

There's like no way to do things. But reality is the money is there. There are so many Americans that do not pay their fair share in taxes. And if they pay their fair share, some of these economic policies and ideas that most of us actually all support could actually happen. And we could actually, you know, like things like universal kindergarten, things like getting every single kid to go to kindergarten so our kids can get good test scores. We have the best and brightest students things like that could happen if we actually made rich you know not i hate to use that word but actually made the top one percent pay their fair share in taxes there's certainly some arguments

to be made there because it has to do you know one thing that has been a bipartisan fuck up is government funding that is true yeah and it's okay and and so it like i look at each administration going back like even just start at bush and go bush obama trump biden and i'd have to check biden's updated numbers because i think they trail i think they trail like a year but either way they all have overfunded shit and it does have downstream effects like the can gets kicked down the all have overfunded shit and it does have downstream effects like the can gets kicked down the road over and over again and they have different ways of combating it and i think there is i think there's something to be said for both with with taxes i think the

ultra conservative standpoint of like lower taxes at all costs like that doesn't work and it doesn't mean that like you like paying taxes. Like, hey, if I can save on my tax bill, I'll save on my fucking tax bill. Exactly. But I recognize you have to be able to actually fund the government to work, as clunky as it may be. It's the best piece of shit on a pile of shit of whoever is going to have the last say in the day-to-day running of the country so i i recognize that i think where people have a legitimate argument wondering about where and how you do that you know isn't just like oh oh so you're gonna do it to the one percent but when you start talking in

in the nitty-gritty of like oh for example raising capital gains taxes capital gains taxes are already high on on short-term gains and long-term gains i believe at the at the top tax rate it's still 20 yeah you're gonna risk you're gonna risk incentivization to long-term invest in this country if you rate i don't know what the number is like i and i'm not sitting here like oh it's 23 right yeah you when you raise that number you are going to risk the incentivization to do that and you are going to risk money going to other places where yeah i mean there's taxes and shit but there's also things that are corruption that can get around that you know what i mean so

i think that is a misconception i think that's a misconception. I think that's a big misconception. I think there's a kind of assumption that the top 1% are the job generators in this country when it is. Yes, that is true to a certain extent. But the thing is, when the top 1% is kind of generating wealth, they don't use that wealth all the time to generate jobs. They save the money. That's why you have these weird stories of like people having multiple accounts in the Caymans, multiple accounts here, multiple accounts there. The money that is saved by the wealthy through taxes is not necessarily going to job growth. It's going back in savings accounts where there are high interest rates or low interest rates so they can continue to save money. So I think that's something that I think is – it's kind of an assumption that if you tax the 1%, you're going to lose jobs in the country.

I don't think that's necessarily going to happen. I think the way that we make jobs in this country is investing in middle-class Americans and investing in small business owners. And those people aren't going to be affected by a raise in capital gains. So that's how we make jobs in this country is investing in the middle class and investing in small businesses so i'm not saying that it would create jobs just to be clear because i i don't disagree with that point i think i think a lot of these guys they they do hide it they don't necessarily trickle it down into the economy you're not wrong about that i'm saying the the incentivization to actually place their money initially into an investment within our marketplace and therefore

move the capital markets and move innovation could and and would decrease at a certain level again i don't know where that is but i think when we start playing with oh let's raise this raise that the the thing i think about is that you only have percentages to work with it only goes up to 100 right so as you do it it gets harder and harder to pull back on something we do see that happen it's not to say like you haven't undone some where tax was wrong or something like that but when we go to raise it i'm like it actually has to do something where it works i do think there are plenty places in the government where we can look and say like oh well we should spend a little less there and that that's a fair

question but i also recognize as inefficient as some of it may be you do have to fund things within the government again because like who's gonna do it don't, to me, in a perfect world, socialism or libertarianism would work. Yeah. And they would work together perfectly. But the issue is that both of those people, the socialist and the libertarian, who are actually, like, hopeful, you know, believe in what they're saying and shit like that, they have great intentions of what they want things to be. But the idea that, you know, and I'm going to generalize here, you have no competition or that you have no government, a little farther than what they both say, but you get the point. In theory, that does not – like in theory, it sounds great. In practice, it doesn't work. so i try to look at like what are ways that you can take the best elements of what they're trying to get at and put that into into a box to make the system the best and what i do at least land

on is that yes it can't be like you let the private markets dictate everything it also shouldn't be that you over regulate everything right this is where i'm really stuck in switzerland with people when i talk politics this this is one place where I'm dead fucking down the middle. And it's like, you know, that always leaves me though in the stalemate of like, all right, well, how the fuck do we improve shit? So then that's a fair criticism of where I'm at. Yeah, no, I think that's a good point. I think there are aspects of the American economy

and I think there are aspects of things that seeing politicians put out that really emulate that. I think I mentioned it before, but I think universal pre-K, universal kindergarten, conceptually that is- Yeah, can you explain that?

So that essentially is the idea that every single kid in this country should go to basic pre-K and basic kindergarten, that there should be basically a government fund set up to fund programs like this so every student can have access

to the educational opportunities. And I think it's a win because studies have shown that the earlier you get kids in school, the better they're going to do and the smarter they're going to be. And I think for us as a country, if we want to continue to be the number one in the world in education, the way that we do that is making sure that our kids are getting started as early as possible. We're getting them in school, one, because we're getting them, you know, we're making sure that they're learning. But two, also, like, you know, getting kids in school is going to reduce crime eventually

because what we're doing is we're starting people in school. We're keeping them off the streets. We're keeping them out in trouble. And getting people in school is early and possible. You know, it's a great policy. And that's something that we saw in the Senate was debated back and forth heavily, but didn't end up coming in. It was going to be included in Biden's kind of inflation reduction act, but got cut because Republicans were a lot of Republicans were saying it was too expensive. Some Democrats, too. But I think that was something that I would have liked to see happen. I know it was an expensive policy, but I think that is something that could have really helped a lot of the American people.

Getting people good education young, I think, is why this country has been great for so long is because we have the best schools. You know, my family's from Nigeria, and I got a lot of friends abroad. And one thing they always say is, like, their parents are like, you got to say is their parents are like, you gotta come to school in America you gotta come to school in America because we have the best schools and I think that is something that if we continue to invest in our education I think it's a great part of our

country and I think it's something we have to really pay attention to we also do have a big disparity though too we have places where schools suck and then we have places where schools are great. And it's tough because school value is tied to property value and property taxes. So you have areas of the country where the property tax and property value is low. So as a result, the education system is poor and the schools are not as strong as they should be.

So I think that's something we fix. I don't have the exact policy solution. It's a tough exact policy solution. I know there's smarter people than us that are trying to figure out the solution to that. But I think that's a really tough one, because even sometimes it's been shown that when you make great schools, it doesn't translate to actually the best retention rate for students and teachers. So that, I think, is an area that I would like to see improvements on. What I do have a problem with, and I wrote about an article about this, and I think, um, in schools that do exist, um, and are teaching, um, I think what we have, I think what Republicans, I hate to get partisan again, but I'm seeing it mostly Republicans do is take issues like that are kind of invented

out of thin air like critical race theory uh things that are not really a problem how's what why is that not a problem well because critical race theory is a is a school of thought that started at law schools in a very select few law schools in the country. It was kind of created as a fake hysteria to actually have people angry about something. Like for example, sixth graders are not being taught critical race theory. One, the main reason is because it just, you can't teach a sixth grader critical race theory. It's a very complex- And grader critical race theory it's a very and what is critical race so critical race theory is the is basically the concept of how basically legal theory is applied to the law and race that is the idea but what we saw in the last year is that republicans have essentially

told schools and they told they basically spun this idea that like oh that kids are being taught critical race theory they're being taught to hate white people. They're being taught all these radical ideas. And that's not the case. And I think that's something I've seen. I wrote an article about it. Americans, I essentially called American students, are not being taught about Reconstruction, which essentially is the Civil War era. And my whole reason for writing post-civil war era uh correction yeah uh and my reason for

writing that was because it frustrated me seeing how a lot of republicans and a lot of people in the country were framing um the conversation about race that's happening in the classroom i think i think it's it so the law that i live by because i didn't invent it and i think it applies to everything, because smart people figured something out a long time ago. Maybe it was a Newton. Somebody smart figured it out. Yeah.

But for every action, there was an equal but opposite reaction, which was a physics law that applies to everything in humanity. And so I need to be very fair and frank. I need to really dig into the critical race theory. I do know some stuff about – a little bit – about the whole – when the New York Times was pushing the 1619 Project and stuff like that. And that seemed a little overboard with things. Let me talk about that. have a very lucky view of this because to be perfectly honest my education about the civil war yeah and the reconstruction era and and heading all into the civil rights movement was fucking

excellent i knew everything about it i had and i had white teachers for that shit too i might add exactly and this was not during as politicized of a time. They weren't thinking about any of this. Yeah. They just taught it. So I do have a great education with that. I know this stuff. So I try to put on my head and think like, all right, well, how much are they teaching these things in school? But the point here is that identity politics is the elite way of dividing us and it makes us look at all the differences we we have with each other and it has drawn down party lines in very opposite directions we see you know the woke mob kind of going against like the farther right and and everything in from that still exists on more divided lines. And so whenever people hear certain terms or certain things, they either bristle up or bristle down. Whatever.

I'm making that up. But you know what I mean. Yeah, no, totally. I get what you're saying. I think – so I think it's like – it's kind of tough to – and I really do believe this i think like when we look at especially um some of the kind of conversations around like education and identity politics i think identity politics exists forever in this country it's been a part of this country forever i mean we literally you could argue we're right about that we fought a war of over you could argue we literally fought a war of over, you could argue we literally fought a war over identity politics. I think who is defined as an American is a central argument of this country forever. That has been since our existence.

Who do you define as an American? Who do we define as citizen? Who should have the right to vote? Who should get education? Where they should get education? These are kind of fundamental American questions. So it doesn't surprise me that we're still fighting about them. What I can hope is that more people can realize that we need to learn kind of the history of the mistakes our country made,

and we should try to rectify them. And just because we're honest about those mistakes and just because we're trying to rectify them doesn't make us bad people. It makes us stronger because that's the American story is, you know, good people making mistakes, realizing that they made those mistakes and correcting them. See, what you just said is a thousand percent dead on and if that's the way if people like you are putting it into practice and expressing it that way and being able to have that conversation then i think we'd win the problem is opera and this is just how i see it opportunists are taking things and expanding way beyond that and so what it does is the people who not to label or generalize because it's not entirely true but the people who are

more likely to be let's say less cultured you know that they they don't have as much awareness other than the things right in front of them yeah they hear these other things and I'll define that in a second and they go oh hell no and so as an example the fact that we have to get into arguments in this country and and like i am i am very much a social liberal i don't give a about about legislating what anyone does there's there's very far things that i'm like okay like if we're talking about you know extreme scenarios where where are getting hurt, okay, we can have that conversation. But to the person who does not think like me, especially when they hear some people, and it is a small subset.

But when they hear some people who they associate with a certain idea, say anything that's like – let's say I'm thinking like someone who's in my 60s and i'm a republican they associate this idea with anyone who's a democrat which is not fair but it is what it is yeah where they hear people say like oh yeah like men can have children too they go oh hell no because it like when they hear stuff like that they then appropriate that with all this other stuff critical race theory teaching about the history in this country of race and and stuff like that because they see it all is coming from the same ideology which i don't think is the case but i'm saying where if if we keep going down and and shutting down things that go so far i mean that's why elon bought twitter and for all we can think of that and we'll see how that turns out and everything it's like he bought it because

there were people getting banned for saying things like that there were people who were getting shut down in their speech where they're saying things that are a common fact and they're being told by the wokest of the woke no that's bullshit that's a that's a that's a societal construct that doesn't exist and they're like what the fuck are you talking about well i think the problem so i think the issue is is that and you know we could talk about it um i think you have there are some people online that regardless of their intentions when they make very hurtful comments um will they make when they make these kind of blanket statements about people in the trans community it actually translates to actual violence

so when you have someone say that oh like i shouldn't you know we shouldn't have men going into the woman's bathroom or we shouldn't or this uh you know there's there's someone that's trans that's transitioned and is winning all these sports races. What the hell is going on? This is crap. I'm so mad. And then you have someone see that and then go somewhere and then beat the crap out of someone that is trans. That's scary.

So that's wrong. And that's wrong. But I think that's what we have to figure out is because when you have people online that have those views they say those things they are inspiring many times whether they want to believe it or not it's inspiring violence that's the problem but that's hold on so that this is this is where it gets stretched because yeah to be clear any violence against any individual period is wrong exactly any violence against any individual that on the basis of their background what they look like or anything like that is even is perhaps even more wrong so i think a lot of the

people who send out a tweet online don't want that and i think unfortunately this is a slippery slope where we drag anything that we could associate with potentially causing violence or therefore that we may disagree with into hate speech and this is exactly the problem because i gotta tell you man leah thomas going into going into swim meets against women when she has not you want to talk about not transitioned like she's not All the way transitioned in any way The fact that people what you are suggesting there could be translated to mean that if someone tweets out that like that's bullshit and I will – I'll put my opinion behind that. That was bullshit that she – as I will call her what she wants to be called.

But the fact that she, who still is a biological male in every way scientifically at that point or in most ways scientifically at that point, the fact that she is in there competing against women that she has a biological advantage over and you may say something against that and that could be viewed as violence and hate speech. Fuck that man. Well, I think my issue with that is like so I think let's I think let's I would like to first unpack the Lee Thomas thing because I think that is we could there's a lot to talk about yeah so all all the time in sports there are already so many inequalities already in sports present you me and you like for example i show up to a basketball game you show up to basketball game you have a private coach teaching you every day i have a private coach i don't have a private coach teaching me every day you win the sports game you win the basketball game does that mean that um would i say that that was an affair no because everyone has different in especially athletics there are different levels of certainly in quality and we already accept that there's already so many in qualities of sports and we accept that the people that win them

Basically, you know they have they won and we accept that to stand out of quality that was they have an equality That was fair also on another level There's like this idea that you know trans people are winning sports and overtaking sports at this level. That's not true They're winning at a normal like added at a regular level that regular people would win at there's not like this level that's not true they're winning at a normal like at a at a regular level that regular people would win at there's not like this idea that like that leah thomas is like destroying swimming and like she's unstoppable like that's not the case she was winning she was winning dude yeah she was winning races and she i, effectively she had been ranked way lower, significantly lower. Like this is my problem.

If we start falling into lines of trying to falsely equivalent things to where we can't even have common sense about it, it's like, you know, where does it end? And that is where, see, you're not to get the understanding ear that I have when you're talking to people on the right side. I get some of the things with how society changes and bullshit, you got to be able to point that out. I think when we are trying to say – and it's stupid because it's a sports event. It's not life and death. These aren't the main things that should be my concern. But when you have a literal male, still biological male, again, calling her she because she wants to be, suddenly competing with the women and body bagging them, that's not fair. You can give me the private coach thing all day.

There are biological advantages. There is a reason that there are no female Navy SEALs. And it is not because people hate women it's because there are literal requirements physically that going that go into being a naval seal and through no fault of women who are better at other things than men are that we don't do they're not that so when you now have a a still biological male competing with women and think about that imagine if that were your daughter and she's been working her entire life to swim and suddenly someone who was a guy and still possesses those male traits and is also towering over all all the girls suddenly comes in and beats them you'd be pissed so i think

since we want and since like so this is i think when we create hypotheticals like this i sometimes feel like we are like the danger with creating these hypotheticals is we're basically creating a world that doesn't really exist because we're going to. But it does exist. There are fathers of girls who are saying that right now. There are fathers of girls are saying that. But at the end of the day, when you actually see what's happening, you have to admit that's just an inequality in sports that is an inherent inequality that you're saying that you know someone that that she was essentially stronger than the other people that she was competing against biologically yes that's an inequality

in sports there's so many inequality in sports there's so many inequalities but but here's the difference i could say there's an in a by logic, I could say there's an inequality because LeBron James is just built like a god compared to other NBA players. Yeah, that's an inequality. Sure, and not to take away – like he works his ass off too, so let's not forget that. he is an unequal among a baseline case of what we know to be true which is across the averages of society a biologically born male in this case has x ability there's some there down here there's some that are up here but we also know that a biologically born female in physical ability has x ability there's some here and there's some here. There's a difference overall between the two and it is not thin. It is significant. So like Brittany Griner, for example, do I think Brittany

Griner could ball with some dudes? Do I think she'd kick my ass in basketball? And she's in the news for another reason right now. But do I think she'd kick my ass? Of course she would. She went 21 to nothing, right? But like if I put her on the court with Boogie Cousins, he's going to body bag her 21 to nothing. She has no – maybe she puts up a couple baskets. She has no prayer because she does not have even as much of a God-level ability as she has as a female. She does not have the same ability, and she is at the highest class of females, and I just put her against the guy who at his peak was a very good player. But if I put her against an average guy who didn't make the NBA who is the same height, he's going to kill her on the basketball court.

So I think when – so when this issue is brought up also, I think it's a little – it is hurtful to me sometimes because it's brought up in the lens of kids i think we can agree that 90 of the time this is talked about this is talked about with children i don't think that's like a controversial statement when we're talking about this issue we're talking about yes of course probably yeah if you're saying below 18 yeah i mean just like leo was above 18 the conversations we're seeing about in this media this is mainly about kids and what's hurtful about that is that trans kids are simply just trying to be kids and play sports with their friends they're not trying to conquer the world they're not trying to like destroy anyone or like destroy a gender norm like they're trying to simply play sports with their

friends and i think it's awful how a lot of people have tried to use these kids as political wedges to essentially put in society this wedge between everyone that like there's a disagreement about what we view on certain on like gender roles i think that is it's tough i think it's and i hate that yeah i hate that the problem is when you make it impossible for them not to do it again you are getting a liberal ear on this this is i'm somebody i'm i'm not a leftist but i am a more liberal guy okay like a moderate liberal i would call and socially i would say i'm very strong liberal right because fiscally i'm more like probably down the middle. Either way. Yeah. You are getting a very good ear on this. And the people who do not have as much of an ear of me not blaming them, just saying that's just the nature of it. Yeah.

When you can't, when you can't admit the most basic shit, the most basic shit, you are the they are going to write you off completely. and it is going to be very hard for me to go in a separate room with them like when i have mike spearing here in a few weeks it's going to be very hard for me to tell him to take you seriously when you can't admit that males do have a biological advantage over females so we're talking about sports in this case but yeah it does then apply to other things as well so what, like, where do people draw the line on stuff? Like, the whole bathroom thing, some of that got very politicized. Sure, there have been a lot of other situations where people then take advantage of it, though, and that does instill some fear.

I think it's very sad when, I don't know if you use this word, but when trans people are used as pawns, though, in these these arguments because that's what's happening they they are and and i don't disagree with that it is happening yeah it does lead it does lead to hatred and it does lead to continued you know situations of violence against them and making their their existence awful and and i don't any good person doesn't want that yeah nobody wants that but we have to have a little bit of common sense with what we allow to happen because there are things that you can't undo. And by the way, and let me just put this on the record, not a scientist, not a doctor.

If I were betting 50 years from now, something like that, people are going to yell at me for saying this, but I don't know if it's going to matter anymore. They're going to have machines. Someone wants to change gender. They'll change their bone density. They'll change everything. It'll be actually real. It won't take long to tell you neutrals ingredients. Vodka, soda, natural flavors. So what should we talk about no sugar added

neutral refreshingly simple but that's not the world we live in right now so when you can't when you can't admit the most basic thing you you're never going to get anywhere on all the basic human rights stuff that you should be getting somewhere with because people won't listen to you. I think what I'm trying to understand and get at is that at the – still, regardless, even if we are like – the main issue is – which is we're talking about sports here because that's kind of how this conversation started. Yeah, there's an example. Yeah, we could, there's a couple of paths we could take. But the main issue is that trans kids want to play sports. Why aren't they allowed to play sports? And it's because people think that they're coming in to essentially ruin the credibility of the sport and basically like just cheat like i say in quotes

like cheat which is obviously not happening because these kids are just simply trying to play sports and i mean you brought up the fact that like if i'm not willing to admit that like their biological differences that like ruins are no different than any other difference that happens in any other sport when people are competing. There are differences, period. Everyone brings a difference. I've said it before, but there's inequalities. And so like... But you can have an unstrong male, someone who would be at a massive...

Which, by the way, to use the Leah Thomas example again, she wasn't good as a guy swimmer. She was fine. She was bottom of the barrel. And then suddenly she's top of the barrel. You see what I'm saying? So someone who's shitty on one end could be LeBron James on the other end.

But then you're acting as if they're changing, they're like, they're transitioning as if to like become superior in the sport when it's like, they're not transitioning to become superior in the sport. There's transitioning because it's who they are. You know, trans kids, there's a 70% suicide rate. There's a 70% suicide rate. And the reason why is because they're not recognized as who they are. And if we can, and when you're allowed to actually allow these kids to transition, you notice the suicide rate goes down completely. You don't have suicide anymore in this, you don't have suicides rate anymore in the trans community. When you allow trans kids to slowly transition at the medically appropriate level that is co-signed by their parents and their doctor. The suicide rate, studies have shown,

you look in a lot of organizations that have done research on this, the suicide rate completely decreases. So that's my thing, is like, as someone, I just want to see people safe. I want to see people healthy. I think that, you know, if we can just, if we can just simply allow trans kids, trans people to exist, to live their life, to kind of do what they are allowed to and what they want to do to be happy, I think our society would be a lot better by just having people that are happy and people that are essentially allowed to transition. There's a lot of research on this. I'm with you. And I just pulled up some. There's so much that I don't want to get it wrong yeah so some of that people are gonna have to look up at home because we're talking live here and i don't like unless i can find it like right away because i am producing

this thing for now yeah when we have a producer that won't be a problem but yeah i my question Yeah. My question is, why do they silence the people who are from that community who don't have those mainstream views? Why do they silence – like what I don't want to do is see those people then used as a weapon by the people who now conveniently prop them up who would hate them otherwise and that's what's happening because you are seeing for example there are trans people who severely regret their transition where and i'm just listening to what these people say as someone who supports the trans community and supports people's right to do what they want to do i'm also going to listen to the people within it who are suggesting ways to better the system. And so when I hear former trans people, especially who had some damage that they did to themselves that is irreversible, talk about how they wish they had been protected from themselves as a child or as a minor, and even adults, by the way, in which case I have to say, well, that doesn't really exist.

You make your own choices as an adult. That just is what it is. But I'm saying like, when we are talking about, you know, changing, having gender reassignment surgery, these are things that as of right now can't be undone. And when we start to say that like, oh no, that's fine. We should encourage that. I think we also need to have the conversation of, well, who is encouraging that? Are doctors, are doctors financially, are they in a financial incentivized position to want to do that so i think it's a tough conversation yeah i know you know um so first i want to say i think uh the situations that you're talking about um i you know're definitely, for the most part, at large on the aggregate. When people reassign, when people fully reassign, it's done at adulthood.

There are many stages to this process, and every single stage requires approval from people's parents and approval from medical experts. And in these situations, I would rather trust the medical parents, excuse me, medical experts and their parents on what is the best thing to do for their child. Of course, you have, like you said, the few situations where people are regretting what they the decisions that were made for them. I think, of course, in every single thing on this earth, you are going to have a small percentage of people that do not like the way things. Why are they silenced? Could you explain what you mean by that? They are not given any attention in the mainstream media.

Their stories are not given any attention in the mainstream media their stories are not shared you have to go look at guys like soft white underbelly and mark later yeah share these stories you have to go find them on twitter when something gets trending because someone is freaking out about the fact that they transition yeah that's wrong i i i don't think that's necessarily the case because you can see people like that go on fox news all the time and fox news has millions of news is all the right but that doesn't do anything because that go on Fox News all the time, and Fox News has millions of news. Fox News is all the right, but that doesn't do anything, because they're right wing, and all the people watching, that's what I mean. They're just going to prop up that person and say,

oh, we're a fan of you for saying this, when in reality, five minutes ago, before they knew that, they'd be saying, fuck that person. It doesn't convince anyone. It's the same thing as Candace Owens putting her BLM thing on a fucking daily caller behind a paywall. The only people who are watching it are people who want to agree with her. How do you get

it? If you're going to have the conversation, if you're going to do this, how do we get, and I'm not mainstream media at all, but I'm saying like, why aren't these conversations occurring regardless of where a channel leans or where a website leans? Why on platforms that

are not right wing, are they not allowing that conversation to happen? That pisses me the fuck off. It does. Well, you know, I, when we look at these, you know, when you look at, I guess you could say left wing platforms that are not allowing these conversations to happen i think the reason why um they're not well the reason the conversations that they are happening are actually talking to people in the trans community that are actually being disenfranchised because i think that's like

kind of a really important conversation right so the people who regret certain things that weren't disenfranchised in the trans community um no i think they're i think they are just so why aren't they getting a voice too that's my i want i want all't disenfranchised in the trans community? No, I think they are disenfranchised in the trans community. So why aren't they getting a voice too? I want all the disenfranchised people to have a voice. Yes, I think – All of them. Yes. But I think what is – not to say more important, but I think what is – should be the focus.

I think – because I think when – for clarification, we're talking about the mainstream media. I assume you're talking about MSNBC, CNN, like Washington Post, New York Times. You know, we're talking about like the – Right. I'm including all the online too. I'm not just talking about TV. So, yes. And, well, also if you look at those places, I think those conversations are happening. I think they're not happening as much as other conversations about the attacks the trans community is facing. But I think those are happening more is because those are widespread and those are more important.

It's because when there's a – when the trans community and people like in trans community are having an event and someone shows up and starts beating people up and starts attacking people, that's a problem. Right, and if someone dies, it's bad. Yeah yeah i think that's serious that's like serious okay so someone regrets a gender transition that occurred because they feel like they were taken advantage of by the medical community yeah and they kill themselves afterwards that's not a tragedy that is definitely a tragedy okay that's my point there's also data to show that that occurs and again you are when you can't when when these things are hidden this is why censorship is such a problem if you just let the conversation happen the facts will win over time it will never win over 100 of people we know how society is it's not perfect but the majority will win when you go and hide again, you don't get a lot of people.

There are. Let me correct that. There are reasonable people out there who can kind of like back up from the noise, which I make it my life calling to do. Who will see this and be like, okay, this, this, that. Okay, understand, whatever. I'm paying attention. You will get a lot of people, though, who refuse to see it and say, I see what they're doing. Fuck that shit.

They're silencing this. That must be the truth anytime there's something silenced they'll say everything there is the truth and you fuel these people you fuel that violence occurring in communities you fuel people getting attacked and i i will agree i think there is and i've said this and we're talking about it before i think like uh especially on on social media, I think there needs to be some sort of content control. I think, you know, you can't be just going on there and saying anything. Define anything. I think, you know, there,

I think hate speech is dangerous, especially on social media platforms. What is hate speech? Well, I think hate speech is anything that can incite violence towards a minority group. It's different. So if I go outside right now and I stand in the street and I just start yelling out slurs,

like yelling them out, it is different from me doing that online. The reason why is because I can grow and incite my dangerous ideology to more people. Me sitting on a street corner and saying those things is different from me going online and saying it because one, people can be inspired to adopt those views by me spreading them online. Two, it can also inspire violence.

There could be someone like what we saw in San Francisco, see a couple, see a radical idea online, then actually go and beat up a nearly 80-year-old man and leave them in the hospital for weeks. That's what can happen if you let violence be spread up online. So I think what I'm trying to get at is- So why do they let, I'm just curious.

Yeah. And we're going to talk more about this because there's tough things that got to be talked about there. Yeah. Where I see it similar, but I see the slippery slope that I'm not sure you do. Why don't they do that on the left side either? See, this is my problem.

A guy like me who on a scale of 0 to 100, if 0 is farthest left and 100 is farthest right, I'm a 40. Talk about this. I'm a clean 40. On an emotional day, I'm a 35. On a fuck everybody day, I'm a 45 i am a clean 40 on an emotional day i'm a 35 on a fuck everybody day i'm a 45 so i am your traditional moderate liberal yeah and yet when i get up here and i am forced to defend the people i don't want to defend three times out of four it is someone on the right side and not the left because the left makes a rule that they apply to the right and they don't apply to themselves it's like when they call for violence so if pelosi's we we gotta see what happened here i obviously it seems to be

a guy who was radicalized or whatever and went in and wanted to talk to nancy and she's attacked that's completely wrong and people should call it out yeah they should also call it out and and treat it with the same vitriol when steve scalise is gunned down by a lefty and they did to an extent but now you have it being used in presidential speeches you have it being treated like the only radical threat to the democracy is the maga right and in reality like did you miss all the antifa riots i still see those people online saying whatever the fuck they want to say where it is not litigated in both ways. When they talk about politicians being careless with their words, we can all see the same clips.

Like, sure, I agree. They are careless with their words with Republicans. 100%. I'll run the same fucking clips of Maxine Waters saying the same shit and there's no blame on her. So then a guy like me has to get up here and point out the hypocrisy and i am sick and fucking tired of it well so i think the big difference between what we saw with some of the um summer riots we saw um for racial justice where things got out of hand where small businesses were burned which was awful because you know a lot of family had their livelihood destroyed

when those riots were happening and i think you, you know, that's awful that people, you know, businesses wereiled up a bunch of people to attack the Capitol in the worst attack we've seen in that building since 1814, since the British people attacked the Capitol. So I don't think we can compare the worst attack on the American Capitol since 1814 to bad riots that happened in multiple cities across the country. Also, mind you, when Brett Kavanaugh was threatened by a rogue person, an awful, disgusting threat that someone made against him, Senator Schumer quickly passed extra security for the Supreme Court justices.

He went to the Senate days after, said, you know what? What happened was wrong. Like, Brett Kavanaugh, you know what? What happened was wrong. Like Breck Havanault, you need extra security. Senate Democrats, without equivocation, passed additional funding. When Nancy Pelosi's husband was brutally assaulted, we did not see any Republicans actually go to the Congress floor and say, you know what? Let's try to get together, do something. Maybe the exact policy solution is there, but by God, I would have loved if Kevin McCarthy stood up and said, let's get something done. But instead, you saw the governor of Virginia, you saw Youngkin go on the campaign trail, stump for people, make jokes about how we

got to send Nancy Pelosi back home. You see Kerry Lake running for governor of Arizona, making jokes about how Nancy Pelosi should get hammered, whatever that means. You have inappropriate things that people are saying. To say that they're the same is just like, it's not the same. I don't think the Democrats that have spoken loosely with their mouth are wrong. I think it's wrong that you have members that were basically playing it very, very close that summer, that were telling people to go out and get aggressive. I think that's wrong. But the difference is that the level and the coordinated effort of violence that we saw is clearly different. They're not the same. And back to

Biden's speech, that's why I support what President Biden, the speech he gave a couple days ago, the speech he gave recently about the threats facing our democracy. Because when you have people saying that an election that was fair, that wasn't, that election that was free and fair is not fair, compared to a couple Democratic politicians saying that in the past, and you know, they're speaking loosely. Like I generally, again, I again will say what it was bad. But when you have people then actually almost trying to reinstate, to reverse the people's will, it's different. It's two different things. So I think Biden is right when we say that these this small percentage, again, the small percentage of Republicans that exist, they're a big threat to democracy.

He's right by saying that because what they did was the worst attack we've seen on our nation since 1814. That's a fact. That was embarrassing. Not only was it embarrassing, hundreds and hundreds of police officers were hurt that day. A cop died. I struggle sometimes when I see people try to equate the two because violence is bad in all forms. And I think that like, you know, the Antifa riots were bad that summer and, you know, what happened to the Capitol was also bad, but they're very, very different. And the reason they're different is because of the way that the inception of the violence is starting. That is the difference.

Because when you look at the riots that started in a lot of these cities, for the most part, what you saw is you saw people that were really angry with the death of George Floyd, which is awful. And, you know, I would have preferred, I think a lot of, I speak for a lot of people, I would have preferred that, you know, the protests happened, they were peaceful, but they got out of hand. I would have preferred if a lot of those folks, you know, instead of doing that, you know, they organized better. You know, they organized. They wanted their communities to organize. They said, how are we gonna stop, you know,

they met the police, they're town, they said, you know, how are we gonna stop bad cops from actually going out and doing these type of things? Because, you know, most police officers are good, you know, most of them are good people. Most of them are just trying to work, take care of their their family and they joined because they want to be good cops and if we had you know those instead of those instances they went and you know they went their community organized said you know i want to have these community meetings i want to do these things want to protest want to do it right i you know i think i would prefer that i think you would prefer that i think a lot of people would have been like you know there's some good ideas here

we prefer that and but instead we saw those dangerous riots. Whether it's a good idea or a bad idea, if it's done in a peaceful way, we will. Well, we can talk about it. I just, you know, they just it isn't the same, you know, ruining democratic norms that have been happening in this country for years and years are different than riots that happened over a summer that's what i'm going to say i think there is certainly there is certainly merit to that argument yeah and if that is if that is difficult for some people to expect to accept based on their political ideologies i will respect that yeah but i i do think that you know is there politicization with all this stuff? Absolutely. But I try to look at the brass tacks of facts and like, yeah. I'll never forget this. I got a text on January 6th that day while this was going down from a regular Coca-Cola conservative military guy, 20-year military guy friend of mine and i don't even like i don't even want this taken out of context if i say because i don't know if i've said it on a podcast before but while they were going in there he said i think this is fine he said the

world i live in the world i come from you the Capitol, you break into the Capitol, you get shot. There weren't a lot of people shot that day, and there could have been. And so I think the people that were there should count their lucky stars that they didn't lose hundreds of people or whatever because when you go to break into the second most important government building in the land with whether what your intentions were unfortunately you lose the right for us to decide that once you do that exactly a lot of shit can go down and so yes is there are there american people who are sick and tired of hearing about this over and over again because they feel like they're painting this well beyond the idiots that were there that day yes was it absolutely a big deal though and is it something that was that was certainly you know an awful event in recent history yes and i

understand where you're coming from with the false equivalency i think there's a little more to it but at the essence where we definitely agree and where what needs to be said is that all forms of violence are wrong. Exactly. They should never be qualified on any type of political level. They should never be like, well, but this, it should just be, that's wrong, let's root that out. Where it gets dangerous outside of the acts is when we start to then draw speech towards it and we've been hinting at this all day so let's go right there with that with that clippenstein thing yeah totally an example i always love to use about free speech before we even get into like where it's applied yeah is that when you look at for example the banning of steve bannon you remember that on the on the social platforms totally that was 100% correct to ban him.

Steve Bannon did not practice free speech. Steve Bannon practiced inciting violence literally. If you read Trump's words and listen to what he said, in a court of law, he would not be convicted for inciting. Was he careless as hell and do I not feel bad for him? Exactly. But in a court of law, you could say that. Steve Bannon, you can't say that. I'm not going to repeat what he said, obviously.

Steve Bannon called for the direct murder of multiple public officials. Think whatever you wanted the people he said based on your political ideology. But that's what he did. He said where it needs to happen, he used his platform to do it. That is not free speech, whether it's on social media or in public that is using your platform in public to incite violence against individuals clear cut yeah kathy griffin was not banned kathy griffin held up a a head of donald trump that was um i obviously can't show that image yeah but she held up his head a decapitated head in an image and nothing happened to her she should

have been banned yeah i think i think she may have been like her account was suspended for a week or so but that's where that those are easy ones and that's where people say oh they're cherry picking again and then they fight for steve bannon to come back on yeah but if we're going to talk about where the line of like violence and hate speech is yeah it's a shitty conversation because if if you are defending free speech something that must be a given out front is that you're not defending people you disagree you agree with not even that you're not defending good people in essence most of the time yes you are for the majority of it you're defending people that it's like you don't agree with and you've heard the quote where it's like i will hate what you say but i will defend your right to say it

yeah on social quote on social media and we'll explain the clippenstein thing in a minute but i want to get you to have your have your say on this first on social media i have learned over time that one thing humanity sucks at is slippery slopes and I have watched it play out to where people who say men are not women we're getting banned from social platforms which some people would call hate speech I would say it's probably them not having great intentions and trying to make a point or whatever but it is a biological fact when people see that and they see people define it as hate speech and ban them

from platforms that seem to be con at one point prior to elon i guess here seem to be controlled under one element and that's where this government story is going to tie in as well you have to understand that that is where people are going to flip out and say this is and we need to make sure that we protect abilities the abilities of all to be able to speak out on what unfortunately has become the public square if you are not on social you are not seen and when we kick these by the way like one other quick point like you look at q anon yeah these people got kicked off anybody with half a brain thinks they're fucking crazy and thinks they're out of their mind and also thinks a bunch of them were there on january 6 and they were yeah now i can't see them now i can't see them now they're wherever the fuck organizing they're on 4chan it's a very you know how many times i've been on 4chan

i think like twice i don't even know how to use it yeah i don't know what happens there right so now they're not right where i can see them yeah and this is where the line of like oh it's hate speech get it off you gotta understand it starts to infringe on amendments and actually hurts the people who are even the people who are arguing to get it off i think i agree um i think it is a very very tough issue um i don't you know i to be honest i don't know how to solve it because – not that I'm supposed to. But like when you think about especially the QAnon example, it's like if you basically say that – kick people off, they're radicalizing somewhere else. to figure out what type of role the government and private corporations that manage these apps are going to have in content moderation. I think we have to see how Elon manages Twitter. I'm someone where I've seen a lot of people leave on the app. I am not going to do that until I see

exactly what's happening and I can properly assess what's going on and properly see just like, okay, like this happened. This is the effect. I do say, I will say I like that he's met with social justice groups and listened to their concerns about what's happening. I think as a leader, you need to listen to people's concerns that are going to use your platform. So I think it's great that he's done that. I think that is a very good step. What I think could be a solution is if there is a sort of board or system that is kind of able to take the cases case by case and sort of look at them.

You have people from different stripes and sort of, you know, make a decision on whether they should be removed or not. I think that is the best way to kind of deal with this because you need to have some type of content moderation. Like we can't have anyone saying truly anything. And I think we can have a, you know, this is another conversation, but you know like free speech in the united states is not exactly absolute i can't go into like you know there's a saying that you can't go into a crowded theater and yell fire why because that leads to but that no but hold on that's not free speech that's not it is on a certain level though no

because they are they are they are inciting they in that, they are committing the crime of then causing intense harm to people who are going to potentially trample themselves to get out of there and kill them. That is not free speech. But if we were to say that anyone can say anything they want, that is an example of them saying something so we could say anything. And I think that's where it's like it's tough you know um i think you know there's many constitutional scholars that argue about the idea of the free speech amendment kind of talking about you know application-wise do the founders know what they were like setting up the country? I think they did because, you know, the country was basically built on this idea of free speech. The way that we conceive the idea of the revolution was Ben Franklin was writing satire newspapers and essentially was having conversations with people.

And they were like, the British are screwing us on taxes. And that's how we rose up and like kind of, you know, built the America that we know today. So the founders knew what they were doing with free speech. I think what we get to now on social media is figuring out how to monitor speech that is essentially can be kind of spread so fast and quickly and kind of just spread around really quickly. It's like, how do we monitor that? I don't know how exactly we do it. I think the government should have a role. I think corporations that manage the site should have a role. But I think what we saw in the Ken Klippenstein reporting with DHS is pretty dangerous, that the government had such a large role and was doing it in the dark. That should concern every single American that that's happening in private.

That really did concern me, and I think that has to change, and it's wrong. You had said a little bit ago, and I'm going to read the first few paragraphs of that story in a minute, just so people know what we're talking about. But you had said in something else, it was a while ago actually, where you were first bringing this up and you talked about the government you think to some extent the government does have to be involved and then just hinted at that in the answer you are right about the fact that i'll say this first you are right about the fact that this is an incredibly difficult situation to be in because

by the way as it still stands right now and this is just people can complain say what they want but yeah it is the law as it still stands you have section 230 where platforms do have the right to do what they want to do because again you've heard jack dorsey talk about it for example with inventing twitter and i think zuckerberg's talked about as well and i believe them when they sat around in a room smoking a bong and fucking came up with this shit they never saw that it was going to be like this right so they got into the situation where now they're expected to be like the arbiters of speech and everything and so it is a very very difficult seat to sit in but it did become the public square if you are not on these platforms

your voice is not heard now where you like that's the problem with drawing the line like you can draw the line on things that are literally inciting to create a crime steve bannon prime example draw the line ban them but where you draw the line on other things that people could try to twist to say like oh that's violence or they'll use the term we've used it today that's hate speech therefore it could be this therefore it could cause this therefore because i don't like it it should be banned and it could be something that's not like again someone might honestly tweet out a man can't have a child and that's's not hate speech. They didn't mean it like that either. They weren't trying to troll. They just said like, well, according to the Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of what a man is, they cannot reproduce a child. against me it is inciting violence against people who I care about and potentially myself depending on who I am therefore it should be banned this is where it goes so far and this is where the story comes in to where government involvement becomes an even bigger issue so just so we have the context

I'm going to read totally these paragraphs right here this is the beginning of the story this was in The Intercept by Ken Klippenstein and Lee Fang on October 31, 2022, and it's called Truth Cops. It says, the Department of Homeland Security is quietly broadening its efforts to curb speech it considers dangerous. An investigation by the Intercept has found years of internal DHS memos, emails, and documents obtained via leaks and an ongoing lawsuit as well as public documents illustrate an expansive effort by the agency to influence tech platforms. Side note real fast. Correct me if I'm wrong here. I think I did just see the ACLU is going to town on this. Yes.

I mean, you know, I said before, like, it's concerning that the government has this much power behind the scenes. Love that. Okay. So a couple more here the work much of which remains unknown to the American public came into clear view earlier this year when DHS announced a new quote unquote disinformation governance board unquote a panel designed to police misinformation, which is false information spread unintentionally disinformation false information spread intentionally and malinformation factual information shared typically out of context with harmful intent that allegedly threatens u.s interests while the board was widely ridiculed immediately scaled back and then shut down within a few months other initiatives underway as dhs pivots to monitoring social media now that its original mandate the war on terror has been wound down behind closed doors and through pressure on private platforms the u.s government has used its power to try to shape

online discourse. According to meeting minutes and other records appended to a lawsuit filed by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmidt, a Republican who is also running for Senate, discussions have ranged from the scale and scope of government intervention and online discourse to the mechanics of streamlining takedown requests for false or intentionally misleading information. So again, people go read this yourself, but the highlight, and there were a lot but i'll take a a main one from the rest of it was that government officials essentially essentially are able to access a portal through their government assigned email that allows them to therefore access it where they can where they can request that x information y information be policed or taken down and while these platforms

are not bound to it there is a strong pressure on them to do it because it's the government who can come after you if you say no to them and there had there were texts that were exchanged between various executives who had previous ties to the government by the way saying things like and i'm paraphrasing the government needs to get more comfortable or or company x needs to get more comfortable with the government and you're starting to get into this war where they can define what is disinformation and misinformation and things like that and it is impossible for me to sit across from certain people who pound the table on this and say oh my god this is 1984 it is impossible for me to look on this and say, oh my god, this is 1984. It is impossible for me to

look at them and say, no, it's not at all. This is how it starts. So yeah, I mean, it is wrong and dangerous that we see, you know, the, you know, we see a government organization like this as doing things like this in the dark. I think it erodes trust between, you know, the governed and the governors. And I use that term not to be like governor of state, but like people that are governing. Because I think one of the most important things in any democracy is trust. You know, when people go to the ballot box and elect people, they trust that these people are going to have their best interests in mind. They trust that they're going to kind of act in a way that is kind of – that's respectful. I think that also is that they're not going to overreach.

And when things like this come out and when journalism is done like this, that brings to light really bad behavior, it's dangerous. And the report talks about it a lot, but this started under the Trump administration. It's been continued under Biden. It started under Bush, man. Oh, obviously. Let's go way back. Patriot Act. Oh, yes. Patriot Act, yes. Let's start under Dick Cheney. Correct me. Yeah, that is true. So it's been around for a while. And, you know,

both parties have, you know, kind of acted as if it's the other one, but it's, you know, they're both involved in this. And's dangerous um because it it erodes trust yes um you know i think you can't have a democracy without trust um it's one of the most important things this country has and if you take away trust you don't have anything um so the fact that this is happening is scary and it's bad um and i think, and I said it before, I think the government has to be involved in some way in this content stuff. We got to figure out the right way to do it.

Yeah, how do you get them involved without it going to this level and past it though? And I think what happens now is when people see this, they now go, we don't want the government involved at all. Which you basically take the opportunity where you could have done this the right way and you now have to if you now are the government you want to get involved in conversation like this you have to undo all of the bad crap that you've done is there an example of the

government regulating speech at any point in human history where it stops with one thing that is agreed upon as wrong and it never goes past that exactly I can't think of an example that's the problem as wrong and it never goes past that exactly i can't think of an example that's the problem exactly i and and i dude and to your credit you're sitting here saying the same thing i am yeah i don't know what the answer is here because you know look ideally people wouldn't say stupid shit and they wouldn't say shit that's wrong yeah but there's a lot of people out there but then it's like so what do we so i i guess it's like you know i guess we're you know talking in the to the person who will find the

solution but i don't know what we do because you know if you allow people to just say anything online you can basically start a lie that an election was stolen and you can convince people to storm a capitol building um and it's that's bad like you know what i mean like that's scary like that that can just happen and we can and we kind of have to be like free speech like we can't do anything do you know where they organized that uh the the january 6th you know they largely organized it i knew that it was uh private group chats correctly if i'm wrong there was that yeah you know where else they did it where was it it? They did it on like Parler. Oh, yes. Why did Parler exist?

Because they were removed, you know, and see this is... Imagine if they had been doing that on Twitter. I think if, well, I think if they had been doing it on Twitter, the, you know... And to an extent, there was some of that that didn't happen, to be fair. Yeah, and I think, you know, if they were

doing it on Twitter, we would have seen what was being planned. I mean, I think – but the thing is, though, we did see what was being planned. I remember I worked in Congress when it was – I didn't see the Capitol building getting raided. I didn't see that. So I remember I worked in Congress when January 6th was happening. I remember that day. The day before –

Where were you? So I was at my – I was working from home that day, thankfully. But the reason why is because the day before, I'm with the Congress. I'm with my boss, and we're talking about plans. And he's like, all right, we're going to have a press conference the morning of to sort of talk about why it's important for Congress to confirm the election results of the American people. We're going to do this bipartisan press conference with Democrats and Republicans from Michigan. We're all going to get together and do this. We're like, great, cool, sounds good.

And I'm like, do you want me to come in? And he goes, don't come in. And I'm like, why? And my boss and him go, a lot of protest chatter. There's going to be a very, very big protest tomorrow. It could be unsafe. Don't come. So I'm like, all right, you know, I'm going to stay at home.

I go home. I start doing my job. I'm like, all right, we got this press conference i've you know i'm press secretary you've done many of these before you kind of know what the deal is you're gonna call the media you're gonna run it i literally remember uh sitting there and essentially um i put my phone on do not disturb because i'm working and i look at my phone i have like 20 missed calls from like my mom from my cousins from all these people i'm like why the hell are these people calling me right and they're like are you in the capital are you

in the capital are you in the capital like no i'm at home and i was like turn on the news right now and i'm like i turn on the news i see like this video of someone smashing windows i then look at the group chat that i have with the people that i work with. And my boss is telling me that he's worried for safety, that he's trapped somewhere. And then I see that a reporter saying that there's multiple people that they think have weapons. There's someone with zip ties running around. Total madness.

And the reason why I say this is because free speech is important and it's the founding of this country, but we gotta figure out how to manage free speech is important and it's the founding of this country but we got to figure out how to manage free speech correctly and allow people to exercise the constitutional right because if we don't there could be another january 6th and i don't think anyone wants that i think we can both agree that would be awful no one who's a good person wants that. Yeah. But if we have no guardrails to this and people are truly allowed to just spread disinformation that an election that was safe and secure was stolen, they're allowed to spread that left and right and hype a bunch of people up that are already frustrated. Again, the open people. that are already frustrated again yeah but people and and i heard your explanation earlier and i

actually think you made phenomenal points there so people can go back and listen to that when you were talking about the democrats talking about elections in the past however people absolutely can run the tape and show the same politicians from the other end yeah saying things that could ramp people up as well and that is not it it's not equal if it were equal i wouldn't be sitting here arguing about it and you know you talk about not being able to get shit like that happening and i talk about well let's put it right where we can see it and maybe you can stop it more you know maybe for example like i know if that had been a black lives matter protest that day there would have been fucking military outside of that Capitol.

It would have been shut down. Right? And so the fact that they didn't have that was a terrible oversight. But – because those cops just got – Destroyed. They got overrun, man. Yeah. But it's like – I've cited the example before of the system working beautifully with this, and it had to be a couple years ago now.

I think it was like maybe summer, late summer 2020, I want to say. Don't quote me on that. There was a video on Twitter going around of – and I laugh at it right away because it's like what a joke but there was a video of like i don't know 10 15 people in the kkk in the middle of a wide open town square in georgia doing yeah their little fucking hooded protest or whatever and they weren't out there with knives stabbing people but it's a fucking there's a kkk rally going yeah right and the internet did its job yeah the video was subtweeted by all these people, and were there some people who were mad and freaking out?

Sure, you're going to have different reactions. Yeah. But by and large, the common response was dismissive laughing at these people. And like in the public square, these people were getting laughed at, demeaned, and body bagged just like they should with the system working going look at how stupid these people are what an idiot yeah if there's one thing people hate it's when in in the biggest of areas not their echo chamber they're being laughed at yeah they fucking hate it exactly sometimes with things like that it can actually have the effect of like

what the am i doing here why am i getting laughed at yeah and i i i remember thinking that because was getting weird at the time and i'm like man i hope we still have something like this i want to see this evil right here on the twitter feed it's great because the internet is free speech is doing its job right now yeah it's beating bad speech that's you know that's where it's like if if you know over time it always goes the wrong way where it gets policed and then you know a government overall forget political parties the government that's in power we know these parties are in fucking business with each other i know you're not allowed to say it but i will right like they get to do what they want to do over time and just convince everyone to hate

each other and stick to the script that they want we know it never ends at like the top line so that's why i'm like i don't know how to solve this there does there should be a way to be able to play with like for example those bot attacks that happened when elon took over where a bunch of people were tweeting the n-word and it was just computer accounts there should be a way where that can get filtered. No one wants to see that in their fucking feed. But like, you know, how do you do it where the ideas, at least good and bad, are exchanged? I don't know.

Yeah. I don't know. No, I, yeah, it's really tough. And, you know, kind of the story you brought up is interesting to me because now it's like that was not what happened, you know, on January 6th. Like that's not what happened on January 6th. That's not what happened in Charleston. You know, you had instances like that where there were good people that, of course, called it out. But there were a lot of people that were you know there and were kind of you know cheering people on cheering the wrong people on so again i say this um if we don't

figure out how to have guard rails on these things um i worry that our democracy is going to be hurt and i think there's this thing with a lot of americans where we think that democracy is going to be hurt and i think there's this thing with a lot of americans where we think that democracy is just guaranteed it's like i was born with it we've had it here it's been around for years and years so it can't disappear but it can disappear like you know what i mean like you can like one day live in a place where you know you have a right to vote and it can go and this is what I think people should kind of understand. When you look at history, there's never just one coup attempt. There are multiple coup attempts. When someone wants to remove a government,

when someone wants to flip a government and stop a democratic transition, there are multiple attempts. You just don't have one attempt and they just go, oh, we didn't it didn't work out. We're going to go home and like shit. It's multiple. You try again. You try again. You try again. So that's why I'm concerned when right now, next week, people are going to go and vote. And there are people on the ballot that are supporting the election fraud theory.

They're supporting the dangerous thing that the election was rigged. And they're going to be in local election spots. They're going to be in local canvasser boards. They're going to be in local places. And if an election happens and the results don't go in their favor and they have to make a decision on whether to reject or confirm results, and Trump calls them up because he's done it before and says, I need you to find those votes. What are they going to do? Are they going to do the right thing? Are they going to do the wrong thing? I don't know. And that's why I always stress, and I think your listeners should know, American people should know that democracy isn't guaranteed. And when Biden goes out and gives a speech like that and says, we got to be worried and we got to be concerned about the state of our democracy i think he's right maybe he's not the most articulate guy and he doesn't have the he

doesn't have you know the he's not kennedy he's not roosevelt he's not he's not obama and he's not using soaring rhetoric and he's not like you know commanding words like lincoln but here's the thing history is going to put jo put Joe Biden on the right side of things because that speech that he gave a couple of days ago is correct. When you have people eroding democratic norms, like from the top, from the top and from the bottom, it's very, very bad. It's a tough one, man. Yeah. Because nothing you say about what's about things that are wrong is wrong i i agree that you know rhetoric matters yeah and and it gets into that that fine line though of of the free speech where then you mix in being a candidate for office and it's weird i'm with you i i don't know what to

think because you i i love the point you make about there's never just one coup attempt because over time and i you heard me say it a few minutes ago these parties are in business together you know You know, when 9-11 happened, George Bush and Dick Cheney were in office. Yeah. They took advantage of that in every possible way. So much so that you have people online who actually believe that planes didn't fly into towers because they took advantage of it so badly. And to this day i i call that the worst administration in the history of this country yeah they used to consolidate power i and i do not share your opinion on biden i'm sure we share a lot of opinions on trump yeah but i you

know talk to me in 10 20 years and you see what happens but it's going to be it's going to be hard for me to not take trump biden eight years over george over bush cheney eight years of course it's going to be very hard there's going to be a big bar for that because of all the damage that they did but i use them as the example because in this case it wasn't it wasn't an attack that involved – it wasn't something where the crisis, the next crisis was created out of a political battle. It was created out of a terrorist attack, but I'm going to make the equivalency here. When you have a moral high ground to try to do something in the same way that – and I will take offense to this – that like Kamala Harris was saying january 6 was the same thing as 9 11. that's i i will call that out every that i will call that out every time because you had the worst terrorist attack on u.s soil ever almost 3 000 people died this biggest city in the world

blew up that is not the same however the rhetoric they are trying to use to do that could lead people to wonder if they are going to use to their advantage events like that, which are wrong. 9-11 was obviously wrong as well. And to use that to consolidate things to have their own pullet power. We saw Bush and Cheney do that through a litany of fucking things. You said it earlier, so I'll use the best example of all the patriot act and operation stellar wind that came after it and you saw every party after follow that precedent regardless of party they've all done it so what i don't want to see is the same

thing happened here where they're like back then they're like we need to go hunt and find the terrorists right yeah you're gonna you're gonna sign this here law yeah what i don't want to see is we need to save democracy here so you're gonna you're gonna support this and we're gonna do everything right and by the way we're gonna police speech don't worry about it i don't want to see that yeah no i think that's i think that is very fair i think we all as americans should be concerned when any time federal government power is consolidated like that, when power is quickly grabbed in a crisis moment and used to do anything. I think it's very dangerous. I will say, though, and I go back to this, I get worried when we have an election and you have people that don't believe in those

that think the last one was rigged they're going to be those local seats and if trump calls one of them up and says change the results it's very hard for i i don't know what we i can't speculate on the future but it's like you know what what is what do you do if you're, you know, you're an election canvasser, you just got elected, you believe the election last election was rigged, because you've been kind of caught up in some things online that you shouldn't have been caught up in. And then Trump calls you up and says, change the result. Do you change it? Like, the chance you do. And that's a problem. And that's a problem. And how do you solve that if you're Joe Biden without looking like someone that's controlling things? I don't know.

It's tough. It's tough. And on that note, I hope they put his ass back on Twitter because I don't know if you've seen the type of rhetoric he's been putting on that true social. I have. I don't see a lot of that. I'm on true social. I see it. I'm not on there.

I see screenshots sometimes on Twitter. Yeah. But I've said this for a long time, and I will keep saying it. Let the man talk, and he'll sink himself. Put it where people can see it. The longer you keep him in the shadows like that, the more that people are going to wistfully think that he wasn't that bad, and they will vote for him, and he will be back in there. So if you don't want to see that,

hopefully Elon puts his ass back on Twitter, and those fingers start fucking typing. Mm-hmm. We'll have to see. We will have to see, man. But listen, dude. This was, I really appreciate you doing this. No problem.

This was a great conversation. There were a lot of, there's a lot in this one don't look at the comment section i always tell people that hey you know what at the end of the day all i can say is folks we got an election next week get out and vote get registered go out and vote we live in a democracy use it it's there for a reason agreed agreed this is gonna be coming out i think on election day i'm gonna put it out in the morning. So, you know, we're recording this, what, like three, four days ahead of time. It's everything we talked about is incredibly relevant. And I really appreciate, you know, in addition to showing places where it's like, yes, you have this belief because you're from one side as opposed to the other. But you there's a lot of things today that that you talked about from the realm of I don't necessarily have the answer for it. And I think I try to hold myself to do that as well because I really fucking don't. So please take that as I don't have the answers on this stuff.

But, you know, I think there are a lot of people out there who pretend that they understand exactly how things need to be legislated or on everything. And, you know, that doesn't really start the conversations. It starts with trying to say like, all right, this one's difficult. Let's figure out what the nuances are here and try to come to the best solution possible. So I hope you stay that way. I hope you do too, man. It's a great forum. Hey, I appreciate you doing it. This was fun. Great. Sounds good. All right. Everybody else, you know what it is. Give it a thought. Get back to me. Peace.