No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Fox hosts' damning texts exposed in bombshell defamation case

Episode Date: February 19, 2023

Fox News hosts’ internal communications are exposed in the Dominion lawsuit showing that they knew the conspiracies they were spewing surrounding the 2020 election were bogus. Brian interviews Adam Frisch about his run against Lauren Boebert and how he plans on turning what was the closest race in 2022 into a win in 2024. And the host of the How We Win podcast, Steve Pierson, joins to discuss his run for California State Assembly District 44, how being a progressive podcast host will inform what he’d do in office, and whether listener feedback played a role in his decision to run. Support Adam Frisch: https://adamforcolorado.com/Support Steve Pierson: https://www.piersonforca.com/Shop merch: https://briantylercohen.com/shopYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/briantylercohenTwitter: https://twitter.com/briantylercohenFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/briantylercohenInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/briantylercohenPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/briantylercohenNewsletter: https://www.briantylercohen.com/sign-upWritten by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we're going to talk about Fox News's internal communications getting exposed in the Dominion lawsuit showing that they knew the conspiracies they were spewing surrounding the 2020 election were bogus. I interview Adam Frisch about his race against Lauren Bobert and how he plans on turning what was the closest race in 2022 into a win in 2024. And I'm joined by the host of the How We Win podcast, Steve Pearson, about his run for California State Assembly District 44, how being a progressive podcast host will inform what he'd do in office and whether a listener feedback played a role in his decision to run.

I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. So the big story this week, and a big story moving forward, is Dominion's lawsuit against Fox News. Dominion is suing Fox for $1.6 billion after Fox defame the voting system company by falsely claiming that it was switching votes from Trump to Biden as part of some coordinated effort to steal the 2020 election. Another company, Smartmatic, is also suing Fox for $2.7 billion, and that lawsuit seems to be moving forward as well. well. But for now I want to focus on Dominion, specifically because as part of discovery and testimony, we now have insight into what a bunch of Fox hosts and top executives were saying behind the scenes. So according to the filing from the lawsuit, quote, from the top down, Fox knew the Dominion stuff was total BS, yet despite knowing the truth, or at a bare minimum,

recklessly disregarding that truth, Fox spread and endorsed these outlandish voter fraud claims about Dominion, even as it internally recognized the lies as crazy, absurd, and shockingly reckless. So this all started when Fox News correctly called Arizona for Joe Biden. That sent Donald Trump into a tailspin, and so Fox's competitors, like Newsmax, like OAN, capitalized on that and peppered the airwaves with what conservative audiences wanted to hear, which was that Arizona didn't go for Biden and that the election was rife with fraud and that Dominion and Smartmatic were flipping votes from Trump to Biden.

basically any conspiratorial bullshit to explain away Trump's loss. And so because Fox was horrified of losing market share to these competitors, they had to tack right and spew the same conspiratorial bullshit that they knew, like operative word, knew, was false. And so Fox became this waystation for these crazy actors like Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell and Mike Lindell to come on air and pepper the airwaves with stuff like this. Not only did they use a Venezuelan company to count our ballots, which almost should be illegal per se.

Number two, they didn't allow Republicans in key places to observe the mail vote. That makes the mail vote completely invalid. Now, they didn't do it everywhere. They did it in big cities where they have corrupt machines that will protect them, meaning in Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh, in Detroit. They didn't have to do it in Chicago, in New York, or Boston. They could have. They have corrupt machines there.

They did it absolutely in Phoenix, Arizona. They did it absolutely in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Republicans would shut out. We've got evidence of corruption all across the country in countless districts. The machine ran an algorithm that shaved votes from Trump and awarded them to Biden. They used the machines to trash large batches of votes that should have been awarded to President Trump. And they used a machine to inject and add massive quantities of votes for Mr. Biden. With this particular thing that's going on now, I've been all in trying to find the machine fraud.

And we've found it. We have all the evidence. So all these outlets that have been calling me from the Washington Post, New York Times, every outlet in the country, they go, Michael and Bill, there's no evidence, and he's making fraudulent statements. No, I have the evidence. I dare people to put it on. I dare Dominion to sue me because then it would get out faster. And yet, while these people were going on Fox's Air, thanks to this long,

we now know what Fox's own host and executives were saying. Tucker Carlson had texted Laura Ingram at one point and said, Sidney Powell is lying by the way, I caught her, it's insane. To which Ingram responded, Sydney is a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy. And then Tucker responded to that. Our viewers are good people and they believe it. Meaning that he knew that the viewers believed the same stuff that he was currently condemning is bullshit. And yet still they put it on air. Gary Schreier, who is the senior vice president in programming for Fox business, said that Mike Lindell was on the crazy train with no breaks. Laura Ingram said that Rudy was, quote, such an idiot.

Hannity said that he's acting like an insane person, referred to him as an effing lunatic. A Lou Dobbs producer called him so full of shit. Then there was one of Laura Ingram's producers who said, This Dominion shit is going to give me a fucking aneurysm. As many times as I've told Laura it's BS, she sees shit posters and Trump tweeting about it. Even Fox Chairman Rupert Murdoch called Trump's voter fraud claims, quote, really crazy stuff and damaging. CEO Suzanne Scott said terrible stuff damaging everybody, I fear.

She also said, quote, the audience feels like we crapped on them and we have damaged their trust and belief in us. We can fix this, but we cannot smirk at our viewers any longer. So if you were wondering whether these people knew what they were doing, you don't have to guess because they're quite literally admitting it here over and over and over. We know how they felt because they spoke about it openly. And yet, at no point, never did they admit as much on air. In its court filing, Dominion said that not a single Fox Witnesses,

had testified that they believed any of the allegations about Dominion. And yet, did that stop them from trotting out Giuliani and Powell and Lindell who were making these allegations in the first place? Clearly not. Now, in their filing, repeatedly Fox tried to hide behind this claim of newsworthiness. They released a statement saying, quote, there is nothing more newsworthy than covering the president of the United States and his lawyers making allegations of voter fraud. But two things here.

First, they were a principal player in making the allegations. So it's ridiculous for them to claim that they're just following a newsworthy top. when part of the reason that it's newsworthy is because these Looney Tunes kept putting it on air. It's just blatant, circular logic here. And second, they didn't just cover the president making allegations of voter fraud. They perpetuated it. Fox wasn't some neutral arbiter here. They were a character in this.

And in fact, when a Fox reporter did try to fact check one of Trump's baseless tweets about this stuff, she was attacked. Reporter Jackie Heinrich tweeted that there was no evidence of voter fraud from Dominion. And in response, text messages show that Fox hosts and executives lobbied to get her fired. Tucker Carlson texted Hannity, please get her fired. Seriously, what the fuck? I'm actually shocked. It needs to stop immediately like tonight. Carlson said that he, quote, just went crazy on Executive Vice President Mead Cooper over it. Hannity said he'd already mentioned it to CEO Suzanne Scott. Scott then told Fox President Jay Wallace and the Senior Vice President for Corporate Communications

that Heinrich, quote, has serious nerve doing this. And if this gets picked up, viewers are going to be further disgusted. So when Fox tries to issue this defense, that they were simply showing the news, that they can't be penalized for doing so, just know that that is not at all what they were doing. They weren't just showing the news. They were shaping the news by virtue of showing one specific narrative and then punishing reporters who dared show a different narrative, one that happened to be the reality here. So in this case, the burden is on Dominion to prove actual malice, which means that Dominion has to show that Fox acted either with knowledge that what it was broadcasting to the public was false or that it acted with reckless disregard of the

truth. Normally, defamation is a super high bar to clear, and I'm not a lawyer, but it looks like they've already done it. Fox knew that it was broadcasting bullshit, because all of these people, from hosts to the literal chairman of the network, are all on record acknowledging as much. Rudy and Powell and all this crazy cast of rotating characters had carte blanche to appear on that network, and they did. They served this, quote, deeply damaging disinformation on a daily basis, all because Fox was so afraid of losing market share to Newsmax. So they would rather knowingly serve up straight lies to their viewers than risk having their market share go down, like just abject, outright contempt for the people that they claim to serve.

So look, I know that I'm not going to be able to break through to any Fox News viewers. They're not listening to the show. They're not watching anything that's not Fox. But if you have a friend or family member who is down that rabbit hole, show them this. Or if they won't, listen to this. Show them the court filings. Show them the quotes by Hannity and Tucker and Ingram, all conceding how full of shit their guests were,

who they themselves trotted out regardless. Show them the quotes from Rupert Murdoch himself. The fact is that Fox may pretend that it hates the left, but to be perfectly honest, there is no one that Fox has more contempt for than its own viewers. Next step is my interview with Adam Frisch. Okay, now we have Lauren Bobert's opponent in Colorado's third congressional district,

Adam Frisch, thanks so much for coming back on. Ooh, Brian, glad to be back with you, that's for sure. You came within just over 500 votes of Lauren Bobert in this past 2022 cycle. It was, if I'm not mistaken, the closest race in 2022. What are you going to do differently from 2022 to 2024? Yeah, no, thanks, Brian. Great to be back. Yeah, no, 538 thought we were going to lose by 45,000 votes.

And we lost, we came up short by 546 closest race in the country. We're the only one that has a chance to defeat a true extremist in Congress, so that's what we're working on. You know, with due respect, because we did so well, you know, we can improve a little bit here or there around the edges, but I think we prove to the world that we can execute a good plan. And so we're going to continue to focus on that people want the circus to stop. I want to join the bipartisan problem service caucus.

People are really excited to see that anger-tainment industry go away, that her Marjorie Taylor Green represent so great. And, you know, people, especially in Western Colorado, they just want to be left alone and they're exhausted by the national political yelling and screaming. The only arguing I want to see in D.C. are people arguing over the successes of bills that get passed and who gets credit for that versus arguing over who's to blame. And so what we have now is the gift of time. You know, last time I announced in mid-February of the election year, had to get over a primary, respectful, but tough. And basically I had from July to the start of November to introduce myself to a lot of

people against a true brand name person, if you will. And now one of the reasons we want to get in this early in the game is we can just do that much better getting out in the field and meeting those people that we need to vote for us. Our district, half the size of Colorado, bigger than the state of Mississippi, bigger than 20 states, we'll just be driving around and having a chance to meet a lot of people. The district's only 25% Democratic, and we got 49.98% of the voter or something like that. And so, again, we've earned the trust of a lot of independence and a lot of Republicans, and we're just going to hammer the road and making sure that we hold her feet to the fire about the bills that are important to the voters of CD3 and not allow her to get away with just kind of all the shenanigans

that she's up to all the time. Now, obviously, you're going to get out there and you'll retool and figure out what ways you can tweak to make sure that you have a better chance in 2024. Yeah. But then again, so will she. So what do you anticipate her doing now that it's clear that this seat is vulnerable? Yeah, no. I mean, we did not want to take people by surprise, but we took people by surprise. I try to let, you know, the people in D.C. and the donor base in the media that we actually were going to have a close race. And we got a lot of phone calls that election week, basically apologizing. And no grudges hold. I appreciate when you look at an R9 to R14 district, you don't see there's a hope. But, you know, we worked her butt off and we connected

with people. You know, I'm not sure about you and your viewers, but I'm pretty much the same person I've been for a really long time. And we're making a bet that Lauren Bobart's going to remain the same person that she's been for a really long time. And you've seen some, I would say some professional press releases for the first time ever come out of her campaign since we started to announce over the past couple days. And so I do believe her team is going to try to take the job more seriously and they're going to try to have her take the job more seriously. But, you know, I think we all know who we are and who Lauren Bobart is is one of the reasons that she had one of the worst performing results out of the 435 people running for Congress last

cycle. With that said, you know, she did win that race by the skin of her teeth. And one of her first acts was to release a video in response to the $1.7 billion omnibus bill to fund the government. basically she equated that bill with efforts to sexualize children so with that said you know does it seem like she was successful at coming across as having moderated her positions it's not just what i believe i spent the last the last five or six weeks and why i decided to get in the race earlier than normal was because i heard from a lot of people that voted for her cattlemen ranchers people in the oil and the gas industry and they thought that it would be a little bit of humility when you had the worst performing race in the entire country.

Yeah. And she's, she's doubled down. Within a day or two of winning, she talked about leaving with grace on a video that she made. And then, you know, it doesn't take very much longer where she's yelling and screaming at this oversight committee at the Twitter executives about why she didn't have as many followers as she deserves in a very disruptive way. So again, the people out here in CD3 think the job.

she's just doubled down. And those are people that voted for her again and just are shaking her head that she's just not focused on the job. It's that anger tainment industry that she loves to partake in, which might be good for her fundraising, but it's not good for the district. And a lot of people are seeing through that more and more. You know, you mentioned before that your district is composed of about 25% of Democrats. So obviously, a big key to any victory in this district is going to be getting support from Republicans, even if you yourself are not a Republican. Have you heard from Republicans in particular in that congressional district who have encouraged you to run?

Yeah, no. I mean, again, the last five or six weeks, I was at a cattleman's association meeting of Colorado. I was at a rule voices of Colorado made up of about 56 of the 64 counties in Colorado that are rule focused. And a lot of people came up to me and said, hey, listen, Adam, either they voted for me and they kind of kept it under their breath or they didn't vote for me, but they liked me. And they thought that if she had a close race, at least she would kind of reset. And, uh, Representative Bobart has not reset in the eyes of a single person I've talked to. And again, the majority of the time I've spent the last five or six weeks, I've kind of just been listening to those Republicans, conservative and moderates.

They just want the circus to stop. And they just don't see her as a serious person. And before you get into policies, it's important to get into how you treat people in the character and character matters. With that said, you know, a big part of this is going to be what somebody does once they're actually in office. you know, the circus aside. So what will you do differently from her if you're elected to serve that seat? Like, what are your priorities once in office? Yeah, no, I don't take the job seriously. You know, water is number one issue in Western and Southern Colorado. And then you have ranching and ag and domestic energy production. And those are the four buckets that I'd want to spend

time on. And I give her credit for actually getting involved in the Natural Resources Committee, Although, instead of getting on the Agriculture Committee, which is in the midst of a once every six-year farm bill, which is very important to a lot of people in CD3, she decided to join this oversight committee, which has kind of turned into the Ghost and Goblin Committee of chasing theories. And even though she's on this other committee that is good for the district, all of her fame and fortune and her interest and where her heart really is, is kind of chasing that. So I always want to get on, you know, these quote-unquote boring committees that are about agriculture and ranching. and farming and just diving in and doing the work and making sure that the ranchers and farmers and recreation and the conservationists have the water in the western slope as well as in southern Colorado. And it's the less sexy committees that are important to our district that she does not want to spend time on. The other bucket is I want to I'm going to fight for every dollar that I can

come back to CD3 because the men and the women and the businesses pay a lot of money in taxes to Washington, D.C. And Bobart has made it very clear that she does not want to bring that money back home. I'm not exactly sure why, because it is the residence of CD3 that she's supposed to represent in theory. And if that money's not coming back here, it's going to Denver, it's going to Detroit, it's going to the rural aspects of Florida or the rule aspects of California. And I would love to see that money come back here so it can get invested into broadband, more infrastructure, rural health care, mental health is really, really troubling in western and southern Colorado. And I want to have those funds show up here with local control.

The at-large district in Alaska had been long represented by Don Young, who was a Republican. Mary Peltola won that seat recently running a race on local issues, on fish, basically, was her number one issue. Do you think that there's an acknowledgement by even constituents who are longtime Republicans that if you have one party who's interested in governing and you have another party who thinks that government is the problem and that there's nothing that could benefit constituents just from government itself, do you think that they're real? realizing that that approach where, you know, the the burn-it-all-down approach is not actually helping them when you compare it to, you know, a party that actually views the whole process as a way to help their constituents? Yeah. You know, I think for the vast majority of people, Brian, not people that are on Twitter nine hours a day, but the vast majority of people aren't looking at team red and team blue. They're trying to figure out who's going to focus on making their life a little bit easier. And that is trying to fight inflation, making sure that there's a safe community, safe.

schools. Schools are well funded, that there's good stable jobs, that people are treated with respect. And those that either temporarily or longer term need a little help because they can't do themselves, the government is there to provide some type of basic safety net for them. And it's just kind of neighbor to neighbor stuff, which is, you know, treat your neighbor as you want to be treated. It's the golden rule. And a little bit more of just that common sense is what I think Mary did a really good job focusing on. Marie Perez in Washington did a really good job of focusing on that. And we in CD3 did a really good job focusing on that as well. And that's the story and the methodology that we want to continue to bring from now and through the November of 24

when Lauren Bolger has to start packing upper office. How does your pitch differ, depending on who you're talking to, whether you're talking to, I assume those who are Democrats in a place like Aspen versus, you know, more conservative voters and more rural parts of the district? No, it's an interesting question, Brian. I spend a lot of time talking about this. There's a lot of of hard things about running for federal office, especially in a district that is half the state of Colorado, especially against running against such an extremist like Representative Bobart. The easy thing for me, by far and away, is what I believe is a dad and a husband and a small business owner way before I thought about getting into national politics is exactly what I

shared with the Democratic primary voters, which are pretty darn liberal, a lot more liberal than I am, and is exactly the same story in issues and focuses. I told to a general voter base that had 25% D and 31% R and 43% unaffiliated. And I think people saw, even though they might not agree with every issue I talked about, there was this conversation about authenticity and sincerity. And I think a lot of voters up in Alaska, whether they're D's or ours, saw Mary Potola as a sincere and authentic person. And I think with humility, a lot of people that normally don't vote for a Democrat saw me as authentic and sincere. And when they see what the alternative is, those are not the two words come to mind. Yeah, I think that's perfectly put. Adam, how can we help your campaign?

Well, thanks, Brian. I mean, my website's right down there, Adamforcolado.com. We obviously always need support. I don't say this with pride, but it's going to be an expensive race. You know, $5, $10, $3,300. It's literally all great. Adam for Colorado is on Twitter. Please follow us, send in money. And then just let people know if you have friends and neighbors that live in Western, Southern Colorado to reach out. We try to get back to everybody, info at Adamfor Colorado.com or even Adam for Adam for Colorado.com, and we just want to connect with people. But the moral support is great. I wish there were more opportunities to see some of these Marjorie Taylor Greens and Jim Jordans defeated. But at the end of the day, Brian, we are, and I don't, you know, we are the only candidate running against the only extremists that has a chance of losing.

So for those that live in district, by all means, support your local congressperson. even if it's an uphill battle, but to those people that are kind of spreading their support and interest nationally, please look into us and you'll see that we actually have a really good track record of being able to deliver with those monies that come in. And we thank everyone for your time and interest. And just supporting us and following us is a big help as well. Awesome. And Adam, this will not be the last time that I have you on here.

But for now, thank you so much. And good luck as you continue out this campaign for the next year and a half here. That's great, Brian. Have a great day and best of the viewers. Okay, now we've got the host of the How We Win podcast and now candidate for California State Assembly District 44. Steve Pearson, thanks so much for joining. Thank you, BTC.

It's so good to be here and see your face. You too, and I should mention, for anybody listening, that Steve helped me get my start. So, you know, this is, we're all coming full circle here. My first foray into interviewing was with the help of Steve, so I appreciate that. That's super generous, overstating any contribution. any contribution I made to the great platform that you built. And I don't even know if you want to tell your listeners who that first interview was with, too.

Well, now I have to. It was the mooch. It was Anthony Scaramucci. And that interview never aired. I mean, it was my first foray into interviewing. So I don't know if that would have been the best listening experience for everybody. But in any case, it got me into the door.

So it was a very interesting experience having the mooch in the room. I wasn't crazy about it, to be honest. Yeah. Yeah. I think I think that was clear. I don't have a poker face at all. So let's jump in here. You are one of the first people in this progressive media space to kind of parlay that into a run for office. Did listener feedback play a role in your decision to run? Or was the same interest in politics that led you to start a podcast has now led you to run for office? Yeah, that's a really great question. I guess a little bit of both. I mean, I'm sure you get it all the time. People asking you, when are you going to run for office? And, you know, I'll ask you that question next. But, you know, I've been looking since Trump was elected. I consider myself class of 2016, right? And I started organizing with swing left here in Southern California and built swing left here and built the blue wave with a bunch of great grassroots organizers. And ever since then, I've just been looking at where I can make the biggest impact and where I can be the most helpful and help people's lives.

And I got into podcasting because I wanted to let people know that they have power, they have agency to make change if they just step outside of their comfort zone a little bit and take action. And it's been a wonderful organizing tool and I've had a lot of reach and a lot of great partnerships with people like you. but when this opportunity to serve my own community at this level came up, it was just too compelling to turn my back on. I've been telling people on the show and other places how important it is to get involved in your own community and even run for office. So I've got to walk the way I talk and step up when the chance presents itself. So that's why I'm running. It's really just just an awesome, awesome opportunity to make a real impact on people's lives. And that's what I'm in for. And what's the deal with your district? Who's representing it now and why, you know,

how does that factor into you running? Well, it's a very well-publicized domino effect that starts with Adam Schiff running for Senate. And that opens up his congressional seat. And my great assembly member, Laura Friedman, is one of the candidates running for his congressional seat. So that open this assembly seat. And it's a place where I've lived for almost 30 years and raised my daughter. And it's a great diverse district with a lot of different communities here. And I'm just really excited for the opportunity to serve my home. Are you still going to be able to host your podcast if you're elected? Well, that's a good question. The election, like I would start serving you know, uh, late November 24, right? So, um, there's a lot of podcast episodes to do before that

happens. Once I'm in the legislature, I probably, we'll see. I don't know. I think it'll probably be difficult to do the podcast and, and to serve at the same time. But up until then, I'm fully doing the show, continuing to do it. And also, I'm thinking about doing like a how we run sort of behind the scenes of what it's like running for office because I've never done anything like this before. I've worked on a lot of campaigns, but as soon as I became a candidate, every day I learn new things. I'm mostly learning what I don't know about running for office every day. So there's a lot of good stuff there. How does being a political podcast host inform what you'll do in office?

Like how will your candidacy and hopefully your election be different because of what you're doing right now? Hmm, that's a good question. I think one thing that I've been able to do over three and a half years of my show is, is listened to a lot of experts and a lot of diverse opinions on the issues that are impacting everybody right now. So I like to think that that makes me very well-rounded and well-informed. As for, like, for me, the podcasting was always an organizing tool. And I think that's what kind of makes our show a little bit different. My whole reason for putting the show together was to get people into action, was to inspire them into action and to help build this progressive movement. And you know, and I'm sure your listeners know, that to get big things done, you need two things, really. You need elected officials with the will to take the tough votes and to get up there and do the big things. And you need public sentiment. You need people behind them, making noise, and putting pressure on the other elected officials, too. And that's what I've been doing really since 2017, is bringing people together, either organizing on the streets and organizing campaigns or through the podcast.

And that's the kind of organizing persistent spirit that I'm going to bring to Sacramento. Now, you'll be hopefully joining an assembly that is, you know, largely democratic. I imagine that there's not a lot of pushback when it comes to passing progressive legislation. But, you know, is there like a completely unorthodox piece of legislation that you would like to see past? Like, beyond the usual stuff that we hear about, like, is there one weird kind of pet project or something that you go into the assembly wanting to push forward? A weird pet project. I would like to make oat milk, the official milk of California. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't think you're going to, I don't think you're going to encounter too much pushback on that one. Well, I don't know, but the dairy farmers might, you know, they'll run an IE against me. There'll be a strong dairy lobby against me. Well, you'll do fine in your district. I can tell you that much. I don't think there's a whole lot of 2% milk drinkers out by where we are. But I will push back on, on that. It's really, really exciting to be a progressive coming into the supermajority, no doubt. And I'm excited for the ability. to really do some big impactful things, especially in the context of a federal government that's not going to be doing much in the next few years, at least.

And so we can really make a big difference on people's lives. I will say there's still a lot of fossil fuel money and interests, even among Democrats in the legislature. And, you know, we need every progressive voice that we can get up there to pass the big things, like a single payer. We've got to pass Calcutta.

care. That's very, very personal to me. My daughter was born three and a half months early. She was a preemie. She was just a pound and a half when she was born. And because of our great union health insurance, we had incredible care for her. And she's now thriving. She's 20. She's in college. She's doing great. But that would have completely ruined us if we didn't have great health insurance through our union and too many people are one injury or one illness away from complete ruin too many people are making the choice between taking their medicine paying for medicine and paying their rent and that should not happen in the fourth largest economy in the world which is california so you know calcare we've got to get that done it looks like it's going to get

kicked to 2024 which means i would have the opportunity to um to be part of that pushing for single payer in California and creating that example for the rest of the country. So that's really exciting. Especially on that note in particular, what are some market differences between you and your current assembly member? Well, I love my current assembly member. Laura Friedman's terrific. She's especially really strong on the environment. And that's something that I definitely don't want to let that go. I want to pick up where she's where she's been doing this incredible work, but we also need to go farther and faster on the environment. So, you know, she gets an A plus rating from basically every metric there is on the environment. So

I hope to get an A plus plus rating on that because we have so much important work to do. And California leads, but we can be doing much more. I'm probably a little bit more progressive than her on some other issues, but she's a friend and she's spectacular and she's got some, you know, those are big shoes to fill. And I, I, I, I, aim to do it. Steve, do you ultimately want to run for Congress? Do you want to follow along with this domino effect that we're seeing right now? I think this is a good time for me to pivot to asking you when you're going to run. Well, you know, I've been asked that a lot, as I'm sure you can imagine, because we're in the same boat here. I don't think I would run for office. I think

I'm happy doing what I'm doing. I think it's important to continue bolstering like the progressive media ecosystem. I think we're contending with a giant adversary on the right and it's really well funded and it's really well coordinated. And it spans all the way from Fox News, which, you know, we found out just this past week was spewing all these lies about the election, even though all of their primetime host knew better. So, I mean, it is just a coordinated disinformation effort from top to bottom. And so I think it's important to, you know, to make sure that we have a lot of voices kind of doing our thing in the media. And I know also a big part of that is that we have really talented, passionate, effective people like you who are running and who are serving right now.

And I think, I think, you know, as long as we have people like you who do do a good job regardless, then, you know, I feel like I can do more in the space that I'm at right now. Well, I always encourage people to serve if they have the opportunity. But I'll tell you something, the work that you're doing is unbelievably important. And you know, I'm a true believer in everything you just said. There's a battle going on in the media space and the alternative media space and the Republicans own it. They are owning it. And thanks to the work of people like you and especially you, we are taking over some of that field.

And we have to because it's pivotal to the future of our democracy. So thank you for doing that work. And I will answer your question. I have zero political ambition. And that's a dumb thing to say for someone who's running. for politics. And everyone's going to listen to this and that's guys just so full of shit right now. But I really thought that I was going to continue on in progressive media space or maybe work for another organization like Swing Left, like I used to work for Swing Left. But this

opportunity just came up to serve and it just felt like an awesome opportunity. I want this job. That's what I'm running for. I'm running to serve my state and my community. And And that's what I want to do. Steve, we have a while until this election comes up. So first of all, why did you choose to announce right now so early? And also, how can we help your campaign as we move forward? I love that question, of course. It sadly, it's not early to announce. I mean, it's egregious and ridiculous these campaign cycles and what it takes to run for office, for state office. It should be like a three-month deal, right? You know, I mean, that seems reasonable. But, you know, you have to get in early. You have to start fundraising. You have to start, you know, meeting people and launching your campaign so early. It's really hard.

I work a full-time job. I work as a sound engineer in a studio. That's my day job right now. And juggling all this, it's impossibly difficult. It takes up so much time. But it only steals my resolve more to keep doing it. because it shouldn't be this hard for someone who works and lives in their community to step up and seek to serve their community. There's a reason why independently wealthy millionaires and billionaires

keep serving an office because they can afford to take a year off and just run for office for a year without working. I don't have that luxury and I feel like our community needs to be represented by someone who understands what it is to work and live and struggle and succeed and just be in the community. So yeah, so anyway, how people can help out. Please go to Pearson for California.com. It's a grassroots movement, like I said, it's people-powered, just like we organized with Indivisible and Swing Left. We're organizing on the ground for this. So every donation that you make would be greatly appreciated. It doesn't have to be small.

We want to show that we have a good wide base. I mean, do I say small? It doesn't have to be small. It can be large if you want. That's fine. You will deign to allow you to donate as much as you. We will allow you to max out if you want to do that. But we will also be really appreciative of even a few bucks just to show that we have broad support

and that we're building this movement together. So it's Pearson for California.com. Go ahead and max out. And Steve, we'll also put that link in the show notes of this episode. And I would just say to anybody listening right now, Steve is as good a person as you could possibly find. If you are looking for good people to serve, it doesn't get better than him. So regardless of where you live, whether you're in California's,

the Assembly 44th District or anywhere else in this country, and you want good, progressive Democrats to take office, people who care, people who are passionate about this stuff, Steve can really use the help here and even if you can amplify his voice if you're not in this district that would help too. So Steve, with that said, thank you so much. And where can where can my listeners hear more from you? Well, you can find me on social Pearson for CA at Pearson for CA. And you can also tune into my podcast every week. If you just can't get your fill of Steve, then every week I'm there interviewing great people like Brian Tyler Cohen and others.

So, you know, join me at How We Win. Steve, thanks so much. Thank you, Brian. I appreciate it, my friend. Thanks again to Steve. One quick ask. I've started a new legal series on my YouTube channel

with former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirshner. So to keep up with legal news, which there is a lot of these days, definitely make sure to subscribe. Just type in Brian Tyler Cohen on YouTube and hit subscribe. Okay, that's it for this episode. Talk to you next week.

You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen. Produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesie, interviews captured and edited for YouTube and Facebook by Nicholas Nicotera and recorded in Los Angeles, California. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app.

Feel free to leave a five-star rating and a review and check out Brian Tyler Cohen.com for links to all of my other channels.