No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - The real reason for Trump's strike against Iran

Episode Date: March 1, 2026

The real reason for Trump’s Iran war gets exposed. Brian interviews Ro Khanna, Jon Favreau, Lina Khan and Charles Duhigg.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.

The real reason for Trump's war with Iran gets exposed, and I've got four interviews, Rokana, John Fabro, Lena Kahn, and journalist Charles Duhigg. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. So I know that the inclination watching Trump engage in a war with Iran now might be to mock the idea that this guy has no plan, but I don't think that's true. There is one longstanding principle that is always at play with Trump, and that is that he does nothing unless it helps himself. He is a self-interested player, and Iran helps Trump in one,

really big way, which Trump himself has dropped hints about all over social media. For example, on true social, on Saturday morning, while the bombing was underway, Trump wrote, Iran tried to interfere in 2020, 2024 elections to stop Trump and now faces renewed war with the United States. So, first off, Trump doesn't care about foreign countries meddling in our elections. If he did, he would be bombing Russia right now. So why then would Trump invoke Iran meddling in our elections as he bombs that country? It's because, put simply, He is trying to validate the claim that our elections are not secure so that he can use that as a pretext to usurp control of the next election.

Here's an excerpt from The Washington Post reporting just a couple of days ago. Quote, pro-Trump activists who say they are in coordination with the White House are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that claims China interfered in the 2020 election as a basis to declare a national emergency that would unlock extraordinary presidential powers over voting, end quote. Now, I have a gripe with this. declaring a national emergency would not, quote, unlock extraordinary presidential powers over voting. There is no presidential power over voting the state's control elections, not the federal government, period.

But that part notwithstanding, Trump is very clearly looking for claims of foreign interference to be able to serve as a basis to declare a national emergency. He's threatened to nationalize the elections for months. This is how he's going to try and do it. Don't let him fool you. Trump, again, is nothing, if not self-interested. He is doing all of this to help himself and consolidate his grip on power. I should also point your attention to a post from Trump from two weeks ago. Quote, the Democrats refuse to vote for voter ID or citizenship.

The reason is very simple. They want to continue to cheat in elections. This is not what our founders desired. I have searched the depths of legal arguments not yet articulated or vetted on this subject and will be presenting an irrefutable one in the very near future. There will be voter ID for the midterm elections, whether approved by Congress or not. Now, this is all in reference to the SAVE Act, which is not only voter ID, it also forces states to hand over their voter rolls, which has never been done before. And if you're wondering why the federal government, which does not administer elections, would need the voter rolls, it's because if they're going to try and take control of the elections, which Trump has repeatedly said he wants to do, nationalize the election, they might want to know whose votes to suppress and who's to count.

The voter rolls would allow them to do that. And when Trump said in his post that he will be presenting a, quote, irrefutable legal argument on the subject, this is it. It's him using this executive order claiming extraordinary war powers to say that our national securities at risk and that he's, quote, unlocking some super secret power that's necessary to keep us safe and secure. This is the natural conclusion of a long game that Trump has been playing to help himself and his party win. Because remember, these people do not care about democracy, certainly not abroad. If they did, they wouldn't be weakening democracy right here at home. They don't care about foreign interference in elections. Again, if they did, they'd have beef with the one country who we know interferes in our elections,

Russia. What they care about is consolidating their grip on power and interfering in our elections so that they don't lose control, which they're at imminent risk of doing in the upcoming election. Remember, too, Trump tried this once. This isn't like some theoretical thing. He tried to seize the voting machines in Georgia in 2020. He tried to get Brad Raffensberger to find 11,000. 7,780 votes in 2020.

Then this year, he sent his Director of National Intelligence, the DNI, Tulsi Gabbard, into Georgia to collect all of the ballots. He's sending troops right now into U.S. cities who can then serve as his boots on the ground if he tries to effectuate some plans. He's got an Attorney General, Pam Bondi, who herself was an election denier. All of the pieces are in place, and he's not being subtle about it. He's going to use Iran as a pawn in his effort to keep his party in control of the government. But here's the silver lining.

he is so ham-handed, his scheme is already apparent. I've spoken with Mark Elias and other attorneys who can see the writing on the wall. If and when Trump asserts his non-existent authority, he will be sued and he will lose. But our job, collectively, is to spread the word because the more people who recognize the real reason for his actions, the less effective this pretext will be when he tries to execute it. Next up are my interviews with Rocana, John Favro, Lena, Lena Con, and Charles Duhigg. No lie is brought to by Zbiotics. So, I have to tell you about a game-changing product that I use the night before going out with drinks. It's called pre-alcohol.

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So, Congressman, we have some major news as it relates to the Epstein files. can you speak about some missing files that implicate Trump that have taken over the news cycle? This is the most disturbing development since Thomas Massey and I started the pursuit of the Epstein files issue. And here's what's happened. There is a woman who has accused Donald Trump of sexually abusing her when she was a minor child. There are four times that the FBI interviewed her. Only one of those interviews has been publicly released. Now, you know that if someone is being interviewed four times by the FBI,

the FBI obviously took it seriously. The sex trafficking unit there took it seriously. You have three of those interviews are missing. And Roger Schellenberger and NPR journalist discovered this because there was a document that Massey and I force released that said that all four of those interview memorandum were produced to Maxwell, Gilane Maxwell during discovery, but they are not public. And so the question is, why they cover up?

What's in those three FBI interviews? What did this woman allegedly say about Donald Trump? And why do we not have those documents? Is there going to be some way to recover those documents? Well, first of all, they're in clear violation of the law. So public pressure is the first thing. Obviously, people say, well, is it really going to work? It's worked in the past.

We've forced half of the release of the files because of public pressure. But if not the courts, I mean, you can't just blatantly violate the law. There are people who can sue to make sure that these files actually are released. The question is, have they been tampered with, have they been blacked out, have they been damaged? But there are legal ways of getting the documents. And these documents exist in multiple places if they produce to Milam Maxwell, so they've got to be careful with tampering. And what are next steps in terms of what you can do on your end to get these documents to the forefront? We are looking at possibly passing Epstein Transparency Act 2.0 at retirement Nancy Mace and others saying,

can we get the forced release of not just these three documents, but the survivor statements to the FBI in general. CNN did a analysis and they found that there are at least 90 or so statements that the survivors made to the FBI that are that are missing. And those are the most powerful things. That's where the survivors are naming who are the men who engage in abuse or rape. And so, you know, but to have a case where you have three documents missing and the allegations against the President of the United States, this is an enormous scandal. Well, if the DOJ was willing to flout the law, because that's what they're doing by withholding these documents. What's to stop them from doing the exact same thing if the Epstein Files Transparency Act 2.0 is passed? Well, they're claiming privilege and they're

claiming that there's ongoing investigations. I mean, they couldn't do the same exact thing, but it would be much more directed the Epstein 2.0 bill saying we want specifically these 302 documents. But my sense is that the most likely outcome is a legal outcome. It is us, going to the Southern District of New York, either survivors or Massey or me or someone filing a lawsuit to require these documents to be produced. And any watchdog group could

do it as well. Just file a lawsuit in the Southern District of New York to force compliance with the law. And then when we take back to the Congress, of course we can subpoena and you say, well, they won't comply with the subpoena. That's true. But, you know, we can try. The final point is there may be people

at the FBI and at the DOJ who recognize what happened is wrong and can become whistleblowers. In terms of bringing this in front of a judge, instead of going on these piecemeal efforts in front of a judge to get individual pieces of paper released, what about resuscitating your effort along with Thomas Massey to get a special master to oversee all of this so that it's not like, okay, let's try to get a few 302s here, a few witness testimonies here. like this person having somebody like that in place would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would would be would be in in in in front body.

Totally agree and that's why I've asked you had hyperposed this in the first place and I think our idea is looking now, uh, to be more, uh, thoughtful and wise. I mean, what we were saying is, uh, don't have, uh, this determination made by bond. Don't have it made by the court of public opinion on Twitter or the internet. Uh, have a special master look at the documents and imagine if a special master. done these documents and said these are redactions are legitimate these aren't here's what we're releasing you would have had so much more public trust for the whole process you wouldn't have had the survivors compromise and so that is the ideal solution but we're looking at something that is a huge urgent issue and that is did the Department of Justice selectively refuse to release testimony because the allegations were against the president of the United States? I mean that is an enormous cover-up if true, and if it's not true, then they should just release it

or explain why they haven't released it. Right. I want to talk about Hillary Clinton's private deposition. Can I have your reaction to the fact that the first thing that happened in this deposition that Republicans, you know, you have a lot of Republicans who claim to take this seriously, and yet the first thing they did was create a spectacle by having Lauren Bobert leak a photo to Benny Johnson so they could tweet it out and get the optics that they were so desperate for. How can they both claim that they're taking this whole, whole thing seriously while at the same

time turning it into a circus? Well, Ryan, you know how much I've been passionate about the FC Trans-Aresi Act, which Massey and I led. I'm a senior member of the Oversight Committee. I didn't show up today because I thought it was outrageous that Hillary Clinton was being deposed. She has nothing to do with any of this. And it was a total which I am showing up tomorrow with President Clinton because I do believe that President Clinton has to answer for what he knew and what his relationship was with Epstein. But to drag Hillary Clinton into this was totally political. You had the leak.

You had people asking questions totally unrelated to Epstein. And I think she conducted herself with dignity. And, you know, she set a clear precedent now that is going to be very hard for Donald Trump and Lutnik and others to avoid answer questions. And so, you know, they wasted their time in a circus. and the American people see through it, but what they're going to ask themselves is, well, why are Lutnik and Trump and Bondi not answering questions? Yeah. And I think that's the perfect point here. Was there some recognition by these people

that now that they've established this precedent where former presidents and former presidents family members can be hauled in front of Congress to answer questions about Jeffrey Epstein? Do they recognize that that will also apply to the one guy who's at the top of this cover-up? Who one day, by the way, will be a former president? Well, Trump does. That's why he was saying, oh, I'm not so sure it's a good idea to go after the Clinton. Look, there was the Trump rule, which was that he refused to comply with the subpoena to the January 6th committee. That was the precedent. Now, Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton have said a new president, and that is that former presidents and families testify.

And you can be rest assured that once we are in the majority in Congress, one of the first subpoenas is going to be to Donald Trump. What about the rest of his team, as you were mentioning? There are a number of people in his administration. Howard Lutnik, there was a photo released, and I'm going to put that on the screen of him on Jeffrey Epstein's island. That was obviously hidden until just now. There's also Kevin Warsh, who's Trump's pick for the Fed chair. Elon Musk is in the file.

I mean, there are so many people within Trump's orbit who have been wrapped up in this thing. Is there any reason, at least among your Republican colleagues, why these people aren't also being hauled up to answer questions? If Hillary Clinton, who had nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein, is being hauled in front of the oversight committee to testify. Is there any reason why Howard Lutnik, who was smiling in pictures with the guy, wouldn't also be called in to testify? Being governed by the Epstein class. It's absurd. All over the world, you're seeing prosecutions and resigns. Just today, the World Economic Forum CEO resigned. You've had the former

Prince Andrew prosecuted, investigated. The Lord Mendelsohn arrested. You've had the former Norwegian Prime Minister arrested. And Lutnik, who's all over the files, who lied about his relationship with Epstein, who had alleged business dealings with Epstein, is still sitting there as America's ambassador to the world for business. He needs to resign. He needs to be hauled in front of Congress. And every person in a senior position who had ties and allegations to Epstein in the Trump administration needs to come before our committee and offer an explanation and explain to the American public what they were doing in their judgment. You know, that's what we need to be worried about with the people currently ruling in this country, not someone who was in office or even a first lady 30 years ago.

Is there any interest by your Republican colleagues who obviously hold the subpoena power in the majority and not in the minority? Is there any interest by your Republican colleagues to bring some of these people forward? Or is it just that, you know, as long as you have proximity to Trump, you've got a magic force field around you? Some of them, Nancy Mason, others have said that they would support something. We're going to file for a subpoena and try to force the issue. But the reality is they may say that publicly, but when it comes to the vote of subpoena, they're very, very hesitant to do anything that's going to offend Donald Trump. But they're losing credibility, not just, Brian, and we've discussed it, not just with independents and Democrats. They're losing

Republicans. They're losing mega voters. The most unpopular people that Trump administration right now are Pam Bondi, Cash Patel, and Lutnik, because they see them part of the swamp that Donald Donald Trump said he would drain. In terms of next steps now, what is next for you to get some more accountability? And you have been, you know, dogged in your pursuit of this? So what do you anticipate is going to be the next step? Well, we are going to call for a select committee to have these Epstein hearings or at least have oversight, have Epstein hearings.

We are going to continue to pursue legal options with the Southern District of New York to get these files. We're going to continue to be very vocal about accountability. for Lutnik and others in the administration and other rich and powerful men who have emailed saying they visited the ranch or the island. And by the way, this story is not going away because every day we see some new resignation,

new revelation, people are going through these files and finding more and more and more. So Macy and I will continue to call for accountability. And then there are more legislative options as well. But what we've seen is that when we keep pushing, when we keep fighting, more things get released. And finally, Congressman, Why do you think it is that, you know, amid all of this jingoism about American exceptionalism

and amid the fact that a huge issue in the 2024 campaign was exposing this criminal cabal of pedophiles, that's largely owed to the right wing in this country, that when this stuff is finally actually coming to light, and a lot of it borne out that the only accountability is being had overseas. And yet right here in this shining city on a hill where we beat our chest about democracy, can we not find a single fucking person who is going to lose their job over their involvement in all of this? Yeah, at least not in government.

I mean, they've had people who've lost their jobs with the private sector and more pressures being put, but we've had no investigations, not even of Les Wexner, who said that even with all his ties, no investigation, no prosecutions. And the irony is that there were two American Congress people, Thomas Massey and I, who got these files released. You know, our names are known all over England, I'm told. And yet, in the United States of America, even though there were members of Congress, American members of Congress,

to start this, we have no accountability. Sarah Fitzpatrick-Tamara is a huge piece in the Atlantic coming out, talking about how we got these files released and why there is such a jarring hypocrisy of how the rest of the world is reacting and what we're doing here in America. It's a wake-up call, obviously, for the protection cult around Donald Trump, but it's also an indictment for our country that we aren't taking the survivors more seriously. And the final point I would make is that we still have the opportunity to push for accountability and justice for these survivors. And we need to, and that this is going to be a defining moment for the nation. Well, look, I know that I can speak on behalf of everybody.

watching right now in pleading with you to keep going. If it wasn't for the work that you and Thomas Massey are doing and for the survivors who continue to speak out on a daily basis, this would not go anywhere because we can't rely on these Republicans, especially the ones who are chairing their committees to make sure that this sees the light of day. So very grateful for the work that you're doing, as I mentioned on a weekly basis. And I appreciate you taking the time today. Always appreciate and thank you for shining the line. One final point, Brian, is that I do think these three files that are hidden and this cover up for the allegations that the President of the United States are a game changer. And when people really see what happened, they're going to see

how wrong it is the people who are protecting this president. No lie is brought to you by Better Help. It's March, which means international women's day is upon us. I want to take a moment to celebrate women and all that they carry out at work, in relationships, in families, and in the many roles they hold every day. Between caring for others and managing unseen responsibilities, their emotional well-being can easily be overlooked. I know that life really often moves too fast to reflect on anything, but try to take a moment to reflect on the role that women have in your life that they play, the expectations placed on them, and the pressures that they feel.

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with an average rating of 4.9 out of 5 for live sessions based on over 1.7 million client reviews. Your emotional well-being matters. Find support and feel lighter in therapy. Sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com slash no lie. That's better-h-elp.com slash no lie. I'm joined now by the co-host of POTSafe America, John Favro. John, thanks for joining me. Of course. Is this the show where we talk about aliens? This is, I hope it's anything other than that. All right. So obviously, stay of the Union came and went. I'm not super interested in talking about the State of the Union speech in and of itself, but there was one theme that I wanted to touch on, and that is this idea that

Trump didn't seem capable of admitting any fault whatsoever as far as the economy is concerned, and that's the number one issue. And the reason I think this is an issue is because if he can't admit that there's a problem, then there's no hope as far as Americans are concerned of actually solving it. And so how big of an issue is the fact that he did basically a Joe Biden ducks from 24 and just pretended that everything was great, that, that, you know, we're doing so much winning. Everyone's going to get tired of all the winning. Yeah, well, it didn't work that well for Joe Biden. Right. And I don't think it's going to work for Donald Trump. And to be fair, I don't think it works for any politician to be telling people

that they're not feeling what they're feeling. And the numbers are very clear that huge majorities in this country are worried about inflation, worried about costs, hit off about the economy, don't think Trump's doing a good job and just go down the list. And, you know, And look, Trump is not the type. Like, I would have been surprised if Trump went up there and was like, you know, given I feel your pain speech. But there could have been some degree of a measured approach to this instead of we're the best, I'm the white knight that swooped in and saved us.

And now we're number one and everything's perfect. Yeah, he only has one speed. Right. And so, and he thinks that it's served him well in the past. And I think he's in his team. Well, I think his team realizes that he needs. to do that. And they may probably feel like, well, we got him to talk about, you know, the housing thing and the prescription drug thing and the health care thing and all the language they tested

on those policy issues that hold well. But no one's going to remember that. And it was only a couple minutes out of up. You say no one's going to remember that. But Stephen Miller said that this, the words of his speech will ring for a thousand years. A thousand years. No, he thought that the, he said what's going to ring for a thousand years is the Democrats not. standing up for his obvious bullshit immigration trap thing that he tried to set very clumsily. Yeah. But yeah,

so no one's going to remember it. And Republicans were running on the midterms. That didn't really help them. They're not going to be using clips of Trump talking about something that he's not going to deliver on in their ads. And he's not going to do anything that he said in that speech because

there's very little legislation proposed. And the rest of it was just sort of executive action bullshit. that's not going to actually do anything for people. I want to touch on the part that you brought up about his Republican colleagues because there's two things that they can do. They can either run away from him when he says that everything is perfect and risk drawing his ire, you know, mean tweets, mean post.

It's probably a little bit too late for a primary opponent for most of them, but you know what happens when you get on Trump's bad side. Or they can run toward him and hug him and risk looking as out of touch to their constituents as he did when he was giving that state of the union speech. And so does this just kind of put his own party even further between Iraq and a hard place with midterms coming up? Yes. I think that once all of the primary deadlines have passed, you might suddenly see an outbreak

of courage among some of these Republicans. And even then, probably not until the like final month or two of the campaign. And then they'll try to do it quietly and hope he doesn't notice. And maybe at that point his team will convince him. some like, hey, it's the end of the race. They're just, they have to separate themselves a little bit, whatever. And then also if they lose, he can say, well, they didn't, they didn't embrace me. So that's why they lost.

But yeah, I think you could see a little bit of that towards the end of the race. But for right now, you know, there was one Republican who, he just endorsed a primary challenger because they weren't with him on tariffs or they criticized him on tariffs or something. So he's still doing that kind of shit. And which is why none of them are going to break. We saw a lot of, you know, greatest hits pivoting back to that about this idea of immigrants. I mean, the whole thing was just as divisive as he could make it, pitting, you know, Americans against non-Americans. This is what worked in 2024 for their campaign in addition to the economic stuff.

It seems like this is going to be the tack that they take moving forward because what else could they have? They can't say that they lowered the cost of, I mean, they can say it, but that's just going to further infuriate people. who look at their own grocery bills, look at their own utility bills, look at their own medical bills, and recognize that costs are not falling, they're actually increasing. And so do you presume that this is a preview of what's to come for the next six months, that it's just going to be the tried and true tactic of migrant caravans a la, you know, 2008, 2012, 2016, immigrants eating the dogs and cats a la 20, 25. I mean, every year, it's just some new iteration of brown people, scary, white people vote for the other white people team.

Yeah, it'll be scary immigrants committing fraud and killing people and Democrats who hate America and love the immigrants and or vote for Republicans and me because everything is wonderful. So the country is both awful and scary, but it's wonderful. The reason that it works 24 and that it won't work here is because in 24 Joe Biden was the president. And so they, Republicans and Donald Trump were levying a critique at Joe Biden about the border, which was an actual problem that people, that bothered enough people that it worked to some extent, along with inflation and everything else, probably not as much as inflation. But Trump also tried this in 2018 and it didn't work. And I think that's the better comparison because Trump was president in 2018. They tried to do the whole caravan thing. Trump was not very popular in immigration then, but I would say he was more popular than he is now on immigration.

I mean, that was the child separation policy that sort of did him in there. But, you know, he tried the caravan thing and it just didn't work in the 2018 midterms, and I don't really think it's going to work here. On this issue of fraud being the, you know, focus of his attention, I mean, is there no reconciling the fact that he's issued like almost 100 pardons? half of those were for people who committed some degree of fraud, and then they won't be forced to pay restitution to the tune of like a billion dollars. And so is he really going to, is he the best messenger to deliver a message on why fraud it should be the principal issue in this campaign when the guy is responsible for all of these fraudsters walking the streets? Yeah, I don't think he is, but I think that they're...

There's just a cognitive dissonance that allows them to do it. Yeah, and their hope is that people are mad that they can afford it. They don't think they have enough money. And so one argument is, well, you don't have enough money because the taxes you're paying are getting wasted on immigrants who are committing fraud. And that's the argument they're using, you know, right as we're recording those, J.D. Vance did an event in Minnesota where he announced that they are suspending like hundreds of billions of dollars of aid and Medicaid to Minnesota because of fraud. And so it's going to be collective punishment to the people of Minnesota unless, I don't know, like Tim Wells, I don't know what they want them to do.

To put in place more stringent fraud protocols, even though they've been trying to do that. And even though all the fraud cases in Minnesota have been prosecuted, most of them by Joe Biden. So, but anyway, so yeah, they're going to do that kind of shit and say like, all right, we're going to try to suspend money here. And they're just going to, like, cut more people's health care and pretend that it's, like, cutting fraud, but that's not really going to.

I don't think that's going to work either because the people who count on the health care who aren't going to have it anymore are going to be like, well, that sucks. Do you, I mean, look, I think, I think there's a valid question here as to which is going to be more potent. Because on one hand, you can say that you can say what, what the Republican said when Democrats were in office, which is that it is solely the fault of the government when things become unaffordable. And Joe Biden and the Democrats were punished as the result of that. But then when they come in, they want to have it both ways where they say the government has no, you know, position here that,

We have no impact. It's solely the fact that, you know, immigrants are coming in and using this money that otherwise should be going to you and they're the reason that nothing is affordable. So I get that they're trying to have it both ways. But is there something to say whether or not that argument won't also work? Like I get the cognitive dissidents exist, but could it still be effective?

Democrats just have the easier argument because they have the truer argument, which is Republicans control everything. Right. With White House, Congress, life is unaffordable. Healthcare is getting cut because of them. they're taxing everything. They're issuing illegal taxes, according to the Supreme Court, on all of us. They know that.

People know that. And so, and Donald Trump is, even if they hear him talking about making life more affordable, he hasn't done it. And even if he starts complaining about fraud and immigrants, it would be like, okay, why didn't you do anything about it? Why is everything so expensive still? And why are you still imposing illegal taxes on me? And why haven't I gotten a refund for the illegal taxes? And why is my health care cut?

and why are my premiums going up? Can't you do anything about that? Or are you just going to complain about Somali immigrants? Yeah. And so what is the message that Democrats should bring forward? Recognizing that, like, this is going to be the last major speech that Trump gives before midterms. I don't know if there's ever going to be an audience as big as this before votes are cast in November. And so if this is like the kickoff to the midterm elections, what is the message that Democrats take as we head toward November. Donald Trump is imposing illegal taxes to help pay for illegal wars and an illegal paramilitary force that is rampaging through our communities. And the only way to stop him is to take power back from Congress because the Republicans who've been there for the last two years have done

nothing for you and nothing to stop Donald Trump. All right. Pretty pretty succinct. There you go. I just thought of it now. More broadly, like taking a step back, you've written, I don't know, how many speeches have you written for Barack Obama? I can't. I've lost count. I've Five state of the unions. Five state of the unions. States of the union? Whatever. States of the union.

Listening to what we listened to, I know that you went on Kimmel before the state of the union was over. And so you lucked out in that respect. Trust me, you did not miss much. But having written so many states of the union, state of the unions is, what stuck out at you from this speech, if anything? The length. Other than the sheer amount of words. And for me, and I was always like the. the crazy one in the White House about making sure that the speech

like we were cutting the speech down. Yeah. And that it could, I was always like, it's got to be under an hour. Yeah. And I still thought that was too long. And Barack Obama,

in his mind, always wanted it under an hour and then would like keep adding. Which is so interesting because he's, he is like famously long winded. Yes. Well, that's why he would keep that. But he like, you know,

ideally he knows that he wants to be, because he's also a very good performer and a very good speaker, right? And so he knows he wants to be tight. But he also is a writer. And so he will write, you know, and add stuff in. And then the policy people will add stuff in. The lawyers will add stuff in. And then I'll just start cutting, cutting, cutting, cutting, cutting.

And then I start sending, I would start sending really nasty emails to everyone in the White House towards the end of the process and saying, if you add anything, you have to find the words to take out that you add. So it's PAYGO. That's right. What was the, and I know that we've spoken about this. I feel like we speak about this every year. And I'm sorry because I feel like everybody who talks to you about writing these speeches. asks you the same exact question every year. But in terms of what people have tried to ask you to get into these speeches,

what was the most egregious? Oh, I can't remember. Oh, I know, I know. I remember one year that, and Ben Rhodes, when we all know, it always used to help me write the speech because he would write a lot of the foreign policy part. And someone in the National Security Council or the State Department or somewhere,

we're like, this is a real problem because we have mentioned five continents in the speech, but we have missed a continent. It's the most democratic. Not Antarctica, but I think we had like not said something about South America in that one State of the Union. And it was like a big fucking five alarm fire. And I'm like, okay, so now we're just adding a sentence about South America just to say that we included it. Yeah. It's like the most democratic thing that you asked for.

Ever. Ever. Yeah. You went on Jimmy Kimmel's show after that. How was, I'm curious how this stuff is breaking through in among normie audiences because state of the union is is famously very inside baseball. And I've even had to check myself and be like, yes, this matters. and there's so much build up to this big moment because it's a big speech, but like normal people don't care.

Like this is just, this is just some night for super engaged people, highly engaged people, for whom this speech is probably not going to change any hearts and minds. Anybody who listens to this speech, if you were listening to a state of the union speech, especially a two-hour long state of the union speech, like, if you're going to subject yourself to that, it's not because, it's not because, you know,

because that won out over the newest episode of, like, traitors, right? This is something that people are actively seeking out because they are masochists who enjoy paying attention to politics. But in that audience, was there any sense or just even in how you've spoken to people, is there any sense that this kind of stuff is breaking through a little bit more? Yeah, I mean, I watched the entire State of the Union, and I have basically been speaking about it for 24 hours nonstop. And I have run out of things I remember about the State of the Union to talk to you about. And that's me. The commentary, there is definitely more to talk about in the commentary surrounding State of the Union than the State of the Union itself. Because that speech was basically just any stump speech that Trump has given a thousand times before.

They're looking at this in this day and age for like social media, viral clips. Yeah. Images. They thought that the whole like, oh, the Democrats aren't standing to put Americans before illegal immigrants. They thought that's the big moment. And, you know, maybe in right wing media, they get a day or two out of that. you think they're going to stay on that. They'll probably throw an ad up in a month or so and maybe again

towards the midterms and be like, this is our big ad, but they just have to do that to say that they did and to keep the lie going. No, I don't think anything, I don't think it lays out a blueprint. I don't think it lays out a campaign strategy. I don't think it does anything.

I think it's just a fart in the wind that is going to go down in history as the longest speech ever, and that's about it. Last thing. conspicuously absent from Trump's speech, was any mention of the Epstein files, any mention of of, actually, I don't even think he said the word ICE. No. He mentioned DHS funding, but he didn't mention ICE. I thought that was interesting. And so does that give some, does that give some

hint to Democrats in terms of the issues that are clearly too toxic for Republicans to glom on to while also at the same time objectively being some of the biggest issues in the country right now? I mean, like, even just looking search terms, Epstein and ICE are the topics that have hit this year more than anything else. Yeah, I would have been quite surprised if he had mentioned the EFsteen's files on his own. I will say that. But ICE was notable because I think that I could easily have seen him try to defend the men and women of ICE as Christine Ome has done and talk about in Tomahoman and the thousand percent increase in attacks and all that bullshit that they say that isn't really true. But the fact that he didn't shows that he can read a poll and his people can or his people can read polls and they know that ICE is at a 30% approval and has caused them nothing but political problems. And so they didn't say it.

So I think that should. That is it. And look, Epstein, like, is it on the minds of like every voter that's going to come to the midterms? Probably not. But is it if they know about it, is it a proof point in a larger story about corruption in this administration? Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And it's also an issue, by the way, that reaches kind of a weird subset of people who aren't necessarily Democrats or Republicans, but for whom, you know, whether it's because

they've been groomed to recognize the importance of this issue by those Republicans themselves, ironically enough, by the Dan Bongino's of the world and cash portals of the world. But it's a different, you know, subset that doesn't necessarily fit neatly into the buckets of the regular American electorate. Yeah, well, it's like all you have to know is that the government is covering up a pedophile ring. And then you're like, oh, well, that's, and there was a conspiracy about that. And I thought maybe that was crazy and I wanted to know more. But now I know all this. And yeah, it looks like, looks like the Trump administration is either in the Epstein files or covering up the Epstein files.

Yeah. And last question here, because I'm curious on that point. How do you think Dan Bongino goes back to, uh, to an audience and, you know, maybe you have some authority to speak on this as a podcast host, but goes back to an audience that he built his brand off off talking about, this issue of this criminal cabal of pedophiles who've infiltrated the government when he was part of the government who had the ability to do something about it opted to do nothing and now he's not saying a word about it is just returning like a white night after battle and yet and yet manages never to utter a word about the principal issue that he focused on yeah i will admit i have not tuned into dan's podcast since he's returned from the fbi but um you know you have all those

episodes i have i have a backlog yeah um you know Shame isn't really an issue for these folks. And they also bet that people have short memories and that there are other outrages to be had. And one will come along and he'll be able to jump on it. And that will be the big outrage of the day. And he'll be on the right side and he won't have to think about his time at government. Yeah. Well, that's what we're here to remind everybody about.

To that end, in terms of reminding people, if you were not yet subscribed to Pod Save America's YouTube channel, I'm going to put that link right here on the screen or also in the post description of this video. Please help elevate voices like Johns and the rest of the team over at Pod Save America. and Crooked Media. So again, that link is right here on the screen and also in the post description. Thanks, buddy. I'm joined now by the FTC chair under Joe Biden, Lena Khan. Thanks so much for joining me. Great to be here. So I want to talk about this new merger that seems all but imminent at this point, given the fact that Paramount has bid successfully for Warner Brothers Discovery. Netflix has dropped out,

which means we're going to see a major consolidation in the area of media yet again. So can you give a quick overview on what's happening here? So for months, we've seen basically a form of bidding war between Paramount and Netflix for these assets. And it's been pretty clear that the Trump administration has wanted Paramount to win out. And yesterday we just learned that Paramount after making a new bid was basically, you know, resulting in Netflix backing out. So there are some real legal questions here that remain. both the Netflix and Paramount deal would have raised major red flags in their own ways. But given how cozy this administration is with Paramount and how much they seem to want to put the thumb on the scale,

it's not clear that we're going to see any action from the federal government when it comes to challenging a potentially illegal deal. Okay. So first off, I want to talk about why the White House is so hell bent on making sure that Netflix was not a part of this, that this was just Paramount and Warner Brothers Discovery. what benefit does Donald Trump derive from seeing that merger go through? Well, it's no secret that he's very cozy with the new owners of Paramount, the Allison family, which even after taking over CBS, have seemed extraordinarily eager and happy to shape news in a way that's going to benefit the administration and, you know, effectively chill or suppress news that is not. And they've been very clear that the administration in the White House has been very clear

that that's how they want it. And if this merger were to go through, it would put CNN alongside CBS in the hands of Paramount. And so there would be an extraordinary risk that we would see even more consolidation over news during an administration that has been very happy to, you know, basically assert that they expect news channels to play ball and basically function as to. What kind of consolidation would we be looking at in the media space, in the news space, if this goes through? I mean, if this goes through, we're basically going to be seeing the merger of two massive companies, media conglomerates, that each have a major presence in movie studios and distribution, major TV studios, sports distributors. And so basically, you know, create a merger between two out of the five biggest media companies. And that's an extraordinary amount of consolidation. Uncheck corporate power is always a problem, but the risks are especially acute when we're talking about news and media because this is about concentrating power over who gets heard, who gets seen, what news gets amplified, what news gets suppressed. And I think, you know, the last year has been a real testament to the hazards of allowing so much concentrated power over the news. in the media, especially when you have an administration that is very eager to basically mold

the media ecosystem to their liking. In your estimation, is a merger like this legal? Are there not antitrust laws that exist to prevent this kind of consolidation? There absolutely are. And, you know, this goes all the way back to 1819, 1914, against the backdrop of the industrial trusts where lawmakers were extraordinarily concerned about unchecked. consolidation and what it would mean for consumers, workers, but also the citizenry. And the recognition that if what we really want is a democracy where people have real freedom, you need checks not

just against arbitrary state power, but also checks against unfettered corporate power. And that's really what the antitrust laws were about. What we've seen during this administration, be it an antitrust or all sorts of other legal areas, though, is a real, eagerness to basically have two systems of law enforcement. If you're a friend of the administration, you know, you're going to get basically white glove treatment and a suspension of the laws oftentimes. And for everybody else, you know, they're willing to play hardball. And so I think what we have seen is just a system of continued elite impunity and the weaponization of the antitrust law is effectively to reward friends and punish enemies. I guess the question of,

everyone's asking here is, is there any way for any of this to be undone? Once this merger takes effect and they actually go through with it, if a less cozy administration takes power, is there some way to revisit this? Or is it like once the toothpaste is out of the tube, that's it? I mean, there are a few avenues here. First, I should say it's not only the Trump administration that is in the position of basically potentially stopping or greenlighting this deal. state attorneys general also have the authority to enforce the antitrust laws and at various points in the past, they have sued to block mergers. Attorney General Rob Bonta of California yesterday put out a note saying this is nowhere near a done deal and that his office is investigating it and will be taking extraordinarily seriously any legal concerns that they see. So there is a possibility that A.G. Bonta, potentially teaming up with other state attorneys

general, could actually sue to try to stop this deal now. If it does, in fact, end up going through, there is an opportunity for a future administration to revisit it and sue to undo the merger effectively. What could this mean for consumers? I know you spoke a little bit about, you know, the media landscape. Obviously, we consume all of that, so that has an impact. can you talk about all of the impacts that regular Americans might feel as the result of this kind of a merger? Yeah, I mean, look, the most immediate impact could be, you know, higher prices for pay TV effectively, you know, concentrating more pricing power. And by the way, we've seen that. Like, everybody watching here has watched the price of every single cable service that we all subscribe to go up every single year by three, four, five, six dollars.

And it's just, it's, it feels relentless at this point. So I'm certain to your exact point that consolidating, you know, two of these, to the biggest studios in Hollywood would not make things more equitable. It would only, you know, allow them to increase costs even more without any recourse. Totally. It would also give the new company an enormous amount of leverage over Hollywood writers and make it much more difficult. If you're a writer or somebody who works in Hollywood to really get fair compensation for your work. or even have more outlets to kind of be, you know, pitching your idea to you. And so there's going to be an effect on consumers, but there's also going to be effect on creators and producers and the people who rely on these enormous middlemen to actually reach Americans

and get their creations and their ideas out to the market. There also could be, you know, real risk when it comes to democracy, right? I mean, we've been talking about how concentrated control over the media landscape just creates a much more fragile democracy when it comes to, you know, who is controlling what information gets heard. At its best, a free press is supposed to hold power to account. And instead, if these assets are owned by people who are eager to, you know, bend the knee to an administration, it could further warp and distort just how information is. reaching Americans. Beyond that, I think it really highlights just the continued risk of weaponization of law enforcement. It's been really great to see more and more members of Congress speak out about that. We've seen statements from people like Senator Gallego, from Senator Murphy, from Senator Warren,

noting that this real dissent into pay-for-play law enforcement is not something that can go forward without any accountability. And that for the CEOs and companies that are making decisions to basically play ball in this corrupt environment and basically use the cronyism to their advantage, we're now hearing more members of Congress say, we're not going to forget. And, you know, if this is a country that is serious about the rule of law, this is something that we're going to have to investigate whenever we're back in power. What do you think is an appropriate longer-term solution? Because I feel like whenever Democrats are in power, including yourself at the FTC, and you were the gold standard in terms of making sure that these antitrust laws were followed, that's good while we're in power. But the moment we're not, we see all of these mergers and acquisitions and consolidation, which not only makes the news products, for example, if we're

talking about that, less effective and less equitable and less fair, but it also makes it worse for consumers because now you have less variety to choose from. But as soon as these Republicans take control, those go through. And so we're always just, you know, the asymmetry here between the two sides is just so apparent where, you know, only while we're in power are these antitrust laws followed. But then as soon as Republicans take control, we're seeing all of these M&A is we're seeing all of these mergers and consolidation. And so oftentimes there's no way to unwind them once they go through. And so it doesn't feel like a sustainable process here because because it's, you know, it's going to bounce back and forth, but only one side is actually

following the rules. And so there's going to come a point where the Larry Ellison's and David Ellison's are controlling everything, which they are right now. And our only hope is like maybe we can investigate this and roll it back to some degree. I've done. Democrats take power, but like the likelihood is obviously low. And so what is a longer term solution? Have you thought about that at all? I mean, the first thing we need is a recognition that this type of consolidation and decisions about mergers are not just some technocratic thing that happens. It is actually intimately connected to real questions of affordability and economic power. And in as much as Democrats are

governing in a way that is about holding corporate power to account and making sure that companies are not ripping off Americans, that is something that they need to talk about, right? And I think we've seen various elections over the last year that people are really hungry for elected officials and a government that is showing it's willing to fight for them, even when it means standing up to corporate interests and to powerful corporations. You know, we have these government agencies that are charged with doing their job. When they're MIA, we need to be relying more on state attorneys general, but also the public. I mean, there is what's known as a private right of action.

You know, writers in Hollywood could ban together and sue to try to block this merger. And so it's not kind of an all or nothing. We're exclusively dependent on the federal government. there are actually many more actors that can get activated and actually do something here. Is this a situation where we'd even be able to look at unions like WGA, the Writers Guild, or SAG, Screen Actors Guild, who can use their collective bargaining power to push back against the consolidation of these studios? Because those are the people that they're going to be bargaining with or against. And so, you know, if we're looking for some group that has standing, clearly those unions would be it.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, those are groups that have in the past shown courage and speaking up against consolidation and various types of mergers. When I was heading up the FTC, you know, we would oftentimes hear from the Writers Guild, for example, that would be able to pinpoint merger after merger that had resulted in higher prices for consumers, but also markets that were making it more difficult for writers and actors and producers to actually get a fair shake. and were resulting in an industry that was just much more impoverished, much less rich, had much fewer options. You know, this has long been just a huge point of pride for America. And the idea that we would allow consolidation to really lower the quality and the diversity and just the richness of our media sector is something that we can't forget either. Is there some legislation that would allow some changes that you'd like to see get codified? Like what would that look like in your ideal scenario? I mean, so that it doesn't feel like we're just playing catch up or relying on disparate actors to sue and stop bad things from happening?

Like, is there some proactive approach we can take where we actually codify some law so that, you know, so that we're not just playing catch up? Yeah. I mean, I think in the media industry, you know, there were eras where we had strict rules against what's known as vertical integration. And so there was basically a rule that said, if you're in the business of creating content, you cannot then also control the pipes that let you determine what is reaching people. And those types of, you know, breakup rules or rules that are limiting integration is something that just used to be part and parcel of how we structured markets. especially in areas like media. And so I think that's something that we need to be revisiting. There have been discussions about doing that in the health care context

and whether we need to be breaking up these conglomerates and some more proposals that are being introduced. I think we need a similar conversation in the media ecosystem about whether this type of vertical integration just creates way too much concentrated power and also creates conflicts of interests, where the companies that are controlling the production of content are then also getting to call the shots about what is reaching people. And so that would be one type of rule that I think could be helpful.

Beyond that, you know, there are rules that would make it less expensive to enforce the antitrust laws. You know, this is a little bit in the weeds, but it is so, so, so expensive these days to bring a single merger challenge. Sometimes it can cost millions and millions of dollars just in fees to outside experts. And that's something that can also make it more. difficult for everyday citizens or even state AGs to be enforcing the law when they see illegal mergers. And so that's something that Congress could take action on as well.

Well, as always, Lena, I appreciate the time. As I mentioned before, you are the gold standard when it comes to all of this stuff. So I appreciate taking a little bit of time to talk to me today. Thanks so much for having me. I'm joined now by writer for The New Yorker, Charles Duhigg. Charles, thanks so much for joining me. Thanks for having me. So you wrote an excellent article for The New Yorker about what MAGA can teach the Democrats about organizing and also infighting. So first of all, why did you decide that it was important to publish this? Well, so I had a book that came out about two years ago now called Super Communicators, which is about the science of how we communicate,

what's happening inside our bodies and our brains as we communicate with other people and how we connect with them. And it was kind of confused by something I was seeing in the world, which was that on the left, there's such dismissiveness of MAGA, right? There's such a sense that that Trump embodies very little authenticity on policy positions, that this is a purely emotional response. And yet, MAGA has been so successful. And I wanted to understand MAGA is a communication tool. What is it doing that's so successful? What is the science behind why MAGA has spread and become so durable? And so that's why I wrote the piece. And so you've written about the fact that Democrats can really steal from the MAGA playbook here. Absolutely. You've pointed out that the

foundation of Republicans' winning strategy actually steals a lot from Obama's 2008 campaign. So can you speak on that? Very much. So Obama's campaign, I know that you recall this, and hopefully the listeners do as well. Obama's campaign was the most successful campaign at drawing out volunteer leaders and having them recruit other people to go to go basically advocate on behalf of Obama, right? The turnout was amazing. And in part, it was because they basically ignored the playbook that most presidential campaigns used up to that point. Until that point, volunteers were seen as a necessary but very risky part of a campaign.

The odds of a volunteer going off script of saying something wrong, of creating some kind of weird social media moment, campaigns needed volunteers, but they wouldn't give them very much power. They wouldn't give them very much authority. Obama did the exact opposite. What he did is he said, look, if you want to be a volunteer leader, We're essentially going to make you like a little franchisee of the campaign. And we're going to tell you, you can go do whatever you want. Try different things.

Experiment with different messages. Try different approaches. And the result of pushing that leadership down to the local level was that you built an infrastructure that helped people learn how to become great campaigners on behalf of Obama. And both he and the Dems won overwhelmingly. And you're exactly right. There was a book that was written about it called Rule Breakers that became, the required reading within the Republican National Convention as a Republican National Committee,

as well as within TIP Turning Point USA, right? The group that was started by Charlie Kirk. Because this strategy of pushing leadership down, of building infrastructure to train people to become leaders in their own communities, to become little cells of a huge organization, it's incredibly effective. And it's one of the things that the Democrats have forgotten a little bit how to do. Well, doesn't that also translate to these thoughts? leaders in the messaging space. I mean, when you, when you kind of imbue a lot of these people with

some sense of authority, doesn't it also make them more committed to the cause? And so then you have these people with big audiences, for example, who, you know, if they feel like now they've got an in, they have some close connection with the candidate, for example, and they've got a big audience, then they can use that close connection to kind of proselytize their audiences. Absolutely. And you see that happening on the right all the time, right? And it's important to draw distinction nowadays between MAGA and Donald Trump because MAGA is its own thing, independent of Trump. But just look at who's supporting Trump and who's talking to their audiences about him. You have people like Laura Lumer, right, who's, as far as I can tell nuts.

And she's out there stumping for Trump. But then you have other people who are more mainstream Republicans. You have Ralph Reed, the guy who ran the Christian Coalition and now runs something called the Faith and Freedom Coalition. He's out there stumping for Trump too. What happens when you push down leadership is you do lose some control over the message. You don't know that everyone's perfectly on script. But what you get instead is you get people who proselytize for you passionately. And that's more powerful.

You know, you draw a distinction between mobilizing and organizing. So what is the difference and why does that matter right now? So mobilizing is what the Democrats are really good at right now. So mobilizing is getting people out into the streets. It's no Kings Day. It's the women's march, right, after Trump's first inauguration. It's getting millions of people to turn out, to call congressional offices, to donate some money. But oftentimes that turnout only lasts a day or two, right?

You're calling on people to show a great unified wall of support for a very short period of time. And it can be very impressive. It gets you headlines. It gets you on TV. Organizing is almost the opposite. Organizing isn't about getting millions people out of the street. Instead, it's about building leadership. infrastructure so that you push down leadership, that you create tens of thousands or even

potentially millions of people into people who feel like they have an investment in this campaign, an investment in this movement and are going to do what they can on the local level to make it become real. Organizing is basically what franchising is. And both mobilizing and organizing are both really, really essential to a social movement. You have to have both of them. But it's particularly in the early part of a movement, organizing is much more important than mobilizing. As one person I said, I talked to, and she's someone who studies social movement, she said, look, the thing about a rally or a big march is that's a tactic in search of a strategy. When you have a big rally, when you have a big march, when you have no Kings Day,

it shouldn't be because some centralized group in Washington, D.C. is telling everyone everyone to show up and then they all go home and never talk to each other again. Instead, what you should have is that the rally is a natural outgrowth. of these thousands and tens of thousands of small groups that exist in each city that say, actually, we're all going to come out with our membership today. We're all going to march on the same day. But it's an expression of our community rather than an attempt to build community. So why have Republicans under Trump been effective at this kind of organizing and Democrats not?

And I think that this part of the conversation is probably going to veer off into a lot of Democrats' brand problems. but I'm curious what you think on this point. Well, I think the number one issue when I talk to experts about this and people who study it is they say, look, if you look at what MAGA has done right now, what they've done is they've been really effective at creating a huge tent. They basically said, if you're willing to wear the red hat, then you're a member regardless of what you believe. You could be pro-life. You could be pro-choice. You could be someone who doesn't care about immigration. You could be someone who thinks that immigration should be outlawed completely.

It doesn't matter. We have room for you within our tent as long as you wear the red hat. and you say that Trump is the greatest thing ever. Now, let's compare that with what's happening on the left, where there has been a huge number of litmus tests that have been brought to bear on who belongs to that membership, right? If you say that you are a little wishy-washy on trans rights, you're not going to be welcomed within the Democratic Party.

You're certainly not going to be welcomed within their marches or their protests. If you're someone who is pro-life, there's really no room for you in the Democratic Party. And so this is the fundamental distinction between the right and the left right now, is that the right has basically said, will welcome everyone. Charlie Kirk, turning point USA, when he was talking to someone from on the stage who was gay, he would say to them, I don't approve of your lifestyle. I don't think the Bible says that it's okay. But as long as we agree on immigration, you're welcome here. And on the

left, what we say to people is, or what the left says to people is, you know, you might agree with us 95% of the time. But if you're pro-life, if you're anti-trans, if you question how we should use pronouns or you use the wrong pronouns, then you don't belong here. And that's been a big distinction. So a critical response to that would be, well, this is a movement where being pro-life is antithetical to the whole core of the left anyway. And so why would we make room for somebody who says that they don't believe in a woman's right to choose?

Like just as, you know, playing devil's advocate here. And what would be the response to that? And I'm painting with a pretty broad brush here, right? Like the Democratic Party is actually like tens of thousands of different. Different opinions. Totally. Totally. But from the broad rush perspective, you're exactly right. Whether a movement or a political party, whatever it is, an organization, there has to be some

core values that everyone agrees on. And if you don't have those core values, then you're not really a movement. I think the question for the Democrats is, what are the democratic core values? Are the core values that you have to be pro-choice? You have to be, you have to feel like January 6th was an insurrection. You have to think that, you know, we should raise up certain voices and lower up. other ones based on the color of your skin or your beliefs. Like, there's an interesting question.

And I think we're going to see this played out in the next presidential campaign. What are the core values of the Democratic Party? Because you're right. There has to be a small handful of core values that every Democrat says, that's what I'm signing up for. But right now, there's a huge number of core values. And there's no prioritization. There's no one saying, look, it's okay to be pro-life and to be a Democrat because we both agree that democracy should persist.

the Democrats as a party have to decide what the core values are, and it has to be a somewhat limited number of core values that creates a big enough tent to encompass a majority of people. And I guess how do you do that calculation? I mean, I guess this is the million dollar question is like, what is the calculation where you are willing to, you know, compromise on certain issues and on certain values in deference to allowing more people into the coalition so that you can actually hold power to do some of what you claim to care about doing without losing yourself in the process, without losing the identity of the party in the process. I mean, I think the technique for figuring out that balance is an election, right?

So if you had told me 15 years ago that the Republican Party would basically only have one value, and that value is that they all are willing to support Donald Trump, I would have told you you're nuts, right? That doesn't seem like a good strategy. And yet we have two elections to show us it was a great strategy. Now, the fact that there's no internal integrity into the MAGA movement, right? That the MAGA movement basically is built around one guy and support for that one guy. That now threatens the movement.

And the next election might show us that they made a mistake in going too far. And I think we're going to see the same thing on the left. What we're going to see, I think, for 2028 is we're going to see a really crowded field of people in the Democratic primary trying to become president. and they're each going to be trying their own little formula. This is what it means to be a Democrat. Here's where I'm willing to compromise. Here's where I'm not willing to compromise. And we'll find out, they're all running their own experiments.

We'll find out the outcome of that experiment when people show up to vote. You know, I've been particularly focused on this issue of imposing purity tests. Obviously, you know, I think it's a bad idea, not just because we need to be reaching out to more people. But especially in this moment, Democrats lost the popular vote. they lost the House, they lost the Senate, they lost the White House. Our only goal right now should be figuring out how to bring more people, not excluding people from the movement, because we don't have the numbers right now to continue winning. And granted, we'll see overperformances, but that's in these special elections and probably

the midterm elections because it's in large part of referendum on a very unpopular president and his party that emboldens him. But I think that that's exactly right in terms of. what the priority right now needs to be to build a coalition to actually get something done. And I think what's interesting about it, so you're advocating for a certain experiment, right? The experiment is let's build the biggest coalition, this core value that we should be organizing around is winning. And there will be other people who say, look, does that mean that you're willing to say racist things, that you want your party to say racist things, that you want your

party to turn its back on divisive movements like Black Lives Matter? because it might exclude some people. It's an interesting question and it's an important question. And it's worth remembering that during the Obama campaign, the first campaign, there was an order that came down or advice that was given to all the volunteers. If you encounter a voter who says something racist, do not try to talk them out of their racism. Right?

Because the goal here is to elect the first black president. And as long as they're willing to support Obama, it doesn't matter if they're racist. It doesn't matter. X or Y or Z, what matters is that they see something in this candidate that they can get behind, whether that be economics or anything else. All campaigning is an act of compromises. And it's a question of when we look to our moral values, when we look to the integrity of a party, when we look to our realism about what it takes to win, which compromises are we

comfortable with and which aren't we? You know, a pushback to that that I would imagine some folks listening would have is that it is that very act of compromising on your values that makes you an undesirable movement in the first place and that if you just double down on a truly authentic, truly authentic, truly values-driven, principles-driven campaign, then people will come. Like, if you build it, people will come. And they'll point to Zoranamdani, who has stayed relentlessly on message based on his values. They point to the movement that, built who has been relentlessly on message. And so that would directly conflict with this idea

that you have to compromise to bring more people in because, in fact, there is a whole faction of people who will just look at kind of that pure, authentic, values-driven person and therefore movement and say that's what I want. And I can, you know, I can, this way, I don't have to surrender anything. I, so I think you're, you're exactly right that. what we're seeing right now within the Democratic Party is a basic fight over, should we be conciliatory and move to the center? Is that as a strategy? Is that going to get us more voters? Or should we remain pure and fight for the sort of the things that are, for some people seem fringe or some, for some people seem far left because that authenticity will draw people to us? Now, what's

interesting about the examples you just mentioned is let's look at Bernie and let's look at Momdani. So Bernie has stayed consistently on the left, consistently very, very pure in his values. And that does attract a number of people. It gets people excited. But he's never been a real contender for the presidency, right? And in fact, I would argue that if he was representing anywhere besides Vermont, he probably wouldn't be in the Senate. Mamdani, on the other hand, Mamdani actually does exactly what I was describing, which is he

says, look, here's a certain set of core values. I'm a socialist. I believe in the redistribution of wealth. and that that should be done. I feel very strongly about the Palestinian cause. There's a small handful of things where he refuses to compromise. But if you look at the rest of his policy judgments, they are a set of compromises, right? He kept Tishen as the police commissioner, someone who comes from a billionaire family, who was as embraced by the right as it is by the left. The things that he's doing right now for the city of New York are very much centrist middle of the road, because he

understands that's what he needs to do to build his coalition to get things done. We tend to sometimes see compromise and ideological purity as an opposition to each other. But they can sit as very uncomfortable bedfellows very easily, which is to say, here's the set of things that I refuse to compromise on. But the rest of it, the rest of it, I understand I might need to compromise on in order to get my priorities into the world. Last point here. And I'm I want to tie this back to what we just saw, the State of the Union, for example, how does, how does Trump's, I would say message, but I'm actually going to say inability to recognize what the message is, which is, you know, the issue that he ran on, this issue of affordability.

He refuses to admit that there's a problem in deference to his own ego. And in doing so, I think he's sending a message to Americans that, like, nothing is going to get solved if the person in charge of solving them isn't going to acknowledge that any problems actually exist. I think that's what was taken out of, you know, that that's largely my takeaway from the State of the Union. And so how is that instructive for Democrats as we head toward midterms? Well, I think you're exactly right. I think that, I mean, it seems likely that the Republican Party is going to get walloped in the midterm elections, right? And in large part, because they've tied themselves to Trump. And Trump refuses to kind of acknowledge an issue that many American voters

feel very personally, that of affordability. Now, that being said, so what do we learn for from this? Well, I think what we learn is we learned that at the end of the day, it's really important to be both a realist and an optimist. Right. I mean, I think the problem with what Trump is doing right now, setting aside the ideology, whether you agree with him or not, is that he presented what to many voters seemed like an optimistic view of the future of America. Make America great again. We're going to return manufacturing. Those of you who have lost jobs are going to get your jobs back. We're going to close our borders to these hordes of criminals who are coming across the border. I'm not saying this is right. I'm saying this is what he sold. He sold an optimism that people

believed in. Enough people believed in to elect and president. But that optimism has to be tempered by realism. And good politicians know this and they do this. Obama did this really, really well. You have to temper what you believe and hope will occur with a realistic viewpoint so that when you're talking to voters, they know that you're being an honest broker with them. You're not selling them a fantasy, but in fact, you're willing to recognize what actually happens in the world. I would actually argue that one of the reasons that we had such with Biden was that he, much like Trump, invested in the optimism without embracing the realism. It's clear that he should not have run for president. It's clear that we should have had a primary. But just as Donald Trump is right now,

Biden fell in love with the hope of a future without being realistic about and reflecting to the American people what what they know to be true as realism in their own lived experiences. And I think just as Biden ended up losing, I think the Republicans and Trump are going to lose in the midterms. Last question on this. Building off of exactly what you just said, I think a lot of people will hear what you said about Trump offering up optimism, but we saw an entire first term where he promised, you know, an infrastructure law that never materialized, a middle class tax cut that never materialized,

a jobs boom that never materialized, a manufacturing renaissance that never materialized, a health care plan that was cheaper and more comprehensive that never materialized. He was still able to win in a subsequent election. And so there does seem to be a little bit of a disconnect between the fact that, yeah, generally you want politicians who are going to offer up some realism so that people know that they're not just being bullshitted. But at the same time, you've got somebody in Trump whose only legislative achievement in his first term was a tax cut for millionaires and billionaires. And yet he was still able to sell this narrative, this fairy tale, that he was some populist champion. And we got conned once in the first term from someone who

never delivered for working class Americans. And it's happening again, right on cue in this second term, where he promised cheaper rent, cheaper housing, cheaper groceries. He talked about issues that were so granular that he was talking about eggs, the price of an egg. And yet now, of course, he comes in. He passes a tax cut that overwhelmingly favors millionaires and billionaires. He builds himself a $400 million ballroom buying Christy Noem, Gulfstream jets, hosting crypto dinners where he's doubling his net worth. And so why is he able, and look, that's not to say that there isn't some pushback because his approval rating is at a record low, but it's still 36 to 40%. And so for a lot of people, realism notwithstanding,

They're still willing to back him. And so why does he not have to abide by the same structure, the same rules that I think other politicians have to abide by in that sense? So I think there are times in our history where the voting populace is wiser and less wise. And I feel like we're in a less wise place right now, both on the left and the right. And I think the reason why, and this gets back to one of the core arguments of supercommunicators, my book, is that we have very much forgotten how to have conversations with people on the other side of the aisle, right? We've very much forgotten how to have conversations with people who we disagree with, where those

conversations are civil and we understand each other. And if you think about the moments of our nation that we're most proud of, it's not moments when everyone agreed with each other. It's moments when people knew how to disagree with each other in a civil, productive way. and that made them a more intelligent voting electorate. You know, you look at the civil rights movement. You look at the build up to World War I. You look up to World War II, the aftermath of World War II.

You look at what happened after the Great Depression or the first industrial revolution. America had many, many different opinions. And those opinions were often wildly disparate between individuals. And yet those individuals knew how to discuss their differences, how to understand what the other person was saying. And even if they didn't agree with each other, they knew how to connect and move forward. That's essentially what the Constitutional Convention was, right? It was people who hated each other, coming together, arguing for months and then writing a Constitution that we still live with today.

I would argue that the problem here is not Donald Trump. The problem here is not the demagogues who are getting on stage. The problem is that so many of us don't want to have conversations with people that we disagree with, that we've lost, we've forgotten how to connect. And as a result, we've lost the ability that an electorate has at its best, which is to be both judgmental and temperate at the same time, to have core values, but also create a big tent that welcomes everyone in. That's what we've seen in the past.

That's what we saw under previous presidents. And I think we're going to see it again. But it's about individuals, the people watching this show, listening to this podcast. It's about all of us going out and having those hard conversations and really trying to understand what the other person is trying to say to us and speaking in a way that they can understand us. Perfect place to leave off. Charles, for folks who are looking to see and hear more from you, where can they go?

Yeah, you can, I have a newsletter called The Science of Better. You can find me on my, you can sign up for it on my website, Charles Duhigg, d-U-H-I-G-G-com, or you can buy one of my books, this super communicators are the power of habit. Awesome. I'm going to put that link right here on the screen to your website and also in the post description. Charles, super interesting conversation. I appreciate the time. Thanks so much. Thanks for having me.

Thanks again to Rokana, John Favro, Lena Con, and Charles Duhigg. That's it for this episode. Talk to you Wednesday. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen. Produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellsey, and interviews edited for YouTube by Nicholas Nicotera. If you want to support the show, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app and leave a five-star rating and a review.

And as always, you can find me at Brian Tyler Cohen on all of my other channels, or you can go to bryantailorcoen.com to learn more.