Pod Save America - “Get These Incels to Work” (feat. Hasan Piker)

Episode Date: November 28, 2024

Lovett sits down with Hasan Piker, the massively popular progressive streamer, to talk through (and argue about) the hard questions about where the Democratic Party needs to go from here, the liberal media landscape, what the Harris campaign told us about why they lost, and yes, a jobs program for incels. Then, Jon talks to Massachusetts Congressman Seth Moulton about the fight for the House, why blue states like his swung right, and the controversy he kicked up with his comments about trans athletes.

Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Lovett and guest hosting with me today is the massively popular streamer, left his dumb ass, himself, you just self described. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Lovett and guest hosting with me today is the massively popular streamer Left Is Dumbass himself. You just self-described. That's OK. Sure. Fair. I say himbo, but damn. OK. Hassan Piker, welcome back. It's good to be back. Thank you for having me. After my conversation with Hassan, you'll hear my conversation with Seth Moulton.

We talked about the Democratic Party. We talked about the controversy over his comments around trans athletes. Also on the feed right now, you can hear Dan's conversation with Jen O'Malley, Dylan, Quentin Fulks, David Plouffe, and Stephanie Cutter about what went wrong in the Harris campaign. We're having a bunch of different conversations

about what we learned from the election, where we go from here with a bunch of different voices, one of which is here today. So people are mad that we talked to the Harris campaign. People are mad we're talking to you. People are mad and that's okay. But let's start with this. It's a big tent. It's a big tent.

It's a big tent. It's got Dick Cheney in it. It's got Dick Cheney in it. It's got Hassan Piker in it. It's a big tent. All right. It's got Dick Cheney in it. It's got Dick Cheney in it. It's got Hassan Piker in it. Yeah. It's got Dan Osborne in it. It's got Seth Moulton in it.

Yeah, yeah. You know, tent shouldn't maybe feature Dick Cheney in it, but you know, everybody else we can, I can have a conversation with. Great, great. All right, now look, the main pastime on the left, other than being mad for the last few weeks, is everyone saying how right they were all along

about Democrats being out of touch and bound to lose. Arrest me. Sorry. So we had a, I sat at this chair, well, maybe not at this chair, but I had the offline interview with John, I think a month before the election, and a lot of the things,

a lot of the concerns that I brought up to him, it seemingly came across as somewhat prescient, where people went back to the footage, and I've been seeing comments that were rather positive about like, you know, okay, he said a lot of stuff there that was objectively correct, seeming. Yeah, I wanna talk about one aspect of that, which is that you were saying, others were saying that,

hey, like Trump going on Rogan, Trump going on Theo Von, like something is happening here and we need to understand it, we need to address it. It's real. And I remember like my experience, it's like seared in my mind of Trump being on Joe Rogan because of how like my path of understanding it, because what I saw first were a bunch of people

taking clips and saying, wow, Rogan really didn't like Trump. Trump is a mess on this show. He comes across terribly. Rogan was like giving Trump space to hang himself rhetorically. And then I watch it and I'm like, Trump did fucking great in this interview. Yeah, he's very telegenic.

That's the thing that like a lot of people, I guess, refuse to factor in for some weird reason is that, yeah, he definitely rambles on. He likes to call it the weave. And even Joe Rogan made fun of him for that a little bit in the process. But like, there is something to be said about a relatively telegenic person

who is able to portray himself as, I like to call it, honestly dishonest. Where like everybody knows he's a bit of a scumbag, but he's your scumbag. And he's able to get that across to a lot of people. And I don't think that there is really anyone with that level of television presence on the Democratic Party front.

I think the most skilled orator in the Democratic Party front. I think like the most skilled order in the Democratic Party's ranks in the last, you know, last couple of decades was obviously Barack Obama. And outside of that, I think like in a lot of instances, purely from optics point of view, Democrats track is like technocratic, elitist, too serious about everything that they talk about.

And there's certainly a lot of that on the Republican Party side as well. And we've seen failed initiatives from establishment Republicans that tried to recreate the Trump phenomenon with the likes of Ron DeSantis, and that was a massive failure. But ultimately, I think this goes beyond podcasts.

This is something that I've been talking about quite frequently. I know the podcast thing is like the most, like that's the one that got everyone's attention, but I said this on CNN last night, that you can't really podcast your way out of this problem. Like having, you know, there was that one tweet saying like, oh, we just have a hundred Pot Save Americas,

but they all have to look like Hassan. Like that's not, that's not how this works. Oh, you think that one tweet might've been wrong? But the, yeah, like I guess, so I agree with that. You know, it became this couple kind of like, I don't know, like just have had this devastating loss to Trump and everybody's looking for these sort of little explanations that all feel, they just feel silly.

Like, oh, we need a Joe Rogan of the left. And even saying, like, I don't even wanna talk about how stupid that is anymore, because even that has become stupid. But I'm like, I do agree that like people are like, oh, well, she should have gone on Rogan. All right, yeah, sure. I think so too.

That would not have changed the outcome of this election. There's a larger problem to what you're getting at, which is like, why don't we have figures and where like we think they would do great on that show. And why is someone like Joe Rogan now who was four years ago open to Bernie now suddenly open to Trump? Like that's the deeper problem.

Like you look at like successful democratic messengers or progressive messengers over the last like decades. And you think, all right, well, Bill Clinton obviously was successful and he like ran against the democratic party in some way. Barack Obama did the same thing. Bernie does the same thing. AOC does the same thing.

Not on, I'm not talking about on policy. But just- You don't mean it like also in the same direction of running against. No, no, no, no. But running against the establishment in some way. And just no, no, no, but running against the establishment in some way and just saying, and the reason I connect them is because they all

did something which is demonstrated that they were not part of the democratic establishment, both like on policy and rhetorically, right? Like that's what they all did. And I'm just wondering like what, there's a place where there's like kind of an alignment of like the Seth Moulton critique of the Democratic Party and the lefty critique of the Democratic Party,

which is just like, it's fucking annoying and like kind of, I don't know, like pedantic in some way. Here's the thing. I think it's an incorrect interpretation, an incorrect autopsy to look back at a thing that the Democratic Party did not do at all and then say it's actually that reason. It's not anything that we did so far. It's not that we tack to the right over and over again, despite people like myself and many others saying like, don't do this, you're going to hemorrhage the base, you're going

to hemorrhage the base of support, you are going to cut away at your turnout, you're going to cut across many different constituencies that you rely on to create an effective coalition. And it's a very dangerous gamble to assume that you can decouple a lot of these people in the suburbs, a lot of like white women specifically, away from the Republican Party and vote for you instead. I know that they're high propensity voters, but it doesn't matter. There's still plenty of low propensity voters that you have to rely on to win. And that's precisely what the Democratic Party did.

They hyper focused on these key constituencies, despite the fact that polls were seemingly deadlocked after $30 million of ad spend in key suburbs, right? Like, it showed, at least, I said this time and time again, it showed someone from the outside looking in that the message was not working. And you can have the best ground game possible. You can have, you know, hundreds of thousands of people all across the country door knocking. But if the top-down message that you're communicating

is not resonating with people, then you're not going to be able to win an election. You're not going to have the effective turnout necessary to win this election. And that is precisely what happened. Now does that mean that Trump's messaging was good? Of course not. It wasn't. It was actually pretty bad. And I would even go so far as to say the anti-trans ads were actually a distraction and not good. It was only effective in the DC bubble, I think, and the consultant bubble and the media class that saw those ads and were like,

oh my God, this is an incredible ad. They really ruined Kamala Harris. Kamala Harris had a silly answer to a ACLU questionnaire. That just shows that she is not the most experienced politician. This was all the way back in, I believe, 2020, right? She literally had to drop out of the primary anyway at that time. That's one thing, okay?

But that should not be a campaign killer. If you personally think that that's a campaign killer, then your campaign is weak. This message across the board should never be able to end a single campaign. Then Teflon Don is real. I mean, the man had the grab him by the pussy tape come out as the October surprise in 2016, and he still won. And since then, there's been a litany of different controversies, including but not limited to straight up undermining American democracy by doing January 6. And yet people are still voting for him. And one must ask the question, why?

And I think overall, the same exact problems that persisted in 2016 when the economy was seemingly very good, right? Especially as opposed to like the post-COVID economy and its recovery, people were still very frustrated with what was going on. The notion that in the wealthiest nation on earth, we have 600,000 people sleeping outside every night. The idea that, you know, we have a, we have the concept

of medical bankruptcy is an insane phenomenon that doesn't exist in any other OECD nation. Like the fact that 60% of the American public doesn't have $400 in emergency spending. Like these are all very real economic anxieties. I'm using that term specifically because you know it's a it's one thing that people like to hyper focus on that that creates volatility that creates instability and it creates a base of angry people and if the Democratic Party is not addressing that anger and addressing their material problems and earnestly telling them like we're gonna fix that shit Okay, and the other side is looking at that anger and saying we're gonna channel your anger

You have every right to be angry and you know who you should be angry at those who have less than you You know You should be angry at the working poor the homeless people that are doing crimes left and right black and brown people undocumented migrants that are doing crimes left and right. Black and brown people, undocumented migrants that are doing incredible amounts of crimes, they're killing hundreds of thousands of Americans, and trans people, and the Democratic Party only cares about those people and they don't care about you. And that message resonates with a base of support, not because they are intrinsically evil.

That message resonates with a base of support because they're angry and one of the two major parties is not even remotely interested in addressing that anger and trying to tell them what the solution to that anger actually is and what the real problem is. So I wanna like break that into kind of how we, like the democratic brand, how we message and all, but then, but also like on the policy front. So Joe Biden wins.

He tries to kind of build consensus with Bernie. He brings in AOC. He goes to the left on antitrust. He does the Inflation Reduction Act, he does a post-COVID relief bill, he cancels as much debt as he can legally, even though the court is trying to stop him. Before the last year, what my view of this was is,

Joe Biden, this consensus Democrat, right? Actually to the right of the consensus for most of his career. Kind of somebody that had to be kind of pulled to where the party was going, did something extraordinary, which is he adapted, he changed. He governed in a much more progressive way than I think probably like I certainly,

than I expected, I hope that you expected. Oh, absolutely. And whether it's because people didn't feel it or people didn't believe it or the way Democrats talk about policy is ineffective, like it didn't seem to matter in terms of how people viewed like the democratic response to the economy, right? They were so angry about inflation, they were angry about a bunch of other issues and it really didn't matter what Joe Biden said or what Kamala Harris said, they were held responsible. And I'm just wondering how you explain that, right?

Like it seems as though Joe Biden tried to listen to this exact critique and it didn't matter. So yes and no, I do agree. There are plenty of things that Joe Biden did like beefing up the NLRB and letting the FTC reign hell upon these monopolies. There's two issues there though. One is, I think something that you will agree with as well, that the Democrats don't campaign year round in the same way that Republicans do on key issues, and they do have a massive communication problem. That could potentially be solved by

and they do have a massive communication problem, that could potentially be solved by having a more robust ecosystem and more collaboration with even the likes of yourself and maybe even someone like myself as well. And they need to always be on. They need to always be counter messaging against the anti-immigration sentiment. I went back and looked at my commentary

from February of 2021, when the story of the Customs and Border Patrol Haitian migrants getting whipped by, you know, horseback Customs and Border Patrol people, officers was in the news. And I remember talking about how the Republicans are going to keep hitting the immigrants are doing crime note over and over again, because that's the one thing that they have. And it's built around a complete falsehood that undocumented migrants are responsible for incredible amounts of crime.

It's not correct. There is no data to suggest this. The data actually shows the exact opposite. Undocumented migrants are your neighbors. They contribute to the economy in very meaningful ways and they very rarely take anything in return. Why is the Democratic Party not pushing this counter narrative? And they never did. Instead of pushing that counter narrative, which is based in

truth, and talk about how undocumented migrants are responsible for less crime per capita than natural born US citizens are, or that fentanyl being trafficked across the US borders are actually not coming in the knapsack of a otherwise law-abiding abuela, but instead it's coming from regular points of entry trafficked by American citizens. 90% of the people that are being apprehended for chemical compounds necessary for fentanyl or direct drugs that they're trafficking across the border are American citizens. This does not track with the the narrative that people believe because the narrative is dominated by the right on this issue They should have been counter messaging against that and they should have been putting bills forward

in in defense of The the moves that for example governor Greg Abbott was engaging in in Ronda Santas I said this even back then that this is a actually a fantastic opportunity for the federal government to show That there is a more tolerant approach, that one, they should have immediately pursued Governor Greg Abbott legally and arrested him for human trafficking and tried to prosecute him for human trafficking. I don't care if it's a constitutional crisis or not.

All of this stuff was insanely messed up and the federal government dropped the ball. I think the Biden administration dropped the ball by not adding additional funds immediately, sending additional funds immediately places like Chicago and New York, and to figure out a better way to transition a lot of these people and integrate them

into the American labor force. And instead they just got stuck in this like legal limbo for no reason. So, yeah, I mean, look, why is it that, okay, so Republicans say they sort of lay all these problems at the feet of undocumented immigrants. They say they're responsible for crime. No, they're not.

But there are obviously undocumented people, there are people and some are committing terrible crimes which they then exploit. But for the most part, these are people that not only are committing crimes at a lower rate, but actually are unable to go to the police when they're victims of crime. Whether that's a domestic violence, are unable to go to the police when they're victims of crime, whether that's a, that's a domestic violence, they can't go to the police or whether that's just sort of the quotidian mayhem of living in America or a boss taking

advantage of you. They can't go to the police, right? Yeah. Then they say, oh, well, they don't pay taxes. Actually, that's not true. They pay into Medicare, they pay into social security and they don't get, they don't get the benefits of it back.

And then they say, well, they're driving up the cost of housing. I do not believe that undocumented people are the reason a house costs $450,000 where it used to cost $350,000. Yeah, I didn't realize there were executives of BlackRock. The Guatemala migrants are mass purchasing houses and making sure that everyone's a permanent renter.

That's the point though. It's not a trans person that's your landlord. It's not an undocumented immigrant that's your landlord that's raising the cost of rent. It's not, your manager is not an undocumented immigrant. There are two big problems though. One is there are a lot of people saying this and it doesn't break through

because there is this right wing media system that puts out this one story. And the second problem is Democrats really don't have trust on this issue with the people that they're trying to persuade to see it our way, which I think goes to the point you made before, right? Which is why is it that Donald Trump can meander around the country rambling, committing what in any other

era would be, if not like campaign ending, like campaign harming, ridiculous statements. Gaffs, yeah. Gaffs, sure. That he can basically be an like a strategic mess. But Kamala Harris has to hit every point exactly right. She says the wrong thing on the view or there's a bad interview from 2020, those things can be campaign ending.

And I think to your point, it goes to something deeper, a kind of a lack of like kind of, I don't know, core vision or motivating mission for the current democratic party. Yeah, something that is an understandable, easy to communicate, simple policy that you can put your campaign around so so we agree on the messaging front a little bit at least or the the the asymmetry of how much you know right-wing media dominates the

ecosystem the media ecosystem in general all the way from independent outlets down to Traditional media were as far as I understand it, 73% now, I think of all news watchers are watching Fox News, 73%. That's an insane percentage. That's an insane number, right? So outside of that though, I think here's the disagreement that we will have, that while Joe Biden did a bunch of stuff

that I agree was positive, It was simply not enough. And that was something that I was always very critical on as well. If you see a homeless person and you chuck them two pennies and they're sitting on the corner of the street, like, yeah, technically, their material wealth improved by a percentage, a decent percentage, but he's still going to be

mad at you because you just gave him two pennies. Why doesn't the homeless person understand that their situation is much better? That is not an effective way to communicate to Americans that like, no you don't understand inflation is actually under control, that the economy is rebounding, even if it's objective truth because they, like most Americans don't understand what inflation is and they don't understand that prices are not gonna go down in that circumstance. And besides that, and I fact that this is not just

the vibe session communications, but I'm also talking about specifically, like even the IRA or many of these other parts of the legislative agenda that Biden put forth that was more progressive than I expected from more progressive than even the Obama administration in many respects, but one, they didn't do a good job of communicating any of those victories in my opinion.

They did not actually like go to the media regularly to show these victories and to showboat and gloat a little bit. Two, a lot of that was also held up in gridlock because we didn't whip votes well enough within our own party. And I think that there was a lot of punishments that should have been dished out to the likes of Joe Manchin

and the likes of Kirsten Sinema, rather than offering a green senator an opportunity to be a prominent fixture of the Democratic Party, I think that a lot more punishment should have been issued towards these people that use the moment in the spotlight to specifically play the role of a rotating villain in the Democratic Party, which has happened time and time again, all the way from Joe Lieberman to the Maggie Hassans of the world,

the Kirsten Sinema's, the Joe Manchans of the world, the Kirsten Sinema, the Joe Manchin's of the world, and the problem solvers caucuses within Congress in general, these guys need to get whipped into shape. Yeah, I just like, I wish I believe that. I just wish I believe that. No, but think about it.

But I just like, I don't know how much more you could have gotten out of Joe Manchin or Kirsten Sinema. Like, Joe Manchin basically was telegraphing the whole time, like, I'll walk away. And Joe Biden kept him in the tent that got judges through, that got the Inflation Reduction Act through.

Like, I just, I do not believe, like, I think we agree on a lot, like, I just don't believe that there is a version of the Joe Biden presidency that could have been more successful on legislative policy. I just, I don't believe that there is a version of the Joe Biden presidency that could have been more successful on legislative policy. I just, I don't see that. You're not gonna appreciate what I'm about to say then. Hit me.

Use the IRS and also the SEC and maybe even the FTC to investigate as to why Joe Manchin's brother owns a coal mine and whether there's a conflict of interest there. Investigate why Joe Manchin's daughter is selling pharmaceutical products to the state of West Virginia when Joe Manchin is directly at odds with, you know, any sort of bill

that would lower the cost of pharmaceuticals. So you want the president Yes. to politicize these agencies Yes. and use them to go after people. Because you wanna know why. Tell me why.

And this- Hey, tell me why. Because they're doing it at the behest of not only the American people, their interests, but they're also, and this is probably going to frustrate everyone in this audience, but here's the thing that I get very frustrated about. You have a wide range of listeners across a broad ideological spectrum.

Here's what really frustrates me. What frustrates you? About the way the Democratic Party operates. They love norms, they love institutions, they love civility, they care about bipartisanship for the sake of bipartisanship, as though that is something that- There's no that, some do, some don't.

Yeah, sure. But for the most part, the broad communication coming out of the Democratic Party is that these are the things that they care about. These are the top line issues. We gotta protect democracy, we gotta preserve our institutions. The problem is, the other side

doesn't give a shit about that. So I think I want a Democratic party that fights for me and others who are marginalized, other people that like desperately need help. And I know that the Republican party is never gonna do that. I'm not one of those guys who's like, oh, well, you know, at least I,

at least the Republicans are kind of listening to what I have to say or are, you know, communicating, channeling the anger that I feel, like, I don't care. They're charlatans, they're significantly worse than the Democratic party. I don't like the Democratic party for their closeness to the Republican party. I want them to be a party that actually fights

for the working class, for all Americans unconditionally, regardless of ideology. And you can't do that through bipartisanship with an otherwise like hostile entity that is the Republican party. And I think there is a lot of hypocrisy there and hypocrisy that people can see. Hypocrisy is the easiest thing that they can understand.

You can't say that these guys are fascist, these guys are racist for eight years for wanting to build a wall and then turn around and straight up tell Anderson Cooper in that town hall, walls, maybe the wall is a good idea and I wanna build it myself. I'm gonna be the border czar. I'm gonna be the border party.

You can't do that. Americans look at that and go, so you're admitting that you were just lying for the past eight years. Well, it's like, again, though, it's like, I think actually, like you look at somebody like Dan Osborne, right, who ran so far out of the Democratic Party,

ran as this economic populist, but one of the things he had to do to get there was kind of be tough on immigration. And actually, like, I think part of it goes back to like, if people felt like they knew in their bones, like Bernie Sanders being to me, like the signal example, like you know what Bernie's about. You know what he's for, you know what motivates him.

You know what he cares about. Same thing for Trump. You know when there are issues he doesn't give a fuck about and there's issues he really, really cares about. Immigration is one he trade, right? Like, you know the things that have been anti-crime, whatever, that there are things that have been in Donald Trump's like kind of brain,

slowly losing plasticity, that are like kind of solid in there, and for Bernie, you know, like we know why he's in politics, and that gives a politician the space to kind of challenge orthodoxies in the party or kind of run counter to it, to signal to the people you need to signal to. Now, like, you know, you say, oh, you can't call them fascist and then also work with them. Like,

yeah, yeah. But at the same time, Joe, again, like it's like, I just don't know what to do with this nuance. Joe Biden, like, I am glad Joe Biden did the Inflation Reduction Act and an infrastructure bill and a gun bill and the CHIPS Act and a bunch of other stuff. I'm glad Joe Biden did the Inflation Reduction Act and an infrastructure bill and a gun bill and the CHIPS Act and a bunch of other stuff. I'm glad he was able to do all of those things. I'm glad that he was able to use his kind of like moderate brand, whatever, to kind of bring people in and get some stuff done.

Like I don't think the country is better off if he didn't do those things. So like you describe it as hypocrisy, like it's compromised., like politics requires compromise. The Republican party rarely ever compromises, they're uncompromising, you only have to beat them. But that's not true though, like I agree with that on Trump,

but that's just not true, like they did compromise, right? They like, there are plenty of people on the Republican side that were furious at Republican senators for going along with some of these Biden bills, right? They, like, these are, there are plenty of people on the Republican side that were furious at Republican senators for going along with some of these Biden bills, right? Like, those are people that did compromise. Yeah, there is a million examples, however, of Republicans that are obstructionists

that I'm sure you also love presenting. Yeah, of course. That go back to their town halls and lie about all the money that they brought back home. Absolutely. From the bills that they voted against. So ultimately, we now know that political polarization is set in a way that never really existed

in American history until the last couple of decades, right? I think that parties originally were more geopolitically focused on their immediate needs like statewide needs. So you saw this dramatic shift and now the Republican party, especially with Mitch McConnell under the Obama administration,

showcase that like permanent obstructionism is not punishable and that gridlock is always considered the administrative party's problem. If there's any sort of gridlock, it's the fault of the leadership and Americans hate gridlock. That's kind of the reason why I was talking about Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin,

because that was a massive, massive moment where like they actually ended up protecting the Republican party because they were never gonna vote for these bills anyway. And now the entire conversation was about like, you know, madness within the Democratic party's caucuses, like, oh, they can't get their ducks in a row, right? Like that was genuinely frustrating to me

because it's like, if you don't, if you'd whip your votes immediately, then you could showcase that the Republican Party is standing in the way of progress. But that's just like, that is legislative minutia. What is more important to talk about is broad sweeping legislative changes or a agenda that might even come across as bold and

radical in the interest of the American working class. Joe Biden said he wanted to do the public option. Everybody knew that wasn't real. He never talked about it after. He just used the public option. He slotted that in in the primaries when the party was primed to the Bernie left and everyone was like, you know, trying to communicate their own populist version of what Bernie was doing. And, you know, Joe Biden won the primaries and effectively tabled the discussion about health care. This is still a major problem, regardless. Like, yes, negotiating pharmaceutical prices and ensuring that insulin prices are capped to $35, which is now going to be looking like a Trump victory

when he's in office. It doesn't matter, it's still good for the American people. So that's great, but like that is good, but that's not enough. Yeah. And I think that, I think that when you don't do that, when you have this very technocratic,

third-way neoliberal approach, but you sprinkle in a little bit of like anti-corporate anti-billionaire populism that Joe Biden certainly did, you're a rudderless ship. You're not communicating effectively like what you are about. And when you, when you don't have a North Star that every single person can point to and say, this is what the party is about, your enemies can portray you as whatever they want and that's why the trans anti-trans ads are even remotely effective. Because you can make the Democratic Party look clownish and inconsistent and even silly and

hyper-focused on whatever key issues there are because one, they rarely ever focus on universality and programs. Everything has to be means tested, which I think is both on the policy front and on the politics front garbage. Focus on universal programs because that way you can cut across every single group and you can disproportionately target marginalized populations, black populations, brown populations, and trans people. These people do not exist in a vacuum. They're not magical, mystical beings that are not experiencing the shocks of the

market. They still have to pay rent. They still need workplace protections They still need the cost of medicine to go down, right? So universal programs capture the attention of all Americans including this majority white angry population that is Finding themselves in the throes of the Republican reactionary movement So they need to do that and if they don't do that a Republican reactionary movement. So they need to do that. And if they don't do that, then the subtle populism of the right

is always going to be the only game in town. And they're gonna be able to present themselves as anti-establishment while they have billionaires parading around all of the campaign stops, like Elon Musk trying to do that X logo every time he jumps like a child. I hate Elon Musk. That is the trick stops, like Elon Musk, trying to do that X logo every time he jumps, like a child, I hate Elon Musk. That is the trick though, man. They're like, so if you listen to the Harris Campaign's

advisors talking to Dan Pfeiffer, I know you did, and you had your problems with it, but one place where they agreed is that like, hey, like everyone's saying, oh, this trans ad, oh, this trans ad, like it actually might not have been their most effective ad. And they were trying to, and what Quentin Fonk said was that they were actually really trying to target it

to get at black men. And it looks like maybe that didn't work, right? That's sort of, we'll see, we're gonna get more data. But the point that the ad makes is just that Democrats are weird, Democrats are strange, right? And like they use trans people as a cudgel to do that. But like to the larger point, you have billionaires, just the wealthy, literally the wealthiest man

in the world. The top seven donors, this election cycle, all donated to the Republican Party and they were donating like 100 million, 200 million dollars, like it was crazy. How do you think about the fact that in right-wing media right now, and like right-wing adjacent media, they are managing to be both the party of the wealthiest,

sort of oligarchs in the world, and the kind of traditional moral set trying to impose a specific way of living on people, sort of oligarchs in the world, and the kind of traditional moral set trying to impose a specific way of living on people, and anti-establishment kind of rebellious politics. It's Nazi Germany, straight up. It's just pure fascism. That's all this is.

It worked, it worked a hundred years ago, and it's seemingly working right now and it's not just the United States of America, it's all across Western Europe. The only country that bucked the trend of the incumbency disadvantage seemingly was Mexico. One must ask the question why an old dottering man who was still relatively telegenic,

even though he believed in wood elves, you know, relatively telegenic, even though he believed in wood elves, Duendes, was able to get a tremendous amount of popularity and then become the transition candidate that actually passed the torch to a younger woman, Claudia Scheinbaum. I'm of course talking about Mexico. I'm talking about AMLO is the old man, Claudia Scheinbaum was his spiritual and ideological successor in the Morena Party. Why did that happen? Why was AMLO so popular?

And why is Claudia Scheinbaum also incredibly popular? Why did Claudia Scheinbaum win the election with even larger margins of victory than AMLO did? It's because they expanded the welfare state, they increased minimum wage, and they made a whole bunch of decisions that genuinely improved the material conditions of a lot of people in Mexico.

And that's something that people will never forget. We talked about the black vote for a second. As far as voter patterns goes, older black populations, like older black voters as a voting bloc, is a more reliable voting bloc for the Democratic Party than younger black voters are. One must ask the question why? That is because people remember the last time the Democratic Party did something for black people, did something bold, expended social and political capital for black people, and that is something that people do not forget.

If you give people things, they will not forget that. That's why there was a lot of dummies who thought, oh, Trump's back, we're gonna get some stimmy checks. It's not gonna happen, but they still remember that because they think, oh yeah, Trump gave us stimmy checks. I mean- Well, Joe Biden expanded. I mean, like I-

I know. And by the way, like I'm not pushing back on any of this because I don't like agree with the sentiment. I just like, I am trying in the weeks after this election to just like question these sort of statements because then it's like, well, Joe Biden expanded the child tax credit, made a huge difference for millions of children.

No, absolutely. The expansion of the child tax credit was fantastic, but it didn't continue. It was so successful and it didn't continue. Do you think American people know why that happened? I don't, I don't. Who's at fault if American people don't know why that happened?

Well, that's a, I think some of it is Democrats. Some of it is the mainstream media. Some of it is the right-wing media. And some of it, by the way, is the left. It is the media of the left, right? Like I, the first couple of years, there have been so many moments where, by great frustration, I think in the way politics is talked about,

is often people do not want to do the work of figuring out who's actually responsible, right? Like Republicans will shut down the government and mainstream sources will say Washington gridlock continues, right? Or Joe Biden will be stymied in some way or Barack Obama will be stymied. Why didn't Barack Obama do this?

Why didn't Barack Obama do that when he had a majority? Right, he said, well, because it's actually, you know what, in the Senate, having 49 votes to get rid of the filibuster and having 50 votes to get rid of the filibuster is a difference between doing a ton of shit and not being able to do anything. That's not the fault of 49 people, that's the result of one person, yeah.

Can I bring up something really quick? This conversation that you and I are having, have you ever heard a Republican have this conversation? Well, what do you mean? Like Republicans are top this round? Have you ever heard a Republican go, sorry, we couldn't get this done because we simply did not have the votes?

Is that ever like a real significant front facing public conversation that the Republicans have? I mean, I feel like you want the answer to be no, but like, I do think the answer is yes. I can't recall a time. Maybe, no, I'm asking you. No, like I, I think on their side, like I think the, I mean, they have over the last decade

slowly but surely gotten rid of the people who are pointing out the actual things that stand in their way, right? They went after Kevin McCarthy. Well, yeah, and sometimes that works, sometimes that leaves them pretty well stuck. I mean, Donald Trump was president for four years. He wanted to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

He didn't have the votes, right? There was a big conversation about why he didn't have the votes that like, they're been like Republican, the Republican base, like furious with spending bills that were passed, right? How would- What did Donald Trump do after when John McCain struck down the Affordable Care Act?

Well, what did he do? He took out the individual mandate regardless. He did. Well, he did what the same thing a Democratic president would do, do as much as you can legislatively, and when it fails, use your executive power, which is what Biden has done on student loans

and a bunch of other issues. Yeah, so my point is, he still got the most significant aspect of his, agenda across. And in the process, he utilized the bully pulpit to laser John McCain nonstop and effectively bully John McCain in a way that I've never seen

a democratic president turn around and communicate about Joe Biden. I'll hear it about the left, about how they're naysayers, how they're spoilers. I never hear it about conservative Democrats. And I think it's the coalition- We talked about that. It's the coalition that you wanna have is my point.

And I think Democrats win or lose, wanna win by their own established policies and the way that they wanna win. And they're willing to lose if necessary, as long as they still maintain the overarching attitude that they wanna win, and they're willing to lose if necessary, as long as they still maintain the overarching attitude that they have. I just think that is- Or maybe they're just bad and wrong.

Well, I just think they're like, I think people need to be persuaded. I think people need to be persuaded. Like David Plouffe talking to Pfeiffer yesterday, he's like, look, you go to a swing state, you got a certain percentage of liberals and progressives, you have a certain percentage of conservatives, and you got this vast swath of moderates. You need them, you got a certain percentage of liberals and progressives, you got a certain percentage of conservatives and you got this vast swath of moderates,

you need them, you need them. Now, I think where you're right is like, there is something about a democratic establishment, establishment figures that feel more comfortable with a Liz Cheney sitting at the table than with a leftist sitting at the table. And that the disagreements with Liz Cheney are more kind of, are acceptable

and the disagreements to the left are less acceptable. But one must ask the question, why is that acceptable? Liz Cheney is anti-LGBT, Liz Cheney is anti-abortion, Liz Cheney is anti-democratic party, Liz Cheney is the daughter of a rabid, warmongering, terrorist sociopath, Dick Cheney. And yet there are Democrats who are more comfortable with her than people who also would totally be on board

with the Democratic Party, but I don't know, have maybe sometimes identical opinions of Liz Cheney on even LGBT issues. Like Joe Rogan is a great example of this. The Democratic Party has consistently utilized and weaponized in the most cynical ways possible identity politics. And I say this as someone who is infinitely more progressive

than the average Democrat on these issues. They just use it. They use it against Bernie. They use it against every single person. And now they're dropping it themselves. That makes every Democrat look like a silly fool. That makes, it does. In the eyes of Americans, they go,

you called us racist, you called us transphobic, you called us crazy, and now you're saying, okay, my bad, we gotta drop this woke shit. Like, of course people are gonna go, all right, I guess like I'm primed into now believing the Republicans. Like you're pushing your base towards being more open-minded to right-wing policies, the only thing you're doing.

And that's how, and that's the only thing you're doing when you don't actually claw back a lot of the things that the Republicans, the former Republican administration engages in. Like Democrats are very good at trying to fix the deficit. They're the only real deficit hawks, right? Republicans certainly don't care. They only use it as a weapon to wield,

to communicate against the Democratic agenda. But outside of that, like on foreign policy, Joe Biden said he was going to be an effective foreign policy leader. He did NATO, he kept talking about, you know, NATO Jack, AUKUS, as though that was gonna be- He loved talking about AUKUS. Yeah.

Like I've never been more, I've never been more like nervous in politics, like other than the day before an election, then when Joe Biden was still in the race and he did that press conference. Oh yeah. And he was like, he talked about AUKUS. So no one knows what the fuck AUKUS is.

Yeah, Five Eyes, AUKUS, that's a deep cut. That is a deep cut. But like Joe Biden was like, I am, I'm the adult in the room, Jack, I'm gonna bring back America into the global stage. The way that the American public sees that is like, there's war in Ukraine, right? And that's not even Joe Biden's fault.

Like, I understand that. That's Vladimir Putin decided, I'm gonna that's not even Joe Biden's fault. Like I understand that. That's Vladimir Putin decided, I'm gonna do the insane thing. I'm gonna invade Ukraine. That's psychotic, right? But the way that people see it, they're like, why are we giving money to Ukraine when we're not fixing the potholes?

Why are we giving money to Ukraine when the ISP suck here? What the hell's going on? Why are we giving money to Ukraine when we don't have healthcare, we have homeless people everywhere? And then on top of that, they see that instability as like something

that is Joe Biden's fault, fair or unfair, doesn't matter. They attribute it to Joe Biden. Same thing with Israel-Palestine. They look to what is going on and they're like, this is insane. Like why Biden will come out and say, or used to come out and say, we're gonna do a two state solution.

Benjamin in now, the next day would be like, fuck the two state, what do you mean? How about no state? Literally, the next day. And Biden kept trying to do this thing where he was like finger wagging, where he's like, oh, I'm really, I'm gonna give him a heart to heart, you know,

real man to man. For a lot of Americans, they saw that as like, you're weak, you're old, you're weak, you're old, you're weak, you're feeble, and you're getting dog walked by an American ally in a very public and very embarrassing way. And there's a metric ton of violence that's happening on top of that.

Like he ironically destroyed the goodwill that a lot of people had coming in to his administration with the last, I guess, like post Afghanistan withdrawal, everything was bad after that with respect to Joe Biden's foreign policy. It also just like, it's also tied to- I still defend the Afghan withdrawal, by the way. And I think the Democrats also dropped the ball on that too

because they should have stood 10 toes down and said, that was the right thing to do. We exhibited political courage. And for the record, Republicans tried to do a 13, the 13 of our best soldiers died in Afghanistan thing over and over again, the cynical thing that they tried to do. Yeah, I mean, the Republicans are shameless. Democrats are less so.

No, they should be shameless though. I'm just, I'm describing what the issue is. Yeah, I mean, part of this though too, like I, like huge policy problem in how the Biden administration has responded to the war in Gaza. But on that issue, on a bunch of foreign policy issues, a bunch of domestic issues,

some of the problem has been Joe Biden gave a State of the Union, which was good. And everyone's like, okay. I'm just, that's what happened. But other than that, he has been such an ineffective communicator that, and it has gotten so much worse over the last year. Yeah, cause he's old as fuck.

I know, I know. But like we're in this moment where we're like, kind of trying to like, what went wrong? What about this? What about that? People are so mad. Like the we're like, kind of trying to like, what went wrong? What about this? What about that? People are so mad. Like the people are like, the answers that that Kamala's advisors gave

were unsatisfying. Yeah, they are unsatisfying. But so much of this is just like, there was a giant anti-incumbent fervor around the world. Joe Biden was completely unable to articulate a defense of his policies, right? Like the fact that there is inflation and people are mad about inflation is not a reason alone.

Like that can explain why we lost if you accept that we had no agency in competing against that argument. But like Joe Biden certainly had no, like just could not communicate effectively. I think you'll see what happens when someone effectively bullies corporations, regardless of being a right-wing Republican in the upcoming Trump administration.

Things are going to get significantly worse for every single person, including the people that voted for Donald Trump. One of the funniest aspects of the tariffs conversation that's happening right now is that Donald Trump is going to implement broad tariffs on 45% of all trade that comes in and out of the United States of America. Mexico, Canada, and China comprise 45% of all trade. He wants the tariff every single one. Tariffs are obviously an entry fee

that the American corporations are gonna be paying. None of the countries are gonna be paying for these tariffs. It's a policy that's going to destroy drop shippers, which overwhelmingly vote for Donald Trump, and the Trump merchandise industry. So that's pretty funny, but having said that, it's gonna be devastating for the economy.

Now, what do I think Trump will do in the process? He'll obviously use tariffs to basically get corporations and industries and sector leaders on board with his agenda. So when he says jump, they say how high or I'm gonna slap you with tariffs and it's gonna actually punish you. It's gonna hurt your bottom line. And I think that's part of the reason

why they're gonna do that. The other reason is this regressive tax is a broad sales tax on all consumers that disproportionately affects the working poor and we're hoping he's loved that shit. But he also at times I think will just institute the Defense Production Act or something. We'll see it. We kind of saw it in COVID as well when it was a necessity. But that's the thing. The American government is powerful. All governments are powerful, but the American

government is especially powerful. It's the wealthiest nation on the planet. And the way that it runs is basically, it's like 50 companies in a trench coat. We are working at the behest of corporations. We feed them with our tax dollars that turn into subsidies for them. They utilize those subsidies to, I guess, lower production costs, but then they use that to increase their profit margins and engage in what used to be illegal pre Ronald Reagan, stock buybacks and the like, market manipulation of all different sorts. And we're constantly deregulating the economy.

And I think that it's not just about having like a populist message, it's about actually implementing said populist message and show who your real enemies are. Like not be afraid to say, these people are fucking your life up. And if you are truly the pro working class party as the Democrats want to be,

as they claim they were historically, right? And there were certainly times when they were, then you have to say these corporations and the wealthy that have given us money, as well as the Republican party and always have been hedging their bets are the real reason why you're feeling this economic anxiety, the real reason why you feel hopeless, that you will never be able to own a home, that you'll never be able to retire and the Republicans are always in defense of them. They will distract you with lies. They will say your fellow neighbors, you know, your God-fearing

Christian, Muslim, whatever Jewish neighbors are your enemy, when in fact we know what the problem is. So we're gonna bring them to heel. This kind of messaging is terrifying, obviously, for many different reasons, and it will never happen within the Democratic Party. But in the absence of that. I don't think that's true. We'll see.

In the, no, I think you'll just get focus-grouped messaging and means testing about the opportunity economy which Kamala Harris presented at a time when people were, you know, when wage growth had never actually caught up to, it never caught up to the cost of living. And cost of housing. Yeah. Which by the way is like, you need to be, but this is,

but like- Oh, you need to deflate housing. That's a, that I- You need to build, you need to build vast amounts of housing. Yeah. Federal jobs program, get these fucking insoles to work. Well, we gotta get these incels to work.

No, get them to work. Give them, whether they like it or not, they're gonna get good, well-paying jobs with good benefits, they're gonna get socialized medicine. Gotta put the incels to work. And they're gonna work. None of this neat stuff anymore. They can't be online all the time.

They're too online. It's your business, now you're coming after your own business. It's fine, I'm happy for, like, I would drop everything if we got universal healthcare and a federal jobs program and we're building public housing all around the country. That's fine. ["Dreams of a New World"]

What do you think the, like, kind of, you're in the kind of I don't know there's like the there's a place where the left the online left and the online right meets and it kind of meets a little bit at people who think RFK has some good ideas a little bit a little bit what do you think what do you? What is the appeal there? Cranks. Just cranks? Yeah, anti-establishment cranks. There's a lot of them. There's the Tulsi Gabbard constituency, which is like marginal, it's not all that significant.

But yeah, I think that the online left is not as robust a media ecosystem as like people think it is in general. And besides that, they don't have any sort of like political motion regardless right you know I have disagreements with the the closest Congress members that are ideologically as close a lot closely aligned with myself as possible but I still have many disagreements with them and and outside of that I think like these guys that like RFK Jr. because they think he's gonna make America healthy again,

they just like the crank stuff. That's what it is. I'm really like four years, I guess eight years ago, Jesus, I remember after Trump won the first time, what I was feeling at the time, which I'm still feeling now now is that the two challenges, is that like at a moment where someone like Trump is ascendant, like how do you keep this big left together,

this big tent together from, yes, it includes the kind of pro-democracy anti-Trump right, runs all the way to the far left and leftists. How do you keep that big group of people together? And I do think like you're right, like there is just in part because there's just so much money behind it. Like the online right is I think it's bigger

and more influential, but it also knows how to get on board, right? Like it knows like it fights, it has disagreements, it pushes, but then it knows like for our ends, for our goals, we all need to get behind, whether it's Trump or in previous elections, it was getting behind like Romney like figures, McCain like figures, like they get behind those figures.

And sometimes it feels like on the left, like there's no moment at which we say, all right, we've had the fight, we've had the debate, we disagree on a whole bunch of stuff. Hey everybody which we say, all right, we've had the fight. We've had the debate. We disagree on a whole bunch of stuff. Hey everybody, we're gonna get together. We're gonna make sure that we stop Donald Trump. We elect Joe Biden as much as we elect Kamala Harris.

Like that moment doesn't come. And like, I'm not saying that Democrats in power aren't in part responsible for that. I think part of what we need to do is figure out a politics that brings people in, but it is, it does require, it does like, everyone is responsible. Yeah, I think just as I was very critical of Bernie Sanders' campaign, despite, you know,

still loving Bernie, because he was nowhere near as aggressive as he could have been in the primaries. And, you know, definitely should have probably gone on more like independent media route in a similar vein to Donald Trump. I am still, because I blame the fault on Bernie's campaign strategies in the primaries, despite recognizing the structural hurdles

of like a left-wing populace coming out of a Democratic Party primary, where it's like the laser focused audience that goes out and votes at those things, or like the MSNBC watcher base that is like objectively terrified of someone like that, because people are saying he's gonna, you know, start executing wealthy people.

It's still his fault. And it's still the campaign's fault in this regard as well. And that's why I brought forward the point that like, you can have a billion point five, right? You can have ground game. None of that matters if the message is not actually addressing the real issues that Americans are facing.

And the reason why I think the Republicans can go out and vote for the Republican party and don't usually sit it out, I guess, and instead are able to say, suck it up and say, yeah, we're still gonna vote for Donald Trump, is because there are single issue voters out there and Trump, they know that Trump is gonna protect it. People that like guns are gonna be like, I like my guns.

I want my guns to be protected. I wanna be able to marry my gun. I wanna be able to have sex with my gun. I know Donald Trump is gonna be the, I like my guns. I want my guns to be protected. I wanna be able to marry my gun. I wanna be able to have sex with my gun. I know Donald Trump is gonna be the guy that lets that happen. And I know the Democrats are gonna shun me for wanting to have sex with my gun. So that guy is gonna go and vote for Trump regardless.

On the other side though, if your top line communication and your major policy prescriptions are like, we have to preserve these institutions, we have to preserve civility, and we have to preserve democracy at major policy prescriptions are like, we have to preserve these institutions, we have to preserve civility, and we have to preserve democracy at a time when Americans are like, I don't give a fuck about democracy, just lower the price of eggs.

Then there's no way that I could outflank the Democratic Party and get people to vote for Kamala Harris in a way that sticks, in a way that is gonna be successful, no matter how much influence I wield. But it's not, yeah, I'm not even just talking about, yes, take your point. Most people are just not voting, that's the problem.

But the challenge, right, is that like, there are like these three, let's say you say there's these three kind of media ecosystems. There's the right-wing one, there's the kind of mainstream one, and there's the left one. The one on the right is built to attack Democrats.

The one in the middle is built to attack Washington and politics, and the one on the left is built to attack Democrats. It is, I mean, I think they're trying to pressure Democrats to be a more moral and just version of itself. I think I'd probably spend more time shitting on the Republican Party than the Democratic Party, but yeah. But I'm saying when we're talking about like,

when the right is talking, when right wing media, it is trying to be a team player, and it is attacking Democrats and supporting Republicans. The middle is attacking both, and the left is attacking Democrats and Republicans. There is no place, right? There is no like big kind of fun, exciting media environment outside of, I guess, fucking this table

where like you have a lot of people that are like critical to the Democratic party, like annoyed by the same things we're talking about, but ultimately it's just like we got to win and we have to get behind these people. Yeah, well, but again, it is because for many people on the right-wing ecosystem, like they have their toys, they have their treats and the Republicans are giving them those toys

and those treats. Whereas the Democrats are offering what? No, I agree. That's where I'm like- Like what are they offering? Well, yeah, no, I know we gotta fucking figure out. It doesn't matter to me, I'm rich, okay? Like, I mean, I probably might go to prison

if Project Esther gets kicked in or if they denaturalize me or something, but- mean, I probably might go to prison with Project Esther, it gets kicked in or if they denaturalize me or something, but. Hey, come on. You know, I mean, who knows? We'll see, but. You can, but I mean, you can be rich abroad. That is true. What are you talking about?

But my point is, but I like being here. I like trying to solve some of the problems in America, at least. And then like the food's great, yeah. The point is not that I'm rich. The point is that, the point I'm making is that like, I care about my fellow Americans.

I care about them, their lives getting better. They're improving their material conditions. And I recognize that if Democrats keep losing, then Republicans are gonna keep ruining this country further. And I want the Democrats to win. I wanna be the most regime-pilled propaganda minister you've ever seen. That's what I want for you.

But I can't do that if the Democratic Party is not offering anything. I guess what I, here's what I, and I think that's all fair. I guess like where I'm,, what I'm trying to see is like, what is the path to the Democrats creating the kind of story that's backed by candidates, that's backed by message, that's backed by policy,

that's backed by having the right enemies, telling that kind of story, right? And then in concert with that, like it is a kind of like, to go, we do need a kind of like to go, we do need a kind of like virtuous circle where then more and more people in left media start to accept that the vehicle for changing this country for the better is the Democratic party.

If we were consistently, I mean, I can't speak for everybody else on the left. I don't know who you're talking about when you say this, but like I can speak to my friends that are over at Dropsite News, former Intercept guys like Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Grimm. I can speak to Majority Report that was way more in the tank for Kamala than I was for sure.

Like they were very openly more excited at the prospect of Kamala Harris. I was definitely a lot more depressed by no matter who wins, we're still cooked was my attitude, but like certainly understanding and recognizing that Donald Trump is going to be far worse than Kamala Harris, of course. And Chappo Trap House, right? So these are some of the largest media companies out there on the left, right? Outside of the orbit of the Democratic Party.

Every single one of these outlets, myself included, talked more about the Biden administration's accomplishments with the NLRB, with Lena Conn at the FTC, with like, you know, trust-busting, and numerous other accomplishments that the Democratic Party actually brought forward than they did. And it didn't matter. My point is, we always defended,

we always, always defended the Afghan withdrawal unconditionally. You never saw that on even, you barely saw that on MSNBC. We always defended that. We always defended Lena Conn. We always defended the NLRB. We always defended the walking, this symbolic move that Joe Biden made when he went to the UAW picket line.

We didn't forget that. We talked about that. It didn't matter. It's not enough, especially when there is, there's so much that Joe Biden did, I think, outside of the economic pressures that Americans were experiencing that was certainly going to play a pivotal role in the election, but there's so much that he did

in the month of October in 2023 that just completely wiped that, that made it impossible to defend him because it became the major focus of a lot of people. And there's nothing you can do in that moment when people are seeing exactly what's going on and getting frustrated. He unveiled the right-wing immigration bill

on October 5th, 2023. And if I'm, I might be getting the date wrong, but it was like literally two days before October 7th. He did that, and then October 7 happened, and he went and he bare hugged Netanyahu and kept giving, you know, unlimited weapons to Israel over and over again, never restraining Israel. Everybody knew exactly what was going to happen. It had happened before and it was going to be much worse. And yet no restraint whatsoever. And it has, I think, diminished America's soft power capabilities on the global stage further. It has eroded America's influence and soft power capabilities in the Western world.

Obviously, the Global South already knew what was up. They've always known. But they have no power. They have no voice. It doesn't matter. But the populations in Western Europe, recognizing what was going on and actually starting to protest against it.

I mean, that's different. I'm saying this as someone who's been an advocate for Palestinian emancipation for the past 10 years publicly. I've never seen this groundswell of this massive sea change, this attitude shift in such a dramatic fashion over the course of the last 12 months. And they did not address that at all and instead they hugged and kissed neocons and talked about even in the VP debate like Israel having the nuclear first strike capability. What an insane conversation we're having after 12 months of genocide.

Americans fancy themselves to be peaceful people. It's a lie. America's foreign interventions are anything but peaceful. Even then the media ecosystem usually just shelters Americans from the genuine devastating impact of America's actions globally. But for that reason Americans can at least feel like they're peaceful doves, which is why Donald Trump, despite never being a peaceful dove, was able to effectively communicate that he was actually anti-Iraq war against Hillary Clinton in 2016, which was a resilient

message that actually showcased him as more moderate than Hillary Clinton in the eyes of many Americans. He did four years of no peaceful dove shit whatsoever, and then he turned around and after October 7 was still able to effectively outflank the Democrats on this issue, despite the fact that he got a hundred million dollars from Miriam Adelson, Sheldon Adelson's wife, to potentially annex the West Bank and put rabid evangelical freaks

like Mike Huckabee as the Israeli ambassador, these guys are insane. It's very heartbreaking for me too. Look, I think one of the reasons people will be mad that you're on the show is because you're a proud anti-Zionist, right? You said that. I've gotten shit for saying.

I was about to say anti-Semite, I was like, damn. Joining us today, anti-Semite dumbass. Yeah. No, but like, I actually, like a couple, like two or three years ago, I said on Pods of America, like that I describe myself as a Zionist, which got people upset too. But what I said then and what I still say now is,

and I actually had the same conversation with Bernie, is you ought to denounce the destruction and death in Gaza. You ought to denounce the moral abomination that is taking over the West Bank on its own terms, because it is morally reprehensible, it is despicable, these are war crimes being committed against innocent Palestinians who are paying with their lives for the crimes of Hamas.

Like you don't need to go further than that, but I actually do go further than that, and what I say is- You're saying dismantle design as entity, is that what you're saying? No, I'm not. And so what I'm saying is, well, what I... Peace by peace. Inshallah. I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is it is also terrible for Israel. And you don't need to

care about that. No, I agree. No, I know. I do care about that. And what Bernie said, I always appreciate what he has to say on this issue. What he said is that basically even Israel does not understand the way in which they're becoming an isolated pariah nation. And so people will be mad to have someone who is a self-proclaimed anti-Zionist on this show, but like I am someone who has called himself a Zionist and I am against this because I believe it doesn't serve Israel's interest either.

And that to me is what is so devastating about the outcome of this election, in part because of policy, in part because Joe Biden is such an incomprehensible messenger, one of the most delicate and contentious topics in American politics. We now have Donald Trump,

who was able to kind of allied what his actual views would be on this issue. And like, you know, we have seen what happens in Israel when you have someone like Trump in power at a moment of crisis. And now there is Trump back in office here. And if you are concerned about the lives of Palestinians, if you're concerned about continuing instability

and violence and death in that region, this election has just made everything so much fucking worse. I think American foreign policy being so uniparty on this issue is genuinely frustrating and it's genuinely damaging for Israel because we recognize how our fellow Americans are becoming more reactionary every single day,

especially with this new Trump election. You see people that formerly maybe had different opinions go, you know what, maybe it is good to deport 20 million people violently by utilizing the military potentially. This is something that the Donald Trump administration has said they're gonna do. Well, at the very least,

even if people don't believe that'll happen or didn't understand it, like the expectation that Donald Trump taking all of these extreme positions would be enough, wasn't, that just wasn't true. Yeah, so what I'm trying to explain here is that before you know it, people can succumb to reactionary feelings and reactionary sentiment and find themselves in the throes of a fascist ideology without even recognizing it.

And I think examining that is important in an academic setting. That's why we have Holocaust studies, right? That's why we have Holocaust studies, right? That's why we have genocide studies as an entire field to specifically understand exactly how Nazi Germany got to that position or fascist Italy got to the position that it got to. And I think that, you know, you might even disagree with me on this,

but like that's where Israel is. That's where Israel is at right now. They have become an incredibly angry culture, an incredibly angry country that has succumbed, especially since the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, who wasn't exactly a great guy for Palestinians either. I mean he was known as the guy who deliberately tasked Israeli security forces in breaking the hands of children for stone throwing, in the first Intifada.

That guy was the off-ramp for peace negotiations with Palestinians and they assassinated him and his assassins and people who are backing his assassins like Itamar Ben-Givir, like Bezila Smotrich are now firmly a part of the Israeli establishment, the current governing coalition. Israeli government. Yeah, well, I also, there are also hundreds of thousands

of Israelis who have protested this government. Yeah, for different reasons, but yeah, no, for sure. Yes, I just think it's important. Yes, like Israel is responsible for Israel's actions, but we do need to separate Benjamin Netanyahu and his conduct from the Israeli people. And the same, that doesn't mean they're not responsible in the same way that America is not George W. Bush, right?

But America is responsible for what George W. Bush, when he is in command of our armed forces. But we understand that distinction. No, no, of course. The problem is you have to also look at the Overton window though, in any society, in any culture, in any country. And I think that, and I come from, I'm Turkish. Like I come from a country with a conscription.

Like I understand what ultra-nationalism is. I've lived through it. I've experienced it. I know what it's like when Turkish people hear me say like that the Armenian genocide is real, for example. Like that's like a non-starter, right? That's like, you can't say that. What are you talking about?

I learned in school that it wasn't real, right? Like I understand how a country can become more and more right-wing, where even the liberal position is still committed to the maintenance of an apartheid. And I think that that is where we're at with Israel, and we have to restrain Israel as we are the number one partner of Israel, whether it be the weapons that we give to Israel, whether it be the financial support that we give to Israel, or whether it be the the trade partnership that we have, or you know the financial partnership that

we have with Israeli companies. We have a lot of influence over what Israel does and I think over the course of the last couple decades, especially with Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel has become a more and more right-wing nation. But see, but like, yes, because it is a country that now views itself as being isolated and under siege. Like this has all gotten to be so kind of hopeless. And Israel faces recrimination from around the world, feels isolated, feels like it needs to turn inward to protect itself, views itself as being under attack.

Well, it's like the question right to me is like, how do you break that cycle? I agree, it requires a ton of American pressure, but it also, I think like anti-Zionist fervor, like to me, like anti-Zionism itself is not a path to where we ultimately need to go, which is peace and Palestinian self-determination. That's what I believe in, that's what I care about,

that's where I want this. Israel as a country that no longer feels constantly under threat, Palestinians being able to live in peace and safety without being under occupation in control of their own destiny. And to me, that, it's become a kind of, that is a two-state solution. And anything that drives towards that, I think is ultimately the right way to go. Right now we're moving in the opposite direction, which is why this all feels so hopeless. Yeah. Well, I mean, look, I used to be of that same mindset

maybe like a decade ago as well, where I resort to the likes of Avi Shlaim on this or Ilan Pappé on this in terms of like my analysis of it, but like the settlement operations in the so-called peace process that were again, funded by America as well and still funded to this day by like the likes of Kufi, Christians United for Israel, which is the oftentimes not talked about part of this equation that is significant

and dare I say more significant than whatever Jewish Americans think about Israel. Like it's the right-wing evangelical Christians that are the number one funders of the settlement project in general. But it's also like the consequences for the expansion of settlements. Yeah, well that's-

And the use of settlement, like what was once expanding settlements as part of a negotiation tactic towards what would ultimately have been a solution is now just a plan to take over the West Bank. Yeah, no, it's developing bomb testons, which they did. And my point is that that has made it virtually impossible just a plan to take over the West Bank? Yeah, no, it's developing bomb testons, which they did. And my point is that that has made it virtually impossible

for a two-state solution to exist, which is why I think that Israel already maintains sovereignty and that as an apartheid state, what needs to happen is to abolish the apartheid, which is something that unfortunately many Israelis refuse to reckon with, at least right now because they that would mean five million Palestinians including the 2.5 million Palestinian citizens of Israel would now constitute a demographic majority in

this area in this in this land that Israel enforces sovereignty over and that is terrifying for its its demographic, its demographic goals in general. Well, just also, that's something to add, like you can point, like it's also something that Israel has never gone to ascend to. No, I understand that, which is why I think like the pressure campaigns, albeit, you know, minimal, but the change in attitude and the way that like a lot

of people see this dynamic is significant. And I think that inevitably things will change and we're seeing it right now. We're seeing it with the ICC decision. Like this is a truly unique moment. We're seeing it with the ICJ court case. We'll see where it goes, but I think that I understand why even members in the state department that I would directly be at odds

with in the way that we examine the world have from the start tried to say, this can't happen, that we need to use the liberal Zionist off ramp immediately. We need to just like, you know, put Benny Gantz in charge or something. Like we need to just like single out Benjamin Netanyahu, say he's the bad guy and then move in the direction where like a more manageable, more liberal person,

a more moderate person can be left responsible and restrain Israel in some way in order to continue Israel being an unsinkable aircraft carrier in a resource rich region. And they didn't even listen to that. Like the top of the administration just didn't even listen to that. Well, cause Netanyahu is an obstacle to any kind of peace. I mean, this is a, like we have been in moments

in the recent past where Palestinians and Israelis were at the table and peace seemed within reach, right? And that seems very far away right now. We were, we were, we were. And that seems very far away right now. But were, we were, we were, and that seems very far away right now. Um, but, and, but to me, that still seems closer than a single state. And to me there's that, that in that sort of a future of heading towards that is a future of a

lot more chaos and violence and terror and horror. And so I like come back to my, my view remains that like the, the future that they, the only hope and terror and horror. And so I like come back to my view remains that like the future that they only hope is some kind of a two-state solution as far as that seems right now. People want to say otherwise fine, but not me. I think they're gonna annex the West Bank.

I think that's what I think is gonna happen. Let's move, we got to- And Trump is gonna let it happen. Like Trump is gonna- Well Trump, this is the thing. And it's not even because Trump is like ideologically committed to the Zionist project in the way that like Joe Biden was.

It's because Mary Maddelson gave him $100 million. That's it. Trump doesn't give a fuck. Yeah, he doesn't give a shit about anything. He's just like, yeah, these guys gave me money. I'm gonna listen to her. And that's it. And that was really funny because like,

that's what he's talked about in the anti-Semitism conference that he put together. If you recall, he was like, I've done so much for you Jews. Why won't you vote for me? That's what he kept saying. He's like, if I lose, it's because of you Jews. I know, I know, I know.

And it was insane because like, in his mind, he thinks that's the only thing that American Jews care about. Like it's the dual loyalty trope, but you also can't do that trope in a woke way on mainstream media either when you are, you know, I'm not saying you're doing this, I'm just saying like you also can't do that in a more woke way when you're talking about Israel

and as many liberal outlets do sometimes when they talk about like, well, you know, you just want Israel to perish, I think, and you're probably anti-Semitic and that, you know, it's just, Israel has demographic concerns. It's like, okay, well, that's, America has demographic concerns. America has white demographic concerns.

That's not a, that's a non-starter for me, you know what I mean? I don't care. Yeah, I mean, there is also a ton of anti-Semitism. Oh, absolutely. I know you don't. Yeah, 100%. I just made sure, yes. Yeah, it's skyrocketing. And like that, but like again, we gotta move on from this,

but it's just that you see it in our politics, you see it in politics around Israel, like this kind of vicious circle of people feel under threat, they turn inward, they become less and less empathetic towards their neighbors, that leads them to be more and more isolated. And to me, the question is not, I'm not even interested in philosophical debates,

ideological debates, how do you break that human cycle? Right? And I think on our side, it starts with a policy that recognizes that it is in Israel's interest to stop the violence and to stop the killing and that moving towards something like the annexation of the West Bank or the permanent occupation of Gaza or whatever it may be is ultimately not in Israel's interest.

I know that that makes me sound like a neo-Libshil, but that is what I think. No, I understand where you're coming from. I don't disagree with you. I think that that's why I was trying to bring it back to like American politics. And I don't think it's an accident that in the past three decades,

every single Western capitalist nation firmly planted within the heart of empire, firmly within the comfortable bosom of American imperialism has shifted dramatically to the right. And in that process, I think, or leading up to that, there was a lot of austerity, a lot of clawing back of social safety nets, a lot of privatization that took place

that some people call the inshitification of the economy or the inshitification of everything. And in that process, I think people got more and more angry and the only people that benefit from that anger are always going to be far right figures that can point to people that are defenseless and people that are less powerful than you are. And they were able to successfully use the anger

to redirect that towards nationalist sentiment, to redirect that towards racism, homophobia, bigotry of all different sorts. And that's why you're seeing the reform movement grow in the UK with Nigel Farage, who now has a higher approval rating than the very conservative Tory adjacent labor leadership when Keir Starmer. that's why you're seeing the AFD grow in momentum in Germany, that's why you're seeing the Le Pen's party grow as well. Even if she goes to jail, her movement will not go away.

And in every single instance, you have centrist, moderate, moderate to like center right, neoliberal party leadership, constantly trying to maintain the hegemonic status of neoliberalism and losing out to populist, far right messaging every step along the way, because when material conditions worsen, okay, and you might look at the technological improvements

and say, what do you mean material conditions are worsening? Like I can order a Uber Eats and immediately have it in my doorstep. But like overall, the important things like educational attainment, healthcare, public transit, if we're talking about Europe, we don't even have that here in America.

We can talk about it here too. Home ownership, these sorts of things are just getting worse and worse year over year and it truly ruins people's lives and it leaves them angry and confused and right wingers like Donald Trump or fascists, like those in Europe, like Maloney's party in Italy as well, or Gert Wilders in the Netherlands,

like these guys use that opportunity to say, you know why you're mad? Cause Muslim refugees came in and they ruined your beautiful European culture. It's the challenge, right? Is that like things aren't getting worse on every metric. They're not. And if you were to look at the last,

I don't know, 50 years of American politics and you're, if you just showed people the economic data and you say, I want you to find on this chart where the United States elected a fascist dunce. You would not pick 2024. You would pick, you might pick 2008. You might pick 1992. You might pick after the stagflation of the seventies.

You might, there are a bunch of times you might say, well, that, that must have, if it's someplace here, it must've been then. And so I do think like, we have to, I think housing is a big part of it. I think people being furious that life didn't seem to come, like people are, I think, traumatized by the pandemic in ways we're still kind of,

it's hard to see and hard to find in polling, right? I think there's like a deep anger about like, hey, wait, things never got back to normal. I don't feel normal, costs didn't come back down, life seems worse in measurable and immeasurable ways. And I do think part of it is like, yes, it's material, but it's also, I think- Spiritual?

It is, it is. There is something, I think that there was a bargain people were making when all the restaurants where they knew the owners closed and they were placed by fucking Panera Breads and Subways and chains. And when their supermarkets became chains and the Walmarts came in, right?

When people like to blame Walmart, Walmart is both a symptom and a cause, right? I think like there was a bargain people made. And the bargain was, I'm gonna give up on the kind of dignity and community and sense of place and belonging that I used to experience in my town for this cheap stuff, but it better be fucking cheap. Yeah, it's not.

But I think people are very bad at understanding what they want and people, I do think that there's this collective feeling of like, hey, we traded something away to these corporations. And some of it we did unwillingly, some of it we did willingly, but we're not happy with the outcome. And I do think that that's about community.

I do think that's about meaning. Yeah, what you're describing, I mean, you're describing alienation, but. Yeah, I am, but that is a big part of it. But in the Marxian sense, not like alienation and the normal understanding of it, but like, yes, you're right, Americans feel isolated. Everyone feels isolated.

Everyone feels alienated. They feel alienated from their labor. And besides that, there is no sense of identity. And I talk about this quite frequently actually, our consumption is the only marker for identity. Even guns is a very important political identity for a lot of Americans. That's consumption.

That's no different than an expensive Gucci bag, okay? It's actually more expensive in many instances. And the culture that surrounds it is still ultimately at the point of consumption. And when there is a hurdle in front of that, whether it's cost or because you just simply can't go and buy it at the store or whatever during COVID and the lockdowns, everything falls apart

because we're a very fragile nation that is built on this idea that like, as long as I get shit for cheap, I'm fine. I don't really care. As long as the cost of eggs will go down, you know, 20 cents or a dollar, I don't care if 20 million migrants get deported is the calculation that some people made.

And many people said, it's not gonna happen anyway. Now there is the other side of this story. But I wanna hear the other side, but I just wanna just add. The other side is what I was trying to say is this is what Kamala Harris did wrong in my opinion. She could have gone up there and said, I am going to arrest the Walton family.

And if she was able to successfully say, I'm gonna arrest the Walton family and they're gonna stand trial, okay? In a military tribunal. And that is going to make egg prices $5 cheaper. It's gonna be eggs are gonna be 10 cents again. Americans would have voted for that. That's my point.

So you don't have to go that crazy, obviously. No, I know, I know. Well, I guess it just like this to me, like these are the twin problems of dealing with a fascist threat. One is keeping a big fractious progressive, small L liberal movement together. The other is how you defend the value of institutions

that don't do that. And like, I know you're being. I'm being hyperbolic. I'm exaggerating, but like, I think that for far too long, you know, deregulation and unconditionally supporting corporations and even having what you just described as like the formative opinion on antitrust,

like as long as the consumer is happy, as long as the prices are low, we don't care if you monopolize. That's the right view. Like Democrats are now fight, like some of this is like, we're fighting back on that stuff. No, but so that was the right view, but that was kind of uniparty for a very long time,

at least since the 90s. I think the, but this is like, this is I think conservatives had an ideological view of this, the least since the 90s. I think the, but this is like, this is, I think, conservatives had an ideological view of this. Yeah. The Bork view of this. They came in and they said, anti-trust doesn't mean what it says in the law,

it doesn't mean what it says in people's experience of what a monopoly does, it's this one specific definition, which makes it really hard to stop mergers. And Democrats said, wait, hold on, like kind of Democrats just didn't have a strong view on this, it just wasn't a motivating, it wasn't, it wasn't a- I know, but why, why didn't they? Well, I think they first, I think that like,

I think the intellectual academic left had to catch up to the damage this was doing. I think Democrats just didn't focus on it, didn't care about it. I also think there is money from donors. Of course, of course, I'm not, I know you don't need to rhetorically cue me up, I know. But that's like, I think sometimes it is,

I think it is not people saying, oh, I wish we would go after these giant monopolies more, but I got this donation, so now I'm not. But it's a culture, a kind of pro-business culture, right? That like kind of pervaded Democrats since the 90s that made conversations about this kind of thing harder to have, which is different now because Lena Kahn is now the chair of the FTC, right?

Elizabeth Warren created this Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, right? Like there has been a shift, but it is both a not enough and not a shift in people's actual understanding of what the Democratic Party is for. Because there's no immediate gratification that comes from that.

I know. And the immediate gratification that is supposed to happen could happen potentially with wide sweeping legislative agenda changes overall, or like clearly communicating a pathway towards like a more just outcome for healthcare, for example, like that's not something that we're invested in, like things that touch people's lives immediately

is going to yield very positive benefits. I will say this, I think as far as like Lina Khan or the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, these are fantastic things that happened under the, you know, the washful eye of the Biden regime. Well, Barack Obama. And Barack Obama as well. The problem here, however, is that once again, I think out of genuine fear maybe that they would disrupt or upset the Tony West coalition of the Democratic Party or the, you know, all of these like major donors that donate to the Democratic Party, they didn't do a good job even explaining what they were doing.

And I'll tell you why, just real quick, I just wanna give you an example of the IRS, right? Joe Biden funded the IRS. Every dollar that goes to the IRS, I think is like what? Seven extra dollars or up to 35, if I'm not mistaken. I don't know the exact numbers, but every dollar that you spend on the IRS, I think is like what? Seven extra dollars or 30, up to 35, if I'm not mistaken. I don't know the exact numbers, but like every dollar that you spend on the IRS, you get 35 in return in America's coffers, right?

That's massive. That's fantastic. Republicans hate that. They hate the IRS. And many Americans also hate the IRS as well. They hate paying taxes, partially because they don't see anything in return for it. Even though the IRS getting more funds

actually retrieved a lot of tax dodgers that were refusing to pay taxes. And on top of that, their investigations concluded that I think Coca-Cola was, had evaded taxes to the tune of $16 billion, right? One company. I never heard that from the Biden administration. They never went out and said,

this is why we funded the IRS. Not because we wanna come after you and your trailer, okay? In the trailer park with our armed agents or whatever. Republicans on the other hand were like, 85,000 armed agents are coming to your house. They're gonna kill you. They're gonna take away your children and they're're gonna kill you, they're gonna take away your children and they're gonna take your guns

and they're gonna take your trailer park. Look, I think we paid for not having an effective communicator in the president. Like I think we paid dearly for that. It's not just the president. I know it's not just the president. Pete Buttigieg is an attack dog, sync him on every television show.

I think part of the challenge is a lot of people are talking about what these agents would actually do. It just doesn't get covered, doesn't get attention, just doesn't matter. People don't cover this kind of stuff. That's part of it. I'm not saying there aren't Democrats. I agree with you.

Democrats need to have a kind of combative, that's anything we take away from Donald Trump becoming president. Clearly, we need somebody. People want a fighter. They want a fighter. They want a fighter. They want a fighter and like. And you can't fight for opportunity economy and $50,000 in tax credits for startups.

That is not something to fight for. You need to be a fighter and you need to fight for things that that are universally good and that people want health care, fixing the housing market. Yeah. Things like that. Well, she did do that. Yeah, I just like, I agree with you. But again, even her communication on that is like, so much of the Democratic Party

is now officially captured by what we would look back in the past as like unimaginably right-wing economic policies like tax cuts and a public private partnership. When I hear those words, I'm like, I'm not regime-pilled. I wanna be regime-pilled. I wanna champion the social democratic regime. I wanna make the democratic party, make Olaf Palme look like a fucking revisionist,

right-wing reactionary. That's what I want. I want trains. I want trains. I want better public transit. Better transit. I want more, I want you, I want- I want socialized housing.

Okay. See, but you're stopping. I don't know, but what do you mean? We can't get into it. We can't get out of town. We've gone so long. But what I'm saying is like- I am for building millions upon millions of houses.

Everywhere. That's what I'm for. Yeah, but no public-private partnership. Build it with federal, publicly funded employees and build it as a mechanism to claw back the insane housing market prices to lower them by force. Okay. That's what I think.

All right. I think if you said that, a lot of Americans would be like, I like that idea. I think if a Democratic politician got up there and said, we are gonna employ millions of Americans, we're gonna have a national jobs program to employ millions of Americans building millions of houses,

I think that'd be very popular, I agree. Yeah. Okay. All right. You're regime-pilled as houses. I think that'd be very popular, I agree. Yeah. Okay. All right. You're regime-pilled as well. I am regime-pilled. Now, I did go on your feed yesterday to see what you've been up to.

Oh my God, here we go. And can we just put this up? I think I know what you're gonna post. I was looking for what your reaction was to the Harris campaign podcast. And I just found this. And I just thought, is this what the Joe Rogan of the left would post?

I think Joe Rogan posts sexy takes of himself. Donald Trump wins and you're like, I think I know what I need to do. I need to post whole. Yeah. You getting good reactions to this? Is this getting you what you need? Well, I wanted to show my progress.

It's been a while. You know, that's like from 2021 until now. And I mean, I do talk about my fitness journey quite a bit. You do Pilates? What? You do Pilates? No, I train. I weight train and then I play basketball.

That's what I do. What are you doing for cardio? Basketball. Basketball? Yeah, I play basketball three times a week, sometimes four. And that's been very good. I also track my macro nutrients. I track all my calories. What does that do for you?

What do you mean? It's that right there. You think that's what it's doing? Picture on the right. That's how I got there. Oh. Yeah. I use Manjaro. It's awesome. Oh, nice.

I have family members that use it as well, and it's been very helpful. Yeah, I don't have to think about it anymore. Yeah, I mean. It's awesome. Oh, nice. I have family members that use it as well, and it's been very helpful. Yeah, I don't have to think about it anymore. Yeah, I mean, it's great. It's fantastic. Do you feel like it's stopped your other, like, addictive tendencies as well? I'm a better driver.

Isn't that weird? Isn't that weird? Maybe because you're not on your phone or something? No, I think it's because my, like, I'm not spending so much of my mental energy on diet. And so I'm just a little bit less spent and kind of, I don't know, impulsive around other things. And so I don't feel some need to get home

two minutes faster, it's hard to explain. I don't feel as much of a need to find justice on the roads, Does that make sense? Yeah, you asked me, no, I 100% get it. You asked me like how, why you track your calories or whatever, like I get a lot of comfort from the rigidity of my schedule, my regimen. And I don't even think about it

because it's just a habit that I have at this point. And for that reason, it's not even a thing I think about at all. It doesn't weigh on me. But when I was, you know, when I was eating in a very unhealthy way, it did constantly weigh on me. I was like, oh, but it feels so good. But also it's so bad for me.

But then, you know. You get that a little bit hopeless. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's true in politics too. For sure. I mean, definitely. But you know, you gotta focus. It's true in politics too. For sure. I mean, definitely, but you know, you gotta focus on whatever small victory you can have.

And it's the same for fitness. And like I said, going back to the Joe Rogan to the left conversation, this is definitely something that I talk to my community about quite a bit. And there's a lot of people in my community that have also gone on their own fitness journey. I've been able to inspire them to do this as well.

And I think it's important to be physically healthy. I do like, just to make, just to close this out because we've gone on too long, but like there is something about like, like in terms of meaning and like a spiritual, like I think there's a reason that there's been an appeal of people like the Jordan Petersons of the world and some of the kind of more like self help right wing types. Yeah.

And like, I do think there are a lot of people out there looking for not just sort of answers in politics, but like answers about like, why does, like, I feel unfulfilled working, not working, whatever it may be. Like, I feel like I'm missing, like, community and the kind of leadership that would come from community. And like, I don't think that, I do think that's why sometimes you see, like, I don't know, like, even on like the shows we do, like, I do feel like there's like a hunger for like,

something broader than just a political program, but like, more of a kind of way of grappling with the fact that this version of modern life kind of dares us to ruin our own lives. Yeah. You know? I offer that in my broadcast every day. I mean, I talk about my own personal journeys

and I offer advice. I used to have an advice segment as well. I haven't done it in a while, but like, you know, I'm gonna bring it back. And that's why I also like collaborate with other content creators, even if I don't align with them politically, agree with them politically at all.

But you know, there are plenty of people that I know who are my friends, who I think, as long as they're like relatively charitable and good and kind people, even if we don't agree on everything politically, it doesn't matter. And I find myself in these bro spaces a lot. I've been on almost every single podcast

that Trump has been on. And many of them are run by my friends, like Impulsive. My buddy, Mike Malak is Logan Paul's co-host. Not the biggest fan of Logan Paul, but I love Mike. Mike is a fantastic human being. He has an incredible journey of overcoming addiction. And he wrote about it as well. He had a New York Times bestseller.

Bradley Martin with the Nelk Boys. I don't really know the Nelk Boys, but like Bradley Martin, I like a lot. He owns Zoo Culture. He's a real meathead. And that's the, and Andrew Schultz as well, I've been on that podcast too. Like these are, a lot of these podcasts I've been on as well

and like these guys and their audiences are receptive to what I have to say. And I think like optics play a role in that for sure. Like the way I carry myself, the way I am naturally, authentically, I think is a package that young men are not immediately dismissive of. And I'm very a package that young men are not immediately dismissive of. And I'm very aware of that.

And I try to use that for good. And I try to use that to like explain to people that like, it's not cool to, you know, shit on random people for no reason. They're like, let them live. Like, what the fuck is this to you? It's not gonna fix your life. You're being a kind of a loser,

an entitled little loser and it's not good. And that does work. Boss baby energy. It works, and I think the size of my community now and the makeup of it is proof of that reality. Couple years ago, I didn't have the numbers that I have now, and every single person, virtually every single person in my audience will tell you that there is one key issue

that I have dramatically changed their opinion on, whether it be American foreign policy, whether it be the way that they view trans people and we're transphobic, but now they're not, or even racist opinions. So yeah, that's what I try to do to the best of my ability in my little corner of the internet. What's up, Piker?

Good to see you. Yeah, thanks for having me. When we come back, Congressman Seth Moulton. MUSIC Joining us now, he's represented Massachusetts' six districts since 2015. Welcome back to Pod Save America. It's Congressman Seth Moulton. It's great to be here. Thanks so much for having me back. All right, so if you look at the map,

it's a sea of arrows pointing red, including in Massachusetts. Nearly every county in Massachusetts shifted, right? Both of the counties in your district did. Everybody loves after we lose an election to know why we lost the election. Did you see signs before that made you think and your district did. Everybody loves after we lose an election to know why we lost the election. Did you see signs before that made you think

this was, that we were in trouble? Oh yeah, this didn't surprise me at all. I've actually thought for past a year, year and a half that we were likely to lose. And listen, I wasn't just sitting back, I was working hard on a winning strategy. I've been campaigning all over the country and I have this group of veterans called Serve America who've been running in some of the toughest house seats across the country to try to flip seats that we need to win to win the house back and to hold the tough seats

that we have. We had an 89% win rate as of there's still a couple elections that haven't been called. So I've actually been working on a really successful strategy, but by and large, it just felt like a lot of Americans thought the Democratic Party was out of touch. And when I, I remember being in Pennsylvania just a week before election day and I did not have a good feeling How much of that do you explain by people were just really fucking pissed about inflation? didn't believe they were seeing the benefits of

Joe Biden's policies had a really negative opinion about Joe Biden and as we've seen all around the world there is just just an anti-incumbent, anti-establishment fervor. And the fact that Kamala Harris got so close to winning actually speaks to the fact that we mitigated what was a trend around the world. I mean, look, there's definitely an argument there. But I think too often Democrats use that as an excuse because look at the opposition here. We are running against the first convicted felon to be president of the United States. We're running against a party that's got a civil war playing out across the country between traditional Republicans and mega Republicans. I mean they couldn't even elect a speaker of

the house for three weeks. That's never happened in American history either. Never in American history have a president's senior advisors including military officials who usually don't get involved in politics, come out and said, this guy's unfit to be commander in chief. So my argument would be, I get there's anti-incumbency problems, I get there's inflation, but we are essentially running against half an incumbent himself. And this should have been easy. We should have been cleaning up from school board to president of the United States. And so the fact that we lost it all is real cause for concern.

Yeah, so in the wake of it, I like have these two competing instincts. One is to wanna be open and just listen to all the different perspectives on what went wrong. But at the same time, I end up feeling pretty suspicious when people say what they've always said, right? You know, and I include in that Bernie Sanders puts out a statement after saying

that Democrats have abandoned the working class. I don't believe that's true. I'm sure there are ways in which it's true, but Joe Biden was an incredibly progressive president and did a lot of what Bernie Sanders had advocated for him to do. So obviously the answer is gonna be more nuanced than that.

Then I see Democrats like Alyssa Slotkin saying that it's identity politics, but we've been through news cycles about more center left figures blaming identity politics. Then I see you talking about how, you know, Democrats need to have a debate about how we talk about trans issues because Donald Trump ran this ad about trans issues.

And I wonder, wait a second, are people going to the explanations that they have had in the past for the parts of the Democratic coalition that they just find annoying. And when we lose an election, I blame the people that I don't like or that I have a disagreement with

or that I in some ways find irritable. I mean, John, I think that's a really fair question. And we should always be suspicious. I mean, literally we should have these debates about these tough issues, right? But what I would say is, you know, look, you don't have to agree with Bernie Sanders, but you can't say that we have followed his economic plan.

I mean, I think there's actually a really legitimate argument for a more populist economic policy, and I don't think we've adopted that. I think Alyssa Slockin raises identity politics because a lot of Americans, not just Democrats in tough seats, but a lot of Americans, not just Democrats in tough seats, but a lot of Americans think that the Democratic Party is obsessed with

identity politics. So I'm not sure we've put that issue to bed. And I'll tell you, a lot of, you know, independents that I hear from, including Marines that I served with, for example, overseas, who really don't like a draft Dodger to be commander-in-chief and don't really want to vote for Donald Trump. But they say to me, you know, you guys are obsessed with identity politics or some other reason why we're just sort of out of touch.

That is something that I hear. And I think also on contentious issues, like, look, I had this 20-minute interview with the New York Times and talked about a lot of places where I think the Democrats are out of touch or just not trusted on issues and they picked out this quote about trans women in sports. But I do think it was a problem that Harris really just didn't even have a response to this vicious, hateful ad that honestly Republicans clearly had data to say it was successful because they put $200 million behind it or something. And when you can't even respond to that, then A, it's bad politics because they can just clobber you over the head with it and win on issues like that. But also it does a real disservice to the communities that only the Democratic Party will be there to protect. Because if we just cede the ground to Republicans and let them get their hateful policies through

because we don't even have a reasonable response, then they win. And that's dangerous for our party politically, but it's also dangerous for exactly the folks like trans people and trans kids who genuinely need our support and protection. So, you know, everybody's come back to this. So, you know, the ACLU does this questionnaire,

then she's asked about it. That answer becomes the basis for this ad. And there's clear choice, and not just on this issue, but when she was asked about the policy changes she's had since 2020, tried to make it about values to avoid kind of creating a news cycle of she has changed her position. And when she was asked about this issue in an interview, she said some version of that was just the Trump administration policy and it was a way to kind of get out of it. Now you can say that that should have gone a different way, but more broadly, you know, the Biden administration puts out a compromise policy on trans athletes to try to answer some of the concerns that people have

and some of the attention that it gets while trying to stave off outright, hateful Republican bans, right? Like, that was an attempt to kind of do, I think, Joe Biden did what I think you are asking Democrats to do to try to kind of enter this contentious issue, try to have the debate and try to kind of signal some kind of compromise. The problem, right, is that like Democrats aren't obsessed with this issue.

Republicans have a strategy of elevating, drawing attention to, making salient this issue to try to make us talk about this issue. Sarah McBride about to start in Congress. She didn't come saying, I'd like to talk about where I'm gonna go to the bathroom, please. That's Nancy Mace and Republicans are thrusting it upon us. And so how much of when you say,

oh, voters think or people think, independents think that Democrats are obsessed with these issues, how much are you kind of blaming Democrats for living in a broken media ecosystem? Well, look, I mean, you're right, John. There's no question that Republicans are the ones bringing up these issues,

badgering us over the head about it, right? I mean, we've never had a problem with bathroom policy until Nancy Mace makes a huge issue of it. And it's obviously an effort to just attack this one pathbreaking woman who's coming to Congress. But the problem is, again, that if we just don't even have a response, then they're going to keep doing this because it works for them. And if we don't engage in this issue or refuse to debate it unless it's exactly on our terms, or have an absolutist position that the majority of Americans don't agree with. Remember, there are a lot of Democrats who just think the only answer to trans women in sports is not the Biden administration's compromise policy, but it's just an absolutist view that no, there's no restrictions whatsoever,

which of course, I mean, the Olympics doesn't even agree with that, right? So it's totally reasonable to have this debate. And yet the people, I mean, the fellow Democrats' response to my even just raising the issue was no, there's no room for debate here. You can't even bring that up. I mean, the backlash really proved the broader point

that I was trying to make. But I also think that, you know, this was exactly what the Republicans were able to do with immigration. I was, I remember being on the House floor last year, and there are some people, colleagues running for this position of Democratic messaging, like chair, committee chair, in terms of supposedly in charge of Democratic messaging for the House. And I asked one of the candidates how she thought we should deal with immigration. And her answer was we should not talk about immigration. I said, well, I actually think a lot of people are concerned about it because it does seem there's a real problem with the southern border. She said, no, it's just dangerous.

It's dangerous to talk about it because it's used against immigrants. And I just don't think that strategy has worked. It's why even though we do have a reasonable bipartisan immigration policy in part represented by the bipartisan deal in the in the Senate, Trump and the Republicans have just been able to clobber us over the head because there was a period where Democrats were just denying it was even a problem. So totally legitimate concern like yes Republicans are the ones weaponizing these issues, but if we want to win the debate,

settle it, and then focus on the things that we wanna talk about, we have to do that. We can't just, we can't just cede this to the Republicans. We have to win. So on immigration though, it's, so that, it sounds like what you're saying. Like, sometimes I think what we're doing is saying like, boy, we made a bunch of mistakes in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020

that we have rectified, but have not successfully drawn attention to that in the public imagination. Most of them truth that, yeah. Most Democrats in the House embraced a pretty conservative bipartisan border deal. Kamala Harris embraced that deal. Joe Biden embraced that deal.

It's, you know, if the problem is a bunch of people running for president shouldn't have raised their hands about decriminalizing the border in 2020, great. But I can't, we can't go back in time and change what happened then. But it seems like a lot of what you're saying has been addressed. The problem is, is it that people don't believe it?

Because you just, you're pointing to, yeah, there are gonna be some Democrats that disagree with what you're saying, but that's the debate, we're having it. Look, look, well, I, well, I actually don't, I think the backlash against me was not, we should have this debate and here's my opposing view. It was literally, you can't talk about this.

Well, you did, I have to say, you did say it in a pretty dickish way. Like you said it, you said it, and you said, I don't want my daughters overrun by a man on the football field. Like that sucks. Like that, you didn't exactly invite the best version of the debate yourself. Look, but this is the problem, John. Like you step back from this discussion, right?

And just hear two Democrats talking about the precise word choice and whether it was sensitive or not. Which I agree, it wasn't the most, maybe perhaps the most sensitive words. Like this is exactly how a lot of Americans feel that the Democrats are out of touch and that we are obsessing on these things rather than just having a reasonable discussion. I mean, yes, we're not always, not everyone is gonna get the terminology exactly right, even fellow Democrats and I'll take that criticism.

But we gotta be able to take on the issues. But look, the broader point here, right? The broader point is that, you know, I mean, just to go back to immigration, right? Because you're right. I think the broader point you're bringing up is in some places we have fixed our problems, right? We are talking about the border.

We do have a reasonable immigration policy. And so therefore the question is, if we have a reasonable immigration policy and Trump's immigration policy is both unrealistic and just hateful, I mean, it's going to tear apart families and communities across the country. If he's able to deport millions of Americans, not to mention it will raise inflation, which obviously people don't want, then why is it that the American public trusts Republicans

more on immigration than Democrats? Why is it then we have a great economic policy? Harris's plan would not only continue to bring down inflation, but would actually reduce the deficit, something that Republicans used to care about. Trump's policy would triple the deficit and dramatically increase inflation

because deporting Americans, raising tariffs, and tax cuts for billionaires all contribute to inflation. And yet the American public trusted Republicans more on the economy. And I think my personal view, and I don't know if I'm right, the view I'm proposing is that this is a place where people just feel like we might have the right policies,

but there's a cultural mismatch. Like we're too preachy rather than listening to Americans, or we're standing in our ivory towers and we're not hearing the problems of, of working people, especially in rural communities. There's a sense that, that, that people just don't trust us, even if we do have the right policies and that's where I think we've really got to look ourselves in the mirror. I mean, I'm saying I'm sitting here in Massachusetts with three Harvard degrees, right?

Like I'm part of the problem. Three of them? That's offensive. But here's the issue, right? I got into this whole business because of my time in the Marines and feeling that I saw the consequences of failed leadership in Washington when I was serving four tours in Iraq. And I worked hard. I worked hard to get through school

and to get to Harvard. I'm living proof that C's get degrees, so I didn't have a stellar academic career at that August institution. But when I showed up to my Marine platoon, my biggest liability was that Harvard degree. Because these guys, some of the best Americans I've ever met, 18, 19, 20 year old kids really

from across the country who wanted to serve, they looked at me and said, he might be book smart, but he's probably not street smart and he's liable to get us killed. And so when I show up with this degree, I've worked so hard for much of my life to earn, and it's literally my biggest liability, what I quickly learned is,

that's not gonna get their trust. And standing here and saying, well, let me tell you what I know, because I went to Harvard, and let me tell you how we're gonna do this, is not the way to earn the trust of those Marines. And I think it's similar for us in the Democratic Party, especially where we're concentrated in cities

and urban areas, we're concentrated on the coast. We just can't have this cultural arrogance of always telling people, oh, we're right and you're wrong. Not only you're wrong, but you're a bad person if you don't agree with us. That's what a lot of Americans hear from Democrats. I had to say to these fellow Marines, I respect you, I hear you, and that's how I'm gonna earn your trust.

Not by trotting out my degree. Yeah, well, I think that's smart. I think nobody should from Harvard should ever trot out their degree. But I think you're right about that. And by the way, I also think, especially when it comes to issues that like, I think we have backslid on LGBT issues,

specifically on trans issues, right? And I think it's worth thinking about how that happens. And I think part of it to your point is we need to not assume people have a lot of knowledge, not assume people are approaching it with bad faith. The reason I'm criticizing you, and I'm talking to you about this in this way, is because I'm holding you to a higher standard.

If there are people that are new to this issue, I genuinely believe that the more people know trans people talk about this, I think that that's good for this debate. I think we will win this debate. I think there's a difference though, between how we talk about this with people we're trying to persuade and help understand that no, like this bathroom issue, like AOC's,

what AOC said about it, I thought was like, like perfect, right? Basically saying that like, hey, like this is just a crazy thing that makes women and girls unsafe, right? Like that was one way to talk about, but like, I think people want a member of Congress and a Democrat who's introducing a debate about a sensitive topic to be someone that they can trust to lead that conversation in a way that doesn't make them feel like he's not on their side. And I think that was the problem. I think you're right. We need to talk about...

I think that there's completely a conversation that has to be had around sports specifically. Right-wing Republicans, other people, they're obsessed with the sports issue. And like, I want, like, I don't want sports. Like, I just want trans people to be safe and not to be afraid to go to the bathroom or the airport. Right, like, and just to be able to live their lives. And if there's any way in which the issue around sports

is a distraction from that, or that there's legitimate questions and nuance that needs to be addressed. Like we should have that conversation. But to the larger point that you're making, yes, like Democrats have this front of the classroom vibe, right? That like we are hand raisers, we are teacher, you forgot to assign us homework types,

and we need more like back of the classroom energy. One of your colleagues who talked to John also did a conversation with the New York Times at Marie-Gloucink and Perez, and she said, we need to keep it local and that we shouldn't be represented by any more lawyers. Where's your head on the lawyers? Are we done with lawyers?

I guess, I mean, look- Some of your best friends are lawyers. Some of your best friends are lawyers. I mean, actually, oh my God, who are lawyers. Some of your best friends are lawyers. Oh my God, who am I gonna offend by this comment? She's not afraid. She's not afraid. But listen, I, gosh, if you know me,

I mean, you know me a little bit better, I'm always railing on lawyers. Yeah, it's easy to go after a trans quarterback, but now lawyers, suddenly you're skittish. I think that this is part of the problem with the Biden administration. You know, look, I'm like a foreign policy lawyer. Everyone asks me, like, what do you think about the Biden administration's policy on Ukraine?

And my answer is, I think they've done everything right three to six months late. And why? Because rather than being an administration filled with decision makers and executives and people who've run companies and whatnot, real leaders, right? It's filled with a lot of lawyers who are just obsessing over every detail and hemming and hawing and I don't know, is this going to cause this or that and what about the particular legal restrictions, like just get them the guns, like just get them the artillery, just get them the tanks.

Fuck Harvard, fuck lawyers, that's where I'm at. Well at least we can all agree on that. But you know, look, there are a lot of Americans who, we do have to, if we wanna be the majority party, if we wanna win, to me this is all about winning. We can't advance any of our agenda, any of these issues that we believe are so important if we don't start winning elections again. And you just simply can't, by definition, win elections

if you're not in touch, if you're not relatable to the majority of Americans. And so we have you're not relatable to the majority of Americans. And so we have to pay attention to what the majority of Americans are thinking and meet them where they are, have a discussion on their terms, and then you know what? We can try to bring them around to ours.

I agree with that. Democrats are preachy. I feel like everybody's right. Bernie has a point. I agree with you, the Democrats are pretty annoying. I'm pretty annoying. I'm pretty annoying. I'm pretty annoying Democrat myself. Look, I can be pretty damn annoying myself too.

But like, look, can we talk, like, well, okay, what's the action plan here, right? Yeah, let's see, what are we gonna do? What are we gonna do? What are we gonna do? What are we gonna do? Okay, so first thing is I think we need to, like, we can't just say we need to listen more,

we need to preach less. Like, we need to actually very publicly go out and listen to Americans and make that a very public thing where leaders of our party like Chuck Schumer sitting at a, you know, cafe in Ohio, like if he wants to be the leader of the Senate, if he wants to be the face of Democrats in the Senate, he needs to get down with farmers and sit on, you know, sit on a tractor and just not to make a photo op, but actually to listen to what they're saying, listen to what their concerns are. So I think that we need to actually practice that idea.

The second thing is you brought it up actually, these interest groups, right? I mean another word for it is lobbyists. And we always rail against Republicans for being beholden to the gun lobby and the oil lobby. Totally true. They totally are. They're afraid of these folks. But we're afraid of some of our own lobbyists. And we are beholden to these candidate surveys and we stress over them. Like we would just, you know, not do that. Like just, you know, listen more to people outside of Washington rather than inside

the Beltway folks who sometimes don't even represent their own interest groups, right? They're more extreme than many of their constituents, right? And then the third thing is we've got to elevate more leaders in our party who know how to win in these tough districts. Like you look at some of the Serve America guys, like Pat Ryan, Abigail Spanberger,

Alyssa Slockin, Jerry Golden, who won the most Trump district in the entire country. I mean, these men and women who are true leaders in the Congress, they don't get to be chairs of committees. They don't get to be leaders of Democrats in leadership positions in the House, because those all go to people in safe districts.

And everyone in a leadership position, in leadership positions in the House because those all go to people in safe districts. Everyone in a leadership position, almost to a person, is in a safe district. And so we never hear from the perspectives of people who do have to talk to independents, who do have to earn every vote because they might lose an election and they only win by, you know, a sliver like like Slockin, like Golden. We need to elevate more of those leaders in the party. And I think those are three concrete things. More listening, less preaching, and actually show it, you know, actually elevate leaders who, you know, can actually tell us how we need to win across the country

and do these things, and then pay more attention to them and the people rather than the interest groups and lobbyists. Doesn't mean that they won't matter and that their views aren't important, but we can't be beholden to them. What do you think about rank choice voting? I love it. I love it because, I mean, it's a tricky concept to understand.

I believe that if someone had just sat down with the founding fathers and explained ranked choice voting, we would have it because it just ultimately results in candidates who are more representative of the majority of people. And you're smarter than I am, so you can probably do a better job of actually explaining why that's the case. But that's the bottom line. You actually tend to get people who are more representative of the broader electorate as opposed to just, okay, you know, you win a primary by running to the extreme right or the extreme left, and then you get an extreme conservative and extreme liberal in the general election, and people feel like, wait a minute, like, I'm kind of in the middle and I don't know which way to go, which way to choose. And that's

how we get these very polarized districts and these very polarized members of Congress. And I agree with all that. And I just, until I think people are brave enough to really take on the lawyers publicly, I think we're gonna be, I think we need to start an anti-lawyers movement. Well, you can just say it.

I mean, this is a theory. It's begun, it's begun. I mean, I checked your, before I was like, I was actually and this is I'm sorry, maybe this is slightly insulting. I was like, Is Seth a lawyer? I gotta look it up. Oh, God. Oh, I'm sorry. But you had dude, you do have three degrees from Harvard. Are there no other schools? Were there no other? You don't speak like a lawyer. You don't speak like a lawyer. Were there no other schools you thought you might want to check out? No other quads? You got to go to Harvard three times? They didn't let me in once. I've been rejected by Harvard as many times as you've gone there. That's something that happened to me. Well, Harvard makes mistakes too, John.

And that's important to keep in mind. Congressman Seth Moulton, thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it. Been great to be here, thanks. Thanks to Seth Moulton. Thank you to Sam Piker for joining us. Now, as I said at the top, there's a conversation Dan had with Jenna Malley-Dill and David Plouffe, Quentin Foulkes,

and Stephanie Cutter from the Harris campaign. Afterwards, Dan took questions from listeners about the interview and had a bunch of really interesting thoughts on what he learned, what more there is to learn. That is now available as an exclusive bonus episode for subscribers on the Friend of the Pod feed. Reminder, when you subscribe to Friends of the Pod, you're also supporting Crooked's mission to build a progressive media ecosystem.

We're also offering 25% off annual subscriptions right now, so head to crooked.com slash friends or subscribe now from this feed on Apple podcasts. That's our show. On Friday, we'll be dropping our annual Thanksgiving mailbag episode with tons of great questions from you all. And then John, Tommy and I will be back in your feeds on Tuesday morning.

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