Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov - Why Mamdani’s Socialist Wing Has Democrats Spooked as SCOTUS Expands Trump’s Power

Episode Date: June 30, 2026

Got a question for Scott or Jessica? We're putting together a summer mailbag episode — send a short voice recording with your question to [e-mail]. We may feature yours on the show! Jessica Tarlov and Scott Galloway break down the latest escalation in Iran, and whether the Trump administration still has a coherent strategy in the Middle East with a ceasefire that is rapidly breaking down.  Next, they unpack the major decisions coming out of the Supreme Court, including cases around mail-in ballots, the Temporary Protection Status of over 300,000 Haitians, and two opinions that further expand Trump’s authority to dismiss federal regulators (not including the Federal Reserve board of governors, apparently). Plus, Scott and Jessica talk about Zohran Mamdani’s meteoric rise in the Democratic party, and his latest political win — a rent freeze for the rent-controlled apartments in New York City. What can we learn from the success of three DSA-affiliated and Mamdani-backed candidates in Congressional primaries? With antisemitism on the rise, and Democratic lawmakers facing threats and public confrontations, is Zohran’s politics putting more fuel on the fire?  And, Scott and Jessica reflect on the career of Bill Maher, who received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Get your tickets now for our live show at 92NY: https://www.92ny.org/event/scott-galloway-and-jessica-tarlov For ad-free episodes, exclusive livestreams, and to connect with Scott, Jessica, and the Raging Moderates community, join us at ProfG+ on Substack: https://ragingmoderates.profgmedia.com/ Get The Monday Rage newsletter: https://profgmedia.com/s/monday-rage/ Follow Raging Moderates on IG, Tiktok, and Facebook: https://www.instagram.com/ragingmoderatespod/ https://www.tiktok.com/@ragingmoderates https://www.facebook.com/ragingmoderates Follow Jessica Tarlov on Instagram, Substack, and Bluesky: https://instagram.com/jessicatarlov https://substack.com/@jessietarlov https://bsky.app/profile/jessicatarlov.bsky.social Follow Scott on Instagram, Substack, and Bluesky: https://instagram.com/profgalloway https://substack.com/@profgalloway https://bsky.app/profile/profgalloway.com Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@RagingModerates Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Picture it. Summer. You and your girls at your favorite patio bar. The sun's out. The breeze is perfect. And you're looking stunning in that new sun dress. And what are we drinking? A Kampari Spritz.

It's just Kempari, Prosecco, and Soda Water. Bold, iconic, and perfectly bitter, just like you. Check out official cocktail recipes at Kampari.com. Kampari Sprits. Stay Bitter. Kampari liqueur, 24% alcohol by volume 48 proof. 2026, Kampari, America, New York, please enjoy responsibly. I think that there's a need for a disruptive force in the Democratic Party. And you don't get to pick your disruptors. Disruption is never going to be elegant or calibrated to what you,

you feel the disruption is needed. And we need a Trump-like figure or a disruptor to come in and gut. Charles Schumer, Hakeem-Jeffrey's-like leadership, which just feels, for lack of a better word, flaccid right now. Having said that, these three really, I found rattling. You know, people get to elect who they elect. But, oh, my gosh, this whole movement, quite frankly, is unfortunate. These, they call themselves Democratic Socialists.

Socialism doesn't work. Welcome to Raging Modern Arts. I'm Scott Galloway. And I'm Jessica Tarlew. So before we get started, if you know us, you know we love to make predictions. And more importantly, we try to hold ourselves accountable. This year, we've decided not to wait until December to check in on what we've predicted. Join us live on June 30th at 3 p.m. Eastern for our first ever predictions mid-year check-in. We'll revisit our 2026 prognostications, keep score, and make a fresh set of forecast for the back half of the year.

It's for PropG Plus subscribers only. Sign up today. Also, do you have a question for us? We're putting together a summer mailbag episode, so send a short voice memo with your question to Raging Moderates at Propgiummedia.com. Again, that's raging moderates at Propgium.com, and we may feature yours on the show. All right, let's bust into it. President Trump says the U.S. and Iran will hold talks in Qatar tomorrow after four days of back and forth attacks between the two nations. The latest round of tension was once again about control over the straight-hormo moves. which could prove to be a pivotal piece of leverage for Iran and forthcoming negotiations with the U.S. So, Jess, it appears the ceasefire did not actually seize the fire. Oh, it accelerated the fire, actually. It was an accelerant. To the first 70 days of the ceasefire. The MOU is the accelerant, it would seem.

Yeah, any thoughts on these talks taking place? I mean, it's like, I mean, first of all, that we run the same script. right, like the Friday, the Saturday, the Sunday was trying to manipulate the markets, right? Like to make sure that everything's okay when money is going to have to be made or exchanged hands. And when I say exchanged hands, I mean exchanged directly into the hands of the Trump family coffers. It's extremely frustrating. Marco Rubio and Steve Whitkoff are going to be doing their first briefing for members since the MOUS was signed. How is that possible?

right? And it's not as if they're in the minority, right? You have the Senate and the House, and you haven't bothered to brief your members on what you're marketing as a hugely important development in a several months-long war that has plunged us into an economic catastrophe that's making every elected Republican lose their mind, essentially, over what's going to happen in the midterms as a result. You know, I'm not on top of it, obviously, with enormous implications across the globe and for the Iranian people who we seemingly never talk about anymore. Remember those days where we used to talk about hundreds of thousands of people in the streets, you know, risking their lives, that they're just wearing flip-flops or whatever they

have to make a point. Like, well, that flew out the window. And now we're just jockeying for, at best, a status quo and probably realistically, something that couldn't even hold a candle to the JCPOA. So, you know, it's just. It seems weird. Obviously, we have to talk about it because it is, you know, technically big news. But it seems like nothing is happening except Iran is now fully aware of the fact that the Strait of Hormuz is theirs forever, that they have sovereign rule over the street, which, I mean, maybe they thought that internally in the last iteration with the old Ayatollah. But we never heard about that. Did you? I mean, I'll fully admit that maybe I didn't pay enough attention to the politics of the Strait of Hormuz as much as I should. But, you know, but. I don't know, I'm pretty avid consumer of news. I never thought of them as thinking that that was a choke point that they could control

like this. Well, nothing inspires innovation, like an existential threat to your sovereignty or your very existence. The reason we figured out a way to split the atom and unleash that energy was because we thought, okay, the Nazis are racing towards a bomb. We actually got bad intelligence that they were further. along than we thought. And we, the greatest, the greatest task force in history, probably the greatest scientific fee, arguably the greatest coordination between 11 different universities to figure out

what would happen to the atmosphere, figuring out the heat dynamics, the mechanics, was a Manhattan project. And that was that inspiration and resource and, you know, the world's best and brightest coming together and working around the clock and building their own community with their own chapel and their own mess halls was a function of their very existence was threatened. I think the IRGC saw their very existence threatened, and they had never, the straight-of-hormuz, they had never exercised that as a choke point before, because I think they were worried about the potential ramifications or what would the international, how the international community or their Gulf neighbors might respond. But when they came under existential threat and found that the Americans

hadn't prepared to defend it, they found out, oh, wait, we can in fact split the atom. And they got their first. Essentially, this is their Manhattan project. They have discovered their own fat man and little boy. They now have essentially something more powerful in a nuclear weapon. All of these meetings in Qatar are nothing but a giant hand job.

This is just, this is, it's insane that to think that they're doing anything but laying and obfuscating because they know every day that goes by and we get closer to the midterms, we're going to have less and less vigor to go back with any sort of military strikes. So memo of understanding says it all. That's how serious the IRGC is about complying with a ceasefire or giving up. As I said, and I'll repeat it, Trump promised us unconditional surrender, and he's delivered it. Hours. Any closing thoughts before we move on?

I think that they are really. misreading how much of a shot at their credibility, this is our administration, that they've created amongst even some of their most ardent supporters because of what a kind of merry-go-round this seems, right? Like that word, groundhog dang, whatever you want to call it, that would just seem to kind of be doing the same thing. And Trump, in his all-cap style, you know, is putting out messages like, you know, Iran has requested talks. Like, we're on our way to do. Doha, then like clockwork, the Iranians come out and release the statement saying, we didn't request these talks. And you're getting to a point where people, not even, you know, folks with

Trump derangement syndrome or anything like that or people who think that he is inherently a liar are distrusting of what they're hearing from the administration. And I think that that is going to have really serious implications, not just electorally, but for the rest of the two and a half years that Trump is in office. It started. snowballing with the MOU itself. Remember when they were telling us that we didn't know what was in it and that it was all wrong, these leaks coming out of Iran and Qatar and the Pakistanis, et cetera, like, what are you talking about? I mean, J.D. Vance said it to my face, right? He said, I was parroting Iranian propaganda. Then the MOU is identical to what everyone thought it was. And now they want us to believe

their version of events when they say that Iran is, you know, begging like a dog or whatever, Soleimani style. And I think that that's going to mean a lot, frankly, for the time that Trump has left in office. And if it is J.D. Vance, who is the nominee or when that primary comes around is going to stick on him, too. I also just want to throw it out there. I saw this survey, and it nearly made me cry. 41% of military families are reporting food insecurity because they can't afford their daily cost of living. And that's up from 15.6% in just 2023. So, you know, when Trump is out there talking about, you know, no one has ever loved the military more, right?

No one has ever been better for the military. Everything he does is for America, et cetera. The crisis, the cost of living crisis that's affecting Americans is hitting everybody, even the people who he says that he values the most. And the idea of these brave men and women who are willing to sacrifice their lives for us going to food banks is crushing to me. And I know that you can't just snack. your fingers and get out of a war. Remember, we had that back and forth with Senator Murphy when he was on about it or he said, we just got to get out of here. You know, you don't just pack up your toys and go necessarily, but we need a lot more attention paid at home to make sure that quality of life is better for Americans. And I want to say, especially because everybody matters, but our service members, they matter a ton. And 41 percent feeling food insecure, it feels so wrong to me. Yeah, there's a difference between being pro-military action and pro-military.

And I think these meetings in Qatar, I think there is about the same likelihood that by attending these conferences or summits that they will impact the IRGC's behavior as the likelihood that I will impact my 15-year-old's behavior when I go to a parent-teacher conference. I mean, that is so clearly symbolic. like I'm having way more impact on my 15-year-old's behavior going to parent-teacher conferences than they will get. This is, I don't see any all I get away for them out. As much as they lie as strong as the cult is, if you're going to go in and we can relitigate that, but you don't, you don't just make it obvious you're out. And the question is, what leverage do they have?

And the answer is absolutely none. Anyways, let's move up. We're wrapping up the end of the Supreme Court session. A number of decisions have been doled out. Today, the court rejected the RNC challenge to Mississippi law that allows mail-in ballots to be counted as long as they were sent by Election Day. The court also declined to take up an appeal from Trump regarding the $5 million verdict and finding that he sexually abused and defamed E. Jean Carroll, meaning he will now have to pay the columnist. In Trump v. Slaughter, the conservative majority declined to reverse Trump's dismissal of a Democratic member of the FTC and paved the way for the president to fire any federal regulator for any reason. But in a separate five-four decision with Justice Kavanaugh and Chief Justice Roberts joining the three liberals,

the court said Trump could not fire Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve. And also one we definitely want to touch on is the Mullen v. Doe case, where the court's conservative majority held that the president has virtually unrestrained, unreviewable power and the temporary protected status program, that could result in the deportation of around 3800 Syrians and over get those 300,000 Haitians who have been living legally in the U.S. for years. Jess, did any of these surprise you and any implications here? A lot of implications. A flurry of decisions is right.

I already started off by talking about my sadness about military families being hungry. Just wait until I get to talking about the Haitians who have been just an incredible boon for this country. A little bit surprised that Justices Barrett and Robert side with the liberal justices on the Election Day ballot case. So that basically means, right, that it just has to be postmarked by Election Day. so you can get it up, you know, five days later, six days later, and it would still count. That's a very good thing, I think. If you vote by Election Day, then your ballot should make a difference. Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida is out there saying, you know, like, this is how they cheat, et cetera.

You know, Florida, everything gets in by election today and we count right away. And there is a speed problem in the election ballot counting department. I mean, California's slow results aren't actually because of, late arriving ballots. It's their tabulation and signature verification system. So it's not as if people are deciding that they want to vote after the fact, et cetera. But I always hate an environment in which the immediate reaction is fraud. It's fraud. There is no evidence of widespread fraud. There are a couple cases here and there. And usually, frankly, it's a Republican that's doing it. But I was watching CNN and Harry Anton, their data guy, was talking about how now the numbers of just

63% of Republicans believes that the 2020 election was stolen. So that number is just going up. I think that's only going to get uglier and worse. The case about Donald Trump now has the ability to fire independent heads of bureaucracies, not Lisa Cook. There's a carve out for a Fed board member. Is that what you say? Board of Governors member will have big implications because he'll go around firing everybody, right? and folks who were relying on the courts to keep them in office. I mean, I know that there has been, and I'm curious as your take as someone who's, you know, worked with a lot of businesses, I've heard legitimate frustrations that people can't be fired, right? That it's nearly impossible.

And then it's that supercharged when it's the government, right? Like how hard it is to fire a federal employee? What concerns me about this is the reasons that they wanted to fire people are like, she's a girl. or like he's black. You know, I mean, obviously they don't say it out loud like that, but when you look at the person's record or like too good at their job, knows too much about, you know, geology, let's get her out of here.

And so you just imagine that there will be a redux of the first few months of Doge, where they're just pushing everyone out with a badge, essentially. And that really concerns me. So, I mean, a lot there. I do think that an economy's ability to fire people is directly correlated to how quickly they hire them. I was on the board of a company headquartered in Paris, and I found myself much more reticent to approve new hires because it's so hard to fire them. Yeah. So a couple of things.

If you fire someone because of their race, sexual orientation, or gender, or age, that's illegal. And there are laws that protect those people. And if you can prove that I was fired or paid less because of any of those things, there are a ton of lawyers who will take the case on contingency and pursue it legally. Firing people from Doge because they want to cut, I think it's immoral to do that, but I think it's legal. I mean, in my view, the thing that kind of is going to mark this age is that the world's wealthiest man is killing, in my view, the world's poorest children. I think that is what's going on here with the cut of USAID and this idolatry of Elon Musk. and Donald Trump using him as the Kevlar for what is arguably what over the medium and the long term will be the most his depraved action that lives on if we don't swiftly correct that.

Having said that, I think it was legal. I think they're allowed to do it. What is, in my opinion, illegal is firing people, qualified, talented, military personnel and government officials based on their, you know, sexual orientation, race, or gender, which I think is going on. illegal. I would say most of this is something that's just incredibly poor judgment, but it's not illegal, and that is the Trump administration values fealty overconfidence, and that's just bubbling up. I don't think Secretary of Lincoln's Diplomatic Corps or diplomats would have ever accepted a fucking memo of understanding. I mean, it just would have never happened. They would have consulted with the Defense Department, our allies, and figured out a way to put pressure on Iran's

such that we never even had to pretend to get a memo of understanding. I mean, that's just such, that's just so much, that's just such village, the village idiot's guide to geopolitical strategy. And of course, our diplomatic corps has been gutted. The people who actually, the experts on Iran, were fired because they didn't show total, total, you know, again, loyalty to Trump. but I do think companies should have pretty much, and for the most part they do, should have free reign as long as it has nothing to do with your identity

over who they let go. And, you know, just a kind of a, my personal approach, having run businesses and advised a much of CEOs, I think you need to be fairly rapacious in Darwinian with the decision, such that you have more money to pay for severance,

and the ability to keep them on long enough such that they can find another job. I don't think you're doing anyone any favors by keeping people around when you would otherwise, all else being equal, let them go. Because I think their skills atrophy, you end up sequestering them

to a non-important part of the job. I'm getting far afield from government here. The reality is government employment has stayed flattered down across state and local governments. Where you've seen bloat is in universities, the military industrial complex. I mean, you have seen bloat in different

parts of the government. But to say that there is all this waste, fraud and abuse, the Doge was supposed to, at the end of the day, it was supposed to be an audit of the government, and the government kind of passed that audit in flying colors. Now, the Pentagon has never passed an audit. But, for example, the Social Security Administration has some of the lowest levels of fraud of any organization in history. It just doesn't, it just does its job, and there's very few even accusations of fraud. So I think that capitalism's dark side, if you will, a reality is that you have to decide if and when people are no longer getting you your return. And I do think there's something to, I mean, I'll give me an example. Our education system, I think a fair criticism of Democrats is they think that spending more money

without accountability is going to improve outcomes. And as we've seen in New York State Public Schools, we have massively increased spending while our kids appeared to have lower and lower math and reading scores. So, I mean, this is a complicated issue, but I, for the most part, am a big believer that as long as it's not based on someone's identity, it's based on their performance or the overall economic conditions, you should have the right to let people go. Yeah, I think if you look at the quality of people in this administration and the fact that their real Bible is Project 2025, you know that this isn't firing for cause. You know that this is firing. with a purpose to make the executive the most powerful that the bureaucracy can allow and that the

Supreme Court can allow and that, you know, Donald Trump is some sort of deity who potentially could have a third term, right? And I mean, they want to break our government so badly that if there is a new president coming in and, God forbid, a Democrat, that they cannot put the pieces back together. It's like the biggest humpty-dumpty experiment of all time. And I should have added what I think is probably the most important category that they're seeking to fire, which is inspectors general who have open investigations into the companies of Trump allies and most of all Elon Musk. I mean, at the beginning of Doge, the New York Times did an incredible graphic that showed all of the investigations into Musk's companies. And then it was

one by one, Doge was going after those inspectors general. They want no one who is independently minded, right? They want no free thinkers anymore. They just want people that are following the plan. And the plan is Project 2025 or whatever Donald Trump's whim might be that morning. And so I think that the comp from the business world to the government, you know, holds up to some degree. And obviously, we know about this. These are bad dudes that are getting increasingly large amounts of power. And we know what they want to do because they wrote it down in a 900 page document and we all got to read it. And we all got to read it. And then we forgot about it for the last month of campaigning. And we got Donald Trump. So I want to point that out. I'm curious as to what your thoughts are about the temporary protected status ruling for Haitians and Syrians, with the Haitians being, you know, the largest category there. It took me right back to they're eating the cats. They're eating the dogs from the end of the campaign and the vile racism of it.

I was glad to see a Republican governor Mike DeWine out on the Sunday shows and posting about how incredible Haitians are, how hardworking they are, that they have families, roots in the communities, they're starting businesses, fixing up old houses. He was talking about just enormous contribution to the country. And before I talk about what Elena Kagan wrote in her dissent. I was curious if you had any initial thoughts about it. I think the word you use is a perfect description. This is racism. Yeah. When it just happens at the people that you want to kick out unceremoniously without any sort of systemic reason, and you tend to isolate people who tend to be browner than other immigrant groups,

I mean, you just call it for what it is. It's racism. And unfortunately, I think a lot of America supports it, and they don't want to own up to the fact that these are racist policies. But I now believe that a lot of Americans still haven't forgiven America for election. a black president. And I think they're uncomfortable with what they see as a browning of America and a loss of their culture and kind of root on behind their back, wink, wank, that, oh, yeah, you know, these Haitians must be, must be bad for, I mean, it's just not true. There's no, there's no justification for this. So, yeah, racism is, is the correct description.

Yeah. On that front, so Alito, who wrote for the majority, found that Trump's statements don't demonstrate racial animus, but then, of course, included no statements. So Elena Kagan did it for him, including the Haitians are eating the dogs, they're eating the cats. Haitians in the U.S., quote, probably have AIDS. I actually didn't remember that Trump had said that. It feels pretty racist. Haiti is a shithole country, which is filthy, dirty, and disgusting. And why is it that we only take people from shithole countries? Why cannot we have some people from Norway or Sweden, who are the whitest of the whites? I'm so DHS secretary Mark Wayne Mullen was doing interviews yesterday and also this morning.

And there was such a difference in how he was presenting. Like Jake Tapper was pushing and pushing and pushing. You know, also asking how can we possibly be sending them home? It's too dangerous to travel there, right? To go to Porto Prince. Like flights are not going in. And Mark Wayne Mullen's like, oh, well, we can get them flights. But also they could, you know, apply for permanent residency or temporary visa.

I went and chatted with my really good friend who is an immigration attorney. And she was like, this is what they say, but it's impossible. Right. Like there's no way that hundreds of thousands of patients with strong ties to the communities are going to be able to get any of these visas. So they're sending them on a, you know, an immigration merry-go-round again. But then I was listening to him this morning and he was much more defiant. He was on with Dana Perino, you know, saying they had years to get a different kind of status and they didn't will help you go home. And he confirmed that there was an ICE deportation force that would go to Springfield, Ohio, which is a Trump plus 30 county, but it's also the home of all these people that they love. Right. And I'm wondering,

does this turn into Minneapolis, part two, right? Are we going to see this again? Because there are a lot of red meat Republicans, you know, especially. Stephen Miller, who feel like we've had a lull in the action, right? Like, we had to tamp it down for a little bit after Renee Good and Alex Pready. But, like, it's go time, right? Especially if the Democrats are poised to pick up seats in the midterms. So that's pretty scary. Support for the show comes from HomeServe.

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and change away from the midterm elections. The latest data from CalChi shows Democrats at an 80% likelihood of taking the House and a 40% chance of taking both the House and Senate. So one person who's been shaping Democratic outcomes in the midterms, and I think this is kind of the biggest political story of the week, is Mayor Zoran Mamdani, who just delivered on Renfrey's promises. Let's listen to him on Sunday talk about his wing of the party's takeover. Republicans are going to make you the poster child for the Democratic Party. Let them. We don't have to ask ourselves what life looks like if a socialist wins. I won last November, and over the course of these last six months, what we've delivered for working people

are the very things we were told were impossible. We've delivered free child care for two-year-olds for the first time in New York City history. We've delivered tens of millions of dollars back to tenants who were taken advantage of by bad landlords. We've delivered 165,000 potholes being paved, and we've done all of these things while also delivering the lowest recorded crime in our city's history. That's what it looks like. He's very good at the politics. Oh, he's an outstanding. He's an outstanding politician. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, that's reducing it. But I also think what is making Mom Dani shine more is how poorly Republicans get it. And the kind of stuff that they think if they put out there is going to make people hate him more. Like the post, you know, ran pictures of him jumping into. It was like the opening of the public pools, which is a thing every year. And like Mike Bloomberg has jumped in as well. But Mom Donnie did it in a suit. And, of course, he had a great commercial ready to go.

He was like, they just told me to bring your suit. And so there's like a good looking charismatic young mayor, right, in the pool, in his full, you know, jacket and tie. And you're thinking, like, who at the New York Post thought that this made this guy look bad? Oh, and they said that he violated the pool rules. Like, is anyone gave a fuck, right? Right. Like, that the guy was in there playing with kids on a super hot day opening up the pool. pools, you know, listen, rent freezes don't work. Like, there's just very few things that economists all

agree on, and that's one of them. They've tried it. San Francisco, the supply went down 15%. Owners will convert into condos. I mean, people in the city, you know, I'm here. Renters are concerned, right, that their rent is about to go up because of the freeze that's going to go down for the 40% that in those rent control departments. But it is technically delivering on the promise, right? And he has something like a 58% approval rating. Like the city putting aside, and I want to talk about some Israel stuff, in general, they like what he's serving up. He's the most ascendant Democrat in the nation right now. And like there's a, you know, I actually, even though it's going to cost me, a decent amount of money. I think the Pietaterta tax is actually the most elegant way to raise

revenues on the 1%. And I think that makes sense. Rent freezes and rent controls don't work. They just send up. They're the last form of housing discrimination, because when you put rent control on a place, then the person who owns the apartment picks the widest and richest people to move into the rent control apartment. I do think there's some value around taxing vacant apartments. But for the most part, housing is a supply problem in Manhattan, and you actually need incentives for developers to develop more housing, and you need to do away with the YMB regulation. But be that as a May. He's the most ascendant Democrat in the nation right now. I was pretty rattled by – so he supported – all three of his supported candidates, two of the three who were underdogs, I believe, maybe three of the three, one.

Claire Valdez and Darylaezia Chevalier were underdogs. We're underdogs, yeah. I mean a couple things. One, it absolutely cements him. It's not only a kingmaker, but people say, oh, it was regional, you know, okay, minority leader, Jeffries, who's supposed to be the next speaker of the house. He's local. And Mamdani beat his endorsed candidates. So Momdani is now more powerful than the guy who's supposed to be the Speaker of the House in terms of congressional seats and who wins.

and who doesn't. And so there's just no getting away. This guy has so much mojo. He's an outstanding politician. I think there's actually, I think that there's a need for a disruptive force in the Democratic Party. And you don't get to pick your disruptors, right? It's not, it's not, disruption is never going to be elegant or calibrated to what you feel is that the disruption is needed. And we need a Trump-like figure or a disruptor to come in and gut. Charles Schumer, Hakeem-Jeffrey's-like leadership, which, quite frankly, just feels, for lack of a better word, flaccid right now. And what the Democrats do not need to push back on the Republican Party, and specifically MAGA right now. Having said that, these three really, really, I found rattling.

The common theme through all of this was a litmus test for being. For being a, you know, not only anti-Israel, you know, and by the way, if you call this a genocide, in my view, you don't understand the meaning of the word and what a real genocide looks like, and you're diminishing what is the real horror of genocide. Having said that, the one that I find absolutely. So, Mondani is a star ascends. A star has been born. Absolutely. And her name is Darya Lisa Avila Chivalier. And when I say a star has been born, she is a star has been born. She is a star. about to become the most famous Democrat in 2026, because the Republicans are going to remind America, all voters of the following. This individual put out tweets saying the following, fuck Kamala Harris, after Harris's speech discouraging migration to the U.S.

She also called Joe Biden a rapist. She retweeted a post-claiming Israel doesn't exist, separately rejected Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. In 2022, she blamed U.S. Russia tensions on the U.S. bullying Russia, put out posts seen as promoting COVID-19 origin conspiracy theories. Oh, and by the way, she believes in abolishing the police, prisons, and borders, and has refused to condemn or refused to say whether a murderer should be put in prison. this is she's about to become literally the pin-up the poster child in every attack ad on Democrats. And as a Jew, I mean, there's a spectrum here, right? My friends from my fraternity at UCLA, who are Jewish, are just hardcore.

Whoever's for Israel, I'm for, they don't see a lot of nuance or a lot of color. they kind of have what I'd call a gag reflex. They see an existential threat to Israel and Jews and kind of forgive Israel for anything and feel threatened. And I understand that and empathize with that. Then there's the population of people who believe Israel has a right to vigorously defend itself, are, you know, obviously empathize with the Jewish community, but are what I'd call anti- Netanyahu and believe that the Netanyahu administration and the constant war fit and footing, over settlements, overly aggressive military posture. And I would argue that's where I am. And I would argue most Israelis, that's where they are. A lot of Israelis are very anti-Netaniahu and think this has gone

just way too far. And then there's people who claim to be anti-Israel, but not anti-Semitic. Fine. I get it. I always challenge them to say, can you name another country where you're like, not anti-Pakistani, but you're anti-Pakistan and they have trouble naming that country. And then there's people who are just anti-Semitic. Ms. Chevalier is an anti-Semite. When you show up to an anti-Israel protest where there are swastikas on October the 8th, after 700 people have been butchered

and that death toll was rising and you decide, I know what I'm going to do today. I'm going to go to an anti-Israel rally on October the 8th. You are not anti-Netanyahu or you are not, well, I'm not anti-Semitic, I'm anti-Israel. You are an anti-Semite. And the litmusis.

test for Mamdani's endorsements here was the following. How anti-Israel are you? And it is really rattling, in my view, to Jews. And I want to be clear, I don't think, I think the mayor has done a good job. I think he's brought a lot of excitement. I think he has engaged in actions that could be perceived as anti-Semitic, but I personally believe he is anti-Israel. I think he falls into that category so far of being anti-Israel and not anti-Semitic, and I don't like the knee-jerk reaction of immediately labeling everyone an anti-Semite. Ms. Chevalier has earned that label, and she is totally unfit to represent any district in Congress. And I believe, you know, people get to elect who they elect. But oh my gosh, if you want to see a gift that she's been given to the Republicans

that will paint us as having absolutely no concept of the difference between this whole movement, quite frankly, is unfortunate. They call themselves democratic socialists, and that is they want socialism, but they want it achieved through democratic means. Socialism doesn't work. When you centralize the means of production, it creates inefficiencies, it creates knowledge problems. Essentially, Hayek wrote all about this. No planner can aggregate the dispersed info that prices or the market conveys, and it leads to chronic shortages and gluts. The reason so many

people are dying in Venezuela is because their socialist policies gutted their effectiveness, their productivity, and their economy. There's an incentive problem. When you don't have a profit motive, there's no reward for efficiency, no penalty for waste. The Venezuelan economy, the oil production has gone down about 80% since Chavez, and there's a power concentration where you centralize an economy, which leads to centralized political power. And just some historical context of why socialism does not work, even when it's achieved through democratic means. The USSR collapsed in 1991. The GDP per capita, despite similar resources, is one-third of the U.S. by the late 80s. East versus worst Germany. Same fucking, same people, same resource.

versus standing start in 1945. The West German GDP was twice that of the east by 1990, North versus South Korea. South Korea's GDP is now 20 times the north. Venezuela, we talked about. And what these Democratic socialists will claim is that, oh, no, you're leaving out Northern Europe. Northern Europe are social Democrats. They believe in capitalism. They do not believe in centralized planning.

They do not believe that the government should control the means of production. They believe in capitalism, maybe even more so than us. We're actually, they're not taking golden shares in their local steel company or investing in their chips companies. What they believe is that they shouldn't be spending a ton of money on political givebacks and tax credits for the most politically connected. Their tax rates are actually not that much higher than ours. They just enforce them on rich people and on corporations such that they can be. pay for universal child care. There's a difference between the democratic socialism that Mamdani and his, in my opinion, totally misinformed followers believe there is no case study

where their brand of politics and economics doesn't end in failure. And what is happening in Northern Europe is essentially capitalism that sits on a bed of empathy that recognizes, is, okay, if you're going to have a functioning society, you need to redistribute some of that income into the middle class. So a level of anti-Israel litmus test, which is bothersome, but that's a political viewpoint that you're entitled to. The mayor is entitled to that. The disturbing one is soon to be representative Chivalier, because it's an all-democratic district, who is a blatant anti-Semite, and that seems to be getting traction under this false flag, this false, motion, this total head-up-your-ass political ideology of democratic socialism. Your thoughts?

Well, you covered a lot of my thoughts because I did see, you know, DSA folks posting, you know, everybody else in the World Cup who's coming here, you know, their evidence that the policies have worked. And what goes on in those European countries is like common good capitalism, right? Or whatever you want to call it. So, yeah, I think that we should have Medicare for all here. But so did the two incumbents who got pushed out, right? Like these weren't moderates even, let alone conservative Democrats. I mean, they were both members of the Progressive Caucus, for instance. So this was something else.

Mamdani is very smart to continually harp on the importance of policing and making sure that criminals are in jail. was pushed in an interview about that Daryaliza's view about abolishing prisons, and he didn't take the ban on it, right? He certainly can't come out and do that. I mean, Jessica Tisch would, you know, be exiting stage left in two seconds, right? If he said something like, yeah, no, no, that is where we should be headed. But what is going on with the Israel litmus test situation, I don't know if you saw what happened to state senator Scott Weiner, San Francisco this weekend, as he showed up for a pride event, a trans march, and was brutally screamed out. I think you do not belong here.

I think you do not belong here. You've been terrible on Gaza. You do not belong here anymore, Scott, and it breaks my fucking heart. It breaks my heart. It breaks my heart. That's someone who wrote good legislation for queers is so fucking terrible on Gaza. The guy is gay himself, has been very, very good on LGBTQ plus issues. I was reading some analyses of it to say that, like, the central problem with him is actually that he is, like, put forward some housing policies that they didn't like.

But they were still screaming about Israel. This happened in a restaurant as well. And you've said this before. Like, if there was a black person or a Muslim person or a trans person who was being screaming. screamed at like that, it would have universal condemnation. It doesn't mean that there isn't a First Amendment right to do it. I thought that Senator Wiener handled it perfectly, right? Just like let it happen and get on with your day. He went on to speak at another Pride event. Didn't even bring it up, right? What had happened to him. But those kinds of incidents are happening

at increasing levels. And if there isn't some sort of shared definition or reality as to what criticism of Israel looks like versus anti-Semitism. A lot of this stuff is going to continue to be ignored, swept under the rug, or, frankly, get the go-ahead, right? Like Dan Goldman, what happened to him in that coffee shop where they said, you know, we're going to return your money, how did you enjoy your genocide juice? And he was there with his daughter. And Mom, Donnie sat down with Jonathan Carl over the weekend on ABC, and I thought that this is

change was really interesting. And the idea of a Jewish state, Israel is a Jewish state that's in the charter. That's the way it is now. Do you support that? I've said time and again that I support the state of Israel as a state with equal rights. I believe that any state that preferences... But as a Jewish state is the question. I think any state that privileges one religion over the other is one that I can't tell you.

I support whether it be Israel or Saudi Arabia or anywhere else. And a lot of that comes back to a fundamental belief that we should all be considered equal no matter what our faith is. So, you know, that feels like a safe place to hang when you're doing an interview to say, well, I have a problem with Saudi too. But first of all, the realities of... I've never heard him. I've never heard him mention that. I've never heard him apply a litmus test. Do you support the Gulf States or... I mean, that is a reasonable statement that discriminating against people or not the core religion of a nation is reason for criticism. 100%. I would always... argue that when you have Muslims in the Knesset and that Israel in many ways is more egalitarian and open to other religions than I would argue America is right now. And I'm curious to see what he thinks of many of these Gulf countries who definitely show a bias against people who are not. I mean, let's not even get into gender party. The bottom line is that statement just doesn't

hold much water. Yeah, agreed. I just thought it was important to put out there that now is going to be the argument that they're all going to make. But I doubt that they're going to go after essentially Muslim ethno-states. Right. That's, we're not going to see that. They're not going to apply a litmus test. He's not going to apply a litmus test. People running for governor saying, okay, what's going on in Pakistan and Afghanistan is unacceptable. Do you not support these countries. So the thing I wanted to get your reaction to, because I found it really heinous, was the swarming, if you can call it that, of Pete Buttigieg. Pete Buttigieg's kids got to taken from his home because an anonymous coward made a phone call with what is clearly zero

accountability. And that is someone called, child services said that there were heinous crimes going on and they came, a government official showed up and separated him from his children and then queried them. This happened to one of my friends in the Midwest. And that as child services, protective services showed up. And to be clear, the folks from protective services are trying to do the right thing. It comes from a good place. But they separated the kids, they interviewed them, and then they found no evidence. And what it ended up was they found out several months later that one of their daughters had been in a beef with another girl in high school, and that girl had called child protective services and claimed that kids were being abused in the house. And this goes

to something that has gotten out of control, and it's a function of idolatry, and it's gone way too far, and it has a link to economic value, and that is the idolatry of anonymity in our society. The incitement of violence through mass anonymous provocation, it's a form of stochastic terrorism, where the instigators rarely face consequences, and while democracy depends on disagreement, it has to also rest on accountability. And when the loudest voices face no consequences in the most thoughtful ones, log off and fear, we're left with a public square that repels the very people democracy needs most. And we could fix this bullshit. But of course, Facebook doesn't want to get rid of the 20% of their users that are bots and 40 or 60% of the content in Nissan

ads when these bots are trained to create incendiary content and conflict. You could absolutely fix this. And it's not an end in anonymity. It's smarter than that. The solution is verified, yet anonymous credentialing. You could have a digital stamp that proves you are a unique human being without revealing which human you are. And in an instance like this, if you call Child Protective Services, Child Protective Services absolutely should know who you are. And when they find no evidence, when they investigate and find no evidence of your claim, they then have an obligation to investigate you and find out the source or the motivation behind you making these statements. Because when you separate children from their parents, when I go through TSA, I immediately feel like I'm guilty of something.

So when I'm a four-year-old separated from my parents and they start asking me these very explicit questions, how do you not wonder if daddy and daddy or mommy and daddy are doing something wrong? How do you ever come back from that? If you're not Mayor Pete, and you don't have the kind of public support, if you're accused of something like that, it can be brought up in future trials. Say you're brought up on charges for something. It's like, weren't child protective services called to your house? So we have moved from this fetishization or an understanding that anonymous tip hotlines and that the Gulf, you know, the Gulf human rights activists needs anonymity. Fine. It has gone way too fucking far. because now there is a fetishization of anonymity vis-a-vis its connection to economic growth. And we don't hold anyone accountable for these swarms where you can just call child protective services or you can say heinous things about other people or your bots can deploy them, can say these heinous things that these bots are deployed by bad actors.

And there's absolutely no accountability. This is part of a larger heinous trend in the U.S. It is another thing that is eroding our trust and institutions, creating tremendous unnecessary stress and anxiety, and is absolutely solvable. But generally speaking, these platforms have a vested interest in letting these anonymous, vile statements to tear out the fabric of our society run unfettered. And this is the latest example. And I hope the silver lining here is I think it's bringing a lot of attention to these,

quote-unquote, anonymous calls and anonymous bots. I hope that this is the trough in organizations and platforms will start saying you can stay anonymous, but we're going to verify you're an actual human. And if you're taking government resources and accusing people of doing something heinous, and we find there's no evidence, we're going to investigate you and hold you accountable. I just think that there's nothing scarier to happen to you as a parent. And that was what was rushing through me when I saw this story and also just how ugly are politics has gotten. There was bipartisan condemnation of this, but then also I saw a lot of

Republicans saying, well, maybe Democrats should think twice about, you know, their willingness to swap people, to dox people, et cetera. And I try to keep up with all of the conspiracies as much as I can. I'm sure there are instances of swattings and doxing, et cetera. But how traumatic for them. I'm glad that he went public with it and that maybe this will be some sort of catalyst to move towards a better set of policies around those kinds of behaviors or actions like you were talking about. But those kids could very well. They're four and a half, I think. Like, remember this, right, as something that happened in their lives. And I also can't really get past the fact that I'm sure that, you know, what they were saying, the claims that they were making of them, you know, is rooted in the fact that they're going to be.

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Wayfair, every style, every home. I'm Seth Matlands. My new show, Creator Destroy Reimagining Marketing Explores how every decision a company makes. Not just the marketing ones, but the HR, IR, pricing, org design, and planning ones. The ones most don't consider marketing at all contribute to either creating value or destroying it. Each week I sit down with CMOs, CEOs, founders, cultural thinkers, the people building, breaking, and reimagining how businesses grow or don't for conversations about what creates value and what destroys it. It's a business show. It's a marketing show. The creator destroys the

show that argues. They've always been the same thing from the Vox Media Podcast Network and the Wisdomist Company. New episodes drop weekly on YouTube and your favorite podcast app. Before we go, we wanted to give a shout-out and a congratulations to a friend of the pod, and a big reason this podcast exists, we'll come back to that. And that person just received or just accepted the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at the Kennedy Center yesterday, emphasis on Kennedy Center. Yes. And that is the inimitable Bill Maher. For those of you that don't know, Jess and I met while being on a show.

I'll come back to that later. But let's listen to Bill Grilled J.D. fans on Friday. Under Trump, you guys have two outcomes than an election can be. Either we win or they cheated. That shit has to stop. Will you bring us back to the middle, at least on that, where we concede elections, where it's not either one of those two options? Okay, Bill, so this is where I'm probably going to lose you here. But set to the side the stuff that really gets you and your audience very angry about whether the count was legitimate in Georgia, Pennsylvania, or any of these other states.

The sense in which I think the election in 2020 was rigged, I'm sorry. is that you had technology companies that were putting their thumb on the scale in a way that completely obliterated the real open exchange of ideas. Now, by the way, it didn't happen in 2024, but it happened in 2020, and it was a problem. Didn't happen when we won, but it happened when you won. No, there's two Republicans' acceptance speeches. We won or they cheated. That's it.

But let me just go on a bit of a rant here on Bill Maher. I'm convinced that the true test of centrism is that everybody hates you. And one of the things I hate about the comments is that I listen to them and I found myself shaping my narrative around hoping for good comments and likes. And that is no way to live your life and that's not what a leader does. And every time I say the following, I get a ton of hate when I say the following. Belmar is a hero of mine. And I think a great role model.

I think the guy is smart. I think he's incredibly talented and more than anything. He is unafraid. He pisses off absolutely everybody. He's been in the game for 33 years. Everybody hates them. He gets a ton of hate online, and his show keeps getting a ton of viewers.

If I go on a lot of conservative podcasts, the number one, anytime I'm on a podcast or I meet somebody new, as just good manners, I follow up and I say, is there anything I can do to be helpful to you? And the number one request I get from everyone across the political spectrum is the following. Can you introduce me to someone at Bill Maher?

Everybody wants to be on that show. As much as he's hated, as much as the online world gives him grief, I would argue one of the biggest moments of pride I've ever had up there with my college graduation or selling my first business was when Susan Bennett, a producer on the show, called me and said they want to have me on the show. I think that guy is totally fucking on a forade, doesn't care what the far left thinks, doesn't care. with the far right things, calls it as he sees it, comments be damned. And I think that award is so well earned. And to bring it back to this podcast, this podcast exists because of Bill Maher. And that is, I've been on the show. I'm going on, by the way, July 29th or something. It'll be my seventh appearance. I do well in that format. I like it. They're very kind to me.

I do well on that show. And I love it because I go on. It's the only show my father used to watch. Toronto Maple Leafs in the Bill Maher show. So I always get crazy fucking nervous before the show. By the way, I shotgun a beer whenever I go out. Otherwise, I'm worried on my faint. I think that's called alcoholism. Anyways, and then I immediately after the show, I can't wait until it comes out because I go on YouTube.

And it's like, oh, Prof. Prof.G., way to go. And it's just like catnip for me. And then I go on with this Fox panelist named Jessica Tarloff. And I can't wait. Never met her. Seems lovely. We're on the panel together.

And I merely go to the YouTube and it's like, Jess is a star. I love Jess Tarloff. Oh my God. Thank God for Jess. The panel was saved by Jess. And my first thought is, that bitch. And my second thought, my second thought was, I called Catherine and said, can we do a podcast with Jess Tarloff? So the reason we have raging moderates is because of the good work of that fearless and guy that everyone hates, but every one.

Everyone watches and wants to be on his show, and that is the winner of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, and that is Bill Maher. Any thoughts, Jess? I mean, I echo all the sentiments. I haven't been on as many times as you, but the show has meant something and then politically incorrect before it. Obviously, Bill Maher has meant something incredibly important to me politically for a long, long time. And if you think about someone who would be associated with the title raging moderates, obviously it would be us now. But it would be Bill Maher, right? That is really totally like, top. of the heap and bad about it, right? Mad about stuff that happens on the right and sometimes stuff that happens on the left. The fact that you can tune in on any given week and see an amalgamation of guests from all facets of society, like how much he loves, I mean, he's a Hollywood guy, right? Like how much he loves pop culture. I mean, and I don't think there's anyone that says no to him. I have yet to encounter someone who says like, oh, Bill Maher asked to have me on and I was like, nah, I don't really want to do that, whether you're like a complete rock star, right?

Or you're the dorkiest academic. Because he would have those two people on the same show. And he also, I felt like really, for me personally, gave me a chance to break out of my media bubble and to be exposed to a different audience. And I remember this. It was one of our first exchanges that we had when we sat down because you don't meet him before I hadn't met him and I just sat down. I met you backstage and then sat down and he comes over and we start talking about Mike Johnson, I think that it was.

And I said something that he didn't know and he said, oh, I didn't know that. And I'm like, well, that, you know, that's why you flew me out here or something. It had like a little bit of sass to it and I was like, shit. Like, did I offend Bill Maher right off the bat? But it just gave this big grin. And you could tell that he liked being pushed a bit. And a lot of hosts don't want to be pushed. Right? They don't want to hear anything, but, you know, you're completely right. I bow down. Thank you so much for having me. And he can get pissed off, right? It happens in interactions. But he will still invite you back if you have provided something for his audience that he thinks is valuable. I just love it. And congratulations to him. And I'm glad that Trump came off the wall, right, just in time.

That was fitting. Just to draw to a personal learning for the young people asking. there. For the youngans? Yeah. Be like Bill Maher. Ignore the fucking comments. Say, do your homework, but be true to yourself and say what you believe. That's what it means. That's what it means to be courageous. That's what it means to be a leader. I can guarantee you, Bill Maher does not read the comments. Let's leave it there, Jess. Okay. I'll see you tomorrow.