Some More News - Even More News: Zohran Mamdani Wins and The Right Freaks Out

Episode Date: June 27, 2025

Hi. Some More News director Will Gordh and his mom Adrienne Larkin, co-hosts of the podcast "Talking Politics With Mom," join Katy, Cody, and Jonathan to discuss "Trump Regret," what it mentally takes to leave the right-wing behind, the victory of Zohran Mamdani in New York City, and the Senate Parliamentarian removing some of the worst parts of the GOP's budget reconciliation bill (for now).Note: The Supreme Court really sucks, right? We’ll talk about allllllll that early next week.Check out Adrienne and Will's podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@TalkingPoliticsWithMomhttps://www.patreon.com/TalkingPoliticsWithMomPATREON: https://patreon.com/somemorenewsMERCH: https://shop.somemorenews.comYOUTUBE MEMBERSHIP: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvlj0IzjSnNoduQF0l3VGng/joinControl Body Odor ANYWHERE with @shop.mando and get $5 off off your Starter Pack (that’s over 40% off) with promo code MoreNews at http://shopmando.com! #mandopodPluto TV. Stream now. Pay never.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hi, hello. Welcome back to Even More News, the first and only news podcast. My name is Katie Stoll. Hello, Katie Stoll. Thank you so much for having us all here today. I'm Cody Johnston, like always or usual. Cody Johnston, like always or usual, folks. Boy, we have a very special episode today because we are welcoming Will Gord, our director, and also his mom, Adrienne Larkin. Together, they co-host the podcast, Talking Politics with Mom,

which you can find on Instagram and podcasts everywhere. Hi guys, welcome. Hi guys. Thanks for having us. Well, thank you for being here. Also, yes, Jonathan is also here, folks. We didn't forget about him.

There he is. Wait, say that catchphrase again. Say it one more time to make sure. Hi. Yeah. Gets me every time. So good. Hello, children.

Hello, children. Adrian, I love that that's your catchphrase too. I love it whenever you're interacting on your show. Hello, child. He's a child. It serves him right. He started it. That's, it serves him right. He started it.

He started it, he did. She started it, actually. Actually, when I would get these phone calls from him when he was in college, and the phone call would start, hello, mother. That always meant, I need money. So I would say, hello, child. Right back at him.

You did start it. It sounds like you did start it. I guess that's right. It happened organically on the show, actually. It just happened the first episode and we just kept doing it. And we're like, I guess we're just going to do this now. All right. So as I've already mentioned,

your show is called Talking Politics with Mom and it is fantastic. I genuinely enjoy listening to your conversations. You have such a great dynamic. Personally, I find it comforting hearing the perspective of somebody who has experienced periods of great turmoil, political turmoil, social upheaval, social change.

I, when Trump was first elected, I remember sobbing on the phone to my dad. And, you know, like, this is the worst thing. He didn't deny my emotions, but put it in perspective of the big picture. And this is when we come together. This is when change happens. This is when we need you to fight. But I get that same perspective from you and your conversations, and I'm grateful for them being put out there. And I also know that it's probably very relatable to other people of your generation, where

they can see somebody reflecting their experiences. But I guess that's a big lead up to saying, talk to us about how this idea came to be about how you decided to start making this show. Unfortunately for everyone, well, especially for me, I'm getting older. This is shocking, but if I have something to say, I better say it now. So I have a story about how I changed from a right-wing anti-communist fanatic to whatever it is that I am today, which is very, very different. And that story has stuck with me for decades.

And I really wanted to tell that story. I thought it was important and maybe somebody else could relate to having that same journey. So I went to William, because this is what old people do when they have technological issues, like how to use their cell phone. They talk to their children. And I said, I have a story to tell. I want you to help me.

And he said, you know, I think we could do this together. And I was like, wow, that would be really good because that, you know, then I don't have to figure out like, should I get a flashlight to shine on myself? Whatever you have to do. So that's just how it started and we brainstormed it for a while. It started with, I would tell this story of how I changed. And personally, I thought if I got 100 views by Christmas, that would be something. I thought that would be really good.

If you subtract my relatives and my college friends and my children having it on a constant loop, you know, play, that would be about 100. That would be good. And then within three weeks, it was like 180,000. And I just, what? It's a wonderful story to hear. I do urge everybody to go and listen to the longer version.

And you go into so many different topics over many different episodes. And cleverly and rightly, there's like the very first episode is called Why My Mom Left the Right. And we don't see that a lot. We see so many Why I Left the Left videos and they're always from the perspective of political pundits.

People who are already in the political arena already sort of doing their punditry and having their ideological project and their propaganda they wanna push. And then they do their Why I left the left thing. And it's very nice and refreshing to see somebody, a person who had the opposite happen to them in a genuine way.

Again, we'll get into more details, but every step of the way is like, oh, that would make sense. Then you think about this and then you realize this. And the journey you go on is so genuine and real as opposed to this sort of like, the left got crazy and so I left, you know, it's very nice. This is very refreshing to hear that perspective

and that version of the story from somebody who actually went through it instead of using it as a political tool for their propaganda campaign, which isn't a question, so I'm sorry. Thanks, thank you. A lot of people who watch it are people in my generation. And that's kind of cool. Everybody feels really like I wasn't the only one.

Yeah, yeah, and being able to speak about it and express that, whether it's through their vote or in conversation, is really, really nice to see. There are a few things about that story that stood out to me. And again, everyone go watch this for yourself to get the full experience of hearing the story, because it's hard to compress it. But there are a couple of things.

One is your experience in college where you were around people that were different from you, but you felt welcomed and you felt safe to have those conversations. And I think that that's a really, I'm just highlighting that because I'm going to reference that as we have some of our other conversations today. But it was a big part of that, is feeling safe to ask to show up and not be judged for having different opinions and supported in your transition. But also your time spent working in a welfare office

and having the opportunity to come face to face with your own biases. Because a lot of people, and to see how things that you'd been taught were wrong, were being politicized to rile people up, to divide people. But you saw the reality. And so much of the time that is what it takes, I think, for people is to come face to face with story that they've been told and realize that they've been lied to. And that was a choice of yours too, right? Like it wasn't just sort of like,

oh, I happen to be working here. It was, I have these biases about like welfare queens or however it was phrased at the time and making the conscious choice to go and find out. Like, I'm gonna actually go and work with these people and see if that's true, which you don't see that decision of not just like, oh, I happened to notice and then realize these things.

Like, no, I'm actually actively challenging these biases. Yeah, I went on a quest to find welfare queens, as somebody said to me. I did. That was my objective. Where are they? I'm gonna prove one way or another, who's telling the truth and who's lying.

I think it's interesting because one thing I've learned talking to my mom through all of this is getting a full understanding of like how hard that transformation is. That you exist in a world of belief system and ideology where everything you're consuming supports that narrative. I used to think it often was a question of values, but I don't really think that's always the case because I think my mom had the values of freedom, had the values of fairness. But I think the propaganda and the lies that she was told influenced her values too and created a whole world.

And deconstructing that is not an easy thing because you have to let go of a lot of the things that you feel like make you who you are. You have to let go of a lot of things that make the country what you think it should be. So it's a very hard thing to transform in that way. Yeah. Do you think this poisoned information environment that we live in today makes this even harder for people to leave? Because they're inundated with even more propaganda and lies,

I think, than even just on Fox News 20, 25 years ago. You know, you change people's hearts first. You don't change their minds until you change their hearts. And tolerance is really important. And you think of all the things that support your belief system that you want to belong to. I mean, one of the things that I learned from this is how important it is for people

to feel like they belong somewhere, that they're in some kind of a tribe or community that accepts them. You know, in my generation, we were really first and second generation Americans. And so our extended immigrant families supported us and all of their views supported us. We were Catholics and so our faith supported us. You know, our friends supported us and all of their views supported us. We were Catholics and so our faith supported us, you know, our friends supported us. That's fracturing so much, you know, as people move away from being first and second generation immigrant families into third and they lose touch with their, with who they are in some way. You know, you still want to belong somewhere

and you have to replace that. And this, the media environment that's so toxic and terrible, it isn't just people who are telling you lies. They wanna be your friend. You know, they wanna talk about things that you wanna hear about that are in politics. I mean, I don't know that space at all, but I gather that the, you know, they talk about sports

and they talk about all these other things so that you have a sense of belonging. And once you have a sense of belonging, it's much easier to change people's minds because you feel it's an act of loyalty to your friends and your family. And you can't just say, well, you should have gone on YouTube to see how terrible Trump was or something. your friends and your family. And you can't just say, well, you should have gone

on YouTube to see how terrible Trump was or something. It doesn't matter if your friends and your family and your belief system is all tied together. You can't just pick one thing out of it and expect everything else to change because it would collapse people's sense of who they are. You can't do it that way. All of what you're saying,

I wonder if this is a good time to watch this clip of this woman, because it kind of speaks to a lot of the elements that you were just talking about. We hear these stories a lot, a lot more and more people are saying, they're sort of regret for voting for Trump or sort of realizing like, oh wait, I didn't know there was gonna be like this, or I didn't know they of realizing like, oh, wait, I didn't know there was going to

be like this or I didn't know they were going to come after me or like Rogan said, like they he said they were going to do the criminals first. But now they're doing this. Everybody is like, OK, great. We talked about it last week. But here's another example of this, I think is instructive. Twenty five yearold woman named Cynthia, who says she regrets voting for Trump after her father, who has terminal cancer, was detained by ICE. Here's part of her viral clip. My vote wasn't just a mistake. It was the ultimate betrayal of the very people that I come from.

I feel like living in South Florida surrounded by Republican voices, I was brainwashed into thinking I was one of them. I fell for the propaganda, the normalization of cruelty, and I believe the lies that gave me a false sense of security and belonging. What you said, right? Like, you're one of's you're one you're like you're one of the good ones. You're part of you're part of this group, actually. You're comfortable. You're safe here. We're all part of the same team and everyone else is not. And then you get worked up and into a bit of a frenzy. And then that normalization of cruelty is a lot easier because, well,

I'm not cruel to people in my space. We're cruel to the other people. And I think I mean, there's so much to say about these kinds of stories and welcoming people who sort of realize this, but at the same time, like sort of digging into like, well, why was it easy? What have you actually changed your mind about? A lot of people sort of have this moment

where not as far as she's come, where she is very pretty clear. Like I thought this, I thought this, I thought this, I got caught up in it and it was a huge mistake as opposed to sort of, there's a lot of hedging I think with some people still where it's like, oh I thought he's gonna do this and I was wrong as opposed to like no, I was caught up in the cruelty

that is like ever present in this movement. Her ability to use that language and articulate it this well, like a normalization of cruelty has led some people to doubt her story because it seems like very advanced in the phase of like, well, I believed this, but now that this happened to me.

The litification of her language kind of. Well, yeah, that's an interesting question. Like, you know, so they're basically saying that she's like a plant or something like that. The litification of her language kind of. Well, yeah, that's an interesting question. So they're basically saying that she's a plant or something like that. Is that what the accusation is? I mean, some people are, other people are just like, well, why didn't you sponsor your father for citizenship?

You had all these opportunities and stuff. So there's levels of. You know, when I was a little fanatic, you know, I thought that everyone who didn't believe what I believed was my enemy, and they had to be neutralized in some way. Really, I thought they had to lose their freedom of speech in order to protect the Constitution.

That's how extreme it was. You know, so for her to step up and say, you know, I realized I was wrong, is pretty remarkable to me. You know, if you're very deep in a cult, it is very hard, as I said, to break away. Because look at, she lives in South Florida. I think she's a Cuban American.

The Cuban American community, she lives in South Florida. I think she's a Cuban American. The Cuban American community, her tribe is very Republican. She's very tied to it. She says, I was betrayed the people I came from. So for her to change her mind, she has to go against her family, her extended family. She has to go against all the propagandas that she hears day in and day out in

South Florida with no other narrative on the other side. You know, the Democratic Party is dead in the water. There may be individual voices, but they're dead in the water. So for her to say, I was wrong, is completely remarkable. And you can pick at her and just say, oh gosh, why didn't you sponsor your father? Well, maybe she didn't want to expose her father to the Migra and that, you know, like they're doing now, you show up for your immigration appointment and you get deported to El Salvador.

Maybe she didn't want to put him on the radar of the people looking for undocumented people. Who knows? Who the hell cares? Who the hell cares? It doesn't matter. I mean, when a crack- This is what's happened. When a crack this big opens up in a tyrant's world, where people are saying,

I was betrayed by you. I was duped by you. I was a fool. You made me a fool. I was duped by you. I was a fool. You made me a fool. The people on the other side need to say, you are welcome here. They wanna, you wanna drive that crack so that you can't ever bridge it and just say, we understand that you were duped.

Come back to us. You know, we're not perfect, but they're evil. Right, that's the thing, cause there we've, we say this all, but they are evil. Right, that's the thing, because we say this all the time. He is a con man. I mean, the whole movement is, but like, he's a con man. He has been in his entire life.

He's a liar. He's duping people. He doesn't care about anybody. And if we hold that to be true, then many people are victims of that. And if they realize that, then, you know, make like treating, like what you said, just sort of treating them in an otherly way

and sort of like pushing them farther away. When they do realize like I was conned, there are many reasons for that. Some of them are silly, like Joe Rogan is easily conned by anybody. He's a different kind of person than all these other individuals. So- I would never have changed if the, if, tell, you know, or silly like Joe Rogan is easily conned by anybody. He's a different kind of person than all these other individuals.

I would never have changed if that was the welcome I got on the other side. I would have said, I don't wanna go there. No, you're everything they told me you were. You're intolerant, you're egotistical, you think you're better than everybody, you're elitist, you're all of the things mystical. You think you're better than everybody. You're elitist. You're all of the things that, you know,

the right characterize you as. And they don't want you anyway, because you had the wrong beliefs. I wouldn't go, I wouldn't. I get that it's hard. We're all very emotional and the stakes are extremely high. And it's hard. It's hard to wrap your mind around.

Well, they said it. He said these words. This is what they were saying the whole time. But you're taking for granted that, one, everyone is as informed as we are. You're taking for granted that everybody has the time to be as informed. You're making a lot of assumptions

about their value system without understanding all of the different factors. And while there are absolutely horrific people that knew exactly what they voted for and they're thrilled with it, but there's different camps and there the different factors. And while there are absolutely horrific people that knew exactly what they voted for and they're thrilled with it, but there's different camps and there's different people. And this is the first of, not the first, there's lots of stories like this

of people coming forward with regret. We cannot just immediately say, I don't think so. I don't, it's not even who I wanna be. That's not the party I wanna be. I wanna be someplace that's welcoming and saying like, I'm so sorry this happened to you. Let me tell you more information. How can we welcome to the team? They're, they're ready to listen. They're ready to listen now. And, you know, it takes how many 10 million letters were written by wonderful, progressive people to, you know, these kind of voters. And the studies show they didn't move the needle at all. Trump is handing these voters to the progressive side

on a platter and saying, take them, because there's nothing more ferocious than somebody who feels they've been lied to. And there's no one more ferocious than someone who feels they've been lied to. And there's no one more ferocious than someone who feels betrayed. He did all the work that it took me years to do. But they're not gonna walk through the door and join the coalition of people who want to save the country

if what they do is get the kind of vitriol and hate and self-righteousness. It's terrible. It's terrible. It's terrible. You wanna offer, you wanna say, sorry you were betrayed, he's a liar. We can offer you a better world for everybody. That's what's on the table.

I just wanna point out that the people who have been saying, why didn't you sponsor him for citizenship, I don't believe your story, that's coming from the right. That's from mega people. The people on the left are the ones saying vitriol, like FAFO, you deserve this. Yeah, so there's different camps here,

but in general, I commend this person for the bravery of sharing their story. My heart's broken for them and for everybody that's navigating this. Yeah, and I think even with the people, there are a camp of people who feel regret them and for everybody that's navigating this. Yeah. And I think even with the people, there are a camp of people who feel regret or are like, wait, I lost my job.

I didn't think that was going to happen. Or all my workers got deported. There are some people who say, no, you were supposed to be mean to those people, not to us. And some of those people have not learned that lesson. But even still, like what you said, Katie, that's not the party I wanna be. It's not just about like what we say to those people.

I mean, you're talking about Joe Rogan, that's a different thing. He's spreading, he's one of the disseminators of the information. But it's about who we are too. Like Michael Brooks once said, you know, be kind with people, be ruthless with systems. There's plenty of righteous anger to be thrown at ICE, at the Trump administration. Even the people who don't change, like why are we, I mean, I get the certain cosmic justice

that some people feel, but at a certain point, you have to say like, who are we? We're the party that stands for, you know, even if you haven't changed, we don't want people getting rounded up by ICE, whether you're a conservative or not. Yeah, if you regret getting caught up in the normalization of cruelty,

we need to be able to say, we don't like the normalization of cruelty. We actually think it's bad. The other thing is, just practically speaking, you know, like your father said, Katie, you know, this could be the beginning of a radical shift. I think a radical shift is coming, a complete realignment. I do too. But it has to be a radical shift. I think a radical shift is coming, a complete realignment. I do too.

But it has to be a broad coalition. It can't just be the coalition of, what I call the coalition of the self-righteous. Like, well, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it has to be, come join us in a different coalition. Because at the end of the day, look, Adrienne, I moved to the mountains. I live in the mountains and I have a bunch of, I have a, Adrian, I moved to the mountains. I live in the mountains and I have a bunch of, I have a, no, I'm surprised to people.

I have a far broader spectrum of political opinions around me. And some people are, I'm not going to touch it. Other people, there's different degrees of what their conservatism is, what they think, what they're, the one issue that they're voting for this party, this time, XYZ, but at the end of the day, when you talk about it, we do share in general, the same values of wanting to be able

to live our life comfortably, to be able to feed our children, to have access to school, to be able to not our life comfortably, to be able to feed our children, to have access to school, to be able to not be astoundingly rich, but make enough money that you're not stressed, health insurance. At the end of the day, that is,

there is no disagreement about that. And so, then you start drilling down a little deeper and the frustration with the accumulation of wealth, with the way our system, that we're actually living in a corporate oligarchy. These are things that people will disagree with. This is your broad coalition of people saying that we are in this together and the politicians are making us hate each other. There are also the extremes. And I'm not negating that to everybody at home. But I think that that is the future. And that is who we have to be in order to actually make seismic shifts.

And you're right, I do think that this horrific man might be the impetus. It could be if we do it right. That's right. Right. Well, a few months ago, there were a couple of polls in April that said, oh, only 2% of GOP voters regretted their votes for Trump. But Elliot Morris, who is another pollster, he says, well, if you ask the question a different way,

if you don't use the word regret, if you give them a little more leash to say what they're really feeling, it changes. And so they polled people, they said, regardless of who you voted for last time, if the US was holding a do-over election today, this was in May, who would you vote for? Among Trump voters, only 86% said they would vote for Trump again. 5% said Harris, 9% said other would not vote. Among Kamala Harris voters, it was 92% who said they would

vote for her. Critically, among people who did not vote, and of course, this is just what people are saying, but among people who did not vote, 22% said they would vote this time and they would do it for Trump and 36% said they would for Harris. Even going so far as to suggest if there was another election today, Trump might lose. That's how much things have shifted in just a few months. You see this in immigration polling specifically, like 180. Oh yeah. That's six months ago.

I mean, that's unbelievable. His quote unquote best issue has started to tank. They said, because this number is remarkable, I saw today a Quinnipiac poll that do you support a path to legalization for most undocumented immigrants? 64% said yes. Now six months ago it was 55%. Because it's coming front and center now and they're seeing it. I know the last few shows I've been saying this, but I've been blown

away by the amount of people having good faith conversations with me about, no, I want people to be, I want it to be easier for people to immigrate here. They're stuck on this idea that the illegal version is bad and they're not, but they want it to be easier. They understand that it's expensive and it's hard and it's bureaucratic. Yeah. And this is part of the cost of allowing the lies about immigrants to go largely unchallenged because there was a narrative like most of the people coming to this country are criminals. And there was also a narrative promoted by people like Joe Rogan that the Trump administration is going to prioritize the criminals.

So you can say, you can point and say FAFO at someone whose family member is carried up by ICE, but you could also recognize they believed the story was about these new people who are criminals coming in and that they're going to deport the criminals. They didn't think it was their family members. And the failure of the Democratic Party to say, you know what, we lost on immigration, we're just going to back away and we're going to let that story go largely unchallenged because it's a loser for us was a big mistake. Huge mistake. Yeah. Yeah. No wonder everyone believed like, well, it's mostly

criminals. They're saying it's all criminals. The other side is cowering in the corner. Hoping that they'll pass this bipartisan bill before the election, which they know they're not going to. Yeah, it's very embarrassing how they've have they've dealt with it. And it's unfortunate that their sort of method of politics has led to like, well, actually, we're all going to find out. We're gonna see what happens when a fascist administration is in office, and they don't even attempt to

categorize people in any way other than 10, 11 million illegal immigrants and they're all out. You know, if you don't have another story to tell people about what's going on, they'll just listen to the story that makes sense to them and they'll fill it in with their own experience, you know, and they'll tell themselves the story. And if all they hear is criminals, criminals, criminals, they'll say, well, you know, I knew of a guy and he ripped off his employer. And yeah, I guess they're all like that

because no one's saying they're not. Right. And I guess they're not saying they're not because they're all criminals. Yeah, even simple, like simple facts that we know, like illegal immigrants commit much less crime than American citizens. Like that's just something we know.

And that is something that I think like one one co host of the All In podcast will say with his little teal buddies. But like you don't even see Democrats say that you don't see that that true thing that we all know. What did they do? They a bunch of them went and sponsored, you know, voted for the Lake and Riley Act, like, you know. Exactly. Summer is about three things and three things only.

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and being my own dungeon master. I don't need you anymore, Gordon Elliot, Myra Henry, and Warmbow plays sometimes, but he's kind of a... he's trouble. Smell fresher, stay drier, and boost your confidence from head to toe with Mando. Zoran Mamdani is a 33-year-old democratic socialist who defeated Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic mayoral primary this week. Andrew Cuomo is the disgraced sex pest, who was somehow the leader in this race up until Mom Donnie won. Fox News is really trying to scare people with some of Mom Donnie's ideas. They'll have their big graphic on.

Free bus fare, city run grocery stores, $30 minimum wage, universal childcare. The horrors, oh no! Sounds good to me. Yeah, I mean, good luck in a lot of these things, Don as mayor. Gotta start somewhere. Exactly, at this point, A, as I think Brad Lander said about Cuomo,

good fucking riddance. That's like the first victory I think is just, sorry Cuomo, disgraced former governor, you're not in politics anymore. Maybe he'll try, maybe he'll keep trying I'm sure, and he might do later in this race, but like a good solid message victory there. But just somebody in the Democratic Party who is young,

DSA member, sorry, folks at home and like really, really charming and a great speaker, great communicator, great on a lot of issues that they try to get you on. He's very good at navigating the sort of gotcha stuff, whether it's the gotchas that Democrats get, the gotchas that Muslim politicians get, the gotchas that democratic socialists get, like all these sort of attempts by the media at large to get him. He's very good at navigating those things as well.

And also obviously his media campaign and ground game too, just like going knocking on doors and talking to people. Yeah, I think that's one of the big lessons here is, you know, you talk Cody about like he didn't run away from certain gotcha questions. Like, you know, he didn't have to throw trans people or immigrants under the bus, he didn't have to hedge on whether or not there's a genocide going on in Gaza. And I think one of the results of that is that it created enthusiasm and enthusiasm can't be underestimated because enthusiasm gets the volunteers.

And he'll lead with the message, and he did lead with the message of affordability, but he didn't run away from all of those things, which created, because your foot soldiers are in all likelihood, especially in New York, but are going to be the people who are most engaged. They're going to be more progressive on the democratic side, and they're going to become the people who sing your praises, who knock on doors for you. And so, there's this, in this calculation of we need to,

like, hide, moderate our positions on these things because they're vulnerabilities, but the cost of that is that you lose enthusiasm, and enthusiasm creates all those door knocks. Oh, yeah. It creates that, I mean, there was those several days where someone was just like, you can just tweet the word Zoran Mumdani and get 1,000 likes. And tons of people just tweeted his name,

thousands and thousands of people. That's just what you're talking about. It's enthusiasm for somebody. That also shows that whether or not he can accomplish everything or whether or not he's like sort of navigating politically, it does show some semblance of conviction and principles about these issues.

And we're so used to, especially with like Democrats these days, sorry sorry folks at home, where you're not really taking a stance. You're more just like, we're not them and we're having a conversation. And it's so easy to fall into those gotcha questions. And like you're saying like retreat instead of full on saying like, here's my belief,

and here's how we can all work together, even if we disagree on it. But stating, like, this is what I believe. And he's able to do that. And one of the very few politicians that now, currently, at the moment, seems to be able to do very effectively. So there's quite a response from the right.

I would also say the center left. Center left, too. Don't move, yeah. We won't forget that. But there has been the racism. They turned up the dial on this one after Mom Donnie won. Marjorie Taylor Greene, James Woods, and other people posted this AI slop of the Statue of Liberty

covered in a burka. How dare the Statue of Liberty wear some sort of robe covering her body. Yeah, really. Disgusting. And the crown. Sorry. Charlie Kirk said, 24 years ago, a group of Muslims

killed 2,753 people on 9-11. Now a Muslim socialist is on pace to run New York City. Our current president surely had something good to say, Jonathan, right? I mean, he had a long and involved rant. He didn't come up with a nickname, which is a little bit surprising, because Mamdani rhymes with commie

and a bunch of other stuff, I think. But he did say he looks terrible. His voice is grating. Oh my God, he said that? oh my god. He said I know He's got AOC plus three dummies all backing him and even our great Palestinian senator crying Chuck Schumer is groveling over him I do want to point out that the New York young Republicans floated this and now representative Andy Ogles has Put forward a letter they want to denaturalize him and strip away his citizenship

because he was born in Uganda. So what? Yeah, this is, I mean, sort of what we were talking about earlier. Like this is, I feel like at the, in the moment, and again, we can talk about the center left response to this too, because it's, it's same but separate. It's different. It's different. It's not like the full blown racism, obviously. I feel like so much of what we're seeing from the right is what we were talking about earlier, this sort of like, well, if you have a fascist, like racist government

explicitly, not in the ways that America has been throughout its history, but this explicit fascist man, con man and all the people around him, I don't think people like this. I think there are very loud people on the internet who see this and go, yeah, we're racist, and it's awesome, but most people see this and go, wait, what?

You're saying like, we can't, we gotta denaturalize this Muslim guy? Like, I don't know. Who everybody likes and wants you to be able to afford. Exactly, he's so likable and again, his policies, whether or not he's gonna get them done or whatever, they're very positive. This isn't like, he's like, oh,

he's, Sharia law is on the way. Like, what do you, it's all these different, he's a Muslim and a communist and a democratic, a democratic socialist and, like, all these sort of conflicting, scary words that they wanna say. And I think that to a point, obviously Trump became president a second time and that's very disappointing, but I think that this kind of thing is so off-putting

and will not take. Like, I think there's a reason, like whenever they, I see two categories of tweets often, and one is, oh my God, a Muslim democratic socialist mayor, smiley face, and then, oh my God, a democratic socialist Muslim mayor, frowny face, angry face. It's just these two different reactions to the same thing. And I think that most New Yorkers aren't going to just go

the racism route is the hope. I don't know. It's so aggressive. The stuff coming out from these people is so aggressively racist and disgusting. That you hope that people are like, I thought we were doing like kind of secret racism, not this.

Hope, you're right. I agree with you. I think in my gut, it's, the more they behave this way online, the more people are put off, I think. And it's like that, that coupled with he's extremely likable and good at politics. Yeah, that's the important takeaway.

But I also, I'm like, we're really setting him off because the other side off with this guy because there's something charismatic. Oh yeah, they hate it. Yeah, it's why Trump said he looks terrible because he knows that he doesn't. Well, who would know better than him? They're just recycling the same bogeymen.

You know what I mean? It's like, it's like. This could be Obama, it could be. Yeah, well, I mean, they finally do actually have a socialist Muslim from Africa. Right, right. Who was actually born in Africa. This is their greatest fear. But, you know, it's like you said,

their greatest fear. But, you know, it's, like you said, the Sharia law and Communists, like, those aren't- Describe what you think those mean, folks. Like, what are you talking about? You can't have both. He also threatens capitalism to them. Like, just, he threatens, like, the share. They're like, wait, the idea of some public goods being taken out of the market system

and into the public sphere is very threatening. So you've got the capitalists coming after him, you've got... And then the fascists are coming after him just by recycling Islamophobia. It's immigrants, it's black people, it's women, it's gay people, it's Muslim people. They'll just cycle them through on a loop forever. I mean, you have Stephen Miller, the president when it comes to immigration, explicitly saying, this is the cause, or this is the fault of all this immigration.

NYC is the clearest warning yet of what happens to a society when it fails to control migration. The commentary about NYC Democrats nominating, yeah. Even though Zoran Mamdani won huge among college-educated white people. Exactly, yes, I know. The whole thing is absurd, but they're very. They're very, they're very upset. New York City has fallen says Donald Trump Jr.

This is, I think when I heard about this fella, I think this is the beginning of the revolution. This is the beginning of the realignment. You know, it's not like the Republicans and the Democrats are both obsolete really. The Republicans like don't regulate anything. Capitalism is great. The Republicans are like, don't regulate anything, capitalism is great. The Democrats are like, well, let's do smart,

capitalism is great. And this is like- This is like, I think just tying into what we were talking about earlier too, about what people really want and the frustration with the system in general. I'm thrilled at this stage. We have to acknowledge that this was the primary.

Totally. So the next round of this is him up against Republican challenger and maybe Andrew Cuomo again. And Eric Adams. And Eric Adams, thank you. What does that look like? How does this play in that environment? I'm very, very excited to see

because this is a resounding, from our side anyway, in terms of the Democratic party should 100% be taking note and seeing the response to this man and applying it everywhere. And I'm thrilled to see, especially coupled with everything that's going on, people's frustration with Donald Trump, with seeing the reality of his immigration policies. I want to see what the effect is on that population in New York. Yes, this is New York City. It's a Democratic primary. I think it's unlikely that you can be like, I'm a Democratic socialist. But I also think that the policies of like, hey, we're going, making life affordable and moving some things into the sphere of public good,

you don't have to call yourself a socialist, you can just call yourself a New Deal Democrat. And that, I mean- Amy Baskett's all that kind of stuff. I mean, one of the things that I've learned when we've been talking, when I was talking to my mom through this podcast is we were talking about like the policies of the 50s and the New Deal era. When her conservative beliefs

were on the defensive, you had Eisenhower doing a Republican doing New Deal stuff, because that was the paradigm. You don't need to call yourself a socialist. You could just say, I want to do what Roosevelt did. Exactly. Like American great. Yeah, Eisenhower, whatever, exactly. Also, I just wanted to point out the sort of seeming potential benefits to a rank choice voting system.

Seeing Lander and Mamdani sort of like join forces ostensibly and say like, we are on the same team, actually. We want a better New York for everybody. And we agree on some things, disagree on other stuff, but like, we're on the same team, and Cuomo's not on our fucking team. And so just sort of like being able to have a primary,

again, except for Cuomo, where it does seem like the party is like on the same page on a lot of things, as opposed to what we have seen recently in primaries, which is very just extremely negative the whole time. And there's no sense of solidarity or shared vision. Obviously, you want to differentiate yourself from people. But it's the kind of thing where if it was different, perhaps Elizabeth Warren and Bernie could have said, well, rank us together. Right. So that we can actually

like present ourselves as like a vision and a coalition within the Democratic Party that we are in this together. Or, you know, this other one. And just, you know, it was very nice to see Lander do that so there are some updates on The the OB BBA the one big beautiful bill act Senate version The they're trying to get it through as quickly as possible Trump wants it passed he wants to sign it by July 4th He probably wants to do this because ice is running out of money real quick And he needs to inject them with a lot of cash. He wants to hire 10,000 more officers, which would suck.

Oh my god. I just have to say this all the time. If you're joining ICE in 2025, you're scum. Well, right. That's what worries me is who would join now. People who want to be deputized already and they're just gonna, exactly. Exactly. So, but the Senate parliamentarian, you remember her. She did stuff, we didn't like it a few years ago, but now she's on our, whatever.

In order to get the thing passed through budget reconciliation with only 50 votes, you gotta follow certain budgetary rules. You can't just stick any law you want in there. The Senate parliamentarian will say that's no go. And she, Elizabeth McDonough, has done that for a bunch of bad stuff, including cutting the tax that states can impose on the federal government for Medicaid reimbursements, prohibiting federal funding of Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program for adults or kids

whose immigration status cannot be immediately verified. Lower federal Medicaid funding for states that provide Medicaid coverage to undocumented immigrants, remove gender-affirming care from Medicaid. Other stuff too, forcing the Postal Service to sell off its EV fleet, basically eliminating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. It's a weird thing to shove in there Yeah, lots of stuff in here that the Senate parliamentarians like no no you need 60 votes for that and so Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville is like let's just fire her Which I guess you could do but majority leader John Thune said he will not do that.

But we'll see what pressure he has. Holding the line, all right, yeah. I know that these are likely to pop up in other places at other times, perhaps, but I'm grateful that at least these things have been removed from this. And also give us an update on Senator Mike Lee's public land sell-off. Is he still based?

Right, well he's- Less based. Based in his office, because they're rewriting the thing. Sheesh. Little rim shot. He wanted to sell at least three million acres of public land.

Senate parliamentarian said no. And so he's rewriting it. I don't know exactly what they're doing to get around that, but now he's revised the plan to sell up to 1.2 million acres of public land, which is better. That's a smaller number than before. I don't know if I said this when we were talking about it

last week, week before, whenever. Public land makes the government money. Yeah, it does. In perpetuity. Like the idea that we need to sell this land off to make a cool, quick billion dollars or whatever is weird to me because it makes you money. Well, that's woke money. There are some chunks of land. They're making woke money. We want based money, not you money. Well, that's woke money. There are some chunks of land. They're making woke money. We want based money, not woke money.

Okay, let's. But I feel more. That is a good point, Katie, thank you. Less paranoid about it in these parameters. So good job, everybody. Yeah, it's that thing where this overreach was like, wait, I thought we were just like doing this and now you're like you're going to sell off all of our land that we love.

Like conservatives do like the environment. They just hate the environmentalists and parts of the environment. Yeah, that was another wildly unpopular thing. The amount of posts here in this community, this conservative community of people like what? What is this? That's our land. 06.00 Yeah, the pollsters should really measure mountain posts. They are ignoring that demographic completely. 06.00 Entirely. 06.00 Almost every part of the bill is extremely unpopular. And this is basically the only piece

of legislation that it's the big, one big, beautiful bill. They haven't done anything else other than the executive order stuff, really. And it's so unpopular. And yet again, I feel like it's deja vu all over again, because in the way that my mom was lied to about welfare queens, Mike Lee is going out and lying about Medicaid recipients being like these lazy bums sitting on their mom's couch that they just want to like get free healthcare. They don't want money. They just want to be able to go to the, they're very concerned about their health, but they're

very lazy and they won't work. And that, you know, illegals are getting all this Medicaid and they're saying, oh, we're not cutting Medicaid. We're just getting rid of the fraud. And that's just a lie. And all that stuff that was just policy stuff that got stripped out, that's great. But the rest of this bill is so terrible and would have such an immense impact on our country and barely anybody knows about it. You know what I mean? What is Chuck Schumer, what is the Democratic leadership

doing? I'm so disillusioned with them right now. The Democratic leadership is mostly just saying that this is bad, but every statement is about how we're getting distracted by another bad thing, and we're not paying enough attention. I mean, the grassroots is doing stuff. A bunch of geezers got arrested in the Capitol in wheelchairs. That's awesome. They're like, you're not going to do it.

We're going to throw our bodies right in the way of gum up the works. It reminds me of our conversation with Alex Steed a few weeks ago ago where he was discussing, you know, in the civil rights movement, that protests and disturbances were specifically designed to catch the attention to create an image, to create something that lasts, to demonstrate inequity in some, you know, something outlandish, a travesty. This is exactly it.

People in their wheelchairs protesting, getting manhandled, getting arrested, that is an image that sticks. That is something that lasts, that breaks through. Because yeah, most people, again, don't have time to be paying as close of attention as we do. They're gonna be real shocked when their rural community,

the hospitals are shutting down because they didn't realize that Medicaid subsidized the health care there that allowed that hospital to even exist at all. I mean, an offshoot of a Democratic group, not associated with the party, took out billboards in a lot of these swing districts, talking about how they were going to cut Medicaid and the Republican Party threatened to sue all of the billboard companies. And so they caved in immediately and took them down. So some people were trying to get it out in a really cool way and the Republicans are just ruthless. Before we go, we should highlight that by the time you hear this, there will have been a bunch of Supreme Court rulings that come out.

It's the last day of the session. Could be a bad one. Rulings on birthright citizenship. Again, not on the merits of birthright citizenship, but on the ability for judges to do nationwide injunctions of illegal stuff like that. Yes, other things like age verification for porn sites, a challenge to LGBTQ books in public schools, voting rights, ACA stuff. So there will be a bunch of that.

And the Supreme Court ruled this morning, six to three, that states can cut off Medicaid patients from going to Planned Parenthood. Since they don't get to choose where they go, they said states can decide not to fund Planned Parenthood. Abortion services are already banned from receiving federal funding. They just don't like Planned Parenthood, and now you can't go there if you're on Medicaid in South Carolina right now for care at all But that is of course going to expand to

You can guess which states so Sorry to end on that. Sorry. Okay. Here is one of the most important lessons that I learned which is Change is hard You know change it takes everybody to make change. And the more people hear your voices and they hear you say something, it puts a seed in their mind

so that the second time they hear it and the third time they hear it and the fourth time they hear it, they're more open to it. And all change starts with like, I've been listening to a lecture on human rights. And the guy said, every increase expansion of human rights starts with a vision, like with an idea that seems immensely unpopular or stupid or

crazy at the time. But you can't in order to progress, you have to have that idea. And that, you know, so keep talking, keep sharing, keep pushing, because the second and the third time people hear something, it's not as crazy. You know, it's more interesting. They'll think about it. You know, you guys are doing God's work really in opening people's minds. So don't get this, do not get discouraged. That was a really, really nice way to wrap this conversation up. Thank you. I love having mom here.

Yeah. More compliments. Any more bad news, Jonathan, you wanna share real quick before we go or? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We're done now. Everything's fixed now, we solved it. Guys, thank you again so much for showing up.

Please tell our audience where they can find you. Yes, I should be able to do this because I make Cody do this at the end of a shoot every week. But yeah, you can find us on YouTube, Talking Politics with Mom, also Apple and Spotify. And we've also got a Patreon, we're a little YouTube channel, so every $5 donation helps.

But yeah, thanks so much for having us and yeah, check us out on YouTube. Yeah, thanks. Thank you, children. Thanks, all. Thank you. Thank you to all of you at home. We say it every week, but it always is true. We love you very much.

Much. From the waters of Lake Erie. It was raising flags. He said, there's no way that that fish should weigh 7.9 pounds. It's just not big enough. To a nondescript office building in Richmond, Virginia, home to a $700 million fund for children with special needs. If there was a cliche list of how to blow money that you just stole very quickly,

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