The Adam Mockler Show - We Might Get in Trouble for This One…

Episode Date: October 7, 2026

Adam Mockler and Hasan Piker join What's Next with Mary Harris to talk about the midterms.Click below for premium Adam Mockler content:👉 https://adammockler.com/subscribe👉 https://www.youtube.com/@adammockler/join👉 https://www.youtube.com/@AdamMocklerClipsJOIN THE COMMUNITY: Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/AdamMockler/Discord: https://discord.gg/y9yzMU3GffInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/adammockler/Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/adammockler.com/Twitter: https://x.com/adammocklerr/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@adammocklerContact: [e-mail] inquiries: [e-mail] Mockler - Mockler Media LLC

Hey, everybody, Adam Mockler here. I think you all are going to really enjoy this conversation I had with Hassan Piker and with Mary Harris of Slate about the upcoming midterms and where Democrats go from here. You know, we exchange our ideas. We agree. We disagree in some parts. So watch until the end. Make sure you drop a like below if you want to see more content like this and enjoy. Hassan, Adam, welcome to the show. Thank you for having us. Great to be here. So every Tuesday on what next we are talking, politics. And do you want to know what I thought about calling this episode? What? Youngbloods. That's pretty good.

Because I just feel like the two of you have spent this midterm season showing up in ways that kind of disturbed the status quo. And I'll introduce you for people who don't know you. Hassan, you're best known as a Twitch streamer who talks lefty politics. And who also showed up at the Republican midterm convention in your underwear on a big screen. Congratulations on that. Thank you. Good on you. Adam, you are a political YouTuber who spends a lot of time trying to explain the youth to old folks on CNN. I think that's fair. What do you think? No, that's very, very fair. And I don't know how I'd ever explain this side picture to the old folks on CNN. I don't know where you begin with that. I know. The levels of lore we will need to get to. But I'm going to let the listeners figure it out because that's a nice little thing to just do with your time on your coffee break. But I wanted to start with both of you here, which is yesterday I got the New York Times. at my home because I'm actually pretty old and I get the New York Times in a little blue bag.

And it had this article in it, which I'm going to read you the headline, calls for generational change don't resonate in voting booth. I just want both of you to respond to this. Maybe starting with Adam, like when you see headlines like this, how does it make you feel? I really disagree with that because we are seeing right now a massive shift in the power center. of the Democratic Party towards younger voters, especially in the primaries. And that headline is disproven by some of the recent primaries we've seen with Abdul al-Sayed and Tala Rico and other engaging Democrats who can actually mobilize young voters. So there's on your nodding.

So I assume you're also in this camp. Obviously, yes. I think it's really funny because like I was listening to another podcast the other day where they were talking about how Gen X is like going to get skipped basically in the leadership roles where like it's going to. Act, I'm feeling the pain. Yeah, the exchange of ownership on virtually all aspects of industry and possibly

politics as well is going to skip the generation and then go directly to the millennials. And we're, as Adam also correctly pointed out, we're seeing that already. I think that's just the New York Times trying to get their last remaining readership to not feel like scared about what's going on. Like, oh, the... This is like a reader service package.

Was the writer or Gen Xer? Are they scared? Oh, who is there? Oh, there is, let's see. It's a bunch of them. It's Lisa Lairor. Ashley Wu. I do not know these humans in what generation they are.

Yeah, but they're just like serving their reader base. This is the same as like when they dive deep into some kind of drama that's happening in some niche like New York cultural circle. It's just it's for the readership, I think. I mean, here's what I thought when I read it. Like I read a little deeper and I was like, hey, what are they saying here? when they say generational change isn't happening. They seem to define generational change as younger, challenger, beating an incumbent at the ballot box, which I thought was kind of interesting.

It's a very specific way to define it. And it's, to me, it's just like worth pointing out that 20% of Congress is, like, leaving. Like, they're out of their seats. They're retiring, like whatever. So change is coming, like it or not. I just want to say that's not how I would define generational change. You see a lot of these older senators leaving. You see, Senator Dick Durbin or Tina Smith or Gary Peters all retiring. On the Republican side, Mitch McConnell is like brain dead, senile, throwing a peace sign every single day. And the generational shift isn't just about whether you're an incumbent or a challenger. It's a few things. It can be communication on social media. It can be the way that you promise to use the power once you actually

have it to change the lies of Americans. Or it can just be authenticity. I think a lot of the young candidates that we see doing well are very authentic. So I wouldn't just define it as, is this an outsider challenging the establishment. That's part of it, of course, but it's a few different prongs. Like, Zohran Mamdani is doing a really good job of showing what efficient government looks like because he's using social media to, to like connect the dots in voters' minds between voting for someone than seeing free child care or potholes being fixed. Hassan, how do you define it, generational change?

I agree with that. I think outside of a generational change, I think there's also an ideological shift happening within the party as well. Obviously, I'm a little bit biased here, but I mean, look, the greatest example for me was the races that I did not participate in versus the races that I did. Some of them were very close and we lost like Francesca Hong in Wisconsin. Outsideer candidate, self-identifying Democratic Socialists brought out a tremendous number of people to go out and vote for her with very little institutional sport. No institutional support. No institutional support whatsoever. I was basically a top campaign surrogate, right? No Bernie, no AOC either.

But then there's also races that I was involved in like Abdul al-Said, where he was able to defeat $70 million in outside expenditure. But are you defining generational change as campaigns that you're involved in, Hassan? No. What I'm going to, I'm going to tie this up perfectly. So there were campaigns that I wasn't involved in however with Peggy Flanagan, for example, or Angie Nixon. I mean, these were. Andgy Nixon in Florida. Yeah. Angie. Nixon in Florida was a major upset, right? It was a major upset victory. These were ideologically,

people that were, candidates were aligned further with the Bernie Krat wing of the party. And I think like the base of the party is demanding that kind of ideological change now. They want more fighters. But they also want like a more resilient strategy, a more resilient

policy platform that is tangible that they can sink their teeth into. And the greatest example that disproves a generational change or more so, the ideological change demand is of course Ed Markey. Ed Markey is very old. Ed Markey's been in Congress in one way or another since far before I was born, right? And yet there was a younger, there was a younger candidate, Seth Moulton, who went up against them and lost, right? And he actually lost by an even higher margin than the Kennedy that had previously opposed him or tried to unseat him

lost by. So that to me shows that there are definitely people out there in the base of the party, the ones that are the most loyal to the Democrats that are looking at the situation and saying we need something different. We need Democrats that are not only going to fight for liberal values, but also will have a broader agenda that we can associate with, that we want to vote for. You're saying even though Markey was older, he made the more credible progressive case. Yes. Yeah. I actually, I want to jump in here.

I think ideology does explain a lot of it because you do see the more like left-leaning candidates, people taking more progressive positions doing well. But I think it's more multifaceted than that because you can look at the highest fundraising Democrats of this cycle. And I believe it's Talarico at 75 million and then probably John Alsuff. I think it's like 50 million or something. So these candidates have an insane amount of individuals. fundraising, not through the DNC, but individual fundraising. And they're entirely different candidates. Like, Tala Rico is different than Ossoff is different than Mom Doni in New York. They're all progressive and authentic and they want to take on the system. But I think that

there's a lot to it beyond ideological. They have some shared goals, but there's obviously social media strategy. The willingness to wield power once you have it is very important to voters. Yeah. I think that is the key. That is definitely the key, though. Like, fighting like an individual appeal like not hooking it to the party yeah and i think that dynamism is baked in when you're younger right and you can if you can also uh have a a convincing populist message as as talarico and uh as osoph has been able to um to to repeat on the stump over and over again very convincingly i think that's uh that is definitely a part of that recipe for sure. Yeah. Okay. So I'm just going to take us back a little bit. I feel like ever since

Joe Biden took to a debate stage and face-planted Democrats in particular been having this generational change conversation. And even though Kamala Harris eventually replaced Biden on the ballot, I feel like this question, like what if he passed the torch sooner? Like how could it have gone differently? It's just, it's looming there, right? And we're about to have this midterm election. And it basically started off with like the generational question, right? You had David. Hogg, the activist, survivor of the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas shooting, basically saying, I want a primary people. Like, we need a generational change.

And it was interesting to me because even his message was like a little bit muddied. Like in the beginning, he was explaining why he was supporting an 80-year-old incumbent in Illinois who eventually, you know, stepped out of her race. But like it shows to me like how this generational change thing is, it's like a feel thing. It's like you can't define it by data points so well. But I do feel like what happened with Hogg was this moment where I realized how rocky things were going to be for the Dems because he was in the DNC, he was a vice chair and just saying we need generational change. He was basically like out. And it was like, this isn't working.

You've got to go. Right. Are things better now? Forcibly so. Yes. The voter base has changed the incentives that politicians follow. And the incentive is no longer to take money from special interest groups. and do scripted, consultant written television hits every single Sunday.

Now it's these more nimble, flexible videos where you're talking about the corruption of the system. I think the voters shifted the incentives of what politicians have to do in a campaign. Yeah. I mean, how do you see that, I guess, each of you? Like, are there particular races where you're like, oh, I see. Like, this is happening. I mean, Hazan? Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, Malak Kuros in Denver, Colorado. unseeded, long-term incumbent. And I think, like Abdul al-Said is obviously the most, like, nationally significant race. But, I mean, Darya Liza unseated, another incumbent, the head of the congressional Hispanic caucus, Adriana Espayat. And these are, you know, deep blue districts. But then also Michigan is, is, quote, unquote, a purple state or a swing state. I oppose that framing. But, you know, I'll, I think that these are, Michigan is never.

supposed to be a swing state. We turned it into a swing state with our, with our ineptitude, with our incompetence, with NAFTA, and then also by not leaning into the populist rage that people were feeling, and that created a unique opportunity for the Republicans to basically farm that outrage and redirected back to marginalized groups and make a more convincing message, generate a more convincing message that they were going to be the anti-war side,

twice, once against Hillary Clinton, and when also once against Kamala Harris, when it's clear that they were never going to be anti-war. I mean, they are warmongers. They always start way more wars than even the Democrats do. This was very frustrating to observe from afar. That's why I don't think it's, I don't think Michigan,

I think Michigan is a blue state. I think it's only turned into a swing state because we've missed on our side. Well, a Democrat certainly feel like that way. I feel like that's why they were so up in arms about Abdul al-Sayad. They were like, this is our seat and we could lose it. Oh my gosh. this is a person who's pushing for all this progressive change and maybe the voters aren't ready, right?

Yeah. Well, I think Abdul al-Sad's race is going to hopefully prove convincingly that this kind of politics, in spite of the hurdles that he has to overcome. And one of those hurdles being that he's Muslim, let's be real, that is like the primary vector of attack that the Republicans have. And, you know, it's been somewhat successful. overall, but not successful enough to throw them out of the race. But it will show, I hope, convincingly that we don't have to run away from these positions. We can lean into the populist

rage and then redirect it back to the actual economic factors that matter rather than to shift the blame over to migrants, to shift the blame over to transgender people, to women's rights and things of that nature that the Republicans have been able to convince people on. It's interesting because I look at Abdul al-Sayed and I actually see like both the case for and against generational change. And I'll explain why, which is he, they just, their New York Times just did a survey. And they showed that he, I think they said he has more support among young people than they've ever seen before, like 80 plus percent support from 18 to 29 year olds, which is amazing, right? But that that that rests on them turning out, which I think is a little bit of a question and like being able to. vote and being interested in voting and not skipping it. And, you know, then there was your involvement in the race, which has become a huge lightning rod because he needs Jewish voters to turn out. He needs Jewish voters. And a lot of more conservative Jewish voters have looked at your involvement in that race. And they've basically said, you need to distance yourself from Hassan Biker.

Hassan Biker is part of the problem. You know, he's too aggressive about Israel. Like, do you have any do you have any regrets looking back on how you spent like sort of it was when were you out there like may with him april yeah it was uh april and then also the night of the primaries while i went back but that was more so for donovan mcanny than abdalal saeed who also uh unseated the incumbent shritonad um but no i i i do not have any uh i do not have any concerns of my involvement whatsoever i don't think that it was the wrong thing to do i think that we showed once again that that we were able to defeat $70 million in outside expenditures. I mean, that's a, that's, that's not just an impressive. But barely, right? The poll said that Hassan would like, before way ahead and it was much closer. And I think that as we get closer,

that's where people are like, is making us nervous, making us nervous. I think that there, this is unfathomable. It's just never happened before. We've never had a candidate. Look, money in politics is obviously very important, right? It's also very successful.

I believe the, the stat is like 96% of the time, the side that has more money wins, right? And the side that spends more money wins. And that makes sense. That means that you can set the narrative. You can, you can set the agenda. You can actually disparage your opponent. Then your opponent has to spend a lot of money, not talking about his policy platform,

but instead defending himself, right? So then, you know, money plays a pretty formative role in these races. There's never been a situation where a candidate was outspent. 12 to 1 where they still ended up winning that election. It's never happened before. There's Angie Nixon where she was outsped 16 to 1 and she's still. Angie Nixon was out raised 16 to 1. I think she was still outspent like 6 to 1, which was incredible again.

Because he sat on the money. A testament to how bad the other candidate was and also how little he campaigned and a testament to the state of Florida looking at Angie Nixon is saying this is the kind of fighter that we want. she has established herself within her community as a real fighter in the state legislature for years. And that obviously played a big role in her in her victory. But Adam, I want to get you in here because I feel like another, we've sort of danced around what's happening in Texas a little bit, which I do think is another race where we're talking like generational change, right? We have James Tilerico. Here's what I see when I look at that.

I wonder if that race is about generational change or about a terrible Republican candidate on the other side, right? We have James Tolariko for the Democrats, and he is young, and he is, you know, pulling ahead of Ken Paxton, which is kind of amazing because Beto wasn't doing that. But Ken Paxton is like a remarkably bad candidate. Even Donald Trump doesn't seem to like him and is like not calling him up on the stage when they're campaigning together. Just talk to me about this race. Really quickly, I want to ask Cassan, do you regret paling Ron with Abdul now that the New York Post says he farts in public, according to an ex-Aid? Because this was like, this New York Post Street has two million views and it's supposed to be some hit piece. They're getting weaker and weaker.

The October surprise. The October surprises that he's flatulent. It's so insane. We've all been this. We're all Abdul El-Sayed. But Mary, to answer your question really quickly. So it can be both and. Like, obviously, Talariko is a really strong candidate while Paxon is a very unique candidate.

it, but it goes back to the framework I laid out at the beginning. You have to look at how Talariko is promising to use power once he gets it and how he's communicating online. There's this really viral video from like a week ago of Tala Rico calling Paxton's cell phone number and asking him to debate him on Fox News. And Paxton doesn't answer. He's running from a debate. He's openly admitting that he basically gave a plea deal to a pedophile named Adam Hoffman. He was impeached by his own party. All of this is true. And now we have these new leaked recordings. But on the other side of that, like I said, Tala Rico is very impressively used digital media. And look at his campaign promises.

They are revolving around making the system work for the average voter. Many young people right now are skeptical that the system can even respond to us in a meaningful way, even if we did vote someone in. So Tala RICO is proving that he will use this power in a very responsible way and to help people. Like a few weeks ago, Tala RICO went on Jimmy Kimmel's show. I shit you not that has 15 million views on YouTube, I believe. That's using the new media, or at least a decentralized YouTube platform to push your narrative. He makes short form clips.

He is a fighter who is bringing the fight to Ken Paxton demanding that there's some sort of debate. And overall, I think just taking money out of politics, advocating for a ban on gerrymandering, Supreme Court reform, banning. And the Joppy seems legitimately scared of television. Yeah, no, they are. Like all of the FCC stuff about, you know, shutting down the view or whatever. It was all about Talariko. They just did not want him to be able to. I also like how responsive he is to his older comments.

It's really easy sometimes to kind of slip around things that were said in 2020. But Tala Rico seems to genuinely address them. Talk about how he's changed. And I can't lie. It drives me effing crazy when I'm doing these debates. And they try to point out Tala RICO's comments from 2019. And I'm like, dog. What's a comment that he's constantly hung with that you're going to be.

God is non-binary, maybe? They always ask me, do you think God is non-binary? And I'm like, dog, Ken Paxton let a pedophile go. His own party impeached him. This isn't some hypothetical. We know how Ken Paxton will use power. We know how Talarico will use power. I don't care about some corny-ass comments that are like a little bit too vague.

It doesn't matter. Ken Paxton is uniquely corrupt. So it can be both and. I know all about old comments that you apologize for all the way back in 2019. Resurfacing is a line of attack. Let me tell you. But you're absolutely right. They have nothing, right?

And I've been saying this from the start. The Republicans have nothing. What can they, what can they lean into? They have no agenda. Every single thing that they have attempted, every single thing that Trump has attempted, has backfired, everything he touches, crashes and burns. The economy is in tatters. People are really feeling it.

Well, you can see it in the fact that, like, a lot of the candidates really don't want to debate. Like, you brought up to how we go, like, offering to debate with Pakistan. And it's like, a whole lot of them are just like, no, I don't need to show up for that. Mike Rogers ran away too. Mike Rogers ran away from the first debate and he pointed to the fact that Rup Raj, who's like a very well respected credentialed reporter in Michigan, was biased in Abdul's direction. I think it was a little bit racist for him to also imply that as well because Ruth Rogers

Brown and they're obviously presenting Abdul as this like scary brown guy. Having said that, I think voters are seeing that. They're not responding positively to that. And the cult, the base of power that the Republicans have is like shrinking every. single day. Did you guys see the report in Politico where they were like, the people who show up at the front row for Donald Trump at all his events are starting to like be like, I just want to show up for him to be impeached now.

And I was like, ouch. Like the person who literally showed up to try to turn people like to vote against your impeachment is now the person who wants to see you go. Trump fundamentally betrayed the American people on every single issue. But that doesn't mean the Democrats automatically have trust, which is why conversations like this are so important because the Republican Party has no trust. They started a new war. They effectively crashed the economy with tariffs and with higher gas prices.

And Trump polled healthcare under the feet for millions of Americans. So, I mean, Republicans are very unpopular. And Trump seems to be declining and his messaging is getting worse. But like Democrats really need to come with the fire once they get into power. It needs to be, it's a must. The Democrats get into power and they pass single issue bill after single issue bill actually advocating for, I don't know, Medicare for all or end. Tax credits. Yeah, tax credits.

Yeah. Banning stock trading among the president, his cabinet, and Congress needs to be one of the immediate goals of Democrats. And if you introduce it as a single issue bill, then the Republicans are on their back foot and they either vote against it or they abstain. It's just we need to be ruthless once we do have power. Are you saying we need like a one big beautiful bill for Democrats where you're just like shoving everything in there?

No, I think no, no, I think we need single issue by single issue. You think it's single issue. I agree. I think forcing that conversation on the national stage is an absolute must. I think it's not just about accountability, though, because I'm begging for that for sure. And I think Americans also want it because they're very frustrated with how corrupt Washington, D.C. is. Ironically enough, it's another thing that Donald Trump ran on and won on, which was draining the swamp. And then he has been the most corrupt president that I can think of in American, yeah, in American history, but also he might be one of the most.

corrupt, petty despotic tyrants in the world right now, which even includes like the likes of Vladimir Putin. Like we are reaching that level of outright corruption and graft in Washington, D.C. And people definitely want change. Right. People definitely want change there. I think John Osloff does a very good job of like identifying that and hammering that point. But I also do agree with Adam that we also, in order to build a more resilient base of support, we have to have long-term goals. We have to have midterm goals and short term goals. And we have to have a tangible policy platform that people can associate with. For the Republicans, it was simple, right? It's just straightforward white nativism, white nationalism, build the wall. You know, immigrants constitute

a national security threat. These sorts of things are easily identifiable. Yes, it's polarizing. But if you hammer that message over and over again and especially keep repeating it in, your organs of propaganda like Fox News and independent media, it's very clear that people start listening to it, right? So we have to also be unafraid and we also have to be bold and we also have to keep pushing for this comprehensive legislative agenda that people want to fight for. So it's not just about opposing the Republicans, but it's also about what kind of offerings we have for everyday Americans who feel like they've been left behind. But I do feel like that's what we're seeing in this midterm.

election, which is like all of these ideas bubbling up because I don't feel like they've been coming top down. But I do feel like I'm seeing in these candidates like these ideas. It'll just be interesting to me to see what happens when a few of these people do get to Washington because the kinds of ideas they're talking about are not like brand new. We've been talking about them for a long time. It's just that they haven't gotten done for whatever reason a lot of time because of Republicans, but sometimes because, you know, Democrats are like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. It's largely because special interest groups that distorting the campaigns of politicians. And then once they get into office, they're not beholden

to small dollar donors or individuals who donated. It's the large special interest groups. We brought up David Hogg earlier. He always says, I don't know if he came up with this, but he says that it's not just about APAC. That is the litmus test to see if a policy, you might say this too, Assam. A PAC is the litmus test to see if a politician is willing to sell out. But you see this across every industry, like the military, the pharmaceutical complex, all of this. It's a game to change the incentives of politicians. And the incentives of politicians are oftentimes to get reelected at any cost. And if that means taking money from an entity that is unpopular among your base, they'll do that if it increases their chance of getting reelected.

So I do think that as the voters in a bottom-up way, change the incentive for politicians to communicate and to take money from individual donors, you will then see more flexibility in Congress to pass what we want. Is this part of the reason why you're excited about John Ossoff? Because you talked about him having a lot of like smaller donor. But he's an incumbent, right? So it's like, if we're talking about generational change, like, he's already there. But like, yeah, talk to me. Yeah, again, generational change can be broader and more encompassing. He's young.

Like, dude, the difference between Chuck Schumer and John Alsop is absurd, number one. But number two, I think that John Ossoff represents a fight and a surgical fight that many Democrats have been missing for a while. John Alsuff used to work on corruption documentaries back in 2017. So he was doing, like, documentaries about corruption. And he seems to have a lot of intuitive knowledge. about how corruption works in our institutions and how to weed that out. So when I see a short with 100,000 likes on my Instagram feed of John Ossuff in a prosecutorial manner

grilling a Republican on their corruption, to me, that's the Democratic Party that I want to move towards. Like young, nimble faces, not even young, actually, just slightly younger, more nimble faces who are able to push against the establishment. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I guess while we hear, I do think we have to look at a couple of examples that are you against this, whatever happens?

in November being about generational change. Like, I would start with Ohio, where we have Sherrod Brown, who's in a good position to win back his Senate. And that's not his Senate seat, but like get back into the Senate in Ohio. And like he was there for years. So it's like, this is someone who is going back to something they did. It's not like new and he is older. And then you can look at North Carolina where Tom Tillis is out. And Democrats nominated former governor Roy Cooper, who, you know, that race is going so well for him that the GOP.

recently pulled money out of that race. Like, okay, we're not going to do ads for you, for his opponent, for the Senate. But those are two races where it's, it is kind of about the same old Democratic Party. What do you say to that? Yeah. I mean, I think that Roy Cooper is a really strong candidate. And I think that so like if we back up, you can't generalize with every single race that the non-incumbent is going to win. I think that different politicians have different coalitions. The coalition that Andy Bashir has in Kentucky is far different in the coalition that Zohran Mamdani built when he was winning in New York. So in Ohio, of course, Ohio is going to look slightly different than Michigan, where Abdul Al-Sayat is likely to win. I think that there are going to be exceptions to the rule,

but oftentimes you see even these candidates leveraging social media and talking policy in a different way. Look, Sherrod Brown, again, is probably one of the more progressive Democrats. And he was a resilient force in Ohio politics for decades, right? And part of that was because of his uncompromising, his uncompromising values when it came to labor. He's always been the guy backed by the state labor unions. And I think that will, you know, that is now giving him another unique opportunity to take a shot

and to get back into office at a time when people are looking for that. But yes, I think it's everything. It's the generational change is people looking for real fighters. It's people that are demanding change in general. And yeah, if it works, it works. I'm not going to oppose more establishment-aligned Democrats winning their seats in places like North Carolina. I don't want Republicans to be in office. I don't want them to be in power.

And I think that's what the, that's the beauty of democracy and is the beauty of this big tent coalition that we're trying to build here. There's going to be socialists. There's going to be people like Zahamam Dani. And then sometimes there's going to be people like Roy Cooper as well. Or Liz Cheney, unfortunately. I mean, like, I saw in every podcast or debate I go into over the past few months, people try to grill me on you.

And they're like, do you disavow Assavow Assan Piker? And it's obviously not that simple. Like, we disagree on certain things. Well, do you disavow Hassan Piker? As like in what regard? I mean, Hassan... I disavowal myself all the time. Every day I wake up.

I'm like, I disavow myself. Does Hassan have comments in 2019 that I disagree with? Yeah, sure. Even he disagrees with them. Does Hassan have policy positions that we can talk about in a rational way? Sure. But I keep getting asked about this. And I think the reality is when we're up against fascism, a threat like this, you have to

look back at World War II. I mean, in World War II, they had such a broad coalition that you had like the communists, the socialist, you had. the liberals and you had even more Republican-leaning people all coalesced together to beat the fascist. So if it's Hassan Piker, if it's Liz Cheney, whoever wants to stand up against this current administration, then they are welcome in the 10th. Now, Hassan and I can also- I love this kumbaya moment. Listen, like, we'll have- But it's true. I agree with that assessment. That's the example I use all the time as well. Like, you have, you know, you have FDR, you have Churchill and then you have Stalin as well.

like this is what was this was the force necessary to the combat the forces of fashion that were growing at the time and it's happening again and they're international it's not like this is simply a domestic affair what happens in america has outsized impact all around the world i mean our techno feudalist fascist overlords run the show they run the town halls they run the the the the social media platform platforms that have tremendous impact in places like Brazil as well. So we also, we, we have to, to build allegiances. We don't have the opportunity to just cast aside potential allies because of some, some twisted moral purity attitude that we have. Does I go both ways? Like, I'm just thinking, this question is for the real sickos about whether you want to, like, are you holding hands with Sarah Longwell in this moment? Like, people who have disavowed you, are you saying, no, I offer you my hand? I've always said, I don't care about people attacking me in the Democratic Party, even if they're former, you know, Republicans and have worked on Republican campaigns for most of their career.

My anger and frustration with Neer Tandon or Sarah Longwell does not stem from the fact that they're former Republicans that now want Democrats to win. It often stems from the fact that they are leaning into the distraction because sometimes it feels like they have their own factional agenda. within the Democratic Party where they're worried. It comes across as though they're so worried about the left kind of seizing power and winning more elections and throwing out incumbents that they hyper-focus and give light and breathe life into these Republican attacks that are unbelievably silly, very cynical, and have been a demonstrable failure so far. That's why my strategy is always just to do positive messaging.

around the, you know, ideas that I like. I can disagree with people on my left, but I don't think it's a good use of time to attack them. I guess, Hassan, I do have one question. Do you, it's kind of blunt, but like, do you regret it all not explicitly endorsing Kamala in 2024? Because you seem to now be embracing this new style of politics where it's like, you know, if somebody wins the primary, we should line up behind them and vote blue no matter who. And I totally agree, whether it's like El-Sayed or whether Haley Stevens would have won. I think it's time to coalesce. But do you think there's friction between the way you acted in 2024 versus now? People were yelling at Tom Morillo earlier as well. He came out and he openly said like he didn't even vote for Kamala Harris.

No, as far as as far as not endorsing Kamala Harris, I don't think my endorsement of Kamala Harris would have changed the needle all that much regardless. And I know I still stand, I still stand by my decision not to endorse or even though I told people not to vote for Donald Trump, obviously, or Jill Stein, contrary to popular. opinion. But the reason why I didn't want to do that was because I do think that it's, it's understandable to draw a red line around genocide of the continuation of it, especially because a Democratic party that was willing to continue the wholesale slaughter of children was not going to be a debt at defending democracy anyway. And as a matter of fact,

they kind of proved that in the aftermath of the Trump victory. And thank God, we're now finally getting back to a position where we are invested in defeating the Republicans. But there are, it's understandable to draw certain red lines, I think, or at least that's my calculation. No, no, I can understand that. But I think that for my recollection, Crowley's position in Wisconsin isn't that much different than Kamala Harris's position. And I think when Hong lost, you sent out a post that was like, hey, we should obviously

line up behind the candidate in this moment. So I don't know. I think that vote blue no matter who is something that I truly believe in. And I do understand your red line. But we're at a point where there are politicians who held really similar views to Kamala. And I still think that we should vote for those politicians, even if there is some sort of line that they cross. Like Crowley should. When Abdullah-Sayed was campaigning with Kamala Harris.

Yeah. No, I think that was a good thing. I supported that. A lot of people got mad at me for saying I support that because, again, democracy and winning elections is about addition, not subtraction. So if Abdul al-Said is is underperforming with older black voters and and part of the reason for why is because they falsely associate him with being the leader of the uncommitted movement that didn't vote for Kamalaris or or urge people to vote for Donald Trump, this actually cuts away at that propaganda that's been fairly effective so far. And we're seeing the polling results where he's underperforming with black. voters in comparison to the governor's race, right? So you got to do what you got to do to win these races. I 100% agree. And ultimately, we have to make sure that Republicans don't win.

The governor's race is a little bit different than the leadership role at the top of the Democratic Party overall. You're talking about the gubernatorial race in Wisconsin, right? Yeah, the gubernatorial race of Wisconsin. Like there are, well, I also personally think that the, the, the, the governor of Wisconsin has a decent amount of power as far as like what kind of bills get passed in the state as far as the Israel-Palestine issue goes. But my frustration with Kamala Harris was twofold. It was because it was electoral poison not leaning into and not directly delineating yourself from the the unpopular Biden administration, which led to Kamala Harris, you know, becoming the candidate.

And I was very excited about Kamala Harris initially. It was like the turning point was somewhere around the DNC when I personally started observing shifts taking place within the campaign. And my warnings unfortunately came out to be correct that leaning into a more centrist position, offering credence to the Republican argument about how immigrants constitute a national security threat that only Democrats are competently going to deal with, These sorts of postures were ineffective in winning over these supposed moderates.

It only legitimized the argument, which some Democrats even continued along after the election was over. James Tolariko calls himself a border security Democrat. I think it works in Texas, for example. He's polling really well. There's a difference between, there's a difference between saying like a nation should have borders. And, you know, I think what's going to hurt John Asa, for example, in the future is his decision for the lake and right the his decision to vote for the lake and riley act i think that's going to be that was that was a mistake yeah uh and and the reason for why that was a mistake is because it was a

messaging bill uh at a time when the immigration panic was was at its highest it's his state as well lake and riley uh was a constituent so it's you know it was a very very tough decision for him um but those sorts of things i think show that politicians are are playing ball or they're not advancing their agenda sincerely, but more so sometimes getting bullied by the Republicans. We got to do away with that. And I think that was also another part of the problem of the Kamala Harris campaign,

that like she was too conciliatory to Republican-backed narratives, which then made her look like a politician. You can't be looking like a politician. You have to be your own person. You have to be an individual, I think. That's what people respond to positively in this day and age. Can I ask?

When I look at this election we're about to happen, I do see what you guys are seeing. And I see this kind of like generational change moment. But I really worry that it's very simple to get behind a candidate with like a one time like I'm going to vote for this person. And it is really different to have the patience to show up again and again and like make it through some legislation. Like Hassan, you were just recently in Texas at UFT talking. I just wonder if the energy that we're potentially seeing around this election, and I do think we are seeing energy, like there's been polling showing, I think, something like 56% of young people are excited to vote, planning to vote.

Do you think that's going to translate to the work that has to be done after you're elected? That's a tough. That's a tough one to answer. We're trying right now. I haven't stopped the pressure campaign in New York City. obviously NYCDSA does a pretty good job with this. There's like a set of bills that they're always trying to advance in the in local office and also at the state legislature that are complimentary to Zoroamam Dani's agenda. One example I'll give you is was a phone banking campaign that we did to call up Kathy Hokel.

Kathy Hokel obviously is, you know, running for reelection, but she hasn't been responsive to. too much to the outside pressures demanding that, you know, we tax billionaires. We tax is super wealthy in New York City, right? Um, so, uh, in order to keep up that pressure, NYCDSA myself, we, we did a phone banking operation. And I think like with the, that paired up with the behind, uh, closed doors dealings that they had. I don't know, you know, what, uh, what kind of negotiations took place, but like they came up with the Pita tax as a, as an alternate solution, right? I look at that and I see like, he had to, act fast. He had to show results for something

very quickly and like that's what happened. Well, the child care obviously was the first one and that was definitely like Kathy Ocle being like, we're going to help you out, right? And that was huge. That was very impactful for Zoran as well. It was mutually beneficial for both of them. But the reason why I brought that up

is because look, the reality of the matter is, no matter how much I like a politician personally or anybody thinks they're popular, they're still responsive to outside interest groups and also they're responsive to different constituencies that are going to have differences in opinion with how to deal with certain issues. So we just have to keep up that pressure campaign. It's not exactly sexy. I mean, most people don't even care about elections to begin with, but even amongst those who care about going out and voting, there's not a lot of people who want to go out and doork. But even amongst those who go out and doorknock, there's not a lot of people who want to continue the pressure campaign against our elected representatives once they actually win power to make sure. that they follow through on this agenda.

So it's a difficult process. Yeah, I think that when we're talking about young voters, young voters are fundamentally skeptical that the institutions in America are even responsive to them, as I said earlier. And young voters are losing patience, like all voters, they're losing patience. And they're wondering if politicians are going to get into power

and continue to pull the rug out from underneath them, like other politicians have done before. So I think it's really important that when Democrats get into power, we show results on a granular level. Like we're able to, again, connect the dots in voters' heads between, I voted for this person, and I am seeing results. This might sound kind of like gaggy, but this is a real thing that Zoran's doing that's working. He's responding directly to some TikToks that people post about holes on the road or about, like, bridges that are broken. I swear I have young friends who I grew up with back in Indiana, a red state, and they follow Zoron on Instagram.

They follow Abdul on Instagram. I know these people are more conservative leaning, but they can appreciate, God bless. God bless you. I can appreciate this new style of communication from Zoron, making sure that politicians are responsive. And again, when Demi – I will say, like when I interview people who are running even for Senate, like these kind of insurgent candidates, all of them talk about constituent services. And when you talk to people who are talking to like John Osseth, I feel like he's a master of constituent services. And I feel like this has been a real change. Like you want to talk about generational change? I hear that so much more than I did five years ago. I think that a more accessible constituent service across all Democratic campaigns and people

in office would be really, really solid. And again, getting into office and passing those single issue bills, forcing the conversation is really important. We're in big trouble if Democrats get into power and they continue to back off of their positions like in prior Congresses. We have to push forward forcefully. And I see Zoron doing that. Even if it's imperfect, I see him doing that very well.

Okay. One more question. I think, I think Adam, also nailed it when he said, like, you have to show your work, right? And that is the beauty of what Zoran has been able to accomplish. It's not that he's like great at identifying what problems New Yorkers are facing and immediately seeking out solutions to them. But he's also promoting it. And that was a huge issue with Biden. It was impossible for him to do this because he was far too old, unfortunately. But that was one of the main things that I criticized Biden over

throughout the four years of his presidency was the fact that they were doing phenomenal work in certain areas. I'll give you one example. Under Biden's leadership, through the needle exchange programs, through like clean sites and whatnot, and through the mass availability of Narcan, fentanyl overdoses, opiate overdoses went down for the first time ever in his last year during an election cycle. and you never heard about it from the Biden administration. And it blew my mind. The only thing you started hearing about it when Trump got into office. Yes.

And that's so frustrating to me. Like the fact that you had the opportunity to also show how bold and declared of your agenda is even if it like kind of even if at times it was not enough. Do you know what I mean? It was a hesitancy because it was like we don't know what it is yet. We don't know if it's real yet. And I think what you're saying is like you can't be afraid to be your own. Yes. It blew my mind that like.

Even the Afghan withdrawal, right? There were a lot of issues with it. Sure, fine. But that was actually a courageous thing for Biden to do. And no one was in his corner. It was literally people like myself and like Choppel. That would be a hard one to rebrand. No, I mean, that was.

Regardless, I think people, I think people should have very clearly said, well, guess what? You're talking about 13 of our bravest soldiers dying in Kabul, right? Okay. Under Trump's leadership, 67 Americans died and no one ever talked about it. Because we were, we were cutting, we're cutting the unnecessary deaths across the board. Like there is a way to, there is a way to communicate these things. And the Biden administration was too afraid. Biden, too afraid of their own shadow.

Biden ended a 20 year war and Trump still how brand, still somehow branded himself as the anti-war guy. And then Trump restarted a war in the Middle East after Biden ended one imperfectly, but he ended one. So I agree. It kind of reminds me of how Biden passed that infrastructure bill and put up. signs. And when Trump got into office, he replaced all of the signs with his own name. What do they say? Like, shamelessness can get you anywhere in America. So, yes. Maybe a little shameless. And we, we have to, we have to be more shameless. We have to promote what we're doing. Like, no, there's nothing too little, uh, that, that you should cast aside. I mean, the, the reason why there's a

slippery slope, right? Like, if you, if you believe in science and data and whatever, like, I know the opioid world well, right? So it's, I know the scientists we're sitting there, like, we don't know what this is. We don't know. what this overdose, like, the thing means. And so if you believe in waiting to actually know something before you're out there yelling about it, I can see how you get into this trap. Do you know what I'm saying? I'm not saying you're not saying something else.

I think they shouldn't have waited. I think that the fact that opioid deaths went down for the first time in decades under Biden's leadership and you could directly tie it back to like mass availability in Narcan was, that's it. That's like, that's the number one problem in the heartland. You could have just hammered that point over and badgered Republicans over the head with it over and over again. You have to be shameless. That's what I'm saying. Because our opposition is shameless. They're shameless. Mary, I hear what you're saying, but also that immediately creates an asymmetric playing field, as Hassan just said. So if Trump is out there campaigning and in full force,

Fox News and all of his surrogates are lying about the fentanyl numbers or the overdose numbers, like they have no respect for the truth. They will put all of their voters in a different reality. I am not saying we should do that same thing. We shouldn't be lying to them like that. But if Biden or whoever else in the admin who can actually speak, we're able to make a video looking to the camera, talking about safety, drug usage, and the fact that these have dropped, that is way more effective than being hands off and saying, you know what, we don't want to risk it. So less risk-aversness and more willing to actually communicate or else it's this infinitely asymmetric playing field where they will lie. They will continue to beat up our

democracy, tear up the Constitution, and we have Chuck Schumer over here trying to make sure that the fine print of the rules are being followed by Democrats. It's also playing offense. Do you know what I'm saying? It's going up there and bragging about something rather than just responding. But okay, I have one more question for each of you before you go. We've been talking about generational change. We've been talking about young people. We've been talking about all that stuff. For each of you, looking at the field of candidates, who's an old person who gets it. Adam, you go first. An old person. An old candidate. an old candidate.

My answer is going to be real easy. It's Bernie Sanders. Well, okay, yeah, yeah. Okay, I gave you a layup there. Do you have one at him? Bernie's a good answer. I'd have to think about it for a second. I think Sherrod Brown's been running a really good campaign and he's a bit older.

What's interesting about him is it's a hyper-local campaign. He's not out there. Do you know what I mean? Like, he's doing his thing in Ohio. And he's like, I'm going to talk about data centers, relentlessly. And I'm just going to keep doing this loudly and clearly Donald Trump is not on the ballot for me like last time. And I'm going to try to win. Is 61 old to you? Does that count? Where's the threshold? I think it counts as old. I like Juliana Stratton. She's 61. I'm sorry, Julia. You have to say sorry to Juliana because you just called her old. I'm not calling her old. But she's got a really good race. She ran Illinois.

What did you? Yeah. Oh, she just had a really surgical focus on special interest groups and getting them out of politics while combating a lot of the corruption that we've seen. And she actually, She beat the incumbent candidate. Or no, no, no, she didn't beat the incumbent. She beat Krishna-Morthy, who was a sitting representative in Illinois. And, you know, Julianne Stratton completely wiped him. And he raised, I think, like $30 million to spend against her. So the point is... He was funded a lot by crypto, right?

Yeah, exactly. So she's got a really solid...