The Chris Cuomo Project - Adam Mockler Reveals His Strategy For Debating The Right

Episode Date: September 29, 2026

If your business generates $25,000 in monthly revenue and needs fast access to working capital, Delta Capital Group can get you funded in as little as 48 hours. Visit https://dub.sh/delta-business-capital-chris-cuomo to apply now to see how much you qualify for.For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial [phone] to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to http://askchapter.org/cuomo Paid Partnership Adam Mockler (political commentator and host, “The Adam Mockler Show”) joins Chris Cuomo to discuss his unlikely path from college dropout to viral political debater and why he thinks Democrats need to rethink how they communicate with voters.  Mockler breaks down the midterms, the fight over the DSA and the Democratic coalition, why the left pushed away young men, and his approach to debating conservatives like Scott Jennings without getting trapped in the outrage machine. Join The Chris Cuomo Project on YouTube for ad-free episodes, early releases, exclusive access to Chris, and more: https://www.youtube.com/@chriscuomo/join Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday: https://linktr.ee/cuomoproject Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Adam Mockler, do you think you know why he's so good? Do you think you know who he is? I think you're wrong. Now, the question is, is he even better than people think? And what does he think about the midterms? And what does he think about the Democratic coalition? And how broad is too broad? And what is the DSA? And what does it all mean? There's a lot coming at us. And Adam Mockler is supposed to be among the best of making sense. Let's see. I'm Chris Cuomo. Welcome to the Chris Cuomo project. You see Adam Mockler. You see the clips. And it's kind of out of the mouths of babes and he's 23. I don't like that it's just about his age. And here's why. Who said you can't be smart in your 20s? What is not understood about this kid is that when you see him, they joke about him being the class president. Like this kid is the ultimate dilettante. He's the ultimate privilege. He's so smart. But of course he is. It's all polished. It's because of his big peasant. degree and his education and his family. You don't know how wrong you are about where Adam Mockler comes from and how he got to where he is and what he is about. And that's why I'm so impressed

with him because I do know and I've known for a long time, which is why I have always platformed him and been excited by his involvement and completely unsurprised about his ability to match wits with the panel on CNN or anywhere else. I mean, certainly with Scott Jennings. In a battle of wits, Mockler's got an advantage because Jennings comes in unarmed. But how does he defend the concerns about the coalition on the left? How does he defend the idea of debating as sport and whether it helps or hurts and what his strategy is, what his goals are, and what he believes happens next? Here's Adam Mockler of YouTube fame with big debate game. So here I am with Adam Mockler, and he just said to me, hey, you know, this woke stuff,

sometimes it comes after you. It's no good. And I believe, one, that you're being totally genuine. Always great to see you. And I want to hear about your experience. But I also believe I'm hearing something different about wokenness from people on the left right now. Like you're repositioning and rightly so based on the demands of the moment. but what happened to you that made you feel you were being betrayed by your own?

Well, first of all, like, I was never in this crazy, woke identity politics faction that really sprouted up in 2020, 2021, around COVID. Yes, I'm well aware. You're well, well aware. Out of anybody else, you're well aware. I was never in this super purity testing faction where I think if you make a slight mistake, you should be cast out of the coalition. However, I've gotten to a point where I think we need to really assert ourselves and push back

against that and just cast it out of our movement entirely. My girlfriend and I posted a series of of really funny images where I'm hugging her and then I'm lifting her up in the next image and the next one I'm throwing her into a body of water like the lake next to us off of the pier. And at first, it was an innocuous, innocent, funny, cute photo. It got like 50,000 likes. But then it started trending on blue sky and threads and other platforms. And people were saying I was advocating for violence against women. And it's like, I hate when this happens because they take a very real issue. Yes, there is a lot of violence against women. Yes, there is a lot of misogyny. There's a lot of racism. There's a lot of awful things going on. But you can't apply these academic frameworks to a cute

photo of us hugging. So then I wake up the next morning and trending on threads is Adam Mockler domestic violence. I shit you not, Chris. It was from a cute photo of me jokingly throwing her into a body of water. She didn't even go into the water. It was just a complete joke. Yet people were trying to cancel me for it, telling me to apologize, telling me I need to make a thread or video apologizing to the public. And I think it represents this strain of like almost narcissistic politics where people want to say that they're right, they want to act morally superior and act like it's a moral failing if you don't abide by my framework. I say F that. As a liberal who appreciates human dignity and the freedom of speech and freedom of press of America, I think people should be

able to express themselves in whatever way. I will say if someone's being like a racist asshole or if someone's being a prick or like shitting on black or trans people in some way, yes, call them out. But to take me and act like I'm the enemy, I think it just misses the mark. But I don't have to tell you about it. Making Adam Mockler, a Tate brother is too much. There was this threat. I shoot you not. It said Graham Platner, Eric Swalwell, Adam Mockler. It said, these three men need to be held. I was like, are you guys effing kidding me right now? What are we doing here? Also, you guys do have a tendency. to beat up your best.

And, you know, it's, I don't know what it is. You'd probably understand it better than I do. But you'll get more and more of a target on you. And I know it makes me an old man, but I have said to many people, you don't have a lot of critics, in my opinion, not that I'm around. But I also say, you know, he's 23 years old, right? And you're so smart. And you're so good and articulate and cogent.

But you're also young. and you're living your life, and people have to remember that too. Do you ever feel that your brain is older than your actual body and life experience? Yeah, so I feel it both. Like you're smarter than you have life experience. No, yeah, I appreciate that. I feel it both ways. So sometimes I feel like, sometimes I feel like I'm smarter than I should be as a 23-year-old

because I've spent a lot of time having these conversations. And obviously, I can have these debates with people that are like double my age and I can keep up. and that's unique. But there's also the imposter syndrome on the other side where I'll be doing a panel on live TV debating someone. In 24 hours before, I was like basically eating an edible watching some movie that I liked from my childhood. I shit you not. I'm still a 23-year-old living my 23-year-old life, partying on the weekends, then having to deal with the hangover on Sunday or on Monday, whichever day I end up partying, and then having to do that in debate. So yes, I sometimes feel like I do have an advanced ability to talk politics.

And I'm glad I'm able to use that talent. But it goes both ways. I can't tell you how many times I've been on a panel with a bunch of heavyweights in the industry. And I'm 23 and I'm sitting here like dog. I dropped out of college two years ago. This is crazy. So yeah.

And what else do I find as a misimpression which is, well, this kid, you know, this is like the problem with privilege is that this kid with his big education and you could just hear it in his voice. He's super sophisticated. I'm sure he was raised by a really wealthy family. Now he wants to take on the battle of the proletariat. And, you know, this is the problem with these people. They're out of touch.

People have such a fundamental misunderstanding of your background. Tell people just what you want to about the idea that you are an Ivy League, president of the school government, student government, and just polished and everything given to you. So that's why you're so smart. That's why you're so articulate. it, but it's all privilege. No, it's funny that you bring that up because there was a segment of the Daily show where Jordan Klepper puts my photo on screen.

And it was just a joke, so he was joking around. But he says, this is the student council president. We shouldn't be taking advice from the student council president. And it was tongue in cheek. The joke didn't offend me or anything. But what rubbed me the wrong way is that it is a fundamental misunderstanding of who I am. I was a dog shit student in high school. I was smoking weed all of the time.

I got suspended twice in high school. for vaping in school. I remember I was taking a test and my vape fell out of my pocket and the teacher picked it up and walked me to the principal's office and I got suspended. I was doing LSD and mushrooms in high school. This is the first time I ever talked about this publicly. Why were you doing them? Because I grew up in Indiana and I grew up in an area where people were bored. It wasn't some Ivy League effing area where everyone's smart. I grew up in Northwest Indiana. I went to college in Gary, Indiana before I dropped out and I did one quarter in Chicago. My parents had me at 15 years old. was 16 years old, and I was raised by my parents as I grew up with them. I mean, I spent the first

few years of my life growing up in my grandparents' house, and then my parents were able to move into their own. And I will say, all things considered, I have a privileged life. I have two parents that love me. I have a loving family, and I was able to grow up in Indiana with dogs in my house. But this idea that I'm an Ivy League student who, like, doesn't know what it's like to live as the average American is bullshit. I dropped out of college. I smoked so much weed in high school. I partied so much in high school. I almost dropped out of high school because my grades were so bad during that time. I mean, I was really struggling during COVID. COVID was a struggle for a lot of young men. So I get that nowadays, when I'm wearing a polo, maybe I shouldn't wear a polo if I don't want to see him like Ivy League. But I get nowadays, it seems like I'm some stuck up kid who's on TV and should know my place. But I also think that's a misunderstanding of what young people in America need. Young people need to have a voice and need to be heard. And I'd like to think that I'm able to represent that. I think it's where your confidence comes from. is that you know you're not a poser. You know what I mean?

You know that it's not, well, you don't know what it's like to have any kind of strains in your family. Like, you don't know. You know, you don't know what it's not like to be a traditional, to be looked at different. You know, so I think it gives you a lot of fuel. But I must say,

I know a lot of people who have kids in high school who are stoners, despite their best efforts, and they're not going to make it in college. They don't sound like you. where did you get so skilled and the depth of understanding and ability to do what you do? Where did it come from? I appreciate the question. I think it's the same experiences I was just laying out. So my parents having me at 15 and 16 was foundational for me. My dad is Muslim. He was born in the U.S., but my grandpa and the rest of the family, they were all born in Syria and they moved from Syria. So at a young age, I had my dad's side of the family taking me to Friday prayer at the mosque every single Friday. But I kind of rejected it. Like I just didn't quite buy it.

I didn't quite believe it. Then my mom's side of the family, more Christian. I have one uncle who was an atheist at the time. And when I was nine years old, he explained to me what it means to be agnostic or atheist. And then my mom told me, and I remember this, she was like, you can choose whatever beliefs you want. You clearly have a diverse amount of views in your life. It's your choice. So I think that kind of mental flexibility at a young age made me really think about it.

Like, am I Muslim? Am I Christian? Am I agnostic? I ended up landing on like an agnostic atheism at like 12 years old. I was also arguing a lot with my teachers in school at this time. You had a fight about gay marriage and middle school? At gay marriage. Yeah, it was in fifth grade.

I got kicked out of class because we were debating the Supreme Court. And honestly, I think my arguments were probably awful. Like I was like 10 years old at the time. I was probably just saying it should be right. But I think my debate skills and my interest in debate has been here for a while. But you didn't travel the country as a high school or debating. You weren't trained to debate. No, I debated, I lost friends in high school debating my MAGA friends.

I mean, I almost got in a fist fight after the 2020 election at a drunk New Year's party in Indiana because I was debating the MAGA kids from Indiana that went to my school. Like, I shit you not. There was this one MAGA dude. And we were going back and forth yelling about whether the election was stolen. These are the foundational experiences that I have. I didn't do some debate club at an Ivy League. It was literally debating my MAGA friends in Indiana while having this diverse amount of views. like Islam and atheism and Christianity all around me.

Were you a big reader? Sort of. I mean, I was reading a lot at a young age, but I started to taper off heavily in high school and during COVID. Like, not many people in my generation read that much. Were you still paying attention to the news? I mean, like, how did you know all these things? Very, very politically active family.

My grandpa is addicted to CNN. He used to love your show. And when I talked to you, he was like, you know, fan girl. He was like, oh, my God. Chris Cuomo's my favorite. him and Don Lemon used to be my favorites, sort of, sorry, but I just mean, I think... No, it's not. I have nothing but

wanting him to do well. Yeah, of course. And I defended him when they arrested him because it was wrong. I'm mad at him for our situation, but that's life. You know what I mean? That's how relationships are. But the interesting thing is I grew up in a household that, you know, consumed your news and your output. So you guys talked politics? A lot, heavily, yeah, yeah. And they were good at it

the way you are. Yeah, my... So someone in that family can lay it out there and defend it. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's Everyone. Something about Medicare that nobody tells you. Most people don't get to choose their plan. The plan chooses them. They'll see an ad, a mail or a phone call comes, and then they just sign whatever's in front of them

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287-09-79. Think for yourself, choose for yourself. 628-28-287-09-9. About how in your family this could happen. Now, another misconception, when you tell them, my parents were 15 and 16. Oh, so they're like these meth cooking or, you know, crazy muzzle. Your mother went all the way through school. She's got a doctorate. Yeah. So, I mean, that's exactly where I get a lot of this flexibility of thought. And I really appreciate the kind words. Like, I oftentimes when I'm in these spaces, feel this sort of imposter syndrome as a young dude. I'm like, I'm 23. I don't know if I'm supposed to be doing these insane debates. But the affirmation that the audience gives me and the way that you and I speak, it really does help build that confidence. So I appreciate

that. But I mean, yeah, my mom ended up getting her PhD in something called IEO psychology while raising me. It's industrial organizational psychology, and it's basically how to develop leaders, how to develop leaders who are skilled and know how to give feedback. And watching her get this degree informed me a lot because she did her dissertation on women in the workplace, specifically mothers in the workplace. And she would tell me all of these stories about like, you know, there's a work trip, for example, and it's a really great opportunity, and she's very equipped to do it. And it's a great growth moment, but they would skip over her and say, she has a kid that's nine. We don't want to send her because she has a kid. And they would give that same trip to some male counterpart who also

has a kid, who also is equipped, maybe even less equipped, because many workplaces aren't really built to think of the needs of mothers or women. So the point is, this basically informed a lot of my worldview. I'm able to have a nuanced worldview about the problems in our society without caving into that like woke bullshit where I'm wagging my finger at anybody. I just think, get so uniquely American, you're such a paradox. I was raised by teen parents. That's supposed to mean that like, you know, you came out of a drug den. No, this, your mother is obviously very bright and academic because she has a doctor. I appreciate that. That she fought through even as a teen mother, which is mind-boggling. She used to have to commute to Chicago from Indiana every single day,

like 60 to 90-minute drive every day, go to school, come back and then take care of me. My dad was, And my dad's still in the picture and everything. But her being a leader. And what did he do? Did he go to school? Yeah, he dropped out of college and he works at an insurance company. He's been working there for the past 15. Exactly.

Yeah, yeah. But that's about persuasion also. See, I'm trying to get like what made this mock. You know what it is? If I had to put it simply, my mom being a leadership coach has given me the skills to develop such a great team around me that I use that team to stay maximally informed every day, cut out my clips, edit my shows. And I'm very, very big on team building.

I need to have the proper team around me, as I'm sure you do in order to execute on your show. I do it all myself. All yourself, nobody else, nobody else. It's just, I think that my mom combined with my experiences, all built this good infrastructure around me, plus my debate that I used to do with my friends in high school. Like, I would be debating them constantly. So you come out of high school. You're in Gary.

You go into Chicago. You go to DePaul for a minute. Oh, no. In your generation, that means a long time. Yeah, yeah. So for not that long. But there is something else that doesn't connect. You're in college.

It's not right for you. But you are making content about politics, even though you are not engaged in student politics or really school, for that matter. That I don't understand either because usually people who are politically active at that point in their lives are either part of some organic suffrage movement, right?

You know, I can't go to school, but I'm out here in these streets, or they're like all about the young Republicans or the whatever, the young college Democrats. How did you not engage, not connect on that level, but be doing it so deeply? Who were your people when you were on YouTube in college? I mean, you have to remember during this time,

I found all that shit to be, like, lame. Like, I don't want to join clubs. I don't want extracurriculars. I'm going to say this again. It sounds corny. but in college, I was a direct stoner. Like, I was always, always smoking weed and paying attention to politics. That is who I was.

And to some degree, who I am today. I mean, I'll still hang out with my girlfriend, wheat edibles. It is a part of being a young person in this era, I feel like. But when it comes to this formative YouTube building, I think I've talked about this, but I've had my channel that I own now since I was nine years old. I used to make these dumbass Minecraft and Call-Duty videos. I've always been good at video editing. I got kicked out of class that one time in fifth grade.

And then I remember in high school, I read a shit ton of Hunter S. Thompson. I mean, the Fear and Loathing books, I love them. Fear and Loathing on the campaign trail, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. And it's so raw about his experiences showing up to these rallies as a stoner. So then I started to develop in my head, my own version of this. What if I went to a Trump rally, a few states over? And then in one of my film classes back in Indiana, I made a skit called Fear and Loathing on the college campus. And it's about my friends and I going around super high on campus.

as a joke and like messing with people, like pranking people. Were your friends in college at that age as activated as you were? No, I mean, no, no. A lot of my friends in college were Republicans or disagreed with me. But were they like real ones like you, like studying and figuring it out? I mean, I was uniquely politically engaged for this and is due to my family. So then I really needed to execute on this idea. I felt somewhere deep internally that I need to execute on this political rally idea I have. So I emailed like 50 different cameramen because the Iowa caucuses were about to start. One camera guy responded and said, hey, this is my only free weekend. You don't have any content online publicly, but I'll try to come to this rally with you. And two years later,

three years later, that guy's still my main cameraman. We still travel around. Everything happened so perfectly, but also over the course of a decade of me building up these skills since I was 10 years old or nine years old. I'll tell you what, running a small business is hard. Got employees, you got expenses, you got customers, you got accounting, all this stuff that comes with making a business go. And then you need money to grow. Finding the capital, that can be tricky.

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from the midterms. Do you believe that the Democrats are poised to have wins in the House and take control? Yeah, so the House, I definitely think we're going to take control. According to all the polls and the betting markets, we seem to be doing well. Wait, I have the, I have some polymarket stuff that will reference on this stuff. But go ahead. On the House? I mean, if you check polymarket, it'll say that we have a very good chance of winning the House. Increasingly so. The Senate is one that's a little bit tougher. I think it'll say 45 to 55 when it comes to the Senate. I mean, the reality is the Republican Party deeply betrayed the American people on every single issue. And people are looking for alternatives, looking for oversight. And they're going to vote blue in a lot of these races.

It doesn't mean the Democrats are popular. But the Republican Party deeply betrayed the American people on all of their promises. Does it matter if you have the Senate? It does overall. I mean, it would be nice to have both chambers of Congress. We still can't pass anything because you don't have a veto proof. You won't have a veto proof majority. Yeah, but I believe that the oversight will look differently.

And just the fact that we'll have a Senate will bolster our argument and hurt Donald Trump a lot. I mean, I just think that if we have the Senate in our hands and we have control, we're able to continue to push through either impeachment, which are you on that plane? I'm just saying I think we'll be able to push through more mechanisms to check the president. I don't know if impeachment is the first thing we should go for. But like we can pass through even symbolic things that the Republicans are then forced to shoot down. It's tricky. So reason this one out for me, Mr. Orr, you're that Mike Johnson and these guys are going around and saying, man, you give the mackler mob the House and the Senate. All they're going to do is turn every committee into an investigative body and come after us. The problem is, yeah, because you're so corrupt and you've done so many things that are so offensive to law and order.

So how do you balance that? Because people do have fatigue. They want it to be about them. But some people think making it about them is about accountability for what was done to them. How do you balance that in a way that doesn't make you seem like more of a problem than a solution? I mean, the Democratic Party should not get into power and focus on revenge or focus on screwing people over that are in power. It should be about helping the American people. And in order to do that, we need oversight. Would you agree that this is the most corrupt administration in American history? Oh, let's do it with what I've seen. Okay. Because, you know, you're going to start talking about Buchanan and Jag. You know, not you, but I mean, that's what people throw up. No, there's a lot of historical examples. But for me, for me, I have never seen anything that we are living. A fan of yours, Joshua Dawes, took me to task, and rightly so, because when I was getting back into the media, not an excuse, but when I was getting back in, and it's Harris.

which was a terrible process, right, versus Trump. I said, look, you've got to be open. Voting for Harris has to be on the table. Voting for Trump has to be on the table. Now, is that theoretically the right answer? Yes, that's the way I should be. I'm a journalist. You know, you should be open and then you make the decision.

But why did it get pick up when I said, yeah, you have to be open to voting for Trump? I'd be open to it. You have to be. because I wasn't open to voting for him. But then why would I say you should be open? Because I was giving the textbook answer and I was being too fair. Yeah.

And I know him better than most people, okay? Most people in our business. Literally, since I was half your age, I've known Donald Trump. I didn't think he was capable of this. I didn't. In the second term? I didn't think he was capable of this kind of perfidy. this kind of. What about the end of his first term, though? I know. I lose all day long on this.

I understand. No, I'm not trying to know. But what I'm saying is, I just thought like, look, he is all about him. He doesn't really hate you. He doesn't really hate them. It's just what's good for him. He's immoral, not immoral. It's just whatever works for him in that moment. So when you look at despots and real autocrats, what do they have as essential qualities? strategy, vision, right? I mean, I like their vision, but they have it. Strategy, they're students of the game. They know what's worked.

He doesn't check any of those boxes. So I was like, look, he wants to get on Rushmore. He wants you to say he's great. But he's not, you know, Putin. I was wrong. I was wrong. Like, wrong, wrong. Now, I've been a pretty outsized critic of the administration all the way through.

Yeah, yeah. But I shouldn't have said that. So DOS comes at me. And rightly so and says, man, I got to tell you, that was fucked up when you said that. And I hope you never say that again. I said, well, I wouldn't say it again. But I'm not going to say I didn't say it then because I did. And he's like, well, then just don't remind people of it.

And I was like, you know, I appreciate that, but that's not the way I am. And that's not the way it is. What's my point? My point is that when you look at the proposition right now, the only thing that screws it up for the Democrats, okay, is one of two things. Well, it's just one thing. Mag is saying, okay, what's happening right now may not be perfect. Okay? It's not perfect.

But if you go with them, the socialists, it will be much worse. Now, you handed them the stick with calling it the DSA. They should have called that party anything else. But the party's not the DSA. The Democrats are not nearly the DSA. But that's, look, but they're going to paint it as, oh, sure you are. Look at who your big candidates are. Look at who comes in top supporters.

polling for who should be president. AOC and Mamdani. Mamdani's not even eligible. So that's who you guys love. That's who you guys love. So how do you balance? How do you balance? We are going to be better than this with there's a boogeyman in there. Yeah. Well, there's a few things I want to respond to. I actually, I agree with your overall thesis earlier that Trump would be more dangerous if he were more ideological, that if he actually had an ideological core to him and some focused vision, he would be more dangerous. But looking at the end of his first term, you can reliably predict where he's going to like head right at the beginning of his second term. I thought that was the worst. I didn't think it was a step in an escalation. I think he spent those four years stewing

in his own salt, just getting so effing mad at Moralago and assembling this team around him that he hit the ground running during the second term. I think he was, wasn't he openly campaigning on pretty radical shit saying that this was going to be like a continuation of his first term, that it was going to be number one mass deportations. Number two, I think he had a revenge like campaign. Yeah, I just thought he was full of shit and just saying stuff like the wall. You know, I'm going to build a wall around the thing. You know, I just thought it was hyperbolic nonsense and I was wrong. Yeah. I mean, he's really, you know, if you want to say promises made, promises kept. I mean, you do have to give that to him. I mean, he is doing what he said he would do. It's just not having

the effect that people thought it would have. He's doing like all the worst parts of his promises, while not actually doing the best parts. He said like no inflation on day one, which of course is hyperbole. But he's done everything in his possible power to make inflation worse with tariffs in the Iran war. He said no new wars. There ended up being a massive new 200-day war with Iran. I think he really betrayed a lot of people. But when it comes to the balancing test that Democrats have to do,

I do not think that we should have a rabid Democratic Congress, which only has the goal of pursuing accountability and oversight. First and foremost, the goal needs to be addressing the needs of the American people. When you look at what the American people are concerned about, it's the economy, it's the war, and it is corruption within our institutions. This has become a huge, huge thing. Democrats ran a lot on January 6th, but I think that missed the mark because Americans don't care about our institutions in that manner. Americans care about the corruption in front of their eyes, and Trump is blowing that out of the water. No one in modern American history, or all of American history, maybe except Buchanan, has been this deep.

and openly corrupt. So Democrats need to show that in the process of oversight, we are actually trying to make things better. For example, if we did an oversight investigation into the stock trading that Donald Trump has done in the first quarter of this year, allegedly it was thousands and thousands of stock trades just in the first quarter amounting to billions of dollars, which most other presidents put all of their stocks in a blind trust or just invest in like index funds. So if we investigate that and have oversight into that, or what about the truth social early access, but then we pair it with some sort of legislation to ban congressional stock trading and ban stock trading in the executive branch and anybody who works in the executive branch, that is a powerful

combination. Now, you raise the point that we won't have the ability to pass legislation fully. We may not even have, we won't have 60 Democratic senators and at times Trump could veto anything. But the reality is, if we put this on the table and we investigate with one hand and then actually have solutions in the other hand. And he says no, it sets you up well for 2028. So then it's like, wait a minute. The guy who is selling early access to his true social is now vetoing bills that will stop executive stock trading. This is exactly what we're talking about.

It is pure corruption. And this is why you should vote the Democrats back in. Now, there's another part actually having electable Democrats who are popular. and who are likable. And I think we're slowly getting there. Do you like Allsoff lately? I really like Allsoff out of Georgia. It seems that he has jumped to the top of the class.

He's great. It seems he has jumped to the top of the class. Certainly you see that in the indexing for who they hate the most. They are targeting him. And I'm so frustrated that one of the greatest signs of my mediocrity is I'm not getting targeted the way I used to. I am jealous of Caitlin Collins for a lot of reasons. I've always liked her.

I think she's one of the good ones. I have faith that you'll build a target on your back. You'll build a back. I say to the president and his people on a regular basis, I'm way worse than Caitlin Collins. Call me the worst. Blacklist me. I need to be blacklisted.

Because I love that people are empowering those whom he attacks, especially women, especially women. I love that you blow her up and have her following go and her ratings go. They should. It's good to send the message that this is what we're going to do. when you attack what matters to us. So I love it, I love it. But, Aosov, top of class.

I like it. I think your concern is, in terms of negotiating the space of what you are to the American people, to independence, to persuadables, is El Saeed, Dr. El Saeed in Michigan, who, look, he has associations, as did Mamdani, that they need to explain to people, okay? And that's for them to do. That's politics. But there is a boogieman aspect there to him because he's a Muslim, as with Mamdani. And not just with Jews.

I think it's more resonant than that. But he's very popular. Now, that's a double-edged sword, right? Again, your most popular people, except for Assov, are the farthest left. Well, he's not DSA. Abdul is a self-described capital. He is not DSA nominally. Yeah.

But he does agree with a lot of their positions. And that's okay. I'm not judging his positions. That's for the people to do. I just say when people are talking about the DSA and its most scary parts, they're talking about the national platform, which in my opinion is mostly pretty radical dog shit. Like the idea that we should abolish the Constitution is crazy. The idea that we should abolish the presidency, the Senate, and the entire political institution that we have is crazy. And why are you guys okay with that

the woman from the DSA running around saying that on all these platforms? I'm not okay with that. I mean, I don't think that. Are you talking about Dario Liza? You should get private property and yeah, and the government should on, yes. She's in the deepest blue district in New York City that she won. This does not represent the entire Democratic Party. You have to remember, there are 267 elected Democrats in Congress right now. Out of those 267, only two of them are DSA, and they only prescribe to their local DSA chapters, not the national abolish the presidency platform. I know, but if you're explaining, you're losing. I know, I know. And I want to say, I'm not DSA. I'm not a socialist. I'm a liberal. I believe in capitalism. I believe in supply and demand, just like Abdul Al-Sayette. said. But I don't think that just because you agree with a few parts of the DSA platform that inherently makes the party captured or overrun by DSA. I mean, hell, like 60% of our leaders just came out in unison and condemned to San Piker. Abdul Al-Sayat has condemned a lot of his most extreme statements. I don't think the party has been taken over by the DSA in the way a lot of

people claim. I don't think it has either. But the Republicans are a big tent and we allowed a lot of people with different ideas. Those ideas are seen as pernicious, whether that's fair or not. They're seen as wicked. It's like saying on the right, hey, look, are some of the people in MAGA bigots? Sure, but they're not all bigots. Okay, fine, but that's not a thing you should say and defend as part of the tent. Here's my framework. I think we're currently fighting authoritarianism in this country. Yes. And if you think that's like people say that's a strong word, but Trump just banned MS now, Politico and CNN from the White House. He just, too strong. Banned multiple media outlets and is going on a frenzy. Yes. And he just ignored the

court order. So the court puts the order in at the district court level. It's not over, by the way. Obviously, it should be appealed that's due process. But they are not listening to the order. Yep. So that's authoritarianism. In World War II, in order to beat this type of fascism, there was a coalition of liberals, of communists, and even of people on the right side of the spectrum. I think that nowadays, I am willing to have a coalition that has Liz Cheney in it, even though I disagree with Liz Cheney on a lot of her takes and a coalition with Hassan Piker in it, even though I openly disagree with Asan Piker on a lot of his takes, and the liberal bloc, which is where I consider myself, in order to fight back against fascism. It's not that I want a buddy, buddy with

Karl Marx personally, or that I'm best friends with Liz Cheney, it's that I want a coalition that can defeat this threat of fascism, and then we can talk about the best type of Medicare versus Medicare for All versus these. I also, I will say I don't like how some people play footsie. People do this. They'll play footsie with the DSA, and they'll claim that they only agree with the DSA's most common sense topics. But then when you actually push them a little bit, they begin to defend the most radical ideas of the DSA as well. So I think we all need to be clear about our positions. We all need to be pushing for an America that's based on human dignity and not this radical abolish everything.

But if Hassan Piker, it's like having, what was the guy's name who ran for Senate, the KKK guy. David Duke. David Duke. It's like he can't be part of the club. Hassan Piker can't be part of the club. He believes bad things should happen to Jewish people. I think Hassan is fundamentally different than David Duke, though.

How so? I don't think he believes bad things should happen to Jewish people. I just don't know if I've seen him say anything like that. Listen, I disagree with a lot of stuff Hassan says. I think that he looks at our institutions in America and our place in the globe in a fundamentally different way than I do. looks on a different way. But I haven't seen him. Like, what has he said that shows he doesn't want Jews to be safe? I think it's not about a specific statement. Okay. His anti-Zionism, I think,

easily crosses the line into the type of people, more than just the place where they live. And look, you can say, yeah, but who's Hassan Baker? He's like a tall guy with no, with an online constituency. He doesn't have any power. He's not part of any organization. Okay, that's true. But you really want to own him? No, I mean, we're not owning him. I'm just saying if he wants to fight fascism in this coalition, he can. But again, this seems very vague. You think his anti-Zionism has gone over the line.

And if I heard any anti-Semitism, I would call that out. I think that bullshit's awful, right? But I haven't heard anything to me regarding Jewish people that have crossed the line. You know what I disagree with Hassan Piker on is his take on North Korea. And NATO. He thinks that NATO shouldn't exist. I think that's bullshit. it. However, I mean, listen, his position on Israel is definitely more hardline than mine,

but I haven't seen him say anything anti-Semitic. Do you have an example? Yeah, I'll give you a whole list. Let's do it this way. We'll do it with an objective reckoning. And once you say it, and if it is anti-Semitic, I will disavow it right away. Yeah, I don't know. I'm not asking you to disavow it. I'm just saying that as part of your coalition, you know, the expression, you show me your friends, I'll show you who you are. Yeah. That's tricky. big tent thing has always been a problem for me because, well, we're a big tent. No, do you agree or disagree? Okay? If you disagree, then he shouldn't be in the tent. You know what I'm saying? You're saying,

well, I need everybody to beat something that's worse. Look at World War II. In order to fight fascism, you needed everybody in the tent. In order to beat the threat of the Nazis, you needed the communists. You needed the liberals. You needed the right-wingers. You needed everybody to combine their forces and fight the Nazis. Right now, obviously it's a different situation, but the fascism that is growing in our country, to me, needs to be addressed. So do you think that you have what you need right now? Do you think you guys are poised that you've figured it out, that you know who you are and you know what the message is? Hell no. Like if we're talking about a big tent here, there are multiple different tents inside of it. So I think this will get to the root of your question.

Do I view Hassan Piker as in my tent against fascism? Yes. When I think of my version of liberalism in the human dignity that I push for, I don't think he's very much so a part of this liberal tent due to his anti-NATO beliefs. However, I think that's a much different question than the Democratic Party tent, the liberal tent, the tent against fascism. Here's the nuance thing. Hassan Piker, even a few years ago, wasn't really that keen on the Democratic Party. I mean, he didn't tell his fans to vote for Kamala.

He kind of withheld his support there. So this idea that he is now some like Democratic operative who is the face of the party is not true. There was just a new poll that shows the vast majority of Democratic voters don't know who he is. And if they do, he has an unfavorability rating, I believe. I mean, look, I think there's a whole string of things here. I just don't want to give him too much attention. But like whether there are certain absolutes, okay? You don't play with Hamas isn't that bad.

Okay. You don't play with, hey, if Jews keep this up, someone's going to do something. about them. There's certain things that you just don't say because of what they suggest. And it's not, I hate Jews. But if you say, if Jews keep this up, someone's going to do something. I've talked to him about the provocative stuff that he says. You know, it's suggestive of something and your words matter and your messaging matters. I'm just saying, I hate that you guys have to own that because I think it's such an unfair. No, I get it. You want to talk controversy. Let's talk controversy. Is Donald Trump America? No, not in my reckoning. Okay. He is one very

version of what America can be, in my opinion, at its worst. Is Bibinat Njahou Israel? No. In my opinion, he is one version of what the Israelis can be when they are too phobic of an existential threat that's real and they go too far. And by the way, this is his latest sin. Okay. That guy is so far right. He has empowered the Hasids, the Orthodox, who by the way, Piker refers to as the inbreds, Again, not a good... That's awful. Not a good coded thing. But to bring them into the coalition,

not only are they anti-Zionist, but he has the most conservative government that tried to overtake the judiciary. He was on the fast train to jail before all of this. And I think that he has forced, forced America to have to rethink the strategic military alliance with Israel.

As long as BB is in power, America is going to be in trouble if it owns his ambitions. And I think that's a real problem. Does it mean that I'm against Israel estate? Of course not. Does it mean I'm against the Jews defending themselves? Of course not. If we had these in 2003 and 2004,

you guys would have been horrified by what was happening in parts of Pakistan and Iraq and eventually in Afghanistan, started in Afghanistan, then Iraq. you would have been horrified. As bad as Gaza, on a human level? Way worse. On a destruction of buildings? No, we were killing people hand to hand in there in big ways.

Now, right, wrong, good, bad, have at it. But all of these things are complicated. But in politics, well, let me tell you what I feel about Piker and what I don't. Let me tell you what I feel about Israel and they don't. You're losing. You're losing. Yeah. And I wonder about that for you guys.

I believe but for the S and DSA, if those people call themselves anything else, okay, I think you'd be looking at a proposition of a potential wipeout in the midterms. I just, I don't take seriously the threat of the DSA taking over the Republican Party right now when the Republican Party has already been taken over by extremists. So I've already established I'm not DSA. Out of the 267 members of Congress, only two are DSA. And even if I were to be charitable, there's like three or four. more coming in. By the way, I'm not afraid of DSA. I'm not trying to make you own it.

Yeah, no, no, no. I'm saying independence are seeing what I'm saying. I understand that. I understand that, but I think that's a false reading. I think independence want change. And I think the same thing that made the MAGA movement appealing to many independents also makes DSA appealing. Yes. People want change agents. Now, with Trump, all of this baggage from his first term even seemed to have not even worried you heading into the second term. You said, you know, you can figure out. who you want to vote for, as we were just talking about. So many people overlooked the direct extremism from Donald Trump. Like, think about this. One thing that I always debate Republicans on is that the DSA wants to terminate the Constitution. And I always say, oh, you think it's radical to call for the termination of the Constitution? Well, wait until you hear what Donald Trump did back in 2021,

2022, when he tweeted out, I want to terminate the Constitution and all the rules, laws, and regulations. Like, there is this extremism that exists. On the right, I think it is much more institutional. Do you think that the right has a problem with flirting with white supremacy in Nazism right now? Do you think the institutional right, the Republican Party as a whole? I would like to say yes, but I don't know because I don't believe there is a GOP. There's only MAGA. And I think MAGA is open to anyone and anything that is flattering of Trump. When I look at the leaders of both parties, I see a difference that scares me.

So on the Republican side, when there was this Nazi group chat a year ago that we talked about on stage, There's this Nazi group chat of people talking about gas chambers and how they love Hitler and how Jewish people are X, Y, and Z. Just disgusting stuff. J.D. Vance not only refused to condemn that, but softly defended the people in that group chat. There's someone named Paul Ingracia, who's in the administration, who claimed that he has a Nazi streak. And he was using all these old slurs. He said he has a Nazi streak, like openly said that. And he's still in the administration, still a part of the GSA. And Trump has not condemned him. Vance has not condemned him. We have more Republicans like that one fucker in Texas. Did you see this guy? He posted a photo of a bunch of students at a University of Texas game and they were going like this. But because they were Indians- Is that Beau French? She said, our country is being taken over and poisoned, essentially, because they were Indian students. And Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton didn't condemn this. So the point that I'm trying to make is not a what-aboutism point. I'll bring it back. I just think there is a real institutional extremism on the right that voters overlooked because they're wanted change. When I look at the DSA and how that interacts with the Democratic Party, yes, there are

extreme parts of the DSA platform that I really disagree with, but I also think there are parts of the platform that people just see as an opportunity for change. When they hear about new opportunities for health care or for wealth redistribution or a higher minimum wage, they're not thinking, oh, fuck, but I want to protect the Constitution in the Senate. They're thinking, oh, these are change agents who may be able to help me. So I don't think the DSA is going to to swallow the Democratic Party. In fact, a lot of our leading candidates for 2028 aren't DSA. AOC is, but she's local New York DSA.

We've got... She's changing, too. Yeah, yeah. She did a mockler on wokeism. Now, I do think someone's going to chase her at some point. I haven't invested in this much because I like the shift, so I'm not going to, I'm not going to check it the same way. If I like what you're saying, I don't check it the same way.

She said, you know, there's a councilman in my district who said, woke one was crazy. And I thought that that might be the most clever thing I've ever heard her say, and she's very clever. Why? Woke one. Oh, that's interesting. So you're not condemning woke. You're seeing it as versions.

So you're still okay with woke, but that version was crazy. I'm not saying it. He said it. I don't even know that there is a he. I've never seen a name put to it. But it was very clever of her stepping toward. the people who won't listen to her because of that position. And that's smart politically, but it is tricky. I know the congressman who said that. His name is Chi Asa. He's in New York. He's a really

interesting guy. And it's a few things. Is it a congressman or is a councilman? Counselman, my bad. He's a counselor. So when they say woke one is crazy, I do think it's a clever way of trying to move on from all of the purity and all of the embarrassing stuff that happened back then. They're not talking about BLM is a woke one. They're talking about the online, the pressure to conform to our expectations with zero room for error. I do think, like you said, she will have to eventually explain what she's changed her mind on and what's different about this versus woke one. But have you been following this lesbian bar story in Massachusetts?

No. It's insane. It's insane. I see your producer must be following it because he's laughing. Yeah, he's got a big, he spends a lot of time searching. So the Boston Globe put out a story about this lesbian bar. And the Boston Globe had their biggest story ever. They got thousands of subscriptions because it's about this bar in Massachusetts that was created

by a few lesbians for a specific purpose. Now, they had to mask every day in this bar, have masks on, and it was mandatory. After losing revenue and almost having to shut down, they decided to have one day where the masks were optional. And the community went crazy. They accused them of hating disabled people. You want to kill them, you know, compromise people. Oh, wow, I'm disabled and I feel.

attacked by this. It was some crazy online comments. So they reversed the decision and explained that it was due to finances. And the comments then said, we don't want to hear your white tears. They're performative. We're going to stop our funding of this. The entire community basically blew up. The bar is likely going to close down. And the owner has been left with $50,000 in debt and just a lesbian woman who was trying to create a space. But because they didn't allow one day where there weren't mandatory masks, it blew up. The point that I'm trying to make is, Why did the globe get so many subscriptions out of it? Because it was a paywalled story that went so viral on Twitter.

It got 20 million views overnight. You know how some things catch fire on Twitter? If you look at the original tweet, 20, 30 million views, everyone across spectrums is making fun of it. So you have people on the right that are using this as an opportunity to be like bigoted or say whatever. Of course. Yeah, of course. There's also a serious discourse on the left right now about what kind of identity politics we should allow into the movement. You and I are both for human dignity.

Like, I don't want to speak for you, but I can basically safely assume we never want to punch down against a black person or a trans person or make fun of somebody just by the nature of who they are. I never want to try to be, you know, exclusionary towards somebody just based on their identity. However, you can't create an environment where people are so scared to speak that they're walking on eggshells and that young people feel like anything I say could get me canceled at any given moment. And that community that was written about in the Boston Globe basically is the perfect micro-competal. for woke one, this type of insane, shoddy identity politics where if you don't conform, you're not a good person or you're a moral failure, it's absurd. You should really read the story. I think you'd find you'd get a kick out of it. I'll send it to you. I don't even know what the fuck you're talking about. Yeah. But I love the impact and I understand the analogy of it.

And I think it's very important. If you had to, if you had to choose, what demographic do you think you should target most that you don't currently have. I think I need to capture young men a lot more. When you say young, what do you mean? I mean the 18 to 30 area. And I have a lot of young male fans, but due to my political contents, due the nature of the demographics of politics, I have people all across the spectrum.

I mean, you know what the demographics look like. I have many 40 to 60-year-olds who love my work. I have many 20- to 40-year-olds who love my work. But what I need to capture are these disaffected young male voters, young voters of any gender, who are like playing video games and smoking weed and not very locked in on politics because this is a very real cohort of people where if I'm not speaking to them, then Andrew Tate will or Tucker Carlson will or whatever right-wing figure that is currently capturing them will. So I would love to get more into that young male audience.

That is exactly the right answer. I'd go 18 to 38. Now, is an 18-year-old the same as a 38-year-old? No. One of the stupidest parts of the demographics within the advertising game is 25 to 54. You, well, look, you're very precocious, but your life now will be very different when you're 54. Why? Choices you make about family, where you go, and what you know, your disposable income and all these different things. You have very little in common with somebody who's half your age. However, those guys have been convinced and conditioned to believe, whether or not they've thought it through, they feel it, which is a problem in politics, that they're to blame for everything, according to you people.

Not according to the Maga. Why would they vote for Trump? He's no alpha male. Nobody wants to look like Trump. He's whining as well. Nobody wants to be like Trump. Right in me? I want to be rich.

All right. I'm fine. But even then, do you want to be make money the way he? He did, you know, being entrepreneurial, usually has a dignity to it of that grind and of doing something better than others. He didn't do anything. But put it to the side. They were forced away from you, in my opinion.

They are the biggest homeless in politics. Because you have women in that age. Why? They haven't been targeted the same way by this cultural movement. Women are objectified and targeted plenty, not a, not a, not a, not a, not a, not a, not question. But this is new for them. And there was a, oh, I'm sorry for that exacerbated it and made them political. Yeah. They should be up for grabs for you guys because the opportunities of the AI economy, the trades, why don't you guys own the trades? Second to the flag, it's the only thing I

don't know why you gave up. You gave them the flag as a party symbol. I put a flag on my truck, a magnetic flag keeps disappearing. Why? That's crazy. Because I waxed my car too much. Maybe. But then I see some of the other brothers in the fire department. Their flags are fine. Where's my flag? Finally, this was a while ago. Yeah. I see someone taking a flag off my car. So I come walking out. By the way, it was a woman. And I say, what are you doing? Why are you doing this? She goes, what are you doing this for? You're not one of them. I said, what? An American? She goes, no, you know what this means. I said, I swear on my kids. I put it on my flag because I don't like that only MAGA guys get to put flags on their stuff.

And she was like, well, but that's who has it? That was crazy that you gave them the flag as a party symbol. And it started this whole who's a patriot bullshit. The other thing are the artisan class. Because instead of the trades, I know it's not right. Okay, anybody who owns a home knows that you respect the trades more than you respect the professional class because they can actually fix things that you need done, right? If you needed a lawyer for anything, God forbid, I could get you one in 15 minutes.

If you tell me, I can't get my air conditioning to work, we're going to wait a week, even though half the brothers do HVAC in my fire. You know what I'm saying? It's a different thing. Get back to it being the artisan class. The makers, the shapers, the conceivers, these should be your people. These should be your people. And the problem is we got pushed out from a purely cultural lens, it feels like.

Like the culture shifted in such a way where the left and Democrats were so uncool and so elitist. Finger waggy and elitist all the time. Don't you dare say the wrong thing or else we're going to excise you from the movements. Like we could agree with you on 98% of things, but if you don't agree on this 2%, then you're not a part of the movement. It got way too suffocating. I have a friend who's liberal by all accounts.

He believes in gay marriage. He believes in equality. He believes in all of this. But he said the Democratic Party just got suffocating for someone. like him. The fact that you can't even fly an American flag is crazy. I want liberalism to be seen as cool again. I want liberalism to be seen as patriotic because to me it is the most patriotic thing about America, the fact that our institutions are liberal in nature and the fact that liberalism as an ideology has improved our quality of life and lifespan. I mean, before we had like a democracy

or institutions or freedom of speech, freedom of press, we were living in like awful, human beings were living as feudal slaves for like centuries. Hey, when Trump finally gave an answer to when were things better than today? Because of the inherently reductive suggestion of MAGA again. Again, when was it better? He pointed to the Gilded Age. Which one means he doesn't know his history. But two, that was the worst time for workers in American modern history.

And he just doesn't give a shit about that. One, part of it is ignorance. Part of it is an arrogance. you know, I see myself wanting to give you advice, but you don't really need it. No, I do. I always need advice. But you fight people on the syllogies and the analogies and you do it brilliantly. But you do have something in your pocket that you never pull out, which is my parents were teenagers. By the way, I lived in my grandparents' house coming up. My mother had to work her way all through school. She's a doctorate now. She didn't start as one. You know,

you have this in your pocket because you sound, because of your level of, you know, erudition, you sound elite. Now, intellectually, you are elite. But it wasn't given to you. You see what I'm saying? And I think that's really important, and you still have that in your pocket because you don't ever bring it up.

You just fight people on their own basis. Yeah, of course. I like to argue on the mayor. But they're always using it on you. Jennings is always like, where I came up, you know, and where I was, and you know where we were, you know? And it's like, he's talking to you like you grew up in Vegas. Yeah, and he also tries to use my age against me.

like that time when he blew up on me before that, it didn't go as viral, but he kept saying, like, isn't it past your bedtime kid? Shouldn't you be tuckered up, tucked up in bed or whatever? It's something that I don't like to use a lot because the reality is, me having two parents, despite their young age, makes me feel very privileged in a way. Like, I have a good household that I grew up in. I love my family and I cared for them. And even though I grew up in Indiana, and I knew a lot of people in worse off situations, I feel like I should just stay focused on the substance of the argument But your context is part of the substance. Yeah.

I know who you are. I'm from Indiana. Yeah. Okay. I know how worrying this can be. I was given life by teenagers. Okay? I didn't get to finish college.

I made a different path from myself. These are all very big and they're used against you all the time. I just think it's interesting. You also don't need it. Why? Because you do very, very well. But let me ask you about why you do well. and at some point I will challenge you today.

You give me any proposition. I'll debate you one. Okay, cool. You get to pick my position. Okay, we'll do it. We'll do that. Oh, we're going to do it. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. The round table, where is the line of this being productive, having a goal of persuasion to move the needle, and just being a team sport of competitive banter, where you're just good at it, really good at it and effective, but you don't change any minds because it's just a gotcha contest of two glib people. Where is that line and why do you do it? No, so there's a few different layers to these debates and to these hits. Absolutely, it turns into a banter fest a lot of the time where people are debating and talking over each other. And when I'm sitting across from someone like Scott Jennings, the primary goal is, of course, never to change his mind or never to have him

wake up and have an aha moment. Like that would be a miracle from Jesus if some Republican on CNN were like, wait a minute, you are right on this. That's not the primary goal. The primary goal, first and foremost, is to get your points across in a convincing enough manner

that doesn't let them muddy the waters. Something that Scott Jennings is really good at is not always just slam dunking, but muddying the waters of what's being talked about. If we think Trump is the most corrupt president in American history, he can muddy the waters pretty effectively by bringing up prior examples of certain presidents,

and that is something that we want to, push back on. But my primary goal, and you're not going to like this one, because I know that you're against a lot of like, you know, the more short form, clipping, clickbait type stuff because it's not productive for the environment. But one of my goals is to get these 30 to 60 seconds shorts of me explaining my point of view and using that as a vehicle to push forward a message. Charlie Kirk was perhaps the best at doing this when he was running Turning Point USA. This guy had thousands of clips that were 10, 20, 30 seconds, sometimes a minute, of him debating about immigration or gun laws or the economy. And it wasn't that he was changing the college kids' mind every single time, but he understood that one of my friends says,

clipping is the new canvassing. When you grew up, the most politically effective way to use your time was probably to canvas in doorknock, in phone bank. Now, if you're a young person and you want to canvas, you create clips online, clips of Trump, clips of Biden, hype moments of Zoran. And for me, using my debate skills and then clipping that up. So, for example, I have a moment where I'm debating someone and I lay out what Trump's Iran goals were, you know, denuclearization, you know, removing their missile capacity, regime change, stopping their proxies.

And I go through and I debate this person on each point. And we decide on each point that Trump hasn't achieved that. This clip went so viral that it was effective in pushing my narrative in a way more captivating way than me just being like, hey guys. here are Trump's four goals, and here's why he hasn't completed them. Doing it with somebody else is more compelling than just doing it yourself. It's very compelling, and it's a vehicle to push my specific fact patterns in my narratives on any given day.

And it's a point of comparison. So how do you avoid it being just what we used to call red meat for people who agree with you already versus dealing with persuadables? And I believe there are persuadables. On here, there aren't as many persuadables. Certainly if you're going to measure it by the comments. because how often do you comment on something that isn't about your girlfriend on your own feet

where you get so pissed off in that moment and the THC hasn't hit yet that you're like, you know, you're so stupid, I'd love to see. But, you know, who's commenting the most activated? But there are a lot of persuadables just not on here. So how do you go from, or do you care or does it matter? I mean, these clips get a lot of reach. So again, there's a few different layers to this.

There's a TV audience. When I go on CNN, there's a lie. audience that is viewing or that's recording it afterwards. And that live audience is probably a lot of loyal CNN viewers who aren't very persuadable, but I know some of them are because I've met people at a bar one time. I went to a bar one time and he's like, you're the kid that always debate Scott Jennings, right? And I remember saying, yeah, yeah, he can be a real, real tough one, right? And the person was like, no, actually I love him. He's the only reason I watch. I'm more of a moderate. And I realized in that moment, okay, a moderate. That's why they listen in? That loves Scott Jennings. I realized in that

moment, okay, CNN has a viewer base that is very, very diverse, even if they lean liberal. So there's the core viewers that I'm trying to make a convincing argument to. But these clips have massive reach. That one where he screamed at me, that must have gotten tens of millions of views. And if you watch it, I'm actually making a pretty decent argument as to why the Iran war is failing. I'm asking him, what concessions we've gotten from Iran 100 days, 200 days into the war? The reality is, we really haven't gotten any concessions from the Iranian regime. And it's interesting. Scott and I agree that the IRGC sucks, that Iran should not have a nuclear weapon, that there should be regime change in an ideal world. I mean, F, the IRGC, but he's trying to declare,

we've already won, we've already gotten victory. So the point that I'm trying to make is, in that moment, I need to make a captivating argument for the television audience. But there's also the secondary use of clips. When those clips get a massive reach, that is persuading voters. It is showing people what's going on. That clip that I mentioned a minute ago where we run through all four separate things, I swear that got like 150,000 likes on Instagram. I'd like to imagine some of the people liking and viewing that are hearing these arguments for the very first time. Fair. I hope so too. Not because I share the viewpoint. Often I do. Sometimes I think it's more nuanced. but look, it's got to be about getting more engagement from the majority because we are consumed

by extreme ideas and more and more by fringe voters. That's why I think if you could wave a wand, what would be three things that you would change to make our democracy better? To make our democracy better? Yeah. I think we immediately need to remove the effect that money has in politics ever since Citizen United. But you have a Supreme Court case. So what do you do with it?

Hawaii did something. Although that's not fair because I did say a magic wand. Okay. So if... Well, there's an answer for that. If I didn't have a magic wand, then I were trying to change that. We would only nominate Supreme Court justices on the basis that they want to overturn citizens. And when they say, I can't talk about that. It's stare decisis. I'd have to see the case. I think that rule needs to change. Then we do what we did. What Republicans did with Roe v. Wade. Republicans wouldn't directly ask, but they knew they were putting people on this court that wanted to overturn Roe v. Wade. They used to directly ask. Robert Bork changed.

that. Bork came out was way too fucking honest. Okay. He was this brilliant jurist by jurists assessment, okay? And he was like, well, here's what I think. Let me tell you something, mockler, and here's a problem with this, and here's a problem with that, and here's what they, and he was too honest, and they dinged him. And there was a rule that came out of it. It saw unwritten rule that both sides believe, which is, when it's your guy, I'm going to poke at him a little bit that I don't believe that he or she doesn't have a position on this, but then I'll leave it alone. Yeah. And you'll do the same.

So that's when this thing was birthed that is completely, you know, pun intended, an abortion of jurisprudential thinking, which is, wait a minute, you want me to believe that your personal opinion and politics on this will never affect what you're going to, what you're going to decide on the bench. So Amy Coney Barrett, you belong to an organization that is of extreme Catholics, let's call it. Yeah, yeah. This is like your raison d'etra is Roe v. Wade, but you're going to be fair about it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That has to change. I want to hear their political sides. Because look, the people that you pick go with your party so often that when they don't, we know them by name. So that rule has to change. But, okay, money and politics. If we were able to do with what they did with Rovi Rae v. Wade, and we just try to nominate people that broadly agree with us on this issue, I think we can do that with Citizens United. I would say something I've been thinking a lot about lately, and this is,

very new, but is banning AI in political ads. This has been insanely abused lately. Politicians and their likeness being used and distorted. It's very, very good. It really does kind of look like you and sound like you when they do it. I think Paxton did one of these with James Talleyco recently. And it's like if your policy and your platform is so bad that you have to use AI to make your opponents seem worse, you should just bow out at that point. Ken Paxton is such a shit candidate. Do you agree? I think that he is. or should be disqualified. And I think it was one of the worst moves Trump has made.

He should have stuck by Cornyn, yeah. And I think Talleyco would be done. Now, by the way, I was an early identifier of James Talarico. Would I have advised him differently about the gender stuff and the Jesus connection. I get what he was doing. He's very bright. And he's not wrong. If you're a Christian, Jesus is.

is not a white man. Okay? Jesus is much more than that. He took human form. Yeah. He's not a human. As they say, woke one was crazy. So there was a spectrum there. There was something. I get what he was trying to do, but you can only give these, the American people so much. But where is the signal? That's why I'm partnering with Polly Market. They are motivating one of the most powerful mottos in politics. Put your money where your mouth is. I think it's so much. much better an indicator of preference in a particular race or a particular dynamic, not just what people say in a poll and maybe they're playing with the truth, maybe they're playing with identity. On Polymarket, they're playing with their own money. And I think it's just a much bigger and

serious investment of opinion. So what Polymarket is doing is giving us a better way to see where minds are in the moment based on the money. Okay, and they're worse things than not just being right, but getting some cash in your pocket as a result. And now for the midterms, Polymarket is putting everything in one place, which is very cool, meaning what, everything? They are putting in a hub all of the predictions,

all of the analysis, all of the different races, and all of the different referenda, and all of the different betting propositions. all in one place, okay? Specific states, candidates, policies, races, so you don't have to jump around anywhere

for the midterms. It's all there, and it's all based on what matters a lot more than whimsy. Again, your wallet, all right? So, there's a lot on the line this election season. There always is.

But where are people willing to put their money and does it match where their mouth is? Download the Polymarket app, stay on top of the midterm. New customers can deposit 10 bucks and get 50 to trade instantly if you use the code Cuomo. I'm encouraging you to absolutely use Polymarket as a tool. And if you think you know, put your money where your mouth is.

And if you use the code Cuomo, you'll get 50 bucks out of 10. Tough to beat. The races, I love these polymarket. Because if you want to put your money on it, that's pretty good. I use it as an indicator generally. I look them up every day to make sure that my races are going in the right direction. Yeah, because if I'm going to put my money on it, then I probably actually believe what I'm saying versus I think this is the right answer I'm supposed to give. So I'll say I hate Trump, but I'm actually going to vote for.

That should be mandated. Every single person should have to put money on whatever party they support. So the, yeah, right? So the polymarket on, on Tala Rico's race is, one, it had Paxton killing. him for the first third of the race, killing him. Then it got deadlocked even. He bumped up for a second. Then he was back down with the gender stuff. But now, Polymarket has it 59-43. Can you believe that? That's bullish. That's pretty bullish for Texas. People are putting their money there. I like this better than a poll because who's going to bet? But you really believe Talarico's going to win?

It's, okay, it's impossibly hard to tell right now. I don't want to get caught up in the same hype that Texas has in the past where we're like, yes, Texas is totally going to win it. I don't want to get caught up in that. But I think we can see with our eyes what's happening in this race. The Republicans have a uniquely weak candidate. I don't just mean uniquely weak. I mean, Ken Paxton is awful, man, like impeached by his own party, his wife divorced him. You know, he's terrible. Even Trump can't speak about Pakistan without remarking about how bad he looks. Have you seen that bit that Trump does where he's like, he just, he looks terrible. Tala Rico, for all of his faults and things that he said in 2019 or 2020 is a pretty strong candidate. I think he's got a great platform. He's on message.

For the first time, we are doing well in Texas. We have a chance. Tala Rico has $72 million compared to Ken Paxton's $15 million plus MAGA ink behind him. I think it is about 50-50. There is a very real shot. I talk to some of my friends in Texas who are Democrats. They give Tala Rico about a 20% chance, maybe 10. They're way more pessimistic on him. I think they're in the right place. And maybe it's because out of insecurity, I don't want to set myself up for disappointment. I'd like to see him win. I think he represents a better politics than Paxton would, regardless of their actual positions. I think his methodology is more mature, is more decent. And I think decency is a precious commodity. Polymarket says, Democrats have a 65% chance of controlling the Senate.

Wait, that's really good. That's up from when I last shot. Yeah. So that's the money flow. And again, I'm really compelled by money flow. Because I will give you different answers if it costs me money. Yeah. Okay, to be wrong. I'll give you different answers. 6535. I think that it's 6538, they have it. And do you believe that I would put it at at best 50-50? It's a coin flip right now. The Senate map for Democrats was already an uphill battle.

and we've somehow basically like gotten over that uphill battle, but now it's pretty rough. We've got Abdul Al-Sayed. We've got Maine, which is kind of hard. I mean, we got out of a fucking huge shit show there, but now we're in a little bit of a harder race or hard race in a different way. So yeah, there's a lot of stuff that we have to be looking out for in the Senate. El-Said, they also make it market on. He's up 75-25. Okay, so we're chilling that.

And, you know, 74-29, you know, it bounces up and down. He's killing Rogers because Rogers hasn't engaged. and Roger has become a proxy for MAGA. But what does this mean if Michigan is this overweighted blue with a guy who you could be afraid of? I don't think it's fair to be afraid of El-Sayed. I'm not afraid of him, except if I were going to have a bench press contest with him because you definitely beat me.

But if it's 75, if it's 60-40, what does that tell you about what it means for 2028 right now? I don't think that people are afraid of Abdul Al-Sayy-A-Yat. or his platform or what he represents. Obviously, the Republicans are trying to use any type of Islamophobia and weapon that they can against Abdul al-Sayed. But as you pointed out, Mike Rogers is legit, just not engaging right now. He's not engaging. The reality is Abdul did underperform a lot of the polls in the primary. It was really close between him and Haley Stevens. So we do need to be very, very alert. Yeah, so we need to be very alert and on top of things with this. I think it shows that people want change. I do not think, and a lot of people, I debate this all the time,

I do not think the democratic base is moving towards communism or socialism, or I don't think young people are studying Karl Marx. I think when we look at someone like Abdul Al-Sayed, who is not DSA and who is a self-described capitalist, but also has these more DSA-friendly platforms, I think it's genuinely just people looking for change in being sick of this corrupt institution. Think about the whiplash American voters have gone through. Under Biden, he walked out on that debate stage, and he was very clearly just way too lost and way too old. American voters immediately had their trust in the Democratic Party obliterated in that moment. They're like, why would I ever trust anything they say again? I'm going to vote red. So then Trump wins the popular

votes, and then he betrays the American people on basically every single issue, no new wars, inflation, even like deportation that ended up being a shit show in Minnesota and many other states. So when you directly betray someone like this, you lose their trust. And both parties have done that. So now voters are looking for people that are viewed as a bit more radical. And Abdul al-Sayyad, yes, is more radical than like Obama from 2008. But I think he represents where the party is right now. And I like his style a lot. I'm very much so big on supply and demand, markets, individual freedoms, capitalism, and democracy. I don't like the DSA type of, like, illiberal values. I'm even very skeptical of a lot of lefty economic policies, like these unrealized gain tax or whatever, these dogship policies are.

However, there's a version of the Democratic Party that is focused on equality, economic freedom, opportunity, human dignity, and not some woke BS. I think that's where we need to return to. Let me give you one more polymarket thing. This one I'm okay with, you may not be. But in terms of them making the market, it is where the money is, right? So, Raman is up 12 to 15 points over Bass. It's like 5842. How hard is it to defend Bass after what happened with the fires?

Yeah, I mean, the establishment in any race right now is going to be screwed, but Karen Bass in particular is uniquely screwed. I mean, I don't know how you defend anything like that. It's hard. And look, unusual, right? Because she's one of yours. Yeah. So, and yet, you know, she's running against somebody who ideologically you don't have that

big a problem with either. Nithia Rahman, I don't know a lot of her policies. Is she DSA? No. No. I mean, not like flag. I don't even. Depends.

Does she say I'm DSA? No. So, I mean, if she believes in liberal values and smart economics, then, yeah, I'd be for it. But if you're going to be the mayor of L.A. for X amount of terms, you're going to have almost an impossible time defending your record. But you guys are also anti-establishment just like MAGA was and not because you're like MAGA. It's because it's a rejection movement. It's a rejection of the status quo. That's what MAGA was. But there were some prejudices and overlays on that that you guys don't have that I see. And you have, you know, the Jews, certain Jews would feel differently about that argument. But that MAGA definitely had. as part of its anger and hatred and other rights. I mean, just view it through my lens. As a young voter, when I'm looking at the current Democratic Party,

and I see, like, Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer on one hand, and then I see Abdul al-Sahad and Zilran on the other hand. I view these people as fundamentally different. Like, who do you think I resonate more with? Of course, the young dudes who are able to- Well, you are half-Syrian. I'm half-Syrian. It's not even that.

Remove that. Remove any of, like, the religion or anything. Remove any of my ethnicity. Remove it all. if you took Zoran and Abdul and showed them to the average young voter and then Chuck Schumer and Hakeem-Jafris, the average young voter, they would resonate a lot more with Abdul and Zohran Of course, these guys are the establishment. They've been there. They've let this happen. They have failed to stop it. Abdul and Zoran are able to use social media in a more nimble way. They're able to use social media more effectively. They're able to speak to the needs of young people regarding AI. So it's not that I'm

just rejecting the establishment because they're the establishment. It's because I've been, you know, proven time and time again. They're not as nimble or flexible or able to meet our needs in the moment. And you want real change. And that's where that's why two out of three Democrats, self-identified Democrats, aren't afraid of the word socialism. Why? Because I don't care what you call it. I want this to change. The system doesn't work for me. I heard the same dialogue during the early Trump rallies. Now, do I believe he duped those people? Yes. Do I think that the DSA is the same kind of dupe, no, because many of the changes it wants, I don't think are boogeyman socialism. Medicare for all, which is really the battleground, I think, is so you on the right, you're saying

Medicare for all, you're against that, you think that's socialism, have that fight, because they should lose that fight. It is the only model that works within our current system that can get what we need from where we are right now. But look, the fight will take place. You and I will watch it together and we'll continue the conversation. We'll continue to talk. I appreciate it every time. Thank you. I wish you well. And I do know every time I have Adam on, I say I'm going to debate him and then I don't. You know why? It's because I'm afraid. Well, guess what? I'm in New York for the 60 days. So if you ever want to do something, if you ever want to have some sort of back and forth on your show or do a panel, that would be great. Good. Or I'll do it on yours too.

Let's come on my show. You get to pick the proposition. You get to pick my position. That'd be fun. Let's do it. And I'll be on a gum. Okay, good. Good mind. Good mentality. good ambitions. Is he right about what's going to happen? Is he right about what matters? I'll tell you what. The most important thing that he said that I agree with, 100%, young men in the electorate are the biggest commodity up for grabs. Maga got them for all bad reasons in my opinion. I believe there was deception. I believe it played to fear and insecurity. I think the left handed Maga the stick on a bunch of those things. But they are up for grabs. And he was very smart to identify it as quickly as he did. Now, is what's being said, is what's being offered on the left something

that could win them back? That would be a huge game changer in the midterms. And are the markets with polymarket going to reflect our reality. I believe that people put in their money where their mouth is is more compelling in a moment than just what they decide to say in response for an online survey. You're less likely to say what you think is the right answer, what you're supposed to say, you know, like those voters who would not say they're going to vote for Trump but then did it. You're not going to do that if you put your money where your mouth is. That's why I like Polymarket as a measure. We'll see where it lands. We'll watch it together. thank you for giving me the opportunity.

Thank for showing you're different, for checking out the merch so we can brand back against all of this marketing that goes on to show that we're independents. We're free agents, okay? We're not some pack animal who's just going to do what you tell us to do

because we have to pick one of two. All right? Not left and right, reasonable. I love it all, and I love doing it with you. The challenges are real. The midterms are coming. Let's get out of me.