The Chris Cuomo Project - BONUS: Why America’s Two-Party System is Dangerous for Democracy (with Alex Berenson)

Episode Date: October 19, 2024

Alex Berenson (“Unreported Truths”) joins Chris Cuomo for a special installment of The Substack Election Dialogues, which brings together influential political figures, writers, and commentators for live conversations on the most pressing questions of the moment. Together, Chris and Alex explore the key players and enablers sustaining America’s toxic two-party system, the impact of media censorship on public discourse, and how fear-based strategies and suppression of free speech are deepening the divide and weakening democracy. 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 Join Chris Ad-Free On Substack: http://thechriscuomoproject.substack.com Try AG1 today and get their special offer of TEN, yes ten, free travel packs, AND a bottle of Vitamin D3K2 with your first purchase at drinkAG1.com/CCP. That’s a $67 value for FREE if you go to drinkAG1.com/CCP today. Check it out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chris Cuomo here, and one of the great things about Substack is you can have unvarnished, unstructured, uncensored conversation. So the good folks at Substack came to me and said, hey, you know Alex Berenson? I said, of course I know Alex Berenson. They said, do you want to talk to him about politics? I said, ooh, what a great opportunity.

So we did it, and we did it live on Substack. And we were both allowed to obviously repackage it and bring it to our audience bases. And the whole point is to build community and to get more people who care about constructive conversation. And there'll be disagreement and there'll be different ideas and some are better and some are worse.

But conversation is the cure to division. Conversation of different ideas, different perspectives. And that's why I'm here. And that's why my Substack is available to people for five bucks a month. You can sign up, I think, for 50 bucks a year or something like that. The numbers are small.

And I'm not saying that as some rich guy. I'm saying it as somebody who pays for a lot of information on different platforms. And I believe Substack and what I'm offering here with the Chris Cuomo Project ad free with the long COVID discussions that I have with my doctor, with the walk and talk series where I take you through different philosophical constructs

and what can really help you make your life better. And you get to go to school on how I mess it up all the time is a great value. And on top of it, I'm allowed to use the proceeds to help fund people getting treatment for long COVID who can't afford it. So I'm really happy for the opportunity on Substack. I love this format of talking to Alex Berenson.

We'll probably keep doing it if you guys want it. And even if you don't, I want it. So I'm probably gonna do it. So here is the conversation I had with Alex Berenson about the big ticket item, the game of two-party politics and how it is dragging us down with them in this thunderdome of toxic comparison of which and who and what is worse. Today, we're part of the Substack election dialogues where Alex Berenson and I

are going to have a very unfiltered, unscripted, uncontrolled dialogue conversation as two smart people who care about the conversation. And we don't have agendas to push other than your interests

about what's happening in the election. Oh, I'll quickly and hope people pick up. Why do you think that Trump doesn't represent something new? He, whatever you want to say about the man, he seems to represent something new. Is Trump different? Of course.

Has he disqualified himself from leadership? Of course. The fact that Alex himself from leadership? Of course. The fact that Alex Berenson, all right, if you Google him, all right, just his education, just what he spent the first 10 years of his career doing, the idea that he's saying, well, I gotta figure out whether I can vote for Trump, just tells you how different things are.

In any other period, Donald Trump would have never been seriously considered by the Republican Party for anything. So is he the same type of offender of norms as Kamala Harris or anybody else? No, he is completely in his own category of perfidy, misdemeanors, felonies, and everything else. There's no question about it. So why do I say they're playing the same game?

Because they are, because the two parties do the same things to scare and to apportion voters. What is Kamala Harris's theory of the case? Trump is too damn dangerous. He is a threat to democracy. January 6th, he likes dictators. He says bad things and he thinks bad things and he does bad things.

He is too dangerous. That's your whole case. I believe it is not enough. You have enragement versus engagement. And he is enragement. He is grievance. He is the mascot of people who have, you know, he's the agent of animus, as I call him every night. That's what he is. He is, I'm pissed off at the system. I want change. I know he's not who I want as my father, brother, boss, business partner, dating my mom. I get it.

I get it. But this system is dirty and disgusting. And I need someone from the outside who sees it for what it is and wants to destroy it. And that's what Donald Trump is. He is a virus. And that's why people think about voting for him, not because they like how he is. Okay.

The Alex Barry, you model everything about your life from what I can tell to not be what he is. So that's why I say they're playing the same game. Is he the same proposition for people? No, I don't think he is. I do get the idea of saying anybody's better than he is. It's true as long as you're okay with the status quo. See, and that's the dividing

line. And I think that this election does turn on grievance. And that's why I believe it's Trump's to lose. Can he lose? Of course, he's wildly unpopular. We've never seen anything like it. People in his own party don't believe he tells the truth in numbers we've never seen before. But they're more angry about the system. So that's my analysis on it. Right. But if he but what you're saying is he's the person you vote for if you want the system broken, right? So isn't he standing out? I mean, he's not Nick Romney. He's not no, you know, John McCain or George No, isn't he a different kind of Republican? Isn't he a populist? Isn't he truly different for better or worse? Yes, he is not a Republican

for better or worse? Yes, he is not a Republican. He is not a populist, by the way, because remember, he's not trying to do anything for the rank and file. He's not trying to do anything for the masses. You know, another weird part of the analysis with him is who does his policies help? The rich, his policies help.

That's who his tax policy helped. That's what most of the spending did. That's what motor, the artificial juicing of the markets that he continued did. That's what even the pandemic spending that he started in Biden continue. This is not a real conservative. This is not a guy who he talks the talk of the angry man, but his policies are not geared towards improving their proper their status. So yes, he's totally different, Alex, no question about it. Never seen anybody like him. I've known him my whole life,

but I've never seen anyone like him flourish in our politics. And I think it's proof of the problem. So let me ask a question that is probably of particular interest to me and my readers, because some of us, I probably became known to the extent I became known in the last few years because of COVID, anti-lockdown, anti-school closure. Then I then raised questions about the mRNAs. Okay, my theory, and maybe it's only

because of my perspective, is that the pandemic sort of upended things in a way that people don't really talk about. That there's a lot of anger about what happened in 2020 and a lot of people who don't really believe anymore in the public health establishment and who question the vaccines that they were encouraged or in some cases forced to take.

And people aren't really talking about it, right? It's the pandemic is not an issue at the, if you pull people or if you see what people are talking about, right? They're not talking about it loudly, but somehow it is fueling some of this anger. Do you think that's true? Or a hundred percent. And you're reporting on it was ambitious. I think sometimes ahead of our understanding, whether you're right or wrong, we don't know. ambitious, I think sometimes ahead of our understanding, whether you're right or wrong, we don't know.

The reason that we don't know is because there's been no review the way there was after 9-11, which we need very badly. And the reason it won't happen, don't tell me Congress is doing it because they're bullshit. All right, those hearings are a joke. I watched my brother prep and have to go and present

in front of him on what is a legitimate issue. I think it's been politicized, but whatever. But it was such a joke. The difference between the closed door session and the open door session in terms of the level of acumen and intelligence in terms of questioning of my brother as a governor at the time of the pandemic is a joke. So that's not the answer. The 9 11 commission was not elected for a reason and it worked.

It worked. You won't see it here because there's too much stink on both parties. Trump doesn't wanna talk about it because he screwed it up in the beginning, saying it was a cold that would be gone by Easter. And then he screwed up the PPE and then he scared everybody about what was going on and his signature achievement is Operation Warp Speed.

And how they streamlined the efficacy portions of the vetting and efficacy portions of the vetting and the requirements of the vetting to get it done. And most of his voters are anti-vaxxers. So, you know, he can't talk about it. The Democrats don't want to talk about it because it took too long and on their watch. Same way with the economy.

They have a story to tell about the economy in terms of our rate of recovery, but it doesn't sound good enough to the voters. So they've just abandoned the issue. So, yes, Alex, I agree with everything you're saying. Now, do I believe that the realities as I understand them had been twisted for the purpose of agendas? Yes. And I'll give you a great example. And Substack, you can thank me in advance, because this will absolutely be everywhere for the next week and a half. Um, look, this is, uh, there are a few reporters I'll give Alex the advantage on me cause he's smarter

and he's a better reporter. Few people lived the dynamic of COVID the way I did and not just because I got sick early because I got sick early and I had a big platform. I was hearing from everyone, okay? The Trump guys, Fauci, the NIH, the CDC, the guys who came up with the antibodies. I just, by whatever reason, I don't even know why this is true. I live next door to one of the main architects of Operation Warp Speed. So I had incredible access to the realities of what was going on, okay? So, Ivermectin, okay?

Ivermectin is not a standalone cure for anything COVID related. And the people who will tell you that are the people who make Ivermectin. Now you can say, yeah, of course, it's gone generic. They're not making any money off it. They're making money off the other protocols. Okay, but still, there is no company

that has ever made anything that doesn't like the idea of what they made being used, okay? And ivermectin is a real antiviral. It can work. It is not supposed to be given a veterinary grade to humans. And that's why the paste was a problem. If you look at the research, which I have, and I encourage all of you to go to trial site news, they cover this

brilliantly, the guy Dan who runs it, I know him, I've gotten to know him, he's a very conscientious guy, he has no agenda. Okay. So in combination with other things like what it depends on the symptoms, it depends on the variant, it could be an antibiotic, it could be high doses of zinc and vitamin C. It could be other things that different practitioners use. Ivermectin was part of blunting the symptoms and shortening the duration of certain variants of COVID.

In long COVID treatment, which no one talks about, and I have my doctor on my Substack, that's why I started it. You get my podcast ad free, but my doctor is giving her time. This is all she does in her practice, Alex, is treat long COVID. And she uses a lot of ivermectin. She gave it to me to flush out spike protein that we see in my blood with all this other shit.

That was always my point. Joe Rogan, I believe was unfairly weaponized. I don't think it was his intention to tell everybody to take ivermectin, don't care about getting COVID, don't worry about the vaccine, all you need is ivermectin. I don't think that was ever his inclination or his point,

but that's how he was used. And I see it all the time. Oh, you were wrong about ivermectin, now you take it. No, I wasn't wrong about ivermectin. Yes, I did take it for a while. I don't know that it made any difference, but it didn't hurt me. It's a very safe drug. We need a review. Where did this shit come from? Could you know that this wet market theory is weak? Yeah, was it

made? Was it made by someone for a specific reason? And it wasn't Tony crouch? But was it somebody? And why did we get so fucked up over this? And why were the protocols of what to do in terms of distancing of kids versus adults and duration of businesses? What did we learn so that we don't do it that way again, to the extent it didn't work well? All that matters, and we will get none of those answers

based on this two-party system right now because there's no upside for either one. That is certainly true. Let me ask you about Fauci since you had a fair amount of contact with him. A lot of contact. What do you think of him? My version of him is not that he's, you know, I'm not on the RFK side where he's, you know, intentionally killing beagles or that's about, but I do think he has a very healthy self-regard

and maybe wasn't the best guy to have essentially in charge in 2020. Okay, so different layers of analysis. One, I like Tony Fauci. I've known him most of my life. I met him when my father and he were battling AIDS and making it something more than the gay play. Okay. Which of course Tony was very right about and he, his legacy was secured by what he did to change understanding of how to treat and address AIDS.

Here was the mistake. Okay. Tony's not a bad guy. He didn't create COVID. There's no proof of that. Even the gain of function stuff is being twisted all kinds of ways for political manipulation. And that's part of the party process and grievance and making people pissed off. However, however, however, and I said it to Tony Fauci at the time, okay?

When you take a scientist and put him in the political messaging game, you have fucked up. Because in politics, change is weakness. You cannot change positions in politics, or you get crushed. In science, all you do is change position. So how did we see it? Well, one minute we were spraying everything. Every office was like out of Ghostbusters, right?

They're spraying everything down. Can't touch it, can't touch it. No, don't use a mask because it's touch. You're gonna make yourself sick. Oh, okay. Then they realized it's aerosolized. Did they tell us that the way they told us the stuff about touching?

No. Why? Because now Tony wasn't doing what he had done his entire career, which is just talking science and best practices. Now he had political accountability, and he had the Trump White House and then the Biden White House, both of whom shirked their duty to address the American people and put it on Fauci. Now, was it hubris, was it arrogance

that allowed him to take up that mantle? Maybe, but I don't know who would have said no, to be honest. But with him in charge, you did not get the level of messaging that you needed because they were keeping things quiet because they were afraid of the effect on public confidence. And that I get why they did it.

It was a mistake. It was wrong, but I get why they did it. I get it. I get it. But that was a huge part of it. I don't see Tony as the malefactor. I see him as being set up and he is a scientist. Okay. And he's an old man now also by the way, no, he knows,

he knows things and he did not twist, twist them for advantage the way a politician would. I'm telling you, I don't believe that, but he should have never been in charge of messaging. It should have been Trump and his guys telling us what's changing and why it's changing. And it should have been Biden and his guys saying, look, it isn't working as well as it did early on,

the vaccine, it's not working as well, but it's still better than nothing. That's a political, that's a really a political question. It's not a scientific question because the efficacy isn't there. Right, but clearly the Biden administration having essentially said the vaccine is gonna end COVID had a very hard time acknowledging the reality

that it had. But that's why, see a scientist wouldn't, a doctor wouldn't, okay? I've had doctors deal with me on long COVID and say, all right, it's not working. It worked in Alex Berenson, it's worked in other people. It's not working for you. We got to try something else. You don't say I'm getting a new doctor, right? You told me it would work. We know it's iffy in politics. They

don't want to take those risks. And that's why they, you know, in my, in my opinion, they put it on Fauci and he didn't handle the responsibility well, but I wouldn't have expected him to. It's not what he does. Support for the Chris Cuomo project comes from 120 Life. It's a great tasting blend of super fruit juices. We're using it at home. High blood pressure is no joke.

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Go to CozyEarth.com slash Chris. Use the code Chris and you'll get an exclusive discount of up to 40% off. 40% CozyEarth.com slash Chris. Check it out and tell them you heard about them on the podcast. Hook a brother up. Let me hear you mentioned Fauci being old and that,

you know, got me thinking, you know, Fauci in his eighties, Biden in his eighties, Pelosi, Mr. Donald Trump, you know, Trump's almost 80 now. Kamala Harris is almost 60 and she feels young. Right? I mean, she's not really young, but compared to our political class, been running things the last five, 10 years, she's young.

What, like, is that a problem? It feels like a problem to me. And is there any way to fix it? Yeah, of course. There are ways to fix all this shit. The question is whether or not there's the will to fix any of it. And as long as the power dynamic stays so tight,

you know, as long as, and look, that's part of what fuels Trumpism. I don't have any problem with the grievance, okay? I just think, I wish they had picked a better agent. You know what I mean? I wish that a John McCain could have been the agent for it. I wish some military guy could, you know, someone who we know had some of the right stuff

put in him or her, could be the agent of that. And not just somebody who's riding it as a personal advantage. And I'm telling you, that's what Trump is doing. How can I say that? That's not fair. Okay, here's my case. I've known him longer than anybody watching this right now.

Okay, it's not even a close call. Our mothers went through the same beauty parlor. My father worked with him as a lawyer and as a politician. My brother worked with him as a politician. I'm telling you, I know the guy, okay? I interviewed him once before I was in the media for my brother's bachelor party tape. Okay. That's how long I've known this guy. All right. He has never been about any of the things he talks about now his entire life. He has never been a part of any of these causes. And it's not because they didn't

exist. It's because they didn't work for him. And he jumped in and out on the wagon train of animus and public outrage, demagoguery, always. That stupid shit he did with the Central Park Five and the death penalty and wanting to kill everybody. Yeah, it was a perfect example. He's always hopped in and out. Why?

Because the guy who taught him politics was a guy named Roy Cohn. And he was one of the best. He died when I was still a teenager, but I've known many people who knew him very well. And this was a guy who knew the dark arts of politics and how to use fear in messaging in the courtroom and in the room of public opinion. And that is what we're living through right now. Are there fixes? Yep. Like what? At a minimum, at a minimum,

social media has to become much more of a commodity of people wanting better than wanting worse. The same players right now who go on and surf, you want to be a Republican, be a Republican, you want to be a Democrat, be a Democrat. I get it. You can't really be relevant if you're not a member of one of those two parties. I get it. You're right. I don't like that, but you're not wrong. You should be holding your party to account to be better than something than it is right now. So in terms of what citizens can do, be a critical thinker, go after your own. One. Two, you got to have open primaries. And don't say we can't do that. Of course

we can. The parties aren't in the Constitution. They're not creatures of law. Law, they're tradition. They're culture. They have closed the primaries. The primaries should be open. Why? Because you will get rid of fringe candidates if you open it up to more people voting. The only reason you have fringe candidates is because you have such a small voting pool in the primaries. Make them open. Rank choice voting is a good thing. And then I believe you need more parties. And it would be great if you could get term limits,

but I think you need a constitutional amendment for that. And I don't think we could get a constitutional amendment that the name of this country is America. I think as soon as they proposed it, Alex, some lefties would come up with how Amerigo Viscucci was as bad as anybody else. And, you know, and they wouldn't want it. So I know there are fixes. The media has a role in fixing, but really people have more of a role in fixing. And I believe you need more parties look at an established democracy and tell me who doesn't have a coalition government structure. I'm not saying we got to change structure.

We don't have to be parliament to have parliamentary aspects to it. We do now. We have a parliamentarian that sits in the Congress. But we have multiple ones, actually. But those are some of the big ticket items that I think would make a difference. Do you think that Trumpism and sort of the populism of the Republican Party, I know we can debate whether populism is the right term, but the, I'll call it populism because I don't know a better word for it. Do you think that outlasts Trump? Or do you think the Republican Party

returns to what it was 20 years ago? Well, there's no question that if Kamala Harris wins, Trump ism is dead. Yes, I know. Theoretically, he could run again, but that party is desperate to get out from under her. Okay. Because you cannot have any disagreement with the man and have a history. I have a teacher in the party. So they are desperate to get rid of him. There's no question about, I don't care who comes out and says, I'm not right. That person is lying, okay?

Because even if they're close to Trump, they wanna get rid of Trump and they wanna get back to some semblance of what the party's supposed to be about. Why? If for no other reason, it's not growing. The party's not growing. He's just concentrating their basis of support. Oh, but I have to I got it to secure it. You get to go ahead. We're that that, you know, black and Latino voters are going Republican this cycle, even

though there's still a minority of the rep, you know, they're still voting primarily for Democrats. If you look at the numbers, they're voting a lot more for Trump than the Republican Party before Trump. But we don't know the numbers yet. We know in the last cycle, there's been some movement. First of all, I'm not impressed if he gets 15 versus eight. You can say that's- What if he gets 25% of the black vote

and 40 percent of Latino vote. Fine. There's no question that that'll make a difference in the two party balance. I'm not saying that. But one, the idea that they can keep those people is not true because what you're doing is you're amping up grievance. That's all you're doing.

You're not solving any of it. You're not fixing any of it. The same reason that certain minorities may move away from Democrats is a certain reason, same reason they won't stay with you. You saying these people have never done anything for you, but you're not going to do anything for them either. You know, they'll get it. But again, if I'm breaking 75 25 with you in a demographic, I'm okay with that. Okay. I'm okay with being 95 five 5 it's better than 51 49. Sure. So, so look again in a two party system, Alex,

you got to remember the zero sum nature of it. All I need is for you to lose. It's okay that I'm not doing that great. It's okay that people aren't that enthusiastic about me, but you're going to eat babies. You're going to kick puppies. You America. And you're a bad guy. That's all we were doing these days. I have to find a way to fill in those blanks about Alex Berenson. Turns out his mother didn't really like him that much. Who says that? That unnamed source, very close to the mother. All of a sudden, Alex is getting stupid questions about his mom. That is the nature

of our politics right now. Kamala Harris is the dumbest woman I've ever met in my life, he says. And then all of a sudden we're talking about it. Then she wipes the floor with him in a debate. Guess she's not so stupid after all, right? He goes right back to how stupid she is. Why? Because he is a master of doing what our politics has become. He's always done this. He's always lied, defied, and denied. That's what he does. I did a story on him 20 years ago where I was trying to nail down his net worth, Alex, and my lawyers at ABC News had me in a dialogue with him where he had to okay the number. That's how afraid they were of him suing us

because he threatened to sue not just me, not just ABC, not just Disney. Alex, he threatened to sue my parents to damn me back to the womb for being untrue about him. And I would call him and say, so the biggest number anybody can give me on you is about 850 million. Oh, the conversation doesn't start under 3 billion.

Based on what? You don't own the rail yards. China does. Now 3 billion or I sue. That was the conversation. So this is who the guy's always been. It just fits very well with politics because everybody else is so lacking and so little gets done.

And it's all such bullshit. And they all lie. And they all accuse the other ones of the same things that they do. And they're weaponizing the systems and agencies for their own benefits against everybody else, now including the court system. And all these people say the same shit, never do it. And it's an artificial world that doesn't match the rest of our reality.

And we need to burn it down. That is the mentality that has captured a lot more people than the Democrats expected. And Trump is riding that wave. He didn't create it, he didn't advance it. He is just the mascot of it. And I believe without him, I don't know how they check that box in the Republican party

because they got to find somebody who has no connection to politics right now as people understand that and that they come in as a change agent. understand that and that they come in as a change agent. I do. I mean, I think if you sort of look back really the last 20 years now, I mean, what made Trump as much as anything in the one serious policy position that he took in 2013, 14, this is not about Obama and the birther stuff, the serious

policy position that he took that stood apart from the Republican party, that the Republican base clearly liked him for, I would say made him, was his position on the Iraq war. The Iraq war was a mistake. We shouldn't have fought it. He said that when it was a Republican war, right? And it was not okay to say that and to say that to the, you know, to Jeb Bush, right? His brother had fought the war. And that, I mean, that was a serious break

with the Republican party. And I do think that to some extent, that started him down this path. I think that yes, comma, but, dot, dot, dot, his talking about the attendant issues around immigration is what really made him a stand up. And the domestic issue of the present and the future is much more powerful than an assessment of the past.

I don't disagree with you, I agree with you. But on the list of what distinguished him, the wall was what did it. And the rhetoric wasn't his either, by the way, because there's a reason he wasn't talking about immigration before that one election, which was it never mattered to him. Right. But listening to Tom Tancredo, who's that? Alex and I know you go Google it, you'll see because he was saying the same shit. And he tutored Trump on it. The idea that Trump can't learn isn't true. Trump can hear things and want to make them his own.

And he does that well. Steve King, Tom Tancredo, those guys were talking about the fear of what I call the Brown menace from the Southern border, as Trump describes it in my opinion. That is what distinguished him. And as fate would have it, the Democrats have misplayed the issue and absolutely made it worse. I've never seen a more stark example of a political party making a decision to do something that makes a situation worse. And that's why it's the first time.

Now you can say, no, it's just because polls suck. Okay. I'm just telling you to the extent that polls are what we look at, I've never seen immigration as a top two, three domestic issue. Now some could say, well, yes, but it was in 2015, people just didn't say it, but that's why they voted for Trump. Okay, maybe so, but I think it could determine this election. I really believe this election is Trump's to lose because Harris has not been able

to move the bar, the needle from enragement to engagement. If you are somebody who wants to be pissed off about what's going on. I don't know how Harris wins. If you are somebody who gets why people are pissed off, but you want something done about it, she has a chance to win. And I don't know that she's moving that needle enough. Well, you know, and I will say immigration, I think, you know, for a lot of people, it's tied to the fact that, you know, that they can't, you know, as early young people cannot buy a house, right? They feel the housing market is really not working for them right now and they don't understand why. I don't fully understand why either, but clearly that, you know, this

notion that that people are coming in and, you know, competing for rentals and that's not how this is a problem. You don't think so? No, I do. That's too economically driven. No, there's a supply demand imbalance. We're upside down with supply and demand. It is not illegal migrants. No, no, I'm saying that this is a feeling that people have that is helping to drive this anger. I know, I know. And the problem is, we are way... It's like, you know, I don't know where you are in the baby game,

but being a parent three times over now, 14, 21, our politics has become like our parenting dynamic. Yes, I know you feel that way, but that's not how it is. Yeah, but I don't like that. You want to say it. I, you know, that's where we are in our politics. People feel things and you can't convince them any other way. You can't because they want to feel that way and they have a group and they can't convince them any other way. You can't because they wanna feel that way and they have a group and they don't believe you.

And they're not wrong to not believe. I get it, I get it. That's why I have never fallen prey to, you know, when people are like, yeah, I'm gonna take the veterinary grade ivermectin because that's the cure all for, that was fun. That was stupid, right? And I know that people were coaxed to do it,

but that's just dumb. Nobody takes pet grade medicine, you know, and gives it to their kids. Anyway, but in general, people are not wrong to feel the way they feel. They've just been led there wrongly. And even if you're right about a feeling, it doesn't mean it gets you a better place. Housing. Why is there a housing shortage? Okay, costs, costs across the board is why there's a housing shortage, how so? Interest rates have moved. That was the last bit of the problem. We were upside down to begin with, why?

Because we have allowed costs to go up because they've been driving profits for the top tier of the economy and of the builder economy. And we have been allowing to exacerbate the gap. Interest rates were just the last kind of capitulation to that dynamic. But you have a housing market that dealt with the construction market that dealt with rising costs by moving to high end. That's why they have their margins, by moving to high end. That's why. Hager margins, more incentives. Why?

Because the state, federal, state, city, municipality stopped subsidizing housing the same way that they were. But worse than that, they've made it hard to build, right? I mean, this is one thing where I think their solution is just gonna screw things up, right? Giving people more money to buy when you don't improve supply, increase supply is just going to drive prices higher. Well, if you yeah, I see this. I agree. And maybe you're saying it in a better

way. I understand it a little differently. And then you tell me I see it as you're not changing the costs. You're artificially giving people money to handle the cost, but that's only going to raise the cost. Yep, that's right. Every time government money is put into the mix, the private sector adjusts its cost basis to reflect that. We see it in our health insurance all the time.

As soon as the government is going to pony up, everybody raises their rates to kind of capture that amount plus more. So you've got to deal with the VIG. How do you deal with the VIG? Okay. Now we're back to Will. If the American people want housing that is not short-term rental, because this short-term rental not really BRBO, Airbnb, but they are symptoms of the problem. Moving away from ownership to rental because it's a better V big on the investment has changed the reality. So houses that were for sale at a certain price point are now not for sale. They are for rent. And you rent because the people who own that house and yes, private equity has got involved in it.

How much? I don't know, but more than they ever were before. They definitely took advantage of the housing crisis in 2008, the same banks and private equity that is an unknown bogeyman in our economic system, which is a lot of private individuals and institutions park cash in private funds and wait and REITs, real estate investment trusts and different private equity players found a home in homes. And now they own them and they want to rent them.

Why? They want the steady revenue flow. They already securitized the mortgages. This is a new revenue flow for them. So those houses you can't buy, you got to rent them. And renting is not as economically feasible for people because you're going to lose you. They're going to build up nothing in it. Right?

Your rent is wasted money unless you get a really low rate and the rents have gone up. So as Jordan Peterson instructs, there is no simple answer to a complex situation. And this is a complex situation. But if there is no will among the people to deal with it, and now the Democrats say, well, you just shit on Harris's idea, but that's how we deal with it. No, that is playing into the problem. Giving me 35 grand to buy a house doesn't make the house 35 grand cheaper

because they're gonna adjust their prices now to account for the money that's been put into the system. So you have to do things that people don't want done in our economy, which is what? Put in price controls about how much money you can make on a house, about what you get incentivized to build and not all.

So I don't think that's a good idea at all. Well, what else will do it then? How will I break it down? You should make it easier to build. You know, there may have to be higher density. You encourage people to build apartment buildings near, you know, I was, I was in a Wait, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.

Hold on. Those two ideas are sus. Okay. Density. We hated, we hated concentration of poverty and income class. We got away from it in Chicago and in New York and everywhere else because people don't want to bring together. You don't have to put up a 30 story housing project. I was in California in the Bay area two weeks ago,

and there's a beautiful new train that runs up the west side from San Jose to San Francisco. It's called the Cal train. There's stations every mile or two. It's nice. There is no even five to 10 story apartment buildings. It's impossible to build multifamily housing in much of California.

And it's gotten worse and worse in a lot of the country. That is a fixable problem with some political will. Okay. And the idea that you need, that everything needs to be built to the highest green standard is nonsense. That just drives up costs. This is something where the Democrats, they've created a problem in an industry

that actually works or worked pretty well until about 10 years ago, and we're all suffering for it. I don't disagree with both of your points. Again, we're not one move away, and I'm fine with those things. Now, there are reasons that they came in. Most corrections in American society go too far and not fast enough. We keep seeing that, especially culturally.

This will sound weird, given my background with my brother, but I was and remain a very big me too advocate. Okay. Now people can say, Oh yeah, right. Your brother. Look, we have different ideas about what my brother was accused of versus what was true, but that doesn't, it's not what matters. The correction went too far, too slow.

And you got into the bold face canceling business instead of changing policies. Has it really changed for people? Are people just afraid of whom they hire now? Or do you really have procedures in place in workplaces where people can be treated more fairly and not worry about harassment? Really? Because I haven't seen those stories

and the reporting I've done myself proves no. The culture really hasn't changed. It's just afraid now and they blame people for not hiring them. So we overcorrect. The green economy movement in construction overcorrected. Alex, you are correct. In my opinion, you are correct. That isn't as big a part of the price structure as I understand it. But it doesn't mean that it doesn't matter. Urban planning, we stopped building big things and concentrating poverty and income type for a reason. We bailed out the wrong people in 2008.

We bailed out the wrong people. You should have bailed out the wrong people. You should have bailed out the homeowners, not the people who came up with bullshit ways to gain the interest rate system. Why? Because they have the power and the guy who was doing it came from the bank. Paulson came from Goldman Sachs. Who did you think he was going to help? So there are fixes, but you got to

have the will. Alex made a great point. We did not plan the conversation, but he sent me an email before we had the conversation. And he was like, how could we not talk about housing more? Because you're not voting on it. That's why. Because you're not afraid of it the same way. That's why. But Alex is dead on me. If you wanted to pick on an issue that affects a lot of people in the country, outside the fringes of the most angry, magnified minorities in our party system, housing would be at the top of your list.

But it isn't, why? That's not what our politics is about. Support for the Chris Cuomo Project comes from ground news. Now listen, I'm a news guy. Why am I pitching a different source? Because I don't play that game. That's why if something can help you, I want you to know about it. And ground news is very helpful. Why? Because ground news helps you curate information that you can trust. It's a website and app that helps you make sense of the news by gathering related articles from around the world in one place so you can compare coverage.

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blame for it. Let me ask you. So the election is, you know, three weeks away now. Who's going to win? This is the closest one I've seen since 2004. I realize I'm dating myself, but I'm fucking old. Okay, I embrace it. Alex has got all that dark hair, he's young. All right, this is what happens. This is what happens when kids in the college and being in this business, having Trump try to throw you in jail.

This is what happens. I believe it's his election to lose. I believe that this is an election that's turning on grievance. I am not endorsing Donald Trump. I have not read PILD and all this stupid binary talk. Okay. I would never be a Republican.

I would never be a Democrat. But your daddy, this isn't his party. A lot of Trump supporters were my father's supporters. Okay. It's not all white bigots that support Trump. That's not true. Do bigots support Trump? Yeah.

Why? A reason, in most cases, as far as I'm concerned, but there are a lot of people I know, there are a lot of people I love who are voting for Trump. Well, then you shouldn't love them. Now you're part of the problem. Oh, well, they don't understand.

Now you're debasing people that you can't be better than. And that's what the Democrats have done wrong. They missed what this was in 2015, what it was about. Look, she wasn't wrong to call it a basket of deplorables, Hillary Clinton. There are a lot of bad people who got into that Trump tent early for the wrong reasons, in my opinion. But there are a lot of people who say, this system sucks. It's

all about them and it's about money and it's about doing nothing and they lie all the time. And I hate it and he hates it too. So I'm for him. I just don't think he's going to make it any better, but I do believe that this election is about grievance. And if it is a grievance election and you look at how tight, you know, the polls are wrong, great. I'm happy to be wrong. I'm not Nostradamus. I just have a big nose.

If Harris isn't winning the popular vote by three to seven million people, I don't know how Democrats win the electoral college. We haven't seen that in the modern era. So it being knotted up in the popular vote is meaningful. I know that our election doesn't function on the popular vote exclusively, but it is an indicia of reliability of what's gonna happen in the electoral college,

especially about the Democrats. So it being knit up, you gotta look at the 2004 election. The big difference between 2004 and now was we did not have a cult figure involved in that election. We had quite the opposite. But Trump is a cult figure. People will vote for him without scrutiny because of their feelings about the status

quo. And the Democrats' challenge was, yeah, you got to get the people who are afraid of Trump. That's fine. And I'm doing a podcast on it right after we finish here about the realities of him as a threat and what the right adjustment is to it. But it's a harder task for the Democrats. I understand that. There's a reason that the Greek gave us the word,

the demagogue. They did not give us a positive opposite. I don't know what the Greek word is for somebody who courts votes and approval and opinion and consensus on the basis of love and connectivity. I don't know. I guess Jesus you call it. I don't know. But, um, there's a reason for that and it works and it's harder for Democrats.

In this, in this environment, it's harder. It was easier for them the last time. Why Trump sucked. The pandemic was a nightmare. He botched it. And Biden was a boring old guy who was gonna come in and get us away from Captain Chaos. That was an easy analysis.

And Trump was losing that race all the way through. And he lost, very, very tight. But look who he was running against. He was running against a guy who had never had a chance at being president before, unless God forbid something had happened to Obama. So I believe it's Trump's election to lose, not because I think he should win, but because I think that's what the state of play is.

And look, I think Harris, I applaud the Democrats coming together in their coalescence in a bad situation. They should have never let Biden decide to run again. They should have had a primary process. I don't think Harris would have won it personally. And I will be surprised if she wins now because of what I think about the state of play in this country. It's not an indictment of her. I don't think she's bad.

I don't think she's a communist. And I think she wiped the floor with him in a debate even more than Hillary Clinton did. But that's not really enough when people are pissed off about something that matters more to them than what they saw on the debate stage. And that's where we are. I hear from people all the time. So do you, Alex, your friends come to you all the time and be like, come on, man, you don't think it's screwed up that block. You don't think the FBI, blah,

blah, blah. Yeah, no, no. That's where we are. I mean, I, I think the thing that the one thing that you're under us, man, I guess I broadly agree with your analysis, but I don't see it as I don't see it as Trump having a clear cut advantage because of abortion. Immigration is a very powerful issue for Republicans and abortion is even more powerful of an issue for the Democrats. And I think in a state like New York, where abortion restrictions really are not an issue,

you don't really feel it the way you do in a, you know, in the Midwest, where this is a real issue for women and men too, but really for women. Now with all due respect, okay, I am not some New York house mouse, okay? I get around the country and I have a pretty decent amount of exposure to people in different places. I was just sitting in the suck for a few days in Florida, but she isn't gonna win. But if you don't think women there,

we're talking about not abortion. Abortion is a single procedure, okay? This is the first class of citizens, let alone the fact that they're the majority of the country who have had a right or protection taken from them. That's right. That's right. We have not seen that in our lifetime. It is not about a single procedure. It is about a huge, huge line in our society. And we saw immediately with IVF coming into the discussion.

Now you're talking about Chris and Alex. Wait, hold on a second. You don't want, we want to protect the baby. Okay, there is a political currency in that that's a basis of our jail Christian belief. Okay, forget about the fact that you don't give a shit about the baby once it comes out of the chute. Okay, but you care about it inside don't give a shit about the baby once it comes out of the chute. Okay?

But you care about it inside. You have now taken away the choice structure from somebody with respect to how they use their body. Right. We've never heard about that. This should absolutely be the dog that caught the car for the Republican Party. But it is. Why?

Because of married women, single women, Trump is going to get spanked like a naughty child in the sixties. And rightly so. But I do not agree with you that it is tracking like immigration, because I think you get married women who absolutely should care about this married men I'm telling you the IVF thing scrambled my eggs a little bit because I had always look I'm in favor of reproductive rights Okay, and you're not gonna scare me away with what a baby looks like. I've got three kids. Okay? Yeah I don't want to hear it All right And we had the end of pregnancy because we had a kid that hadn't developed any brain function and it was Agonizing for my wife. Okay, it was agonizing for my wife.

Okay. It was agonizing. And I felt for her then, and I understood it, and it sucked, but you had to do what you had to do. You're gonna take that choice away from her? Right. And give it to some bunch of assholes in the state that are just playing on advantage at the moment?

No, thank you. And now IVF. So my equipment isn't working, I can't get my wife pregnant. You're going to change my choice structure? You're even going to discuss it? No, thank you. Talk about stay out of it.

You want to burn all the books you want. Don't tell me how I can make a family and how I can't. So I think it's a very powerful issue. One, the Democrats have not magnified it the way we are right now. Two, married women have other concerns than just this. And they have been played to more and more effectively, I argue. Now, could I be wrong? 100%. I was wrong in the midterms. Biden should have gotten spanked. He didn't. Why? This issue. Right. That's it. That's what I think about a lot. You know, I thought there'd be a big red wave in 2022 and there was not.

And it really was because of abortion. And you know why you're also right? Melania Trump, where'd that video come from? Trump didn't say anything about it. Melania comes out and she's like, I'm in favor of reproductive rights. Why? You don't think he would, you don't think he would have gone nuts if he thought that that issue was a winner from him the way he has it?

Right. Melania Trump came out and was in favor of reproductive rights. Yep. And he didn't say shit about that video. So the idea that he had her put it out? No, because he would have taken credit for it. So he's staying quiet, which the guy can almost not do. So why did she come out and say that?

You've never heard a candidate's wife come out and take that kind of position against them before. Right. And we don't even talk about it because I'm much crazy sauce we have going on in our politics right now. But that shows you the potential of the issue. Now, I don't think Melania Trump saying something about it matters to women, because I don't think people see her as any kind of real steward of her husband's suggestion.

But I don't think that you're wrong. I just don't see it playing as if you're right in the current state of play. I think it should be. Having a right taken away from the majority of the country is crazy. I can't believe it doesn't matter more, but I'm not seeing proof of it in the polling. Right. All right, Well, we will find out in three weeks, Chris. This was a real pleasure.

I thought you were going to attack me about CNN. You know, we got too, we were too much else to talk about next time. Listen, I'm always here for the conversation. And again, you know, look, this is a new audience, the Substack audience, certainly for me. And I am on Substack for different reasons that I'm at News Nation. I talk a lot about long COVID and a lot about what I've learned about longevity and a lot of what I've learned about life

and things that I don't do well. Even now, I don't do well, but I know they're really helpful ideas for people and how they live their life. That's what the Substack is for me. And I charge, I charge five bucks a month because my doctor, I'm giving money to my doctor to treat people with long COVID who can't afford it. And so that's, you know, that's,

it's a, it's a, it's a Substack is a great platform, unreported truth. You know, when Twitter, when Twitter banned me, you know, and I've got this big lawsuit against the federal government and against a couple officials. You're gonna win. Let's hope, I certainly hope so. But when Twitter banned me, Substack was the only place for me.

And Substack came under pressure for allowing me to speak and they stood by me and I will never forget them for that. Really. Well look, I followed it, I followed it closely and let me tell you something. One, I believe you're right. Okay? As Chris Cuomo, I believe Alex is right.

Why? Let Alex be wrong all day long. And that will allow better ideas to win. If you censor somebody, all you do is make, in my opinion, I cared more about what Alex said when he got kicked off Twitter. Yeah. So you shouldn't. We don't do that here.

Alex can be wrong. Alex can be wrong. I'm wrong all the time. If you censor my opinion, you now give something that's wrong power. And it was a huge mistake. I'm glad you're on Substack. I'm glad they had the balls to stand up and allow The best ideas to win. Yep. All right, sir. We will do this again soon

All right And look usually I don't allow guys who are younger and have better hair than me to be this close in a shop proximity But I think the conversation mattered enough and I hope folks they there liked it. I hope you subscribe on my site. I hope you check out News Nation. I've never worked at a place that allows me the freedom that the place does. I think they're gonna be really big things for News Nation. I mean, I'd be alive, but I believe in it.

And I believe in what Berenson is doing for you here on Substack. I don't think everybody on here is like him. I really don't. There are a lot of people who got a lot more platform than they have potential, in my opinion, in my opinion. But I've been doing this a long time and I've won a lot of awards for journalism. And I'm telling you, you can smell when somebody's fugazi. Alex, I wish you continued success. I'm always a call away. Thank you for doing this. You too., thanks man. Have a good one. All right.

Bye everybody. I hope you enjoyed the conversation with me and Alex Berenson here on Substack. Please follow him and subscribe to me. Okay, because the whole point is to get people who are willing to pay for what I'm putting out. And I do believe a value proposition is there. For five bucks a month, they get four different things

that I'm putting out, you know, in four different areas of life and thought. I think it's a pretty good deal. So I'll see you here on Substack, YouTube, at News Nation, all the social media platforms. It's all about reach and trying to create a community that wants to see conversation take us to a better place. ["The Big Bang"]