The Chris Cuomo Project - Chris Cuomo reacts to comments about the COVID-19 vaccine, Republicans against Trump, and more

Episode Date: July 4, 2024

Chris Cuomo responds to a new batch of listener calls and YouTube comments about abortion, a Republican who can’t bring themselves to vote for Trump or Biden, Chris’ coverage of COVID-19 and the vaccine, and many more. 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Benefits vary by card, other conditions apply. I ask you all the time, you got a comment, make it. You got a question, make it. So let's get after it. I'm Chris Cuomo, welcome to where we here at the Chris Cuomo Project take your calls. Me and the inimitable, Gregory Ott, will translate what you say into what I think

and to what you can hear. That sounds interesting. ["Cosy Earth Theme"] Ah, Cozy Earth. Support from the Chris Cuomo Project comes from Cozy Earth. I like it. I've told you this. I stick with it.

Here's why I like it, okay? This is bedding that uses technology, right? Both with the sheets and the pillowcases and all that other stuff, as well as their leisure wear. So, it gets hotter in the summer, duh. Their fabric helps you stay cool. Oh yeah, so then I'm freezing in the winter. Wrong, because the technology in the textile,

in the fabric, helps you stay warm. The cool thing about Cozy Earth, it's not destroying the environment the way all these other textiles do with their sheets and towels and all their other stuff. Okay, they source different materials like bamboo that don't destroy our forests the same way. And listen to this, all their bedding,

all the bath products, 100 night sleep trial and a 10 year warranty. So how about a deal? You want a deal? You ready to sleep this summer? You want a deal? You ready to sleep this summer? You want to sleep better? 30% off at CozyEarth.com slash Chris. Just use the code word Chris and forget to tell them that I sent you. And if you do that, you get some free socks. Oh yeah. Chris, your show is fabulous. This is George from Boyden Beach, Florida.

Watch your show every night. Two things, show an abortion. If they actually showed an abortion, we're all big people, we're all educated, and we can see what's going on. People may think of it a little bit differently. And like the old days, would you give both sides of every story,

if there's five minutes to support somebody, how about the other side of the story? I don't like when our people walk out of the UN because some idiot's talking. Let's hear what the idiot has to say. Let's hear what the bad people have to say. Maybe we think a little bit differently and we can mediate, not war.

Look, I hope to God everything is good with you. Thank you, God bless you, and have a good day. First of all, I appreciate you. That is high praise, and thank you for letting me do the job for you. Equal time, of course. Equal amounts of time, not necessarily. Why?

Because, you know, if it's Turkey and Swiss versus Ham and Swiss, that's one thing. But very often things are in a 50-50 proposition. Things don't have equal sides in terms of, in my opinion, their credibility, their veracity, their relevance, right? So you wanna ration that. But the overall, the macro point that you make is so spot on.

We have become siloed in our thinking. And not we, not me. I mean, I am actively against this, not just professionally, but personally. I love to listen to people and points of view that don't meet my own. Why? That's how you learn.

You know, people misunderstood something that I said recently. They were trying to push me to get an apology for my pandemic reporting. For me to apologize for something means that I did something that was hurtful to people. You have a long way to go to convince me that my saying that what the government was saying

about the vaccine was worth paying attention to and that you needed to have a much better reason for not getting vaccinated than just not liking Biden or being skeptical. It's like, well, I'm skeptical about speed limits. So I think I'll go 150 miles an hour. What about everybody else? Well, the vaccine didn't stop you

from getting other people sick. That's not true. Oh, but the vaccine wasn't around until we had the variants. That's not true. This has got to be looked at differently. You've got to listen to things that don't meet your expectation of what you want to be true,

not everything to be confirmation bias. And that's what you're asking for, to give things a fair hearing. Now, the abortion, an abortion, what? You're talking about a DNC? There's almost nothing to see, other than, you know, if you want to watch things go into people's vaginas. But if the idea that, oh,

if people saw it, they wouldn't want to do it. I don't believe that. I don't agree with that. You're assuming that what they're doing is pulling a baby out by the head with forceps. Again, that's propaganda. That's not reality, okay? Reality is propaganda has overwhelmed common sense. And now you now have a very rare instance in American life where you've taken away a right to reproduction. You've taken away reproductive rights from women and you may now take it away from men.

How? Well, if IVF goes the same way state by state, last time I checked, you need men to make babies. So you're also saying to men, yeah, we're not going to give you that avenue to starting a family. Really? Who the fuck are you to make those kinds of judgments for everybody else? Because of what? It's against your faith? I got to tell you, as someone who is really struggling to hold my faith in Christianity, to practice my faith, to try to get better as a person through my faith, I am really tired of hearing Christians say that they believe that they have a right to tell everybody

else how to live and that this is a Christian nation. It's not a Christian nation. All right? It may be started by a lot of Christians, okay? But it's how you live. It's how you treat each other. You really believe America is the place where communities love mercy?

Look at social media. We got a long way to go. People need to start the fuck at home and worry about their own behavior and leave other people's behavior alone until they perfected their own. Thank you very much for the points. I appreciate even if I don't agree with all of it, I heard you out and you were worthy.

Thank you very much for giving me a chance. I'll see you on News Nation. I was going to save this call and I was on the fence about playing it, but I think I need to play it now because it touches on a lot of things you just said. Here it comes. Hey, Chris, I'm calling from Brockford, Illinois, and just like to let you know what a hypocrite piece of fucking shit you are. Do you think the American public has forgotten all the shit you spewed on CNN with your little

butt buddy, Don Lemon, about how stupid all of us, you know, people that wouldn't get the Vax were and how we all need to be ostracized from society and everything else. How'd that work out for you, motherfucker? How'd that work out for you, bitch? You're just parroting bullshit. Why did more Republicans in the same counties with Democrats get hospitalized and die at higher rates. Are you really seriously stupid enough? I hope you said your name and put your phone number there. I'd love to find out your employer. He didn't.

Yeah, it's a shocker. I'd love to know where you work and for them to know how your brain doesn't work. You'll never hear me say that the vaccine is without incident. I'm saying that when you scale for how many people have taken it, we're not getting blown away by the numbers of side effects. My point is, you've got to service the minority anyway.

You've got to speak to these things. There are enough of them, because even if there's one in 10,000, you're still going to have thousands of people who suffer from these things. I believe they deserve that respect. But the idea that taking the vaccine was stupid is stupid as an idea. We don't know anything like that. I know you want to think that because you believe in a misplaced sense of individualism that it's right to tell the government to go fuck

itself. It's how people got sick. It's how people died. And the proof is in the disproportionate, partisan assessment of those things. And you can say whatever you want, you can be homophobic, you can be anything. You sound like a small man. And I'll tell you one place where we definitely agree, 100%, although you only like the invitation, not the consequence.

I would love to decriminalize simple assault. Now this is sexist, but I don't think it should be decriminalized mixed gender so that men can't do this to women. Domestic violence is a real thing. It took a long time for us to address it as a society, but I would love to punch people like you right in the fucking face. I mean it. I'd love to give you a shot to act on your animus. If you're gonna talk so much stupid shit,

there should be a price. All right? Hey, tough guy, how's it working for you now? What do you think of that? You'd say that to my face, right? You little fucking punk. The only reason you would is cause you knew you'd be getting a payday.

Am I right? Yeah. How'd that go? How'd that work out for you? Hopefully I'll see you real soon. Not that I want to jump in right after that. Fucking punk. Yeah, well, what I want to say is that like...

That's your generation, by the way. Well, I mean, I'm... Millennials are, you know... There's a lot of us. Fucking big mouth gets to say anything. And if you say anything to... Why are you targeting me? Why did you threaten me with violence? Your mouth should not write checks that your body cannot cash. Along those lines, I just want to point out

that since you've started covering COVID a bit more in recent months on the podcast, we've gotten many, many calls along those same lines from anonymous listeners and in the comment sections after you've been doing these like PBD things and debating people and talking about- You know, look, I'm asking for it. I'm actively engaging that population hoping for two things.

One, not everybody's a piece of shit like this guy. Where if you disagree, you're a bad person. I don't believe that. I think there are a lot of people who are partially right, partially wrong, okay? Were the mandates on the vaccines necessary? No, not to the extent and the degree they were done.

I also didn't put them in the place. And I also don't apologize for saying, hey, look, you don't wanna take it, fine, but you can't be expecting that you're gonna get access to the same things in society when you know what the rules are. Now, that's a separate issue from whether or not those were the right rules.

I don't make the rules. I was just saying, if you really think you're gonna not get vaccinated, but be able to go to work, you're making a stupid decision. If you think your kids are gonna be able to go to school, you're making a stupid decision. Now you can say, yeah, but they shouldn't have had to.

It's a different discussion, okay? And the idea that I was bought off by Big Pharma, please, I wish. I'd be happy to do business with Big Pharma. I think they do tremendous and good things. I think that their testing has to be rigorous. I think they get too much of a sweetheart deal from government and not enough specific oversight. And I don't like this revolving door between the FDA and other regulatory agencies in the private sector. I think that's a real problem. But I'd be happy to do business with them. Don't get it twisted. So I want to reach out. I know I'm asking for it. But if you want to know why long COVID isn't taken as seriously and vaccine injuries aren't taken as seriously, it's because there are

too many mouth breathers like that guy who are fulminating about it. They're not enough legitimate and respected, moderate, reasonable people who are fired up about making sure that people who have injuries that are related to the vaccine get respect and care and accountability and long COVID much more so. See, he has this warped idea that is sold online by guys like Dave Smith and others, where, you know, he's a libertarian, which basically means he's better than both sides, but he doesn't own or operate or control anything. That's my problem with libertarians.

It's like, oh yeah, I don't want the government. Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. But it's a- The only libertarian I ever met before college was like my manager at Circuit City. Look, it's not really a judgment on him. I was just like, oh really? You?

It's fine, but really, most people are libertarian. Sure, sure. Most people believe that government should stay out of your life, but really most people are libertarian. Sure. Most people believe that government should stay out of your life unless you really need them in your life. All the government you need, but only the government you need. I just believe it's a little bit of a pat on the back that is a little bit of a hollow label.

Like, what does that mean? You're a libertarian. So what? He's an anti-vaxxer, okay? And he is doing it with a misplaced sense of priority and telling the government to go fuck itself. And I get it. This is America.

We're uniquely that way. There's a plus and a minus to it. The minus is in the hospitalization rate and the death rate. Okay? Now, the truth is enough. The mandates were overextended and they were extended too long. And there wasn't enough good information and complete information about the vaccine, and there still isn't.

That's enough. It doesn't have to be poison. It doesn't have to be that most of the people who took it are sick. You don't have to bullshit it for it to be that way, okay? And I get that it's building this platform. That's the part I want you to see. So a lot of these things go together.

The anti-vax movement, motivated minorities, magnified on social media, given false precedence and depth by the overall media because we're lazy and we're using that as Vox populi, but I'm telling you social media is not America. It is not reality. Most people are reasonable and centrist. Well, I don't know, it depends. Let me look, maybe I'll buy this one, maybe I'll buy that one, maybe I'll go with this idea, maybe I'll go with that idea.

Why? Pragmatism is how most of us live our lives. Not unmoored from any kind of significance. Greg and his wife are blessed with a baby, right? Yes, thank you. What kind of clothing are we gonna use? I don't know, here's how much this costs, this is the kind of stuff,

and here's the allergies that she has or she doesn't have, what kind of food? Well? I don't know, here's how much this costs, this is the kind of stuff, and here's the allergies that she has or she doesn't have. What kind of food? I don't know, here's what we're looking at, this is what's in these ingredients. It's pragmatism. It's not, I'm a Briars, I'm a Gerber baby. Most people go with pragmatism. They look at price, they look at value,

they speak through their purchases, they speak through their behaviors, they speak through their behaviors, through pragmatism. What works best for our kid right now? How do we wanna deal with this? How are we going to choose? It's not, well, we're Republicans, so we're only going to Christian school.

That's a nonsense way of thinking. You don't employ it anywhere in your life that matters. Don't employ it in your politics. That's how you get to be a mouth breather like this guy who is saying, oh, you know, everything that you said during the pandemic was wrong. No, you didn't like it because it was offensive to your misplaced individualism.

You're not in the state of nature. You're in a community and you gotta think of other people. And look, I'm the first one and I think I'm doing as much, if not more, to comprehensively cover what was done and what wasn't done during the pandemic and how we're dealing with it now. So don't get it twisted, I care. I'm just not gonna default to some bullshit opinion

because it gets me more clicks. It's not what I'm about. And that's not what you should be about either, unless you're that asshole that just called. Yeah, Chris, this is Larry. Voted Republican since I started voting in 1968. I voted every year Republican. I've never voted Democrat, but this year I changed. I'm not supporting Republican Party. I'm not contributing to Republican Party. I'm not contributing to the Republican Party. I will not vote Democrat. I will not be responsible for putting Joe Biden or Donald Trump in the White House. I will vote for Kennedy. And I think there's a lot of us that

thinking this, we're going to vote with their conscience. We don't talk about it because you can't get an agreement when you do. But I think the situation we have right now deserves something other than Joe Biden or Donald Trump. Okay, look, I agree with you. Now, people will say you're wrong and I'm wrong because you got to participate. You got to vote or you surrender your right to complain. That I definitely disagree with. However, well, but you got to vote or you surrender your right to complain. That I definitely disagree with.

However, well, but you got to vote for one of them. Here's my problem with this, okay? I agree with everything you just said, but we are stuck in a two-party system. My problem is in coming to the conclusion that no, I'm not gonna vote for Joe Biden when I think he is completely lacking in what matters, because I think Trump is an insufferable asshole who has dangerous tendencies and is not a leader. Nothing will ever get better if we keep making choices on the basis of this, which is worse, battle to the bottom.

That process, which is now our process, only benefits the parties. Because think about it. They don't give a shit. As long as it's spam versus deviled ham, they win. They don't give a shit that they're feeding a slop, that their candidates suck. They don't care. It's just like any other system where there's only Coke and Pepsi. Coke and Pepsi could both suck.

If there's no Sprite, if there's no other thing that people will drink, then what do you care how good your stuff is? As long as it's better than the other one, or even more importantly, as long as you can say the other one's worse. That's how you get to Trump and Biden. You only get to Trump versus Biden, Biden versus Trump, if you have a two-party system that has failed and has become about nothing

except rejecting the alternative. That's the only way. It's dog shit versus cat shit. It's dead man versus a madman. That's the only way. It's dog shit versus cat shit. It's dead man versus a madman. That's what it is. Dead man versus madman. Why? Because that's the place that the two-party system takes you. It's reductive. It gets worse and worse and worse and worse and worse because they don't care. It doesn't matter to them. It's all about advantage and numbers and power. So I say, fuck that system and fight for it to be better. Now what does everybody say?

The truth. Well, how's that gonna happen? It's not gonna happen this time and I don't want Trump so I'm gonna vote for Biden and then we'll fix it next time. Okay, fine, but you won't fix it. And that's my frustration. And I believe that the way to fix it, my new first step is for people like you

to say to the Republican party, F you, change, have better candidates, change how these state primary systems work, at least in the state that I'm in. I'm not gonna be with you anymore if you keep handing me shit like this. I'm not gonna let you just convince me that America is under attack unless I vote this way,

blah, blah, blah. No, I'm not letting it happen anymore. Do better or I'm gone. I think that you gotta get on social media and be loud because you get outsized reach there. Look, anti-vaxxers, I mean, you look at the numbers, I'll be generous and I'll say it's 25% of the country. People who are really pissed off that they had to take the vaccine.

Look how much juice they get. 25% of the country? Why so much juice? Donald Trump doesn't even embrace that position. And this is the guy who has said every kind of fringy thing he can to foment anger and tension in this country. But he won't embrace the anti-vaxxers. What does that tell you?

Here are some YouTube comments. This is from your recent interview with Tulsi Gabbard. At Bill Willie Billy Bill. It's a good username. I'm not making that up. I'm sorry. I'm not making fun of your username. It just made good username. I'm not making that up. I'm sorry, I'm not making fun of your username. It just made me laugh.

I am. At Bill Willie Billy Bill says, say something negative about Tulsi. You can't because she's nothing but honorable. Well, that's not true. I could say a lot of negative things about positions she's taken, things where she's overreached.

I could also argue some of her strategic decisions, but that's not the point. No one is perfect. Okay? Nothing is perfect in this life, in this reality. The point, I don't like your test. I don't like the way you're laying it out. You can't say anything.

She's awesome. No, that's what you think that she's awesome. There are a lot of people who don't like her, which is one of the reasons she left the Democratic Party. But that's not the point. It's okay to have positives and negatives. It doesn't make people who don't like Tulsi horrible people. It doesn't make people who like Tulsi horrible people. That's what you have to get away from. Get back to disagreement with decency, just like you do at work, just like you do with relationships that matter to you, just like you do at work, just like you do with relationships that matter to you, just like you do when you're dealing with people.

We are almost always civil, except in our politics, because we're rewarding the wrong things. Okay? All I'm about is conversation as a cure and disagreement with decency. I do not beat up on people on my shows. I mean, if they beg for it, fine, I'll give them what they're asking for. and disagreement with decency. I do not beat up on people on my shows. I mean, if they beg for it, fine, I'll give them what they're asking for. But it's very rare.

I used to do it a lot more. Now here's why, I haven't changed. I've changed my approach based on where we are. When Trump first came on the scene, I believed there was a need for muscular pushback. That guy flooded the zone with bullshit in a way I've never seen. And a lot of it was bad and vicious

and intentionally hurtful. And I came at him and I stand by it and I'm happy that I did it and I would do it again. But you can't just be in that mode all the time. You can't be a hammer, not everything's a nail. We need conversation now. The division has gotten too great. The typical things that I thought would offset it have not.

They've only made it worse. So different times, different measures. That's how I feel. I'm not a different person. I don't believe in different things. I wasn't faking it when I was at CNN and real news nation or the vice versa It's just not true and people who say that are saying that for their own purposes But they're not telling you the truth from that same interview CC-USA writes Cuomo is so afraid to take a stance that could damage

His ratings at the libs but PBD loves Tulsi quandary laughing emoji crying laughing emoji All right several several things. One, I like Pat, I respect Pat. I don't give a shit about his political inclinations. I don't give a shit who he likes and who he doesn't like politically. I'll listen to him, I'll hear him out. I respect his opinion,

but I don't give a shit about his opinion in terms of what has to be my own, okay? And I wanna court the libs. I can barely get Democratic lawmakers on my show. Okay. And I want to court the libs. I can barely get democratic lawmakers on my show. Why? Because they're a team too, Biznatch. And I do not carry water for their team, let alone their progressive left. And so they don't want to come on because they're just like you folks on the right. They're a pack animal too. I think you guys are a little bit more cohesive. I also think frankly,

and I'm not going to say all due respect because this isn't a respectful statement, you guys believe shit a lot easier than these people on the left. And that's why they haven't dominated social media the same way. It's not as easy for them to form silos as it is on the right. You guys are natural. Let's be generous about it and say team oriented people maybe. You like being in groups, you like identifying. Maybe on the left they don't, maybe that's why they come up with new genders and terms and letters all the time for themselves. But you know, maybe they've become more of the individuals and you guys have become more of the grouping. I don't know, it used to be the opposite, but maybe. But there's a reason that all these podcasts that are

political are overwhelmingly on the right and everybody getting their millions and millions of followers and their doubt and their money. Almost everyone cashing in on social media is a righty. Why do you think that is? They're not more of you than there are lefties. Why? This is from your video about don't like Trump or Biden.

Here's a better way to vote. It was you telling people the advice. Vote down ballot. Vote down ballot. At Paul Van Hout, 9695 writes, quote, if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. Listen, I know this song from Rush. That's a Rush quote.

Yeah. Yeah. Neil Peart. Neil Peart. Peart. I don't listen to Rush. I'm sorry. Really? I love Yeah, I like to take things slow. Anyway, here's the problem.

Even if you choose not to decide, you have made a choice. Okay, that assumes that inaction is the equivalent of action in that proposition. Is that true in voting? If you're voting down ballot, you're still participating. And again, I will put to you the proposition. If the two are, here's the metaphor for me, okay? Hot dog or Big Mac and you're fat.

How are you going to get not fat, less fat? Hot dog, Big Mac. All right, I guess I'll go for the hot dog. Yeah, but it's made of a bunch of chemicals and shit that is killing you. Oh yeah, but maybe it's made of a bunch of chemicals and shit that is killing you. Oh yeah, but maybe it's less bad because it's less calories, maybe, depending on the side. What's the obvious point? You got to change your diet.

Yeah, I'm sorry. We have Big Macs and we have hot dogs. I'll make it a corn dog. Let's make it a little bit more equivalent in terms of the suck factor. That's where we are with Trump and Biden. Corn dog versus Big Mac. It's junk. It's fast food. Now, I don't mean to malign them across the board. I'm just saying his voting propositions. I think Joe Biden has a lot of virtues to him. And there are a lot of people who love him for the right reasons. I do not feel the same way about Trump. But there's no question that he has a lot of appeal. And there are a lot of people who love

him in a way that my own family members don't love me. So obviously he's got some magic to him when it comes to politics. But although I would say, you don't really see that in his own family, do you? You don't see his sister and his brother, his remaining brother and everybody coming out

and saying how much they love him. You don't see a lot of family, extended family, do you? You know, Barron Trump is going to college. He's like 18 now. I know, and I'm glad people have left him alone. Well, you know, some people think it's fair game to go after him now. No, shouldn't, shouldn't.

Leave the kids alone. Now, some of his kids are adults, so it's a little different, but I don't really even go after them. It's very rare. He might be going to NYU, so we might run into him on the street or something. Well, you'd know.

I think he's like six, nine. Washington Square Park, yeah. Or something like that. He's humong know. I think he's like six, nine. Washington Square Park. Or something like that. He's humongous. Yeah, he's a big guy. But look, I think you leave him alone. He is not his father. Leave him alone.

The sons are older. They've made their choices. I think they warrant more scrutiny. I largely leave them alone. Why? I grew up like that. Now, I wasn't a big mouth like them going out there trying to get on to my parents,

my father's brand or my brother's brand. That's not true. I got shit can for helping my brother behind the scenes and not being out in front trying to be his guy. I've never done that, I would never wanna do that. Anyway, my point is, I'm not saying that these are bad people, that's for you to decide, okay? But they are shit choices.

We should do a lot better than a Big Mac and a hot dog if we wanna be healthy. That's my point. How do we change things? If you don't open up the primary at the state level, if you don't have more choice, if you don't spread the money around more, if you don't open up the process,

how does anything get better? I will not move off that proposition. It's too important. You're saying the corn dog is worse than the hot dog? Corn dogs definitely worse than hot dogs. Because it's deep fried? Yeah. I had a Chicago hot dog on the street the other day

with, you know, you got all the vegetables on there. You got the sport pepper. You got the tomato slice. You have the pickle spear. Tomato. Yeah, the celery salt. What a cracker this guy is. I'm just telling you,

if you get a Chicago style hot dog, you're going to get lots of vegetables, which is better for you than your standard, you know. They are better if they are not sitting in fetid water and are not properly refrigerated. And you know what I'm saying? It had an A rating, an A rating. That's a, you can't get a better grade than that.

Oh, you mean that from the store, not a cart. No, from a, yeah, like it's an Italian, it's an Italian beef place that does Chicago style hot dogs in my Brooklyn neighborhood. Look, not all sausages suck, but come on, hot dogs? Come on, we're gonna break. So look, I think it says a lot about us as a people,

me included, by the way, because when I'm digging into my self-loathing vibe, I'll eat as much shit as any of you. But it is a little weird that we don't really have the excuse of ignorance anymore, right? When I grew up, people didn't really know that hot dogs were bad for you. Like, we kind of knew. But you'd be like, what? Yeah, we used to think that about cigarettes.

People used to think that cigarettes were digestive aids. They were good for mood. Hey, they used to do smoke and the Native Americans did it. It was like a peace pipe. It was a thing. We believe stupid shit. Joe Camel's like the coolest guy I've ever seen. With his priapic nose, his penis nose?

Yeah, it's like everybody wants to be like this guy. How weird was that? You ever see that camel's nose? Look at that up close. It's a penis nose. You can look it up. But he was like hooking up with like human women. We make bad choices.

Some of it's advertising, some of it's we're tricked into it but some of it we just trick ourselves. We don't look and this extends by metaphor to what we were just talking about. We don't treat ourselves right. We don't demand better. We don't take care of ourselves enough. And we gotta think about it because this is not working.

We are not growing the way we need to. We're not, we're not getting better the way we need to. We're eating ourselves alive. We're making bad choices. We're compounding bad choices. We're making up boogie men. We're creating enemies. We're making bad choices. We're compounding bad choices. We're making up boogie men. We're creating enemies. We're creating division.

And I believe it's because it works for the power structures. And I don't mean this as some weird deep state tin foil hat thing, OK? I'm just really talking about the parties. I'm just telling you, in a two-party system, this is the only way it's going to be. It wasn't always like this, yeah, it was. It's been a slow slump.

Look, why the fuck would George Washington go out of his way with the help of two of the greatest thinkers in American history, right? Hamilton and Madison each had a hand in writing versions of Washington's farewell, right? Cause he was gonna give it, then he served again, then he gave it. Why would he spend so much time in his farewell saying stay away from sectarianism, regionalism and parties? Why? You talk about the founding fathers all the time. That's the guy. And we've done the exact opposite. And it's been

a huge fucking mistake. You know, talking about change, I mean healthy and you know, seeing a better day. Joey Chestnut is not doing the hot dog eating contest anymore. You know, it's for some brand deal for doing some other, you know, Netflix thing on Labor Day but- Is that about conscience or commerce? Well, that's a great question. Is he still fat?

He's never been fat. Joey Chestnut is like string bean thin. Take a look at the guy. He's in great shape. He's a better shape than fat. Joey Chestnut is like string bean thin. Take a look at the guy. He's in great shape. He's a better shape than me. Joey Chestnut is string bean thin? And I had one hot dog. Yeah, he's a thin guy.

He's not the shape of a chestnut. Google him. I'll show you right now. Are you thinking of Kobayashi? No, I'm thinking Joey Chestnut. I thought he was like six, five, 300 pounds. No, you're thinking of like jelly roll or something. Show me his size me it's a big

No, he's always been like just an average tall He is not ever look up Joey chestnut size and weight. I wish I had his he's not trading card with He's not as fat as I thought he was in truth I always seem slumped over the hot dogs with like 15 in his mouth. I mean look at him. Look at him This is from his Wikipedia. I don't know how old that is Much thinner there. Can I have his size and weight please? 6'1", 229.

6'1", 229. That's a skosh shorter than me and basically the same weight. Well, there you go. I'm wrong. So we'll see you in Coney Island. So he is not a big fat guy. I know some people will say that's too heavy.

All right, I don't think it's too heavy. It depends a little bit on his body mass. You don't have to be a fat guy to enter an eating contest. Well, but it helps. I mean, that's why Kobayashi was so amazing. Most of the people there, you train your body so you don't have to, it's not about like, you can't control yourself.

No, people practice this. Major league eating is a real thing. Oh, believe me, I remember. Yeah. It tanked hard. MLE, tanked. Yeah, I remember the, I remember the event that did it. It was when they were eating cow tongue. The Glutton Bowl?

When they ate the tongue. I love the Glutton Bowl. This was on Fox once. Everybody turned it off because of that. It was great. No, they had the cow brains too. Yeah, it was too much. And six of butter?

Well, that's different. Now the carnivore diet, everybody eats butter like it was a banana. What was the point? The point was Joey Chestnut is not in the Nathan's hot dog contest, not because he's anti-hot dog, it's because he signed with some vegan brand.

Yeah, Impossible Dog, they have Impossible Hot Dogs. I would like to try one. I love the nuggets, I have the burgers. I don't know that it's a conscience play. And by the way, I don't know that an Impossible Hot Dog is amazing for you. I don't know, I'm not saying it isn't. There's a new study that said they're like,

not Impossible brand, but like phony meat is worse than real meat. Whatever. I mean, look, it's hard to get worse than a hot dog. Do you have another call or comment? No, I think we need to let you go, unless you want to talk some more about this eating contest. Should I threaten anybody else? Yeah, threaten, threaten, threaten,

threaten Kobayashi, threaten, just not. Hold on a second, I do wanna leave you with this thought though, okay? Look, I know that violence is a surrender of intelligence. I get it. One of the reasons I'm so fascinated and I've made a switch in my personal life over the years from martial arts and boxing and aggressive fight forms to self-defense is because I have increasingly embraced

over the years that, hey man, wanting to hurt somebody is somebody else's choice and somebody else's problem. That's not mine. It's only once they make it my problem that I have to know what I have to do to defend myself and defend the people that I take care of. And that shift was very conscious for two reasons. One, it just like was a eureka moment that holy cow,

there is no such thing as a fair fight. And the street fights that I've been in, which were almost all of them were bad choices. There is no fair fight. It's like a guy hit me in the head with a bottle. You know, it's like, why am I training to take people down and do all these different moves when it's not gonna be a fair fight

and I don't wanna be on the ground? Someone's got as good a chance to hit me in the head with their phone as they do their fist. So there was that and there was also this other philosophical conscious decision, conscience decision that I don't want to be that kind of aggressor. I don't want to use force that way. Now I feel that way pretty much across the board. However, however, I do have a little conflict in this. And what I'm saying, I'm mostly just teasing him and giving him a dose of his own medicine,

that one jerk they're called, but I do feel that this social media thing has kind of warped the human dynamic a little bit in that people are way too comfortable saying shit that you shouldn't be comfortable saying. Now, I'm not talking about censorship. You know I'm against it. And I believe in more ideas, not less.

And I think it helps the better ideas rise to the top that you have so much stupid shit out there. So I'm okay with it. I'd rather err on the side of more speech than less. But that said, people are so comfortable saying the worst things to people that they'd never say to their face.

Now I know there is one legitimate avenue of pushback to that, but in anonymity, in this remote nature, you can discuss things that maybe you'd be too afraid to say for good reason, good reason, that this is not what the conventional wisdom is, that this is an unorthodox idea and I'll be punished for it. I'm okay with that. And that's why I've taken all of it, right? I've taken all of it because I'd rather deal with all the bad shit than lose good shit

out of that same misplaced fear. But guys like this, I'm telling you, I've lived this so many times over. When that guy looks me in my eye and I look him in his, yes, there are plenty of people who can beat me up. Believe me, it happens. I lose most of my training sessions, terrible. But most people with mouths like that

are not the guys who beat me up. They are not the guys who dominate me. They are not the kinds of guys who coach me. They're not the kinds of guys who teach. They're not the kinds of guys who are capable fighters. I have learned in life, intellectually, emotionally, and physically, the higher you go on the competency curve, the more gentle people are, the more reserved they are, the more open-minded they are, because they don't need to prove it.

If you want it, you'll get more than you ever asked for. Guys like that are the problem. They're big mouths, they're nasty, it's gratuitous, it's without basis and they can't back it up. And I do wonder if Mike Tyson, not that he's exactly Thomas Moore in terms of who we're trying to model society after his utopia, but I do wonder if you saw one of these guys,

I was thinking of doing a reality show where you go to the people and find them and say, say it to my face. And if you were to decriminalize a special in the nose, the common law practice in New York used to be called boys will be boys, which is Amish gets tired of me making fun of whatever, his ethnicity. And he's like, you say one more thing about me

like that, I'm gonna pop you right in the nose. He then pops me in the nose. Now he's got a problem like across the board, you know, because of our society. But back in the day, that's what kept me from using my mouth to be an asshole about type. It was because why I don't to get punched in the face. I think I'll just keep my mouth shut.

And I think we've lost something in this ease with which people can just offer up the ugliest and stupidest opinions. Now, again, I would rather err on the side of inclusion, but man, it's frustrating. And sometimes I wish I wouldn't. And guys like that are an example of it. Every once in a while, I feel like I could just slap

the stupid out of somebody. But our culture is about accommodation. My point is I think we're losing that. And well, yeah, we're losing it. You're saying, hey, I'll tell you what, I'm a lot less offended by a guy who says, well, this guy came up to me and said to my, called my wife fat, so I punched him in the nose.

I don't have a problem with that guy. I do have a problem with people who go around trolling and bullying people on lives and changing their lives and ruining people's lives with no accountability, who never have to stand up for it and be tested for it. So I know that there's a balance. I just feel like we're like this right now. And it kind of makes you desperate

for a little bit more like this, even if this isn't the best of us. But how do you deal with the best of us and being the best of us when it's not followed by the rest of us? Be the change you wanna see? Is that enough? I don't know.

I struggle with these questions all the time. I wish there were an easy answer, but our reality is proof there isn't. That's why communication is the cure. Let's keep talking. Makes it much less likely if we're talking that you're gonna hit me. Maybe there's a tech solution.

Like what if you could do a thing where you could like shock somebody? Shock somebody when they say something obnoxious. Or like you break their screen and they cut their finger or something. So you do that remote. It's like, if I sign up for Twitter, I agree that you can shock me

if I say something that somebody doesn't like. I mean, look, people don't say it, but they know, they feel the way I do, that it's gone too far. I'm being, it sounds like I'm being facetious. I'm serious. Like if there's a thing that's like, hey, your battery has the capability of like, you know those like fake lighters,

like you give somebody a prank lighter and it like buzzes them. Like your phone has the capability. So if you're addicted to somebody, we're gonna give you the little phony lighter trick. Like I think that's a great idea. And I'm gonna patent it. And if you're watching Tim Cook,

Tim Cook, I wish that- He watches the project, he's a free agent. I wish that it were simple to say that the solution is to be sweeter and be better to people, be more civilized, be your best self, be what you say you are as a Christian, be what you teach your kids, be what you enforce at work. But I feel we're getting farther away from it, not closer.

And it's very frustrating. And I know the answer isn't violence. I know the answer is never violence. But I also know that that's a theoretical understanding. And maybe we're giving ourselves too much credit for being civilized. And there is a place for where when you push it too far, you know, I was gonna do a piece for you guys,

maybe I still will, about fighting words as a doctrine. And you know, it's really interesting as we've become a more crass society and how people are saying what they're saying about the Supreme Court, fighting words and hate speech has been given increased protection over time. And there's something odd about that to me. I would have thought if I had to guess, I mean, obviously I knew that that's the case,

but I would have thought it'd be going the other way that we're getting more rough, more crass. And yet as our culture is, and usually the law is an echo of culture, it doesn't usually get that far out in front of it, but it has been corrective in this way in that, or maybe it's assistive to our demise. Maybe while you would think that protecting speech

is a good thing, right? And it's in a culture where we want that, but we're protecting a lot of bad speech. A lot of bad speech. You'll be like, well, you think it's bad. Maybe, well, I think anytime you can walk up to somebody and say, I don't care what you say, you're a fat piece of shit.

I don't know that that's exactly something that you wanna kind of like shore up in society. And yet fighting words are not what they used to be 40, 50 years ago. You cannot walk up to somebody and say, well, he picked on my ethnicity, so I punched him in the face. That doesn't go anymore.

So it's a very interesting dynamic that we're seeing. We're getting worse. We're protecting more speech, which is supposed to be a good thing, but maybe we're enabling more bad behavior. So you said it. I listened to it. I responded. Now what? You got a follow-up, you got more, you know where to get me. Thank you for subscribing and following. Greg thanks you also. Here at the Chris Cuomo Project,

this is where you get us. Keep it coming, and we'll keep coming back to you. Let's get after it.