The Chris Cuomo Project - The 10 Things Democrats Must Do If They Win The Midterms

Episode Date: October 13, 2026

For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial [phone] to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to http://askchapter.org/cuomo *Paid Partnership* Chris Cuomo lays out the 10 things he believes Democrats must do if they win power in the midterms, arguing that beating Donald Trump and investigating his administration won’t be enough to build a lasting majority. Cuomo traces the political and economic decisions he believes weakened unions and the working class, explains why Democrats need to shift power away from corporations and investors, and makes the case for a populist, anti-establishment outsider heading into 2028. Join The Chris Cuomo Project on YouTube for ad-free episodes, early releases, exclusive access to Chris, and more: https://www.youtube.com/@chriscuomo/join Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday: https://linktr.ee/cuomoproject Support our sponsors: Download the Polymarket App to track the midterms. Deposit $10 get $25 with code "CUOMO": https://app.polymarket.us/S8ac/CUOMO Head to https://cozyearth.com and use code CHRIS for an exclusive 20% off on home and sleepwear! *Chapter: Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options.If the video references historical savings: *Average potential savings are based on realized premium, co-pay, and out of pocket savings estimates self-reported by consumers that worked with Chapter Advisory LLC to enroll in a Medicare Supplement, Medicare Advantage, and/or Part D Prescription Drug Plan. The average is limited to consumers that chose to self-report. Savings information is subject to periodic updates and corrections. There is no guarantee of savings and any savings may vary by policy type, state, or other factors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I will tell you what isn't working for MAGA. What to ignore, why the Tala Rico stuff is only going to hurt them, but much, much more importantly, if the Democrats win, what do you do with the power? And I have studied, read, thought, interviewed, and considered, and I have the 10 points that will lead the Democrats for, from a marginal win in the midterms, if that's all there is, right, to where they want to be in 2028 and how to kill MAGA. Because the key to killing MAGA, wait. Chris Cuomo here. Welcome to the Chris Cuomo Project.

I don't want to give it all away. Thank you for subscribing and following. Here's the key. Killing Trump politically is not the key to killing MAGA. Look, Trump cannot be ignored. Trump must be criticized. And there is plenty to do with him that is part of why people will reject MAGA and him in the midterms, even though he's not on the ballot, but of course he's really on the ballot.

And this party has gone all in with him in a way that we've never seen. Which is why I say the two parties aren't the same, because I've never seen anything as corrosive to a party as Magna. has been. And well, what about the DSA? I have no idea what they're going to mean to the overall Democratic Party. I don't know. They are a boogeyman to me at this point in terms of their downside. And I think that they're connecting with what matters, which is what's wrong with this country, which is a populist appeal to the economic realities of the many. And I think that's why people aren't as afraid of socialism as they are of their reality. And they know that the socialism is an exaggerated sense of where these people want to be. And yes, the DSA has its goals.

just put all that noise at the side. Okay? Now, what they just did with Tala Rico is not proof of what beats them. It's proof that they don't know how to win anymore. All they can do is scare people about what the opposition is. Talafriko and what is it, AIDS, and he's got mental collapse and all this other bull. Okay? That's all it is.

They lied about Tala RICO. Okay? They did. And they get away with it because they, Their side has no rules, okay? And yes, you got your bad actors on the left, but it's nothing like what you got in MAGA, okay? Tala Rico has a chance to win.

Why? Because despite all of the things they're saying about him, there's something that matters more to people, even in Texas, a place where Democrats haven't won in decades. Tala Rico is not Beto O'Rourke. I don't know that he's going to win. But I know that Polly Market says he is,

and when people put their money their mouth is that's something to consider. And I'm going to take you through some of their main markets, tell you what I think about them, but much, much, much more importantly, I'm then going to give you the 10 things that Democrats must focus on. And the message is right from a period that you can all research, but they should remember, except here's a difference. The message that was coming out then was not rightly matched to the messenger. And I will correct. that also because who the Democrats need today, I don't think will be who they wanted back when this message was best articulated. I'll take you through that. But first things first, the idea that

you're not just going to win the House, which is like overwhelmingly, it's like two out of every three dollars that are being bet on polymarket or that Democrats win the House. Okay, I don't think it's that much of a sure thing. I think it's much harder to win these seats than people are assuming because of gerrymandering and all the baked-in, you know, kind of base moves and plays and the money. But that's the House. So the Senate is really what the real question mark is. For me, the House is a question mark, too. But the Senate is the real one.

So you got Texas, Maine, and Michigan, right? Those are really the ones. I believe that the Democrats most likely win one of those three. I believe they should win two of those three. But likely it's just going to be one. And I actually can't believe this, but I think it's going to be Telarico. Now, why can't I believe this? I like James Tellerico.

I've been an early adopter of his and having him on. I'm just shocked because Texas is so red. And they work with phobias so well down there. They're so easily scared of things. But in Texas, they had this moment on Polly Market, like, I don't know, I guess in September, where it went from even odds and it just blew open to where now it's like 60, 40 that Tala Rico wins. We'll see how that adjusts after this last boogeyman bullshit about him like, you know, being in a mental hospital, whatever bullshit is. And let me tell you why that bothers me.

One, I don't think it's true. Two, why would getting mental health be any different than getting worked on for a physical health issue? That boogeyman, that stigma really pisses me off. Anyway, Michigan, they have it better than Tala Rico's odds that Dr. El-Sayat is going to win. I find that really hard to believe. Even though he's right about what's wrong, I think the Islamophobia and, you know, him helping that along. I mean, him not being able to say whether or not Iran or Israel is more dangerous to America, that's a bad look in that debate. Now, do I think the issue should matter that much?

No, I don't. I don't. I don't think Israel should be on the ballot. I barely think Iran is on the ballot, to be honest, because if you're Maga, you believe this bullshit that they were about to have a nuclear weapon. And if you weren't going to vote for Trump, you're not going to vote for him anyway. However, El-Sayyed is right about who's wrong. If candidates matter, yeah, he's compromised a little bit for a certain percentage of Michigan voters. But I think his opponent is even more so, to be honest.

To be, Mike Rogers is so over, you know, past his due to do. he's not who he was when I used to interview him. And, you know, I don't even really think he's a Michigander, to be honest. I mean, he really lives in Florida most of the time. And I think that that's come across. So they're saying he's going to win. I'm shocked by that. They say he's going to win in Michigan on Polymarket more than they believe Tala Rico.

So then it becomes Maine. And look, I think the Democrats kind of did a Kamala Harris redux on this one. No disrespect to Kamala Harris. but the process, the process. They allowed that other guy, Graham Platner, to just stay in there way too long, way too long, and he was the best deliverer of that populist angst.

And this guy, Troy Jackson, he's got a little of that weirdo painted on him also with the longtime partner and the cousin and all that bullshit. Look, it doesn't matter to me, but it does matter to certain persuadable voters. and Susan Collins has proved very, very durable. And, you know, I used to be a big fan of hers, to be honest, and her candor during the financial crisis

and her telling people to be calm many years ago during the 2008 financial crisis. I thought that she was a really fair broker. But she's really just collapsed to side again and again and again. And I just think that she's all, she keeps coming close to making votes of conscience, but she winds up being overwhelmed by convenience of her own electoral, you know, fate. And yet I think she's going to win.

Polymarket says no, that they have it like 55-45 likelihood that the Democrats win. And unless it's just a huge wave of enthusiasm to reject MAGA, then I don't know. I don't know how it goes. But certainly, Polymarket, where people are putting their money where their mouth is, they're definitely seeing it differently than I do. You know, 60 to 30 something, the bets are that they're going to win the Senate. I mean, I can't believe that. I really can.

Not that I don't think it would be a good thing because I think we've got to have balanced power. Now, that takes me to what my real headline is today. Okay? My real headline is today. Tala Rico, they're not going to take him out. Okay? He's not a boogeyman. Ken Paxton's a boogeyman.

Guy is dirty. the day is long and all you got to do is Google them. Look, candidates have to matter and MAGA keeps swallowing more and more shit just to please Trump. And Paxton is proof of it. That guy isn't worth John Cornyn's salt any day of the week. Okay? He is a bad candidate. Okay, he's bad looking.

He's bad sounding. That's why he doesn't want to debate. That's why he always ducks debates. And that's why he's ducking one now. if Tala Rico is so sick and so wounded, why won't you call them on it and go stand to do a debate? It doesn't make sense. So it's only working for the stupid, okay? But, but, but here's the real thing for Democrats.

What do you do with the power? Now, I know that they are going to have this real struggle of balancing people's outrage towards Trump and the demands for accountability, which are real and righteous, okay? I mean, just the deals that have gone to his sons and his cronies. I mean, it's just disgusting levels of corruption, the likes of which we've never seen. But they have to balance that with, well, what do you do with the power? Especially in the run up to 2028. Because now the Democrats won't be able to just say, well, look, you know, Trump owns

the status quo. Trump owns the status quo. If you own the House, let alone the House and the Senate, which, again, I can't believe that that's where we'll be. But we'll see. We'll live it together. and we'll hopefully have free and fair elections. You never know with what MAGA wants to have happen in the elections

and all the scary shit that Trump is doing with ICE. But if it goes free and fair and that's what's happened and the House gets seated and, you know, the Congress gets seated, then we'll see where the numbers are. If the Democrats are in charge of both houses, what I'm about to say is even more true, which is what? they have to do something with the power to set themselves up for 2028. They can't just be bitching about Trump the whole time and trying to impeach him the whole time and investigating them the whole time.

It can't just be that. They won't be in the right place for 2028 if they do that. They have to be part of better. And I have come up with a 10-point plan of what they have to focus on. Now, in one way, it is derivative of what you can find on pitchfork economics. I think these are smart guys that make really interesting economic argument. from the perspective of people who've done very well within the system pointing out why the system has entitled them to do well at the expense of others.

So they came up with seven decisions. What I did was I researched their seven positions and looked at the seminal political judgments that made those true and even picked some others that I think are even better examples than the one they picked. But I gave the Democrats a roadmap of what 10 political decisions they have to see and undo, okay? Election season comes with a lot of noise, polls, predictions, forecast, analysis, all over the place.

It can be hard to keep up with everything. That's why I love polymarket. I just love what it's about. Why? It's easy. And it's people putting their money where their mouth is, which is such a commodity for me when it comes to political opinion and analysis. You know, this is the easy way for you to know what people think. is going to happen. And now you can trade on your own predictions or just follow the odds for

control of Congress, individual races, and other midterm outcomes. Polymarket also just launched a new midterm hub that puts everything you want in one place. You can follow specific states, candidates, policies, races, without having to jump around everywhere. It's easy and it's effective. So there's a lot on the line this election. And I'll definitely be following along. with Polymarket, and you should too. Download the Polymarket app to stay on top of the midterms. New customers can deposit $10 and get $25 to trade instantly with the code Cuomo. Okay? Use my name as a code, Cuomo, and your $10 will become $25. I'm telling you, Polymarket is more than just people's feeling in the moment.

It's who is willing to put their money where their mouth is. The most expensive decision most of you are going to make this year is the one you don't make. Medicare's annual enrollment is here, and an entire industry is counting on you doing exactly what you did last year. Nothing. And worse, there's a deadline. So you've got just a few weeks to make changes. Because every year, did you know plans change? Premiums, drug tiers, which doctors are in networks, they all change.

That's not paranoia. it's built. Now, you know me, I'm not going to tell you what to think, okay? I tell you to look and to be a critical thinker. So, look at chapter. They're going to help you look. Their advisors are independent. They're paid on salary not to upsell you, and they're going to put every plan available to you next to the one that you've got right now to make sure your doctors, prescriptions, and everything's covered that you need. They're not paid to steer you to one plan over another, okay? That's key. And I bet you're likely overpaying right now. Why? Because the folks who switched with chapter last year saved an average of $1,100.

And by the way, if you're already on the right plan, guess what? They'll tell you, and you go right back to your life. So today is your day to call and look and be a critical thinker before it's too late. Call 628-28-287-0979. Don't let this decision get made for you. The seven decisions that it's kind of like the seven original sins that deadly sins that the pitch-for clan deal with as what they call neoliberalism. Now, this gets confusing, but let me demystify it. Liberalism is not liberal left-wing politics. It's not the same thing.

And I know it gets confusing. Being a liberal jurist doesn't mean left-wing politics, being a liberal in economics and political economy doesn't make you left-wing. Liberalism was, you. Liberalism was, free markets, free labor, free markets, free, free, free, laissez-faire, laissez-faire, less government control. That's what liberalism was. Neoliberalism was actually a conservative movement, but there was some buy-in on the Democratic side, too, namely, mostly, I mean, look, you could argue Carter, but Carter, I just think didn't know what the fuck he was doing when he put Paul Volcker in there to try to deal with inflation, which is really terrible, that he was dealing with. after Nixon took us off the gold standard and taking us off the gold standard and allowing the government that just print dollars wound up creating hyperinflation.

And Carter had to deal with it, didn't deal with it well, in my opinion. And Volcker wound up really submarining the labor economy. Got inflation down, but really did a lot of destructive things. Clinton then became really a neoliberal, not liberal politically. again, neoliberal in terms of this market philosophy, which is where what you do is empower corporations. And you do that to the detriment of workers, in my opinion, but you certainly do it structurally to the diminishment of the corporate hand guiding what is allowed to happen within the markets. Okay. So, freezing the federal minimum wage, okay?

Productivity went up, but we kept the wage in place and we left it just to the market. We didn't mandate the wage. And that was huge. And it allowed them to shift to emphasizing their investors and benefit to them instead of the worker. Eroding the overtime threshold. This was big, too, what we used to call golden time. Now they reduced that and they allowed corporations to force salaried workers into unpaid extra hours. And that's happened more and more, okay?

Abandoning antitrust enforcement, this was something that was put in place by an early good republic. like in Teddy Roosevelt. But more and more, we allowed monopolies under the myth that it would lower prices by giving them more control over the market, but it did the opposite. Hollowing out labor laws. The death of the labor movement in America has been a huge problem. And it is a great example of propaganda. The boogeyman of the labor unions being the corrupt thing that mattered, they're not the

corruption that mattered. I don't care how many mobsters were in it. I don't care how dirty it was. Taking away the collective bargaining, taking away the ability of labor to stop the wheels of commerce if there wasn't an accommodation to them made all the difference.

And here's how we know. What's happened since you hollowed out the labor movement? Look at pay. Look at purchasing power. It's gotten crushed. You've made more millionaires and billionaires than ever. And you've crushed the middle class.

So the proof is, in the productivity increase and the pay decrease relatively. So to me, the labor union goes hand in hand with things being better for workers. That's how I see it. You can say I'm wrong. Let's debate it. Okay. Rewriding the tax code to tax inheriting corporate wealth at lower rates than hard work. This was huge. And it was a decision. And it was done just to benefit the few over the interest of the many. That's why it happened. And adopting shareholder primacy, which I've talked to you about before, and is absolutely a structural change that was made within our capitalistic system. The guiding hand of government made it easier for corporations to benefit investors instead of workers.

And that happened even though they had gutted the tax code to allow corporations to go from paying what we used to to below 30%, which very, very few people who make a lot of money pay. I mean, unless you're playing with games, with equity versus income and all that bullshit. But they gave corporations a preference on the assumption that they would be taking care of workers, and that's why they deserve that preferential light tax and regulation framework. They didn't. You now have a disproportionate number of workers that are major employers, our biggest employers, Walmart, Amazon, you know, needing financial assistance.

So they have broken the deal and gotten away with it. Now, those are the seven points. I looked at it a little differently, the political decisions that led us there as a roadmap to what the Democrats should do with their power. Look, I get the need for accountability. I get, whether it's releasing the Epstein files, absolutely they should do that.

Going after Trump for the corruption, absolutely. but you have to balance it with things that will show that you're about better, not just pointing out who's worse. And again, I'm not denying that appetite and that inclination and frankly, that need. I'm just saying it's got to be more than that also. Okay. So let's look at the top 10 before I give you the specifics. Here's the overlay. You already know the message.

It was the message of the 92 Democratic Convention. My father became famous because of his 1984 speech. I believe his 1992 nominating speech for Bill Clinton when people thought my father was going to run, okay? People thought my father was going to run so much that they were disappointed again. It was the second time he disappointed him, which was why they called him Hamlet on the Hudson and all this other bullshit. My father didn't run not because he was a mobster. He didn't run because he just didn't think he was good enough.

He was pathologically humble. and if you want to be president, you got to think you're the best man in the world. You have to. You have to think you're better than everybody else. He didn't. You can fall to him, whatever. That's what.

And you know who was worried he was going to run was Bill Clinton? That's why Bill Clinton took a shot at him and called him a mafiosi, which my father never wanted to forgive, but he did because my brother wanted to work with Clinton, and he had a lot of respect for Clinton, and my father had a lot of respect for my brother. So he changed his opinion, and over time, he grew to see Clinton as having a lot of political value. However, his really important speech, you should look up in 92, nominating Clinton.

The combination of him and Barbara Jordan, Barbara Jordan talked about getting back to the public wheel, W-E-A-L, do for the many, do for the working class, think about them, obsess over them, and lead with love, love, love, love, love, love, love, right? That was her famous quote. Why? Because at the end of the day, the hate, the animus, the fear, the enmity, the Islamophobia, the phobias, the xenophobia, it all plays to MAGA. It all plays to the fears of a few and the wants of the few and the propaganda that drives division.

It all works for them better than it works for you. And it is so much easier to go to hate and anger and fear. and there are very, very good reasons, palpably obvious reasons to be afraid of this administration, fearful of what they're doing, angry about what they're doing, enraged, outraged, vindictive. You're right to feel all those things. But love still conquers the day. Why? Because love is the glue to accessing the many, especially in America.

And if you want to get away from the factions and if you want to get to a real fulsome, mandate for change. It's going to have to be leading with love. And I know that's frustrating. And I know it sounds weak. But it isn't. And Barbara Jordan was right and Mario Cuomo were right. Clinton is not the right choice for today. An accommodative Democrat is not what they're going to want in 28. They're going to want their own disrupt. They're going to want their own outside guy. They're going to want somebody to break it and then make it. And you've got to look at both of those pieces. Now, could I be wrong? Of course, of course, I'm doing this here in 2026. But that's the way it looks right now. Okay. So the message, go back to 92. Look at what Barbara Jordan said. Look at what

Mario Cuomo said. That's where the country is today. Look at it. I don't think Clinton is the right guy. Okay. Now, I'm not saying literally Clinton, obviously, he is way past his due date. What I'm saying that kind of accommodative, super moderate, pragmatic Democrat. I don't think that's going to lead the day. I think it's going to be somebody with a much more populous blue collar bent, an outsider anti-establishment. And that was not Clinton. He was an animal of the system.

He was an AG. He was governor. He was in it from a very young age. He had his ups and downs, but that's where he was very eloquent. Came from Arkansas. Came from nothing. Checked a lot of boxes. me wrong. Brilliant candidate, brilliant man, brilliant operator, brilliant president.

However, different times, different flavor. Support for the Chris Cuomo project comes from Cozy Earth. Got to tell you, I love it. Love it. Just got the leisure wear. They've got this kind of thing going with their sleepwear. The shorts and T-shirt, kind of leisure wear, sleepwear. It's kind of like some weight to it. It's the stretchy stuff, right? But it's kind of like some weight to it. And it's kind of like, I don't know. It's kind of like being swaddled. Almost. I don't know. But when I put it on, at first, I was like, oh, this is going to be tough to work out it. And Christine, my wife was like, oh, no, no, that's sleepwear. That's like bed stuff. I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, got some weight to it. And it just felt like, you know, there was something, there was like a little bit of like a mini hug on me. So anyway, that was very cool. I was already in with cozy earth because of its use of viscose bamboo. Why? It's such a more renewable textile. It's, it's, not destroying our trees, right? I mean, it's like it's such a green manufacturing thing. And to me,

that matters. I do. I like to feel good about the stuff that I buy and the stuff that I use and and cozy earth allows me to do that. It allows me to do something good by giving me something at the same time that's really well made, like their sheets. The more you wash them, the softer they get, but they don't get threadbare. Like, I mean, we do a lot of washing. We get a lot of hard use in our house. Got three dogs, kids, all that stuff. And everything's held up. up well. I'm telling you, I really dig it. The towels, the sheets, the bedware, the bedware, the leisure wear. I'm telling you. I mean, I wouldn't recommend. I'm even wearing the slides all over the place. They sent me this pair of slides. I use them as my house shoes

because there's no rule, no shoes in the house. Somebody saw something on Instagram and what's on the bottom of your feet. Forget it. So I'm wearing them around the house. It's working well. And this is a great season to start getting about things as the night's cool down, right? Start thinking about what you're wearing to sleep. It's gift-given season. So think about it. Go to CozyEarth.com and use the code Chris and you get up to 20% off your home and sleepwear. CozyEarth.com code Chris. They're going to ask you where you heard about them. Tell them Cuomo sent me, please.

So here are the 10. Okay? Number one, they have to go back and instead of looking at these general seven points, look at the specific legal and political catalysts that created the problems that you have to undo. Okay, that is the wisdom. That is the utility of this analysis I'm about to give you. The first one is the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, okay? Hollowing out labor law, okay? Congress overrode a presidential veto to pass this act. Okay, why? Because it banned secondary boycotts. It prohibited closed shops, allowed states to pass right-to-work laws,

which sounds great, works terrible, okay? Because what it does is means here, the corporations rule. That's what it means. You don't really have any power to stop them from doing what works best for them. That's what it wound up meaning. That's what right to work means. Sounds good. Sounds empowering isn't.

It effectively halted the momentum of the American labor movement at its peak. All right? They have to go back and look at that, and they have to re-energize and re-empower unions. We need more unions. We need more union strength. And I'm telling you now, anybody who says, can you believe he said that, they're in favor of the corporate interests. And they are either funded by them or they are looking for fealty to them. Remember that.

You will not meet any populist who disagrees with what I just said. Two, this is a huge one, okay? Corporate Tax Reform Act of 1980. okay this was a killa dilla under reagan okay slashed the top marginal income tax rate down to 28% and set a precedent for drastic cuts to corporate and capital gains tax rates ensuring wealth accumulation outpaced labor income and that's what it did 1986 was the day that this move from being about the many to being about the few as a design feature of the system. I think the best Republican president in the modern era ish, was Dwight D. Eisenhower. Why? He was anti-establishment.

He was more a military man than he was a politician. And he did have the interests of the many. he was absolutely against what's happening by the time 1986 comes around slash the marginal income tax rate down to 28%. Why? Because we want to trust you guys to do right by the workers, okay? But they didn't. But they fucked the workers.

They fucked the unions. they fucked productivity pay and they started funneling it into the investors and the stocks and the liquidity markets and they started playing that game instead of book value. Okay? And look, there have been some subtle restraints

put on it over time, but that is the fundamental flaw that they have to go back to, okay? And again, I'll do it like the 10 days of Christmas, okay, or whatever it is. The 12 days of Christmas. Go back. Back to the Taft-Heartley Act, re-empower labor.

Two, the corporate tax reform, what they got for what you gave them. You got to rethink it. Rethink it. Number three, this was reflected by this change. Why does the right, why do the rich love Milton Friedman? Why? I'll tell you why. Because he published this essay in the New York Times that formalized the doctrine that a

corporation's only social responsibility is to maximize shareholder profit, turning employee compensation and benefits into liabilities. This was the genius stroke for the right. And this is what they used to be about. Now look, the Democrats screwed this up a little bit, and I'll talk about how, you know, with Clinton and getting into the yuppies and the suburban and the, you know, the yuppies, the young urban professionals. and the suburbs. That was all like Clinton's vibe, Al Gore's vibe, and it led them away from the working class in the Democratic Party, in my opinion. But one step at a time. So Milton Friedman says the only thing that a company is responsible to, the only people they're responsible to is their shareholders. That was the big shift. That was a real shit sandwich for the proletariat.

And that should have never been endorsed. That should have never been embraced. Look, no disrespect to Friedman. You know, he's able and he is right to speak any way he wants and make any case he wants. He has that right. And he's right to be wrong. By the way, he has a right to be wrong. And I think he was wrong.

Why? Because what is that from God, from the Constitution? Who says the only people they're supposed to care about to their investors? He said it. He said it. That's not the law of economics. But man was that destructive. And they've got to go back and look at that. They've got to change the manifesto. Corporations don't exist just to make investors money. That's not why they were created. Okay? They were created to do with many what could not be done with few. The workers were always the fundamental. that must be rewarded again. That must be reviewed again. Democrats should be about this. Huge, huge, huge, okay? Number four, the 1982 FTCDOJ merger guidelines. Now, got to go back to Teddy Roosevelt to talk that talk for Republicans because he's one of their heroes. But I think he transcends party, and we know that because he was kind of anti-party, which is why he wound up starting his own party when he tried to get back. to politics, but he didn't agree with the Republicans anymore. So he started that Bull Moose Party, which is what they called it after he got shot by this

hater who was working for the fucking corporate cabals. And he said, it takes more than that to take down a bull moose. He was a tough mofo, no question about it. Anyway, it was really a progressive party. But here's my point. Robert Bork, remember him? He was the guy who changed how we vet Supreme Court justices because he, was up for Supreme Court Justice, brilliant man. And he was too honest and talked about his politics

and talked about how they were reflected his jurisprudential philosophy. And they nixed them. And they came up with this new kind of standard of we don't talk politics with our choices. We won't, you won't and kind of subtly criticize the other side. But if you have the numbers, you get the guy you want. That's why Supreme Court justices now vote so often with the parties, the interest of the party that puts them in there that you know the instances and the names of those who don't. It's totally rigged. Totally rigged.

Okay. So he comes up with the consumer welfare standard. Federal regulators stopped blocking monopolies as long as they promised low consumer prices, completely ignoring the monopsony big power

corporations held over worker wages. And that killed us. Okay? That killed the working class. And it created all these mergers that we see until today. And the leveraged buyouts and all that stuff that puts tons of debt on companies and bleeds them dry for investors and all the workers wind up paying for it. That was a huge thing that they have to go through again. So the 80s, what they did with regulators blocking monopolies, okay, reminding that corporations are not just about their investors, okay?

Corporate taxes that you don't get the preferential rate if you don't take care of your workers. That's not socialism. It's a feature of a capitalist system that was changed in 1986. Nobody was calling it socialism then. And of course, that gutting the unions, the Taft-Hartley Act. Okay, number five. This is an example. of how they fucked the many.

The air controller, the ATC strike, okay? President Reagan fired 11,345 striking federal workers and permanently replaced them. This was a huge green light to private corporations to kill unions. And look, I am big on unions. We need to have unions. The workers have to be part of the mix. And it can't be that they're just another part of the P&A.

L, and they're on the L side. It can't be that. We have to get back to rewarding the worker. That's Marxism. No, it isn't. And it's not communism. Communism is there's no company. There's these collectives.

Nobody's saying that. You should have public markets. You should have private organizations. You should have public organizations. You should have investors. You should have debt. You should have the trading. You should have it all.

It's not about changing the system by type. It's about how it is operated. It's the rules of the game. We're not going from baseball to cricket. Okay? We're just changing the rules of how you play baseball. Same game. Better rules so that you get more people in the stadium.

All right? So I'm telling you, Reagan, talk-to-talk, destroy. labor. Talk to talk. America. America's great. My father was right to go after him. My father was right. He didn't go after him publicly. I mean, I'm sorry, personally. He went after him very publicly. But he didn't go after him personally. He didn't say Reagan's a schmuck. Reagan's a bad guy. Why? Because politics was different than for him specifically. Politics has always been nasty. My father believed in love. My father believed that positive beats negative,

that insults are cheap, insights are valuable. So, boy, do I miss him. Number six, Arisa. Arisa was a huge, fuck you, that you never saw. So Arisa comes out in 74. It was supposed to protect pensions, okay? That's what it was supposed to do. But it didn't.

What it did was it created the legal framework for corporations to shift away from guaranteed, defined benefit right, pensions toward volatile employee-funded 401K plans and self-funded limited health plans. This ERISA Act was a gift, a gift from Nixon and Ford, from the Republicans to the corporations. This was such a fuck you to the many. other than, you know, and I'll tell you another one that they did like this. When they freed up federal dollars for loans for tuition, it was such a gift to the universities to raise their tuition rates because now you could borrow.

You see? And now they built up these endowments. They said, well, we give all of it for scholarships. Do you? Then why do you have billions of dollars in endowments? Shouldn't you be running about net neutral if you were really giving it to people? but it gave them this gateway to hire tuitions because people could borrow now.

So it's like, well, I guess I'm not really paying for it because I can pay for it over time, right? It's like such a scam. Arisa was even more profound a blow because it ruined the last part of what workers had. All right, you're going to fuck me on my pay, but at least I'll get my pension. You know, so at least I'll have something

when you eventually exhaust me. They took that away. They put it into 401Ks. Oh, yeah, but those are great because they're in the market. Yeah, yeah, it's great for the people who manage the money. But now they had to pay into it as workers that a lot of them didn't have the money to do. And they didn't mandate matching by corporations. The corporations do it by choice.

You see what it did? It took away the burden on them. Made it the illusion that you'd do better, but people have done dramatically worse, dramatically worse. dramatically worse. The next one, number seven. This is my pet peeve. I believe Citizens United destroyed the power of voting.

Destroyed it. The Supreme Court ruled that corporate political spending is protected free speech. If I could wave a wand, this would be absolutely one of the things I would do. I would pack the court with people who don't believe this and get rid of it. This decision allowed unlimited,

anonymous, dark money, which means what? You don't have to say who's given it. To flood American elections effectively ensuring that billionaires and corporate lobbies could out-vote and out-influence organized labor. God damn, was it a killer? And that's why the most dangerous money in politics now is what? The legal money, not the illegal money. Citizens United.

Now, is money speech? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yep, yep, it is. Why? Because if I give you $10 for your campaign or your cause, that's my way of making my witness, right? That's how I show what I believe and what I support.

Now, is that what they do? No, that's not what they do. What they do is they give it to all of them. So they know they got skin in the game somewhere. And they just basically write off the losses as an opportunity cost to paying for the guys who got in there. And they make choices selectively when it kind of, it works, but like look at Disney. Okay? They give to both sides. Most do, right? And then they kind of

engineer it on the personal side that you're not allowed to see the same way. So it's like the CEO and his wife give money to like one side more than the other, but the corporations balance it out. Why? Because they hedge their bets. And Citizens United allowed them to do that without any limitation by giving it to Pax. And that's why Pax are doing all the ads now. Oh, but they don't coordinate with the campaigns. Bullshit. Citizens United. Huge. They've got to make their case on whatever justices that any vacancies they get, it's got to be to get rid of that case. Even more, I would argue, than Roe v. Wade, because now I don't know about how to fix what they did with Dobbs. I don't know. I mean, they look, they could pass a federal law. I think that, you know, I think that,

you might be able to get away with that and say that the Constitution, all you did was you got rid of Roe v. Way, but you didn't create a standard with Dobbs that, you know, you said it just goes back to the states, but it didn't outlaw a federal law on it. I mean, it's a little complicated, but, you know, anyway, the Citizens United, I believe, was even more impactful than that. And I don't mean that in any way to be insensitive to what getting rid of Roe v. Wade did to women that were seeing all over the country. Women having to keep pregnancies they don't want. Women having pregnancies that may end and compromise their health that they're forced to carry.

I mean, it's really something. Next. Epic, this is a little in the weeds, but it really matters to me. Epic Systems Corp v. Lewis, 2018, this was. And this didn't not get a lot of coverage. The Supreme Court legalized forced, individual arbitration clauses and employment contracts. Now, this bothers me, why?

Because it's a big factor of why my situation with CNN isn't over yet. Because I had to do it through arbitration. And arbitration, in my opinion, absolutely favors the employers. Absolutely. Why? These arbitrators, through jams or whatever, they work for the corporations. They get paid by the corporations. So who are they going to defer to?

You know what I'm saying? Like, that's where they get their business from, these guys. But anyway, this was a huge, huge case. This decision stripped workers of their right to file class action lawsuits over wage theft, systematic discrimination, or safety violations, forcing them into a privatized system rigged heavily in favor of employers. The Supreme Court legalized individual arbitration clause in employment contracts. That has to die. But again, it's a Supreme Court case. But you got to be able to fight back against corporations and they just neutered you with arbitration.

Now, remember what I told you about Carter and Volcker? This is something that you got to reconsider. You got to rethink what happened. To combat inflation, the Federal Reserve intentionally engineered a massive recession by skywriting interest rates, skyrocketing interest rates. This deliberate policy crushed manufacturing, triggered mass employment, unemployment, and permanently broke the bargaining power of industrial labor unions. I agree with all that, and it is on a Democrat. Carter did this, and it was stupid. It was stupid. And, you know, no irony, Paul Volcker is a huge conservative. Now, they'll say Carter was kind of a conservative, too.

Yeah, yeah, that's true. He was. If you look at his policies in Georgia, he was a hybrid. But this was a really bad decision. And it wound up draining manufacturing. factoring out of here because we let everybody run away to cheaper places. And that's what they did. This was a big one. Look, innovation took a lot of jobs out of here and put them in other places also. Labor costs did that also, but this was a big one. And Volker shock needs to be rethought about how they

use the Fed to manipulate these systems. Because we did the same thing with quantitative easing and dumping all that money in there. That created a lot of inflation also and gave us artificial security in the markets. Okay, and then here's the next one that I really think they got to think about. Janice V. AFS me, okay, this was the Supreme Court ruling that the public sector unions can't collect agency fees from non-members. Now, this was huge. On the face, it sounds right. So I work in a place that has a union, but I don't want to join the union. So I don't have to, right? Why? Because it should be my choice. It's free speech. I don't want to join your union, so I don't have to. I want to be my own person. Okay. Sounds good, right? Yeah, but here's what happened. Here's what happened. This just completely neutered unions. Why? Because it allowed people to figure out that you could get the benefits of organized labor without paying the dues. Right? Why do I have to pay? They're going to negotiate for us anyway. So every time they negotiate something that's good for me, I get the benefit of it and I don't have to pay. This was a real poison pill. And what it did was it gutted the membership and the treasuries of unions because they used to charge you a non-member fee because it was like it called an agency fee because they were still fighting for you even though you weren't paying them.

So they used to charge this non-member fee, and it got rid of that. And it sounded like it was empowering people to make their own choices, but it really just gutted labor. Now, I'll go through these again and then explain why. I know it's not as sexy as stuff that you're hearing, but you notice how I'm not talking about socialism or communism or capitalism, you know what I mean? Or even like just tax. It's about choices and preferences within our system and how they were manipulated. to empower corporations overworkers and to create exactly what we have now. Why is it that America is so top-heavy when it comes to wealth?

Because of these, what I just read you. It's by design. It's not how capitalism has to be. It was not this way. Go look at America during Eisenhower and into the 50s and 60s, post-World War II. Why was the middle class doing so well? Why was it so robust? Why were people buying houses on one 40-hour-a-week job?

Why were they raising kids with a single-parent working? Why? Why? Did we not have rich people? Did we not have millionaires? Yeah, we did. Why? These choices.

These choices created a system that benefits the investors and the corporations and fucks the workers. And I just laid out to you the 10 reasons that that happened through the actual acts that made it that way. And I do it this way because I want the Democrats and those who support them to look at what needs to change. Okay? Because this is the answer. We need change. You know, El-Saiat is very smart.

I want more money in your pocket. I want free health care and I want money out of politics. Great. How? these 10 these 10 10 point plan I'm going to undo these things I'm going to work on these things boom there it is here it is for you see what I'm saying

see what I'm saying now again let's not get confused liberal neoliberal the term neoliberal represents a modern revival and modification of what was called classical liberalism in political philosophy I made notes The root word liberal, again, is not about left wing, okay? Left wing is a real thing, but that's not what this means in this context. It was progressive in the modern American sense. It refers to the traditional philosophy of individual liberty, private property, and free markets.

Okay? It's what people call libertarian today, all right? Individual liberty, leave me alone. I don't want government all over me. Private property, meaning let me have my own stuff, let us do our things, and free markets, meaning what? Don't put your finger on the scale of some corporations over others. Now, the liberal part is free markets and privatization. Classic liberalism championed by like Adam Smith, okay, argued that economies function best

when governments stay out of the market, laissez-faire, right? Let it be what it be. The policies that, like the pitchfork guys are about, are, called liberal because they focus on deregulation, privatization, and free trade. The neo part is a controlled restructuring that happened, okay? The neo part is, obviously means new, which is what? Which was that if the government just stepped back, a free market would naturally occur, that was liberalism. Neo-liberalism, which was big for Reagan and like Margaret Thatcher, right, the new conservative movement, recognized that a pure market doesn't just happen. The power of the state must be actively used to

create enforce and protect market conditions. And they did that. They just did it for the corporations. Their corporations benefits over the workers. Okay. So instead of protecting workers, labor laws, safety regulations, minimum wages, right? Those were seen as hampering the markets. So they used its power in the state to protect corporations and capital. Corporate bailouts, intellectual property rights, laws that restrict striking. Those laws that I, pointed out to you, those decisions that I pointed out to you. Economic success is measured entirely by GTP growth, stock market performance, and efficiency rather than worker well-being, wage growth, and economic equality. Yes, both are capitalism,

but they are different preferential treatments. You see what I'm saying? Preferences within the system is what we're talking about, not changing the system. The people who tell you they want to change the system are afraid of the preferences changing because they benefit them. That's what the Democrats must focus on. These 10 points of adjustment, it will give people a sense that they're being specific, that there is real change that will help the many. And they'll do it by showing the framework of how it changed in the first place.

We're not making it up. This isn't imagined. We can undo and redo what they did to make it this way, and it will make it better. That's why I took all this time. that's why I did all the reading. And I'm telling you, do you blame Democrats for some of this? Yeah, for some of it.

Who do I blame? Carter with the Volker stuff, absolutely, that was fucking wrong, the way he did that to deal with inflation was a problem. Inflation was a problem. But that doesn't mean that you make it worse. You know what I mean? And that's what he did. Okay, Volker skyrocketed rates to 20% interest rates, okay?

you couldn't borrow any money, not just for developing factories, which cratered manufacturing, but for your house, for your car, none of that. The credit markets, the consumer side was killed. Mass unemployment. We had almost 11% unemployment, all right? And the workers lost all their bargaining power. So you put that all together, man, and it was like just killed us. And it was a de-industrialization catalyst. Everybody left.

Everybody left. And you took away the power of labor to do anything about it, so it was like, forget it. So this is my plan for what the Democrats should use their power to work on. And that's why I took time to lay it out, because things have to get better in this country. That is a nonpartisan position. They have to get better for the working class. They have to. We have too many people who can't afford a medical emergency.

It's not right. It's not right. it can't be that it used to be that this is in progress, okay? And you know what? I got to tell you, I heard a Democrat say this and I love it. I would rather have 100 new millionaires than one new billionaire. I agree. I agree.

There's nothing wrong with saying that. That's not capping success. It's not saying that once you make a billion dollars you can't make any more. But it does mean that the system should be built that those people with that much money having a burden that goes along with it, a responsibility that goes along with it. We need change. We need things to change.

We need change for the many. There's too much outrage. Now, a lot of that is manufactured, right? But underlying it is real need. And real things can be done to make it better. And if the Democrats want a position that, look, why am I pointing this out to Democrats and not to MAGA? Because MAGA likes how it is.

Maga has bought into the fact that helping corporations is somehow going to be good for them, even though they're among those getting fucked by everything I just laid out. I don't know what to do with them. So the only answer to me is to outnumber them, not to hate them, not to abuse them, not to castigate them,

outnumber them with people who believe in what I'm saying right now, win the elections and make change for the many. Thank you for subscribing and following. Tell me what you think of these, you like and what you don't. Maybe I'll do a comments episode just on comments to this. The pitchfork economics guys, I don't know them, but I like what they're putting out. I haven't seen all of it, but check it out for yourself. Also, I don't use people stuff and then not say anything about it. Those seven points were kind of a catalyst to be to think about

what has to change for things to be better. Because that's what our politics should be about at the end of the day, isn't it? Not just blaming somebody for why they're worse, but how do we make them better? Thank you for subscribing and following here to the Chris Cuomo project. thank you for giving me an opportunity. And I will see you next time. And don't forget Cuomo Crime Time. If you're into true crime, I do it differently there. I do it about the issues that are going on in these cases that matter in terms of our social fabric,

not just false narratives and gotchas and bullshit. True crime may be the last safe space for us to talk about political and socioeconomic and political issues without the overlay of the parties. That's why I'm there. You can subscribe to Cuomo Crime Time for free. I'll see you soon. Let's get after it.