The Chris Cuomo Project - The Krassensteins Are Overshooting On Trump

Episode Date: July 23, 2026

Brian Krassenstein and Ed Krassenstein (writers, entrepreneurs, and political commentators) join Chris Cuomo for an extended conversation about the political battles shaping the next election—and the one issue they believe could matter more than anything else: AI. Chris, Brian, and Ed debate whether Democrats are missing their biggest opportunities against Trump, how Republicans continue to dominate the messaging battle, and why issues like voter ID, immigration, and affordability remain so difficult for Democrats to navigate. They also discuss whether AI should be treated as a public resource, what the technology means for jobs and the economy, and why the political fight that decides 2028 may have very little to do with Donald Trump. 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 #news #trump #politics #cuomo Head to https://superpower.com and use code CUOMO at checkout for $20 off your membership. Unlock your new health intelligence—100+ biomarkers, every year, early detection of 1,000+ conditions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Hulu original series Furious is coming to Disney Plus, starring Emmy Rossum. Furious follows FBI agent Alice Black on the hunt for a mysterious and calculating serial killer. Both walk their own paths toward justice, and as their lives start to intertwine, the line between right and wrong begins to blur. Don't miss the three-episode premiere of the Hulu original series Furious on July 27th, only on Hulu on Disney Plus. want to know who's going to win the war, you got to check in with the people fighting the battles, right? That's how you're going to know. And who is on that front line of warriors on both sides?

Well, it's not the politicians, right? Not really. The politicians are an echo. It's the influencers. They're the one shaping it. Social media has dominated our dialogue. I don't like it. I don't think it's good for us. I think it's amplifying minorities. I think it's magnifying minorities. But that's where we are. I got to see reality. Doesn't mean I got to like it.

Doesn't mean you even have to accept it. I could try to change it, right? But who are the warriors on the left? The Krasenstein brothers. Ed and Brian, they are on the front lines of social media every day fighting the fight for the left. So how do they see this state of play? What do they think is working for them? What are they afraid of? What do they think the big unknown is for the midterms? For right now, for abroad, for at home, within their own party. What could trip them up in the midterms? These are all very interesting questions. I'm Chris Cuomo. Welcome to the Chris Cuomo project. Here is what we don't know. What are they prioritizing? What's working for them? What's working against them? What is the big X factor? They're not sure they can control. heading into the midterms. Do they even really care about the midterms most? I wanted to know,

and I think you do too. So here goes two on one, Ed and Brian Krasenstein versus Cuomo. How's it going to go? Let's get after it. Brian and Ed Krasenstein as I live and breathe. First things first. I think you guys are must read, must watch. Ed, tell me and then Brian, fill in the rest. How do people get everything you guys are putting out? I mean, we're on all the social media channels, Instagram, TikTok, X, Facebook. On X and on Twitter, or X, I still call it Twitter, we have our separate handles, but on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, we're just crass and stuff. with the S, we kind of share one account on there. The Frankenstein of Krasenstein. And Brian, why do you believe that you guys have been getting traction?

You know, I think there's just every, every, you know, political cycle you have this back and forth. And right now it's just, you know, Democrats, they want to hear something. They want to cure the news in a quick burst. People don't have a lot of time. People are working two jobs. They don't want to sit through a, you know, one hour long. diatribe. So I think that quick newsburst, as well as, you know, people speaking for how they feel. I think that's something that people are attracted to. And what do you think the state of play is right now and who is it benefiting? The state of play as far as what?

Politics, you chooch? What else you think we're talking about? I mean, it's a back. Obviously, Brian is the smart one. Jeans don't get distributed evenly. No, he's not the smart one. Trust me. You can ask our friends. But I mean, I think the pendulum's constantly swinging. And now it's in favor of the Democrats. I think over time, any president ends up losing favor just because of all the attacks. And I think social media has a lot to do with that. I don't think we're going to see a two-term president for a long time again because of the way that social media is used to bring down whoever's in office. Brian, do you see your part, you guys as part of the build up or tear down?

I think that probably both, but I do think that as we, you know, head into the midterms in this next presidential election, I don't think the Democrat strategy should be the whole tear it down anymore. I think there's, you know, very real concerns, very real worries about, you know, affordability, about the economy, about AI. I think the next presidential election is going to be all about AI. And I could. could actually see, you know, the dividing lines not be Democrat, Republican, but pro-AI and anti-AI or somewhere in between there. And I think that if you're a politician, you have to be preparing for that and having solutions that don't crush innovation, but also don't crush the,

you know, middle America. What do you think of this argument, Ed, and Brian? AI is not an innovation. AI is something bigger than that. AI is the discovery of a new resource and should be treated as such. Now I'm going to lose a lot of people, but I still have to use the analogy because we don't, we've never done this here before. But like Norway, and I'm not saying anything about socialism, not about that. I'm happy to talk about socialism, but that's not what I'm saying. Oil is a natural resource. It is under their ground and moves around.

The people own it, and it is used through partly private, but mostly governmently held concerns, and everyone gets a stipend off it, and it is heavily regulated. Now, AI ain't oil, but it is a resource that, does have to be regulated and owned by the people. It is too powerful to be entrusted to the few in the private sector. Do you think that makes sense and isn't saleable at first? Yeah, so 100%. I agree 100%. If AI doesn't become viewed as a resource, society is going to have a downfall. You know, we hear democratic socialism all the time. But when it comes to AI, I think we have to view it in a different light. We've had innovations in the past. And those innovations, you know,

you say, oh, computers are going to take human jobs. This is going to take human jobs. You know, the assembly line's going to take human jobs. And it does at first, but then new jobs come after that. This is different because this actually is going to take human jobs. And I don't think jobs are going to rebound after that because when you team AI with robotics and automation, it's going to to be able to do everything humans can at a much faster rate, and it's going to be able to do a much better job. So I think Andrew Yang was ahead of his time. I think it was 2016 he was running, or maybe it was 2020. I think he was in the primaries. And he said, we need to get ahead of this. We need to have a living wage. And I think something like that has to take place. I mean,

I'm not sure a living wage is the answer, but without AI being viewed as more than an innovation being viewed more as a resource that society has a right to and has a right to see the benefits from. I think we're in trouble as a society. Brian, the argument that your brother makes is 100% right. The Luddites were wrong, okay, that the loom and the printing price, everything else has expanded. This is different. This is a contracting asset. It is going to make a need for less human capital. That's what it's going to do.

And yet this suggestion will be met with your anti-private sector, your anti-capitalism. Of course it's going to be in the private sector. Government can't run anything. What do you do with that? Yeah. You know, you have to show people that this is different like you've been saying. But, I mean, you already see, like, some Republicans actually clinging onto this idea, which is kind of odd, right? You have Donald Trump saying we should take stakes in the largest AI companies, which would take a five or 10 percent stake in Open AI or in-

Well, he took his stake in Intel on the semiconductor side. He has helped you on this issue because he is nodding towards semiconductors, but then his corruption helps you even more, that this guy has. has sided up to the AI guys, the tech bros. He's taking them around with him. He's letting them fill his son's pockets. What he did with the Binance guy alone is just fucking disgusting. And so he has disqualified himself as someone who gets it. But he has also introduced to his people the idea that this is different. So it works for you two ways. Well, and I think that when you have the masses, and I'm talking about, you know, the average middle class as well as the lower class, probably the bottom, you know, 85% of America.

starting to see people losing their jobs to AI and watching all of the money they're supposed to be making go to, you know, maybe the top 10 corporations in America over a trillion dollars apiece, I think that's going to, it's going to shock them into saying, okay, something needs to change. And yet it doesn't have to be, you know, a universal basic income per se, even though I think some Republicans actually support that idea. Elon Musk supports that idea. I think it could be like universal basic services where everybody gets access to the AI for free, right? So instead of paying, I pay $200 a month for chat GBT, the pro version, because I feel it gives me an advantage.

But a lot of people can't, they can't afford to spend $200 in income a month just to have access to this. So if the government was to, you know, give people that, pay these companies for it, or, you know, maybe some other setup where they can share it, share in their prosperity by having this service. I think that would be one step, but it has to go further than that. You know what the natural marriage is here? Because it's where AI is going to be the most applicable early on in a way that matters to the most people. And by the way, it's funny that you say the bottom 85%.

Last time I checked, 85% of anything is the overwhelming majority of it. But we are so top down sensitive. That's the way we see it. It's interesting. But the obvious marriage here is health care. AI is already having the biggest impact on health care. Why? Its ability to consolidate data. Its ability to see things and decide probabilities on the basis of that data is an amazing resource for diagnostics. No question. The robotics and surgery and protocols in phlebotomy, blood work, there's so many different things. if you do that marriage of yeah and guess what all those AI all that yeah we're getting a piece of that we're getting a piece of that because we're going to reform how health care gets paid for and gets profited from right now

and we're bringing in AI as the big and dominant factor because everyone in the health care sector who trades in health care stocks they're all in on AI because they know it's the future so marry them and say health care's got to change, too fucking expensive, about to get less expensive, two ways. One, AI, but not just for you selfish motherfuckers. We are going to own the AI that is making it cheaper for you to do what you overcharge us for. So we're going to put those together. It is the most natural marriage.

And I don't know why I can't tell you how many Democrats and Republicans, but they don't want to hear it because they hear socialism or something like that. I don't know what they hear, but I'm not saying it. But I've given it to so many Democrats, no one has repeated it yet, and it's very frustrating to me. Because I got to tell you, I did one segment about how ICE can't have any more traffic stops or any more anything without body cams on. It has to stop. They heard me. They saw this.

It changed just now. They just put out a new message on it. So they watch my shit. This is the best idea I've had in a long time. Nobody cares. What am I missing, Ed? Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I feel like Democrats should be the party to embrace AI, but they're not. And I think part of it is because Donald Trump has some control over it or is trying to gain more control of it. And they're afraid that he's going to gain control over and be able to manipulate it to benefit himself. And I think it's a fear they have to overcome. I think we do need regulations. And I think, you know, it's a fine line between over-regulating and allowing China and our other adversaries to leap ahead of us and under-regulating and allowing the AI to do bad things to us.

So it's a challenge. I think both parties have to look at this as the most pertinent topic leading into 2028, because by 2028, we've seen how it's been, what, two years since chat GPT has come out to the masses and the progress it has made in those two years. Now, imagine two more years where we're going to be. It's going to be the key topic. And I think the candidates need to realize that. And I think both sides need to come together around it. What is getting the most traction for you right now, Brian, in terms of topics?

Is it Lindsay Graham? Is it Iran? Is it ICE? What seems to matter most to your audience? I mean, just to show how, you know, crazy this, this Trump presidency is, it changes literally every day. You know, like, yesterday it was ICE the day before it was Iran. You know, it's, it's just, there's, it's hard to gain traction for if you're a Democrat because there's so much, you know, like he's throwing everything against the wall and Democrats can't keep up. What happened to have seen files?

I mean, that just, we don't even hear about that anymore, right? Right. Yeah, it's just overwhelming. And we didn't hear about it before either. One of my points of frustration with you people on the left is, you, man, you didn't give a shit about this until you thought it was bad for Trump. Hey, hey, that's not true. I actually found a tweet I made in 2022 where I said the Epstein files need to be released. You tweet like you probably did it just to prophylactically protect yourself for this conversation.

Well, maybe. But Chris's point, like, that is a fair criticism for Democrats as a whole. right? Like you didn't hear about this when Joe Biden was president. And, and that's fair. That's a fair criticism. But also Joe Biden wasn't involved in it. So I think there's more ammunition against Trump covering them up. You don't have as much, you know, you don't have as much mistrust there because Biden had nothing to do it. Because people now know, look, Marjorie Taylor Green can't be lying that much. She can't be that wrong and deceptive. She seems too much of a, too simple for that. I interviewed her about this.

I absolutely believe that she believed that all the files were going to be released and the Clintons were going to be destroyed. And she probably doesn't want to own it now, but she probably believed that like Anderson Cooper and other people were eating babies or whatever stupid shit that they were peddling about what was happening in a pizzeria. I think she believed a lot more of that than she did not believe and that she was absolutely mind-blown that Donald Trump didn't want any of it to cover. out that had anything to do with anything that matter. And I think that's closer to the truth

than anything else. And that has really pissed people off. And there's an opportunity in that. The question is, do Democrats get the advantage of that opportunity or is that one word, socialism, going to stand in the way? Yeah, I actually made a post about socialism today. I said, you know, I think labeling, the Democratic socialists in the Democratic Party labeling themselves as Democratic Socialists was a huge mistake. It gave ammunition to the right. Because when you really look at it, they're not Democratic Socialists. They're not, they don't have the same beliefs as Democratic Socialist countries have, right? They're more social Democrats, like Norway's, like Finland, like Denmark. Most are. I mean, that list that the DSA just put out, they

are talking about taking back the assets. Now, except for A, you know, with AI, I have a different feeling. But any other discussion of taking away private industry, taking away private assets, that's beyond social democracy. And it's a problem in American politics. Well, well, I mean, but isn't Trump doing that? Isn't Trump trying to take ownership in private companies? Yeah, but he just doesn't say it that way. So is that not socialism?

I know, but he doesn't use the word, right? So he took a stake in Intel and he had to because, you know, the semi, well, he didn't have to, but the semiconductor business is killing us. The fact that we gave it to Taiwan is fucking crazy. It's crazy that we put what matters most to us right off China shore in a place that they really want back. We were crazy. We were so selfish and short-sighted. So what Biden did with the Semiconductor Act, the Chips Act was smart. What Trump did in trying to kill the Chips Act was.

stupid. And what he's trying to do now with Intel is smart, but everything is politically weaponized so people don't know how to feel about it. I mean, I don't disagree with what he's trying to do with Intel, but I think it's hypocritical of the right to suddenly be on board with this when this is more socialism than, you know, we've seen from Bernie Sanders. Will the Krasnstein's ever say Donald Trump is right to do this with semiconductors? Donald Wright, Trump is right to do this with Intel. Because I feel like you guys are in the no business. So like I would, I am for somehow, and I have to qualify it with somehow,

the government having a stake in some of these large AI companies. But I don't think they can force them to give them a stake. I don't think that they should just say, okay, open AI, we're going to take 10%. That's that. I think that there has to be some equity invested, right? So if the government wanted to invest in Open AI when they IPO, then I think that's a positive. Obviously, we don't have the money to do that. We're $39 trillion in debt.

But it would, one, boost American AI infrastructure. And two, give Americans a stake in these companies. But it would have to be absent any influence of the government. So the government buys a stake in Open AI, 10%. they can't have any voting rights and they can't have any, you know, influence that the rest of the shareholders don't have. And I think if something like that happened and it was multiple companies like the top five AI companies in America, I think something like that could at least be a start to saying, okay, the public's going to get a dividend from whatever the success of these AI companies are. I like that piece.

Or payback the jet, right? Yeah, right, the fucking jet. I like that idea. I think my part that goes with it is less popular, less saleable, which is regulate the fuck out of it. Start slow. Make it a crime to give it to any other country. This is a national security issue. Let them figure it out for themselves or steal it. And we are going to go slow. We are not going to trust the private sector. Not with this. It's too much and Once it's out, it's out. But I get that that is dicey politically.

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With cash like that, I can stream out free because I've got enough. Distractions. Conditions apply. Scotia Bank. You're richer than you think. The easy win is what killed you guys with Biden other than the process, which was immigration. Do you guys, do you have concern that your criticism on the ice side is bordering on TDS, that you're overshooting the target? I mean, I think what ice is doing in some of these cities is overshooting what they should be doing.

I'm not like abolish ice. I don't think ice should be abolished. I think we need ice for reasons like certain deportations. I think deporting criminals like Trump ran on, right? I don't think any American has an issue with that. But when it comes to like what we saw in Maine, what we saw with Alex Prattie, what we saw with Renee Good, I think they're taking things too far. And Trump is putting people in that position who shouldn't be in that position.

So, no, it's not TDS. Is it, you know, do I think some Democrats are going to, too far against ice. Yeah, I do. I think, I don't think we should just abolish ice. That whole abolish ice thing. We've been through that already, right? And it abolish the police. You know, that whole thing gets us in trouble. Yeah, defund the police. It just gets the party in trouble. It's just not sensible. What do you think, Brian? No, I agree with that. I think that, like, we're seeing an overreach. We're seeing government overreach. We're seeing mass age. shooting and killing people.

We don't even know who killed these individuals. Do we even know who killed Alex Pretti and who killed Renee Good? No. I mean, I think it says something when masked agents go unheard from. We don't know who they are, but we know who the victims are.

And like, that's something you'd see in, and I hate to say Nazi Germany because it's not like that, but it's something you'd see in comparisons. You're having this secret police per se that Trump controls that's going after immigrants or sometimes not immigrants, sometimes American citizens and we don't know who they are. This latest one in Maine, how do you think this one affects the state of play, if at all, or do you think it doesn't move the needle? I think in Maine, it's going to have an impact. I think that they're already blaming Susan Collins because she voted for funding ICE.

I think that whoever is going to be the Democrat in the Senate race, I think they're going to have some win behind them. There's a lot of independence in Maine who can swing voters who could vote either way. And this isn't going to be a positive at all. What do you think, Ed? Yeah, I think it has huge ramifications for the Senate race in Maine. I think Susan Collins is in more trouble now than she was before with grandparents. flattener out of the race, I thought, you know, Collins probably would win, but now I think things are turning against. So I think it helps Democrats. I mean, I hate you say it because

it's a death of an innocent man with a three-year-old child, but I think it definitely hurts Susan Collins. Let's talk about the case. Let's talk about the case. And then, like, so we just, we see what the pivot is on the right. The pivot on the right is it's all about the elections. And they're going to say that the elections were rigged and that you guys don't want to fix them because you got TDS and that that's what it is, our freedoms, our freedoms. And what they mean is that the elections are rigged. And that's what they're going to campaign on to get away from the economy. And I don't know how saleable it'll be because they have picked something that we all know is curious, which is our election system. We all know that every time they check numbers,

the numbers change a little bit and there's no ID and you don't know who anybody is. We all know that it's a little bit of a flexed system. We also know that every time they look, we don't see any real fraud. And we'll get to that. But first, on ICE, you said he was an innocent man. Well, I don't see any reason that he needed to be shot and killed. But we have no reason to, to believe that he wasn't here illegally. What do you know that? I don't know. Well, so from what we've heard is he was here on a work visa. Right. That had been expired and there was a final order of removal that he was appealing. So is he here legally or illegal? Isis saying that he wasn't even the target. They're going after somebody else. Mark Wayne Mullen said that to Senator King. The agency

put out a statement saying they surveilled his home and he came out of it and he had a final order of removal. Yeah, I mean, I guess we won't know for sure until any investigations in Maine are complete. I mean, I don't believe what Mark Green Mullen's saying until, you know, we get it verified by the state of Maine. Yes, that's the problem, right? We still don't know what happened with Renee Good, Brian. We do know that the officer involved is back doing administrative stuff, but he's back and he was back pretty much right after. There's no body cam here. There's no body cam here. There's no body cam of what happened in Texas. How do you think this works, this issue? Well, yeah, I mean, that's a good question. Like, where is, where is the Minnesota investigation, right? Like,

we haven't heard anything there. We haven't heard what's going on with the guy that killed Renee Good. Where is that information? I'm guessing it's going to take a little bit longer than probably most of us hope. But yeah, like you said, like we, like none of this is going anywhere right now. These officers are seemingly getting away with it and it's just emboldening the rest of them. And the whole fact that there's no body cams, I think that's the biggest issue. It's like everybody should wear a body cam. If you have nothing you hide, then wear a body cam and let's see the footage of what it actually took place. Why is this not something that's required? And the idea of this pivot, you don't want voter ID because you like the fraud. And if we just had ID, you,

We have IDs for everything else. The overwhelming majority of American people want them. You guys are on the wrong side. Yeah, we have IDs for grocery shopping like Trump says, right? Trump said something interesting to me a few weeks back. He said there's many reasons to reject somebody with an ID. And I thought, no, there's one reason to reject somebody that has an ID. And that's that they're not the person on that ID.

So it made me think, okay, if he's thinking this, then what's to say that certain states are going to start rejecting people saying, that's not, you're not the person on this ID. There's, and then of course there's the issue that voter ID makes it more difficult for people to vote, especially minorities, especially minorities, especially young people, especially older people.

And it's a way to disenfranchise people who aren't as much excited about voting, and that tends to be more Democrats, usually. And I guess my thing to add there is we've never had voter ID, right? Like going back 250 years, it's worked. Well, they tried it during Jim Crowe, and that's why they were very careful about it. Poll taxes and different suppression and intimidation methods.

That's why they were very zealous about, no, no, no, You just come and vote. Let's keep it as hands off as possible. Now that's being used as a basis of suspicion. The benefit of context for him, Trump, is you can get a driver's license and not be a legal citizen in a lot of states. That's what he's pointing to. That's why they're saying the real ID, but the chilling effect will be real. You will almost certainly have fewer legitimate voters if there is a point.

process of qualification involved where you got to go through it yourself because who wants to deal with that? Yeah, and it would focus on the disqualification would be on minorities. I'm guessing minorities will be disenfranchised at a much higher rate than white people in America. Yeah, I mean, it seems, and my problem with the act is because, look, you have overwhelming buy-in by the American people because, in my opinion, they're not seeing the full flavor of it or they're blaming people for what I'm seeing as a concern that, well, if you're lazy, you're lazy, Barbara, you know, which I don't really accept, but whatever. And the mail in voting. They want to strip out a lot of the mail in voting, which has been the best tool for the expansion

of participation in a generation. Yeah, I mean, Donald Trump voted by mail. So, like, why did he vote by mail? What's his excuse? I, I mean, it made it easier for my, family, my parents who vote, maybe they wouldn't have voted if it wasn't for mail-in-voting. So, like, why are you disenfranchisizing people over something that there hasn't been any evidence of major fraud about, right? Like, there's no major mail-in-voting fraud. It's helped add people to the voting rolls. It's helped, it's helped add votes to the election. We had one of the, you know, the most, the most voted in elections in American history. two years ago. So like why is why is this a problem? The problem is that Americans don't dig

deeper. It's easy to sell something based off fear. And that's what the Republicans have gotten really good at. They can say, hey, there's voter fraud. Here's a case. One person committed fraud. We need this. And most people would be like, yeah, like, who can't get an ID? So like, I think Democrats have a hard time because it's harder to explain their side than it is for Republicans, and people just don't have the attention span to sit down and listen to what the reasons are for the Democrats' views. Welcome aboard via rail. Please sit and enjoy. Please sit and sit.

Play. Post. Taste. View and enjoy. Via Rail, love the way. It's about the zeitgeist. We are about outrage. We are about rejection of the status quo, an anti-establishment. Ed and Brian, you are defending the establishment. You're saying that the institution's just fine. You're saying voting works just fine.

And I want disruption. I think it's broken. I think it's fucked up. And you're defending how it is. And I want it to change. Yeah, but if you're requiring ID, isn't that giving even more control to the institution? they're the ones that are going to have the ability to deny you based on that ID. Because right now it lets anybody vote, and that sounds weird to me because you can't do that anywhere else.

Well, not leaving it. You can't vote legally. Like, it's still, what, a five-year jail sentence if you're called voting illegally? Yeah. And the truth is they never make cases because it happens so rarely. But the vibe of it from a disruption standpoint is this doesn't make sense, not have an ID. I need ID for everything else. Now, are they misunderstanding?

You don't need an ID for any other right. Oh, yeah, I need a passport to travel. It's not a right. And even when there are rights, they're allowed to regulate them. And we've never done that with voting. But that's all lost on people. They say, yeah, it doesn't make sense, Brian. If you don't want people to have an ID, that's weird.

It's like trying to make it easier to be deceptive. Yeah, and that's where the Republicans have the advantage because it's such a simplistic, you know, argument. It's so simple and it's hard to, it's hard to counter that. Like me sitting here, I sometimes have a hard time saying why we shouldn't have voter ID. And that's just because it takes me so much longer to explain the issues behind it, the history behind it, than it does to say, hey, there's fraud, we need ID. And that's what Republicans, the Republicans love that. You know, they break everything down into, you know, letters, CRT, DEI. and it's easy for them to push this on people.

They can just say DEI, and it means basically anything they want it to mean. I think you guys are at risk. Go ahead, go ahead. Say what you want to say. I just think if you want to say everybody needs voter ID, make the process almost automatic. When you get a driver's license, you automatically get a voter ID. When you get a student ID, you automatically get a voter ID.

Make it automatic and also have it backed up online. So if you lose that voter ID, you can access it when you're voting online as you're voting so that it gets, it helps you jump over some of these hurdles. The second part can you can do. The first part's tricky because they don't want you to just show where you live. They want you to show a birth certificate. They want you to go through that real ID process. I don't know if you've done it yet. I had to go through it in New York.

That was a solid two hours. that was a solid two hours where I kept fucking up the process. At first I was trying to do it on my phone. Then I realized I couldn't. And then I had to make the appointment and you got to go in and thank God. Not that God. It's not that big a deal. But I just, I had already gotten one with my Coast Guard license.

So it turned out that that was two hours wasted. But it can't be that hard. It's hard. It can't be that hard to get a voter ID. It can't be just a driver's license because then you don't know the person's a citizen. And that's their boogeyman. Now, here's my question. Are you guys falling into the same trap, Brian, that you did with open borders?

That you guys are permissive and the vibe of the country is restrictive. And you're going to fall into the same hole you did with immigration during Biden? No, I don't think so because with immigration, there actually was a problem. I mean, we had millions of immigrants coming in and they could, could actually show that. Whereas now you have this whole voter fraud and there's no evidence you back it up, no widespread evidence. So I do get what you're saying. I do think that Democrats, they blew off the immigration issues and Republicans could use it because I mean, there was an issue there. But with voter fraud, they're going to, you know, they're going to claim all these things.

there's going to be no, no arrest, there's no indictments. I think most Americans, according to this poll, say that people should have voter ID. I don't think it's even close to being the number one issue for voters come to midterms. I think there's other things like the price of groceries, the price of gas, the state of their economy, the state of, you know, health care in this country. Those are trickier to win on, though. They're trickier. You can. Look, look at my shirt.

Fix America first. I'm selling this because I believe, even as an anti-partisan, we got to focus on what matters the most to the many. And I think that's a sweet spot for the midterms. But it's harder than this issue. And that's why Trump's all over it. It's easy to be suspicious that the elections have fraud that we don't know about. It's an easy boogeyman. I just don't think it's something on the top of everybody's mind, especially people who don't really pay attention as much to news of it, which is very. probably the majority of Americans. But do Democrats have to do more than say, like look at the inflation numbers that came out? They're saying, see, it's coming back down. It's coming back down. Now, I think he's still on the losing side of that, but it shows that the blame game is unsatisfying as the only serving. The Democrats are going to have to have ideas that adjust affordability that the Republicans

don't have. That's why I love the AI health care marriage. Yeah. Well, I mean, I agree with you when it comes to 2028, but honestly, I think 2026 is more about, like you said in the beginning, tearing it down, tearing Trump down, just like it was for these midterms in his first term. Yeah, you don't have, you know, you don't have a candidate running against, running against Trump. You have a whole party that is, you know, running for Trump, you could say. So Democrats can fight back against Trump for saying, hey, these are the people that are supporting. Donald Trump, the way to stop Trump now is to just win the Senate, win the House. And we can actually look into some of these fraud allegations and all this crazy stuff that he's doing.

Are you guilty of what you accuse the right fringe of, which is painting Trump as a boogeyman and a Nazi? I don't think so. I mean, I think that Trump is the problem right now. Trump is one of the main reasons we have a war in Iran. We have increasing crisis, whether you want to blame gas prices in the war in Iran or the tariffs. He's the one behind it. And the fact that we can't stop him, I think, is a major issue. And the way we do stop him is to get a house and a Senate on our side who can actually investigate him. Well, the biggest thing you've got going for you is that the people like balanced power because of their distrust of both. And things. They tend to be better, or they used to be better.

Now, there's just the relative level of constipation. Ed, is Israel on the ballot in the midterms? It's hard to say. I mean, to some degree it is. I think for a lot of people it is. And I think that benefits the left. I think there's Democrats and Republicans who are more in the pro-Israel side of things, but I think there is this subsection of Democrats who are anti-Israel.

I'd say probably the majority of Democrats are anti-Israel. anti-Israel right now. And you think that's good? Well, the crazy thing is that I don't, the crazy thing is American Jews are actually way more Democrat. And I saw a poll the other day and it broke down, you know, Democrat versus Republican news on Israel and Democrats are way more negative on Israel, but more American Jews or Democrat by quite a long shot.

I think it's like 65 to 70 percent of Jewish voters in America are. Democrat yet I think over 50% of those voters were against what's happening in the Middle East. Do the Democrats lose the Jews for the first time in modern elective electoral history? No, I don't think it's even close. I think if anything, Democrats probably have just as much of the Jew turnout as they did in 20 in 2024. I mean, Brian and I have a cousin who's in the Israeli military. But at the same time, I think what Netanyahu's doing is going way, way, way too far. I think, you know, you don't have to, as a Jewish person, you can still support the Israeli people, but you don't necessarily have to agree with the Israeli government.

Just like in America, we support America, but we don't have to agree with President Trump. Right, but you don't think that Zora Mamdani, the squad, that you guys are not just about BB, that if I'm a Jewish person, I feel you're against me. And these are the faces of your party's movement. I mean, I don't feel that way. I honestly don't feel that way when it comes to AOC and Mammany.

I feel like they also are against what the Israeli government's doing right now. You don't think that there is anti-Semitism wrapped up in that? I don't believe so. What if Nigeria was doing something that we disagreed with? Would you say your race,

because you disagreed with the Nigerian government? No, but if I said that, but if I said that Nigerians are sneaky, money-wielding operators and they have too much power for too long, that's what Jews are hearing. Yeah, yeah. Well, but is that what's being said?

Are they saying all Israelis or are they saying Israeli government? You know, like, they're different there. I agree, they are different, but I don't know that we're adhering to that distinction. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I think way too many people blend the Israeli government with the Israeli people, with Jewish people in general.

And I don't think it's the right way to go about doing things. Drop everything. The McDonald's Creamy Parmesan and Bacon Quarter Pounder is back for a limited time. So juicy, so cheesy. This burger demands your full attention. Made with 100% Canadian beef, topped with the creamy parmesan and black pepper sauce, hickory smoked bacon and crispy onions.

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what is your guy's biggest beef with me and how I do things? I do go first. Don't be shy. Pretend you're typing, you fucking keyboard warriors. Honestly, I don't have a beef with you. I don't, I mean, I think, I like, what you do. I think you, you, you're a moderate person who likes having discussions with both sides.

I do like having discussions with both sides. I am, I am a person without a country, right? Because everything's about having a side and I don't have a side, so I'm constantly a target. But I really believe, I know that the parties are the problem. If I had to pick what the problem is, you would say Trump. I understand that, okay? Not easy for me to defeat it. Certainly not with you two, but I mean, with most of your constituency, I believe the parties are a bigger problem. Because you don't have Trump without this fucked up binary system.

Because you never have Trump without Obama because he was reaction formation to Obama. I mean, you don't get him otherwise. You don't get Trump after Clinton. So the parties are killing us. I don't know what to do about it. No, I agree. I think the two-party system is not good for America.

But like you said, unless we have ranked choice voting for the general election, there's no way around it. And I don't think we'll ever get ranked choice voting for the general. For the primaries, for the primaries, I believe that if I could wave a wand, I think that Brian Tyler Cohen said, wave the wand to get rid of gerrymandering. Okay. I think that the bigger wand is the parties don't get to,

control the primary process. So you got to do top two or top four. The Supreme Court said, no. You in a club, you get to decide who's in the club. The party gets to decide who's in the party. Okay. That was too narrowly tailored that issue. Because clubs don't run our democracy.

the parties are violating that rule. So the issue is not whether or not they get to choose who's a Democrat, who's a Republican. I give you that. You don't get to choose who gets to represent the democracy and that constituency, because there are a lot of people who are not in either party. So you're closing them out. And it shouldn't be state by state. So how do you accommodate the club with the need for consensus

there's got to be an accommodation. And the accommodation is you do top two, top four, or you make all primaries open, but then you don't need the parties. But I believe that that would be more in keeping with the Constitution. And I think that fight is a signature fight. And I don't know why the Democrats don't jump on it, except that they like the system as it is too.

Yeah. Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah. If we had just one more party, I think that would stop so much. It's got to be legit though And it's got to have enough funding That it can fight that

Well look I mean another wand Citizens United If you could wave away citizens united You'd be in better shape also The good news is people want this stuff The best way to get it It's not as hard as people think Because you guys have the compact

The state compact About how to deal with the electoral college And to do it Representationally You know that that idea on the left, that you get a consortium of the main states and they apportioned their electors so it's not winner take all. And then you would offset the electoral college problem.

Now, I don't really understand it because I believe, like, you're playing into the problem with the electoral college, that unless it's everybody apportions it, then these small states still have outsized power. But anyway, you're already down with that idea of a lot of, allowing the states to do it differently. I think we have to flip it and make one rule across the country on gerrymandering, on primaries, and 30 out of 50 states, simple majority of their legislature, constitutional convention. Then you need three-fourths of the legislatures to ratify

those changes or offerings from the convention. I think it's way past time. I think it's way past time. And you know who agrees with me? The founders. The founders thought they would absolutely have another one. They were worried about it. They said, not too soon. We barely made it through this one. We barely made it through. But the Electoral College specifically, James Madison, the guys in Virginia, they were like, this is the stupidest fucking thing. I can't believe we're agreeing to this. I can't believe these small states are holding this hostage. And then the dirty compromise was really tying together that idea with slavery. Like, you got to give a slavery. And guys were against it. Pennsylvania, New York, they were against, they were like, how are all men created equal? And you guys want, that's how they got the three-fifths bullshit. And that's how they got the electro-college bullshit was just to get it done. And that's why in the original constitution, it says for 20 years, you can't touch slavery. They knew shit was going to change.

This is bullshit that they thought they had gotten it all right and that nothing was going to change, specifically the electoral college. I think it's time. Do you think there's any appetite for that or people are too micro two in the moment? I think there's an appetite for it, but I don't know if there's enough people who are informed enough and who desired enough because they don't understand how the process works to make a dent. I think, you know, Congress has to act. And I think, like you said, I think both parties are happy with where things are right now. Overall, as a party, you know, I'm sure there's certain candidates who wish things are different, but that's not enough. You think we got better days or worse days ahead, Brian?

I think we have better days, but there's going to be, you know, some confusing times ahead. Like we talked about AI before, I think there's going to be a lot of disruption in a jobs market. I think that the parties are going to, you know, they're going to get mixed up a little bit. So like I think after Trump we're going to see a lot of changes politically in America, but I think it's all going to come down to a lot of unemployment, affordability issues, and this fact that income inequality and inequality in general in America is just that gap is just widening almost exponentially and will continue to as, you know, as AI start accumulating. more wealth in these massive corporations and hurting people.

AI is everything and Trump is handing it to you because he's just dirty, but he has awakened his base that this issue matters. Gentlemen, I am fans and I count myself as a friend whether you like it or not. I love to pay attention to what you guys are doing. You're important in the state of play. And I appreciate you guys. So thank you for coming on to talk about it. Thank you, Chris.

Always a pleasure. And I only 50% mean the physical threats I make to you on a regular basis. It's only 50%. Although your brother did Google me, though. He did. He did a little research. And then he like, he sharpened up. You know what I mean?

All of a sudden, he was like, listen, listen. I already knew that about you. See, I knew that. You know, because like when the last time, I think one of you was taking your shirt off and you were like, yeah, I'm ready to go. And I was like, yeah, no, come. Come, come, said the tiger to the sheep. Brothers, keep going, and thank you for being a part of the conversation here.

I'll talk to you soon. I'm always a text away. Yeah, thank you, Chris. I like the brothers, smart, savvy, nicer in person than on social media, certainly where I'm involved. Isn't that always the way? Not with me. I'm the same online and off. In fact, I'm the same on TV or on a podcast.

podcast as when I am in person. A couple of caveats. One, I curse even more in my regular life. Why? Feels good. I like it. I believe it channels my emotion. I dig it. And I dig it even more with people telling me not to dig it. Why? Because I am a contrarian. And I don't respect your reasoning. Because you're saying, well, you know, it makes it indecent. No, the ideas are indecent. Right? The conditions are indecent. The reality. are indecent, not the language. Don't give the words more power than the ideas. That's what pisses me off. So I will curse even more in response to you because you are not valuing the right things. Second thing, family first, if you bring the noise and I am in Papa Bear mode or Mama Bear mode,

you're going to get the worst of me because I don't have, I will not suffer. that. I will not let you come around my kids and be the worst of yourself and think you're going to get the best of me. It's not going to happen. But subject to those two caveats, I'm the same guy. Most in my business are not. Did you know that? Do you care? So what did you think of the conversation? Will you please comment and let me know? And thank you so much for subscribing and following. Thank you very much for getting the gear. Fix America first, man. This has got to be our mentality, not because I'm anti-foreign aid or I'm anti-foreign involvement, but it's about priorities. It's about priorities. And my big priority is getting you to lean into being a critical thinker.

Get out of this party thing. Get out of us and them. Okay? Get out of it. Brand your independence. Say you're an independent. Where are your independence. Say that you're a critical thinker. Say you're different, man. Say you're a free agent. That is our best. position forward. That's what it is. We've got to break out of these bubbles and silos and every other metaphor for us and them. All right? The problems are real. Our attitude must be. Let's stay together and let's get after.