The Chris Cuomo Project - The Real Reason the Shutdown Ended

Episode Date: November 13, 2025

Chris Cuomo explains why the shutdown outrage was never going to deliver real gains — not because the left was wrong, but because they were boxed in by laws and limits that made a clean, moral fight impossible. He walks through how progressives pushed for affordability, transparency, and protections on subsidies, but were forced into a deal shaped by rules written years ago under earlier administrations and reinforced during Trump’s presidency. Cuomo breaks down how the outrage economy and algorithm politics make good-faith leadership nearly impossible, and why many Democrats are now trying to shift from anger to achievable wins on healthcare, cost of living, and basic government function. He also shows how the MAGA–MEGA divide is reshaping expectations for 2026 — and why political incentives keep pulling both sides toward conflict even when voters want competence. Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday: https://linktr.ee/cuomoproject Join Chris Ad-Free On Substack: http://thechriscuomoproject.substack.com Support our sponsors: Calm your mind, change your life. Calm has an exclusive offer just for listeners of our show– get 40% off a Calm Premium Subscription at http://calm.com/CUOMO Get $35 off your first box of wild-caught, sustainable seafood—delivered right to your door. Go to: https://www.wildalaskan.com/CUOMO Take advantage of Ridge’s Biggest Sale of the Year and GET UP TO 47% Off by going to https://www.Ridge.com/CUOMO #Ridgepod Ready to give MASA or Vandy a try? Get 25% off your first order by going to http://masachips.com/CUOMO and using code CUOMO. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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that's done the right way. Go to wildalaskin.com forward. slash Cuomo, and you will get 35 bucks off your first box of premium wild caught seafood. Do not watch or listen if you don't want to get upset, okay? Because what I'm about to say is definitely going to piss you off, no matter what your politics are. But remember, I'm coming from it from the perspective of what the facts are to a critical thinker, not somebody looking to have it fit into what I already believe, because I'm a free agent, not someone who's just on a team that isn't taking me anywhere good. The shutdown was a setup.

The shutdown is a metaphor for the next in our politics. And everything that people are telling you about it is a head fake. It is not what they really want you to be thinking and looking at. And I can prove it. You ready? I'm Chris Cuomo. Welcome to the Chris Cuomo Project. The shutdown. What are hearing right now? Influencers on the left. They caved. They caved. They caved. Okay? You're going to see them. You're going to see them out. They're saying the senators caved. Here are they. eight names. Remember them. Don't vote for them. Why? Let's talk about it. Did they cave? How do you think a shutdown was going to end? Let's take another step beyond, or before we get to that. Who wanted this shutdown? Oh, the left flank of the Democratic Party. Wait a minute, not all of us?

No, not all of us. Why? Well, oh, the critical thinker. know a shutdown never gets anything done. It can platform an issue. And I'm not, this isn't a subjective take. Go back to 1976 like I did. You'll see two shutdowns where arguably you can say, all right, well, you know, the minority that shut it down was shut it down actually got the needle moved a little bit. Reagan, when it was him against his own party and the Democrats about what kind of cuts he wanted on taxes and spending. And he got a little bit, he got a little bit more than he had before the shutdown, but it was only a couple of days. Bush, no new taxes, he needed new taxes. So he was at a fight with his own side who didn't want the taxes, but he had said no new

taxes and then he couldn't live up to it because he was getting choked with revenue and he had a ton of debt thanks to Reagan. And he had to give a little bit, to get a little bit, to think he would be able to survive, but it wasn't enough. He moved the need a little bit. In the modern era, and I can't believe I'm saying that because to me, the 80s were the modern era, but in the modern era, now that we're completely binary and about one side seeking advantage over the other, there is no compromise, there is no real budgeting. It's all just fighting over and doing the minimum, right, so that you can starve who's ever in power from getting anything done because you just want the power back.

It's all about advantage. Has it always been this way? Yes, but as matters of degree, it's gotten deeper and deeper into this to now where it's just a battle to the bottom. It's almost complete zero sum. No shutdown has ever yielded what the minority that caused the shutdown wanted. Never. Okay.

And just for recent history, okay, the last couple of ones didn't do anything, right? We know that. You don't even remember what they were about. Okay? Why? Well, that's the point. The one during the Trump administration, in the first administration, he didn't even get the money for the wall. And this was after the left started saying,

well, we're not against physical barriers. We don't think that it's everything. And I'm not going to build something across a river and the mountains. It doesn't make any sense. He didn't even get that done. And it was not as controversial as it had been during the campaign. What's the point?

Anyone who shuts down the government knows it's just about making a point, not making change. Everybody knows that. So if you're getting upset right now and saying, cave, Senator Murphy, cave, this representative caved, this influencer on the left. They caved. Here are the eight names. I'll tell you who's brave. The eight. The eight senators are real ones. They're real Democrats. Why? Because fuck you for saying that the price that the innocent are paying for your politics is justifiable. Because it's about the greater good. Fuck you and you're

bullshit cave. You are the one who caved. You caved to clickbait and that advantage and that currency. And I'll tell you how you can prove it. Anyone who's saying they caved, ask them what the alternative was. Ask them. Put it in the comments. What do you think should have happened? Oh, you should have kept it shut down because they were about to make it. They were about to what? The Republicans don't believe this was bad for them. They have their own polling. You have your polling, that the Democrats are winning, they're winning. Nobody's winning. Everybody's losing. It's about how fast. They were never going to give you the subsidies to end the shutdown. Why? Two reasons. One, it's political suicide for them. Now, asterisk, okay? Notabaney,

I think the subsidies are needed. I wouldn't even change the level. I think that the good fight is cost of health care. Affordability, accessibility, okay, accessibility, yeah, that's about the ACA subsidies, basically. And if you don't do it that way, you're going to knock people off. They're not going to be able to afford it, and you're going to have more people who don't have coverage. But coverage isn't as big a problem as cost. Cost is the problem.

How do we know? Because accessibility has gotten better because of the ACA. They should have called it the Accessibility Care Act. accessibility to care act they shouldn't have called the affordability why because it wasn't set up to really be the cost fix and also ask yourself i'll i'll get to that better point in a second about why they did the ACA in the first place and how intellectually dishonest the same people are being to you right now but how many people do you think don't have access to health care in this country one first answer less than before the ACA two MAGA those states are

are adopting and moving into the ACA and needing the subsidies at a higher rate than blue states. So the right saying the ACA sucks, the ACA is the problem, why do you think they've never replaced it with anything? See, they get the political bang of it being a boogeyman, but they've never been able to, Trump, I have concepts of a plan. He's never talked about it again. Why? He doesn't have any fucking plan.

This is complicated. This is hard. And this is working better than what they had before. They don't want to work on it to make it better. Why? Because they want it both ways. They want to say it sucks. So I believe that the left is fighting the right fight. Health care is out of control. You made it worse by reducing revenue and giving extended tax cuts mostly to the top, convincing the middle that it's about them when it isn't, and taking it out of the backs of people who need subsidies and reimbursement rates.

That's what you did. And I think that is the good fight. But, but, but. Doing it this way was never going to work except to make a point. And I believe the Democrats made that point. I think they changed the discussion. I think we're talking about health care in this country in a way we haven't for a long time. And that's a good thing. That's a win. Is it worth what they did?

No, not to me, but that's a subjective choice. Why? Because you made people pay who don't deserve to pay. You cause stress to families. you cost erosion of trust. But you wanted to make a point. You wanted to say you're willing to fight. You're willing to say you fight back.

Okay, you made those points. I think you made them two weeks ago. But fine. But the idea of doing this because you were going to get the subsidies, anyone who says that to you is lying to your fucking face. Or they're so stupid they should surrender their platform or their office immediately. If any senator thought they were going to get a deal on the subsidies from this, they are full of shit. If they're saying that, they're full of shit. If they thought

that, they are literally insane. I give it to Federman and the other seven. I see Federman as the standout guy to watch on the Democratic side, in terms of a fair broker who's letting you into the legitimacy of his process and why he's doing what he's doing. I think he's as fair broker as there is. You don't have to like his conclusions or even his rationales, but I think that what he's telling you is why he's doing it. And that's at a premium now with all these bullshitters like the cave people. He's the same people who said Trump, taco. Trump always chickens out. What is that? It's a cheap version of muscularity of resistance. It's cheap. I get you don't care. You just want to go after Trump because you believe he's a Nazi and an autocrat and a despot.

I get it. I get it. Do I agree? No, doesn't matter. Do I like a lot of his actions? No, I don't. That doesn't really matter either in terms of my analysis. The shutdown was never going to end with the Democrats getting the subsidies put back in place. Never. You could even argue. It could never end that way because this is the reconciliation process and you were never going to get a long-term fix because you can't, which is why the subsidies were short-term to begin with because they were done through the reconciliation process. They're going to be short-term. That's by law, okay? So, if they're telling you they caved, they're playing you because there was no other option except extended pain through Thanksgiving. And them whipping the vote now in the House, that's fine. But remember, just keep saying to them, what was the alternative? What do you think was going to happen?

They won't even tell you. They don't even discuss it. Listen, man, this is bullshit. the left caved and here are the eight names and these people you should never forget forget what what did you think was going to happen and on what basis support comes from calm calm is the number one app for sleep and meditation for a reason works for me it'll work for you why you got to have tools to help you live the life you want to live it can't be all go all the time not only is that not reasonable. It's just not effective. Down time matters. Slowing your brain, quieting your mind,

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why the shutdown happened, right, in terms of conceptually, how I feel about it, which is what, Democrats are fighting the good fight. I think MAGA has created reaction formation on the left, which is its own populist movement driven by outrage that is more people bigger and broader where they are going to respond to what MAGA was about. Maga was about white fright, right? And whitey getting diluted by the great replacement theory, right, and all this other bullshit and Christian nationalism and nativism and all these.

things. So what are they about? And equally but distinct fundamentalism of what, anti-type, down with whitey, the brown man, you know, adopting their oppression, as you saw with Gaza, right? White Jewish kids or light-skinned Jewish kids and other light-skinned white, you know, or other non-Brown, non-Palestinian, non-Islamic people being in favor of their fate, which they don't understand and they don't. extend to any other oppressed group of Muslims. Just these. Why? Because of the Jews and it's been made of political football. So those ideas now roost on the fringe of both sides, right? Maga has splintered, right? Maga wasn't enough. It never is. Extremism and outrage machines always exhaust themselves. They're sugar highs. So it's got to go more and more and more, okay? Unless there's an

intervening crisis. If there's an intervening crisis, then everything resets. God forbid, I don't want to do it that way, but I'm starting to think, I don't know of any other way. I don't want it to happen, but I don't know any other way, that we get out of this fringe versus fringe. Because we've reached a point in our society now more than ever before, not new, but more, the majority is being held hostage by minorities. And I'm not talking about black people. I am all about the melting pot, okay? I'm one generation into whiteness. My father was called an ethnic. So, and dismissed as one, right, couldn't get jobs, wasn't seen the same way, was talked about as if he must be a mafiosi. All of those were ethnically derivative, right? I'm not really considered an ethnic

anymore. I just happen to speak other languages and keep certain traditions and rights and feel certain ways, but that's me. I'm just white. Okay, I accept it. It's your definitions. It's not how I see myself. It doesn't matter. It's not that I don't see myself as white. I'm saying the rules or the rules. I don't have any choice really in them. What I'm saying is this. The more diversity, the better I believe diversity is our strength. I think people who say diversity is not our strength or fucking wrong, okay? I know it's our strength. It's America's secret sauce. We have other things going for us, but that is a defining one. Now, I've told you all these things. So why didn't I want to keep the shutdown going? If it's fighting the good fight

and they are right about the issue that it's really about, which is the subsidies and who pays for these tax cuts and how, well, then why didn't I want to keep it going? Because you're making people suffer who don't deserve it given you will never get what you want. It's not about will. They're not bending. It's never going to happen. Why? One, there would be obstacles to it. Even if you can get through with those. Oh, yeah, no, you could. You could write in this. Fine. They weren't going to do it. They don't want to. They think they're winning. And they don't believe in those changes. So it was never going to happen. Why would I be for something that is causing pain that will never achieve what I want to be the goal.

Think about it. Why would I do that? Why would I make any type of commitment of suffering of negativity if there was going to be no payoff beyond what I got in a much shorter duration of it, which is we need to talk about cost and health care and how they're fucking it up on purpose and what that's going to mean for their own base, and this is part of the populist movement that we are using as reaction to theirs that got us in this position. We're angry too, and here's what it's about, and this is what the fight should be. I have no problem with any of that. But the duration of this was counterproductive. It was

never going to result in they want. So anyone who says they caved is full of shit. Of course they caved, they had to end it, right? So yes, the Democrats are undoing what they did, which was allowing the filibuster to keep going, right? Okay. And they even got more votes than they needed. Okay. So they caved. No, they ended the shutdown. Well, that's semantics. Yeah, for you, not for me. Caved means they gave in to the Republicans. No, this is the only way it was ever going to end. It is not rational to believe anything else. Now we get into them. Why did they do it? Good question. Critical thinker, free agent. I'll tell you why. Chuck Schumer got talked into this by his left flank. How do I know? Well, first of all, it's easy to see from the reporting,

but I have been told this. I know this. Why? Look at Newsom. Look at AOC. Look what's working. You got to be muscular against Trump. You've got to show you're fighting back. Our base feels we're not doing anything. We're letting them run all over us all the time. Now, I don't know why they're not bringing more lawsuits. I think they'd be more effective in court on a lot of their pet issues, which many I think are important issues, not pet to be derogative.

But they don't want to do that. Why? Hard, takes time, not as buzzy as social media and hot language and all this bullshit. so you saw rocana everyone to the left of hakeem jeffreys who wants in on this new movement and this outrage you got to fight back you got to shut it down you got to shut it down now again shut downs are always toxic they have never achieved anything good i mean that's a fact okay look at them democrats never gave republicans anything for the republicans to end a shutdown what does that tell you that someone's playing you with this caving thing. Okay. So Schumer gets talked into it by

the left flank. Why? Several reasons. One of them is putatively what they were putting out there explicitly. You got to fight back. You got to use what you can. The leverage argument. It's only leverage we have. I would argue it's not leverage because you were never going to make them do anything that you wanted them to do because nobody in the majority ever has. And no, this is not different. I think this issue matters more than other ones that the shutdown has been about. I think they're all phantom issues one way or another. I can't tell you how many Republicans and Democrats tell me they know how to lower costs in healthcare. They're full of shit. They never even talk about it. Why? Look at my clips on it. Why? Because of the lobbying money, the jobs

and all the districts. Healthcare is a major employer. And then you put in pharma, insurance, all the providers, all the financing that gets done off it and all the markets, primary and secondary within Wall Street where they use these businesses as leverage to create instruments and liquidity and money and the stocks and all that shit, okay? And the money they're giving the politicians. I start with that, I ended with that. This entity is a beast. And that's why we're in the position we're in.

And it has to change. And if you want it to be violent, you want it to be extreme, okay, I get your desperation. The same way I did with MAGA. I get it with the mega version of it. I get it. But how, how, how? And it was never going to happen through a shutdown. Never. And guess who knew that? Guess who knew that? Chuck Schumer knew it. But what else did he know? Well, why did he go so quiet on Israel? Why has he been bucking up his tone? Why is he so pissed off? Not about ending the shutdown, but the picture of Trump with his hand on his shoulder. Because he wants to cater to the left. Why? He wants to stay in office. And AOC may decide she wants to eat his lunch and she will. or somebody else will, from the left. Why?

Because he's done with this party. Now, he knew the shutdown wouldn't get him where he wanted to be. He knew it. Why? Because it never has before, and he's been in them. He knows this. He's kept the other side from getting anything when they shut the government down, and he was in power in the majority.

The left talked him into what. He wanted to defer to the left because they are taking over his party, the same way MAGA took over the GOP. Support for the Chris Cuomo project comes from the Wild Alaskan Company. Now, I believe in fish, but not all fish is the same. Okay? Why? For me, as a fisherman, sustainability is a big deal. Wild catch is a big deal.

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and use the money to fix your car. Bel Air Direct, insurance, simplified. Conditions apply. Now, let me say something slowly and directly so that we can move past one little piece of ignorance here. The idea that I am saying that Mega is MAGA is not true. It is form, but not feelings, not issues, not wants. They are nothing like MAGA.

They are both outrage-driven populist movements, okay? Another step sideways. MAGA is an acronym, we know. I think it's an inherently reductive one. Make America great again means she's not great now. I don't believe that. But I get it as a political selling point. That's what it is.

So what does Mega stand for? I have no idea. I could make something up for you if you want. But the word mega means a giant size of, right? And that's what it is. It's reaction formation, meaning what you did over here piss them off so much that now they want to do this over here. And it is bigger.

There are more people. It's a bigger constituency. It's about bigger issues. It wants bigger changes, systemic change. These guys were tear it down. These guys would tear it down too. But they want to rebuild it in very different ways. I don't think they wanted to rebuild it at all.

I think this was just a straight fear mechanism. I believe these people actually want it as a change mechanism. They want to change the system. He said that he didn't mean it. He just wanted to benefit from it, and we're seeing that in ways large and small. This is something very different. It's not an acronym, but it is an identifier. I say it's the mirror image.

Why? When you look at yourself in a mirror, is your right hand your right hand? No. It's the left hand, right? That's the mirror image. So it's not the same. It's everything reversed. So are these two movements.

You want white pride. We're growing for the brown affinity. And we're playing to those minorities. Your pets then protected, your sacred cows are our sacrificial lambs. It's a good line. Your wants economically, we have totally different solutions and very different priorities. Okay. Same intensity.

Same boxes, different options for each. okay that's why i say it so to say oh my god you're saying i'm just like maga we're nazis first of all i don't believe in the nazi thing second of all no i'm not i'm saying you reacted to that to be whatever you are becoming and i believe the dsa which is motivating this in concert with some darker cultural plays just like i don't mean darker it's a double entendre has nothing to do with color it has to do with the issues not the type of Now, type plays into the issues because there's bias involved and prejudice. True.

Same way with MAGA. Conservative, working class, get us back to the manufacturing and those jobs and what? What does that have to do with Christian nationalism? Nativism. What does that have to do with anything? Hating diversity and wanting to stop any type of diversity and inclusion. Why? Well, that was the marriage.

That's where you get the outrage. same thing on this side. Socialism is not anti-Zionist. It's not anti-Semitic. In fact, Israel is a lot more socialistic than America is. But you need that outrage. You need the marriage of the policy and the people, the anger, the culture part, right? So they're going with the free Palestine, you know, white kids on elite college campuses. Free Palestine, never been there, never going there, don't know anybody, have no attachment to it. But my privilege, makes me want to adopt, appropriate, somebody else's suffering.

I'm sick of being the oppressor. I want to be part of the victim class because that's empowered these days. Whatever. That's where we are. That's what's going on. They pushed the shutdown for two reasons. The muscularity of response, yes.

But they kept it going and they're doing the caved thing now. Why? Because they set up the Democratic leadership to fail. People on the left who pushed this are smart. I think they're smarter than the MAGA people in terms of strategy and tactics, by the way. They knew this was going to happen and that when it did, they would have it both ways. The muscularity of response, you got high ground on the issue. You're fighting the right fight, which is affordability, which is cost of health care.

And you knew that you would be able to blame them because it was only going to end one way. and that works for you to get rid of them and take over the party, just like MAGA took over the grand old party. There is no GOP. You don't even hear people talk about Republicans very often, do you? It's MAGA and the right, right? And the same thing's going to happen to the Democratic Party if they're not careful. Now, why do I say if they're not careful?

Because I believe their best bet to connect to the majority, which is being held hostage by these enraged and amplified, magnified minorities is to look at Virginia and New Jersey. I believe Spanberger, I believe Mikey Sherrill or Abigail Spanberger, Mikey Sherrill, both elected governor, first woman, I think, in Virginia, second woman in New Jersey, maybe first Democratic governor, yeah, are better than Anusum, better than AOC, Bernie's done, he's going to be replaced soon as the voice of outrage. He got him here. They should respect him, but he doesn't have the right answers. And, yeah, he's become a caricature of himself. So that's going to move on. And I say that with respect for what he's meant. And I was one of the first to force him into the presidential contender conversation. Go back and check it when I was at CNN.

Now, they know that this was going to happen. And when they did, they'd be able to kill Schumer. And they are killing him. Jeffries is going to be in trouble. That's going to play out when they bring it to the house and how he hands. handles it there. He's going to be very muscular in trying to stop it from happening, which is a complete delusion, illusion, right? He can't stop it. He doesn't have the numbers. In the House, it's just simple math. It's not this filibuster extra. Okay? Now, by the way, I would much rather

have it end this way. They want a cave. You know what the other way was that this was going to end, right? You know, right? The Republicans would have ended the filibuster. That's what Trump wants. the day that happens, you never have any compromise ever again in our government. Now, I used to be anti-filibuster. Why? It feels anti-democratic. It feels that the people decided what they wanted. The majority is the majority.

The minority is the minority. But then you would never have any mechanism to even, then you don't need a minority. Because what's the point of the minority if they can never make any difference on anything? So I used to be anti-filibuster. Now I'm not, because in this kind of society, you're just going to force through dumb shit all the time on whatever the latest populist poison is, and there's no check on it at all. So I'm in a different place. But that's where you would have pushed the right.

So they're saying they're caved. I'm saying to you, ask, how did this end otherwise? Oh, we would have gotten a deal. They were starting to soften up. There were more conversations. Those people are full of shit. I heard from his own staff that Murphy's not having conversations that are meaningful with anybody on his side or the other side about what to do about this. They're full of shit.

They're playing to the clickbait of outrage. I get the play. I see the strategy. It's a good strategy. It's a good tactic in line with that strategy. It's bad for us. It's bad for getting better. It's better.

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means anything other than what I wanted to mean, right? Nothing, a vaccine is not a vaccine unless I think it's a vaccine. You know, something's a pandemic. No, not if I don't think everything is only if I agree with it. If I don't agree with it, that's not what it means. That's not what it is. That's not a fact. It's not science.

It's not history. It's not anything. If I don't agree with it, then forget it. It's fundamentalism. It's taking root in our society. It's extreme thinking. It's happening more and more and more. And the more you study history,

the more you'll see, oh, yeah, this is exactly what happens. And that makes people get carried away with the little, we're the Nazis. This is the Gestapo, these are stormtroopers. You're exaggerating it. You're getting hoisted on your own partard of extreme thought. You're going too far, too fast, and you lose the majority. And that is where my faith is maintained in the majority. I know this country is center, left, center right.

I know you default from right and left to reasonable everywhere else in your life, except these stupid fucking politics. The left, the DSA, the mega movement knew this was going to play out this way, and they played Schumer and the Democratic leadership. And they are now one step closer to getting them out. There are going to be calls that Schumer's got to step down. Hakeem Jeffries has got to step down.

The whip has got to step down. You know, the organizing part of the, of the, of the, the Senate structure of the party, they all got to go. Why? We're about something else now. New game, new players. That's what's happening. That's why the people who are saying caved all want in on that new team. The influencers that are saying to you that the Democrats caved are doing one of two things. One, just playing the algorithm, just trying to piss you off for profit, because that's all they're about. And here's my proof about that. Ask them how they would have. solve this. Ask them what they think was going to happen and ask them to show you where something

like that has ever happened before. You will not get satisfying answers. They're not even expecting you to ask the question. Here the eight names. And your plan was, I'll keep holding out until what? That was never going to happen. Whatever they follow that with as an answer is bullshit. This was strategic. It was strategic. It was strategic in one way that I'm okay with, which is we're going to do something desperate because this is a desperate situation and we're going to make our point. The other is opportunistic for one part of the left to assume the position of the other part of the left. And that's what's coming. And I do not believe socialism is a non-starter anymore. I don't believe it. Not with

young people, not with people with affordability issues. I don't believe it. Do I like it? No, I don't like it. I don't, not only personally do I not like it as a solution structure. I don't like it politically in terms of optics of trying to connect to the majority, but I am changing my feel on that. Why? Because of how things are developing. You know, we have a resistance to change as if changing the position is weakness.

How? If the facts change. You think we should change the roof? Nah, I think we got like six, seven years left. A tree falls through the fucking roof. Guess what? It's time to change it. Are you stupid to change your mind?

No, circumstances change. Facts change. Only in politics. Only in politics that you have to stubbornly hold on to a position that no longer makes sense. Why? Because it's about fealty. It's about side. It's Jets patriots.

But the Jets suck. Aaron Rogers is playing great in Pittsburgh now. Nah, he was the problem. That's a Jets fan. You're supposed to say stupid shit in defense of your team. It shouldn't be in our politics, not to this degree.

But that's what's happening. And I think the DSA takes over the Democratic Party. I don't know what they're going to be called. It doesn't matter to me. It's about the ideas and what they're going to be fighting for. Now look,

shouldn't you be condemning this? No, I got to see what it develops into. I have to see what they go for and how. I'm going at this tactic that they caved. I'm against them on this. Why? Because I didn't want people to keep getting punished as we go on to Thanksgiving for a point that they already made.

You already changed the discussion. You were never going to get any meaningful legislative action off a shutdown. It's never happened before and it didn't happen this time because it was never going to happen this time and you knew it and you like the look of some failing and you're going to blame them for it even though this was your idea. I get it. I don't like it. I condemn it. I condemn it. Okay? But I'm not going to condemn the mega movement because I don't know how it's going to manifest itself. Oh, of course you do. You know it's the Islamist guy who's a socialist who beat your brother. Listen, I didn't want my brother to run. I didn't want him to run as a Democrat. I didn't. I had suspicions of this movement before the primary, but certainly midway through it, we saw in the polling and the trending and all the anecdotal experience. This movement was afoot. Even though my brother is an affordable. warrior. He was not in step with that movement. He was not what his party wanted. He was convinced he was fighting the good fight, and I respect that. And I do believe there is a virtue to the fight

he wants to fight about what he believes his party should be. Do I think he should be in that party? No, I don't think he should be in either party, because he's a critical thinker. He should be a free agent, and independence are the best hope for our constitutional republic. And I love that they are the fastest growing part of the electorate. God bless you. Because we need you. Because without you, we are lost to the division. The last best hope. And I think Andrew should be part of that. So I should be condemning everything about it. I'm not going to do that. Why? Because I got to take the personal out of it and see it for what it is and be fair. And fair is that one for a reason you're going to see it winning more and more. Why? Because just

like with MAGA, people have good reason to be pissed off about affordability. There are too many who have too much and too many who don't have enough. And it's not just, yeah, but capitalism. No, it's crony capitalism. It's how you apply capitalism. Capitalism that's just about, you know, capitalism without any sense of conscience. You know, we think that having conscience or values is anathemat of capitalism. It's not true. It's not true. It's just about what they are. Capitalism without conscience is just greed. And then you're going to go back to, you know what happens when you have too much shit? We get together and guess what we do?

We come and we fucking kill you and take your shit. That's how it happened in feudal societies, right? The commoners would come. That's the whole proletariat revolt thing that communism is based on. Go read your Trotsky. Go read your Marx and Engels. Anyway, the point is that I believe that they are right about what's wrong, as was MAGA with certain economic realities. Now, once you get to the cultural aspect, you lose me on both sides.

And I get that the people on the sides don't see it that way. I mean, this side, forget it. The Christian nationalism, the anything but they're trying to de-white us and all that other bullshit is just boogeyman stuff that does not work with me to my bone. Okay? And now on this side, do I believe that you can have an affinity feeling for the Gazans? Yeah, of course. War was terrible.

And we didn't even get real media coverage ever because Israel wouldn't let us which I think it was a mistake. It looked horrible. Too many people died. It took too long, all right? In like an exponentially magnified way, it was like this shutdown. The wrong people were paying a price for too long. But this is nothing compared to that.

So I get it. You can talk about it. How Israel prosecuted the war. What's too much? What's wrong? What's a crime? What isn't? B.B., you know, all that.

I'm here for it. Criticize it. The idea, though, that there is no Israel. Israel has no right to exist in Palestine. This is just not right and not true. So I'm not with this either, but not for the same reasons that I'm not with this. But I'm telling you, I know why this shutdown happened. And this is just one step in what is happening within the Democratic Party.

They got MAGA on one front. They got mega on the other. And they ain't going to survive it. What that means, what it means for you, what it means for me, I don't know. But the people who are telling you that the Democrats caved are, absolutely part of the problem in terms of getting anything done that's reasonable and they're part and they're trying to buy in or cash in on they want to buy into or cash in on what comes next you watch I'm Chris Cuomo thank you for being with me here at the Chris Quimel

project checking me out on News Nation 8 p and 11p every weekday night. Thank you very much for being a critical thinker. I also have another one coming that says I am different and you want to be different because what's passing these days is killing us because you're a free agent. You're not owned by a side. You do you. You don't let them tell you how to do you. The problems are real. The approach is the same. Let's get after it. Thank you.