The Chris Cuomo Project - Tim Dillon: Why Comics Are The ONLY Ones Telling The Truth!

Episode Date: June 3, 2025

Tim Dillon (comedian and podcast host, The Tim Dillon Show) joins Chris Cuomo to break down the increasingly blurry lines between politics, media, and entertainment. They discuss why comedians are oft...en saying what journalists won’t, how audiences respond to satire in a fractured media environment, and what it means when jokes land closer to the truth than the news. Dillon reflects on public backlash, political polarization, and the pressure comedians face in a culture that demands both authenticity and outrage. Cuomo and Dillon also examine the performance of politics, the role of independent voices in shaping discourse, and whether comedy is becoming one of the last places people go to hear what they really think. Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday: https://linktr.ee/cuomoproject Join Chris Ad-Free On Substack: http://thechriscuomoproject.substack.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 You want to know who's helping to shape our understanding of politics and culture as much as anybody when it comes to digital media? Good, because I got them. This is Chris Cuomo. Welcome to the Chris Cuomo Project. Tim Dillon. You check out his podcast. It's growing for a reason. You check out his Netflix special, I'm Your Mother, and you're going to laugh for good reason. Look, I wanted to talk to Dylan because I believe that the comedian has a very unique place in cultural criticism. One of my personal heroes when it comes to philosophy and journalism is George Carlin. Famous, famous, and sometimes infamous comedian. Now, also a profound student of history
Starting point is 00:00:45 and economics and politics, we're gonna talk about what boxes you should check to be relevant on digital media and who checks them and who doesn't, and what is it really about. And Tim Dillon is someone who's having a conversation with this country in a way that many people in the media should envy.
Starting point is 00:01:05 Tim Dillon, this is a great pleasure. Thank you for being part of the project. Thank you for having me. I appreciate you having me. And I'm a big fan of the Royal Orbison homage. By the way, I want you to know that I can't get a read on you. You're in the Tulip Festival of the Netherlands. I can't see your eyes. I mean, you're a freaking enigma. Whatever I say in these glasses, I have no responsibility for. But no, also, it is the universal truth.
Starting point is 00:01:37 I get it. Everything you say by definition is a promise, which is why I didn't want to clear the air early on. You are a dead ringer for the guy who busted into Aniston's house. For a thousand percent, everyone has showed me that. And I agree with him. I don't know what he did or why he did it, but when someone has that physicality that matches yours,
Starting point is 00:01:59 I think he probably had something very important to talk to her about. And sometimes these security guards don't get it. They don't get it, especially in Bel Air. And I think he wanted to have a face to face. So I support him. So assuming it was you, which again is a very, very well regarded theory. You know, you're a big shot.
Starting point is 00:02:22 Everybody loves you. You couldn't just knock on the fucking door. You had to bash into her house. Well, I don't know if the first two things are true. I think there are some people that love me, but I would have to... If I wanted to see Jennifer Aniston, there would be no other option than busting through the gate.
Starting point is 00:02:36 There would not. I don't think my overtures would be... I don't think they would get to her. I think I would have to go through in a military style. She is known as a big fan of Smart Funny. And you are top of class when it comes to Smart Funny. That's very nice of you to say. I've never met her.
Starting point is 00:03:00 My friend, David Spade knows her and he says she's great and she's a big fan of comedy. That's what he said, so I believe him. So, all right, so we'll look, we'll let that go. Help me understand, I get the sunglasses, you know, you're a man of mystery, you're a big shot, bi-coastal, the whole thing, but the tulips is an interesting play because, you know,
Starting point is 00:03:23 you're a strong-willed guy, strong opinions, and I feel like you're trying to get me off balance. Like, you know, you want me to see the tulips, oh, maybe he's in like a flowery mood, maybe this is gonna be light and polite. I think it's, we do a nice seasonal backdrop, and usually it's like the tulips are like a lake in the fall or a nice beach in the summer.
Starting point is 00:03:44 We wanna knock you off your access so that I can kind of deliver these kind of nihilistic rants but in a kind of upbeat and agreeable way, which is what we're hoping to do is we hope that people find it like a nice thing that comes into their home once a week. Well, it has worked very well. And I think you put your finger on your waves of success.
Starting point is 00:04:08 Agreeable nihilism seems to be the American vibe right now. Yeah, I think you're correct on that. I think that a lot of people, myself included, feel like, and maybe we're wrong, but it feels like at some point the people who were tasked with protecting the country and running it gave up on it. And that seems obvious to a lot of people in many different ways. And I think illustrating it in a funny way is hopefully something that I try to do.
Starting point is 00:04:50 Well, I think you succeed at it. And I think that one of the reasons, just one other than just fanboying, that I wanted to talk to you was, I wanted to talk to you about what is working in this world of comedy and cultural criticism, which I think is a really important space. George Carlin is a personal hero of mine,
Starting point is 00:05:16 and was obviously way ahead of his time because his rants were spot on to where we are. What is your take on that? We won't look at it through the lens of your own success because you're being too humble about it, but in terms of what works in the world of American culture when it comes to comedy, how do you see it? I think anything can work as long as it's funny
Starting point is 00:05:43 and as long as people feel that it resonates with them for whatever reason. So there are great comedians who talk only about their families and themselves and don't go into that cultural space. There are people like me who are on the internet and you do the show every week and you end up, you read the news all week and you digest it and you spit it out, you know, hopefully in a funny way.
Starting point is 00:06:10 But you have a lot of great comedians that are from every different genre. You have really funny people that are on Saturday Night Live, who do sketch comedy. There's very funny, you know, stand up comediansians that, again, could speak about, you know, perhaps only their personal life. Then you have comedians that are more in the space than I'm in. And it's, I think, the demands of the medium being on the internet every week, you have to find things to talk about. After a while, you've told all the stories from your family and your childhood or whatever,
Starting point is 00:06:42 and you kind of look at the world around you and you try to make it funny, because a lot of it's insane. A lot of it is very crazy. And I think comedy does a great job of, you know, putting out, you know, a, I don't want to say positive per se, because a lot of it isn't quite positive,
Starting point is 00:07:04 the stuff I talk about, but like it's a way for people to digest what's happening in hopefully a funny way and a lighter way than they would by just reading a newspaper or reading an article online. Let's unpack comedy. Where are we on the curve in your opinion in terms of what's allowed and what isn't allowed? Where do you think we are on that?
Starting point is 00:07:36 I think everything's allowed. I think people got very tired of being hyperjudgmental. I think movements that are based on ideological purity are bound to fail because they're exhausting. People get very tired of these litmus tests, the word police, people like that. Eventually movements that are based on that either become, you know, sex of a religion, they become a violent, you know, whatever anti-establishment movement, or they just peter out because people get bored.
Starting point is 00:08:13 And I think that's where people were, you know, after we had that kind of moral panic, people just got bored, and now people are just kind of sitting back, laughing at stuff. I think nuance is back. I think people realize that we're all fallible, flawed human beings, and that most things
Starting point is 00:08:30 that most people believe live in that gray area between right and left. And I think that's the moment we're at now. That doesn't mean we'll be there forever. And I'm sure that pendulum swing from one extreme to the other, but it feels like we're in a pretty good place now with what you're allowed to talk about. You think that the Tom Brady roast was a watershed moment?
Starting point is 00:08:53 I think so. It was where the canceling died at least in one context? I think people enjoyed it. I had several friends on it that did a great job. You know, Nikki Glaser, phenomenal. And I think people really just. I had several friends on it that did a great job. You know, Nikki Glaser, phenomenal. And I think people really just sat back and said, this is really fun. It's enjoyable.
Starting point is 00:09:12 These are words. I also think if we look around the world now, we have wars in the Ukraine, wars in the Middle East, India and Pakistan exchanging missiles. They're both nuclear countries, right? Really to be upset only by words now, you have to be a special kind of disconnected because you're looking at real life tragedy all over the globe. So if you're invested in a joke or you're getting angry about a specific set of words or beliefs you don't
Starting point is 00:09:47 like, you're probably the most privileged group of human beings to have ever existed on the planet. Who do you think owns the extremism of canceling in our culture? Do you think it's the right or the left? I think both the right and the left can utilize that weapon. And it's a weapon, I saw it in the 90s and the right employed it often, but Tim Pergore also employed it
Starting point is 00:10:19 with music that she didn't like. She found vulgar, Al Gore's wife. I saw it in the 2000s with the Iraq war where the right was saying anyone that didn't fall in lockstep with their aims in the Middle East was a traitor or was anti-American. I saw it then. Then it emerged around 2015 on the contemporary left
Starting point is 00:10:45 which around 2015 on the contemporary left as a tool in which to marginalize people that they disagreed with or found to be objectionable in some way. I also think it was motivated as many things are by careerism. I think people saw it as a way to like, you know, elevate themselves at the expense of other people. It was a way for a lot of mediocre people,
Starting point is 00:11:11 be they writers, comedians, actors, whatever, directors to get work by falling lockstep in line with that ideology and then reaping a lot of professional benefits because of it. So I think that's what it became. I think it was very cynical and I think it was employed by people to advance themselves and I think that that was a huge feature and then it didn't work because all these companies lost a lot of money, viewership dropped in a lot of these areas where they were just green, you know, doing a paint by number strategy of green lighting
Starting point is 00:11:52 things based on, you know, how many people of color you have, how many gay people, how many trans people, how many women. And you forgot that all of this at the end of the day is to entertain people and to earn money. And it didn't work. And then when it didn't work, Hollywood, which famously doesn't believe in much outside of success was like, we tried this, it didn't work. Hollywood will go which way the wind is going.
Starting point is 00:12:19 The wind started to blow the other way. And then immediately all those executives forgot they had ever championed any of this stuff because they got big mortgages, you know, and kids in private school and they need to earn a living and then they went the other way. This podcast is sponsored by Smalls. Now listen, I am not a cat guy, but I will tell you this, people love their kitties. And when it comes to fur fam, I'm all in. I got three rescue dogs. And what I know is this, the better you feed them, the longer they live.
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Starting point is 00:13:59 and you get an additional 50% off your first order plus free shipping, smalls.com. So when you see it going the other way, how come Louis CK hasn't been brought back into the bosom of Hollywood when he is arguably one of the most talented guys in this space? Well, he's touring around the world, he's doing arenas, his fans are there,
Starting point is 00:14:22 he's one of the top comics in the world. I think Hollywood... By his own hand. By his own hand. He did it all himself. I'm a huge fan. Yeah, he's the best. Consider myself a friend.
Starting point is 00:14:34 But why haven't they brought him back if we're in... Right now, they're in a weird place, and that has to do with many different aspects of that business. So right now, it's a hard question. I think prior to now, the reasons were the ones we're talking about, right? They're scared, they're terrified,
Starting point is 00:14:53 they're, you know, chasing or afraid of these Twitter mobs or whatever. Now I think it's such a weird place. They really don't know what to do. I don't think it's political right now. I think really they're unsure about the future of the business, how it's going to be shaped by the internet, by AI, by all of these things.
Starting point is 00:15:15 So right now it's a very difficult, I mean, the smartest people I know in that world are very uncertain about what comes next. That seems to be the word of the day, uncertainty. Yeah. And you know, it's interesting. I've watched a shift. I wanna know if you perceive it,
Starting point is 00:15:34 and if so, do you perceive it the same way? Watching your show, I've seen a natural evolution of where you just are hitting your marks faster and faster. You're just seeing the field better and better as happens with any experienced pro. But I have noticed, especially on this kind of new, renegade, disruptor vibe that is almost exclusively at this point on digital media, a lot of comedians have crossed over
Starting point is 00:16:08 into a harsh critic and expert vibe. We just saw this culmination of that with Douglas Murray taking on Rogan and Dave Smith, who a lot of people in my audience won't know, but if you Google him, he's one of Rogan's foot soldiers. And I thought that that was a really interesting moment of somebody who's an actual intellectual saying, you know, just because you guys agree
Starting point is 00:16:34 and have decided that there's no more things as experts and just because you're funny sometimes, you can say whatever you want and be an expert, it doesn't work like that. Do you see that kind of shift or what do you see? Well, I think Dave specifically has done a ton of research on that conflict. Like I would never say that I have done a ton of research
Starting point is 00:16:57 on that conflict. I have a layman's understanding of that conflict. I'm bothered by the civilian casualties. I'm, I think watching the footage is coming out of that region is heartbreaking. I think it's a terrible thing that's happening, but yet I'm not someone who's done. I think Dave, to his credit,
Starting point is 00:17:18 has looked into that particular conflict. He's a Jewish guy. He has been heavily critical of Israel. He knows a lot about the history of that conflict more than me. There are things I know more about. I wouldn't say I'm an expert, per se, but I would say that there are areas where I'm more comfortable weighing in because I've done more research, then I know more about certain things than I do about other things. Sure.
Starting point is 00:17:49 Yeah, I think Douglas's point, I think, which to me, the issue that I had with his point was that only experts or only people that had been granted this designation by somebody as an expert could weigh in on this question of Israel and the Middle East and Gaza. And to me, unfortunately, in my lifetime, from the Iraq war to COVID, you know, a lot of the experts have failed.
Starting point is 00:18:28 They failed when they told us there were weapons of mass destruction. They failed when they said that we should be passing the Patriot Act and that we should be subverting constitutional norms and locking people up in Guantanamo Bay. They failed when they said that it was going to be, you know, two weeks to stop the spread and that there were no masks needed. And then you had to
Starting point is 00:18:51 have a mask and the churches are closed, but the liquor stores are open and nobody could have a prom. But the movies had special permission to shoot if they had political connections. I understand Douglas's point. Like if I want surgery, I'm not gonna go to my friend. I'm gonna go to a surgeon. But the problem is a lot of the people that we deem as experts in society will get out and say, biological gender and sex are unrelated.
Starting point is 00:19:25 biological gender and sex are unrelated. So to me, as a layman, non-expert community college dropout, but a guy who's somewhat self-educated and knows people and looks at culture a lot, I think that the damage done to the realm of experts has been largely self-inflicted. And I think that the damage done to the realm of experts has been largely self-inflicted. And I think that that's, so I think it's easy to point and go this person doesn't have the requisite amount
Starting point is 00:19:55 of knowledge to comment on something, but really when we look at the field of experts and how people become experts and the realms of intellectuals, whether it's higher education or a think tank or a GSE government sponsored entity, wherever the money's coming from. It's just hard for people in my generation,
Starting point is 00:20:17 Gen X who lived through the Iraq war and Afghanistan and everything, the experts said that was a great idea. And then 20 years later, the Taliban takes a country again. So I think it's, I understand what you're saying, but I think I'm more on the line of like, I'm just now looking at the way somebody presents an argument and seeing what rings true to me.
Starting point is 00:20:39 Yes, I get it. I think it's the rings true to me and people being seen as, I guess the word expert is now tarnished. But I got what Douglas was saying for several reasons. One, I have no problem with people having an opinion about anything. That's all podcasts are for the most part is hot takes.
Starting point is 00:21:03 And I get that and there's space for everything and it's an evolving space. And my big prediction is that Rogan's success is admirable. I do not believe he'll be where he was three months ago, a year from today. There are too many talented people entering that space now who want his real estate and they're gonna be better at what he does than he is.
Starting point is 00:21:23 So I think that he's gonna see attrition. That's not the first time someone said that about Joe. He does surpass expectations. Like people wrote his obituary many, many times and it's just never come true. Oh, listen, I don't necessarily want it to come true because I don't find him offensive or anything I see him as innocuous,
Starting point is 00:21:44 but he's getting criticism. He never got criticism before. The media is taking him seriously now and that's not gonna go well for him. He's always been ignored. And then he did that deal after the media made him relevant for a minute as an anti-vaxxer, which wasn't really fair, but he put himself in that position.
Starting point is 00:22:03 And then he got his big deal, and then they had problems with the deal, and the media scrubbed him, found bullshit, racist things that he had said in the past, they made him apologize. That was the beginning. So that's what I see being done to him, whether or not it is deserved, but I'm happy for his success. I hope it continues.
Starting point is 00:22:22 What I saw in Douglas Murray's thing that I think people should think about is there's a difference between saying, look, Tim, this is what I think about tulips, okay? And make of it what you want. I'm not a botanist, I'm not a horticulturist. There's a difference between that and me now becoming an organizing point on tulips.
Starting point is 00:22:45 The issue for Murray is not that Dave Smith has an opinion on Gaza, and me now becoming an organizing point on tulips. The issue for Murray is not that Dave Smith has an opinion on Gaza, but as a journalist, I would never say the kinds of things that Dave Smith says about Gaza, about Israel, about COVID, about vaccines, about any of it, because as a journalist, I'm so aware of what I don't know. And he seems to be too comfortable ignoring his own ignorance.
Starting point is 00:23:12 And because of that, it'd be one thing if he was just another guy. But when you are positioned by Rogan or by anybody as someone to listen to so that you may believe what he believes, now I get why Murray was bothered by it. Because if you ask me about Gaza, okay, it matters that Smith has never been to the region, okay? If you're not on the ground there
Starting point is 00:23:37 and you don't talk to people in the region, you know, through no filter, no filter. And this is not what Tim Dillon says about what happened when he was in Gaza. Most people in this country around 2004, 2005, were starting to see the folly of the Iraq War. They were starting to see that the Bush doctrine
Starting point is 00:23:57 of preemptive war to supposedly democratize the Middle East had failed or was in a process of failing. Almost none of those people had visited Iraq or Afghanistan. I would say that 99.9% of them had never visited that country. But the images coming out of that region and the news, from a common sense perspective, allowed most people to say that engaging in this type of foreign policy was an error. I agree.
Starting point is 00:24:33 And you don't have to be in a place to understand it. Obviously, obviously. However, from a journalist's perspective, the idea that you understand the fabric of a conflict and you haven't been around it, I get why that would be upsetting because that is a standard for us. Now, the war, I lived, right? And I signed up as an early embed
Starting point is 00:24:56 and I lost a lot of guys on 9-11. And it had a big impact on me and I was here for it and I watched it in real time. We knew there were no weapons of mass destruction much earlier and the Bush administration shut us down, said that we were threatening operational security of troops on the ground in the Middle East. The American people agreed and stopped watching the news.
Starting point is 00:25:23 I remember the reporting changing. Not that we started to change our take, but we said it less because Bush had succeeded in swaying the American people to agree, to disagree about weapons of mass destruction, but we're in it now, so let's just go kill the bad guys. And I remember it. And I remember Congress, that being the last time
Starting point is 00:25:50 they took a vote on a conflict. After that point, they gave their power to the president. To the president, yeah. I think part of the media's credibility problem and why I think the media going after Rogan as much as they do doesn't have the desired effect on their end is that they have lost the trust of a vast majority of Americans.
Starting point is 00:26:12 And I don't know if they're gonna be able to get it back. But who has the trust? Who has trust? I guarantee you, if you asked all of America, I don't know how many know Joe Rogan. But if you were to ask- I have a good amount. But I'm saying, I don't know, because you got to remember.
Starting point is 00:26:26 Yeah. These numbers, I don't believe them. I don't believe my own numbers. So, you know, let's say Rogan, you know, has made a name for himself. He's been popularized within the media. I mean, I've always known him because I'm a UFC fan, but I don't think he's going to have a high end dish of trust with people outside the bro culture. So it's about your space.
Starting point is 00:26:46 I would disagree with you in that sense because I think what people like about Joe is that they feel like he's authentic and that he is himself. Now, whether they agree or disagree with everything he says, what he's built over a period of years and really over a decade
Starting point is 00:27:03 is trust that he is going to be who he is and call things how he sees them. Again, that doesn't mean he's always right. He built a show with his interests. Corporate media doesn't allow people to do that. Most journalists we don't know much about other than the fact that they opine on the news or they read the news. Rogan built an audience with his interests.
Starting point is 00:27:25 Here's the things I value. Here's what interests me. And he filters the current events through that lens. I think because people know who he is as a person, he's built a level of trust with them. There are, of course, people that dislike him. But even the people that dislike him, I would say they probably are less likely to think he's a cynical actor and more likely to just say, well, I don't agree with him
Starting point is 00:27:52 or I think he's bad for America or whatever. I think when you talk about a corporate media structure where you have corporate sponsors, you have a lot of big, big money players in the mix when it comes to advertisers, when it comes to, you know, media moguls who run these operations and have big political connections, which Joe has now, but for many years didn't, you know, he interviewed Trump, but for many years, like he doesn't come from that world. I think that he's built trust with his audience, and I think they trust that he's going to,
Starting point is 00:28:26 again, not always be right, but be an honest broker of his own feelings, which I think, CNN or Fox News or MSNBC, people are less likely to feel that way about anchors on those networks. Yeah, I also think that, yes, I think that that's a fair appraisal. I think, look, I think Joe's limiting feature is that I don't think a lot of people find
Starting point is 00:28:51 him to be serious on serious topics. I think he's authentic. Sometimes he gets out over his skis. That seems to be happening more recently. Why? Because he's getting scrutinized differently. And the power of his platform is what? His guests.
Starting point is 00:29:04 He gets all of the best guests. Why? Because he's got the most reach. We know why they're there. They're there to sell whatever it is that they're into. And that's what I find. I think any media platform that's ever been invented, the guests are there to sell something.
Starting point is 00:29:20 Oh, a hundred percent. I'm not, again, it's not unique. All media is the same. It's just the delivery device. And podcasts will be the same thing. They're going to start getting bought up. And you'll see an evolution. You'll see Bill Burr is going to be put into a position to rival Rogan soon.
Starting point is 00:29:40 They're going to get other talent, Jerry Seinfeld. They're going to get other funny people who they're're gonna try to encroach on the space. And we'll see, we'll see where they develop an audience and where they don't. But I do think that there's risk in all this. And here's my, in watching what you do and watching what I do, the idea that, as you said, agreeable nihilism, we were joking,
Starting point is 00:30:04 but there's a real truth in that. None of it matters. Nothing is true. Nothing is real. It's all how you feel. You know, that's what it is. You can go any way on anything. I think there's a danger in that.
Starting point is 00:30:17 And I think we're living it. I don't know how aware of it we are. Yeah, I would internalize, I would internalize it a little differently. Not that nothing is real, but like, your family's real, your friends are real, your community is real. The internet largely isn't real. A lot of what politicians and media figures say
Starting point is 00:30:34 is not necessarily real. We've established that. So the nihilism to me is like, it's a cynicism that's relatively healthy because it can keep you alive and it can keep you from going broke. It can keep you from falling for anything a huckster says. So I don't internalize nihilism as like this complete emptiness or void of meaning. I think it's just having a very healthy skepticism
Starting point is 00:30:59 and cynicism about the narratives that are being pushed all the time. But why do conspiracies pop in a unique way in American culture now, especially on digital media? For instance, no one, Tim Dillon is gonna do well. If you were someone who was talking to me about why the government isn't talking to us about UAPs, you'd do one and a half times as well.
Starting point is 00:31:24 Why? Sure, yes, maybe. I mean, I think that the problem with this conversation about experts is that the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are supposed to be diametrically opposed on a lot of things. They're positioned as very different. But really they come down on the same side of most issues.
Starting point is 00:31:43 The Washington Post, same thing ABC NBC CBS CNN Fox News MSNBC all of these um organizations have never really challenged like the dominance of the financial sector in American politics the Uh, you know trade immigration all of these things, you know The militarism all of these things, you know, the militarism, all of these things have been pretty consistent. That experts on all sides of the spectrum,
Starting point is 00:32:09 Republicans and Democrats, have all come down on the same side of a lot of these issues. And a lot of their kids go to the same schools and a lot of them belong to the same social clubs and a lot of them have gone to the same schools. And it feels like to a lot of Americans who feel like they were sold out or that the economic system doesn't work for them or that their concerns about immigration
Starting point is 00:32:29 are constantly called racist or their concerns about what their kids are being taught in school they're constantly accused of being transphobic or like some fundamentalists. A lot of those people feel that they're losing control of their lives and their communities because people that are supposed to have all of these varying viewpoints have actually landed on the same side of many of these big issues that were never voted on and that the American people never had a say in. So the question about the conspiracies,
Starting point is 00:33:03 and I think we all know some conspiracies are valid and some are absurd, but the question of the, all of that seems to arise from the same place, which is that Americans are trying to figure out how this system is so wildly corrupt and it no longer serves their interests and they're seeing a lot of patterns and some of the patterns are crazy, right? Like, oh, it's the Jews or the earth is flat or whatever. But then some of the patterns are very, very understandable where they go. It does seem like there are a lot of interlocking power factions that have each other's back
Starting point is 00:33:46 Whether you want to call it a deep state or you want to call it a permanent government? Or you want to call it the corporate state which is the marriage of government and and big business Whatever you want to call it most Americans are seeing that their lives and livelihoods are not being prioritized by this kind of amorphous blob of very wealthy, well-connected people. And whether those people are simply united by class interests, whether some of them are being blackmailed, whether some of them just have ruthless career ambition, whatever it is,
Starting point is 00:34:17 they seem to be on the same side of all these issues. I think that's where a lot of this conspiracy stuff comes from. Why is it that people on the fringe right seem to engage in conspiracies more? Is it a coincidence that Benny Johnson and Charlie Kirk are more interested in the Epstein files? Is it a coincidence that Rogan was talking so much
Starting point is 00:34:41 about Epstein killing himself versus being murdered. Why do we hear more of that on the right? I think there's people on the fringe left, if you remember. And listen, I think Epstein probably was murdered. I mean, I don't think there's any... Based on what? Well, based on the idea that the cameras went out and the guards fell asleep,
Starting point is 00:35:01 and he had information on some of those most powerful people in the world and his best friend, Ghislaine Maxwell's father, Seymour Hirsch wrote a book alleging that he was an agent of the Mossad and they had what clearly seems like a honeypot operation and that all of these politicians were on his jet. Like it feels like again, just from an outsider's point of view, just from an outsider's point of view, he got a sweetheart deal for the first time he was accused and convicted of being inappropriate with a minor. And I don't know the exact terminology.
Starting point is 00:35:33 He did a lot more than be inappropriate with a minor, but you have this intriguing weird figure who's connected to all of these very powerful people and has an island where people are going to meet up with underage women and all of these people are coming out and testifying to that effect. And then right before his trial, he dies. I mean, Chris, let's be honest.
Starting point is 00:35:58 If we're talking about the mafia and we're talking about a guy that had information on all of these big powerful people and he gets whacked. This is not a part of your brain. And I'm, you know, Kirk or Johnson or Rogan or whoever, me or anybody who's looking at this and people on the left and the fringe left also has some conspiracies. One of them was that Donald Trump was an agent of Russia. And by the fringe left, I mean every media organization,
Starting point is 00:36:25 including the one you used to work for, every day was Russiagate. So to me, it's like, don't you look at the Epstein thing and for a minute say to yourself, yes, it is possible that this guy who is involved in potentially blackmailing people, but certainly involved in human trafficking and connected to all
Starting point is 00:36:45 these wealthy, powerful people gets whacked before he can say any of their names? Yes. I think it's very curious. I think that I don't believe, I guess what my gripe with it is, is that I don't believe that there's high ground on the right on these things. Like Russiagate, I lived it, okay? Let me just make a couple of points that I just know are true,
Starting point is 00:37:13 and you can do with them what you want. Okay? Sure. I've never seen any other political team do what Trump's team did, never. And Paul Manafort will agree with that. Paul Manafort has been in exactly one meeting where he was sitting with other campaign officials and realized that he was talking to someone who was selling themselves as a Russian
Starting point is 00:37:36 asset and he got up and left, he says. Okay? Once, the guy's been in the business 60 years, once, he was in a meeting like that. Once, do, have I ever heard of guys like Roger Stone, who knows better, and Michael Caputo, who knows better, sit down with a guy who says, I got information for you from Russian intelligence sources that'll help with Hillary Clinton. Once, I've heard of somebody taking a meeting like that.
Starting point is 00:38:05 Now, were they right to go to school in the dossier the way they did? No. The steel dossier that was paid for by the Clintons. Well, indirectly. Yes, but- Indirectly, oppo research had been paid for, but that guy who was not working-
Starting point is 00:38:21 Who he's an ex, MI6. Who was not working for Clinton when he did it. But in fairness to him, he never said that everything in there was fact. He worked the situation that he was paid to work. But a lot of that stuff was used and peddled by the media to convince people that Donald Trump was an agent of a foreign government that does a ton of damage to democracy.
Starting point is 00:38:46 It does a ton of damage. Well, but here's the thing. Here's the thing. And again, these are just these are observations of things that were true. I've also never heard of anybody who said what Donald Trump said about wanting more WikiLeaks about wanting Russia to do more of the things if they were interfering, interfere more. And, you know, when you say things like that, you are asking for scrutiny.
Starting point is 00:39:10 And if you think it's just started with Trump, you remember Gary Hart. Gary Hart looks at the media and says, enough with the questions about me fucking around on my wife. You want to know what I do, follow me. They follow him and they bust him on monkey business. Trump says a lot of wild stuff, but I think when you... Part of the issue, I think, the way the media has viewed Trump
Starting point is 00:39:31 as he's this existential threat, and in many of their minds, I believe they believe that this is true, who has to be vanquished at all costs, even if we're engaging in dishonesty or we're inflating something. I mean, it started with he's a Russian asset. It ended with he inflated the price of a condo. I mean, the amount of things they tried to get the guy on,
Starting point is 00:39:52 they had the full power of the federal government. They had Robert Mueller. They had a very well-coordinated. They had Mueller, who's a Republican, a lifelong one. And we learned way too late that he was way off his game. And it was actually David Weissman who was running that investigation. He is not a lifelong Republican,
Starting point is 00:40:08 and he definitely wanted to get Trump, which is why they had that list of potential charges at the end that everybody who wants to say there was nothing to it ignores. Now, fair, fair, all of those crimes were crimes of cover-ups. And it is often like that in criminal law
Starting point is 00:40:25 whenever anything is conspiratorial or fraud-based, that they don't get you for the initial activity, they get you for how you tried to cover what you did initially. Look. It seems like there's a level of scrutiny being applied to Donald Trump that was not applied to the Clintons.
Starting point is 00:40:40 I agree. Well, Clinton isn't a good example. Because Clinton got attacked in a way that Trump wasn't even attacked. Well, Clinton, yes, Clinton was impeached. Trump was impeached twice. But I'm saying Clinton started with DeMoto opening the Whitewater investigation, which was into his wife. By the way, he's a senator from my hometown. I saw him in the... We go to the same fish restaurant. Artie's fish, South Shore fish. It's Yes. Island Park. We go to the same fish restaurant. Arties fish, South Shore fish. It's great. I love Senator DeMoto and this is a worthy digression. What does
Starting point is 00:41:13 it mean when Chris Cuomo says he loves Senator Alphonse DeMoto? Senator Alphonse DeMoto unseated my father. Right. Alphonse DeMoto found George Pataki, ran him against my father. Alphonse D'Amato found George Pataki, ran him against my father, and won. I should therefore hate Alphonse D'Amato, but I don't. Why? Because I was raised in that game, and that's what happens in politics. And D'Amato, before that and after that,
Starting point is 00:41:39 was respectful of my father as a man, asked him for things, spent time with him. So I know him in a different way. That world is dead. And in the new world of what we started talking about, not you, which is, I really enjoy your stuff, but in the Rogan, Smith, all these new players, it's all us and them all the time.
Starting point is 00:42:05 Well, Rogan's not, I wouldn't say he's a new player, but the... I mean, he's in the last 10 years. I think what you're saying, and I think that it's a value judgment. I think it's a value judgment. I think there are a lot of people that are always going to look for a more traditional structure for their information to come through. And I think that's fine. I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I don't tell people where to get news. What I tell people is get news from many different sources, use their own brain, cross reference things, use a knowledge of history if they can get one.
Starting point is 00:42:43 And I think people are gonna have to make their own decisions about a lot of things. But the Trump-Russia gate thing to me, the amount of damage done to the country's psyche and the fact that it's never grouped in with any conspiratorial thinking and that it is never mentioned alongside other types of conspiracies.
Starting point is 00:43:07 The fact that it was then it was dropped by the media. They never bring it up anymore. They never even mentioned it. And it was- Well, but we do that with everything. Well, for sure. But this was calling the president of the United States an asset of a foreign power
Starting point is 00:43:23 and that he had possibly been recruited in the 80s. Like these articles were so salacious and conspiratorial. And then the publishing of this dossier and then Jane Mayer, who I respect, and I think it is a good journalist at the New Yorker, writing these things about these fantasy tapes and urine and all this stuff. And then late night hosts are doing jokes about it and everybody it's because it's seeping into the culture but it's never called a conspiracy.
Starting point is 00:43:52 It's never been, I don't think there's a ton of reflection in the media on it, you know more than I do about that. But I feel like there's never been a mea culpa. There's never been an I'm sorry. There's never been a we got this wrong. There's only been, hey, we didn't have the goods on it, but we kind of somewhat still believe it. Tim, name me somebody who has apologized
Starting point is 00:44:14 for anything in public life and it went well for them. Donald Trump is 100% right. Only a fool apologizes when the people you're apologizing to want to beat you over the head with it. He's right. He is not wrong to not apologize for things that people find offensive. I honestly, I know that that sounds rude.
Starting point is 00:44:39 I know that that doesn't sound adult. No, I agree with you, but I know that this is a conversation. But he's right, because if he were to apologize, he'd get killed. A little bit about the moral high ground, and I think the idea is that like, podcasters don't have a moral high ground and they're just peddling whatever,
Starting point is 00:44:52 but then there are these experts for- I don't think there's any moral high ground. I don't think there has been for a long time, because look, look at what happened with Trump, okay? You can write three books on how what happened to him with Russia gate or whatever you want to call it was wrong. What was the first thing he did when he got in power? He went after Biden for being a Ukrainian Russian plant. The first thing he did was go after Biden and his son weaponizing a guy's
Starting point is 00:45:21 addiction. I don't know how much you know about that world, but unfortunately- I was an addict for many years, from when I started doing cocaine at 12, and I stopped at 25, and I never ended up in the Ukraine, and I never took a photo of everything I did and put it on a laptop, and then dropped it off in Circuit City.
Starting point is 00:45:39 But you know very well that Hunter Biden is a typical drug addled person. I know, I'm not saying that he didn't do business deals. I know a lot of drug addled people, very few of them ended up in the Ukraine. And I mean, their dads were the vice president. It's not about why he wasn't in Ukraine. It's a unique life. Let's say that.
Starting point is 00:45:59 It's a unique life. You would have to look at. None of my drug addict friends ended up in Malibu selling art for $80,000. You would have to find drug-addled people who also were wealthy with connections of people in power. Okay, that's very true. That may be true. A lot of junkies don't wind up that way. My point is this.
Starting point is 00:46:17 It was so wrong what was done to Trump. It was so wrong, it was so destructive, that he then did the exact same thing as soon as he got in power What do we expect if this is the standards that we're all setting it becomes if this guy is attacked relentlessly for being an asset of a foreign power and then we have The vice president's son in the Ukraine, up to God only knows what, with a laptop full of pictures that the then big tech. No, no, a laptop full of pictures is not the standard.
Starting point is 00:46:53 He said he was on the take from Ukraine, and all the money was going to his uncle and his dad. And by the way, Joe should have never let his son be doing deals like he was when Joe was in office., Joe should have never let his son be doing deals like he was when Joe was in office. My father would have never allowed it. My brother never did anything like that. He wouldn't allow me to do it.
Starting point is 00:47:12 And I had opportunities falling on my head all the time. That would have been legal, by the way. If Don Jr. had that laptop surface with those type of photos where you were having... The photos that are personally hurtful would be spread all over the place and then some if it were the Trumps in a way that it wasn't done with Biden. Every intelligence chief said this was Russian disinformation and it was censored for a period of time on acts and some of the biggest media platforms in the world.
Starting point is 00:47:42 And a lot of people would say that that's election interference. You had guys like John Brennan and Hayden and Clapper, and these are like the kings of the national security state. These are not underlings, they're not people that aren't good at spotting what Russian disinfo was, right? John Brennan led the CIA for many years. I'm sure he knows what Russian disinfo is.
Starting point is 00:47:59 But even if they come to conclude, conclude, well, no, because they're not doing the vetting anymore. They're just taking the findings of their agencies. And that's their mistake. That's their mistake. But the idea that therefore they're on par with a Dave Smith is also a mistake. Support comes from Soul.
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Starting point is 00:49:24 In case you're on a gummy right now, I'll repeat it. GetSold.com promo code Cuomo, 30% off. What I'm saying is, at some point, somebody's got to get into the business of better, my brother. Somebody's got to get into the business of better. That's a good slogan, the business of better. Because otherwise it never ends. That's like a home, the business of better. Because otherwise it never ends. It's like a home improvement company. What Hunter Biden did was beyond the pale. OK.
Starting point is 00:49:50 Ivanka Trump went as an emissary of the United States to China and asked them for six patents that they gave her. Yeah. While she was working for the United States government. I don't like a lot of reason. I don't like the crypto stuff. But I'm saying it never ends. There's a lot of stuff.
Starting point is 00:50:04 They're starting a gentleman's club right now, 500 grand to sign in in DC. There's a lot of stuff right now going over the Trump administration that everybody's been very critical of, especially on the right. The deportations. People do not like these college kids that wrote an article or a critical or attended a protest. Now, if they committed a crime or violence or something like that, it's a different story.
Starting point is 00:50:23 But like deporting people to an El Salvadoran prison that are American US citizens are bad. Alex Jones said that right. But like, there's a ton of stuff that people are unhappy with Trump about. I don't think people love the crypto stuff. I don't think people love people like to Trump for a strong border, a strong economy, and to bring back common sense to the culture. And if he does those things, I think he'll be a very big success. I think he's gotten very distracted. I think a lot of people are noticing that.
Starting point is 00:50:50 And I think a lot of people are calling him out, including Joe Rogan. I've called it out. A lot of people have called it out. Um, I think there are people that are on a frequency where they'll never criticize him, but I think a lot of people on the right are really starting to criticize a lot of what's going on. Well, I'm not a big fan of criticism because it's too easy.
Starting point is 00:51:16 And deporting Americans isn't happening. There was one hairdresser who's an American who was left in the lockup in Florida wrongly, and he's gonna get a nice civil settlement, would be my guess. After he produced his citizenship proof, they left him there for over a day waiting for ice. He's gonna sue, he's gonna win.
Starting point is 00:51:37 But nobody was deported. Trump, I can't believe I'm saying this, but Trump does not get the benefit of saying things the wrong way with the media. He gets asked about, he's being asked about what the constitutional standard is for due process, okay? Let's just start with the idea of why expertise matters. We both know Donald Trump doesn't know shit
Starting point is 00:52:02 about due process, where it comes from in the constitution, what it means, what it doesn't mean. He doesn't know, we both know that. He is not a student of law. Legal scholars would also fight about it when it comes to people that aren't citizens, probably. Well, but here's what, you can fight about whatever you want.
Starting point is 00:52:18 The Fifth Amendment is pretty clear, and anyone who can read the language will make it through 90% of it, which is if you are on land that is in the jurisdiction of the United States, you're entitled to due process under their laws. How much? That's the question. That's the question.
Starting point is 00:52:38 Is someone who enters illegally entitled legally to as much due process as Tim Dillon? Nope. And nobody ever said otherwise. How much, how does it manifest itself, in what context, debatable subject of legislation and case law. But what I'm saying is this, Trump says, I don't know. I don't know about this due process thing. I don't know. Well, Marco Rubio said, yeah, I don't know. I'm not a lawyer, I got lawyers. Okay. But you know, you're supposed to defend the Constitution, right?
Starting point is 00:53:09 Again, he says, I don't know. Media goes crazy. We just had the first president in American history saying he doesn't think he's supposed to defend the Constitution. Is that what he said? No, that is not what he said. Is that what he meant? Yeah. Hell no, it's not what he meant. No, and I think that, but it's just, I will say that
Starting point is 00:53:32 instinctively, and I think this is a credit to people on the right who everyone says are a mindless cult of zombies that follow him. when he does something they dislike or they instinctively feel could be an issue, a lot of people are speaking up more so than I think people would would have expected. Maybe. I mean look, I think part of that is because he's doing things that they didn't expect when they voted for him, which you know you now have people saying, well, shame on you, this is what you get. We told you this was gonna happen,
Starting point is 00:54:09 which I think is also gratuitous, which is by the way, my biggest beef with our media culture, and I include all of us in that, which is everybody's a Monday morning fucking quarterback now. Everybody knew that the vaccine wasn't a vaccine. Everybody knew that everything that was done during the pandemic was wrong. Everybody knew that the vaccine wasn't a vaccine. Everybody knew that everything that was done during the pandemic was wrong.
Starting point is 00:54:27 Everybody knew these things. And I lived it in real time and people didn't know shit. And the first time that I brought up the lab leak story, I got shut down by the Trump White House. The first time I brought up whether or not they were gonna investigate where it started and whether it was intentional, I was told to shut up by Redfield and the other people.
Starting point is 00:54:47 But everything is hindsight's 2020. What I'm saying is he's doing things that are disruptive for the right. Tariffs are anathema to fiscal conservatives. So they didn't expect that, even though he said he was gonna do it, but we've all gotten used to him saying a lot of things, but not doing those things, or at least not doing them the way he said he would.
Starting point is 00:55:14 And then he did it. And then he overdid it. And now they're having to deal with that and they're upset because a lot of them are market sensitive. And that's okay, that's part of the business. Trump doesn't deal with it well, which is why. He's doing what he does best. He's distracting now with Tina Peters.
Starting point is 00:55:34 Tina Peters is a political hostage. How is she a political hostage? How? How is she a political hostage? But all these people echo it, the same people on the right that support these other things are now saying Tina Peters is a political hostage. Who is Tina Peters?
Starting point is 00:55:53 I can't even keep up. So Tina Peters is the lady who was the county clerk in Colorado who did the stop the steal thing and brought the people in to show the extra databases and then gave it to the MyPillow guy. And then she got busted for letting in into someone who wasn't supposed to be on the inside and releasing information that actually
Starting point is 00:56:12 did have sensitive information that could be used to compromise the voting systems. So she was indicted and prosecuted and found guilty. And then she was sentenced to nine years, which was too long in my opinion. In my opinion. Yeah, it's a lot, it's heavy. Because, you know, state crime, I thought it was heavy.
Starting point is 00:56:28 I read the judge's rationale, I get it. She basically told him to fuck himself a couple of times during the trial, figuratively. She's a spirited woman. So she, so he dropped the hammer, okay. But not a political prisoner, why? Well, because she did what they said she did. But not a political prisoner. Why? Because she did what they said she did.
Starting point is 00:56:46 And Trump says it was the Democratic attorney general. No, it wasn't. It was a Republican district attorney who brought the case and investigated all the allegations. But now we get all these people echoing it. So if you're gonna bitch about Russiagate, which you should, you can bitch about that. Don't start advancing bullshit
Starting point is 00:57:05 because it works for your side. No, I mean, listen, 1,000%, I don't think people have an interest in him relitigating the 2020 election. I do think nine years is a bit extreme, but I think people elected him for the three reasons I said. They want an economy, strong borders, they want common sense in cultural spaces,
Starting point is 00:57:23 and that is what he offered. And I think, again, that's what the Democratic Party failed to offer. They've now spun this narrative that it's all podcasters and Joe Rogan who swayed the election. But they tried to run a guy who is- No, if they say that, I haven't heard that that much. Oh, it's every interview I do. And you didn't ask me, but every single interview, they all go, all these podcas podcasts swayed the election. I'm like, you ran a terribly unpopular candidate.
Starting point is 00:57:48 No, they're full of shit. They're full of shit. Most of the voters don't even listen to podcasts. That's not what it was. That's right. They said the border wasn't a problem. They ignored it. Why?
Starting point is 00:57:59 Because the left flank of that party believes that there is advantage in showing that the right is heartless to the immigrant experience and that we are all about immigrants. We're all immigrants here. Let's love them up and be compassionate to whatever brought them here, relax on enforcement. It was an extension theoretically of the defund the police
Starting point is 00:58:24 of force as a mechanism. And they caved to that and that was on them. And Biden was a lousy candidate. Yeah, you also had a lot of people on the right with that issue, which interesting, for many, many years that really wanted cheap labor. And they still do. And they still do. And so there's a lot of people,
Starting point is 00:58:47 Chamber of Commerce, Koch brothers, a lot of those people are very pro immigration. And that's where I think when we talk about conspiracies or whatever, this idea of us versus them, or there's an amorphous blob or a deep state or whatever, people start going, hey man, I didn't get a vote on this. I got elements of the far left, elements of the far right, really well-funded, powerful groups of people
Starting point is 00:59:14 making decisions that dramatically impact and affect my life. And there's no way for me to push back on any of that stuff. And I think that's why the Trump candidacy got so much support in 2016. You had Hillary Clinton about to run against Jeb Bush. It was an oligarchy and America pushed back on it.
Starting point is 00:59:38 And I think the Democrats indicted Trump back into prominence in the last election. And he ran on the same issues that propelled him and these were the same things. Biden letting in 10 million people, people feeling like public safety was at risk in the inner cities because of liberal DAs that were kind of out of step with like logical policies.
Starting point is 01:00:03 I agree with all of it. Your analysis is spot on unless we're both wrong, but we're building- I can't believe we will never be. We will be, we will, we're both building backwards from the same conclusion where we know where we are and how we got here seems fairly obvious. The question is, where you go?
Starting point is 01:00:23 My problem with Trump is right now, I go? My problem with Trump is, right now, I have a new problem with Trump. My old problem with Trump was, he's a pain in my ass. He's saying shit all the time that I can't let go, otherwise I'm being as unserious as he is in that moment. And yet nobody gives a shit. So how do I balance those things? That was my old problem.
Starting point is 01:00:42 And then he weaponized me, made life hard for my wife and my kids, And I asked him to stop and he didn't. So that was my beef. It was personal. Now I have a new beef, which is he is so close to the signature issue of your and my generation. He's so close to it, which is- The tower in Dubai. I agree with you. It is luxurious and it's beautiful. In Gaza, in Gaza.
Starting point is 01:01:10 Yeah, or Gaza. I think they're actually both stunning. Actually, both Gaza. He's so close to a big golden head of himself. And I agree with you. Luxury is the defining issue of my generation. How we live, a building with a lifestyle with the right amenities, private restaurants,
Starting point is 01:01:23 a 24- hour house car, 1000%, these are the issues. Couple of pools, a lap pool, a lounge pool, couple of Baja decks, I'm fully with you. Room service, concierge, 24 hour lifestyle manager, 1000%, that is it. But I don't love the design, cause it's one tower, I say go three.
Starting point is 01:01:42 Go three, go a three tower, Bill. In celebration of the Trinity. In celebration of the Trinity. In celebration of the Trinity. Here's the defining issue of our generation, and Trump is right on top of it, okay? He's actually even said it once at least. America to move forward as any extension of the dream has to rethink the benefits and burdens and how they're shared of how our economy works.
Starting point is 01:02:16 Now I am not a communist, I'm a capitalist, okay? We have certain socialistic aspects to our system, right? Public education, entitlements, there are socialistic things. Bankruptcy laws for corporations, these are socialistic. However, he's on top of that with where he started before he did the tariffs. The corporate class raped our buyer base, made their shit somewhere else, used other people just because it was cheaper and they didn't have to deal with any of the protections of the labor or of the environment,
Starting point is 01:02:53 and then they sold it all to us. But we weren't making the money anymore to buy this stuff. And so the gap between the top and the middle has grown exponentially in the last generation. That is the defining issue. What do you do about it? I don't know, but Trump has identified that issue. Now the way he is saying to solve it, I totally get the criticism of it from the right and the left. We want to make t-shirts and sneakers here. No, we don't.
Starting point is 01:03:26 We want the good jobs here. Let them keep those jobs. But how you rethink the share of burden to benefit that people get for the American market is the issue. And he is on it the way I have never heard a Democrat on it. Never. That's, I agree with you. I think that was very well said.
Starting point is 01:03:51 I think he gets it. I would also extrapolate. I think it's encouraging that he's saying to Europe, you have to step up and pay for more of your defense. And I think I agree with you. So what you do about it, he took a huge turn by doing what he always does. He goes very fast and far in a direction.
Starting point is 01:04:15 And look, the guy isn't known for running things, managing things, being a strategy and an implementer. That's not what he's known for. It's not a coincidence that he had as many corporate bankruptcies as he had. But he is a vision guy and he is a salesman. And he is right, that's the defining issue of how do you figure, I don't know what the answer is. I don't know.
Starting point is 01:04:39 Maybe Dave Smith knows, but I don't know how to deal with it being 345X from the management to the people who are making the money for the corporation. And if you touch that, you're fucking with capitalism. But if anything happens to that system, we bail them out. And that's not offensive to capitalism. He has defined this. Bernie Sanders talks about it also,
Starting point is 01:05:01 but his solution structure is overtly offensive to capitalist society. Sure. So there's an amazing opportunity there, and Trump is right on top of it. And instead of just sinking his teeth into it and doing what is really hard in politics, which is saying, fuck, I did too much with the tariffs too soon. I did.
Starting point is 01:05:22 We're going to have to rethink it and go at it a different way. I got some people's attention. Let's see how it plays out, because I do think you're going to have to rethink it and go at it a different way. I got some people's attention. Let's see how it plays out because I do think during negotiating tool, I don't know how good those negotiations will go, obviously, but like, let's see what happens. You know, the All In podcast made an interesting point. They said, in any negotiation, if you set the bar very far away, it gives you maximum leverage to just land in a place that's good. I agree with you.
Starting point is 01:05:44 I have the same concerns. I think partially it's defining the problem and then figuring out how to chip away at it using different weapons. And I think one of them is trying to rebalance trade. Another one is trying to regulate immigration. Another one is trying to regulate immigration. Another one is trying to, you know, probably, and it might affect me or you,
Starting point is 01:06:10 you might have to raise taxes on wealthy people for a period of time. It is what it is. And a lot of it is seeing America as not just an economic zone, but a country where people have to live together and fight and die, you know, fight and potentially die in wars to defend said country and seeing it and not in some nationalist crazy Hitlerian way,
Starting point is 01:06:34 but just in a way that like the American people should have a standard of living. It should be the envy of the world. We should be an example for the rest of the world. Our food should be healthier. Our streets should be safer. We have too much money in this country to have our cities look the way they do. We have too many freedoms in this country for those freedoms to be completely abused by people to just make vast sums of wealth
Starting point is 01:07:00 at the expense of the middle class and the lower class. And, you know, I don't think you can have this aesthetic politics of going, here's a trans Batman, or, you know, the CEO of this company is now a female of color. You need to actually address systemic structural issues. It's not race, it's class. The issue is class. And the missing piece of the capitalist philosophy is that it assumes there's no responsibility beyond profit.
Starting point is 01:07:31 And that has never been a function of any great mercantilistic society. And that's what we've gotten away from. But that's the issue, brother. That's where all this other shit goes away. If we're focused on that, and this is a big fucking topic, there's a, like you said, there are a lot of different things that would have to happen and how you do it and consistently and over what amount of time,
Starting point is 01:07:58 but it is the way to get the majority with you. Because remember what's been happening the last 15, 20 years. Instead of tackling the big things, they develop the culture wars and just finding ways to get the majority to fight with one another over things that don't matter as much as the things that are being ignored to them all equally. So should you have a high school volleyball player who's a female who's 6'2", 230 pounds? No, you should not have that.
Starting point is 01:08:30 But let's fight about it, about what gender is. Let's fight about that and ignore 345 for the CEO, zero for one for the worker. Let's ignore that, which affects 60% of the country, 70% of the country. And let's talk about something that represents seven. It feels very much like the stewards of the economy have driven it to a boom and bust cycle that ignores people. And a lot of these people, you know, they love, you know, they'll
Starting point is 01:09:03 show up in the South of France, they'll show up in Mediterranean, they'll show up in the South of France, they'll show up in Mediterranean, they'll show up in Beverly Hills, they'll show up in Aspen. There's a great quote from a Nelson Demille, Long Islander book called The Gold Coast, where it's a guy in the Gold Coast who said, I've been in Manhattan and Beverly Hills, and Palm Beach, I've never been to America.
Starting point is 01:09:21 And that's a great quote, and I think that you can't just say, we're gonna have 10 zip codes where things work, and then we're just gonna let everybody else, you know, deal with all these problems, and those people are rightfully angry. I agree 100%. And I want to say thank you. I want to say that I'll give you my number.
Starting point is 01:09:42 I'm always in text away. You ever want me on the show? I am an expert, though. Maybe the other people you mentioned weren't experts, you my number. I'm always in text away. You ever want me on the show? Maybe the other people you mentioned weren't experts, but I feel like I'm the expert. I think that's what we've learned at the end of this interview, that if the expertise means, hey, it's me.
Starting point is 01:09:56 I didn't even realize early on, but now after doing this for an hour, I realized I think I'm an expert. I have great regard for people who wear dark sunglasses. I'll just say that. These aren't cheap. Steve Bannon's gonna take these away and give them to people in Ohio.
Starting point is 01:10:10 I've never met a man with dark glasses on who couldn't be trusted. That's all I'm gonna say. I appreciate you having me. I'm your mother special on Netflix, if anyone cares. It's great to watch while you are addicted to fentanyl in the hovel that our country has allowed you to live in. Fentanyl, the worst problem we've never dealt with.
Starting point is 01:10:32 We're not gonna deal with it. A grain of it can kill two generations of the Dylan and Cuomo clan. Yes, and already has. But let's just keep talking about it. With my family, but yeah, for sure. All right, thank you, Chris. Tim, I think that you are a gift to your audience, and I appreciate having a conversation with you.
Starting point is 01:10:51 I'm always available if you want me for anything, and thank you for doing this. You're the best, appreciate it, thank you. ["The Big Game"] Tim Dillon, can't see his eyes, but I can see his ideas. Funny guy, smart guy, who's having a conversation that I think is one of the ingredients of creating a stew that gets America to a better place. Mixed metaphors? Sure, but that's okay. We got to find ways to have conversation be the cure.
Starting point is 01:11:26 And Tim Dillon with his new Netflix special, I'm Your Mom is funny. He is smart. And most of all, he is relevant. What do you think? Let me know. Thank you for subscribing and following. Appreciate you.
Starting point is 01:11:39 You want the podcast, but you don't want the ads. Go to the Substack. It's cheap. There's a lot of other stuff that you can have there. I'm going to be giving political interviews and insights there where if you subscribe, you get to comment and I'll answer your questions there. If you don't want to subscribe, you don't have to. You can see the video, but we're not going to get into your comments and I'm not going to give you any answers. So check it out. And News Nation, thank you so much for giving us a chance. 8 and 11 Eastern at night, every weekday night.
Starting point is 01:12:10 News Nation, news for all Americans. The problems are real, my brothers and sisters. Let's get after it.

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