The Chris Cuomo Project - Why Washington Can't Get Anything Done: Decoding the 'Do Nothing' Congress

Episode Date: February 15, 2024

Chris Cuomo dives into the harsh reality of American politics and sheds light on gridlock behind a so-called “do nothing Congress.” Citing the political game that perpetuates division and stagnation, particularly evident in the immigration bill and Ukraine aid debate, Chris ignites a call to action for viewers to demand accountability and push for a more effective and cooperative political landscape. Join Chris Ad-Free On Substack: http://thechriscuomoproject.substack.com 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You want to know why we can't fix immigration? I know why, and I know what you can do about it. But more importantly, I can indicate that this is a symptom of a much bigger problem for you and me and everybody except the players in the game. I'm Chris Cuomo, and welcome to The Chris Cuomo Project. Thank you for subscribing, following. Thank you for checking us out on News Nation. 8P, 11P, every weekday night.

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Take that shit somewhere else, okay? It's not for here. This sub stack is a community of people who care about long COVID because they suffer from it. They have kids who suffer from it. Their parents, their friends, their loved ones, they've lost people to it. They don't understand it.

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everybody can exercise with long COVID. For some people, it's actually bad. For some, it helps. And I'm one of those, and I hope it stays that way. So that's on the sub stack also, okay? So I'm not sorry about the ads because they're a sign of our success and growth, and that's important because I got a team to feed. But also, you can go to the Substack, and I hope you do because you also have a long COVID community there, and you can get access to me. I'm going to be doing videos, especially with the founding members or whatever they call it, but you're going to have opportunities to get to me directly. Now, that's the business news. Now, there is the food for thought, okay? And this is a melding of philosophy and pragmatism, okay? The reason that the immigration bill is now stuck

is very simply because of not merely politics, because politics created this bipartisan bill. It is because of the game. And I can prove it to you, okay? We are now, I believe, if I'm wrong, good for you. Let me know. I think we're in the 118th Congress, okay? If you look over the last 25 years, which I have,

you will see some things that are indicative of a change in our system that is not about efficiency. It's about erosion of trust, of about industry and Congress, meaning how much work they do. But most frightening to the state of our constitutional republic is the motivation. Over time, the parties have learned that opposition is a legitimate position that can be sold in the game.

What do I mean? So the more it becomes a binary battle to the bottom democrat republican now teams now clans Well, but it's always been that way hasn't it? Well, no when we were founded they were anti-party washington Monroe washington was joined by madison and hamilton and jefferson They were anti-parties because they saw exactly where we are now That if you put people into groups, it just keeps splintering and you get concentration of power. And as Washington said, you'll wind up with a small group of men who put their interests above the nations. And that's where we are.

So, okay. But for most of the time, Mr. Encyclopedia Britannica, we've had two parties. Okay. Yeah, we have. We have. But over time, things evolve, right? Now, I would suggest they devolve. And the way the two-party game has devolved is that they've become more and more savvy that the easiest way to acquire and retain power, and a little bit of this is collusion, a little bit of this is them doing this with each other, is to just battle over which is worse. And in action, getting nothing done has gone from what it is everywhere else in your life, which is a sign of failure, to a sign of strength, of resistance. Resist. Resist now means don't do anything and sell your opposition to doing anything as a position of resistance. I'm going to stop Greg Ott and his evil thoughts and deeds. Vote for me. Now, what am I selling? And you hear this all the time.

You're hearing it right now. Former President Trump wins in New Hampshire in a big way. And he comes out onto the stage and says, we're doing well. We're picking up momentum. We won here. We kicked her ass. We kicked it. Then he says, and do you know why?

And this is where even Trump would usually say, because I'm the man, that's why. No, what does he say? Because these people are the worst we have ever seen. And this president is the worst. In a moment where he's supposed to build himself up and his party and his campaign, he chooses to do the opposite, which is not to tear himself down, obviously, never,

but to just attack the opponent. Why? That's the currency. That's what the game yields, is that the quickest way, the easiest way to win is not by being better, but by proving that the other is worse. And that is a distinction with a difference that matters.

It's harder for me to say, please watch and listen to my podcast and my TV show, because I believe that we're better at this and better at that, and we're gonna do this and other people won't, and we do this and we've shown that. That's hard, okay? You have to show results.

You have to show that you can do the work, that you can deliver. What is easier is saying, watch me because everybody else is lying to you and they're all evil. And a lot of them don't believe in God and they want bad things for you. And some of them may cause cancer.

Now, even though that sounds absurd, is it that different than Pizzagate and all this other bullshit that has gotten thrown into the kind of cement mixer of division that they use and just spinning stuff around and spitting it out and hoping that it solidifies into some kind of formation of base? It's a pretty good metaphor. No, it's not that different because that's what's going on. Support for the Chris Cuomo Project comes from Sundaes. Now, we got a problem in the Cuomo house. We got three dogs who now like Sundaes better than the other food that I was giving them. Sundaes is healthy dog food, easy to store, okay? Very tasty, very nutritious because

Sundae's is fresh dog food made from a short list of human-grade ingredients. No, not humans, human-grade. Sundae's was co-founded by Dr. Tori Waxman, practicing vet, tests and formulates every version of each recipe. No, the doctor doesn't eat it. They test it for pets. What is wrong with you? So I got this stuff and I like that it's kibble, man, because I got to tell you, I've tried other foods that are wet foods and you got to have a whole refrigerator for them. This, you store it just like all the other kibble. And I got to tell you, they loved it. All right. I got these three savage rescues. They eat an incredible amount of food. And I actually had to get a special bowl for one of them because he was eating the sundaes too fast. And if you're a dog owner, you know that that can go sideways on you. And I love it because it makes me feel like I'm doing them right.

So get 40% off your first order of Sundays. Go to SundaysForDogs.com slash Chris or use the code Chris at checkout. We don't fake the funk here. And here's the real talk. Over 40 years of age, 52% of us experience some kind of ED between the ages of 40 and 70. I know it's taboo, it's embarrassing, but it shouldn't be. Thankfully, we now have HIMS, and it's changing the vibe by providing affordable access to ED treatment, and it's all online. HIMS is changing men's health care. Why? Because it's

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Plus, the price is going to vary based on product and subscription plan. I want to show this two different ways. One is specifically with the immigration bill that's on the table right now. Now, fair criticism will be, hey, stop calling it an immigration bill, okay? The majority of the money is going to Ukraine. Yes. And that is proof of a problem. Over time, what have you seen?

So every Congress, okay, here's a couple of things that are interesting about how Congress works. They start a session in January, right? The new Congress comes in. There's a flood of bills in the beginning. And then they fight about them. You know, less than one in 10 proposed bills become law.

And that number has been coming down. Why? Because opposition has become an increasingly popular position of partisan resistance to the other side. So they still pass hundreds of bills into law all the time, every session. Why? Because that's what it takes to keep the thing running, okay? Now, how ambitious are they? What do they deal with that are more overarching concerns, more macro concerns?

Less and less and less. And over time, what you also see is that it's not just that they're doing less, it's how they're doing it. More and more bills are becoming omnibus, are becoming bundled, like the immigration bill that has more money in a border bill. There's like three times as much money almost going to Ukraine as there is at the border. Why are you calling it a border bill? It's kind of like the Inflation Reduction Act. It did not that much to reduce inflation, at least not early on. Now we see inflation is coming down. Nobody wants to revisit the issues. The Democrats aren't doing the messaging the right way. But sometimes you make

moves now and they affect the economy down the road. You know, that's a duh point. You get that. But with this bundling, this omnibus, is that they're putting more things in the bill because they're getting less and less cooperation. So Ukraine should be its own thing or part of some foreign aid package thing. It has no business being with the border. Of course, you can say that it's an extension of national security, I guess, but they don't even need a rationale for connective tissue. They just throw it in, you know, and we know this. This has always been true. It's just never been as true as it is now. So over time, sure, they're still having to do lots of things. There is still

a baseline of responsibility and duty that they have to get through, but they're doing less bills and they're bigger bills. Why? Because they can't agree on a lot of things. And the idea of the Republicans agreeing with Democrats is getting less and less likely, right? And that's why everything is getting filtered through a lens of division. And because of that, every issue, even Taylor Swift, has to have a left-right angle on it. Why? Because it works for them. I know it's frustrating and annoying to you. I know you see it as counterproductive because it is to your interests. It's just productive for the players in the game.

Why? It's easier for them to fight over whether Taylor Swift is a secret agent than it is to fix your problems and make your life better and restore your sense of imagination and purpose and hope for your life and the lives of the people who matter to you and your country overall. Be a nation. That is all. That's what Washington said. We do that least now. We think holistically least.

Why? Because of the game. Because it's getting processed through this red or blue. That's all it is, is for them. And the media echoes it because the media, yeah, I'm in the media. But, you know, look, I'll go after the media plenty. They certainly have come after me. What I'm saying is you can't blame them for your problems.

You can't blame them for your politics. The media is a mirror. The media is a pack animal that follows the leader, which are our leaders in our power dynamic. Sure, there's some codependency there, and sometimes the media is front-running things for them, and sometimes they're just following and exaggerating. But come on, the media is not the root cause of our problems, okay? It's bigger than that, and it's complex, and there is no single fact or explanation for it. However, the point is this.

Do nothing. Congress is not do nothing. Congress for the game. It's doing nothing for you in bigger ways and ways that matter. OK, they're still getting a lot of business done. I know that's unpopular to say, because you want to be negative about everything. It's part of the division game that is destroying us right now. And it is destroying us. It's making us very weak. We are lucky we're not getting attacked here at home. Because do you think if a 9-11 happened right now, we would

come together and fight against this enemy? Or do you think immediately they'd start blaming Biden and how weak he is and look at the Democrats? You don't think that's what would happen? I'm telling you, I lived it the first time and Bush was in trouble the first time before 9-11. I do not see that we are in a place where we would respond the same way we did then. I hope we would in terms of national resolve, in terms of what you do about it.

That's a different debate. But I hope we would come together. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think so. Why? Because we never come together over anything anymore. Why? Because there's more advantage in division. It's easier for them to win.

So the immigration bill, everybody knows what the right fixes are for the border. And a lot of them are in this bill. That's why it was a bipartisan Senate negotiation. It is not a bullshit bill. Is it everything that the people who run the border want? No. Is it all the rule changes?

No. But it does empower people and does provide more manpower that is more empowered to make decisions that will stop essentially as an operation of necessity, catch and release. What do I mean? Well, will catch and release still be a policy? Yes, as long as the Democrats are in power, there'll probably be catch and release. But, and you know what that is, right? That's where I catch you sneaking into the country illegally. And then I let you go for a future court date because you say you want asylum or simply because I just don't have the place to hold you or the means to send you back.

And I give you a court date to be removed from the country. In both cases, the chance that you show up, it's not going to be great, right? Now, a lot of people show up the first time because you can get work papers, and then they never show up again, and they slip into the system. This has happened for years and years and years with millions of people. And this is something that needs to be fixed. This bill helps fix it by giving agents, officers, agents, officers, the ability, the power to make immediate assessments and send them back.

You still have resourcing issues. You still have way too much in the system and the system is not big enough. You need like a new Ellis Island built there or multiple ones. And you need the home countries to do more and you need more deals. You need a lot of things. Here's the thing. Nothing I'm saying is novel to me. Okay. I haven't made any of this up. Everybody knows the answers. They don't provide it because the problem works better for the two party system. That takes us to this bill. This bill is terrible. I can't believe McConnell. Look, McConnell has diminishing capacity to a point now where he says the quiet part out loud. This happens with a lot of aging people, especially when they're ill. They start saying things with less of a filter. So he's for the bill. People are now going to say, oh, he never knew what was in the bill. Listen, do you know how many of these men and women read

all of the hundreds of pages of these bills? That's what they have staff for, okay? They know about the big points and how to sell it and what it means for them and their constituents at best, okay? Oh, he didn't read it. I dismiss that. Why?

Because you think he read the whole thing? No, because I don't think that's what this is about. He was for the bill. Now he's against the bill because Trump and his supporters have said, don't fix immigration. We're running on how it's broken.

Now, to me, that should be disgusting. You should find that disgusting. You should find that like real political malpractice. So you're telling me I should vote for you because the border is a real problem and you'll fix it. And now Congress is going to fix it. You're telling them not to so that you can run on the problem. How fucked up is that? But that's where we are. That's the nature of the game. It's not just Trump. Okay. Is he doing it more vulgar and obvious fashion? Yeah, that's him. But this is literally supposedly what Trump people are against, which is the system being rigged to work for its own interests instead of theirs. That's exactly what's happening. Now, what is the fair pushback?

Oh, this immigration bill, we would have done way better, HR2. HR2 from the House was never gonna get passed, okay? It was never gonna happen. This one could get passed and it would help. Is it perfect? No, but isn't something better than nothing? Not if the problem works better for you.

And you can keep saying, well, no, we'll do the whole thing. If you give us the right numbers, we'll make it a comprehensive and we'll do everything at once. It will never happen. It never has. They're never gonna have that big a number advantage. And even if they did, they may have a different priority

Because they're hyping this thing for advantage right now Now What about the Ukraine piece? Fair criticism Well then why is it in there? Because they don't think they get another bite at the apple That's why So they're jamming it in

Yeah, but you're giving $60 million It's only $60 billion, It's only $60 billion. It's only $20. I know. I know. I get why people are upset about it. Now, slow down. I don't respect a lot of the resistance to Ukraine funding.

Again, it's being put through this meat grinder of forced division. Zelensky's a kleptocrat. Where's the proof of that? Oh, well, a lot of the money is, but everyone that we give money to, defender of forced division. Zelensky's a kleptocrat. Where's the proof of that? Oh, well, a lot of the money is, but everyone that we give money to, it's not like the charities where say 89% of every dollar you give us goes to the services that we're going to provide. There is graft. There is corruption. Why do you think these people need money for us in the first place from us? If they had everything running, if they had such a lean and clean machine, what do they need us to bail them out for all the time?

Now, sometimes they're exigencies, they're disasters, et cetera, but a lot of these are not really well-functioning governments. And there's a lot of graft and corruption. And Ukraine is absolutely no exception. But the idea that that's why you don't want to give them money,

then you wouldn't give money to anybody. Okay? Even our main ally in the Middle East, I bet you don't want to give them money, then you wouldn't give money to anybody, okay? Even our main ally in the Middle East, I bet you if they would attract the money, you don't have like a dollar for dollar going to exactly what it's supposed to go to. I'm not accusing anybody of being corrupt, but I'm saying, you know, the system has compromises, okay? So this idea that Zelensky's a bad guy, and maybe we have Russia wrong,

and maybe if Russia were Israel, Russia's not Israel. Israel did not just decide now that it wants Palestine as its own. That's the last thing that most people in Israel want. Maybe Bibi's government, maybe those right-flank people, maybe they have different designs. That's a fair argument to have. But Israel, as we've seen over land, if they wanted Palestine, they would have killed everybody in there, not let any Arabs in their country, which they have over 20% of their population, and they would have taken it. They haven't. Look, it's a mess and it's difficult. But don't let people sell you on these simple things just to put it through the meat grinder of be with us, not them. Anything you simplify that's complex,

you're gonna make stupid, okay? And you're gonna reduce the chances of fixing it, like Ukraine. Oh, but isn't Russia just like Israel? No, no, it is not, okay? Putin is a known malefactor to U.S. interests. All right? And I don't care who interviews him.

The question is not who's interviewing him. It's who he's picking to talk to. He picked Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson, for a reason, because he thinks they're going to be a more sympathetic ear. And they were. I don't know, Megyn Kelly attacks me on a regular basis, gratuitously, just for her own advantage, and you guys reward her for it. Fine. That's how it works in the opinion game, especially

in digital media. But you can judge her interview. It got panned by a lot of people. I didn't pan it at the time. Why? One, I'm not in the business of opining on other people's interviews. I think that's player hating and jealousy for a lot of people. But, you know, there's a legitimate question as to whether or not she was up to doing that kind of work. And she had a really rough go at NBC. And the people who worked with her there kept coming out and report saying she couldn't hack it. She wasn't the way they wanted her to be. And they were leaving her shows. They wound up paying her literally to leave. Now, then she had litigation and it's complicated and things there may have been done that were wrong where Megyn Kelly's involved. But that's a digression, okay? I'm not here to attack Megyn Kelly. I'm saying I don't care who talks to Putin. You should examine who does Putin want to talk to

because that guy's got an agenda going 24-7. The Chris Cuomo Project is supported by Cozy Earth. Why? Because I like their sheets. That's why. A lot of people don't get a good night's sleep for a lot of reasons. One of the ones that you can control is bedding. One out of three of us report being sleep deprived. Okay, well, what is it? Well, it stresses all kinds of things, but the wrong sheets can make you hot, can make you cold. I'm telling you, I don't even believe it either, but Cozy Earth sheets breathe. And here's what I love about them. Cozy Earth's best-selling sheet is a bamboo set, okay? Temperature regulating. Gets softer with every wash. I'm not kidding you, all right? Now, so if you go to CozyEarth.com and you enter the code, enter the

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Start your free online visit today at hymns.com slash CCP. H-I-M-S dot com slash CCP. And you will get personalized ED treatment options. hymns.com slash CCP. Prescriptions, you need an online consultation with a healthcare provider, and they will determine if appropriate. Restrictions apply. You see the website, you'll get details and important safety information. You're going to need a subscription. It's required. Plus, price is going to vary based on product and subscription plan. So funding Ukraine has now become a bad thing.

Why? The game. The game. That's why. Because it works to promote division. Now look, is there also a little flavor of isolationism and people wanting to stay out of foreign entanglements? Yes and yes.

But there is something that the argument of, you think you're staying out by not funding it now, and then where do you think Russia does next? Do you think this is enough? That's what they were saying when he was messing with Chechnya in Georgia. All right, now he's never going to do this again. Here we are.

What do you think after this? It just stops? Why? Why would he stop? So there's an argument. There's a debate to be had there, okay? The reason this is in the immigration bill is because they don't get enough bites at the apple anymore

because cooperation is seen as a weakness. That's why. Look how people are treating the House members who didn't vote to impeach Mayorkas, the DHS secretary. This is a waste of fucking time, just like impeaching Trump was. Whoa, why didn't you say that then? I did.

No, you said he did a lot of bad things. Yeah, I believe he did. What does that have to do with impeaching him? You're never going to remove him. The votes aren't there, okay? You're never gonna remove Mayorkas. You need a two-thirds vote in the Senate. You're not going to get it, especially when you don't like the policies, so you're impeaching the guy. That's not an impeachable offense. Oh,

he's hurting the country. That's what you say. This is politics, okay? This isn't corruption. This isn't him being bribed. The standard has to mean something or it means nothing. And that's what it's doing. It's eroding. They didn't like what you did with Trump. They said you changed the standard. You're bastardizing the constitutionality of this.

It's a mistake. And then what did they do as soon as they got in power? Did the same shit to Biden. That's the game. And now they're doing it with Mayorkas. So how are people treating the Republicans who voted against impeaching Mayorkas? Traitor! Really? Really? So if I don't do everything you say, I'm a traitor. Wow. I'm a traitor. Wow.

Right? When you look at it that way, wow. So much for freedom of expression. So much for a diversity of ideas. And that it's a party. It's a big tent. You're not a big tent. Anybody who feels that way, where you want these guys fired or whatever you can do,

and now they'll probably get primaried. That's why they won't come on TV. They're hiding because they're hoping this goes away so they can have it both ways. Not vote for something that's stupid. This is a waste of time for the Republicans. You're not going to remove the guy. What does it do to impeach him? It plays the game.

Division. Opposition. We resisted. even though it's exactly what they criticized the Democrats for doing. What does that tell you? What are they, insane? No, it works for their base. This is why the immigration bill

is sitting in no man's land right now. After Republicans and Democrats came together in the Senate to do it. If Trump hadn't said, don't pass that, we wouldn't be here right now after Republicans and Democrats came together in the Senate to do it. If Trump hadn't said, don't pass that, we wouldn't be here right now. Mike Johnson is trying to impress the big man, the new Speaker of the House. And he's got problems. He couldn't even control his own people on the impeachment vote. He had defectors. He lost the first vote. They may have another one. By the time you see this, they may have impeached Mayorkas, but they ain't going to remove him. I'll bet you anything you want on that. Why? Because he shouldn't be.

It has nothing to do with that. I don't even need to get to the merits. They're not about the merits. They're about empty criticism and votes. And because everybody's about fealty to party instead of loyalty to country and to you who gave them the power, you know the math. You know the math. So you're never going to get a two-thirds vote in the Senate. So why do it? Principle? What principle are you about in this two-party system other than advantage? Please. So immigration will not get fixed. And Trump will campaign that I will fix it. How? How? Unless you have a landslide where he's given such big margins in the House and the Senate that he can force through anything he wants, it will never happen.

And that's why Ukraine is in that bill. and that's a problem because ukraine is a divisive issue also so will they strip it out maybe but the democrats aren't going to like that because they're not going to get funding for ukraine otherwise now look you can argue well maybe that's the way the politics should work, that we really think Ukraine matters, you really think the border matters. So let's make a deal. I'm okay with that conceptually. I'm okay with that. I'm okay with deals. And then you see how the deals turn out and you judge the people who made the deals on the basis of the outcomes. I'm okay with that, but they're not. Because all they want to do is prove that they have nothing to do with the other side, and the other side is the devil.

That's what we've been reduced to. And that's why Congress doesn't do anything. Or does as little as possible. And that's why there's so much bundled in these bills. Do nothing Congress is now a survival tactic. It used to be a criticism. Saying that you're against something is now a survival tactic. It used to be a criticism. Saying that you're against something is now a virtue. It used to be, look, if you were standing on principle,

it's one thing, but now vote for me. I won't pass any bills. I won't let the Democrats do anything. That's why you're voting for people now. Put me in, I'll stop Trump. I won't let anything pass so that we could just freeze in time and then wait for the next election we've been living our lives that for what now how many cycles how many times have you been told oh we can't we can't change the system now that this election is too

important this is the most important election in a generation or now it's the democracy is on the line. I don't believe it. I never have. I believe in America. I believe in our institutions. I believe we are bigger than any one man or movement. If they were going to take out the democracy on January 6th, if that was really an insurrection, although most of them were unarmed,

then now you know that was their best shot. Your first chance is your best chance. Now everybody's on guard. All his lawyers are getting blown up. He doesn't pay anybody. Everybody's getting prosecuted. You think people are going to be lining up to do stupid shit for Trump? I don't think so.

I don't even believe that that's his goal and aim. I think he's just about the vanity of getting back in. And will he rub people's noses in it if he wins? Yeah. Will I be one of them? Probably, probably. Is that fair? Who cares?

As my therapist says, that's a four-letter word. Fair is a four-letter word. You know, you get what you vote for if you're lucky in this system. So just see the game. I throw it at you in all these different ways and angles because it's all over the place. That's why they don't pass as many bills. That's why the bills are now bigger when they do because they don't get as many bites at the apple. That's why they're not passing immigration, even though everybody says it's a

problem because the problem works better for them than the solution. And you're seeing that in real time. I've been saying this to you, that the problem works better than cooperating on a solution. They're proving it and they're saying it out loud. The Ukraine piece matters and it's a lot of money and there is division. I think a lot of it's manufactured,

but I get why it's complicating this situation, but I also get why it's there. Do nothing Congress is only on the rise because it's working for them. And that's all the game is about is how does it work best for the parties and for the players in those parties to keep power. work best for the parties and for the players in those parties to keep power. That's why you don't get term limits. You'd need a constitutional amendment. They won't even come near it. It's bad for them. That's why they don't mess with any of the rules of the system. They work for them. That's how they've been designed, is to work for them. In a two-party system that seems like is as much of America as the flag, and it isn't, it's just a tradition. It's not in the Constitution. It's not in any formative documents. It's not a creature of law.

It's tradition. This isn't Chris Cuomo saying this. This is the Supreme Court in the 1970s. Look it up. And now you have, you know, parties will, you know, so states will say, well, we took control of our state elections, which is a big right reserved for states, right, is their ability to run the elections. On the national level, of course, it all has to wind up going through Congress and the Electoral College. We know this, but states have a lot of,

well, we run it. The party doesn't. Who's in state government? How many of them aren't in parties? Now, what's the good news? There are a lot of us that don't see this, but there are a lot of us who do. And not just as a function of just jaundice or just straight contempt. There is a reason that the largest part

of the voting body in America says, I am neither Republican nor Democrat. There is a reason that the largest part of the voting body in America says, I am neither Republican nor Democrat. There is a reason for that. And yes, there's a little bit of a fugazi factor with people who say they're independent and they actually break partisan. They just don't like the label. That's certainly true in New Hampshire. I think it's less true overall in the country.

I think that there are really a lot of you that don't want to be in either party. Why? Because of everything we're seeing and saying. Oh yeah, but you can't do this. Not now, Chris. The Republicans are too dangerous. Trump's too dangerous. You know, it has to be Biden.

Really? Really? How does anything change if nothing changes? If not now, when? Next time. Oh, because nothing's going to be happening next time it won't be like trump's son or like the latest intern you know the latest incarnation of somebody who believes that they can just sell you on how everything's broken and you basically need

something akin to revolution for anything to get better? Well, that's how we started America. Maybe that's how we restart America. You really think that's such a far-fetched notion? I don't. And this system that divides everybody where people don't have to stand for anything except resistance, you really believe this gets us to a better place?

As fewer and fewer people want to be in these parties for that reason? I see change coming, and I am pointing out to you why it has to happen. I don't know what form it takes, but I know we can't stay like this. We're not getting anywhere better. We're only getting worse. You see it everywhere around you. You need a goddamn 9-11 to care about one another for a few months? Really? That's the game you want to play? Fentanyl didn't do it. Where's the person running for office on fentanyl?

This is all I'm about. If I get in, I'm going to fight for fentanyl for funding to help on the demand side, but to attack the supply side and not just China, because now they're just selling the precursor chemicals. They're not shipping the stuff in themselves anymore the way they used to. I'm going after the cartels. I'm going after Mexico. I'm going after the other places. I'm going to find it in here. I'm going to criminalize it even more. Fentanyl is different than other drugs, but no, we got people playing with stupid shit like THC will kill you. It's more deadly for you than nicotine packages. And vaping isn't as bad as THC vaping. The new boogeyman for the cultural conservatives. It's bullshit. Of course, weed can be addictive. It

depends what's in the weed, the strength of the weed. And I love THC. I use it. I believe it's helping me, although I do have a weird eye twitch right now. And I don't know what it is. Probably just fatigue. But the idea of saying it's the same as nicotine, it's just as dangerous. Really? A lot of people die of cancer from THC. Really? Do they? Look it up. Compared to nicotine. Really? And you're wondering why? Well, it's addictive. As addictive as nicotine. You see, everything is being reduced to this. You're with us or you're with them. And they just keep filtering things through it. Now, I believe that the cannabis horse is out of the barn, right? They started making it legal. People like it, clearly. Was

it the right move? I don't know. Time will tell. I'm a little libertarian when it comes to vices. I don't believe that I or anybody should be in the business of making rules for you in terms of how you live your life. Remember when Bloomberg wanted to make big sodas illegal? I think that you're free, you have free will, and that you should to the extent that you can over your own choices. You want to be a fat fuck, then you're going to be a fat fuck. You want to be unhealthy, you're going to be unhealthy. You want to smoke? Smoke. You want to drink? Drink. Don't drink and drive because now you're hurting me. And that's obviously the line. Okay? And I get when people came after my dad for passing the seatbelt law. Sure, it saved, who knows at this point, hundreds of thousands of lives.

But I got it at the time and I was just a kid. Well, if I don't want to wear a seatbelt, why should I? Who am I hurting by not wearing a seatbelt? Just me. Why do you get to tell me how to behave? I get it. It's one of the arguments and debates you have in society because it's good for you. Where does that end? Why do we have fast food restaurants

if we're in the business of what's good for you? You know what I mean? So what am I telling you? Well, this seems like he's all over the place today. No, it's all part of the same dynamic. Everything is being forced on you through the lens of you're with us or against us. The game, it's always the game.

Everything's filtered through it. And you're seeing it in real time with the immigration bill. And I know you can say, oh, stop saying that. It's really for Ukraine because it's three times. I get it. I get it. There's plenty of reason to be pissed off about what's happening right now. But you should have clear eyes about why it's happening. It's happening because this is how the game is played in a binary system that is a battle to the bottom of which side is worse. I hope you see it because once you do you'll develop the disgust which will fuel the will to change it Well, what am I going to do leave the party?

leave the party and spend The time that you spend bitching about anything else online about how your state's primary should be open and you should have rank choice voting And that you're against the parties Because they're only for themselves That's what you can do today. But then I can't vote in the primary. I get it. I get it. Change is hard. Everything that matters in life is. The only thing that's easy in life is doing nothing. And that's going to have a

price to it. And that's going to wind up being hard to see the game, my friends, so that we can change the game. Okay. I know that's breach of protocol. I know that journalists don't advocate. I don't agree with that. I think that the whole purpose of journalism is the pursuit of truth and information and nuance and context to help you deal with the whys as much as the who, what's, where's, and when's in society. And this system, I'm open to any argument for who people believe, anybody who believes that this is the best we can do. I'm open to it. I'd love that to be true. I just don't see it anywhere at any time. What do you think? Let me know.

I'm Chris Cuomo. Thank you very much for subscribing and following. You don't like the ads. I get it, but I'm happy for them. I'm happy for my sponsors because they're showing proof that this show is worthy and they're paying the bills of the team. And that matters.

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