The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Trump Versus Harris, Final Considerations with Batya Ungar-Sargon

Episode Date: October 31, 2024

Batya Ungar-Sargon is an American journalist and author. She is the Opinion Editor of Newsweek and author of Bad News and Second Class. She weighs in on Trump versus Harris, Tony Hinchcliffe and final thoughts on the election.

This is Live from the Table, the official podcast of the world-famous comedy seller coming at you on SiriusXM. Oh, wait. I'll tell you something about that. What's that? SiriusXM is not going to carry our show anymore. Okay. Really? Sirius is dropping us.

Really? Yeah. Why? Effective when? Maybe this week because they've decided to go strictly comedy. They've had enough of genocide on the comedy channel to last them a lifetime. Well, it was bound to happen. So can we at least get paid for the...

I'll talk to Jenny. Look, things are tight right. I'm sorry. I'm not... Why? But what if we start doing comedy episodes again? I don't want to do that. No, no. They just want stand-up comedy They just want stand-up Oh, so not even comedy podcasts?

No, not even comedy podcasts And he said he tried to I'm not sure He's going to try to maybe get us On one of the other stations Maybe I don't think that's Okay, we'll talk about this off the air

But okay Okay, so I just say So you're fired, guys Okay All right So this episode won't go on series I don't think that's right. Okay, we'll talk about this off the air, but okay. Okay, so I just say... So you're fired, guys. Okay. All right, so I... It's on the air. So this episode won't go on Sirius. Okay.

So this is Live from the Table, the official podcast of the world-famous comedy seller. Not going to. Yeah, no longer on Sirius, but still available as a podcast and on... They said they still put us on demand on the Sirius app. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Okay, so I don't know how that affects right again well but it's not coming at you maybe it's coming on the serious and and available on demand on serious and on youtube

where you get to see our faces this is dan natterman as usual i'm back in studio i had a bit of a cold last week no Noam thought I should come anyway. Of course, of course. Who calls out sick? I was really feeling like shit, and I would have zoomed in, but nobody wanted to do that. Okay. And also, I would have gotten you sick, maybe. I told him if he's really not feeling well to not come in. I know you did.

Anyway, enough of that. We're here with Noam Dorman. He's the owner of the Comedy Cellar, rapidly becoming sort of a public intellectual, a pundit, whatever you want to call him. He's making a name for himself slowly but surely. Thank you, Dan. You know, and I think if he really went at it hard, he could make some noise, but he doesn't care because he's too old and too rich. We also are here with Perry L. Ashtonbrand. I'm more of a gadfly about town. Okay. But everybody knows him at this point. All the big

names in that. I had to double check. That's the word I wanted to use. I wanted to make sure I was using it correctly. Gadfly is kind of like an annoying person who argues with people. It's exactly what you are. Let me look up the definition. Gadfly is an annoying person, especially one who provokes others into action by criticism.

Okay, that seems to fit. Is there a picture of you there? Because that's literally like... Can you talk up? Can you speak up? Can you turn up her mic, please? That voice that you hear is our guest today, Batya Ungar Sargon. She's back on the podcast.

She's been here before. She's an opinion editor at Newsweek, former opinion editor at The Forward, and the author of two books, the most recent of which, Second Class, How the Elites Betrayed America's Working Men and Women. We discussed that, I think, a bit last time. But I guess today we're going to discuss the election, I guess. Of course. You know, there's an election coming up. Perry O's like, when is the election? Is it Tuesday?

I'm like, of course it's Tuesday, you idiot. She's like, she doesn't even know that the election day is Tuesday. Well, no, you don't vote, right? So you're going to continue that tradition? No, no. He's voting. Oh, you're voting this time? I don't think I'm voting.

You're voting? I don't think so. He's voting. I'm not voting. I might abstain for the first time ever. You're allowed. He has to because he's convinced that one of the candidates would be a better president. I'm not convinced.

I was drunk last night. We were drunk. And we all went out to Noble last night. Me and Juanita and Bacha and Moynhan and some other people I can't mention. And we had fun, right? It was a good time. So you guys made up? You didn't And we had fun, right? It was a good time. So you guys made up? You didn't have fun?

I literally just said it was a good time. Yeah, but you paused and it was almost like a perfunctory. He's a compliment vampire. Have you noticed this? No, I wasn't asking for compliments. One of the funniest lines. I don't want to compliment. Dan, do you agree?

I wanted you to have fun. This is one of my pet peeves. There are people who are compliment vampires. They demand endless amounts of support and compliments and affirmations, but then they give nothing in return. It's like, Ariel, am I right? Is this not like a central component of Noam's character?

How does that, how does that vamp? I think Noam is fairly generous with his compliments to be honest. I hate to, I hate to, I hate to contradict

our guest, but Noam is, oftentimes will, like if you, you can't shut up about Coleman or Michael Moynihan. It's true. and he has great things to say about Boccia as well

anyway so alright so let's do you have anything else you want to talk about before we get to the election no go ahead so last time we had Boccia on the show I asked her who she was going to vote for and she didn't know who she was going to vote for I don't know if she was telling was going to vote for, and she didn't know who she was going to vote for.

I don't know if she was telling the truth back then, but she said she didn't know. Have you changed your mind? Are you ready to make a... Yeah, I said I was undecided, and that was true at the time. I was undecided. Had Kamala come out yet when I was on? Or was it still Biden? I don't remember. Oh, I don't know about that.

Certainly when Kamala first came out, the gate... Yeah, I think it was still Biden. It was still Biden. Yeah, no, I don't know about that. Certainly when Kamala first came out the gate. Yeah, I think it was still Biden. It was still Biden. It was still Biden? Yeah. Yeah, no, I was undecided at the time. I'm not undecided anymore.

I got to tell you a story, though, about something that just happened to me on the way over here. I was in a cab, and the driver didn't want to take me at first, and then he was like, because he was getting ready to order Uber Eats, and he had this coupon, and he was very excited to use it. But then I was running late, and I was like, oh, please. And he's like, okay, fine. So again, and he didn't give me this big, didn't make this big favor. And then he said, so what time does the show start?

And I was like, oh, I'm not going to a show at the Comedy Cellar. I'm going to be, you know, to do, you know, an interview. And then he said, oh, who are you interviewing? And I was like, no, no, I'm being, you know, anyway. I'm the subject. So then he said, oh, well, what are you going to talk about? Politics? I said, oh, who are you interviewing? And I was like, no, no, I'm, I'm being, you know, anyway, I'm the subject. So then he said, oh, well, what are you going to talk about politics? I said, yeah. And he's like, oh, the election. I said, yeah. And he said, who are you voting for? You Democrat or Republican? I said, well, who are you voting for? You Democrat or Republican? He had like a slight accent. I couldn't quite place it yet. And he went, I'm a Republican, man, for the first time.

And I was like, really? So you're voting for Trump? He's like, yeah. What about you? And I was like, yeah, me too. First time Republican. And he went, yeah, me and all my friends. And I was like, where are you from, dude?

And he's like, I'm from Afghanistan. And Trump's going to stop the war. Because Trump doesn't care about wars. He doesn't like wars. He likes making money. And I was like, do you think he's going to stop the war. And because Trump doesn't care about wars. He doesn't like wars. He likes making money. And I was like, do you think he's going to flip New York? And he was like, write it down. Your taxi driver told you at 8.22 p.m. on October 30th,

Trump's going to flip New York. Now, I don't know if he's right about that. Wow. But like, I have had, he's going to stop all the wars. But I have had conversations like this with young men of color across the country, like black men, Hispanic men, Muslim men. Like you wouldn't think right from the narrative we're told that like the far left is like never going to vote like totally scrambled because the real story is the class story. And young men of color want to make a good living and they want jobs and they're looking at who is the person who is going to create an economy that makes them more likely to achieve the American dream for themselves and their families.

And it's pretty obvious who that is. He then started saying like a lot of mean things about Kamala Harris, which I won't repeat, because I personally admire her a lot. I think, given what she was given by God, she's done a lot. She's an overkeeper because she's an idiot? She's made it really far with the toolkit that she was given.

That's more of a compliment vampire, actually. That's like the undead. No, I truly admire her. First of all, I think she's great looking. I really do. I hope we can all agree about that. Listen, I'm married to someone who could be her daughter. I guess she's okay.

What are you guys talking about? Kamala Harris's looks. What did you say? You'd marry to somebody who could what? My wife is half Indian. Kamala's half Indian. They look like- They look related. They do like, they look related.

They do not look related at all. Kamala looks like a lot of my wife's family. Do you think that, you know, these men from other countries

that are voting for Trump, it's because some of these countries are countries where a woman couldn't be in power and so that's influencing them? I mean, actually,

maybe this guy because Afghanistan, obviously, is a very patriarchal society, but like, certainly, I don't think that's influencing them. I mean, actually, maybe this guy, because Afghanistan obviously is a very patriarchal society. But like, certainly, I don't think that's a factor for black men or Hispanic men. I think it's I think it's really just like the economy. You know, Trump, like, all right, let's get you on record. What percentage of the black male vote do you actually think this dude is going to get? I think it will be between 35%. Really? What do they usually get, the Republicans?

10%? No, Trump got 18% of black men in 2020. He did? Yeah. Okay. I think there's a very good chance he'll get. Yeah. He doubled it.

So in 2016, he got 8% of the black male vote. And then in 2020, he got 18% of the black male vote. This round, he has polled as high as 40% of black men. Wow. And so he might go from high to double high. Let's try to keep the podcast understandable to the people, to the majority of Americans that aren't Jewish. And what about black women?

I think he's going to do better than he did last time, but not as much as black men. You have to understand, again, this entire election has mapped the gender divide onto the class divide. So in the black community, as in the rest of America, women are now much more likely to have a college degree. And that is going to be the number one predictor for whether somebody votes for a Democrat or for a Republican at this point. And what about Hispanics?

Now, what do you think the impact is going to be? There's so much, we have to get to all the things that's been happening, but what do you see as the impact of the garbage joke, Tony Hinchcliffe garbage joke. So the joke was that, you know, this comic said, he said to the audience, Madison Square Garden at a Trump rally. I don't know if you know this, but there's a big island of garbage floating in the ocean.

I think it's called Puerto Rico, right? And that was based on an actual story about a garbage island? I mean, the premise for that joke, I assume— This is why it's a terrible joke, because the punchline was based on a piece of information most people don't have, which is that there's a big garbage problem in Puerto Rico. Unlike the Jewish joke, which was hysterical, because it was based on a stereotype we all have access to, which is that Jews are cheap, right? But was the joke a Jewish joke?

So the Jewish joke was hilarious, actually. I laughed out loud. So he said, you know, when it comes to the Middle East, I think we all agree we just want them to get their stuff together. Just settle it already. Just settle it already. He goes, you know, best of three wins, rocks, paper, scissor. We know the Muslims, they're always going to pick that rock. And we know the Jews, they don't want to let go of that paper. It's a great joke.

Like, I really laughed. Can we all agree that that's a really funny joke? That's pretty good. Then I was thinking to myself, how come I was offended by the Puerto Rico joke, but I laughed at the joke about my people? Like, does that make me a cuck? Like, oh, you know. But also, he didn't call your, basically, your whole entire group of people garbage. I mean, it's a big difference between Jews are a little frugal and you're basically your whole entire group of people garbage. I mean, it's a big difference between Jews are a little frugal and you're garbage.

Now, what happened next was really interesting. The next night or two nights later, Donald Trump went on Hannity and he did something I've never seen him do before. He basically apologized. He said, I don't know why that guy was there. I didn't invite him. I didn't know he was going to be there. I didn't know what he was going to say. I have a wonderful relationship with Puerto Ricans. And he said it soberly. You could tell he was very rattled.

I'm sure he's pissed. Really pissed. And then the next day, he gave another press conference that seemed sort of like a do-over of the Madison Square Garden event, almost like he had to regain control. And he was extremely sober- minded in that second press conference. Like he has now he's now in the zone that his campaign has wanted him to be in, I think, for the whole campaign, which is extremely goal oriented, extremely serious, paying very close attention. So Joe Biden then went on to say he had his own gaffe. He said somebody asked him what he thought about this Tony joke about the floating garbage.

And Joe Biden then said, the only garbage I see is his followers, meaning Donald Trump's supporters. And obviously, this is worse than the deplorables moment. I mean, this is like a very, that was a really, really offensive thing to say. And what Donald Trump did was he hired a garbage truck he put the trump logo on it and he drove up to his next rally in this garbage truck wearing the way that he did the mcdonald's stunt so he was wearing his white shirt and his red tie with a you know yellow flack vest over it and then waving out of it and looking the way he looked at the mcdonald event, like very proud to be in this kind of working class situation, whatever, cosplay, whatever you want to call it. So I think that he,

you know, has understood the moment, you know, he's really understood the assignment. And he's very focused, you know, right now, I can't tell how big of an impact that joke is going to have, I think it was offensive. But then again, working class people don't get offended the way that we do about language like that. Well, let me tell you that. First of all, my wife, Juanita, she was fine with the joke. I think, sweetheart, what are you talking about?

She's like, it's fine. They have a lot of garbage in Puerto Rico. Like, all right, maybe, you know, she's been living the high life for a while. Maybe she's not. But she had the context for it to actually land as a punchline. She claims to have had the context. I'm not.

But then I asked, we have two Puerto Rican servers. Can we still say servers? Two Puerto Rican servers in the place. In the olive tree. In the olive tree. And both of them were like, yeah, I thought it was funny. I'm like, wait, you thought it was funny? They're like, yeah, I thought it was funny.

What about Nicholas? My stepson. I don't even think he... He plays video games all day. But I think there's something to what you're saying that we white people are very precious about

this and kind of protective and and they're they're a little more real hardy about this a little more robust yeah and uh i mean i don't know these three people like they do work in a comedy clubs and maybe they're used to that culture well like dan as a comic how did you evaluate that joke the garbage joke yeah well again what was it was it based on like one of these garbage barges or something? No, there's probably a big trash pickup collection issue in Puerto Rico. Okay, okay. It's also there's a geological problem where like a lot of trash just like washes up on the shores.

I have now educated myself. Yeah, I wouldn't qualify it as a particularly clever joke. I think it's pretty far-fetched that Trump had no idea that this comic was going to get on. This is what gets me about you. Of course he had no idea. Why would he have...

How could he be gleaned out of... You're getting a bit... Nobody gave him a set list. Nobody gave him a run of show. So what we know about that is actually he did run his jokes by somebody and they actually crossed some jokes out and then he did this joke ad-libbed. Oh, so that, this joke

was not in the... This joke was not in the thing. Right. They cut off, he wanted to call Kamala the C-word and then they... Yeah, like communist, yeah. No. Well, I think that's the... That was the joke? Oh, that's the joke. Oh, okay. And then they cut it, they cut that out and... And by the way, this is not what gets you about me.

Yes, because it's so utterly naive. Like, you hate this guy so much, you think that he can't even, like, you think he'd be like, yeah, go out there and tell that joke about the Puerto Ricans. Yeah, he's probably like, yeah, that's funny. That'll be great for me. Like, I've spent, you know, nine years trying to win these people over on a precipice of a historic change of heart. Let me call them garbage. Yeah, there's no way he didn't know that.

He's also saying that he has this great relationship with Puerto Rico. And last time I checked, he was tossing out rolls of paper towel in the middle of an emergency crisis and thought that that was a good idea too. I think that was another thing that did not actually offend the people. It offended like MSNBC and CNN hosts. Okay. Well, she's like a, she's like a what? You're like a living version.

I don't know. You're like a spirit. That's your spirit animal of the entire left woke culture. What's in Harry Potter? What are those things? I wish I could remember the name. There's like a spirit thing. Like a compliment vampire?

Yeah, like a compliment vampire. I'm so glad I gave that to you. I love that. So you're going to vote for Donald Trump? Yes, and I think you should too. Did you vote for him the past couple of times? No, and it'll be my first time voting for a Republican. You voted for the Democrat or you voted for a third party?

No, I voted for Biden. OK. Yeah. And Hillary? Clinton, yeah. So Arnold Schwarzenegger today tweeted out an endorsement of Kamala Harris. And he wrote one paragraph. I'm going to put it to you and you can answer.

He says, can you do an Arnold Schwarzenegger imitation? Well, everybody can do it. I mean, mine's not particularly good, but. You want to read it? Yeah. Well, I'm not an imitation? Well, everybody can do it. Mine's not particularly good. You want to read it? I'm not an impressionist, but I can do a basic. For the candidate to want to respect your vote unless it is for him.

That sounds more like Esty. That doesn't sound like anything. But I'm under pressure. Danny, can you do it? I can't do impressions. Also, it's not something like, if I was going to do an impression of Schwarzenegger, it would be him saying something Schwarzenegger-esque. It's not a tumor.

Yeah, like it's not a tumor. I'd be fine. But a candidate who won't respect your vote unless it's for him, a candidate who will send his followers to storm, can you say storm the Capitol? Storm the Capitol. Storm the Capitol.

He'll send his followers to storm the Capitol while he watches with a Diet Coke. A candidate who has shown no ability to work to pass any policy besides a tax cut that helped his donors and other rich people like me, but helped no one else. Does it really say like me? It says like me, yeah. A candidate who thinks Americans who disagree with him are the bigger enemies than China, Russia, or North Korea. That won't solve our problems. So he's basically referencing January 6th, the way he sat back and did nothing, that he wasn't very skillful at passing legislation, except when it served his rich cronies' purposes.

I think, you know, the side that's lying is the side that's losing. And, like, every single one of their attacks on him is a lie. Like there's a lot to criticize Donald Trump over and they somehow seem to miss the mark or overshoot the mark in every single one of their criticisms. Like the idea that he, you know, passed no meaningful legislation. He showed up in a country where there was a handshake agreement between left

and right that we should have free trade and a very lax order. And he simply did away with both of those things and became the first president in 60 years to shrink the wealth gap. So in 2019, the bottom 25 percent of wage earners saw a 4.5 percent wage increase and the top 25 percent only saw a 2.9 percent wage increase now do you actually have uh any confidence that he did that there's so much correlation that can uh that is taken for causation with presidents but economies don't turn around overnight very often it took three took three years. This is 2019. So what do you think he did? I think he closed the border. So he limited the supply of labor, which, of course, is going to immediately have an impact on the wages of the working class.

Is there data that indicates that the limit of the supply of labor led to higher wages? Of course. There is? And also tariffs, reshoring manufacturing, the trade war with China. He imposed 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum, which immediately protected the wages of people who work in steel and aluminum. It was like a buoying effect to working class wages, people who work at the bottom of the income distribution. amazing that people say like, you know, agriculture, janitorial services, service industry jobs are jobs Americans won't do. The vast majority of people employed in all of those industries are native born Americans. It's just that where we live, where we live, it's not, it's not. So of course, Americans are willing to do those jobs for good wages. The problem is that they don't pay good wages because we've imported 15% of our country now from other countries to do

those jobs for much less. When they talk about the tax cuts that he gave, yeah, he gave tax cuts and rich people got tax cuts. But as a percentage, the middle class and the working class got double digits more of a percentage in terms of a tax cut, 15 to 25%. That's what they remember. They don't remember that the billionaire who got a 1% or a 5% tax cut, you know, overall, of course, there's more money there. They remember that they got a 15% tax cut. So like the idea that this was a tax cut for the rich, yeah, rich people got tax cuts, but so did the middle class and the working class. And that means a lot to them. You know, they always have to overstate everything. Yeah, January 6th sucked.

It sucked. But he did say peacefully protest. He did say that peacefully and patriotically. And I agree with you, Noam. I think you've made the case really powerfully that it's kind of unconceivable that he would have wanted any kind of violence. Like there was no end game for him if it did end up in violence. Did he cover himself in glory on that day?

No. Election denial. Hillary Clinton is still denying the fact that she lost the election. She literally thinks Putin got Trump elected. And in 2018, they did a survey. They found that 66% of Democrats believed that Putin had changed the vote tallies. This is literally

exactly what Republicans believe about 2020. Democrats believed it when they lost because losing freaking sucks. No one wants to lose and no one wants to admit that they lost because they ran a shitty campaign. So I just think that it's like if they have to lie about him to make their case, like that's really fishy. It means that they can't actually win the case on the policy. And meanwhile, 98 percent of what he accuses Kamala of is true. She was the border czar. She did.

She was not. She was not the border czar. Of course she was the border czar. I looked into it. She wasn't the border czar. We could take it off. We could take it up offline. I did a lot.

She was put in charge of immigration as a topic. Yeah, but there was even stories at the time that they were uncomfortable with the term Bordasar because they saw it was not accurate and it was a political risk to it. I can send it to you. Listen, whether she was or she wasn't, we know she didn't do a goddamn thing.

It's not as if she tried to handle the border and failed. Okay, do you know what? They gave her a cosmetic, they gave her a title. It was never real. Fine. She didn't actually fail. The more important question is- If they had given it to her, I'm sure she would have failed, but I don't think she would have.

The more important question is, is she likely to fire Alejandro Mayorkas or not? The person who has basically been the person to decriminalize illegal border crossing, partner with the cartels to supply low wage labor and child laborers to American corporations. She would never fire him because Democrats don't fire people. So Danny, bring up, you have that, you have that, that, that PNG file that I sent you. Yes.

So this is about, I looked up the, the border stuff today. I mean, and then I want to talk about this where I disagree with you, but Danny is your first day on the job? I don't know. You're not doing so good there. Sorry. You got it? Yep. Okay.

This is a bar graph of illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border. Can you zoom in on it? Yeah, that's good. And it is striking. I mean, it's striking that that Biden takes over in 2021 and it immediately. I mean, it looks basically double from 2019 and looks almost quadruple from 2018. Right. This was a campaign promise. He said he was going to decriminalize illegal border crossing. That was asked at a democratic debate in 2019

they do all the democrats there were 20 you know 15 democrats on the stage and they so question from i think it was cnn was would you decriminalize illegal border crossing trump said no no i'm saying at the democratic at the debate the democratic primary so you have bernie sanders kamala harris at that debate biden was the only one who said he wouldn't do criminal no biden went like this oh he did like yes tried to have both ways yeah exactly so just to tell in case people aren't watching so in 2017 this one the washington post is something a little bit over maybe 300 000 illegal border crossings in by 2018 it looks like around 500 000 2019 jumps up I don't know if that's

the result of COVID or anything, but by 2022, it's up to 2.2 million. I mean, this is a total failure of government. That's what I'm trying to tell you. This is a successful implementation of a policy to open the border. That's what this looks like. And let's add to it. This was not a mistake. And while it was happening, they told us it wasn't happening. They told us it was seasonal.

They told us it always goes up around this time of year, seasonal. And there was every lie you could imagine. No, but you know what? Alejandro Marquez told the truth. When did he tell the truth? You can take that. I don't know if you're showing us or them, Dana, but you know what? Alejandro Mayorkas told the truth. When did he tell the truth? You can take that. I don't know if you've been showing us or them, Danny, but you can take that. I mean, I hope they can see us again.

Go ahead. He would get hauled before Congress and before the Senate by the Republicans. And what happens in these hearings now is because it's so bifurcated by a party. Jewish, by the way. Go ahead. Yes. Mayorkas, yeah. Yeah.

Go ahead. We just like to note the way, go ahead. Yes. Mayorkas, yeah. Go ahead. We just like to note the Jews. Go ahead. You know, the Democrats, when they have one of their people, they try to throw them softballs. And so the softball Mayorkas would get from the Democratic senators and congresspeople was, but, you know, Secretary Mayorkas, isn't it the case that our corporations need workers? And he would then get very serious and he would say, you know, Senator, our corporations are desperate for workers. And that's when he was telling the truth. I don't buy the whole like they're trying to dilute your vote. I don't think that the Democrats are importing people because they want them to vote Democrat.

I mean, obviously, the trend is against that., but also I don't buy that conspiracy theory. I think they want them to stay illegal and keep working for them for slave wages. You believe that conspiracy? It's not a conspiracy theory. That's literally what's happening. Meatpacking used to be the job to have great wages, great working conditions. It is a conspiracy. It is now peopled by teenagers who have been raped multiple times in the Darien Gap. That is who is packing our meat. Thanks to Alejandro Mayorkas. Who's been raped? Just understand this. The Democratic congressmen are doing the bidding of the captains of industry, as it were, and it's the captains of industry who want this permanently illegal class

to work for them. It's also people, regular people, like people who have jobs in the knowledge industry who make a bunch of money and have very little time to clean their own homes and do their own landscaping and raise their own children. They want to go to restaurants and they want to drink wine and they don't want it to be, you know, to cost a lot of money. Like everyone in the top 20 percent is benefiting immensely

from the slave caste. It's putting money in their pockets. It's an upward transfer of wealth from the Americans they would have had to pay more to the slave caste who they have. They could pay very little who are enslaved to the cartels because that's who got them here like this is not a conspiracy this is literally they get a bracelet by the cartels when they cross the darien gap and it's color-coded based on how much money they owe them and they know where their family is so they send teenagers over here the girls all get raped on the way this has been like totally documented if they make it at all. And then they are enslaved to the most murderous terrorist organizations. And this has all been sanctioned by Alejandro Mayorkas and the Biden administration because they realized that this

is how they were going to get inflation down is by putting a stop to the rising working class wages that the Donald Trump economy had created. And so they thought, wow, we really have to, that's how we're going to, you know, nail this soft landing. Because the only place it can come out of is the working class wages. It's not a conspiracy theory, Noam, that's just what happened. All right. Well, I, you know, you know, I don't, I don't, I don't agree with you on that, but let's talk about other reasons to vote for or against Trump. So let me start by – actually, can you cut up that video, Danny? Don't play it yet.

The first one I sent you, it's in a Twitter. Wrong one. It's in a tweet. So you have that one. But when you show that, I don't want to cut us off yet. By the way, that guy is the best Twitter follow. Oh, yeah. I love that one. But when you show that, I don't want to cut us off yet. By the way, that guy is the best Twitter follow. Oh, yeah. I love that guy.

I communicate with him all the time. He's my spirit animal. He's actually the guy who made me famous because he's the guy who clipped out the Phil Bump interview. Who's Phil Bump? Phil Bump was – that's how I – our most viral thing ever was Phil Bump. And the interview I did was Phil Bump about the Devin Archer testimony. Oh, oh. And it got millions of various views.

And he was the guy who watched the interview and clipped it out where Phil Bump walks off. I've never met him. He's anonymous. Do you know who? He's anonymous. Yeah, he's anonymous, but I think he's somebody. Maybe he's not.

I don't know. But he's very smart. But he's total maggot out he's more he's not he's not maga no he's never he's always very he does not like he doesn't love trump but he really hates he's not crazy about israel either i know but i really i love like we love that about him no um we love to have people who we agree with on everything else, who we respect. He's one of my best friends on Twitter. We have a whole DM thing all the time. Okay.

Okay. So listen. And I was supposed to meet him one time. Anyway, listen. So I wrote in 2016 where a friend of mine said that he'll be fine. He'll have smart people around him. And this was my answer to my friend. I found it today.

I don't totally disagree with you, but there's also a chance of a total debacle. Smart people are great if he'll listen. There's something unhinged about him. It's a ridiculousness of contradictory statements, self-destructive actions, and an inability to focus on his goals over his emotions, which somehow seem less unforgivable in a presidential candidate than it would be in a low-level restaurant manager. He seems unable to control his actions to comport with his own obvious self-interest. This is what I wrote about Trump at the time.

I don't know if you could take that all in. It was right after he won the nomination, and the next day he was out there saying that Ted Cruz's father had killed Kennedy. Do you remember that? It's like, but I identified a lot of correct things here. I said, he won't listen to the people around him. He cannot control his emotions. He's erratic. And as my point was, if I was going to hire a manager at the olive tree, I would never hire somebody like that. So why do I think he can be in charge

of the presidency? And, um, I have a lot to say, but we did see the shit hit the fan one time that was during covid and he was terrible in the end i think we have to admit that it didn't matter kind of because every country you know covid ran through basically the entire planet and everything we worried about a lot of it was um uninformed and and a lot and in a certain way, his gut was right about a certain thing. Yeah, exactly. Like, COVID is the example that proves like, it's just a perfect example for, okay, you finish. No, but I think there's a lot

of luck there. So DeSantis also made a lot of good decisions, but he was very, very analytical. And he had the monoclonal antibodies going to the old people, and he made sure to protect the old age homes, and he had the monoclonal antibodies going to the old people. And he made sure to protect the old age homes. And he had the vaccine going here.

And he kept the economy going by letting young people go out. And he had it really down. Trump didn't want to be bothered with any analysis. Trump was caught between his instinct, which was to protect the economy and what the experts were saying, which was that millions and millions of people are going to die if you do that. And he ended up leaning harder on the experts, which is exactly what you would have predicted he wouldn't have done. That's why it was so haphazard, because his instinct was leaning towards this is not there's no way to sort of save this. This is a once in a lifetime pandemic, which turned out to be true, by the way. But he couldn't fully commit to the you know what, we're just going to protect the economy the way that Sweden did.

He just could because he was listening to Fauci and the experts. So it's exactly the opposite of what you would have predicted. But I would defend him ignoring the experts even more. You don't want him for a manager of your restaurant. You want him to be the executive of this country. And what that entails right now, I mean, you agree that this country is not in a good place, that people don't feel that the democratic norms are working in their interests, that people don't feel heard, that on every single issue, there is consensus among 65 percent of the Americans. And somehow the law is always on the other side of it. Like in a moment like that, you do not need

somebody who's really good at listening to the experts because the experts got us here. The experts got us into this mess and they will not admit it. You need you need a bulldozer. You need somebody who says, I have an instinct about how to reorganize the economy from the perspective of someone who actually really admires people who work at McDonald's, who would actually really love to put on that apron over my tie and show that this is a job to be proud of, who actually thinks garbage men deserve respect and actually thinks linemen deserve respect and actually think truck drivers deserve respect. Like, how do we reorganize an economy around the idea that people who work in the service industry deserve respect? And he actually came up with an idea for how to do that that actually worked.

And it was an idea that the economists across the board have dropped the Kool-Aid on this guy. You don't think that all of that actually respond. You can't just like insult me out of this. You have to actually respond. I will. Of course, I will. Yeah, I will. Of course, I'll respond.

You know me better than I respond. This is not cool. I'm a vampire for responding. I'm you don't wait a second. Argument. I'm going to. But I'm saying it's not Kool-Aid. It's an argument.

OK, take I withdraw. Let the record show. I withdraw the Kool-Aid. It's an argument. Okay. I withdraw. Let the record show I withdraw the Kool-Aid, Your Honor. I did not want to become convinced of that. Tell the jury. It's stricken from the record. Go ahead. Go ahead. I'm going to answer.

You don't think that all of that is just a total performance? Like everybody who has ever worked for Trump or he's done a real estate deal with, including a lot of Republicans who worked with him for many years who are, quote unquote, respectable Republicans, have all said, like, this guy has no integrity. He will do or say anything like the fact that he can put his name on a garbage truck or put on an apron from McDonald's and like go put on this show is like I mean I don't know like am I buying that like it's but he created an economy like it's not he put money in people's pockets that's why they love him they love him because they feel

working class people struggling people feel like he loves them and that it's not a show I don't care what like oh yeah I'm pretty convinced that he pissed off all of the elites whose expertise he ignored and whose 40-year handshake agreement to sell out the working class he overturned. Like, of course they hate him. They should hate him. We should all be on the side of the people

that those people hate because they really sold out this country. So let me tell you why I call it Kool-Aid. First of all, there's just so many examples of him being so disrespectful to people, including John McCain making fun and getting captured and things like this. It's hard for me to see him

with this deep respect for the working man, although I would have to acknowledge that he's comfortable with them in a way that elites are not. So it's a mixed bag. Like just in my gut, I think he's an extremely disrespectful person. But you're right. He does seem to, he's gregarious and he does seem to enjoy being around the blue collar people.

And he's good at that. Well, he did. I mean, we grew up in the same neighborhood. So I think that when you're from Queens and you've grown up in Queens, and I mean, that's not surprising. Well, but it's a common touch. He has a certain common touch.

Okay. Like Hillary Clinton. But what is the theory for why? I'm going to get the answer. No, no, but I want, what is the theory for why? I'm going to get the answer. No, no, but I want to look at what is the theory for why he imposed tariffs, started a trade war with China and closed the border when the rich people on both sides were screaming at him not to do this? Like every person who has always been enamored with these issues. He hired Peter Navarro, who's like the one economist in the world who believes that tariffs are a good thing. I'm saying if he doesn't care about anyone and it's

a show, why did he do that? No, I didn't say he doesn't care about anyone and it's a show. I actually have defended Trump many times. I think Trump does care about the country. And I think Trump does believe, he believes probably that threatening tariffs. I would guess that he would say, listen, ideally, free trade would be awesome. But we're getting killed in this trade. It's not free and it's not fair. Like I said a couple weeks ago, I go to Japan. There's not a single American car on the road. So threatening tariffs at minimum is a good bludgeon to get the other side to start making accommodations. So, Periel, from your point of view—

This is a man who always thinks about everything in terms of what's my leverage. There's even been recordings of him where he said, well, what's my leverage about that? Where's my leverage on that? He understands that you can't get anything unless you have leverage. As I've said, negotiating without leverage is begging. You go to another country and say, I wish you'd be more helpful to us on trade policies. That's begging them to do something. You say, unless you do something, we're going to impose a 10% tariff. Now you have leverage. So I think he does see that. But I also do think that he thinks that some degree of tariffs would be

beneficial. And I will even go further in saying, I'm not convinced just because there's a certain base rate discount I have of all experts. They're never quite right. If they tell us tariffs are 100% wrong, generally there'll be some benefits to tariffs if they're moderate. I don't want to talk too long, but one of the things I always think about

is if you put a 5% tariff on Chinese goods, I don't know if it'll really raise the prices of Chinese goods by 5%. They may lower their price by 5% tariff on Chinese goods, I don't know if it will really raise the prices of Chinese goods by 5%. They may lower their price by 5% to stay even because there is always some give in the price people are charging. So it's complicated. But aren't you both kind of admitting, like, why would he care about the U.S. getting a better deal in the global economy if he doesn't care about this country beyond his own economic interest? Who said he doesn't care about the country? Well, so Perrielle's saying it's all a show.

No, I didn't say – no, I said that I think that, you know, going and putting on like a McDonald's vest is a performance. But do you think he cares about the country? I mean, look, I don't know what he cares about. I mean, I think that Kamala Harris cares about the country. We should get into this because look, there is a go ahead. No, no, go ahead. No, there's there's this, you know, utter hypocrisy where they say Trump is transactional, Trump is this, Trump doesn't care. And yet, not only does she flip-flop on every single issue according to what's advantageous to her, but she also doesn't even tell us what she thinks.

Building the wall was the signature issue that liberals used to call Donald Trump a racist. That was a substitute for Donald Trump's racism. He wants to build a wall. It was all we spoke about. And here we are, nine years later, and if you ask Kamala Harris, what do you think about the wall? She will duck the question.

She will not tell you. It's worse than that. Last night in her speech, she said we have to deport people. I thought that was evidence of his racism. Well, Obama always deported all. Sorry. I mean, your question was

if Trump doesn't care about the working class, why would he enact these policies? Of course, we don't. I mean, I suppose part of the reason is because it's good for him because it's good for his for getting reelected or it's good for him getting elected or it's good for his legacy. But we really don't know if he really cares in his heart. And maybe we shouldn't care. We're voting for the policies that we either agree with or disagree with, whether he cares. A good point. You know, sincerely or not. That's a good point, yeah. So as I said, building the wall was exhibit A of Trump's racism circa 2016.

And that they don't have an answer to that now. It's really, they care about the country. They, all they care about is getting elected, right? All the, he's way more consistent than they are. But the other problem is, and this is where I could begin to make the case. So just getting back to the erratic thing, I just want to say i just can't imagine if if the shit were to hit the fan i do respect the madman theory i think the bad actors in the world are going to be way more cautious around donald trump than they definitely will be around kamala harris who they

know has no appetite for any kind of military action. However, if this shit should hit the fan, some miscalculation, I cannot picture Donald Trump sitting and carefully weighing the chessboard of an international crisis. I can't picture him doing it. And I do think we have to respect that when 40 out of X number of generals think this guy should never be given the keys again.

And by the way, this has become a real argument. You've heard it. But I was the very first person to make this argument like two years ago when people would be defending Trump. I said, listen, you got to respect the fact when everybody who works for somebody, not Democrats, Republicans, people who came into the administration because they wanted to get behind him and his policies. When every single one of them leaves and say, listen, don't ever let that guy be in charge again. I can't just say, oh, that's just nonsense. Oh, it's just a bunch of elites, blah, blah, blah. It's not a bunch of elites.

It's literally the warmonger class. And he hates war. He's the first American president to launch zero new wars. You think the shit didn't almost hit the fan when he was president? Of course it did. There's a lot going on that like we don't know about because he did a good job taking care of it. And what do you call Hamas attacking Israel?

Like that's the shit hitting the fan and Biden screwing the pooch. What do you call Putin invading Ukraine? That is the shit hitting the fan and Biden screwing the pooch. What do you call Putin invading Ukraine? That is the shit hitting the fan and Biden screwing the pooch on both of those fronts. It's obvious. It is obvious. I think I'm saying is that she'd be better at this stuff. I'm just I'm just saying him. So here's the question.

What happens with Israel under Trump and what happens with Israel under Harris? What happens with the anti-Semitism that is gone just completely haywire and rabid? Can we get to that in this way? I want to get to that. So I made this argument to you last night, but I want to go through because it is the argument for Trump. Trump, because he is such a huge figure, becomes the personification or like the anthropomorphization of everything that is bad that we hate. He becomes the fascist. He becomes the guy who wants to

deport everybody. But the left, if you look at what we've had to live through the last 10 years, I kind of took some notes on it, but you can all add to it. All the people whose lives were ruined, all the, the double standards. We have them today.

Louis C.K. still can't go into a restaurant, but Doug Emhoff can just smack his girlfriend around, and nobody cares about these things, right? The obsession with race. Actually, let me look where the notes are. The indoctrination of our

kids. You dealt with it too. Our kids in schools. The giving out of COVID vaccine, the attempt to give out COVID vaccines according to race, the attempt to give out packs of it according to race, the giving out of actually relief to restaurants according to race, the self-censorship the bending of science according to to politics can i summarize what you're saying in a like a sharp way yeah yeah please be sharp good like our institutions have proven very good at containing whatever chaotic threat Donald Trump poses to our institutions. They have proven the opposite when it comes to the left. They are the handmaidens of the left's attempts to appropriate our institutions for these nefarious racist policies. And the point being, like, it is... You're taking off my point. I'm almost there. I'm almost there.

To add to it, the atmosphere on college campuses where people tear down posters of Jewish hostages, babies, and not only do they do that, but they do it with pride and they share it with their friends. All of this, this terrible situation that we've had in the last eight years or ten years in this country, if there was a single leader who had their fingerprints on everything that we've been through in terms of the fascism, I'll use the word of the left, we would never want this leader anywhere. This would be the person that we'd be calling a fascist. We'd say, this person is a fascist, and look at all the things they've done. Because lives

have been ruined. I know a number of people whose lives have been ruined. But the left is a blob. And it doesn't have anybody who's responsible for all this stuff. So it becomes very difficult to attribute it to anybody.

But Trump actually, if you were not watching... But not everybody sees those things as a problem. Well, a great majority of the country does. And they're probably voting for Trump. No, but if you were... Well, Trump turns them off in other ways. But if you were to never watch the news while Trump was president,

you would have not noticed anything different about the country. There would be nothing you would have said, oh, things look pretty good in the economy and stuff like that. But all the things I'm talking about, we were all scared shitless. I remember on this show, even to say, look, I don't think that there's good evidence against Kavanaugh. I remember saying, I don't know if I can get away with saying that. Like, I don't know what'll come down on me. Nevertheless,

Tara Reid comes along and she's some kind of evil genius because she planted this story 20 years ago, you know, by telling her mother and telling her friends or whatever. And that, like, didn't happen. No, Tara Reid is making the whole thing up. I mean, Avenatti and Kavanaugh is a gang rapist.

I mean, you could go on and on about all the nonsense. So there is a part of me which says, yeah, the left has to be defeated. They are the fascists. We can't live this way anymore. And only

through electoral defeat will we force a reckoning upon them. And I guess I'm just repeating myself, but it's just, it's easy to attribute Trump as the fascist because he's this big, big personality who's all this bluster. But the fascism that we've been living through is from the left and they have to be defeated at all costs. It has to be defeated. So, and then, and then, and then, and then, and that's just politicians. They're all liars, right? But then we have the press that is this dishonest fifth column,

the press that hid the fact that Joe Biden was non-composimentous or not up to the job. I want to put, They pretended he was the best Biden ever. The press that lies about everything. So play this video. We've all heard, and you heard, Donald Trump said he wants to be a dictator for a day. He's going to be a dictator. I'm sorry. Donald Trump wants to be a dictator on day one.

Have you heard this? Sounds ominous, right? He said he wants to be dictator on day one. Have you ever seen the video? Play the video. I think I saw it because you Have you ever seen the video? Play the video. I think I saw it because you had posted it on Twitter. This is the video. Make sure it sounds like it.

Under no circumstances, you are promising America tonight. You would never abuse power as retribution against anybody. Except for day one. Except for? He's going crazy. Except for day one. Meaning? I want to close the border and I want to drill, drill, drill.

That's not retribution. I'm going to be, you know, he keeps... He's smiling. He says, you're not going to be a dictator, are you? I said, no, no, no, other than day one. We're closing the border and we're drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I'm not a dictator. That sounds to me like... They took that

and they turned it into the most scary headline you can imagine. And the chief correspondent, Peter Baker of the New York Times, he harps on this all the time. How can you have a president who wants to be dictator on day one? And it's such a fucking lie.

Now, you expect politicians to lie because they want to get elected. But journalists are supposed to take a, you know, they answer to a higher authority. They're supposed to take an oath to the truth. Like doctors take an oath to do no harm. Journalists are supposed to take an oath to the truth. Could anybody, and Danny, you can join in. Could anybody look at that video and say that was scary? Periel?

What did he threaten to do? He said, on day one, I'm going to close the border, which he's the president, and what's the other horrible thing he's going to do? He's going to drill for oil. And after that, I'm done. Does he have the authority to drill for oil incidents? I don't know. But who needs that answer? After I hear that, I'm done. Does he have the authority to drill for oil incidents? I don't know. But who needs that answer, right?

After I hear that, that level of dishonesty from the people who told us that Joe Biden was fine and they're doing the same thing now by pretending that Kamala Harris is brilliant. Because I guarantee you, if she loses, the next day we're going to hear all the stories pouring out of all the dumb things she said how everybody was covering for her how they were tutoring her on geography and basic civics and that's why they were keeping her off the out of the public eye for a month because she was doing like you know my fair lady uh pygmalion training you know the rain in spain and and there is something that wells up inside of me which which says, fuck these fucking liars. They are liars.

Mark Halperin said, you ever wonder how it was that nobody knew that Roosevelt, that the press covered for Roosevelt in his wheelchair? Now we know because they did it with Joe Biden. Everything they say is a lie. Everything they say is with an agenda. We have no real way of knowing what Trump is about because that's the filter through which we hear about Trump. Everything. But you're still not you're still not willing to say that you even though you don't vote, that you that if you did vote,

you would vote for Trump. I you can't just say I don't vote. I've been saying this to you for years. Like that's not like it's hard. I mean, let, I don't vote. I've been saying this to you for years. Like, that's not like, it's hard. Let me, let me add to something else. I've said it before. And when, um, when the BLM riots happened and we were here boarding up the, the olive tree and checking the fire extinguishers and my stepmother Ava was all alone upstairs, scared shitless.

What did the left wing mayor of New York City do? He told the rioters, he told the police to stand down. He took the side of the arsonists. Now, is that fascism? Of course. It is. When you are, when the

innocent citizen becomes a victim of the political agenda of the leadership and you have no rights. You can't even count on the police. Well, you've said that you don't vote New York because it doesn't matter. But Bacha seems to think New York might be in play. No, she doesn't. I think it matters if New York loses by, if Trump loses New York by two points or by 20 points, I think that matters in a really big way because it really sends a message. And I think he could, I mean, Lee Zeldin lost by four points. Something like that, yeah.

He's a Republican. I think Trump could come within two points of winning New York. And I think that that is significant. I don't understand how you can talk this way and not want to vote against that. It's not just that if there was a person embodying all of this on the left that we would call them a fascist it's that there's really literally one person who could basically who has enough of a i don't care what people think about me personality not only to take on all of the sort of symbolic things that bother you and your rich friends, right? Who, me?

I don't have rich friends. Whatever. All of the, you know, these are all- I mean, I'm the only rich friend in my social circle. Everything you just outlined is, this is bad stuff. But like, Trump not only stands up to that, he also puts money in the pockets of people who are struggling to feed their families. So you have a person who both can take on all of the stuff that bothers you who are comfortable and not struggling, but feel offended at the hypocrisy, which I agree with you, it's very

offensive. But he also has a plan for bringing back the American dream for the people who are our neighbors who are totally struggling. And this is like amazingly united in a single person. It's really amazing. And well, except that I don't trust him not to be a score settler. This guy is an, Oh, come on.

Okay. Well, cause the Democrats aren't score settlers. He never went after Hillary Clinton. Like he very obviously refused to be a score settler in his first term. He had no score to settle with Hillary Clinton. She never did anything to him. He is seething

mad with some righteous anger. They tried to put him in jail at 78 years old for the crime of paying off the mistress who was extorting him with his own money. They tried to put him in jail for that.

He might still go to jail if he loses. He will either have access to legal avenues to pursue grievances, which is his right, or he will not have access to them. I do not trust this guy to not— Like, the idea that the DOJ will suddenly become captured to a Republican is so ridiculous because of the point I was trying to make before. Yes, it is in the nature of power to hold on to itself, to expand itself, to abuse itself. But our institutions are all peopled with people who have Ivy League degrees from woke manufacturing factories. OK, I'm not predicting. And they have proven

very, very, very adept, including Republican and conservative institutions have proven unbelievably adept at standing up to Donald Trump's attempts to abuse power. Yes. And they have proven to be

the handmaidens of the Democrats attempts to abuse power. This is why the press is such a pernicious. Yes. Fog here. That's We're agreeing. The question is, how could you not stand up for your values and vote for the person who's going to represent them? Because Bill Barr, who was Trump's henchman, who was a total villain, it turns out that he knew

all along that the Hunter Biden laptop was real and he kept it quiet because legal ethics required him to keep it quiet. We also know that when Trump tried to spin all these harebrained schemes about not certifying the election, and by the way, we should talk about that in terms of his character, Bill Barr didn't want any part of it. But we also know now that Trump's like, well, I'm not making that mistake again. I'm going to get loyalists in. Noam, you're going to not vote for a person on some theoretical fantasy of what he might do. But you know that if he loses, they're literally going to put him in prison on this bullshit.

How could you do that? I mean, just from a person to a person. Yeah. Well, I will also say on the other side. No, no. Respond to that. I will. I will say on the other side. But just as a flip side of the Well, I will also say on the other side. No, no. Respond to that. I will. I will say on the other side, but just as the flip side of the point, I'll say that.

That although I worry about Trump's authoritarian impulses in score settling in the Justice Department, as opposed to the left, Trump has no designs on us or our lives. Trump doesn't want to make sure that we say the right thing. He doesn't want to make sure that we, that we, you know, he doesn't want us me too. He doesn't, he's not,

he's not, he's never displayed any eagerness to be involved in people's lives during COVID. It's like, I don't want to do it. It's like where the left, all they want to do is monitor us, catch us, ostracize us, fire us, bring us to HR, make sure that we, you know, literally have legal requirements of what pronouns you can use. All this well-intentioned stuff that has made us miserable. How could I not want to vote for the guy?

Or vote at all. It becomes down to the risk with him is small. But the risk, no, you're not responding to my question. You're not, you're not. Ask it again. You're not. I think I am, but- You are going to not vote for him on the risk

that he might theoretically do what they have already done to him and are certainly going to keep doing if he loses? Yes, I was about to answer that. Okay. I'm saying the risk of Trump is not the risk that the press is trying to feed us, but I do see the risk of having an erratic president

whose judgment I don't trust that something awful can happen. It's a small risk, but it's a catastrophic risk. With her, I think it's almost a certainty she's going to be awful, but she's going to have a generic, stable group of Democrats around her. She doesn't think she knows anything. And we know how bad that can be. You're not answering my question.

So it's a question of taking a small risk, but that's a catastrophic risk. No, the catastrophe happened. It's not so bad. No, no, but he's talking about a different catastrophe. What particular catastrophe are you thinking? What could be worse than October 7th, which would not have happened under Trump?

You don't know what would have happened under Trump. We could be reasonably certain that it was much more likely to happen under a weak Democratic government than under Trump. I think that Ukraine, you can make that argument. Wait, why? I want to hear why. I don't see why Hamas would care about Trump. I mean, first of all, Iran was broke, so they couldn't have afforded it. Well, that may be true. That is true. That is a fact. all, Iran was broke, so they couldn't have afforded it. Well, that may be true. That is true.

That is a fact. Well, but Iran didn't... Like, literally, the biggest catastrophe already happened. You have created... This is an excuse. And I'm shocked that you let yourself get away with this, because it's so weak, Noam. It is so beneath you. If you were forced to vote, I would bet good money that he would vote for Trump.

But he's not being forced to vote, so he's probably not going to vote, I would bet good money that he would vote for Trump. But he's not being forced to vote, so he's probably not going to vote. I want to hear the rest of this answer. So Iran would have been broke? Iran was broke under Trump. And then Biden refilled all the coffers. So they couldn't have even funded the whole October 7th thing

because they didn't have the money to do it. And Trump was incredibly hawkish on Iran. We just don't know if that's true. I'm a hawk, but I have to be honest with myself. I think Hezbollah gets a lot of money from Iran. You admit about Ukraine that it probably would not have happened under Trump, right? 500,000 dead young men is a catastrophe. These catastrophes all just

happened. But because they didn't happen to you, although October 7 did happen to you, you're somehow like acting like that there's some unthinkable thing that could come out that somehow he wouldn't be able to handle. It's the very it's that exact blob that's going to be running the country under kamala that was running it under biden that has resulted in like the just absolute disaster that the country is right now none of all those people are going to be there alejandro mayorkas tony blinken tony freaking blinken like telling israel every single second lousy guitar player every single second like you can't do this. Do you know,

Hirsch Goldberg Poland would be alive if not for all of them, Kamala Harris saying, don't go into Rafah. Like, it's unconscionable to act like the catastrophe has not already visited upon us. You know, I'm not as comfortable

with you saying things so definitively. He wouldn't be alive. But I totally accept that there's a good likelihood that if they got into Rafa earlier, they would have saved this boy. But they could have still put a bullet in his head when they got close to him, you know, four months earlier. I don't know.

And somebody asked how Trump would be on Israel and on Ukraine, like, different than Kamala. No, I asked on Israel and on the anti-Semitism. Oh, and on the anti-Semitism. Is this now a good time to move into that? Anti-Semitism? Well, in Israel. Yeah, well, let me start with this thing in Chicago.

This guy got shot in Chicago. Yes. And so this is the mayor of Chicago back in October 16th. In the United States. Sorry. Excuse me? Sorry. October 16th, 23rd, there was a Palestinian boy was, was he stabbed or was he shot?

I don't know. But the mayor tweets out, I'm devastated by the murder of a six-year-old Palestinian-American, Wadia Al-Fayoumi, and the attempted murder of his mother in Plainfield, Illinois. This despicable hate crime, he puts it in bold, is a shameful reminder of the destructive role of Islamophobia. Now, a few days ago, a visibly Orthodox Jew was shot by someone who was yelling,

Allahu Akbar. And apparently, if I have the story right, nobody ever mentioned that this was obviously... Well, Brandon Johnson, the mayor, he sort of all lives mattered, this attack in his tweet about it. But they caught the Allahu Akbar on a ring camera or something like that.

It was not disclosed by the government as I think I understood it. And his tweet about it was, our heartfelt thoughts and prayers are with the victim and his loved ones from this weekend's shooting incident that took place in Rogers Park. He never mentions anything about... No, the victim of the shooting was the terrorist,

was the Allahu Akbar, no? Because he's the guy the police shot. It was the guy who was shot in the shoulder. The point is, this is infuriating. Sidi Mohammed Abdelahi, 22, from Mauritania, crossed into San Diego in March, was screened by border agents who quickly released him into the U.S. Was he an illegal immigrant on top of it?

Yes. Federal investigators believe that he was specifically targeting Jews in an anti-Semitic attack when he ambushed a 39-year-old Orthodox Jewish man in the city's Westridge neighborhoods, which is home to several. West Rogers, yeah. He's the nephew of a rabbi I know very well. The gunman then reportedly caught on video shouting, Allahu Akbar, before opening fire on police.

So there's pressure. It's real. Again, not with the fingerprints of any leader. There's pressure in the left everywhere you look to sweep under the rug anything about anti-Semitism, to look the other way at it. They openly, they revel in it on campuses. The university presidents, we've all lived through this stuff. They won't even say if they're uncomfortable with the fact that people are advocating genocide against Jews.

What about what's going on in Colombia? And Trump stands against all of that. The right stands against all of that. Is there any... I know what she's thinking. Is there any doubt in anyone's mind... I'm thinking, no. ...that... There's this fucking idiot saying he can't support this guy

when he's making all these... Everything you say is very pro-Trump, except for the occasional, well, but maybe he would do something... Wait, wait a second. It's not pro-Trump, it's anti-left. Wait a second. No, I'm...

Wait a second. You just said Trump stands against... You don't know why you won't vote for him yet. Nothing you've said is a reason not to. Trump cozies up to people like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens. Wait. Candace Owens was banned from the campaign. Now.

No. I don't ever remember Trump and Candace Owens. These people are all, you know, mingling together, right? I mean, they are. No. No? She's been banned from. She from... And what about Tucker Carlson? And what about Kanye West? Kanye West is nowhere to be.

He and Trump were friends for a long time, and then when Kanye came out as an anti-Semite, that friendship ended. Look, we all know that if no one forced to vote, he would vote Trump. No, we don't know that. You are so right. I think that'd be very, very unlikely that he would vote for Kamala.

Maybe he would go third party, but it's inconceivable to me that he would vote for Kamala if forced to vote. Lucky for him, we don't have laws that force you to vote, as some countries do, by the way. I can't stand her. I want Bhatia to finish explaining this part, by the way. I can't stand her. I want Batya to finish explaining this part. So go on. So well, okay, this gets back to Bibi, who I think is very misunderstood as a warmonger. He's actually incredibly risk averse to a fault, I think, because he doesn't distinguish between Israeli soldiers and Israeli civilians. Every soldier who dies, he thinks of as, so he's always very reticent to go into war. And if you look at how they prosecuted this war in Gaza, it's been by sort of stops and

starts. I think he felt very much the pressure of the Biden administration at every turn, but also his own sort of risk averse nature meant that they were always holding back, always waiting. It took them three weeks to do the initial incursion. And I think that, you know, so that his nature, coupled with the horrible way that the Biden administration has sort of given with one hand and taken with the other hand, trying to win this election, appease the far left. I think if Trump came into office,

what he would say to Bibi is, I'm giving you a month. You could do whatever you want. I'm going to give you full diplomatic cover. I'm going to give you whatever weapons you want. And then I want this to be over because Trump also hates war. Doesn't he also hate Netanyahu? No, no, he doesn't hate Netanyahu. He was pissed at him because Netanyahu congratulated Biden for winning the election.

So for a while he held on to that. But they've since met. I think that's what he would do. He would be like, I'm going to give you a month, do it. And then I want this to be over. There's something constitutionally about me, which sees a president of the United States, the most powerful man in the world,

taunting the North Korean dictator as rocket man. And I, I, I just can't help it. He offends your elite sensibilities. It's not my elite sensibilities. It is your elite sensibilities, and you're willing to tell your working class neighbors you don't get to own a home because I don't like that he tweeted Rocket Man.

It's irresponsible. These are orders of magnitude. It's an example of the fact that he's fundamentally irresponsible, and that's also the same listen all the people around him john balden tillerson kelly mcmaster mattis all all these guys i can't think of esper none of them said he was senile none of them actually maybe a couple of them said he's not that smart but he doesn't read but the main thing they say about him is that he's erratic they hate

him because they couldn't roll him they hate him because they couldn't roll him. They hate him because they couldn't control him. That's what you're saying. You cannot control this man. I don't actually in my gut believe that's the reason. I heard he loves to play Candy Crush. Really? No. What it now?

I don't believe these people are seasoned and I don't know that they all even agree with each other on policy. These people are patriots. They took the job with Trump because they had some compatible opinions about things. Trump came into a party that was pro-war, socially conservative, and pro-free trade. Those were the three legs of the Reagan GOP. And he said, we're going to be anti-war, anti-free trade, and I'm not a conservative. I'm a social moderate.

So, I mean, the entire GOP elite class hates him. Okay, but now say some things that you don't like about him. About Trump? Yeah, like all else being equal, like fair enough. But you, I mean, do you concede that like any of these things are true? Like he. I don't, I don't think he covered himself in glory on January 6th. I mean, that's, I don't have no problem saying that.

Is that the worst you can say about him on January 6th? What do you mean? What should I say? I don't think he behaved well. How, on a scale of. One to not behaving like real... How bad was it? I think it could have been much, much worse.

But I think it was bad. It was embarrassing and it was shameful for our nation. And what does that say about his character? I think his character came out on January 21st when he walked out despite thinking that he had won the election. He had no choice. Whatever. he left peacefully like that's that you know that's extremely important to all the people who say he'll never leave he left despite thinking that he won if

if if you he has to leave he's not president i don't like that he made fun of that disabled reporter i can't i there's a part of me that's kind of like can't get past that. I also wish he was more dignified, but I think that the fact that he isn't is a fundamental component of all of the things that I like about him. On January 20th, whenever it was, noon or whatever time, he was no longer president.

He really, you know, he could stay and scream like Al Pacino and Scarface, but no one's going to listen to him. There was really no option. It showed no character that he left. And the truth is that the worst part, I think January 6th is horrible. I actually don't think he incited violence,

but the worst part, and if you spend any time reading it, if you read the testimony of all the people, Ivanka, Jared, what was his chief of staff's name at the time? Whatever it was. Sean Hannity, everybody urging him to intervene once the violent riot started.

And as Arnold says, he just sipped a Diet Coke, you know, figuratively got out the popcorn and enjoyed it all because of the ego. I'm, I'm presuming because of the tremendous ego rush it gave him. Do you think that he raped Ivana? This is no, shut up.

Why? That's true. That's don't shut up. It's like a sidetrack for some gossip page six thing right now. Um, this is really, you did that. It's really a serious indictment of a person's character.

I think what is, I think that the real question about January 6th is not, you know, his character. Yes. Major character flaws were on exhibit on January 6th. I think the more important question is why do so many Americans not care about that? And it's because if we were in a better place, if we hadn't spent 60 years being totally comfortable that we were getting rich and fat and they were struggling, they would have more room in their lives

and more room in their psyches to be judging based on character. That's another reason. That's not why. Can I talk about the Trump rally I went to? Oh, okay. I forgot to tell you. Did you go to that? Not in Madison Square Garden.

I got invited by a journalist who was going to cover the Trump rally at Penn State University on Saturday. And I said, what the hell? I'll go. It was a private plane. I went. So I went to the rally. It was the most milquetoast, boring thing I have ever sat through. They didn't even need security.

That's how polite and tame these people were. They were like closing their eyes and nodding their head for, you know, prayers for Jesus. And Marjorie Taylor Greene spoke. I love her. Oh, my God. She is a very talented political performer. I love her.

She was very good. She didn't say anything you would disagree with. She didn't mention the space lasers. Oh, my God. But anyway, this is what I found. If you looked at these people, instantly you could tell that they would not be comfortable

in any social circles that you would hang out. What, the Jews? No, no. No. I'm saying they're overweight. They're dressed funny. They're, you know, working class. They're Christian.

They wear their Christianity, you their Christianity on their sleeve. And they love Jews, by the way. These are the people who love the Jews. And they know, as it just came out now, they know how much the elite that she refers to, they know how much

they're looked down upon. More than the wages. And they're right. Look, I don't like right look i don't like that and no we talked about this last time and nobody wants to vote for somebody who hates them you're i listen i appreciate that that has been so hard for conservatives to break into the black community even when those policies probably are better for many, many black people because they don't trust. Well, we discussed this last time and I do.

And I said this last time. I think this notion that the elites, however you define elites, hate these people is exactly said, look down on them. I'm not even sure if that's true. Oh, it's absolutely true. Listen, I spent seven days this summer in South Dakota, okay? And I can tell you with a great amount of certainty that that is correct. I mean, you can see it everywhere just walking down the street.

But I think— Well, what can you see everywhere? That they're being looked down upon or that they think they're being looked down upon? Both. Well, but you hang out with, you know, college-educated Upper West Siders. Do they express contempt for these people? First of all, I don't only hang out with college-educated Upper West Siders. Whatever you're hanging out with, I just don't hear people saying... Watch this.

I had enough for you. I just don't hear... Look, I hang out with Ivy League-educated people that Ivy League educated people that are in the upper middle class and above. And I don't hear people scoffing. No, but you don't have to hear people scoffing. I don't know where they cling to their guns and their religion. Well, the guns. Yeah, people.

Every single Democrat gets caught on a hot mic saying something disparaging about these people. I just want to say one thing, and I think it's important. I think that one of the reasons that the people like Donald Trump so much is for the same reason that the people like John Gotti so much. Who's John Gotti? The gangster. Oh, the mafioso. Oh, the mafioso.

I think that there is something about this like larger than life personality that as Noam pointed out is, you know, very comfortable interacting with, you know, everyday people that they feel like he's for them. But also the left like made a martyr out of him by attacking him just so relentlessly in such specious ways again and again and again. that rises to the level of incitement to violence. But it did feel symbolically like they are trying to destroy him, to eliminate him, to put him in prison. Like, you martyr a person when you do that. You make them larger than life. You turn them into a symbol of the very contempt

that the elites have for average Americans. How does this contempt that I disagree with manifest itself? First of all, in policy, right? So, you know, NAFTA shipping five million of their good paying jobs overseas and destroying their communities, defunding vocational training, which Barack Obama did, saying, you know what? You either go to college or forget it. You can just, you know, we're going to import millions and millions of people to do like masculine jobs jobs that used to have a lot of dignity in america and now don't because they're predominantly done by illegal immigrants for for poverty wages like that is saying to working class people you do not count you do

not matter only people who go to college are going to have access to the american dream everyone's going to go to college it might be misguided, but it's not contempt to say we want everyone to go to college, even though that's probably not a good policy. But if he's saying to them... It's saying it's not a respectable thing to work as a working class person. That's not deserving of dignity.

Are you pro-union? Very. Can I play you one video before you get your read on it? Sure. Can you put up that video, Danny, the YouTube one about this is the... You never hear people disparaging MAGA voters? Really? Well, MAGA voters, yes, but not

working class people as working class people. They disagree with their choice of candidate as they're entitled to disagree. This is the head of the Port Union. This guy the head of the port union. This guy makes 750K a year. And this was related to the inflation that we suffered

because they didn't want to have the ports running 24 hours a day. And of course, Biden didn't want to ruffle the feathers of the union. He could have put in the military to get the ports running 24 hours a day. There's a lot of stuff that Biden could have done that he didn't do because he didn't want to ruffle the feathers of organized labor. And this is the same guy who didn't want easy pass. Go ahead, play this guy. In the United States comes on a ship.

Hold on, stop there. You missed the beginning of it. It says everything in the United States comes on a ship. Go ahead. Construction workers get laid off because the materials aren't coming in. The steel's not coming in. The lumber's not coming in. They lose their job.

Everybody's hating the longshoremen now because now they realize how important our jobs are. Now I have the president screaming at me, I'm putting a Taft-Hartley on you. Go ahead. Taft-Hartley means I have to go back to work for 90 days. That's a cooling off period. Do you think when I go back for 90 days,

those men are going to go to work on that pier? It's going to cost the money, the company's money, to pay their salaries while they went from 30 moves an hour maybe to eight. They're going to be like this. Who's going to win here in the long run? You're better off sitting down and let's get a contract and let's move on with this world.

And in today's world, I'll cripple you. I will cripple you. And you have no idea what that means. That's the unions. They're threatening to cripple united states of america unless they give him this triple wage or whatever it is and and his big and his big demand is no automation no automation i don't understand i mean i i how could you be behind these people um first of all i find that incredibly sexy i I think Sean O'Brien is the hottest man in America.

I think he should be on the cover of like People magazine. This is why all the women love James Gandolfini and the Sopranos. Um, you know, that was a great. Yeah, that's it. That's the best answer. I think we got our viral clip. Um, I, you know, he's doing his job, which is to represent his workers. You like a good alpha male, don't you?

Every woman likes a good alpha male. That's why Karen dated Henry Hill. It is his job to represent his workers, to have leverage. That's his job to represent his workers, to have leverage, right? Like that's his job. And the idea that a single worker should be able to compete against multinational conglomerates is just, it's un-American to me. I think that, you know, it could go too far. He's actually wrong about all of that. You know, steel, because of Trump's tariffs on steel, most of the steel that is now consumed in America is produced in America.

So we actually need the longshoremen. I think fighting against automation is a totally reasonable thing for people to band together and do. You're going to see how quick people in the knowledge industry get legislation around AI when they realize it's coming for their jobs because that's what we do, right? How quick the doctors are going to organize themselves to make sure that they don't get laid off to this stuff. So why can't these people do it just because they don't have that kind of clout they should have clout everyone should have clout no they his clout comes in the form of a full arm tattoo sleeve it's it's yeah it does all right ladies it's totally predictable given what unions are and how and what their leverage is that they always descend into this kind of strong-arm tactics. What disturbs me is when people like us pretend that they're the good guys.

They're the bad guys. There was a time when unions did great things because people were dying in factories and working 20 right now the osha standards whatever they are this was a union's wet dream 30 years ago the the safety standards that government imposes now are far beyond anything that any union could have ever dreamed of i just they shut businesses when your ups guy shows up and he has a big smile on his face and it's the same guy every day. And he's happy to be at work and he's making $125,000 a year and his kids are in a good school and he owns a home. Yeah. Like, doesn't that make you happy?

That doesn't exist without a union. The FedEx guy who's not unionized is friendlier and more reliable and cheaper. Is he an illegal immigrant? I don't know. You know FedEx is not unionized. All the best companies are not unionized. Tesla's not unionized.

All the best companies are not unionized. Let's not use Elon Musk as an example of anything. But it's an amazing accomplishment. Actually, people at Tesla are very happy. Could he have done it

if he had a union? I can barely run a comedy cellar in Vegas with a union. I'll end with this because I agree with you to a certain extent. Bernie Sanders hauled Howard Schultz in front of a Senate committeear in Vegas with a union. I'll end with this because I agree with you to a certain extent. Bernie Sanders hauled Howard Schultz in front of a Senate committee here.

Starbucks, yeah. The owner of Starbucks, CEO of Starbucks. I don't think he's the CEO anymore. He was. He was the CEO of Starbucks. And Starbucks has unbelievable benefits. So they came into an industry where people were making minimum wage. They said, you know what?

We're going to start starting salary $17 an hour wherever you are in Starbucks. They give full benefits. They pay for college. They will pay for your trans surgery if you want to transition. Like this is just an unbelievable company to work for. They hire for management from within the company. There's like, you know, it's just a great first job, as Howard Schultz said. So Bernie Sanders hires him, hauls him in front of the Senate because he is union busting. He doesn't want unions in his shop because his argument is, I already give them really good. And I actually interviewed some of these guys who were like trying to unionize a Buffalo Starbucks. And I was like, well, what do you guys want? Like you're already getting paid

so much more than like at the, you know, the next door coffee shop. It actually raised the wages industry wide because now there was this new standard being set, these great benefits, and they were like, well, what we want is a seat at the table. And these were all like college kids. Like it was a college town. They were college kids who were like, you know, this is their side hustle. Anyway, so Bernie Sanders is like berating him for union busting. And Howard Schultz just looked at him and he went, Senator Sanders, when you were trying to push a minimum wage bill, a national minimum wage bill, you were only asking for $15 an hour. My people are starting at 17. What do you want from me?

And the truth was the reason Bernie was mad, and I love Bernie, but the reason he was mad was because Howard Schultz had chosen to do that. He had not been forced to do it by the government. I think that that's a real flaw in the progressive leftist way of thinking. They would rather you be forced to do something that makes your workers less happy than voluntarily do it, like, you know, without them having a seat at the table, whatever, what have you. So certainly there are examples like that everywhere. You don't even know the half of it.

Unions, wages, and safety stuff, this is not the problem. What unions do is they shut down management's ability to service its customers well. They find rules. You can't ask me to work here. You can't ask me to do this.

You can't ask me to plug that in. I think even worse than that. In Vegas now, if a customer is making noise at the table during the show, we're not allowed to ask the server, can you tell that guy to keep it down? So when I was writing my book, Second Class, I was interviewing a lot of working class people, some unionized, some not. Mostly not unionized. Only 6% of the private sector is unionized. Even though unions right now have a historic high in terms of popularity.

It's almost 70%. People love unions. They just don't join them. So I was trying to understand why don't they join them. And a lot of people would give this reason of they felt that it was anti meritocratic. So in a union, there's levels, you come in at a level, you work to the this level, you can't get a raise. You can't have your employer recognize your hard work and be like, I want to reward this person because they are the smartest person on the team. Everyone is sort of kind of in that level, which both incentivizes the worst people at the bottom to not work very hard, but also it's a sort of downward pressure on the people at the top. So people who are very smart and very talented, people like us, we really rebel at that idea because we're used to being rewarded for our unique talents. People who are average need these protections because a lot of jobs do not need excellence. They just need

competence. I think stand-up comedy is a fine example. Competence. But anyhow, that's my opinion. No one might disagree. I have to go. I don't see the world that way. But anyhow, that's my opinion. No one might disagree. I have to go. I don't see the world that way. But also, in that list of fascist left stuff, we didn't talk about, you know,

getting between, maybe we did getting between parents and children. And children. Yeah, horrible. The trans stuff and all kinds of stuff. We also didn't talk about anti-Semitism.

We didn't. Thank you guys so much for having me. Thank you. No, I'm do the right thing. Who's going to win, Bacha? Trump's going to win? I'm really hoping whoever wins, they will win by big. I honestly would rather Kamala win by a landslide than it be super, super close.

I really just... Because you know you can't expect Trump to accept it. No. Both. I think she's going to also. Same thing with her. I think, honestly, this is my honest opinion. No matter who wins, this country is going to be okay. We're going to be fine. Whoever wins, this is going to be the greatest country on earth and we're going to be totally, totally fine. I'm just hoping that whoever wins, wins with a margin that is recognizable to the other side because otherwise it's going to, you know, that's a very patriotic thing. What is it fair to say that if Trump loses, that could be dangerous?

If he loses and he doesn't lose by a landslide? I don't think so. I don't think more dangerous than if the left loses. If he wins, will there be violence? If you compare January 6th to the 2020 George Floyd riots, hundreds of people died there. I mean, nobody was armed at January 6th. One side of the political aisle is actually much more violent. And thank God it's the side that doesn't have funds. Do you think January 6th would have happened if not for the George Floyd riots? Do you think that that vibe that we've gotten kind of

used to violence and it was in everybody's mind? I really don't know the answer to that. But what I do know is that if somebody, God forbid, took a shot at Kamala Harris or Joe Biden, which nobody would, but if they did, the left would be out en masse destroying cities, people would be dying. And after Donald Trump was almost killed twice, there was not one riot, not one gunshot, not nothing. And we everybody acts like the right is violent because they are the gun owners. But it is the left who is actually responsible for the vast majority of political violence in this country. There's like a real misconception around that. I do know that I don't worry about her winning, at least in New York, in terms of violence. But I am worried that if he wins, you know, that there might be uprisings on

the street of some kind. I worry about it. I'm not predicting it, but in 2020, we were sure there was going to be riots if he won. What the hell is that? It's an automobile. One of these union products. All right.

Gotcha. Gotcha. We will see who wins. We will indeed. You're not making Gotcha. We will see who wins. We will indeed. You're not making any predictions. She's predicting Trump. It sounds like at the beginning of the podcast, I got the vibe that you thought that Trump was just going to win by a landslide.

Because you were saying, well, like, you know, all these people we don't think are going to vote for Trump, like minorities, like, you know, people of color, that we're undercounting them. I mean, like, it's the it's the Gen Z male vote. These are people who often just kind of end up staying home and jerking off for playing video games, right? So they're not necessarily reliable voters.

I think they like him a lot. I think Trump is very popular in the black community right now with men, but I don't know how many of those people are going to show up. Thank you very much, Bachonga. Thank you for having me, guys. We'll see how far gone Sargon is. That was terrible. Good night, everybody.